#ANYWAYS. heres my new main

[meowfountain]

hyperfixations are so crazy because you never know whether this next thing you like is going to be a short-term interest or if it's going to change your entire life forever

[basslinegrave]

[dantes-number-1-fanboy]

Lady Aphmau, Lord of Phoenix Drop

I wanted to draw her being dramatic w/ her dogs, but the problem is that i dont actually have designs for her dogs so i just half assed some wolf-ish puppers-

Also pictured here is my hc that aph is pretty religious, idk how to put my justification into words i just hc in :/

Heres some other bits :D (including the dress ref)

[wavesoutbeingtossed]

I know you don't like discussing the muses but i love your takes and perspectives and i had to ask you about this. after listening to ttpd, did you have the impression that she really loved matty more than any of her exes/previous relationships?. And listening to the whole album as a whole would you call it the ''matty album'' or do you think there are more prominent themes in there than their period together?. (hope this doesn't bother you, feel free to delete if you don't feel like answering it)

hey anon! You're right, I don't really like to get into the muses as I don't really think there's anything to add to the conversation at this point, and ultimately I don't think it matters.

That being said, and with the caveat that I am not Taylor and I do not know Taylor so I cannot speak to her thoughts and can only make relatively educated guesses based on being an avid consumer of her work and a student of the human condition (lol), no I do not think Taylor loved Matty more than anyone else. I think there was maybe a brief period in the thick of things where she *thought* she did because she was not thinking clearly and was in full-on denial, but to me the message that is loud and clear in the album (and more or less explicitly stated in the epilogue) is that it was not any kind of real love affair. It was certainly infatuation and lust and the promise of something more, and there may have been some love as well, but he was in no way the love of her life by any measure.

I would call it a "Matty album" insofar as they're about events in which he was present, sure. But I feel it much more as a Taylor album, if that makes sense, even though I know that's a cop out because every album is to a degree. I can't explain it well, but I don't see TTPD as a Matty (or Joe) album in the way that I would maybe say Red is a "Jake" album or 1989 may be a "Harry" album or even Lover being a "Joe" album whatever, because even if they don't figure in all the songs, that kind of heartbreak permeates so much of the material.

The thing about TTPD and the Matty situation is that the Matty situation is really a Joe situation (which in some ways is actually partially a Jake situation). I always say I hate treating Taylor like a character so I hate speaking about her and her work in this way, but you don't get the Matty situation without the Joe situation precipitating it. It's @taylortruther's now-infamous donut vs. hole analogy. The reason Taylor makes the choices she does with Matty is directly tied to what happened with Joe that made her feel she needed to. Which is not to say Taylor isn't responsible for her own actions or doesn't have agency in her own life, but I mean it in that the situation in which she found herself with Joe, and the pain it caused, is what made the alternative so comforting and perhaps even necessary in her mind. It's why it makes it so hard to "paternity test" the album, because the stories are inherently intertwined and you don't get the former without the latter.

The major "theme" of the album to me is the loss of a very specific, very personal dream, and the way in which she lost it, and the way in which grieving that loss drove her to make the choices she did. We're all talking very delicately about it because it's a sensitive topic, but it's late on Friday and few people are going to see this, so I'm going to say it: it's the give you my wild, give you a child of it all. The yearning she expresses both overtly and sub-textually for having a family in the album is palpable in a very iykyk kind of way, and it's the realization that those plans are not going to come to fruition in the way she had once imagined that drives a lot of the pain she experiences, and makes her jump at the chance to find that again with someone else.

I started a draft post about the theme of womanhood and motherhood on TTPD three months ago that I never finished because I ran out of time and ran out of steam, but it was the most striking thing to me on the album, not because I didn't know that she wanted those things because that's been obvious for years (definitely since Lover, and again, peace put it all on the table), but because the vulnerability she expressed about it on the album is incredibly moving, and it's so generous of her to trust listeners with those feelings and experiences.

Again, it's the thirtysomething of it all.

She is in relationship A which she at one point believes is forever, one which she at one point believes is going to lead to marriage and children. She is so committed to that dream that she either ignores or tries to fix serious issues that may otherwise lead others to think the two people in the relationship are incompatible, both because she loves the person deeply and because she feels that this is meant to be the way she achieves that dream. She gives it her everything, and it still dies a slow, painful, onerous death, and she feels like it may take her along with it. The dream of getting married and presumably having a family gets taken off the table: how we don't know and will likely never know because that is private between the parties involved. All that matters in the context of the album is that those plans never come to fruition and never would.

Then you have relationship B, an old flame who knows just enough buttons to push both to trigger and to flatter. A person who she presumably trusts with very sensitive, personal information as her life slowly crumbles, and this person is telling her all the things she wants to hear because he knows about what is happening in relationship A because she's told him. Person in relationship B doesn't get an "in" with her and sell her this dream unless what happens in relationship A precedes it. It's not a grand love affair for the ages, it's not a mutual decision on building their own dream together. It's Person B learning about what is happening with Person A and saying "I can do that!" even if he can't or doesn't. The dream he sells her is a rental car; it's not his own, he's just borrowing it from someone else and selling it back to her.

And the reason she falls for it is because it is what she aches for the most in her personal life, and she is grappling with it disintegrating, so she (unfortunately for her) falls for the easy way out, and in turn sells herself a story about how this must be fated, and this must be meant to be, because this person wants all the same things she does and she didn't even have to bargain for it! Well, yes, because she fed him the dream in the first place. (Like a mark falling for a sleeper cell spy.) It's too good to be true because it isn't true. IMO Person B doesn't come running out of the gate with the marriage/baby/dream life promises unless he knows that is what she most desires. But what's left unsaid out of all of it is that: those dreams were her dreams because they were her dreams with Person A. It was a whole life they had together, and a whole life they had planned for in some fashion, and a whole life that has to be dismantled in the aftermath.

So all this to say, yes, on the surface, Matty is a "main character" on the album, but truly he's a side character to Taylor as the narrator and person experiencing it and Joe as the ghost bit-player-who-haunts-every-scene. (Again, I hate referring to real people as characters, it gives me the absolute ick, but in this case it's the only way to answer the question.) I jokingly call it the Matty album for shorthand or when I want to say something out of pocket, but really, it's a disservice to the album to say that because it's not a muse album as in it's about the romance (like, say, Red often is), it's about a soul-crushing heartbreak that goes beyond it. The romance is the symptom, not the cause.

The loss of youth is tied in with all this: she's not 22 anymore. She isn't even 32 anymore. She had a very specific idea of what her life was going to look like at this point and had planned for that life, and it goes up in smoke. But again, to bring the womanhood into it all: there is, unfortunately, a deadline for these things. You're with someone for over half a decade you think is going to be your life partner and father of your children and and then he's not. You spent half a decade building this relationship for it to crumble, but now you're in your mid-30s and you don't necessarily have another half-decade to build that trust and faith in someone else before being ready to start a family. And maybe you're scared that anyone else who may become your partner will need that much time to build that trust and faith, because that's kind of all you've ever know in relationships. But lo and behold, someone comes into your life you once had feelings for and maybe now do again and is offering you everything you want and thought you'd have by this point in your life right now. It feels like an elixir that as we find out is actually poison.

That youth is not just the chance for motherhood, but it's also the hopes and idealism and belief in the future that often gradually erodes as we age. But for Taylor as well, it's also tied into the trauma of what she went through particularly in 2016, which kicks off a lot of things on the album as well (her retreat, her relationship with Joe, the pivoting in her career, etc.). That event caused a pretty clear before/after in her life (like a few other events, I suspect), and another major theme in the album is her finally grappling with the full weight of that. They're all different branches of the same tree of the story of TTPD and her life.

I could talk about this stuff forever, but I'm going to stop here because it's long enough and I should save stuff for one of the dozens of drafts I have half-baked lol. But this is just something I needed to get off my chest perhaps.

[emilylsart]

That Matthew Patel guy sure is EEEEEEEVIL!

A redraw of one of Bryan Lee O'Malley's sketches from a stream that he did the other day!

I was really excited to redraw this one because Matthew's still my favorite evil ex out there in the Scott Pilgrim series lol

(Reblogs > Likes!! Likes also appreciated.)

[marvey-sideblog]

Law firm Specter Ross represent gay club in Seattle

[uniiiquehecrt]

Voice actors are NOT the same as actors.

It takes a specific kind of skill-set and training to be able to warp and meld the voice. It takes a certain kind of talent and dedication to hone that talent into the ability to meld the voice and invoke emotion with one's voice alone. Actors are used to using their voice secondarily to their body language and their facial expressions. It's all mirrored back on camera. They do have nuance. But it's a different kind of nuance and a different kind of training to produce that nuance.

Voice actors might get their likeness transposed on their character's design, and maybe their mannerisms might seep into the character's animation. But when it's all said and done: their presence is in their voice. They are bringing a character to life, showing that emotion in their voice, trying to keep a specific accent, drawl, pitch, tone in that voice and keep it consistent for their recording sessions.

The voice actor is like a classically trained musician who can play first chair in a competitive, world-renown orchestra. The actor (who fills the voice actor's role) is like a moot who played violin in beginner and intermediate high school orchestra and thinks they can get into Juilliard with that 2-4 years of experience.

This doesn't mean that the HS orchestra moot can't play. They can even be really good at it. Maybe they won competitions and sat first chair. But they are not in the same league as the person who's been training their whole lives and lives and breathes to hone their craft using the instrument and all of the training they've ever acquired to perfect it. They are not meant for the same roles. They are not in the same caliber. You do not hire the HS equivalent when you want to play complex music in a competitive orchestra.

Actors are not the same as voice actors.

And furthermore, actors - especially big name actors - taking the roles of animated characters for big budget films or TV pilots makes no sense anyways when - at least in the case of TV pilots - there's not a point to hiring a big budget actors anyways. That money could be used elsewhere (like paying your animators), and the talent that is brought onto the screen for X character could then be hired on to voice said character no recasting required.

I wouldn't say voice acting as a profession is in danger exactly, but it's certainly being disrespected and overlooked for celebrity clout, and this has ALWAYS been an issue. Shoot, even Robin Williams knew that much - which is why he tried so hard not to be used as a marketing chess piece for Aladdin and got royally pissed off when it happened anyways. People shouldn't go to any movie (but especially not animated films) because "oh famous actor is in it". People should go because it's a good movie and the voice acting is good.

People who honest to god think that voice actors are replaceable because "oh well anyone can voice act" or "I like xyz celebrity so naturally it'll be good" ... Honestly I just wish you'd reassess your priorities because you're missing the point and are part of the problem.

Voice Actors ≠ Actors.

[smimon]

Giant K series #14: you can always count on Jesse 🧡

Okay this episode is a bit different so the text part goes in the beginning! Fair warning that this story is not comedic but very emotional, however with a hopeful conclusion 😊

Change of tone! Today we cry 🤧

[cayennecrush]

hey friends! 🤗 out of curiosity, where else are you online?

(don't worry, im not leaving! just wanna know what alternatives people are trying)

[bleaksqueak]

hiya...... i love them both very much sorry for any design inaccuracies i was drawing them from memory....... on that note, do you maybe have any design refs for ur characters? i wanted to draw them fullbudy but the comic is so dynamic and intricate that they always have some shading going on and some parts of their clothes are covered up, so i'm struggling with figuring out the base colors and all the outfit details. thanks again for the awesome comic :-D off to read the new upload!! 💐♥️🦭

Oh my god!! I didn't check tumblr for a couple of days and then come back and find this! I love sketches and pencil/ink drawings so much and they're so super cute how you drew them here!! Thank you so very much, I wish I could hang every drawing people send me on my wall. And look, no worries about design inaccuracies. I leave stuff off all the time, too, and they look perfect to me here. Design sheets!! i've been meaning to upload their full body refs and keep forgetting sfjkafj. These are sadly out of date as they were done before Chapter 0 was even finished, but I hope they suffice for now!

height side by side and a very very out of date literal-first-doodle of the back of the coat. Here's Audric's, which hasn't really changed at all since this initial design. He's just one of those rare characters that didn't have to go through a refinement phase. His reaper partner's design sheet is mostly done but I'd prefer to release hers when she actually comes into the comic properly.

Lyra and Audun, tho these are only sketches, both are final designs. Audun will get a clearer ref like Lyra's simple one later, I was designing his outfit in this one since that rank of officer coat hadn't been seen yet And here's a much more up-to-date sketch of Maia that will serve as a new model for her when I get to color it. Elias has a new one started, too, but will have to wait to be shown (... it's that messy lmao)

And Maia's cloak/coat assets (plus her vault key) that I use for production fitted together, these are up to date! Basically, the color base for their uniform is a dark warm-grey in most scenes (but since the actual uniform coat/cloak is black, this is just done for visibility and often I tint it to reflect whatever light is in the scene or to contrast it. So "it's black, but I usually choose a warm grey base to keep it visible." ... Silver and bronze accents are shown separated here. I put up a patreon pack a while back that has my actual assets and brushes I made for their uniform emblems, but for now, it's visible here)

[rearranging-deck-chairs]

the doctor isnt neurodivergent or autistic or adhd or nonbinary or genderqueer or asexual. what the doctor is, is Not From Here

[bonetrousledbones]

btw in case anybody's wondering what i've been working on as of late i've mostly been redesigning this guy for the 4th time because sometimes good ideas are bad

[pillowprinx]

if you’re following my main and/or art blog then you’ll already know I’m remaking blogs, I don’t know if I’ll be remaking this blog any time soon but if you’d like to know if/when that happens then you’ll have to follow my new blogs

[roachesforthewin]

My Personal TIMKON Recs List

i made this for my friend recently and thought i’d share it here because you tumblr bitches love pain and little gay dudes (just like me fr)

all of these have good young justice, batfam and superfam (though sometimes it’s minimal) representation (because i don’t read them if they don’t have good rep, sue me). Plus Tim and Kon personality and character accuracy, obviously.

Also these are all Ao3 recs because i like to consider myself as not a heathen

Funk Ass

- sun kissed by merils

https://archiveofourown.org/works/48882055

beach episode, queer young justice fr fr, Kon rep is off the charts (ashgs quite possibly the conner rep of all time, just the phrases he uses /$)/ so real!!)

- Baby Talk Me Down (Take Me Out) by sage (lemontongues)

https://archiveofourown.org/works/25384345

ahhhsh this one is unfinished but i desperately wish it was, either way great fic and great character rep + conner civvy life insights

- Out of The Frying Pan, Into the Casserole Dish By JpegdotJpeg

https://archiveofourown.org/works/41005416

martha kent (& the superfam!) is the best person ever, plus tim is the most autistic little dude (we love him sm)

Haven’t finished but amazing rep/haven’t read yet but plan to

- Robins and other flightless birds by Ionaperidot

https://archiveofourown.org/works/15607170

ahsgshsh this one qualifies for [literally kill yourself after reading (pain)]category but i put it here just cause :-| uhh BW adopts fucked up kids good for him: JJ!tim, Catatonic!jason COA!dick etc

- Straight on ‘til morning by merils

https://archiveofourown.org/works/43401684

haven’t read this one yet but i’ve heard really good stuff about it! plus good kon character development/ exploration (from what i’ve heard)

- there you were by mindshelter

https://archiveofourown.org/works/25599205

the blorbos deserve pain, don’t you agree? (i haven’t read this one in a hot minute and have forgotten what it’s about but i remember it being good)

- Buy Back the Secrets by sundiscus

https://archiveofourown.org/works/43137879/chapters/108412977

okay no this one LITERALLY AHSGGSGS bro just read it, uhh civvy tim and superboy interactions, 5+1 things, good sibling Jason (a rarity unfortunately), funny ass dialogue

sexy times (good for them)

disclaimer! none of these fics are like solely focused on smut, but that plays a large ish role thats why they’re in this category

- take me to the airport (call me from the platform) by Hayleythewriter

https://archiveofourown.org/works/47970586/chapters/120950194

This has an idiots to lovers tag…there’s not much more to say. except for great sibling relationship portrayal of Damian and Tim that doesn’t involve murder attempts Yay!! (DC wouldn’t even dream of it)

- What happens in Vegas by Ididloveyou_once

https://archiveofourown.org/works/32850109

Stupidest bitches alive fr (mostly tim) + Cassie Sandsmark being a bitch, we love to see it! and and and it has an interesting subplot/s so woowoo, also minor Birdflash👀

- Scions by winterlive

https://archiveofourown.org/works/375897

Conner Luthor is a bitch and i love him + lex luthor is a good dad WHAT!?! oh HA and Clex which is soo good.This was honestly one of my favourites sheerly because of good character representation and BW not being a terrible father

- Trust Fall by Ididloveyou_once

https://archiveofourown.org/works/31654376

Again good sibling rep between all of the batboys, mostly Damian and Tim tho YAY! (it’s seriously a rarity do not take it for granted)

Literally kill yourself after reading these (Pain)

- when your bf hits the street and turns into meat that’s amore by CarrionCarnival

https://archiveofourown.org/works/40318824

self explanatory title, heavy gore :loved it, literally my favourite fic on this list (i adore gore what can i say)

- You are Shaking Fists and Trembling Teeth by Bored_Liege_bow

https://archiveofourown.org/works/47679967

implied TimKon, aftermath of conners death Rip timothy d-w

- my dear devoted delicate by blenderfullasarcasm

https://archiveofourown.org/works/48556555

pushing daisies au, sad af + good exploration of loss on tim’s part through his life

[jamboreeartsupplies]

yeehaw

spoon goes to it's beloved boba shop for another treat, bc they are 🌈spoiled🌈

[fairyjiu]

Happy New Year!

The besties are back, in their very casual fits, to wish you all a happy new year. Thank you everyone for being with me in 2023 whether it was our first year together or the fifth, I greatly appreciate your companionship and hope we can stay together for the next one. I wish you all an easier year than the last, may we all celebrate the little victories together.

@astronautke @bibitzy @brianskangs @bunsprout @bomnun @dakbees @dinoboos @dongkwan @flops @girlwegottatalk @hohowonho @hoshifromkpop @hui-ing @jisungshotfirst @justdoityo @lunetual @mizugucci @moonsua @ninqz @pinktaeyeon @reveloser @ryudaeng @saerom @sdaywithme6 @seokmingming @seungwoonies @shinwolo @souladies @svngjins @xiaojuun @youthpt2 @yeofi @zeeisblue

& all the lovely people who interact with my creations, the people i couldn't tag for some reason and you if you see this and don't fit in any of these categories <3