#there was a lot of outside influence in this one's design and I don't think I care for it

[fruity-fruition]

Tenma siblings headcanons from the top of my head

--

I'm a FIRMM believer that Tenma siblings are very physically affectionate (i.e. hugs, forehead kisses, cheek kisses, high fives, shoulder bumping, cuddling, hair ruffling, etc)

This takes Toya fully by surprise when they do it to him outright, without any room for denial.

--

Tsukasa was eating breakfast with Saki and Toya before realizing he was going to be late for a meet-up with Wondershow.

He has this thing, where he instinctively kisses Saki on the forehead before he heads off, so he does. But, in his unfiltered older brother instinct and disarray, he kisses Toya on the forehead too. And just. Leaves.

Toya kinda blue screens before snapping back and being like "what."

Saki doesn't even bat an eye lmao she just kinda looks at him like he's a little weird.

Toya: (literally saw Tsukasa kiss Saki's forehead first before beelining to him without any hesitation) "I think... he mistook me for you"

Saki: "Toya you dumb fuck (/affectionate) you've been one of us since you stepped foot in our house"

--

Tenma siblings cuddle a lot, usually on the couch during movies. Tsukasa in the middle, Saki to his right, and Toya to his left. They aren't aware of the set position but whenever they switch, all of them all at once just think "something is not right rn"

While cuddling, Tsukasa often uses his right hand (which Saki is leaning on) to either scroll his phone, read, or so show work (costume designing, script writing, ideas, etc). He always leans his head on Saki's. He uses his left hand to run through Toya's hair.

--

Toya starts referring to Saki and Tsukasa as his siblings and family outside sometimes.

Saki and Tsukasa listens to pop music sometimes. Not their main music taste, but enough for it to be significant.

This culminates to a very confusing moment for VBS, who've met Toya's biological, douche, emotionally constipated classical music family, when they hear Toya say "Oh, yeah I know Taylor Swift. My family listens to her sometimes."

Which scared VBS to their core because why is Harumichi Aoyagi listening to western white girl music

--

Tsukasa loves baking and cooking. It's a stress reliever thing for him. This is a huge bonus for his siblings (mainly Saki. Toya's not a huge sweets person) because there's always sweets in the pantries.

Toya never sneaks into the kitchen alone, he wouldn't dare. Plus, again, not a huge sweets person. Saki, however, is a horrible influence. They often have 2am gossip, accompanied by brownies and vanilla ice cream.

--

Toya and Saki can't cook for their life. (I know canonically, they're okay-ish, but hear me out.)

Toya, raised as a rich kid for most his life, has never cut a single raw ingredient in his life until his late teen years.

Saki's been hospitalized for the majority of her life.

Tsukasa's the only Tenma sibling with cooking and baking skills (considering he had to fend for himself for a while)

While they were baking together, Toya and Saki managed to get the batter on the ceiling AND explode the microwave because the batter had too much eggshells in it when they put it in. Tsukasa had to call Rui over to fix it.

Tsukasa: "I can't pay you for now, Rui I'm so sorry-"

Rui: "Don't worry about it, Tsukasa"

Tsukasa: "I'll repay you in sweets when we're done?"

Rui: "...preferably not ceiling ones but yeah I'd like that"

--

Speaking of,

Ruikasa starts dating and Tsukasa swears that Rui had nothing to worry about when it comes to his family. They're welcoming! They're open! They'll love him.

Rui decided to not tell him about the glares coming from a certain pinkish blonde and split haired boy when they announced the news. (At least the parents were sweet)

Toya and Saki actually has no real gripes against Rui. They're protective, sure, they will eventually corner Rui and interrogate him, but Saki just thinks it's funny and Toya is just Toya. Rui's paranoid lmao

--

Akito punching Toya in the main story left a bruise (as seen in the official animation) which Tsukasa and Saki got really concerned about during their arcade hangout (Toya's first 3* side story).

Tsukasa figured out that Akito was the one who did it, and ranted to Saki about it. But he retracts it when the duo made up.

Saki isn't letting that shit go, oh no. This GINGER punched her brother?? Then, she started hearing about how Akito likes messing with Tsukasa, even insulting him to his face sometimes.

So she has a personal beef with Akito. Who didn't even know she existed.

When Akito first step foot into the Tenma household, he was dreading the presence of Tsukasa, but to his shock and horror, Tsukasa is actually more tame at home.

His biggest worry should've been the girl with pigtails, who, upon seeing him, got up from her chair and heads straight to her room. not breaking eye contact.

It takes a while, but Saki and Akito gains an unlikely alliance.

--

Names I gave to the Tenmas:

Tenma siblings: All three of them, at once

Tenma Twins: Saki and Toya

Tenma brothers: Tsukasa and Toya

Prototype Tenma: Tsukasa and Saki

(real original I know)

--

Kohane is Wondershow's number #1 fan, probably Tsukasa's number #6 fan (I love her but her competition is Saki, Toya, and Wondershow. Idk what to tell you. At least she got a number)

She absolutely loses it when Toya got them all free tickets to one of their shows.

Akito dreads going. An is slightly excited. Kohane is radiating pure joy.

Akito nearly cries when when Kohane admits that she actually likes Tsukasa as a person, not just a performer, when she properly meets him.

Akito: "An you're my only hope. Toya's biased, Kohane's insane"

An: "idk dude Tenma and Kamishiro are pretty cool when they're not actively trying to blow the school up"

Akito: "An please"

--

I have so much more idk maybe I'll post more later

#pjsk #tsukasa tenma #saki tenma #toya aoyagi #toya tenma #tenma siblings #tenma tsukasa #tenma saki #tenma toya #aoyagi toya #project sekai #ruikasa #for a brief moment #pjsk headcanons #this started as a small post but I got carried away #fru posts

[dairyminki]

color me pretty | c.s

↬ pairing: choi san x fem!reader

↬summary: he's alluring, he's king of the runway, and he's at the top of his game. you? not so much, really. is it too late to back out?

↬ genre: model au—model!san & model!reader, suggestive

↬warning/s: profanity

↬wc: 2.4k

↬a/n: viola! i'm finally graduating from fluff academy thanks to @chokchokk 's influence LMAO. this is heavily inspired by san's ig post which still has me in a chokehold btw. pls enjoy!

*reblogs and feedbacks are much appreciated!

—𓆩ᥫ᭡𓆪

There are cameras everywhere, a resounding click of the shutter one after another. Oh, and there's a lot of the color red present in the studio.

People are scattered all over the spacious room that you almost feel small as if every single thing and person in sight is intimidating you. And you're not going to lie, they surely do.

Frankly, if it weren't for your manager who's standing beside you, you might've immediately turned on your heel and walked your way back to the glass doors that you entered earlier, a minute just after arriving at the studio and finding how large of a scale this project actually is. Oh, to be back outside where you didn't feel suffocated and where you couldn't feel anybody's eyes on you.

"What would you do if I backed out…?" You tentatively asked your manager in a low voice, making sure that you were the only ones who could hear it.

You know that she heard you, but still, her eyes remained at the center of the room, where all the cameras are pointed at, and where all of the people's attention are currently drawn to.

"Where'd your previous confidence go? I don't remember seeing this hesitance of yours when I first suggested this project." Your manager replies, eyes still not leaving the subject of everyone's attention.

Because standing and posing effortlessly in the middle of everything is Choi San.

The renowned model, Choi San, whose face and body is probably the cover of every magazine you can think of, and who's dominated all the fashion shows you could only dream of attending, this year alone.

He's the king of the fashion and modeling industry, someone who is highly sought-after by every famous designer that you could possibly name at the top of your head. Choi San is a crowd favorite, he practically owns the runway, and he's a total icon to many—the young and the old, the rookies and the veterans.

And not to mention, he's your role model. Someone who you really look up to and perhaps, someone who you wanted to work with.

Right now, you're about minutes into turning that dream into reality, thanks to your manager and your incredibly impulsive self.

"Your thoughts are so loud, I could practically hear it." Your manager suddenly speaks, cutting through your abysmal thoughts. And then she turns to you, jabbing a finger right at your chest and saying, "But there's no way in hell that I'm letting you back out because, first of all, you'll be working with a supermodel, and second, hello?!" She exclaims the last part in a hushed voice with matching wide gestures, that you visibly flinch. However, it seemed like she couldn't care less because she cups your face and turns your head towards the side of the room where a stunning man dressed in an expensive sparkly black suit with a diamond logo on the tie, stood.

"You'll be wearing his creation! The Damian Luxe!" She squeals near your ear, and you grimace, because she is loud, alright.

Damian Luxe is the owner of one of the biggest and leading fashion brands ever known all over the world—Luxe Looks. And right now, you still can't quite believe how he's just a few steps away from you, seemingly engrossed in a conversation with one of the photographers.

You're not sure how he ended up picking you out of all the models out there. Somehow picking you alongside one of the top iconic faces of the fashion industry, to serve as his muses for his newest fashion collection, which is set to be released and made known to the public in less than a month. The pressure that is placed on you is quite heavy since it's just your second year into this modeling career.

And it is a sudden twist and turn from your usual looks and gigs. From being known as a model who has summer vibes, cute, and freshness up their alley, to starring in an intimate and quite sensual photoshoot in honor of Luxe's brand new and bold fashion collection entitled, Pleasures of the Heart.

"Believe me, I was overjoyed when you first told me about it. But really? You didn't even bother telling me that I'll be partnered up with Choi San? The Choi San?" You put quite an emphasis on the word 'the' in order to get your point across and make your manager realize your current dilemma at hand.

Because knowing you? There's a ninety-five percent of you messing this up because of your clumsy ass, the remaining five percent will be you fainting, by the way.

Oh god, you can't possibly do this right?

What if you embarrass yourself in front of him? Would you be able to live with that memory for the rest of your life?

You think not.

However, you weren't even given that much choice when one of the stylists arrives and steals you away from the comfort of your manager's side in order for you to get dolled up and ready for your photoshoot with Choi San.

Here's to fucking it up, I guess, you think, heaving a sigh as you followed the stylist in one of the rooms.

—𓆩ᥫ᭡𓆪

You don't think that Choi San is actually real.

Heck, you didn't even think that someone could possibly make blowing bubble gum as something sexy.

Shivers ran down your spine and goosebumps littered your skin as you watched Choi San angle his face and send sultry looks to every camera pointing at him. If you were confident enough, you might've jumped him already, popping that bubble gum in his mouth and licking it off his lips right after.

Wait what-

You frantically shook your head. Is this what Choi San's alluring effect feels like? Because if it is, then you're so fucked.

Your manager and the stylist earlier, told you that there'll be some duo shots so that means, yes, touching will be involved.

When they first told you that, you weren't sure if you'll be able to pull it off because one, Choi San, is incredibly gorgeous. And two, he's only donned in a coat and pants, and no undershirt in sight! Which leaves a portion of his abs in display for anyone's eyes to feast on—not like you're feasting on them or anything.

You gulp.

Is it really too late to back out?

Moments later, you begin internally thanking the heavens, when Choi San's individual shoot has come to an end and he's called back by one of the stylists for a wardrobe change. Which you think will be in match with the pitch black bodysuit you're currently wearing underneath your robe. The robe isn't part of the look at all, you simply have it on for now because you aren't that confident yet. You honestly think you'll never be but maybe you'll be fine since the stylist said you'll still have one piece to wear later.

A red overcoat to match the red stilettos your feet is currently clad in.

One of the staff tapped you on the shoulder and led you closer to the center, saying that you'll be starting the duo shots in a few minutes.

The staff said it with a sweet smile that you have no choice but to smile back as well even if your insides were already churning and you're starting to break into a cold sweat.

You were in the middle of doing a breathe in and breathe out exercise in order to relax your nerves for a little bit, when you suddenly felt another tap on your shoulder. Thinking that it was probably one of the staff or stylists again, you turned around, only to be met with a pair of deep black cat-like eyes and a dimpled smile.

It was freaking Choi San.

"Nervous?" His voice was a clear rasp. Your knees growing weak at the sight of him in a sheer black tank top, which showed how buff he really was, and the same pants as earlier. His hair is still slick-backed with a few gelled-strands hanging against his forehead. A black biker glasses snugly sitting on top of his head served as his only accessory.

God, he's breathtakingly gorgeous being so close to you like this.

"U-Uh, yes, very, Mr. Choi."

Well done! You just stuttered in front of Choi San. But who wouldn't?

To your surprise, loud laughter comes out from his lips. His pink plump lip—oh would you please snap out of it?!

"Mr. Choi? Oh my, just call me San!" He chuckles. "You're Y/N, right?" He asks, a few moments after, and it prompts you to nod your head.

"You're a pretty little thing aren't you?" San says this so casually that it catches you so off guard, you choke on nothing.

While you're busy trying to re-organize yourself and your breathing, San makes it a mission to further turn you into a flustered mess as he gently pulls you by the waist. Then he leans in, mouth dangerously close to your ear and whispers the words that will certainly haunt your insides for the rest of the time that you'll be stuck in his presence.

"Don't worry, I'll take care of you, pretty."

—𓆩ᥫ᭡𓆪

You and San have been receiving praises from left and right ever since the shoot started. You even heard from the head photographer that you two surprisingly share quite a chemistry in front of the cameras even though it's only your first time pairing up together.

Although, you do admit that you've had your awkward moments prior because, first, it is your first intimate photoshoot, second, your outfit is so far the most revealing you've ever worn despite the overcoat you're wearing, and third, San was very close. Too close.

But it's not like you're complaining anyway. In fact, you think you might be enjoying it a little too much than what you've anticipated. And, you just hope it's not noticeable to him or you'd die of embarrassment as soon as you step out of the studio.

Anyway, you felt every exhale that San had made in the past half hour, and it's very ticklish. But you also felt quite feverish with the way his rough hands seemed scalding hot against your skin, despite his touches and hold on you being gentle.

San was nothing but sweet and kind as he gently coaxed you out of your shell, always guiding you with every pose and expression. Because of him, you're starting to get more comfortable with the theme of the set and the overwhelming attention being poured on you two.

But of course, another challenge was bound to appear and send your mind into a haywire.

"Perfect! Now, let's have you sit on top of San." The head photographer suddenly instructs. "But first, I want you to sit on the floor, San." He adds.

All the while San's following the photographer's direction, you're left frozen, standing on the side, not quite sure if you heard the photographer right.

By the time you've snapped out of your thoughts and you're back to your senses, San's already sitting on the floor with his legs slightly spread out, his arms are kind of spread out as well with his palms completely flat on the floor, and he's slightly leaning back with his toned arms supporting his upper body's weight.

And he's looking at you. Looking at you with an expression you can't exactly figure out.

Before the photographer could even call your name and give you instructions as well, San's already beckoning you over with his index finger.

As if entranced, you walk towards him without any word. And when San told you that you should take off your overcoat, you followed him, dropping the piece of clothing to the floor. Then, when San told you to straddle his lap, you did it without any fuss despite your visible shaking which you're certain that he noticed because he's leaning towards you again.

"I got you, pretty. Didn't I say I'll take care of you, hmm?" San whispers against the shell of your ear. "You'll let me take care of you, right?" He asks when he still gets no response from you.

Inhaling deeply, albeit shakily, you nod your head.

Still not shying away from the close proximity, your breath hitches when San's hands come to wrap around your waist, one of them caresses your side, slightly making you jolt at the suddenness of the action.

"Words, pretty. I need words." San hums.

"Y-Yes. I'll let you take care of me."

"Good girl," He purrs and playfully bites your ear lobe, which, again, sent you lightly trembling as you felt the heat which started to creep its way from your lower abdomen and up to your face.

"Now, I want you to only look at me, alright? Can you do that for me?" San asks, thankfully, now with enough gap between the two of you, enabling you to breathe more easily.

"Yeah, I can do that." You reply and this makes San smile, dimples adorning his face once again.

San shifts underneath you for a bit, his palms at the small of your back. He adjusts your position on top of him and then his hands leave you as he goes back to leaning, but this time, with his hands much further back than before. This subtle change enables him to look up at your face more comfortably.

San instructs you to put your hands on his chest instead of being on top of his shoulders as what the photographer has instructed for you to do. And then, he retracts his right hand from the floor and puts it back on your waist instead.

And just like that it has the photographer screaming delightedly the word, "Excellent!"

"Excellent," San mimics in a soft voice, tongue darting out to lick his own lips, all the while his eyes never left yours. And you reckon, yours didn't leave him as well throughout the entirety of the photoshoot.

Well, after having him this close and looking so out-of-this-world while under you, where you can basically see every twitch of his eyebrows, every contraction of his arm muscles, and every bob of his adam's apple, with his attention all on you and you alone the whole time…you're quite not sure if you'll be able to take your eyes off of him ever again.

If this is how it feels to be under Choi San's alluring gaze, then, oh, you're so fucked, because there seems to be no possible escape, at all.

#san x reader #ateez x reader #cromernet #pirateeznet #Hiraya-M #choi san x reader #ateez scenarios #ateez imagines #choi san imagine #ateez suggestive #san x you #san x y/n #ateez x you #ateez x y/n #dairyminkiwrites #dairyminki_atzsan

[adobe-outdesign]

have you been asked to review the Tapu pokemon yet?

As a whole, I really like the Tapus. It's neat to have one guardian per Alolan island, and the designs themselves are well thought out. I really like how each one has a set of white triangular markings with a darker border, which allows each one of them to be very distinctive with unique designs and palettes while also making sure all three look like they belong together in a group. This is also enhanced by them carrying tiki-inspired masks, with each one being based on a different animal that also influences the creature itself to some degree. Good stuff.

Thematically, the Tapus are also based off of the four main Hawaiian gods (Koko, Lele, Bulu, and Fini seem to be based off of Kūkaʻilimoku, Kāne, Lono, and Kanaloa respectively). I'm obviously not Hawaiian so I don't feel qualified to judge these guys on accuracy, though it seems like Tapu Koko is the most on-point with the feathered look while Tapu Fini is the least, having little to do with the deity it's based off of aside from a vague connection to the ocean.

Regardless, all of these designs are distinct and do a good job standing out from other legendaries, as well as tying back into their region. There was clearly a lot of thought that went into them in terms of both functionality and visual aesthetics.

Tapu Koko is my personal favorite of the bunch. Vaguely based off a rooster (side note: I'm amazed we don't have a rooster 'mon yet. I guess Blaziken counts but it's only a rooster in the vaguest sense of the word), it sports feathers, a beak-like structure on its face, and a mask that it forms a beak with using its pincer-like hands. Really neat! I also like the mohawk becomes the rooster's comb when the mask is closed.

The orange and yellow palette is also nice, as it's very high-contrast and pops well against the black body. My only nitpicks would be that the two pairs of chest markings feel a bit too busy, as do the lines in the yellow part of the eye (though granted, they all have those). Otherwise, this is a very neat design.

I like Tapu Lele because it looks all cute and pretty and then it turns out it's an incredibly cruel nature deity that does not care about the suffering it causes. It and Beautifly should be friends.

Anyway, Tapu Lele is meant to resemble a butterfly head, with the hair curls becoming antennae and a tentacle emerging from the bottom that resembles a proboscis, along with two wing-like structures on the back. I don't think it reads quite as clearly as some of the others, and I do wish the body took after its animal more (the creature itself having no insect-like traits, compared to the other Tapus where you can see the animal influence outside of the masks), but it's still neat.

Tapu Bulu probably resembles its animal the most in terms of body shape, having a bull's signature nose piercing and hooves, as well as horns. Most interesting is the long tail, which not only matches the hooves but becomes the bull's nose ring when the mask closes.

The colors are nice and high-contrast, but I do wish it had been green instead of red. Koko is yellow and orange, Lele is pink and red, and Fini is purple and blue. Having Bulu be red and gold feels too similar to Lele, even if it fits the angry bull idea. It also would've made sense from a typing perspective, as Tapu Bulu is the grass-type of the group (even the horns kind of look like pencils/wood).

Otherwise I don't have any real complaints, outside of the face markings feeling a bit busy, as you have the nose, ring, and three different eye markings. I feel like they could've easily dropped the white eye markings and not lost anything.

And finally, Tapu Fini is probably my least favorite of the group, though it's still a good design. I like the body shape (kind of siren-like, though I don't know if that was intentional) with fin-shaped accents in the hair, on the hands, and on the body.

When it closes its mask it resembles a swordfish of sorts, with the hair strands becoming the side fins and the hair fin slotting into the mask's purple ridge to form a dorsal fin. Something about the fish itself feels a little off though; maybe it's just that it lacks a tail fin, or maybe it just looks a bit too plain compared to the others because it's meant to be viewed more from the side. Still a pretty solid design all around though.

Anyway, overall, I think these guys are great. They're cohesive but distinct, have unique visuals and themes that set them apart from other legendaries, and designs that work from both a visual and mechanical standpoint. Good stuff.

#tapu koko #tapu lele #tapu bulu #tapu fini #pokemon #pokemon reviews

[wyvernwriterparttwo]

How to Design a Large Cast of Characters

Note: While this advice can be applied to all forms of fiction writing, I will be primarily focused on helping you design casts of *playable* characters for games similar to Fire Emblem or other SRPGs. Also, this is mostly going to be the weird ramblings explaining how I personally design large casts, so if these tips don't work for you, don't worry about it.

Something you should know about me is... I love a large cast of characters. Specifically in games like FE. I love looking into the lives of the units who I use in battle and watching them grow stronger, and watching their character arcs. If their villains or otherwise important characters, I love seeing how they influence the narrative outside of my influence and how they can aid or help the main party.

For anyone who's designing games with large playable casts of fun characters or making a large cast for any other project, I feel like this guide will help you a lot.

Step 1: Make Some Characters

This is the easiest step, at least for me. Take a world that you made, and think about characters you want to use for this world. Main characters, side characters, villains, etc.

They do not have to be the most fleshed out, at least at the beginning. They can be a concept you think would be neat for this world to explore. They could be simple concepts you'd want to write or neat ideas you think would be fun to design. Hell, it could even be a character from a story that either died or got cut.

Step 2: Cut and Assign Roles

For this step, you must have a set number of characters you want to have in your playable main cast. For Fire Emblem games, this number usually ranges around 30-40.l playable units.

About now, you should also begin to flesh them out, making them more than just concepts.

You must also consider the themes and world of your story. Who in your list of characters could best explore those themes in some way. Note that not every character has to be important to the plot or masterfully explore the themes of the game.

Once you've gotten a range of main/playable characters, pick the best ones, or thr ones you like the most, and bench the others, and congrats, you have yourself a cast of good guya. Do the same for some of the NPCs or villains, but on a smaller scale, and you have a pretty good list of characters.

Step 3: Make Them Interact

There is one major problem with making large casts...and that is that they are large. There are a lot of characters you must keep an eye on, and they should all do something in the story.

If you focus ONLY on the main character(s), you risk making the characters bland, boring plot devices, or meatshields that add nothing to the story. On the other hand, if you write all characters as if they are important, you risk bloating your story with names and dialog and making the story take too long.

Important characters should be in the spotlight most of the time, but it I'd a good idea to spread it around. Show how some of the more minor characters feel about this situation, maybe have them talk with each other outside of danger, give them relationships with each other. Give em enough for people to want to latch on to

#writblr #writeblr #creative writing #writing #writers on tumblr #writing tips #game development #gamedev

[accidentalshifter]

Constructing your DR: a little rant on how I approach it and theories! It's pretty long, haha.

Disclaimer: Everything said within this post is my own interpretation/opinion based on personal experiences. Take what is relevant and leave whatever doesn't resonate behind. I am no authority on this subject, just a very keen enthusiast. Send me an ask if you have any further questions or comments. I'll try to answer them as best as I can. 🔮 *beautiful divider made by @firefly-graphics

This is my take on Astral Space/DR creation. It's a bit of a long-winded read. But, I figured writing about my process before I started to talk about my DRs would be good. I'm very new to the Shiftblr community but not new to the practice. I've been doing it since I was young. And I hope whoever reads this gets some ideas to incorporate into their own DR & Astral Space creation.

[Theory and Philosophy]

🌕 So first off, let's establish what the "astral plane" is. In my practice and experience, it is the liminal space between the subconscious, conscious, and intuitive mind. A doorway in the pineal gland that we can journey through to discover truth & meaning. It's a malleable psychic landscape that exists both inside & outside of ourselves which connects us to all  possible places...both real and imaginary. It's one realm (or layer) we go to when we dream at night. And one that ghosts, gods, guides, demons, angels, & other kinds of incorporeal spirits use to communicate directly with the material living; us sentient beings. Everyone is connected to the astral plane. Even those people who cannot visualize in their mind or aren't particularly interested in spirituality...

I also believe in my practice that the astral plane directly overlaps 3-D reality. Parts of  it, therefore, can actually be tied to actual (physical) locations, time periods, worlds, & even objects. Usually those objects that have gained a certain amount of energy or spiritual force to it. And I mention periods of time because the astral isn't limited by linear time. So, all time is accessible inside it.

🌕 What is an "astral space", then? If you can imagine the astral plane as an onion (having many layers) then an astral space would be the individual cells within the material of the onion. Our own imagination and dreams are contained within cells inside the astral plane that are specifically tied to each of us. Some cells can be connected to each other. Those who can travel into other people's dreams or inside other people's minds are adept at the art of linking up their cells to someone else's and traveling in-between them. While most people are unconscious of the collective astral spaces of the astral plane, only aware when interacting with them in dreams, through various forms of trance/meditation (focused visualization) some people can explore astral space/s, link to other people's astral spaces, and even design or add new ones to their cell.

In my opinion, I don't make any distinction between a person's astral space and a DR. Also known as a "desired reality" or "astral temple" or a "mind palace." I think the only difference, if there is any, is the purposes they're used/created for. A desired reality tends to be more self-indulgent while an astral temple is made to be a space where one can do magic and a mind palace is for memory retention or exploring yourself & your psyche. But they all exist within the same venn diagram. They're all spaces in the astral plane attached to our dreaming and imaginative functions. There's likely a lot of overlap between them.

🌕 How did the astral plane come to be? I do not know, to be honest. I only have theories. My most solid theory is that the astral plane is a natural consequence of dreaming beings & lifeforms (not restricted to life on Earth) in the same way that casting a shadow upon a wall is a natural consequence of there being sunlight. The astral is a twin reflection of the waking world; influenced by it, not restricted by it, and beholden to its own laws. Just like life here on Earth adheres to gravity/physics & chemistry. Greek mythologies say that the astral plane was the home of the Oneiros & Morpheus, God of Dreams, long before any human dreamt the first (human) dreams. Of course, it's called "Erebos" in Greek mythos. Not the "astral plane." And was likened to a dark cave in a land of eternal night beyond the rising sun. Kind of sounds like the very first settlements that our earliest ancestors had when the world was young, huh?? The Aboriginal culture of Australia believed that The Dreamtime (or what I think is the "astral plane") came before life & creation. And that both things only came about because of The Dreaming. And sprang forth from it. But no, I don't have a definitive answer here for you & I don't think I ever will.

🌕 Why is the astral plane important?? Well, apart from it being the blueprint upon which all material form derives, I believe the astral plane/s are important because of the wealth of self-knowledge & personal gnosis we can gain from exploring it. Another cool aspect of the astral plane that I think is important is how useful it is for spiritual & metaphysical practitioners who have to hide their craft. Or those people who're economically limited & don't have space for an altar/access to any tools, ritual ingredients, ect. Learning how to work with the astral plane & create your own astral space can be an invaluable resource in those instances...

Which leads me to the point of this post:

[The Taglock Method]

🌕 Step 1: Give your Astral Space a purpose.

In my experience, giving your astral space a reason for existing (even the smallest or most ridiculous reason) will solidify it and give it life. Try to make your intention/s as clear as possible. I find that the less grand & complex directives usually have the best chance at gaining energetic traction. With this step, you can also create a sigil (a sign or symbol) that embodies the purpose of your intention/s or represents your astral space in some way. If you feel a bit lost on this step, sometimes the best intention to start off with is making a space to talk to your spiritual guides, your ancestors, OCs, or your favorite comfort characters.

🌕 Step 2: Give your Astral Space aesthetics and lore.

Just like a story or fanfic, give your astral space some interesting background info. Is it filled with Studio Ghibli forest spirits? Or maybe it's an empty and vast library of sentient books? How about a world made of floating islands, wandering dragons, & medieval kingdoms??? Include whatever most inspires you!! Your ability to imagine is pretty much the limit. Giving your astral space lore can also include programming (scripting) in fixed locations or characters to interact with. According to your tastes, you can go heavy on the scripting or keep it open & loose. In my experience, allowing the astral space to develop its own myths and denizens keeps the energy of it more fun. And can also give you HUGE CLUES about yourself through the symbolism of its developing evolution. Giving your astral space lore is like tending a bonsai. Shape it. But avoid over pruning it. Along this line of thought, I hesitated giving my 4 astral spaces an official name at first because I wanted to discover it organically as I went exploring in them. Uncovering your astral space's true name could be a fun starter adventure for you!

🌕 Step 3: Safeguard your Astral Space.

When exploring the astral, you can never be too careful! Script in guardians or safe guards into your space that only activate on your command. Personally, I have set my 4 spaces up to react to a trigger word that if spoken aloud by me (and only me) will pop me out of the space and back into my CR (current reality) unscathed. If you aren't up for any risk or danger, you might want to script/program your astral space with orders that no violence/nothing weird occurs within your space at all. Or you can set it on a sliding scale of danger levels for those of you who crave chaos. Another tip I have for this step is to program in a "save point" or multiple save points that are only visible/accessible to you. The usefulness of scripting in save points into your astral space allows you to quickly recall certain fixed points within your space with ease... The same way that bookmarks help you to keep your place while reading a book. My save points are 4 specific animals unique to my 4 astral spaces. Whenever I need to "bookmark" a spot in my space, I usually look for the animal sculpture that's hidden within the landscape I'm exploring.

🌕 Step 4: Create a Taglock.

One of the most frustrating things about (consciously) creating an astral space is its tendency to erode/melt back into the astral plane over time. Just like cells in our bodies are replaced over time, the cells of our astral space are also replaced. Each & every dream, daydream, and vision for the future is a cell that eventually manifests in reality or returns back to the dream soup from whence it came. Unless, that is, you reinforce it (constantly) inside your mind. Here's where having a "taglock" comes in handy. For those who don't know what a taglock is, it's a physical item that anchors you (or a spell) to a person, physical place, idea, ect. You get the drift. A taglock that reinforces the concept behind your astral space can be a handy workaround to keep it from erosion & cement it. Your taglock can be as simple as a rock you discovered on the ground or as complex as a portrait you painted. The key factor in a taglock's usefulness is its ability to be within your line of sight (daily) or on your person so it can remind you of your astral space, thus reinforcing it, and keeping it solid in your mind. Also, in my lived experience, linking a physical object to your astral space/DR makes it way easier to shift into it.

⚠️ Side note: If for any reason you need to take a break away from your astral space, I'd recommend you place your taglock in a box and out of sight. Preferably one that's sealed up energetically/magically to prevent it from interacting with you in any way. Boxing your taglock is like putting your astral space in a deep sleep or suspended animation where it can remain fixed but won't be at the fore of your imagination.

🌕 Step 5: Imbue your Taglock with energy.

In my experience, when you first create an astral space, it's energetically taxing. Like a newborn baby, the astral space will need  nurturing, attention, and care. Especially if you're creating a DR/Astral Space that has no ties to any (already established) canon. In the case of energetically imbuing a DR/Astral Space that's based on a movie, TV series, mythology, videogame, or book, it is as simple as ingesting said media while holding/having your taglock on you. Then, anchoring in the vibes/concepts from said media into the taglock. But in the case of an original DR/Astral Space (one that has no source material to draw from), it'll take more finesse than simply feeding it your favorite media. You'll have to incorporate the taglock into your life. Eat with it, sleep with it, exercise with it, breathe on it, shed your tears on it, laugh with it...or even use ritual oils sold as curios in your local witch shoppe (or online) along with binging any media appropriate to the themes of your DR. I'd recommend using "Dream" oils for your purposes if you decide to incorporate oils at all with your taglock. This step will be the longest/hardest step in the process but is guaranteed to deliver you results if you keep at it consistently. Also, don't try to do this all at once. Pace yourself. It took me a whole month for my original concept DR/Astral Space to start taking shape and gain momentum before the real fun stuff happened.

⚠️ Side note: What happens if you lose your taglock?? Nothing at all. Your taglock serves as a reminder but it isn't the core link to your Astral Space/DR. Your mind and capacity to dream is. Simply obtain a new taglock that reminds you of your Astral Space/DR & link it up. You might find that as your DR/Astral Space grows, evolves, & changes so too will the taglock you use to reinforce it. While you could theoretically have many taglocks for 1 Astral Space, I'd recommend you focus your taglocks to one per each DR/Astral Space so the energetic link to it is more consolidated, not scattered amongst many different parts.

🌕 Step 6: Document any daydreams about your Astral Space.

During the process of the fifth step (and especially if you're an extra visual person) you might receive mental impressions or other sense phenomenon while powering your taglock. In my experience, these are signs that your Astral Space/DR is gaining "mass" and is starting to stabilize. And it's a good indication that your Astral Space/DR is ready to be shifted into & explored. Keep track of these very early impressions in a book or in electronic notes. While your Astral Space/DR might change and evolve a little more past this phase, these flickers of life might contain potent symbolic and metaphorical meaning to what you'll be encountering in your newly-born dream space in the future. And keeping track of them could come in handy for you later on.

🌕 Step 7: Remember to take a break.

Birthing a world is hard work!! None of the steps I've outlined should be tackled in the span of a day or a week. In my experience, it usually takes a month/month and a half to achieve all these steps in a healthy and stable way. Both for your Astral Space/DR and for yourself. Remember to take it at a slow and easy pace. If you should feel like you need to take a break, remember that you can always box up your taglock & put it somewhere out of sight/out of reach so that your focus goes elsewhere. Also, do your best to ground & re-center yourself after working with your Astral Space/DR. This work tends to be very ungrounding in its nature and can exasperate underlying issues if you do not learn to balance your DR/Astral Space life with your current life here in this reality. Eat, sleep, talk to your friends, do something good for yourself in this world. There is as much beauty and wonder here as there is in your dream cell.

#desired reality #reality shift #reality shifting #shiftblr #shifting #shifting community #shifting realities #shifting motivation #shifting blog #shifters #reality shifter #shifting methods #shifting reality

[decolonize-the-left]

I think a lot of people wanna help and simply don't know where to start so here's a how to.

Alright this How To is targeted towards youth and particularly school protests, but 18+ protests follow the same general outline. A good piece, especially if you find yourself in rural territory without activists/organizers to plan anything for you.

Protests are a good way to raise awareness and demonstrate support for an issue. They can also help people feel they are part of a bigger movement and inspire them to action. The goal of protesting isn’t just to yell and hold up signs, it’s to inspire change and influence your community. However, protests can be controversial, so you should think about the pros and cons in your particular situation.

Types of Protests

When people think of protesting, they often picture a large march, but there’s lots of different ways to get your point across.

Sit-ins involve peacefully occupying a public space by sitting for a designated period of time and are popular in schools and colleges.

Sit-ins for student rights have taken place outside the offices of college presidents and in high school courtyards. A sit-in demanding academic freedom could entail students sitting in on a class they’re not allowed to take, sitting outside a principal’s office, or occupying a school board meeting.

Silent protests can be done as part of refusing to participate in a required activity. You can organize your protest on a specific day and include symbols of solidarity such as wearing a specific color. In 2010, 2,086 students at West High in Madison, Wisconsin gathered for a silent sit-in to protest a change in their curriculum.

Walkouts are often used in schools and colleges where a group simply leaves at a designated time in an effort to express disapproval. They can often lead into a rally or march. They also can occur spontaneously, in response to some event.

Walkouts have a long history in the fight for student rights, including Barbara Johns who organized a walkout to protest poor school facilities and segregated schools in the 1950s and Mexican-American students that protested unfair treatments and corporal punishment in the 60s.

Protest rallies involve people making speeches about an issue. You can invite someone to act as an emcee to lead protest chants and songs and other community members who support your issue. Rallies are often used at the beginning or end of protest marches, but can be used by themselves. Rallies should be creative to bring attention to your cause. In 2014, dozens of students from the Providence Student Union in Providence, RI dressed up as zombies for a rally against standardized testing.

Picketing and protest marches are similar except a picket stays in one place, like in front of a business, and marches go from one location to another. In most places, you will have to remain on the sidewalk or other public areas unless you’ve obtained a permit from your local government.

Boycotts are refusals to buy a product or participate in an activity. Boycotts can happen alongside a protest and are good to use as a last resort- just the threat of a boycott may be enough to make your opposition back down.

Planning Your Protest

Use your protest as part of a larger campaign. Depending on what your issue is, you should make sure that you’ve also used other methods to create change. If you are protesting a law or policy, let the people responsible know your complaint and give them a chance to respond. And since not everyone will be comfortable with protesting, make sure you are being inclusive by encouraging other ways for people to show their support, such as:

making phone calls

writing letters

organizing a boycott.

Holding a protest where not enough people show up might not help your campaign as much as other tactics, so you should make sure you have enough people to participate.

Decide on a time and place. Protests can happen anywhere, but you should arrange your protest where it will be seen by as many people as possible. Some options include:

the sidewalk in front of a business

government offices

your school

a park

If you’re protesting on private property without permission, the owner can ask you to leave and call the police to remove you if you don’t.

You should also pick a time when you can get the most people to attend the protest (like a weekend), unless you want to specifically target someone (such as a legislator) and pick a time when they’ll be around. Obtain a permit, if needed.

Publicize your protest.

Make brightly-colored flyers and posters about the protest and put them up around town and your school

Hand out pamphlets

Publicize in your school newspaper and on social media

Make a press release and send it to local newspapers, to websites and blogs, and to other organizations that may support your message

Call local newspapers and radio stations and ask them to promote the protest.

Be prepared to talk about your issue in case you are asked for an interview. Even if people don’t come, they may be curious and research it.

Make a visual impact

Make brightly colored posters and banners with catchy slogans and bring some extra. Have pamphlets to help spread your message information on what you’re protesting to interested parties. Put the name of your chapter or group with your contact details so that people who are new to the issue will know who to contact to find out more. You can use chalk to write messages on public sidewalks.

Be vocal. Learn or create some chants so that everyone knows what you’re protesting and why. Some examples include:

What do we want? Voting Rights! When do we want them? Now!

Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Curfew laws have got to go!

Youth rights are human rights!

Whose schools? Our schools!

#lgbt #native #bipoc #progressives #trans #drag #transgender #queer #mutual aid #direct action #leftist #capitalism #biden #acab #eat the rich #anarchists #communists #socialists #florida #desantis #solidarity #intersectionality #current events #voting #electoral politics #qpoc #qbipoc #black trans lives matter

[bugtransport]

been thinking about "as far as i'm concerned all robots are transgender" for a couple days because when am i not thinking about robots. but also i don't want to write an essay on someone else's post so i'm doing it myself. i think there's a simple explanation for this one: there's an additional axis that you have to consider when you're considering the gender expression of non-human entities and that's how human or non-human they can and want to appear and be recognized as. i call it the humanity axis. 

("humanity" is an oversimplification - a lot of the times when you're discussing robots you're talking about them in the context of a sci-fi story which some of the time can have robots living in largely non-human societies (for an easy silly example off the top of my head think BMO who lives with exactly one human for most of his life) but even then we're contending with the gender dynamics of the organic beings around them that make up the society they're based in. not to mention that we ourselves as humans view and create everything from a human-centric point of view that's kind of inescapable imo. for the sake of getting through this with any kind of coherency i'm going to use the term "humanity")

the closest thing that i can imagine to be what i would consider a “cisgender robot” would be a robot that was created by robots in a world where humans don’t have an influence. this can’t really be the case – robots being inorganic have to be created by some outside being and therefore will always be formed in the image of the societal opinions of their makers. you’re working with a blank slate here; you don’t have to be bogged down by what evolution might just decide on its own. sure, they can in turn create their own robots that may be influenced by other factors and get further and further removed from their original designs, but that begs the question of whether it’s possible to dilute the original influence far enough to where it’s no longer a factor. personally, i don’t think so? 

so, we can agree: every robot has the influences of humanity in them but is still distinctly different, creating the humanity axis. there’s a place that they each physically on there depending on how they were constructed; there’s also a choice each of them must make as to how much they want to adhere to their assigned spot. to fully be human is not an option, as they would have to not know they’re a robot, and to be fully robot isn’t an option either, as they were made by humans. i suppose you could be happy with your assigned place on the humanity axis but you could never truly be viewed by the organic society around you as anything but “other” unless you tried to fully pass as human. then we can bring in characters who never had to consider the humanity axis until, well, circumstances changed (things like cyborgs or mind backups or a good ol’ brain in a jar) and now they have to learn that they actually experienced a kind of privilege that they weren’t even really aware of until they had to question their relationship to their humanity. they don’t even have to view it as a bad thing – it’s not a bad thing. you can be very confident and happy with who you are and your status outside the traditional human framing of whatever society you’re in. being othered isn’t always a bad thing and some can take solace in the fact that they’re able to dictate who they are without having to technically abide by whatever norms biology has been divided into. it lends itself easily to exploring beyond what’s been set out for you from the start. not always, not every robot wants that or cares to explore it, but it can. 

a robot can be a girl and inhuman; they can have no relationship to human gender and identify very closely with humanity. it's about the interactions with those that made you. it's about having to dictate who you are for yourself. tl;dr: yeah every robot is transgender

#making spaghetti #“how's pluto going” FINE AND NORMAL

[akanemnon]

I found this series through the ParaMasquerade comic dub and I LOVE IT. Great series, but what do you think of the comic dub? Is it faithful to the series in your eyes?

I follow Para's dubbing adventure of my comics closely! While I don't have any influence on pretty much anything outside of the comic itself, I can safely say that the dub is absolutely excellent. There were so many points where I was blown away by the line delivery. Especially of the latest part, which was a lot more emotional than usual. I really didn't think it could make me feel things, considering I was the one who wrote the lines, but somehow it did. Para does an excellent job just adding another layer of emotions to this comic series and I'm all here for it. Also I really don't want to forget mentioning the editing and sound design, because they just tie everything together in a neat little bow. So yeah 10/10 dub. Go give it a watch!

Heck, Para did a full video of the Group Project mini series (this was before the start of Twin Runes, so I don't count it as part of the canon, but it's still worth the watch!)

GO CHECK IT OUT!

#ask #twin runes #twin runes dub

[trainsinanime]

The shapes of railway networks

A while ago @ariadsishereagain asked me about countries that have no railway networks, and what I think of them. That's a fascinating question that has been in my mind ever since, because the truth is you can tell a lot about a country and in particular it's history during the 19th and early 20th century by its railway network. So let's do that. And the best way to do that is by looking at the incredibly detailed open-source world railway map OpenRailwayMap, a part of the OpenStreetMap project. I really recommend it! And let's start with one of my favorite examples of how railway networks differ:

At this zoom level the site sadly only shows incomprehensible internal abbreviations rather than city names, so let me explain: What we have here are France and Germany, along with some of the UK and Italy, some of various neighbouring countries and all of Switzerland, Belgium and Luxembourg.

France and Germany are the ones that I find the most interesting, because the shapes of their networks are so different. Not only is the german one much more dense, but you can see completely different patterns.

In France, the job of railroads is to bring people to Paris (PLY, short for Paris Gare de Lyon) The lines stretch out into every part of the country, but almost all of them converge onto mainlines going into Paris. You can see some lines along the coasts and the borders, and there is a medium distances circle around Paris (passing MZ, DN, TO, short for Metz, Dijon, Tours). This whole pattern is known as the Legrande Star, after Baptiste Alexis Victor Legrande, the french government official who designed it. His goal was to provide great access to Paris, the nation's undisputed political, cultural and economical centre. A couple of decades later, Charles de Freycinet added plans to connect all departments to the railway network, but he still followed the idea that the ultimate goal of almost every rail line was Paris. And so it was, and largely remained. Even the high speed lines, in red, follow this pattern to this day.

A result is that you will have to go to Paris whether you want to or not. Lille-Strasbourg? You're going through Paris. Bordeaux-Dijon?

You're going through Paris, and get to make your own way from Gare Montparnasse to Gare de Lyon on the Metro (and it isn't even a direct metro, you have to change trains). It's a massive detour but it's not like you have a choice.

Even if there is a direct TGV or a connection outside the main stations of Paris, you're still ending up very much near Paris; the difference is just that you're not going via the city centre, but rather via Disneyland. Legrande wanted to bring people to Paris; he was less concerned about connecting other places with each other.

Now compare Germany, and you will see a network that is more dense, but most importantly, utterly chaotic. You can see hints of a France-like star around Berlin (BSPD, short for Berlin Spandau, which isn't the most important station but what can you do), but it's really only dominating its immediate surroundings, the region of Brandenburg. You can see vague hints of a similar star around Hamburg (AH; don't ask) or Munich (MH), but also a massive tangle around the Rhine-Ruhr industrial area (around KD), or around the Frankfurt am Main area (FF). Red high speed lines are essentially random. Some of them do go to Berlin, sure. But many, like the one from Cologne to Frankfurt (KD to FF) or the one from Hanover (HH) south, do not.

And that really reflects the history. Germany wasn't a unified country when railroad construction began, and even though it did unify shortly thereafter, there's no hiding that its different parts developed separately, with no central planning, ever since the middle ages. Germany doesn't have a single central city like France. Berlin is the biggest and most important city, but not by far. Hamburg has huge cultural and industrial influence, Frankfurt is the most important financial centre and airport, Munich is huge, and there are agglomerations like the Rhine-Ruhr region that used to beat all of them in terms of industry. And the rail network, with no single central focus point, reflects that.

That doesn't mean Germany doesn't have its own blind spots. Due to being split in two, the east-west links aren't great. Getting e.g. from Cologne (near KD) to Dresden (DH) is pretty painful. Ironically, Berlin is one of the places that really suffers from this. There are plenty of trains to it from Cologne but they take forever, and you can see why: A lot of the route isn't high speed, it's just more or less upgraded normal lines. If you have a single destination, then it's easy to build all the lines there. If you want high-speed connections between everything, that's more difficult. (Also, our government isn't investing anywhere near enough into the rail network, both compared internationally and on its own terms, but that's a different issue)

Other countries in Europe tend to be somewhere between the extremes. Spain is fairly centralised around Madrid.

The UK is just as focused on London as France is on Paris, but it has strong regional networks around Leeds and Sheffield, and the weirdness in Scotland (four different lines between Glasgow and Edinburgh and counting!).

Italy, especially south of the Po valley, almost looks like a ladder: Lines are either on the one side of the Apennines or the other, with a few brave ones crossing through.

This works overseas as well. Describing the continental US as "like Germany" is certainly going to raise some eyebrows, but the map doesn't lie:

It's all on a completely different scale, but it's also a federal country with no one single clear centre. Yes, New York and Los Angeles are big and important, but neither is an all-powerful centre of the nation. What's fun about the US is that it's almost gradient-like: The more west you go, the fewer the railroads get. You can also nicely see the Alleghenies by the shadow they cast: Just a few brave rail lines managed to make their way through or around. Other characteristic items are the huge tangle that is Chicago, the closest thing the US has to a railroad capital; and the many places where lines are almost duplicated (just count how many different ways you can get from Chicago to Memphis, or Chicago to Cleveland), thanks to different competing railway companies that all hated (and sometimes still hate) each other's guts.

So that's what's mostly considered the "western world" or "industrialised world". I skipped Japan, China and India because the post is going to get too long no matter what, but they're all fascinating as well.

But if we go away from there look at countries where the colonialism was less settlers and more exploit mostly from afar, we see another very odd pattern emerge, like here in sub-saharan Africa:

The selection is somewhat arbitrary because you can find the same pattern everywhere south of the Sahara, and in one case (Mauretania) even in the Sahara: A railroad that goes straight to the coast. (The isolated sections inland are due to issues with the map software, they're all connected to one of the lines to the coast)

This kind of railroad is designed to extract a country's resources, and not much else. In Mauretania (not in this picture), that's iron ore. Elsewhere it might have been other ores, precious metals, gemstones, but also very often agricultural products, spices, dyes. The railway line exists to take these things, and bring them to a port. The line is not designed to actually help the nation grow economically. Think about it: All things being equal, you're probably just as likely to want to go parallel to the coast as perpendicular to it.

Also, each of these lines were built because there's something interesting at the end of it, or at least someone suspected there might be. If you wanted to develop the area, it would make sense to trade the interesting stuff in Togo with the interesting stuff in Benin. But the railway lines are not set up for that at all. The goal is to get the interesting stuff to a ship, and occasionally soldiers to the place where the interesting stuff comes from.

These days, the area that I screenshotted here is actually massive, full of people. The city of Abidjan has more than four million inhabitants (more than Berlin), Lomé has 1.7 million, Cotonou and Porto-Novo come close to a million if taken together, and nobody's quite sure about Lagos, but it's at least 14 million, and the metropolitan region might be 24 million. This is a band of cities that researchers think might, in the next few decodes, become on par with Washington-Philadelphia-New York-Boston in the US, or the Tokyo-Osaka in Japan.

And the rail connections in this region do not reflect this at all. A high speed passenger line and/or a heavy duty freight line could allow all these places to do business with each other, allow people to move to or visit each other, and just spur a lot of economic development. But the powers that built the lines, the colonial powers, were not interested. They had their harbour, and the region behind it, and they just wanted to extract whatever was there.

To be clear, that does not mean the railroads are evil now. Selling natural resources is still better than bringing no money into the country. And there are a lot of places where railroad junctions and depots became the point where cities were founded, so in some countries these lines do end up connecting the most important cities, more or less by accident. It's just that other lines or more lines are sorely missing.

A simple example for how this could look like is provided by Australia, where the colonists were settlers and did want to develop the land economically:

You have the lines from the coast inland, and sometimes quite a lot of them. But you can also see a line along the east coast, connecting the cities, and you can see that someone said "we need to build a railroad across the entire continent. No, two actually". That is not to say that Australia does everything right with railroads, they have a lot of weirdness there. But you can see that the railroads had more jobs than to just move resources to ships.

(The big exception is the Pilbara region, in the north west, with its odd tangle of lines. Those are all just resource extraction lines, where the world's heaviest freight trains haul iron ore from various mines to various ports. The mines and ports are owned by different mining companies that don't like each other, so everybody has their own line from their own harbour to their own mine, even if a different line would have been shorter. That's why you get the tangle there.)

So, that's basically it. The railroad map of a country shows you a lot about how a country works, and more specifically how it worked during the late 19th and early 20th century, when most railroads were built. Where they lead to and where they don't reflects what planners thought of as important, and in turn, it has shaped the way these countries developed. And personally, I always find this endlessly fascinating.

#railroads #maps #i suppose you could take the 6 to bercy and walk from there but it's still not exactly convenient

[crumbazaar]

I rewatched Trolls Band Together, the movie still holds up really well, it's a nicely constructed story without too many clunker jokes and the character beats are all amazing imo.

Branch: Literally never takes off the vest.

The Better Place Whistles start kicking in when the team finds Bruce's postcard sunset!

Not a huge fan of the pink eye visual, but I love the design of these chars and seeing Bruce's kids touch their eyes setting up the ending joke.

Uh oh, don't rub your eye buddy!

What did I say!?

Not you too!

Save yourself, Bruce!

Velvet's instant button mash when Crimp reveals the shoulder pads kills me!

Bruce: Oh, my kids love these guys we're a total Veneer household! JD: They're the ones who have Floyd! Bruce: Ahh, it's gonna be hard to separate the art from the artist.

Viva time! Her design is awesome and they really do a nice job threading the characterization of her (and Poppy) so that they come off endearing rather than overbearing.

Poppy instant bond!

Poppy: Is this how people feel when they meet me? Branch: Yes.

This song slaps, Camila and Anna's voices mesh together so nicely and the Brozone brodown breakdown is a good changeup (while foreshadowing John Dory's overbearing nature coming back).

Viva's reveal of not wanting to let Poppy (or any trolls) leave is handled really delicately here. She doesn't even lock Poppy in anywhere, or try to keep her from anyone, she just tells her she can't leave and shuts the gate. She doesn't even physically restrain her when she goes even though as a char she does a lot of physical feats. It's nice because it doesn't overshadow the character moment of how traumatized she is from the Bergen attack. And Poppy ends the scene still trying to reach out emotionally (this will be important later!)

She literally starts panicking after taking 3 steps out of the gate. Nice shot with the shadow creating the border between the outer world and Viva's sanctuary.

Rageous cutaway. Love their designs btw. Pictured above is Vaneer resisting his Spider-Man origin moment. Also there's some theming with Floyd relaying some advice for dealing with overbearing siblings.

Cutting back to the Broz! This is my favourite bit of the whole movie outside of the finale. Everything comes to a head, the other brothers' resentment of John Dory, how they all treat Branch like he's still a baby, his bunker (which is a direct influence on why he turned out how he did). It's genuinely sad how Branch is rejected by his family, and how he tries to shut out Poppy because of how low it brings him. Basically, he tries to revert back to his loner status of the first movie (WOW!) But Poppy reaches out to him, engages genuinely with his emotional state and reassures him that she's there for him. It's really sweet!

The Brozone argument also contrasts really well with the Viva scene where she instantly assumed she was going to be with her sister for life while the brothers are all waiting to return to their regular lives without each other.

Floyd immediately recognizes how much Branch has grown unlike his brothers. It's a really cathartic moment after how much his other brothers belittle him. It's especially touching because Floyd gave it to Branch as a memento that has kind of become a security blanket. But he doesn't belittle him for caring about the vest or still wearing it.

Best Bros!

That's all I really wanted to point out. The ending is still super impressive, but I think I posted about that sequence before. Branch leading Brozone into a song with Poppy and Viva forming the perfect family harmony first with Branch and then his band is the perfect way to end this film and encapsulate the relationships that drive the franchise.

#Trolls Band Together #Queen Poppy #trolls branch #brozone #trolls john dory #trolls bruce #trolls clay #trolls floyd #velvet and veneer #mount rageous #Youtube

[cosmos-dot-semicolon]

Leshy's Dual Nature (Act 2, Kaycee's Mod spoilers)

You know, I'm really divided on how Leshy is characterised in Inscryption. Like about everything he's portrayed as goes two ways.

He's both the world's spirit of nature and somebody intrinsically aware he's in a video game. He's revealed to not have been evil in the way that he kills actual humans for his card game, but he also did stab out one of his colleague's eyes and turn them all into animals and then lock them away for years. He's a game designer, but also a tyrant actively vying for control over his world.

The most interesting portayal of this is his friendship with Kaycee and his attitude towards human players as a whole.

I know a lot of people see this as purely good and wholesome because he only cares about making a good game (and his campaign clearly has more effort put into it than act 2 and 3), but the game itself hints that even that has more sinister undertones to it.

Rebecha is one of the few outsider perspectives you get on the Scrybes' enmity, and she chooses not to mention how he imprisoned his colleagues, but instead his relationships with the player.

He is in this for the thrill of playing the game, above everything else:

(sorry for the Docs screenshot I don't have the original on hand)

If anyone's played Doki Doki Literature Club, he almost reminds me of Monika, but like? Not romantically attracted to the player and actually fleshed out with a philosophy and character beyond edgy aesthetics. Which makes sense, given Mullins has cited that as an inspiration for some of the meta plot in Inscryption.

But regardless, that's what brought both Luke and Kaycee to their deaths. It could be argued that this is a neutral thing/survival instinct on Leshy's part, but I'd ask you to compare that to Grimora, who's portrayed as doing the right thing in bringing down the game (at least within the constraints of the meta plot)

And while I don't think the fault of this lies entirely on Leshy, you see Kaycee start to suffer from social isolation and weird behaviour long before she actually gets (presumably) assasinated by her company. Her death is by no means on him, but had she lived, I can't imagine she would've turned out to be a well-adjusted individual under the influence of the disk.

Like I get being attached to your own OC projects which maybe 1 other person in the world will enjoy (my AU of this game), but like girl. I think something is happening to you there.

Their friendship is absolutely genuine, but it's clear that the disk is a sort of cursed artefact that Leshy has no gripes with keeping her near. Like as far as Kaycee's Mod's plot goes, she never discloses this to the other programmers, and just continues to slowly obsess over her mod and the game's secrets alone.

And like. From experience, that's just not a healthy way to go about it. Even just having one other real person to discuss your creations with will go a long way in making you feel less stuck in your head.

I don't think any of this makes Leshy's characterisation worth throwing away or condemning or anything. It's fascinating that he has so many layers to him, even if they're not all well-executed (I want to comment a bit on how his philosophy is kind of blunted by the twist that he's not killing real humans, but this post is long enough).

But I think it's worth reading into this guy as more than just 'the least bad Scrybe along with Grimora'. He's the densest character you get from this game and I think it's a shame people don't explore that.

#inscryption #inscryption leshy #leshy inscryption #inscryption analysis #kaycee's mod spoilers #inscryption spoilers #'leshy inscryption is the better version of monika from ddlc' is not the take I thought I'd come up with tonight but here we are #i'm supposed to be revising for exams but I'm exhausted #dots dots dots

[ohnoitstbskyen]

what;s your thoughts on ionia if you have any? from a design perspective? I personally feel like ionia lacks design coherency, and kind of forces a bunch of unrelated design elements into what is suppose to be a single nation.

I feel pretty mixed. The concept art and conceptual ideas behind Ionia's aesthetics are genuinely beautiful - if you check the Universe page for the art, you'll find some visual absolute bangers.

One of the major ideas of Ionia is the idea that people live in symbiotic harmony with nature by way of magic and spirit magic, and one of the very clever ways this is reflected is that Ionian buildings are not built by felling trees, but by asking trees to arrange themselves into structures that buildings can be built around, in return for the occupants nourishing and honouring the tree that shelters them, which is a super cool idea and genuinely comes across in a lot of the region's concept art:

And the artists at Riot explored some genuinely incredibly creative visual ideas for the aesthetics of the region that draw from various fantasy aesthetics without feeling like it's merely regurgitating lesser imitations of Chinese, Korean or Japanese fantasy. Like, it does at least try to imagine and synthesize something novel out of its influences, mixing stark rocky environments with impossibly vibrant nature colors to create the sense of a dreamlike, shifting landscape, something that makes sense in a region defined by a living environment animated by magic. Plants and rocks flow into one another and merge, rock formations sprout like trees, the boundaries between land and life blur.

Unfortunately, outside of the concept art, Ionia really is just treated as Magic Asia: The Region. China, Korea and Japan, with sometimes a bit of south and south-east Asia conglomerated in there, it's all just mushed together into one homogenate; and that rankles a bit in a game that devotes four entire regions to various flavors and time periods of Europe Shit.™

And that's where your complaint comes from, I think. Ionia is a big soup of pan-Asian fantasy tropes all packed into a single compressed region, where none of them really have enough room to define themselves, and it leads to a lot of incoherency. Wukong is drawn straight out of Wuxia, and he runs around alongside a Batteries Not Included minor Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle villain-looking cyber samurai in Master Yi, a samurai-ninja in Shen, a Korean kumiho in Ahri, a fantasy Yakuza in Sett and random spirit creatures like Treebeard On Weed Ivern and Disney Princess Bambi in Lillia. It's messy.

It could be genuinely brilliant, I think, if Riot committed more to inventing their own mythology and aesthetic here, rather than merely reproduce pop-culture tropes and archetypes, but we're 150 champions deep in this now and I don't think there's much chance they'll pivot at this point.

#tb answers #league of legends #ionia #riot games #concept art #runeterra

[starheirxero]

I've been thinking a lot about Lunar's different designs, and would love to ramble about them a bit, if you don't mind!

All of this is, of course, completely self-indulgent, and my own interpretation!

Now, Lunar has three official VR models. There's the most iconic one, with the crescent moon, the cuter version of moon, and of course his current one! For simplicity, I will refer to them as "Crescent", "CutieMoony", and will call his current one "Pastel".

There was one other design, his very first, which was shown in the thumbnail, though in the actual show was just a very pale recoloring of moon, and only shown in reaction videos. Though it was never canon, I do still have my own interpretation to that as well! This one, I will refer to as "Pale".

"Crescent" is most important design, as it brings meaning to the rest. It lays the foundation for everything else, as it is his real design. It's what he automatically glitches into when he's under high stress. Most importantly, it's what he's been shown to look like in every other universe. Lord Lunar, Lunara, swap Lunar, all of them are the same. Crescent is universally shown to be his real self.

"Pale", on the other hand is, simply put, what Eclipse wanted him to be. Something easily pushed into the background, something mild. Something to sit by quietly, to take what is thrown at him. Pale is the opposite of who Lunar actually is. Interestingly enough, his design in the thumbnail changed the day Moon returned, the day Lunar finally decided to cut off his puppet strings and reject Eclipse. That day, he rejected the image Eclipse had crafted for him, and his design, pale and barely there at all, bloomed into something bright, something noticeable. Lunar finally became themself, no longer bound to their purpose.

"CutieMoony", is the opposite of Pale, as it's what he chose to be. This design, to me, truly underlines Lunar's relationship and appreciation for old moon. He already has an actual design, one designed by his brothers, one that's truly him, in this universe and every other, and he can change into everything he wishes to be, yet he chooses to look like old Moon. Old Moon, who knew him best, right after Monty. They have shared the same body, and old Moon has seen the dents and hurt left in Eclipse's wake. He is the one Lunar ran to, when they couldn't bear the abuse anymore, the one they cried their heart out to. And despite what Lunar did, even under the influence of someone else, he met them with nothing but care and concern. He listened to them, and visibly tried to reach out, only to hesitate and hover instead, for his hands were only ever used to hurt before, something Lunar knew. He didn't force them to stay outside, and took their place, didn't even hesitate when Lunar asked him to be his brother. He is the first one who tried so hard to be a loving brother, arguably trying to be what he couldn't be for Sun, at least not in the beginning. He actively supported their interests, remembered what they liked. When Sun scared Lunar in a horror game and made them cry, Sun panicked because Moon would hear, showing just how much of a protective barrier old Moon was for Lunar. By taking his appearance, Lunar truly showed how much they looked up to him, and how safe he made them feel, considering they took this appearance while they were trapped by KC. Another thing to note is the red and yellow accents, very reminiscent of Sun, showing how much their bond has grown since the rocky start.

Last but not least, there is "Pastel". This design definitly has a lot of interpretation to give, but my favorite to focus on is the raw wrongness of it. Because we know what Lunar looks like. He's supposed to be vibrant and blue, yet this body is purple and mellow. Ironically enough, it's very similar to "Pale", the very personification of what Eclipse wanted him to be, showing the permanent mark he has left on them, as well as their mental state. Their energy isn't genuine anymore, it's a distraction and exaggeration to run from the mess left in their head. There is also the divinity inside of them, reflected in their eyes, showing them that now, they are more than just Lunar. They are part of something much bigger than themself. This body, in every sense of the word, is not their own. It's something they might never see as a home either. Another irony is how it once again links them to Eclipse, who himself is in a body not his own.

His body is a literal copy after all, not to forget that his "real self" was universally shown to look like Solar, minus God Eclipse.

This was a rather long ramble, but I really needed to get it out of my system! The brainrot's been growing steadily-

Thank you for reading!

-Stardust

BELOVED STARDUST ANON I'M GOING TO START DOING FLIPS OVER HOW EXCITED I AM ABOUT THIS OH MY GHOD

I don't even know what to say other than these are all a fantastic observations and that I am wholeheartedly accepting these into my soul forever I think

#asks #stardust anon #anon #THIS IS ALL SO IMPORTANT 2 ME....... U JUST DISSECTED THE FUCK OUTTA THIS LITTLE ROBOT I'M GENUINELY SO ENAMORED #i'd kind of rotated before the fact that lunar had /also/ gone thru multiple bodies/designs like eclipse had and how there's likely some- #-fun ideas you could make outta that but i never actually like #/THOUGHT/ ABOUT IT #I KNOW I SAID THIS ON UR LAST BIG RAMBLE BUT I CANNOT STRESS ENOUGH HOW ABSOLUTELY HUGE YOUR BRAIN IS FOR THIS AHSJWBSJSN #ghooooddd could you imagine if part of lunar's arc is learning to comfortable w/ themselves again #and it leads to them having the Crescent body/a new body that reflects more of who they are now #and they're Happy and Okay and Nothing Goes Wrong 🙏 GDJWHDJS #sun and moon show #the sun and moon show #tsams #sams lunar #lunar sams #laes lunar #lunar laes #lunar and earth show #the lunar and earth show #tlaes #lunar #long post #other's thoughts and rambles

[didididraws]

my tablet is currently halfway across the country for repairs (my brother's the most tech-savvy in my family and asking him to take a look at it was cheaper than taking it to a shop) so i haven't been able to draw lately. i've made a bunch of traditional sketches in the meantime, but none of them are presentable enough to post here, so i decided to take a trip down memory lane and fill out one of foxorian's influence maps!

below the cut are the names of the artists featured here, as well as a little bit of director's commentary on how they've influenced me :]

yugo limbo (website, tumblr, twitter) - some time last year, i realized something profoundly unnerving: i actually... don't like the art in smile for me's original release all that much? that's not to say it's bad, just that there isn't a whole lot about it outside of maybe its architecture that stands out to me. which is REALLY WEIRD, considering i wrote a whole retrospective about how much this game means to me. art-wise, however, it was only after smile for me's release that yugo limbo's art evolved in a way that really resonated with me; i love how textured everything is, i love the way they simplify clothing folds and the way that skin wrinkles around the joints, i love their love for puppets; all of those things ended up worming their way into my art style and tastes one way or another, and i couldn't be happier!! it didn't feel right to leave smile for me out of the equation entirely, though, so i chose a piece that was both related to that game and that i felt reflected a lot of what i love about yugo's more recent art.

echobsilly (twitter, tumblr) - oh god, speaking of yugo limbo - god. i fucking love echo's art so much i have no idea how to even do it justice in writing. like many people i first found him through his smile for me/limbolane fanart and animations - and those are some of his best work, don't get me wrong, but i really wanted to include one of his original designs to make a point that he's just fuckin great at art in general. character design, facial expressions, body language, composition, LIGHTING... he makes it all just. so so so gorgeous. i always liked "painterly" art styles for lack of a better word, but i think his art is what first pushed me to embrace that more in my digital art. i also like how he talks about dr. habit like he's his dead wife. i'm very proud to call him a friend these days :]

japhers (tumblr, twitter, instagram) - i first found japhers' art in high school and he very quickly became a HUUUUUGE influence on my taste in character and costume design. one of the big reasons i never fully bought into the idea that men's fashion is inherently harder to design is bc so much of his art is already dedicated to exploring fashion Without the restrictions of a gender binary in place which is to say that he's really good at drawing buff dudes in frilly outfits. i also think he gave me more confidence to draw more intricate costumes without having to worry about super dainty and clean lineart, bc a lot of his art looks like it's kinda been carved/rendered out of sketches, and it is Gorgeous.

moe suppe (website, tumblr, cohost) - another artist i found in high school, albeit originally from a long-gone instagram account. his art is what kickstarted my desire to have some Roughness in my art, some Texture. it may not have stuck to my lineart, but it Definitely stuck to my rendering. it helped that i was going through a pretty big angel/demon phase at the time, which meant i was pretty immediately drawn in by his delightfully weird worldbuilding. i should probably read fear not now that it's an actual serial...

val wise (website, itch.io, twitter, instagram) - a more recent influence, but a pretty significant one nonetheless. i featured the cover of délicatesse here because it was the first thing from him that i had ever read, but in general his grasp on the human body really blows me away given how deceptively simple his style looks at first glance, especially his faces. the way fat and hair sits on her bodies, and how much it varies from character to character... it's beautiful without being So glamorous that it feels untouchable. his costume design is also great. i recommend his comics for low fantasy/ursula k. le guin fans who are Dying to see more fat characters in leading roles. i also just found out that i am of two hearts is free on itch.io, so i'll be treating myself to that over spring break.

partycoffin (tumblr, twitter) - if you have known me for any amount of time at all then this should not come as a surprise to you. i actually wasn't going to include partycoffin in this map at first, because while welcome home has inspired me in Many creative pursuits, i didn't think visual art was one of them? i definitely picked up some of clown's love for dramatic lighting and thinner lines with just a smidge of well-placed hatching subconsciously, though.

ryoko kui - probably the most recent artist featured here? anyways i have a confession to make: i have yet to read dungeon meshi. i just know that when i saw a post compiling a bunch of ryoko kui's sketches from her daydream hour series, i was so overwhelmed with this feeling of, like… "oh, yeah, these capture almost everything i love about women as flesh and blood people. when i draw women this is the kind of beauty that i want people to see in them." of course, ryoko kui is a great character designer in general, but something about her women specifically really speak to me. the earthier color palettes and rendering also do a lot to endear her art to me.

shuzo oshimi - specifically his art in blood on the tracks. something that really stood out to me in that series was whenever the shadows would get really intense, and you'd get these big blocks of black with just the faintest bit of hatching to soften out some of their edges. it was always very effective in creating this sense of claustrophobia. i really want to keep incorporating that in my more intense pieces!

person918x (tumblr, instagram) - i don't work with 3d art often and i don't see myself doing so any time soon, but the composition of person918x's pieces is something i take a lot of inspiration of. i also love his sequential art, as someone who does a lot of dream journaling it's sick to see the exact Vibe of a dream be put to (digital) canvas. i also firmly believe that he's one of the only people out there who knows what he's doing when it comes to using generative AI in art.

oops i made this list too long so now i have to put the last two artists in a new block.

10. meatgiri (twitter, instagram) - definitely the artist i've known about the longest out of this selection. i think i've been following her since…. oh god. since i was in middle school. way before she was meatgiri, even. i think her influence probably shows up the least in my art, but there are definitely some characteristics that stuck with me for a very long time (the lil block of black accompanied by one or two lines for shading on the neck, the looser lineart making it really easy to incorporate soft curves and sharp edges, the Eyes, etc etc.) i chose this drawing of her oc juniper bc i thought it was both reflective of her current art And a good embodiment of a lot of things i wanted to emulate from her art as a young'un.

11. dragan bibin (website, instagram) - specifically his 'deimos' series. much like with person918x, it's his compositions that really stand out to me the most, and you probably know by now that i'm a sucker for high contrast. i find it interesting though that he uses high contrast to obscure more than he does to highlight... helps a lot with giving the deimos paintings that air of Quiet Unease. another thing i want to incorporate in my horror-adjacent art! manmade environments gone wrong!

#not art #influence map #artists on tumblr #yugo limbo #echobsilly #japhers #moe suppe #val wise #partycoffin #ryoko kui #shuzo oshimi #person918x #meatgiri #dragan bibin

[digitalclaws]

WHAT'S THIS? AFTER 20 YEARS SHE GETS A MEGA?

Well, it would seem, the moment has finally come for Raptomon.

In these past few months, I made and scrapped a lot of ideas, that just weren't coming out right, that just din't "feel" right. Until one day, I'm not even sure how or why, the design finally started materializing into my head. I was afraid I'd eventually scrap it, and I was sad because I was liking it. Yeah, liking it too much to scrap it. This was starting to feel right, which is weird after more than 20 years!

Last image is a selection of all the in progress design sketches I had saved, but I made many more that are forever lost, not counting the whole entire designs I just scrapped.

Some design notes here not to make the post too long:

NOW, about the design itself. I feel like this design is an amalgamation of many "design tropes" that I adore and they just felt right to be all put onto my partner of over 20 years. The references to the Mass Production Evangelions might be pretty easy to spot, but it's not the only influence. Look closely, and you'll catch elements inspired by the designs of the Pokemon Toxicroak, Spittor from Extreme Dinosaurs, 90's Jurassic Park Chaos Effect toys (in particular, the Velocirapteryx figure), and probably something else too!

The thing that gave me most trouble with the design? The wings. I didn't want to just make a larger AeroDeinomon, but getting rid of the wings as a whole concept seemed wrong. There was also the issue of the red black plates of the pre-evolutions. I didn't want to turn her into a Stegosaurus by making her plates bigger and more imposing. So many times, I had been tempted to remove the plates altogether, but at the same time, I felt they had to stay as they were into Deinomon design since the beginning. So, I merged the two issues into one and found a solution. The back plates became shards that come out of her body and turn into wings. I think static images aren't able to do them justice, but they're supposed to be looking like floating glass shards. I imagine they could also be rearranged, shot at the enemy, take different shapes… I feel like there's a lot to explore with this design element.

By the way, I'm sorry if the "peeled" image is disturbing! It ended up coming out a bit more horror-ish than I wanted, but I wanted to play with the "exposed flesh" design trope many Digimon have, and show the body structure underneath the cream-colored parts. I promise that outside of Halloween images ( :P ) I will try not to show her looking this creepy too often, lol.

Now, I'm not sure if she "feels" like a Mega Digimon. Does she? Even with many Megas looking like overly complicated humanoids and/or robots, some of my favorite Megas aren't really distinguishable from Champions just by design alone. Look at Plesiomon or Griffomon, for example… But, I think that seeing her next to her unevolved forms, it just feels like a natural evolution and that's what counts.

Enough ramblings for today, I hope you'll like this design and if you have any questions let me know-

…and by the way, HOPEFULLY NEXT TIME I DRAW HER SHE'LL HAVE A NAME (that's the real part I struggle with… can you believe her baby forms ALSO still don't have a name?)

#digifake #raptomon line #digimon

[scarlet--wiccan]

Is the house of m headdress based on anything because I feel like whatever they were going for they missed it and landed somewhere in lampshade territory

The clothing designs in House of M are super interesting, particularly for the Magnus family. Outside of the stiff, Western military uniforms the men wear in official settings, they all tend to wear long, loose, heavily embroidered garments that feel simultaneously South Asian, North African, and Eastern European in design. Despite the myriad of influences, I don't think they replicate anything one-to-one, and some of the choices, such as Lorna's bra top and absurdly low skirt, are decidedly non-traditional.

A lot of the stuff also gets simplified in later comics, so nowadays HoM Magneto wears kind of a normal bathrobe, and HoM Wanda's sumptuous robe has become a weird ketchup-and-mustard tube.

Love those monogrammed slippers, papo.

Anyways, to answer your question, I'm not sure what Wanda's headpiece is supposed to be. Her jewelry features a lot of gold disks or medallions, as does Lorna's. While that motif is present in many cultures, it is a visual trope that's very commonly associated with Romani women, to the point of stereotyping. The use of galbi (gold, gold coins) in jewelry and accessories is popular in many communities, but it doesn't usually look like this.

This style actually reminds me a lot of Amazigh jewelry, but Wanda's headdress, specifically, recalls the caps and veils found throughout various Balkan cultures, particularly in bridal costumes. I'm not an expert, so I can't verify these images, but you can see where I'm coming from. The lampshade effect is kind of weird, but I believe her face is obscured because the Wanda we're seeing here is actually an illusion-- the "real" Wanda is hidden deep within the palace with her children.

#house of m