#also this is the anatomy i said i was super proud of the other day

[glitchyvoice]

wip :3

[brown-little-robin]

3 (i guess "sculpt" instead of draw ? idk pottery terms), 5, and 20 :]

3. What are your favorite subjects to draw? (OCs, your fan faves, etc.)

I do mostly animals! super simple bunnies and cats are my comfort zone. when I'm going for something that makes me use all my skills, I really love making big cats. tigers and jaguars. the MUSCLES. the BONES. they're just so charismatic and fun to pose >:D

recently I've been doing fanart sculptures, too, like this one of Ritsu and Mob (as cats)! I have a post queued on my ceramics blog of them, but you get to see them early because I figure you'll like them :3

5. What piece of art are you still proud of to this day? (Show or describe)

WEREWOLF FROM LAST YEAR

LOOK AT THAT SNARL. I'm SO excited to finally glaze him soon (hopefully within a few weeks!!!). my grasp on anatomy has improved since I made this one, but I still like him for his expressiveness >:}

20. What motivates/inspires you artistically? (topics, emotions, etc)

ok so other potters'/sculptors' work inspires me, but also, weirdly enough, it's a symbiotic relationship between exercise and sculpture for me. the more I'm thinking about bodies and muscles, the more I get excited about sculpting them. watching dance videos inspires me, and taking long walks inspires me. also, seeing animals moving in cool ways. going to the zoo. watching the how to train your dragon movie always gets me ThinkingTM about dragon sculptures lol

also, like I said in my last ask answer, the changing seasons and weather patterns inspire me. I do a lot of painting sculptures with clouds, rain, et cetera, like these three Weather Wizards:

very midwestern of me, I guess, putting clouds on Little Dudes :p

[livvyofthelake]

yay travis moving to dc with vic! best friends forever for real that was so hannah montana finale core.... <3 choosing to believe this means the end of Random Love Interest Man.

ok the whole episode had these like, flash forward dream future scenes for each character and i'm choosing to accept them as canon because why would i not. and then at the end it skipped to three months in the future, and then to a more distant years down the line future. so that's what you need to know for the rest of what i have to comment on

natasha's flash forward being her wedding to robert yay! also in her dream future jack and andy sat next to each other at the wedding she is literally on my side! and when i saw that i was like, wow that's enough i'll take that as my bare minimum win <3 BUT THERE WAS MORE! to be continued later

maya and carina.... i can't think about them i'll start crying again i'm gonna miss them so bad i might throw up :/ what if there were women in love with each other on your tv every thursday night and they were actually interesting characters outside their relationship and their relationship was also really compelling and complicated and fun to watch... oh my god i'm never getting this again should i kms. wow. um alex danvers i'm lowkey counting on you to save me here babe. please don't let me down....

ben going back to being a surgeon lmaoooooo jason george said hey i know y'all gave me this cool spin off but how about we keep me employed and put me back in grey's anatomy! real as fuck king

also loved them keeping his character's future vague because he's literally just going back to greys... lmao that's just so funny

the little dean cameo! missed him :( his spirit is in everything vic does and he's so proud of her.... they truly were the best the 1 taylor swift coded characters everrrr

no pole moment.... no sliding down the firemans pole moment.... no declaring a pole day..... we have to kill somebody

but andy and maya staying best friends their whole lives... maya will always be at 19 as long as andy is captain and maya will be captain once andy becomes the chief... wowie... bestieism... parabatai...

and now.... let's get into it. i'm so thrilled girls literally never give up! the chances may be low but they are NEVER zero.... one episode left and you can still win! now as i said, i was accepting the standing next to each other at natasha's dream future wedding. that was enough for me seriously... and then andy had to be rushed to the hospital after almost dying and the whole team was gathering her room waiting for her to wake up and then JACK WALKED IN! and i was like oh this is better than i even imagined he made a whole appearance and everything! and i cannot stress enough that literally just having him in the room was enough for me. and then maya said "i can't imagine being at 19 without andy" and jack said "i can't imagine my life without andy" and i nearly passed out. and again that was enough for me! again i cannot emphasize enough that those things were all enough for me to accept as a win! maybe not a super celebratory win but a win of some sort... and then we finally got ANDY'S flash forward dream future. oh my god it's actually too much please hold

ANDY'S FLASH FORWARD DREAM FUTURE. can't stress enough that it's andy's dream future... not jack's, this is hers... and it started with her as the captain of 19 of course because that's andy dream #1 always. and then it flashed to a MEMORY OF THE PILOT EPISODE when jack badly proposed to her and she said no... and flash forward dream future andy was interacting with the memory and she took the ring box out of past andy's hand and dream future jack walked up behind her and they exchanged a few lines about how they really messed up the first time and they weren't ready back then etc. idk exactly what was said i was too busy experiencing a dopamine rush on a level my brain has not produced in years. AND THEN THEY MADE OUT!!!!!!!!!!!! jack and andy endgame real for real!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

and then in the 3 months later flash forward vic was making chili and jack held up a spoon for andy to try and it was cute <3

don’t care about the 911 season finale i hope all those firefighters die in a horrific accident. anyway let’s talk about how it’s the series finale of station 19 tonight 😐 the end is for real HERE it’s so fucking over… and all our buddies are splitting up to do other stuff like vic and travis are gonna move to dc of all unholy places and were not even getting the travis emmett endgame which makes me wish i was dead frankly. what’s emmett been hanging around for the past million years for then huh. what was the POINT. well i suppose if travis is moving he can’t be endgame with that random man they threw in to be his last minute love interest like two weeks ago 🙄. and it was kinda hinted that ben was gonna stop firefighting too he might become like an emt or something medical idk it’s unclear but it was hinted that he was gonna have a change. but at least maya will likely stick around with andy <3 when they’re literally best friends… and i swear to god if they don’t slide down that damn pole. i’m putting a bomb in abc hq. let’s get serious people what happened to pole days. does anyone remember station 19 season one. andy is literally captain now and she gets to do things her way! let her slide down the fireman pole!!!!! i swear to god!!! of course it should go without saying that if jack doesn’t make an appearance in this finale i’ll cry. we have one more chance for the jack and andy endgame. chances are low but NEVER zero! remember to keep up hope! 😐 frankly i would be satisfied with seeing them in a room together one last time. me when the bar is on the floor. me when i bet on losing dogs. anyway. also we get to see maya and carina one last time… my dykes from the tv…. what am i gonna do without them greys anatomy doesn’t have any good dykes… ok i suppose next season we’ll finally get to give amelia and what’s her name a real fighting chance but as of now greys doesn’t have good dykes. they have mid dykes. not the same. god i’m never getting another maya and carina again am i? actually crying rn because i’m so upset about that fr um. yeah. ok

[angry-slytherin]

We Really Like Fluff

a totally incomplete guide to dousy fan fictions that are a must:

according to me, anyway

no idea where to start? looking for a fic you read a year ago? I’ve got you.

help me find the tumblrs of those not tagged (if they have one)!

all we do is drive. (romantashas) @romantashas

Daisy has missed the open road. She used to always love taking her van out and just driving. Los Angeles was where she liked to stick around, but she would always go on these road trips just because she wanted to explore somewhere new.

She's always liked running away from things.

It was different, having someone with her.

In which Daisy Johnson helps Daniel Sousa explore the modern world by taking him on a cross-country road trip in a van. Post-Finale road trip AU with MCU tie-ins.

the first beloved fic by this fandom. completed in august 2020, it strays from canon somewhat at S7E11, but the characterization makes you forget that anything is different at all. truly a masterpiece, and definitely a must-read.

6/17/55 (lazyfish)

6/17/55.

She never thought it would mean 1955.

(Spoilers up to 7.06.)

one shot. soulmate au. beautifully written. it’s only just under 2k words but one of the most popular fan fictions under the tag on ao3. absolutely adorable and you’ll feel your heart flutter for them.

One Year Later (marvelsquake) @marvelsquake

Set right after the series finale's 'one year later' part where Daisy stares into space with Sousa and Kora.

Inspired by the 'anatomy analysis' bit Jemma says to Daisy.

there are so many amazing “anatomy analysis” fics out there. that is one of those “if you know, you know” things;) this one is really thoroughly written, and marvelsquake took their time to make every detail perfect. really, just excellent.

Stay (SteeleHoltingOn) @steeleholtingon

Not everyone knew she could feel heartbeats. Sousa’s sped up every time he looked her way.

His reaction wasn’t particularly unusual, and Daisy was an expert at fending off unwanted advances. But that was just it: Sousa hadn’t actually made any advances, and if he did, Daisy wasn’t sure she’d ward them off.

Her heartbeat, it seemed, liked to match tempo with his.

this one needs little introduction. it has been recced(??) to death, and rightfully so!!! the author is this incredible genius and I love them for giving this to us. it’s over 150k words, so be ready to commit some much deserved time to this excellent character study on both Daisy and Daniel.

Feel Good(I Like It) (enigmaforum)

It's not the the first time she’s felt something for someone since Lincoln but it’s the first time she felt like it had the possibility to actually turn into something. Something Good.

I’ve always loved the title of this fic, but that’s besides the point. enigmaforum is a very talented writer who does plot AND characterization like a pro. definitely an A+ in terms of quality. also part of a series with some other excellent works!

Exposure (agentquakingskye) @blcssqvake on instagram

Dying in a half-second blast of radiation wasn’t as bad as she thought it would be.

Dying all over again, slowly, because of that half-second of radiation?

That was worse.

okay I lied. we also love angst and this work is angst central. it’s a cancer AU following the finale, but it’s just as happy as it as sad. prepare your tissues, but also prepare for some seriously good writing.

A Week After Death (manoutoftimeandquake) @puddle-of-awesomeness

An explosion in an alien junkyard sends Daisy, Sousa and Kora back in time to meet some people from Sousa's past.

the astro ambassadors sent back in time to meet the AC cast(essentially). such a fun, action-packed, hilarious work. such a classic. go read it now!!

Where I Need To Be (JennaPotter)

This is set from Episode 7x03 onwards and follows the story of Daisy Johnson and Daniel Sousa, and how their relationship has been developing throughout this amazing season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.! This story mostly follows canon but is interspersed with missing moments between Daisy and Sousa that I imagine could have happened off-screen.

almost 200k words of absolute beauty. it’s incredibly detailed and excellently written. it’s like reading a published novel!! but with dousy!!

you’ve got that power(over me) (romantashas) @romantashas

"It's you," Daniel whispers. He's in awe, looking at Quake. She steps back away from him. "Let me help you," he says, reaching out toward her injured arm slowly.

Daniel only gets a moment more to admire her glowing eyes and her purple hair before she turns and runs away, her hand slipping out of his.

In which the superheroes of the Marvelverse actually try to keep their identities a secret and Daniel Sousa is determined to figure out who is behind the mysterious Quake mask. Superhero AU with MCU tie-ins.

yet another classic(I’m definitely misusing that word… it’s deserved by these authors) work by romantashas. the description gives the gist of it, but it’s one of the best dousy AUs out there.

get ready for the shameless self promo…

Your Heartbeat On The Highline(Once In Twenty Lifetimes) (doctorsimmonswilson) @angry-slytherin

He’s a man out of time and she’s an orphaned superhero. They’ve just got to figure out what to do next, after the mission is over.

[aka Daisy and Daniel’s story post finale]

welp… I included my own story. honestly it’s because it is one of the most popular in the tag(I’m sifting through too kudos and top hits). I’m really super proud of it, so read it if you’d like. it’s canon compliant (and extremely fluffy for the most part:)

somebody hurt you(but you’re here by my side) (agentmmayy) @agentmmayy

Daniel doesn't leave Daisy's side, even when she's out of the healing chamber.

very popular, and for good reason. such a sweet, nice fic. I very much enjoyed it and it’s a quicker read than most on this list!

and here’s to the question marks

aka: unfinished works that are beautiful and deserve your attention

want you(to unravel me) (IzzieBee)

Daisy never wanted to be rescued, by anyone. She never wanted to owe someone that debt, but especially not to a handsome WWII Vet, traveling through time. Daniel, who was brave and decent, and kind of funny, and who she could easily depend on, which was way too dangerous to consider.

OR

Daisy really wasn't ready for Daniel Sousa.

sexy, fun, well-written… what more could we ask for? it’s missing the last chapter, but the brunt of the story is there, and it’s satisfying either way.

A Truth Stranger Than Fiction (wordsmithraven)

Daniel Sousa was having the worst day of his life...and he’d lived through a war. Service had always been something he’d understood. Honor. Sacrifice. Duty. He’d just never thought his journey would mean leaving everything he loved behind.

a lot of daisy and daniel getting to know one another… a little bit of season 7 adventure… a whole bunch of fun.

Loving The Journey Together (manoutoftimeandquake) @puddle-of-awesomeness

Moments in the lives of Daisy and Sousa (and Kora) after the end of the team's final mission.

this one is a WIP(being updated currently). manoutoftimeandquake has some amazing snippets/slices of life waiting for you in that work!

it’s in the subtext (eggsaladstain)

Snippets of the relationship between Daisy Johnson and Daniel Sousa through the words they said and the ones they didn’t.

SO. FREAKING. GOOD. just go read it, okay?

and finally, some links to some authors who’ve written a bunch of amazing stuff.

romantashas

manoutoftimeandquake

enigmaforum

@hecckyeah

lazyfish

hereforthephilindafics

dearemma

seriously, there’s so many more amazing fics in this tag. I didn’t have the energy to include all 800+. these are just some that are most popular and/or deserve your attention.

thank you for taking the time to read through all of this! I hope you’ve found some things to bookmark(or binge-read;)

[shoichee]

okok hc or fic: reader was teiko’s “head” manager(?) and her talent was being a medic (if someone gets injured they’re back on the court in under a minute type thing) and training plans. suddenly momoi’s talent blooms, she starts working w/ everyone in the team (+ reader’s crush akashi) and people think she’s a better manager than reader. because of this, she overworks + collapses in front of her best friends kuroko + kise (don’t let akashi know yet i have plans for that 👀)

HELLO? YES OFFICER? I JUST FOUND A BANGER REQUEST RIGHT HERE? YOUR BRAIN IS SO BIG AND SEXY IVE BEEN DYING TO WRITE THIS🏃🏻‍♀️💨 part 2 here and part 3 here AND update: part 4 here

Akashi x Reader

[Teiko!manager Headcanons]

you had a knack of being a natural chiropractor in loosening up tense muscles instantly (for more fluid play) or easily putting in back dislocated joints

basically you have crackhands

in your free time as a hobby and a job as the “head manager” (that Akashi announced to the team himself), you’d often bury yourself in anatomy studies and gym plans on the internet and databases to review over Akashi’s team training routines to see if they were effective and safe; oftentimes, you’d return back with improved plans, and as time went on, Akashi entrusted you with creating the plans yourself completely

you took on the job so eagerly to impress the Teiko captain, if you were being honest to yourself

your enthusiasm even inspires Momoi, Teiko’s other manager, to work harder

no one in Teiko knows physiology better than you, and as expected, it was also your best subject along with health

Kise often looks at you in horror and respect at how you don’t cringe/flinch at the loud cracks resonating across the room or court when players come to you for instant relief (the origin story of how he came to call you (y/n)-cchi was the very fact that you manage to put back his dislocated shoulder in 3 seconds flat one game)

when Kuroko first joined the 1st-string, he was a walking magnet for injuries, and you ended up being there for him every single time… nosebleeds? check. sprained ankle? check. nausea from over exhaustion? check.

both you and Kuroko relish in the fact that everyone in the team can never understand how the both of you do some incredible things with your hands

both of you being quite dexterous, you both often teach each other your specialties for fun; it’s almost shocking to see Kuroko effortlessly loosening up a stress knot and you pulling off a well-done palm pass

you admit, you do juggle a lot of responsibilities… from being a makeshift nurse, to a chiropractor, to a budget gym coach, and even to being moral support

Momoi often reminds you to take breaks being the caring person that she is

you often showed her the ropes and tricks of being a manager, on top of your duties, and you find it really endearing that she’s so earnest in learning from you

even if you enjoyed doing what you do, part of the massive workload is to try to get into Akashi’s good graces

talking to him about basketball duties is easier to achieve than talking to him outside of the extracurricular

you might be a tad bit insecure about it; after all, what middle schooler is already so accomplished in academics, sports, and everything you could think of? wasn’t he also studying to take over his father’s company??

to you, who only starred as Teiko’s humble manager, it felt hard trying to establish common ground for conversation outside of basketball

so you stuck to working hard at your position, hoping that your work ethic would get his attention one day; you were a firm believer of actions over words, so you hoped your actions would come off as genuine

picture you and Momoi running across campus with stacks of papers for the team… it makes most of the teammates’ hearts melt at the sight

your work certainly got you praises from other teammates, but out of all players, Kise was the one who figured out your motive

you felt absolutely morbid; to think that Kise, of all people, would figure you out like the back of his hand

Kise being sweet as he is, offers to help you get with the captain but you merely prompted to threaten to break his arm if he spilled your crush to anyone else

“(y/n)-cchi… I’ve been thinking.”

“Yes, Kise?”

“It’s really cool that you’re working so tirelessly for the team, but I can’t help but wonder if there’s a reason why you work so hard.”

“O-Of course I do! I want to see you guys all succeed!”

“Then I’m curious as to why you always look at Akashicchi—o-ow, ow, ow!! (y/n)-cchi, I’m sorry! So can you please let go of my—ow!”

“H-How did you know?!”

“I-It was as obvious as day, (y/n)-cchi! I’m pretty sure even Kurokocchi found out about this before I did!”

“N-No way!!”

“Tell you what, I’m super duper knowledgeable in this stuff! You can count on me for this sort of advice—OW!”

spoiler alert: Kise was right in that Kuroko definitely noticed your attraction to Akashi before anyone else… he just never brought it up to you

one day, Kuroko comes up to you to whisper:

“(y/n)-san, have you realized that Akashi-kun has been observing you recently during practice?”

“W-Wait! Is he looking over here right now?”

“Not that I think. He’s occupied with the coach right now.”

“D-Do you think this is a good sign?”

Kuroko gives you a small smile before he replies, “I would like to think so. Keep working hard, (y/n)-san.”

and you do, you’re constantly on top of your game for the next season until Momoi suddenly gets more recognition for her “precognitive defense” skills

her newfound talent was extraordinary and never-before-seen, and her ability became more critical to Teiko’s victories than your own skills

you were happy and proud for her, because after all, her achievements were extremely deserving to be praised

it’s only when some 1st-string players started making offhand comments about how you weren’t really needed in the 1st-string and was more suited to the lower strings that placed seeds of doubt into you

these people would often compare you to Momoi in how she improved much more despite you being in the team for longer

there’s also talk about how your skills are more useful for 2nd-string and 3rd-string players because Momoi’s ability is already sufficient enough for Teiko’s starters

after all, how would a player even be injured if they can predict their opponents’ moves to avoid such incidents?

there’s also the fact that Akashi has been calling Momoi more frequently to research on upcoming teams for analytical data because her talent has become very useful to ensuring victory

the same peers and adults who gave you praise were the same people who began to ignore you or dismiss you; that being said, the collective change in attitude is definitely subtle enough that it would fly under most people’s radars

Kuroko was the first to notice and defend you against a small group of players who were bold enough to badmouth you in the gym

Kise would find out a little later about the somewhat unpleasant gossip about you and would pull the “no you” reverse card, returning back with MEANER underhanded comments that would send these shit talkers CRYING HOME (manga Kise strikes here unexpectedly eh?)

Murasakibara is someone who would be slightly uncomfortable with the gossip about you, especially since you’ve always been so helpful and kind to the team and himself; he’d either leave the room himself or easily scare them away with his looming height and presence without saying a single word when he enters the room “minding his own business”

Midorima is a bystander judging from how he’s reacted to the Teiko dynamic changes in the actual show // he, of course, wouldn’t like the nasty talk about you but would actually mind his own business, choosing to focus on himself and what he has to do to contribute to his team; he assumes that you would work hard the same way he is and let your contributions do the talking

now Akashi surprisingly wouldn’t hear much of the gossip, since his presence alone SHUTS them up and commit to their practices like normal; after all, it’s very clear that Akashi doesn’t tolerate this type of behavior in the team (example: Haizaki), and it’s more apparent that he wouldn’t hesitate to drop kick them out especially since he has a soft spot for you (which Kise never fails to bring this up to you, but you think he’s reaching too much into it) // TLDR; the teammates mostly have the common sense to not utter anything bad about you… maybe one kid would slip out and get punished for “bad sportsmanship,” but Akashi merely assumes that it’s just one bad apple and not necessarily… the many others as well

Aomine???? bro he ain’t even at practice wdym (HELPPP LMAOO) // jokes aside, if he catches wind of players shit-talking outside of the gym… say at the convenience store or when he’s walking home or something, well… they wouldn’t have a good time…

Momoi simply chastises the gossipers when they try to talk shit on you to make Momoi herself look good, and it leaves? such? a? horrible? taste? like, she wants to believe that they’re just really poor jokes and not what they really believe in, and the teammates merely reassure her that they’re just bad jokes and that they “wouldn’t do it again;” poor Momoi wholeheartedly believes them

the weird talks about Momoi being “the better manager” just signalled to you that you haven’t contributed enough to the team yet, and it motivated you to work even harder

oddly, you weren’t jealous of the fact that Momoi was receiving more positive attention than you

you were more afraid of the fact that you were going to get left behind, and this fear only tightened its hold on you when more teammates (who used to talk to you a lot) have changed their tunes when they speak with you now, compared to them talking to Momoi

and you felt that the Generation of Miracles would do the same too… including Akashi

it wasn’t an irrational fear for you because he’s already been calling Momoi a lot more frequently for help than you recently

so you even offered to mop the gym floors after practice, offered to stay later than usual to be the one to lock up the gym for anyone (cough, Kuroko) who wanted to practice whenever they wanted

at one point, you even tried to do what Momoi does: researching on upcoming teams and making your own predictions (that didn’t really work, and that cost you a few nights’ worth of sleep every single time)

not to mention that you still had regular school like any other student? you were the epitome of a mess

Kuroko was with you in the empty gym, you putting away the extra basketballs in the storage closet while he practiced his dribbling, until he heard a crash in there and a few basketballs rolled out the door

you collapsed right when you rolled in the basketball cart

POOR KUROKO HE DOESN'T KNOW WHAT TO DO // he just tries to give you a piggyback ride as he abandons his plans of practice and tries to jog to the nearest local clinic

that’s where he bumped into Kise, who was heading home after an evening shoot when he saw the two of you

chaos ensue as Kise freaks out and Kuroko had to calm him down himself after answering the never-ending questions

at least the doctor there gave relieving news that you only collapsed from over-exhaustion and that the bruises from the fall were very faint

Kise makes a joke to Kuroko about, “What’s with you and (y/n)-cchi falling to the floor and fainting? You guys can’t be that alike.”

when you shortly regain consciousness, you were met with a… very stern Kuroko and Kise, who were both ready to hear your explanation and to scold you to oblivion

to your surprise, they were understanding; Kuroko understands the feeling of not being enough and working hard to meet other people’s expectations, and Kise understands the struggle of juggling multiple things in his schedule (come on, student, athlete, and model?)

they still scolded your ears off:

“(y/n)-san, you idiot. Why didn’t you ask anyone to help out?”

“That’s…”

“(y/n)-cchi, do you think we’re undependable?!”

“Er, no, that’s…”

you were still dizzy from the fall and the lack of proper sleep (and maybe nutrition if we’re being honest), and you were just a ball of stress

you kind of begged your best friends not to tell a SOUL to anyone about this incident, especially to Akashi… you didn’t want to look even more incapable in his eyes than you already were

they do agree on one condition: for you to take AT LEAST a day or two off school to completely recover and rest up (you reluctantly agree; besides how were you going to explain the bruises that can’t be covered to your peers?)

HELP WHY ARE KISE AND KUROKO THE BEST LIARS TOGETHER ON CAMPUS LITERALLY NO ONE SUSPECTS A THING… except Akashi, the ever sharp captain, felt something was amiss

especially since some Teiko players emanated a feeling of relief at the news of you not being here that day, or the next

Akashi would play detective sleuth and find out what’s really going on sooner or later

End Note: gonna cut this off here b/c I KNOW this anon got a juicy part two i FEEL IT

[dana-chan-the-control-brain]

The way you draw is so bingus honestly I’m not sure how to describe it

It’s like you made the characters out of silly putty and then like squished them ever so slightly

It’s kind of like Ed Edd and Eddie, and Courage the Cowardly Dog? Those shows where each frame was detailed and kind of, like, fuckin’ stretchy. No bones, only EMOTION.

And like, it’s twisted somehow. Idk if that’s what you’re going for - it could just be that I personally find that sort of style mildly unsettling. But the emotional intensity of the stories you tell combined with the vibe-oriented pseudo-anatomy makes it feel dimly like a bad dream. One of the ones where the emotion is sadness and not fear, the ones where you can’t go home.

It’s very distinctive. I like it a lot.

SILLY PUTTY!!!!

I honestly love that description.

"it's not that I don't know how bodies work. All my characters are canonly made of playdough"

PERFECT! GHFHFHHFF

As a kid I didn't like Edd, Ed and Eddy cus the art style hurt my sensitive eyes, with all the wiggly lines and I found it super hard to relate to any of the cast of the culdesac. I'm sure there are kids like that, but in my friend group, I couldn't relate to anyone on a base level and didn't find many of the jokes that funny that I couldnt get from other shows at the time.

As a kid I was a little picky thing and I tended to hate cartoons that strictly focused on "real kids" or "real people" boring if it didn't have a fantastical element to it. Like... I hated Hey Arnold, As told by Ginger, Proud Family and Doug as a kid.... But loved Danny Phantom, American Dragon, Jackie Chan Adventures, Avatar the Last Airbender, Pokemon Indigo League and Life as a Teenage Robot if that makes sense? Lol

(I know the Eds is WAY more cartoony and zany then the other shows I listed. But my child brain lumped them together as "real people doing boring things" shows for some reason)

Somehow the Eds was always on TV and I ended up watching it when nothing else was on, but I really didn't like the show as a kid. lol

I appreciate the style and show a lot more now. I do remember really loving the movie finale as a kid however. Probably because it was the most plot driven episode in the series with actual stakes and conflict. And I think it was the first time in the series history where characters cried and it wasn't played for comedy. (To my memory)

As I said, I appreciate these shows a lot more now, but the style of the Eds still hurts my eyes.

Courage the Cowardly Dog however was completely my jam. As a child, I would watch anything with dogs in it. Even if it was bad. Scooby-Doo, Krypton, Martha Speaks, Blues Clues, Clifford... If there was a dog, I was down. (I guarantee I would have watched paw patrol if it was in the 90s/early 2000s)

And I remember having fun times watching Courage with my Mom on week day afternoons.

I was always fascinated with things that were scary or a little bit creepy. I remember also loving the heck out of Hunchback of Notre Dame when I was eight and would burn out my VHS so bad.

So Courage comes up with it's creepy themes and halarious running jokes (honestly, rewatching that show as an adult, you can tell they phone in jokes a lot of the time. The running jokes are super abundant to the point I wonder if the actors recorded one take and they kept reusing it just cus it made them laugh. Cries in lack of bonus features on the collectors dvd.)

Courage was the perfect amount of slapstick and horror. Kinda like a modern day Scooby-Doo of it's time (which I also loved) just without the bland predictable mystery element. (I can't believe it took us till 2022 to get that Scooby-Doo and Courage crossover, even if it was a little lame lol)

The show also taught me a lot about the value of courage as an anxiety-ridden kid.

Courage not being the absence of fear, but the boldness to press on despite your fears.

And Courage's over the top screaming and most of the 'Monsters' of the week having their own motivation for doing what they did, made me a little less scared I like to think. Most of the monsters in Courage were never strictly "evil". Every one of them tended to have misguided morals or ethics and Courage had to stop them because their actions would result in them kidnapping Mariel or hurting his family. (Some of them were just pure evil...but that was super rare. Like even the "return the slab" guy just wants his land/tablet back that was taken from him. )

Idk. Even now I think that's pretty cool. And even if Courage is a super formulic show, I still adore it to this day.

Anyways.... I rambled too long about cartoons I had growing up. Hfhfgdgd

But yes. All my characters are made of puddy. Thank you.

[corpsentry]

january: an art retrospective

i did some stuff last month (but it’s a lot of stuff and there’s a photodump + some Serious Fucking Reflection, so it’s all below the cut)

so ok, let’s start with this. here are some heads. each head has a red arrow. that red arrow is what i call the red line of the devil. it’s the slope of the face from the side of the eye to the cheekbone and then down towards the chin. up until like 2 weeks ago, i couldn’t draw it. i couldn’t fucking draw it. i would edit over that part of the face over and over again until i was frustrated and tired and i had a raging homosexual headache and it still never looked right. notice that each head is different. notice that each head looks wrong.

at the start of 2021 i finally admitted to myself, as per the image above, that i was deeply, deeply unhappy with my art. what was the problem? i dunno. but i decided i was going to fix it and i was going to do so via another one scribble a day event wherein for every day of january i would find a photo of a human head, and i would draw it.

january 1st, 2021. i was embarrassed to tweet this even on my private account where like 5 friends and a rock would see it. in retrospect, you can also see all of my bad habits emerging like dicks from a hole in the ground. it’s disproportionate. the brows look flat. the eyes are slanting upwards. the entire drawing looks flat, like this isn’t a 3d person but a caricature of one.

january 2nd, 3rd, 4th:

on the 2nd i decided to start a separate thread for doodles and applied learning. here’s the first set of tests

the rest of the week is kind of uneventful so we’re going to skip those. fast forward to january 11th

this one is especially bad. i am acutely aware, suddenly, that i am not changing anything at all. i’m stressed and miserable about it because i’m still trying to see people as people and trying to draw people that look attractive and proportionate and hot. my friend, leny, reminds me that i need to think about faces in terms of planes. i have a moment. my other friend masha sends me some links to anatomy tutorials. i have another moment.

january 11th. applied sketch

january 13th is when i start the troubleshooting process. the link above drives me mad because i’m pretty happy with the face but then i realize that there’s something very fucking wrong with the shape of the head LOL and then i realize that i’ve never had any idea what the proportion of the face to the rest of the skull is so i grit my teeth and i open a new canvas and i

bald studies. it seemed like the right thing to do. can’t draw heads? ok draw some heads. look at some photographs. i traced each photo but tried to stick to straight lines so that i could replicate the shapes more easily. i broke each face down into shapes. i thought about airplanes

i got really excited. i started doing studies, then applied studies, then stylized studies.

sketches. i’m not sure what’s going on (as always) and it’s very rough, but they look different from the sketches i did on january 2nd. that’s a start

january 16th’s daily study. looks more like a person now. juuuuuust a bit

more applied studies

on the 18th i take a break and go stare at some lips because i don’t understand how the fuck they work. again, i focus on shapes, on volume, on the fact that these things exist in 3d. holy fuck lips exist in 3d. holy fuck we are real

january 19th. i’m working on it.

january 22nd. some sketches + a daily study. it has finally occurred to me that heads can tilt up and down and that things look different accordingly. yes i was not aware of this before. yes i have been drawing for over a decade.

january 23rd. by this point after doing my daily sketch i almost always go back and do an applied study which is basically to say i drew a lot of fucking links. this one looks kind of okay. i’m kind of proud

january 25th. links. trying to make sense of everything i’ve learned

26th, 27th, 28th. daily studies

january 1st. january 31st

The End Of The Photo Dump (dab)

ok NOW i get to talk about what i discovered while studying the shit out of human beings

FIRST OF ALL, there is something precious and magical about drawing shit without the explicit knowledge that you’re going to tweet that shit out to 45 people later. it takes the burden of perception off your shoulders and that does something to you, or at least that’s my theory. i told myself i wouldn’t post any of this stuff until the end of the month (if i wanted to post it at all) and kept everything off my public social media accounts and that meant i could draw ugly as hell without worrying about who would point and laugh, which i absolutely fucking did. a lot of these are fucking trainwrecks. most of these are fucking trainwrecks. why do they look like that?? why??? this doesn’t look like the work of someone who’s allegedly been drawing since they were in kindergarten, does it?????

here’s why: because that person took a huge motherfucking swing at everything they’d ever known about art and spent a month building something new in its place. the abstract explanation is that i grew up on shoujo and weird old anime and my understanding of anatomy was unironically kamichama karin and while i love kamichama karin, when kamichama karin is your rule even if you try to break it, you’re going to end up going nowhere. “you have to know the rules to break them”, yeah? well i didn’t know shit. the abstract explanation is i’ve been miserable about my art for a few years now because i saw other people doing things effortlessly which i couldn’t and instead of going back to the basics, i tried to do what they did (not plagiarism, mind you, i mean i literally tried to copy the red line of the devil i mentioned above because i couldn’t even make that happen) and then i fucking failed.

the simple explanation is this. i had to unlearn everything, and relearn it again (like some kind of new renaissance clown, what the fuck is this?)

take this for example. all my life i’ve drawn faces in the order: eyes, nose, mouth, face shape, head. this works for some people, im aware, but it was something central to how i had always drawn, so i decentralized it. i said fuck you to the old me and changed the order up. now i start with the nose, then the eyes, mouth, the chin line, and the sides of the face. now i force myself to think about the human head as a series of parts interacting with each other instead of a bunch of disparate features which i want to look pretty.

or let’s use this zelda from last year. something about this looked wrong last october, the way something about all of my drawings looked wrong, but i couldn’t pinpoint it for hell the way i couldn’t articulate Any of my feelings about the visual arts. now, looking back, here’s what i see. that nose is sticking out far too much given how she’s not really facing very far away from the camera. that ear at the back shouldn’t be there. her forehead is too big. she doesn’t have a forehead. what the fuck is up with the shape of her head?

so apparently reject modernity embrace tradition has its roots in alt-right terminology and i’m not very horny for the alt-right (you understand), but the spirit survives here. you know sometimes you have to admit that you have no idea what the fuck you’re doing and draw people for 31 days. i’ve spent my whole life drawing stylized people and while again there are artists who have no issue with this, i veered off the track of the Good and the Holy and couldn’t get back on. i had no point of reference because i’d never thought about what an actual human being looks like, so i had no way to fix what i knew in my gut looked wrong but wouldn’t come out better.

this was hard. this was like oikawa tooru swallowing his worthless pride and admitting that ushijima wakatoshi had gotten the best of him for the last time in his high school career, but in haikyuu!! by furudate haruichi oikawa tooru fucks off to argentina and then joins the argentinean national team, and you know what, i think i’ve made it to argentina (not the team just the country). as per the golden rule of dont fucking move until you’re at least two thirds of the way through the month, i only started trying to draw Shit shit on like the 22nd or something, but i was happy with that i created. i am happy with what i’ve done. i’ve posted like 2 things this month that involve people with what i now call ~applied Knowledge~~ and they’re, like, not perfect obviously (perfection is an unattainable ideal), but i’m fucking proud of them. i didn’t spend 5 hours hunched over my laptop adjusting the red line of the devil because it’s not a devil’s line anymore. because i finally sorta get how people work. because i sat down and i said ‘we are not going to fuck with this misery shit anymore’ and then i did that. it’s just a line now.

here are 2 collages tracking my painstakingly carved out progress from january 2nd to february 2nd because i’m a slut for collages

and here’s what i’ve done to my art! the same person drew these but also Not Really! you know! for the first time in a year i don’t immediately hate what i’ve drawn. you know what guys? art is fucking fun. zelda’s forehead doesn’t scare me anymore because i know how foreheads fucking work now, and i don’t know everything, and i’m going to keep troubleshooting stuff as i go (i want to draw a skeleton. like a. i want to draw a goddamn skeleton guys) but i’m honestly and genuinely proud of what i’ve done in the span of a month, and i’m also in disbelief. i started this month-long challenge out as a last ditch effort to make peace with my art because i’ve been tired for a long time and i was ready to kick the bucket on drawing people altogether. i didn’t think anything would happen. nothing’s happened for years. i’ve been miserable for years.

this was the caption for january 1st, 2021. i was super, super fucking embarrassed and it looks like super fucking shit, but you know what, i think i did in fact triumph over the bullshit. surprisingly enough, when you put in consistent effort into something, You Will See Results. didn’t see that coming, did you? i know i didn’t.

this isn’t a success story. it’s a happiness story. i never gave a shit damn about the institute of art or whatever, i was just mad at myself because what i saw in my head didn’t match up with what was on the canvas. and now it’s getting better. now i’m calibrating the compass. now drawing not just backgrounds but also people is exciting to me, and i can stick my links in your face and tell you ‘they hot’. i’m going to keep doing that. i’m going to keep going until i drop off the side of the earth and then spiral towards mars like some kind of fairy, and then i’m going to create something beautiful.

thanks for reading. here’s a pr department link for sticking around until the end

[mass-convergence]

Midshift might be the time my brain just figures shit out and gets super introspective. Anyway thoughts on stuff here in regards to [gestures to body] so we're getting into dysmorphia and shit. Proceed with caution. Also it's like a novel.

I have a very weird relationship with people being proud of their breasts. Like I'm going to first preface this with: Being proud of your body is amazing and you should definitely not stop being proud of it. This is my own personal hang-ups on my own view of my body and I'm not here to police how people feel about their own bodies.

But okay...

This all likely stems from back in middle school when things were ... ahem ... developing on my chest area.

At first I didn't really even notice it. I mean I was wearing a training bra that I knew was fitting a little tighter every passing week but aside from that I just went on my merry, oblivious way.

Well that changed rather suddenly I'm shopping for school clothes with my mom and I'm still at the age where she just stands in the dressing room with me. Which is a whole other thing but anyway...

Yeah she notices that the bra definitively does not fit me anymore and proclaims that we need to go get me a proper fitting bra. And I really can't describe the feeling I had in that moment.

Mortification may be the best way to describe it. It got worse when I'm standing in the dressing room trying out bras and I keep hearing other women around me just joking about their breasts and speaking light heartedly about them. And I just am staring in the mirror realizing "Oh fuck I'm going to have these things for the rest of my life".

Words cannot describe how much I didn't want to have breasts and hearing the women in the other stalls like talking about them candidly just made me feel like something was wrong with me for not being proud of them. And that still kind of leaks into today.

And I can also probably say I've just got weird hangups about nudity in general. I grew up in a Roman Catholic household and while anatomy was generally discussed (my parents are both doctors - I got an hour long lecture about how periods happen) and I don't really remember having any specific anti-nudity/puritanical shit said to me except for maybe from my super religious grandma ... I can say that getting dressed at PE was probably the worst experience I've had in school and that wasn't even like ... nudity. That was people in underwear.

Then in middle and high schools I was really into anime and manga and well if you know the levels of uh... objectification that go into some of those stories. You can guess how even more uncomfortable 15 year old me got with knowing I have boobs. Especially since I was graced with the lovely fact that mine are kind of on the larger side. God I still sometimes see myself in the mirror and I just .... see that art work or the anime with big breasted ladies like running around and I feel a weird sense of self disgust.

Anyway ... to this day I really can't stand conversations about sex, fetishes, bodies (both male and female) ... I've gotten slightly better about it and I will not and have never judged anyone for talking about stuff that's completely normal to talk about in a setting where everyone consented to that kind of discussion. I'm not like a complete prude where I'm just like, "everyone must be 'innocent' and discuss safe things like the weather".

I just know that when the conversation about specifically the female form comes up or my friend opts to not wear a bra ... I am painfully aware of my own anatomy and I just realize how much I don't want that anatomy.

TL;DR - I have a lot of baggage when it comes to my gender and anatomy. Discussions about which make me feel incredibly uncomfortable but I'm not policing people on it. This was just a long and slightly incoherent rant stemming from around 15 years (pretty sure puberty hit when I was around 13 y.o.) of realizing that this is not exactly the body I want.

I like everything else about it and I'm sure if I bulked up and lost a little bit of fat I'd have a jawline that could slice a man's jugular. But anyway ... the chesticles have gots to go.

[rataltouille]

BONFIRE, BONFIRE!: A COLLECTION OF FLASH FICTION + POETRY

so i’ve decided to compile all twenty [these will be split into two so that the post isn’t super long] of the writing pieces i’ve done for my random celebration into one post so that it’s easier to read / access share!! you can also find it here, all put into one work, on wattpad, because i feel nostalgic about that website and decided to just post it!!

NOTE: i know that this shouldn't need to be said, but these 20 pieces belong to me so please don’t copy/repurpose it for your writing!! i plan on using these somewhere in my own writing and either way they’re stuff i’ve written so don’t use them!!

1. cooking + destructive + purple from @andiwriteunderthemoon [also i kind of cheated with this prompt and asked my sis @dreamscanbenightmarestoo for ideas and so the base idea’s from her!!]

I didn’t mean to set my house on fire, alright?

Let me set the scene: I’m sitting in my room, watching the infomercials that blur together, and suddenly there’s a bright purple flash on the glitching screen: /grapes/. They’re shiny, plump, and oh? A recipe for fine wine? Don’t mind if I do. So I pop into my kitchen and cut the grapes, dice them up, finally using the knife after years of not cooking— /mother, are you proud of me now?/— and stick the soft, luminescent fluid into a glass bottle. Following each step of the recipe.

The recipe didn’t mention an explosion.

Destruction rained around my house like a meteor shower. The bubbles from the fluid, frisking up at contact with metal, swam across my shoes and into the living room. It touched the TV, which still flashed the recipe, which I was still cursing at. And then, you know, it burnt up. The couch scorched first, I think. So that was fun. I later realised that I’d used my reserve of petroleum, which I’d put in my kitchen cabinet, instead of vinegar. I think I’ve got to move back in with my mother again.

2. running + quiet + sky blue from @kryskakikomi [i have no idea what this is i drafted this in a fever dream state]

Summer crawled up his skin like a worm. He was seated at his dining table, crosswording his way through the sticky morning, when it struck him that the humidity was new. He’d been caught in summer before, of course, but this year was different. His parents had whisked away to their hometown, and he still didn’t understand why he wasn’t allowed to go. He loved their home— he could have been running on beach sand and waves could have cruised over his feet, and his face would reflect sky blue under palm trees. Instead he sat doodling and scratching at cement walls in a quiet that nagged at his ears, grappling his flesh like a fishing hook, reeling him in. Boredom, him sister told him, before she also left for someone’s home. What would you know? he whispered once the door latched from the outside. Maybe /she’d/ like to sit on the same wooden chair, all the pink paint worn out, and scratch out squares of empty text until the pen poked through the other hand. He scoffed. At least he knew the number of scars on the wood; he could hold that over her when his parents returned.

3. hallucinate + hazy + violet from @chloeswords [i wanted to write something dreamy and ethereal but everytime i look at your url i’m reminded of church mud and indirectly my religious trauma so here we are 🤡]

We hold the book in our arms and chant for God. We don’t know what he looks like. They say that he’s sharp, never pixelating or blurring or showing through, like a hazy image would. No, children, our family says, he will come clothed in gold and velvet— the colour a deep and rich crimson, or chartreuse. And of course, he weaves a violet into his hair. Because he is just that humble. Just that gentle. Loving.

We’ve almost understood now. Pray, clasp our palms together into a transient equinox, and pray. Maybe he will shine down on us. Maybe we will speak so loud and chant so long that our lips will chap. Maybe we’ll simply hallucinate him to salve our bones. Our family says, he will bless you. And so he will.

4. halcyon + pluviophile + beige from anon [i was yearning for cats i am a cat person i love cats]

I remember my life before I moved to London,

Those halcyon days that I spent scooping up cat litter and brushing warm fur,

Being a mother to beige and white and black little felines.

They keep better company than humans.

Now I’m a self-proclaimed businesswoman, artist, influencer, pluviophile,

Even when I’ve barely stepped foot outside during the rain,

[But it needs to be said that when it rains in London, it pours].

I think I’d like to open a cat cafe;

I’m rich enough to pull it off.

5. sing + vulnerable + olive green from @occiidens [this was actually super fun to write because it’s a break from the typically unhinged stories i gravitate towards]

You watch from the highest hill of your town, hand wrapped around the serrated wood of a red oak tree. The bark pokes into your flesh, drawing blood that shouldn’t have been taken from you. You scowl. Just another thing that lives to cause you pain.

Three storeys down is a young man, short and smiling and lovely. He has dark skin and darker hair, walking with the stride of a deer, and he’s smiling; the joy reflects onto your face, even though you can’t hear him. He wears a cotton shirt, the olive green stark against the fire-blue sky. You call out, sing his name, three times in a row.

When he finally looks up, squinting as you silhouette under the sun, the smile widens. A wave. You’re suddenly overcome with embarrassment. Your palm digs into the bark until the wound is freshly dug again, the skin supple and vulnerable. You want to wave, but your hands would look so awkward, and the blood wouldn't help. So you turn on your heel and run— why are you so awkward?— and the grass around you is brighter. This is now a tomorrow issue, you conclude. You’re still smiling.

6. dislocate + ostentatious + blood red from @oasis-of-you [this got really unhinged really fast. TW: body horror]

If you take a turn at Finn Avenue,

Rogue your way down a blood red river,

[It’s not actual blood, do not worry. The colour’s a pigment and it’s saturated enough to give you the texture, the touch, the taste of blood, but I repeat, it isn’t true blood. You might think that it’s ostentatious of us to make you cross a river like that, but you’ll understand why.]

And if can stick your fingers inside the fluid,

You’ll find a bone.

Don’t pull it out fully! Only observe.

[This is a real bone, most likely animal. We may be ominous, but we don’t hurt humans. Not yet.]

So what do you do now? You want passage into a better world.

You came here because you saw the brochure, the flyer,

Radiant Idyll, home for love, but you also saw the jutting anatomy that leads to the city. The pictures were rather clear.

Why do you look so surprised? We’ve put this on the brochure— don’t you ever read the fine print?— to avoid this exact situation. That you would cross a body, a skeleton, pooled over in a fluid that we don’t name, but it’s probably alive.

It’s watching you right now.

So what do you do now?

Hurry up, unhinge your arm, dislocate the elbow, drop it into the blood, forgive me, false blood, and pay for your passage.

Oh! Excellent; that’s record time. We do hope you enjoy your stay!

1. @noteaboy [i’ve interpreted your url as ”note, a boy���]

There’s an orange tree. It’s spring, and there’s an orange tree, and it brims with fruit and citrus perfume. Point your lens flare downwards, and note, a boy. A young man, perhaps, because he combs his hair, uptight and firm, and he wears a tie. A long suit. He doesn’t look up, because his hand holds a book. /He/ holds the book, not the hands— tenderness doesn’t translate through anatomy, I’ve taught you this before. He’s waiting for someone. There’s only the rustle of leaves. He drops the book onto the lap of the tree, crushing the apple that had fallen down. Orange, not apple. Take note better. You only have one chance to get this right.

2. @eatingjupiter [your url is so beautiful omg]

The goddess had said this before she died: you need to watch over him. He needs your sentry to survive. The goddess’ words weren’t heeded. Little baby Jupiter tottered on lava as him parents small-talked with their kingdom. Well, it must have been small talk, because nothing seemed to happen afterwards other than his mother’s face collapsing in agony, anger, annoyance. He knew not to touch them then. He’d fly off into the sun one day, but if his hands were but and charred, he wouldn’t survive even a third of the journey.

The prophecy was simple: the firstborn to the kingdom will metamorph into a celestial, purify themselves so that only stardust remains. Live in the sky forever. The astrologers were baffled; you don’t just become a star. They should have heeded the goddess.

Jupiter was sixteen when he expanded and collapsed all at once. He still lives, they say, and the astrologers /were/ right, in a way: people just don’t become stars. They become almost empty space. Nobody knows if his hands were burnt when they left earth’s orbit forever.

3. @laughtracksonata [your name gave me slight horror vibes idk why!!]

Hahaha. The Horror Movie (don’t ask me for a name, I’m not good with those), with its cymbal crashing and plastic sounds, it’s so loud and scary that it hurts, father. Please turn it off.

Father doesn't listen. I shiver on the couch. The screen flickers like radio static and reflects off our wide eyes. What kind of a home is this anyway? I don’t want to fucking listen to a laugh track or a horror VHS tape or watch the bass crescendo as the serial killer jumpscares the watcher. I don’t think that having hour pupils glued to the same blood-splattered movie, with the same recording looping in his eardrums will help him. He laughs along, sometimes. It’s scary. Father needs a new hobby.

PART TWO COMING SOON!!

anyway this got REALLY long so i’m posting the third prompt group, the one based on songs, as a second part in some time. i hope you enjoy this, and PLEASE do boost!! i spent a lot of time writing these pieces and am pretty proud of them :’)

general taglist: @lovingyou-is @guulabjamuns @andiwriteunderthemoon @coffeeandcalligraphy @melonmilk @silentlylostwriter @charles-joseph-writes @eklavvya @eowynandfaramir @bitterwitchwrites @laughtracksonata @whatwordsdidnttouch @indeliblewrites @thenataliawrites @summersguilt @illimani-gibberish @sarahkelsiwrites @writing-in-delirium @shaelinwrites @sienna-writes @chewingthescenery @jennawritesstories @chloeswords @aelenko @keira-is-writing @cherylinanika @infinitely-empty-pages @jmtwrites @august-iswriting @freedelusionbanana @beetleblue88 @mistercaleb @iwannawritepls @hanwatchingmovies @mortallynuttyqueen @idratherliveinnarnia @maisulli @thegreyboywrites @ahowlinwolf @ravens-and-rivers @oasis-of-you @yanittawrites @chazza-writes-sometimes @skyfirewrites @lovebenders @treybriggsthewriter @themidnxghtwriter @ash-karter @queen-devasena @a-procrastination-addict @gaymityblight @beyondthebracken @madmaxst26 @adielwrites @moonpixxel @hollow-knight-dnd @keep-looking-here @overlap @ashleygarciawrites @ryns-ramblings​ @wordsbynathan @novaemlynlewis​ @sophiewritingstuff​ @howdy-writes​ @occiidens​ @nsanelyawkward​ @viawrites-andacts​

[kkpaaw]

Seashell Trolls

This is gonna be a. long post so be prepared.

First let me start off with the general. These guys came to my mind randomly yesterday and I just had to make them. So i did. I spent pretty much all day today working on these guys and whole they may look wierd, I love them and am really proud of how they look

So why make a sea based Troll species? Simple. It's because we have literally only one. The Techno Trolls. The ocean is vast and there are so many creatures to base Trolls off of in the ocean so I figured why not make a sea Troll species? We have a bunch of land trolls so let's add onto the sea ones ok? I know these guys may not look like trolls to some of yall but considering that this is basically an AU I'm not worried about that lmao

Anyway lemme stop rambling and introduce yall to the Seashell Trolls!

First thing I wanna show yall is this sheet I made

This basically goes over the important aspects of their anatomy and what makes them seashell trolls

ANATOMY

• Fisrt thing to note is that these guys are small. In fact they actually match Smidge in terms of height(and we all know how small Smidge is)

• Unlike smidge though(who has her strength and hair to make up for her small stature) Seashell Trolls have none of that. They are a pretty weak species and their shells, depending on the size, only add a little bit of height

• Speaking of shells, notice how the center focus Shell Troll has a small shell while the ones at the bottom have bigger ones? That's because there isn't just one size for shells not just one kind either, they can be any kind and any shape.

• Another thing to note is that they aren't actually born with the shells, Shellings(baby Seashell Trolls) seek them out when they hatch, like an instinct sort of thing.

• Because of this, in order to help the Shellings get a shell without going too far from safety. They have an area in their home that specifically has millions of Unused/Unclaimed shells that their parents can take their Shelling to claim a shell.

• Picking a shell isn't just some random thing for Seashell Trolls. It's a sacred one time thing as Shelling's only pick shells they feel bonds with, meaning that their shells mean a lot to them and they don't just swap out or get rid of the shells. They stick with them for life

• Another things to note is the antennae on the Seashell Trolls. They have two different types of Antennas, Prickly/Fuzzy and Coral.

BIOLOGY

• Jumping right to it they can spit water at others(think of a blowhole from a whale or a dolphin but with their mouths) it's not all that powerful it's mostly used as a way to distract a predator or just have fun

• Despite being very small, they are surprisingly fast and can be very tricky to catch if they aren't caught off guard

• They also are amazing trackers, as they can sense the heat trail that living beating emitting and therefore can track others long after they have dissapeared. They also often find all types of valuable items

• Seashell Trolls tend to come in all sorts of crazy colors with many having multiple colors on their bodies as shown below.

• In contrast their shells are usually dull in color. This helps them to blend into the sand if they need too.

• Bonding is something that Seashell trolls take seriously. You don't bond with someone(s) unless you plan to stay mates for life

• When a seashell troll is courting someone(s) they will usually start the courting process by breaking off a piece of their shell and giving it to their person of courting, usually by making a piece of jewelry with it. This is a sign that the troll is serious in their courtship as said above, Seashell trolls value their shells and never separate from them once chosen as a Shelling

• Seashell Trolls can mate with anyone of any gender, but in order to have a kid they would need a mate(or mates)

HOME AND GOVERNMENT

• Seashell Trolls live in groups all throughout the ocean(like shells) the biggest group(and the one I'm focusing on for any future drawings of this species) resides in a small underwater rocky coral reef close to the first level of the seafloor as they like to remain close to the sand incase they need to dig under it to protect themselves

• Due to being such a weak and small species, they actually heavily reli on bigger creatures(like crabs or lobsters) to offer protection from others predators(the kicker is that crabs and lobsters are common predators for them so they are basically seeking help from one of their predators)

• This has created a very unbalanced system for them however, as their protectors often require they work for them and do almost impossible tasks in the threat that if they don't, they won't offer their protection anymore

• This particular group is under the rule of Queen Urbosa, a large Lobster who has offered her protection in return that the Seashell trolls do whatever she says, in which they agreed.

• She's not a good one and often abuses the absolute hell out of her power which ends up going bad for the Seashell Trolls

• She's actually forbid them from singing and dancing outloud unless they are performing for her so if they want to sing they have to be quiet or be secret about it

MUSIC

• Please don't kill me, but I'm making their music genre Nightcore

I KNOW I KNOW, Nightcore isn't an actual official Genre because of the fact that it basically takes pre-existing music and just makes it high pitch and sped up, I'm well aware. However, it still is under EDM like Techno and since I imagine Shell Trolls having high pitched voices(with the exception of a rare few) it works for me

_____

ALRIGHTY

You still here? If so great! You've reached the end!

I truly hope you guys like them because I worked really hard on them and I'm super proud of how they came out(heck even if u don't I'm still happy with em). Do, very much do, expect to see more from the Seashell Trolls as I will be expanding on their universe and introduce you to some characters I'll be mainly focusing on (hint hint you've already seen them)

Bye bye for now!

[acloudofsparklingdust]

hi

I was also raised 7th day Adventist and I’m a closeted lesbian. I don’t hate my religion..because I personally didn’t have a bad experience with it in my childhood, but it clashes a lot with my beliefs and well parts of my identity. I’m feeling a bit helpless because this religion has been a big part of my life, a lot of strong women I look up to in my life are sda, and my local sda community is very wholesome. And by now you can sense my reluctance in letting it go. I’ve been coping by thinking I should find a gay-friendly sda church once I move out.. if I ever get married. What’s your journey been like? 🪴

Hey! I don't meet a lot of sda online, it's interesting to hear a different perspective. I'm gonna go into everything, bc my experiences with sda really shaped me, and yeah, it's been a wild, not so fun ride.

Basically I was baptized catholic as an infant, but my family isn't practicing catholic. My mom is very religious, and wanted me to have a good education... In Brazil, we have very poor public education in primary and secondary school, and the best schools are the private ones... Which are also religious schools. So I wound up studying in a sda school from kindergarten to highschool graduation.

So from a young age (4 yo) I was raised on my school's religious beliefs. I was really involved, and my childhood best friend was also sda, she lived a couple floors down from me and we'd hang out often, and her family would bring me to church on Saturdays (there was a sda church across the street from the apartments we lived in). I was the staple Christian child, I prayed every night and every morning, apart from all the prayer at school ofc. At 8yo they did a talk at school about the importance of baptism, and I asked my parents to allow me to be baptized as sda. My mom surprisingly didn't want me to be baptized again, not so young, but my dad said I should do what I wanted, so I was baptized again at the school's church. Literally the school had an auditorium for our weekly religion-related classes, which we called "chapel", and was basically like going to church – but mandatory, as it was during school time. This specific school also had a church built on the side, so yeah.

During my early childhood through preteen years I had no issues with the school's teachings and sda ideology. It was all I had ever known, my family encouraged religion and we'd also sometimes (rarely) go to catholic church. I honestly didn't even realize people could not believe in god until I was 12/13.

I had never really heard much about being gay, or being anti gay during primary school - I may have forgotten having ever heard it from teachers. I only heard about homophobia from peers, and so I knew that being gay was a bad, evil, gross thing.

When I was around 11/12 we moved to a smaller town, and I started at a smaller Adventist school. I was the only one in my small newly found friend group who was baptized, and moving was very traumatic for me, so I started becoming less active in church. I became severely depressed because of the move and other stuff at home, and turned to the internet for a distraction.

I first heard about atheism from a youtuber, and he was known for his controversial takes (he's pretty nasty, it's only gotten worse with time but anyway). I guess a mixture of depression, becoming a teen, having my rebellious phase, I started researching into it.

My religion teacher (we had "religion" classes, but they should really have been called "7th Day Adventism classes") was much harsher than the one I had at my first school. This was around the time that Twilight was a big deal, and I read those books sooo many times for comfort, I got into Harry Potter etc. Not long after I moved to this school, we had a religion class about how Harry Potter was inspired by the devil. My books were often confiscated during class, even if I had already finished my assignments and was reading quietly, even if they were just on my desk. Being super depressed and introverted, with very few friends, books were my refuge. Having the teachers look down on them and literally say they were devilish and evil really started to shift my view of the religion. I knew these were good books, I loved them. So how could they be evil?

I have a very strong memory of praying and praying once and begging Jesus and god to help me, to give me a sign, because I was terrified of losing my religion, of losing god. All I had learned my whole life was that god is good, god is love etc. How come god wasn't helping me, my family, through some of the worst times? How come I was alone?

At around 12/13 my cousin came out to me as bi, and soon after another cousin came out as gay. I barely fully understood what that meant, and the internet was again where I researched about it. I realized I liked girls at the time, but I never understood you could even be married to a woman, as a woman. Even though I knew I liked and was attracted to girls, I never let myself think too much on it. The school was pretty obvious about how marriage is between a man and a woman, our "sex talk" was a class with our religion teacher. Bio talk was split, the boys left the room so we could learn about female anatomy and stuff, and then the boys had the room, etc. Our religious teacher was very adamant about how one shouldn't have sex before marriage, and marriage was between a man and a woman so...

Honestly the basework they laid was to erase homosexuality. I didn't even grasp that I could be anything but attracted to girls, I didn't realize I could do anything about it.

And then in highschool, I guess bc we were old enough, they finally started being outspoken about their hatred of gay people. There would be snide comments from the Portuguese/Lit teacher, a disgusting talk from the History teacher about how gay men's sexual activity leads to anal incontinence, the Religion teacher saying it was wrong, comparing it to criminality, the school's vice principal giving us a lecture and making sure to hammer in the worst thing anyone could turn out to be was homosexual.

At this point I thought I was okay with my same sex attraction, I thought these things weren't getting under my skin. But then I learned about being trans, and I came to the conclusion that since I was into girls, I couldn't be a woman. I identified as trans from around 15-19. That was internalized misogyny and homophobia, that was me actually letting all the snide little comments settle deep in me, and shape who I was.

Anyway, at around 14 I was done. School was teaching us that bastard kids aren't blessed by god (me and my siblings are all "bastards" as my parents were never married). They told us couples who lived together and we're never married were not blessed by god, and implied they were bound to have issues for their sin.

I was a teenager living in a broken home, my father was emotionally abusive to me and my mother, and honestly at the end of the day I had to choose if I wanted to believe in a god who was supposedly love itself, yet didn't protect me and my young siblings and my mom... Or not believe in god at all.

Leaving the church and coming to terms with not believing in god was one of the toughest times in my life. My depression was in the gutter, I was self harming, I was struggling. I remember thinking of my cousins, whom I was very close with growing up, and knowing they were good people, so how could god not love then? I remember thinking of myself, of all I had done for the church, for god, and wondering how could god not accept me.

For me, the church was poison. I only saw hypocrisy, I saw people who judged each other, who cared more about their own concepts of right and wrong than being mindful of others. I saw my teachers who preached being kind, but ridiculed and laughed at other religions and those who believed them. When I was questioning religion, I always had sooo many questions for my religion teacher and so often she just told me that some questions were too big for us to understand, that only god could fully comprehend himself.

I'm proud to have come out the other side, but I won't lie. The community that church represents does seem so lovely and welcoming. I wanted to be a part of something, and church offered that.

But at the end of the day, there's no space for me, a lesbian, in there. They don't believe gay marriage is okay, they don't condone our "lifestyle". They think this is a choice we're making, and a bad one at that.

The childhood friend I mentioned earlier, who I used to go to church with, actually came out as a lesbian a couple years ago as well. Her sda family is giving her a really hard time. She's left the church, last I heard.

Honestly, my advice would be to find other community. Find community with other lesbians, people who can accept you unconditionally, who can offer you support without small print. That's what I'm trying to do.

I personally am against christianity for a lot of other reasons besides my very negative experiences. Maybe that's not you, and in that case I guess finding a church that is LGB friendly can be the answer. I couldn't judge anyone for choosing to stay, because like I said I really understand how nice it can feel, how it's like you belong in this community, how it can feel like the church is family.

But I really suggest deep soulsearching, because in my experience all they ever did for me was suck all my energy, all my devotion, and spit me out when I was never going to be the heterosexual good girl they expected me to be.

Sorry for the super long answer, I hope this helps some? If you wanna talk more in private you can hit me up through DMs, I'm very willing to listen and talk about it.

[kirby-the-gorb]

reply roundup!

highlights from the past couple weeks:

a commission for a friend of their oc gorbified [here]

the valentine’s stickers separated out into individual valentines [here]

another patreon drawing for this month of lukeperiodsun and their partner gorbified [here]

new throw pillow design posted on [society6] (as well as relisting the blanket design from november)

finally added a tag for kirby’s bear [kirbear], and a general tag for [plushies]

more [lolita kirb] because it’s my blog and I choose the aesthetic :v

there is also a new image description [here] by @crowsami​ on the kirby running through a field. thank you very much! (and I hope your assignment went okay :> )

and sticker club design and signups should be posted on monday march 1st :> $5 patreon tier for a 4-sticker sheet, charged on april 1st and shipped hopefully promptly after. (I have a theme picked out already :3 and yes, if you want to combine two tiers we can make that happen.)

I guess it’s been a busy couple weeks, huh!

on [pillow]:

@redphienix said: A Perfect Spherical Friend

extremely round! extremely good!

@mysterygreentea said: he is friend shaped and full of love

dang it that’s what I forgot in the anatomy gif! he is full of love. -u-

on [ocean]:

@the-halo-of-my-memory said: look how happy he is, this is so cute, precious baby. your art always brings a smile to my face

he’s just having a good time! and I’m glad it makes you smile :>

@mangomybeloved said: A BABY!!!!!!!! SWIMMING!!!!!!!!! ty ray for sending me this!! ilysm!

this is so cute, someone sending my art to someone else out of affection :’> (I’m sure it happens more often than I get to see! but it makes me happy to get to see it!)

on [sewing]:

@gigilefache said: he stitch, adorable

he is being careful with his nubbins.

@bubblesthesanddragon said: mood :)

sometimes you just gotta “:)”

on [garden]:

@angst-and-fajitas said: Kirby loves tomatoes, right? Maybe he's got some of those!

ooh, I bet you’re right!

(this reminds me that in high school I dated someone who would just eat tomatoes like apples, and they went to a different school. so sometimes their school ended before mine, and they’d just. come stand in my classroom and eat a tomato in the corner. they were very odd, but it’s hard to be normal and date me XD )

on [bear]:

@creative-impacts said: Kirby looks so proud of their toy and honestly- same :) ADORABLE WORK ON THIS! YOU GAVE KIRBY SO MUCH EXPRESSION IN A SMALL PRIDEFUL SMILE!

aww, thank you! there’s only so many poses a kirby can make so small changes in expression make a big difference :> (also your blog seems wonderfully positive, I hope you’re enjoying running it!)

on [smash]:

@edgybocfan said: Wait why did I come in this room... musta been important I smashed a hole in the wall. Huh, oh well *leaves through the hole in the wall*

this made me laugh, thank you! we’ve all been there before lol

@shin-holly said: COLOURS WEAVE INTO A SPIRE OF FLAME—

(I had to look up the reference, it’s the lyrics from the World of Light song from smash bros -u- ) oh no! not here! lol

on [kirblita]:

@the-halo-of-my-memory said: so cute. i should buy a dress i dont have any. i should look into that, either something super cute or witchy

I did not like dresses At All when I was spending a lot of time walking, but now that I use my wheelchair suddenly they’re much more practical lol. and I bet you can find something that is both cute *and* witchy if that’s what you really want :>

on [run]:

@aggron-rocks said: there he go!!

@fiendir said: Look at him go!!

@dragonofcupcake said: wooo run little man

I like the way all three of these comments look grouped together -u- like kirby is running a race and everyone is cheering!

@askluckyandfriends said: Cool! I always like to look at your art :D

thank you! (I like looking at my art too, so it’s nice I’m not the only one XD )

on [anatomy]:

@hypertomboi said: ty for the anatomy lesson op

vital knowledge for raising a happy healthy kirb.

@grand-star said: Oh boy it's true

only true facts here!

@epsilonnot said: v v good. i was picturing like an xray with just a single cartoon bone in the stomach but this is much more delightful

you know what, that would be at least equally hilarious tbh.

@askluckyandfriends said: Best thing ever

the scientists tried to warn us but he was just too cute! (thank you!)

from the ask box:

@askluckyandfriends said: Hi! ...Oh come on I don't remember what I wanted to say anymore agh. Anyways, have a wonderful day! Your drawings are all super good!

oh no lol that happens to me too. I hope you have a wonderful day too, and thank you!

anonymous said: Your kirbies make my day

aww, thank you! it makes me happy to know a silly little project I started for myself makes others happy too.

[kimjoongs]

—ateez college au series [psh]

so seonghwa is a nursing major bc why not and no this isnt bc im also a nursing major or maybe it is idk shh

he wanted to become a nurse bc his mom was one, and he saw how much she adored her job

plus seonghwa is a self-less and caring person, so this was the perfect choice for him

he lives in an apartment on campus with his roommate hongjoong and it’s both a blessing and a curse

it was a blessing because his and hongjoong’s personalities matched very well, so they rarely had arguments

but it was also a curse bc joong was a music production major so he’d be producing music in his room, which normally wasn’t a problem, but on nights where seonghwa was studying for his exams, hongjoong would be in the room next door blasting music

usually all seonghwa had to do was knock on his door and ask him to keep it down, but there were nights where he would just pack up his stuff and study at the campus library instead

he often stayed for about 3-4 hours or more if he had an exam the next day

hwa really liked anatomy and phys but absolutely despised chemistry

“what the hell is the difference between polar and nonpolar? wait, why does this lewis structure only have 2 bonds? shouldn’t it have 3? ah shit i forgot an electron–”

sometimes hongjoong would come out of his room to get a glass of water only to find hwa asleep at the kitchen table with a copy of the periodic table on his head

he loves getting to wear his scrubs on lab day bc 1) scrubs are super comfortable and 2) it gets him excited thinking about the future

he also started volunteering at the nursing college in the labs

he’d help the lab ops set up the labs, refill the fluids, repack the medication, or clean up the simulation rooms

this also gave him the opportunity to get to know his future professors, and he would never admit it, but whilst he was volunteering, he would admire the older nursing students wearing the official university scrubs

it made him that much more determined to get into nursing school

during his first semester his second year, he had less of a workload compared to his first year, so he had more free time and was able to go out more

one day hongjoong asked seonghwa if he wanted to hang out with a few of his friends, and he said yes

so the two of them went out to this nearby boba cafe where hongjoong’s friends mingi, san, and wooyoung were waiting for him

you were there as well, tagging along as a mutual friend of san’s, and he introduced you to the two them

“hey hongjoong, seonghwa, this is my friend y/n! i hope it’s cool if they come along. i needed to drag them out of their room or else they’d be studying for hours on end,” san teased, knocking your head lightly w his fist

you stuck your tongue out at him then turned to shake hongjoong’s and seonghwa’s hands

when you made eye contact with the latter, his face lit up with recognition “oh wait, y/n? you’re in my pathophysiology class right?”

“oh yeah, i sit right behind you. nice to meet you, seonghwa!” you flashed him a smile, and he smile back

after everyone introduced themselves, you all found a table and ordered your drinks

mingi, san, and seonghwa sat on one side of the booth whilst you, wooyoung, and hongjoong sat on the other

you were quite surprised, and quite relieved, at how well you were fitting in and getting along with hongjoong and seonghwa…especially seonghwa

during the time that you all were together, seonghwa found out that you were a nursing major too and the two of you launched into a full blown discussion about it, unaware of the looks the others were giving you both

hongjoong had a faint smile on his face, mingi was chuckling and shaking his head, and san and wooyoung were giving each other knowing smirks

at the end of the night, seonghwa had asked you for your number in case yall wanted to study tgt, and you happily obliged

then you all said your farewells and went your separate ways

a few days pass and you don’t hear from seonghwa, which was quite understandable considering the fact that it was midterm season and you were both busy

but you were also kind of looking forward to study with him, he seemed really smart and self-disciplined which was exactly the type of study buddy you needed

but another couple days pass and lo and behold you receive a text from the one and only park seonghwa that reads: hey you wanna study tgt for the patho exam at the library today?

ofc you said yes and half an hr later, you found yourself at the library sitting right across from seonghwa

the two of you had your laptops, notebooks, and handouts spread all over the tables and were completely in the zone

after an hr or two of straight studying, you suggested taking a small break and that’s where the two of you got to talking abt nursing and why you both chose to major in it

“well my mom’s a nurse, and when i was younger she would always talk about how much she loved her job. she’s super hardworking and cares about her patients, and that’s how i want to be someday. plus as a nurse, if i could just make someone’s day just a little bit better, then that’s all that matters to me.”

needless to say, you were captivated by the raw passion and love seonghwa had for his future career, and you couldn’t help but admire him for it

after your short break, the two of you went back to studying, but this time yall would often make eye contact and send each other encouraging smiles

you found yourself slowly becoming more comfortable with seonghwa as the time passed by

and after that, the two you started having more and more study sessions, growing closer and closer

whenever an exam or quiz was coming up, you two would always be found studying tgt whether it was at his apartment or the library

and that’s when the hesi exam came in

the amount of time you guys spent studying for regular exams was nothing compared to the amount of time yall spent studying for the hesi

on the day of, you and hwa were practically freaking out

“oh my god y/n i’m so scared. what if i forget how to do the conversions? what if i forget everything i learned in anatomy? what if i forget basic grammar–”

“hwa shut up you’re making me nervous!”

basically yall are a wreck from the beginning of the exam all the way to the end, and once yall walk out of that testing room you almost collapse

anyways fast forward a few weeks later it’s almost the end of the semester and also around the time where you would be receiving your letter saying whether or not you were accepted into the program

it was a friday night and the entire gang was at your apartment having a movie night

you were looking thru your emails when you stumbled upon one from your university, and when you saw what the subject was you screamed, scaring the living daylights out of mingi who was sitting next you

“y/n what the hell–” “guys, guys my nursing school letter came in oh my god, oh my god!”

the entire room went silent for a millisecond before san let out a shriek and soon everyone was crowding around you

hongjoong gripped seonghwa’s shoulder “did you get yours yet?”

the latter’s eyes widened in realization and he also whipped out his phone, letting out a choked gasp when he saw the same email “mine came in too!”

at this point all of yall were freaking the hell out, and you and seonghwa somehow found each other’s hands and held them tightly tgt

“okay, okay, okay!” you reposition yourself on the couch so you were facing your fellow nursing major “on the count of three we open it at the same time, yeah?” all seonghwa did was nod

“alright, one…two…three!” everyone held their breath and it seemed like an eternity had passed…and then you and seonghwa jumped up from the couch

“i got in!” you yelled at the same time, which caused the others to belt out the loudest cheers you’ve ever heard

overwhelmed with excitement and pride, you threw yourself onto seonghwa and gave him the tightest hug, and he wrapped his arms around your waist, gently lifting you off the ground

when you guys separated, both your eyes widened at the lack of space btwn the two of you, and you immediately jumped away from each other

“um,” you cleared your throat “i’m…i’m really proud of you, hwa.” he gave you the softest of smiles, one that made your heart race even more than it was right now

“i’m proud of you too, y/n.”

aaaand fast forward again to the beginning of the next semester! you and seonghwa were officially in the clinical portion of the nursing program which meant you two were now able to wear the university’s official nursing scrubs seonghwa probably cried a little when he first tried his on

and since yall were in the program tgt, you saw each other more frequently, even more compared to the previous semester

which certainly didnt help alleviate the strong emotions you were feeling ever since the two of you shared that small, intimate moment just a couple months prior

before you didnt use to feel anything when you hung out with seonghwa, but now just thinking abt him was enough to get you all giddy and nervous at the same time

it had reached a point where you couldnt take it anymore, so you decided to seek help from the one person who knew seonghwa best: his best friend and roommate, hongjoong

when you met up with him and poured out what it was you were feeling, hongjoong sent you a fond, knowing smile “y/n…you like him. romantically, i mean.” 

you gaped “i…what?”

“you, y/n, have romantic feelings for my best friend, seonghwa.”

“i..i like him? i don’t…i don’t have–” you froze upon seeing the way hongjoong raised his eyebrows at you

“i…i like…i like seonghwa,” you finally breathed out. hongjoong’s gaze softened and he chuckled “took you long enough…now if only seonghwa could stop being a coward and just ask you out already,” he mumbled the second part under his breath

not knowing what to do with the information you had just uncovered abt yourself, you thought it’d a good idea (read: it was the stupidest idea) to distance yourself from seonghwa for a bit, just long enough for you to process the thoughts racing thru your mind

you were unaware, however, of how you distancing yourself might look like from seonghwa’s pov

he’s noticed you not hanging out with him as much anymore outside of class, and during class whenever he’d try to talk to you, you’d just scurry over to the other side of the room

he started getting worried and, ironically, he went to hongjoong for advice

upon hearing what’s been going on, hongjoong sighed loudly and slammed his hands down on the counter

“okay, initially i wasn’t going to say anything because i wanted the two of you to find out on your own, but obviously that isn’t going to happen so i’m just going to say it. y/n’s avoiding you because they realized they’ve fallen head over heels in love with you and don’t know how to react. so hwa, please be a nice guy and help them figure it out if you catch my drift.”

at that, hongjoong walked out and into his room, leaving an open-mouthed seonghwa frozen in the kitchen, he was at a loss for words

he knew hongjoong knew abt his feelings for you, but he didn’t think you’d feel the same

after contemplating whether or not what he was abt to do was a good idea or not, seonghwa simply said “screw it” and dashed out the door, heading straight for your apartment

once he arrived, he knocked rapidly on your front door

you had barely opened the door when seonghwa practically slid right in

“seonghwa? what are you doing he–”

“y/n, i’m sorry for just barging in but i need to ask you something really important and i want you to be completely honest.”

you gasped softly at the way he was looking at you, it was so intense and so serious you’ve never seen him like that before

“uh, okay? what’s going on?” you asked nervously

“do you have feelings for me?”

you choked “w-what?!”

“i talked to hongjoong and asked him for advice bc you’ve been avoiding me the past few days, and he said it’s bc you like me. is that true?”

you didn’t know what to say, the familiar warm feeling in your stomach came back and you found it difficult to maintain eye contact with seonghwa

a few seconds of silence passed, and you could see seonghwa’s serious gaze slowly start to crumble and all of a sudden you panicked

“yes! y-yes…it’s true. i do have feelings for you,” your voice trailed off at the end, but you knew he heard you when he saw him stiffen up

he let out a shaky breath “how long?”

“huh?”

“how long have you liked me, y/n?” he asked more firmly

“u-um, i’m not sure? i honestly didn’t start noticing i felt like this until about two months ago when we found we got accepted. although, the more i think about it, i’ve been attracted to you since our first study session together. the way you talked so passionately about your future and how dedicated you were into making it come true made me feel something, and what you said was really inspiring to me and i just–”

your sentence was interrupted by a pair of lips connecting with your own, and it took a second for you to realize that…seonghwa was kissing you

oh my god…oh my god seonghwa was kissing you

once you finally registered what was happening, he pulled away from you, eyes wide and cheeks flushed

“oh..oh shit, y/n i’m so sorry! i didn’t mean to–i should’ve asked for your permission first. i’m so so sorry!”

seonghwa tried to take a step back, but you grabbed his wrist before he could

“y-y/n?” he stared at you

you couldn’t wait anymore. not after that.

“please, do that again.”

now it was seonghwa’s turn to choke on his breath “h-huh?”

you tightened your grip on his wrist “seonghwa, this is me giving you permission. kiss me again.”

and he did

unlike the first kiss, this one was much longer and more heartfelt. you felt his arms snake around your waist, tugging you closer and closer

you could feel the way your cheeks were heating up, but at the moment you didn’t care, wanting this moment to last forever

but unfortunately, all good things must come to an end

“hey y/n, who was at the doo–holy shit!” at the sight of you and seonghwa, mingi let out the loudest screech, causing the two of you to jump away from each other

“oh fuck i forgot san and mingi were here,” you cursed under your breath. seonghwa stood next to you, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck

mingi still remained where he was in the hallway, mouth wide open in shock before he recollected himself “ohoho my god, san! text wooyoung and tell him he owes me dinner!” and with that, mingi took off running down the hall and into one of the rooms

and once again you were left alone w seonghwa

for the longest time, the two of you just stood there, refusing to speak nor look at each other

the room was so silent you could practically hear both of your hearts racing

“so uh…does this mean you and i are…?” seonghwa asked sheepishly, taking a small step towards you

you glanced up at him and couldn’t help but giggle at the hopeful look on his face

you turned towards him and flashed him the brightest grin “yeah, we are.”

the smile that appeared on seonghwa’s face at that moment was enough to take your breath away, and you had to physically restrain yourself from kissing him again

instead you opted for taking his hand in yours and entwining your fingers tgt

now that you and seonghwa were officially dating, it made studying that much more fun

when you guys started doing your clinicals, it became hard for yall to see each other, but it made your time tgt much more special when you did have time

seonghwa is a very touchy and cuddly person, so whenever there’s a short break in btwn lab or lecture, he’ll either be sitting next to you with his head on your shoulder or his arm around your shoulder and your head on his chest

the other nursing students (and sometimes the professors) would scream at how cute yall were

and bro if you thought seonghwa was your biggest motivator before you started dating, then he’s even bigger motivator now

when he quizzes you, he’ll always give you a kiss on the cheek if you answer a question correctly, or when you come back from a particularly rough shift he’ll be there to hold you and tell you that you did your best

oh yeah and to cheer you up he’ll say a bunch of anatomy jokes

“hey y/n, i aorta tell you how much i love you”

“oh god, hwa don’t even start.”

“oh c’mon, quit ovary-acting.”

“park seonghwa”

“you’re going tibia okay”

“i’m breaking up with you”

[maraudererasmut]

what kinds of things did you do when you were first practicing digital drawing? did you use reference images? where did you find them? anything you would recommend to a baby drawer with a short attention span for instructions?

Well, first and foremost, I’m gonna take a moment to do a little fangirl wiggle, because I’m a huge fan of your work! Thank you for messaging me! 

I’m gonna include a lot of info here, so bear with me! I’ll try to break it down so that it’s easy to understand, but if anyone ha any questions, feel free to ask!

The absolute most important thing for starting out drawing is practice. 

You’re going to hear it from everyone, everywhere, but it’s so very true. When I first started digital drawing, I made sure to use my tablet every single day. Now, that doesn’t mean I spend three hours each day trying to do something amazing; some days I only had a few minutes here and there, but I’d try to sketch something rough, something loose, maybe just a doodle. Maybe it’s a face one day, maybe it’s just a bunch of swirls and stars the next. It doesn’t matter what you draw, as long as you are developing the habit of drawing! No matter what it is you are doing, you’re learning! Playing with brushes to see how they feel on your new drawing program? Learning! Trying to see if one way of colouring is better than another? Learning! Drawing the same nose over and over and over again until you like what you see? Also learning!

Another key step to learning to draw is to identify what you like!

What does that mean? Well, look at other artists who inspire you! Why does their work appeal to you? What is it about their drawings that you LOVE? Once you realize what it is that makes something beautiful to you, you know what to practice and how to learn to adopt that into your own style!

@burdge is an excellent example for illustrating this. They are a fandom artist that has been around for so long, nearly every fandom artist I know has been inspired by them in one way or another!

So what is it about Burdge’s art that I love? I love the closeness that’s portrayed, and the softness. But those are very arbitrary things that are difficult to identify and even more challenging to implement. I love the noses. I love the proportions. I love the hairlines! I love the body movement! Those are things that are a bit easier to pick out and start practicing!

This leads so well into my next point:

It is okay to copy someone else’s work if it’s for practice!

Let’s break this one down, just to ensure that nobody accidentally misinterprets what I’m saying: It is okay to copy someone else’s work if it’s for practice. It is NOT okay to copy someone else’s work and post it, claiming it as your own! If you use a reference picture, generally speaking, most artists will post which reference they use, but I know that I often forget to do that as well! But using a reference picture is different than copying. 

When you copy someone’s work, what you’re really doing is working on identifying what you love about it. You’re practicing drawing in their style! And that’s totally fine! When you’re first starting out, it’s actually really helpful to be able to use someone else’ expertise and practice to guide you to draw something you love! A lot of people have it in their heads that copying = bad. And sometimes it does. But I think it’s important for new artists to get rid of that notion in their heads. Practice is practice. When you practice cooking, you copy other people’s recipes! You’re not going to post those recipes online and say you created them, but you CAN feed them to your friends and you CAN eat them yourself! And if you do post pictures of your food? You can say whose recipe you used and thank them for a great meal! 

We were all starting at one point, and every artist I know started by copying something. 

Use reference pictures! Use them liberally! References are helpful!

Yes, some artists are so good that they do not need reference pictures. That’s fine. Good for them! I’m very proud of them!

When you’re first starting out, you don’t have to worry about that! Don’t get into your own head and tell yourself “Real artists do XYZ, blah blah blah, etc.” None of that is helpful. Use whatever is available to help you improve!

Now the question is what actually makes good reference pictures? Well, everyone uses something a little different. Some people use faces of famous actors, some people use stock photos, some people use other people’s drawings that are specifically made for references! 

What do I do? I save every single photo I come across that inspires me into a folder. I have tons of folders labeled “Reference: Pose” or “Reference: Remus” or “Reference: Gay”. (That one is smut references. :3 )

I use blogs like @posereference and @fantasyartistreference, which I follow on here! I’ve gone through their content and saved photos that I think will inspire me in the future. Sometimes I don’t do anything with them. Sometimes I use them! 

I also take advantage of stock photos. That includes ones that adobe puts onto the internet as well as ones that other artists put! Senshi Stock on Deviant art is an excellent resource that has made a TON of photos available to artists to use for FREE! 

Google is also my friend! I like to google terms like “Couple Pose Reference” or “Couple Kissing”. If you include search terms like “pose reference” you often find that you get things specifically created for artists to use to help with poses!

Look at all the helpful poses! 

Now, this leads us to my next point:

How to use reference images

Everyone does this part differently, too! I’m going to show a few different examples. Let’s use this amazing reference sheet by @kibbi as our example!

Some people like to have their reference photo beside their drawing space, to use for them to look at, simply as a guide:

Some people like to have their pose reference in a layer beneath their actual drawing on a lower opacity so that they can trace right over it:

Often times, what you end up doing is using your traced sketch as your base for your drawing, with your actual drawing over top of it. Essentially, you’re using this time to identify what you DO like about the reference pose and what you DON’T like about it, and changing it!

See how different it’s looking already? I put my own style over top of it, but I used the pose as a reference because I really liked it!

((EDIT: I JUST REALIZED THAT I GAVE SIRIUS THREE ARMS. I AM SO SORRY, GUYS!!!!))

Side by side comparison for the curious:

Eventually, a time will come where you can do simple poses like this without the use of a reference. That’s amazing! You will be so proud of yourself! But if you still need to use references for complicated poses or foreshortening, remember not to beat yourself up about it. It is OKAY to use reference poses, and it is OKAY to take advantage of resources that are available to you! Just try to remember to cite your sources, just like we all did in school! :P

Practice Anatomy

Try doing things like figure drawing! Use sites like Quick Poses to give yourself a timed figure drawing session, if you’re up for it! The more you practice bodies and anatomy, the better you will get at drawing them! Don’t focus too much on anything being perfect; remember to say loose and just aim for general shapes and general proportions.

This isn’t the greatest example, because I didn’t do any dynamic poses, but here are some rough figure sketches:

See how loose I was? See how little I cared about it looking nice? That’s the best way to start a sketch! Just with loose scribbles!

The same thing can apply to faces:

Learn the rules, and then learn when to break them!

Just like writing, where you have “rules” for writing an essay, in drawing, you have rules for anatomy! But… I don’t always love to follow those rules. It’s important to understand human anatomy (if you plan to draw humans), and then figure out where you want things to be exaggerated in order to create your own style! Here’s an example:

The same rules apply to musculature! It’s important to understand what muscles go where and how they move in order to properly draw them consistently! However! That is something a bit more complicated that we can go into another time! I don’t think that would be included in my simple break-down of drawing!

And… last but not least…

Have fun!

You’d think this one would go without saying, but I’m going to specify it anyway. If you are NO LONGER enjoying drawing what you’re drawing, STOP. Don’t just draw humans because I told you to practice anatomy! If you’re not having fun, you’re going to grow to resent it, and we don’t want that! Draw whatever it is that you want! If you want to draw the same two men hugging over and over and over and over and over (Case in point: my entire blog), you do that! Ignore everything I said about knowing anatomy and about reference pictures and about anything! Just do exactly what makes you happy, nothing more and nothing less. Practicing should be fun, and the moment it’s no longer fun, you’ll begin to lose your passion. So… move on to something else that’s fun! Tired of drawing Wolfstar? (Pfff, that’s impossible, but okay). Move on to Drarry! Or to Linny! Or to a different fandom! Or to flowers! Or to still life! Or to whatever you think will bring back that spark!

Because that’s what drawing is all about. It’s just another form of expression and another way to have fun!

ANYWAY! I know this was SUPER long! I hope it was at least somewhat helpful! I’m not an expert, not by any means, but I enjoy doing this, and I am still working on improving! If anyone has any more questions, shoot me a message!

[aion-rsa]

How Thor Changed the Marvel Cinematic Universe

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Marvel’s Thor, the first theatrical live-action film to feature the comic book giant’s version of the Norse God of Thunder, opened in theaters a decade ago, on May 6, 2011.

Directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring a then little-known Chris Hemsworth in the title role, Thor was the fourth film in the still-nascent Marvel Cinematic Universe. It was also — as we look back at it now — a pivotal one in the development of the MCU.

“I’m very proud of my part of it,” Branagh told us a couple of years ago about his handling of Thor. “Which was providing a sort of backbone that they could comically riff off, but at least it originally contained some of the high stakes Nine Realms import that that larger mythology has to have as well.”

Thor took the franchise off the Earth for the first time and into the cosmic side of the Marvel mythology, introducing audiences to the Nine Realms, the kingdom of Asgard and other mind-bending concepts that comic fans had adored for years but which were a major risk to put in front of mainstream moviegoers.

Even the character of Thor — with his helmet and his hammer and his arch way of speaking — often seemed to skate perilously close to laughable in the pages of the comics themselves. But he was also a mainstay of the Marvel line and a charter member of the Avengers, the superhero team that Marvel based its entire initial run of films upon.

Marvel

Thor didn’t take the Rainbow Bridge to the screen

A Thor movie based on the Marvel Comics version of the character had, surprisingly, been bandied around for years even before there was a Marvel Cinematic Universe.

The God of Thunder debuted on the page in Journey into Mystery #83 (August 1962), created by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber, and Jack Kirby. A founding member of the Avengers, he joined Iron Man, the Hulk, Ant-Man, and the Wasp in the pages of The Avengers #1 (September 1963). In the ensuing decades, he has starred in multiple iterations of the Avengers comics, plus many ongoing and limited series of his own.

An animated version of the character debuted in 1966’s Marvel Super-Friends show, while the first live-action incarnation of Thor (played by Eric Kramer) showed up in the 1988 TV movie The Incredible Hulk Returns, a follow-up to the late 1970s series The Incredible Hulk.

While Thor continued to turn up in various animated Marvel properties, it was in 1991 that the first full-length, live-action Thor movie was proposed — by no less than Sam Raimi.

The director, who later went on to make the first three Spider-Man movies and who is now working in the MCU on Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness, revealed to the The Hollywood Reporter in the wake of Stan Lee’s passing that he pitched a Thor movie to the Marvel Universe co-creator over lunch.

“We worked together writing treatments and took it to Fox and pitched it,” Raimi recalled. “And they said, ‘Absolutely no. Comic books don’t make good movies.’ This was in 1991.”

The rights to Thor bounced around Hollywood for a few more years (at one point it was set up at Sony with David S. Goyer writing and possibly directing) until landing back at Marvel Studios, which had reinvented itself as an independently financed production company in 2005 with distribution through Paramount Pictures. The studio, run at the time by David Maisel with Kevin Feige as president of production, hired Mark Protosevich (I Am Legend and the unfilmed Batman Unchained) to write a script for Thor, with Matthew Vaughn (X-Men: First Class) coming aboard to direct in August 2007.

Marvel

Enter Tom Hiddleston as Loki…

No sooner did Matthew Vaughn sign up to direct Thor than he seemingly left just as quickly, although it was officially announced in May 2008 that he was departing. Creative and budget issues seemed to have sealed his exit. “Marvel loves the script,” he wrote in The Guardian in late 2007. “The only problem is that it has been costed at $300m and they ask how I am going to reduce it by $150m.”

Even though Thor had already been scheduled for a June 4, 2010 release date, Marvel still had to find a director. Talks were held with Guillermo del Toro, but he decided to direct The Hobbit instead (which he ended up leaving as well). At the end of its search, Marvel finally chose Kenneth Branagh, the Irish actor and director best known for his epic adaptations of Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Henry V — which kind of provided an idea of the tone Marvel was looking for.

Branagh was finally signed in December 2008, telling MTV News, “It’s a chance to tell a big story on a big scale…It’s a human story right in the center of a big epic scenario.”

Once Branagh was signed, the movie’s release date was pushed back from June/July 2010 to May 6, 2011, providing plenty of time for the film’s extensive visual effects to be designed and created and for Branagh to find his cast — starting with the God of Thunder himself.

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The first person allegedly approached was Daniel Craig, who had just starred in his second James Bond film, Quantum of Solace. It was because of his commitments to the already massive 007 franchise that Craig turned down the hammer-wielding Asgardian, although it’s somehow hard to imagine the tough-as-nails Craig as the egotistical (at least at first), young Odinson.

A long list of young, relatively unknown actors tested for the part, including Chris Hemsworth (who was just making his brief but scene-stealing appearance as James Kirk’s father in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek), his brother Liam, the equally obscure Tom Hiddleston, Kevin McKidd from Grey’s Anatomy, Alexander Skarsgard (Godzilla vs. Kong), Charlie Hunnam (Sons of Anarchy), Joel Kinnaman (The Suicide Squad), and others. But Chris Hemsworth ultimately won the day, with Hiddleston landing the consolation gift that would keep on giving, the role of Thor’s villainous adopted brother Loki.

“That was my starting point, was that you have a character with a predisposition toward mischief,” Hiddleston said about playing the trickster god, during a 2010 set visit attended by this reporter in Manhattan Beach, California. “An inclination toward chaos and a delight in imbalance, and you couple that with the fierce intelligence that he has, and a chess master’s ability to manipulate events three or four steps ahead of the game.”

Adding even more gravitas to the production was the signing of the legendary Anthony Hopkins to play Thor’s father, Odin, along with Natalie Portman as Jane Foster, Rene Russo as Thor’s mom Frigga, Colm Feore as Laufey, the king of the Frost Giants, Idris Elba as Heimdall, and others. Also signed: Samuel L. Jackson for his third appearance as Nick Fury (in an end credits bonus scene) and Jeremy Renner as Clint Barton/Hawkeye, marking the live-action debut of the bow-and-arrow-wielding Avenger.

Filming on Thor began in mid-January 2010 and wound down in early May, with shooting taking place at Raleigh Studios in Manhattan Beach, California (Marvel’s studio home in the MCU’s early years), Santa Fe, and other parts of New Mexico, and locations in northern California.

Colm Feore told The Deadbolt that the Shakespearean training which he, Branagh, and Hopkins all shared enabled them to quickly communicate with each other while shaping the characters and finding the right tone: “One of the things that was enormously helpful on Thor was that during the breaks, Tony, myself, and Ken would be talking in Shakespearean shorthand about what the characters were doing, what we thought they may be like, and how we could focus our attention more intelligently.”

During that same set visit to the Manhattan Beach set of Thor, Marvel president of production Kevin Feige told this reporter and others that the movie was going to feature more extensive post-production work than other Marvel films. “When you walk around Captain America or Iron Man, you can get it,” he explained. “With Thor, what you’re seeing is only 30% of what the movie will be. This is the big question mark and to me that makes it the most exciting. I like it when people don’t exactly know what we’re going to do.”

Reshoots were completed in late 2010, while The Avengers director Joss Whedon shot the end credits scene in which Nick Fury reveals the Infinity Stone known as the Tesseract to Dr. Erik Selvig (Stellan Skarsgard).

Marvel

Marvel takes a big swing with Thor’s hammer

Introducing Thor and the Asgardians — who were essentially aliens, with technology so far ahead of our own that they seemed like gods to the ancient, more primitive people of Norway more than a millennium ago — was a major gamble for the MCU and its then-president of production (and now Chief Creative Officer) Kevin Feige.

Out of Marvel’s first three films, Iron Man and Iron Man 2 were massive, out-of-the-box hits, while The Incredible Hulk was a middling success at best. Yet all three films were Earthbound and dealt with plausible (as far as it went) science and technology. The science of Thor was — to borrow a phrase from the late science fiction titan Arthur C. Clarke — indistinguishable from magic.

“Asgardians are kind of ‘been there, done that’ when it comes to that kind of stuff,” said co-producer Craig Kyle to this reporter and others on the set visit. “For them to send you across the universe, it’s as easy as turning a key … Their technology is only as sophisticated as it needs to be to do extraordinary things.”

Making Thor, Odin and the other inhabitants of Asgard, Jotunheim and the rest of the Nine Realms into extra-terrestrial beings mistaken for gods by ancient humans took Thor away from sword-and-sorcery and fantasy and more overtly into the science fiction genre. But it also provided the film with a back story and mythology that was perhaps easier for modern movie fans to swallow — more Star Wars than the Völuspá.

“We just kept trying to humanize it all, and keep it very real,” Chris Hemsworth told Superhero Hype at the time about his approach to the title character. “Look into all the research about the comic books that we could, but also bring it back to ‘Who is this guy as a person, and what’s his relationship with people in the individual scenes?’ And working with someone like Kenneth Branagh, who has all those bases covered and has so many ideas, it was a hell of a time!”

In addition to taking the big creative risk of bringing Asgard and Thor to the screen, the movie took several other chances as well. Starting a tradition that Marvel would return to with films like Captain Marvel and Guardians of the Galaxy, Thor did not function as a traditional origin story. We meet Thor, Loki, Odin, and enter Asgard with only a brief introduction detailing the history of ill will and war between the Asgardians and the Frost Giants.

Thor’s journey in the film is not that of an ordinary character being bestowed with great powers and learning how to use them, the typical arc of a superhero film. He is fully formed here, if flawed, and as the film progresses he learns to be a better version of the immensely powerful being that he already is — with the help of the human beings that he meets during his fall to Earth.

When Thor — the likely successor to his father’s throne — reignites hostilities with the Frost Giants partially due to his own immaturity, Odin decrees him unworthy of wielding Mjolnir and banishes him, powerless, to Earth. That leaves the door open for the crafty Loki — who has discovered that he is not Asgardian after all, but the child of Frost Giants — to manipulate and scheme his way into power himself.

Marvel’s other big gamble was making Loki a much more fully developed antagonist than had been previously seen in many comic book movies. Skillfully portrayed by Hiddleston in a performance that made him an instant star, Loki is an empathetic, nuanced character whose longing for the love and attention of his adopted father — who lavishes more of both on Thor — leads him down a dark path and into a character arc that would take several years and movies to play out.

“I think Loki intuitively feels that he doesn’t belong there, he doesn’t belong with the family in Asgard and doesn’t belong in the pantheon of gods,” said Hiddleston at the time. “He’s confused about his place in the universe … We all reach a point in our lives where we think, ‘What the hell are we supposed to do with our life?’ Thor reaches that point in this film and Loki does as well, so yes, maybe if Odin had made him feel valued and respected and essential to Asgard, then it would have been okay.”

Marvel

Thor smashes all preconceptions

Thor had its world premiere in Sydney, Australia on April 17, 2011 and opened in that country — Hemsworth’s native land — four days later. It premiered in 56 more markets before finally opening in North America on May 6, 2011.

The film earned a 77% fresh rating and mixed reviews on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics praising the performances by Hemsworth and Hiddleston, as well as the grandiose family drama on Asgard, but less impressed by Thor’s journey to Earth and the climactic battle there against the massive golem-like Destroyer sent by Loki to kill Thor.

More importantly for Marvel, the film connected with audiences despite the perception that Thor was largely unfamiliar or dated. Thor earned $181 million at the North American box office and a further $268 million abroad for a worldwide total of $449 million.

While that ranks it near the bottom of the 23 MCU movies released to date (along with Ant-Man and Captain America: The First Avenger), it was a far from shabby showing for the early MCU and proved Marvel’s calculation that it could expand Marvel’s footprint on film beyond already established characters like Spider-Man, the X-Men and the Hulk.

“I liked it when people said, ‘Iron Man’s the B-Team. You’re calling out the B-Team!’ We knew it wasn’t,” said Feige on set about using what were perceived as lower-tier Marvel heroes. “We knew it was going to be great. And that holds true for Thor … here’s another one that will redefine us and at least raise the bar of what a comic book movie is, for both people who’ve read comics and those who haven’t.”

Thor expanded the boundaries of the MCU into the realms of space, alternate dimensions and cosmic conflicts, while putting another key part in place for the impending arrival of the Avengers. And while 2013’s follow-up, Thor: The Dark World, was a misstep and considered one of Marvel’s few outright failures, the studio brilliantly reinvented the character in 2017 with Taika Waititi’s Thor: Ragnarok, moving him away from the initial Shakespearean grandiosity and into a more humorous space.

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That in turn allowed Thor and Hemsworth to have one of the most profound character arcs across the entire span of Avengers: Infinity War and Avengers: Endgame. His story in those films, the box office clout of Ragnarok, and Hemsworth’s enthusiasm for the role led Marvel to commission 2022’s Thor: Love and Thunder — marking the first time an MCU hero is venturing into a fourth solo movie.

Ten years later, while not a perfect film by any means, Thor is still an enjoyable, consciously weird Marvel epic that proved the God of Thunder could bring the lightning even to modern audiences. And while Thor has seemingly abandoned the throne of Asgard for now, his first film’s place in the MCU pantheon is secure.

The post How Thor Changed the Marvel Cinematic Universe appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[ufullbro]

Hello I love your characters and there story I hope to one day be like you I have my own characters I’m working hard! I wanted to ask do you use references like poses and what is that proses? I always worry I cheat and copy but I try to understand that line between learning and copying

Hello! Good for you!! You’ll definitely have your own OCs one day that you’ll be super proud of and love like your own children 💚

I usually don’t use references unless it’s a pose or angle that I’m not familiar with, but that’s only because I’ve been drawing and studying for a LONG time. Using references is GOOD!! I think the biggest lie that newer artists believe is that you have to just be able to draw well from your head right out of the gate but that is a big fat FALSITY.

Building up your visual library is super super important and you won’t be able to draw very well straight from your imagination until you put in the work to memorize anatomy, and the only way to do that is by using references! Really life references are the best to use I think, but studying work by other skilled artists is also good to do.

The line between referencing and copying lies with the credit you give. If you copy another artist’s work, be it an illustrator or photographer, and pass it off as your own, that’s copying and that’s Bad. If you use a reference heavily, it’s always best to give credit to the original source. When in doubt, always give credit. That said, it’s not a bad thing to reference other things as long as you give credit! It’s an important learning method.

Also, a good exercise and a really fast way to learn is to look at something, a figure from real life or a picture, and try to commit it to memory. It’s easier to focus on one specific thing, like an arm or hand or foot or something. Spend a minute or two memorizing how it looks, and then try to recreate it from memory. This will build up your visual library the most efficiently. Disney artists are required to attend life drawing sessions once a week because it’s very very important to learn to draw from life.

quickposes.com is a really good tool to use. It’ll give you timed sessions (for free) and show you photographs of people in different poses and a time of your choosing for you to draw it. It’s geared towards gesture drawing, where your main goal is simply to capture the flow and energy and gesture of the pose without getting caught up on anatomy and detail. I cannot express how much gesture drawing has helped me get better.

Best of luck to you! Practice a lot and draw from life!