A place to amuse and bemuse

Little women 😔

So…..Rest Easy by Largishcat happened to me. Gotta say I didn’t expect the concept of Ratchet being Decepticon to be so enjoyable but oh my god was I wrong

Megastar &diftrod &Mirage

I saw a post talking about how Terry Pratchett only wrote 400 words a day, how that goal helped him write literally dozens of books before he died. So I reduced my own daily word goal. I went down from 1,000 to 200. With that 800-word wall taken down, I’ve been writing more. “I won’t get on tumblr/watch TV/draw/read until I hit my word goal” used to be something I said as self-restraint. And when I inevitably couldn’t cough up four pages in one sitting, I felt like garbage, and the pleasurable hobbies I had planned on felt like I was cheating myself when I just gave up. Now it’s something I say because I just have to finish this scene, just have to round out this conversation, can’t stop now, because I’m enjoying myself, I’m having an amazing time writing. Something that hasn’t been true of my original works since middle school. 

And sometimes I think, “Well, two hundred is technically less than four hundred.” And I have to stop myself, because - I am writing half as much as Terry Pratchett. Terry fucking Pratchett, who not only published regularly up until his death, but published books that were consistently good. 

And this has also been an immense help as a writer with ADHD, because I don’t feel bad when I take a break from writing - two hundred words works up quick, after all. If I take a break at 150, I have a whole day to write 50 more words, and I’ve rarely written less than 200 words and not felt the need to keep writing because I need to tie up a loose end anyways. 

Yes, sometimes, I do not produce a single thing worth keeping in those two hundred words. But it’s much easier to edit two hundred words of bad writing than it is to edit no writing at all.

This is the second time this post passes on my dash and it’s the best advice I ever got. I can’t write consistently in one go, it’s always about 50 words and then I get distracted and just have to do something else for a while. Do the math quickly: trying to write 2000 words a day takes a looooong time that way. So there were many days where I just didn’t even start writing, cause I wouldn’t reach my goal anyways and feel like a failure. Then I stumbled upon this post and I thought: hey, let’s give this a try. And it works! I set my goal between 200-400 words a day and that’s perfectly doable. Some days I get into the flow and I write a whole lot more. On other days, I struggle to get those 200 out but hey, at least I wrote 200 words and reached my goal. Whatever the outcome, t makes me feel good and accomplished. 

Writing takes practice, so even if it’s only 100 words a day, it’s better than nothing. If it worked for Terry Pratchett and me, than it can work for you too!

this is fantastic advice! I use this technique basically for everything - setting the goal into an incredible small amount so that I can accomplish it and build momentum – but also allowing myself to stop once I reach the goal, even if I don’t feel like stopping sometimes, I will stop anyway. That way my brain learns that I really do and can stop and it’s not a ‘trick’ to keep going, it’s a viable option.

And if you have a bunch of work sessions that are 2-5 mins long, then when you inevitably hit your crunch time, it won’t feel like its so insurmountable, that you don’t really have to do all this extra work just to make it work. A stitch in time, saves nine. Doing a bit of work now, saves so much work on the back end. Even if it’s not a lot of work upfront.

This is working WITH your brain, instead of AGAINST it. It does feel like cheating at first, but when you get used to it, it reveals itself for what it really is: kindness. You are doing kindness to yourself setting attainable, realistic goals. You will get smaller dopamine hits more consistently doing it this way. You will not always succeed, but that’s life. No one ever succeeds 100% of the time at their goals.

The important part of it though is definitely taking the break after hitting your small goal though, otherwise your brain will be like “foul hobbitses trying to trickes Gollum!!!” and it won’t work any more.

doodle

shoutout to idw transformers for having drift

Supervillain landing

More Alien Mandos

- Chagrian

- Trandoshan

- Gungan

- Kushiban

- - - - - 

Artist Thoughts!!:

Most alien designs in Star Wars (especially the ones present in the earlier films) were built as costumes to fit over-top of actor’s heads. Few of these alien species were designed to be compatible with a fully-closed helmet, because production simply didn’t need a Twi’lek or a Rodian to ever be in full armor in the films. If the costume was gonna be on screen, they wanted to show off the alien’s latex head, not what kind of helmets that species would’ve built to fit themselves.

 The solid helms that fit on humans and near-humans -that come off as whole pieces of armor, probably aren’t feasible for a majority of the cooler non-human aliens due to the fact that they’d have to get around horns and weird head shapes in order to slip a helmet off. Either their helmets are huge and silly-looking or they’re piece-meal, in separate sections; a bit like a good chestplate!

Detachable face plates and caps for these helmets allow the Mandos to show their faces, eat, and get some fresh air without needing to dismantle the frame that’s protecting their montral, horns, eye-stalks, etc. These helm designs probably take longer to put on (or not, alien Mandos probably git good at suiting up quicklike- Humans ain’t special) but they offer the same degree of protection as a Human Mando’s fully enclosed helm.

- For species like Togruta with cool as fuck sensory organs like their montral, their helms would probably be designed to protect without mitigation, or at least with as little mitigation as possible, of that sensory input. I imagine my Togruta Mandos have dampening on their montral to protect them from the potentially harmful effects of being next to ship engines firing, or large ordnance, just like regular helms protect human ears from the same things without completely blocking their ability to hear shit.

Additionally!

Please do feel free to save these sketches as references or as benchmarks to help illustrate to others what your alien Mando’s helmets might look like! 

I’m more than happy for you guys to use these images as examples or inspiration! Do keep in mind though that these are characters of mine as well as runway models for Mando helms, so if you repost them please drop a credit to this Tumblr account there as well!

I love my Mandalorians diverse, forget what recent canon has told you because the Mandos were always a culture, never a select few species, and they’re far cooler that way.

 If my lil sketches can help propagate Alien Mando designs, I’m happy to see them circulate!   

K'oyacyi!

- Twi’lek (Mavadhi - Clan Stral)

- Mon Calamari (Gedheer - Clan Dochost)

- Rodian (Senu’shoy - Clan Dochost)

- Kel Dor (Sarad - Clan Stral)

now featuring the names of our esteemed models!

hi i’m in the business of designing helms for alien Mandalorians because lucasarts is full of cowards

- Togruta

- Nautolan

- Quarren

- Ongree

Yes. Please. Thank you.

So cool!!!

Empire of ston

Hi everyone! This year we’ve compiled our rules, policies, and FAQ into one place for ease of browsing. The link to the TF Reverse Mini-bang manual can be found here.

Please read through the rules for the event before you decide whether or not you’d like to sign up. Sign-ups will officially open on March 1st. We hope you’re all as excited as we are!

Hello all, here’s the timeline for this year’s Transformers Reverse Mini-bang. We’re mixing it up a bit this time: the writers will be writing fic inspired by the artist’s pieces instead of the other way around! More details re: rules and what the event will entail will be shared in the months leading up to sign-ups. We’re very excited to see what everyone creates this year!

“Springer”——“小春”🍃