#Replies are just slow

[valtiels-darkness]

.:PSA: It's Hot:.

I am writing, slow (I have a lot going on at every given moment xD) but the last few days have been tough. Very hot and I just want to do nothing @,@))

[acetrappolad]

heartslabyul casual fits

[jagalart]

Sketch portraits ✨

I've done a few icons as a part of the current Sketchtober piece, I will be posting them in batches like this - so let's call this one "Sketch VII" XD These were for the great JuniperCreature, dogstar.art Lustylamb and Yagotado!

[veramitar]

I'm curious if you have any more drawings cooking up for your Minimaniacs series 👉👈

Button buck Alastor was a thing I didn't know I needed til I saw his little face 🥹

Minimaniacs is still on, mate! I don't plan to orphan them anytime soon. Just give me time to get over my Human Alastor works before I can get back on board with our favorite gremlins🙏 I also want to let you know that I'll be posting my original works, so expect a shift in the content posted from here on out.

As ever, your neighborhood eccentric buck appreciates your unwavering interest and heartfelt messages ❣

[locksox]

HI!! i had really hoped to open my commissions publicly much earlier this year + under better circumstances, but life really hit me like a brick lol

Payment via Paypal OR Ko-fi!

prices are listed in USD, but i send all invoices in AUD!

I am not very fast when it comes to commissions. I may finish the same day as payment, or it may take me a few weeks, so please be patient if that is the case!

My style varies greatly, if you would like a specific look, please provide a reference to some of my previous work :)

If anything is unclear, please dont hesitate to dm me or email me at locksoxcommissions@gmail.com !

also if youre feeling extra generous and can afford to donate to my cause, I did refresh my kofi to accept donos n stuff too!

[abitofren]

did anyone else feel like they were having a religious experience watching dev patel strangle a cop w a chain while that somebody to love edm remix was playing? because holy shit

[bigbarabelly]

hughie mpreg w either homelander or butchers kid and he doesnt know how to tell starlight ?

I’ve been hanging onto this because im super fucking slow lately but getting back into drawing a bit outside of com art FJKDSLA;

I’m working on a fic for it ill have to actually make an a03 for BUT made some little art panels of just hughie and Annie for it 👀

[bob-artist]

came for the geese stayed for the gay. keep that old cheese wheel rolling friend

Thanks pal, I sure will! :D

[triona-tribblescore]

Sorry I disappeared for a month, no idea why but tumblr felt a little overwhelming for a sec there- got lots of art to post though dw!! I'll do it over the next few days alongside answering some asks and responding to all the lovely messages left :D 🤍

[aimfor-theheart]

on the death of skirt chasers

a small think piece on how media has been stripped of romance, sex appeal, and charm over the last 20 years using trigun and trigun stampede as an example—specifically looking at this through wolfwood and vash as a tangible way to track this evolution.

it’s interesting and also unsurprising to me that trigun stampede stripped vash and wolfwood of some of their biggest personality traits from the 98 anime, which were their love of women. to be frank— they were both dogs lol

but vash was this sort of forlorn man who, meryl, upon meeting him, adequately describes him by asking, “are you the type of man to fall in love right away and get your heart broken?” or something to that effect. and he says what, no way! and then proceeds to fall in love with the next beautiful woman he sees and gets his heart broken by the end of the episode. and we were seeing this constantly throughout the show, then even in the later movie of the early 2010s badlands rumble.

and the 2000s are notorious for dubious, sexist comments from men who are women-obsessed. our action movies are packed with sexy female characters only existing for romance, etc. etc. we��re sort of at the tail end of it in 2010. so arguably, vash is almost worse here to me? he’s really pushy and borderline inappropriate with how stubborn he is. in a way that, while persistent in the 98 anime, he had a little more boyish charm to him and they never made him so forceful.

and then the middle and later 2010s happen where marvel takes over our action movies and romance and sex and womanizers are all but killed—originally, in reaction to the sexism. it’s important to note that the me too movement picks up in the middle and later 2010s too and becomes well-known by the end of this decade. and in response, i think we nosedive into puritanical ideas and sentiments by the end of the decade.

now we must always remember when a movement (ie feminism in this case) has a critique or reaction that catches on (the me too movement, men being pushy and overly flirtatious in our media, treating women in action movies only as sexy romance options, or showcasing toxic dynamics that subconsciously tell men to keep chasing her, even if she’s not interested) then the oppressive force (patriarchy in this case) will always transform as a way to take control again (bringing puritanical ideals back—we shouldn’t be showing sex or romance in our movies. we should not be consuming any dark content, ever. etc etc.)

i believe we killed romance and sex in the later 2010s because of an over correction of our sex-obsessed media of the 2000s—or rather, the patriarchy over corrected in order to maintain control. there were critiques of the 2000s that were valid, but like i said, the oppressive force will always transform to maintain power, so we hit puritanical beliefs again. “political correctness” if you will.

(capitalism surely has something to do with this too and it’s definitely along the lines of—be more beautiful and even hotter, but your body is not a sexual one, but a visual or capitalistic one. etc. etc. another topic, another time.)

and so here we are and we don’t really have any flirty or womanizing characters like we used to. and we see this very plainly in 2023s trigun stampede, where they have completely stripped vash and wolfwood of any of those traits.

and i sort of miss them? i think a 2023 forlorn vash who loves great and hard and gets his heartbroken would not be a bad thing—one who is effected and charmed by women, maybe rather than nearly stalking them like in the 2010 movie. i think it shows another piece of vash and that is quite literally that he wears his heart on his sleeve. and he gets hurt for it, endlessly. more than that there is a little more whimsy to him? and aching. he’s this lonely man who wants love so, so badly.

now, wolfwood in 98 version was less this forlorn chaser and more this suave womanizer. many jokes are made where vash is chasing a girl that wolfwood sorta already has if he wants her. but he’s this lone wolf who leaves everyone a little high and dry. (of course until the end—with milly —where, in a very classic lone-man way, he dies after leaving a woman with his child. the tragedy being that when he was ready to stop roaming and settle down with her and meryl and vash, he dies, thus still leaving everyone). and i mean even his appearance in the 98 version—big chested with low-buttoned shirt, shaggy hair and stubble. he looks like a 90s rockstar. he looks like your lone cowboy. he’s reminiscent of spike from cowboy bebop who has a similar charming air to him that never leads anywhere because he’s destined to be solo. the unintentional, intentional womanizer.

then the later 2010s hit and we kill the charming womanizer. (tony stark kills the womanizer. another topic, another time.)

and now in 2023, wolfwood is completely stripped of any of his sex appeal and suave personality that the 98 and even 2010 version of him oozed naturally. gone is the cool, tough, lone wolf. replaced with a sort of boy-bandish, squeaky-clean, semi villain, semi hero. he’s crass and he’s snarky and he’s supposed to be rough around the edges. but he doesn’t look it? and he lacks the charm that 98 wolfwood naturally had. which aided him when he talked to kids—he was softer. charming. people liked wolfwood, even when he was being crass. he knew how to talk to people, maybe even how to con them when he wanted.

2023’s wolfwood is tough to get along with. and while fun sometimes, i think it does lose this…romanticism to him? there is a softness in wolfwood that is sorta lost in 2023s version. while we get a fuller and better written backstory, we sort of lose this other aspect of him. we’re supposed to infer from his backstory and his relationship to his brother that he is a good man, just one put in a horrible situation, always had bad luck. whereas the 98 version, we saw that wolfwood was good with kids. gentle. women loved him—he charmed rowdy men, even swindled when he needed to. we saw that there was something good in wolfwood, even if he remained mysterious.

all this to say i do miss the romanticism? i do miss these men being…romantic? flirty? charming? and not even in a fangirl way but in a…humans are romantic creatures way? we are sexual beings? and romance and sex can tell us a lot about characters and their personalities.

and i think looking at vash and wolfwood in particular is a good way to track how we lost this romanticism in our media over the last 20 years—we literally see it in them, in their remaking in 2023, where they are stripped of it.

i think the mid and later 2020s will continue to return to it in some way—we already see this with the resurgence in romance novels (or these dark fantasy romance novels gaining popularity) and even fandom spaces being more “mainstream” on social media. but in late stage capitalism (and thus late stage patriarchy, racism, etc.) it looks a little like a carnival mirror of romance and sex to me.

another topic, another time. etc. etc.

[surreal-duck]

snail in my ear telling me to draw them 32098 more times: me, listening to the snail:

[copper-skulls]

silkie chicken!!? for a weirder favorite animal

strange beast (affectionate)

[myokk]

Thank you to everyone who sent me a sunflower ask🥹🫶🌻

I can’t send messages from this blog & im keeping the ones I got in my inbox (🤗) but just know I’m sending all of you a lot of love!!!!💓💓💓

[mai-komagata]

why not neither?

I have seen this fandom idea that either galadriel manipulated halbrand into seeking power again and brought him back, or halbrand manipulated galadriel into all the events of season 1

I posit its neither. Or maybe it's both. But I don't think is as unbalanced a situation as people make it out to be.

Like i've seen this sort of feeling that halbrand is choosing to just go to numenor to have some peaceful retirement and was not gonna be evil sauron anymore... And like... where are people getting this? We see in episode s2e1 that as soon as Halbrand got his body he was gonna march to get his revenge on Adar half naked if need be. Then he ran into men escaping the southlands and thought better of the plan. But like, he doesn't become just a random member of these people. He seeks out the man with the emblem and makes sure to take it from him as people were dying around him. He doesn't care if people around him dies. He is very aware of whom Galadriel is when he rescues her on the boat. The FIRST THING he does when he gets to Numenor is try to get access to the forge. Halbrand isn't begging for guild access because this is the only way he can scrape money for stew. He is a powerful magical being who can enslave all of middle earth if only he has access to the right materials and a hot enough fire. The fact that this is his priority when he has no other plan makes me think he isn't without guile even at this stage. I think Sauron is lost right here -- he doesn't really have a plan. But I don't think for one moment he doesn't want to be Sauron, or doesn't believe in his mission to be Morgoth's heir, the Savior of Arda. He is just lying in wait, trying to figure out the best plan of attack. And Galadriel gives it to him. Twice over. And the flip side of this is Galadriel. She is neither being manipulated at every step nor is she solely responsible for the return of Sauron. She is *being lied to* of course, but she isn't being mind controlled or something. You can say it's understandable that anyone would lie if someone threatened to kill them, but regardless of it is understandable for a fugitive to lie about his identity, it doesn't change the fact that he is lying and assuming a false identity. She is making decisions to include him in her plans based on this lie. I still haven't rewatched s1 recently, so I don't have perfect recollection of all events like I do season 2, but Galadriel isn't being manipulated into wanting to attack Adar and the Southlands, or convincing Numenor to attack with her. I do suspect that Sauron is heavily pressing the scales as to what decisions are being made in Numenor, but I haven't rewatched it for hints on what those could be. But at the end of the day, she is a good general and has a good plan Sauron can latch on to, and he recognizes her skill. Later, Galadriel brings Sauron to Eregion, and there Sauron's plan really takes shape. He has access to the most powerful smith in elvendom and the facilities to match. He is made privy to a plan to make magical rings to harness power. He would not have access to these things without Galadriel.

But I think its gets tricky to say Galadriel bears *moral* culpability for Sauron's actions. I think she is complicit in his plans and inadvertently helps him. Had she been more deliberate in her decisionmaking, less bloodthirsty and determined, she might have realized something was up before Eregion. While their goals were aligned she was willing to not ask too many questions, and only asks those questions when she isn't at the center of events. (which we see happen over and over again -- when people's ambition blinds them to not inquire as to who this charismatic stranger is. You cannot fool an honest man and all that) But I think it's a fallacy to say Sauron would not have found different plans or done something else to rise to power without Haladriel. I don't believe for a moment he was seeking a quiet retirement. I think he would have put in motion events in the Akallabeth much sooner if he had stayed in Numenor. (also ps i sometimes hear: If sauron is evil why did he [save this person][do this good thing][do this thing when nobody was watching]? Like, being Sauron doesn't prevent you from doing good things. He isn't omniscient, he cannot predict all ends. Sometimes he does things that might bear fruit later, for one. Sometimes there is no point to the evil thing. Sauron always believes he is saving middle earth, at the end of the day. He isn't wantonly destroying things or doing evil for the sake of evil. He is trying to bring things to order and under his control. And you get more flies with honey than vinegar. The only person he really is full on hating in season 1 is Adar).

[johnslittlespoon]

hii happy pride month, have a little 'you're a dog (i'm your man)' chapter four snippet as an apology for radio silence <33

“Did I wake you?” Gale asks, glancing at John apologetically, but John looks up from his effort to avoid muddy puddles to shake his head. Gale supposes it’s a silly question; John sleeps like a rock, dead to disturbances made by anything other than his own brain.

“Just my sixth sense,” John says, shrugging and shooting him a small smile. Gale snorts.

“You got a radar for me?” He teases, and John smiles wider, eyes crinkling.

“Built in,” he answers matter–of–factly, raising a hand and making a fist over the center of his chest before dropping it, returning his vigilant gaze to the uneven ground. Gale stares for a moment longer, floored not for the first time by John’s apparent obliviousness to the weight of his sentimentality.

Even knowing John how he does, it’s always unexpected coming from someone who a stranger might assume to be brazen and surface–level; John’s loud mouth and wandering hands do him no favours in that regard.

But Gale does know John, like an extension of himself half the time, and still he manages to render him speechless. The way his heart flutters as the sentiment hangs in the air makes Gale want to reach down his throat and squeeze it until it never beats again.

[manasurge]

Your custom fanspec... tell me about it 👀

:BLUSHYSMILEYCATEMOJI: hehehe well, it is mostly done, it just needs the polishing up for proper posting display with the accompanied drawn diagrams and colour coding (also it's quite old at this point, started working on it a year ago and wanted to work on lore stuff so I put it on hold, so the doodles look kinda bad but oh well alsjdfsdfj). The one main thing I just have to make her Reformed Mordrem minions to display the rest with the little visual diagrams, but I can post what I have done here so far <3 (this is actually the first time I've posted the updated state of this WIP since I last talked about it last year lskjfs. So sorry in advance if some of this seems janky as I haven't gone over it in a hot minute) Note: I also wanna redo the icon thing to be more of an eye instead of the lotus since it makes more sense literally and thematically and to just try to make it look better in general. For context my OC Mourynn/Vallotash (same person kinda) is Mordremoth's (parasitic) Scion in a weird imposter (syndrome) situation (leaving that bit out for now), and her whole thing was inspired by the ??? area in Jahai bluffs with the one quote that inspired her existence "Are you a dragon dreaming that it's a hero? If you were, how would you know?", where the area also matches her colours thematically too, and why her Mesmer abilities all revolve around hallucinations and tapping into the "Dragon of mind/plant, roots/madness, etc." where the spec also evolves slowly over time as she develops, but it does get amped up during LS1 with Scarlet being responsible for kickstarting it (as she brainwashed Mourynn to help cultivate the Dreamthistle into the Toxic Offshoots, and from there with HoT and so on as things got worse and this just evolved into it's own thing, haha). Super abridging explanations (and badly lol) since I feel that part with the Toxic Alliance and those spores were an important step towards this becoming what it is. Also I still need to decide on names for some things, but oh well ;w; ANYWAYS! Mourynn's custom Mesmer elite spec (WIP):