Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Marena Sironenko

@dudethejesus.bsky.social

The algorithm difference is CRAZY

I definitely need to post our stuff here more often.

Screenshot of my Twitter post about my OC. It has 6 likes.

Screenshot of the same OC post but on Bluesky. It has 94 likes.

September 19, 2025 at 1:34 PM

Marena Sironenko

@dudethejesus.bsky.social

My wife was on vacation for a couple of weeks which meant she had a lot of time to draw :) Here's my OC, Nari-O: a sapient robot from my cyberpunk setting neon-24. They're a former assassin who joined a resistance cell that fights for robot rights.

Drawing of a robot named Nari-O, by Yuralga “Krug” Korien. They’re humanoid but not fully identical to a human. They’re tall and elegant, with thin digitigrade legs, thick thighs, tiny waist, small chest and thin arms, colored bright cherry-red and black, with rare white elements. Their white face lacks most facial features, having only big creepy-looking round red eyes. They wear a stylish black coat that barely covers their body, shaped like a sharp hourglass, with a red hexagonal pattern inside and white lines outside, both glowing. Optionally they can wear a red mask over their face.

September 18, 2025 at 11:18 AM

Marena Sironenko

@dudethejesus.bsky.social

Made a new OC for my wife's story, Tragedy of the Divine, and she drew him :)

Drawing of a humanoid character named Bhaskara by Yuralga “Krug” Korien. He’s a young nonbinary man of Ahagayan heritage (equivalent of Romani). He has dark greyish-brown skin with small white spots at the tips of his ears and in the middle of lower lip. His eyes and hair are black, the latter is very thick, voluminous and long. He has average-sized (by human standards) black bull-like horns. His face looks kind and tired.

August 8, 2025 at 8:20 AM

Marena Sironenko

@dudethejesus.bsky.social

Completely forgot that I have this amazing OC design :) Jagnieszka, a former bodyguard from Drježdźany (aka Dresden).

Drawing of a cyberpunk character by my wife, Yuralga “Krug” Korien. Jagnieszka is a cyborg with a fully augmented body. She’s tall and beefy, has light skin, brown eyes and short blond hair. She looks like a regular human but most of her skin is artificial, covered in seams and clearly enhanced with armor, also her legs are huge and digitigrade, of khaki color, feet resembling hooves. Her face is scarred.

As a bodyguard she had a fully shaved head and wore a tuxedo. After an accident she lost her job and had to replace her right arm and left forearm with more industrial, less human-like augmentations, of the same color as her legs. Because she also had to replace her right shoulder, her left breast is gone. The right side of her torso is covered in scars. She also slightly grew her hair, it’s very fluffy and curly.

In her civilian form she wears a black punk leather jacket with metal elements, it has only one sleeve. She also wears short white-red skirt with a long black loincloth, an ammo belt, and a red low-hanging tank top with a music band title “The Songbird”.

July 4, 2025 at 10:32 AM

Marena Sironenko

@dudethejesus.bsky.social

True S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is a very pretty mod.

First of 4 screenshots from the “True Stalker” mod. It’s night time, and the full moon shines in the cloudy sky. The player stands at the outpost at the northern end of Cordon location, looking at an abandoned APC that stands in the grass next to a road. Behind it are Soviet concrete walls and a small outpost tower. There’s trees and bushes. Hills stand on the right. A small pile of bandit corpses lies on the road.

Inside of the Cordon outpost. It’s a barren room with a couple of mattresses, a closet, sink and a wooden box. The whole room lit in red light produced by the campfire in its center. The ceiling is covered in soot from the campfire.

Rookie village of the Cordon. The player stands on a side of the hill, looking at an abandoned house behind the trees and old wooden fence. It’s night time, the moonrays pierce the tree crowns.

The car graveyard of the Garbage. It’s foggy, the player hides and peeks from behind a car as they hide from bandits. They hold a two-barell shotgun with optic sight.

July 2, 2025 at 10:29 AM

Marena Sironenko

@dudethejesus.bsky.social

Gave my wife the biggest whiplash by first watching The Batman (2022) with her and then following it up with Batman & Robin.

...we absolutely love both btw.

Screenshot from The Batman. Officer Gordon hold back Batman in the police office while yelling something, the atmosphere is very tense and moody.

Batgirl, Batman and Robin from the Batman & Robin movie. They're dressed in shiny dark-blue outfits with silver elements, looking like action figures.

June 30, 2025 at 8:02 AM

Marena Sironenko

@dudethejesus.bsky.social

Also I feel that Euroamericans don't have any right to criticize anyone over disgusting food when they invented aspic. I don't have a problem with it but imagine inventing this and then being racist about eating different kind of meat, lmao.

A photo of pork jelly aspic from Wikipedia by Gmelfi.

June 29, 2025 at 6:20 AM

Marena Sironenko

@dudethejesus.bsky.social

🥴

3 outfits.

1. Glitter around eyes, silver chain over his torso, shoulders and arms, short denim shorts, stockings, peep-toe heels. Everything except for the chain is black.

2. Short black nightgown and pink lingerie underwear. The tattoo is visible.

3. Bright-purple glitter, blue high-waist skirt with a bronze chain around it, pink high heels, purple & blue eye make-up. The only outfit without long black nails.

3 outfits.

1. Beige lingerie: a nightgown and underwear.

2. Black one-piece lingerie.

3. Long beige robe. He looks much sleepier with this one.

June 27, 2025 at 8:18 AM

Marena Sironenko

@dudethejesus.bsky.social

I have a weakness for Griffith-looking men and my wife exploited it to create the hottest Sims character possible.

A screenshot from Sims 4 Character Creation. The character is a light-skinned Iberian man of androgynous appearance. He’s of average height, has slim body build with thin waist, long platinum-blonde hair (untied), thin black eyebrows, long eyelashes, dark eyes and long black nails.

Screenshot features 3 outfits.

1. Fancy 19th century white blouse, shiny black pants with flowery pattern, black high heels.

2. Black collar with heart-shaped lock, blue shirt with colorful flowers (mostly unbuttoned, revealing some of his chest and stomach), black knee-long skirt, black stockings, same heels.

3. Same collar, beige turtleneck with separated sleeves and naked hips, shiny gray disco pants, same heels.

3 outfits.

1. White wedding dress, silver necklace with white gems, long ear pendants that almost reach shoulders, and dark-red lipstick.

2. Same collar as before, short pink dress with peach prints, long black stockings, same heels as before.

3. Skin-tight gym outfit with black-red shorts and black top that reveals his stomach and back, black sneakers.

2 outfits.

1. White swimsuit with black shoulders, round sunglasses and black summer panama hat.

2. Same collar as before, transparent white shirt with long sleeves and dark-pink flower print, black crop-top under it, short black skirt, long black stockings, black peep-toe heels with gray-pink rhinestones.

2 outfits.

1. Scarf, denim coat with sweater under it, stockings with flowery patterns, high-heel loafers. All black, except for gray stockings with brown patterns.

2. Black crop-top with pearlescent harness belts over it, shiny gray underwear, black stockings, round sunglasses, black summer panama hat and black sandals with covered toes. The only outfit where we can see the black tattoo on his lower back.

June 27, 2025 at 8:18 AM

Marena Sironenko

@dudethejesus.bsky.social

Planning to organize a TTRPG campaign (not D&D, my own system), here's premise and some fun lore stuff

We're one player short btw, wink-wink nudge-nudge

The premise of my campaign and how it affects the character customization.

It's been 20 years since the estabishment of the powerful Artanay Hoorbo - the Beastfolk Confederacy, a realm build on the ideas of democracy and equality, ideas deeply alien to the Alda Voeleda, the Elven Empire. With the Elven hegemony challenged, Tashgharad, the Orcish Trade Republic, starts pursuing its own goals, eager to shake off the status of the Elven puppet. Between these three power-hungry realms lies the independent Duchy of Warok which struggles for independence, unwilling to be annexed by anyone.

One of the strongest defenders of this city's independence is the noble Pilsud dynasty, but what is one family when faced against three super-powers? One dark night the main heiress of the dynasty, Jadwiga, disappears, half a year before her planned wedding with an duke of another small independent realm, endangering a union that would make Warok much stronger. Unwilling to believe that this is a mere coincidence, the head of the house, Pana Szlacheta, in desperation hires a group of adventurers to quietly investigate the disappearance. And this group just happens to be you...

For one reason or another the Pana entrusted you a secret mission so your character is somehow worthy of this trust. The reason why is up to you - maybe you're a friend of the family or its specific members, maybe you're famous for something (but not too famous, since it's a secret mission) maybe you owe Pana something, etc.

Warok is very diverse culturally and species-wise. Its main population is Dwarves of various kinds, with Elves, Orcs, Beastfolk and mixed people of all kinds comprising a bit part of it. Obviously your characters don't need to be from Warok.

A short list of some of the species available to the players.

- Elves are the most common sapient species of Synbilinia, its equivalent of humans (who do not exist in Synblinia), with hundreds of races. The main species of Alda Voeleda, the biggest (and most incompetent) empire in history of Synblinia, famous for their affinity for magic, bureaucracy and build-in OCD.
- Dwarves, an underground race. A big part of them have been enslaved by Elves to function as sewer maintenance for Elven cities (who use Dwarven cities as sewers).
- Angels. Because of their semi-immaterial nature they live very high in the sky, most surface-dwellers are unaware of their existence.
- Orcs. Hyperfixations are in their nature, their biggest realm is a trade republic (so most of them have a hyperfixation on economy),
- Golems. Can be made of pretty much any material, often used by mages for labor.
- Halflings. Once half-breed of elves and dwarves, now a race of their own. Suffer from OCD just like elves, stubborn just like dwarves, party like nobody else. Somewhat isolationist because of Elven imperialism.
- Treefolk. Near-immortal with everything that comes with it: small in numbers, never in a hurry, fond of long-term plans and schemes.

- Dwarves are an underground species with a poor eyesight, good hearing and echolocation.
- Disproportionally strong - an average dwarf is 130 cm tall but is about as strong as an orc. Very stocky & wide.

- There's 3 main groups of dwarves. Aldany are the biggest, divided into many races, nations, religions and other sociopolitical groups, united by their social status: they're enslaved by the high elves, & a lot of their cities are used as sewers, with the dwarves forced to be maintenance workers. Before the Sewer War were the most technologically advanced dwarven group due to industrializaion. Their humiliating status might change soon: Alda Voeleda is too busy doing a dick measuring contest with Artanay Hoorbo & Tashgharad, so dwarves are getting bolder, increasing their autonomy & rebuilding their destroyed society.
- Waroski are the second dwarf group & the only one who enjoys living on the surface, due to active intermixing with other species that helped them adapt. Their languages and culture are inspired by West Slavic people. They're the shortest, being 1m in average.
- Third group are Stranniks, former Aldany who chose to leave their land and embrace nomadic way of life instead of submitting to the elves. Long history of travels created a diverse culture where every nomad group is their own people with unique languages and customs. Their languages and culture are inspired by East Slavic people.

- Dwarven technological superiority comes from the quirks of their psychology - if elves are famous for their OCD, Dwarves are, in layman terms, "terminally applied science-brained", making them great mathematicians, biologists, engineers & so on. It doesn't mean that they're bad at humanities, but they do approach them in their own way - when they look at art, they're less concerned with what author tried to say and are more intrigued by the technical aspects and work-process. So the process of making is just as much art to them as the finished product.

May 5, 2025 at 9:05 AM

Marena Sironenko

@dudethejesus.bsky.social

Wrote a big post about my wife's cyberpunk character :)
www.tumblr.com/krugkorien/7...

Drawing of Scum by my wife, Yuralga Korien (like all the drawings in the post). Scum is a tall (221 centimeters) muscular Georgian nonbinary cyborg person with gray skin, short back hair, thick and angular eyebrows, bright gray eyes with vertical pupils. Their bangs are long enough to cover her eyes, while the back of the head and temples are shaven.

Their visible augmentations include: aforementioned eyes; nose; hands; artificial skin covered with tidy seams; gills; glowing animated shark tattoos on arms & upper part of her torso; pointy ears; huge digitigrade legs with hooves. Most of her augmentations are black.

They wear a jacket, short turtleneck that covers only their chest, and pants with harness, all black.

Scum in her civilian form. Their skin is of snow-white color. Her wig, jacket, make-up, belt, phone and wheelchair are all of holographic color. They also wear black shorts, crop-top (with a pink harness with metal-gray chains and metal hearts over it), fingerless gloves and another belt. The last two have holographic rhinestones. Their wig has short hair with 2 long bang curls. She has no leg augmentations.

There are multiple captions in Russian.
— Bangs are their trademark haircut, both her civilian and battle forms have them.
— Wheelchair has no handles because she hates being carried.
— Doesn’t wear their scaly skin out of combat because it’s very expensive to repair.
— Has 2 phone trinkets: a shark & a dolphin.
— Thin tubes (meant for injections since her skin is too thick for needles) stick out of their stomach seams. It doesn’t bother her.
— Their leg augmentation sockets look like a bodyhorror mess of wires, so her pants are sewn up to hide that.
— Wheelchair’s footrest is taken off.

Scum’s three sets of legs, all tall and digitigrade. Stompers are heavy, strong legs with hooves; Swimmers are the shortest, gray, smooth-looking, capable of fusing together into a shark tail; Piercers are the tallest, black, cone-shaped with pointy, very sharp tips, and are the least protected, with “naked” synthetic muscles.

Scum wears a jacket, crop top and shorts with harness, all black.

Drawing of a narrow alley, cluttered with garbage bins and bags. It’s night, and the only sources of light are a dim neon sign that says “Tobacco” and bleak teal light that comes from a door next to it. The only people in the alley are Scum and Oca, standing near the door. It’s raining. Scum stands over Oca, protecting her from the rain, while Oca stands with her back leaning against the wall.

March 30, 2025 at 11:27 AM

Marena Sironenko

@dudethejesus.bsky.social

And my wife drew the handsome cyberpunk OC in question!!!

It's simply absurd how hot he is.

Drawing of Jozwe Cassara by me. He’s a Maltese intersex man. He has brown skin, voluminous curly black hair (long & untied), big nose & eyebrows, hazel eyes with shadow & eyeliner make-up, golden kintsugi tattoo on his chin, neck & chest. He has a light case of resting bitch face. He’s also very hot, handsome and gorgeous.

January 11, 2025 at 6:50 AM

Marena Sironenko

@dudethejesus.bsky.social

As @anassortmentofcats.bsky.social pointed out, Kathe is literally this. No assassin is immune to the allure of revolutionary they/them pussy.

Screenshot of a Tumblr post by user Nightsistersmerrin. It says "The assassin you sent after me is part of my found family now".

January 10, 2025 at 1:08 PM

Marena Sironenko

@dudethejesus.bsky.social

"You'll be visited by three spirits"

The three spirits:

Protagonists of Pathologic (Bachelor, Haruspex and Changeling).

December 25, 2024 at 4:55 AM

Marena Sironenko

@dudethejesus.bsky.social

Rewatching the new Nocturne trailer and I can't with how adorable Alucard is. This small smile means EVERYTHING to me.

Screenshot from the trailer of Castlevania Nocturne, Season 2. One of the main characters, Alucard, says "Trevor would be proud" with a calm, constrained joy. Alucard is a beautiful androgynous dhampir man. His skin and hair is paper-white and his eyes are pale-yellow.

Second screenshot from the trailer of Castlevania Nocturne, Season 2. It's basically the same, but Alucard finished his line and now gently smiles with his very kissable lips.

December 13, 2024 at 6:54 AM

Marena Sironenko

@dudethejesus.bsky.social

If you see this, post a vampire 🦇

(All art is by my wonderful wife @ www.tumblr.com/krugkorien :)

Drawing of Beqatar, by Krug Korien like all the other art of this post. Beqatar is an adult Bassaqra woman (culturally & appearance-wise Bassaqra are the Mirabilian equivalent of Sumero-Accadians). She has gray skin, red-glowing eyes, medium-long black hair, black veins on the upper half of her face & four small fangs. Her left ear has 3 ring piercings & an earring, all small.

She has 4 horns, 2 grow from the forehead and go straight up with a slight curve on the lower parts. The other 2 grow from temples and are similar but shorter and the curves are more pronounced. They slightly resemble the human spine in form.

She wears black fur mantle with a steel chain, gray neckerchief, white shirt with a stand collar and a black duster. Her lips, chin and clothes are covered in fresh blood. She’s grinning and looks directly at the viewer, in a creepily calm way.

Character belongs to Krug.

Drawing of Tanaszart Rojiara Parezvana "Orkide" Surbtanaate. They're a middle-aged Gurdaqqari (Mirabilian equivalent of Kurds) nonbinary person. They have gray skin covered in black veins, dark-red eyes with glowing pupils, long messy black hair and black antelope-like horns that resemble a human spine. Their facial expression is as neutral as possible, as if they too distracted by their own thoughts to pay attention to anything.

Character belongs to me.

Drawing of Edo Ytamarbat and Aqeldama Naherben.

Edo is a young-adult Nalqyr (Mirabilian equivalent of Jewish-Whasian) woman. She has light-gray skin, her face is covered with small pox-like burn scars, pupils are white, hair is black and short, horns are black and ram-like, in a form of a wide arch. She wears official clothes: coat, neckerchief, vest, all black, except for the white neckerchief. She stands still, holding a cane with her left arm.

Aqeldama stands to the right of Edo, with her hands on her waist. She's an adult Yltqazar (Mirabilian equivalent of a Jewish-Turkic person) nonbinary woman. She has brownish-gray skin with tattoos on her forehead, chest & under her eyes (dots connected with lines, referencing), it's darked under her eyes and on her fingers. She has long thin hair, black thin antelope-like horns, black claws and black eyes with barely noticeable red circles around her pupils. She wears a cape and more fancy-looking clothes that reveal most of her chest and stomach.

Character of Edo belongs to Krug and character of Aqeldama belongs to me.

Drawing of Coriolania, The Queen of Nightmares. She's an adult Nalqyr woman. Her skin is pale-gray with visible black veins around her pale dark-red eyes. Her black hair is long and well groomed, horns are also black but with red vein-like patterns on them, they're round and backward-going. She looks annoyingly smug and confident to an extreme degree.

She wears many clothes, but the only ones visible are red coat with black fur cloak, black neckerchief & silver neck chain with thin blood amulet. Blood mist comes out of her right palm, flowing up. Her left palm is blood-red, creating a visceral, unpleasant impression.

Character belongs to Krug.

December 10, 2024 at 3:01 PM

Marena Sironenko

@dudethejesus.bsky.social

I've accidentally put money on my Steam account and decided that it was a sign to treat myself.

Fun fact, bought Incision purely because I want to make a boomshoot and Krug feels that Incision is visually the closest to what we want to make.

I've bought Scorn, Incision, Satisfactory, HROT and Nightmare Reaper.

December 1, 2024 at 4:17 PM

Marena Sironenko

@dudethejesus.bsky.social

Breaking the bad video game adaptation curse is the same as being "the first gay Disney character".

"This is Ultralord" meme but the dialogue is replaced: one character says "We finally broke the videogame adaptation curse" while the other replies "This is the seventh time we broke the videogame adaptation curse this week".

November 29, 2024 at 8:53 PM

Marena Sironenko

@dudethejesus.bsky.social

Completed Doom Eternal. Wanted to post a Steam review of it to share how much I love the game but it seems that because the game is delisted in Russia, I can't post my review of it in Steam. It's unfortunate, but on the bright side it motivated me to rewrite my review in Google Docs and [>]

Screenshot of Doom Eternal's final custcene. Doom Slayers, wearing white version of his armor, walks on a blood-soaked ruined skyscraper to the camera, right after he killed the Icon of Sin, ending demonic invasion of Earth and saving what's left of it.

November 27, 2024 at 8:07 AM

Marena Sironenko

@dudethejesus.bsky.social

Pronouns: she/they
Height: ~185 cm
Zodiac: Taurus
Smoke: not with my & my wife's breathing problems lol
Tattoos & piercings: none, but when I'll be done I'll be more that than flesh
Fav drink: Milkshakes, soda, cacao

I don't like showing myself off but my wife did drew a cyberpunk version of me!

Drawings of me and my wife Juralga Korien, drawn by her. Drawing portrays two women dressed in cyberpunk fashion. I'm tall, with long bright-green hair, with augmentation lines under my eyes. I'm dressed into a white coat with green and orange elements, transparent pearl-colored skirt and high black boots. My wife is dressed in white mesh t-shirt, white pants and black tech-pants with heavy boots over it.

Another cyberpunk drawing of me by Korien. It's a close-up of my face. My hair is bright-green and long, skin is light, eyes are light-gray, with eyeliner, and eyebrows are black and thick.

November 15, 2024 at 11:58 AM

Marena Sironenko

@dudethejesus.bsky.social

Finally played Vampire Survivors now that I've bough it on Halloween sale and yall weren't lying, this game is addictive as shit. It's astonishing how visible simple its game-design yet it works SO well. Great game.

Screenshot from the Vampire Survivors. I play as Imelda, a sorceress. She's surrounded by vampire bats and undead, throwing fireballs at them.

November 12, 2024 at 6:00 AM

Marena Sironenko

@dudethejesus.bsky.social

"If you were a villain, who would you be?"

Master from Fallout. He's a bodyhorror mess of skin and meat, sitting in a control room, his flesh spread all over it.

November 11, 2024 at 12:28 PM

Marena Sironenko

@dudethejesus.bsky.social

Checking out Thunderbolts trailer and the fact that a Russian out of people complains about USA's size is lmao. Can't figure out if it's intentional or Hollywood being Hollywood again tho.