#that started with a green to orange gradient

[catparts]

It’s been a while, but I’m back on my pattern bullshit. I almost didn’t have a choice, I got sooooo excited about these funky seasonal dudes 😤 Shop link

#pattern #seasonal gourds #pattern design #threadless #basically this happened entirely because of a tiny white pumpkin with dark green stripes #that started with a green to orange gradient #I’ve been fascinated with that coloring and it’s my best friend

[celiaelise]

A couple days ago I had the INTENSE urge to get (part of) my hair colored, which is something I haven't considered in years, and even then not very seriously. I'm also just generally averse to even temporarily modifying the natural state of my body in any way? But, like, I even un-archived a years old Pinterest board lol.

Anyway, considering what else was happening with my body at the time, it was probably hormones. I haven't completely rejected the possibility of actually doing it, though.

#one of the big issues of course is that i am Ethnic and thus have dark hair which would require a lot of bleaching #the idea i had was...i think it'd be called under dye? #with my favorite gradient hiding under there! red/orange/yellow #or more like a gradient of different shades of orange #i started looking at other color possibilities too though #for a long time i was convinced i wanted the ends of my hair forest green #I'll probably never consider doing something that requires regular upkeep #or drastically changes the way the color of my hair relates to my face #my life #my feelings #by elise

[bmpmp3]

genuinely baffled at my grade 11 electronics teacher who taught us the resistor mnemonic as “bad boys take our young girls but violet goes willingly” like.... what the hell was going on there, like FIRST OF ALL it was the year of our lord 2016 we HAD a whole list of effective and less horribly sexist versions listed together on a convenient wikipedia page SECOND OF ALL why did he censor it as “take“ did he not think we would be curious as to why Red is shortened as a T word and not an R word in this mnemoinc THIRD OF ALL what the fuck man

#at least he didnt use any of the racist variations but man..... what the fuck #maybe he made the non functioning censored version in a panic and didnt think it through? we had a lot of girls in the class like i think 4 #maybe that was more than he expected and didn't think about it until it was too late? still like...what the fuck man #although on my second point. now that i think about it. okay. okay it did go over my head #not because i was too young i was 17 of course i knew what words start with r that would fit there to create a very gross mnemonic #it was because i wasnt paying attention because ive got a learning disability and i cant do mnemonics at all kfdlsJFKLDSHJFKS #the way i remembered it was like #okay black brown gray white is like a gradient from darkest value to lightest #and red orange yellow green blue violet is just the rainbow #so like you just slot roygbiv in the middle of the gradient #so i just remembered black brown the rainbow gray white #and then at the beginning of every test id write that and the corresponding numbers so i could remember. this is a normal way of thinking #anyway just use like. bat brained resistor order you gotta be very good with #i think that ones hilarious and i think it would be funny and cute enough for teens to remember #edit: now that i think about it i distinctly remember one day coming home from school and casually mentioning that i learned about resistors #and their colour bands and my dad (worked in electronics since the 80s) immediately was like #okay dara i wanna let you know theres a lot of really cruel and rude memorization tools out there and i just wanna give you some nicer ones #i still wasnt paying attention cause i already had my black brown the rainbow gray white system but that was very nice of him #i guess he saw a lot of women in his time in the industry getting pushed out because of the bro-y culture that created that mnemonic #and knew it wasnt just an offensive phrase but a symptom of a cruel and misogynistic mindset #thank u dad. didnt appreciate it at the time because i was too busy with my incomprehensible gradient hue memorization system #edit 2: also sorry if this makes no sense. things are heating up in the resistor band colours fandom

[wynnibee]

hi sorry this is so late!!! @sup-its-cat i was your secret skeleton dsklfdfk i hope you like it i put a lot of work into this <33

[id in alt and under the cut!]

[id: a fully lined, colored and shaded piece of sup-its-cat’s Mind Roommates AU with (from top to bottom) Eclipse, Moon, Sun and then their halloween-ified sona. Eclipse is in the top right corner, with its arms held out and a wide grin on its face as it looks down at Moon. Eclipse is entirely pink-magenta, with two rows of rays; large white ones and small light light pink ones. It has puffy sleeves on its arms, one with wavy stripes, and the other with stars. Each sleeve ends with a small bow on the wrist. Large ruffles sit around its neck, and its torso is a single, solid color. Its eyes have a darker magenta outer iris, an inner light pink iris, and then a white heart shaped pupil. It has large eyelashes, with the right eye having a long curly-q lash. Jester stripes cut through its eyes onto its cheeks and eyebrows. Eclipse has a long “tail” barely visible swirling around and behind it. The tail starts at the base of its body, and swirls across the entire canvas down to Sun. Eclipse is covered in glitch effects, with a majority of them surrounding its rays and the rest on its ghostly tail. Eclipse’s entire body is glowing a bright pink and it’s semi-transparent, with one arm fading off the canvas. Next is Moon, in the middle left. He’s floating in a partially reclined position, arms held around him loosely. He has a concerned expression on his face as he looks up at Eclipse. His face is white on his crescent side and a medium blue on his shadowed side. He’s wearing his blue nightcap, with a very fluffy white band, and light purple stars. The end is shredded and missing its poof/bell. He’s wearing a light brown hoodie with dark brown zig-zag stripes at the end of the sleeves and a box pattern with a star in the center on his chest. He’s also wearing brown gloves and simple blue pants. Moon’s legs slowly turn into his ghost “tail”, though his is a bright blue and more opaque than Eclipse’s. It’s full of sparkles and a small amount of glitch effects. It curls around behind him as it swirls down the canvas towards Sun. Moon’s colors are very light, having a blue-ish hue to his entire palette. His eyes are mismatched, with blue sclera on his crescent side and red sclera on his shadowed side. He has white rings for irises. He also has large eyelashes with a curly-q lash on the right side of his face. Jester stripes cut through his eyes as well. He has sharp, pointy teeth. Then Sun, who’s standing hunched over with his arms and hands held up in clawed poses with a large, slightly snarled smile on his face as he glares at the viewer. He has a single row of large, orange rays. A couple of his rays are chipped. Sun’s wearing the same clothes as Moon is; a large brown hoodie, blue pants, and brown gloves. He has glowing white eyes and is entirely backlit with blue and pink light. He has large eyelashes, with a curly-q lash on his right side and jester stripes that cut through his eyes.  Lastly is sup-its-cat’s sona, an anthromorphic pink cat wearing a suit. It also has a snarled smile on its face, exposing sharp teeth as it glares at the viewer. It has two large horns forming a heart shape on the top of its head, and long fluffy cheeks and ears. It has a purple cravat around its neck with a bow, held together in the center with a diamond shaped purple gem. Its pink suit has exaggerated lapels that curl under themselves. Its shirt is a dark, almost black pink with ruffles around the buttons and a wrinkled waistband. Its holding its long, three clawed fingers up on either side of itself, and its long, fluffy tail curls up behind it. The cat has glowing green eyes with dark pink sclera. The cat, like Sun, is also backlit with blue and pink light. The background is a simple dark blue to magenta gradient, with a white border that has a glitching effect to it. End id.]

#crackles knuckles #sup-its-cat #dcah2023 #fnaf eclipse #fnaf moon #fnaf sun #mind roommates au #cw eyestrain #my art #yeah sorry this is so late!!!! #october was set and determined to make sure i couldnt finish this #so ive been working nonstop to get this done sdlkfjdksflj #i really hope you like it!! your au is so cool

[redslug]

Coloring tutorial I guess

That's my most default shading style, a hybrid of line drawing and painted shadows, and I'll tell you exactly how to get this look. But before we start, you need a weapon This is my main brush for basically anything, including line art on days when I don't feel like switching to something actually intended for inking. It's a lightly textured square brush with color variation on every stamp. Intended for Procreate but you can always just rip the alpha texture out of the file and use it for a brush in any drawing program. That out of the way, let's go. I'll use the same line art as the one in fluff tutorial. Set the line layer to ~60 or so opacity and get to blocking in the base colors of your character. The jitter brush will introduce some color variation on it's own, but changing the color occasionally will add more visual interest.

After this I add a multiply layer on top and dab orange or red in places where we might be able to see the base of the hairs or peek at the carapace underneath.

It's places where hair parts and where it's shorter. This accent color works great on joints as well. Example of the thing I'm going for in real life:

Especially visible behind the head. It's not present on every moth to be fair, but I like to add these accents even where it wouldn't make sense, just because it looks nice. Even on insects without hair. Block in the eyes and mandibles now, best if it's on separate layer.

Now, the actual funny tricks begin. If you're one of the people who only use multiply or add blend modes, stop it, get some help Understanding the math behind blend modes is gonna get you a long way. My lineart is set to subtract more often than not. I find it produces juicier and more colorful results than multiply. I want to give this picture a warm orange feeling, so the color of my lines should be the opposite - blue.

And, subtract.

Perfect, but not quite. We can push the lines to an even softer feeling. Take the line layer, copy it, invert the color and set to multiply. I then throw gaussian blur on the resulting copy and reduce opacity until the lines bleed into the surroundings just a little bit.

On to actual shading. People who shade without getting in some background first scare me, so let me throw something together real quick.

A simple gradient will also suffice for this use. We just need some information on which colors are present in the surroundings. Copy your background, bring it on top of your character layers and gaussian blur it real hard. Set it to multiply, remove all parts of the layer that go beyond the pixels of the base color layer. Adjust opacity until the character fits in the background.

Let's identify the light sources. In this case it's only the sky, but it produces two distinct colors - soft blue lighting comes from the top, slightly stronger red comes from behind. The blue light I set to exclusion blend mode because it felt most appropriate in this case. Both add and screen looked too strong to be the light coming from such dark sky.

In this lighting context the lower part of the body will receive less light that the upper part. I use the green of the bushes set to multiply to darken the bottom.

The character is surrounded by all kinds of soft light, but it can't get everywhere. It's time to add ambient occlusion, or contact shadows, for those without a 3d background. Anywhere where there is a crevice or surfaces almost touch, a soft shadow will form.

I do it on a multiply layer with a neutral gray-green color. Gray because any color light isn't really getting in there and green because the fluff is somewhat transparent and whatever light does pass through it gains a greenish hue.

Last step, red rim light from the fading sunset behind the character.

Since it's rim light I just work with normal blending mode. Setting it to add or something of the sort would make the rim light brighter than the source of the light. And it'd be odd.

And that's it. I usually throw on some post processing in Snapseed. Pull some curves, throw on a bit of grain, etc. But it's a topic for another time.

In conclusion, try to think about the environment more when shading. What route does light go through to reach where you're coloring? Did it reflect off of any colored surface? Did it pass through something transparent to gain a different hue? What color shadow would this ambient lighting produce? Go have fun with your colors now.

#art tutorial #anthro #insect #moth

[cryptidclaw]

Leopardfoot!

Design Notes:

I havent done a design for this gal in AGES ... yet I tried to keep a lot of the ideas from my old one for this one!

I really liked the idea of her having tortie patches that mimic leopard spots which i had used in my old design, so I've done it again!

Character Bio:

Leopardfoot

Lesbian; demi-girl; she/they

Age as of 1st arc's beginning: 11 cycles, 8 moons; ~64 Hyrs

Age as of 1st arc's end: 13 cycles, 6 moons; 72 Hyrs

Title meaning: -foot = a cat who is light on their feet; a cat who is sure of themselves, and is confident in their actions

Warrior -> Elder of Thunder Order

Mother: Swiftbreeze

Father: Adderfang

Siblings: Patchpelt

Ex-Mate: Star Pineheart

Mate: Fogtalon

adoptive/step kit: Mousebite

Kits: Thistleclaw; Night; Mist; Birdflight (biologically Fogtalon and Sparrowpelt's)

Grandkits: Sky, Shimmer, Shine; Star Tigerclaw; Lynxstorm; Sandstorm; Flint; Poppy

Other notable kin: both the Tiger and Fire descendants are her kin, Fire not biologically tho.

Character Summary:

Leopardfoot was born to Adderfang and Swiftbreeze alongside her brother Patchpelt, unlike in canon she is born a few cycles (years) earlier than Bluefrost and Snowstorm.

Leopard grew up with a very heteronormative ideal of what her live should be as an adult, find a good strong tom as a mate, have kits, be the perfect Thunder Order molly. Because of this, when Star Pineheart showed an interest in her a few years into her adulthood, she agreed to become mates with him, he was the leader after all, it would be dumb to say no to such an honor.

Leopardfoot soon had a litter of kits with Pine, Night, Mist and Thistle. Just like in canon Pine ends up abandoning the Order and his family to live with humans and Leopard is left to raise her kits alone. Leopard was devastated by this, especially after Night and Mist passed due to kitten cough. Due to all of this Leopard grew a misplaced hatred for kittypets which she passed on to her son Thistleclaw, and later her grandson Tigerclaw.

After Pineheart left the Order however, Leopard began to get close to Fogtalon with fog helping her out with the kits. The two of them end up having a slowburn romance and end up becoming mates later in life!

Leopard is a sort of step parent to Mousebite and Birdflight was raised with both Fog and Leopard as his moms!

Leopard retired with Fogtalon and as an elder she spent a lot of time with her grandson Tiger, who would often bring her fresh prey and moss and chat with her about the day's happenings.

Leopard had an idea that her son Thistle was kind of an asshole, but she was never told the full truth of his actions that lead to his death. Nobody wanted to hurt her like that, especially since she was now relaxing and retired.

Leopard was devastated when Tiger was banished and for a long while she was in denial about him being evil. she started to act more old and confused after this too.

within the plot, Leopard is able to give the backstories and motives of characters like Tigerclaw to Fire, though she really only tells these things to him after Tiger's banishment when she became more confused.

...

[Image ID: a digital drawing of Leopardfoot from Warrior Cats. She is laying down with her right side showing and she has a slight frown. She is a slender, long furred, black and orange tortoiseshell molly with green eyes. She is mostly black, with orange patches on her shoulders to mid back, paws and cheeks that imitate leopard spots. She has brownish gradient under where her orange patches are, as well as on her tail./ End ID]

#cryptidclaw's warriors au #rise of change #leopardfoot #leopardfoot design #warrior cats #warrior cats design #warriors #warriors au

[shimonerin]

Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop

Content: You and Iwaizumi walking home together and sharing a soda pop under the early evening sky

Tags: casual intimacy, slight pining, fluff, slice of life

Words: 1.4k

A/N: Was hoping i could write the scene more visually but alas im not that good TvT

The sky was filled with a kaleidoscope of orange, violet, and pink hues mixing together in a perfect gradient sunset. You twisted the key into the knob, locking Seijoh’s court after another long practice. As the team’s manager, the coach entrusted you to lock after every practice, which means you have to stay behind until everyone’s done with whatever business they have inside.

It wasn’t ideal for you to go home so late but on the other hand, Iwaizumi’s presence seems to make your after-school journey less exhausting to the soul. Usually, you’d walk home with Oikawa as well but an emergency came up, and you’re left with his intimidating best friend.

Putting the keys back to one of the pockets in your bag, you turned to Iwaizumi with a small smile “You know you don’t have to wait for me.”

“It’s nothing.” He mumbled, simply staying quiet as he had his hands in his pockets “You ready to go?”

“Mhm-hm” You nodded with a hum, catching up to him as the two of you exited the school gates. The walk home was silent, with only the sounds of birds chirping and the wind blowing against your hair filling the space.

You purse your lips together, thoughts running inside your head and wondering why Iwaizumi is taking the time out of his day to walk with you, even when Oikawa’s not in the scene. You’d always assumed he only tags along because of him.

While you were lost in your thoughts and staring at the wide array of green land and villages just underneath, Hajime would glance over at you every once in a while. You looked…very pretty. Your hair was flying in the cool night’s breeze and your steps were so light, compared to his rather rugged ones.

“Are you done with the reading material?” You casually started the conversation, which made him jump a little bit in his skin. He wasn’t always so good with small talk.

“Uh, no…” He muttered, quickly averting his gaze from you and turned to face the ground “I’ll probably do it tomorrow. It’s not due for a bit anyways.” He says, rather dismissively, but you were used to it. Ever so cool and hot-headed at the same time, softer around you and rough with the others.

You nodded in understanding, tilting your head ever so slightly at him “Yeah? Well, you always seem to get it done one way or another so you don’t have to worry.” You say before lightly elbowing him at the arm in a playful way “If I don’t get it done tonight, I won’t have the energy to do it tomorrow. And the thought of having to cram that by morning sounds horrifying to me.”

Iwaizumi wore a small smirk on his face, looking you over quickly before turning his attention back to the road in front of him “At least you’re disciplined enough. That’ll get you far, you know?”

“I hope so.” You shrugged

He would stay silent again after that, not really sure what else to say. The both of you were always so awkward with each other sometimes, even when you’ve known each other for as long as Oikawa can talk.

You can hear the cicadas tick and the pale light emitted by the fireflies as you come across a vending machine near a fork on the road, stopping you in your tracks.

“Do you want anything from the vending machine?” He suddenly asked in a low voice, focusing on the way you were eyeing the vending machine. You purse your lips and nod as you try to fish out your wallet from the pockets of Seijoh’s university jacket “Yeah, I’m really thirsty.”

“Hold on…” Iwaizumi would reply before he slowly approached you and grabbed his wallet out of his own pockets. He’d look over the colorful variety of drinks inside and try to figure out what you were looking at “What do you want? I’ll get it for you.”

With his back turned towards you and leaning down to look through the options, you were thankful he wouldn’t be able to see the way your face heats up. You exclaimed, taking your place beside him “Hey, I didn’t tell you that you could do that! ”

He paused when you took your place beside him, a lump in his throat forming having you so close to him and giving him a chance to take a whiff of your lingering faint perfume. He grumbled out a response, his back was a little tense as he attempted to straighten it “Just let me get it for you.”

You looked at him with a slightly worried expression on your face “Are you sure?” You asked him, clutching the hem of your jacket against the cold wind.

He could feel his face softening for you before turning it into a small scowl, as if switching back to default once he feels himself slipping away “I said that I don’t mind! So, stop refusing, alright?” He’d scold you with his signature gruff in his voice. You were sure nothing could sway him so you sighed in defeat “Okay, okay. I’ll, uhm, I’ll get the strawberry soda.”

You pointed towards the light pink bottled drink on the fifth shelf. Iwaizumi scooted closer and pressed the buttons for you before hearing the whirring of the machine followed by the clanging of the soda drop on the compartment. He would open the can with a twist of his thumb and hand you your drink “Careful, it’s cold.”

You took the open can from him, your fingers grazing over his “Thank you so much.” You chuckled and looked up at him “Aren’t you getting one for yourself?”

He’d shake his head, escaping your eyes once more “No, I’m fine.” He wished he wasn’t as nonchalant with you as he thought he would be. But, God, he didn’t want to accidentally mess up. He’s not Oikawa, for fuck’s sake.

Your eyes shone like the small sparkling stars in the sky, your smile brighter than any street lamp in this small town. He’d have to catch himself from sighing and instead opted to clear his throat and leaned at the metal frame of the vending machine, looking away.

The fork on the road nearby is where you always split up after walking them home. Tonight, it doesn’t seem like the two of you have any plans of going there yet. The promise of staying within each other’s presence very much filled the air with tense anticipation.

Taking a large gulp of the fizzy pink drink, you heave out a sigh “It’s a crescent moon tonight.” Iwaizumi followed your gaze and noticed just how beautiful it looked. The clouds covering up parts of the moon gives it a rather mysterious charm to it.

It wasn’t as breathtaking as you, though. Somehow, someway, he’d feel himself gravitating towards you more. The way your eyes would adorably squint back at the moon because of your poor eyesight and maybe the way your hair would fall on your bare face.

How could you just stand there and look so…mesmerizing to him. You’re so oblivious to it and it’s annoying him.

“You should get going.” He broke the silence, walking you over to the fork on the road “Wouldn’t want you to miss dinner.”

You sway your hands over to him, shaking your head, your cheeks tinted with the palest pink flush “It’s fine, it’s fine. But, uh, yeah I think it’s getting a little late.”

Before waving you off like he always does, he turned his body towards yours and, unexpectedly, tousled your hair with a soft grunt. The contact ran a tingle up your spine and you found yourself holding your breath in his presence.

Iwaizumi couldn’t feel the words coming out as he wanted them to, feeling it stuck up in his throat. You were waiting and he’s making himself look like an idiot.

His words get stuck in his throat like a dying soda pop, bubbling with no resolution or release. His face burns and his heart starts beating quickly when you look at him like that but the words are just out of reach.

"I'll...I'll, uhm, see you tomorrow, I guess." He'd finally utter out, although in a rather choked up way. His flustered state had you chuckling to yourself but you dare not tease him about it.

"Alright, I'll see you too." You say, waving him off and walking away, but not before looking back with a smile "Can I buy you soda tomorrow?"

A small soft smirk plastered on his face.

"I'll take the blue raspberry one, then."

#haikyuu! #haikyuu #hq #iwaizumi hajime #hajime iwaizumi #iwaizumi x reader #hq x reader #haikyuu iwaizumi #hq iwaizumi #hq fluff #haikyuu fluff #hq imagines #haikyuu imagines

[arabellas]

do you have a coloring tutorial? your gifs are so nice and vibrant, how do you do it? :)

hi, here's a simple basic coloring tutorial that I use pretty much for all of my gifsets:

I won't get into the basics of making a gif as this is just a coloring tutorial, but here is my gif after I just crop and resize it:

and here it is after I sharpen it:

sharpen can affect the depth of shadows in a gif, so I do this before I add any coloring, but I know some people color first and only then sharpen, so both ways work!

alright, ready for some fun coloring? let's go!

before adding any adjustment layers, I suggest creating a new group, so all of your coloring changes can neatly sit in one place.

I always start with levels and curves, they often help to make the overall gif more natural if the lighting is too yellow, too dark, etc., it's a very useful guide, especially if you're new to gifmaking. so, let's start by clicking on the levels icon, a new adjustment layer should appear over your gif layers:

the next step is to click on each of these little icons (I usually only use the top and bottom ones) and to select the lightest and the darkest parts of your gif. pick the top one, select the darkest part and then pick bottom one and pick the lightest part, you should see some changes on your gif, sometimes they're subtle, sometimes they're very obvious:

in my gif the lightest part is somewhere near her shoulder where the light hits, the darkest part is her sunglasses (if there are a lot of dark/light parts, I just click around and see whichever looks more subtle. for example, I tried the part on top of her head where the light hit, but it made the gifset too blue because the lighting is yellowish, but since the whole scene is not very yellow, it looked weird so I'm sticking with her shoulder, it just simply looks better overall):

and then I do the same thing with the curve adjustment layer, selecting the darkest and lightest part of my gif just like I did with the levels layer:

while this is a good guide for beginners, it doesn't always fix all the problems. it can be quite harsh, so I recommend setting the opacity to a lower percentage and if it looks a little weird, sliding the arrows to one side and another with each color until it looks better to you:

like I said, it's a good guide but manual work is often needed, don't be afraid to mess around with the settings. for this gif I set levels layer opacity to 60% and curves to 37%.

moving on, I'm adding a selective color adjustment layer to fix how the skintone looks with red and yellow colors. it differs with each scene, sometimes the skin is too yellow and orange, so I add more cyan and less yellow but in this case I chose these settings and I set the opacity of this layer to 35%:

I want to mention that with poc it's very important not to mess around too much with their skin tone and not to white-wash and orange-wash them, there are quite a lot of tutorials on how to avoid doing that.

the next layer I add is exposure, I want to brighten my gif a little bit. you can do that by selecting either brightness or exposure layer like I did:

the scene I'm working with is pretty bright, so I'm not adding too much of exposure, here are my settings:

next up, I want to deepen the shadows a little bit, so I use a gradient map for that:

I use black and white gradient and set the opacity to 10%:

moving on, color balance is another great trick to make the gif look more smooth with one consistent color overall:

if I'm working with scenes that have a lot of green/yellow in them and I want to get rid of that, this is a quick way to slide the arrow to the opposite color and soften it a little bit by adding another color. I usually like to add more magenta to midtones and make the gif have a little bit of a pink look. here are my settings for this specific gif and the opacity of this layer is set to 30%:

and here's what difference it made to the gif:

as you can see, the colors outside the circle are less green on her skin and hair. it's all coming together nicely!

let's move on to the background colors. I add another selective color layer and I'm gonna play with the colors I want to enhance the most. in this case it's green grass and her blue clothes. here are my settings for these colors:

and finally, to enhance the vibrant coloring even more, I like to add one final hue/saturation layer:

here I like to add more saturation to the colors we're focusing on in the background and add around +20 of saturation. I did this to green, cyan and blue colors:

and that's it! here is the finished gif compared to the completely raw one:

this coloring tutorial is very basic, but it works for most scenes I work with, I just sometimes focus on other colors, add more or less layers but the overall process is very similar.

I encourage to mess around with all the settings and see which ones look the most pleasing to your eye. let me know if you have any questions :)

#gif tutorial #coloring tutorial #tutorial #tutorials #ask #anonymous

[sourlemonsprout]

𝑺𝒖𝒏𝒈𝒍𝒂𝒔𝒔𝒆𝒔

Alphonse x Boo

word count: 378

a post?? from me?? crazy...

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓��∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

Warmer weather was just around the corner, and you figured it was about time you went shopping for some new summer fits. Not much had been going on lately, and you were dying to get out of the house anyway. 

It was Alphonse's day off, so you called him up, and within the hour the both of you were off to an outlet mall not too far away from town. Al didn't go shopping much, he had some outfits that worked for him and that was good enough. Regardless, he loved going shopping with you. Not so much for shopping, it was more about spending the day with you. Perusing through various stores, pointing out ugly outfits for one another, mall food, all the fun stuff! 

You'd been scanning the selection of stores, mentally taking notes of which ones you wanted to stop in when you noticed the absence of your pink-haired pastel punk of a boyfriend. Every time the two of you are out, there's always a point where you lose him, but you'd been doing this for long enough now, so you knew if you tracked down the nearest stand of fun sunglasses, he'd be there. Sure enough, you were right. After poking your head into a few shops, you finally found your man standing in front of a little mirror, pursing his lips and checking himself out in a pair of bedazzled white cat-eye sunglasses with light pink tips. As you cover your mouth and giggle, he catches your eyes in the mirror. With a sassy spin, he turns on his heels to face you, tilting his head forward so that his blue eyes peak seductively over the edges of the sparkly frames.

"Whatcha think babe?" As you look at him, a sly smirk appears on his face, and a raised eyebrow that seems to suggest he has something planned. Suddenly, he starts putting on a fashion show with an air of confidence and an impressive sense of style, from orange creamsicle-colored flower frames to neon-green stars, and a pair of purple to red gradient fire-flame-frame glasses. Every single pair looks absolutely fabulous on him, and you wonder, with only a small hint of jealousy, how he's able to pull them off. 

⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅

The End <3

#yuurivoice #yuurivoice stuff #yuurivoice fandom #yuurivoice alphonse #fluff #alphonse yuurivoice #yuurivoice boo #sourlemonsprout #writting

[lectern-fullcauldron]

do you know your hermistory? hermitcraft debuts in order

Short ID: an infographic illustrating each current hermitcraft whitelist member's hermitcraft debut date by season. Each hermit is illustrated next to an abridged tfc quote that reads 'a great big dysfunctional family'

Long ID below cut

Image ID: a long single panelled infographic on a rainbow gradient background. Down the right hand side reads "a great big, dysfunctional family". The infographic has the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 8 down the left hand side, each with a corresponding colour on the gradient.

Section one: down the left hand side of this section are the following stats: 'April 2012: Hypno, Xisuma', 'May 2012: Keralis, Joe Hills' 'Jan 2013: Bdubs'. All of the above hermits are illustrated in the section. Keralis, Xisuma, and Hypno stand at the top as founding members of the server. There is an illustration of a leaf block on a two high fence next to Keralis labelled 'booshes' and an arrow points at Hypno reading 'website admin'. Below them, Joe Hills reclines in a Uno wildcard themed bubble reading a book called 'scam'. An arrow points to this bubble that reads 'the original new guy'. Bdubs' appears waving in a small white circle below Joe with the caption '2 eps in S1. Coming soon!'

Section two: a neon green arrow bridges this section to section one. It comes from Joe Hills and reads 'coup!'. Down the left of this section are the following stats: 'June 2013: Cleo, Mumbo', 'Oct 2013: TFC', 'Dec 2013: iJevin', 'June 2014: False', 'July 2014: Tango', and 'Sept 2014: xbcrafted'. Cleo and mumbo sit together with an arrow pointing at them reading 'both too shy to talk to people' - this text also has an arrow pointing at falsesymmetry. Tfc is depicted carrying a pair of binoculars and has an arrow pointing at him that reads 'branch mine advocate' of which the branch is underlined. Ijevin carries a stopwatch and False a diamond sword. Tango holds a minecraft oak door and has two bits of text pointing at him. The first reads 'early iron farm visitor' and the second reads 'redstone genius'. This second text has arrows that also descend down to impulse, doc, and etho in section three. The final hermit in section two is xb, who is lying on his stomach, kicking his legs and looking up at tango.

Section three: the stats down the left hand side of this section read 'Jan 2015: impulse', 'march 2015: etho, doc'. Impulse is depicted falling into a yellow pentagram with the caption 'summoned to help with quad witch hut'. Below this, doc and etho stand side by side (doc a head taller than etho). Doc has a pen and a clipboard and the pair are labelled 'mindcrack refugees'.

Section four: the stats down the left hand side of this section read: 'Feb 2016: Welsknight, Iskall, Scar, Ren, Cub', 'Sept 2016: Beef'. The five hermits for Feb 2016 are depicted in a line with a box grouping cub and scar with a note that reads 'do not separate'. Below them is the caption 'kingdomcraft'. Beef reclines alone below them, with a note beside him that reads 'mesa-ing around' (title of cub's first hermitcraft episode).

Section five: the stats down the left hand side of this section read: 'April 2017: Stress, Bdubs, Zed'. This section is relatively small. Stress is in a GG get gorgeous t-shirt, holding an allium. Bduds is asleep on Zed, wrapped up in his moss cloak. Above him reads 'NHO time!'

Section six: the stats down the left hand side of this section read: 'July 2018: grian'. This section depicts grian t-posing with white wings and orange goose feet. He has two captions, the first reads 'started a war' and has an arrow pointing up to stress as well. The other reads 'horrible goose t-posing to assert dominance'.

Section 8: the stats down the left hand side of this final section read: 'June 2021: Gem, Pearl'. Gem and pearl are depicted hugging with the captions 'moon big' and 'gem is great'. Pearl's face is depicted as a moon and her eyes are craters. She still has blonde hair to match her minecraft skin.

End ID

#good to reblog #hermitcraft #joe hills #zombiecleo #didn't show up with tags with the old tags so maybe redoing it will fix?? #described

[jimmy-dipthong]

How I feel about formal speech in Japanese, as a halfie 🇦🇺🇯🇵

How much are one’s values and philosophy forced to be tied to the language you speak? Having grown up in Australia, I live in a culture where there’s no hierarchy-based formality built into the language. Our service workers never call us “sir” or “ma’am” (in fact it feels very off-putting whenever you get a usamerican waiter who does). Calling out to a perfect stranger on the street is done with a “hey, mate” or “hey, excuse me!”. Our speech patterns don’t change too much depending on our familiarity with whoever we’re talking to - and we certainly don’t have separate verb conjugations depending on formality.

Contrast this with Japanese which has several different speech registers depending on familiarity and hierarchy of the person you’re talking to.

Red: Keigo. Used by service staff. Used by low ranking staff to high ranking bosses in workplace situations.

Orange: Formal speech (sentence ending ます, です, ません, etc). Used by younger people when speaking to older people. Used by almost everyone when speaking to a stranger off the street.

Green: Semi-formal speech (sentence ending っす, しないです, etc). Used by people around the same age when speaking to someone they have only recently met, or to work acquaintances and similar.

Blue: Casual speech (sentence ending naked adjectives and nouns, だ, plain form verbs). Used by everyone to their own family. Used between good friends, even if one is a fair amount older. Used by bosses to their employees, teachers to their students.

(Please note this is graph was made by a me, a non-native japanese speaker, and is not backed up by any research. It’s based purely on vibes and its primary purpose is to assist in the explanation of my feelings about being australian-japanese. Also note that in reality there are not hard lines between each of these registers or strict definitions. If this were more accurate it would be more like a gradient)

I don’t want to be seen as rude, so when I’m in Japan I make an effort to speak in a formal register in certain situations (e.g. speaking to service workers, strangers on the street). I’m ok with the far left side of the graph. However, the purple dotted section is the part I have the hardest time with: people around my age who I am not (yet) friends with. As an Australian, I immediately want to speak in a casual register with anyone who has friend-potential — in my culture it’s polite and respectful to treat people like a friend from the start. Unfortunately, this has the reverse meaning in Japanese culture - it’s polite to keep people at arm’s length until you know they’re comfortable being closer with you. To use casual speech with an acquaintance carries an undertone of imposing a friendship on them that they may not want.

Culture and language are intimately linked, but is it possible to speak a language while being informed by a different cultural worldview? Is it possible to speak Japanese with both feet firmly planted in Australian culture? Does doing such a thing transform it into a different language altogether?

It’s certainly possible to speak English with my feet in Australian culture, and I would say that Australian English is a different dialect (with respect to formality registers) when compared to British English or US English. In fact I think US English is more similar to Japanese than it is to Australian English, if we’re just looking at formality.

A lot of what makes this a hard question is how homogenous Japan is, and how people in the Japanese diaspora (e.g. me and my family) don’t have a meaningfully different culture from mainland Japan, unlike other diasporas like Italian Americans. Since basically everyone who speaks Japanese is culturally and ethnically Japanese, the question of separating some of the cultural aspects from the language becomes almost unthinkable, and I would like to shake this unthinkable foundation of thought a bit.

Also, language is a collaborative thing. If I’m the only one speaking single-formality-register Japanese, I’m not speaking a new dialect, I’m just speaking normal Japanese in a weird way. It would take multiple people to understand the nuance of what I mean (not rude, just casual) for my single-register manner of speech to go from speaking normal Japanese rudely to speaking Australian Japanese normally. If I was to somehow assemble a bunch of Japanese-Australians raised in Australia, who learned Japanese with their family as their only input source (casual register only), would we be speak Japanese or some kind of new thing - Australian Japanese?

I wanna speak how I would normally speak in English, when I’m speaking in Japanese. But to do so carries subtext that I’m not trying to convey. If I want to speak without loading my speech with additional subtext I have to conform to the norms. But to do that would be to temporarily cast aside my cultural values on egalitarianism and respect!

So what’s more important - being true to myself and culture when speaking Japanese, or conveying the meaning I intend? Is it the responsibility of Japanese people to understand that people of different cultural backgrounds will speak their language, or is it my responsibility to conform to the way the language is spoken?

#opinion #langblr #japanese #japanese language #linguistics #language #learning japanese #日本語 #jimmy blogthong

[softchouli]

When Katniss' third trimester collided with winter, she stopped going to the woods altogether. It was a reasonable decision advised by her mother who was now on close watch, but it didn't do any good to the intense uneasiness Katniss felt most of the time.

As much as she was trying to keep busy indoors, what seemed to placate her the best even if short-lived on some days, was Peeta's contribution to their child's bedroom.

She immediately took interest when he started to block out a variety of big green sections. Then her husband picked the comfiest armchair in the house and paired it with pillows, so she could watch for as long as she wanted, her favorite person doing their favorite thing.

On breaks Peeta would sit beside her, while she took one of his sturdy and contagiously warm hands in both of hers. Tracing and caressing the colorful smudges, hoping their child could take after him and inherit those very same hands.

As days flew by, flowers began to bloom on the gradient green that became intricate foliage, but with no onions in sight. Peeta diligently embellished all the flowers Katniss had taught him about. A wildflower garden shielded from wilting, curated with all the ones that bring hummingbirds and bees around.

Even Buttercup acquired a spot on the wall, peacefully curled up, fur in a generous rendition, surrounded by the blossoms that gave him a name. An old resilient little thing, he barely hears anymore and Katniss suspects he soon won't see too. He lays on Katniss' lap while Peeta paints, the cat's new habit consists of sleeping next to Katniss whenever he sees her close enough to do it, as if on duty to protect her belly.

Later on a ladder, Peeta moves to work on the ceiling. A lilac base starts to take form with pale pinkish clouds that meet his orange right on the corner of the wall that has a window. It looks just like the sunset's 12 displays in better weather. Like Peeta is ensuring their child's little world would still have a clear sky even in grayish times. It's so limpid that sometimes Katniss swore if she was sleepy enough the fluffy clouds would start moving lethargically.

"I can repaint when our child gets a little older and asks me for something else," Peeta told her, the day when there were no more blank parts to give life.

He knows it will take time for the baby to sleep in the room, even when the little one can finally be by their side. Katniss had long before accommodated a crib by the couple's bed, just to be sure it would fit perfectly there, and it has been the furniture's designed place ever since. However, putting the nursery together gives them a sense of a new reality. It makes them both aware of a future where everything good in their family could take a life of its own.

One night when he enters their shared bedroom, the sight of his wife on the bed greets him. She's frowning, seemingly lost in thoughts while working on soft wool, baby shoes judging by the size of the yellow piece she's holding. For months she's been doing all types of small-sized garments to occupy her mind and free time, and by now they could dress a whole town.

The moment she notices him and looks up, Peeta turns the lights off.

"What are you doing?" Tone telling him her frown it's even deeper now.

His answer comes in the form of him gently scooping her from the bed, "taking you two to see a surprise."

"Peeta I'm not looking forward to seeing the floor, turn on the lights, you're going to drop us all." She's clinging to him now, knowing well her full weight, precious baby bump included, are in utter safety in his arms. The years she was steadily taken care of in their hold could prove It.

That makes him chuckle, the rumble on his chest a feeling too familiar. She wants to stay annoyed but her body, the betrayer that it is, instantly relaxes towards his stable warmth.

"Alright, close your eyes."

"I don't know if you noticed yet…" she gestures in the air, "it's already pitch-black." She tries to state the matter-of-fact information with a brisk voice, but by the last word, her hand is back on his shoulder.

So Peeta, as best as he can, presses his forehead on hers. "My love, close your eyes please." He can feel the sigh she lets out against his face, and he's sure she can feel how that only served to amplify his grin.

"They're closed now, but I could be lying, and you wouldn't even know," she mumbled defeatedly.

The sound of his steps, so distracting for hunting, grew to be the kind of noise Katniss is most fond of in their home. The comforting signal that her husband was nearby. And said noise takes her to the faintest smell of paint. Their child's room.

"You can open them now."

There's no complete darkness when Katniss does as she was told to. Diminutive spots are carefully placed everywhere and they timidly shine, like fractionated versions of the sun that mirrors on the lake's surface.

As her eyes take in and get gradually used to it, Peeta slowly walks closer for further inspection so she can make more sense of the dots. The little bright circles have shapes, it's too delicate and detailed, he must've used one of those thin brushes to make this frizzy at the edges. And it's when it hits Katniss.

Dandelion seeds.

Dispersing as if they were being blown away by the wind, twirling in pretty, fluid patterns, going up to their child sky to take the place of stars. Forming constellations that seemed to be dancing just like the fireflies that accompany cicadas and dragonflies in the summertime.

"It's luminescent paint, it absorbs light so it can look like this when there's none," he says smiling, cheek pressed against her loose hair. "But I think it looks the brightest after getting exposed to natural light."

"Their last glimpse before falling asleep." She softly blurts out in awe, and as tears are threatening to spill over the edge; she manages to release a "thank you," right by the side of his neck, her best-loved hiding place.

"Katniss just a few more days until we can see them, my love" Peeta whispers against the crown of her head, squeezing her a little tighter, his endless effort to make her lighter.

The last thing Peeta remembers from that night is blurry, a mixture of them going back to bed, the slight dampness from the tears on the nightshirt his wife was grasping. The soft sounds of Katniss humming herself to calmness.

The first thing Peeta remembers from the next morning is clear as that first day of spring. It sent him running to bring Mrs. Everdeen. To help them finally welcome the permanent visit they couldn't wait any longer to receive.

#bread boy soon to be bread dad must look like bob ross painting ghibli scenarios #i didn't mention much but katniss' mom being close enough to spoil her with care on the last months as that baby much deserves #and i mean “baby” as in katniss btw #she's just being spoiled by everyone around tbh #also buttercup living long enough to meet their first born is THE DREAM #everlark #the hunger games #katniss everdeen #peeta mellark #katniss and peeta #catching fire #mockingjay #thg #everlark fanfiction #words🩷

[splatsvilles-fashionista]

Investing in T-shirts! The biggest beneficiaries of Gear Adjustments!

For fashion aficionados like myself, Gear Adjustment is the most exciting part of the upcoming Season. Being able to make small changes to the way your gear is worn is something that opens up a ton of customization while requiring less new stuff (though I'm sure it required a lot of work to add). With that said, for the moment, it is looking like they are limiting the feature to caps and t-shirts. I don't personally think caps are changed very much by the ability to flip them, they're all pretty good as they are, after all. But for t-shirts, being able to oversize them is actually really big. Pun unintended.

T-shirts have the tendency to be modeled in a way that makes them cling really tightly to your character's body, and it is has never looked right to me. Looking at the clothing choices I see in my multiplayer games, I get the impression that is the general sentiment, as well. Oversizing shirts solves their central problem, loosening them up and giving you a less constrained silhouette. In this post, I wanna highlight what I think are the biggest winners of this change are. Shirts I think you should pay attention to once the patch hits.

That said, I should highlight that since we don't have the patch yet I am only assuming these will be Adjustable. We cannot know for sure until the we get the update.

I've picked out ten T-shirts I think are the standouts, split into a couple of different categories, starting with the ones I think you all expected to see here:

Annaki Accessories!

I have to imagine that the Annaki Bracelet Tee and Annaki Choker Tee were some of the first shirts that came to mind when you think of noteworthy T-shirts in this game. They've got nice, dusty colors, the big Annaki A in slick silver, and of course their signature accessories. Oversizing these I think will amplify their punk aesthetic even more, because there's nothing punk about tight-fitting clothing.

Unless it's leather.

And leather these are not.

High-fives for Tie-Dyes!

Tie-Dyes are really fun with their bright, trippy patterns, so it's no surprise that the Takoroka Rainbow Tie Dye and the Takoroka Galactic Tie Dye are some of the better T-shirts in the game. We did see the Rainbow Tie Dye get Adjusted in the reveal trailer, and is it just me or does that just seem right for these kinds of shirts? Something about them screams "wear me at one size larger."

Ride the Wave!

Next up, we've got the Firewave Tee, Icewave Tee, and the Vaporwave Tee. There is also a Duskwave Tee, but I am personally not a big fan of the shade of orange they use for the bottom half of that shirt. That said, I think the gradient on these shirts them really make them stand out from the rest, and their color palettes are just very nice and evocative.

Assorted Graphic Tees!

These three don't have a common throughline aside from all being graphic tees, but I think they all have something to recommend them by. The Eelzebub Tee has a really gnarly, radiation-green design that is just really cool, giving an outfit something really eye-catching while still staying nice and simple.

The Green Tee is interesting because its big bold graphic lettering actually extend across the side and even a bit onto the back of your character, which gives it a really unique look I don't think any other clothes can replicate.

Finally, I just think the Mint Tee looks nice. Its color is pretty unique amongst shirts, and the white print design is decorative without being overbearing.

And these were my picks for the T-shirts to keep in mind come Drizzle Season 2023. Were there any others you feel I missed? If so, please tell me in the notes!

#splatoon 3 #drizzle season 2023 #splatoon 3 drizzle season 2023

[ieatkeyboard]

ASMO CHARACTER DESIGN JUDGING

@ewesless You ask for more, you get more. PLEASE REMEMBER EVERYONE IS ENTITLED TO THEIR OWN OPINION AND I'M NOT HATING ON THE CREATOR, THESE ARE JUST THINGS I DONT LIKE.

First, the classic. I didn't realize the stitching on his pants till now but it is BAAAD. The belt is a weird shit-green? I think they were leaning to gold but it is NOT giving gold. I cant tell if he's wearing a weird vest under his jacket or if it's part of it- The scarf is cute and I like the shirt.

LETS DO SOME TWEAKING HM??

I took the seams off the pants but without them, the pants clashed really badly with the shirt so I made the pants a bit darker. I made the scarf and shoes a bit darker too because as much as the scarf looked fine against the jacket, the shoes looked gray against the pants and I wanted them to match the way they did before. I made the belt a more orange/yellow color so it would hopefully look more gold than the shit green belt from before. As much as I don't know what the jacket/vest is it IS cute so I left it alone and I didn't touch the shirt.

NEXT

I actually like this outfit a lot- Its comfy and cute. The shoes are kinda weird- And I think the pants blend into the boots too well, I can't tell them apart (I'm also blind as hell so this is probably a me problem)

LETS DO IT

I made the boots a little bigger and took away ALL the buttons from the outfit because I personally didn't like it. It felt like he was modeling and wearing a specific collection, instead of wearing something he liked. I made the pants a smidge lighter and that's it!

NEXT

Please don't kill me over this PLEASE. I love him but the little thing on his jacket(I FORGOT THE NAME) is very...Interesting. I dont like how the shoes are red and the rest of the outfit is pink/light blue/gold and green 😭 And those heels look small on him- The necklace is gorgeous but the fact the necklace is silver, the buttons on his pants are bronze and the rose is gold is so awful to me. The pattern on the sweater is also weird-

LETS "FIX" IT

First, I took the red off the shoes and made them look like they got a little better. I took away the pattern on his sweater but I liked the kinda gradient affect so I kept that. I made his buttons match his rose, I made the color of the ribbon match the rest of the pink in the outfit because we can only have so many colors before we start looking weird-

NEXT

I'm sorry they ate these the FUCK up. But because this is about what I think I'll change it up a little-

WEEEEEE

BAM. Since the boys bunny uniforms feel very based on their sin and personality I gave Asmo some hearts for his sin and as a pop of pink since he is ALWAYS seen in pink. When I think of bunnies, I think more "soft and cute" so I took the geometric shapes out of the ears.

LAST

I actually love his demon form so I wont change much

I took the gray off his left shoe because there isn't any gray on the other side and I know it's a dumb reason but it makes sense in my brain. I made the pink a little more cool toned and made his nails black because ooooo spooky demon

-

Asmo has a few other outfits but these are really the only ones I could think of that I had a problem with or just wanted to mess with. Asmo has an amazing character design and his outfits are cute! These are just things I would've done differently!

#obey me shall we date #obey me asmodeus #obey me

[flys-writing-drabbles]

KAREN (DIALTOWN) DRABBLE!!

Karen loved when she was able to paint near Norm’s shack. There were plenty of different subjects to choose from; the multitude of greenery, the lakes scattered throughout the forest, even a few animals on occasion. Even a few wild horses popped up from time to time. She kept her distance from them, of course, but she couldn’t help the excitement that popped into her mind when she saw them. Today, she was in the spot where she was fairly certain the horses showed up from. She saw a few tracks left behind, faint but obviously the animal she was looking for. Well, more like the animal she was hoping showed up.

She set up her easel, took out a few paints and grabbed a set of paint brushes out of her bag. Birds chirped in the distance, setting her focus into different directions but she knew the moment she started painting it would fade into the background. Just some noise that blended in with the others, much like her art’s colors did in the end. A gentle sigh left her, she picked up a paintbrush and carefully dipped it’s end into a delightful shade of green. She loved and hated how when she worked with green the thought of Gingi soon followed. She had grown quite fond of the cryptid at some point. She set off painting. Brush, back into paint, brush some more, rinse off in water, choose a different color, repeat.

She was finally done by the time the sun was setting, mixing the sky into a beautiful gradient of yellows, oranges, reds and pinks. The snapping of a twig behind her caused her to turn around, a quiet gasp falling out of her before she could think to stay quiet. There, in the path where she had been painting, stood a horse. It’s silvery, gray coat looked as though someone had splattered ink onto it but that paired well with the whirring engine it has for a head. It looked at her for a moment before galloping off into the distance, the humming from it’s head lingering for a moment before fading away as it grew more distant. Karen’s mind raced in joy, her hands were moving before she could tell them too. Fists waved around in wild, frantic movements as she tried to shake off the energy from her excitement. Rotary-christ, she loved it out here.

(oh and this was requested by @vincentbeloved!!! hope i did your idea justice little bro :3)

#writing for dialtown! #writing for others! #dialtown fanfiction #dialtown fanfic #dialtown #dialtown phone dating sim #karen dunn dialtown #karen dialtown

[carionto]

The spirit never dies, but please watch over it

(Previously)

"What are you doing, Captain?"

"What? Going outside of course. Uncharted lands and all that. You said the atmosphere is mostly harmless and I even put on my suit. You can't stop me, Zhao. I outrank you. So there!"

Captain Knoslark of the crash-landed Radiant Dusk at Everest made this declaration pretty much the moment the chief engineer said we weren't going to be flying anytime soon. Something about the warp jump frying all quantum-based computers and connections. Oh yeah, can't contact Earth or anyone really.

Turns out going through a hole in space-time really does breaks quantum entanglement, so that kinda sucks. Or perhaps even that has limits on distance, the furthest anyone tested was from one end of the Milky Way to the other. Or maybe there is something in the physics of space between galaxies that we don't understand yet.

Regardless, we're totally alone and roughly 12 to 30 billion light years from home, depending on if we landed in the target galaxy or one that moved into its place from the time when the light from it reached us. Every celestial body being unknown leaves a lot of room for guessing.

Now, given the circumstances, a normal ship and crew would not permit this and simply declare the captain unfit for duty and his second would take over. However, we are a crew of 27 civilian engineers, researchers, scientists, and technicians, and only a third have some military training, the captain not being one of them, and all of us are... a bit on the odd side.

In short, three people eagerly volunteered to join the captain on his expedition outside - Engineer Emily Halliday, Physicist/Botanist/Microchemist/(and like five other PhDs) Haespar Kraus, and Trisha, no last name, she just appeared aboard a few years back and is generally helpful and real fun to hang out with, she knows so much random trivia.

The world outside was... flat, but layered. Some areas only had very small types of vegetation, think like a grassy field, but orange with grey flower-like clusters everywhere. Then there is basically a hard cut wall of this deep red and brown bushes and small trees with super wide trunks that suddenly jut out in their area. And the tall spindly trees? that kinda resemble stretched out cobwebs and have this hazy transparent look to them except at the top where it's a really rich green field of dense foliage.

There's some variations further out, but that's the general idea. Almost like someone haphazardly painted with only base colors on a canvas and refused to mix or gradient them.

"We are entering the red bushes now. I feel a tingling sensation, Zhao. This is fun! I wonder if we'll encounter animals here. If we're stuck here for too long we'll have to start farming. I've always wanted to be a rancher, you know, but space beckoned me!"

"Yes, captain, I know. Please be careful and return from your trip soon. Trisha, knock him out if he tries to bring back a pet."

"I heard that, Zhao!" "I know, don't make Trisha knock you out." "Hmmph. You're no fun." "I am paid to not be, sir."

There was a bit of grumbling before Knoslark ended the call on his end. Thankfully, the other three kept their channels open, as you are meant to do, so the onboard crew always knew what was going on. Unfortunately, drones are one of the things that utilize quantum connections to operate, so it'll take time to refit them to receive radio signals.

Suddenly, nearly all of the scanners and receivers on the ship noticed a variety of new signals and distant sounds - explosions. Repeating ones. And... are those fireworks? Since the Dusk was grounded it couldn't really properly scan the whole planet, just the area immediately around them, so they had no idea if this was inhabited by anything resembling a civilization.

Not long after that, there were physical impact signals coming from the North-East side of the ship. Cameras revealed there were several groups of quadrupedal creatures not unlike rhinos with giraffe necks mounted by smaller bipedal ones that sorta resemble moths, but made of jelly and fish scales?

"Captain, Emily, Kraus, Trish! Get back to the Dusk right now, there's natives on this planet and they don't like the ship." Sergeant Zhao shouted into the comms.

"Gonna be a moment, Ying." Trisha replied, "The Cap'n got himself stuck on a tree. Some kinda sticky fungus lives on the higher branches, we're working on choppin' it down."

"Well hurry, the density of the heightened vegetation makes it impossible to see with our scanners what's inside. You might not have much time."

"We'll be done in a-

The words got cut off by the whole cobweb-tree area rapidly ascending, revealing a titanic creature of fur, mud, and countless short but lumbering limbs coming out of the ground, just as the local star began to set over this world. All other similar patches did the same. The shorter red bush areas then began to glow a faint blue releasing little clouds of dust just above. The titans made their way over these hazy spots, and remain stood there for the time being.

The assault on the Dusk by the locals had ceased during this commotion. Aside from the hum of the single active reactor, everyone was silent for a few minutes, broken by Trisha coming back on:

"Ying, we're fine it looks like, but you got a better view than us, what are we on?"

"Uhh, a giant... headless moss turtle thing? It's not the only one and seems did not act because of you, so you should be fine, but hurry back here." Sergeant Zhao then addressed the onboard crew:

"Drop whatever it is you're doing and get a shuttle working NOW. I don't care how basic, I'll fly it manually if need be. We are not leaving anyone out there!"

Continued->

#humans are space orcs #humans are space australians #humans are space oddities #humans are deathworlders #humanity fuck yeah #carionto #story #scifi