Are There Any Other Terraria Content Creators Who’d Wanna Join A Discord For The Terraria Fandom? I

me, reading my completely incoherent essay and deciding its ready to be submitted for 30% of my final grade

Fascinating! Though it does appear that being I'm ace as hell and extremely bad at identifying what's supposed to be hot, I've fallen for the classic "I was so caught up in the euphoria of old-timey inspired-clothing that for a minute I lived in a world where the tumblr sexyman didn't exist."

Also, thanks! I hate it!

I actually think it’s very cool of the portal fandom that so many people decided to give characters waist coats and cravats and sleeve garters and shit like that. There’s literally no good reason for it is there? They’re all from, like, the early 2000′s. But folks realized that actually that’s a banger look and everyone should just dress that way

Based on a conversation about the shellphone I had a few weeks back

I FINALLY got to play through Below Zero and the Precursors (Architects?) give me SUCH Animorphs vibes.

I mean the Andalites resemblance is obvious -- they’re telepathic deer centaurs with no mouths, and have a part of a tail and horns that resemble the tail and eye stalks of Andalites. They also have a really interesting connection to nature that reminds me of some of the Andalite culture we got to see, especially in The Andalite Chronicles where we got to see the Andalite homeworld.

And then there’s some resemblance to the Arn (the creators of the Hork-Bajir) in their mastery of genetic engineering -- just the comments from Al-An and scannables talking about how the Precursor’s original form was swapped out for something better over the millennia, a combination of DNA from all sorts of different creatures to make them as efficient and useful as possible.

AND OF COURSE how could I neglect to mention my very favorite most Animorphs species the Ketran? I wish we got to see more of them, I really do, they’re so cool. But anyways, even if the Network as Al-An describes it is way, way more involved than the Ketran Uninet (it gives me very vague Control Brain vibes from Invader Zim, lol), I immediately thought back to the Uninet -- especially like, in the cases where Ketran are memming each other and all. And the Ketran naming system where they have their assigned names, chosen names, and gamer tags -- I wonder how individuality works to Architects. Al-An can clearly distinguish himself from others and even went against the Network at one point, but also comments how interconnected Architects are, being able to sense each other, etc. etc., so I wonder if they have the concepts of names/pronouns since we kind of just assign both to Al-An on our own?

In short I have THOUGHTS and I am now going to reread the Ellimist Chronicles goodnight

There’s a serial killer in your town. Unfortunately for them you are a necromancer and you have fun driving that maniac insane.

Even witches have lab partners!  What were your favorite subjects in school?  Mine were – predictably – English and art, but I also liked science.  📚🎨🔬 I would’ve liked it even more if we somehow got to make little kitty blobs! ✨

A couple of clothing references for various NPCs I’ve put together for a post-apocalyptic D&D campaign I’m the DM for!

I know one of my players follows this blog and if she reads beyond this point I’m going to track her down and destroy her. :D

Top left: A scientific assistant android who was expected to stand around for a few hundred years until the people within the stasis tubes they were working for were released. Instead, they took off. Their appearance is flawless as it is a hologram over a mannequin-esque body.

Top right: A blind tiefling who wanders an abandoned city, slowly raiding medical centers with their seeing-eye cat in hope they’ll be able to stave off some of their worse injuries.

Bottom left: A magician/mechanic dwarf who scavenges parts and pieces from what he finds to try and rebuild machines to assist him.

Bottom right: A halfling sailor who rides a magically-powered ship seeking out survivors while avoiding the monsters that continue to lurk in the previously population-dense areas.

1/3 of the guys in my networking class are named Ethan or Ryan

by the way the funniest thing ive read all week is this post on reddit i think where somebody asked for the pros and cons of different stem majors and so this one girl responded and she said she was a software engineer i believe and then she said “ok pro #1. i never have to wait in line for the bathroom ever again. there are more female restrooms in this building than there are women”

Continuing my efforts to design Chris' next armor set! Commentary below the cut.

I tried to make the meteor armor set work, but was having to stretch things too far to justify it (completely changing its shape/patterns, dyeing it, layering it with diamond robes to make his staves/tomes build work, etc. to the point it was really meteor armor in name only). So this is a hard pivot -- for this outfit, Chris works with the Guide/Dryad to make jungle armor, and then transmutes it into the ancient cobalt set using the Shimmer. The wings and diamond staff design aren't set in stone; I just needed something simple to get the colors down while focusing on the armor.

This does decrease the impact of the meteor a bit, but hey, Malik will still appreciate some meteor shots I'm sure. And plot-wise, having another moment of the Guide/Dryad both influencing Chris is helpful to set up some following scenes.

I'm definitely happier with this than my previous designs. Swapping "generic metal plate"-star for the diamond-star ties the ancient cobalt breastplate nicely into the diamond staff. And if he picks up the magic missile (haven't fully decided his late pre-hardmode loadout), the outfit design and color scheme fits with that well enough too. This outfit also doesn't suffer from some significant issues the previous ones had (body design too dark and lacking contrast, metal garters too shiny causing a striped look, etc.) because of the updated color scheme. It also displays his worm scarf more prominently (albeit still dyed), helping to immediately justify the Eater of Worlds fight beyond "well the Dryad said so and also you can get a cool pickaxe or maybe a void bag later."

The lunar/celestial imagery is a bit more naturally integrated with this design, such as the "comet/falling star trails" that form the pattern on his breastplate being more emphasized, rather than just "here's a giant star, 'cause he's a mage, get it?" And while dropping the robes look is a significant design shift, keeping his gloves and boots visually similar connects his previous design with this one without seemingly having just palette-swapped his old robes. This is also barely armor -- it's more of an armored shirt -- so it doesn't invite as much whiplash from seeing Chris jump from "mage in robes, albeit with a somewhat heroic cape design" to "wearing straight-up armor."

Color-wise, I did add a small amount of purple to this design compared to the in-game ancient cobalt armor. Magenta/purple is associated with the amethyst set, Nebula pillar, shadow magic, band of starpower, etc. and so I didn't want to make him too blue and muddy the waters (blue is Lunatic Cultist, Stardust pillar, etc.). I also don't want him to blend too hard into the dungeon walls, one reason why the outfit is so bright. But it should still be enough blue to make Chris stand out against the red backdrop of Hell later on. I'm feeling good about the level it's at currently, and I can always subtly tweak it in particular scenes as-needed to make him fit in or stand out as needed. On the flip side, his wings get a soft warm brown tone rather than a cold sheen to contrast his outfit and tie into his skin/eye/hair color to both introduce more color hues into his outfit and make his head less disconnected from the rest of the design.

I did try to minimize the number of different colors overall, but it doesn't significantly impact the complexity either way. This is just a product of how I color characters -- instead of color-picking from a reference image, I have a folder of coloring layers for each character that I copy into each page. So each folder will have, for instance, one layer for hair, one for a character's shirt, and so on. Each layer has a max of two colors so that I can color pick them into my main/sub color icons, clear the layer, and then paint bucket those colors in. So since I'm already handling every layer separately, adding more layers (especially of solid colors) doesn't significantly impact the time I need to spend coloring.

Anyways, that's all I've got. Character design is hard.