#about / take no quarter

[starcurtain]

What do you think Aventurine would be like as a boss?

Aventurine's first character story tells us that people both outside the IPC and internal to the Strategic Investment Department are explicitly racist toward him, so I would say first that I suspect Aventurine's team is much, much smaller than other Stonehearts like Topaz. For example, we constantly see Topaz's dumb "support squad" following her around in most of the events she shows up in, while we've never been introduced to a single "Aventurine support squad" member.

My suspicion is that, between the rampant racism and the undoubtedly common rumors about Aventurine's dangerous behavior, very few people are even willing to be put on his team in the first place. I suspect he's much more likely to be paired up with one or two "strategic partners" (like Ratio) and sent to handle things that way, rather than actually having a large group of underlings he directly supervises.

But just logistically speaking I'm sure he does have a few underlings, and I think... He's probably a very difficult person to work for, for a couple reasons:

He will almost certainly beat assholes to the punch. If a majority of the people who have been assigned to work with him don't want to be there, you can bet he's not going to wait around for new people to prove they are racist garbage. I imagine that, for the most part, he's off-putting and offensive to new people from the get-go. You ask which desk is yours and he just goes "Oh, feel free to set your things anywhere!" then turns around like: "Wowwww. Jim, this rookie is trying to steal the desk you've had for ten years! How inconsiderate our new friend is proving to be~!" New people on his team probably have the worst few weeks of their lives. (Because... If people are going to hate him on principle alone, he might as well give them a reason, right?) However, this has the effect of weeding out most of the people who are incapable of dealing with Aventurine's antics, so I imagine that the few who persevere through the hazing are probably genuinely decent folks. Those that make it past the initial "Let's see how much you hate Sigonians and disrespect me personally" vibe check probably end up on Aventurine's good side, and I think he eventually eases off his newbies after a while. (Not before they've proven their exceedingly high tolerance for shenanigans and even higher ceiling for shock factor, though. If a new employee makes it past the first month of working for Aventurine, literally nothing else will ever phase them. An elephant-sized Warp Trotter could warp them all six galaxies over and they'd just be like "Anyone got a working cell? I need to tell my babysitter I won't be back by 9.")

I think he's just never there. Absentee boss in the extreme. It's not that he ever slacks or doesn't do the work--it's just that he's constantly going off and doing the missions all on his own. It doesn't matter how many times the higher-ups assign him to do a team task, tell him he has to take the full squad... He just scampers off and does the deal entirely on his own, comes back covered in blood, and is like "Hey guys, I took care of the problem; enjoy some comp time on me!" I don't think he drags his average-level underlings into his dangerous gambles; I think he just does all the work with their clients by himself or with a high-caliber partner. You would think this would make him a great boss to work for, but I implore to put yourself in such an employee's shoes: You go into the office every morning only to see your to-do list is empty. Your boss isn't there to give you any new direction. After twiddling your thumbs for four hours, you find out the reason he isn't in the office this morning is that he's recovering from betting he could take an entire pack of Borisin in a fist fight. He's not in the hospital because of the fight (which he won). He's in the hospital because he was then promptly shot in the back by the guy he was betting with. Why is your life like this? Why must you be subjected to the soap opera of your boss's own self-destructive spiral?

Even when he's around, he's probably weirdly awkward. Don't get me wrong, I bet when he's in a good mood he throws all kinds of extravagant parties in the office, and his employees would never lack for bonuses and perks. But I think he has never really bothered to learn--or perhaps simply does not care--about normal managerial behaviors and boundaries. Like, you slip up and tell him your mother-in-law is in the hospital. He comes back five minutes later to tell you he's just bought six bouquets (sent from your address), commissioned a personally embossed card for her with your monogram, and contracted the services of the best-reviewed individualized medical team in Pier Point under your name. He's patting himself on the back for being an incredibly thoughtful boss. You don't know how to tell him that you haven't spoken to your mother-in-law in years, not since her last attempt to poison you. Every six months he buys the whole team new cars. You have no idea what to do with all these cars. It's too many cars. Put some cars back. He calls everyone his "friend," but even after working for him for years, you still have absolutely no idea about his likes, dislikes, or hobbies outside of the IPC. You could not name his favorite food if someone put a gun to your head. Does he exist outside of the workplace? You literally can't imagine him anywhere but on a mission or at a poker table. He's constantly bringing an "I am the party!" vibe to the room, but everyone else is a bored 8-5 worker who doesn't have a drop of enthusiasm left in their veins. It's like when a singer asks the audience to cheer along with a song, but nobody in the audience makes a peep. Absolutely no one in the IPC cubicles can match his particular freak. Aventurine's a smooth-talker and a street-smart cookie for sure, but something about the way his smile looks like it's made out of plastic when anyone tries to engage him in chitchat at the water cooler gives you the vague impression that he's probably never had an actual friend in his life. If "uncanny valley" was a vibe a workplace could have, Aventurine's office would have it.

Long story longer, I think Aventurine has very few people willing to tolerate him as a boss, whether because they are racist or simply because his quirks are just too quirky. However, I like to imagine the few who have hung in there are ride or die. You know they have an "Aventurine Protection Squad" group chat. They probably all wear peacock-teal and gold accessories in solidarity. They have definitely disappeared people for talking shit on their boss before. Aventurine has no idea how much they actually like him.

[penguins-on-bikes]

The insert song from the epilogue, titled "irreplaceable days," was just so sweet that I got the urge to make sheet music for a solo piano arrangement of it. The Romanized title is just "Houseki no Hibi"

[larrythefloridaman]

fankids are funny. anyway her name is Present

[figmentof]

thing is, taika isn't doing anything a white man isn't doing

going from indie/low budget film making to blockbuster hits/superhero films: several white directors have done that. but taika's a sellout that is greedy for money. but it's not because he's brown and jewish hahaha no!!!

coming off as arrogant: wow. the number of pretentious white directors we can name here... hmm. however taika must be humbled, who the fuck does HE think he is acting like he's good at what he does. how dare a brown man have the equal amount of confidence as a mediocre cishet white male USC/Tisch film grad

the man has said stuff that's out of touch, yet that's almost standard for every single "popular" mainstream actor/director that is living a certain lifestyle, but it's silence on those fronts a couple weeks after they've made their stupid statement while taika's being held accountable for every little thing he does. it's not wrong to hold him accountable but it's very weird when he's the only one being held accountable when people who have said and done far worse than him are off the hook and their statement forgotten by the next month

the man doesn't even plaster himself on social media all that much, even when his wife posts on tiktok or ig with him it's scarce. yet the reaction when he pops up for one week to do promo for his new project makes you think he's taylor swift levels of inescapable or he's personally broken into people's houses and murdered their pets

[carma-tjol]

“To know you is to love you.”

[emblazons]

“I haven’t seen anybody talk about this” bestie this is the 7,239,182 time we’ve seen it. I promise you that between 400k users over two years on this app alone you’ve not had a single original thought about this subject

[ilovecoelacanths]

if youre ever doing bad in school and then you have a day where you are feeling productive and like you can actually get some work done, DO NOT look at your grades for your classes. thats the devil talking. youll see those grades and hit a wall and wont get anything done. trust me. i know the temptation is real. im on canvas and i see that little grades tab and i wanna click it soooooo bad but NO. if i look at it i will be too stressed to do anything that could actually lead to fixing it.

[thresholdbb]

A Federation starship seems like a terrible place for a bath

[i-am-a-hog]

Anybody know how to get rid of a curse 😭

[cuteniaarts]

Digitalised + coloured + redesigned version of my Suiren and Vaatu sketch from two days ago, as promised!!

Coming up with Suiren’s design was a very long process of trying and failing because after you’ve drawn 9+ different versions of one character, the creativity starts to run a little dry, but I’m actually really proud of this one, she looks absolutely adorable <3

(Also yeah I did mostly just scribble Vaatu’s pattern because who has the energy to draw the all out accurately. Not me, that’s who, I’m chronically tired. People who draw him on the regular have my utmost respect. He’s still a funky little guy though :D)

Bonus, Raava incessantly screaming inside Suiren (and being completely ignored because Suiren is tired of her) while all this is happening:

[tyrantwombat]

No, but seriously, can you imagine how utterly surreal it is to be Song Taewon and have two of the most unhinged people on the planet both decide to become intensely invested in your life and health after knowing you for like five seconds? One of them uses aggressive mob tactics to try and get you to let them chauffeur you around, the other is a little guy you could crush with your pinky on accident who hunts you down in the middle of a pit of monsters with a packed lunch convinced you will starve if he doesn’t personally feed you. You have to play an intense game of de-escalation at literally all times to keep this same random guy from calling and yelling at your boss about your sleep schedule, and this is still an improvement on that time you barely convinced him it wasn’t necessary to utterly annihilate your place of work to get you more vacation time. The other one has probably historically attempted to set your closet and/or you yourself on fire so he can buy you clothes.

You just want to live your corporate slave life and resist the dark yearnings of your soul in PEACE but instead you’re having to dodge two very powerful men who both desperately want to take care of you.

[spitblaze]

Well I'm glad that my brain has stopped trying to use social faux pas I made at age ten as proof that I'm a bad person and everyone actually thinks I'm a piece of shit human being and I should stop trying to be friends with people but it has moved on to using more recent social faux pas and stupid identity-based internet discourse to do the same thing and I don't think that's much better if I'm being honest

[thevioletcaptain]

whoever stole my account information in order to spend $127 on [checks notes] roku purchases, i hope you have incurable hangnails on every finger and toe for the rest of your shitty life.

[mudkept]

i have Got to apply to shortbox comic fair next year OR else AND i have to make comics or ill die.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

Ok I’m glad I found the actual ask box instead of the EMBARASSING thing I did earlier, aside from that

How long does it usually take you to make a drawing? :3 I know it’s different depending on the caliber of the drawing but for an example let’s say just Barnaby and Wally doing whatever in a scene

I’m very curious about your process!! ^w^

i just saw what you mean and for your sake i'll Pretend I Did Not See lol. its ok tho it happens, Tumblr's a tough cookie to wrangle

hm. it Does vary wildly, both depending on quality, how used to scribbling a thing i am, and how well the art-mojo is flowing! on a bad night, a simple sketch could take an hour while the same sketch on a good night could take 15 minutes

and it's also hard to say since i don't really keep track! for example, The First One in this collage is a more involved sketch and i suspect it took thirty minutes maybe? i remember having some Difficulties so maybe longer? trying to get size differences between multiple characters in the same sketch adds a Lot of time, as does making sure they interact properly. while the last one in the collage (the Nom) probably took closer to ten minutes

i know the Laughingstock in Aziracrow's outfits i belted out in, oh... an hour or three? it's really hard to say! i think it was several bc i was watching gomens at the time, and i think it got through a couple of episodes... clothes add a lot of time! but certain things that i thought i did Quickly took hours in reality, and i only notice when i look up and see the clock has Changed Drastically! i have a very loose perception of time!

it really just depends on my motivation & how used to drawing something i am. like scribbling Eddie takes a while, lots of guidelines and erasing and redrawing. but scribbling Barnaby? easy. takes me seconds in comparison. way less guidelines - i know where everything is and where it goes! drawing dragons takes even less time - This One was done in a Blink, and the only guides i used were head circle / snout circle / jawline.

[moe-broey]

Sewing machine fucking bit me .