#(i mean not really but I want people to be able to block it)

[ranticore]

Hii 🥰 I love your art so so very much and it's inspired me to start drawing again after about a year and a half of nothing. I was wondering if you could do a quick explanation of how you draw creature heads? Even with skull references and stuff I'm having troubles particularly with the eyes / eye placement and cheek areas

hi thank you, i'm happy you've gotten drawing again. i try not to make fully drawn 'here's how i do x' tutorials anymore since realising that i would just be training people to replicate my mistakes and photos really are the best reference

however not many people know HOW to use photorefs so i will show you this thing i made for someone else who asked a similar question in my dms once. step 1 is to discard any hangups you might have about tracing. professionals trace. it's fine.

for an example of what i mean when i say drawn tutorials just teach you how to replicate mistakes: i got the knee visibly wrong in my drawing here lol. but for a guide you get the idea. you basically want to put on x-ray goggles when you're looking at photos. you want to be able to see through the animal and understand 1. the axial skeleton [skull, ribs, spine] first and 2. the appendicular skeleton [pelvis, limbs] secondarily. you want to understand it in a 3D space - see how in my traced sketch, I have blocked out the ribcage as a solid form using contour lines which describe a curve. i didn't draw every individual rib, there's no need. don't get bogged down in the weeds, this drawing should take like 5 minutes max

the reason we are tracing and not just closely referencing is because this saves us from also having to worry about getting angles & proportions right. we will worry about those later. for now we are gaining understanding of how a body is formed without the pressure of having to get it 'right'.

okay so you asked about heads in particular so we'll look at heads. in the thingy above you can see that i traced a kite shape onto the front of the cranium before filling in the snout.

it's a canine and not super interesting but i think they show really well what goes on with the frontal bones. the cheek bones form the two lateral points of a kite shape.

if you start your sketch at the kite shape you can turn it in space

what you are looking for is the kite. the kite is not flat. the kite is the front of the cranium minus the nose/snout etc, it is laid out over a curved surface. you will find the eyes along the horizontal line and the cheekbones tucked under the bottom faces of the kite. the snout/nose/etc emerges from the crosshairs in the middle and the cheekbones follow the outer edge of the kite, but not the jaw. this is how i construct all my faces, human or animal doesn't matter it's all this underneath. using it i can visualise the hidden parts of the face such as the obscured cheekbone

try to find as many different types of animal or human heads as possible and trace the kite onto them. then you will see

[imaginethisisagoodname]

Gum gum headcanons becuase I feel like I don’t talk about how great he is enough

• he would have a hard time figuring out what emotions he was feeling, like he’d besad but wouldn’t be able to place that he was sad, just that he wasn’t happy

• he would’ve have had a shelf full of the most random objects ever, and they would all be really important to him, but also really useless, but he would collect items from special occasions, like pressing a flower from brink and kyborgs wedding to save or like a peice of the roof that kyborg brinks, and he would’ve been able to tell you the story behind every item on that shelf

• also he would totaly have a book of flowers that he got from different places wich would be like a scrapbook but instead of pictures it would’ve been pressed flowers he’d gotten from different places and the story behind them

• his first rage wouldn’t have been because someone was mean to him but becuase someone was either mean to Bart or mean to a kid younger than him

• also he would’ve been really scared the first time he raged and Bart would’ve helped calm him down, and after a few times he would’ve tried to get help for gum gum but no one would’ve been able/ willing to help

• also he would’ve had an umbrella that looked like a flower and it would be white when it was dry but rainbow when it was wet

• he also would’ve really wanted everything to always be equal and would be unhappy when things weren’t equal, even if it was like Bart getting 30% of a cookie and him getting 70%

• he also would’ve been really noise sensitive, especially as a kid and Bart would have enchanted earmuffs for him to help block out sound

•he would’ve had issues as a kid with hugging people without consent and hugging kids to hard but after understanding why it was so bad he would’ve stopped, but his hugs and handshakes would’ve been really strong

[use-yr-voice]

Oh wow. Wow. Democrats need to learn how to be more loving do we?

Like when we contend that children ought to be able to go to school safely?

Like when we insist that kids ought to have free school lunches?

Like when we propose that adults ought to be able to care for their elderly parents without an additional strain on their own finances?

Like when we refuse to villainize immigrant populations who came to this country seeking a better life for their families?

Like when we assert that all marriages are loving commitments between two consenting adults and they ought to be recognized and celebrated?

Like when we sent a message to women and girls everywhere- especially women and girls of color- that they might be the president of the United States someday?

Like when we demand policies that actually help the American people- all of the American people including republicans- and we tax greedy oligarchs who hoard their wealth?

Like when we tried to send aid to people who lost everything in two major hurricanes, only for a red congress to block it?

Like when we say we want to leave behind an inhabitable planet for future generations?

That wasn’t out of love???

I didn’t know Dr King personally. The man’s life was cut short years before I was born. I don’t know what his take on this election might have been. But well… given Dr King’s record of activism, of non-violent resistance, of his commitment to creating a better country for all Americans, especially people of color… I can reasonably surmise who he might have voted for and it wouldn’t have been Trump.

Sorry, but I’ll be saving up all of my love for the people who need it most. Turning the other cheek? Forgiveness? Yeah that’s all well and good for my actual neighbors or my co-workers or my own family. But I have no love, no affection, no sympathy, no pity, no compassion, and no tolerance for Trump or for his cronies. They forfeited that when they ran a campaign based on little more than lies, hate, and greed.

Jesus of Nazareth, much like Dr King, was a political agitator. His love was a radicalized love, meant for the poor and the destitute who rallied around him, the people who were suffering under the government of his time. Much like Dr King, his love got him killed. Jesus of Nazareth loved his people not the establishment. We don’t have to love the establishment either. Don’t ask us to love an administration based on little more than hate.

Under an administration led by Kamala Harris, America would have continued to thrive. Love would have flourished for the American people because her policies told us all that it was okay to love those who are different. I don’t hear that from her opponents. All I hear them saying is that we should fear outsiders, that we should hate those we disagree with, and that we should attack the vulnerable rather than help them. Those policies are kinda hard to love. It’s not easy to love your enemies when your enemy plans to wipe away your very existence.

I know op means well. I appreciate the sentiment. But op, you really ought to direct that meme at your fellow Republicans.

Democrats will continue to share their light. Democrats will continue to fight for the right to love and to be loved. VP Harris and Governor Walz based their platform on joy and revelry and we will reach that point again.

For now though, we grieve. It wasn’t just Kamala Harris who lost that election- it was all of us, Democrats and Republicans alike. Tariffs will hurt all Americans. Budget cuts and deregulation will hurt all Americans (it already is… listeria anyone?). Trump’s cabinet choices will hurt all Americans. Fascism will hurt all Americans. You republicans think you’ve won this election? False. We all lost. America lost. Musk won. Bezos won. Putin won. Trump’s greedy and heartless sycophants won. We all lost, even you, op. But sure, tell us that we need to shine our light when you’re blocking it with your trump signs. Tell us that we need to be more loving when you support the most hateful person in the country. Sure.

Actually, I found a much more relevant quote for you:

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly".

- Dr Martin Luther King Jr

Do not mistake our cries for justice with words of hate. We see a rapist getting elected president and appointing other sexual predators as his cabinet? We want justice. We see a convicted felon getting elected president when felons can’t even vote? We want justice. We see a spoiled brat draft dodger about to become the commander in chief of our military? We want justice. All of the people who’ve been sexually abused or assaulted, all the convicts blocked from the careers they most want even if they’ve served their time and reformed, those who fought for our country with honor… hell, all law-abiding, tax-paying, hardworking Americans? We want justice!

Even Jesus of Nazareth had to pick up a friggin rope and chase the deplorables of his day out of the temple. There’s a time for love and there’s a time to protect the ones we love. And that’s why we Democrats need to keep up the fight. It’s love we’re fighting for in the first place.

Hey Democrats?

[aquanutart]

She is offering water to any lost travelers! However, it's so hot that the water has become tea, so she's adjusted accordingly!

[pyrosomatic-metamorphosis]

OH. okay so normally i dont touch discourse with a 20 ft pole, but this has been niggling at my brain tonight and i finally realized why

the people who are mad at qbbh for the memory loss and “dodging consequences” dont understand that he doesnt want to dodge consequences. Like they cant know that, they werent focused on him when he was literally feeding himself to the soul vultures and planning his eventual imprisonment and also. The Many Many Many hints he made towards suicide/sacrifice/Just Fucking Dying.

ccbbh is a subtle roleplayer, he’s been building this shit up for two whole months- it was day FIVE of the eggs going missing that he resolved to do whatever it took (hurting his friends) to get the eggs back. It was day three that he followed in dapper’s footsteps and started feeding himself to the soul vultures (and gaining a Massive headwound beneath his hood in the process- you can only see it if you go on namemc and remove the layers). He’s got impaired judgement. Even the memory issues arent a new thing- i cant remember exactly when they started, but one of the first big moments i remmeber was september 30th where he spent an hour falling into a delusional frenzy searching his base for cameras that he forgot he asked aypierre to plant.

The super murder of purgatory and the memory loss afterwards probably all feels very sudden for people who havent been following his story, but as someone who has been- all of this has been true to character. The only cheap swings he’s made have been combat-based in purgatory, and even the motive for those was built up in rp.

People are calling for consequences, but he has alrwady been experiencing self-inflicted consequences for months. The blue on his usual outfit is blood. This recent memory loss isnt a restart to get away with the atrocities - it is yet another consequence of his egg-protecting complexes and the ways he punishes himself for failing them.

he is NOT a moral character. he’s a demon hiding in plain site. he has eaten people. he has killed people. he understands the cruelty of his actions, and the consequences of them for the loved ones of his victims. but it matters when that harm is being done to his loved ones. he’ll still do it, because he will do anything for the eggs, but it matters, and that means that he has already started the process of self-inflicting those much-demanded consequences

[milolunde]

We all know Timmy is Wanda’s mama’s boy but we need to keep in mind he’s still Cosmo’s kid too and that Cosmo would love him just as vehemently as Wanda

[icemankazansky]

2024:

2019:

How is this happening again?

What is happening?

[wasabikitcat]

community college is so funny because half of the teachers are like "For this class you need to use lockdown browser for all quizzes and tests. You need to buy this 70 dollar textbook, and all papers turned in must be in APA format with a title page even if they're only 500 words long. I will not accept late assignments. Also you have a minimum of 4 assignments a week." and the other half are like "you don't need proctoring for the final exam I trust you. here's a download link to a pirated copy of the textbook. as long as your writing is coherent and demonstrates an understanding of the material I literally could not care less what format you use. I can't figure out how canvas works so I'm not giving you due dates, just make sure it's turned in before the grading period ends. your only weekly assignment is a forum post with a minimum of 100 words."

[triglycercule]

How do you think the fandom somehow turned Horror into a really nice sweet guy who can practically do no wrong when his original counterpart is just such a fucking dickhead

ERUAGH this topic always intrigues me as a proud asshole horror truther BUT ALSO i love fanon horror too 💔💔 because for me i was "there" for the og years of horror's character getting turned into this total baby but i wasnt THERE THERE (aka here on tumblr because i didn't even know what tumblr was back in like 2016-17 💀)

so for me i can only guess. imo i think it was just a combination of flanderization & lack of canon knowledge PLUS the fact that the only info that was first known about horror himself was just from the flashgame (since all of chapter 1 of horrortale is about toriel and the ruins so by then horror's already got an established stereotype and image and people just dont read the comic enough to actually correct this). its just a bunch of layers of mischaracterization that quickly piled up and its packed TIGHTLY now in this current age

horror in the flash game is presented REALLY simply,,,, he's just this guy that taps on wood with a cleaver that kills you if you get too nosy or dont listen to papyrus and makes jokes about food. we dont know if he doesn't eat food at all yet since the panel establishing that horror hasnt eaten food in 7 years comes out in 2018 in pg44 💀 (and technically the hint that he hasn't eaten humans at all came out in pg33 but again making comic pages takes awhile and i know that horrortale's had its fair share of hiatuses thru the years,,,,) so this lack of knowledge about his hunger can ALREADY lead to the "foodie" trope that he has since he makes jokes about head dogs n stuff

the protective part can also be assumed by how he's always making sure that aliza plays along with papyrus's games and when we get later into chapter 2 and learn about snowdin that he also provides for everyone there by feeding them with humans. i always see people bringing up these arguments of how "OH WELL horror feeds everyone in horrortale and protects them from undyne so he'd do the same for others too!!!" well yeah sure but like,,,, he also feels incredibly guilty about the position that he's put them in and feels obligated to do that just because,,, MAYBE he'd provide for others like how he does in snowdin but REALLY? youre using the bare minimum of him providing BASIC FOOD AND PROTECTION as a way of justifying his protective tendencies??? i feel like that could work better (in a bad sanses context. because you always see this bullshit in nightmare's gang,,,,, (nightmare is a catalyst for bad characterization WHEN I CATCH YOU WHEN I CATCH YOU)) if his provider tendencies were given a more unique approach than just feeding them and stuff. horror wouldn't have the same attachment he had to snowdin with any of the gang so he wouldn't treat them the same or even similarly!!! AT ALL!!!!! oops i got sidetracked BUT ANYWAYS

and then for the big bear giant thing where people make him 3x the size he normally is (WHICH IS PEAK KEEP DOING IT,,,,,, epaugh small dust big horror would be the second only thing to put me to death if i was 95 and on my deathbed. right after any mtt fanart poly or not) i feel like just came from the simple idea of Big=Scary because idk megalophobia or smth. like people saw him and maybe horror was too much of a kicked puppy to be scary in their eyes so people were like lets size him up!! i do remember seeing a post where the reason why people hced horror was big was bc all his limited magic was put into sustaining his body and thats why his bones are thick but that just like,,,,, doesn't make sense to me. like even animals here on EARTH with normal diets have limited growth capacity simply because a larger body means more sustenance for it so why would he be bigger if that would just make him hungrier??? nevertheless I STILL LOVE DISPROPORTIONATELY BIG HORROR but unfortunately it does contribute to fanon horror 💔💔💔

this fandom is notorious for not reading canon info too sooo,,,, LIKE I SAID it was a mix of lack of canon info + horrortale being underdeveloped + flanderization of his basic traits which were then amplified when people came up with hcs for this flanderized version of horror and not his canon one. i mean you gotta be honest that fanon versions of characters will almost ALWAYS be easier to make fun jokes and art and writing of just bc of the fact that they are simpler!! almost all of the utmv au characters have this trait where their fanon version is a really really REALLY simplified/flanderized version of themselves which like,,,, you go you! just make sure to read horrortale pls :3 its peak fiction pls :3 the comic is so fire :3 the gore isnt really that graphic (in my opinion) you might be able to stomach it :3

[ageless-aislynn]

For 10 years, my fic with by far the most hits on AO3 was "Five Times Oliver Held Felicity (And The One Time She Held Him)."

And I'm proud of it, don't get me wrong. I think it actually contains some of my better writing. 🤷‍♀️ But it ended up being a one-off sort of thing: I thought I'd write more Olicity or Arrow in general and then just... didn't.

However, it was so far ahead of all of my other fics in hits, I figured nothing would ever challenge it for the top spot. I hadn't checked my stats in quite a while and so I was surprised to discover that the "Five Times" Olicity fic was now in second place.

I've written 114 fics in the Flash fandom and none of them have remained in my top 5, that was another surprise! But 3 of my 11 Halo fics now are: "15 Minutes," (John/female reader) "Side Effects" (John/Cortana, John/Kai, very NSFW) and "Recreation" (Kai/male reader, same world as "15 Minutes").

Now, why is any of that important? It's for the sheer fact that I don't write sci-fi military fiction well AT ALL. My interest has always been in the more domestic and romantic themes, for lack of a better thing to call it. "You write the moments between the adventures" was what somebody told me about my Doctor Who fics ("Balancing Act," which is third place on that list, is a multi-chaptered Ten/Donna NSFW romantic fix-it fic where every chapter clearly takes place after some sort of new adventure that I don't show you but instead reference 😉). I agree with that assessment, that IS basically what I write.

A little while ago, I read somebody criticizing a particular type of Halo fanfiction. They didn't name mine by name but basically said it wasn't written "properly" like it's "supposed" to be and was everything that's "wrong" with uninformed people writing things they shouldn't be.

Here's the kicker: I think they're wrong. If they would've pointed at somebody else's fic and said that same thing, I would've wanted to jump in and tell them to get over themselves. People are allowed to enjoy whatever they want to enjoy! If somebody wrote a story that's "wrong" in your opinion, then all you have to do is scroll on by.

Heck, if somebody wants to write about Master Chief riding into battle on a T-rex while waving a glowing, magic sword given to him personally by Gandalf the Grey... Well, dang it, I'd read it, lol! Yeah, that wouldn't take place in canon but what is fanfic even for if not to allow all sorts of exploration? What if Halo had dinosaurs and magic swords? What if Chief and Silver Team or Blue Team or a brand new team of OC Spartans desperately needed to go buy new curtains for their apartments after they'd hung out for a while at the most happening coffee shop on Reach where Thel 'Vadam was the barista who made amazing specialty drinks while also heading up the local garage band?

(Yeah, I made that manip for something else but might as well get more use out of it, right? 😂)

Anyway, you get my drift. If one of my fellow Halo writers would've gotten criticism like that, I would've challenged it. But it was too close to my own work and instead, I absorbed it. I feel like I shouldn't be writing for Halo, I'm too wrong, I'm too off. I mean, no wonder I'm struggling to finish my WIPs, right? That's the first thing that pops to mind when I try to write anything: Yeah, but you're doing this all wrong. You should be ashamed of what you're writing. You're insulting the real fans of Halo by trivializing the characters like this. You're disrespecting actual military people living today by getting too much of this wrong.

And so seeing those stats at AO3 really meant something to me. I know I don't write authentic action-orientated sci-fi military fiction. I know that. But I love the characters and I love seeing them in situations they wouldn't be in in canon and I can't even tell you why. But people have been reading my fics? At least, I hope the hits aren't coming from people passing the links around with a big ol' ZOMG, please don't ever write Halo like THIS IDIOT, okay??? attached to them. 🤞😣🤞😉

This sounds pretty silly seeing it written down like this. I know, it's like, Get over yourself, Ais, not everything is about you! But I've been really struggling to get to the root of my writer's block so I could figure out what's keeping me from finishing my WIPs. And seeing those stats tonight and realizing how many more times my Halo fics seem to have been read over my other fandoms...?

Well, that might only mean that Halo is just the more popular fandom right now and it's nothing more than that. But it's nice to think that, even though there are people out there who think somebody unqualified like me shouldn't be posting their ridiculous little stories, maybe there are other people who've enjoyed them, even as unauthentic as they are?

I dunno. Food for thought.

I'm hoping this will inspire me to at least finish up the next chapter for "15 Minutes." 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

Thanks for reading. *hugs* to you if you've ever or are currently struggling with anything like this. Tell your stories, they're worth it. I believe in you. 🤗🤗🤗

I just need to try harder to believe in myself, hm? 🤔

PS - I've gotten SO MANY wonderful comments on my Halo fics, so why is it that the hate that might not even have been meant for me is so much louder in my head and crowds the nice comments out? I hate that, I truly do. 😖

[nightmare8-420]

i feel like a part of my soul has been ripped from my chest and i dont know why.

[iguessitsjustme]

Listen. Do I know it's a bad idea to go into the MDL comments? Yes. Do I do it anyway? Of course I do. I'm nosy. I want to see what disasters are happening in there.

[maliro-t]

some game design thinky thoughts.

[icterid-rubus]

😕

[the-dot]

.

[raksh-writes]

Gosh, Ive been in such a writing slump for like almost a year now and Im just. So tired. I just wanna create!! I wanna write something again! But anytime I look at one of my WIPs I just can’t get myself into any of them and I mean its very possible that's also just a side effect of being so rusty and not writing for so long and the fact easy distraction like youtube is just a click away but then again it just feels like the creative juices won’t flow and its killing me ;_; I want to Write, I want to Create and I want to share it again, and maybe its just that I miss posting my work and interacting with fandom and having that fan-obsession so there's a question there to consider what exactly Im missing but... damn I really do just wanna write again and feel how good that feels to be creative ;_;

This just sucks man...