#and everyone's being better about masks

[fruchtchen]

michael lee has the flu and my notre dame de paris tickets are for this sunday when i say 빨리 회복하시길 i mean ㅂㅂㅏㄹㄹㅣ🙏🙏🙏

[turtleblogatlast]

I think a lot about Leo’s tendency to push his way into the spotlight despite clearly being a natural in the shadows. Hell, you could argue that his worst moments are when he’s forcing himself onstage, and his best are when he does things no one notices until it’s already been done.

[al-luviec]

something simple to try to get out of art block (it didn't work)

[gods-perfect-idiots]

something something blood-soaked hands cradling your face something something

anyway here's the post btw

[katyspersonal]

Thinking about that time when a popular artist was a prick to me personally (claimed that I "baited" them for a conflict when all I did was pointing out something in lore contradicting their claim, without any rudeness or condescension, and basically told me to go hang out with other autists instead of bothering them) but the reason I blocked them was not that, it was the fact that they've admitted on not even caring about the source material and just using scraps from it to do their own thing. Priorities hfngkfngj

[godsfavoritescientist]

Biting the bars of my enclosure about autistic ford tonight. There's something about him using vocabulary and turns of phrase that seem "outdated" or "pretentious" that feels so painfully genuine to me. When people say he talks like that just to "try to sound smart" I wish I could explain what it's like to be so ostracized from your peers growing up that you spend all your time reading instead, to the point where you pick up your way of speaking from books instead of from people. And then what it's like for people to call you out for "talking weird" over and over again, not able to wrap their heads around why the fuck you would choose more archaic or technical or formal words than the simpler ones that surely come to everyone's minds first. What it's like to have to dedicate a sizable chunk of attention to filtering through every single word you say out loud in real time before you say it, to make absolutely sure that it isn't a word people will judge you for using or make fun of you for using, just so you'll have a chance of being taken seriously. Learning through trial and error how to filter out the words that other people don't think are normal or casual enough for the conversation, even though for you, the word choice that's "natural-sounding" enough for them is the third or fourth word you came up with when searching for the right way to phrase something in your head. I wish I could explain just how long it takes to say fucking anything after spending a lifetime doing that during every single conversation, and how repetitive and long-winded you end up being when you spend so long coming up with alternative ways of saying every little thing you ever think. And I wish people realized that, at the very least for autistic people and autistic-coded characters, speech that's seen as pretentious is really just the way they talk when they're not putting in the extra effort to filter through every word they say just so others will take the time to listen.

[only-man-in-the-sky]

I've gotten like three fucking asks wondering if my comments are directed at them. I don't fucking know. I see like 30 fucking people do it every fucking day so maybe it *was* you. impossible to say. but you've all kinda proven my point by immediately jumping down my throat about it

[musubiki]

Besides Danmarch (and low key FeiQiu?), what other Honkai Star Rail ships do you like?

not many honestly!!! danmarch is my fav i love their silly banter....yanli is my new second fav HEHHEHEHEHEHE you cant give me two cute kids who have so much in common and yet end up as childish bickering rivals anyway and then their mentors forcing them into the get-along-tshirt (metaphorically) and expect me not to love them instantly heheeee

[jichanxo]

how different is your creative process between writing and drawing (and in which areas)? do you have a different approach in each artform? if you have an idea, you first think how you'd write it or draw it?

This is definitely going to be long so. Cut.

Just to preface, obviously both writing and drawing are a form of art, but I tend to use the word “art” when I mean illustration or drawing, so that’s what I’m going to do here. And of course a disclaimer that I’m only speaking to my subjective experience.

Tbh I don’t think my approach to both is that different from each other, which is odd, because I’m used to thinking of them as very different processes. Probably because the mediums themselves are so different. But like with my writing, I tend to improvise. Feel it out, see how things go, throw ideas at the wall. I would probably say that I’m more willing to experiment with/scrap my art than my writing. Probably because I’m more confident with my art than my writing, so I find it easier to make judgments like that, or because I’ve made so much that throwing stuff away when it isn’t working is very easy. I get a bit more precious about my writing. I always want to keep it or at least try to adapt it into something less bad, lmao. I’m also just not as confident in my ability to judge what writing is worth keeping or worth permanently deleting. I just haven’t polished that skill for writing as much as I have for art.

With regards to planning my art – I definitely do sometimes, because I consider art my Serious Hobby, which means I do like to have a go at more serious projects as opposed to just improvising all the time (a contrast to my writing where my only “serious project” is senseific, and I fell into that by accident). The things I plan out are the idea/s I want to convey, and what imagery would express that. (like this IW art, and the second one in this umineko post) Or sometimes the imagery gets stuck in my head and I work from that. (yagami’s hair clinging to his neck here)

I actually find that planning too much can be detrimental to my art process. That is to say, not in terms of figuring out ideas/themes, but doing too much drafting. I find it very difficult to do things like clean lineart unless I’m having a Weirdly Good Art Moment, so I just don’t. Hence a lot of my art is very sketchy. I’m just not good at capturing the same looseness with “proper” lineart than with my sketches, so I keep them. Not worth fussing over. This is what works for me.

(even in this, and the first image here, you can see a lot of breaks and incomplete looking lines. not to say necessarily that this is a bad thing of course, but you can see that even in what I consider my “polished” work, I won’t use “proper” linework, but instead a high quality/detailed sketch. I imagine some other artists would have their proper linework stage after these sketches, but i choose to stop here)

this probably reads like I’m talking myself down, but that’s not really what I’m meaning to say – my point is that I don’t figure out details even for my bigger pieces, and that with drawn art I have a better time judging where my time is best spent. I don’t think I have a strong understanding of my writing by comparison, so I can’t decide how to play to my strengths or anything like that, I just have to see how i go.

For writing, either it’s “i’m in the mood for it” or “i’m not in the mood for it”. For art, it’s “today is a good day/bad day”, “today’s a painting day”, “today feels like masking”, “today I just want to sketch”, “today I’m too loose for what I want to work on”, “today I’m too stiff”. You can see the difference in my ability to judge, yeah? So a big difference is to do with just my own (relative) inexperience with writing as opposed to drawing.

I think the other major factor is the differences in the mediums themselves. A fanfic is sequential. There’s a change in time. Illustrations are by nature a single moment in time. Big difference there. Of course, there are comics and animatics and other art that’s both drawn and sequential, but since I don’t do a lot of that, just count that as exceptions for now (and in a way, those are kind of like a combination of writing and illustration, aren’t they?) I find there are some ideas that are conveyed easier or better through writing, and others where the better option is art.

So to answer your last question, often ideas come to me pre-packaged as a “writing idea” or an “art idea”, rather than having to decide that separately. In the case that a sequence is better conveyed with a visual element, that’s when it’s comic time. The gorillashipping comic is a great example of this. The punchline is at its best when it’s not explained in words, and the expression of the final panel does all the heavy lifting. I pitched this idea initially in words (as a joke on discord), but the comic version has more punch.

Comics are also great for when you want to avoid explaining context, and for when you want to force the reader to take a specific pace. Here’s the example I’m thinking of.

The visual space dedicated to the fighting forces you to take time to process, and that time is important for the buildup to the punchline. This wouldn’t work as well if we cut this down to, say, the four panels of the last example. So yeah, timing. And then my other point – context – why are these two fighting? I don’t know. Where are they? I don’t know. It’s not necessary for the joke. The same is true of the gorillashipping joke. How did the relationship between kiryu and kaito happen to make this even remotely possible? I don’t know. But I don’t need to explain it in a joke comic. With writing I find that it feels more necessary to make context clear to the reader so they understand what’s happening, but with illustrations, it’s a lot easier to skip over that. Obviously this isn’t impossible in a written format, but that’s just my personal opinion.

Admittedly I think this second example is doable with just pure writing (replace all the panels with descriptions of the fight that take long enough to simulate the time it takes for the reader to digest the build up, then make the punchline a wham line, yknow), but it varies on a case to case basis. Also I would not want to write fighting. Lmao. I’m not… any good at that. So I guess it is also just in part about playing to strengths.

Anyway, enough comic side tangent. I’ve already started talking about it there, but was going to do a comparison between writing and art as mediums. The main thing, I find, is that they have different strengths. More than strengths/weaknesses though, the mediums themselves convey some things with ambiguity, and other things with detail.

Like I first mentioned, time: it’s easier to convey the passage of time with writing than with illustration. And like I said before with comics – conveying context – because an illustration captures a single moment in time, it’s a lot easier to avoid context entirely, while it’s harder to avoid in writing. I’ve drawn kuwagami cuddles before, and there’s no background, nothing discernable as to the lead up or any other detail. And that’s great! I don’t want to have to invent a plausible reason for them to end up hugging. I can just do it, right? But sometimes it’s the context that makes things significant, so you do want it there. A better job for writing. Writing allows you to be detailed with your context, while illustration leaves it ambiguous. Different strengths. You just pick which best fits the situation.

It’s a similar case for a lot of different factors – they're conveyed differently through both mediums, and depending on your idea, some results are more desirable than others. Rather than explaining, it’s probably better to do a direct comparison. (If it makes any difference to your curiosity, I did the drawing first then the writing. You’ve caught me on a good art day, what a nice sketch…)

I’ll try not to talk too much because I think the comparison and table say enough, but you can see how, despite depicting basically the same thing, these two things feel pretty different from each other. The mediums do different things. The mood of both is similar, but not quite the same. It’s these differences that inform the choice of mediums instinctually. (but again. points at disclaimer. as is true with all “rules” about art, none of these are absolute. you can make an illustration that conveys a strong context. you can write fic that favours describing facial expressions and leaves the intended emotion ambiguous. i’m generalising to make a point here.)

I guess the other thing is that it’s pretty easy to do writing in bed on my phone compared to my art setup, lmao. Convenience and timing also play into it probably.

[smol-tired-binch-blog]

[kicks door down]

Autistic Nishiki whose special interest is fashion and not only considers what's trendy but also looks out for fabrics that aren't a sensory nightmare, however sometimes he will force himself to wear something that isn't comfy for appearance's sake, which leaves him more vulnerable to getting overwhelmed and therefore 'emotional' Also means he has his collar popped like Kiryu's for sensory reasons too and slutty reasons, which would once again make me correct in saying if he undid his collar in Kiwami he'd be normal again because if I were constantly experiencing sensory discomfort I too would be fucked up and evil.

Cause like here's the thing, autistic Kiryu and Majima headcanons are more obvious (especially the former), whereas Nishiki probably comes off as the most 'normal'; he can likely maintain eye contact and talk to people 'normally' and not like, go off on some random tangent about a special interest or hyperfixation. And then you remember masking is a thing.

And okay, so I actually think it's unfair a lot of fandom considers him a 'crybaby' right, cause he's cried in situations MOST PEOPLE WOULD RIGHTFULLY CRY OVER! BUT, I can use this to my Autistic Advantage and have this be he actually struggles to regulate his emotions, and considering he's been exposed to the yakuza world since a young age where ANY emotion that isn't 'respectable stoicism' or 'righteous fury and indignation', he's seen as even MORE overly emotional. Hence the need to start masking so early, PLUS having to protect Kiryu who couldn't mask if his life depended on it because he doesn't realise he may HAVE to (speaking from personal experience, Kiryu definitely went his whole life unaware there was anything ""wrong"" with him (for lack of a better word) and had people just like "oh yeah he's just Like That dw bout it" and went on with his life), so Nishiki takes up the mantle of I'm The One Who Knows What We're Doing Lad's desperate to gain acceptance and will change whatever he has to but people still somehow pick up that Something's Off About Him and so they tend to be disdainful or brush him off. It's easy charisma that can win over hostesses and brief encounters with civillians but can't carry across in the yakuza. Kiwami is him trying his DAMNDEST to act neurotypical even at the cost of his own comfort, and the worst part is it's not working

[du-hjarta-skulblaka]

Stuck on the first few eps of Farscape after finishing up Fantasy High s2 and maybe its the whole most recently consumed bias but I'm really struck by how much it feels like a dnd game??? Bunch of weird lil renegades slapped together and put in weird situations, honestly it would make a really interesting starting point for a game

Anyway John Crichton is a bard/wizard; he does a lot of persuasion as performance and that scene of him collapsing to the floor to write slingshot equations is THE most wizard shit- perhaps Artificer would be more accurate to him but it's not a class I'm familiar with.

[silverselfshippingchaos]

I think so much about early first game and pre-development s.ugiura

before he took off the mask and he was just that little shit who laughed at you and stole your phone for kicks

[bonerot19]

lots of angst…

how many bocces of tissue do I need to prepare 🧍‍♀️🧍‍♀️

depends on whether or not I ever finish writing it 😪

it's called that bc it starts off with something very heavy happening to Jason (steph and jason are grabbed by black mask and he knows jason won't talk but he thinks he can make steph talk by hurting jason) and is, essentially, the bats feeling like shit and Jason wanting them to leave him alone and no one having any boundaries and Bruce assuming Jason will do something vengeful. also Roy is there but the more I learn about Roy outside of fanon, the more I hesitate to write JayRoy (but also I like iiiit)

and also Jason says: “But that’s the problem, Bruce. I keep my promises, but you never trust me. And you’re a liar, but I always believe you.”

[overcaffeinated-aro]

I got an email from my grandpa today and all the draft responses I’ve been working on in my head sound like an 18th century letter that’s going to have to travel for months to reach him.

pandemic year 5 really has me feeling like me and a very small handful of people I know are living on an entirely different plane of existence than everyone else

[times-of-drought]

Storyteller Saturday! What is a Glass Demon?

Hello! Happy Storyteller Saturday! :3

The Glass Demon is Satan an ancient creature in the setting from one of my most polished plot-wise stories!

In the setting, the main kind of creature aside from humans is Elemental. There are many, many types of elementals, ranging from typical ones, like fire, to more uncommon ones, like light or even magic itself.

Unfortunately for both humanity and elementals, humans cannot inherently, directly create magic. It is not obtainable to them, simply put. They can, however, employ the 'help' of elementals, using them to craft more and more intricate spells or simply use magic for the human. A spell can be weaved by elementals and humans together, preparing it and storing it somewhere or in something (an artifact, an item, a scroll et cetera) and used by the human anytime, anywhere, so the profession of spellweavers who coordinate different kinds of elementals is highly respectable.

(It started out on rules of equality, but as elementals started being more and more exploited and bound by magical rules crafted by humans, less and less of them were free to do what they wanted and move where they wanted to. But that aspect of the kingdom where the story takes place is more about the story itself, not the Glass Demon fnksdj I got too far)(long story short, the kingdom 'employs' all elementals in it to serve humans. Every new elemental that is born there has to be woven into the pact, binding it like its parents.)

The Glass Demon is, at least now, more of a myth rather than a historical figure. A story told in plays and stories, The Bad Guy in any plot about overcoming the greatest evil. Everyone knows what the Glass Demon embodies, but almost nobody knows what really happened centuries ago.

There used to be a mage. The Mage, often called by haters The Sightless Mage. A real, full-blooded human, with all faults that came with that. They were power hungry, driven only by greed and pride. They were on top, with the greatest understanding of all intricacies of magic and spellweaving. They were not satisfied with that, however. They wanted to attain the unattainable - to be able to wield magic by themselves, with no assistance from elementals. It did not work out, to their dismay.

The only person who knows exactly how their current form came to be is the Glass Demon itself, but stories often involve the Mage employing dozens of elementals, experts in their craft, to help create the most foul artifact. It was supposed to be a new staff for the Mage, one that would allow them to directly use any kind of magic, with no preparation. Not a human, but still holding a copied human soul and The Mage's mind, causing them to be linked and have the same goals.

Well, the soul got copied and transferred, sure. One crucial bit of research The Mage missed to do before was that the soul is not linked to the body's mind. Transferring one does not inherently transfer the other.

I have to admit, the rule of the world was kept. What came out of the ritual was no human. But it was no staff, at least not after the first few seconds. A twisted form of sharp edges rang out the ritual circle, twitching surfaces and contorting in silent wails no-longer-flesh, seemingly shattered, constantly on the verge of falling apart in thousands of little, glittering pieces, The Glass Demon came to be. The first and last artificial elemental, albeit one with a human soul. At the beginning, the thing had no mind, only the most vile qualities inherited from the soul. In a bloody, murderous rage, it has slain its creator and their assistants. Alone, in a isolated vault, it has learned everything it could. Their form was not stable, constantly shifting and cracking with each step, but they have managed to at least vaguely hold a humanoid form. Full of hate, it started destroying everything they came across. Humans, elementals, villages and cities, nothing could resist the sharp, agonizing wrath.

Finally, after years of carnage, a counter-spell of sorts has been developed. Researchers found The Foul Mage's notes, their research, and crafted a binding curse.

Tricked, the Glass Demon was constricted into a shape similar to their original form - a silver staff the shape of a crescent moon, with the Demon's eye hanged between the tips, constantly looking out for victims.

The artifact not only has been sealed away, but additionally enveloped in layers of protective and offensive spells. Anyone who would try to reach the Demon would have to be an expert spellcaster, and after that whole debacle these have been strictly and closely monitored.

Not only that, but even if one managed to tear through all the layers, they still would have to be able to overcome the Demon, lest their form would be overwhelmed and destroyed by its power the moment they bound themselves to the staff just like a human would bind themselves to an elemental.

No human would have enough resistance to survive the binding and no elemental could bind itself to another, even if artificial, one.

Well. Until the main character of my story, Razareth, came along, a half human, half elemental ;)))

[teleomancer]

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