#It's fine! don't worry about it!

[completeoveranalysis]

[1]

Chapitre 193 - The Seventh Day Birthday

In which we get lovely couple’s portrait! 

I love that this could almost be a royal painting hanging up somewhere. Both Fujitaka and Nadeshiko looking important and astonishing in their own right, but both with the matching friendly gentleness that characterises them both. The splash text really captures their vibe in these chapters:

The more love they gave the more hope would remain

Now all that is left for them to do is believe...

It matches them as well as all the other parallel characters who know bits of what's happening but just have to sit by and watch it all from the sidelines (our starting Touya and Yukito, Yuuko, Tomoyo and co, etc)

It's honestly fantastic that Nadeshiko and Fujitaka are shown here essentially as together and NEAR each other but still physically taking up their own individual space. And the casualness of the moment! The soft touch of fingertips to the pillar in passing, the book still propped open as if caught mid-read, the wind blowing Nadeshiko’s hair out in soft arc. Meanwhile Nadeshiko holds a flower (a Nadeshiko flower??) so casually that you might not even spot it unless you’re looking at Fujitaka - which adds a small note of the something lovely that rests between them. 

I ALSO love that Fujitaka is visually out in the open but Nadeshiko is framed on three sides with straight lines - she’s almost completely contained, though her hair escapes out on the right. It could be a neat tie-in to the fact that Nadeshiko’s existence seems to be at stake here - Fujitaka appeared to exist in both versions of the Clow Kingdom, but this is the first time we’ve seen Nadeshiko at all. She could, potentially, vanish from the background of this image and not alter the remaining Fujitaka - as she seems to have done with the [whatever happens to the timeline]. It makes their distance from each other just all that much sadder, especially considering that there’s an actual visible wall between them here. Not a huge one, but one nonetheless! Will they soon be separated due to Evil Wolverine’s shenanigans, or does something else cause their separation?

Oh you could also point to their inverted colour schemes as such a LOVELY way to pair them, so that they’re matching and fit perfectly together but also adding just a hint of being on two different sides of reality. 

[afniel]

This is the magic lucky word count. Reblog for creativity juice. It might even work, who knows.

[january-summers]

"AO3 doesn't need a "dislike" button"

Um, actually, it already has one. Depending on your specs, it might look a little different but over all it looks kinda like this:

You can find it at the corner of your screen, which corner is dependent on your layout.

Anyway, if you dislike a fic, you can hit this Dislike Button until the fic goes away. It really is pretty amazing actually.

[n1ppthesillyandroid]

Idk if anyone has done it yet but

help

[ragsy]

Someone gave me a tomato at work yesterday and the visual of it sitting on my desk in the natural lighting was like a Vermeer painting to me

[starry-bi-sky]

don't you want to be a cult leader? - danyal al ghul au

this is mostly a joke post but i thought it was funny and had to share so--

his first mistake was, obviously, inheriting his father's inability to see an injustice and stand still. -- actually, danyal's first mistake was his lair being so big. a mountainous island with a large temple in the center resembling his old home in Nanda Parbat? With sprawling foliage and rivers and streams and waterfalls galore? What was he going to do with all that space? Let it go to waste? He had plants there! Native trees of the ghost zone growing from the soil! He couldn't let it all be left unchecked!

So naturally after helping a fellow teenage assassin ghost -- who he later learns is named Akihiko, -- from Walker of all people, he sent them over to hang low at his lair until it was safe enough for them to wander around the Zone. Walker couldn't get through Danyal's astrofield if his life depended on it, and trust him -- he's tried. Danny was clearing out debris from his stupid transport vans for weeks.

Honestly it wasn't so bad, he and Aki really quickly became fast friends and Danny loves having a sparring partner close to his level again -- he hasn't had this much fun fighting since he left the League. Aki was very dedicated and levelheaded, the both of them clicked really well because of it.

Nonono, the real trouble began after Danyal met some long-passed League members and allowed them to come join his island as well. Apparently they had made a few enemies of the zone, and maybe Danyal still felt some loyalty to the League. He couldn't just let them be left to rot. Their zealotry could be overlooked so long as they kept it contained and helped him take care of his island.

And it.. snowballs from there? He meets a teen squire aptly calling himself Ambroise -- whether that was his living name or not is yet to be seen -- who died during feudal france, who is just about as dramatic and passionate as every french stereotype makes them out to be. He calls Danyal "my moon and great muse" -- which is both flattering and little uncomfortable, but Danyal's grown up in the League as the Grandson of the Demon Head, he is used to mild worship. he passes it off as nothing more, nothing less. -- and while his energy is overwhelming on the worst of days, he helps Danny draw out of his shell more in ways that Sam and Tucker still struggle with.

Him and Aki butt heads a lot, but the two seem to hold the other in at least some positive regard, so Danny doesn't worry too much about them fighting while he's gone. It only becomes a mild issue when Aki also begins calling Danny "my moon". It's a little sweet, so Danyal brushes it off.

Then he takes in a troupe of ghosts some time after he defeats Pariah Dark and they begin calling him "great one" just as the yetis do in the far frozen. This is where he meets the twins -- a pair of sibling ghosts who call themselves Trixie and Missy (short for Trick and Mislead) -- who aren't quite as passionate as Ambroise but more energetic than Aki. Eventually they also start calling Danyal "my moon" and attach themselves to his hip, even within the living. They like to hide in his shadow and cause trouble for the rest of the students. He makes sure they don't hurt anyone.

He's pretty sure Aki is jealous, same with Ambroise, but he can't be too certain other than the fact that they become much more lingering (re: clingy) whenever he visits the island.. Something he's trying to do much more often these days due to the increasing amount of people living there now. Since when did he become so popular?

Then there's Pēnelópeia from the Greater Athens, who ran away from home and joined his Island after he ran into her while she was being chased by Skulker -- and he's pretty sure the reason was because of her chimeric appearance. Her strange eyes and mismatched wings and lion's tail and talons. She assimilates into his friend group very easily, she gets along well with Ambroise and Trixie and Danny usually finds the three of them climbing the trees to pluck the most fruit from the top. They can fly and he knows it, but they prefer to climb.

Then finally there's silent poet Akkara who comes from ancient mesopotamia, who gets along most with Aki -- which is no surprise there considering their similar personality dispositions. he watches Aki and Danyal fight each other and leaves comments on this or that that he notices. He writes Danyal poems on clay tablets and leaves them by his room.

They're one big mismatched group of outcasts, and Danny's got the other ghosts on his island to tend to, because they're living on his island and he wants to be hospitable even if he struggles with that. But he spends the most of his time with them.

Sam and Tucker are making fun of him. Tucker jokingly tells him 'careful Danny, at this rate you're gonna start a cult'. Danny really wishes he had taken that joke more seriously.

He just. keeps. collecting people. Wayward souls lost in the zone, looking for shelter or refuge from something or other -- whether that be another hostile ghost, or a past afterlife, or just a purpose. Danyal finds them, he takes them in, offers them a place on his island until they are ready to leave. Many seldom do. He's not complaining -- he has the space, and it feels like it's only ever growing.

His close friends, his "inner circle" as he's heard the others call them, keep insistently calling him "my moon". He starts calling them his stars, because then it only feels fair. They're his stars, this is his constellation. It becomes a thing; little star halos begin forming behind their heads, picking them out from the rest. He loves them so much, it's hard to place. Sam and Tucker are also his stars, but they reside in the living realm, they're his tie to Life. Meanwhile, his friends here know what it's like to be dead, and sometimes its nice to relate.

Those living on his island keep calling him "Great One" and he's beginning to notice zealotry in their care for his island. He really, deeply appreciates it. His close friends gain nicknames -- as his stars, it's only natural for him to pick them out from the cluster in the skies. Akihiko, his Sirius and bright star. Trix and Missy, Castor and Pollux, the twins and troublemakers. Ambroise, his zealous Antares and close friend. Penelopeia, chimeric and loyal Vega. And Akkara, his Arcturus and strength.

It's ridiculous how long it takes for him to notice; he is, of course, a deadly trained assassin. He is meant to be observant -- and normally he is! But somehow this becomes a blind spot. One that becomes too big to be dealt with by the time he realizes it.

He should've noticed when Aki, his Sirius, stood beside him one day while Danyal looked over his island and saw the sprawling spirits carrying on about their afterlife and bowing to him as they saw him, and said: "I looked down into the depths when I met you; I couldn't measure it." They aren't one for flowing prose, it took him so off guard he was silent for over a minute before he finally spoke.

Danyal should've recognized devotion for what it is, and yet he didn't. He should've recognized it when Antares began spouting praises about him, crowing about his radiance and resplendence to the heavens. He just brushed it off as Ambroise being Ambroise. He should've recognized it when Trix and Missy nearly broke Dash's leg after he knocked Danyal's books out of his hands, he excused it as them being protective. Of them coming from times where such violence may have been customary -- after all, that's what he used to be like. What he was still like, sometimes, when his emotions nearly got the better of him.

He should've noticed it when the people living on his island followed his word like gospel, looked at him like he hung the stars in the sky. When his friends gifted him a shawl with the moon phases delicately embroidered into it, with silver, shimmering thread and moving stars lovingly stitched into it. Their constellations seen clear as day in the dark fabric. When he found small shrines dedicated to him -- but they lacked any image of him beyond stones carved to look like moons, so he ignored it. When the religious imagery began popping up.

He really, really should've noticed it when a bunch of cultists accidentally summoned Antares, and Antares had turned to him when he arrived and called them heretics. But he was so centered on the fact that they had kidnapped one of his stars, that he hadn't paid much attention to what Ambroise had said.

Sages say that faith is blind, they should also say faith in you is even blinder.

It really only hits him one afternoon while he's sitting in Sam's room studying with Tucker, Missy and Trixie lounging at his feet, Aki sat on his right, Penelopeia braiding his hair, Ambroise draped against him, and Akkara lurking over him. Its one of the rare few times they're all in one room together.

It hits him like a bolt of lightning. He looks up from his textbook. "Oh Ancients," he says in no amounting shock. Everyone looks up to him.

"I've become my grandfather."

[an-internet-introvert]

Going to Phil's to do the Laundry

[queermasculine]

I identify as butch but have lots of soft plushies in my bed... do you think I ought to remove them before I invite someone over for hookups? never see any butches with plushies tbh so a bit selfconscious

don't be self-conscious dude. hoarding plushies is a masculine trait. your ancient shepherd instinct. if i came over and saw a butch had a bunch of plushies i wouldn't be like Ew i'd be like Bro, your deep intrinsic drive to protect and shelter other creatures is being channelled into collecting all these little yarn animals and tiny cloth people? kiss me

[hhhhunty]

Seastone negates devil fruit abilities.

[deoidesign]

How I save time on backgrounds as a full-time webcomic artist

Hi! I make webcomics for a living, and I have to be able to draw a panel extremely fast to keep up with my deadlines. I draw about 50 panels a week, which gives me about 45 minutes per panel if I want any semblance of a healthy work-life balance.

Most webtoon artists save time on backgrounds by using 3d models, which works for them and is great! but personally I hate working in 3d... I went to school for it for a year and hated it so much I completely changed career paths and vowed never to do it again! So, this is how I save time without using any 3d, for those of you out there who don't like it either!

This tactic has also saved me money (3d models are expensive) and it has helped me converting my comic from scroll format into page format for print, because I have much more art to work with than what's actually in the panels. (I'll touch on this later)

So, first, I make my backgrounds huge. my default starting size is 10,000 x 10,000 pixels. My panels are 2,500 pixels wide, so my backgrounds are 4x that, minimum. Because of this, I make them less detailed than I could or that you might expect so it doesn't look weird against my character art when I shrink portions of it down.

I personally find it much easier to add in detail than to make "removing" details look natural at smaller sizes, but you might have different preferences than I do.

I also make sure to keep all of my elements on separate layers so that I can easily remove or replace them, I can move them to simulate different camera angles more easily, and it's simple to adjust the lighting to imply different times of day.

Then I can go ahead and copy/paste them into my episodes. I move the background around until it feels like it's properly fitting how I want.

Once I've done that in every panel, I'll go back through the episode and clean up anything that looks weird, and add in solid blacks (for my art style) Here's a quick before and after of what that looks like!

This makes 90% of my backgrounds take me just a few hours. This is my tactic when I'm working in an environment that an entire scene, or multiple scenes, will take place.

But many panels will inevitably have a location that's used exactly once, and it would waste time and effort to draw a massive background for those. So in 10% of cases, I just draw the single panel background in the episode. I save all of these, just in case I can re-use it later (this happens more often with outdoor locations, but I save them all nonetheless!)

I generally have to draw about 2 big backgrounds per episode, and 3-5 single-panel backgrounds per episode! At the beginning of an arc/book the number is higher, but as the series is continuing and I'm building up an asset library of indoor and outdoor elements to re-use for the book, the number generally goes down and I save more time.

My series involves time travel and mysteries, so there's a lot of new locations in it and we're constantly moving around. If I were working on a series that was more consistent in this aspect, this process would save me even more time!

Like I said earlier, this also saves me a lot of pain and gives me a lot more options as I'm converting from scroll format to print format!

panels that look like this in scroll format...

can look like this in print!

because I drew the background like this, so I didn't need to go through the additional effort to add in the extra detail to expand it outwards at all.

Anyways, I hope this helps someone! As always if it doesn't help, just go ahead and disregard. This is what I do and what works for me, and I feel like I only ever see time-saving tips for comics that involve 3d models and workflows, which don't work for me at all! I know there's more people like me out there, so this is for you!

Enjoy!

Also obligatory "my webcomic" if you want to see this in action or check it out!

[autisticaradiamegido]

day 317

yeah dont be ABSURD dave they would NEVER secretly make out in a spooky abandoned house in the woods you literally sound so crazy right now. unless-

[skulandcrossbones]

[charlieghostcrab]

Let's fly together!

A little something for Hungry Knight's birthday.

[daily-odile]

Odile introduced to the concept of bungee jumping

[teaboot]

if ur a murderbot nerd now do u have any fun opinions abt it yet?

Oh my goddd you have no idea

I really, really, really like Murderbot because it comes at life with this perspective we don't often see that is very real among people who have already been through traumatic experiences, who developed skills and abilities to suvive that were once useful but no longer have context- that search that traumatized people go through to recalibrate and reorient ourselves in a world where we no longer really need those things to survive.

A bit personal here, but my own issues personally involved a lot of psychological abuse that made it difficult to trust my own perceptions of reality, and as a result I found I was very easy to lie to and manipulate.

To handle this, I became obsessive over writing things down, cataloging details and making notes of things as they happened- I'd carry recording devices and make audio recordings and stay up late at night to transcribe what they'd picked up, read those over and over again to reassure myself of things I wasn't certain about.

While doing this, there were others close to me that I felt responsible for, who I had to protect from others and protect myself from at the same time. Life was about two things: Evidence, and defusing threats

Over time, I learned to trust myself as my memories matched what had been recorded where their narrative didn't, but I never really kicked the habit. Like Murderbot, I had added something to my own programming that reassured me I was safe, that I was in control of myself, that I couldn't be mistaken or crazy or broken or used.

I'm only on book two, but already I see myself in Murderbot again. No spoilers here, but when I left home- left that dangerous context- I didn't need to repeat these patterns to survive anymore, but I still did, because I didn't know anything else anymore. It felt safe, comfortable, knowing knowing that the past couldn't repeat itself, because I'd written that flaw- blind trust in myself-  out of my programming and replaced it with something else.

Still, though, I'd become something specially suited to thrive in a very specific environment. Nothing else felt right like followinghigh-risk situations, like witnessing and watching and recording and knowing I had proof of the truth where others might not.

People took notice. I wound up in security by accident, but's an environment that I thrive in due to the same patterns and behaviours I originally developed when I had no other choice. I climbed the ladder pretty quickly, once supervisors caught on that my reports were the most accurate, most objective, most factual, detail-oriented and timely. I keep others and myself safe and prioritize public safety above all else, and I perform well under pressure

Now I'm in a position where I often wonder, do I enjoy this job, or is it just what I'm good at? I have a set of skills now, but do I have the option of choosing not to use them? What would I be, if not this? Could I be anything else? Can Murderbot be anything else?

It has a set of skills that set it apart, make it different, special. It does what it knows best. But is it free? Does it want to be? What does it want? Does it have to do what it was built to do? What if it didn't?

I know what I'm good for. The idea of deliberately leaving what I'm good for for something uncertain, that I might hate, that I might be useless at- the choice to give up what was so important to me for so long and become deliberately obsolete?

Let go of my entire purpose? The only thing I know, that I fit so well into but don't actually know if I enjoy? Now that I can choose? Now that enjoyment is a luxury I can afford to consider?

Yeah, that resonates.

I like the Murderbot series so far because it feels the way I feel: Like the most significant and formative part of my story, the part where I became what I am, has already happened

And now I have to just. Keep going

Into... what?

It feels absurd. Like a microwave giving up on reheating food and deciding to start a life around abstract dance.

So, uh. Yeah. It's really very wild to see this same philosophical-ish dilemma I've been digging over in the back of my mind and in therapy for the last forever laid out so plainly in a genuinely exciting and enjoyable story like this. I feel much less alone, and I... kind of really need to see how it resolves, I think.

So, uh. Yeah. Read Murderbot, I guess

[fishfission-dc]

Batfamily Powerpoint Night! (Part 10: Alfred)

<<Part 9: Barbara 

[Masterlist]

Alfred: Actually, I have prepared something I would like you all to see.

Bruce: Oh lord...

[collective sigh]

Alfred: I have noticed that many of you are electing not to return used dishes to their proper location to be washed. 

Barbara: Oooh... that one’s on me, sorry Alfred.

Alfred: Miss Gordon, I trust you not to spill anything on the computer console, but I still think it best not to have open beverages in the presence of... other company.

Dick: Is he talking about-

Tim: Yeah he’s talking about us.

Bruce: Hn.

Steph: Only Bruce does this, Alfred, I promise.

Alfred: I am well aware, Miss Brown. 

Bruce: ...sorry.

Duke: How do you not spill anything using mugs in the Batmobile?

Cass: (signing) Impressive.

Jason: Okay, this one has to be Dick.

Dick: ...That’s probably me.

Tim: A teacup? A teacup and its saucer??

Dick: I was already drinking it at the time-

Alfred: Just bring it back next time.

Steph: HA

Damian: ...They like the-

Alfred: I highly doubt the dogs have a preference of plates.

Damian: ...understood.

Jason: WHICH ONE OF YOU-

Tim: STEPH. STEPH THAT IS YOUR BELT.

Steph: I CAN EXPLAIN

Barbara: Steph why is a mug in your-

Steph: I BRING THE MUGS HOME AND I PUT THEM IN MY BELT TO REMEMBER TO BRING THEM BACK TO ALFRED BUT THEN I FORGET

Duke: How many mugs are in your belt right now? 

Steph: ...

Dick: Steph.

Steph: A couple...

Alfred: Three. I checked twenty minutes ago.

Steph: ...Sorry Alfred.

Tim: ...Okay-

Dick: Tim. How on Earth-

Steph: HOW IS THIS ANY WORSE THAN ME KEEPING MUGS IN MY BELT

Tim: Sometimes I save time by eating in the shower!

Jason: That is like... a family sized tupperware container.

Damian: Drake, this is no longer efficiency, it is insanity. 

Tim: ...Sorry Alfred.

Bruce: ...how-

Barbara: Cass... Cass this has to be you.

Cass: (signing) ...Sorry.

Steph: Honestly I’m not surprised by this.

Duke: Are we not concerned that Alfred’s been repeatedly climbing into the rafters to collect these dishes?

Alfred: Oh it’s not the furthest length I’ve gone for you all...

Bruce: I may have left a serving dish at the Kents’ apartment in Metropolis, I apologize.

Tim: I don’t think I left anything in San Francisco... or Nanda Parbat.

Dick: TAMARAN?! I’m probably responsible for New York and Bludhaven, but that one was NOT me.

Jason: Ooooh, yeah... uh... that was probably me...

Steph: You left a tupperware container on Tamaran?!

Jason: And maybe... other places... I keep forgetting to bring them home.

Damian: How many of these locations are you responsible for, Todd?

Jason: Uh... definitely Star City and Tamaran... and Miami... Paris... and Washington, Hong Kong... maybe also Nanda Parbat. Oh, and I definitely left a cup in San Francisco...

Barbara: Oh my god.

Jason: ...Sorry Alf. Won’t happen again.

Alfred: I’m glad you appreciate the leftovers, Master Jason, but yes, please return the dishware.

Duke: Oh that’s definitely my bad... Sorry Alfred.

Alfred: It’s alright, my dear boy, you didn’t know.

Bruce: ...how long has that been the system?

Dick: Probably not long... I definitely didn’t do that as a kid...

Jason: Definitely changed while I was dead...

Alfred: That has been the system for 42 years, I would appreciate if all of you started adhering to it.

[a chorus of “Sorry, Alfred” as they retrieve their dishes, thus ending Powerpoint Night. The end.]

<<Part 9: Barbara

[Masterlist]