#inventive combining of mediums

[krawdad]

Blender's 2D animation environment seems like it's close enough to flash but with premiere's timeline that I might be able to pick it up quicker than I thought.

#like it has some blender specific stuff that comes from being a 3D animation software first #but once i understand how to export footage i might just be back in business #I'm not sure how long it's been since I've tried to animate. I'm pretty sure i don't have access to that software anymore anyway #this is encouraging #there is an overwhelming amount to take in #but this seems like the perfect software for animation compositing whatever audiovisual project #for like #inventive combining of mediums #like it might be faster for me to go shoot practical fire than it would be to learn how to make the computer do it. #and it would at least look interesting

[orbmanson7]

And I'm not watching the Oscars but I did hear that, for technically the first time, a 2D animated film won the best animated feature category.

I hope people understand how big of a deal that genuinely is. Disney fucking shut down their 2D studios because they didn't see merit in it anymore, they didn't think people wanted 2D anymore, and this win for The Boy and The Heron doesn't just say that the film was really good, it says audiences are enthralled and entertained by 2D just as much if not More Than 3D animation or a combination or stop motion, and so on.

It's effectively a slap in the face to these big corporations who say they're trying to pander to a wider audience by only investing in what they think will make them more money (despite the fact that 3D animation often costs way more than 2D, at least the way it's done digitally now, and can often take much longer to complete than 2D at times, too). It shows that they were wrong.

Some might say it's just because it was a big name director that garnered the success, but The Boy and the Heron did extremely well in theaters everywhere, it's not just a matter of winning awards. At the end of the day, people watched it because they liked it. The fact that it was a 2D animated film proves that this is a worthy medium and that studios shouldn't have given up on it, acting like it wasn't interesting anymore.

2D animation is incredible! So many studios, for film, television, music videos, promotional material, just about Anything - are capable of taking 2D animation and making incredible new feats with the technology that they have, or even inventing and mastering new tech to improve 2D animation in ways we've never seen before!! That should celebrated and appreciated!

2D animation is so important and it's far from dead, like these dumb corporate idiots want to think. 2D animation is amazing and thriving and it's here to stay!

#sorry i ended up rambling #i just...have a lot of feelings about 2d animation in particular haha #2d animation #the boy and the heron #oscars #animation #orbs thought bubbles

[foone]

So there was this psychologist who invented a type of blood pressure test, and while testing it on his wife, he noticed her blood pressure seemed to be elevated when she was angry or excited. This fact lead to a California police officer named John Augustus Larson to develop the polygraph, aka "lie detector", by combining the blood pressure test with several other measurements in an attempt to determine if the subject is lying.

This has lead the psychologist to be known as the father of the polygraph, even though he didn't directly invent it. He definitely tried to commercialize it, though including appearing in a series of ads for Gillette Razors, using the lie detector as a theme.

A few years after the invention of the polygraph, he published a book titled "Emotions of Normal People", heavily based on the original research of his life partner (as he and his wife were in a polyamorous relationship, living together for many years (including 50 years after his death!) and having two of his children). In it, he provided a defense of many sexual taboos. In it, he developed the DISC theory: dominance, inducement, submission, and compliance. He assigned active and passive to emotions and behaviors, and environments as antagonistic and favorable, and theorized how these different attitudes and environments interacted. For example, "Submission produces passivity in a favorable environment".

This was pretty much exactly as BDSMy as it sounds, with him also having theories about how the masculine drive for freedom was inherently violent, whereas women could use their "loving allure" to lead people to an ideal state of submission to loving authority.

Anyway in 1940 he was interviewed by his life partner under a pseudonym, and said that there was great potential for education in the medium of comic books. This interview got read by Max Gaines, a comics books publisher, who co-founded All-American Publications (one of the companies that later merged with National Comics Publications to form DC Comics). The psychologist was hired on as an educational consultant.

After a conversation with his wife about creating a new super hero based on fighting with love instead of fists, he took the idea to Max Gaines and was given approval to create a comic under this idea. His wife's main contribution was the idea that the hero should be a woman.

In any case, the polyamorous psychologist with a bondage kink who had formerly helped invent the lie detector went on to develop his super hero comic based on all these influences. So in 1941, under the pseudonym of Charles Moulton (combining his name of William Moulton Marston with Max Gaines' middlename), the first issue of Wonder Woman was published under the Sensation Comics line:

#William Moulton Marston #Wonder Woman #Comics

[cripplecharacters]

hi! i wanted to ask a question though because i understand its not rlly ur specialty im just asking if u know any other blogs that can help. I work with visual arts, and thats how i wanna do my stories, through something like comics, so i wanted to ask if you know of any resources to help me with properly representing things like scarring, especially facial scarring and facial differences.But anything on representing disability in visual mediums would help. Thank you regardless!

Hello,

I actually work with visual arts and draw a lot of characters with facial differences (FD) on the daily! I hope I'll be able to help.

I'm not aware of any resources for visual mediums specifically (especially if you mean something like a "how to draw [specific facial difference]" type thing. Despite comic book authors drawing facial differences for ages for their villains there really aren't any good tutorials that I know of) so I tried to combine a few points that maybe will be helpful to you;

Reference photos of real people with the condition your character has. Try to research the symptoms of it as well (especially if it's a syndrome) - maybe it will turn out that the symptoms your character has require a trach tube or a nasal cannula, or something completely different.

Don't overexaggerate their facial difference for the shock value...

...or downplay it for the cuteness/attractiveness factor.

What I mean is - whether your character is the adorable love interest or the morally gray criminal, their facial difference shouldn't reflect that. Don't make some kind of moral connection of "major craniofacial condition = bad person, teeny tiny scar = good person".

Don't draw your character with FD constantly covered in blood and running around with an axe. The portrayal of people with FD as violent/murderous is not only offensive and not helping the public perception of facial differences, but is also just incredibly boring and overdone. 99% of "representation" looks like this and has been looking like this since horror movies have been invented. I'm 100% serious when I say that drawing a person with a facial difference just having friends is a thousand times more groundbreaking than all these horror tropes combined.

Don't use the ancient "facial difference = joke" design trope. Authors love using strabismus, drooling, lacking teeth or skull conditions as shortcuts for "humor". These conditions are all real and real people have them (including me, hi). They don't exist as some kind of signifier that a character is "stupid" or "crazy". It is extremely prevalent and hard to unsee once you start noticing.

A lot of people in the FD community just want characters with FD that are normal, everyday people doing normal everyday things - having a family, hanging out with a friend, petting their cat... Not murderers hunting ablebodied teenagers through the woods. Maybe one of your character's family members has a burn scar without having it be A Big Deal, maybe one of their classmates has Goldenhar Syndrome that everyone just accepts, maybe the background character at the local supermarket has neurofibromas on their face... lots of options that don't involve tired villain tropes. With the advantage of a visual medium, you don't even need to explicitly mention that they have a facial difference - just draw it and let it be there. No dramatic reveal necessary.

Have a range of facial differences represented, even if it's just the side characters. Most people only ever draw scars, usually small and not affecting anything other than the skin, which isn't bad - a lot of people do have scars like that, and they deserve to be represented. However, there are literal thousands of different things that also count as a facial differences. Some of them like strabismus, Down Syndrome, tumors, or nerve palsies (most notably Bell's palsy, but there's 12 of them in total) are quite common, while conditions like Treacher Collins Syndrome, Pfeiffer Syndrome or Anophthalmia are usually considered rare - but a lot of people still have them. Having two or more characters with some kind of facial difference definitely isn't out of place.

This is more of a technical thing, but don't ever tag a visual medium as "gore" or "body horror" because someone has a facial difference. It's ableist and incredibly dehumanizing.

This page regarding facial differences in media (not only visual) is also worth giving a read. I hope any of this was useful. If you have more specific questions, feel free to send another ask

mod Sasza

#anonymous #mod sasza #face difference #art reference #writing advice #writing guide #writing resources #writing help #burn survivor representation

[wizzard890]

Hey guys I invented a soup to use up all the leftovers in my fridge last night, and it turned out insanely, blisteringly good, so I’m gonna call it Emily’s Vaguely Thai-Inspired “Oops Everything Is About To Go Bad” Soup, and tell you how to make it.

INGREDIENTS (note: don’t be precious about the amounts, adjust as needed, I’m not your mom. you’re an artist and the heavy-bottomed dutch oven is your canvas)

three cups of any hearty mushroom, sliced (I used white and baby bella)

a stalk of lemongrass, bashed to reveal the tender insides and cut in two inch lengths

five large carrots, diced in rounds

one knob of ginger, around the size of your thumb, minced

three garlic cloves, minced

one red thai chili, diced

one large yellow onion, diced

fresh cilantro

3 cups veggie stock 

3 cups chicken stock 

(you can use better than bullion in water for either of these in a pinch, and if you want to bulk up the veggie stock, add all the trash bits of the onions and garlic and carrots and ginger and the tough outer leaves of the lemongrass with some peppercorns and star anise and let that puppy simmer for like ten minutes before straining.)

two giant handfuls of any sturdy leafy green, like bok choi, kale, or spinach

three eggs

one lime

fish sauce

coconut or brown sugar

frozen dumplings of any kind

gochujang paste

INSTRUCTIONS

add a few tablespoons of neutral oil to a large soup pot over medium heat

once the oil is shining, add the garlic, thai chili and ginger and sauté until fragrant

add the lemongrass and the onions, and continue to sauté until the onions are soft and translucent

in go the carrots, the zest of one lime, and three heaping tablespoons of your gochujang, stir stir stir until everything is tender and the paste has worked its way into all the nooks and crannies. 

pour in the strained veggie stock, bring to a boil, then down to a simmer. cover, and continue to simmer for ten minutes.

remove the lid, stir the reduced broth, and add your mushrooms and your chicken stock. make sure it’s all well combined. 

we’re going to start adjusting the flavor now: add two tablespoons of fish sauce, and a tablespoon of coconut sugar (brown will do if that’s what you have).

cover and simmer for another 10 minutes.

add more gochujang plus the juice from your naked lime and chopped cilantro to taste.

now you add your frozen dumplings and your greens and just keep an eye on them until they cook through. 

meanwhile, break the eggs into a bowl and scramble them with a fork. pour them into the soup in an even, unbroken stream while you stir. this will give you those pretty egg-drop ribbons.

serve in deep bowls and garnish with more cilantro and lime juice.

NOTES: like I said above, nearly everything in this recipe can be substituted, save for the aromatics, and if you’re a vegetarian you can just double the amount of veggie stock, instead of adding chicken stock. 

#honestly this was so fucking good I'm still reeling #no one who cooks cooks alone

[archietransdrews]

literally talking to the walls of my room like. riverdale's internal logic relies on the explanatory power of one's origins to an absurd degree, framing the actions of the protagonists as prescribed by their generational predecessors to such an extreme that the town's founding years not only provide meaning, context, and motive to current events as is typical in an archetypal place-based narrative but futhermore exert a horrifying control over the characters, compelling them to repeat or rebel against the actions of long-dead townspeople to whom they are only distantly related. these scenes from the past, when included in the show, are filmed using the same actors as the present-day scenes, producing the past as not only reminiscent of but in some aspects identical to the present. blood and bloodlines are used by various characters as explanatory schemas for the behavior of different characters throughout; riverdale is a place overdetermined by its own origins to the point that our protagonists spend years trying and usually failing to escape the combined generational curses of an entire town whose entire history consists in the repetition of its own genesis ad nauseum. does this seeming over-reliance on origins exaggerate the process to the point of effective parody, or does it merely & more straight-forwardly reinforce the [genetic] origin as privileged locus of [fictional] meaning?

a potentially conflictual reading of riverdale's historical "origins" is that they are invented or produced through the act of jughead's narration of riverdale as text; this reading posits that there is no "before" the pilot of riverdale, save what jughead invents to give additional meaning to the events which make up his plots. riverdale is his puppet show; everything in the text has been filtered through his point of view, which is to say that everything acquires the exact same level of (un)reality, whether it's a comic book character come to life or the sins of one's ancestors. in this framing, the true origin, and the key to whatever meaning might be made of this text, is the moment jughead's narration begins in the pilot with "our story is about a town.." in foregrounding jughead's ongoing acts of authorship and creation which function to continually produce the narrative & all it contains, riverdale destabilizes epigenetic origin as a locus of meaning by framing it as in some way artificial, invented, unreal; however, it does this by substituting another, no less authoritative, specifically authorial origin in its place.

and there is still a THIRD possible genealogy through which we can read riverdale as understanding itself, namely the genealogy of the cinematic canon. we well know that riverdale is constantly referring back to earlier moments in the history of film, from 70s noirs to 80s coming of age movies to 90s thrillers to etc. etc., not so much situating itself within this history as aiming to encompass all of the various stages of the medium's development. this argument could be broadened to include the histories of other prominent cultural forms, namely the novel and the comic strip; the meaning in riverdale might be said to be primarily derived from comic conventions, the principles of character creation and economy of image that have governed strips for decades and which now cause riverdale characters to wear outfits that have no in-world meaning except to refer back to their original iconic wardrobes, e.g. archie and jughead's S and R t-shirts.

which of these frames has the most explanatory power? which best helps us to understand or analyze why events in riverdale play out the way they do? i think in most cases one needs some combination of the three to be able to even begin getting at what's going on, which suggests that at least part of riverdale's project is the destabilization of the genealogical narrative via the introduction of several distinct, at times competing, narrative origins. riverdale is a story whose meaning is located simultaneously in the past, the act of narration, and the development of cinema and comics as mediums. while this structure does not necessarily step outside of the dominant symbolic framework that looks to origins in order to generate the meaning of a text, it is in typical riverdale fashion that the show wants to do everything at once, meaning in this case that rather than privileging one frame through which we are meant to make sense of the show's content, we are given to several possible readings which are all compelling in their own ways & when taken together succeed in troubling the final authority of any one interpretation.

#took a break from the liveblog this week to watch some other programs but she is still HEAVILY. on my mind #the jughead paradox is going to blow this whole thing wide open btw #syllabus

[najia-cooks]

[ID: A fried 'chicken' cutlet topped with tartar sauce and served with rice and a green salad; bowls of tartar sauce and miso soup are in the background. End ID]

チキン南蛮 / Chicken nanban (Japanese fried chicken with sweet-savory sauce)

Chicken “nanban” (南蛮; "barbarian" or "foreign") is a classic example of 洋食 (yoshoku)—Western-style food adapted to a Japanese palette. Chicken breast is breaded, deep-fried, and coated in a mixture of soy sauce, sugar, and vinegar to create a crispy, tangy, savoury-sweet dish.

The method of breading and deep-frying used in making chicken nanban, tempura, and other Japanese dishes was introduced by the Portuguese during the Muromachi period (16th century). Chicken nanban itself, however, is far more recent: Nao-chan diner in the Miyazaki Prefecture of Kyushu is credited with having invented it in the 1950s. Nao-chan's version of the dish does not include tartar sauce, but it is often added to provide a sharp, creamy complement to the savoury chicken.

Chicken nanban works well as a main dish served with sides of rice, soup, or salad. If you're using pre-made chicken breasts, it comes together in around half an hour.

Recipe under the cut!

Patreon | Tip jar

Serves 4.

Ingredients:

For the chicken:

4 Gardein chicken breasts, or other chicken breast substitute, thawed

1/4 cup (30g) all-purpose flour

2 Tbsp potato starch or cornstarch (optional)

2 Tbsp egg replacer (I used Bob's Red Mill)

Water

Pinch kosher salt

A few cracks of black pepper

Oil to deep fry

For the nanbanzu / 南蛮酢 (nanban sauce):

3 Tbsp Japanese soy sauce, such as Kikkoman's

3 Tbsp rice vinegar

3 Tbsp granulated vegetarian sugar

1 1/2 Tbsp mirin (for a low-alcohol version, use aji-mirin; for an alcohol-free version, replace with 1/2 Tbsp rice vinegar and 1 Tbsp sugar)

For the tartar sauce:

1/2 cup vegan mayonnaise

1/2 tsp mild Dijon mustard

2 tsp rice vinegar

1 tsp dried ground shiitake mushroom, or kombu dashi powder

1 tsp vegetarian sugar

A few small sweet pickles or 1 Japanese or Persian cucumber, diced

1/2 small yellow onion, minced

Pinch kosher salt

Pinch of MSG

Minced dill or parsley (optional)

If you eat eggs, you can replace the first five ingredients with 1/2 cup Kewpie mayo (キューピーマヨ).

Instructions:

For the nanbanzu / 南蛮酢 (nanban sauce):

1. Heat sugar and soy sauce in a small pot over medium-low heat until simmering, stirring to dissolve.

2. Add vinegar and mirin and heat for another 30 seconds. Remove from heat.

For the tartar sauce:

1. Mince the onion. If you prefer, you can submerge the minced onion in cool water for 10 minutes or so and then drain to remove some of its sharpness. Seed and mince the cucumber.

2. Whisk mayonnaise, mustard, sugar, salt, black pepper, MSG, rice vinegar, and mushroom powder together to combine. Add onion and cucumber and stir. Top with herbs. Refrigerate while preparing the chicken.

For the chicken:

1. Mix flour, starch, salt, and black pepper together on a plate or cutting board. In a small bowl, combine egg replacer with water according to package directions and allow to thicken.

2. Fill a deep fryer or medium-sized pot with several inches of a neutral oil and heat it to 340 °F (171 °C). A chopstick placed in the oil should slowly form small bubbles around its tip.

3. Coat chicken breasts with egg replacer; if it is too thick, you may need to whisk in an additional 1-2 Tbsp water.

4. First deep fry. Carefully lower one chicken breast into the oil and fry without disturbing for about 2 minutes, until the egg coating on the bottom side is cooked through and lightly golden brown. Flip over and continue to fry for another 2 minutes. Use chopsticks or a slotted spatula to remove the chicken breast onto a wire cooling rack or paper-towel-lined plate.

5. Use a slotted spoon to remove any bits of batter from the oil and re-check the temperature. Repeat with each chicken breast.

6. Second deep fry. Increase the heat slightly to raise the temperature of the oil to 355 °F (179 °C). Re-fry each chicken breast for about a minute, flipping once halfway through. Set aside.

7. Coat with nanban sauce. Place the fried chicken breasts in a shallow rimmed baking dish or tray and spoon most of the nanban sauce over them, turning over several times to coat. Reserve the rest of the sauce for serving.

8. Slice each chicken breast widthwise and transfer to an individual serving plate. Serve with additional nanban sauce, tartar sauce, rice, a green salad, or soup.

#Yoshoku #Japanese #vegan recipes #recipes #cooking #chicken #mayonnaise #egg replacer

[cookinguptales]

I got both my flu and covid shot yesterday so today I'm feeling. bad. lmao. But I also saw two movies and had fun at them both!

I'll make posts about both of them, but I guess I'll start with A Haunting in Venice because I have more thoughts about it, I think.

My non-spoilery thoughts are that I actually enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would! The ambiance was impeccable and I think I'd watch it again just to look at it. It was very pleasantly spooky, more than I'd expected, and despite not having watched the other films, I was able to easily follow along. A lot of the acting was super fun, and Michelle Yeoh was really hot, and it was a spooky ghost story! What more could you want?

(Except subtitles, I guess, because I missed a lot of dialogue. Much more than I usually do. Kenneth Branagh's fake French accent was particularly difficult to decipher.)

Two personal things, which I thought were funny. The children's song heard repeatedly in the movie, Giro Giro Tondo, creeped me out specifically because my mother gave me a doll when I was little that she'd gotten in Italy during a business trip, and when you held its hands it sang that song. I... have a bit of a doll phobia, so I did have a moment of OH NO, IT'S THIS BITCH.

The other is that I was able to figure out the mystery very quickly because of my own special interests, which was very funny to me. I'm sorry that I am too much the target audience for this movie. ;; More on that in a minute.

spoilers below the cut

It was interesting to hear after watching the movie that the original book took place in the UK because the central spookiness of the film did feel very Italian. The old ruined palazzo, the ruinous aftereffects of the Holocaust in Central Europe, the general Vibe. But most of the main characters aren't Italian, so I suppose it makes sense...

It was definitely much darker than I had expected it to be, from a human cruelty standpoint. The allusions to the Holocaust (both when discussing Dr. Ferrier's severe PTSD after liberating Bergen-Belsen and the Romani siblings who were orphaned and forced into very dire straits to survive) were very frank and graphically discussed, which isn't something you actually see in films as often these days, and the fact that impoverished orphan children really were purposefully murdered during the plague had... very familiar vibes after being from a high-risk (and easily dismissed) group during covid.

In the end, the movie ended up being as much about metaphorical ghosts as literal ones, and I can see how a writer struggling with her wartime experiences as a nurse would end up writing a story that so blatantly grapples with the soul of humanity -- and whether it's worth protecting. The medium comparing hearing the ghosts screaming to her time as a nurse during the war treating the suffering... It does make me think about Christie's own experiences, y'know? I haven't read the book, so idk how much of it was invented for the movie, but... it did make me think about her.

As for the mystery itself... I guess there are two things to know about me. One is that I studied mithridatism (and Mithridates himself) when writing fic for Arsenic and Old Lace for YT many years ago. The other is that I wrote an original f/f fic about poisonous beekeeping around the same period. It wasn't my best work, necessarily, but I'll tell you -- I know a lot about mad honey.

So let's just say that the suspense wasn't quite as suspenseful for me lmao. From the second that one woman say "Mithridates" I was pretty ready for what was coming next, and when I saw that she kept bees and everyone kept eating honey... I mean. lmao

That said, the fact that it was very difficult to tell whether the ghostly apparitions were hallucinations or real or some combination of the two was really fun and interesting.

With Christie's Thing for poisons... I guess it's interesting how much fo the movie was about food and hunger and how food can kill you if it's not the right kind -- and how love could go the same way. The discussion of the camp survivors in Germany dying after being given milk, the children being intentionally walled up and starved to death, the siblings eating "non-food", like mice, in order to survive after being orphaned during the war... And obviously the poisoned tea from a mother whose love itself had been poisoned.

And then, y'know, the metaphor flourishing when you see how love itself, twisted into madness, was the reason why so many people had suffered and died. Rowena's fear that her daughter would leave her, Alicia's agony that her fiancé had, Olga accidentally poisoning a child she loved because she was trying to soothe her, Ferrier accidentally poisoning the concentration camp survivors when trying to nurse them back to health, Leopold's desperate attempts to protect and support his father being the exact thing that got him killed...

I'm a little too tired to pull it together into a coherent thesis statement, but... The themes are layered here. Hunger for food and for love and for companionship. Poison being added to the things you think will nourish you and those you love. The desire to be seen, by those you love and those you respect and those who you fear have forgotten you...

You have Ariadne (great name for a spinner of mysteries, btw) using a friend in order to get back her adoring public. Both Maxim and Alicia desperate for the other's attention. Poor little Leo trying to soothe his father's PTSD and being parentified at far too young an age, but desperate to be seen for the marvel he is all at once.

And Alicia's ghost, obviously, reaching out to those she'd known in life and trying to get revenge on those who'd harmed her. She wanted to be seen, too, and she wanted to be understood.

I suppose that's what the whole movie comes down to. Love and understanding and the way it can be twisted horribly even as we crave it.

The movie wasn't perfect and I suspect the subject matter will be far too dark for people expecting something like Knives Out, but I did enjoy it far more than I thought it would. The vibes were genuinely very creepy and the mystery and characters were interesting. I haven't read the book, so I can't tell you how it stacks up there.

I think, sorry Kenneth Branagh, that his casting as Poirot was probably the weakest part of the movie for me. That said, the directing was so good that I at times found myself like "sir?? why not just direct these movies and let someone else play the lead????"

(see: the lin-manuel miranda effect)

But a lot of the other acting was very good, especially Michelle Yeoh who was very hot and very interesting in her role. Boy, I was SO sad when she was the first to die because I was like "OH NO, SHE WAS SO HOT..."

/shallow

Anyway, tl;dr it was a good movie for the spooky season, even if I suspect some of the subject matter will be difficult for people to handle. (Particularly the child death.) And even if you don't enjoy the writing, the footage of Venice and the overall vibes are impeccable so you can just turn off your brain and enjoy wandering through a spooky ruined palazzo.

#a haunting in venice

[pinkhairandpronounsboy]

Hogwarts Legacy Profile

Owner: @a-usernamelol

Character's Full Name: Allan Waite

Meaning of name: Allan means handsome and cheerful, and the name Waite means watchman or protector. So, essentially, his name means “Cheerful Watchman” / “Handsome Protector” or something along those lines.

Nickname: Sometimes just called “Waite”- not really a nickname, but it happens enough its a casual address.

Race: Muggle Born

Hogwarts House: Gryffindor

Occupation: Traveller

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE:

Age: 5th year-17 / 7th year-19

FAMILY:

Mother: Dead

Father: Dead

Extended family: A significant amount of unnamed aunts and uncles. He doesn’t like them much, and from the sounds of it, the feeling is mutual.

CHARACTER:

Eye Color: Violet

Hair Color: Magenta

Height: 5’6 ft/1.524 m

Type of body/build: Sleeper build. He looks skinny but he’s actually very fit! That said- he'd probably be even healthier if he gained a little more weight.

Skin tone: White.

Scars: He has a mysterious burn mark on the back of his left hand

Predominant feature: Pink hair

Looks like: 

Physical Health: Excellent.

Mental Health: Dying inside. He’s been through a lot of trauma and microtraumas in his life, including the events of the Hogwarts Legacy Game. Someone get this man a therapist.

FAVORITES:

Allan’s favorite color: Pink or purple

Favorite Music: Anything played on an Ocarina.

Least favorite Music: Classical. He just doesn’t like the combinations of sound of artists such as Mortzart that we now consider classics.

Food: Give him a good turkey leg or medium rare beef and he will devour it.

Literature: Sherlock Holmes- He finds he can relate to the now famous detective, but he would never say it. He wouldn’t want to sound pompous.

Expletives: He usually is quite creative and makes up his own most of the time.

Mode of transportation: Highwing the Hippogriff.

ATTITUDE:

Most at ease when: In a darkly lit room with lots of space to roam freely, i.e. the Room of Requirement.

III at ease when: Surrounded.

Priorities: He puts others first, no matter who they are, friend or foe, regardless of race.

Philosophy: He is a levelheaded and compassionate man, who regards all life as important, and finds a childlike fascination in everything ordinary and grand.

How he feels about self: He tries not to think about it, but he is proud of who he’s become, he just wishes he’d have done better in life thus far. He would give anything to somehow save those who got hurt or killed under his “protection”.

PERSONALITY:

Greatest strength: His compassion and strategic judgment.

Greatest weakness: Also his compassion- in a sense, and his own survivors guilt.

Biggest vulnerability: He doesn’t open up to anyone- but you’ll certainly know he trusts you if he’s comfortable enough to tell you about his past. Otherwise, he’ll avoid it.

TRAITS:

Optimist or Pessimist: Optimist. He sees the good in everything except himself.

Introvert or extrovert: Introvert! Social interaction exhausts him to no end, unless its close friends.

HABITS:

Drinks: Sometimes. A butterbeer here and there, and when he’s older probably some wine. But even in his old age butterbeer will always be his favorite.

Hobbies: Taking care of beasts, painting , Duelling, and inventing of all kinds- including taking a scientific approach to magic for these inventions and experimenting with Ancient Magic.

How does he spend a rainy day? Outside, rain or shine, unless its super windy and possibly dangerous outside, in which case you’ll find him playing with his beasts in the Room of Requirement.

BACKGROUND:

Type of childhood: He grew up migrating from family to family, at first from aunts and uncles, to foster care. Eventually, he was simply shoved in an orphanage, after most families realized he was just to much trouble.

Most important childhood event that still affects him: When he was about five, like many kids, he had to a degree SOME magical properties. His parents, being intelligent people, picked up on those slight signs and despite being Muggles came to the conclusion there must be more people like their son. In an attempt to make his life potentially better, they tried and succeeded in finding the Wizarding World through the smallest breadcrumbs. Unfortunately, this attracted the interest of some radical Pureblood Supremacists who burned down their house with the family still trapped inside. Both Allan's father and mother perished, but he survived, but not without a constant reminder of the painful memory. His left hand got trapped under some rubble causing a horrible burn. Although he was saved and pulled out of the fire by some kind neighbors, he will forever have limited nervous functions and mobility in his left hand, along with a permanent scar. He now covers up the scar with gloves, however his damaged hand gets random phantom pains from the nerves not healing properly. Sometimes it hurts enough that his hand shakes, which is why he sometimes has to rub his left hand.

Drives and motivations: He wants to save everyone he possibly can. He always wants to help, even at his own detriment.

Talents: He is very artistic and logical at the same time, even capable of combining the skillsets of magic and science to use together in formidable new ways.

Extremely skilled at: Ancient Magic, Drawing, scientific examination

Extremely unskilled at: Sitting still, pottery, Divination

Good characteristics: Compassionate, kind, intelligent

Character flaws: Low self-esteem, survivor guilt, clingy to people he cares about

Mannerisms:  Verbal: He sometimes, when asked about any particular subject, will rant on and on if he knows a lot about said subject.

Physical: When he's nervous he rubs his left hand where his burn mark is. When he's thinking hard he taps his chin or cheek, and when he's uncomfortable and around someone he trusts, he'll stand slightly closer to them.

Peculiarities: No one knows if he dyes his hair or jinxes it, and no one cares to ask because he doesn't answer.

Biggest regret: The death of professor Fig, and in 7th year, his failure to help Sebastian, who inevitably goes to Azkaban.

Minor regrets: Any wizards or witches he has to kill do actually weigh on his heart. He doesn't like hurting or killing anyone, especially because he doesn't know their backstory.

Biggest accomplishment: Defeating Ranrok- obviously, and less obviously, a more personal but still large accomplishment for him was adjusting to the Wizarding World's society. (For example how homophobic the Muggle World would have vs. how generally accepting of it the Wizarding World is.)

Education: A Christian Orphanage that doubled as a school.

Religion: Raised Christian, but doesn't REALLY follow it.

Finances: Depends on what he can steal. He doesn't have a home to go back to over the summer, so most of his belongings are stuffed in his coat, which he has an Undetectable Extension Charm. He used to stay with Fig as a sort of "apprentice", but after 5th year he usually just wanders around the Highlands on his own, since he has nowhere else to go.

Char's darkest secret: His past. He never talks about how horrible his life was or is, simply out of principle to not drag anyone else down.

Does anyone else know? He may tell you if he trusts you enough, but it's unlikely. He might have told Sebastian around 7th year. (And in roleplay blogs I believe the only other MC that knows (As it stands of writing this post) is @not-that-gilbert-blythe, because it was a one-off comment he made about his burnt hand. He never fully explained how his parents died or why they died, just that he'd been in a fire as a kid.)

Some screenshots because I take too many :)

#allan waite #hogwarts legacy #hogwarts legacy mc

[saltchipfishshop]

Vegan Passover Pecan-Banoffee Pie: my magnum opus

I set out with a dream. An impossible dream. To create a vegan dessert for my synagogue seder that was also kitniyot-free. Did I have to do this? Not really, my shul allows anything vegan, vegetarian or pescatarian that doesn’t have chametz, and we have a section for kitniyot. Am I vegan? No. Do I even keep kosher for Passover myself? Also no. But, you see, I have an almost pathological need to feed as many people as possible, and I am intractably stubborn, so once I realised how difficult this was going to be it only made me dig my heels in further.

It turns out to be borderline impossible to find vegan substitutes for pretty much anything that don’t contain soy, oats, cornflour, chickpeas, or some sort of forbidden legume. Subsequently this recipe is heavily reliant on coconut milk; luckily for me I live in an area with a large Muslim population and it’s currently Ramadan, so tins of coconut are front and centre of every supermarket display.

It’s taken almost a full month of trial, error and meltdowns in the butter aisle of Sainsbury’s, but I finally did it. I had to cobble bits of the recipe together from half a dozen different sources, so I feel relatively justified in calling this my own invention. The pecan crust is borrowed from a Tori Avey cheesecake recipe, I just swapped pistachios for pecans. I really think the crust is what makes it, to be honest. You could probably skip the ganache layer if you can’t be bothered, I just feel like it helps cut through the sweetness.

Recipe under the cut. Please please tag me if anyone decides to make this! I would be so delighted to see it out there in the world.

Crust

84g (⅔ cup) pecans

84g (⅔ cup) pecans

84g (⅔ cup) pecans

60g (½ cup) matzo meal

66g (⅓ cup) granulated sugar

71g (5 tbsp) Kosher for Passover vegan margarine (Rakusen’s Tomor*), melted, + extra for greasing

Pinch of salt (optional)

Ganache

113g KFP vegan dark chocolate (Lindt Excellence 70%, Green & Black’s 70%, Green & Black’s cooking chocolate are all KFP)

113g coconut cream/full-fat coconut milk

A few drops of vanilla extract (optional)

Caramel

200g caster sugar

100g KFP vegan margarine (Tomor)

200g coconut cream/full-fat coconut milk

Whipped cream

200g coconut cream/full fat coconut milk, kept in the fridge overnight

15-45g KFP icing sugar (check it doesn’t contain maize starch. You could probably omit the sugar and leave the cream unsweetened if you can’t find it, or grind your own- there are recipes for Passover powdered sugar online.)

¼ tsp vanilla extract

3-4 bananas

cocoa powder or grated chocolate to serve (optional)

chopped pecans to serve (optional)

Method

Make the caramel. Place the sugar into a medium / large saucepan. Place the pan on the hob over a low heat. Allow the sugar to melt, this will take around 5-8 minutes. Don’t burn the sugar! Make sure to stir constantly to prevent burning. You can use a wooden spoon or heat proof spatula.

When all of the sugar has melted and is a golden / amber colour, add in the margarine. Be careful, as the sugar is very hot. Remove the pan from the heat and stir to combine. Allow the margarine to melt into the sugar. It might bubble but that's fine. Once it’s combined, it might have a thick consistency. It might look like the margarine isn’t mixing with the sugar, but it should combine once you add the cream. Now add in 200g coconut cream. It will steam and bubble again so be careful.

Add the pan on the heat and allow to simmer for 3-5 minutes to help thicken it up.

Remove the pan from the heat. Set aside to cool for 30 minutes, then transfer / pour the caramel into a heat proof jar. Place the jar into the fridge. Allow to chill overnight. The coconut cream for the whipped cream should also be kept in the fridge overnight, to encourage it to separate and firm up.

If the caramel separates overnight, use an electric whisk to combine into a smooth consistency until there are no remaining lumps. It’ll be a more custard-like texture but still delicious. Keep caramel in the fridge until needed.

Make the crust. Preheat oven to 180˚C. Grease a loose-bottomed tin with margarine and line with greaseproof paper.

Blitz the pecans in the food processor until finely processed. Add matzo meal, salt and sugar and pulse until the entire crust is uniform in colour. With the processor on, drizzle the melted butter into the machine.

Once all the butter has been added, turn the processor off and dump the wet crumbs into the bottom of the lined pan. Using the back of a spoon, press the crumbs evenly into the bottom and up the sides of the pan (it doesn’t have to go all the way up, just as much as you can).

Place the crust in the oven for 8-10 minutes, or until the edges of the crust start to brown a bit and smells fragrant. Leave crust to cool for about ten minutes and then transfer to the fridge to finish cooling.

Make the ganache. Finely chop the chocolate and put in a medium-sized bowl. Put 200g coconut cream in a microwave-safe bowl and heat in the microwave for about 1 minute, watching to make sure it doesn’t bubble over.

Pour the warm cream over the chocolate chips and let sit for 2-3 minutes. Don't stir yet.

After 2-3 minutes, whisk the chocolate/melted coconut milk until smooth. Add vanilla if desired. Let cool in the fridge for around 30 minutes.

Make the whipped coconut cream. Chill a mixing bowl in the fridge for ten minutes (you can do this while the ganache is cooling to save time). Put 200g coconut cream (the thick white part, not the clear liquid) in the chilled bowl. Beat for 30 seconds with an electric whisk until creamy. Add vanilla and icing sugar and mix until creamy and smooth – about 1 minute. Avoid overwhipping because it can cause separation. Taste and adjust sweetness as needed.

Carefully run a knife around the edge of the crust tin and remove the crust from the tin.

Spread a layer of the cooled ganache over the bottom of the crust. Top with a layer of sliced banana and return to the fridge to set for ten minutes.

Add a layer of the caramel, another layer of sliced banana, and return to the fridge for ten minutes again.

Top with the whipped cream (I like to leave the edge of the bananas visible around the edge). Dust with cocoa powder or grated chocolate and add chopped pecans if desired.

*Tomor contains sunflower oil, but sunflower oil is not considered kitniyot in England: https://www.kosher.org.uk/article/sunflower-oil-kitniyot

#Passover recipe #pesach 5783 #pesach 2023 #pesach recipe #passover #Passover 5783 #Passover 2023 #Passover food #pesach food #פסח 5783 #פסח #פסח שמח #jumblr #judaism #jewish #jewish food #kosher #kosher food #kashrut

[japanwords]

自制 (jisei) "self-discipline" - the eighth virtue of 武士道 (bushidō)

Recently I've been researching 武士道 (bushidō) - the ancient Japanese way of the warrior, mostly to try to figure out if it ever was actually a legit thing, or if it's a modern invention.

Spoiler alert: it's a bit of both. You can read my conclusions in my Medium article here.

Bushidō comes with a handy list of 8 virtues that one can follow to lead one's best and most noble life. You may not have been born a samurai, but you can still live like one by following this code.

The eighth virtue is “Self-Control”, which I have translated as "self-discipline", for reasons explained below.

These 8 virtues were first mentioned in Nitobe Inazao's 1899 book "Bushido: the Soul of Japan".

When introducing “self-control”, Nitobe brings together previous virtues: “The discipline of fortitude (勇 (yū) courage) on the one hand, inculcating endurance without a groan (名誉 (meiyō) reputation), and the teaching of politeness (礼 (rei) respect) on the other, requiring us not to mar the pleasure or serenity of another by manifestations of our own sorrow or pain, combined to engender a stoical turn of mind.”

Nitobe makes it clear that this “stoical” behaviour was considered a virtue: “It was considered unmanly for a samurai to betray his emotions on his face… The most natural affections were kept under control.”

Such strict “control” of one’s emotions may seem excessive and unnecessary to a modern Western audience, which is why I have “translated” this virtue as “self-discipline”. With the previous seven virtues as a guide, one can use discipline to make a conscious effort to guide one’s life in a positive direction.

#書道 #japanese language #japanese calligraphy #japanese art #japanese culture #japanese langblr #calligraphy #japan #japanese #kanji #Asian art #bushido #samurai #Japanese history #japanese history #武士道

[accidental-spice]

I heard you had a gluten free brownie recipe? I'll trade with you for another excellent brownie recipe?

*grins* it would be my pleasure!! I have been needing a new brownie recipe, not gonna lie

Disclaimer, I did not invent this recipe. We took it from a blog or Pinterest post or something, I do not know for sure

Recipe under the cut

Ingredients:

6 oz butter or 12 tablespoons cut into chunks

¼ cup dark chocolate chips

½ cup dark cocoa powder

1 cup granulated sugar (I amended the recipe here to ½ cup granulated sugar, ½ cup coconut sugar, but if you don't have coconut sugar, that's fine, too)

2 eggs, large

½ cup all purpose gluten free flour

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

¼ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon vanilla

1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips (optional) (aka, it's in the recipe, but I've never tried it with them added in. For some reason)

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit, and spray an 8 x 8 pan with non-stick cooking spray (or in my case, butter it). Make sure there is no flour in your cooking spray

Put the butter and dark chocolate chips in a large microwave safe bowl and cook for one minute. Stir mixture up a bit, then microwave again for 30 seconds. (Alternatively, if you, like me, do not actually have a microwave, melt the butter over medium low heat, and when it's half or two-thirds of the way melted, add the chocolate chips, and stir until it's mixed together) Add cocoa powder and stir

At this point, everything should be melty and you can stir it up until everything's completely melted and smooth

Add all the sugar and stir well until combined

Next add each egg one at a time and stir only until incorporated. Do not overstir!

Add gluten free all purpose flour, baking powder, salt, and vanilla to mixture and stir until completely mixed together. Stir in semi-sweet chocolate chips

Scrape batter with a spatula into the greased 8 by 8 pan and spread evenly spatula. Bake for 30 minutes until the top is cracked and a toothpick comes out clean

Hope you like them!!!

#ask response #tw food #brownies #recipes

[coredrill]

as foretold, bang brave bang bravern was crazy good this week

it's just. gosh. for as much as i talk abt bravern being unhinged the fact of the matter is that it is actually SO restrained. ESPECIALLY for something in a medium that is already a little self-indulgent and referential. like for all of bravern himself's clear love for mecha there have been so few explicit references to other shows? and then this ep had so fucking many - ttgl (which - fucking hilarious to use it against a character KONISHI is voicing and then have that DD be fucking useless except for wanting to see some cool fights LSKDJFH) and flcl and symmetrical docking and rider kick and jeeg and gundam and the fuckin uhhhhhhhh exkaiser i think but i dont remember for sure its the same one that showed up in the earlier fight w superbia too. like w the other mecha on the roof framing. and probably about thirty more that i'm for sure missing or not recognizing or forgetting ON TOP OF all the obari posing and punching which have been sneaking into the visuals before this - but it was all for the purpose of having us watch this hype battle and get all excited to make the ending hit THAT much harder. and holding off the first gattai until episode NINE???? the thing we're all expecting to happen at any fucking moment, because there was no way that the souls of isami and bravern could've combined and actually resonated for a true gattai until that point????? like it's ALL in service of the story rather than wow cool robot even tho it IS a pretty damn cool robot. this show makes me feel like i did my homework and i'm acing the test AND I HAVENT EVEN WATCHED THAT MUCH MECHA TBH. LMFAO. all the "who is this show even FOR (eyeroll emoji)" comments back in like ep2 get funnier every week bc bravern knows its audience like the back of its hand and it gets clearer and clearer every week that its execution is fucking razor sharp. this show is SO SUCKING GOOD and I LOVE IT. that was supposed to say fucking good but sucking works too

the fucking NOISE superbia makes when bravern is like "don't u want to fight me when i'm EVEN STRONGER" took me the FUCK out

[gets beer sponsorship] [makes Consumption Of Food And Drink a tether point to Humanity] [out-cooks the cooking show] i'm gonna buy more kona beer (<- fucking hates beer)

fish jumpscare !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i honestly don't think i've seen any anime with a fucking ED DROP before. lmfao

lewis smith. you want so badly to be the protagonist. to be the rival. to be the one who dies to motivate the hero. to be the MECHA ITSELF. and yet you are the love interest!!! you are GOING to be saved whether you want it or not!!! you ARE rain mikamura. you ARE the heroine. Let Isami Save You. you've got a family of people who fuck with time in different and fun ways to save each other and its his turn now whether you like it or not!!!!!!!!

he rly did put that mask back on right before he died…………..subtext, cowards, so on and so forth

thanks bravern for inventing gay ppl. was surprised to get a literal love confession AND an almost-kiss here but tbh at this point i think isami could use a good old-fashioned hug more than anything else. like one of those that cracks his spine. poor baby rice cracker is goin thru it LMAO. also i keep calling isami baby rice cracker and i cannot stop myself anymore………..baby rice cracker…………

me after saying every week that this show has done something to my brain "guys i think this show has done something to my brain"

wow this post is allover the place moreso than usual. like i said earlier this ep was so fucking DENSE and GOOD that i'm gonna need some time to process All That. gosh. [bravern voice] BRAAAAAAVEEEERN!!!!!!!!!!!

#a: bravern #bravern spoilers #t.bbbb

[twistedtummies2]

Year of the Bat - Number 5

Welcome to Year of the Bat! In honor of Kevin Conroy, Arleen Sorkin, and Richard Moll, I’ve been counting down my Top 31 Favorite Episodes of “Batman: The Animated Series” throughout this January. We’re now in the Top 5 of the countdown! TODAY’S EPISODE QUOTE: “My fault…I didn’t get the joke…” Number 5 is…Mad Love.

It was hard to choose between “Mad Love” and our previous pick, “Heart of Ice.” In some ways, I would honestly argue the latter is technically better than the former…but the reasons I place “Mad Love” over it are twofold. One, I just like Harley more than Mr. Freeze, in general. Plain and simple. Two, while “Heart of Ice” helped to re-invent a backstory for a great villain, and thus revamped them in an inspired way for future generations…this story is a bit different. Originally published as a spin-off graphic novel for the show, “Mad Love” was adapted into an actual episode during the TNBA era. It is the official origin story for Harley Quinn, and – considering everything that goes into Harley BEING Harley, so to speak – I think that’s an even more noteworthy achievement.

Harley’s origins had been hinted at a few times in earlier episodes, most notably “Harlequinade,” which I already covered earlier in the countdown. But “Mad Love” finally gave viewers the full scoop, and adapts its comic source pretty darn faithfully. With one or two possible exceptions (among them being the infamously…questionable redesign for the Joker in “The New Batman Adventures”), it once again improves on its source material, making Harley even more sympathetic than in the comic version, as well as tightening up the pace and using the full breadth of this visual, moving medium to its advantage. “Mad Love” begins with Harley feeling fed up with the Joker paying more attention to Batman than to her. This causes her to reminisce on her past, and the full story of her background is revealed: once upon a time, she was Dr. Harleen Quinzel, a new up-and-coming psychiatrist at Arkham Asylum. It’s implied, however, that Harleen was more interested in using the inmates as research material for her own ambitions, than she really was with curing them. Her ambitions, combined with an inborn naivete, led to her being seduced by the Joker, and she fell in love with her deranged patient. After a particularly grueling battle with Batman left the Clown Prince of Crime badly injured, Harleen finally snapped, and – determined to help her “puddin’” out – she became the wild card that is Harley Quinn.

This, however, is not the end of “Mad Love.” That’s just the beginning. We cut back to the present, where Harley forms a surprisingly clever scheme to kill Batman, hoping that if he’s finally out of the picture, she can finally have the Joker all to herself. I feel hesitant to say much more in great detail, for a lot of reasons, but suffice it to say things don’t go the way Harley expected, and the audience is given an uncomfortably deeper perspective on the dangerous relationship she and the Joker have. All three main characters – Batman, the Joker, and ESPECIALLY Harley Quinn – really make this story great. Harley’s origins themselves are classic, of course, and have really never changed much since this story. Certain details and elements have been expanded on or slightly altered over the years, but the basic concept has remained fixed. However, it’s the look at this trio and their relationships to each other that makes the story so splendid, as well as so disturbing at times. It also allows all three actors to deliver some of the best performances in the entire series; with the exception of “The Laughing Fish,” in fact, I would argue this is Mark Hamill’s single best performance as the Joker in all of the Animated Series (discounting movies and later series spinoffs, like “Justice League”). For Conroy, it’s an episode that allows his Batman to shine, even when he’s not the focus, as he shows his own cunning side in the way he’s able to manipulate both villains to come out on top. And of course, for Arleen Sorkin, this was the saddest, most heartbreaking story she ever got as Quinn, and she brings everything into it, showing that she could manage the tragedy of Harley as well as the humor. Also, the title references a Peter Lorre movie. That’s just cool, A+.

We’re getting close to the end now, friends. Tomorrow we move on to Number 4! Hint: “Gotham can be a Wonderland, Alice! Tonight, let me be your guide.”

#list #countdown #best #favorites #new year's special #year of the bat #top 31 btas episodes #btas #batman: the animated series #tnba #the new batman adventures #dcau #dc #batman #animation #tv #number 5 #mad love #harley quinn #harleen quinzel #arleen sorkin #mark hamill #joker #kevin conroy #bruce wayne

[candiid-caniine]

Hello lovely! I hope you're doing good!♡ (Sorry if you don't wanna be called that!!)

I was wondering how you vch piercing is healing and all that. I really want to get this piercing but I want to see how it's like for someone who already has it. Yknow? Here's some questions:

Did it hurt really really bad or was it not that bad? For context I have a medium pain tolerance. Have you had any significant problems with it? Would you recommend this piercing to a friend? How much did it cost for you to get? I know price depends place to place ofc. How long do you feel it took to heal? If it has yet! And any pros or cons?

If you're not comfortable with answering I understand! Thank you for your time. I hope you have a beautiful wonderful day♡

(Can I perhaps be " 🎀🍓 " anon??)

awaaa hi yourself, lovely!! (absolutely <3 being called that ty for checking tho!!)

i'm not at all uncomfy with answering!! and ofc that can be your anon signoff <3

talk of piercing + piercing aftermath under the cut!

so, here's the DL on your VCH questions:

pain level: extremely minimal! the thing that hurt the worst was being clamped (which was a bad sign - i've learned since then that people who know their shit piercing VCH will use a receiving tube, not clamps, so ask your piercer about their process during a consultation appointment and then make your decision!) i have my nostril, 2 cartilage, 6 lobe, and a vertical labret piercing on my lip. of those piercings, the vch and lip hurt the least. there's no cartilage to go thru, and even though we think of the clit as a very sensitive area, the hood of it, when it's isolated, isn't super sensitive for most. your anatomy and your pain tolerance will differ, but as a piercing veteran, the vch was the least painful!

problems with it: unfortunately, my vch rejected about two months after it'd healed (y'all can fact check me on this, i'm guesstimating). i *don't* think it was necessarily inherent to the VCH; rejection can happen to anyone for various reasons, but (afaik) is more of a risk when a piercing is more surface-based, like an eyebrow piercing. what i think happened: i think my piercer placed it too low on my clit hood; the top ball should have been higher up. this, combined with a poor jewelry fit and, uh, the fact that that area gets a lot of friction...probably contributed to the rejection. i took it out once i noticed because i didn't want to tear. as i mentioned above, my piercer used a technique that is *not* considered best practice by genital piercing professionals. (she's an excellent piercer otherwise, i love her, but now i know genitals are not her strong suit.)

another problem: due to the friction (not necessarily me rubbing it, more so clothing, my spouse's pelvic bone, etc), the ball was constantly coming loose, prompting a frantic hunt in the bedsheets/my laundry basket for the missing piece...pain in the fucking ass, but i think it also depends on your anatomy!

something that *wasn't* a problem that i expected to be: i don't think it ever once got caught on anything. once or twice, i had a pube get sort of wound around it, but since i was touching it...all the time...soooo much >.> i usually noticed pretty quick lmaoooo

i would recommend this piercing (done well, taken good care of) to a friend wanting a little bling downstairs and a little extra stimulation!

mine cost $100. but it's common to cost more than that from genital-specialty piercers, and for good reasons; i think my piercer priced it reasonably (small town economy + again, she didn't do a *great* job) but expect to pay more. that said, never equate cost with quality: ask your piercer...

where they learned to do a VCH

their process (receiving tube vs. clamps)

if they have any photographs of completed VCHs they've done. to assess all these best practices, check Elaine Angel's website. she basically invented the best practices, and she has plenty of good and bad example piercings for most types of genital piercings!

it took ~2 weeks before i'd say it was fully healed. most piercers caution you to wait 4-6 weeks for full healing; my body (and what i consider "healed"), as well as my new piercing aftercare routine, are specific to me. but for most people, it's <6 weeks. the rejection didn't happen until after healing. as far as healing the piercing *hole*, after taking it out, i don't notice any difference; there's maybe a pock mark sort of thing, or dimple? but it's not a "hole" anymore. just a mark, and there's not any scarring or tissue that irritates my clitoris, given i took it out so fast!

pros!

if you have my specific kinks, you are not gonna want to wait to start touching yourself >.> you can browse through my #kinky mods tag (tagged on this post for easy access) for a play-by-play of how fucked up it got me lmao.

as in, even tho it ached, i touched that shit the second day (gently) and had the craziest ruined orgasm of my life.

there is really something to be said for the tiny, itty bitty piece of stimulation achieved by the barbell under your hood.

also really something to be said about the balls themselves sliding over your clit when you rub with your fingers ;-;

vibrator against the barbell = weirdest overstim in the world.

heals fast; lots of cool jewelry options out there; doesn't hurt very much [compared to my other piercings, ymmv].

cons:

can be expensive to get one that's done properly.

you do eventually stop being as sensitive to the new stimulation. however, most people just switch jewelry to change things up after awhile, so nbd.

that said, jewelry change can be a bitch. it's hard to do that shit on your clitoris. you may find yourself needing to go to your piercer for jewelry changes, but many piercers offer this service at cost of jewelry/even free of charge, depending.

if you lose a piece of your jewelry, you might cry. lol. keep backups on hand. (my piercer, bless her fucking heart, has incredible aftercare services - she will literally drive to the shop at 1 am if your jewelry falls in the toilet. yes, she gives her clients her personal cell number. bless up, J, you can't pierce a clit worth a damn but you love what you do!)

how do i say this,, u know how. a new piercing might sort of get crusty. esp if you don't clean it often (follow ur aftercare instructions! always!!!!!) but uh. my regular aftercare did not prepare me for the crust being *under* the clit hood. it wasn't much, and it came off when i downsized jewelry, but eugh. it should be minimal, anyway, but still, don't be surprised.

the swelling was mainly the thing, in the hours after i got it pierced, but it didn't hurt worse than, say, biting the inside of your cheek really hard when you're chomping down on food - just that sort of ache you get. honestly i've had worse clit pain in the aftermath of being clamped, tho.

hope this helped ;-; i know it was a lot but y'all know me, i tend to go ham on these general/educational/experience questions. you're following an autistic puppy, what'd you expect? <3

#🎀🍓 anon #denial #overstim #kinky mods #tw: needles #asks #gen

[agbpaints]

With a couple very Liao mechs added to my collection recently, I've decided to go and start building myself a force of Capellans. With some vindicators, combat vehicles, and battle armor sorted I started digging around for some more CCAF designs to round out an augmented company. Then I remembered the Men Shen.

Don't let TRO:3060's janky visuals fool you, this walking gym shoe is one of the most technically advanced 'mechs the inner sphere built up to its intro date, Hellespont Industrials and the Confederation's Ministry of Appropriations spared no expense when they outfitted their first domestically designed omnimech. The 'mech is built around the heart and bones of a Magna 330 XL fusion engine seemingly designed expressly for the Men Shen and a 55 ton endo steel frame, with a normal top speed of nearly 100 kph, augmented up to 130 kph in short bursts by the 'mech's integral myomer accelerator signal circuits. This speed is paired with a thick skin, with the mech mounting 11 tons of standard armor, more than 95% the chassis possible total protection and enough for every component except the arms and head to take an AC/20 shot without internal damage. The mech carries 10 double heat sinks and an active probe fixed to the chassis, with the remaining 17 tons available as pod space.

The Men Shen MS1-O mounts a single LRM-15 with an attached Artemis IV fire control unit in its torso and a pair of medium pulse lasers in each arm. Intended as an all range skirmisher, the Prime configuration can leverage its speed to keep the range open while harassing with its missiles before driving in to deliver a finish off foes or pick appart scouts and picket mechs with its quartet of lasers. While the endurance of the LRM is somewhat questionable given it only comes with a single ton of ammunition, the speed at which the MS1-O depletes its missiles is probably a good thing given the XL engine and lack of CASE.

The Men Shen's alternate configurations fall into roughly three groups- either serving as remixes of the Prime's role, specializing in hunting non-mechs in a combined arms environment, or working as medium range strikers and forward operating units.

The Delta and Golf are Prime lookalikes, pairing a long range weapon (an ERPPC and a TSEMP cannon, respectively) with a payload of pulse lasers and SRMs to harass and disable mechs at long range before closing for a finishing blow. Unlike the Prime, these designs lack minimum ranges on their weapons, but the heat build of a full alpha strike is risky enough to a mech without jump jets that both designs effectively work as bracket fire machines.

The Beta and Echo configurations are combined arms killers, packing specialized ballistic weapons in their arms supported by a more generalized torso loadout. In the Beta's case this is a pair of LB2-X autocannons supported by a quartet of ER medium lasers, effectively making it a fast, high tech version if the BJ-1 Blackjack and ideal for hunting VTOL and aerospace assets with its flack guns. This configuration is also possibly the very first inner sphere mech to mount the LB2-X autocannon despite it supposedly being invented in Davion space. Chalk one up for the Maskirovka. Where the Beta makes helicopter pilots sweat, the Echo is an infantryman's nightmare demon. It mounts 8 light machine guns arranged into two arm mounted machine gun arrays, supported by a plasma rifle and 2 medium lasers in the torso. On average this thing will brrrrt an entire platoon of inner sphere ground pounders to mulch with every trigger pull, and the crit seeking/random heat mean it's not too much of a slouch in mech combat either. The 4 tons of ammunition does mean it is worryingly explosive, though.

Finally the Alfa, Charlie, and Foxtrot are the mid range strikers. The Alfa pairs a trio of ER Medium Lasers with an LB 10-X autocannon to deliver a decent ammount of firepower at close and medium ranges, backed up by a TAG laser designator to call in artillery and LRM strikes from the rest of your force. The Charlie and Foxtrot are very much like each other, using pairs of accurate, high damage energy weapons to make for any light mech's worst day. The Charlie chooses a pair of large pulse lasers supported by a Guardian ECM suite and an ER small laser to hunt things like Locusts and Striders while shutting down enemy electronics such as C3 spotters. The Foxtrot swaps the pulse lasers for a pair of snub nosed PPCs linked to a targetting computer to wreak havoc with its disgustingly long short range (270 meters!) and brings a TAG to make sure Marty the Arty will lay low anything its particle cannons can't. The Charlie and Foxtrot's placement of their main guns in the arms also makes them the best versions of the chassis to carry battle armor into fights with.

The Men Shen is best deployed as a 'cruiser' of battlemechs- calable of outfighting anything it can't outrun and outrunning anything that outguns it fairly easily. It will likely operate best at the front of formations to scout and probe the line of battle until the main battleline of mechs arrives, at which point it shifts to outflanking and finishing off wounded units.

Despite its durability, speed, and weapons options, the Men Shen isn't without flaws- the lack of jump jets mean that it can easily get bogged down in cities or other rough terrain and while it's speed and thick armor mean it can tough through some pretty heavy shots, the XL engine means that it won't survive drag out fights for particularly long. The cost is also fairly prohibitive- while most variants run between 1400 and 1700 BV, the MS1-O is a whopping 16.6 million c-bills. For the same price, you could by an entire company of urbanmechs, or a full lance of Vindicator 3L's. This price and the operational fragility of an XL engine paired with unCASEed ammo will likely make campaign commanders balk and relegate the design (like many omnis) to hangar queen status. As a player of mostly pickup games, though, it's a design I'm excited to run

#battletech #battlemech #mech talk #medium mech #men shen #cappies are weirdly good mech designers with a taste for expensive machines #for a faction that's basically always running on an austerity military industrial budget #i guess the CCAF can have a pricy mech as a treat sometimes when they get bored of requisitioning 500 new vindicators #please CGL give this thing new linearts/models