#always asking the important questions

[marymoss1971]

Frivolous Janeway post

I like the bob haircut a lot better than the bun from the early years. I'm glad they changed it.

Though now that I think about it--I wonder who was the barber on Voyager? Obviously, it's not a full time position but someone has to be volunteering to do it for the crew. My money's on Chell, the Bolian.

[headbandsandflats]

wait a minute. WAIT A MINUTE. is coach & tami’s spot the same place as matt & julie’s spot or am i just a city mouse who thinks all texas lakes look the same?!?!?

(I like...really need a definitive answer on this. Tami & Eric pull over at a spot where they had their not first date but their *eyebrows raised* first date [which was a typically adorable convo] and then when matt came back for thanksgiving [crying forever] he took julie to where he “deflowered her” [julie’s mocking words] and idk i feel like it looked identical and i just really with everything in me need to know if the taylors + julie & matt have the same special sex spot - and if they do why are there not 1000 fics about them all somehow finding this out)

[just-null]

Do you ever do requests? If so, do you ever plan on drawing some Yandere with the Hantengu clones? :D hope you have a good day/night!!!

Mentioning an unfamiliar name

yes!! I love yanderes.. and these guys.. these guys are such good material...... nods nods..

I'm not sure about requests..I assume you mean drawing requests? I suppose if it REALLY catches my interest enough, I'd do it, but it'd probably just be line art/sketches.

[varilien]

you know me, in the way that matters most.

[wejustvibing]

WB: can we expect an album, duet between you and lewis? that's what everybody wants to know

Charles: oh if it's what everybody wants to know then... i'm not sure. i'm not sure to be honest. i haven't spoken about music too much with Lewis yet. we discussed about it last year and he was telling me that he loves music and... i don't know. i'll speak with him from next year onwards about a potential collaboration

[baejax-the-great]

My brother died very suddenly yesterday.

He was the kind of person who always had dozens and dozens of friends everywhere he went because he was easy to talk to and funny and treated people with respect, and his friends ranged in class, race, age, social ability, introversion and extroversion--no matter who you were, he could and would befriend you.

He would scold me for not asking him for help when I needed it, and he would mean it. He taught me to tip well. He loved helping people. He played practical jokes on the new kids at work, including getting one guy to "chop flour" because the flour they had in the kitchen was "too coarse."

He introduced me to some of the best food I've ever eaten in my life. He would always help with a recipe that wasn't working. He would tell me what to buy my foodie friends for their birthdays, and he never got it wrong. He loved meat and whiskey but also wine and fruit and he got me to eat beets even because he knew how to make anything good.

Mostly, he thought that people were all deserving of respect and decency. He was outspoken on this. For all that his friends ranged across demographics, he didn't tolerate anyone being hateful around him. But even then, he was nice about it. He would try to get people to come around to his side. He saw the good in people.

And he was happy. He had finally quit chewing tobacco and managed to stay off it for three years. He had a girlfriend he really liked. The pandemic had put him out of work for over a year, but he was back at his job and doing well and he liked it. He was good at it. And it's complete bullshit that he's gone.

[pyrosomatic-metamorphosis]

rough art tips to learn and then break at your leisure.

the distance between your eyes is roughly one eye. the corners of your mouth dont extend past the middle of each eye. ears are roughly in the middle of the tip of the nose and the eyebrow. the eyes are in the very centre of the head. the neck is just a Little slimmer than the width of the head (varies with fat distribution, but fat tends to build up under the chin). hair is easier to draw when you plot out the hairline and then where it parts. leaving appropriate distance on the side of the face (cheekbone area and back to ear) contributes to making characters look more realistic/hot as hell. i dont know specific tips for that so use reference. an amazing reference/study site is lineofaction.com . if you think of the face in planes it makes it easier to construct (look up tutorials). if you draw a spiral like a tornado it can help you figure out awkward perspective for extended limbs (look up foreshortening coil technique). tangent lines are when two lines intersect and cause visual confusion (when it looks like a line that defines an arm is part of the line that defines a building, for example) and avoiding them makes your art way easier to comprehend. quick trick to good composition: choose a focal point (where you want your viewer to focus), detail that area the most, and make sure various elements of the piece are pointing to that focal point. you can use colours to contrast hue, saturation, and brightness and make certain elements of your drawing stand out. drawing in greyscale can help you figure out values. using black in a piece isn't illegal but you should know what you're doing when you do use it- it desaturates a piece and if used as a shading colour can desaturate and dull whatever youre shading too. if you use almost-black lineart and then add black to darken the very darkest areas it will do a lot to add some nice depth. the tip of your thumb ends just above the start of your index finger- your thumb also has two knuckles and all your other fingers have three. if you see an artist doing something you like (the way they draw noses or eyes or hair or anything else) you can try to copy that and see if you want to incorporate it in your style <- this is ENCOURAGED and how a lot of us learned and developed our styles. there are ways to add wrinkles to faces and bodies without making the character look a million years old, you just have to keep experimenting with it. The smile wrinkles around your muzzle dont connect to your mouth or to your nose; there should be a small space in between smile or nose and the wrinkle line. eyes when viewed in profile are like < aka a little triangle shape. think of the pupil like a disk and apply foreshortening to it (it looks like a line when seen from the side instead of a full round dot). subtle gradients can add a LOT to a piece. texture can also add a LOT. look up Tommy Arnold's work (his murderbot pieces are some of my FAVOURITE) and zoom in. find those random little circles he added and try to figure out why he added them there. light bounces. there's lots of way light bounces. sometimes it even spreads through the skin. i do not know these light tricks yet but i want you to know that they exist. draw a circle to indicate hand placement, draw a straight line between that circle and the shoulder, and then (normally at a right angle) draw a straight line on top of that line to find the placement of the elbow. elbows are normally placed Just above the hip when standing and your arm is at rest. there are no bad colour combos if you're brave enough about it, just fuck with the saturation and brightness until it works. keep playing. try new things. add your own tips to this post if you want or even expand on some ive mentioned here. good luck go ham etc

[demaparbat-hp]

Even if zuko has a plan to end the war, making katara work amongst people who likely hold racism towards her and aided and supported the genocide of her people is still weird, especially since zuko benefits from the fire nations oppression of people throughout s1 when hunting the Avatar. Not good choices to make in a zutara au :/

Believe me, I've made these arguments against myself over and over again.

I know I'm putting Katara in an extremely difficult and unjust position in this AU with—from an outsider's point of view—little to no reason other than "I just wanted to see her in Fire Nation armor and kicking ass" and no consideration for the context. I'm not trying to somehow forgive nor redeem the Fire Nation's actions in war just because...well...just because. Not at all. People who've read Soundless (or any other of my wips, really) know that's not the case. On the contrary—I always do my best to see the war through a realistic, mature lense. And that includes everything that makes the Fire Nation so terrible in the first place.

That being said, there are some things I considered when deciding to make Katara side with them (even if her true motives lie elsewhere) in this AU. And they are not excuses. Just, different layers of context.

First of all, she was desperate. By this point in her life, her mother was dead, her father had left to fight the war, her brother followed behind a few years after, and she was left filling the empty spaces when, by all means, she wasn't ready for the responsibility. She had been feeling helpless and hopeless for years, and ached to do anything to help her people beyond doing chores and taking care for the children.

Let it be known that Aang's apparent betrayal comes from a place of trauma and misplaced anger on Katara's part. Much like how she put the Fire Nation's sins on Zuko's shoulders in S3. She is not on the right here, but this is her natural way to process and understand grief. There are many different aspects of her development as a child involved in how she views the Avatar—and, by extension, Aang—but more on this later.

Katara was young, and reckless, and she had just been "betrayed" by the first person who ever looked at her and saw more than the perfect caretaker she was forced to be. She was not in the right state of mind to make a decision like that and, to be honest, she couldn't have predicted the consequences. She saw a clear path to contribute to the end of the war, and by La she would take it.

On Zuko's end, you might argue that he should have known better than to let her join him and, well, you would be right. But there were many things about Katara's trauma response and state of mind that—unless he had known her for a long time—he couldn't have known. He will definitely blame himself later on, when the racism and cruelty towards Katara begins, and especially when word reaches her family at sea.

It's Katara's job to smack some sense into him from time to time and tell him that, yes, he should have tried harder to stop her (and she would probably be better off because of it) but what's done is done. And, by all means, the decision was hers to make. If anything, it's their fault, not his alone.

Now, Katara doesn't suffer the entire AU. That would just be cruel.

Zuko's crew was handpicked by Uncle Iroh, so you can expect dissidents, traitors and a few White Lotus agents who were smart enough to keep their true opinions quiet. There are...mixed opinions in that bunch, of course, but that's expected and, to be honest, rather easily dealt with. They are mostly honourable people just doing their best to end the war from the inside.

The real problem comes when they cross paths with, say, Zhao's fleet (or Hakoda's, let's be real).

And you may ask why Zuko is hunting down Aang, then, if he's secretly a goody-two-shoes himself... I'll explain that later in depth, so stay tuned.

In short, I know the decisions I've made, as a creator, are debatable at best, and downright blasfemous at worst. But they're deliberate.

I want the readers to feel conflicted about Katara's choices in this AU. I want people to have mixed opinions about the war, the (apparent lack of) morality, the characters, you name it!

I'm not trying to glorify a victim of war joining the side of the ones responsible for her people's genocide, even if it's just for show and she's actually set on destroying their government from within. Not at all.

Katara made a stupid, horrible decision, and she's going to suffer the consequences. But she's also going to fight to reach her goals, because she's stubborn like that.

I know most people may have a little trouble understanding where I'm coming from, because they don't have all the information necessary to make a full opinion.

I'm really thankful for these kind of asks. They let me explore these concepts and AUs in depth, and see what you think about them. I'm only human—my opinions are not infalible, nor The Right Ones, and this is a kind of discussion that I love to have.

So, keep the asks coming!!!

[countess-of-edessa]

scrolling through novena after novena choosing which saints i think would be most receptive to my frivolous little interpersonal problems

[coochiekrab]

would u ever consider making a little faq for kuri and aubrey

I prably should……….

[patchwork-crow-writes]

Just recently discovered that where we in English would say "Yahoo!", the Japanese instead say "Ya-ho!", with specific emphasis on the second syllable.

Which makes this line from Ralsei in Chapter 1 make MUCH more sense, because for the longest time I thought it was just some weird typo or stylistic thing:

(Do you suppose this makes Ralsei a closet weeb...?)

[thiscatiscreepy]

Hi I crocheted Kofi the rat from Small Saga.

Thank you so much @sketchylogic for making such a fun game and thank you @neitherabaron for giving rat Kofi your voice!

[ID: three photos from different angles of a crochet bipedal rat. They have dark grey fur, short curly hair, a light blue shirt and a purple vest. Their nose, ears, hand, feet and tail are pink. End ID]

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

sometimes i remember that gojo wanted to tell geto “we’ll meet again, right?” just before he died but forced himself not to knowing it would have cursed him and then i start thinking about how kind and thoughtful gojo is as a character and how he hasn’t been able to lean on another human being since geto defected and then i want to . Scream

[lightbulb-warning]

The way your art is so stylized and scrunchy makes me wanna eat it. ESP TE WAY YOU DO KOKICHIS EXPRESSIONS AND HANDS IN GENERAL!! It's so exaggerated in a cartoony way i love it sm, i wanna draw like you so bad

i dont know if pixels have ANY positive nutritional values hehe but AAAAAAAAA THANKYUUUUUUUU!!!! THAT MAKES ME SO HAPPY TO HEAR!!!!

i hope you'll join me in the (figurative) "expressive hands"-artstyle corner one day!! ill be waiting with open arms! and hands! >:3c

[samstatsupremacy]

Hi! Have you already seen the trailer that will be dropped next month? What do you think about it?

Yes, I saw it! It's not longer than the previous promo spots, but there was SO much new footage. I think this one will give all the theorist girlies smth to chew on until the premiere. I saw Armand in his feels, Claudia asking the important questions, and Louis haunted by... well :)

Btw, I'm only assuming the trailer will be dropped next month bc of the May release date. Just makes the most sense to me, but we know AMC works in mysterious ways.

[taffywabbit]

Hey, sorry if this is a bit personal of a question, but I was in your stream last night when you were talking about dreams and mentioned being raised Mormon, and I'm curious: do you find yourself avoiding people who go to that church, or do you have friends from that time who still go that you keep up with? Do you find yourself in good company who respect your decision to leave or do you encounter mostly hostility?

honestly I'm not really sure! as someone who mostly socializes online these days as an openly queer leftist furry, I can't say I really run into any active church members very often haha. we don't really run in the same circles at all. the only ones I do still see are at family gatherings or whatever (most of my extended family are mormon too, and tbh I'm not even quite sure how many of them actually know i quit church 5 years ago - I get the feeling my parents didn't go around announcing it to everyone lol)

I do definitely avoid people I already used to know through church though. my old FB messages are full of unopened "hey how are things?" messages from former missionary companions and ppl from the young adult congregation I used to attend at the start of college, because (at least with the latter) i know my name probably came up in a meeting and they got assigned to reach out to me and figure out why i left church and how to get me back. I don't really bear ill will towards those people themselves, but I was in that church for 20+ years and I know EXACTLY how much persistence and borderline stalking the members are tasked with under the guise of "outreach" and "service". I've been on the other side of those meetings and efforts enough times. people talk about it being hard to leave for a reason, so I didn't take any chances. removed my contact info from the church directory, ignored any calls and texts I got, ghosted the guys I used to play D&D with, and obviously didn't tell anyone when I moved. I do think about some of the people I knew as a missionary or in that YSA branch fondly sometimes and wonder how they're doing, but I simply can't risk letting myself become known to the church again or I'll have missionaries showing up at my door to use all of their specially-trained 18yo guilt-tripping abilities to bring me back.

(all of this being said, my immediate family is at least a lot more accepting of my decision nowadays than most extended family members or other mormons who know I left the church. they were pretty upset when they first found out - tbf I HAD been openly lying to them for a few months before I decided to break the news - but I think at some point after seeing me in person again after a few years had passed, they saw i hadn't immediately become a meth dealer or whatever and seemed happy and stable and decided not to push the issue. they don't ask me to pray with them or attend church when I visit anymore, but they do still talk openly about their responsibilities in church because they know i understand what they're talking about, and I'm fine with that. as long as they don't put my current address and phone number back into the church directory, we're cool for the time being - at least until I come out to them, which might make things more complicated lol)