A Whole Book Of Advice You Should Not Take

Finally finished! I had these sitting in my cr folder for a few months and I finally got them done. This is just a fun project where I chose outfits for the mighty nein based on stuff in my pinterest fashion board.

Edit: I’m seeing people point out that the caleb’s wearing a warrior cat shirt. Yall, I completely forgot that was the shadow clan symbol. The shirt that I based his outfit on just had a black square on it that I gave cat ears.

Excuse the messy doodles, but the new costumes are fan-fucking-tastic.

tattoos?!! tattoooos.

artistic liberties everywhere, made up too many spirals oops

Also, this just in from the Science World:

MIT researchers just developed (as of September 2019) a new BLACKEST BLACK which is more light absorbing than Vantablack

While I think they are pursuing a patent, this article indicates they plan to make it “freely available to any artist to use for a noncommercial art project”

http://news.mit.edu/2019/blackest-black-material-cnt-0913

MIT News

MIT engineers develop “blackest black” material to date

Made from carbon nanotubes, the new coating is 10 times darker than other very black materials.

if you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to live in the midwest, this is it. 

fuck the zodiac tell me which sin rules your personality

tattoo designs… but make it beaujes 💎💎💙💙

Trying my hand at some Chain OCs (loosely based on a couple of characters a friend and I made years ago)

The Twins (Mercy and Truth)

Tieflings 

No consensus who is Twin 1 and who is Twin 2

Met the Chain of Acheron in Alloy towards the end of the Company’s time there; it’s unclear how long they had lived in the Burning City, and some things indicate they’ve also spent some time in Hell

Tend to wear loose fitting, light linen clothing indicative of Alloy (unless Matt Colville specifies otherwise)

Heavy accents (Infernal and Primordial)

Will talk about their past, but it usually sounds absurd and the story is often left unfinished as one of the twins will either trail off or be interrupted by the other (but as crazy as it always seems, they haven’t contradicted themselves yet)

Like to tease each other and bicker a lot, but are extremely protective of one another

Trust Issues (but the Chain is growing on them)

Don’t like to stay in the same place for too long, and are generally excited to travel to new places and see strange things

Don’t actually like taking orders and will be petty about it

Afraid of heights

Such stupid kids tbh

Mercy

Phoenix Soul Sorcerer

Chaotic Neutral (Evil leaning)

5’, she/her, unnatrual white skin, silver hair, black horns that start at her temples and sweep back along the sides of her head, magenta eyes with black sclera, tail that tapers flat like a thresher shark

Eyes occasionally glow, the center of her irises turning white, fading to yellow, orange, and finally back to magenta (as per her subclass flavor)

Burn scars

Nicknamed by her brother sarcastically and now she’s stuck with it; “You may call me Mercy, but don’t expect me to have any.”

A little sadistic, but can be kept in check (give her a reason to and she will set you on fire though)

Sites her brother as her moral compass

Honest (unless she’s covering for her brother)

Reckless

Smarter than her brother (by like 1 but likes to remind him of it)

Cheeky and likes to get the last word (occasionally by any means necessary); particularly sharp tongued when on the defensive

A good bet if your goal is destruction

Would call Big Cat a pretty kitty

Truth

Inquisitive Rogue

Chaotic Neutral

6’1”, extremely dark grey skin, black hair, bone white horns that start at his temples and arch up and curve over the top of his head, magenta eyes with black sclera, tail that tapers flat like a thresher shark

Missing a chunk of one of his horns

Nicknamed by his sister sarcastically and now he’s stuck with it; “You may call me Truth, just don’t expect me to share it with you.”

Compulsive liar, but doesn’t lie to his sister (not as of yet anyways)

Huge flirt (his sister sometimes plays his wingman)

Sneaky son of a bitch

Somewhat cautious

Older than his sister (by only a few minutes but likes to reminder her of it)

Definitely knows Mercy’s True Name

Has a misshapen pearl earring he got when he beat Mercy at chess (or Orden equivalent) as she was using it as her queen; he claims it reminds him of her

Some songs that give me vibes for these characters:

Hey Brother - Avicii Alone Together - Fall Out Boy Heathens - Twenty One Pilots Red Hot Lights - Moon Taxi all the good girls go to hell - Billie Eilish Horns - Bryce Fox The Patron Siant of Liars and Fakes - Fall Out Boy

Faience polyhedron inscribed with letters of the Greek alphabet. Possible used for fortune telling. Roman, possibly Greece. 2nd to 3rd century A.D. [3791x3792]

SWITCH TO FIREFOX AND ADD UBLOCK ORIGIN

I’ve had this sitting around for ages without posting it. Here is my chain OC along with his notes

Sgt. Chapel

Tiefling Fighter

Background

Chapel is a lifer in the Chain. He has been in the Chain since before he had to shave. His mother found refuge from their extensive personal debts in Alloy by marriage to a retiring soldier. Though not a kind man Chapel’s new father taught him everything he knew about fighting. Every dirty trick , every easy scam and every story about the only people you could count on. Childhood was tough as he and his mother were the only tieflings in the village he grew up in. Having realized that there was precious little good will for a half devil child Chapel turned to petty theft and vandalism early on.

When he was a teenager his mother became gravely ill. He read the writing on the wall and in the eyes of his neighbours. He stripped the new thatch roof off the local church and then sold it to a travelling merchant. Chapel used the proceeds to make his own way eventually finding the Chain. 

Chapel has found a peace of sorts and now he lives his life for his comrades. He used to have side businesses going while the Chain was in any given place. A habit he learned from his adopted father. But he has long since given up on a life outside the Chain.

While in Alloy Chapel settled a few old scores with some Chain buddies.

Appearance

A big powerfully built tiefling with a mischievous crooked grin. His jaw has been broken and reset slightly off. His left eye socket is covered with an eye patch. His horns are covered in recent sword and claw marks from the escape from Blackbottom. He’s missing parts of several fingers.

Personality Traits

Loyal

Indulgent

Tribal

Ideals

Be direct but be prepared to win before the fight

Win if you can, lose if you must but always cheat

Bonds

I would die for the Chain

The Chain are the only family I have

I always have time for my family

Flaws

I can’t make a life for myself anywhere else

I don’t want to be an officer

my arch nemesis cynthia is, of course, at the bank, because we both were sent like clockwork to pick up the checks of our husbands. she is wearing a lovely long green gown, which i know was on behalf of me, because, as my husband will tell you, our house abhors green and glamour. already the tellers look at each other under their little hats, for they love our tirades, i’m sure, although not more than i hate them. 

“oh, is that your knitting?” my arch nemesis cynthia peers her eyes at my hands. “is it some kind of… sock?” everyone knows she and i used to be close before we were married and our husbands, smartly so, have introduced us to the idea of true vengeance.

“it is a scarf,” i say. i want to tell her that when the time comes and the world gets cold it will go over my mouth and i will breathe warm air and it will fill my lungs and i will be able to run around with my love even in the dark night. “it is not,” i say, “over surprising that you should be caught unawares of a scarf,” i say, “as i’m sure enjoying winter festivities are too beneath the handsome qualities your husband prefers.” pompous ass.

the tellers pass each other eyes for now it has started and they are delighted.

my arch nemesis cynthia thrusts out her hand. a white bottle. “rat poison,” she says. “i would expect the whole town knows about your little problem.” stage whisper. “such a shame, my dear.” then she rustles her long green skirts - which i know she wore on behalf of me - and she shimmies herself out of the room like royalty. oh, she floats everywhere she goes, beautiful black hair behind her. the bottle in my palm is cold. i will devise how to get her back starting first thing tomorrow.

the week, as always, is a long week, for there is much to make and do and knit and be. my husband comes home and i love him for who he is; for he never comes home without checking the state of the house up and down. he is the kind who loves his home so completely and sets each room like a stage for a great band to come playing. i am too ashamed to tell him why so many of the rats go missing, only make him a stew the next morning to celebrate. his favorite, although not mine, i’m afraid. plenty left over.

my arch nemesis today - of course - in a green the color of rotting. a bruise is uncarefully covered on her cheekbone, so striking against all of her dainty. her husband would say it was for her ungraceful nature, and i know mine would agree. i strike first, already delighted by my master plan, shoving over our best picnic basket tied with a bow. “i made you and yours a stew,” i say, “for beneath all that you carry” all that horrible wealth of your husband  “it seems you’re getting rather skinny.” i can’t resist one last comment. “i am worried you’re about to waste to nothing.”

She plucks it out of my hand. “yes, if it weren’t for you and your husband’s dwindling wealth,” her sarcasm is biting, “i’m sure i will be nothing in, oh, 5 weeks time.” she arches a brow. “so long from now.”

“i am counting the days,” i tell her. her lips purse. the tellers behind me make a choked titter. perhaps, by their estimation, i have won this round quite completely. i go home to my husband smiling. he asks where i have been and i tell him i’ve been at the bank, but he checks anyway because i like to get up to tricks and he doesn’t like to fall for it. it is a good game we play. at night, when he is asleep, i am so in love that i must convince myself to pull the covers over my nose and practice breathing. how silly to wake him up for a young girl’s feelings. 

the first week of five: she gives me a solid, ugly ring that requires three knuckles to hold. “i feel so badly for your status, and i must remember to practice charity,” she says. “it such a small thing, but do be careful amongst all that thin pine furnishing of your house, which dents so easily.” my husband appears at the bank’s front door. just checking. so lovely to be picked up by him. at night, in a rage, i try it - beneath the table bends easily. i scuff out the scratch with walnut before my husband can see. i pull the covers over my face in bed and breathe.

the second week: i wear her ugly ring and give her more stew, this time hearty with meat. her dress is a meadow. my heart each time it sees her collapses on itself. she hands me clothes for my husband, since his wealth continues to go missing, and the charity of her heart is so loving. i am so ashamed i bury them far by the old tree, where all my shames go hiding. again, the covers. it, by now, helps me sleep. i have gotten so good at it that i can simply shimmy my shoulders to be perfectly toasty and buried.

the third week: she asks how comes my knitting. i tell her it’s nearly complete. she asks how comes my husband, whom she must know has been ill recently, and who is doing quite badly. i go home to him, shaking. even sick he is a good housekeeper, who comes home examining for dust and dinge so i do not fall behind on my chores. who checks to be sure i spoke to only him and no one more, for fear a man might snatch me. tell me, who else has a man so involved, in this day and age?

the fourth week she is envy green. i shove a whole heaping of stew at her, for now her husband has gotten it. i say it will return him to spirits, she laughs, a sudden, beautiful sound, even in the quiet of a bank. everyone stares. maybe it is the stress that is making her quite improper. i feel the same way. so much is happening and it always seems she knows. she says she heard he has left me nothing in the will, which everyone already knows. she says she doubts either of us can dig upwards from the hole we’re both in. i look at the bruise on her nose. i tell her to mind her own husband, and be careful where she goes.

the fifth week: so final. her, garishly lime green. and i in black, to pick up a check that hardly seems the effort. it will be enough to cover my husband’s funeral. she smiles at me and hands me a silver bottle. she says quietly: now that i am destitute, there is one thing for it all, and everyone would understand quite completely. it would be quiet, and quick, and complete.

it is the night of the new moon, so dark no man can see in it. i receive notice her husband has died, and i am sorry to say i find a terrible joy in it. the air has changed cold. i have left a note asking to be buried in my scarf, the last thing i have made on this earth. i go through each perfect room, but there is nothing else to take with me, for the house has always been his and his alone, and now aches to be gone of him. i would not serve as a good tender for it. having spent so many nights watched carefully, the silly girlish freedom i’d gain would surely set the house ablaze.

i follow her instructions. quick, quiet, complete.

the horrible rustling is what does it. like a million green skirts. and then it is dark, and i am in my own coffin, eerie with pine. my head hurts but i must be quick and quiet. they have listened and buried me with my scarf. i shimmy my shoulders just-so and get it over my face. bring my arms up, ugly ring heavy, and begin to hit as hard as i can, over and over, the thin wood of my husband’s favorite furniture, the cretin. it would be pine, of course - he left me no money to be buried in any nicer recourse.

the wood splits so horribly, and then it is very hard to breathe, harder than under the covers, and i have to remind myself to be patient and continue to dig upwards, while my throat closes and my heart beats so loudly and the whole thing is so heavy it is a universe. the shifting of gravedirt is loud, and loud, and i feel i will be turned into a worm, and i fear everyone has forgotten about me, or i have gotten the timing wrong, or i will really die down here in the dirt and the cold

but then her hand, and my hand, and we are both digging towards each other, and she lifts me so easily from the ground like a plucked turnip and holds me against her, us both panting and muddied. we can only stay like this for so long, here in my pauper grave, and then we are both running to the old tree where we met, and unburying a second thing; my lovely box of shame, and men’s clothes, and all of my husband’s dwindling fortune i have slowly been squirrelling away.

my love and angel cynthia, who has black hair like a curtain and a mind so fast i sometimes am in frank awe at it, who is, even now and dirty and raw: even now the only sun in my life.

like this, i a man in an almost-dawn, and us cleaned by the river, and her smiling so widely, and only a faint bruise on her, and our pasts behind us in ugly garish colors. and her delicate hand and beautiful nose and when i finally get to kiss her it feels like green feels; my favorite color, all warm and nature and sunny grace and grass and lying awake so filled with love it makes you shake.

i hold her, and she holds me, and our future is a love like a dream unburied.