#THIS IS A REALLY LONG POST

[soonysy]

Hello :D

Goofy Magpie here to ask about your art process! Do you have any tips on how you do your sketching and/or rendering process? I hope this isn’t bothering you or anything but I really like your art and want to know how to do stuff like it ya know cause it’s cool and amazing

Also what art program do you use?

Well, hello! It is pretty hard to answer, just because I sometimes change the way that I do things, but I'll try my best to explain!

Everything is under the cut!!

Firstly, I use PaintToolSai2 :D

I try not to think a lot about line art. Most of the time, I do a very rough sketch from the basic forms and start making the character over it, like this

I have no idea how this circle just became this line art without any sketches; it just happens

Sometimes it helps to do an overly-detailed sketch, like the skull with eyeballs, to make a good form of eyes

I highly recommend not overthink sketches and line art. If you think that something is wrong, leave your art for some time (20 mins is enough for me) and then look at it again (or send it to your friend and ask what is off)

I like to add a pack of short lines on the clothes beside the foldings, it can fill in the empty space

It is really helpful to mirror you work at some point. Please, if you see a mistake when you flip canvas, correct it, even if you will have to change everything in your art. I was scared of it at first, but then it started to come in handy

For the clothes PLEASE USE REFERENCES, they are very helpful

I always try to make lines not straight, but curvy. This can add some flow to clothes or show that human bodies are not flat figures

Then I do basic colours (With the background to pick colours correctly!!!!)

My colour palette mostly is not in the same range of colours (Like yellow - orange - red), which might become a problem if you don't know colour theory (I definitely do not know it).

And then I do shading with the same colour as base one on multiply layer and lighting with colours lighter than base on screen or shine layer (And I do not like that part, because most of the time I'm messing things up, but if it looks okay, it's fine)

I also sometimes colour the line art. Most of the time I choose colour more saturated and darker than the base ones, but there are still cases where contrasting lines are better!!!!

I do not like render at all, but of course I really recommend you to do it only because rendering does this:

Render is really only picking colours, mixing them and then doing line with darkest one, it is not my strong side (There is a channel on Youtube called Bluebiscuits, there are a lot of helpful advises for this ^ type of art)

Also I think that for rendering is useful to look at other artists works! They can have some techniques that can make your work prettier (I personally had no idea about textures on the art works before one artist and now it helps me do these finishing touches sometimes that are necessary)

I think that this post is not that mush useful, just because I use the same techniques as the rest of the people, these advises are pretty common, but they saved me lots of nerves when I started this drawing-every-day thing

I do not do something very unique or extraordinary with my arts and style :P Just have fun and do whatever you want and remember: If it looks cool, it works

Have a great day!!

[humblefryingpan]

I hate it when I stop enjoying activities that I used to like. I've been taking japanese lessons and I've just started dreading them (even though I usually enjoy the lessons) but it doesn't just affect me and I'm rlly fucking struggling

So I'm trying to learn Japanese and I have an online lesson every week, that's because like two years ago I was really into anime (still am but I'm way less obsessive about it now) and I was like "I'm gonna learn the language too!" So my mum thought it was a great idea and found me lessons.

I know learning a language would be good for me and that learning languages is way harder as an adult. I really like the language and I love learning it (it makes me happy when I can recognize basic words, it's fun to learn, its really interesting and I usually enjoy the lessons). But for some reason I'm kinda dreading it every time.

It's probably related to the fact that I've kinda been struggling with my mental health lately and I just kinda think I'm really fucking stupid. Like every time I don't know something I get really close to crying, and I know basically nothing so it's pretty common. I'm really emotional about everything and I have an awful memory so yk, a lot of the time when I do know things I forget them anyway.

So every time I have a lesson I feel so fucking stupid and I feel bad because like my teacher's really great and it's usually pretty fun. I find Japanese so interesting and I don't find it that hard but I remember nothing and I always end up really struggling to remember words I've said a billion times.

I have two notebooks (one of them's been completely filled) that I really can't get through 5 minutes without. But I forgot I had a lesson today so I have like half an hour to go to my nans and get set up.

I can't cancel without 24 hours notice because they're pretty expensive and my grandad pays for them. My mum's started making me feel really guilty whenever I do try to cancel or move the lesson (even with enough time) so there's been like three times I've had to cancel plans bc of the awkward timing (it was from 12:30 to 1:30 on saturdays but it's been permenantly moved to 5:30 on Wednesdays)

And they're really expensive too (idk for sure but I think it's around £70 per lesson) and I feel so guilty for making my family spend that much on me and even worse for being so ungrateful. Like that's £70 per week and I'm fucking dreading it?

I think if I really wanted to quit I could but I just feel like it'd be a bad idea? Like this'd be good for me and it'd be such a waste to quit now but I'm so bad at it and idrk what to do ab it

[climbingthefloors]

obsessed with this baby hippo from thailand's khao khew zoo.. she has been so utterly betrayed by the world

[mangozic]

my dead goth son and his friendly neighborhood personified concept of insanity

[inbabylontheywept]

bad dating stories time: the shoe incident

so in highschool, my best friend wasnt allowed to go on dates unless there was another couple there to keep an eye on him. part of this was his parents being insane, but also, part of it was him being insane. in a problem with no reasonable parties, there are no reasonable solutions.

at some point in my junior year, my sorta-gf broke up with me, and i just wasnt feeling dating, which was bad for my friend, because he had a good thing going with a girl he met in court.

he kind of hounded me about it. kept pushing me to just put me feet back in the dating pool and i wasnt real thrilled about it, because i knew he was pushing me for his own benefit, not mine, so i kept telling him to fuck off, and after a few weeks of being told that i would date when i was damn well ready, he eventually said: okay. what if i paid for the date AND found you a blind date AND all you had to do was show up?

and i shouldve said no, i know, but i let him wear me down, and i will own my fault in that. a date starting on such a stupid premise could never have gone well.

but he still managed to find a way to make it worse.

i dont know how long he tried to set a blind date up. it couldve been multiple attempts. he couldve stooped to this immediately. but what happened in the end was that he called a girl from the ward he attended - a girl that he knew had a giant, mushy crush on him - and he said: hey! how would you feel about going on a date this weekend?

(you know, implying it was with him, but never actually saying it.)

and she said YES WOW I WOULD LOVE TO and he said great! and then he called me up and said he found me a date.

i did not learn about his crimes until several weeks later. i will die swearing before god almighty that i would never have allowed this travesty to happen if i had known.

that was on a monday. the date of the date rolled around that friday evening, and im sorry to confess, i really phoned the whole thing in. i showed up in my favorite comfy outfit, which was also a fashion crime: basketball shorts and flipflops and a baja hoodie. it was super comfy but it made me look kind of crazy. i picked him up first, and then i picked up his date next, and then we went to pick up my date, and thats where you're gonna get the play by play.

i arrived, walked across the yard, and knocked on the front door. she opened it almost immediately, like shed been waiting right by it, and i could see her expression go from OMG IM SO EXCITED to super disappointed, then disgusted and finally pissed. and because i didn't know about my friends sins, i thought it was from my outfit. which seemed... harsh. like, hey, im allowed to be quirky, fuck you. also its a blind date, i thought the deal was that we were both going to be sad broken sacks of mortality.

anyway, we looked at each other for several seconds before she slammed the door in my face.

i looked back at my friend. he was sweating bullets. i dont know what he expected from this, but there was this big long pause where we both tried to figure out what to do, and then the door opened up, and her dad invited me in, and he said she was gonna need a few minutes to finish getting ready, and that in the meantime we could sit and talk.

we did not talk. we did sit. i sat down on the couch, and he sat down in a chair across the couch, and then instead of talking he cleaned his pistol on the coffee table. i wasnt actually sure if it was a threat, or if it was just a fidget thing for 40+ year old republican men, but when i tried to help he got snappy so i just watched him put a pistol back together.

he was okay at it.

eventually my date came downstairs, still mad as hell for reasons beyond my ken, and i felt pretty guilty for being such a mess because i thought that was why she was so angry. i tried to make up for by walking her to the car and getting the door for her, just generally trying to be extra polite, but before i could make it back to the drivers side, her dad called me back to the door. so i flipped around, went to the door, and immediately regreted my decision.

soon as i was within range, her dad got waaaay too close to me, leaned in, and said "whatever you do to her, i will do to you," and my brain went into overdrive making three consecutive realizations.

realization one was, damn, the pistol thing was a threat. that sucks. what an asshole. realization two was, wait, im autistic and even i know theres a 0% chance me and my date even hold hands, least of all boink. does this guy actually think there's even a 1% chance of anyone in that car getting laid tonight? is he an idiot? and then realization three went through, which was wait, is this guy threatening to fuck me? and unfortunately, with my brain doing so much processing, my mouth was left to run amok, so somewhere between realization 2 and 3, i said:

"i can't get pregnant"

which, i swear, wasn't actually me trying to be a smartass, it was just me pointing out that he couldn't actually follow up on that threat. it just wasn't possible. we do not live in the omegaverse and im not scared of you.

still, it was an insanely catastrophic thing to say, and the moment we both heard it, we bluescreened. that single sentence obliterated both of our momentary streams of consciousness like a saltine in front of a sand blaster. problem was, he'd probably gone his whole life not even realizing someone could say something that stupid, and making that realization was going to cost him a lot of thinking time. me though? i had been saying shit like that for 17 years, i didnt have to rewrite my expectations of human nature, i just had to plan an exit and start striding. so i was already halfway back to the car before i heard "hey. hey come back. Hey. Hey. HEY. HEY WAIT. HEY GET BACK HERE. HEY-"

and then i was in my car, and i drove away.

if this happened today, he'd have called her, and the whole thing wouldve imploded then and there, but back then, there were still a decent number of teenagers without cell phones. especially the teenagers of insane, gun toting parents. so she just said: whoa what was that all about? and i said: dont worry about it, he'll tell you about it when you get home.

and she said: ok and went back to staring daggers at me and my friend.

WHICH SURPRISINGLY isnt even how the story ends.

we went to an improv comedy show, and it was a disaster. it shouldve been like, 7/10 tops, but between my date being mad, and my friend having a good time, and me having the existential terror of knowing that a guy with a pistol was probably waiting outside his house for me to come back, it was easily 11/10. i laughed way too hard at everything. especially the jokes that flopped. id sit there in this mostly silent room and laugh until i dry heaved a little, and my date was absolutely disgusted, and even my friend was a little embarrassed, which would just make me laugh harder. i laughed so hard that night i could barely talk the next day. and then the show ended, and my friend said, you know, that was a good time, but i think we should maybe do something a little chiller? who wants to walk around the park? and his date said yeah, and my date said no, and i finally had mercy on the poor woman so i said, look, im gonna drop you off. and i am so, so sorry about this, but im dropping you off like a block away. super duper sorry.

do talk to your dad about the pistols thing if you dont want this happening more in the future tho.

and she said: okay. so i dropped her off, and she walked a block down, and that was that.

then i drove my friend and his date to a park that was good for wandering. i figured they wanted something more private, so instead of following them around point blank, i chose a park with this 30 foot rope tower, and i climbed to the top and i said: hey i can see you anywhere from up here, you are officially chaperoned from a distance. get panopticoned idiot. except my friend really is an idiot, and he didnt really get the whole 'now i dont have to third wheel so insanely hard with you guys' thing so he climbed up the tower too, and then his date followed behind him, so there are three people basically sitting together on top of a telephone pole.

and then they started making out.

i was close enough to hear it.

i didnt really know what to do so i was just kind of sitting there, dissociating, when some college kids came around and started shaking the tower. my friend's date went aaaaaaaaaa im afraid of heights :( and my friend went oh, dont worry, ill hold you tight ;) and i went hey, im gonna climb down and ask them to stop.

so i did climb down, and i did ask them to stop, and they flipped me off, which i wasnt even mad about. at that point i was i was like yeah, it would be weirder if this wasnt a mess. gods plan has been to fly this day like a 747 into my metaphorical twin towers and brother he is close enough for me to see him grinning through the cockpit window. still, eventually the college students got bored, so they climbed up the tower, which gave my friend and his date a window to climb down, and together we walked back to my car.

now, i cant explain why this is, but sitting back in the drivers seat was my carriage-back-into-a-pumpkin moment. i'd been chill about all the chaos, just rolling with the punches, but sitting down made me realize how much of a shitshow the day had been, and while i couldnt go back and fix all of it, i could go back and fix one thing.

so i told my friend and his date, hey, you two, stay here and don't do anything weird. don't. then i walked back to the rope tower, and i started picking up the shoes the college students had left at the base in order to climb.

about halfway through this, i realized that if i took all their shoes, they might think i was in it for the money, and i actually wanted them to know i was in it specifically to spite them. fuck those guys. so i put all the right shoes back, gave myself a 100 foot headstart, yelled "nice shoes, assholes", did a little jig, and started running.

my advice to everyone is that college students are faster than you think. even with the headstart, and the whole climb down the tower thing, i was still only fivish seconds ahead of them by the time i got to my car. i flung the door open, looked in the backseat, didnt see anyone, flung the stolen shoes in the backseat, heard two "ow"s, took that as proof of presence, jumped in and pealed out of the lot.

my friend and his date popped up a few seconds later. they were, uh, doing something weird in the back seat. my one request - obliterated.

they climbed up to ask where the hell all the shoes had come from, and i was like yeah i stole them from the college students, and they were like oh. cool. hope you had fun. and i was like, i did. i did. but speaking of fun, what were you doing back there?

and for the first time in my buddies life, i think he was actually embarassed.

[spaceistheplaceart]

thinking about what mabel and ford have in common <3 sweaters, diaries, and bad breakups.

[ryuuna]

season 2 S O O N

[gallusrostromegalus]

Move To A Darker Place

This is a story of Man Vs. Machine.

---

Last March, my father attempted to file his Taxes.

My beloved father is a Boomer. Unlike most Boomers, my father is rather handy with technology because he was one of the people that had a not-insignificant hand in Developing a hell of a lot of it. He was studying Computer Science at Cal Poly before the computer science degree existed. I have many fond childhood memories of skipping through the aisles of various electronic and computer part warehouses while Dad described something that either terrified the staff or made them worship him as a God.  He taught himself how to use his smartphone.  Internationally.

So when he saw the option to file digitally with the IRS through the “ID.me��� program, he leapt at the chance to celebrate the Federal Government finally entering the Digital Age.

It was all going swimmingly for about six hours, until he was ready to file and the system told him that it needed to verify his identity. 

“Very Well.” said my father, a man unafraid of talking to himself and getting something out of the conversation. “It wouldn’t do for me to get someone else’s return.”

The System told him that it needed him to take a “Digital Image ID”.

a.k.a: A Selfie.

“A-ha!” Dad beams. Dad is very good at taking selfies. He immediately pulled out his phone, snapped one, and tried to upload it.

Please log into your Id.me Account and use the provided app to submit your Digital Image ID. The System clarified.

“Oh. You should have said so.”  Dad pouted, but used his phone to log onto the ID.me account, do the six security verification steps and double-checked that the filing looked the same as it did on the desktop, gave the IRS like nine permissions on his phone, and held up the camera to take his Federal Privacy Invasion Selfie.

Please align your face to the indicated grid. Said The System, pulling up a futuristic green-web-of-polygons approximation.

“Ooh, very Star Trek. Gene Roddenberry would HATE this!” Dad said cheerfully, aligning his face to the grid.  My father is a bit… cavalier, when it comes to matters of personal information and federal government, because he’s been on FBI watchlists since the late 60’s when he was protesting The Vietnam War and Ronald Regan before he’d broken containment. Alas.

Anyway, there is very little information the federal government does not have on him already, but he’s as good at stalking the FBI as they are at stalking him, and had worked out a solution:  He has something approaching a friendship with the local Federal Agent (Some guy named “Larry”. Allegedly), and got Larry hooked on Alternative Histories and Dad’s collection of carefully-researched “there is very likely buried treasure here” stories, and Larry is loath to bother his favorite Historical Fanfiction author too much.

But I digress.

After thinking for a minute, The System came back with an Error Message. Please remove glasses or other facial obstructions.

And here is where the real trouble began.

See, my father wears glasses that do substantially warp the appearance of his face, because he is so nearsighted that he is legally blind without them. His natural focal point is about 4 inches in front of his nose.  While Dad can still take a selfie because he (approximately) knows where his phone is if it’s in his hand, he cannot see the alignment grid.

He should ask someone to take it for him! I hear the audience say. Yes, that would be the sane and reasonable thing to do, but Dad was attempting to do taxes at his residence in Fort Collins, while his immediate family was respectively in Denver, Texas and Canada.  He tried calling our neighbors, who turned out to be in Uganda.

He looked down at the dog, Arwen, and her little criminal paws that can open doorknobs, but not operate cell phones.

She looked back at him, and farted.

“Well, I’ll give it a try, but if it gives me too much trouble, I’ll call Larry, and Larry can call the IRS about it.” Dad told her. 

She continued to watch him. Arwen is an Australian Kelpie (a type of cattle-herding dog), going on 14 years old, deaf as a post and suffering from canine dementia now, but she still retains her natural instinct to Micromanage. She was also trained as a therapy dog, and even if she can’t hear my dad, still recognizes the body language of a man setting himself up for catastrophe.

So, squinting in the late afternoon light next to the back door, Dad attempted to line his face up with a grid he could only sort-of see, and took A Federal Selfie.

The System thought about it for a few moments.

Image Capture Failed: Insufficient Contrast. The System replied. Please move to a darker place.

“...Huh.” Dad frowned. “Alright.”

He moved to the middle of his office, away from the back door, lit only by the house lighting and indirect sunlight, and tried again.

Image Capture Failed. Please move to a darker place.

“What?” Dad asked the universe in general.

“Whuff.” Arwen warned him against sunk costs.

Dad ignored her and went into the bathroom, the natural habitat of the selfie. Surely, only being lit by a light fixture that hadn’t been changed since Dad was attempting to warn everyone about Regan would be suitably insufficient lighting for The System.  It took some negotiating, because that bathroom is “Standing Room Only” not “Standing And Holding Your Arms Out In Front Of You Room”.  He ended up taking the selfie in the shower stall.

As The System mulled over the latest attempt, Arwen shuffled over and kicked open the door to watch.

Image Capture Failed. Please Move to a Darker Place.

“Do you mean Spiritually?” Dad demanded.

“Whuff.” Arwen cautioned him again.

Determined to succeed, or at least get a different error message that may give him more information, Dad entered The Downstairs Guest Room.  It is the darkest room in the house, as it is in the basement, and only has one legally-mandated-fire-escape window, which has blinds.  Dad drew those blinds, turned off the lights and tried AGAIN.

Image Capture Failed. Please Move To A Darker Place.

“DO YOU WANT ME TO PHOTOGRAPH MYSELF INSIDE OF A CAVE??” Dad howled. 

“WHUFF!” Arwen reprimanded him from under the pull-out bed in the room. It’s where she attempts to herd everyone when it’s thundering outside, so the space is called her ‘Safety Cave’.

Dad frowned at the large blurry shape that was The Safety Cave.

“Why not?” he asked, the prelude to many a Terrible Plan.  With no small amount of spiteful and manic glee, Dad got down onto the floor, and army-crawled under the bed with Arwen to try One Last Time. Now in near-total darkness, he rolled on his side to be able to stretch his arms out, Arwen slobber-panting in his ear, and waited for the vague green blob of the Facial grid to appear.

This time, when he tapped the button, the flash cctivated.

“GOD DAMN IT!” Dad shouted, dropping the phone and rubbing his eyes and cursing to alleviate the pain of accidentally flash-banging himself. Arwen shuffled away from him under the bed, huffing sarcastically at him.

Image Capture Failed. Please move to a darker place.

“MOTHERFU- hang on.” Dad squinted.  The System sounded strange. Distant and slightly muffled.

Dad squinted really hard, and saw the movement of Arwen crawling out from under the bed along the phone’s last known trajectory.

“ARWEN!” Dad shouted, awkwardly reverse-army crawling out from under the bed, using it to get to his feet and searching for his glasses, which had fallen out of his pocket under the bed, so by the time he was sighted again, Arwen had had ample time to remove The Offending Device.

He found her out in the middle of the back yard, the satisfied look of a Job Well Done on her face. She did not have the phone. 

“Arwen.” Dad glared. It’s a very good glare. Dad was a teacher for many years and used it to keep his class in order with sheer telepathically induced embarrassment, and his father once glared a peach tree into fecundity.  

Arwen regarded him with the casual interest a hurricane might regard a sailboat tumbling out of its wake. She is a force of nature unto herself and not about to be intimidated by a half-blind house ape.  She also has cataracts and might not be able to make out the glare.

“I GIVE UP!” Dad shouted, throwing his hands in the air and returning to the office to write to the IRS that their selfie software sucks ass. Pleased that she had gotten her desired result, Arwen followed him in.

To Dad’s immense surprise, the computer cheerfully informed him that his Federally Secure Selfie had been accepted, and that they had received and were now processing his return!

“What the FUCK?” Dad glared. “Oh well. If I’ve screwed it up, Larry can call me.”

---

I bring this up because recently, Dad received an interesting piece of mail.

It was a letter from the IRS, addressed to him, a nerve-wracking thing to recessive at the best of times.  Instead of a complaint about Dad’s Selfie Skills, it was a letter congratulating him on using the new ID.me System.  It thanked him for his help and expressed hopes he would use it again next year, and included the selfie that The System had finally decided to accept.

“You know, my dad used to complain about automation.” Dad sighed, staring at the image. “Incidentals my boy!  My secretary saves the state of California millions of dollars a year catching small errors before they become massive ones! He’d say. Fought the human resources board about her pay every year.  I used to think he was overestimating how bad machines were and underestimating human error, but you know? He was right.”

He handed me the image.

My father was, technically, in the image.  A significant amount of the bottom right corner is taken up by the top of his forehead and silver hair.  Most of the image, the part with the facial-recognition markers on it, was composed of Arwen’s Alarmed and Disgusted Doggy face.

“Oh no!” I cackled. “Crap, does this mean you have to call the IRS and tell them you’re not a dog?”

“Probably.” Dad sighed. “I know who I’m gonna bother first though.” he said, taking out his phone (Dad did find his phone a few hours after Arwen absconded with it when mom called and the early spinach started ringing). 

“Hey Larry!” Dad announced to the local federal agent. “You’re never gonna believe this. My dog filed my taxes!”

Larry considered this for a moment. “Is this the dog that stole my sandwich? Out of my locked  car?” he asked suspiciously.

“The very same.” Dad grinned.

“Hm. Clever Girl.” Federal Agent Larry sighed. “I figured it was only a matter of time before she got into tax fraud.”

---

I'm a disabled artist making my living writing these stories. If you enjoy my stories, please consider supporting me on Ko-fi or Pre-ordering my Family Lore Book on Patreon. Thank you!

[goldsnek]

No Mercy.

[inquisitor-apologist]

Ok I’m being so brave about it but a couple of days ago I saw this post claiming that the Jedi saying ‘this weapon [your lightsaber] is your life’ is emblematic of ‘the Jedi’s failure as peacekeepers’ (not an exact quote but pretty close) because why would a weapon be the life of a peacekeeper?

And like. The Jedi are a culture. They’re a religion.

You know that, right? You know that many cultures, including generally peaceful ones, have sacred weapons, right? You know that the bond between a Jedi and their crystal(s) is an extremely sacred thing that requires the consent of both parties and is integral to their way of life, right?

You know that lightsabers are not intended to be only for killing, right? That the first thing Luke learns to do with his lightsaber is to shield and defend? You know that a culture having sacred weapons doesn’t mean that they view killing as sacred, right?

Not trying to start shit, I don’t even remember who said it, but ugh

[emberglowfox]

Keeper -- a short comic about an angel meeting a robotic lighthouse keeper that doesn't know the world has already ended. Made in about 18 hours for a 24-hour 24-page* black and white comic challenge (that I arrived late to, ha.)

*the actual submission does not include the cover, which was created after the fact for this post.

This was a really great learning experience as someone who's... never really made a completed comic. I ended up really attached to the story by the end of the project (possibly due to all-nighter deliriousness lol) and ultimately am very proud of what I made.There are some things I'd still like to change, particularly text placement, but in keeping with the spirit of the challenge I've elected to leave it as is.

[worshippedraindrop]

Character Creation. . .

"Start by imagining a place in the distant past. . . This is where your worship will begin to flourish."

Like I said in my campaign notes post, I wanna set this on an island that's kind of inspired by Neverland -- which means the people here are also inspired by Neverland (and I suppose, to some extent, the Lost Boys and also the pirate presence.) This island should be thriving -- it's in a tropical sea during a time when pollution hadn't wracked the skies and the wild spaces thrived. But it does not thrive; the seas here are dark and empty. No one would choose to live here, unless they had no where else to go.

And the people arriving have no where else to go. They are outlaws, hunted and haunted by their regrets, by their mistakes and by the ways they were broken before they ever had a choice in the matter.

And this island that no one would choose is the perfect place to hide, if you are a nobody.

"Then think about how your god came to be. . . "

When the runaways first came to the island, there was a drought; they did not mind this, because they had stores from their travels, and because they were a vicious lot who felt no mercy for the merchant ships that would pass by.

But it was a hard life. It was rough, and cold -- a hell the lot of them thought they deserved. And when the rain broke, it was a reminder of something soft within them, something peaceful. Calm rippled through them.

"Even hell on earth has to abate itself sometimes," they murmured to themselves, "Even the harshest life has it's peaceful days."

Even going about their work, the cool dampness was a blessing more than a burden.

It was this peace that made me open my eyes; a sudden breaking of misery. A sudden gratitude for the small blessings of life.

And that's how they called me -- Evloyia. The one who said it first -- who left out flowers for me -- said it was greek. He was a gentle man, compared to the others, full of a softness to his words and his eyes that belied what they all did when they went out to sea. The others listened to him, even if they did not respect him, because it was always so sad to see him falter in disappointment if you did not hear him out.

"I do not mind asking for another blessing in life," he said; "I do not mind asking for a little peace. Lord knows there is enough pain in this life."

And so I calm people down; I soften their aches -- I give them a little peace.

The man who first gave me flowers is called Aire; he is always following after another man, Winslow, like a puppy -- so much so that the other men sometimes seem to think it's love. Perhaps it is, but Winslow is a hard man to love -- cold and unforgiving, with his eyes perpetually fixed on the horizon, and he does not like me much. When the other men speak of me, he drinks from his bottle and scoffs, and I think that breaks Aire's heart a little bit inside.

There is someone else like me on this island, though I have only caught glimpses of them. They appear sometimes as a man and sometimes as a bird and for all the peace I bring, I can not stop them from instigating things -- causing fights among the men, or bad luck or nightmares. They call themself Hael, but that's all I know.

There are things I can do -- I can soothe pain, and I can summon rain. I can numb a person like drink, making them forget their troubles and themselves.

There are things Aire has given me -- a crown of flowers that I won't let wither; a small shrine decorated with shells and a rustic set of reed pipes (I don't know how to play them.)

And there are stories the men whisper among themselves. How Aire set out a dinner for me, and when I ate it they argued about whether there were animals on the island to have done it or whether those animals could have gotten it so fast. I shushed them, and they dropped it, but every now and then . . .

How Winslow was raging one day -- rampaging like a demon -- until the scent of rain picked up, and then he stood out as it misted, tilting his face to the sky, and whatever pain had been clouding his eyes seemed to vanish when he returned to their small camp on the beach.

How late at night, they'll hear music from my shrine even though no one is there, and they'll go to Aire and Aire will tell them silly little stories about nymphs and faeries.

And there is someone who sometimes comes to the island from the mainland, on days when I feel sleepy and lethargic. So far, he has not met the other men; they pass by each other by hair's breadth, and I try to keep it that way. But I think he senses trouble, or he senses me because he will speak to me. He calls himself Tochtli, and he seems to think the island is cursed.

I do not know why he insists on investigating it, but he draws in the sand when he wants me to come to him -- a palm leaf with a large globe of water clinging to it's fringes. He is seeking something, and believes I will keep him safe.

[humblefryingpan]

I love the Percy Jackson series but almost every canon relationship is so shit (including percabeth) and I think there's like 2 I don't have issues with. If the relationship is well written then there are loads of issues and if it's badly written (like most of them are) there isn't an improvement.

This is specifically about the romantic ones but the platonic ones aren't much better, most of them are really underdeveloped or just ignored. And ofc the constant "they're best friends!" about two characters that never talk or act like they hate eachother, I might make a separate post about them.

So let's start with Calleo (Calypso and Leo) because they are arguably the worst.

At a base level, I never liked it bc it came out of nowhere and made no sense but like I've thought about it a lot and it's such a flawed pairing. There's the age gap, the dynamic and just the way they're treated as soulmates despite not knowing eachother at all

I've seen a bunch of people saying she was good for him because of how 'badly' his friends treated him but honestly she treated him a lot worse. Jokingly calling your friends annoying can be a bit mean when you overdo it but I don't think Leo was ever actually upset by it, most of his sadness was from trauma, his existing fears and the stress he was under with the prophecy. And if your argument is "Calypso was the nicest person to him" then remember Calypso also called him annoying, plus she yelled at him constantly and treated him worse than they did.

And getting a girlfriend would not be good for him considering his issues with self love. He did want a girlfriend but I don't think he should have got with someone, and in my opinion he especially should not have been with Calypso.

Leo could have been literally any guy for her. She's met thousands of men, she's fallen 'in love' with all of them (we know that because they can't leave unless she loves them) and then she's cursed them/their gfs when they leave (she cursed annabeth in tartarus). I think if Leo did get a girlfriend it should have been someone that actually liked him and not just liking what he could do for her.

Yeah Leo was the first guy to go back but he had to kill himself to see her and you should not need to destroy yourself for anyone, and definitely not someone you've known for like 3 days. Leo wanted to save her because he didn't think it was fair she was left there and took the time to help because he felt obligated and he felt bad for her. He was not the only person to try to help, just the only person that was physically able to.

I don't really like Calypso but I'm not saying she is the entire problem, she needed to be around other people. She needed to be free, she just wanted a boyfriend because that was the only option she felt she had. Calleo would not last very long realistically because I don't think either of them specifically wanted eachother.

And onto my biggest issue with this ship - Leo is 15 years old. Calypso is as old as the gods and should not be dating a teenager. In actual mythology (it's quite different but she's still based on and inspired by regular Calypso) Calypso forcibly kept Odysseus on her island for 7 years, raped him multiple times and forced him to have 2 kids with her. Ofc that was changed a lot and pjo Calypso isn't a rapist but why the fuck would Rick take that character and stick her with a 15 year old?

If she's old enough to spend 7 years with Odysseus and old enough to have met a thousand people she's way too old for Leo (like she is thousands of years old and is a daughter of atlas, it doesn't matter if she looks 16). Even if you want to argue that she gave up immortality, she gave it up when she had already been alive for a very very long time and like even if she wasn't immortal she'd be at least 18 because percy, two years before Leo met her said she looked 16 so a human Calypso is also an adult woman trying to date multiple 15 year olds.

They would have been great as friends but Rick was determined to get both of them paired up with anyone so it was the only solution he ever would've gone for.

Next up is frazel (Frank/Hazel) because again, age gap??

There should not be two characters dating minors in one book Rick, please do better.

So Frank is 16 and starts dating Hazel when she is 13. "Frank only just turned 16" yeah but 15 and 13 isn't much better, "Hazel is close to 14" okay but again, 14 and 16 is not okay either.

"it's only 2/3 years" that age gap in adults is totally fine and generally completely unimportant but these are teenagers and when your brain isn't fully developed an age gap of just a few years is pretty important. A three year age gap is the difference between a newborn who can't crawl or say a word and a three year old that can run around and talk almost full sentances. Adults with that gap are the same point in life, the same developmental stage but teens aren't. I'm around Franks age and every single 13 year old I've met has looked about 8 to me. Yesterday a 13 year old girl came into my part time job and started singing the beauty and the beast soundtrack because she saw a red rose and there was no point where I thought "yeah that's hot" because that's a little kid?

And Rick won't give that kid a break because there's also Lazel (Leo/Hazel)

The weird love triangle thing? Because she dated his great grandad?? It was so unnecessary and icky and I swear the only reason that it happened was that Rick didn't know how to flesh out their characters.

Leo hit on every single person without fail and then he reached Hazel who was essentially saying "I have a bf but we could be together if you act nicely"

And they both just kinda suck in every scene, Leo harasses her and then she leads him on (I hate saying that phrase but I do think that's what's happening here) and that just loops.

I just wish Hazel could be single yk? She's 13, she does not need to be in a relationship with anybody??

Next up Jasper/Jiper (Jason/Piper) because who actually likes them

So their relationship was never real in the first place, their memories were altered. But then Piper is so possessive over him and bitchy to anyone who wasn't Jason (like that scene where Percy got hurt and she was like "I feel bad for annabeth but I'm glad it was him and not Jason" wtf was that?)

Considering their entire relationship was a lie and Jason was essentially claimed as hers the second they met, I don't understand why they stayed together. I assumed they had "broke up" when they were at camp because like they didn't know eachother at all (not even an entire day, Jason had a few minutes with her) and weren't trying to talk it out. And then I read moa and literally thought I missed a book bc "why and when tf did they start dating"

They were written so badly and in my opinion they only ever brought out the worst in each other (Piper acting even more 'pick-me-girl-y' than normal and Jason just being far more confused and guilty than normal) because Jason did not know this girl and they never actually spoke about it.

I get why Piper was upset about everything, it is a really shitty situation and that would be real hard to deal with. But the possessiveness and bitchiness drove me crazy and I honestly thinks it's selfish to stay in that relationship.

In all of their ship moments it's just so tacky, you can see how desperate and pushy Piper is and how uncomfortable Jason is. It's like he pities her a lot of the time.

Y'all might be mad about this one but onto Percabeth (Percy/Annabeth)

They were a pretty great pair and in the original series I did like them but then hoo hit and they became fully codependent and so out of character. It was like they weren't Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase anymore, they were just Percabeth. They'd say the most ooc shit ever and then throw in a "seaweed brain" and everyone acted like it was sweet scene.

The way she'd just ask him for help every time she has an issue, the way he was so insistent on looking after her? Yeah the scene where Annabeth threw her knife into the water was cute but Annabeth Chase, the girl full of hubris, anger issues and fight training would never rely on Percy to fight her battles. It was like Rick forgot her personality and just went "yeah she's Percy's smart gf" as if she hadn't been training twice as long as he had

The original series and chalice of the gods had them both pretty in character but I think the love story aspect really took over their lives as soon as they got together.

I've noticed loads of Percabeth fans get really angry when people don't like them but I just think they were so much better as friends and I rlly don't get the hype.

I think both of them just really needed a good friend and I was pretty disappointed when I realized they liked eachother (I didn't realize until Annabeth got mad at Rachel) because I'd always just seen their relationship as platonic yk?

That's probably just me being dense and seeing it how I wanted it to be but I wish more pjo fans would stop acting as if they were the cutest ideal couple. Percabeth fans getting really angry at every other ship involving one of them? Hating Rachel just because she likes Percy? Its so unnecessary

It isn't a bad ship but it wasn't written very well and I think dating erased a lot of their personalities and lives.

Next up is Solangelo (Nico/Will)

So I love these two and I don't think there's much wrong with them but I do think it was very rushed.

If you haven't noticed by this point, I really think Rick put less effort into the characters in heroes of olympus, there were some great scenes and I love the series but a lot of the relationships were written so badly and it felt like he was trying to hard to push the romance, rather than the fantasy/adventure part that he seems a lot better at

I think almost every solangelo fic I've read had been better written, the only reason they were together is Rick's insistance of getting every teenager in a romantic relationship. They met, argued and killed a guy and then Will complimented him. And they were cute but the next we heard from them should've been their relationship growing and not just "that's my boyfriend"

Onto Piper and Shel

Edit: Tbh I think Nico was changed quite a bit to fit with Will? If you compare how he acts before and after meeting Will I think it's pretty different.

So these two felt the most forced out of everyone. It seems like Rick just didn't want Piper to be single, forgot she wasn't in the later books and had to think of something quickly. This is mostly about Piper because Shel is barely even a character, she's just there to show Piper 'moving on' and to show she likes girls.

I don't care that Piper likes girls, I do too, and I would've loved that if we actually got that storyline. But it's clearly forced diversity rather than actually planning her to be that way, and it doesn't feel natural at all. We go from her obsessively pining over Jason to her dumping him to her seemingly wanting him back and after all that I was expecting them to get back together or at least for them to spend some time single to move on but the next time we see Piper she's kissing her girlfriend?

I've seen a lot of people saying that's why she was so desperate to stay with Jason and that that's why their relationship seemed kinda fake but if you read her perspective it really doesn't seem like that's the case. I think calling her a lesbian takes away quite a bit of her personality (like can't she be bi? pan? something that stays accurate to the character??) because absolutely, lesbians can have relationships with men before they figure themselves out but that isn't what happened.

It seems like Piper wasn't over Jason at all and I think dating Shel was her way of trying to move on. (Because whatever chance she had with Jason is obviously gone, her rizz is strong but death is stronger) It's not like I want her to spend the rest of her life alone and sad, but I would've loved some character development that wasn't just shoving her out of the closet. She wasn't over Jason but then he died and she suddenly has a girlfriend? How long were they together??

Like I thought Piper was bi for a while but the way it was written seemed so much like a "her boyfriend left so she's gay now!" rather than the semi-closeted bi mess that she was probably meant to be.

Lastly Gruniper (Grover and Juniper)

The only relationship that isn't weirdly codependent and it's because Rick blatantly forgot about her. Grover liked someone else in chalice of the gods? He was fully ready to cheat on her throughout the book

And just? Why were they ever together?? The first time we meet juniper its through her being Grovers gf. Grover was super underdeveloped as a character, as a friend and as a boyfriend because characters that weren't in relationships got no development but Juniper was literally mentioned less than Rachel's parents. We don't know when where or why they got together, we don't know when they met we don't know ANYTHING about their relationship

[lylahammar]

Randomly thinkin about Chilchuck today, and how he tries sooooo hard to self sabotage

like for example, other half foots on the island think that he's a greedy asshole who only cares about money, and he does nothing to try to disprove that

but then there's this omake at the end of book 9 that shows that people treat half foots fucking TERRIBLY and chilchuck started a union to protect them

and then in the bicorn chapter, he doesn't want Marcille to keep digging into his personal business so he tells her he CHEATED ON HIS WIFE

but he just COMPLETELY fuckin lied about that and made himself sound so much worse than he is bc he's afraid of being vulnerable with people and would rather everyone believes he's a shitty person so he can keep them at a distance

and the thing that's memed so often is that he refuses to help with fighting most of the time because it's not part of his contract

but if you take this lore into account (not gonna add those particular images to this post simply bc I've used them in so many posts already LMAO) along with this tidbit from the world guide:

then it's like. yeah he has to keep his weight low so if he gets killed or severely injured and has to be healed, that could be really dangerous for him. and even if he was healed at that point he'd end up being a burden to the party after that point, he would be too dangerously thin/sickly to be able to help.

Like, Chilchuck has so many things about him that APPEAR to be character flaws, but every single one of them has a very reasonable explanation. He just leans into the mischaracterization bc he's emotionally withholding and can handle people thinking he's an asshole more than he can handle opening up to anyone. he's such a well thought out and interesting character

[artsymeeshee]

Another aroace Ford idea that came up. I just really like the idea of Ford going to Mabel for these types of things :’)