#(which IS completely valid as it was one of the game's inspirations)

[murmurlilies]

been playing 1000xRESIST over the last couple days, finished it this morning. genuinely one of the most astonishingly good indie games I've ever played. hell it might be one of the best games I've ever played PERIOD. can't even describe to you the way I felt when I finally rolled credits on it. I feel empty, emotionally exhausted even, but I also feel transformed, inspired. I seriously can't give enough praise to Sunset Visitor for what they've accomplished, especially for their debut title. I'm gonna be thinking about this one for a LONG time.

[david-talks-sw]

The OTHER type of Star Wars fan

We've already covered (through this longer post and this addendum) that research shows George wasn't that involved or interested in the derivative material of the Star Wars franchise, also known as the Expanded Universe (EU). Aside from approving a few points, he let Howard Roffman and Lucasfilm Licensing handle it.

He is the first to say that he ain't as knowledgeable about Star Wars lore as we fans are.

Thing is... he's also not as passionate as we are.

Recently, I was watching some Q&A videos of George R.R. Martin, the author of Game of Thrones... and it occurred to me:

Martin is what most Star Wars fans wish Lucas was.

Think about it.

He's a talented writer who likes to focus on morally "gray" characters and complex political plotlines,

who created a series of novels for a mature audience in which his narrative merely asks questions and lets the reader draw their own conclusions,

knows and engages in the lore behind his creation and will often respond to those lore-heavy questions, and has gone on record stating that canon is the glue that holds a story together and keeps it coherent.

Contrast that with George "continuity is for wimps" Lucas, who:

Wrote a movie franchise which is also, partially, political... but he makes it for kids, and he's explicit about how this is thematically a clear-cut story about how the conflict of "good vs evil" is really about "compassion vs greed",

with flat dialogue, boring cinematography,

and whose approach to lore and canon can be summed up in his answer to how Anakin got his scar:

"I don't know. Ask Howard [Roffman]. That’s one of those things that happens in the novels between the movies. I just put it there. He has to explain how it got there. I think Anakin got it slipping in the bathtub, but of course, he's not going to tell anybody that." - Pablo Hidalgo’s set diary, August 2003

And as a Star Wars fan, I will admit that some of his casual retcons felt disrespectful, growing up.

"Boba Fett is NOT Mandalorian?!"

I had the same reaction when I saw an interview of Kathleen Kennedy stating she was a fan of Star Wars... from a filmmaking perspective. That seemed like such a finagling cop-out for me, at the time.

"Just say you're not a real fan, God!"

And it's easy to divide it in two camps, like that. You have 1) the real fans, who will delve into deep lore, and 2) the average moviegoer, also known as the "filthy casuals."

But looking back on it... holy shit, that is actually a completely valid way of being a Star Wars fan.

Yes, Star Wars is a transmedia franchise, it's books, it's video-games, it's deep lore, it's lightsabers and Jedi and Sith and bounty hunters and Ewoks and Jabba and High Republics and Tython and Revan etc.

But before it was that, Star Wars was a filmmaking revolution. A juggernaut of innovation for the silver screen that inspired most of today's filmmakers.

So, sure, George Lucas isn't an avid lore-loving Star Wars fan like you and me. But he is a movie fan.

"I'm not that passionate about this story. I like it, it's fun and I enjoy doing it. But it's definitely not my life. I'm a bigger movie fan than I am Star Wars fan. I like making movies. At the end of nine years of making Star Wars, I was not ready to continue it. I was completely burned out on it. I was more passionate about raising my kids than making movies and especially making Star Wars. So I made other kinds of movies and TV shows and advanced the technology I needed. It's not a matter of passion. My passion is for filmmaking. I'll go and do filmmaking that is easier to do, where you can realise your ideas better. And nine years is a big part of your life, and to commit to another nine years, I didn't wanna do that right away." - EMPIRE, 1999

And you can tell this, when you watch the Star Wars films.

There are honestly so many homages and interesting filmmaking techniques, peppered throughout the six films, which only a nerd for cinema history like George would know how to implement.

C3-PO being based on the droid from Metropolis (1927) is a perfect example of this.

And that's interesting.

Because there's essentially this entire other dimension to the films, where it's not just the story unfolding, but to filmmakers it's also a series of techniques that make them go "I wonder how they did that!" or homages that make them go "OH! I know where that's from!" like we do when an comics characters appears in live-action.

Here's other examples:

CINEMA HOMAGES

All of Star Wars is absolutely littered with homages to cinema history.

I mean, you may already know this, but Flash Gordon is what George originally wanted to shoot, but the copyright holders said they only wanted Fellini to direct it (ironically, George wasn't artsy-fart enough for them). So he decided to write Star Wars instead.

As such, the inspiration from Flash Gordon is also present visually and spiritually throughout the two trilogies.

"It was like a Republic serial, a 1930s-style matinee adventure. The idea was that you came in, saw Episode IV, had missed the first three episodes, and wouldn't get to see the rest of it." - Starlog Magazine #300, 2002

The dialogue that a lot of people refer to as "campy" and "flat" is actually a mix of George being an experimental filmmaker who doesn't give much of a fuck about dialogue (and is by his own admission, not the best at it)...

"I'd be the first person to say I can't write dialogue. My dialogue is very utilitarian and is designed to move things forward. I'm not Shakespeare. It's not designed to be poetic. It's not designed to have a clever turn of phrase. [...] I just wanted to get from point A to point B. This film doesn't lend itself to that sort of thing because it's not about snappy one-liners.  I think that Lethal Weapon-style dialogue is overused, it's a necessary aspect of high action films where you have to have the smart retort. You have to say "I'll be back baby" and stuff. It's not my style. It takes away from the integrity of the movie. [...] I'm aware that dialogue isn't my strength. I use it as a device. I don't particularly like dialogue which is part of the problem." - EMPIRE, 1999

... which is convenient, because it helped him simulate the dialogue of 1930s matinee serials, such as Flash Gordon.

"Let’s face it, their dialogue in that scene is pretty corny. It is presented very honestly, it isn’t tongue in cheek at all, and it’s played to the hilt. But it is consistent, not only with the rest of the movie, but with the overall Star Wars style. Most people don’t understand the style of Star Wars. They don’t get that there is an underlying motif that is very much like a 1930s Western or Saturday matinee serial. It’s in the more romantic period of making movies and adventure films. And this film is even more of a melodrama than the others." - Mythmaking: Behind the Scenes of Attack of the Clones, 2002

But beyond that, literally it's everywhere.

The scene where Palpatine ascends to being Emperor as Anakin slaughters his political rivals parallels the final scene in The Godfather, where Michael becomes the Don while his goons do the same thing.

This video compiles all the tributes beautifully. Check it out.

Even The Clone Wars has whole episodes that are direct homages to cult classics. The Zillo Beast episode is a clear reference to Godzilla, the episode The Wrong Jedi is inspired by The Wrong Man, etc.

"CINEMA VÉRITÉ" CINEMATOGRAPHY

I've already written a whole post (one of my favourites) showing how his fascination with cinéma vérité documentaries is reflected in the cinematography of all six Star Wars films, and it's part of what makes the entire franchise feel so immersive.

You can check it out here:

KUROSAWA

We've gone over how he's a big fan of Akira Kurosawa, and how big an influence Hidden Fortress was on both the Star Wars trilogies...

... but so is the mise-en-scène and the way George approaches production design. The reason Star Wars feels so "lived in" is also a lesson George learned from Kurosawa, which is that by making everything just a bit off-kilter, a bit dirtied-up and imperfect...

... and yet keeping it all consistent, in a way, you manage to make the film feel grounded and immersive, no matter how alien it is.

"[It] may sound odd in a movie like this, but credibility and realism, even in the most unrealistic situation… to sorta create that sense of realism is very important to making the story work and making you feel like you’re actually in the environment that transports you and gives you the suspension of disbelief that you need in order to enjoy a movie. [...] Kurosawa used to call it “immaculate realism” which is to make it slightly off-kilter, slightly eccentric, like things are in real life. Even if it’s a very predictable situation, give it that little funny edge that takes it away from that and makes it realistic. And I had to struggle very hard, in the Star Wars films, to make them appear to be realistic, even though they’re totally fantasy." - The Phantom Menace, Commentary Track #2, 1999

POST-PRODUCTION & VFX

Another one of the more impressive aspects of the first Star Wars was the dogfights and the trench raid of the Death Star. The camera pans with the spaceship, the dynamism of the cuts. The space battles is what made George creat ILM in the first place.

He was determined to do the opposite of what 2001: A Space Odyssey had done with that opening scene where the space ship moves into frame slooooowly...

... so he gave the team a collection of WWII dogfight footage to give them ideas.

(note: this was the same approach he would take years later with Dave Filoni, when teaching the latter how to edit and craft dogfights in The Clone Wars)

The attempt to film the trench run eventually led to the creation of the first motion control camera dolly.

Best analogy I can think of, when describing George's approach to Star Wars, is the following:

An avant-garde esoteric contemporary artist - y'know, the type who puts a blue dot on a white canvas and calls it art - creates a comic.

Why? Because he wants to make this one art installment for a gallery exhibition. After that, he intends to move on to other things.

But the comic is really good! And like, its audience quickly expands beyond just gallery visitors, no, everyone likes it.

Suddenly, the comic develops a cult following, and the entirety of comic book geek culture has zeroed-in on the artist and they're all asking him to make more art! And he makes more! And more!

Then he stops for two decades, moves on to other art projects, raises his kids. Years later, he discovers new ways of drawing, and he's like "I'm making a Prequel to the comic, y'all wanna see it?"

Everyone cries out gleefully: "Oh God, yes! Finally! Show us!"

But this motherfucker makes a manga.

Why? Because he feels like it.

And of course he does, he's just creating art, right? He discovered the graphic tablet, so he's having fun with it, because he's always innovating and pushing the envelope with his art.

And the books are fine, by manga standards. But by comic book standards, they obviously suck! The comic book audience is mad. They wanted another comic book, not a manga. Why is it in black and white? Why is read right-to-left? This comic is crap!

(And arguably, they have a point... as a savvy businessman, he's made a whole lot of money off this comic, he built a media empire out of it, and instead of giving them what they want, he made something else)

But again... this guy isn't a comic book illustrator, and has been very explicit about saying this.

He's an artist who - for a very specific project - drew a comic.

Many things can be true at once:

the fact that these creative decisions didn't always hit their mark for the average moviegoer, or fans of "Star Wars, the space fantasy movies and expanded universe" (usually the lore-loving geeks like myself)...

... and the fact that they were meticulously and carefully crafted in a way that fans of "Star Wars, the revolutionary film" (aka fans of cinema and filmmaking) can appreciate.

There's a spectrum of the fandom, and there is a spectrum in the way we can appreciate Star Wars. Which kinda reminds me of that scene in Chef (2014) where Carl goes on a rant explaining the intricacies of making his chocolate lava cake to a food critic.

It's not just undercooked chocolate. It's molten.

Conversely:

It's not just flat, campy dialogue. It's an homage to the 1930s matinee serials à la Flash Gordon.

It's not just boring cinematography. It's a reproduction of cinéma vérité documentary-style camera work which effectively grounds the film.

Having considered all this, when I hear that Tony Gilroy or Kathleen Kennedy were more fans of Star Wars from a "cinema studies" side rather than the typical pop culture one, I think it's fair enough.

First of all, because like it or not, so was George. He clearly didn't give a single crap about the offshoot comics and books and their lore, besides signing off on minor plot points. He's not a "sci-fi movie director", he's an experimental filmmaker who set some of his movies in space.

But secondly, because - aside from children - it's clear the audience he was targeting was not the fans or the critics... but these very same cinema-savvy people, who get his references and homages, and who were inspired by the new filmmaking techniques he introduced.

[love-takes-work]

Highlights from the stream:

Here are the anecdotes shared during the epic draw-fest. Nearly all of them have been shared elsewhere at least once, but the new ones for me were about Greg Universe's orientation and the prototypical name for what Steven and Pearl's Fusion was going to be.

Rebecca Sugar loved Peridot's floating fingers and wanted to do all kinds of fun things with them before they would be gone forever. That's why we see her making arrows with them and biting them nervously in the episode right before she loses them.

When selecting clips for promotional use, they tried to be super careful about not picking anything that would show Peridot's real hands before the reveal had been aired. They didn't want a promo to accidentally ruin that surprise.

While doing the show they had an "eye theory" where the three main Gems would always have a different number of eyes showing. Pearl had both her eyes visible; Amethyst usually had one covered; and Garnet had either no eyes showing or three eyes showing.

With Rebecca and Ian's decision to get married and the characters Ruby and Sapphire being based on them, they figured well, of course now they have to get married too. (Though Rebecca and Ian got to do so AFTER their characters did!)

One of Rebecca's "post-Future theories" is that Steven gets a Gibson Hummingbird guitar.

Cookie Cat was originally based off of Cookie Puss, a very strange Carvell ice cream cake. It had a complicated backstory, which was appropriate for working with their own characters' complicated backstory. The branding and packaging of the Cookie Cat is important within the show.

Jeff Liu composed the Cookie Cat theme on a Game Boy and pitched it.

Rebecca has a "theory" regarding how Steven and Connie's faces kind of "fit together" with Connie's face sticking out at the top and Steven's face sticking out at the bottom.

Rebecca used to do a lot of fan comics, and learned a lot about storytelling while practicing with others' worlds and characters. They love when people make things based on these characters.

The original appearance of Rainbow Quartz was inspired by a music video from the Cars that Rebecca loved when they were younger. The Cars are referenced a lot throughout the show because their videos were a huge inspiration to Rebecca.

Lapis is very much based on a character from one of Rebecca's comics from the art school days.

Everybody on the Crew had different ideas of how Steven's head connected to his body and how his hair worked; Rebecca felt that they learned from everyone's various ideas.

If you've heard that Rebecca was against Finn being in a relationship while working on Adventure Time, that is not true. Rebecca worked on lots of the Flame Princess episodes. Finn and Flame Princess were still together when Rebecca left the show (last episode "Simon and Marcy").

Greg Universe's sexuality was never explicitly stated on the show, but Rebecca thinks of him as sexually fluid. Regarding him as bisexual is also completely valid--and appreciated by Rebecca as a bisexual creator who puts lots of their own personal traits into characters and feels that bisexual characters are pretty rare. Greg's gender on the show is pretty solidly established as male, so Ian says he is probably not gender fluid, but Rebecca is fine with alternate headcanons about that too.

Some of the earliest concept art from "Mr. Greg" was everybody in suits. Getting everyone in a suit was a primary agenda.

Everyone also wanted Connie to have a Space Camp outfit in the earliest concepts for her design in the movie.

Rebecca used to love doing signings while doing the show because it was like a chance to come up for air and go back to work energized by knowing how many people were touched by the show.

Rebecca Sugar wanted Pink Diamond to feel a bit influenced/inspired, design-wise, by the work of Iwao Takamoto. Rebecca loved his work in the Hanna-Barbera Alice in Wonderland and on Sleeping Beauty.

Rebecca drew the rough of the poster's art and Danny Hynes did the colors. Rebecca loves that they got to do this poster because they didn't get to do the final Comic Con with any art depicting Future or beyond (the finale of Future coincided with the emergence of Covid, so everything was closed down), so this is their way of "going rogue" and doing it!

An early prototype of a Steven/Pearl Fusion was called Coral. Rebecca said maybe they could share some drawings of this Fusion sometime. Rebecca shared this factoid with the viewers while drawing Rainbow Quartz 2.0, and mentioned that Ian boarded the scenes including their introduction.

Rebecca would often draw Garnet with a huge smile on her face whenever Garnet was the requested character--even before Garnet had made an expression like that on any aired episode. They had to be careful not to drop any Garnet lore before viewers knew what her center was about. For the short period before "Alone Together" had aired that they were doing conventions, some people were getting mysteriously grinning Garnets and not being familiar with that expression, but once the episodes aired, they understood for sure.

Shelby Rabara, Peridot's voice actor, is a professional dancer, and she choreographed the tap-dancing in "Mr. Greg" as well as provided the foot-taps that you actually hear in the show during the dancing.

Rebecca thinks of art and writing as just two different ways of expressing what you mean--they're not exactly as different from each other as most people think.

Everyone on the Crew was so excited about Steven's neck as an older teen. Mainly because figuring out how Steven's head joins to his body was an issue in original SU.

Unfortunately, while it was also kinda nice to see so many people enjoying Rebecca's drawings and commentary, there was a lot of rudeness and obnoxiousness in the chat. I know, I know, it's expected; I too live on the internet. But I'm disappointed to say the chat was full of people demanding Black Diamond, or repeating their own name and what character they want every 3 seconds (like, literally, pasting it over and over again for a long period of time), or harassing them about "weird Ed Edd and Eddy art," or spamming "REBECCA WHAT WAS IN THE CHEST," or wanting constantly for them to say hi to them personally, or repeatedly asking if Rebecca has read Homestuck. Or even writing snotty things like "maybe you should stop drawing and get up and give us a new season." Holy shit. can u not

(I didn't want to get a live-signed one, but I did get one of these to be sketched later! Mine is supposed to get Lion on it. I love Rebecca and the SU crew for bringing us new art and fun discussions in 2024.)

[blueshirtjamie]

"Slut!" // J. Hughes

In which Jack and the reader decide to go public with their blossoming relationship, only to discover that the internet can be a cruel place. Is all of it really worth it? (Inspired by the masterpiece of a vault track Taylor gave us.)

Warnings: mentions of alcohol, insults (the title is slut after all), not proofread so please pardon any small errors!

Word count: 1.9k

A/N: I honestly don't know Jack's personality very well so hopefully I did an okay job of characterizing him. I hope you enjoy this! My requests are always open :)

_____________________________________________

Everyone wants him, that was my crime

You had been dating New Jersey’s star young forward, Jack Hughes, for some time now– but it was a complete secret. Jack was one of the NHL’s biggest names because of his insane talent on the ice. And, much to your chagrin, he was also one of the most crushed-on players in the league. His ocean-blue eyes and sweet smile charmed anyone who laid eyes on him, and you were so afraid of what people would say if they found out that you two were an item. New Jersey Devils fans, and Jack Hughes fans in particular, were nothing if not protective and could be so mean online. You liked Jack a lot–you two had so much fun together, always laughing and doing fun things, and you didn’t want the world to break you two apart. You were afraid to share Jack, something you had shared with him from the start of your relationship. The Tweets, Tumblr posts, and Instagram accounts dedicated to your boy ignited a jealous and protective streak in you, but it was the price you’d have to pay to stay with Jack– and one you’d pay willingly. 

Aquamarine, moonlit swimmin' pool// What if all I need is you?

“I think we should go public soon, babe,” Jack said one night as you two were taking a late-night dip in your backyard pool. You swam over to him and put your arms around his neck, planting a small kiss on his lips. 

“ I don’t know, Jack,” you said. “I’m just so scared of what people will say. What if all I need is you? No one else’s opinions and validation, just my boy?” You gave him a small smile. 

“I know you’re scared, baby,” he replied. “But I want to show you off to the world. Everyone deserves to see my pretty girl and learn all about you and your kind heart.”

You blushed, and a sigh escaped you. 

“Okay,” you conceded. “If you’re sure, J, then I trust you.” 

Jack smiled, pulling you in for a long, slow kiss. The kind that made your stomach flutter and your heart melt. 

Got love-struck, went straight to my head// Got lovesick all over my bed

The moonlit swim replayed in your head as you two lay in bed that night. Jack had been sound asleep next to you, softly snoring, for a while now. You, on the other hand, were wide awake, your mind racing. “I want to show you off to the world,” you heard on loop. The sweet facial expression Jack gave you as you said it. The soft kiss that had quickly heated up. God, you loved kissing Jack, and with each kiss, you felt yourself falling deeper and deeper for him. Each sweet word from his pretty lips intensified your feelings. There was no denying it— you were falling in love with Jack Hughes, and he was right. It was time for the world to finally know. 

The next morning, you sat next to Jack in bed as he scrolled through photos of you guys, trying to find the perfect few to post on his Instagram. Finally, you settled on three– a shot of you two post-game, one with the city skyline in the background, and a selfie of you kissing his cheek. Your heart pounded as Jack typed out the caption: “my whole heart ❤️”. He pressed “post” and you took a deep breath. 

“I could throw up,” you said, curling into Jack’s side. He held you close, placing a gentle kiss on your head. 

“Everyone is gonna love you, babe, I don’t know how they couldn’t.” 

And I break down, then he's pullin' me in// In a world of boys, he's a gentleman

As it turns out, the internet was a cruel place, and not everyone loved you. While the comments on Jack’s post were mostly positive, especially the ones from teammates and other players, others were not so nice. The words “slut”, “puck bunny”, “clout chaser”, and “bitch” floated around a lot, and so you found yourself doom scrolling through social media, reading every comment you could find. Your photos were reposted time and time again on various accounts, and it was overwhelming. Tears welled in your eyes and you tried hard to hold them back, but you were unsuccessful. Once they started falling, they just wouldn’t stop. Jack walked around the corner into your bedroom to find you a sobbing mess. He took your phone from your hands, powered it off, and took both of your hands in his. 

“We’re done with that for today, okay?” he said gently. He pulled back the covers on your bed and helped you get in before getting in himself, pulling your body into his. 

“They’re being so mean, Jack,” you said between sobs. “I knew it was a bad idea, I knew it!” 

Jack shushed you gently, wiping your tears with his thumb. 

“Those people don’t matter, love. What matters is that you’re mine, and I’m going to protect you like my life depends on it. You and me, that’s all that matters, okay?”

You nodded as a sob racked through your body. Jack held you like that, whispering reassurances and stroking your hair until you calmed down, your breathing becoming more even and your cries fading out. He handed you a box of tissues from the nightstand and smiled at you as you dabbed at your eyes and blew your nose. 

“I’m sorry baby,” you said, your voice barely above a whisper. 

Jack cupped your face with both of his hands, looking you in your eyes. 

“Hey, there’s nothing to apologize for, baby,” he said. “At some point, you get used to any kind of comments about you and block them out. I forgot that not everyone can ignore it like I’ve learned to. I’m gonna protect you, okay? I mean it. I will tell you time and time again how amazing you are, and I’ll make sure they know it too.” He kissed you gently, and you melted into him. 

I said, "It might blow up in your pretty face"// I'm not sayin', "Do it anyway"// But you're going to

After an afternoon spent snuggling up to Jack and watching movies, you were calm, and the comments had drifted from your mind. Let them talk, you thought. As long as I have my boy, that’s all that matters. 

“Let’s go out tonight,” Jack said, looking at you, his face lit up in excitement. 

“Jack…” you started, an air of uncertainty in your voice. 

“No, I mean it. Let’s go out and be seen, show people that their comments don’t matter in the slightest. Let’s go have fun and get your mind off things, ya know?”

You sighed deeply, contemplating. You could dress up, go out, and have some fun with your boy, or you could stay in bed and sulk. Okay, you thought. Let’s do this. 

“Okay,” you said, looking at Jack and smiling. “But if it blows up in your pretty face, don’t say I didn’t warn you, babe.”

His elation visibly grew as his smile widened. 

“Okay!” He said, placing a gentle kiss on your lips. “Let’s get ready, then.”

But if I’m all dressed up, they might as well be lookin' at us// And if they call me a slut, you know it might be worth it for once// And if I'm gonna be drunk, I might as well be drunk in love

So there you were, dressed in a sexy little black dress that hugged your curves and showed off your best assets, your hair and makeup done up. You felt confident, you felt strong, you felt… hot. Jack agreed, whistling at you as you rounded the corner and stepped into his view. 

“Wow, babe,” he said, taking you in. “You are absolutely stunning. I can’t wait to show my girl off,” he smiled, taking your hand and spinning you in a small circle. He pulled you in then, both his hands on your waist, and gave you a long, slow kiss. You melted into him and deepened the kiss. After pulling away, you took in the sight of Jack. Black pants and blazer paired with a crisp white button-down and black tie, hair mussed up in just the right way that you loved on him. 

“You’re not so bad yourself,” you smiled, meeting his eyes with your own. He smiled back, that charming, bright smile that gave you butterflies every time. 

“Ready to go?” he asked. You nodded confidently. 

“We look so good,” you said. “They might as well be looking at us, right?” 

Jack laughed. “That’s my girl.”

The bar was busy on a Friday night, as was expected, so you two were able to grab a drink inconspicuously, blending into the crowd. Jack kept a hand around your waist the entire time, gently guiding you through the sea of people drinking, mingling, and dancing. You two found a table to stand at and people-watched, chatting and laughing together. It felt good to be out, to be dressed up, to feel confident. Your conversation was soon interrupted by a man, clearly already a few drinks in.

“Oh my god,” he shouted over the music. “Jack Hughes!” 

He clapped a firm hand on Jack’s back. 

“Can I take a picture with you?” he asked, more as a warning, as his phone quickly obscured Jack’s face as he leaned in for a selfie. 

Just as soon as he arrived, he was gone. 

“So it begins,” Jack said, a tone of annoyance in his voice. “I bet that picture is already on Twitter.” 

He took his phone out to check social media, and you leaned close to him, peering over his shoulder. He placed a hand on your lower back, scrolling through his mentions with the other hand. Sure enough– a grainy, dimly lit photo of you two in candid conversation had been posted by a hockey “news” account. 

Jack Hughes spotted with his new girlfriend at a Newark bar! (via @jacklukequinn)

Somehow, this didn’t bother you at all. If you were gonna dress up, they should be looking at you. You two were a hot couple, and the world deserved to see. If they called you a slut, or a puck bunny, or a clout chaser, so what? It was worth it. You had Jack– what they all wanted– so it was worth it. You had the boy who melted your heart with his charming smile, made you feel beautiful with his kind compliments, and kissed you like no one else ever had. If you were gonna get drunk, you might as well be drunk in love, too. You took Jack’s hand, looking him in his eyes. 

“Come on baby, I wanna dance,” you said, a smile creeping onto your face. 

Takin’ your time in the tangerine neon light, this is luxury// You're not sayin' you're in love with me// But you're goin' to

You led Jack to the dance floor, throwing your arms around his neck as he placed his hands on your hips. You swayed them to the beat, moving as close to him as you could be. The world around you faded– the words, the people, the thoughts, the insecurity, all fading away as you danced and the alcohol set in. It was just you and Jack, the neon lights of the bar casting his face in a tangerine glow. He looked at you lovingly, his eyes soft and his smile sweet. You laughed, pulling him close to place a kiss on his delicious lips. This, this right here was all you needed. All that mattered. Just you and Jack, falling in love. If they called you a slut, it truly might be worth it for once.

[jealousmartini]

💌 She's an overachiever. "Pressure"? What pressure? ⋆₊˚⊹🔖

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My second year of college is coming in hot guys. And I'm talking the 3rd of September, in TWO WEEKS TIME HOT.

But you already know your girl has BEEN locked in with her subliminals for the next term, cus I've had a whole thing going on since my first term to my second yk. so come a little closer so I can show yall what my game is on

p.s.a!! I am an animation and games art student, so most to all of my work is research and art based. And when I say most of my work is research based, I mean there is an ungodly amount of writing that is expected from the students and it's not even just the amount it's WHAT you write about that gets you the grade and how well your art conveys your ideas.

Also "Ex." = Example

╰┈➤ " My average college day experience as an art student/loass babe " click here!

«───────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ────────»

"What? Like it's hard?" At the top of her class, always ontop of her work, never slacking off, always locking in.

   ── .✦  ┆  𖤐  ┆  ␥ 

|| Perfect focus, super attentive, always pays attention and makes notes. I am never afraid to ask for help or advice and I always receive the answers I need to understand the work; no room for confusion here.

|| Very strong, clear memory, perfect photographic memory.

|| Studies so much, it's my hobby, never underestimates myself or downplays my work, has always prioritised my work and has always understood the importance of doing work at home. Studying has never been a struggle for me because I don't struggle with discipline. I actually find so much fun and enjoyment doing homework. I always feel so productive and proud of myself whilst managing my time and looking at the amount I have done afterwards. Especially with the amount of validation and points I earn from teachers. It is always so satisfying seeing my high grades after a complete project. It's like a treat.

|| Creative genius, always brainstorms with words or loose sketches; not a single idea goes to waste. Research enthusiast, I could never shy away from making a thorough, detailed, and well planned out analysis, moodboard or mindmap. And multiple of them at that. I always know EXACTLY what to write and never wastes precious time and space yapping.

|| The life of an art student is exciting, fulfilling, flourishing, inspiring and strict. In the healthy way of course. My parents and teachers are always understanding of my burnouts and art block which are very rare thank god; and it's a good thing I have my closest friends to comfort me through my work. They are always so supportive, encouraging and honest with me as I am with them. We always travel together to the college (when I don't feel like being alone) and we always travel back home together. I mean we are our own personal friend circle so of course we buy snacks for each other and meet up for lunch; it's not even like we need to worry about price since we have more than enough on us. College is 100 times better when my best friends are with me, everything feels so comfortable with them

|| Perfect, cunty, and ideal artstyles. Always chooses the ones most appropriate for a certain design, and never forgets how to convey a certain look. I know, understand and draw human, animal, vehicle, clothing anatomy and terminology, enviromental composition, colour theory and terminology, the 12 principles of animation, the 7 fundamentals of art (Line, pattern, colour, texture, tone, shape and form), and the fundamentals of character design like the back of my hand

|| I know how to layout a design page appropriately, I always know how to theme and colour co-ordinate. Written placement and art placement are always perfect to the T and nothing looks off. All together, I show off my own unique style of work and impress my teachers of classmates

Ex. Subliminals in my art student playlist

"Over achiever", "Desired art skills", "Desired (college) life"

«───────── « ⋅ʚ♡ɞ⋅ » ────────»

"Ugh she is always doing the most with her work😒-" And she always looks good doing it. She's got the looks and the discipline; she's got it all

   ── .✦  ┆  𖤐  ┆  ␥ 

|| Gorgeous, curly, and ideal (3B to 3C) hair. My hair never gets greasy, dry, breakage, damage, frizz, dandruff, or split ends. My curls are always moisturised, soft, bouncy, and defined. I never experience a bad hair day, and my hair is super easy to manage. Detangling my hair is a breeze, and styling my hair is even easier; every style looks exactly the way I want it and never loses the volume or shape throughout the day.

|| Ideal, fit, slim thick pear. Short shoulders, small ribcage, medium-sized chest, 20 inch waist, wide hips and slight dip, long legs, fat ass but not too fat, chubby but fit thighs, slimmer defined calves and small feet. The perfect pear. And every outfit looks exactly the way I want; I never look awkward but I always look put together and stylish.

|| Craziest face card. Ms. Face economy infact. I have a round heart shaped face with dark brown bambi eyes and long fluttery lashes, a medium straight nose bridge, plump pink "keyhole" lips, and the clearest, softest brown skin ever... Yet I still put make up on- yes I do because it's fun and I like it, so it's always awesome knowing I can do my make up flawlessly and nail my looks perfectly

Ex. Subliminals in my ideal appearance playlist

"3C hair type", "Pear body", "Desired face", "brown caramel skin"

∘₊ ✧───────────────────✧₊∘

I'll probably add smore later :3 k bye

[hopeymchope]

The utter brilliance of Castlevania: Nocturne S1 (and the fucking pox of right-wing YouTubers)

I just rewatched Castelvania: Nocturne's first season, and it's so fucking excellent. Upon first viewing, I already thought it was probably the second-best season of animated Castlevania, but now? I think it's probably the best one.

The character relationships offer so much drama and emotion. The dialogue is both clever/witty AND moving. The directing of the action sequences has always been top-tier on this show, but the vocal performances make them even more engaging and involving. The way they've infused historical context into the story is absolutely brilliant.

Some of the weird story decisions RE: Dracula at the end of the first series' fourth season (not unsatisfying decisions, mind you, but still just... bizarre, if you're adapting this franchise) really stuck the writers in a weird position as far as how to move forward. I could think of maybe three solid possibilities: one which would undermine the ending of S4 completely, one which would require a HUGE leap forward into the modern day, and the third? Is basically what they did.

Bringing in Erzebet Bathory, the primary antagonist of Castlevania: Bloodlines, was certainly a valid approach for how to deal with the Dracula situation. Applying her to the Rondo of Blood/Symphony of the Night era is surprising, but not terribly so; it's not like her historical counterpart didn't already exist. I have some qualms with HOW they did this (why is she Russian now instead of Hungarian.... ?), but there's no denying that she serves as an effective antagonist.

Look at that; that's literally Maria's design in "Nocturne" right there.

As a fan of the games, this is obviously a different world but still an extremely familiar one. Seasons 3 and 4 of the first series felt like we were drifting farther and farther away from our roots in the games, but Nocturne brings us closer to that inspiration again. Richter and Maria look like they stepped right out of the PSP's "Dracula X Chronicles," with their costumes nearly identical... though of course, Richter eventually adds and embraces the headband from his original "Rondo" design. Maria is just a handful of years older than she is in Rondo/Dracula X Chronicles, allowing her to be far less of the out-of-place childish cartoon character that she comes off as in Rondo (or Castlevania Judgment, for that matter). I realize that was the POINT of her character in Rondo — to feel like she invaded from a totally different series — but the writers do a great job bringing her in line with the tone and characters of the animated series and overall franchise in Nocturne. The characters' powers and abilities are very much based in the games; we even get an (incredibly rousing!) rendition of "Divine Bloodlines" when Richter pulls off a "Grand Cross"-style magical attack for the first time in his life. It's exhilarating. And that's even without me getting into how Richter uses his triple-knife throw, or how we get the lore of the woefully underrated "Harmony of Dissonance" rolled into this show when a certain character makes a surprise appearance (to my immense delight).

Regarding the original four seasons... "I'm going to eat your soul, shit it out and and use it to smother your fucking girlfriend" was not the kind of dialogue I expected to hear from DEATH, of all people.

There are times in the original four-season run when it feels like it's trying a little too hard to be edgy and grimdark—times when the excessive gore and the insane use of profanity feels like it's screaming "I AM AN ADULT ANIMATED SERIES" in a way that's undermining its best qualities. But Castlevania: Nocturne is too confident to fall into such traps. The gore is there, the profanity is present, but it's only in service of exciting action, consistent characterization, and powerful storytelling; no lingering still shots of blood-spattered cribs for shock value are necessary. It's just a smash from start to finish, and after each episode, I find myself pondering the implications of certain lines and stories — thinking about the goddamn philosophical underpinnings of this animated show based on video games.

Nocturne is a prime example of how and why we're in a golden age of video game adaptions right now. This thing is BEGGING for a deep dive into its world, its lore, and its characters' worldviews. It's the kind of thing that would make for killer YouTube essays exploring all of its facets, because there is just SO MUCH here.

So when I go onto YouTube, and I only find one video that even says "It's not that bad" amidst a goddamned SEA of "This show's writing is shit and this series is fucking woke trash"??? That's when I know WE HAVE FAILED AS A FUCKING SPECIES.

These fucking right-wing YouTube dudebros are ruining our ability to think logically, they are MURDERING our media literacy. They are an absolute cancer. The fact that we don't have strong counterpoints out there against them is a crime; the right-wing grifters have totally conquered the algorithm.

I wish I had the skill or knowledge or even TIME to make videos of my own.

Fucking ugh.

[magicaldragons]

family dynamics.

– Varadha –

Varadha is a wildcat among rabid dogs. He is no less capable of violence or twisted games, but he operates from a completely different wavelength, which is his biggest strength.

Rudra is a typical bully. He is someone who, from childhood, has always teamed up against the minority in an effort to seem powerful, because he cares too much about perception and not enough about true value

so it makes sense, that he’d find validation in treating Varadha – a stepbrother who is so far removed from how people normally behave in Khansaar – condescendingly.

he is specifically envious of Varadha – most of the hate Rudra feels for Varadha stems from an insecure desire to elevate his own worth.

but Radha Rama?

why does she hate Varadha? – she's above Rudra's pettiness and definitely knows better than to waste her time and energy on power plays when she could work on herself.

but we know that she's hated Varadha since his birth – even more than Rudra does, in fact.

It must have started out as sibling rivalry, especially with how eager Radha Rama is for Rajamannar's approval. Varadha, ever since his birth, was probably a threat for that spot – was possibly even Rajamannar's favorite before he gave away his honor territory. and after that? the hatred only grew. We know that once Varadha lost his position as a lord, he was shunned from court, and he spent more time among the people of Khansaar than his family. and this gave him more exposure throughout Khansaar and definitely earned him a particular reputation for how level-headed, clever, and genuine he was.

it slowly became more and more obvious, (to Radha Rama especially) as Varadha grew older, that he inspired devotion in people – he had people that would die for him, and she could never understand how he'd done it, especially with how hard she'd worked to be seen as valuable.

so it frustrated her that Varadha, even with his inherent, deliberate softness, and the way he portrayed himself, was able to receive such love and warmth from the people who knew him personally, and that maybe played a part in how much more she worked for the approval of Khansaar's king:

Rajamannar.

Rajamannar is someone who definitely saw the soft power Varadha had for winning hearts, especially with his coexisting capability for exerting his own power.

It takes a diplomatic, yet terrifyingly strong man, to build and maintain an empire, and obviously, this is something that even Rajamannar was unable to do perfectly, with his need to annihilate an entire tribe to secure the throne for himself.

Shivamannar was the first and only to be capable of doing this, and Rajamannar sees that same strength, tenacity, and authenticity in Varadha. As a father, he was definitely proud of Varadha in the beginning and could see his capacity for greatness.

After Varadha disappointed him by giving away his kada, though, Rajamannar still cared for him and saw his potential, but could no longer publically support a son who had disregarded their honor & disrespected not only the territory but also Rajamannar's decision to put him in charge of that territory – especially since Varadha refused to tell him why he did it.

and now that Rajamannar, just like Radha Rama, has realized the extent of Varadha's quiet power, most of his pride has turned to wariness.

because as a father, he can be proud.

but as a king?

Varadha is a threat.

Which leads us to the fact that: Rajamannar, Rudra, and Radha Rama have been hostile to the one person who has the capacity and the qualities to rule, but wouldn't have actively sought out the throne if they hadn't placed him in a spot where the only way for him to attain respect and feel valued was to gain the throne.

Essentially, by treating him they way they have, in an effort to keep him away from court and in fear that he will surpass them, they've dug their own graves.

— love, a definition: part two [part one / part three]

[ultimate-marysue]

To all interested in toxic, dysfunctional Batfam/Bad or Abusive Dad Bruce I have a proposition of sorts. As much as I love a Bad Dad Bruce where the kids all comfort and help each other standing up to Bruce, I think it's more likely and more interesting if they're completely isolated and desperate for Bruce's approval.

(If this isn't your cup of tea ignore this post. I'm also a fan of Good dad Bruce and wholesome Batfam but I understand some people are only interested in one or the other and that's valid. There's space for everyone in this fandom. Also TW for discussions of psychological Child Abuse)

How abuse (especially the brand the comics accidentally depict at times and the fandom enjoys portraying) works is more complicated that a Mean Bad Guy and a bunch of sweet and adorable perfect victims that unionize together. You make your victims fight each other, you choose golden children and scapegoat kids to rotate between so none of them gets too comfortable. That creates friction and rivalry even on a subconscious level. You may know logically the abuser is the one creating the situation and yet your brain is annoyed whenever a sibling knocks you down in the Favor pyramid.

No one wants to be the scapegoat and when your abuser seems so big and inescapable, the only way to avoid it is pushing someone else under the bus. Not to mention how you believe their logic. When you're compared favorably to another sibling, you internalize said criticism as moral flaws that you're above off. Which makes you resent said sibling even more when they regain favor and you're left thinking "I did everything right, and yet this failure gets dotted on???!". It's the prodigal son parable, Cain and Abel.

I know this makes your fav character extremely morally grey but I find it fascinating. Like, Tim absolutely despising Jason for being a failure and a killer (victim blaming him), seething when he comes back to the family and Batman begs him to come to dinner because how dare he. Tim's done everything right and he doesn't get half the attention. How he tries to steal the spotlight from Damian, clawing at his role as Batman's side quick because that's all that's ever gotten him positive reinforcement.

Dick constantly compares himself to Cass because he was Batman's original partner, she doesn't get to come and suddenly be the apple of Bruce's eye. He thinks he's over the mind games, moving away and trying to encourage his brothers to raise above this nonsensical competition for Bruce's attention...and yet when it comes to Cass (the only one that threatens his status as Golden Child) he can't help but feel just as defensive as his siblings are with him.

Jason who claims to not need Bruce's love and yet is completely addicted to the intermittent reward of his affection. How he still resents Tim for making it a point to be Bruce's obedient little lapdog, how he still blames Dick for being too perfect to reach.

Damian who is constantly being compared to Tim. Perfect Tim who is so smart, and obedient and socially savvy. How do you get your father to approve of you when your competition is 1) The Original Boy Wonder 2) His most perfect and loyal soldier in the cause 3) The World's Most Dutiful Sidequick. He'll never be as great as Dick, as Devoted as Cass nor as obedient as Tim.

Cassandra knows she's the favorite, and even when Dick briefly usurps her place in Bruce's made up mental hierarchy she knows it won't last. She's too good, and that drives all of her insecure praise-starved siblings up the wall. She may not be purposefully mean, but the end result is the same.

Duke may be the only one escaping mostly unscathed. He's playing along with the whole family thing, but his real parents are alive, he's going back to them as soon as he fixes their situation. He's been in the system since they were jokerized and this is not his first encounter with this kinda dynamic so he's not engaging. He admires Bruce's work, but Batman was never his inspiration. There's no hero worship to blind and entice him, and that low-key scares Bruce. Which is why Duke also gets the golden child treatment, an instinctive attempt at winning him over.

Steph and Barbara often find themselves reeling from the shit they hear from the "Waynes". Because everything makes sense to their internal logic, but the second you talk to an outsider they feel the need to call CPS. I can see them arguing with Tim and Dick respectively and calling them out on the twisted way they talk about their siblings sometimes. Same with Cass.

These are just raw ideas, but I just think if you're going to play around with the concept of abusive Dad Bruce, you can enrich the analysis by reflecting on the consequences of said upbringing. It doesn't mean they can't talk things out and fix it, but acknowledging how abuse twists your brain can give depth to your interpretation. Victims aren't perfect martyrs, if you grow up in a fucked up environment you're gonna think fucked up things. And not all of those are self afflicted and cute, sometimes you're going to think very mean things about your fellow victims. And I'm not even bringing Alfred Sneaky Enabler Pennyworth into this, that's already its own post.

I'm not saying you should never write them banding together for comfort, I'm not even saying that this interpretation is canon (like, at all, it just isn't). I'm just saying I don't see enough of this idea and I wanted to share it.

[dirt-piper]

The TF2 problem

Don't take anything I say here as gospel - much of it is my own speculation and musings.

TF2 is my favorite game of all time. I started playing it wayyy back in 2012, and while I don't have that many hours racked up total (a meager ~1K), I can at least consider myself to be a few rungs above 'total n00b' in terms of familiarity with the game. I've experienced the best and worst eras of the game - from the Love & War update to the current botting crisis, and I have loved TF2 every step of the way.

But just because I love it, doesn't mean I think it's flawless!

Around 2015-2016 I noticed (alongside damn near everyone else playing TF2) that TF2 was changing, and not in a particularly good way. Love & War was in many ways a perfect update for TF2 - it gave attention and goodies to both the highly casual and the highly competitive ends of the playerbase, with a fancy new taunt system bundled with some pretty fun new weapons. At about this time, Blizzard announced the imminent release of their new game Overwatch, which was directly inspired by TF2 - and now presented itself as being a direct competitor to TF2 in its own niche. This, of course, turned out to be bogus - Overwatch is its own game with its own niche that has a playerbase nearly wholly separate from TF2's.

A common trend amongst the TF2 playerbase at the time was this sense of dread regarding Overwatch - either that it would suck up the entire TF2 playerbase, leaving the game to die, or that Blizzard would try their damnedest to manifest such a reality. Either way, a ton of die-hard TF2 fans began to absolutely loathe Blizzard's new game (before it even came out, I might add) for so much as daring to 'unthrone' TF2.

This entire premise is stupid. It's stupid now, and it was stupid then. But the fear became so pervasive throughout the community that, eventually, it seemed like VALVe was getting scared too. The tone and focus of TF2's updates began to shift far more heavily towards the competitive end of TF2's playerbase - which has never been the majority - as VALVe appeared to try to pivot TF2 into a stance where it could better "compete" with the upcoming Overwatch. Bits and pieces of this started showing with Gun Mettle and Tough Break, before Meet your Match completely revamped the game into a more competitive-focused format.

Why they would do this didn't really make sense - if VALVe wanted to compete against Blizzard's new AAA FPS with a competitive scene, then why would they try to remodel TF2 to position it as a "more valid competitor" to Overwatch when CS:GO was already a proven champion in that space? TF2 doesn't need to compete with Overwatch. It never did. So why would they expend so much effort to change TF2's course when, frankly, it was doing fine as-is?

Looking back now, with nearly a decade of hindsight and a bit more insight into VALVe actually works, I think the picture is a bit clearer, or at least the one I've formed in my head is. I don't think TF2's sudden drastic shift in focus was the result of VALVe scrambling to shore TF2 up against the onslaught of Overwatch - I think it was, rather, the TF2 team scrambling to shore TF2 up against VALVe.

VALVe is not a normal game studio. VALVe is not only lucky enough to be their own publisher (therefore making them a completely independent studio - yes, VALVe games are 'indie'), but also extremely lucky enough to be the de-facto publisher for nearly the entire PC game industry, thanks to Steam. VALVe makes money off of every single game sold through Steam whether they made it or not, essentially guaranteeing them a constant stream of exorbitant income regardless of their own output. They have a complete vertical monopoly of their own industry - they own themselves (VALVe has no shareholders whatsoever), they own their products, they own their publisher, they own their distributor - and now, with the Steam Deck, they own their hardware platforms too. VALVe answers to nobody but themselves, because they own everything that could possibly impact their business.

VALVe is, in a lot of ways, in a somewhat similar situation to AT&T (aka 'Ma Bell') back before the breakup of the phone company back in 1982. AT&T owned the entire phone network - from the switching equipment to the phone lines to the handsets plugged into them - and they charged every person in the country who leased phone service from them (you couldn't own a phone back then!) a subscription fee. AT&T, then, had basically infinite money to do whatever the hell they wanted with (though the government strictly regulated their commercial activities so they could not compete in any industry but telephony). As a result of this, Bell labs, the core Research & Development branch of AT&T, was in a very unique scenario - projects undertaken by Bell labs researchers weren't given budgets - they were given quotas.

AT&T didn't care how much money or time was spent on a project by a Bell labs researcher, so long as it ultimately resulted in something that benefited the company. And this model worked very, very well - Bell labs' researchers gave the world the transistor, the laser, the CCD, the Unix operating system, the C programming language, and received 10 Nobel peace prizes.

VALVe, through Steam, has a free, infinite revenue stream. VALVe's staff, then, effectively have infinite money and time at their disposal to make whatever they desire - so long as it ultimately results in something that benefits VALVe. Or, at least, so long as the people who hold the most seniority at VALVe think it would benefit VALVe.

It's no particular secret that the old guard at VALVe are, largely, unenthusiastic about TF2. Remember - Team Fortress is VALVe's oldest franchise. The original Team Fortress mod was released in August of 1996 - a mere one month after the Nintendo 64's initial release - a full 2 years before Half-life. Sure, VALVe didn't initially create Team Fortress, but they bought Team Fortress Software for a reason - Team Fortress was insanely popular. And it's not just TF2 that has absurd longevity, it's the entire Team Fortress franchise; here's a match from a Quake Team Fortress competitive tournament that is currently ongoing as I write this post:

VALVe acquired Team Fortress software with the premise that the sequel to Team Fortress would become an expansion to Half-life, thereby increasing Half-life's desirability by attaching it to the sequel of one of the most popular FPS games available at the time. TF2, of course, took a bit longer than expected - so Team Fortress Classic, a more-or-less direct port of Team Fortress to goldsrc, was released in 1999 to satiate people until the real TF2 came out.

That took another 8 years.

When TF2 finally released, it pioneered the concept of games as a service - that you could buy a game once and it would receive new content, features, fixes, etc. indefinitely - for free. These were not paid expansions or DLC, these were actual updates made directly to the game that anyone could get access to so long as they happened to own the game. And, once TF2 went free to play, the deal became even better. This model was utterly groundbreaking in 2007 - it's the standard for how most games operate today, sure, but only because TF2 proved how well it could work.

The issue, of course, is that VALVe was eternally working on TF2. By 2015, Team Fortress 2 had been in development in some form or another for 17 years. With this perspective, it seems understandable why some of the more senior members of VALVe would have grown sick of Team Fortress - they'd been doing or dealing with the same game for nearly 2 decades.

But, of course, newer hires at VALVe would have nowhere near the same level of fatigue - many of them were likely still very passionate about the game, and eager to continue its lifespan - but when the people who sign their paychecks and review their employee performances are sick and tired of hearing about Team Fortress, it becomes less and less attractive to pour effort into the game, no matter how much they may personally wish to.

Under these circumstances, the tonal shift TF2 experienced around the release of Overwatch appears more as an internal struggle - the remaining TF2 team trying desperately to prove to their seniors that TF2 was not yet ready to be phased out, that the game could modernize and remain relevant in the modern competitive gaming scene, that just because they were sick of TF2 didn't mean that everyone was.

So, they gambled. They bet TF2's future on a new revamp to adapt it to the then-modern world of competitive e-sports... and fumbled it pretty hard with Meet your Match.

The problem with the TF2 team's attempt to make TF2 more suited to the modern world of competitive gaming was that they seemed to overlook that, to the average non-competitive TF2 player, the game as it was was perfectly fine. Through Quickplay, any player could be automatically placed into a server matching their desired criteria and just... play. A server would stay on a given map for roughly 45 minutes (though players could vote to extend the map timer) regardless of how many rounds there were, meaning that everyone got the same amount of time to play the map regardless of how good or bad either team, as a whole, performed. This game players plenty of time to just... have fun playing TF2. There was no rush or hurry or incentive to play the game in any way other than how you wanted to.

This made TF2 very unique in the FPS world - the truest example of a "casual shooter". There were no ranks or rewards or incentives to play every day beyond random item drops and the enjoyment derived from simply playing the game itself.

The TF2 team's attempt to 'modernize' TF2 in Meet your Match effectively ruined this.

In addition to the introduction of a new, dedicated 6v6 competitive mode, Quickplay was replaced with 'Casual' - a matchmaking lite that tried to find a middle ground between the chaotic ad-hoc freedom of Quickplay and the more rigid, competitive structure of Competitive. It didn't work. Most TF2 players just wanted to play TF2 - casual forced them to stop and wait for the matchmaking system to find a server for them matching its desired criteria, stop and wait every other round for the server to change maps, stop and wait for matchmaking cooldowns to run out if they left a game in progress - so much time was spent stopping and waiting to play the game that hardly any was left to play the game itself. Yes, some of these problems have since been smoothed over, but Casual still forces the play to spend less time playing the game than Quickplay did. In my opinion, Casual, as it was released, could have been perfectly fine if Quickplay was kept alongside it. Instead, in one fell swoop, the way the vast majority of people played TF2 was effectively removed from the game.

In fairness to the TF2 team regarding this gamble, they were under enormous pressure - not just from a TF2 community growing increasingly paranoid about TF2's future due to the imagined threat of Overwatch - but also from the higher-ups at VALVe they were trying to convince.

However, the TF2 team snuck a back-up plan into Meet your Match - the Heavy vs. Pyro war. By outright promising a future major update (or perhaps two, even!), the TF2 team could at least insure that, no matter what their 'bosses' thought, they could justify their continued work on the game as fulfillment of a promise made to the community. And, if the new update was enough of a hit, it could perhaps inspire their 'bosses' to let TF2 continue to live on, at least for a little while.

So, the TF2 team pulled out all the stops for the next update. Jungle Inferno had an animated short, new maps, new weapons, entirely new features (ie. the contracker), it had a massive hype-spiraling 4-day-long update announcement, major weapon rebalances and overhauls - they clearly tried their damnedest to make the best TF2 update possible.

Whether or not the team managed to convince their superiors is unknowable. Jungle Inferno was followed by the fanfare-less Blue Moon update in early 2018, followed by radio silence. The TF2 team may very well have still been hard at work on the elusive Heavy update, but the double-whammy of the all-hands-on-deck push to get Half-life: Alyx finished and released immediately followed by the COVID pandemic likely reset whatever momentum or motivation the TF2 team had left.

This scenario, as described, is painful enough. From the outside, it appears as though VALVe had rebounded from Meet your Match, and was doing its best to improve the game in the wake of their own missteps, only to suddenly drop TF2 with zero explanation given. TF2 was left in a state of indefinite limbo with no clear outlook whatsoever on the future.

What made this infinitely worse is that VALVe had left the game in a state that wasn't just unfinished, it was broken.

TF2 has literally always had a botting problem. For the first span of the game's life, this generally manifested as idling/trading bots, but later on more and more bots began to appear that sought only to disrupt gameplay. Micspam, false votekicks, aimbotting, speedhacks, etc. - purely for the sake of irritating real players. Until Meet your Match, these cheating bots were relatively uncommon - real players could very easily either kick them from the game or simply join another server via Quickplay. Their impact on gameplay was no more than a minor, brief annoyance, and thus they were considered a non-issue.

Meet your Match's new Casual system, however, dramatically restricted the player's ability to hop to other servers when bots arose. Not only this, but the ability to switch teams at will was disabled on Casual servers, meaning it was now impossible to deal with bots on any team but your own (previously, if the other team was too slow to kick their own bots, it was possible to just wait for an opening on the other team, hop over, and call a votekick against the offending bot that would usually end up succeeding). Now, the disruption caused by a single bot was far more impactful than it had been before - because it was a far greater chore to either kick the bot or find a different server. Moreover, Casual outright incentivizes players to stick to the same server until the end - awarding them extra points the more they play, and nullifying any progress they've made towards a given contract that match if they leave before it ends. Players are thus, in effect, forced to play even when bots have made the game unenjoyable.

This resulted in a feedback loop - bots were now more irritating, so people complained about them more, so bot hosters hosted more bots, making them even more irritating - and that feedback loop has continued nearly unabated until modern day.

The TF2 community has been begging for an end to the botting problem for ages - and there have been genuine efforts from the TF2 team to try and fix the problem, but they have been too small and too infrequent to make much impact. And, to be frank, there is no way to effectively, permanently remove the bots. Attempting to keep any and all bots from the game would require enormous, constant effort from the TF2 team - something which is a very tall ask given VALVe's attitude towards the game for the past decade.

What can be done, however, is to simply make the bots less impactful. To let players more easily avoid them, to let players enjoy the game for longer so the bots are no longer such a nuisance, to let players have enough freedom in how they play that they are no longer forced to suffer through games with bots. It won't outright remove bots forever, but it will make them so much less of a nuisance that bot hosters will likely lose the incentive to bother with them. As soon as that happens, the feedback loop will be broken, and the botting issue will decline in severity as their potential impact on players' enjoyment of the game is neutered.

The simplest way to do this is to make Casual just as free as Quickplay was.

45 minute map timers, extensible by vote.

An Indefinite number of rounds per map.

Ad-hoc joining, leaving, and team switching.

Progress on contracts not erased by leaving mid-round.

These are not overwhelming changes. If anything, it's something of a return to form - not outright bringing back Quickplay, but making Casual into a suitable replacement for it - at long last.

And - most importantly - it's a one-time fix. It does not require an eternal arms race against bot hosters, nor a full return to frequent, massive content updates (though those would be nice).

One update to make TF2 more fun, to make the bots less impactful, and to give the game a better standing for the future.

One update to fix TF2.

-DirtPiper

[sillygoblinantics]

So about the typhlosion leak

And some stuff about Lily you’ll want to spread the word on

As I’m sure everyone knows now there’s been a leak into gamefreak info. And after taking into mind of the game and source material. I thought I’d share what I found!

Friendly reminder:

Translations from Japanese to English aren’t always accurate and set in stone. And words like girls don’t refer to what many think would be minors. (So zip your pants Lily)

I love Pokémon, gamefreak has been know to pull a lot of inspiration from mythology, folklore, and stories from many cultures and countries so it’s no surprise that many of the Pokémon are based on these mythical creatures.

Taking this into mind, I began to narrow down my search into what could be the possible influence to the typhlosion story. (So if I got something wrong let me know in replies with your own findings and sources! ;3) let’s get into it!

Typhlosion and the cyndaquil line are rodents, for context into my search. So I had to leave out a lot of yokai and monsters to help filter out results:

Fox

Tanuki

Oni

Otters

Child spirits

Items

And any humanoid or human looking yokai

So this leaves us with a few but out of the three that were left I found only one that matched perfectly with our little typhlosion story! Meet:

Kyūso

If you want to read more about it make sure to click the highlighted name and it’ll lead you to a website that talks all about yokai!

Former rat or old rat

It has the ability to change sizes, and has been known to sneak into homes and beds to have adult time with the women. It’s also mentioned to have consumed lamp oil which considering the fire typing of our large fire mouse Pokémon, seemed more than likely to be our culprit!

So, yeah that’s it.

Before freaking out please do your own research into something especially when it comes to said thing being from a completely different culture or country before you apply harsh judgement that would more likely reveal your own intrusive thoughts, Lily Orchard.

Rich coming from Mrs Lily

“Makes a self insert “slice of life” Pokémon webcomic about how her gardevoir that was raised like her sister mindfucks or r🥫pes her comic self but gets away and further validation/vindication to be romantic with, later forcing a child made out of petty selfish want by said gardevoir”

Orchard

Wait who’s that kissing you Lily? That’s not Mikayla or any of your exes? Looks more like…

That’s not lolo? Oh right that’s your “source for good thoughts” friend Ren, right? Why would you have art of someone else kissing and making love to you instead of your wife? Isn’t this drawn by your wife? Why would you have art of being intimate with someone you call a friend? That’s not even “friends with benefits”

Notice the date on that post too?

March 1st, 2020 at 4:20pm

Can’t even excuse it as an April fools joke either especially since you posted it in the general chat which who does that in a dicord public chat infront of minors like… whooooo does that?!

I wonder :3

[saltydkdan]

Hello Salt man! You seem like an unhinged enough weeb for this question:

I’m going to be the president of the anime club in my highschool this year and have no fucking idea what I should do for activities and shit.

Any ideas? If not, that’s perfectly fine too!

(Also thank you for reblogging my Peppy drawing it made my day ^^)

No problem! I loved the art

I think it’s pretty obvious for an Anime club to watch Anime, however that shit is basic, and I have some unhinged ideas.

Trivia (the least unhinged)

—Make a trivia game on PowerPoint, or on Kahoot that feature questions based on various popular anime. Get specific and weird for the harder questions.

Anime Debate Club

—(be careful with this one because depending on the group it may get heated lol)

—At the end of a meeting, choose to random anime characters

—Tell members that they can pick sides on which of the two would win in a fight, then between meetings, bring together their arguments for why, they have to have actual citation and examples of the character’s powers, or reference specific canon material

—Bonus points if one of the debate teams puts together a PowerPoint slideshow on a character’s power set, or the other characters weaknesses

—Have a judge award points for valid arguments, but have them be cracked out of their minds about it (For example, awarding points to “Comedy” characters, like if an Osumatsu-San character surviving a Ki blast could be funny? That’s a point towards them. LMAO)

NOTES: Obviously the characters chosen cannot be Goku, Vegeta, Saitama, or in general overpowered characacters. Also, having completely fucking insane match ups, or wildly specific match ups is recommended. Like Bobobo VS Dio Brando from Jojo. Or General Tao from Dragon Ball VS Gojo.

If the fight is extremely one sided, just make a list of all the ways that one side would fucking dominate because that shit is fucking funny LOL.

Weekly Book Club but for anime

—This isn’t really “unhinged” but I recently did a manga book club with friends weekly and it was super cool to meet up and discuss the chapters of a particular series and such

—You can do this for anime and assign a set number of episodes, OR do manga and provide a way to read it online

—Rotate out series every so often so people don’t feel like they’re focusing all their attention to a single series the entirety of the year

—This could be a fun thing to do casually between meetings and to talk about a little at the start

Pitch your favorite

—Have people make a short presentation on PowerPoint to pitch their favorite series that’s 3-5 minutes each, or whatever depending on how many people you have

—If you wanna make it funny make it so they HAVE to include both Pros, AND Cons about it. (Like for One Piece: PRO would be the amazing worldbuilding, and a CON would be that Oda cannot draw women)

Make an Epic OC

—Force people to design OCs for a specific series for that week. If they can draw and want to, they can draw them. If they can’t draw? Make it a stick figure, or a shitty drawing a child would make. And have them make a small write up about the character and their powers.

—This can easily be taken seriously, or just have them make an overpowered self insert, all of it is fine

Anyway that’s all my ideas! Hope this helps or inspires some of your own unhinged ideas

[hsvh-hp]

2024 Wrapped!

I've seen these posts floating around the site, and they look so fun!

2024 was a big year for me, for fandom. I made so many new incredible friends on here and Discord, got more involved in events, and participated in a few fests. I also finished the longfic I'd started in September 2023, which I honestly still can't believe is finally going live in less than 48 hours.

My best estimate of how many words I wrote this year (I cut a long in editing, so this number will actually be higher) is somewhere around 370,000.

This post got extremely long, so I've put the majority of it under the cut. I don't write very often (on Tumblr, anyway) about my process, or consistently promote my work. So, hopefully y'all can forgive me for indulging this one time at the end of the year.

In order that I wrote them:

🎉 Spiral Dynamics (Draco/Harry; 21.1k words)

This one was for the Fellytone game on the Drarry Discord server! Based on this stunning art by @appleslightning, there's basically some Friends to Lovers hijinks with Draco and Harry, as Draco's probation officer retires 7 years into Draco's 10 year term, and Harry volunteers to take the spot 'as a favour' without having consulted Draco first. Drama Draco's dramatics ensue. The fic also inspired this by @maesterchill, and I am grinning and kicking my feet all over again looking at it. THESE TWO, I love them, your honour.

✨ The 'Two for the Triwizard' Trilogy (Draco/Harry; 3 fics totalling 9.3k words)

A Triwizard Tournament AU, but make it Drarry. This small series was also born on the Drarry Discord in a fun game of 'haha what if'.

In Fraternizing With the Enemy, Harry sees that Draco has come to the Yule Ball with a boy from Durmstrang (Volkov? Vikhrov?) and totally only chases his date off because said date is from a rival school. Harry and Draco end up dancing and chatting, and Harry ends his night feeling like a complete goner ensnared by Draco.

The Fourth Hostage skips to the Second Task, where Draco has replaced Ron as Harry's hostage at the bottom of the lake. Under weight afterward of Harry trying to figure out What's Going On between himself and Draco, Draco takes some initiative of his own to remind/inform Harry that he couldn't have been chosen as a hostage for the Task if he didn't agree to it. They get together. 🥹

Little Hangleton and Beyond is another skip. I wanted a happy ending not just for Draco and Harry, but Sirius and the Malfoys as well. I'll expand on this later when I reflect on my favourite themes and character propaganda, but the premise for this one is Lucius Malfoy changes the course of the graveyard scene following the Third Task. Draco's been writing home about his new boyfriend, and Lucius just...can't let anything happen to Harry, lol. So, Voldemort is immediately cast back into Undeath, Wormtail is so shocked that he's easily apprehended, Sirius' name is cleared, Harry goes to live with him, blah blah, Happily Ever After.

🎉 Full Indulgence (Tonks/Fleur/Bill; 14.7k words)

This was written for @hptransfest! The prompt was basically exploring Tonks' Metamorphmagus abilities during sex, and I'd had an idea rattling around for some Tonks/Fleur that I was very excited to finally have a chance to write. The premise was that in Half-Blood Prince, Tonks wasn't coming to the Burrow in the summer to get sympathy from Molly about her feelings for Remus. She was there to ogle Fleur, and then it turns out Fleur wants her, and Bill's cool with it, and Bill gets involved, etc. It was a great excuse to write 15k of very indulgent smut.

The thing I was most proud about in this fic was that (despite me using she/her pronouns in the paragraph above) I wrote 15k of 3rd person POV smut and didn't use one single personal pronoun for Tonks. It was a challenge, but so fun and validating for a character who identified as having no gender at all.

✨ Something About Malfoy (Draco/Harry; 3.2k words)

This fic spawned as a short and sweet AU from Draco Malfoy and the Descent of the Feathered Serpent (TL;DR, the longfic I'm just about to start posting, which is Order of the Phoenix from Draco's POV).

Some backstory: when I was rereading Spinners of Fate to start preparing for the sequel fic, I was hit with the realization about Draco that, my god, this kid is such an egg waiting to crack lmao. Folks who follow the Canon in Draconis Major series will see the Trans Draco Malfoy tag on 5th year's fic. I've read multiple metas here on tumblr about how Draco (among others) are 'fem-coded' in HP, and so it makes sense to me that Draco be some shade of genderqueer along with being gay lol. He's a mean girl, and a Mean Girl™. But also still a boy.

He ended up bigender in my head, keeping his name and pronouns while just sometimes Switching Things Up externally as he pleases. This ended up a big deal in Feathered Serpent, since Umbridge takes cue from Dumbledore's insistence that BCJ snuck into Hogwarts using Polyjuice Potion that magically changing a person's appearance ought to be banned (but of course, as it truly goes with her, the control is the real point).

ANYWAY, in this fic, I pretended for 3200 words that Voldemort never came back, therefore Umbridge never taught at Hogwarts, therefore Draco could come out as trans/bigender/genderqueer exactly when he felt like it, which coincided with the Gryffindor-Slytherin Quidditch match. Poor Harry, he was not prepared for that.

🎉 Twilight Eternal (Draco/Harry; 23.9k words)

This was written for @hd-tarot, and was another fic that I had an idea rattling around for, looking for an excuse to write lol. Those who've been following me for a long time and have the sharpest of memories might remember this post from a year ago. There was an ask game regarding names of WIPs, and @omgkatsudonplease asked me about this one. I finally got to write it!!!

It's also very interesting to me to reread that ask and see how differently the fic wound up. I hadn't conceived yet that Hermione was involved, or that she and Draco were Unspeakables. I also thought it would be a Getting Together fic with Draco and Harry, but ended up with them already established in a relationship. I'm very happy with it, even if it (comparatively) didn't get much love.

🎉 WARNING: May Contain Pollen (Draco/Harry; 2.9k words)

Honestly, this is basically a crackfic lol. It started as a joke: what if there was sex pollen, but either Draco or Harry turns out to be allergic to it? And uh, yeah! That's the plot!

🚧 Beyond the Scuttling Void (Harry & Sirius, eventual Draco/Harry; 54.6k words and ongoing)

A crossover fic, using the Veil in the Department of Mysteries as means for Sirius, Harry, and Draco to isekai into another world! Surely this has never been done before! (heavy /s lmao)

2024 has been a year of getting back to fandom roots for me. One of the things I wanted to unlearn was the 'I must complete my fics before I begin posting them' mentality. This fic, since the crossover material (Skyrim) is an open world RPG, basically translates to Harry, Draco, and Sirius being able to do whatever they want. Well, Sirius ended up the prophesied Hero from the game lol. But since Harry follows Sirius through the Veil after a ten year long timejump (canon-based space/time shenanigans in Elder Scrolls/Skryim lore) the Main Quest™ is already dealt with, and Sirius is just a happily-married hero with a house he built himself, tons of friends, and two sons who he took in as orphans. Harry has to reckon a lot with feeling like a bag of dicks for asking Sirius to help him get home once they're reunited.

It's been really fun writing this fic as Harry learns how to navigate a world where magic is different, and which is basically medieval Scandinavia with dragons, elves, vampires, a pantheon of trickster gods, and spiders the size of horses lol. The lore runs deep, and Harry keenly investigates it for means to reverse his having been dumped here through the Veil. As far as I've posted, Draco hasn't shown up yet. Harry doesn't even know he's there, and likewise: Draco has no idea Harry and Sirius are there. I know where Draco is, and look forward to the three of them rolling up together like the pointing Spiderman meme. What I can say about Draco at the current point of posting is that at least now....he is safe, haha. He had to grow up very quickly all of a sudden to have made that happen for himself. He's Seen Some Shit.

So what were the most common themes in my work this year?

Established Draco/Harry. As seen in: Little Hangleton and Beyond, Twilight Eternal, and WARNING: May Contain Pollen.

I feel that for me, shifting from more Getting Together fics to Established Draco/Harry fics is a natural progression as I write more Drarry fics. Mutual pining, Draco and Harry pursuing each other, and proving themselves to each other are fun, but so is skipping all of that and letting them focus on whatever's threatening their happiness in the fic lol. Or, like Little Hangleton and Beyond, just letting them have their happiness while the rest of the plot ties up.

2. Sirius & Harry, and Harry living with Sirius. As seen in: Little Hangleton and Beyond, Something About Malfoy, and Beyond the Scuttling Void.

I really, really wish that Sirius and Harry had gotten the godfather-godson happy ending they deserved in canon. This is one of the greatest tragedies of the Harry Potter series to me (does that mean I would've trusted JKR to write it any other way? Ummm no lol). So, where possible, I set them up in a post-Goblet of Fire AU to have a happy future to look forward to.

As for Beyond the Scuttling Void, let's just say it's my post-Order of the Phoenix coping mechanism. Sirius isn't dead! He's just gone to be a hero and kill the big bad dragon. He's married and everything! He's fine, guys. Don't worry about it.

3. Lucius being a good dad for Draco. As seen in: Spiral Dynamics, the Two for the Triwizard trilogy, Something About Malfoy, and Twilight Eternal.

OKAY, this is my self-confessed delusion, my fight against the tide, and my drowned out truth lol. I love Lucius Malfoy. I hate when he's abusive to Draco, and I've just gotten numb to the prospect of him being killed off, in Azkaban, or...whatever...in post-war Drarry fic. I love when Lucius remains a hurdle to Harry because Draco, uh, kind of really loves and admires his dad.

There was a tumblr post about power fantasies that really spoke to me. Essentially, for some people killing/beating up the bad guy is the power fantasy. For some, love changing them. For some, the bad guy getting to run wild to their full potential. For me, Lucius is #2. I love writing him as a good dad, or at least trying his best through the war years, and having to reckon/own up with his failures in the end if he wants to restore full trust from Draco. I love when he learns something about Draco and will rewrite his entire worldview to suit his beloved only child (Draco & Narcissa based morality, rather than pureblood supremacy morality - although these certainly overlap a lot of the time). And, honestly? I think I love it (and him) so much because he's so underappreciated in Drarry fandom and fic. I have to feed myself on this one, guys.

So...this was 2024 for me! And I didn't even wax lyrically about the 291,000 word behemoth that is Descent of the Feathered Serpent lol. It was a very busy year for me, and fandom (especially all the new friends/acquaintances I made) helped me through some trying RL stuff. If you've read this far, THANK YOU FOR MAKING 2024 GOOD AND FUN!! I will maybe see you in a few days when I start regularly posting again. ❤️

[atompalace-official]

hello!I hope this finds you well ^^ the names magpie,I was wondering if you could tell me some basic tips for your art style or a time's lapse of one of your drawing for me to analize? I love the art style so much and I want to be like you! if you cant/won't I completely understand!sorry if its to much to ask,have a good day/night! ><

hello magpie! thank you so much for sending in a question and I’m delighted you like my art! 🩵✨

to start off with, the only person who can truly do the atompalace art style is me- it’s my own uniquely personal way of drawing, so I cannot tell you how to wholly replicate it nor would I encourage it. BUT! every single artist’s art style, including my own, is a patchwork of effort and practice, techniques you enjoy using, and influences from the things you love- and that’s beautiful!!! 🌈💕 so instead I’ve written four ways to help develop your very own art style:

1. Gather Inspiration 🌟

what inspires you? this can be any type of art, photography, character design and so on, or anything made by a favourite artist, but also delving into nature, places, feelings... now try and identify what specifically you love about these things!

I like to save any artwork or photo that particularly resonates with my tastes into a folder, then I analyse the specific traits about each piece that I admire, especially if I aspire to improving that trait in my own work. artists who have influenced my style recently include Mia Ikumi, the Kamikita Twins, Lisa Frank, Naoko Takeuchi, and Elena Kucharik; I also find lots of inspiration in Sanrio character artworks and Pretty Cure cards and merchandise ✨

it’s a wonderful feeling to reach a stage where you’re naturally drawing the type of art you love to look at, and by delving into why you enjoy the art you enjoy, you can use that knowledge to your advantage to achieve that!

2. Practice, Practice, Practice 🔥

I always tell aspiring artists that the most important way to develop your skills is to draw as much as possible. yes, fundamentals and going out of your comfort zone are important, and many artists tell you to focus on these when you start out… but personally I think drawing the things you enjoy and often is an equally valid method, because it gets you into the habit, and you will still learn lots!

when I was in school, I drew OCs and Pokémon on spare paper using ink. I didn’t really focus on anatomy or composition at that point, but it certainly helped develop my line control/confidence and drawing speed- and my art style, too!

a good specific way to practice is to pick artworks that you love and make studies of them! this way you can learn from the various techniques of the original (such as ones you identified in the previous section!) by trying to redraw them. IMPORTANT: if you make studies/reproductions of illustrations, particularly by contemporary independent artists, please keep them private and don’t post them, because that can give others the impression that you’re imitating them 💧

another fun way to do studies that you can post publicly is by choosing a TV show, film, comic, or video game with a style you like and try to draw your character (or even a character from a different media) in that style! for example, I enjoy drawing my Pokémon trainersona in the official Pokémon style occasionally- I improved with every attempt because of the time I spent practicing and looking closely at art made by professional illustrators, which helped me really understand the trademarks of that style. learning by doing!

3. Making It Yours 🎀

a recognisable or “iconic” art style is made up of multiple trademarks; no single trademark is ever exclusive to one artist, but it’s a unique combination of them that makes a style stand out.

for instance, I love drawing heart shaped shines in my characters’ eyes, which is something lots of artists do. but in tandem with multiple other trademarks common to my works (pastel colours, lineart quirks, typical subject matter and more), that’s what makes them say- “I’m an atompalace piece!”

to make sweet, glittery art, drawing your very own effects brushes or textures is a fantastic way to express your own style effectively. I programmed all of my sparkle brushes! some of my base brush shapes are referenced and some are entirely from my own imagination, but I drew them all myself. you can find free tutorials on making your own brushes for most art programmes online if you need help, or just edit default brushes that came with your art program!

4. No Restrictions 🪽

don’t be afraid to experiment! especially as a digital artist, a good few of the exclusive techniques I use were ones I discovered unintentionally or by trial-and-error, and when you work with digital layers it’s a lot easier to play around with colour palettes. tweak colours and mess around effects, and you might come up with a happy accident that you can use in the future as a building block to your style!

this might seem contradictory to the previous section, but you don’t have to tie yourself to any one art style. we all change and grow all the time, and especially if you’ve only been drawing for a relatively short time, it’s good to keep an open mind and allow your art to evolve. (for me, only the last 2-3 years has been the longest my own art style has been consistent!)

even if there’s a main style you always return to, it’s absolutely fine to deviate from it. I do, and I have fun with it, too! switching things up every so often is fun and can even help your main art style improve! conversely, if you try too hard to stick to a method that you don’t truly enjoy or have become bored of, it can be creatively stifling, so allowing yourself to branch out is key.

if you’re a hobby artist, your own enjoyment and personal satisfaction should be your priority- not the approval and attention of others. one of the best ways to let your art style shine is by letting yourself draw as self indulgently as you like without holding back!

before I sign off, I do have two timelapses of two detailed illustrations to share with you! The Sylveon Sanctuary and The Mermaid and the Fairy 🫧 notice how I use the golden spiral or a grid to help make balanced compositions; I don’t always make a colour draft, but I did for these; and I sometimes do “mini sketches” to help me visualise from my base sketch.

thank you again for your message, I enjoyed answering this and I hope you find it helpful and motivating to draw lots of lovely art!!! 🎨

- Princess Sol ⚜️🎀🩵✨

[trickstersaint]

hey, i just finished playing aromanticism, and it made me feel a lot better about my circumstances lately. ive come to terms with my aromanticism for a long, long time now (Almost 10 years!), but as ive gotten older, it feels like people keep their distance from me- and it's been really hurtful. i found a lot of peace, suddenly, reading aromanticism. i think im gonna carry that metaphor with me forever now lol, having a still heart. i feel a profound sense of pride about it. 1/

hello!!!! first of all, i'm so so glad to hear that it was so positive for you. it makes me so happy to know that there are other aro people reading that project and finding hope and pride and value in it: that's more than i could have ever hoped for when sharing it, truly :)

one thing i think about a lot with aromanticism is that sense of pride. it seems.... strange, maybe, but i think that it's something that can and does coexist with that sense of hurt. just like any queer identity, the world around us might not show us any care, but just like any queer identity, our decision to find pride and joy in our existence is one that is motivated from the inside. queer pride has never been something that was handed to us by other people, but on the flip side, it's always been something that you can fight to have and to keep :)

as for what emotion inspired me to make the poem: i do NOT want to say love here because that's not really what it is (<— guy who is only ever like a few really in-depth tumblr posts away from id'ing as loveless). but in the way that i say "i love being aro". that kind of love. the joy and pride and contentment that i feel with being aromantic, and the spite that often fuels it, the rush of defying the expectation that i be miserable or that i hate the way that i am. love is not important to me. but what is important is holding myself gently against a world that isn't kind to me, you know? aromanticism is a light that i cup in my hands up close to my chest and it's something that brings me a sense of warmth and peace.

i said this in a reblog somewhere in the notes of the original post, but i originally wrote this for a creative writing class where i assumed most people would never have even heard of aromanticism. personally, i am deeply, deeply protective of that little light; and while there are negative aspects of any life experience to talk about, i did NOT want to hand over something to non-aro people that would reinforce the idea that being aromantic is something that leaves a person unhappy. you can be upset about it. you can be afraid about it. but still, but still, you will find a way through. it's not something that dooms you. it's something you can grow to embrace. originally, there was a version where the doctor was not always kind to you; knowing that it would be read through by allo people, though, i didn't think that they should get to say, indirectly or not, that my experience—aro people's experience—was an unhappy one. i didn't think that was a choice they got to make, in real life or in fiction. and when i handed it to aro people it got to be a wonderful, beautiful moment where every path took them back to a confirmation of validity and pride and joy.

there's an ending that you can only see by going through all of the choices completely confident in your still heart, and i fully expected when i wrote this that nobody but myself would see it. it remains such a joy to see mentions of it in the notes of the original post. it can be hard for me to cry but man i get fucking close...

i hope i answered everything! if you do make something similar with twine i would love love love to see it :) i highly encourage anyone wanting to make something similar to go experiment with the program, it's free and it's pretty easy to get the hang of. if you'd like to see the twine game that inspired me to make aromanticism, i would be so excited to direct you to with those we love alive, which is a beautiful, surreal, fantastically creative piece that i highly recommend you read. adore you anon and i hope aromanticism (the piece and the concept) can be a joy for you for years and years to come 🖤

[squish36-writes-and-draws]

3 November: Unraveling

Hello everybody and welcome to Keefe wandering around in the forbidden cities, delivered to you each day dracula daily style! Yes the plot is inspired by the crane wives song that I then borrowed for the title. Anyway I'm not done writing this yet and school might make that an issue but I do have a buffer of about a week and a vague plan for where the story will go if keefe allows it so here's hoping for the best.

Word count: 674

General Taglist (lmk if you want to be added/removed!): @stellar-lune @faggot-friday @kamikothe1and0nly @nyxpixels @florida-preposterously @poppinspop @uni-seahorse-572 @solreefs @corruption-exe @rusted-phone-calls @when-wax-wings-melt @good-old-fashioned-lover-boy7 @dexter-dizzknees @abubble125 @hi-imgrapes @callum-hunt-is-bisexual @callas-pancake-tree @hi-my-name-is-awesome @katniss-elizabeth-chase @sillyguy-supreme @void-kill @thefoxysnake

Unraveling Project Specific Taglist (lmk if you want to be added/removed/upgraded): @cutebisexualmess @crippling-pages @daizythegreat @sophiefostersno1stan @iggydancebreak @theleopardstalker @you-will-meet-your-downfall @multi-fandom-lunatic

TW: threats of physical violence against Cassius, mild Keefe angst over his new abilities

On Ao3 or below the cut!

Next

I once loved a tailor who took eager care of me Sewed together my loose ends with stitches neat and clean But now my love is gone And I am left unraveling Unraveling

Keefe Sencen's Journal

First day in the Forbidden Cities. No, not even that much. First half a day in the Forbidden cities. Four hours and counting. I still have ink stained on the side of my hand from the letter I left Foster Sophie. I’ve spent most of the day writing and rewriting phrases in my head, wishing I could go back and change things. Change everything. Not embrace the change and all that, but I guess that’s too much to ask now. Exile, I’d go back to before I was summoned into existence like the little science project I am and kick Cassius in the nuts if I were given the chance. Although then I don’t know how I would have existed to do that, but that’s beside the point. I’d figure out a way. Well, to be completely fair, I’d tell Dex to go figure it out but I’d trust him implicitly, which is basically the same thing. It’s a shame I fucked over his entire family before I left. I know I should try to tell myself that it’s just a matter of time, that Rex was always going to be talentless, but now Dex gets to lie to everybody about what could be one of the biggest aspects of Lex’s life. Ah, elvin culture. Such a fair and just system with no flaws whatsoever. Whatever Gisela’s plans are with me, I doubt that particular bombshell was one of them, but it’s something I’ll never forgive her or myself for. I can’t let her promote me from a pawn to a rook, although that's probably already happened. Maybe I’m supposed to be a knight stuck in a 3x3 board, but I’ve found another dimension. I’ve found a way to escape this game. 

Stars, look at this nerd using a chess metaphor unironically. I don’t know if that or the fact that I feel the need to justify myself to a piece of paper is worse. I just know I played (read: lost) a game of chess in some park today, and it was a surprisingly entertaining ten minutes of my life. It’s not like I had anything better to do. Or have anything better to do tomorrow. Or ever. It’s equal parts liberating and daunting that this could be the rest of my existence for thousands of years, or at least as long as the human authorities don’t figure out that I’m here. 

New life goal acquired: be the cranky old man in the park, a menace to society on a microcosmic scale. Just ever so slightly a burden to everyone’s existence. It’s not like I can do a whole lot to contribute to society with my lack of any valid identification or access to a birth fund. You can add that to the list of things I should have asked Dex about before I left, but no, I didn’t think through anything. I’m incapable of making rational decisions. Whatever. It’s still for the best. I’ll figure it out. 

And now I’m here, rambling my thoughts into a diary, of all things. I guess I don’t know why I felt the need to bring a notebook with me from the Forbidden Cities, let alone document my experiences, but it feels…surprisingly unfeeling. Not in the numb way I know is ever approaching on my horizon—I can feel the humans walking down the street blocks away without even trying—but right now, I’m in that perfect sweet spot of just using enough brain power to keep me from going off on three tangents simultaneously but not so much that I actually have to try, because there isn’t a faster way to get me to stop doing something than to make it require effort. I am nothing if not obscenely stubborn when it comes to being minimally productive, even if these last few hundred words are a testament to the opposite phenomenon.

I’m going to give this three days, max before I completely give up on this endeavour. Until then, I shall see thee to-morrow.

[cloudysonder]

On "Daddy Issues"

Ok, I know I'm a bit late to the game here, but I was gathering my thoughts after experiencing episode 5 and 6

Let me preface this with the fact that I am a Hazbin Hotel fan; it's cringe and it's not the best writing in the world, but I love the characters and the concept and the art. I know a lot of people disagree and completely despise it and hey, you do you, but this is a silly little thing I enjoy and think is fun

but oof. episode 5 and 6 were rough, execution-wise. Also worth mentioning that episode 5 followed on the heels of episode 4, which was dealing with a lot of heavy topics and gave Angel a lot of character development very quickly and had a wonderful song and a budding relationship between Husk and Angel that was fantastic, so to get a confusing and overwhelming yet completely inefficient episode (ep 5) and then an episode with SO MUCH HAPPENING that it absolutely bowled you over with plot points and world building that weren't given a single second to breathe was really disappointing. I'll put the meat under a read more, but that's the thesis

this post is just gonna be on episode 5, and I'll make another one on episode 6 bc christ almighty both of them are gonna be long

Episode 5 was something I was really looking forward to-- Of the main cast, Charlie and Vaggie seemed the least intriguing to me (oh, did I say "seemed" past tense? haha! they still most definitely are the least interesting!), and I wanted to see how they would introduce something they've been building up to for a while: Charlie's famed "Daddy issues"!

Turns out, instead of actually keeping it as a point of intrigue for Charlie's character and using it as a point of tension to show that hey, Charlie isn't actually a perfect person, and she's also in pain with the rest of the sinners because her own family relationships are falling apart, they solve it in a single episode. That's right! The long-awaited, complicated, divorced parent and child relationship that twisted Charlie into a validation seeking, people pleasing princess that "wants to fix other people so she doesn't have to deal with her own daddy issues" (quote by Husk) is solved with a charming performance by Jeremy Jordan and a song!

Look, it's no secret I'm a huge fan of Loser, Baby-- I clearly have no qualms with storytelling through song. But you cannot song-plain this one away. We've established over 4 episodes that Charlie and her father have kept in minimal contact for seven years. That's a Long time (don't go trying to be like, oh time to charlie works differently, bc that shit's not established, and everyone in the show still treats seven years like a long time). We know that the last time they called each other was 5 months ago.

"More than Anything," solves basically everything by making the following points

Charlie was inspired by her Dad's dreaming

Lucifer was ashamed of his failures and hid away from her

Lucifer does, however, want so so deeply to know Charlie

Charlie wants to know Lucifer

They love each other <3

these are fine endgame points. Dare I say... good endgame points to arrive at?? But you can't stuff ALL these revelations into a single song and call it a finished relationship arc when they haven't spoken for real in 7 YEARS. Also, making Lucifer so goofy and silly and fun and charming is Not helping the establishment of his character as a self-hating former dreamer who doesn't want his daughter to make the same mistakes he did. It just turns him to tumblr sexyman cute quirky sympathetic never did anything wrong and loves his daughter, completely downplaying his absentee parenting.

You can't have him turn from "I do not care about your life. I do not care about your project. I will not ask about your passions and your dreams. I am already ashamed of my own." to "ur so right bestie!!! dreaming is so slay mama!!! I love you so much you're my little baby girl I love you so much, you're right and I will support you!!!" in the course of a single episode without like.... at least 3 real, in depth conversations happening. The song is beautiful, but you can't poetry your way out of an actual relationship arc.

BUT! But, but but! The fault does not lie completely with Lucifer, but also with Charlie. girl just forgave him??? For everything????? Despite having been so scared to call him at the beginning of the episode? It's very unrealistic for a kid to just accept that a parent loves them apparently so so deeply when they've never seen proof of it in the last idk just spitballing a number here SEVEN YEARS. If you want to make the crux of a failed parent-child relationship miscommunication, you're gonna have to get into the ugly--- the grieving of what you could've had earlier, the wondering why you didn't reach out earlier, the anger at why they've suddenly changed now--- and you're gonna have to explain why the miscommunication went on so long.

sometimes, if you have a pair of completely uncommunicative people, seven years may be reasonable. But Charlie is open about her passions! She's public! She constantly reads about "The Story of Hell" and paints Lucifer in a positive light! And Lucifer is quick to reciprocate any interest Charlie shows in him! He's quick to offer help, to spoil Charlie and show love! (Lucifer's points are two points that make SEVEN YEARS of MINIMAL CONTACT and MISCOMMUNICATION make ZERO SENSE).

additionally, Charlie's lowkey only point of intrigue that was set up (her relationship to Lucifer, the King of Hell) is now just... kapoot. solved. pish posh. now she's a done character.

THEN EXPLAIN WHY I STILL DON'T GIVE A FUCK ABOUT HER???? I haven't seen her actually struggle in a way that's not played off as a bit, we don't get a real charlie breakdown monologue, there are no stakes for me as a hazbin hotel viewer to want everything to go well for charlie besides my acab rad leftist ass being like redemption and forgiveness is good and ultimately benefits society

she's fun, she's bubbly, she's kind! but those are all basic things we knew from minute 1 she was on screen. I need to see her struggle. For a main character, she sure as hell doesn't feel main. And I expected better female characters from female writers (feat. in my next post, Vaggie????? What the hell?).

goodnight new york city, you've been great!