i think more games should allow you to go out of your way to do something dumb and stupid and then be able to face the obvious consequences of the stupid thing you did. i like how peak lets you cook your gear over a fire to incinerate it and make it worse for no reason
A couple writing prompts taken from random post it notes I found in my desk drawer while cleaning:
"there was something here once"
and/or
"you were once loved"
YESSS angst prompts my beloved🥰 but also I must apologize because this immediately went from "characters dynamic study" to "different writing style exercise via an AU I just came up with". Whoops? Additionally, neither sentence actually appears in the fic, but I hope I managed to at least convey something akin to them.
Once upon a time, forests had children.
This is because the very soil used to teem with Life, you see, and thus alongside the trees something more could grow. The child came from the excess of Life in the air— can you imagine? So much lifeforce spilling out into the open that in the end it gathered and gathered and gathered around a single point until a child fully formed and dug their way out from underneath the oldest tree in the forest.
The child, which wouldn't be a child at all but rather a forest god, would then go on to age with their home. That is to say that they could potentially live indefinitely, as long as their forest remained healthy.
Now, once upon another time, a little closer to ours, there was a forest: a great, luscious forest brimming with all kinds of life, its canopy so green you wouldn't have been able to look at it for too long without the irrational fear of drowning in it seizing your very core. And deep inside that forest, as it was now strong enough to sustain more than just itself, a little god had at long last extricated himself from the tangled roots of his mother tree.
Bright green his eyes were, just a shade or two lighter than that of his mother's leaves, and the wild mop of hair on his head was blacker than a raven's wings. High on his temples, only barely hidden amongst the dark curls, two bony nubs auspiciously jutted out and upwards, and as he took his first steps in a home yet unknown to him, he did so on split hooves.
Having come into being towards Spring's end, the young spirit did not immediately know cold; when he did, however, in between watching the trees go yellow, orange, brown and discovering the frigid wonders of snow, he sought help from his mother, as any child would. He laid down by the roots from whence he came and, ever-trusting, slept; and upon waking he found that he had been clad in warm, sturdy layers— starlight and gossamer and long, colorful feathers woven into fitting pieces for him alone, forgotten stories sewn onto impossible fabric to keep him company as he learned of the world and his place in it.
Thus the little god went on to become a bit less little, warm and safe and curious, curious, curious. He figured out that his favorite places would always be somewhere near flowing water, for its melody soothed his overactive mind; he learned how to be quiet on his hooves and how to prevent his rapidly growing antlers from getting all tangled up into the younger trees' lowest branches and the undergrowth alike; he found joy in the company of small animals and solace in checking on traveling herds from afar; he grew and explored until the forest was as familiar to him as the back of his hand.
And then, one day, he met a boy.
... Well, alright. For accuracy's sake—
One day, a boy stumbled upon the forest god. This was far from the first time the latter happened across a human, but it came as a pleasant surprise that this one didn't run away screaming upon seeing him. Unfortunately, this also meant that he had no clue how to interact with the boy, and so he ran in spite of the stranger's shouts to please, stay.
For about half a moon cycle, the young god did not return to the clearing where he had seen the boy: unexplainable feeling of awkwardness aside, it was quite close to one of the human settlements at the edge of the forest, and he didn't particularly enjoy passing through that area in the first place. Only when he could no longer ignore the urge to check on that place's wellbeing— it was, after all, part of the forest regardless of how he felt about it— did he make his way back to the clearing; lo and behold, the boy was there again.
Blond hair fell in disheveled locks over cerulean eyes as he worked on carving something out of a piece of wood. He was so focused— and the other so silent— that he didn't notice the spirit's curious approach until a pair of hooves encroached into his line of sight: only then did he raise his head and... well, yes, he gaped a bit, but could anyone blame him? The brief glimpse he had caught of the forest spirit upon their first 'meeting' could not have prepared him for a sight so human and yet not. He hadn't originally noticed the antlers, for one, nor the unfamiliar shape of those legs, and the clothes were unlike anything he'd ever seen either: beautiful for sure, but alien in fabrics, cut and ornaments.
Despite that, the boy regained his voice in time to exclaim, "You're back!" and the no-longer-so-little god was so baffled by the human's strange attitude that he had to sit down for a moment. Mind you, some say he simply fell on his backside out of pure shock, but that doesn't sound very dignified, does it?
Regardless of where the truth lies, it is a fact that from then on boy and spirit became inseparable: there wasn't a day in which the two didn't meet up— to talk, to play, to explore, it mattered little as long as that time was spent together—, to the point the boy's father nearly found out what had his son in such high spirits a few times. Neither of them were sure what the man's reaction would have been in that eventuality, but the boy was expected to be working most of the time and his penchant for not doing that in favor of running around with his friend certainly wouldn't have helped his case if they were ever discovered.
Of course that didn't happen, or their story might have ended a bit too soon. Instead, the years passed, and the boy turned lad kept on meeting in secret with the not-so-little spirit turned full-grown forest god: he learned of his friend's love of water and took him to visit the small river branch behind his house, carved little wooden animals and gifted them to him because he knew how fascinating his friend found that skill and itched to show off a little bit, and one day, sitting on the steps of his father's house, he boldly proclaimed that his home would be a place the forest god could comfortably step into. He'd build it with his own two hands, he said, and it would forever be open to his dear friend.
The spirit, whose legs had grown to a ridiculous length compared to a human's and whose antlers had further lengthened and split into dozens of elegant tines, couldn't bite his tongue fast enough to stop himself from asking why. Why be so kind to him, why promise something so gargantuan to a being that had nothing to give in return?
The boy who was no longer a boy smiled, remembering, and replied, "Because, my friend, you came back and never left."
Three nights after the young man made his promise, the house he and his father lived in was set on fire. The flames took well to the mostly wooden walls, and the summer winds spread the fire far and wide, to the forest's edge and beyond, deeper and deeper and deeper.
For you see, the boy and his father were ill-seen by the other humans settled nearby: they had come from faraway lands and looked nothing like their neighbors. Harbingers of misfortune, the village elders had declared them after a few particularly harsh years for the community's crops— the only way to heal the soil was to kill the foreigners or drive them off.
And so the fire spread and spread and spread, hunger and resentment and retribution to all, and with the forest's soundless cries of agony echoed those of its child for two days and two nights, until heavy rains fell from the heavens and smothered every last lick of flame.
Then, silence.
In the following years, crops flourished like they never had before: the harbingers were gone, and so were the villagers spared their same rotten fates. The scorched patch of land was quickly forgotten, what remained of the forest left to its own devices. The humans moved on.
In silence, the mother tree cradled its child's body underneath thick roots. In silence, the child bled Life into the land, all he had been given when coming to be down to the very last drop. In silence, the forest crawled back over its ashes.
In silence, the child that hadn't been a child in a long time breathed. He drained his mother of Life and stood in its place when it crumbled to dust. Only atoms, in the end.
In silence, he crossed the forest on steady legs, faster than he had ever dared to run, and his hoofsteps thundered under the bright blue sky he hadn't glanced at even for a second, for he could not wait a moment longer: all the sky he'd ever need danced in the eyes he had sorely missed.
In silence, the spirit stood in front of a house he did not recognize, so imposing he hesitated to step closer: on its porch, a woman he did not know stood and waved.
In silence, he came closer. He stepped on the porch, and found that he could stand to his full height beneath it without scraping his antlers against the finely carved dark wood. And so he said, "I am looking for someone."
The woman, whose hair was a little bit like his and whose eyes looked completely different, smiled. "He was here, once. He built this house by himself because nobody would work on a project of such ridiculous proportions and carved greenery into its every surface, and I am told he never locked the door and sat every day on the porch steps and stood by the river and said to the curious, 'I am waiting for someone'. He is buried in the town's cemetery, because the soil on his land was too tough and we dare not touch the forest."
The spirit, you see, had not known until then how much time had passed between the fire and his second awakening. He had felt that the forest was different, but he had been too busy running back to care to discern why.
In silence, he looked past the woman at the human-sized door encased by a second door three times its height.
Also wizards will try standing on the broomsticks like a surfboard and fall off while witches will sit on them and not fall off but definitely feel extremely stiff when getting off
There are actually a lot of men who are witches but they are rarely seen flying south for the winter because of the damage the brooms do to their balls and so they prefer to go on foot.
Women wizards wear fake beards as part of standard council uniforms.
Still one of the best animations I've ever done. Took just under a week and was equal parts fun and challenging. So here are some process passes! The full version had too many colors so I had to do some compression T0T
The first day in Teacher Grace’s class is widely acknowledged amongst the Eridian children as one of the most exciting days of school, partly because what could be cooler than being taught by the alien schoolteacher who helped save your entire planet, but especially because the first day is the day when Teacher Grace helps everyone choose their human names.
The students all take turns telling him about themselves, what they like, what they want to do, who they are, and Grace in turn tells them about the names they make him think of, and the stories (fictional and real) that go with them, and the kids get to pick the ones they like.
It’s a beautiful exchange of cultures and personal experiences, and every class is unique (one class ends up entirely named after niche Star Trek characters after requests from multiple students result in “Earth culture storytime” devolving into Grace infodumping about his favorite show and everyone becomes obsessed).
Grace is known for being a good deal more forgetful than the average Eridian (“leaky space brain for leaky space blob” Rocky once jokingly put it) but he has never once forgotten a student’s name.
So... I technically drew this 3 years ago but forgot to post it. I think I was going to clean up the end and make a nice recap, but I ran out of steam and then just left it as a wip for years. I got reminded of it because I was talking to a friend about how to draw wheelchairs today.
This covers most of what I view as the most common errors when it comes to drawing characters who use manual wheelchairs. I hope it helps you a lot.
Image description is in alt text, but there is a back up image description under the cut in case that does not work for some reason
[image description: a 4 picture long wheelchair tutorial. the background is white and the text, when it appears, is black and in calibri. each step will be labeled with "Step #" and a description of the drawing next to it, and "text" and then the text that is written to explain it to follow.
Step one text: So, you want to draw a character who uses a manual wheelchair? Awesome! I can't approve more. Drawing characters who use wheelchairs is a bit different than drawing standing characters, because of obvious posing differences. But to start, you need to know what parts of a wheelchair you will draw. So, without further ado, here are 3 wheelchairs!
Step one image: a simplified drawing of a chubby woman sitting in a quickie GPV manual wheelchair and resting her hand on the handrim of one of the wheels. this is labeled "the artist"
step two: next there is a lineart drawing of three wheelchairs. one is a tilite TR series 3. this is an ultralight wheelchair with a bucket seat (the back is lower than the front), a big cushion and a short backrest that kind of contours to the back of the person who would sit in it. the caster wheels (front wheels) are very small and the footrest is just two little metal bars. next image is a quickie GPV. this is also an ultralight wheelchair with a low back, but its caster wheels are slightly larger, the back has regular upholstery (it does not look like it was made to conform to the back of the person who sits there) and the frame is boxier -- there is no bar underneath the seat where the wheels would attach, rather each wheel is attached to the side of the chair. the next wheelchair is an invacare tracer. it is how most people imagine wheelchairs when they hear 'wheelchair'. it has no cushion and it has a high backrest with handles. it has high armrests that would be comfortable to rest your elbows on if you were just sitting. the wheels are not bicycle wheels like the previous two but are rather plastic. it has big footrests and big caster wheels.
text: the wheelchairs on the left are the ultralight, sporty kind. I have one of them (the quickie). the one on the right is a more standard one you might find in hospitals or as the public wheelchair in grocery stores or the mall.
step three: first is text to accompany the tilite. "This wheelchair has a really thick cushion - it's pressure relieving, which you need if you use your chair ufll tiem and especially if you have a spinal cord injury. This wc has the smallest caster (front) wheels. They are hte most handy for turning in small circles." next there is text to accompany the quickie gpv: "This one has the one I use -- it isn't pressure relieving, but is still useful." next is text to accompany the invacare: "this wheelchair has no cushion - you do not want to sit on it for long. This one has the biggest caster wheels - they are useful for not 'tripping' when your front wheel gets caught on an obstacle.”
step four text: like with all complex drawings, you want to break it into simple shapes first. I normally have a box underneath the seat, a rectangle for the backrest, and a trapezoidal thing for hte area from the box to the footrest. these are the most important shapes, because your character will rest on them and they will move with your character.
step four image: the lineart of each wheelchair has been put on reduced opacity, so we can see the square representing the backrest of each seat (the square is the smallest for the tilite and biggest for the invacare), the box for each seat and area underneath it, and the trapezoid for the footrests. the next step labels the images of these simplified shapes as the lineart is removed. "Note the proportions of each set of shapes is not the same - just like how you wouldn't draw all your characters with the same proportions on their faces!"
step 5: we see the same shapes to form the wheelchair, but now with blue circles drawn where the back wheels would be.
text: next shape is the wheels - two circles
step six: next we see the wheels and shapes have been reduced in opacity and the basic structure of everything about each wheelchair: footrests, caster wheels, upholstery details, axles has been drawn on in orange.
text: the next stage is everything else that's structure - front wheels, handlebars, cushions, footrests.
Step seven: we see the lineart on top of the lowered opacity sketch.
text: you can then do detailing like axles, spokes, upholstery, etc and lines
step eight: next we see three drawings of different characters. there is patience, a skinny white woman sitting in a blue invacare wheelchair. kelley, a slightly chubby black woman wearing a stripey dress sitting in a red quickie gpv wheelchair and doing a wheelie while smiling. then luke, a white man with short blond hair wearing khaki pants. he is sitting in a tilite chair.
text: once you get your wheelchair basics, you need to find out which kind your character uses. here are three characters who each use one of the example WCs. patience uses the invacare. she needs one with a better cushion, but circumstance prevents it. Notice the chair is a bit wider than her hips - it's not custom fitted. Also notice she has to turn her elbows out awkwardly to move. the high armrests prevent a smooth push. her wheelchair has big caster wheels and far-back back wheels. it is made for stability and difficult to turn,but also difficult to knock over. Her chair indicates a lack of resources or temporary injury, and is primarily a transport chair
kelley uses a wheelchair like mine - it is fairly sporty, but has a box-y frame underneath. this makes it heaver than if it didn't.she has a mediocre cushion - it protects her, but only some. her back wheels are further underneath her body than Patience's, which makes it possible to do the wheelie (demonstrated here). her wheelchair is supposed to look line one you'd use full time, but it is a little old.
luke has a spinal cord injury. he has a very thick pressure relieving cushion for medical reasons. his chair is also ultralight, with no boxyness under the frame. his chair is the newest and lightest - it indicates his wealth/resources, but also that he needs to use on full time.
step nine: just a drawing of me sitting in my wheelchair holding my hands up to show fingerless wheelchair gloves. we're looking at me from above.
text: when you're choosing what wheelchair to give your character, think of both their disability and their resources and go from there. questions to ask yourself: is it made specifically for them or is it mass-produced or a hand-me-down (if it's custom, the seat will not be too wide or narrow in comparison to their body and their feet will rest on the footplate naturally). do they want more stability (further back back wheels, big caster wheels) or maneuverability (the inverse). do they need a pressure relieving cushion? how long are they using their wheelchair per day? how long have they needed a wheelchair? Do they have health insurance? do they have access to a lot of spending money? How much can they spend on their wheelchair? are they athletic etc etc
posing steps:
step one: a sketch of two people standing up. one just shows the outline of a person's body, with legs that are ind of triangle shaped, the other shows a sketched pelvis and rib cage to go along with the bones of the legs and arm. text: step one: Most people have this sketch anatomy they put before drawing their characters for real. I kind of scribble around like on the left, but some people use skeletons on the right.
step two: there are now too sketched pictures of people in wheelchairs. one shows lightly traced human form (arms articulated, curve for a stomach, legs that are kind of triangle shaped and pointing down) sitting in a wheelchair that is just the sketch of footrests and wheels. the other sketch shows the sketch of a body with a circle for hips and an oval for a rib cage and the person doing a wheelie (lifting the front end of the wheelchair off the ground and leaning back). their wheelchair is also sketched out and defined by a circle for their wheels and 2 lines, 1 of the seat and 1 for the backrest. text: you need one of those for your wheelchair character. important: they should have both the person's main anatomy features (Usually upper body and at least hips) and the wheelchair's. for me, these are the back wheels, footrest, and seat. why simplify to just those features? Take a look at this incredibly quickly drawn wheelchair.
step three: there is a lineart drawing of a manual wheelchair with slightly cambered (angled towards the seat) wheels, a backrest, and a footrest. the frame is light and there are no handlebars. there are labels pointing to different parts of the wheelchair: Backrest, handrims, wheel, axle, seat, footrest, and caster wheels (the ones in front). text: there are a lot of parts, and not all of them are essential to your pose. trying to draw the whole thing straight out of the gate will frustrate you.'
step four text: take a character in heavy armor: if you draw her pose without taking her armor into account, her armor will clip through her body. if you draw a wheelchair using character without keeping her wheelchair in mind from the beginning, the pose won't make sense.
step four image: next we see two lineart drawings of different characters. one is a bulky woman wearing plate armor. her hand is on her hip and she is trying to scratch her back with the other hand. there is the label "shoudlerpad clips through face" and "thumb clips through chestplate." the next drawing shows a woman in a wheelchair with one foot rested on her knee and her arms rested back, such that they would be rested on the back of a regular chair, but the back of her wheelchair is not wide enough for them to actually be resting on anything. the text here reads "elbows not resting on anything" and "foot not on footplate"
step five: there are two images, one is lineart on top of a 3d modelled apartment with sketchup, the other is a colored in version of that lineart with the background also colored in and no longer a 3d modelled screencap two characters, one old woman wearing a green jacket and one younger woman wearing a white shirt and blue undershirt, are sitting on a couch. the old woman is leaning forward and the young woman is resting her arm on the couch. behind the young woman is a bookshelf.
step five text: you may say you'll just draw the chair first and then the person, but while that works for regular furniture, it doesn't work as well for most manual wcs. take this comic panel with characters on a couch for example - I 3d modeled the room and then drew the characters on the furniture. it works because you don't move furniture in most poses - you rest on it. but your wheelchair needs to move with you, especially if it's an ultralight one.
step six image: there is a flat color drawing of barbara gordon in her wheelchair. she is wearing a black sportsbra and black shorts. in the first image we see she is doing tricks in her chair, zooming through the air (as if she has just launched herself off the ground in a skater park or somethign) while her left hand is resting on a structure and her right hand is heading towards the right handrim. the next image shows her right hand planted on the ground and her chair and body above her, such that she is briefly doing a one-handed handstand, but the motion line indicates that she is moving and this will not last. her left arm is near the handrim of her left wheel.
text: take exercise Oracle - she is doing tricks. Her WC is an extension of her body. That is crucial to getting natural looking manual wheelchair users after posing.
step seven: we see a lineart drawing of paula from young justice. she is sitting in a standard manual wheelchair with high armrests (goes up to the bottom of her ribs probably) and a high backrest (goes up to just below her shoulderblades). she is setting her hand on the armrest, leaning forward, and holding her other hand out.
text: of course, there are exceptions - if you have a clunky WC, it is harder to move with your body. Take Paula from young Justice - here, i drew her resting her hand on her armrest, because she has a clunker wheelchair. her pose is already mostly static - she's sitting down - and she poses around that.
another heavy handed symbolism moment: my mom has a potted sunflower in the kitchen. because it is a sunflower, it keeps turning towards the light from the window. my mother keeps rotating it so it faces inward because she wants "to see its beautiful petals and have it really brighten up the space!" . the sunflower is visibly wilting .
I think trying to make a movie out of The Odyssey (not the story of Odysseus, but The Odyssey as in the poem) is a bit of a doomed endeavour as the structure of The Odyssey simply does not jive with the structure of the Hollywood movie
I think you COULD make a good movie out of the odyssey but would need to engage w the fact that it's a work which veers back and forth between fantasy and realism; that it's a story told out of chronogical order; and also that it is a Trickster Hero story first and foremost. It is perhaps best done as a comedy but with the occasional shocking swerve into graphic violence.
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