Part 66 of my bakery “enemies” au!
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here’s a small character design philosophy that i wanted to share. i try implementing it when i can, wanted to give a simple explanation for it.
Sticking a landing will royally fuck up your joints and possibly shatter your ankles, depending on how high you’re jumping/falling from. There’s a very good reason free-runners dive and roll.
Hand-to-hand fights usually only last a matter of seconds, sometimes a few minutes. It’s exhausting work and unless you have a lot of training and history with hand-to-hand combat, you’re going to tire out really fast.
Arrows are very effective and you can’t just yank them out without doing a lot of damage. Most of the time the head of the arrow will break off inside the body if you try pulling it out, and arrows are built to pierce deep. An arrow wound demands medical attention.
Throwing your opponent across the room is really not all that smart. You’re giving them the chance to get up and run away. Unless you’re trying to put distance between you so you can shoot them or something, don’t throw them.
Everyone has something called a “flinch response” when they fight. This is pretty much the brain’s way of telling you “get the fuck out of here or we’re gonna die.” Experienced fighters have trained to suppress this. Think about how long your character has been fighting. A character in a fist fight for the first time is going to take a few hits before their survival instinct kicks in and they start hitting back. A character in a fist fight for the eighth time that week is going to respond a little differently.
ADRENALINE WORKS AGAINST YOU WHEN YOU FIGHT. THIS IS IMPORTANT. A lot of times people think that adrenaline will kick in and give you some badass fighting skills, but it’s actually the opposite. Adrenaline is what tires you out in a battle and it also affects the fighter’s efficacy - meaning it makes them shaky and inaccurate, and overall they lose about 60% of their fighting skill because their brain is focusing on not dying. Adrenaline keeps you alive, it doesn’t give you the skill to pull off a perfect roundhouse kick to the opponent’s face.
Swords WILL bend or break if you hit something hard enough. They also dull easily and take a lot of maintenance. In reality, someone who fights with a sword would have to have to repair or replace it constantly.
Fights get messy. There’s blood and sweat everywhere, and that will make it hard to hold your weapon or get a good grip on someone.
A serious battle also smells horrible. There’s lots of sweat, but also the smell of urine and feces. After someone dies, their bowels and bladder empty. There might also be some questionable things on the ground which can be very psychologically traumatizing. Remember to think about all of the character’s senses when they’re in a fight. Everything WILL affect them in some way.
If your sword is sharpened down to a fine edge, the rest of the blade can’t go through the cut you make. You’ll just end up putting a tiny, shallow scratch in the surface of whatever you strike, and you could probably break your sword.
ARCHERS ARE STRONG TOO. Have you ever drawn a bow? It takes a lot of strength, especially when you’re shooting a bow with a higher draw weight. Draw weight basically means “the amount of force you have to use to pull this sucker back enough to fire it.” To give you an idea of how that works, here’s a helpful link to tell you about finding bow sizes and draw weights for your characters. (CLICK ME)
If an archer has to use a bow they’re not used to, it will probably throw them off a little until they’ve done a few practice shots with it and figured out its draw weight and stability.
People bleed. If they get punched in the face, they’ll probably get a bloody nose. If they get stabbed or cut somehow, they’ll bleed accordingly. And if they’ve been fighting for a while, they’ve got a LOT of blood rushing around to provide them with oxygen. They’re going to bleed a lot.
Here’s a link to a chart to show you how much blood a person can lose without dying. (CLICK ME)
If you want a more in-depth medical chart, try this one. (CLICK ME)
Hopefully this helps someone out there. If you reblog, feel free to add more tips for writers or correct anything I’ve gotten wrong here.
What I've noticed about david tennant fans:
-Most of his simps are either lesbians who make an exception for him or straight men that make an exception for him
-David tennant fans are DEDICATED. Most of them have been obsessed with him since he became the doctor in 2006 and still hold on to him. If you haven't been obsessed with him for very long I'm sorry, because you will be obsessed with him for the rest of your life
But how? Winged humanoids sure do have some big limbs to work around when it comes to clothing.
(Here are the master posts for feathery wings and membranous wings)
(Description: sketches of a feathery winged humanoid and a bat-winged humanoid. They are standing with their wings curled around their naked bodies and look concerned.)
I’m using my oc Morianten and my new tutorial oc Teo as models for this. Because clothes are more fun to draw on someone with a face instead of a blank mannequin lol.
(Description: two images showing Morianten and Teo respectively to display basic clothing structure that accommodates feathery wings and bat wings respectively. Their outfits are pretty similar with some minor differences.)
Winged humanoids with feathery bird-like wings do have space between the wings and tail where you can add a belt. The basic structure is a halter top that fastens behind the neck and then again at the waist, with a big open space between so the wings are unobstructed. This would be put on at the neck first and then fastened at the waist. A belt can be added to attach a skirt or pants, which would be stepped into and pulled up to the base of the tail. Or the whole outfit can be a dress or jumpsuit that would be stepped into and then fastened at the waist and neck. Sleeves can be added, but they would require some specialization to stay up properly when they can’t attach to anything behind the arm.
Winged humanoids with bat-like wings do not have space for a belt, so their clothing is a little more shapeless. Think of a halter top jumpsuit or dress with an open back all the way down to the butt. It would be stepped into, pulled to the base of the tail, and then fastened at the neck. Just like the previous example, sleeves can be added but need a little extra specialization to stay up.
(Description: Mori and Teo from behind, modeling the different ways they keep their backs warm.)
Since they can’t just throw on a normal shirt, staying warm in cold weather does require some unique solutions. For the feathery wings, honestly their back feathers might be good enough. But if it’s not good enough, a panel that fastens to the back of the neck and the back of the waist should help. And it might require some help to put on. For the bat wings, there is no waist to attach things to, so a cape attached at the neck with enough weights in the hem to keep it in place will have to do.
(Description: Mori rocking a hood and Teo putting on some extra warm accessories.)
Hoods would be pretty easy to add to a halter top for winged people, it’s just a normal hood that might have to open in the back a little to go over the head and neck properly. Both types of winged people should be able to wear things like gloves and shoes perfectly fine, though if like me you are giving your winged people non-human feet you might have a trickier time giving them shoes.
I don’t think putting a wing cover over a feathery wing is a good idea, as it would disrupt the feathers and make flying extremely difficult. But maybe you could find a way to get a wing cover over the membranous wing. Maybe. It would be really tricky to get it to work right and be fitted properly to allow for flight. But if you want to do it, go for it, it’s fantasy bat people.
(Description: four colored drawings of Mori and Teo modeling different outfits. In the top left, Mori is wearing a cute pink outfit with a poofy skirt that has a lace pattern on the top and fancy criss-crossed straps at the neck with matching gladiator sandals. In the opposite lower right corner, Mori is wearing a cozy blue and purple outfit with a hooded short cape and a tunic with long sleeves, as well as mittens, pants, and knee high boots. Everything on this outfit has a fluffy lining.
In the top right, Teo is wearing a practical denim jumpsuit with a green front panel that has yellow flowers on it. This panel ends in a big front pocket. He is also wearing sturdy looking knee high boots. In the opposite lower left corner, Teo is wearing a very dramatic hooded robe in a dark blue color, with flowy sleeves and gold jewelery. There is also a grey tapestry panel at the front with gold fringe and bright blue designs along it.)
It is so much fun to take the basic clothing structures and see just how much you can push them, so go wild! Even the simple outfits can be spiffed up with fun colors and patterns. And just because the outfits kind of require a halter top for the sake of the wings doesn’t mean you can only do one style of clothing. You can make it masculine, feminine, androgynous, colorful, fancy, casual, etc
Clothing also helps display culture! So if you’re trying to worldbuild with winged people and you’re stuck on culture stuff, think about how their specific needs regarding clothing might have developed and been affected by their lifestyles or changed their lifestyles. Bat people can’t wear belts because they have no waist gap between the wings and tail, so maybe they developed clothing with lots of pockets. Maybe your feathery humanoids are very bird like in their behavior so they wear very shiny and colorful outfits with lots of frill! The possibilities are endless.
NPC for my D&D campaign <3
shadow is a gay parrot: the comic
(Y'ALL I HAVE NO CLUE HOW TO TITLE THIS I'M SORRY LMAO)
immortality as theft (you have to steal life from something else) immortality as parasitism (there is something else inside You that is keeping you alive and you become less of yourself more and more the longer it stays in you) immortality as violence (everything is trying to kill you because everything is supposed to die and the universe will always try to find a way to right the wrong that is You) you understand