#and i thought there's no better difference to illustrate a point than this lol

[reds-skull]

CW FLASHING IN THE VIDEO (3rd from the bottom)

This is it. 3 months in the works, the comic (and video) are finally done.

A little over a year ago, I uploaded the first work in Revenant AU, Ghost's origin comic. I never thought I'd write a whole series for this, but I'm so glad I did. I got a whole new hobby out of it, haha.

I already began working on part 2, but this for me marks the start of it. I'm really excited to get back into this world!

Under the cut there are some comments on the comic I thought some people might be interested in (don't wanna make this post longer than it already is lol). I will upload the frames from the video separately, with comments on it there.

Bottom line is, thank you for letting me just go wild with this :)

Okay, I'm mostly gonna talk about the part where Fate shows Makarov the 141+Farah. Makarov doesn't see the Fate of people as literal images, he often has to interpret odd symbolism in the flashes he gets from the Weave of Fate.

I decided to go for a style I saw in a collection of calling cards in MW3, mainly from this one:

You can really see it in the faces and pitch-black cel shading.

I'll be going in order of appearance, starting with Farah.

Obviously, each of the "flashes" shows the Reaping of each person, Farah being crushed under rubble. Behind her is a helo of green gas, which symbolizes the Russian experimental gas. The motifs around her are more interesting imo - they're taken from the Urzik flag (and yeah apparently it's "Urzik" and not "Urzikstani"... according to the wiki at least). Wings, plants (feels to me like a pomegranate and some sort of crop, but I couldn't find what it is specifically), and a moon, upside down.

I'm skipping ahead a bit, but I've had the idea to make a drawing of Gaz in the Hanged Man pose since I started the AU basically. I tried sketching it once, and it went bad so I gave up lol. But I decided to come back to that here, and add some sort of tarot connection to all of them. I know practically nothing about tarot, googled the meanings of each, they fit well enough, I called it a day lol.

So Farah is the Moon, upside down.

Price is next, showing him taking control of the brain of someone. I didn't use the flag of the UK for the 141 (it'd be kinda boring...), instead I took the Taskforce 141 logo, and broke it down to different elements.

I took the laurels for Price, both framing his illustration and sitting above his head like a crown. I decided he will be the Emperor.

Next up is Gaz, the Hanged Man of course. Gaz gets both the wings and the stars (I changed mine to 4-pointed because... I like them better). Pretty clear why, both symbols relate to the sky. The illustrations kinda follow a rough day cycle, if that makes sense. Farah being night, with the moon. Price with his golden and purple color palette, twilight. Gaz being sunrise, and Ghost and Soap, day. This is why Gaz has a sun behind him.

Ghost was fun because he's the only inhuman one out of the group. I'll let you think what that implies, that even in Fate's Weave, Ghost is an outlier... Ghost gets the skull, and the card "Death". That one was easy, but what I did add is blood flowing down the skulls, like tear tracks...

Soap, the problem child, gave me the most issues as always. For once, it wasn't his fucking face, it was the flames behind him, and overall contrast and readability issues. Soap's illustration is probably packed with the most "hidden" details, though they're obvious if you've read the fic and Konchar's side story. The headless man behind Soap is Konchar himself, holding 4 chains with dog tags on them. The 4 soldiers from Soap's squad, who he killed before Soap was Reaped. Soap's pose is from the moment he came to his senses, after getting shot in the head and destroying a large part of Verdansk. He has 4 swords, pointing at him and downwards, so his card is 4 of Swords, upside down.

Between Soap and Ghost is a circle and a triangle. I'll explain that in the post concerning the video, since that's where I got that from.

If you read all of this, thank you so much! There will be another post for you to read in a moment lol

[teruel-a-witch]

McDanno according to CBS/L*nkov:

McDanno according to fans/Alex&Scott/everyone who has eyes and a brain:

[syndullqs]

𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐩𝐚𝐬𝐭 — 𝒕𝒆𝒄𝒉

summary — a mission unlocks memories in your brain you’d rather forget. tech helps, in his own way.

warnings — gn!reader, angst, fluff, mentions of childhood trauma, hunter’s a prick

note — i heard this sound on tiktok and it unlocked a memory i did NOT want unlocked lol so enjoy this self indulgent piece

𝐈𝐓’𝐒 𝐅𝐔𝐍𝐍𝐘 𝐇𝐎𝐖 𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐒 𝐂𝐀𝐍 𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐆𝐆𝐄𝐑 𝐀 𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐎𝐑𝐘. it’s funny how something as small as a child crying causes someone to fold in on themselves. you almost were shot because of it, and you definitely got an earful back on the marauder.

“what were you thinking? just standing there? you could’ve been killed!” hunter’s voice penetrated your clouded thoughts, scolding you for a poor job. he had a point; you were almost killed.

“but i wasn’t, hunter, so what’s the big deal?” you challenge, crossing your arms over your chest. what was next, was he going to question how you worked with the team? was he going to exclude you from future missions? you almost dared him.

“the big deal? y/n you nearly cost us the mission and you could have been killed,” he paused, taking a minute to think. though, given his next words, he should have taken more time to think, “i think you should sit out on the next mission,” his voice was still raised, breaths spilling from his mouth like he ran a marathon.

yet there it was.

exclusion.

“fine, it’s your call, you’re the sergeant,” your words were not short of being venomous, making hunter realize instantly what he just told you. you were a valuable asset to the batch, a sounding board, and he just told you to sit out.

there wasn’t a lot of places for you to go, so you sat in the co-pilot’s chair. you brought a knee up to your chest, resting your chin on it. the silence was comforting, but your mind still swam. hunter’s words, their words, the child crying…

“for the record, i don’t think you should sit out next mission,” tech was the first to speak, the softness and quietness of his voice illustrating just how unused to that he was. his words only earned a scoff from you.

“it was the child crying, no?” he guessed. tech noticed the shift in your demeanor when the child started crying to her mother, wondering why everyone left. you grew stiff, your eyes unfocused, and of course, you were nearly shot.

“what gave me away?” you asked him, still refusing to meet eyes with him. despite tech not being well-versed in comfort, he still knew how to read people. he could read them very well. interpreting those emotions was a different skill.

“the fact you were nearly shot, mainly,” he stated as-a-matter-of-factly, “but also the way your demeanor changed. your shoulders tightened, your eyes widened. not to mention your voice changed,” he went on to describe just how much your body changed. you didn’t think he paid that much attention to you.

“i didn’t think it was that obvious,” you shrugged, taking your chin off of your knee. you slid your eyes over to meet his, the softness of them underneath his goggles provided an odd place of comfort for you. he didn’t judge you, he was merely stating facts.

“it was,” he felt heat rise to his cheeks, a feeling he logically knew was because of his attraction to you. emotionally, he wouldn’t acknowledge it.

“at least to me,” tech added softly, attempting to make the situation better than what it was. your eyes widened again, unsure of how to feel about this. ever since you started working with the bad batch, talking about emotional experiences was hard with tech. so you didn’t. hearing him acknowledge your feelings and talk about his own shocked you. it shouldn’t have.

“when i was a kid, i was bullied a lot,” you started, pulling down the wall you’ve built up over the years, “their form of bullying was excluding me from things. i was invited to parties, but never talked to. i was never played with, and kids made fun of me for the stuff i liked,” you continued. you’ve never spoken to any of them about this. it was too sensitive. the fear of rejection and judgement was too strong.

silence followed, filling the space between you. tech didn’t know what to say, but he knew that this was sensitive information. he knew that it was hard for you to talk about, and so he didn’t want to say anything to potentially make things worse.

“hearing that little girl cry, asking her mother where everyone went, it just…i don’t know. it was under different circumstances but still,” you were failing to understand why the moment froze you. hunter was right, you could have been killed.

“it was a different circumstance, but,” tech started, his words coming out slowly as he processed them, “your fight or flight kicked in. it’s human nature whenever we come in contact with something that’s upset us or, dare i say, traumatized us,” his eyes searched yours, trying to read the expression on your face. tech knew what it was like to be ostracized for the things you’re good at. he was a defective clone, he knew almost exactly what you felt.

“when…when i was a cadet, still on kamino, i wasn’t treated very kindly by the regs simply for being different. the words they said, even some of the things they did, it was not kind of them,” tech’s words marinated in your mind for a moment. you found yourself completely facing him, engrossed in the man in front of you. you finally found someone to relate to, that knew what it was like to be excluded and bullied. for once, you could breathe.

“you didn’t deserve that,”

“neither did you,” he agreed, his warm, brown eyes cradling yours. he came to the same realization you did. he wasn’t as alone as he thought he was. as much as he wished neither of you went through what you did, it brought you two together, and he was grateful for that.

“we do need to work on your fight, flight, or freeze response,” he lightened the mood. you smiled and laid back in your chair.

“i know i know,” you smiled. you didn’t catch it, but tech smiled too.

here’s some tech! this was kind of self indulgent so i apologize for that, i still hope you enjoy though!

[hansoeii]

Several things: -LOVE your art, it’s amazing! Especially the one with Crowley and Aziraphale under the umbrella - which software do you use? Your art always look SO gorgeous (cheeky quote from GO right there lol) - how did you get so good at drawing?And thank you for encouraging other people to keep drawing and being so kind as I sometimes can’t help but compare my sketches to others and feel silly, but I guess it’s just a learning curve… Thank you so much for bringing your art to the world!😊

Thank you so much!!

I use Clip Studio Paint for drawing and Photoshop for small adjustments!

2. Haha thanks! Honestly...it's the hyperfixations. I managed to improve a lot in just a year because I've been drawing SO much cos there's so many shows and movies I became obsessed with that I wanted to create art for. So by drawing a lot I just naturally improved. For example these two Illustrations are just a year apart:

I actually didn't actively try to improve, it's been a while since I did proper studies (I just don't really have the time for it between freelancing and art school), it just happened.

But I can absoluetly recommend going on YouTube and look for some art tutorials if you actively want to start improving! There's some channels that helped me so much back then:

moderndayjames

Incredible shape language and super insightful tutorials on all kinds of topics! I learned so much from him.

Ahmed Aldoori

So many awesome tutorials on so many different areas of art. Love it.

Marco Bucci

Incredible tutorials on color theory and understanding how color works in general! Learned SO much from him!

Sinix Design

The OG tutorials I began learning from. I watched his videos religiously as a teen. I adore his painterly style and adopted it in some way, haha.

Ethan Becker

This dude sometimes drops these tiny art tips that just completely blow my mind and that I adopt immedietly. He's super entertaining but also such a great teacher.

And I can also recommend checking out this book by James Gurney if you want to get better at colors!

And for anatomy I highly recommend the Morpho books!

But improvement doesn't only come from drawing a lot. A lot of the time I don't draw for a while and just study the world and artists around me and suddenly I improved when I get back to drawing. Don't ever overwork yourself to the point that you don't enjoy what you do anymore. Take breaks and listen to your body!

I learned to try and not compare myself to other artists, which helped a lot. Through conventions and social media I made so many lovely artist friends and realized how we're all struggling in a very similar way. A lot of us don't even really know what we're doing most of the time, haha. But we help each other out, it's such a wonderful community. I think when you're not actively part of the community it tends to feel like other, more successful artists are some kind of art gods that have perfected the craft and never struggle. But believe me, all the artists you admire go through rough times all. the. time. Sometimes what they do feels easy and natural, other times (more often than not) it feels like you have to try and learn how to walk all over again and you start to doubt your abilities. I personally go through that so many times.

So what I'm trying to say is that instead of comparing yourself to the artists you admire, learn from them instead. Ask questions, befriend fellow artists, study the artists you enjoy and just have fun with it!

And finally I thought it would be fun to share some of my horrendous Johnlock fanart from a decade ago for some motivation:

I hope my answer didn't overwhelm you, but I thoight it would be nice to give a more detailed answer!

Have a wonderful day and keep drawing! :)

[vilevampirez]

long list of funny things abt my experience doing emote commissions for mike

first of all I wasn't expecting to get commissioned at all (my commissions weren't even open, I just made an exception for mike) let alone by MIKETHELINK of all fucking people, so I had nothing prepared. I had no portfolio, commission sheet, nothing. I had never made any twitch emotes, so I had no examples to show either. meaning that when barbmine showed up in my dms asking if I took emote commissions, first I lost my fucking shit, then I panicked and rushed to find the most recent emote-like illustrations I had, including animation, and the most recent animation I had on hand happened to be a viewtiful joe one lmao. the animation in question 👇

(the usernames on the watermark aren't even accurate anymore..)

I have some experience taking commissions but they'd always been for friends of mine, this was my first time getting commissioned by a real "client" and the client was fucking mikethelink tazercraft of all fucking people . I know he "found" me through Mine, she sent me a dm first asking for commission info, saying she would show it to mike later. the thing is that when she said that she also implied that she was in touch with other artists too, so I was like "oh ok I'll send my stuff but I probably won't get chosen lol" and then a few hours later I got two twitter notifs, one saying that mr. thelink tazercraft was now following me and another was his DM. to say I almost had a heart attack would be an understatement

later I found out Mine had made a tweet asking for artists to reach out/people to rec artists for mike's twitch emotes. that post had around 40 comments. many people had been recommended more than once. I wasn't mentioned by anyone once, and in fact, I had no fucking idea that post even EXISTED until way after the fact. I have no idea how I ended up getting this job

mike happened to contact me on a day where I was severely sleep deprived. our entire business conversation took place while I was half-panicking, half-almost-passing-out. I don't know how I survived

at many points during our conversation I gave a lot of leeway for mike to give up on commissioning me, implying multiple times that he would be better off commissioning a different artist. and it's not because I lacked confidence (though a bit of that too, of course), but because of my lack of experience. I was very open about that to him, so many times I expected him to second guess his decision to commission me. unexpectedly, he was really insistent. I think partially he didn't want to go through the trouble of finding and contacting a different artist, but also I guess he just liked my art that much (??!?)

I definitely undercharged him lol. it's not that I don't value my work, it's just that I was absolutely not prepared for any of this shit to happen and didn't have enough time to think

I use adobe after effects for animating mike's emotes. I already knew how to animate (though I had never animated anything big), but I had never used after effects before. I even told mike this before accepting the commission, but he just said it was easy and I could totally do it, and I was just like "fucking hell. fine". and look, I know my limits, I knew I'd be able to learn after effects with relative ease. if I thought it'be too much for me to handle, I wouldn't have accepted the commission. it just that to this day I'm still shocked that mike commissioned an artist who HAD NEVER USED THE TOOL NECESSARY FOR THE COMMISSION HE WANTED.

due to the point above I was pretty apprehensive about animating the emotes, but now I'm glad I got this opportunity bc it reignited my passion for animation that had been dwindling for a long time and I've been learning a lot while working. also with every new emote I figure out how to use a different feature of after effects and it makes the job a little bit easier

before giving my payment information I came out to him to avoid confusion with my legal name being different from the name on my socials. he was very chill about it and always used the right name and pronouns for me whenever he mentions me on stream

fun fact: I was reached out to by another big (brazilian, not in qsmp) youtuber for a commission but I had to refuse because I had too much on my plate already (still do..)

my favorite emotes are the devil one and the nerd one

I made his twitch avatar and banner too! I'm really proud of the avatar. the banner was absolute hell

I'm a lurker (and nowadays a vod watcher since I've been busy w/ uni work) but I do watch every single one of mike's streams, so just know that I'm always seeing you guys use the emotes :3

[liquidorcard]

Okay, I need context— WHAT did Mikaila trace??

I think she's traced a few things. I kinda thought this was common knowledge she does this, lol.

But the example I saw was a frame of clay face from the Harly Quinn show?

I thought Essence of Thought drew this one, but maybe it was Mikaila? I don't know.

Tracing discourse is more of an art hobbiest thing. Not really something people who do it for a living worry about. The issue with tracing is that if you do it instead of learning anatomy, rendering, the design fundamentals, etc-- you're just never going to improve.

But like, if you're working as an illustrator, animator, graphic designer, concept artist, etc. You need to know these things.

Photobashing is a very useful skill when you're a professional artist. It's basically like, high skill tracing, where you're rendering directly over/incorpating reference directly into your image. Here's an example, this concept art for Resident Evil Village is photobashed, and that's pretty industry standard:

You can see the photographed elements have been integrated directly into the painted elements.

There are deadlines to be met, prints to go out, and finals to get delivered. Especially with concept art, that's just preproduction stuff, it's really not the time to lovingly render every single aspect of something you're client or project manager's going to make you redo 3 million times, if not totally scrap to go in a different direction.

Photobashing is a cheat you need to have all the skills required to render, paint or draw something properly already to do right though. You need to be able to match lighting, perspective, scale, etc. Or else you'll get fired for being incompetent and handing in something that looks like a bad photoshop job.

I wouldn't photobash while I'm painting on my own personal time because, like, why am I painting just for fun at all at that point, but. It does take longer, however.

Doing figure drawing exercises and studies are also really important to keep your abilities sharp-- it's like an art workout. Tracing or photobashing those defeats the purpose.

Honestly, I really don't care if hobbiests trace personally. If they get that they won't improve and they're okay with it, who am I to poopoo on what they do for fun?

Mikaila charges way too much for her commissions given her skill level, but. Like, you can just tell Mikaila is very limited in her abilities, so . . . You know, it's not really false advertising? It's hard to fake being a better artist than you are, lol. You'd have to be stealing art and impersonate a real artist to do that.

I think hobbiests see tracing as a sort of "stolen valor." And, yeah, it's a little funny to me if Mikaila is in her 30s and trying to hide how she does her work, but. Unless Mikay starts trying to pass someone else's work as her own to scam people, I don't give a shit, personally.

I don't want to bully here in a way I don't think is cool, but like, look at this. Look at the mismatched perspectives, anatomy and styalization. I'm kind of shocked anyone can't tell this is all traced:

[ribbonetteart]

Tribute to one of my favorite movies of all time + the franchise that has me in a death grip 💖

a bit late for Christmas but at least Valentine's day is around the corner ^^;;

Process below if that interests you:

AS I SAID EARLIER, I had been working on this piece as early as December of 2021 😱!!!

This was the original sketch! I was inspired after learning about Blaze's own design inspiration coming from Takarazuka theater, as well as it being the Nutcracker season so this film was in bouncing around in my head.

and this was allllll the way back in 2021 ^^; I had put the idea to paper to capture the image in my head immediately. But the idea in my head was extravagant and beautiful and would certainly take time to complete, as well as the patience and skill to work with watercolor 😔 I've certainly done my share of watercolor, both physical and digital, but I still feel like my physical watercolor work is a fluke, and I was still a novice digital artist at the time of this sketch.

In short, I wasn't confident my skill could live up to the vision.

So I would put this on the back burner. It wouldn't be ready in time for Christmas, and I could use this as an opportunity to hone that digital art experience so it could be ready next year!

2 Years Later...

It's December 5th. Fuck it. Let's crack this open again, I tell myself.

SO starting with the line art, it's actually 2 different brushes layered over one another.

I also changed Sonic's expression to be more love struck-looking, because I'm a sucker for romance.

The image on the left is a watercolor line brush, while the right is a pencil brush. The reason I wanted a water color look was because I thought it would make the illustration look dreamy and fantastical, and I wanted that to extend to the line art as well. However, my usual lines on traditional usually veer more towards thick and cartoony from years of studying the Sonic art style, so I really felt like I was working against myself here. I had also asked friends for their input and they preferred the lines on the right as well. If my followers actually do read these blog posts, I'd love if you could comment which line art style you prefer drawing or looking at.

The happy medium was to just combine the 2. Here's a better look at that:

I like it! I think it combines the solid line with the rustic water color grain. Best of both worlds :]

For the actual painting, The most notable thing I can say is that getting the right pastel-y color was VERY difficult to achieve for someone like me who often loves to use bright and saturated colors in her art. I feel like I really set myself up to do one of those "evil art style" or "opposite art style" challenges I've been seeing around. I had to repaint Sonic at one paint because the blue of his fur was WAY too saturated for the style I was going for:

I started with painting Sonic and Blaze in first and then working on the background. I think that's probably the backwards way of doing it but one of the perks of digital art is you can do stuff any order you want when you have layers.

The background wasn't actually as difficult as I thought it would be. I wasn't going for any difficult perspective, and I was using a reference so that could be it. I'm usually averse to backgrounds but I really wanna tackle more of my weak points in art. I actually had way more fun than I was expecting, painting the sky and adding texture to the grass. I think I had the most fun rendering the water coming from the fountain (which you can't even see too well anyway, lol).

Funny enough, I had just about finished painting the characters and background by early January. So why am I posting this in February?

The Flowers...

In case you don't know. I love flowers. I love looking at them, I love learning about flower languages, I love drawing them. so seeing that my reference image showed flowers circling the fountain, I was excited! I was already having more fun than I expected to be having (working against my usual style, rendering a background), so how could this be a pain in the ass?

Well, I am my own worst enemy 😞I couldn't exactly identify each flower offhand from this screenshot alone. The texture of the flowers is kinda grainy, since I don't think the animators were expecting viewers to look too closely at the set piece to use as reference for my lovingly crafted crossover fanart. If anyone has this in high quality though, please tell me.

(I think I actually got this reference from a tumblr post but I can't find it on my blog for the life of me nor can I find it in the tags I'm so sorry)

I'm a huge stickler for details so I really wanted to be as "accurate" as possible in my illustration. I can hardly identify some of these flowers with confidence. I think there are roses in there? or tulips? I'm not sure if those yellow flowers are roses or some kinda petunia or if I'm way off.

I'm sure these details won't matter to most viewers but it was EATING AWAY AT ME. Eventually I decided to try drawing in flowers that might look similar to the ones in the reference. Or some based on their flower languages. I was certainly overthinking it ;;;; It led me to going "fuck it" and just throwing in whatever I wanted. There are no irises visible in that screenshot but I made it the centerpiece of the flower ring. Who give a shit.

I made some guides for me to follow: The blue ring was so I could make sure the flowers make a half circular border around Sonic and Blaze. I was envisioning how it could look as like an icon or sticker or something, which is why it's framed this way. then the second guide is the sketch of the flowers I made. I always do line art and I'm not great at just improvising with color to paper, or color to screen in this case.

The rest of this process is then just working on each flower piece by piece (with the help of the mirror tool of course) with varying degrees of detail. Some flowers are more abstract than others, and I had debated if that would look jarring and disrupted any kind of harmony I was trying to maintain with the style parameters I set for myself. And then I decided I was overthinking it once again which is why this was taking me nearly 2 months to complete.

At some point during this process, my wifi went out for a whole week! Of course, I could still work on this illustration offline, but I had a lot of tabs open with a bunch of reference images on there (plus I like to listen to music while I draw otherwise I lose focus and I had neglected to download a varied selection on my phone or laptop 😭 Learn from my mistakes).

The most tedious of this process was making each set of gladioluses a unique color.

Was it worth it? You tell me! I think they're pretty, at least.

Along the way, I repainted the grass because it wasn't symmetrical (It didn't need to be but I had been using the mirror tool for a lot at this point and it was bugging me). I made other little final adjustments, like color adjusting the leaves on the flowers, lowering the flower ring border, and so on.

Ultimately, I'm extremely satisfied with the final product. I had my heart set on doing something like this for a long time. I had so much fun just experimenting throwing on color or not worrying about technical stuff. Of course, I did do what I usually do and overthink it at some points, but I'm working on it!

I've wanted to do an extremely indulgent AU illustration and other drawings for a Sonic x The Nutcracker story for a long while. I will be totally honest, I'm still a little embarrassed to share stuff like this, even after years of posting fan art online. It feels like the more self indulgent something is, the more people might judge me for it ^^; But I wanna practice what I preach and kill the thing inside me that cringes at my harmless attempts at joy and whimsy.

I would love to do some more drawings for this AU, but maybe post them around December when it would be more seasonally appropriate. I hope you'll stick around for it!

If you read this whole thing to the end, thank you. Whether you follow my blog or not, I hope you have a lovely day :3💝

[einsatzzz]

OCtober Day 27 - Fear - "Give me a reason to live with indifference, doctor"

"Even if I came to love humanity in the end, there won’t come a day when I know that love, will there...?"

Slow-downer is such a nice song that fits both Yui and Kana. But I see this song mainly as leaning towards being both Yui-centric and in some form, depicts YuiKana's relationship (though vaguely).

The drawing above is inspired from the original MV's illustration with a patient and a doctor. Considering their lore (that I've never talked about before actually) and relationship with each other, I thought it would fit them the best if Yui is the patient while Kana is the doctor that he consults his problems with.

I feel like this would make more sense if I hypothetically already finished and posted Yui's profile (its coming, trust). But anyway, he is someone who grew up in a loveless family that burdened him with expectations (sounds familiar?). This is something he bonded over with Kurumi.

A major difference is that, Kurumi's parents love her genuinely and doesn't see her as an object/pawn to be used as leverage in Family politics.

But in terms of his outlook in life and mindset towards it, he resonates more with Kana. All in all, the comfort that he finds in Kurumi's presence is vastly different from the comfort that he finds in Kana's presence.

Deep down, Yui is someone who yearns for love. He already got a good amount of it from the Ninomiya Family, who treats him like their own. But he somehow still feels a certain emptiness despite it all, like something within him is not yet filled. He secretly fears that this is something he won't ever find in his lifetime.

Who else would he seek comfort from on this other than Kana? Someone who is also showered by love from both parents and Kurumi. He absolutely knows she feels empty as well, but the thing is, it doesn't even seem to bother her all that much (or at all) for some reason. He's also smart enough to know that if he asks, he won't get a proper answer. He wonders if he can eventually be someone like that too, so he has less problems to think about?

Because ideally, the only problems he would like to think about is the funding for his next several robot projects or the daily trouble him & his bestfriends get into. Anything that doesn't require him to get serious and anything where he can still sit back and relax. He also loves it when the problem even solves itself.

On the other hand, whether it be Yui or Kurumi, and whether or not either of them would ever want to change for the better or for the worse or just stay stagnant, Kana will always happily 😃😃😃 have their back and accept them 😃😃😃 Take all the time that you need Kurumi and Yui! She will always be here for you, no matter what!

Anyway, I'm still respawning but trying to get back into drawing bit by bit (ngl, I still feel so tired). This is just a sketch while experimenting on some effects, but eventually, I want to draw something cleaner for them related to this song. I feel like I rambled way too much compared to the point that I'm trying to make lol

(Also, image above doesn't accurately reflect their actual height difference LMAO Kana is so much smaller, we're talking about a 20cm height diff here hahaha I just need them to both be clearly visible on-screen)

[cali]

im a different anon but im just curious what advice you would give to someone whos been pillbugging it for um. over a year now

mmm i cant really answer how to stop having depression which im guessing is what u mean + i dont know how ur head works but ive been living mostly NEET-ly for more than 2 yrs now and everyday im getting a better curve at dealing with it so i can tell u what works for me.

half the time when im pillbugging hard im paralyzed by a nontangible fear and the only thing that could stop it is adressing wherever the fear is coming from but the confrontation of the topic, trying to figure out where its even coming from, is terrifying too so i dont do it and stay swimming in tar. theres a sentence people keep saying when they explain why they watch 2 hour video essays "it makes my head go quiet". thats the enemy, the thought, not the person saying it. long term i mean. when its short term anguish that can be bridged by pillbugging its fine i think but if ur "making ur head quiet" for more than a month i urge u to make it go really loud again but thats hard. the only times i can try and confront those thoughts is when i feel otherwise nice, if i got externally forced to have a fun day, hike with my papa, date day with my girlfriend, sometimes just got myself to make a nice meal and it helped, when u feel better its a little less scary and u can maybe try and think out of it a little better. also i think on those days youre generally more positively charged so u got more hope outlook. COOL. i think this is why some people do meditation. im not good at it so i dont really know but i think its a brave pasttime of tackling unpleasant ideas. i used to try and dope my way out of it with lsd cuz everytime i used it it kind of forced me to confront whatever trouble i had but ive forbad myself that cuz i didnt want to rely on it as crutch + it was just unpleasant to get hit over the head everytime. now i only do it when i feel good already (havent done it in half a year lol). sorry, drug tangent. also weed is synonymous with pillbugging 4 me.

otherwise, rituals.... mmmmm..... when therapists and whoevers say stuff like take daily walks daily exercise take daily shower i think all of those are like half about the direct benefits they give and half just about doing anything regularly. cuz it helps. during pillbug hours the point for me is kind of to have time pass as fast as possible so the timeframe to hurt is reduced which is counterproductive cuz if it flows u by rlly hard u cant really grasp onto anything to get off the ride easily. and its never going to come really easy theres no probable single action or event that is going to singlehandedly pull u out of the mire, no rapture, no healing vitamin, its always going to be slow and tedious and boring and stupid but a routine is a nice framework to start that. brushing ur teeth is nice. and when u do something daily the days start becoming more tangible again and u will be able to tell how many days ago tuesday was. maybe u can think abotu what factors motivate u and twist them to do your biddinggg. shame and dissapointment works really well for me if i tell someone i will have this done by then and i dont it usually overpowers the malaise or whatever other reason has been making me not do it prior. but this requires social bonds and i cant guarantee u have those. in summer i started doing therapy cuz in germany i need it for transgenderism and shes also a good beacon for that, if she says do something until next time we meet i dont want to dissapoint her. other than that, um idk, everyting else is just kind of part of that. take walks even if u dont want to think about things even if its scary. be brave like childrens book illustration of knight slaying dragon. and then maybe u get a princess kiss

[joannerowling]

I’m a big fan but I will admit that, while I think it’s the most beautifully written of the 7, I thought as a teenager that the ethical core of Deathly Hallows was a bit skewed and haven’t changed my mind having re-read it as an adult. Harry using the torture curse and the narrative approving of his ‘gallantry’ is a real low point. I also have issues with how she handled Snape from a Christian perspective, given that he was the one character explicitly working to atone for his sins. But I mainly put those gripes down to the final book needing to revert to a fable of good vs evil to tie the whole thing up, which necessitated losing some of the nuance of HP’s politics that had been explored mid-series.

The early books were ‘mean spirited’ because they were children’s books set at a boarding school that deliberately evoked the Roald Dahl tradition of writing terrible adults that need to be viciously cut down to size lol. The humour is so distinctly British.

Agree to disagree, i think it's pretty funny that Harry snaps over something like McGonagall getting spat on. It's in the same vein as Hermione cursing Marietta to have "SNEAK" written on her forehead for me. Is it good? No (and i don't think the narrative *says it's good*), but is it satisfying and did Carrow have it coming? Hell yeah! Remember that the Carrows are explicitely said to be fond of Crucifying students and even forced some to use the curse on first years (11 years old kids) apparently for shit and giggles. I think giving Amycus a taste of his own medicine was fine.

You would have to elaborate on the Snape bit for me to comment.

I get what you mean with the third part, not sure that i would call it "the Roald Dahl tradition" - even though he excels at this, but is it not more like a feature of child lit in general? How many fairy tales start with a poor girl being treated like shit by her comically evil step-mother meanwhile her father is completely useless? And child lit, or rather books where children are the heroes in a world of Terrible Adults, is a particularly favoured genre of British writers since at least Dickens.

JKR's work for children does fall into this tradition (i would say the Ickabog even more so than HP), but i think her specificity comes in a) her willingness to target character types that are rarely deemed of interest for kids, such as politicians (Fudge, Scrimegour), state workers (Umbridge, Bagman), journalists (Rita), business owners (Vernon), etc., people who usually are more the targets of satirical newspapers, and b) the fact that her satire is intricate and barely caricatural, compared to say Dahl's. Fudge for instance is NOT a caricature in his behaviour and even appearance, he's a *realistic* British politician… in wizard clothes. Compare that to Dahl's Trunchbull. Or you know, compare two official illustrations of one of Dahl's and one of Rowling's characters:

(Jim Kay on the right, Quentin Blake on the left)

Both have exaggerated features but Dahl's is cartoonish and focused on proportions and attitude, whereas JKR's is allll about the details (the knot, the cats, the texture and colour of those clothes). That is not to say one is better than the other but only to point out the difference.

[cerealandchoccymilk]

Trigun Bookclub: Vash's Speech (FLOP EDITION...)

all bookclub posts

so i wrote this entire thing over a span of a day and a half. and found out just as i was finishing it that the ultradeep™ vash lore analysis point i wanted to make is actually NOT in the og trigun. [here's my mental breakdown post lol]

but i spent so much time and energy on this that i cant just say whelp! and delete it... so i'm posting it anyways. the straight-up incorrect parts are crossed out and some post-realization notes are in red. theres also a few paragraphs of postscript commentary/rambling in purple at the end of the post.

read it if youre bored i guess. but take it all with a grain of salt.

in the future (once we get to trimax vash+knives interaction) i will write the version of this that my memory intended, with an actual conclusion that makes sense lol

Mini-entry this time because I got consumed by linguistics brain worms :P But I wanted to make sure I talked about Vash's speech and his usage of pronouns!

A bit of background before we get into the analysis:

Japanese pronouns are very different from English. As the Wikipedia page puts it, "The use of pronouns, especially when referring to oneself and speaking in the first person, vary between gender, formality, dialect and region where Japanese is spoken."

The styles of spoken Japanese in general are another can of worms.... They're similar worms so I'll be touching on them a little, but it's not that relevant yet.

In real life, people have multiple pronouns (and speech styles) that they switch between depending on the situation, like with friends and family, at work, in front of kids, etc. For example, I primarily use 俺 online (along with joke/slang pronouns for funsies like 漏れ or おれっち), 自分 or 僕 in public depending on the person, and 私 in closeted situations. My cis male JP-school classmate uses 俺 with friends/family, used to use 私 in class at first, and then transitioned to 僕 as he got more familiar with the teachers.

Although this sort of code-switching happens all the time IRL, it's way less frequently illustrated in fiction, both for consistency's sake and because fictional characters just don't care as much about status. That's why I thought what's going on with Vash is particularly interesting!

Details continued below...

--original readmore position--

Here are the connotations for the two first-person pronouns that Vash uses (pulled from Wikipedia):

ore/おれ/俺 - informal - males - Frequently used by men. Establishes a sense of "masculinity". Can be seen as rude depending on the context. Emphasises one's own status when used with peers and with those who are younger or of lesser status. Among close friends or family, its use conveys familiarity rather than "masculinity" or superiority. It was used also by women until the late Edo period and still is in some dialects. Also oi in Kyushu dialect.

boku/ぼく/僕 - formal/informal - males - Used by males of all ages; very often used by boys; can be used by females but then carries tomboyish or feminist connotations. Perceived as humble, but can also carry an undertone of "feeling young" when used by males of older age. Also used when casually giving deference; "servant" uses the same kanji (僕 shimobe). Can also be used as a second-person pronoun toward male children (English equivalent – "kid" or "squirt").

(the usage of boku as a 2pp is actually part of a different phenomenon--if you're interested in that kotolabo's video explains it better than i ever could (eng captions available))

And these are the notes for every time Vash has used a first-person pronoun in the span that I've analyzed so far, which is until Chapter #06. I'll be adding onto this in the future as my annotations continue. no need anymore. i skimmed the rest and found out that, aside from a childhood flashback, vash uses exclusively ore after chapter #05.

The first instance is in Chapter #02, when he cries in French.

「なぜ僕がこ��な目にあうのママン　何も悪いことしてないのにみんなが僕を狙うよママン」（独り言） "Why do things like this keep happening to me, maman? I don't do anything bad, but everyone's always after me, maman!" (to himself)

Here he uses boku, the softer pronoun. However, because he's putting on a "helpless French boy" persona, this one actually doesn't say much about Vash (other than that he's being silly).

The second time is later in the same chapter, when surrounded by the women of April City.

「奴に…会うまでは！！　俺は立ち止まる訳にはいかないんだ！！」（主婦たち） "Until I see him again... I cannot afford to stop moving!" (Housewives)

This time he uses ore, the rougher and more masculine pronoun. The situation is very tense; he has several guns pointed at him. This is also the first instance we see the trauma and hurt Vash holds inside. Overall he's very desperate here. We can see in a bit that ore is his "default." He drops his usual polite/kind tone to be as sincere as he can with the women. I think he can't afford to code-switch and be polite because this is a very personal and emotional moment for him. This doesn't mean his tone is necessarily rude (in-universe!!! probably better not to talk to strangers like this IRL); he still uses relatively soft language.

The next two are in Chapter #04, both when he refuses the sandsteamer guy's job offers.

「やだやだやだやだ　僕は争いごと嫌いなの！！」（砂蒸気の人） "No, no, no, no! I don't like trouble!" (Sandsteamer guy)

「僕は客なの！！この車の警備態勢にはチョーー期待してるから ヨロシクね！！」（砂蒸気の人） "I am a passenger! I have great faith in your security, so I entrust everything to you, okay?" (Sandsteamer guy)

He uses boku here. As we'll see in future instances, this is the pronoun he uses in front of other people and is the one he chooses most frequently. He constantly avoids trouble, so he always uses soft language and the humbler pronoun. nope it was just out of politeness towards a stranger and trying to sound less assertive/more harmless(?) to get out of the situation

In the next page, Vash talks to himself during his piss break.

「…まったくもう　保険屋の2人組といい…　俺(おら)ァもっとひっそりとやってきたいのに」（独り言） "...Jeez! As if those two insurance girls weren't already enough... I was hoping for a nice, quiet trip." (to himself)

Although the pronunciation here is oraa, it's a reduced form of ore wa (wa is a grammatical particle). His tone here is sort of laid-back (and tired, as you can tell). Again, this is his default 1st-person pronoun.

A few moments later, on the last page of the chapter, he says,

「よく分かった　ツラかったろう！！大丈夫だ 僕にまかせな　悪い様にはしねえぜ！！」（カイト） "I understand. It must have been so hard! It's okay... I'll take care of you. I won't let anything bad happen to you again!" (to Kaito)

Here he switches back to boku. He does this in front of almost everyone, but this is especially the case because he's speaking to a child he wants to protect. Using the boku pronoun gives a softer, more approachable vibe.

In Chapter #05, he goes back to ore when he talks to Kaito about No Man's Land.

「時々考えるよ　この惑星に…来た事が本当に俺達にとって幸せな事なのか　ってね」（カイト） "I sometimes wonder... Was our arrival on this planet actually something for us to be happy about? ...Y'know?"

From here on Vash is more familiar with Kaito, enough to open up a bit about his true feelings about humanity. It is also partially Vash talking to himself. irrelevant/coincidence

In Chapter #06, Vash talks to himself in front of Kaito.

「間違いない！！俺にゃー死神か貧乏神が２ケタ以上ついてるんだ」（独り言・カイト） Overhaul: "Why do death and destruction always follow right behind me?!" Literal: "I swear, I have at least 2 digits’ worth of death-gods or poverty-gods haunting me!!"

He uses ore here again. At this point, he's pretty much completely familiar with Kaito, and considers him a friend/teammate. The speech here is very casual. Skimming through the later chapters, I was able to confirm that from Chapter #05 on, Vash uses exclusively ore.

wait

AAAND CUT! this is where my dumb ass realizes that vashs speech is different between trigun and trimax, and that the conclusion i planned on making was trimax-exclusive :) now forget everything you just read in this post past the wikipedia table screenshot because itll be completely irrelevant in less than a week!!

trimax vash uses boku 99% of the time and ore exclusively in front of knives as far as i can remember. i wanted to say stuff about how he is always wearing the kind persona as a mask and shows his true emotions (aka his sheer trauma and rage) in front of knives and knives only

but like. he really doesnt in og trigun. thats just him being kind to strangers??? and barely has any deep meaning to it. it doesnt mean the individual analyses are wrong but theyre definitely not making the point i was going to make at the end of this post and it just aint that deep.

very frustrated with myself rn... but the 2 good things i got out of this are 1) i wont have to write the pronoun explanation again and 2) i skimmed through all of trigun so future annotations might be faster/cost less spoons since i already have some things to write down in mind.

This will definitely get a part 2+ in the future, especially once we get to see Knives. the redo will just be a new single-part post. this stuff will most likely only become relevant once we see knives+vash interaction in trimax The Meryl speech analysis we mentioned in a past post is currently in the works, and will also be part of this speech series!

[ryuichirou]

Replies

A couple of replies about the Vil drawing from yesterday + a long-ass reply with me musing about tops and bottoms in my yuri drawings 🤔

Anonymous asked:

Sorry Vil please forgive me but I'm in love with the Savanaclaw background students

Aww, Anon, aim higher..! Although after Vil trains them to be good boys, they might behave better. Unless that defeats the entire purpose for you, of course. 👀

Anonymous asked:

Vil and the beastmen was a Canon event, sou I wouldn't be shocked if they actually were carrying him around like that

Honestly if I wasn’t in love with Vil’s groovy for this event, I would’ve been sad that we didn’t get these boys carrying Vil around like that as a card illustration lol It feels right!

ghostvoid18 asked:

how do you perceive/like men topping men vs women topping women in your ships? i’m curious bc in your bl art the tops don’t go down on the bottoms but in the gl art (on the 🔑 account) they do 👀

This is such a good question, and I wish I had a definitive answer for you… With ladies it’s a bit more complicated than with boys for us; I’ll share my thoughts. 🤔 I hope it makes at least some sense.

I guess our main thing is that we want the bottom of the ship to get stimulated and dominated, and with m/m ships it also ties very deeply with penetration in our minds; this is why it’s so straightforward and uhh uncompromising. Technically, a top could still suck a bottom off, there is absolutely nothing that indicates that this could never be the case in general, but to us personally this is already a shift in their dynamic that we don’t really like most of the times. So if a top!boy goes down on a bottom!boy, even if he does give some stimulation to his penis, he’s mostly going to focus on his butt lol this is why we have a bunch of ass-eaters among those pervs.

I guess it really is all about penetration for the guys: bottom!boy’s peen doesn’t get much stimulation in general in our stuff, unless it’s something kinky (like stepping on it, slapping it, stimulating the urethra, maybe just bullying in general, etc).

With girls, however, I don’t focus on penetration nearly as much, in fact, I only recently started to draw girlies fingering each other lol There are a lot of sketches like this that I draw now, but this still isn’t a necessary part of w/w smut for us. I mentioned at some point that I don’t really like strap-ons and stuff, and this is still kind of true. Fem!Azul’s tentacles are a whole different topic though ehehehe-

So if you eliminate all nuance and boil it down to its most basic form, my main goal is to bully the bottom girl until she cums make the bottom!girl cum, and any means to achieve that are great lol So in my head, when I think about someone eating someone else out, I mainly picture a bottom!girl getting embarrassed, stimulated and honestly dominated.

Does that mean that a top!girl can’t force a bottom!girl to lick her down there, or that a bottom!girl can’t be a bit bossy and demand getting pleasured? Not really, because there is always nuance, so it could be different and I would look at it on a case by case basis. I feel like with yuri there is more nuance and fluidity in general, which sounds unfair, but it’s simply because the interactions and stimulations that are available for them are different, and have different implications too. Once again: despite the fact that I don’t think that penetration is necessary and don’t really like it in yuri smut, half of my recent yuri sketches have some forms of penetration in it lol 

You know what, I think the easiest way to describe it would be to say that we just prefer bottom!girls to receive the pleasure and be “the center” of what is going on.

The top!girl has all of her fun while playing with her and enjoying her reactions, so the idea of a top!girl pleasuring her lover with her tongue and maybe even penetrating her with it comes naturally to my mind – it feels like an act of domination somehow.

And bottom!boys just need to get fucked out of their minds lol

Once again, those are just my thoughts, and those thoughts are related only to the stuff that I draw and we discuss.

TL;DR: Bottom!girl both receives pleasure and gets dominated (even if she has some control like Malleus or Vil), and when it comes to which exact sexual practices they use, there is a lot of nuance. We prefer for the top!girl to eat the bottom!girl’s pussy though. Hope that explains it.

Thank you for your question!

Anonymous asked:

I was really hoping for more of the twisted wonderland women... Hope to see them soon!

Be patient, Anon, please don’t rush things :) It’s going to happen. I appreciate the enthusiasm and I enjoy it when people show it and I know they only mean well (obviously), but if starts feeling pushy, it would end in the opposite result for us. We have a queue of sketches/artworks to post, so we get there when we get there.

[wannabe-cartoonist-blog]

Key:

Mine: the colors I've used the most consistently in my own fanart

Anime: pulled straight from screen caps from the show (i also tried to find scenes where the lighting was most "average" (so no night scenes, or scenes with noticibly harsh lighting)

Manga: pulled from these official manga box set covers (bc they all seemed consistent in lighting and shading)

More info below cut (bc i started to ramble, like always)

Probably one of my oddest projects yet, but I've always wanted to compare what colors I choose when drawing the characters vs what the anime uses vs what Fujimaki uses. Color choices and art styles usually go hand in hand, so I wanted to see how weird the characters would look in my style with the two different canon color palettes. Conclusion; pretty fucking weird (to me, at least).

I've always suspected it, but I think this is pretty concrete evidence that I go bold when it comes to coloring (which I think fits my chonky lineart and cartoonist art style). It was funny to see that the anime colors especially are actually rather "dull", because they don't look it at all to me in the actual show. Fujimaki's style was hard to translate, since obviously he uses traditional mediums and also does a lot of blending/shading. I still tried my best to pick the colors that I thought were most prevalent in his images, even though, obviously, they aren't quite so flat in the actual illustrations. I used the special edition covers for the manga color palette, but I'm not 100% sure if Fujimaki himself drew/colored these special edition covers, so someone please correct me if wrong!

Some conclusions I made;

apparently, at some point, I decided to make Kuroko pale as hell??? i think he's always read as pale to me (bc compared to other average characters like Furihata and the GoM themselves, he's does look fairer-skinned imo. But apparently I leaned waaay into that lol. Once I got the actual canon color tones I was like "....oh. I made him sickly...". TBH tho, I think he looks better paler in my style, but that's probably because I got so used to drawing him that way lol. Please do lmk if you think I should begin to switch things up tho when it comes to my style!

kagami, alternatively, I ended up making tanner than canon it seems. but my (perhaps controversial) anime opinion is that Japanese artists tend to "whitewash" a little bit (aka they lean into lighter tones as opposed to darker when it comes to poc skintones). Now kagami, may or may not be mixed raced, but i've always thought a rich, tan skin tone fit him quite well, idk.

I already knew I did this, but its clear from these drawings that I really lean into the colors of their hair. once I get to the GoM, this will be very obvious ("I mean, the colors are in their NAMES. ofc i'm gonna exaggerate them" -> I'm sure that was my exact logic whilst picking my personal palette over the years).

since i'm lazy, i usually just make the characters hair and eye colors the exact same hue, so it was fun to see the different tones they can take in the canon palettes.

So yeah, I plan to go through all the GoM and compared my color preferences vs anime canon and manga canon, so look forward to that! If you read this far, thank you I love you.

If you guys give suggestions, perhaps I'll go back and make a "voted on" color palette, so please do let me know your opinions, in terms of what colors you think "feel right"/look best in my style! :)

[toads-treasures]

Writer Interview

I got tagged by @forget-me-maybe and @pouroverpaloma, thank you for the tag!!! I'm sorry that I definitely may have overshared!!

When did you start writing?

This is going to sound cliche but, since I learned how to write at all, I think? I distinctly remember that I got in trouble when I was about six years old, because I took a photo album that had nice sturdy paper pages from the laundry room and wrote a mystery story in it. I remember it was a mystery because on every other page I colored my own version of the old transitions they’d do in cartoons, with a question mark with concentric colorful circles around it lol. Strangely vivid memory of those transition pages, I think I was very proud of them. 

But I’ve been writing and “illustrating” pretty much my entire life. I started writing fanfiction in middle school or highschool, and that’s what I’ve always liked writing the most.

Then I decided to get a creative writing degree, which then led me to developing both a god complex and a crippling sense of perfectionism and self doubt, and completely drained any enjoyment from writing literally anything, because I couldn’t get my professor’s voices out of my head. I loved my professors and I think I learned a lot, but I became so obsessed with my writing being perfect and impressive and something they would want and like, that I stopped writing things that I liked. So, I had a crisis and dropped out! And didn’t write anything for like four years so 🫠 but we’re slowly gettin’ back into it. 

Are there different themes or genres you enjoy reading than what you write?

I don’t think there are any themes I enjoy reading that I couldn't really write, but genres definitely. I don’t know if I could write a contemporary romance. Unless I am doing a modern AU lol but even then I always seem to end up adding some kind of fantastical element.  I love reading a good Emily Henry novel, but I try to write a lighthearted contemporary romance and inevitably some ghosts or fucked up fairies of some sort will appear. I gotta inject a little horror and fantasy into pretty much everything I write, which I think a lot of people are surprised by. I’m surprised by it, because I am such a baby I can’t handle watching horror movies. I think less horror, and more like, gothic elements maybe? IDK man it’s been a long time since I’ve been in a literature class.

Is there a writer you want to emulate or get compared to often?

I wanna be Maggie Stiefvater when I grow up. She’s a young adult novelist but she is such a talented writer, I can’t even explain other than her books make my brain go !!!!! 

I cannot recommend Scorpio Races or The Raven Cycle enough. She’s got such a distinct voice, and she is really good at magical realism which I love. I don’t know if I intentionally try to emulate her though I think I’m just a sponge that just absorbs bits and pieces of anything I read, but I think I have unintentionally stolen a line or two from her before.

Can you tell me a bit about your writing space?

I have a home office that I adore and is super cute and cozy but unfortunately most of my writing is done at work on my lunch break. But that’s also a pretty nice place, a shaded courtyard at the hospital I work at that’s got really nice tall trees that blossom in the spring. 

What’s your most effective way to muster up a muse?

I always come up with some pivotal character detail or plot point while I’m doing dishes. Then I have to scramble for my phone with sudsy hands to immediately tell Liz I have had A Thought.

Are there any recurring themes in your writing? Do they surprise you?

I think a lot of my stories are about grief, which I don’t usually realize until later. Grief and memory and growing out of the place you were born, and the kind of dissonance that comes from wanting so desperately to go home but not fitting when you get there. Or things are different than how you remember, for better and for worse. I love thinking about complicated parent/child relationships, and coming to the realization that more often than not your parents are neither heroes or villains, they’re just people.  Coming of age stories but the protag are in their late twenties? 

I looooove to write about people slowly (or not so slowly) falling in love and the little things you notice about someone when that’s happening. Like the way a slight sunburn sometimes makes blue eyes look even bluer, the way someone’s eyes widen before they start laughing, like they’re surprised at their own amusement. Getting to know someone in so many different contexts. So different kinds of intimacy I guess? It wasn’t until recently that I even considered writing smut lmao and even now when I try the characters just end up having some deep conversation and unearthing some kind of trauma. Let’s not analyze what that says about me. 

But it always seems to come back to grief at some point and living with loss and growing around it. Which is strange because I’m very lucky to have not gone through that process with anyone extremely close to me. It is definitely something I think about a lot though, it’s almost like I’m trying to brace myself, or practice grieving before it actually happens.

What’s your reason for writing?

Escapism babyyy. I say escapism then talk about how all I ever write about is grief….so….but it is both escapism and kind of working through some shit emotionally lol. One of my favorite possibly cringey things to do, but something that has genuinely helped me a lot, is creating a character that has a lot of qualities that I feel self conscious about. They have ADHD, they’re tall and a little clumsy, or they’ve got the same body type as me. They also dropped out of art school. But it doesn’t bother them at all. They’re not insecure about any of those things. Or if they are, they learn not to be. And the other characters love them anyway.

One of the things I’ve really enjoyed doing with a lot of the fanfiction I write is I get a chance to write about the moments in between the big moments. Explore aspects of characters that maybe there wasn’t time for in the game. Or you know if it’s Wyll just aspects that Larian didn’t bother to do at all i’m not bitter 

Is there any specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating?

Literally any. I crave any form of validation. I love when people can point out themes and stuff to me because I usually miss that myself lol.

How do you want to be thought about by your readers?

Uhhhhhhhhh I have never considered this. Positively? I think more than anything I want people to care as much as I care about these characters, that we’re all being genuine and sincere and sappy together.

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

I don’t know if it’s my greatest strength lol but I love writing dialogue. That always comes easily to me. And descriptions of landscapes. That’s always something people in class would point out. I will wax poetic about a mountain or the sea don’t test me. 

How do you feel about your own writing?

It comes and goes lol. I try not to think about it too much honestly because I’ll spiral pretty fast into extremely self critical territory and freeze up. Because I must be a genius, Professor Signor told me so, now I have this impossible standard to live up to. Also my professor never told me I was a genius but she did really like my writing and wanted me to take a bunch of honors classes and be on the school literary magazine and all of that pressure and expectation kiiinda made me freak out and run away. So now I try to just have fun, and that’s what I want to feel more than anything is that I’m having fun, and truly enjoying this part of me that has been a part of me for as long as I can remember. 

tagging @hauntedliz @mars-colonyand @likesomethingblooming if you wanna!

[nostalgia-tblr]

Okay actually I do have a proper thought on the "sylki is incest" wank. which is that the "anti" take seems to be that Loki/Sylvie is obviously, glaringly, an incestuous pairing but its shippers deliberately ignore that because they like the pairing otherwise (yet also the accusation involves them liking the incest element... honestly it's a bit of a muddle, but let's move on). But. Well, here's the thing that is obvious, at least to me...

Go to AO3 and have a look to find the most popular (in terms of number of works) Loki pairing in the Marvel Cinematic Universe fandom as a whole. Actually, i'll save you the effort:

(These numbers are slightly out-of-date but the ratios remain accurate. I checked.)

Now, that. That is an incest pairing, isn't it? There is some fic which specifies an AU of some sort in which Thor and Loki are not related to each other but most of it is about brothers who are also lovers.

"But they're not really related," you say? Sorry, but in the important ways, they are. Every one of those films, and the Loki series, frames them as siblings-with-issues, and yes one of those issues is whether or not they agree that they are siblings, but I'd say the MCU comes down pretty firmly on the side of "they totally are."

And the point I'm making here is that the actual incest pairing is treated as such by its fans. If you don't feel up to reading any thorki fic I'll save you again and say that it overall leans into the "forbidden love" angle, and the shame and internal conflict of an incestuous attraction or relationship. So shippers of a given pairing do indeed know what incest is and they rarely try to avoid that aspect of such pairings.

Whereas. If you read the Loki/Sylvie stuff, that whole "thorki vibe" is entirely absent. Fans vary on variants, in terms of in what ways these two are or are not "the same person" but they agree on one thing: fucking some other version of yourself is not incest. This is pretty much a unanimous belief, and here I'll mention something else I think is relevant: there are a few sylki twincest AUs (many of which seem to have been written out of spite - LOL, fandom!) and in all of those the AU also features another crucial change - they are not both Loki variants in those fics.

Yeah, that's right! To make Loki and Sylvie siblings you have to remove the selfcest element entirely. Because - this may shock some of you, so sit down before you read this next part - you are not your own sibling. Even identical twins are obviously different people. A clone of yourself might get us into more philosophical territory but that's not what multiversal variants are either. Allow me to illustrate with another informative image:

You get me? Yeah, you get me.

So, to meander towards an actual conclusion here. The MCU!Loki fandom does not, in general, refuse to accept that romantic/sexual pairings that would be incestuous actually are incestuous. In fact if anything it embraces that element of such pairings. It is usually seen as the defining feature of them. If they think siblings are fucking then they will write about those siblings fucking, and they will not be shy about it!

And aside from that mentioned handful of AU fics, sylki is not written as incest. Because it just isn't incest. Look, if you personally see Loki and Sylvie as siblings to the point where the pairing squicks you out, then fair enough there's not much either of us can do about that. Do your best to avoid that content and don't be a wanker about it and I wish you well in your endeavours. But that isn't what most of the complaints stem from, is it? As usual in recent years fans who didn't like a pairing (which, btw, is allowed) wanted to have the moral high ground and some bright spark hit upon "this pairing is INCEST" via some slightly odd logic and it spread from there. Because we can't just not like something, can we? (Actually, that's also allowed!) No, we have to be better than those fans over there, who are all terrible people in some way. They are problematic.

And this is a lot of words for me to essentially say "no, the sylki fic and the thorki fic have very different vibes actually" but... well, they do. The sylki shippers are not denying the incest, because there is no incest there, and even if we for a moment pretend that "siblings" is a reasonable and indeed expected interpretation of the variants concept, it is clear from their content that the people who ship Loki/Sylvie do not see them that way. And that has nothing to do with DNA or otherwise, which I can prove with this very quick question: in one word (or less, if you can), what is the relationship between Loki and Thor?

You said "brothers" or "siblings," didn't you? No, you did. I know for a fact that you did, don't play coy with me on this. We all understand that these two characters who definitely share no DNA are, in every way that matters, brothers. This is not a difficult concept, it's not somehow confusing large numbers of fans either way.

tl;dr - Sylki isn't incest but if it was we'd all know that because the fans of it would not be constantly denying what would, almost certainly, be the main appeal of that pairing for them if that was the case. You can deny that all you want but 11,731 thorki fics (as of 10th December 2023) back me up on this one.

So there.

[aropride]

speaking of psychosis- i wasn't speaking of it here but i was speaking of it- i've been trying to figure out what was up with the great psychotic episode of freshman year, because i had assumed it was a trauma-induced psychosis type of deal, but it occurred to me that i was definitely having sort of thought broadcasting types of beliefs, probably some other stuff but i can't remember atm and don't feel like digging thru my old vent account lol. (ramble continues under the cut this got VERY long)

(line with text so tumblr doesn't eat the image. idk if it still does that but better safe than sorry)

(the months with "2" are split into first and second half of the month bc it was relevant, couldnt figure out how else to signify that succinctly)

i cut out the labels of each belief for safety + in case that's triggering to ppl but each row is a different belief i had that in retrospect was probably some sort of delusion? top two are very similar but different enough i tracked them differently. bottom two might have just been anxiety+ptsd but i do really think they're connected to this

it was definitely at its worst mid nov-end of jan, but started in september and didn't really let up til like june

anyway like i said i had assumed it was a combination of trauma and being off my meds and isolation that made the perfect situation for me to go fucking crazy, but i hadn't really thought about it that hard . but now that i Am thinking about it, again, i was definitely having these kinds of beliefs before The Trauma

and in my past self's defense. one thing about my thought broadcasting beliefs specifically was that i was straight up being essentially cyberstalked at the time and didn't know, so i was completely right that certain people knew more about me than i had told them, but i was wrong about the reason why

anyway i was reading up on schizospec disorders for class (kind of. also just for fun) -- also important context schizophrenia does run in my family i think on both sides? but my parents are weird about talking about it. so that's part of this also.

but i noticed that of the three labels i was looking at- brief psychotic disorder, schizophreniform, and schizophrenia- (i didn't look into schizoaffective bc i dont think i have many bipolar symptoms, and didn't look into stpd bc i don't think it counts as a personality disorder if it lasts like 10 months lol, and delusional disorder because i do think i had some negative*&cognitive symptoms (*psych term meaning absence of things present in nonschizospec people, not literally just bad symptoms lol)-- though to be fair, that may have just been a combination of situational aspects & autism?)-- either way, it's not on this beautiful and awesome diagram in mspaint i made so i could illustrate the timeline aspect of the diagnostic criteria:

bc a diagnosis of brief psychotic disorder requires symptoms to only last a month, and schizophreniform for 1-6 months, whereas schizophrenia is lifelong .

basically the problem is- while the worst part of my psychotic(?) symptoms lasted ~4months, they were definitely there in some form for around 10 months, which is too long for a diagnosis of schizophreniform, but i don't feel comfortable just, assuming it's schizophrenia lol, especially when most of the symptoms i experienced dont affect my life anymore? it does make me nervous though that this happened right around the typical age of onset.

this might just be a problem with diagnoses being too specific to cover the entire spectrum of human experience, and i might just be outside of any area where a specific label could be applied . also, i know it's been written about but not become an actual diagnostic label- but there are places where ocd and psychosis can over lap, and schizo-obsessive disorder has been suggested as a diagnostic label, but not officially used anywhere afaik..

i think my main concern at this point is just, whether or not i should be concerned about it coming back. like, is it possible to be in various stages of active psychosis(?? it still feels very strange to refer to it that way but i guess that's what it was, so) for ~4-10 months, and then just be chilling after. or should i be worried. was this a one-time thing starting because i was off my meds and being worsened by isolation and trauma or is there a possibility of this happening again. and i think that's a question that can't be answered with any certainty, probably