#and i just generally have a lot to say about this piece but

[geraldmariaivo]

I’m like 95% sure that I’m autistic, though undiagnosed. While I absolutely experienced a lot of these, I found the communication barrier less extreme. Mostly for three reasons.

1) as a smallish child I devoured books, and my parents encouraged my reading, so they just chucked thicker and thicker books at me. And my dad has a lot of old fantasy books. Between that and my later consumption of really long fanfics online, my childhood-adolescent vocabulary exploded with big words that older people know, and mean very specific things.

2) My parents watched lots of detective and private investigator shows (think Elementary and Person of Interest). These shows had smart characters who used big words, lots of words, spoke calmly, and very importantly- got their points across in a way that I understood very clearly, and the other characters understood as they walked through their explanations. None of them were particularly good at socializing, but they could convey information.

3) growing up, my dad and especially my uncle (my dad’s older brother, and an engineer) were the single most pedantic people I knew, and they would argue semantics into the ground. I know for a fact that my uncle is autistic (undiagnosed, but trust me there’s no way he’s not), and he had the most literal mindset ever. He was the kind of guy who drilled into me to never say “always” unless I genuinely meant “every single solitary instance.” He’s loosened up with age, but my god it was so stressful to talk to him as a child. Between him and my dad, I had to figure out how to piece together sentences so there was no possible way it could be misconstrued or used against me, because anything that could be, would be.

I ended up absorbing the speech patterns, and paired it with my vocabulary to make what I said as air-tight as possible. (Example: if someone asked “Did [X] do [Y]?” and you’re 98% sure they didn’t, normal answer is “No.” or “I don’t think so.” What I had learned to say in middle school was “To the best of my knowledge, [X] didn’t do [Y], though I haven’t asked them about it recently, so you might need to.”

Unfortunately I now have the opposite problem. In the words of Red from OSP: “Why use one word, when fifteen will do!” Which also sometimes (but much less often) results in people not knowing what the fuck I’m talking about because I explained it in too much detail. This usually happens when someone is sleep deprived, extra stressed, or uninterested in what I’m saying anyway. Ironically, my dad is the one who complains about it the most, telling me that I sound weird, and need to learn how to talk like a normal person. Meanwhile my uncle is like “Ah, yes. I can understand what you’re saying perfectly.”

Funnily enough I’ll sometimes use internet shorthand when something is obvious enough that I can be confident that the person I’m talking to can extrapolate the meaning, but it ends up with me say things like “Honestly the Generation 1 Transformers theme songs are funny to me. They clearly didn’t really know what they were doing. The every season’s theme was different, and all of them had disorganized music and vocals. None of them were particularly coherent, and half the time you wouldn’t be able to tell what genre the show was by listening to it if it wasn’t for the fact that they slapped a computer-y sounding filter over the voice lines because robots.”

ironically, my dad, one of the main reasons that i Talk Like That, tells me that i have the weirdest speech patterns. It’s not particularly derogatory, but every time he does it reminds me that he knows has gained the trust of zero autistic people under the age of forty because of his boomer-ass nonsense, because every autistic person under the age of forty that I’ve met who’s heard me speak like that almost immediately dropped the mask and started using their own patchwork speech patterns. (Yes i know all naturally occurring speech patterns are patchwork due to social mirroring and the like.)

I realized the other day that the reason I didn't watch much TV as a teenager (and why I'm only now catching up on late aughts/early teens media that I missed), is because I literally didn't understand how to use our TV. My parents got a new system, and it had three remotes with a Venn diagram of functions. If someone left the TV on an unfamiliar mode, I didn't know how to get back to where I wanted to be, so I just stopped watching TV on my own altogether.

I explained all this to my therapist, because I didn't know if this was more related to my then-unnoticed autism, or to my relationship with my parents at the time (we had issues less/unrelated to neurodivergency). She told me something interesting.

In children's autism assessments, a common test is to give them a straightforward task that they cannot reasonably perform, like opening an overtight jar. The "real" test is to see, when they realize that they cannot do it on their own, if they approach a caregiver for help. Children that do not seek help are more likely to be autistic than those that do.

This aligns with the compulsory independence I've noticed to be common in autistic adults, particularly articulated by those with lower support needs and/or who were evaluated later in life. It just genuinely does not occur to us to ask for help, to the point that we abandon many tasks that we could easily perform with minor assistance. I had assumed it was due to a shared common social trauma (ie bad experiences with asking for help in the past), but the fact that this trait is a childhood test metric hints at something deeper.

My therapist told me that the extremely pathologizing main theory is that this has something to do with theory of mind, that is doesn't occur to us that other people may have skills that we do not. I can't speak for my early childhood self, or for all autistic people, but I don't buy this. Even if I'm aware that someone else has knowledge that I do not (as with my parents understanding of our TV), asking for help still doesn't present itself as an option. Why?

My best guess, using only myself as a model, is due to the static wall of a communication barrier. I struggle a lot to make myself understood, to articulate the thing in my brain well enough that it will appear identically (or at least close enough) in somebody else's brain. I need to be actively aware of myself and my audience. I need to know the correct words, the correct sentence structure, and a close-enough tone, cadence, and body language. I need draft scripts to react to possible responses, because if I get caught too off guard, I may need several minutes to construct an appropriate response. In simple day-to-day interactions, I can get by okay. In a few very specific situations, I can excel. When given the opportunity, I can write more clearly than I am ever capable of speaking.

When I'm in a situation where I need help, I don't have many of my components of communication. I don't always know what my audience knows. I don't have sufficient vocabulary to explain what I need. I don't know what information is relevant to convey, and the order in which I should convey it. I don't often understand the degree of help I need, so I can come across inappropriately urgent or overly relaxed. I have no ability to preplan scripts because I don't even know the basic plot of the situation.

I can stumble though with one or two deficiencies, but if I'm missing too much, me and the potential helper become mutually unintelligible. I have learned the limits of what I can expect from myself, and it is conceptualized as a real and physical barrier. I am not a runner, so running a 5k tomorrow does not present itself as an option to me. In the same way, if I have subconscious knowledge that an interaction is beyond my capability, it does not present itself as an option to me. It's the minimum communication requirements that prevent me from asking for help, not anything to do with the concept of help itself.

Maybe. This is the theory of one person. I'm curious if anyone else vibes with this at all.

[gatheredfates]

WELCOME to Sea's Catch Up (For) Starlight Challenge! Also know as 'A FFIX Prompt?' (I just woke up), 'Is it Cosy or Cozy in Australia?' (Cosy) and bEANS (bEANS!).

Suffice it to say, there have been a lot of challenges this year—Gpose challenges, FFXIV Write, Down to Dawntrail and Seafloor Saints Wake (just to name ours)! I know from personal experience that I haven't had the time to get to every single prompt... but I've wanted to. I also know it can be really disheartening to miss out on prompts and feel like you're being weird for engaging with it later on in the year.

To that end, I wanted to open a challenge that encourages people to either tackle an existing prompt from any gpose/writing/art challenge that was hosted during the year (under the excuse of it being for this challenge) OR pick from one of the prompts above to make a Starlight-themed creative piece!

All of these words were chosen by various people within the SEAFLOOR Discord, and i have tried not to tie them too closely to Christmas so people who don't celebrate the holiday don't feel left out. If you want to change a word that is more applicable to your culture, but still embodies the same spirit of the holiday through family, humanity, spending time with your loved ones, etc. I highly encourage you to do so!

This challenge will run the entirety of the month of December and can be tackled in any way you see fit. If you want to do a prompt a day and mix in the words in amongst working on your old project(s), go for it! If you want to select some words and not others, cool! If you want to only work on your old stuff and leave this list in the dust, a okay! It's all about giving you a low-stakes way to engage with your creativity and an excuse to go back to stuff you might have missed, or take some time to celebrate the season and people who mean a lot to you (and your ocs)!

Please use the tag #catch up (for) starlight if you participate and consider joining our community! A more comprehensive FAQ is contained in the read more below. ☃️

But also:

Is the use of mods/shades/tools okay? Yes, of course! Whatever works for you to make your creative dreams come true.

What about NSFW (gore, sexual or otherwise)? Use common sense and appropriate tags as necessary, especially for common fears and phobias. I obviously cannot control what Tumblr sees as being too much, but the general rules for SEAFLOOR apply where possible. If your conservative boss wouldn't like to see it, consider tagging and content warning were necessary.

Where do I post works? Hopefully your Tumblr blog, silly, but you can also reblog them to the SEAFLOOR Tumblr Community or join us on Discord! If someone posts their work in either of those spaces, consider reacting with a wintery-themed emoji! It just lets people know you enjoyed it. ❄️ I am going to do my best to reblog prompts when I see them, but I am going away during the Christmas period so I may not be contactable in that time.

Is there a prize? There might be this time around, though I haven't given it much thought. Seafloor members will get a fancy cosmetic title.

[cheer-nympho]

THE DUSTIN EXPERIMENT MOMENTS I THINK ARE CUTE OR NOTEWORTHY FOR YOUR FANDOM REFERENCE

Thread of moments from the official book, mainly Eddie info

Mainly Steve, Eddie and Robin or general character dynamics I think are interesting or cute, read this for fanfic help ig,

Copied from my thread on twitter- this book lays in the muddy zone canon wise BUT is officially licensed merch and signed off by the writers, enjoy!

QUICK HIGHLIGHTS: Eddie is canonically afraid of ducks, Eddie is not against Lucas being in basketball and is just worried about the kids driving each other away, Eddie jokingly flirts with male security guards

1. The jocks are SCARED of Eddie. They struggle to pick on him because they are afraid of him, and he can shut them up with ‘a look’

2. Steve picks Robin up from school to take her to her Family Video shifts so Dustin often tags along, and Stobin gossip the whole time

3. Robin is a BIG foreign films fan. She says art transcends language and Steve makes a joke that he struggles to care even when movies are in English. He took, and passed, French in high school

4. When teamed up and being serious, Steve and Robin give genuinely good advice out that is meaningful and ‘wise’. Theres a lot of fun banter with them in this second chapter, but they’re actually good at giving friendship advice to Dustin.

5. Patrick is genuinely nice, he welcomes Lucas in with open arms and a big wave- and its pissing me off a bit having to hear all this “lucas was bad for leaving them for basketball” shit over again but anyway

6. Eddie makes a point of saying to not get the goths confused with the punks, and that youd learn that the hard way. He adresses his table as “ladies and gentlemen” even though there are no ladies… ‘as far as dustin can tell’

7. Unnamed freak is now apparently named Doug. Gareth is a thief, Jeff is a druid, ‘Doug’ is a barbarian. Mike is a D&D purist and thinks the expansions are pointless but lies to try and impress hellfire

8. FINALLY some outside canon acknowledgment that MIKE is the dm.

Eddie and Mike are described as having that DM gene that makes them captivating storytellers, Mike recounts a campaign to the hellfire table who listen on intently

9. Mike makes the pun “and he said ‘Beholder? I hardly Know’er!’” And the table of absolute dweebs laugh their heads off. Although Dustin is enjoying himself a lot, he thinks it would be better with Lucas

10. Eddies walkman is broken, and states he’d rather listen to Madonna that just silence when Gareth makes a joke.

Dustin offers to fix it and Eddie goes “no thats okay I got it” before repeatedly slamming it against the table.

11. Dustin and Eddie abusive dad bonding time. Dustin tells a story about how he took apart a radio piece by piece, and when Eddie comments that his dad would have ‘beat his ass’ Dustin states that his dad wanted to, but his Moms immediate reaction was to sign him up for science camp.

He states that, even though its not cool to say, he thinks his mom is awesome. A few months after the incident she divorced Dustins dad and moved them back to Hawkins, where she grew up.

12. Eddie made Dustin a metal mixtape to thank him for fixing his amp, with the note “Because man cannot live on Weird Al alone - Eddie”

13. Robin is trying to hit Steve in the head with a paper football while sarcastically scolding him for calling Eddie a ‘freak’

She then accuses him of being jealous of Eddie before hitting Steve square in the forehead with a rubber band

14. Steve and Robin immediately jump to Lucas’ defence, Steve calling “bullshit” on even the possibility of Lucas doing something wrong here.

He says Lucas is dealing with his own things, trying to figure himself out past popularity.

15. Eddie and Jeff are in a screaming match over who the better guitarist is: Tony Iommi or Glenn Tipton, and he’s effectively crawling across the table to yell in Jeff’s face,

Dustin immediately nopes out of that and goes to ask Robin for help, who is talking to ~Vickie~

16. Robin is the mediator in the boys friendship issues and has convinced them to try trust falling to make up again,and demonstrates it with Steve

Shes actually good at it, the boys have a bittersweet bonding moment where they realise theyre all just afraid of being left behind

17. Tension is alleviated when Steve reveals his greatest fear is the cartoon Turbo Teen

19. Eddie seems to have a secret, undiscussable fear of ducks. He says their eyes are enough to cause psychic damage and Dustin nites he looks serious.

So…Eddie has a dark past with a duck

20. More bad dad bonding. Eddie says the only good thing his dad left him was a sense of where the speed traps on highways are, and he notes that Dustin doesn’t mention his dad much.

He cheated on Dustins mom, and now Dustin has pretty much no contact with him.

21. While reassuring Dustin, Eddie admits he is afraid before every single performance. He says he isnt brave, isnt facing his fear- all he knows is that he just loves music more than he is afraid of everything else.

Which makes the master of puppets scene so much worse

22. The nerds at the science fair are also scared of how Eddie looks lmao, people move aside and almost create a path for him and Dustin while looking at Eddie sceptically-

The receptionist mistakes Eddie for Dustins dad also

23. Hes like, really afraid of ducks

24. Being left along for 5 minutes to babysit the duck Frodo, Eddie has amassed a crowd of nerds who he is telling scary stories to in his DM mode

A little girl asks “Mr. Eddie” if he’ll tell them more stories, and he says he will if she nails her presentation

25. Eddie, who was tasked with causing a distraction is dragged out of the hall by 2 guards while he says “Gentleman, if you wanted an excuse to feel my arms you could have just asked”

26. The kids (Lucas, Mike, Dustin) are surprisingly close to Robin! Dustin sees her as the best and most logical person to help them through their issues, and Lucas and Mike talk to her like any other member of the party,

Just some nice post s3 bonding stuff

27. When the party start fighting at the table about Lucas in basketball, Gareth tries to butt in and Eddie scolds him and tells him to keep out of it

Hes not against Lucas being in basketball, and tells Dustin to make up with him

DONE!! And heres some things I couldn’t manage to sum up in the same format, and some pages that I think are nice

[leqclerc]

I honestly can’t believe I’m making a post like this but it’s impossible to pretend it’s just another race weekend and my life is continuing on as normal when it’s not.

Last night I lost my beloved dad, completely unexpectedly. He wasn’t battling an ongoing illness, but thankfully it wasn’t a tragic accident – his body just shut down and he never woke up from his afternoon nap. Just like that, gone far too soon and unfairly young.

I’m a very private and honestly quite shy and introverted person and I always tried to keep my private life from bleeding over excessively onto here, or my online persona in general, as online communities, and particularly the fandom here on Tumblr, though not always perfect, are my means of escape, a way to channel my passion, and all the intense feelings that come from following F1. But I can’t bear to say nothing about this at all and pretend all is well, when a big part of my F1 watching rituals was my dad.

There’s just three of us in our immediate family: me, my mom, and my dad. We functioned as a trio, as a close-knit team. It wasn’t always perfect, but we complemented each other; balanced each other out. When I got too high-strung or stressed he’d offer solace, advice, his sharp wit and incredible sense of humour.

Whenever we were at home we’d sit down and watch the races together. He wasn’t as deeply invested as I was – which sometimes irked me, like when he’d doze off in the middle of a “boring” race – but he was very knowledgable. He knew who my favourites were, of course, and always kept an eye out for them, how they were doing. It was incredible to have someone to react with, to discuss with, to talk strategy with, to laugh with. For the past ten years it’s been our ritual. We’d get the snacks out, get the broadcast on, and watch together. A lot of my feverish liveblogs were created during these watch sessions. He was there as I experienced some of the most beautiful and heartbreaking moments in the sport. He knew how much it meant to me and even if he wasn’t as much of a fan as I was, he did it all because he knew how much it meant to me. He knew I would check the schedule and we’d plan our family Saturday shopping trips around the calendar, as much as we could, so we’d always be back in time for qualifying. He was there with me for every race, even the early morning ones. When we weren’t at home and I had to watch the race “in the wild” he’d do everything to facilitate that. When we were apart and couldn’t watch together he’d text me about the races, or talk it over later on a phone call.

Over the past two years we visited Monaco and Maranello together, and I couldn’t be more grateful that he insisted on it, even when we had to travel far, even when it wasn’t convenient and we were about to take it off the list. He always found a way to make things work – for me. Because he knew I cared and he knew it would make me happy, that they were my little dream trips. Me and my mom were his whole world and he always did everything to put us first, to make sure we felt it.

I feel empty and numb. I lost a piece of myself that I can never ever get back. I lost an incredible dad and a true, loyal friend. I’m grateful for all the moments we shared and heartbroken for the ones that will never be. We were supposed to have so much more time. Watching races will never be the same again. Nothing will ever be the same again. I will miss him more than words could ever express. I love you, I miss you.

[whack-a-moron]

The thing is, Trump is in fact a piece of shit. He has been for decades long before his name became so mainstream from the elections and presidency. This is a generally known fact. Educated people in certain sectors of the country have known what a piece of shit he is for decades and I've even openly heard them say things like "I hope that guy never gains a position of power" way before the 2016 elections, but these were primarily older people who were around way back when Trump was a young person just getting his start as an "upcoming industrialist".

The problem is, a lot of people, particularly my generation and younger, are frequently unable to make their points about him coherent or they're just parroting "Trump Bad" without actually knowing why he's bad.

And these people then run into their "opposition" who are likewise uneducated about all of the specifics of the horrid shit Trump has done throughout his life and has gone to great lengths to erase or make people forget about, or its just been a long time since then and things naturally disappear from public knowledge with age, and say "well why is he bad?" and all they get back is "Well he's basically Hitler!" and nothing more coherent than that because that's the only way they know how to articulate anything, so the Left all end up looking like a bunch of idiots who are saying things just to make noise.

All Trump has to do to win mass favor is mock the more uneducated Leftists who incoherently call him Bad Man, passive-aggressively parody their talking points to make it look like he has the high ground and appeal to people who already have a disdain for the more extreme Left, and then gaslight the people leaning towards his side that he's not the person he is.

Not hard for him considering he's spent his entire life since he was a teenager practicing putting on performances to manipulate people and get what he wants, and then have his Daddy bail him out of any trouble while he learned how to be the best manipulative show-boater he could be.

This election represents a significant turning point; more specifically its aftermath. In previous presidential elections the losing party has always become introspective and asked itself how it could have done things differently; where did it fall short. It has deferred to the American people.

The modern Left-wing establishment has no such inclination. What it has concluded from this election is that the American people are either reprobate or foolish. Now imagine being governed by someone who views you in this way. Their goal will not be to represent you but to rein you in. They can have no genuine regard for your input.

[the-100-days-of-junkan]

Day 60

Wow we really made it 60 days huh?

Okay so i’m not gonna yap long for this part. You saw the image, you see the read under. This is a small comic adaptation of @vanadisvalentine’s “Everything You’ve Ever Dreamed” fanfic. And it adapts the end of Chapter 4 which is pretty fuckin pivotal in that story. So if you haven’t read that fic yet I’m actually begging you, please read it and don’t let this comic be your first experience.

Second warning, this is going to be a long one. How long? Who knows. I haven’t written it yet, but this Day represents one of the biggest turning points in the whole project for me. 

When you click the read under you’re gonna get just the comic, and then you're gonna get hit with a gigantic fucking wall of text. I apologize in advance for the amount of rambling I’m about to do but I got a lot to say here.

Okay so you read the comic, you ready? Cause not only am I gonna yap about making that comic along with all the behind the scenes stuff, (amidst other tangents), but I’m also going to talk about the fic this is based on. This is probably going to feel a bit disorganized but i’ll try my best to keep this legible. Apologies in advance.

So your first thought is probably “Jem why the fuck did you do that?” and you’re correct for thinking that way. Rest assured, you’re going to ask that question again later but significantly louder and more exasperated in the future. 

Answer is simple though. I wanted to do something big for Number 60, cause every 10 images I wanna do something Big. For Number 50 I came out of retirement and wrote a fanfic and some art to go with it. So I wanted to go up. How do i go up? Well I am a comic artist, and making a webcomic is my general goal in life and what directs me forward. Sooo, why not a comic?

Okay but a comic of what? Well, why not a fanfic? And at the time the real answer was obvious.

There are Three Fanfics made for Junkan that are pivotal to this entire event. Without all three of them combined ya’ll would not be having Junkan art pop up in your feed every day, questioning what the hell is in my bloodstream to make me draw all this. The answer is Junkan, junkan is in my bloodstream.

I plan to talk about all three of those fics in this event, in as much detail as I can muster. That said not only are we going in reverse order, as todays fic “Everything You’ve Ever Dreamed” is the last piece of the puzzle for why I went off the deep end and drew this much Junkan. But also the other two fics aren’t gonna be discussed for a long time due to their placement in the event order. I’m talking within the last ten days. Oops.

But at the time it was, pretty fucking easy to choose this one to adapt. The other two either wouldn’t really fit my style that I had been working with up to that point, or were just not made to be a comic without way more energy.

And as a reminder this was before I had actually gotten to know some of ya’ll. Within the realm of Junkan Val was the only friend I had. I did have other people who liked DR and were on board with Junkan after I showed them my supply and stated my case, but Val was the only person I knew at the time who was as brainrotted for this ship as I am, granted I think she has like, a normal amount of brainrot. I think by the end of the project I’ve fully snapped and now I can’t stop thinking about these two, like I have actually tried to stop thinking about them but they keep popping up. What was I talking about- Right! Point is, you can consider Day 60, or as I would call it in casual conversation “The 22 Page Junkan Comic,” my most excessive thankyou to her for helping me stay motivated throughout the project and playing a massive part in its inspiration.

As for making the comic.

It was a very bold mix of “I’m having the time of my life” and “Hell,” that's the shortest way I could put it. The longest way? Wellll

So by this point I wasn’t just showing these pics to Val alone. I had a few friends even before Val who I showed the art too. I’d get compliments and feedback and all that nice stuff that keeps me going.

As I’ve stated in the past (i think) one of the hardest parts of this project for me was the lack of validation for my efforts. I do not make art purely to be complimented, I make art in order to hopefully bring a smile to someones face. However I do still take a lot of joy when I see my art being positively received, it shows that my efforts were worth it. Seeing peoples reactions helps me remember why I’m doing this and that I’m doing a good job at it. So if I  don’t get a lot of that, especially on something i put a lot of effort into, it can be a little demoralizing. It’s something I’ve tried to work past during this year, but at the time it was a big issue. Day 60 took around 2 weeks to finish, as I was managing other projects and commission work at the time. The whole time I barely showed anyone, Val was obvious because this was a surprise gift for her, however the rest is because I was very adamant about not spoiling the Fic it was based on, and say for a single person amidst the people I would show these pics to none of them had read the fic. So I went from showing a small handful of people these to showing one guy (admittedly one of my best friends) for the span of 2 weeks while grinding away at the comic. It wasn’t until the very tail end that my girlfriend surprised me by reading the fic, meaning I could show her as well finally. 

Was it worth starving myself of a majority of positive feedback for 2 weeks when I haven’t had to do something like that for years? Oh god yes but we’re not there yet I still need to talk about the actual comic.

So when you compare the fic to the comic you’ll notice I skipped a decent portion of this scene, this is mostly just for the sake of not making this take too long, I think I picked a pretty solid starting point but also I won’t lie and say there isn’t a part of me that wishes I took like an extra week or two to adapt the whole scene sometimes. Sometimes.

Mukuro acted as the pseudo cover for the comic, both because it was a small detail noted in the scene that she was watching the door, and because I could call back to the “Mukuro Notes” bit I did on the Vampire Junkan comic, which seemed like a cute call back. I also used this as a way to skip past some of the initial dialogue of the scene in terms of adaptation. I’m really happy with how this page turned out visually, I remember having to fiddle with Mukuro’s anatomy and smaller details for awhile.

As you can probably tell, like usual the art for this was still being done as a sketch which I colored rather than what I do in my usual comic stuff, that being Sketch > Lines > Colors > Shading. I did shade a few of these pages cause I think the extra effort was warranted for some pages. I wouldn’t know this without like, actually time traveling to check but I think there was even a time this would be just uncolored sketches. Clearly that didn’t last because yeah, the chick who’s drawing 100 days worth of junkan art is going to make a 22 page comic and NOT color the whole thing, keep telling yourself that Jem.

Once again since I was directly adapting this fic like with Day 20, I tried to be semi accurate in what I assume Junko’s appearance would be, giving her the bunny and bow clips in her hair. I didn’t go all the way since honestly I think i would have gone a little crazy if I drew both characters in their actual Hope’s Peak uniforms for the whole thing, so I mostly stuck to their killing game designs with that small change to Junko. And yes, I did have to edit Junko’s hair to remove the bear clips multiple times throughout the first few pages because I kept forgetting not to draw them. For the first time having these two memorized was a hindrance. 

If you’ve ever seen me draw a Question Mark with a cross instead of a dot when drawing Mikan, it’s cause of this comic. Val said it was a cute detail so I decided to stick with it when applicable.

I think I have read the segment of the story this is based on like, 30 times bare minimum. Now some of those times were just because I often reread this fic to help me relax before sleeping, but the majority are because I kept looking at this scene over and over again so I could try and get every detail of this perfect. The posing, expressions, and other visuals, while a little rough around the edges were all possible after going over every paragraph to get the vibe as close as possible.

The dialogue is word for word, punctuation for punctuation ripped from the fic itself. Mildly difficult to pull off without having to extend certain pages, but in the end I managed to pull it off.

Page 7 is one of my favorite pages from the experience. Originally the visual was supposed to be Junko in literal chains of despair with Mikan coming in with a key to unlock them, however chains are agonizing to draw. Not drawing them was a form of self care, even if I think it would have been a bit of a stronger metaphor. 

Mikan’s expressions were very difficult to get just right in this, which was half the fun. Do you know how fucking satisfying it was to draw her happy crying??? Very.

Page 10 is another one I’m really happy with. I don’t know exactly what the original plan was beyond the fact that I wanted the shot of Mikan reacting to that being a lot more visually extreme for the colors and amount of space it takes up to make it as overwhelming as possible. But I went in reverse  and made the initial heart stop moment of her realizing that Junko just said that more prominent than the rush of emotion hitting her right after.

There were going to be more visuals of Mikan being cute in the following page, however not only was I struggling for ideas but also my energy was fluctuating to hell and back by this point in the comic.

It took awhile to get the initial kiss to look good because by this point I was still really figuring out how the fuck to do that. I can’t remember if I mentioned it but the kiss in the Vampire Comic is one I actually edited after the fact before the post was scheduled because it looked really weird and pissed me off. Luckily this one doesn’t bother me at all. I remember being super paranoid i made the posing look too sexual, I don’t know what the fuck past me was on about but I’m not here to question I’m here to curse you all with knowledge and funfacts.

On page 15 Junko’s blush and smile are a bit more intense compared to the other panels on this page while she wipes away Mikan’s tears. This is because in future stories by Val it is confirmed a few times that Junko has dacryphilia, meaning she thinks Mikan looks really hot when she’s crying. Yes I’m really working in details from other fics into this comic, you should not be surprised this isn’t even the weirdest thing i’ve put in this whole event.

Peak comedy that I mentioned the question mark with the cross dot earlier and on Page 16 I didn’t do that, immersion broken, back to square one Past Jem!

Junko with no contacts!!! I mentioned during one of the Vampire AU days that while I don’t feature it in that AU alone I like the idea of Junko’s real eye color being red. Something I can never remember whether it’s actually canon or just strongly implied. I think this is the page I put the most amount of effort into, both to make it look well lit, and also to make sure her god damn eyes look as pretty as humanly possible. The end result may or may not be my favorite page of the whole comic? I dunno

I said Mikan’s expressions were hard to draw for this since I wanted to get them just right, she requires a lot more work on the smaller details to make everything feel right. Junko however? Oh no I was thriving by this point, her more lowkey expressions do need a bit more thought and effort, but by this point in the comic I was in my element with her. 

But speaking of expressions, Page 19.

That smile on Mikan in the middle panel took 20 fuckin’ minutes because I had never drawn Mikan looking that happy and I had no fucking idea what I was doing. I did actually edit the page last night (as of the writing of this post), however it wasn’t for the expression. In the original version of the page, Junko looked really fuckin weird in the last panel, like I don’t know how I let that slide but her whole face and neck looked way off. These pages aren’t like, perfect quality but that one was just egregious. Also edited Mikan’s blush in that panel just cause I was already there.

Junko’s surprised face was very fun.

And I think if I were gonna ever redo any page in full for this comic it’d be the last one. I don’t think this one looks bad I just know that I could I could do way better nowadays even if I stuck to just coloring a sketch. Maybe sometime down the line.

And that’s the comic itself! I can’t think of any other fun facts or thoughts on the art itself at this point. Uhhhh, I guess the cover I made last minute for this post is technically a reference to a future day? What does that mean? Oh you’ll fuckin’ see.

So 2 weeks of effort with little feedback and rereading the same scene over and over again, was it worth it?

God yes it was.

When I sent Val the Google Drive folder with the comic I was jittery for hours as if I had too much coffee. I was nervous as shit over whether she would like it or not, since this was when I still was a perpetual nervous wreck with very little self respect who was viewing her as “Coolest Person Ever” rather than “That’s bestie.” I was also nervous because it was the first time I actually asked for a more detailed response rather than just letting her respond in whatever way she wanted.

But when she responded?

I have lived the past several years doing weed, I’ve recently quit (i think by the time this posts it’ll be close to 3 months since I went clean), but that’s besides the point. I’ve had mild highs, crazy highs, bad highs, good highs, sad highs, and highs where I don’t feel anything. 

I severely doubt that any drug or vice on this planet will ever match the feeling of reading that response. I was shaking, I bit my knuckles until it left indents for like a full hour minimum, an adrenaline rush doesn’t even begin to describe what I was experiencing. I rode out the happiness from this moment for an entire week, I worked on comm jobs that would normally leave me feeling aggravated as hell and did so with a smile because I was just that fuckin excited over it. This probably sounds embarrassing as shit but there have been times where I go back to read that response when I just need a pick me up.

I had a fuckin epiphany at that moment. Who fuckin cares?

24 fucking years (25 starting tomorrow) I’ve lived my life as a people pleaser perfectionist with extreme paranoia problems with absolutely no self esteem and a whole wealth of other mental health issues. I would feel like dogshit if I halfassed a comm even if it was a really bad one. My whole goal in life was to make a webcomic that would make EVERYONE happy, be a positive part of their week. I was paranoid about pissing off the wrong people, starting shit, how people perceive me, about what ideas for my comic would be problematic or not. But after this? Who gives a shit?

It ain’t about making People Happy it’s about making Yourself Happy and the People you can reach happy. My goal is still to make a webcomic that people will come across, and look forward to every week as an escape to give them some positive vibes every week, but I ain’t gonna do that if I’m desperately trying to appeal to every single person on the planet while trying to stay as uncontroversial as possible. I wanna make art that makes people happy, and if I make it the way I wanna make it then it will eventually reach the people that it can make happy.

But enough of that shit, the actual big thing that happened because of my complete reassessment of my personal values and entire goal for life is that I fucking finally stopped giving a shit about whether people were gonna throw me in a woodchipper because I shipped Junkan. And it will continue to get funnier and funnier that after all the time I spent scared out of my fuckin’ mind over what people would think, that absolutely fucking nothing happened. It is day 49 at the time of writing this and STILL I have not had anyone give me grief or issues over this whole project, nothing but support and even some new friends over it. You cannot write something funnier than that.

I think if I went back in time and told myself at the beginning of the year that her fears were completely unfounded she would bleed out the eyes and pass out, and I would laugh. I’d laugh so fuckin’ hard.

So yeah, this Comic and the reaction it elicited changed my entire perspective on life and being an artist, I can’t say It’s been perfect or that I haven’t faltered on certain things, but  I think to an extent I have been a lot happier as a result. Is it a little weird that this niche version of a niche ship is now directly tied to a drastic change in my mind? Is it any weirder than the fact that I transitioned into a woman because I binge read like, all of the Tokomaru I possibly could on AO3 and it made me think that wearing a skirt might be cool?

Alright so how’re ya'll holdin up? Drink some water we ain’t done. This is already getting up to 7 pages on the google doc that I prepare these posts on and now I have to like, talk about Everything You’ve Ever Dreamed properly. So bare witness to me trying to figure out how the hell to format talking about what might just be my favorite fic of all time.

But first lemme go reread the entire thing, I know the passage of time doesn’t exist in the context of these text walls but i’ll be back in like, a few hours to a day.

Okay i’m back-

I’m honestly not sure where to start here. Normally with my biggest obsessions I could probably go on lengthy rambles about why I love them so much, but this? I struggle to find a proper place to start, or even how to format this. I don’t want to just give a beat for beat plot synopsis while talking about the things I like, but also how do I talk about something this good otherwise.

So fair warning this might be completely incoherent at points, sorry??

This was not like, the third Junkan fic I ever read despite it being one of the three fics vital to me becoming the inhuman machine of pure Junkan brainrot that I’ve become today. A lot of things are blurred but if I remember right the exact timeline of events was Read a cute Junkan fic which made me think “Wait this ship can be soft and cute???” and then I read Smile by Kayleen, which is funny in hindsight because I really went to tooth rotting fluff to one of the darkest Non-Abusive Junkan fics out there (dark by my standards at least and I think my frame of reference is out of sorts). I think after that I just stopped for awhile, partially because Smile wasn’t finished at the time, partially because I still wasn’t sure how to navigate the Junkan tag to find what I was looking for in the ship.

Smile comes to a thrilling conclusion and I think to myself “maybe this author has more?” which is how I found Kayleen’s series of One-Shots for these two (along with separate three other pieces), I read through those in a day and would continue to check the tag to see if it updated, like, every day.  Eventually after a couple months (possibly way longer), something came over me and I finally started seriously looking over the tag to try and find more Soft Junkan, whether there were others I read before it or not, I honestly can’t remember. 

What I do remember is I came across “The Marvelous Makeover of Mikan Tsumiki” by VanadisValentine. I don’t know how I found that before the fic of today’s subject, if I had to guess I wasn’t reading the tags first on this run through. I was likely reading the name of the fic, and THEN i read the tags to see if it has what I was looking for (I wasn’t a starving animal for the ship by this point so I was a lot more picky with what I was willing to risk my time on). And this fic’s name was slightly more eye catching for me at the time I guess??

Fun fact when I first read this fic I wasn’t even sure if it actually was a shipping piece at first, not until finishing it at least. How? Poor reading comprehension is my only guess lol. Anyway, I finish that, loved it, and made my usual move of checking to see if the author had written anything else like this fic, and oh boy did she. 

This finally brings us to me finally reading “Everything You’ve Ever Dreamed.” Took us fucking long enough.

It was perfect, it was everything. I fucking loved reading it the entire time. It had everything I could have wanted out of this ship without me even realizing what I wanted at the time. The weirdest part that my immediate response after wasn’t to go on an adrenaline fueled binge of the tag like I did for Tokomaru way back when I first got into Danganronpa. The most I did was read the other Junkan fics in Val’s library at the time. Otherwise I just stopped again. 

It was then that I drew the first three days of this event, the original sketches. I kept them a secret between myself and a small few friends, too paranoid to let anyone find out. And things just kinda stayed like that, for awhile. And then sometime in December, of last year I decided to give that same fic another read, and something just kinda, fucking snapped?

I went up and down the Junkan Tag on AO3, reading whatever I could, I was reading stuff I wouldn’t have ever risked reading with variable amounts of success. I only skipped a small handful of fics, including one that we’ll come back to way later in the project. Everything else I was scraping even the smallest crumb of fic to read at times. After that I scoured the tumblr tags, taking in whatever soft art or headcanons that I could, I went to Fanfiction.net, a website I still barely know how to fuckin’ navigate to try and find ANYTHING. I went to Deviantart to try and find any art or fics, no results not helped by the fact that it would include results that were slightly related. And not to sound like a Youtuber with no personality who’s built their career on punching down at whoever they can because otherwise their audience would see they’re a complete shell of a human being, but it being deviantart you can imagine what I was finding more often on that search. 

I even went to Wattpad, and that ones it’s own mini story that I’m saving for Tomorrow because the art for Tomorrow doesn’t have a lot of talking points on it’s own like this one does. But Wattpad had no fuckin results either.

I cannot remember the last time I had ever been this obsessed with a ship, this desperate. So, 100 Days of Junkan began, even if it wasn’t planned to be this big project. All cause of this fic turning a switch in my brain with a hammer.

Hey look we’re talking about the fic again, I told you this was gonna incoherent.

Anyway so the fic is just, perfect? To me at least? Before I had even realized why I liked the ship in the first place it did everything that I love about it at it’s core. It practically set the standard for the ship in my brain, at bare minimum within the context of a Non-Despair AU. And overtime as Val’s continued to write for these two her portrayals of the character are practically just how I view them at this point.

It’s not 1 to 1 but you can likely trace every aspect of how I portray Junko and Mikan whether through art or writing back to Val’s writing, down to even using certain pet names for the characters because of their usage in her work. I’d worry that I’m being way too much, heaping an overbearing amount of praise and respect. But also this fic unintentionally sent me careening into the direction of drawing 150+ Junkan pictures, learning various new skills and techniques as an artist, rekindled my love of writing (despite the horrors of actually having to write), making new friends both in and out of this community including some who I consider close, coping with mental health issues, and then performing this gigantic project at the tail end of the year. So I might actually be underselling this a bit in actuality. And don’t worry when I get to talking about a few other fics later in the project I’ll be doing my best to give equal praise to them as well, it’s just gonna be a bit sdlahfljasdfhas.

I’ve already said it but the fic has everything, at least of the core reasons I love this ship from the non-abusive perspective that this blog has built its foundation on.

To me I love Junkan because it’s two people that could not be anymore different from one another, who arguably should despise one another finding happiness in each other. It adds a new layer of depth to Junko to ponder how someone like her, whether in canon or in a non-despair AU like this could fall in genuine love with a total wreck like Mikan and how that would affect her character. It’s fluffy moments of Mikan getting to be genuinely happy for what might be the first time in her life while Junko showers her with affection. It’s Junko being fucking hilarious while Mikan can barely keep up with her humor and teasing because she’s so flustered. It’s Junko grappling with newfound emotions. It’s Junko and Mikan bringing out the best in each other and inciting positive change through their influence. It’s that perfect blend of hurt/comfort. And so much more beyond that, all contained in this one god damn fic. I might even be forgetting things I like about the ship too, there’s just so much that goes into this!

Obviously this is all specifically in a Non-Despair context, the Evil Girlfriends angle has a myriad of other reasons to enjoy the ship which I’ve become fond of. Especially in some of the parallels it can have with a non-Toxic Yuri angle of things. But that doesn’t really apply for today’s subject and I’m not someone who’s deeply knowledgeable or equipped to sing its praises at the moment. Maybe in the future though?

Is there anything else I can yammer on about with this fic? Uhhhh- Oh. I love how it uses the supporting cast. I think Val has a really excellent grasp on how to write Mukuro and Junko’s dynamic without dipping into the territory of DR3 where it just gets a bit uncomfortable. I think that’s better exemplified in one of her other fics rather than this story, but I still do love Mukuro’s portrayal and role in the story. This was my first time learning who Yasuke was, I hadn’t properly heard of Danganronpa Zero by this point so I was really confused as to who the hell he was. Certainly left a strong impression in the story though. I think Kaede’s sudden appearance and role in the plot progressing towards the stunning climax of Chapter 4 was really good! 

I very often go back to Chapter 1, 4, and 5 whenever I need to go to relax before bed. I’ve reread this fic multiple times as a whole but an absolute fuck ton of times as separated pieces, they’re so god damn soothing on my mind. 

The fact that I haven’t left giant fuckin’ comments on any chapter of that fic is quite frankly one of my deepest sins, but one of these days I’m gonna buckle down and write up on those because they deserve every ounce of praise in my scrawny lil whitegirl body. 

I think I’ve said everything I can for now but even now I feel like I haven’t gotten across how much I love this fic. It genuinely is my favorite fanfiction out there both just for the quality of it’s writing and the comically massive influence it had on my life this year. If you somehow haven’t read it by now, please do, if you like the art I’ve drawn of this ship over the past 60 days I can almost 100% guarantee that you’ll like this story. And read the rest of Val’s fics too! Please! 

As always, Reblogs, Comments, and Little Notes in the Tags are appreciated!~ They always make my day!~

[aquamarine-oceanfront]

On Charlotte (Bunny Maloney)

I've been thinking a lot about her because I think there's an undercurrent of sadness to her as a character. She's undeniably got a number of significant flaws, but at her core I don't think she's a bad person like a lot of the cast (especially Bunny & Candy). Below is a lengthy analysis of her character - there's a very short summary at the end if you're curious but pressed for time.

One of the biggest reasons why I got on this train of thought in the first place was when Méko explained why she's such a shameless flirt:

She is looking for a real lasting relationship but her (low) criteria and the means she uses are of course confusing a lot. She's just stressed as she approaches thirty, seeing all her friends already settled...

Which certainly paints her fixation on romance in a different light, I'd say. She longs for connections but has no idea how to properly find or maintain them.

Obviously her carrying a torch for a man who's already taken isn't a good thing, but I think it's worth noting that both he and his girlfriend aren't particularly faithful to each other - to say nothing of the many other problems with their relationship.

Speaking of which: if you watch the show for a while, at some point I imagine you'll think to yourself "why are Candy & Charlotte friends?" Charlotte generally means well and tries her best to be supportive, but her foibles tend to make her a less-than-ideal companion to Candy:

Repeatedly trying to comfort her but inadvertently making her feel worse ("A Wrinkle in the ProtecTeam" & "Free Potchi" at minimum)

Promising to hear her out when she's going through another turbulent period with Bunny, only to flake the moment she learns Jean-François is nearby ("Jean-François: Super Model")

Occasionally just getting downright selfish (refusing to lend her a copy of a book in "Bunnies Are From Mars," getting into an argument while driving in "Raucous Caucus")

Of course, the other side of the coin is that Candy consistently thinks very little of Charlotte - she views the prospect of pairing her up with Stan as a terrible fate to inflict on him ("Stan's Perfect Match"), sometimes insults her to her face ("The D-FixItUp" & "Raucous Caucus" again), and rarely seems to really enjoy being around her. (Contrast with Charlotte, who always takes the time to talk to her whenever they happen to run into each other and tries to help her whenever she needs it.)

So why does Charlotte still stand by her? Frankly, I think much of it stems from her general lack of awareness. She tends to take things at face value and has difficulty discerning context in many situations (the pseudo-"who's on first" bit when she first enters the apartment in "Carrots Are a Girl's Best Friend" is a standout example), so I suspect she thinks Candy is a good friend just because she's occasionally nice and helpful. "Fishing for Trouble" provides the perfect case study of this: while pressed for time, Candy reluctantly hears Charlotte's relationship woes out and gives her a piece of advice ("dump him before he can dump you") that she earnestly appreciates.

"You always have the answer for everything!"

In short: I think Candy kind of does the bare minimum to help her when she's in need, and Charlotte gloms onto her for that. (Ironically, at times I feel like this is how Bunny & Candy's relationship works, but that's another story.)

With all that established, I think there's another reason why Charlotte is so devoted to Candy: she's desperate for any sort of relationship, platonic and romantic alike. Nothing really suggests she has many/any other friends - while this likely stems from economical animation practices (can't make too many unique character models, after all), it tracks with the only mention of her upbringing, midway through "Free Potchi:"

It's a joke, sure, but it's also canonical evidence that her parents didn't really like her or treat her well. With that in mind, it tracks that she'd obsessively try to find love as an adult - on some subconscious level, there's a void she yearns to fill. To some degree, it also explains why she struggles so much with maintaining long-term romance: she never really learned how to (Part of me wonders if some of her other flaws, like her inability to ever discern context or her occasional selfish outbursts, might also be explainable in the same light, but I may be stretching too much there.)

To cap this off, I think it's worth on one particular trait of hers: her complete sincerity. No matter what, she always states exactly what she thinks - oftentimes without regard for whether it might put off or offend those around her. At the same time, though, it also positions her as a sort of foil for Bunny and Candy, both of whom frequently resort to subterfuge against each other. ("Sick Bunny" is essentially a farce/pseudo-morality play focusing on this exact issue: the rabbits both want to go to a concert that coincides with prior arrangements they made together, try to lie their way out instead of just telling each other what they want, and end up all the poorer for it. It's not a coincidence that Charlotte and Jean-François, both of whom are far more open about their feelings, ultimately go together and have a great time.)

Very short summary: I think Charlotte desires love & friendship so desperately because she largely grew up without it. She's a nice person at her core, even with all her flaws, partially because of her sincerity (like Jean-François). Candy sometimes gives her advice/other help, so Charlotte views her as a treasured friend (even though Candy doesn't seem to care much for her).

[98chao]

Question like whats ur process when coloring ur drawings

the truth is, i don't really have a process, i just kinda... ball it? X) i usually do what looks appealing to me personally, but i can write you some tips that work for me.

1. atmosphere

usually the colours i pick are meant to go with the general vibe of the drawing, the background atmosphere, etc. take this shitpost i drew for example:

even though the colours i picked for shadow milk are in the orange-green range, you can still tell he's supposed to be blue, right?

i did it like that because of the very warm lighting, even in the original monika pic you can see her colours are a lot darker and orange compared to her sprite. people change colours in lighting!

if i had just gone with straight up blue, it would've looked a lot worse. yeah, it's how he actually looks, but you can see it doesn't go with the rest of the art at all.

2. artistic intention

when it comes to intention, it should go without saying that you don't need a deep reason to pick certain colours and "it just looks good like that" is a valid enough reason (i do this all the time). but if you want to make art with any sort of symbolism, colour can be a way to help convey they meaning of your piece ... something something color theory, something something every colour has meaning, yea u get it. look into color theory

my example of this is this art i drew in february:

this differs for each person, but usually what your eyes would be drawn to first is shadow milk on the left, because he has extreme contrast to muddy warm tones of the art with his vibrant blue. next is the lily petals that are bright yellow, while it's still a warm colour, the brightness of it contrasts with the rest of the painting. i did it like this because 1) the lily petals were what i wanted to point out and 2) shadow milk is supposed to stand out and be an outlier !! i hope all that makes sense

3. ok here's where i talk about actually colouring/shading

a) Bro Just Hue Shift

ok so like shading depends on the atmosphere blah blah, but fr hue shifting for shading literally works like 90% of the time, doubly so if you have no real light source. example:

none of the colours used for shading are the same hue as the base colour i used. this is what it would look like if i used the same hue:

the colours, especially the golds just look dull and kinda gross. sonic especially looks sickly because the warmer tint was taken away 😭

this is one of those things where you just have to do what looks good to you, but typically when it comes to warmer colours i hue shift into a cooler colour (the exception is when it's gold like the jewellery above, which usually looks better with orange, when it's hair i usually do cooler colours tho). with cooler colours, most of the time other cooler colours are better (like blue with teal or purple shading, green with blue shading, purple with blue shading, etc)

this is partly where the "i just ball it" comes from, it just depends on what i think works for the art lol

b) your light source determines the shading colour

yeah, so when you have an art with an actual light source, usually the colour of that light source (with daylight it'd be like pale yellow or smth--anything w the sun would be in the warmer range) determines what colour the shade should be. light is a warm colour? the shade should be a cool colour. if the light was a cool colour, it'd be the opposite. usually you'd pick the complementary colour of the light source, but again i kinda ball it and do what i personally think looks fine.

here, you can see that the light source and thus the lighting is warm coloured while the shade is blue. (also, back to the atmosphere point, you can tell she's still purple despite the fact that neither the highlight nor shadow are purple)

there's also midtones in shading, which is optional, but you can achieve it simply by blending the light and shade together, HOWEVER you can also choose what the midtone colour will be which can make your art look better.

this art is unfinished, but you can see me do it a little bit here. it's also one of those "i'm just balling it" things because how you choose to do it is kinda just up to you, but it makes your shading look less flat :P i recommend actually looking into this because there are probably videos or posts that explain this specifically better than me

oh also, usually art programs have tools for colour correction like gradient maps, tone curve, levels, etc. that you can adjust your art's colours with. i recommend doing that if you want to play around with your colours a bit. these are the ones in clip studio paint 3.0

i think that's like the most i can say about colouring. i didn't know what exactly you meant by your question so i just went over everything it could've applied to lol. it's not something i think about that deeply so explaining it is kinda hard...

i can't really give you any tutorials about actually shading or anything because i just straight up don't know how to explain that sorry, and i don't have any speedpaints or process videos so... you must figure it out your own way (or look up videos on youtube) (or study other peoples art)... pave your own path and use the tips i gave if they're useful to you...

[teecupangel]

“How can art be sexually deviant? Art is art.” Desmond argues, sounding like an excuse even to his ears.

From @shepardking

Lmao just imagining Ezio coming into Desmond's estate like "WHERE IS MY RECRUIT?!" Only to see the recruit being treated by a doctor and Desmond "gone". Ezio interrogates all the staff but no one says anything...but the cook is suspicious as hell and Ezio thinks he knows something... meanwhile Desmond was just trying to make something to eat 😭 can't a man feed himself without everything crashing down around him??? Because while Ezio would have a general idea of what Desmond looks like because of rumors and descriptions, but people exaggerate and Renaissance Italian people of high society will DEFINITELY do that. So Ezio only has the fact that the cook glows bright golden to go on, and that's not a lot to figure out why. Does he have information? A rich man would never cook his own food after all

You know what would be funny? If Ezio met Desmond before when he sneaked into Desmond’s villa to check if this supposed sexual deviant lord is any danger.

He and Desmond, who he believed to be a chef, hit it on and he believes said chef when he described his ‘lord’ as a bored rich idiot who wants to fuck around with the Borgias.

Now, Ezio is on a warpath and Desmond prefers to wear comfortable simple clothes and has been ‘recruited’ to find said sexual deviant lord and the missing recruit.

Which leads to…

Tags from @wisecloudnightmare

#the snort i let out 😂 #oh my god just imagine walls upon walls of gay porn that ezio will see when he barges in to the Miles Manor #just. everything Desmond does will only make ezio misunderstand more #like with des' fondness of ezio #ezio probably thinks it's because he was the first person to ever openly accused des to be deviated. make des go #“hmm. interesting ;)” like those old school shoujo male lead #des sees him trying to put distance between them and doubles down on (what he thinks are) his “suspiciously friendly rich man” gestures #to keep ezio away but... why does everyone looks at him like that? he had seen ezio and leo hug in public! it's not that weird! #assassin's creed #desmond miles #ezio auditore #cool au

Ezio doesn’t just misunderstand Desmond’s fondness for him, he misunderstand Desmond’s fondness for Leonardo as well and even how close they are.

Good news! Ezio now knows Leonardo is gay.

Sorta bad news! Ezio now believes Desmond and Leonardo are having a secret relationship. He doesn’t know what a sugar daddy is but that’s what he believes Desmond is to Leonardo.

From @thedragonqueen1998

The mental images of the "borgia men getting fucked in the ass" paintings is fucking sending me. XD Historians are definetly gonna love the sexual deviant Lord Miles.

“There are many historians who theorize that the evilest and scandalous stories about the Borgias were created by their enemies except for one. Only known as the Sexual Deviant Lord from Spain, this eccentric rich lord preferred to insult the Borgias by having them engage in homosexual acts of sex in the background of famous pieces of arts. His commissions alone proved to be more effective in making other people believe that the Borgias are sinful sexual deviants themselves.”

From @lorena12me

Ezio *dramatically kicks in the door*: Stop right there, Lord Miles!!! Desmond: Wait a minute, man who I definitely don't know. Leonardo Da Vinci is painting my fursona... and Cesare Borgia getting fucked in the ass.

“Of course, my fursona is not going to fuck Cesare Borgia. Leonardo, my dear…”

“I will paint the most grotesque anatomically accurate mangy dog, my lord.”

“Thank you.”

(sorry in advance, I've been stewing over this for so long that this will be a long one xd)

I was re-reading your fics on ao3 again (sue me, im starved for desmond time travel content) and whilst reading Eagle of Alamut's description i realised '...wait a damn minute, it is true! all of Desmond's knowledge on past is from his ancestors!' (not everyone is as big of a nerd as shaun). Cue weeks of relentless daydreaming over Desmond in Reneisance Italy trying his damnest to lay low... but: 1) he does not know what is socially acceptable at the time (clothe and behaviour wise)

2) the animus likely shielded it's users from the more... er.. unsaviory historical accuracy (child marriage, smell, violence and mistreatment towards the poor, women, disabled)

3) politics, culinary arts, medicine and money value from that era are not common knowledge (or even fully known to todays historians)

4) Ezio was not known for his subtility...

...so while desmond may know who to strike in order to protect Ezios family from getting executed, what places he may know to avoid if he wants to avoid attention from the italian brotherhood.

He does not know what he was getting himself in to when he decided to travel back in time.

I can just imagine him thinking that he can finally retire and live his life, but then BOOM here comes the shock of sociatal injustices! religious violence! inequality! horrendous mistreatment of beggars and disabled people! and as a good man raised in the 21st century he obviously can't, in his right conciousness, just turn his back on these issues, on these people.

So here he is, in Rome of all places, doing his best to atleast stay hidden from the Auditore's, and consequesntly, the Italian brotherhood's, detection, as he stalks the bright rooftops of Roma as histories (probably) very first assasin turned vigiliante!

I can just picture him at one point or another, getting mistaken for a Spanish assasin and his only attempt at 'confirming' (read: encouraging misleading rumours), is to use the very little languistic knowledge the American education system has bestowed upon him. cue him very awkwardly trying to immitate a Spanish accent/ speak in Spanish. or just, you know, say the only words every student knows, 'Feliz Navidad'.

It would be so funny if Desmond’s Spanish are based on:

1) what little remains of Ezio’s Spanish (maybe on par or even worse than his French)

2) Basic Spanish that he learned on the Farm

3) Spanish songs he heard

So people think that Desmond is eccentric.

And Rich.

Because Desmond wants to help people but he doesn’t want to be seen as an Assassin so…

He becomes a supposed rich Spanish (Arabic would have sent a red flag to the Brotherhood) noble who came to Rome to live a life away from his ‘family’.

Why is he ‘rich’?

Well, killing nobles and other ‘evil doers’ will flag the Brotherhood as well so it would be better to just…

Leave certain incriminating evidence in the doors of their enemies and let them duke it out. Hey, if some things go missing while they’re too busy with their enemies, that’s just collateral damage.

Also…

Sometimes, things go missing when some people get into accidents.

It’s easy to buy the impoverish area in Rome. It’s a bit challenging to get doctors to treat them.

Until Desmond flashed the right amount of money, of course.

Desmond manages to stay under the radar by being part of the upper echelon.

An eccentric foreigner who helps the poor and sick out of the goodness of his heart.

Or… because he apparently believes that the way to heaven is through good will and not… paying the clergy.

Desmond knows that being seen as completely good is a bad thing as well so he lets rumors spread that he’s an opportunist who heals the sick and protects the weak to receive their loyalty. He gives them salary to become his guards (not that he needs any) and people whisper how loyal the poor are to someone who gives them bread.

And to hammer in that “no, Ezio, I am absolutely not connected to the Templars BUT I’m also not going to be a good ally, just leave me alone!” plan he has, he becomes a patron of the art.

Sexually progressive art.

The church hates him but tolerates him because Desmond does ‘donate’ (jokes on them, he donates what he stole from the church) and the artists love him because he commissions stuff with the same thing over and over again “whatever you want to paint/sculpt/work on but I want the Borgia men getting fucked in the ass while Lucrezia Borgia watches”

He’s not rich enough to actually be a threat (especially after Ezio starts wrecking shit up) and he keeps to himself most of the time.

But, of course, life always has it out for Desmond and he comes face to face with a wounded recruit at the edge of his property and…

Well…

He only wanted to heal him then send him on his merry way.

He didn’t expect Ezio to come barging in thinking said recruit has been kidnapped by the eccentric ‘possibly sexual deviant’ Lord Miles.

[oc-ology]

How to get past the fear of OC posting

People should create for the sake of creating but people post to engage with the community. However, posting can be intimidating and anxiety-inducing for a lot of people. It’s easy to say “do it scared” but much harder to put into practice. So, I’ve put together a few steps that lead up to doing it scared. These won’t work for everyone and this is meant more as general advice.

Step One: Why are you scared?

The first step is to figure out what about posting is scary for you. Oftentimes, it’s not as simple as “what if my post flops” or “what if people think I’m cringe”. Once you’ve figured out the surface-level reason, dig a little deeper. If your post flops, does that lead to you doubting the worth of what you’re creating? If you’re worried about what people think, is that because you’ve experienced judgement before or are worried your inbox will be flooded with criticism?

Identifying why you’re scared will not only help you understand yourself better (yippee!) but you can also then work on the source of your fears and anxieties at your own pace.

Step Two: Find ways to lessen your fears

One way of working through anxiety online is to find ways to mitigate the specific source of your fear.

Some fears have easier solutions than others. If you’re worried about people criticising your work, you can turn off anonymous asks (as most people are less likely to be haters when there’s a name attached to it) or turn asks off entirely, as well as limiting replies to those who have been following for a week. This way, if someone does want to be an unpleasant individual, it’s a little harder for them to do so.

A lack of engagement is a little harder to remedy. Here, the only real solution is to try and divorce the idea that engagement = worth. Remember why you’re creating an OC. Because it’s fun! It’s an act of creation! Because you want to find a community…? A community or OC friends will never just drop into your lap. You need to seek them out yourself. Look into discord servers, forums, tumblr networks (are they still a thing?), fandom events and exchanges, and most importantly: go out of your way to send asks/questions to others and build friendships with them! If you’ve got social anxiety like me, this is going to be a big challenge. Which leads to the next step…

Step Three: Start small

It doesn’t matter how small your first step is - so long as that step is forwards! If you’re nervous about OC posting, find the smallest thing about them and post it with the expectation of getting no notes. That’s right, I want you to go in and expect it to flop. Anything over one note is an automatic win. This first post isn’t about engagement - it’s about getting over the initial fear of posting. 

It can be tempting to just go right out the gate with elaborate explanations of backstory, lore implications, power levels, everything. But the trick really is to start small. Most people scrolling tumblr aren’t going to read a few thousand words on something they’re not invested in yet. TL;DR is a curse that I’m sure we’ve all fallen victim to. 

Instead, break up information about your OC into small pieces that can be posted one by one and have some kind of visual piece with it. People are usually more drawn to images than text. For example, which of these two things are more visually interesting?

What Perseus keeps in his bag:

Amulet

Tinderbox

A broken blade

50ft of hempen rope

25gp of silver powder

Waterskin

Rations (cheese, bread, sausage)

OR

Obviously this comes down to personal preference but a lot of people would find the illustrated version to be more interesting. You don’t need to be an artist to do this either! You could make a version of that example in photoshop or a similar program. Picrews, moodboards, edits, game screenshots and photography can all be used to add a visual element to your posts.

Step Four: Why am I still scared?

Fear is not easily stamped out. Anxiety is definitely the kind of thing that lingers. These steps aren’t meant to immediately make OC posting not-scary. That’s something that will only come with time as you get used to it. Again: Do it. Do it scared. Gradually, it’ll be less terrifying and in the meantime, you might be able to make a few friends who also want to talk about your blorbo.

[andromeddog]

Oooo jumping off the previous anon ask, do you have any websites/books that good for reference that you’d recommend?? Or is a simple Google search/going from there good enough to start with

I’ve always been interested in uniforms n stuff but idk where/how to actually FIND info (especially for accuracy) but idk if Wikipedia/Google is the best for that lol

i’ve talked about this (here) and (here) before, but i will elaborate a bit more (a lot more) for you!

again my first response is to ask, what kind of uniform are u looking for? bc there’s just more info on some types than others. like, ww2 american paratroopers? sooo so so much stuff out there, maybe bc there was a wildly successful miniseries that is often listed as one of the best tv shows ever made and it mythologized the paratroopers and now everyone has a big ol boner for them and their uniforms and you can’t got two searches deep without tripping over those jump boots (said w all the love in my heart). but that being said, sometimes just a google search is enough!

this is where being familiar w each of the components of the uniform comes in handy. like oh damn i need ref of that one specific small pouch the marines have on their guns, what was that called?? oh duh it’s a carbine butt stock pouch, sometimes they wore it on their belt, i can just google that and get the exact result i want

buutttttt sometimes the online sources/pics u get are undated/unlabeled, and you have to piece together what ur looking at based on ur own knowledge of a uniform. this is especially true the older you go, and ive run into this issue with ww1 stormtrooper uniforms specifically, where you don’t have an exact date and u have to be like “welllllll i can’t be 100% sure if this is from early or late war, if this is german or austrian, but it’s close enough to what i need and i can’t find any other source that even comes close and ive spent four hours looking so im going to use this” and then you get someone in ur dms like “well actually 🧐 they didn’t wear those specific suspenders/have that patch on their uniforms/use that limited issue pouch in this theater” and then you feel kind of silly. but it’s like damn dude i spent hours looking for ref and found the only like five jpegs still remaining of this uniform pls cut me some slack. ig this is just me saying that i dont get it right all the time and inevitably there will be someone out there who has a better grasp on it and will clock your tiny error from 200 yards

to stop my pointless rambling and actually get to your question, google is a pretty good place to start but u gotta know what to be looking for. wikipedia can b helpful for kind of an intro/getting names of items. pinterest is a big one for me, i mostly like that you can save pics and organize them. i’d also check out reenactment websites/forums; those guys are dedicated to being 100% accurate and can also provide some good action shots. youtube is also a resource that i forget exists haha. following artists who are into that kind of shit, taking notes from the uniforms they draw (careful w this one, as i said earlier even ppl who draw uniforms a lot still mess up occasionally). honestly any big website is bound to have some military history enjoyers and so u can do a general search and see what comes up, that can help point to users/a community that will often have their own sources/discussions that can be helpful. ive said it before but watching movies/shows about the specific era ur looking for is great, you can see how a uniform sits and moves with a person 👍

also books! there isn’t a single catch all book for uniforms, again (again) it’s all by era/country you’re looking for. ebay is GREAT for finding super specific books on topics only you and five other people care about. sometime u can get lucky at an old used book store but that’s a real gamble and only happens veryyyyyy rarely hahah

i always use these sorts of references in tandem and double check to be sure, i swear i have like 12 tabs open and two books open per drawing just so i can get everything as close to accurate as i can. but like ive said im kind of obsessive about details (negative) and can’t be chill about anything ever. what a super cool and very practical skill set that makes me very popular amongst my peers and interests everyone once i have two beers and won’t shut up about it

ending this with my standard “did any of this make sense?” i’m going to turn on my computer now and spend the next eight hours staring at reference pics and drawing my silly little war boys have a great day everyoneeeeeeeee

[jewlist]

“And if I do touch them,” he hisses. “If I say use this sword” — In one swift motion he scoops Time’s sword off of the ground, holding it up so that the blade gleams — “to slit their necks what will you do? Will you don the Deity mask that sits in the pouch at your hip? Will you follow me across time? Hunt me down?”

A piece I drew inspired by this fic by @adrift-in-thyme.

bonus close-up under the cut:

[morlock-holmes]

I've been thinking about this. I don't consider myself *especially* literate about this stuff but it very frequently stands out for me in AI art.

I don't just want to repeat what I said above, but AI images frequently don't guide the eye very well. Generally, in the modern representational styles which are being tested here, visual artists use asymmetrical composition and the use of various contrasts (Light and dark, detailed or not detailed, contrast between colors, clear positive and negative space) to move the eye through the composition and to call out the conceptually important parts of the image.

So if you are looking at an image an immediate question is "Where is my eye drawn to most immediately in this image?" If you can't answer that clearly at all (True of some of the AI landscapes), or if different techniques are giving you different or incoherent answers, that can be a strong tell of AI, particularly when *other* technical aspects of the image seem to indicate high degrees of technical competency.

That's a big reason why that fantasy image with the big cats looks bad to Alexander.

I also notice that a lot of the impressionist style AI pieces have extremely strong and noticeable one point perspective, which i think gives them a kind of dynamism that tends to make them look more human.

What I find interesting about the comments on that article (And I guess this was true of the poetry test as well) is that most of the participants don't seem particularly literate in the thing that they are judging; that feels mean to say but reading the comments on that ACX post I see a general ignorance about the mechanics and fashion of modern day representational art.

I don't mean this to be rude, if you play me a Mozart symphony my own music knowledge is such that I would struggle to say anything more coherent than "that sounds nice".

Which means that I also think I would do *extremely* badly if you quizzed me about whether or not a given "classical" song was AI or not.

There's a sense here of asking first year French students whether or not French AI outputs were made by a human or not.

I have a strong sense that we modern people are so constantly bombarded with images that we have begun to resent it on some level, and respond by tuning them out. I do wonder whether visual literacy was more commonplace in the past.

Okay, guys, after reading a post by @centrally-unplanned I just took that ACX "AI Turing Test" that Scott Alexander did, and I am screaming, as the kids used to say.

You guys are way, way overthinking this.

I thought I would do better than average, and I guess I did; excluding three pictures I had seen before, I got 31/46 correct.

Not great if you're taking the SAT, but I feel like if I could call a roulette spin correctly 2 times out of 3 I could clean up in Vegas.

So, what is the secret of my amazing, D+ performance?

You have to look at the use of color and composition as tools to draw the eye to points of interest.

AI is really bad at this, when left to its own devices.

For example, here:

Part of the reason to suspect that this is AI is the "AI house style" and the bad hands that I literally only noticed right this exact second as I was typing this sentence. Even if the hands were rendered correctly, I would still clock this as AI.

The focal point of this piece ought to be the face of the woman and the little dragon she is looking at (Just noticed the dragon's wings don't match up either), but take off your glasses or squint at this for a second:

Your eye is being drawn by the bright gold sparkles on the lower right side of the piece. That particular bright gold is only in that spot on the image, but there's no reason to look there, it's just an upper arm and an elbow. The bright light source highlighting the woman's horn separates it out as a point of interest.

Meanwhile, the weird aurora streaming out of the woman's face on the left side means that it is blending in with the background.

In other words, the way the image is composed, and the subject matter suggest that your eye should be drawn here:

But the use of color suggests that you should look here:

That's a senseless place to draw the eye towards! It would be a really weird mistake for a human to make! In fact, I think there's a strong argument that the really close cropped picture of the face of the character is a strong improvement. It's still not a particularly good composition, but at least the color contrast now draws the eye to the proper points.

In fact, I would say that a good reason for my performance not being even better was this alarming statement at the start of the test:

I've tried to crop some pictures of both types into unusual shapes, so it won't be as easy as "everything that's in DALL-E's default aspect ratio is AI".

Uh...

So how about this one:

This is a lot better anatomically and in terms of the use of color and light to draw the eye towards sensible parts of the painting. The lighting makes pretty good sense in terms of coming from a particular direction and it also draws the eye to effectively to the face and the outstretched hand of the figure.

It's also a really flat and meaningless composition and subject matter that no renaissance artist would have chosen. What is this angel doing, exactly? Our eye is drawn to the face and hand, and the figure is looking off towards the left side, at, uh, what exactly?

But then I thought, "Well, maybe Scott chopped out a giant chunk of the picture, and this is just a detail from, like, the lower right eighth of some giant painting with three other figures that makes total sense"

This makes sense as a piece of a larger human made artwork, but if you tell me, "Nope, that's the whole thing and this is the original, un-cropped picture" I'd go, "Oh, AI, obviously.

All of the ones I had trouble with were AI art with good composition and use of color, and human ones with bad composition and use of color. For example, this one:

This has three solid points of interest arranged in an interesting relationship with different colors to block them out. I'd say the biggest tells are that the astronauts' feet are out of frame, which is a weird choice, and looking closely now, the landscape and smoke immediately to the right of the ship don't really make sense.

But again; I had to think, "Maybe Scott just cropped it weird and they had feet in the original picture."

Here's another problem:

StableDiffusion being bad at composition is such a known problem that there are a variety of tools which a person can use to manually block out the composition. In fact, let me try something.

I popped open Krita (Which now has a StableDiffusion plugin) and after literally dozens of generations and a couple of different models I landed on ZavyChromaXL with the following prompt:

concept art of two astronauts walking towards a spaceship on an alien planet, with a giant moon in th background, artstation, classic scifi, book cover

And this was the best I could do:

Not great, but Krita has a tool that lets you break an image into regions which each have different prompts, so I quickly blocked something out:

Each of those color blobs has a different part of the prompt, so the green region has "futuristic astronauts" the blue is the spaceship, the orange is the moon, grey is the ground and pink is the sky, which gives us:

Still way too much, so we can use Krita's adaptive patch tool and AI object removal to get:

I'm not saying it's high art, or even any good, but it's better than the stuff I was getting from a pure prompt, because a human did the composition.

But it's still so dominated by AI processes that it's fair to call it "AI Art".

Which makes me wonder how many of the AI pictures I called out as human made because one of the traits I was looking for, good composition, was in fact, actually made by a human.

[katabay]

”—ah. seems like mother goose has been playing around in your egg salad. if you won’t dance to that tune, I got others.”

honestly, the would you kindly scene is whatever to me*, code yellow is the more interesting violation/betrayal of the body because of how beautifully it escalates the Fontaine reveal/betrayal and shows how ugly some of those ‘locks and keys’ that Tenenbaum mentions are. not only have you been a tool in another man’s hand this entire time, it goes deeper. your body is not your own.

*there used to be a meandering thought here about the would you kindly scene, but it was really just talking around the fact that I spent way too many years seeing people discuss it in the most insufferable and reductive ways possible when it’s a combination of three or four other things that make that moment compelling lmao

collage credits: heart one/heart two

⭐ places I’m at! bsky / pixiv / pillowfort /cohost / cara.app / tip jar!

[sysig]

How much of me is me? (Patreon)

[skrunksthatwunk]

actually i'm still thinking about the moral orel finale.

he has a cross on his wall. do you know how much i think about that bc it's a lot.

a lot of stories ((auto)biographical or fictional) centering escape from abusive/fundamentalist christianity result in the lead characters leaving behind christianity entirely. and that makes complete sense! people often grow disillusioned with the associated systems and beliefs, and when it was something used to hurt them or something so inseparable from their abuse that they can't engage with it without hurting, it makes total sense that they would disengage entirely. and sometimes they just figure out that they don't really believe in god/a christian god/etc. a healthy deconstruction process can sometimes look like becoming an atheist or converting to another religion. it's all case by case. (note: i'm sure this happens with other religions as well, i'm just most familiar with christian versions of this phenomenon).

but in orel's case, his faith was one of the few things that actually brought him comfort and joy. he loved god, y'know? genuinely. and he felt loved by god and supported by him when he had no one else. and the abuses he faced were in how the people in his life twisted religion to control others, to run away from themselves, to shield them from others, etc. and often, orel's conflicts with how they acted out christianity come as a direct result of his purer understanding of god/jesus/whatever ("aren't we supposed to be like this/do that?" met with an adult's excuse for their own behavior or the fastest way they could think of to get orel to leave them alone (i.e. orel saying i thought we weren't supposed to lie? and clay saying uhhh it doesn't count if you're lying to yourself)). the little guy played catch with god instead of his dad, like.. his faith was real, and his love was real. and i think it's a good choice to have orel maintain something that was so important to him and such a grounding, comforting force in the midst of. All That Stuff Moralton Was Up To/Put Him Through. being all about jesus was not the problem, in orel's case.

and i know i'm mostly assuming that orel ended up in a healthier, less rigid version of christianity, but i feel like that's something that was hinted at a lot through the series, that that's the direction he'd go. when he meditates during the prayer bee and accepts stephanie's different way to communicate, incorporating elements of buddhism into his faith; when he has his I AM A CHURCH breakdown (removing himself from the institution and realizing he can be like,, the center of his own faith? taking a more individualistic approach? but Truly Going Through It at the same time), his acceptance (...sometimes) of those who are different from him and condemned by the adults of moralton (stephanie (lesbian icon stephanie my beloved), christina (who's like. just a slightly different form of fundie protestant from him), dr chosenberg (the jewish doctor from otherton in holy visage)). his track record on this isn't perfect, but it gets better as orel starts maturing and picking up on what an absolute shitfest moralton is. it's all ways of questioning the things he's been taught, and it makes sense that it would lead to a bigger questioning as he puts those pieces together more. anyway i think part of his growth is weeding out all the lost commandments of his upbringing and focusing on what faith means to him, and what he thinks it should mean. how he wants to see the world and how he wants to treat people and what he thinks is okay and right, and looking to religion for guidance in that, not as like. a way to justify hurting those he's afraid or resentful of, as his role models did.

he's coming to his own conclusions rather than obediently, unquestioningly taking in what others say. but he's still listening to pick out the parts that make sense to him. (edit/note: and it's his compassion and his faith that are the primary motivations for this questioning and revisal process, both of individual cases and, eventually, the final boss that is christianity.) it makes perfect sense as the conclusion to his character arc and it fits the overall approach of the show far better. it's good is what i'm saying.

and i think it's important to show that kind of ending, because that's a pretty common and equally valid result of deconstruction. and i think it cements the show's treatment of christianity as something that's often (and maybe even easily) exploited, but not something inherently bad. something that can be very positive, even. guys he even has a dog he's not afraid of loving anymore. he's not afraid of loving anyone more than jesus and i don't think it's because he loves this dog less than bartholomew (though he was probably far more desperate for healthy affection and companionship when he was younger). i think it's because he figures god would want him to love that dog. he's choosing to believe that god would want him to love and to be happy and to be kind. he's not afraid of loving in the wrong way do you know how cool that is he's taking back control he's taking back something he loves from his abusers im so normal