#also this post is like the iceberg of my brain btw you have definitely not seen all of my thoughts im soo. (twirls hair) normal.

[crescentfool]

What are your ryomina headcanons? I've loved these two since I played P3 FES, and I'm so excited to get back into the fandom^^

hi!! thank you so much for the ask, welcome back to the p3 fandom, it's always a delight to see new and old ryomina fans alike! 🥺💛💙

as for headcanons, here's a "few" i that i tend to come back to a lot! my interpretations of them are influenced from both the source material and other's fanworks, so i've linked to them as i saw fit! hcs in no particular order under the cut because oops this got long (900 word bullet point list, mentions of reload content up to 1/1)

minato's hair is dyed blue (hair originally brown, you can see it in his roots!) and he has a beauty mark on under his left eye. i like mirror imagery and there's definitely a few arts i've rb'd that portray them this way :) (e.g. this one by feliichu and this one by marasschino)

as far as i'm concerned the bathhouse scene from the manga where ryoji's hair down = similar shape to minato? that is canon to me. this art from xierru is a fun depiction of hair down ryoji :D

ryoji is homeless. everyone say thank you foxmulder_whereartthou for this awesome fic it's why i have the headcanon! but like seriously. we have no idea where ryoji lives and i could believe this.

minato dying at the end of the game is sad to an outsider's POV BUT!!! ryomina gets to be together in death for the rest of their lives (this illustration from mafuwara is a gorgeous representation of them as nyx avatar + the seal)!

speaking of the seal, they are like telepathically communicating to me in the great seal together. (mymp3 had a comic wip with this. give it a looksie :D)

ryoji likes cuddling with minato because he's warm :) (something something orpheus has fire affinity, minato is warm by extension and ryoji is cold because he's death)

ryoji's camera roll is filled with pictures of minato! ryoji... loves life, to me. and i feel that photography and journaling are perfect ways of expressing gratitude and capturing the moments in life that are most important to you :3

my other favorite activity for these two is stargazing- i feel like it's something they could appreciate either in life or death (looking at the stars from the great seal...)! they do a bit of this in the fic eurydice's vow by crescentmoontea (P5R spoilers, takes place in third sem it's a very fun fic concept).

between ryoji and minato i feel like ryoji was the one who fell in love first- and it doesn't really click in place for minato that he loves ryoji until december hits (appriser reveal + ryoji transforming into thanatos). its about the realization that ryoji was with him for his whole life and that he gets him like no one else does.

ryoji is like a sad and wet puppy who is so scared minato won't like him back. he is so scared of being rejected by minato to me like. this boy straight up deflates after he does his "i know i said i wanted us to be friends, but... i actually want to be something more." / "what about you?" on 12/1 ???

AND SPEAKING of wet puppy ryoji. ryoji is like. every animal in the world to me. he's a bird. he's a cat. etc. and also ryoji knows every language in the world ever and uses it to express his love for minato. see this fic from superheroics to see what i mean.

both of them are lactose intolerant. "this isn't lactose, it's milk!" i definitely think ryoji would make himself sick eating ice cream and milk he doesn't know what lactose is. (i made a silly poll about this once and the tags were very entertaining.)

i see minato as transmasc or nonbinary depending on the day (schrodinger's headcanons babey they're simultaneously true and not true at the same time!!). either way he's not cis to me and ryoji is like. His Gender. anyway go read this fic by nail_gun for t4t ryomina :D !

ryomina are WEIRD GUYS TO ME!!! they are so strange and they understand each other better than anyone else because of the circumstances of their relationship!!! if you asked them to do the "i wonder what i taste like" meme i think they'd start biting each other (affectionate) tbh but that's just me.

after ryoji gives minato the music box in 12/31 on reload, minato listens to the music box every night in january. this boy has insomnia and also chronic illness to me (things that housing death does to you). but i think he finds comfort in the melody and memories he made with ryoji.

in general, i think it's fun to imagine minato taking ryoji to places and show him things he's interested in! i feel that ryoji takes a lot of interest in minato's life, this isn't really a hc because in reload, minato DOES give ryoji a tour of the school (11/9) and possibly port island (11/12). but ITS CUTE OK! (tangentially related fanwork: this series of doodles from vinnigami: 1, 2, and 3)

not a hc but minato's kindness is like the backbone of their relationship and i think we would not have the ryomina we know and love today if minato wasn't such a kind soul. oh minato.... we can learn so much from you... like ryoji did!

anyway! that's all the hcs that i could think of, thank you for the ask! i had a lot of fun answering this, these two mean a lot to me 💛💙

i hope you don't mind the links to the fanart and fanfic as well, the fanwork people have made for ryomina have really made an imprint on me! if you want to see more of them, i definitely recommend looking through my tag for them because oh. i got a lot of them reblogged alright 😂 (<- SOOO NORMAL)

[ughgclden]

buenos dias, mi amor~ *Felicidades on the 900!!!* please dont feel pressured to immediately answer!! we all need time to gather our confidence and thoughts into one place. just remember whether by rain or shine, im here for you :) *hands you blankets and definitely not-burned baked goods* *hands you a soft cottagecore fantasy* on this fine morning, which would you like: coffee, tea or me? btw if you ever need a boost of confidence, i want you to think of this. i may have found a more recent incarnation of you from the 1600s. darling, as much as i love the idea of the 2 of us as the valiant ladies of potosi (which incidentally is going to be made into a historical fiction novel called valiant ladies) i think you were reincarnated from none other than julie d'aubigny. in case you don't know, julie d'aubigny was a talented bisexual swordswoman (talented? bisexual? swordswoman?? babe that's you) as well as a cross-dressing opera singer. and that's just the tip of the iceberg. she ran away when her father arranged for her to marry some unfortunate sap so she started performing fencing demonstrations until she followed a pretty blonde girl into a nunnery. they ran away together and on their way out, julie burned down the nunnery. all before she was 20. she became an opera singer who beat up every misogynistic ass in her path. king louis xiv of France thought she was so cool, he pardoned her. just as mysteriously as she appeared, she vanished. so darling, if you ever feel down, please remember that not only are you one of the valiant ladies of potosi but that the spirit of julie d'aubigny lives in you. YOU ARE JULIE D'AUBIGNY. AND WHAT DID SHE DO? BE AN ABSOLUTE FUCKING BADASS. SHE'D BE SO FUCKING PROUD OF YOU!!! you're amazing as fuck and anyone who says otherwise will be sliced in half :) ~honey<3 P.S, if i ever accidentally unfollow and then follow you again pls ignore that. tumblr and school have joined forces to prevent this letter from being sent. also i love ur new themeee. also also a new clue: i once promised you book recs (which i still haven't posted yet pls forgive me darling)

we're reunited once more!!! hi again angel - thank you so so much!! that means a lot honestly - i swear it doesn't take much for my silly little brain to work itself into overdrive, honestly. i'm here for you whenever you need, my inbox is always open <3 pls join me in this cottagecore fantasy, i'll bake us cakes and bread and pick you flowers

i wouldn't mind a cup of tea, but i'm definitely choosing you too, no doubt about it :D

talented, bisexual, AND a swordsman who beats up misogynists?? i think i've just found my new role model. as soon as i get my sword, i will encapsulate her perfectly i swear. i honestly love how you know fun little facts and anecdotes like me, they never feel to intrigue and impress me all at once and i wish i had some fascinating things to share with you but alas, my mind is not the best with retaining information. i will however give you a fun bee fact -bees dance to communicate with each other!! honey bees have adapted to have something called a 'waggle dance', to show their fellow bees where a flower patch is! they're such funky lil things!!!

not to worry darling, tumblr always likes to mix things up and overall fuck with everyone at times <33 i hope school is treating you well - i'm always here if you need an ear!! okay now this Certainly narrows things down.. i am thinking a lot of thoughts rn-

ps; i apologise for how long it takes me to respond to these, i feel you deserve a well thought out answer each time <3 sending you all my love, you're so sweet <3 i may just start writing you random letters at points for you to respond to as you wish, we'll see how kind my brain is to me in these upcoming weeks!

[ruvigapo]

Hi do you have maybe some tips for someone who is learning how to use water colour? What brand of water colors to use etc. ??

Hi! Sure i guess.♡ Keep in mind that while i wouldn't say i'm a beginner i'm definitely still learning too.

I will uh.. i'll edit this post this afternoon with some tips lol (note to self to not use the tumblr app in the morning lest your thumb slip and post an unfinished post XD)

((Or maybe i am still a beginner, idk. Okay yeah i'm a beginner but i can give some tips.))

Okay so, i'm home. Been a long day. Here are some tips.

Honestly though, i'm Definitely not an expert when it comes to watercolour specifically. I've used it since i was a kid but i only really got the hang of it resently and i'm definitely still learning.

1. So honestly my first advise is to just look at a lot of different tutorials and ask a lot of different people. This goes for most mediums, but there are a lot of different ways to use water colour to achieve the look that you want and a lot of people do it differently bc it's so versitile.

2. This is a given, but honestly, there's no better teacher than experience. The more you try something out and try doing it in different ways, the more you'll be able to find what works for you. That's really important i think.

This is a tangent, but I took a water colour summer course once and i learn a lot of cool stuff, but i also learnt through a lot of trial and error that my style of water colour was very different from how it's traditionally taught here. Partially because i'm impatient and can barely wait for the layers to dry (this, btw, is honestly a must in water colour tho so that's really gotten better on my end with practice) and partially because a lot of the techniques i learnt were good for landscape painting but dificult when drawing more complicated pieces in my opinion. They're still great techniques but i also learnt to take inspiration from other sources that more closely match what i like to paint.

And the more i learn the more i find that i am also able to incorporate traditional techniques that before seemed very dificult for me.

3. As for art supplies, i honestly wouldn't worry too much about it. Especially as a beginner. I always say that the tool doesn't make the artist, the artist makes the artist. In the end, the most important tool you will ever need is your mind.

I'm also not very good with what brands are high quality and which aren't so there's that frankly.

I'd say ask around and look into what brands are available to you. Most standard water colour sets are good and last a long time. Then you can of course expand your tool arsenal. I'd recomend a bigger pallet just because i'm the kinda person who really enjoys mixing and trying out a lot of different colours and therefore need a lot of space to mix colours.

Also i'd say look into what type of brushes you prefer, and pay attention which brushes are water colour brushes and which are acrylic brushes bc they're pretty different.

Really high quality brushes are usually made with animal hair, which makes it able to hold a lot of water and pigment. I don't like them much personally bc i don't use a lot of water for my drawings as a general rule (mostly because they're doodles and the paper in my sketch book doesn't hold water all that well). (And also sometimes the hairs fall off from the brush and get stuck in my drawing 😬... they're worth checking out though.)

But try out different types of brushes and see what you like. It might be tempting to get a very tiny brush for tiny details but honestly, a medium size does the same work just fine with a light hand in my opinion. And depending on wether you want to paint big or small, what size brush you need will vary. I know that art supplies can be expensive though, so don't feel like you Have to get the most expensive thing when you're just starting out.

4. Speaking of just staring out... honestly, don't even worry about using up your supplies and feeling like every single thing you make has to be perfect. It's not going to be perfect. And not only is that okay but it's nessesary. Not to mention that perfection is wholy a myth and can't be achieved so don't even worry. Quantity over quality i always say. The quality will come with time and work. Which is why i always recomend cheaper brands anyway because you will be painting A Lot to git gud, as they say, but that might just be me.

5. Back to brands

Honestly Please invest in a good paper at least once. It doesn't have to be Fantastic, it just needs to hold water. I'm not even joking, the quality of your paper does wonders for the quality of your drawing. Can you make water colour look good on normal paper? Sure. Case in point, all of the things i paint. But honestly, if not for the sake of a result, then try it out for the sake of experience. Try different things. See what works for you. I honestly do recomend starting out with a good water colour paper since the result will be miles better and you'll feel way more encurraged to continue. That's the one supply i'm adamant about trying honestly. But again, budget wisely young padawan. And if you ever feel scared to use your supplies bc they were expensive and you don't want to waste it.. again nothing is a waste, everything you draw is stored as knowlege in your brain that you'll use to make better art in the future. Nothing is a waste. But if you're like me and the anxiety really hinders you, just get a cheaper paper. I like to paint in my sketch book bc it feels like a diary to me and it doesn't have to be perfect and if i screw up it's still fine. I'll tape it over and start again.

Okay so.. i realise that this is rambly and maybe a bit preachy and not very specific. Starting out can be scary and you want all the things in the right place and you want things to go well every time you paint even though you know it's not going to at first. But you just have to start somewhere and keep going from there. Bc if you never start, where will you be?

So honestly, if you don't have any supplies on hand, just go to the nearest place that sells art supplies and get yourself some good paper and a water colour set and just go ham trying out the colours.

Here are some of the water colour things i've watched over the years to help me in geting started.

This last guy i only found the other week. He does a more trafitional style, more in line with how i was taught at that one summer class thing. So it's always nice to look at different ways to do the thing you want to do.

6. Water colour to me has always been tricky. It's water so it flows, and for a while, that was frustrating because i wasn't able to control it i thought. I prefered using markers but honestly, markers are way more expencive than water colours and you can't mix them and get as much if a clean finish, so now i only use water colour to colour my drawings.

But for a while i avoided water colour and instead opted to use guache. Guache is mostly used in illustrations bc they're easy to layer since the paint is opaque. It's much more forgiving than water colours, so if you want, buy a couple tubes of guache and try that. You don t need that many. I use cyan magenta and two types of yellow as well as white. Any art teacher will tell you that with practice you can mix almost every colour from those colours. I almost never use blacj anymore. Unless i'm lazy, in which case i'll jusr add a layer of black water colour on top of the guache. (GUACHE CAN BE EXPENSIVE THOUGH, DON'T FORGET TO BUDGET)

There are opaque water colours but most aren't i believe. That's where the main difference between guache and water colour comes in. See, in water colour, traditionally, you aren't supposed to use white to lighten a colour. Instead you use water to dilude the pigment. This gives a much more clean and crisp finish. You can do this with guache also, but since quache is already opaque it will still have that same grainy look wether you dilude it with water or mix it with white or both. I mean... i personally love the grainy look so... it's very story book-ish.

With guache bring opaque that also means you can paint over mistakes and start over pretty much, so again, guache is much more forgiving. Once the white of the page is gone when you use water colour, you can't get that back without adding white guache on top, which honwstly just looks messy imo. So be aware of that.

7. Let layers dry before adding another one or the colours will bleed together. Learning to be patient is key. But if you're like me you can just use a hair dryer tbh.

8. If you're using a good paper, you can experiment with a lot more water. Taping down the paper helps bc the paper will swell a lot and buckle when you add a lot of water. (Press it between a butt load of books to get it somewhat flat again).

You can try taking a spunge or a wide brush and add a layer of water before adding the pigment. It can have some interesting results.

You can also leave the paper dry and just paint layers like you would with markers. Both work. Water bleeds more but that's really cool in landscape painting so if that's something you want to try, def experiment with letting the colours bleed together.

9. Oh and don't forget to swatch out your colours when you get them. Water colour dry lighter than it looks when you put down the colour, so swatching helps with determining what colours you want where.

There are So Many videos on the subject honestly. I like to watch videos while i paint. It's fun.

Okay so this is long enough i think. I barely grazed the tip of the proverbial iceberg but i hope it helped.

I really encurrage anyone who knows their stuff abt water colour to add on to this. I really don't want to spread false info. These are just my two cents on the top of my head.

Which basically just boils down to

JUST DO IT

I honestly tell myself this every day. And if i can do parkour then you can paint.

Good luck and have fun! 👍👍👍

[callioope]

I haven’t done an Iceberg post in almost two months, and there are reasons for that, some maybe more valid than others. Sob story below the cut. 

But straight to the update.

Learning Curve

Chapter 3: about 7900 words, give or take based on some needed edits. I’m currently writing the last out of four sections, and this one is supposed to be short so I should be done soon. Then I’ll have to edit.

Chapter 4: still just outlined, I haven’t worked on anything for this really

I did write a little bit for a Bodhi/Luke plot bunny that attacked me a few weeks ago, but I don’t know how much more I’m going to be writing. I know that “How to Lose a Spy in 10 Days” is technically a work in progress, too, but... I just don’t know. I’m just trying to focus on Learning Curve and I’ll see how I feel after that. I have over 30 ideas for various things, but finding motivation to write lately has been very difficult. 

I lost my dog at the very end of 2017. December is usually pretty crazy during the holidays, and I had the added stress of trying to figure out what was wrong with my baby girl and trying to treat it, and also I happened to write and post two stories that month (the Cassian-didn’t-climb-the-tower story--I really, really hate the title for that, btw--and “I’ll Find You In the Morning Sun”). I spent the last week of December in a haze, as my Doodlebug saved her strength to get through Christmas and passed two days later. I posted “I’ll Find You in the Morning Sun” a few days after that, and so inevitably that song will be forever connected to my dog in a Very Sad way. 

Writing became very difficult after that. She used to sit at my feet as I wrote, even more so during the end. She was always so independent, but that changed a lot towards the end. And I kept thinking about how maybe I shouldn’t have been writing those days, I should have been working harder for her. It didn’t help when I had sort of come to terms with the imminent-ness of it all, my mom and her friend suddenly sort of forced this herbal remedy--“it Always works”--inspiring a frantic, last-ditch effort that gave me too much hope and was definitely way too late. I got very depressed, blaming myself for her passing. It took me weeks, maybe months, to accept that--she was fourteen and a half, she had had kidney issues for a year, and she had been living without a gallbladder for five years--it was just her time. 

Anyways, during that time I sort of fell out of my usual habits. Besides that, I’ve always wanted to be a writer since I was nine. And recently, because the internet is good at encouraging habits that are not always healthy for all people, I had come under the impression that writers just have to write, all the time. They should live, eat, breathe writing. My spare moments should be writing. I should write on the train. I should write at lunch. I should make time to write every day because the more practice, the better I’ll get, right? And if I’ve dreamed of writing being my day job someday, I should start trying to build productive writing habits, right? 

But I’m also trying to plan a wedding. So I tried to divide up my time. Monday, Wednesday, Friday--chores, wedding planning. Tuesday, Thursday, weekends--writing, because these are the times that Fiance is playing soccer and therefore we cannot do wedding planning anyways. 

That turned out to be a shitshow.

It resulted in me staring at a blank word document and still procrastinating. And then because I hadn’t been productive during my designated writing time, I tried to write during the non-writing times. And then wedding planning got behind. Chores piled up. And I kept feeling that horrible guilt you get when nothing is getting done ever.

And you know, on top of all that, there’s the fact that engagement levels with my work are super low. 

Which isn’t really motivating or encouraging.

I don’t regret trying out a new writing process. It’s important to know that it didn’t work for me. I can’t block out my free time like that, it’s better if I just do whatever motivates me at the time. 

I’ve also learned that just because I’m not writing 24/7 doesn’t mean that I’m not a “real writer,” or that I’m not working. My process has always been more of a “let it stew” for a few weeks, and it will all flow out when it’s done cooking. I daydream a lot, I think, I scribble random notes down. And then after two weeks, I sit down and it flows. 

I need to listen to my brain and what it wants to do. 

Right now, it just kind of wants a break. 

I am going to finish Learning Curve, and I’ll see what happens after that.