#I don’t mean to get all preachy abt this but once you start looking for racism in fandoms you never stop seeing it.

[angelsarecomputers]

I will always feel Kind Of Weird about writing/art and stuff people will make where Harry is soooo much bigger and stronger than kim and has no trouble picking him up and shit. not only are that man’s bones probably dust but it really speaks to how you people can’t seem to get past internalised stereotypes

[castlecult]

saw you wanted frank castle requests!! how about him after he did something dickish (like get overly protective and preachy abt readers safety) and now readers not exactly giving him the silent treatment but isn't as affectionate. thank you!!

an : hello anon !! thank you for sending in a request and sorry it took me a few days to reply <3 i’m not very proud of the initial part, i think it’s a weak reason and it’s poorly written but anyway *looks away* … i chose to write for gender neutral reader bc you didn’t specified a gender, i hope it’s okay and that you’ll enjoy it !!

warnings : use of pet names ( baby & darling ), sad frankie, sad but fluff in the end !!! not proofread

gif here

“why would you treat me like that?!” you stormed into your apartment, followed by frank. “why would– are you being serious now?” frank raised his voice once the door was closed.

“yeah, i am! you acted like a piece of shit, all of that in front of matt. just because i’m slower than you, that doesn’t mean that i don’t know what to do or how to defend myself, okay?” you said while pulling off you jacket, trying to keep your tone low given that it was almost five in the morning.

frank didn’t agree. “bullshit! you almost got hit by a sniper, you completely lost your target and were about to die if it wasn’t for red!” he kept screaming at you. you knew it was just his fear and worry taking control but you couldn’t really excuse him now, you two have been working together for so long it disappointed you that his trust in your abilities was that low.

“oh thank god daredevil exists!” you turned to look at him. “i’m tired of arguing frank, just say that you don’t trust me and go,” you said before walking towards your bedroom.

“hey! do not walk away now, huh?” he followed you and you rolled your eyes, sighing. “i wanna sleep, okay? i don’t care about whatever excuse you have for your behaviour. i hope the couch is comfortable enough for you,” you pushed a pillow and a blanket to his chest, then waited for him to exit the room.

frank stared at you for a moment, a bit taken aback by your behaviour. he mumbled something under his breath and then walked into the living room, leaving you alone.

—

“hi baby,” franks voice filled the kitchen. you were eating, sitting by yourself. “hi,” you simply said, keeping your gaze focused on the newspaper.

frank sat by your side and kissed your cheek. you said nothing and kept reading the news, ignoring his presence. “i’m sorry about the yelling, it was really late,” he said after a while.

“yeah,” you got up and started washing the dishes, sighing. frank just watched you, a bit confused. he cleared his throat and got up, scratching his neck. “so um… i got a thing, to do…” he started, hoping you would turn around. “with curtis.”

“have fun, i guess,” you simply shrugged, without looking at him. “it won’t take long,” he added soon, getting closer, “okay, frank.”

he didn’t say anything, just kissed your cheek once again and got ready to leave the apartment. once you heard the door closing you released a long breath you were holding.

“asshole,” you muttered. you hoped he would enter and apologise for his behaviour, but instead all you got was an apology for the last night’s yelling, which you didn’t really care about because it was a consequence of what happened.

you spent the day doing stuff around the apartment, you also went out shopping.

you were almost falling asleep in front of the tv when the door opened and closed, you heard his heavy steps and quickly sat up, almost forgetting the way you decided to treat him.

“darling, i’m back!” his voice filled the apartment. you yawned, tiredly. you turned off the tv and freed the couch for him. “hey,” he finally showed up and noticed you were approaching your bedroom. “welcome back, frank,” you simply said before closing the door behind yourself.

frank silently stared at the closed door, confused once again by your behaviour. he finally understood that you were angry about something and he was the main reason you were acting like that.

what he would never think about, not even for a second, was that the reason you were upset was the way he treated you the other night, in front of matt.

you laid down, groaning. you weren’t expecting him to come into your room, so when he opened the door and entered you slightly jumped up.

“what now?” you asked, annoyed. “okay, enough,” he said and came sitting on the bed. you faked confusion, watching him. “don’t act a fool, i know what you’re doing,” he added.

“oh, i see,” you nodded and laid down again, turning your back to him. “stop treating me like that, y/n,” he sighed and gently grabbed your hand. you freed yourself and kept silence, staring at the wall.

“i’m tired,” you said, noticing frank was still sitting there, without moving or saying anything. “i know, but i can’t wait to talk tomorrow,” he said, his tone serious. “no, i’m tired about you not trusting me,” you corrected.

frank felt his chest tightening, scared he was about to lose you. “w-what?” he chuckled nervously, as if the words you just said were foreign to him. “you heard me,” you replied.

you sat, angrier than before. “you think you’re the best out there. well, i guess you are… but that’s not the point,” you shook your head. “you always complain about matt, and i understand that because you guys have different opinions, but me?” you met his eyes, taking note of a glimpse of fear. “you always complain about what i do, you say that it’s all because you want me safe, that i risk my life every time i try to help you guys, but you try to protect me in the worst way possible.”

you took a deep breath, noticing frank wasn’t gonna say something. “i know that you care about me, you care so much about the people that you love and maybe you don’t even realise that… but frank, you gotta stop acting like a dipshit, getting angry because people don’t do exactly like you said,” you moved a bit closer to him, sighing. “there are good intentions behind your actions, i know that for sure, but it hurts… the way you look at me, the way you speak in those moments…” you noticed him looking away for a moment, clenching his jaw.

“i’m sorry,” he muttered, closing his eyes for a second. he reopened them and met your eyes, gently grabbing your hands. you let him, waiting patiently for his next words. “baby, i- shit, i’m scared of losing you, like… i hate when you come along with me and red, but not because you’re not good, but because i’m scared that the second you’re out of sight you won’t come back to me.”

you felt him squeezing your hands, nervously. “frank, baby, i know that this scares you, but maybe we can find a way to work together… i mean, being a better team okay?” you tried to show him a smile, letting him know that you weren’t that upset with him. “you always act like you have to protect me, like you have to save me… but i’m here to help, not to make you more stressed,” you caressed his cheeks, comforting him. “i wanna help, but you gotta let me do it,” you spoke softly.

“i know, baby… i can’t help it, it’s just…” frank sighed, struggling to find the right words. “it’s okay, i know what you mean,” you said before hugging him, holding him close to your body. “i’ll stop treating you bad, but i make no promises about the protect you part, you got that?” he said and you chuckled. “i figured you would say that, but that was the point,” you kissed his cheek and then his nose, making him smile.

“i’m sorry for my behaviour,” you looked at him, feeling guilty. “don’t. i probably deserved that, i’m a piece of shit,” he caressed your cheek and stared at your lips for a moment. “i still don’t know what is holding you back from walking out that door and never come back,” he said that chuckling, but you knew that deep down frank feared that day with every cells inside his body. “you give the best bear hugs and no one can resist to those,” you kissed his lips and smiled.

extra an : feedback and reblogs are super appreciated !! if you wanna send me your thoughts about frank hit my inbox <3 have a good day

[boy-above]

Please, anymore thoughts on Kokichi?? I'd love to hear you infodump :) love your content btw

aaa omg :0 it’s a little embarrassing infodumping publicly aaaa but i’ll do it, here’s some thoughts abt him.

for starters! i think kokichi is locked into position of antagonist very early on and doesn’t really have a chance to fight it. this is partly his fault of course, i believe the reason he’s so rude and hostile is so he keep his distance from people as he doesn’t trust any of them. he reiterates many times that this is a game of suspicion and he will not let himself fall victim to someone by trusting them. he doesn’t want to appear vulnerable either so he doesn’t allow anyone even a glimpse of his true feelings most of the time, he lies so much so even when he does express true feelings, you’ll never know if he’s being serious or not.

but this also means that no matter what he does during the game, even if it’s an action that has good intentions or is for the better of the group, it will be met with hostility because everyone assumes from a very early point that he does not have their best interests in mind. this means he would literally be unable to redeem himself in their eyes because they’ve already decided that he’s a bad person no matter what. even if he started acting nice and doing everything right, people would continue to think hes scheming and is up to no good.

for example, kokichi reveals to everyone that maki is the ultimate assassin, but the others kind of treat him like an asshole for it. kokichi was doing the right thing here! everyone deserved to know that there was a professional killer among them, someone who was guarding an entire room full of weapons!! but he’s vilified for doing this. also, something big that always makes me upset, is the fact that people routinely disregard kokichi’s safety and well-being. someone he just outed as a murderer is standing there strangling him and nobody does anything to help him. then of course there’s the scene where he’s busted his head and is covered in blood and very obviously woozy and not okay, but everyone is just annoyed with him and nobody helps him. he doesn’t deserve that. everyone hates him so much.

and it comes to a point where kokichi weaponizes everyone’s hatred and mistrust of him against the mastermind, by trying to convince everyone that he Is the mastermind in his plans to hopefully end the killing game. and everyone eagerly believes it because they’ve already all got huge hate boners for him, it seems obvious to them. everyone is willing to believe he orchestrated the whole situation they’re trapped in and that he’s a remnant if despair, despite the fact that there’s actually very little evidence for it. everyone except shuichi, who later goes out of his way to prove his suspicions that kokichi isn’t the mastermind nor a remnant of despair to clear his name. which brings me to! why kokichi hates kaito and why he feels that he can trust shuichi.

kokichi is a very logic over feelings type of guy, and feels that blindly trusting people just because you think they’re your friend is a very dangerous mindset to have, in this situation at least. this is why he butts heads with kaito a lot. kaito is someone who even got mad at shuichi for accusing gonta in his trial, even though gonta Was the culprit and everyone else would be executed if they voted incorrectly, all because kaito’s belief in trusting others was so strong. kaito is very feelings over logic. kaito has a very firm stance on what he believes is right and wrong and he’s Stubborn as fuck about it. that’s part of the reason i don’t really care for kaito, he can get very preachy at times and let’s his feelings get in the way of finding the truth. he seems to feel morally superior to people in a game where morals are simply not black and white in the way he thinks they should be.

which brings me to why kokichi feels he can trust shuichi and only shuichi!

kaede was shuichi’s closest friend in the game and he did not let his feelings get in the way of naming her as the culprit. if he had blindly believed in her and refused to name her as the culprit despite all the evidence pointing towards her, everyone would have died. it completely tore shuichi up inside to send kaede to her death, it absolutely devastated him, but he did it for the sake of the group. it’s this moment where i think kokichi started taking an interest in shuichi. this is someone who understands the game and understands what has to be done to protect everyone. you can’t get everyone there killed just to protect one person, no matter how close with them you are. i think it’s from here that kokichi slowly started gaining a crush on him as well. i headcanon that kokichi didn’t have much interest in him before he actually saw him in action during the trial, when he entered “detective mode” and got all serious.

i don’t think this is a complete lie! i don’t think he’s saying he’s in love with him or anything, but i do think it’s true he likes shuichi most out of everyone there. he thinks shuichi is the most interesting and trustworthy and probably does think about him a lot. he does a lot of thinking, the gears in his head are always turning, i get the feeling he doesn’t get a lot of sleep with how much he’s always thinking. it honestly makes me pretty sad thinking about him staying up all night thinking about his situation and trying to plan how he’s going to end the game, all while being super isolated from everyone else and not having any true friends.

which takes me to another point!

kokichi ouma is a super tragic character. i don’t care what anyone says, i don’t believe having this interpretation of him is “woobifying” him or anything similar. this right here? he’s telling the truth. nobody would care if he died, and nobody Did care when he died. everyone was sad about kaito, there was hardly any talk about kokichi. kokichi died a sad, lonely, unceremonious death. nobody cared when he had blood oozing from his head, nobody cared when maki was strangling him, nobody cares about him.

he was right. kokichi was always alone, through the whole game. he died alone. and i do think that this coming from shuichi probably hurt. shuichi was the only person there who he thought he could maybe trust. and kokichi did get what he wanted, he needed Everyone to hate him so they’d all believe he was the mastermind if he wanted his plan to work, including shuichi. but i don’t think he was prepared to hear shuichi say this specifically, i think it really hit close to home which is why it shut him up the way it did. and remember, kokichi Did try to ask shuichi to be in on the plan!! during chapter 4, as they were exiting miu’s vr world, he did attempt to ask shuichi to be his accomplice in a very roundabout way, but shuichi ignored him and exited the program. there could have been a world where kokichi and shuichi worked in tandem to try to end the killing game.

which brings me to why i ship saiou. i love saiou a lot. it’s my comfort ship and it makes me very happy. part of it is that kokichi is my comfort character and i project very heavily onto him. as ive mentioned above, i think kokichi trusted shuichi, was interested in him and he was kokichi’s favorite. i think he had feelings for shuichi and it’s very comforting to imagine shuichi returning his feelings and kokichi getting to be happy. i love aus where kokichi has friends and people actually try to know him and see through his lies, don’t accept them for face value. that’s also why i think kokichi liked shuichi, everyone else took him at face value and didn’t try to look below the surface at all. shuichi was interested in kokichi, interested to know what made him tick and why he did the things he did. he cared enough to want to find out. towards the end of the game shuichi did get very tired and couldnt find any logic in his actions anymore, and ultimately did give up, but once kokichi was gone his conviction to know kokichi’s true intentions came back again.

I think overall kokichi actually was lonely and wanted someone to care about him. i know the ftes aren’t technically canon but they Are canon compliant and are in character. kokichi’s feelings for shuichi are obvious. kokichi wants to spend time with shuichi and do silly things with him like playing yugioh and having tea parties. kokichi played Rock Paper Scissors against shuichi One Hundred times and shuichi kept playing. and at the end when kokichi got all giddy when shuichi was bandaging his cut, i think he was so excited because someone cared about him. someone cared about him enough to bandage his cut and just that little thing is enough to make him bashful and happy because he isn’t used to being cared for. that’s why i ship saiou, i just want kokichi to be happy and shuichi can make him happy. out of everyone shuichi tried the hardest.

anyway i think that’s all i got! please nobody @ my about my interpretations lol

[gohyuck]

hi hi, i'm not the romanticising ptsd anon, but my great grandfather & my great granduncle fought in the vietnam side of war and honestly things aren't pretty (war has never been) and idk how to feel abt ptsd & the vietnam war as a concept for a fic, but i really do enjoy ur writing & development of characters + i believe that the ptsd isn't going to be a character trait of jeno so i really hope that the fic isn't centered around war but just abt the characters' relationships? it's not easy to talk abt war & it's annoying when some authors make combat ptsd a character trait & address it shittily in their fics bc everybody deals w their trauma differently ... and the US was a fucking piece of shit in the war and i hope that you establish that and i'm sorry if this is aggressive i just wanted to share my thoughts ily and ur writing!!

hi!! so i do want to address every part of this to make sure i like.. respond to everything, if that makes sense? and dw it isn’t aggressive it’s totally valid and i absolutely want to hear from people with more experience with the topic than i personally have

1) “ idk how to feel abt ptsd & the vietnam war as a concept for a fic “: i know this may not have been a main point/concern of your ask but i do want to talk about this specifically BECAUSE i do want to... make a distinction between what fic-writing usually is (concepts on my blog and in general!) and what i intend to do with this fic! i think that, generally, fic-writing started out with writers projecting onto stories for their own purposes (which is valid and i 100% do this, just read Into It lmfao) and, as they started getting feedback, slowly moving to writing not only for themselves but for the invisible audience. from there, i’ve started to see more and more fic authors transition into publishing their own works, which i think is fantastic, and really goes to show that writing fic is a stepping stone for publishing personal/original work. since writing smultronstalle, i’ve wanted more and more to start writing fics that have more of my originality rather than taking tropes and rewriting them (which, again, is totally valid and, again, something that i still do on this blog for fun), and if i write this fic i want it to, frankly, be more like a book than a fanfiction. i’m just used to writing in second person and tbh i get happiness from getting direct and instant feedback on tumblr so i want to start off posting this on tumblr. that being said, i apologize for having ptsd/the vietnam war come across as the concept for the whole fic, because that’s not my intention. i used “vietnam vet!jeno” in the concept title to establish a general background for the character at the timestamp shown in the concept. i don’t want that to be his only (or, tbh, even his main) trait. as for the ptsd, i mentioned it in the warnings because i feel it would be... 2 dimensional of me and of my characters if i wrote a story about a war veteran who came from immediate fighting and one of the worst wars in modern history but i didn’t write about ptsd at all, especially when i know that this is likely to be a very long story. i want my characters to be human. always. so the vietnam war and ptsd are not concepts so much as the context of the fic and an aspect of a character that makes sense for the character himself, if that makes sense and is okay.

2) “ i really hope that the fic isn't centered around war but just abt the characters' relationships”: from the very little part of it i’ve planned and the general outline i’ve had it’s more about two young people meeting after a heavily turbulent and political time in the U.S./the world and navigating life in general (like. straight up things like falling in love for the first time, getting married, experiencing others’ lives and others’ deaths, paying taxes, etc) together. always together. like i’m tired of characters who have strife and stuff i just want to write a story about one great love, you know? i want to write about distinctly human characters with their own experiences and their own flaws but i want to write about how every character is whole at all times, and how they don’t need other people to fix them because nobody is inherently broken. i want to write about people coming together rather than the forces trying to drive them apart. this sounds like such a pompous response to this part of your ask (i’m so sorry) but essentially what i mean is that the war is just context. it’s basically a fact in the fic: the vietnam war happened, jeno fought in it. yes, it affected him and affects him even once he’s home, but it doesn’t take away from the fact that he’s jeno. he just happened to fight in the war. other characters aren’t so much as concerned about that as they are about him as a person, you know? it’s like how i don’t look at my friends and see their traumas, i just look at them and see them.

3) “ it's not easy to talk abt war & it's annoying when some authors make combat ptsd a character trait & address it shittily in their fics bc everybody deals w their trauma differently”: this doesn’t need a response i just wanted to emphasize it. i think like actual published authors of books, not just fics, make combat ptsd the singular trait of some of their characters, and it pisses me off. i also wanted to highlight that everybody deals with their trauma differently partially to remind myself of it (i will be looking back at this ask, and the one before this that talked about not romanticizing ptsd, and any asks others send, while i write) and partially to just say that. yeah. you’re right. and again if i write it i will not make flat characters with one trait or struggle or anything per character. and you’re right - it isn’t easy to talk about war, especially not when i don’t have any direct connections to those who have experienced it. because of this, if, at any point in time, any of you want to hit up my inbox and go “this sucks, you didn’t write this well at all” just do it. i won’t be mad. i’m here to learn and research and bust my ass

4) “ and the US was a fucking piece of shit in the war and i hope that you establish that”: yeah this story is actually going to be a thinly veiled criticism of the united states and how they start wars and never deal with the aftermath, with the consequences, with what those they send off come back with. the vietnam war, especially, was. bad. like it was bad the U.S. was hot garbage (always is) and i will establish it

i hope this answered questions and everything (and didn’t raise more concerns) but this if you have anything at all to say in response please let me know i feel like i sound preachy in this response and that isn’t my intention at all

[ruvigapo]

Hi do you have maybe some tips for someone who is learning how to use water colour? What brand of water colors to use etc. ??

Hi! Sure i guess.♡ Keep in mind that while i wouldn't say i'm a beginner i'm definitely still learning too.

I will uh.. i'll edit this post this afternoon with some tips lol (note to self to not use the tumblr app in the morning lest your thumb slip and post an unfinished post XD)

((Or maybe i am still a beginner, idk. Okay yeah i'm a beginner but i can give some tips.))

Okay so, i'm home. Been a long day. Here are some tips.

Honestly though, i'm Definitely not an expert when it comes to watercolour specifically. I've used it since i was a kid but i only really got the hang of it resently and i'm definitely still learning.

1. So honestly my first advise is to just look at a lot of different tutorials and ask a lot of different people. This goes for most mediums, but there are a lot of different ways to use water colour to achieve the look that you want and a lot of people do it differently bc it's so versitile.

2. This is a given, but honestly, there's no better teacher than experience. The more you try something out and try doing it in different ways, the more you'll be able to find what works for you. That's really important i think.

This is a tangent, but I took a water colour summer course once and i learn a lot of cool stuff, but i also learnt through a lot of trial and error that my style of water colour was very different from how it's traditionally taught here. Partially because i'm impatient and can barely wait for the layers to dry (this, btw, is honestly a must in water colour tho so that's really gotten better on my end with practice) and partially because a lot of the techniques i learnt were good for landscape painting but dificult when drawing more complicated pieces in my opinion. They're still great techniques but i also learnt to take inspiration from other sources that more closely match what i like to paint.

And the more i learn the more i find that i am also able to incorporate traditional techniques that before seemed very dificult for me.

3. As for art supplies, i honestly wouldn't worry too much about it. Especially as a beginner. I always say that the tool doesn't make the artist, the artist makes the artist. In the end, the most important tool you will ever need is your mind.

I'm also not very good with what brands are high quality and which aren't so there's that frankly.

I'd say ask around and look into what brands are available to you. Most standard water colour sets are good and last a long time. Then you can of course expand your tool arsenal. I'd recomend a bigger pallet just because i'm the kinda person who really enjoys mixing and trying out a lot of different colours and therefore need a lot of space to mix colours.

Also i'd say look into what type of brushes you prefer, and pay attention which brushes are water colour brushes and which are acrylic brushes bc they're pretty different.

Really high quality brushes are usually made with animal hair, which makes it able to hold a lot of water and pigment. I don't like them much personally bc i don't use a lot of water for my drawings as a general rule (mostly because they're doodles and the paper in my sketch book doesn't hold water all that well). (And also sometimes the hairs fall off from the brush and get stuck in my drawing 😬... they're worth checking out though.)

But try out different types of brushes and see what you like. It might be tempting to get a very tiny brush for tiny details but honestly, a medium size does the same work just fine with a light hand in my opinion. And depending on wether you want to paint big or small, what size brush you need will vary. I know that art supplies can be expensive though, so don't feel like you Have to get the most expensive thing when you're just starting out.

4. Speaking of just staring out... honestly, don't even worry about using up your supplies and feeling like every single thing you make has to be perfect. It's not going to be perfect. And not only is that okay but it's nessesary. Not to mention that perfection is wholy a myth and can't be achieved so don't even worry. Quantity over quality i always say. The quality will come with time and work. Which is why i always recomend cheaper brands anyway because you will be painting A Lot to git gud, as they say, but that might just be me.

5. Back to brands

Honestly Please invest in a good paper at least once. It doesn't have to be Fantastic, it just needs to hold water. I'm not even joking, the quality of your paper does wonders for the quality of your drawing. Can you make water colour look good on normal paper? Sure. Case in point, all of the things i paint. But honestly, if not for the sake of a result, then try it out for the sake of experience. Try different things. See what works for you. I honestly do recomend starting out with a good water colour paper since the result will be miles better and you'll feel way more encurraged to continue. That's the one supply i'm adamant about trying honestly. But again, budget wisely young padawan. And if you ever feel scared to use your supplies bc they were expensive and you don't want to waste it.. again nothing is a waste, everything you draw is stored as knowlege in your brain that you'll use to make better art in the future. Nothing is a waste. But if you're like me and the anxiety really hinders you, just get a cheaper paper. I like to paint in my sketch book bc it feels like a diary to me and it doesn't have to be perfect and if i screw up it's still fine. I'll tape it over and start again.

Okay so.. i realise that this is rambly and maybe a bit preachy and not very specific. Starting out can be scary and you want all the things in the right place and you want things to go well every time you paint even though you know it's not going to at first. But you just have to start somewhere and keep going from there. Bc if you never start, where will you be?

So honestly, if you don't have any supplies on hand, just go to the nearest place that sells art supplies and get yourself some good paper and a water colour set and just go ham trying out the colours.

Here are some of the water colour things i've watched over the years to help me in geting started.

This last guy i only found the other week. He does a more trafitional style, more in line with how i was taught at that one summer class thing. So it's always nice to look at different ways to do the thing you want to do.

6. Water colour to me has always been tricky. It's water so it flows, and for a while, that was frustrating because i wasn't able to control it i thought. I prefered using markers but honestly, markers are way more expencive than water colours and you can't mix them and get as much if a clean finish, so now i only use water colour to colour my drawings.

But for a while i avoided water colour and instead opted to use guache. Guache is mostly used in illustrations bc they're easy to layer since the paint is opaque. It's much more forgiving than water colours, so if you want, buy a couple tubes of guache and try that. You don t need that many. I use cyan magenta and two types of yellow as well as white. Any art teacher will tell you that with practice you can mix almost every colour from those colours. I almost never use blacj anymore. Unless i'm lazy, in which case i'll jusr add a layer of black water colour on top of the guache. (GUACHE CAN BE EXPENSIVE THOUGH, DON'T FORGET TO BUDGET)

There are opaque water colours but most aren't i believe. That's where the main difference between guache and water colour comes in. See, in water colour, traditionally, you aren't supposed to use white to lighten a colour. Instead you use water to dilude the pigment. This gives a much more clean and crisp finish. You can do this with guache also, but since quache is already opaque it will still have that same grainy look wether you dilude it with water or mix it with white or both. I mean... i personally love the grainy look so... it's very story book-ish.

With guache bring opaque that also means you can paint over mistakes and start over pretty much, so again, guache is much more forgiving. Once the white of the page is gone when you use water colour, you can't get that back without adding white guache on top, which honwstly just looks messy imo. So be aware of that.

7. Let layers dry before adding another one or the colours will bleed together. Learning to be patient is key. But if you're like me you can just use a hair dryer tbh.

8. If you're using a good paper, you can experiment with a lot more water. Taping down the paper helps bc the paper will swell a lot and buckle when you add a lot of water. (Press it between a butt load of books to get it somewhat flat again).

You can try taking a spunge or a wide brush and add a layer of water before adding the pigment. It can have some interesting results.

You can also leave the paper dry and just paint layers like you would with markers. Both work. Water bleeds more but that's really cool in landscape painting so if that's something you want to try, def experiment with letting the colours bleed together.

9. Oh and don't forget to swatch out your colours when you get them. Water colour dry lighter than it looks when you put down the colour, so swatching helps with determining what colours you want where.

There are So Many videos on the subject honestly. I like to watch videos while i paint. It's fun.

Okay so this is long enough i think. I barely grazed the tip of the proverbial iceberg but i hope it helped.

I really encurrage anyone who knows their stuff abt water colour to add on to this. I really don't want to spread false info. These are just my two cents on the top of my head.

Which basically just boils down to

JUST DO IT

I honestly tell myself this every day. And if i can do parkour then you can paint.

Good luck and have fun! 👍👍👍

[problemstarchild]

also i’ve been talking abt this to a friend but. i feel like ash gets dealt a pretty shitty hand by fandom. a lot of people get rid of her on virmire bc she’s xenophobic, but the first contact war was only 26 years ago, and her whole family’s been blacklisted in the military because her grandfather made the choice that saved civilians

she spends her whole life living with this idea that she has to be better than the best to even get off the ground. she’s spent her whole life trying to be accepted by other humans, and it’s because of aliens that she even faces that difficulty.

of course, it’s not actually their fault. it’s the fault of the alliance (and especially her father, though i sincerely doubt he meant to) for putting that pressure on her.

i only feel like this is wild because she’s just more directly vocal about being xenophobic than garrus. garrus in me1? sucks. i mean, i love him as a character; he’s very reactive to your moral advice in me1, but as soon as you take him on an elevator, he proves his ignorance and turian racism. he chides tali for her people’s involvement in creating the geth, defends the genophage - he doesn’t even know that quarians have to be suited (making a comment about how she should get armor without a helmet, though tali’s response to that has several character variants so they might have just needed him to say something to reuse tali’s audio for a conversation? but it’s also in there and canon), pretty blatantly insults krogans in general with one of those “you’re different from them” comments to wrex. garrus gets all preachy in an elevator convo w/ kaidan, “humanity will be judged by the sacrifices it’s willing to make”, saying the turians would have kept the L2 implants (that have led to horrific physiological issues for human biotics - there are at least 2 missions in me1 that have to do w/ angry biotic groups killing politicians and military alike because they feel that they’ve been abandoned by humanity).

if someone asks him about going up against saren, he’s fixated on “restoring the good name of turians everywhere”.

i mean like... he’s a cop. so... it’s kind of a “duh, he’s a xenophobe” moment, i guess? the only aliens he doesn’t seem to insult in me1 are the asari.

ashley insults aliens in general, but only to your face, iirc. she hates cerberus as much as anyone else, and is actively hostile toward a representative of the xenophobic terra firma party. she only kills wrex if you signal her to, or if you’re not persuasive enough to change his mind on virmire - and if wrex HAD shot shepard? there’s no way everyone else wouldn’t have retliated. in her elevator conversations, she’s nowhere near the bar garrus set for xenophobia (servantofclio’s transcript of elevator dialogue can be accessed here, if you need a refresher): she asks a few personal questions, talks a little about sexism. if she’s the one who talks to tali regarding the dialogue about treated like a beggar or thief, she admits she’s heard things about quarians and suggests that people don’t get to know them because they don’t stay in one place for long. i think that’s the worst thing she says to an alien, and most of her grievances about the council are out of a hatred for politics. she’s jumpy around aliens, period, when you’d probably assume that her family’s background would make her specifically wary of turians. despite that, all of her elevator conversations with garrus are polite. she’s also the only person that garrus doesn’t racially insult (though he does comment on having noticed that most alliance women serve support roles rather than frontline roles).

so i feel like most of the fandom’s widespread love for garrus and dislike for ashley stems from the fact that ashley’s me1 xenophobia is general and to your face, where you can confront it, whereas garrus’ xenophobia is specifically targeted to "background characters” - inescapable elevator rides where he regurgitates common racial stereotypes and galactic history. as me1 is the first entry in the series, typically, the player reads it as worldbuilding. they’re focused on the information they just heard, not the implications of that information.

honestly, i’m only bringing it up because a friend and i have been replaying recently and it’s astonishing once you know the series pretty well to listen to him talk to your other squadmates the way he does in me1. his crew on omega in me2 was diverse, and he tells you they’d all lost someone to the asteroid’s extensive underbelly - his experience on the normandy turns him into someone who can look at a batarian and see a real, actual person who loves and grieves like anyone else... and then do that a couple more times until the message sticks.

ashley’s effectively written out of mass effect 2 (or the end of mass effect 1 if you don’t save her on virmire), so she doesn’t get any immediate character development the way garrus does, aside from throwing away her previous deference to shepard aside on horizon to (rightly) criticize their apparent new loyalties. even then, it doesn’t show until me3, where she’s willing to shoot you to protect the council (which, of course, contains a human now, too, but if she were as bad as some people think she is, wouldn’t he just let her in on it? leaving out the cerberus part, of course).

she spends a good chunk of mass effect 3 just sitting in a hospital bed... idk. again. i ADORE garrus, but he got way more opportunity for character development than ashley did - coming from systemic privilege, holding a position that gave him significant power over civilians (he admits to roughing up a suspect in interrogation until he started bleeding when he’s telling you about dr. saleon!), and then starting a new life on omega where all of those unsavory non-council species gather and having to actually interact with them on a daily basis.

ashley just doesn’t get the same narrative chance to redeem herself that garrus did, even though i feel like garrus’ initial xenophobia is way worse. narratively, shepard can tell ashley she’s out of line for her comments, and she won’t make them anymore. narratively, shepard just stands by and listens to garrus make snippy little condescending comments to their other allies on long elevator rides without saying or doing anything about it, no matter what side of the paragade spectrum they fall on.

tl;dr if you love garrus vakarian or even just like him, and/or don’t see a problem with his me1 self re: his elevator conversations in me1, you have a duty to extend the same courtesy to ashley, whose potential for character development suffered badly from artificial scarcity in both me2 and a solid chunk of me3.