#It's not exactly.... spiritual

[yet-another-haven-of-dollya]

Welp getting this out of my system

[phoenix----rising]

"Duality is always secretly unity."

Alan Watts

[vaguely-concerned]

it probably says something either sad or deeply unfortunate about me as a person, but I'm darkly amused to see some people react to the reveal of the ultimate permeability of souls in tlt as a triumphant thing -- the "you can't take 'loved' away!!!" side of it all -- when my first reaction was such an immediate wave of 'oh, oh so this is why this series is horror, I truly understand now' distress haha. ngl the final confirmation of the self not being inviolable in the deepest way freaks me the fuck out far more than any moment of body horror in the series has managed. (these two elements are of course the two sides of one thematic coin; it's about the horror of our bodies and minds and selves not being inviolable things, and about the effect of violence on them on so many different levels. violence psychological and interpersonal, physical, subtextually sexual, emotional, medical, political, a whole unlovely smörgåsbord of indignity and violation a person can be exposed to, and on a broader scale the spectrum of violence colonialism wields). The world and other people being capable of leaving indelible marks on us for good or ill through their presence in our lives is of course a pretty self-evident demonstrable truth in the real world, but somehow having it be proven metaphysically just uh. Fucks me up! 

It also drives home to me just how perfectly Muir has captured the dilemma at the heart of human connection and intimacy: the fact that the thing that gives us life and meaning is also capable of harming us so deeply. the same thing that can be so beautiful — even in a bittersweet, violently transformative form like with the creation of Paul — when done mutually and consensually and compassionately, is the same process that means someone like John can touch someone else's soul and 'after he's put his fingers on something, you'll never find anyone else's fingerprints on it; too much noise'. I think the text itself — the whole series, because to me this is what it is ultimately about, this tension between individuation/self vs. love/connection/enmeshment — is far more ambivalent in its treatment of it than saying it’s inherently a good thing or inherently a bad thing. The only thing it says for sure is that it is always a thing, that thinking you’re ever getting away from it is the height of futility, and that through being alive (or even through being dead lol) it is something you have to engage with in some way no matter what. Contact with other people is deeply necessary — without it we sicken and die. it can be the most beautiful and meaningful thing in a human life, and the most unspeakably horrific. All of these people are searching for some way to be whole, whether in total self-contained sufficiency on their own or in melding with someone else as their ‘other half’, and stumbling around in the dark they reach for each other and score deep wounds into the thing they’re trying to touch even when they don’t mean to. Taken to horrific extremes with the form of lyctorhood John guided his disciples to when they were ‘children — playing in the reflections of stars in a pool of water, thinking it was space’, because while people hurt each other all the time with differing levels of intentionality behind it, what John did was deliberate. It weaponizes the misapprehension of what closeness must be and destroys everyone involved in the process… and all because it leaves John the one sun their ruined lives have left to orbit around, because that’s the closest thing his soul will allow to connection. He doesn’t understand that to truly touch something you have to truly let it touch you back, and then wonders why he’s never satisfied.   

‘The horrors of love’ has been memed to death, I know, but… yeah. That is what it is, isn’t it.

[fala-alfredo-pasta]

A very self indulgent tatted and pierced up Ichimatsu thas it

[ruby-red-inky-blue]

honestly critical role has never been more relatable than Caduceus/Taliesin in the Rumblecusp arc

being put in an environment where you SHOULD thrive, only to fail comically at literally any given opportunity and discovering for the first time that you have some surprising capacity for resentment for something you love that you've built your whole identity on

also I know Caduceus is dumb as rocks in an education sense but those investigation checks they kept having to make felt like they SHOULD be wisdom checks at this point (because common fucking sense would tell you to just hand your shit to someone else once you notice you lose possessions every night) so watching him spectacularly fail every single one of those felt exactly like my life feels right now. Like I should know all the ways to prevent this and yet every day I fail again at the same task right out the gate

the absolute resignation this is all met with. like even for Caduceus that was a level of nonreaction I never thought possible. not a zen unbotheredness, just complete defeat. there is so much frustration underneath the surface and yet such a complete lack of energy to try and fight it, truly only going through a pandemic and/or a real weird mental health funk can breed the vibe of "help. it's again."

also, as someone who doesn't really give a shit about sex, like Caduceus, and prides themselves on their eloquence, like Taliesin, I've never seen myself so clearly represented as i have in the character and the player's combined struggle against the horny-twelve-year-olds energy of this cast

I too have experienced the "i see you giggling over something i said that wasn't even that much of an innuendo but i'm just gonna keep talk- oh no yeah no what i've said now is just a much bigger innuendo" so many times

and then you try and choose your words more carefully. because that's like, the one thing you're good at. and discover that a) once the giggles get going, it doesn't fucking matter and b) there's now not one synonym left in your brain that's not an open invitation

and now you're somehow the least invested in the joke but the most embarrassed by it

"how much of your brain is just innuendo???" the number of times i've wanted to ask people that

the deep disappointment when Travis joined into the madness

living vicariously through the mumbled asides of "all of you. it's all of you" "it's nonstop!"

also watching your group make a TERRIBLE plan but being unable to come up with a better one, so instead of poking holes in it until all your friends hate you you just quietly watch the catastrophe happen, and pray you'll have enough restraint left by the end of it to not say "i could've told you so" out loud

[shufaya]

Remember that Allah does not send afflictions to believers except to strengthen them.

[carpsoup]

making an astronomy/meteoritics iterator oc when i know fuckall or at least just very basic things about those things was maybe a mistake. Looking up stuff for reference/inspo like haha i like your funny words magic man

[telekitnetic-art]

Hi!! Your art is so fucking cool! Can I ask what the process looks like for form line? Ex. What do your sketches look like when they are really rough? How do you go from idea -> final product. 💕

Hadih, thanks so much for your question!

Honestly, it's sort of hard to explain? I do have some sketches to sort of give an idea though.

This sketch I posted a couple days ago is a pretty good example of what my initial concept sketches sometimes look like.. As you can see, they're pretty chaotic and very rough, and usually these sketches are more about getting the idea down then actually making the formline itself. There aren't formline shapes just yet, although I do sometimes sketch out elements or shapes like eyes or bodies or paws/hands that will usually have an ovoid in it, because those elements tend to be a focus or centerpiece. The sketch is obviously not final, and things can change along the way to account for space and balance as well as what I'm trying to convey. (These sketches aren't entirely accurate of course because they're for pieces that are meant to be fusions of character illustrations and formline art, but they're the best thing I can find on my pc at the moment)

The rough sketch helps me figure out the flow of the piece, and once I'm satisfied with it I try and get to putting down the shapes and silhouette, and it's here where I try to find the balance with my rough sketch and how the shapes can fit and behave in the piece to the best of their limits while also still conveying the message I want to send. The most common shape I start with is the focus shapes, which are usually ovoids.

This rough of my harbor seal formline which I sent to my aunt for review sort of gives a better Idea of what I mean when I say I try and focus on where the centerpoints will be. Ovoids are usually a focus, so you can see them pop up a lot; in the body, the head, the eyes, the tail, etc. Ovoids are so important and probably the most common shape in formline art, and one of the most common feedback I get from my aunt is to adjust how the ovoid looks in any one of my pieces; she often compared them to a loaf of bread! You don't want your ovoids to look like a loaf of bread! (Her words, not mine). I feel like I've gotten better at drawing ovoids though, because she gives it as feedback less and less nowadays. Ovoids usually also have to have a bit of weight/perspective to them; it's hard to describe but essentially the top of the ovoid should usually be bigger/thicker/have more weight then the bottom.

From ovoids, the next shapes are usually circles, u-shapes and crescents, then usually y-shapes/trigons. It can be difficult, because the key is to make sure the shapes flow together and feel cohesive, as well as to make sure the negative/positive space balance feels right. Also a fun tidbit, trigons are most typically used to essentially fill space; it's always important to make sure that they are binding bigger shapes like u-shapes and ovoids and not stealing all the space and attention.

The lines in this stage tend to be very rough and messy, and I always try to go over the next rough draft with a smoother and cleaner pen.

Once the initial shapes are done, I'll usually send the piece to my aunt (sometimes I send them earlier on, when I'm in the middle of working out the shapes) for feedback! I am still a student in formline work after all; basically all of my teachings come from my aunt, who has a lot more years of work in formline art then me. She'll give me feedback and tips of what she thinks I should fix or experiment with. I adjust and fix and sometimes even completely delete and redo parts of the piece with her guidance. The list of things she tells me to change decreases with each piece, so I like to take that as a sign that I'm improving!

Once the black and white version of the design is done, I move onto coloring. Usually I already have a color scheme in mind when I go into a piece, so I'll mess around and put down colors and see how well they contrast before I color it. Typically, a piece will have about 3 colors; one for the background, one primary color, and one secondary color. I use a clipping layer to color the entire formline piece with the primary color, and then go in with the pen tool and bucket tool to use the secondary color. Adding in the secondary color is tricky but important because it once again falls into balancing positive and negative space/colors and the transitions between the two.

Once coloring is done, the project is basically finished! Unless there are some other plans I have for it, ie using it for an overlay in a bigger piece, colouring is usually the final stage.

And that's about it! I hope this helps you understand a bit; this isn't a perfect explanation as this is just from my own artistic POV and other nations and artists have their own process, but I hope it helps nonetheless!!

Edit: I forgot I posted other WIP formlines here before 😭 here and here!! You can sort of see me figure out the flow and balance of the designs in between the WIP and the finished piece!

[andiv3r]

Not therian as in "I was a coyote in a past life" but therian as in "I have autism and always mimicked animal behaviors subconsciously as a child and it became a coping mechanism to the point that my brain began thinking of itself as a coyote brain and now 'therian' is the only label that fits"... ya know..?

[satsuki-yumizuka]

Who're your favorite Monogatari girls?

LOOOOOK LOOOOOK SHE IS SO PRETTY NAD BEAUTIFUL AND LOVELY LOOOOK LOOOK HAUUUUUUUUU SHES SOOOOO OCUUUUUUTE SHES PERFECT SHES SO CUTE AND PERFECT AND CUTEEEEE SHES SOOOOOOO PRETTY LOOOOOOOOOOK

[p4nishers]

"doing good again, angel?" he's trying SO hard to be normal about his angel while he literally always looks like a victorian woman diagnosed with hysteria after seeing a bit of bare skin around aziraphale. if aziraphale ever rolled his sleeves up it would be OVER for him he would EXPLODE and never reform out of embarrassment.

[khunspikesficrecs]

Title: In small hands (hold big hearts)

Author: peachyM00 (@peachym00)

Rating: Explicit

Pairing: Vegas Theerapanyakul/Pete Saengtham

Summary:

Venice is five years old when Pete saves his life. Vegas is twenty-five years old when he realises love doesn't have to be painful. And Macau can't wait for his senior year to end so he can finally come home from boarding school.

[wildwood-faun]

met an uncle this weekend who I've met briefly like 4 times since 2000 (when I was, you know, 10) and I'm fascinated to learn that we are extremely similar

[frutavel]

Fun OC fact of the day:

These four are technically related.

The three night elves are siblings, but if you go far back enough in the family tree it turns out they all share a common ancestor with Tau - and oddly enough the nelves are actually closer to that ancestor than Tau is. Their parents are very, very old elves, and all in all only a few generations removed from the dark trolls that bore them.

Kaharau is a dark troll who, according to legend, wanted to cheat death by becoming a loa. He sought to achieve this by having his friends and family pay him tributes in life, something that most saw as foolish or a joking manner.

The young ones took that to heart though, and a few too many eager younglings was more than enough to fulfill the old man's wish. It's said that ol' Kaharau became a trickster spirit in The Other Side, and while few know of his story, he is kept alive in legend and song and the occasional offering made by those who find some joy in his tale.

Kaharau's descendants would eventually split in two lines. One line was changed by the Well of Eternity into something entirely new, becoming the night elves that Adagio, Andryza and Rex were born from. The other line continued as they always had, and Urutau is now one of the few living grandchildren of a trickster loa.

[exoflash]

the only thing that irritates me as badly as new agers is western christians trying to explain away the spiritual with pseudoscience

[seaofreverie]

You ever finish a drawing that you really like and then you spend the next three days randomly looking at it for minutes at a time like that could make it possible for you to absorb its alluring and magnetic essence with your eyes