#and my art teacher said i needed to work on actual backgrounds

[angelcatsiel]

feeling a bit frustrated today, like I can't do anything right. yesterday was kinda rough, I had one of those days where I dropped every single thing I picked up and was trying to get stuff done but ended up using up all my energy picking things up off the floor and cleaning up spills, meaning I made almost zero progress with anything, but now I'm worn out today.

my parsley seeds still haven't germinated even though my friends seeds from the same pack, planted at the same time, are growing well, so I guess I must be doing something wrong? and I really, REALLY tried to do some nice cartoony cat drawings last night, because I am dying to learn how to draw things that are not realism, but they turned out... way too realistic. as always. do artists usually use photo/real life references to draw cartoony/not realistic stuff? I feel like this is a stupid question, but how does that... work? how do you not automatically translate all the little details to your drawings? how to you draw an expression on an animal that doesn't have those expressions in real life? I feel like I'll have to learn by copying other artists, but I don't want to learn by simply copying, and I'm worried that will lead to me just drawing in other people's styles. maybe I'm just being impatient, but I've had this problem for years. I struggle to draw anything that is not a direct copy of something else. my realism drawings are good, but that's all they are, copies of a photo. even back in school, I got praised for my excellent realism drawings of things I was interested in, but when I tried to do something that strayed from that in any way, I performed so badly that my art teacher accused me of deliberately doing it badly just to be difficult.

idk I'm just having one of those days where I feel like I'm no good at anything. not really a productive thought, but idk how to get past it. I know people will say the answer is practice, but... I feel like I don't know how.

[heretherebeturtles-comic]

Hello! Many people have said this but ill say it too, I LOVE YOUR COMIC SO MUCH ( ´ ▽ ` ).｡ｏ♡

I really wanted to ask you about how you do the backgrounds? (Something i struggle with) whats the process? Like from start to finish, also, to do the rise backgrounds do you use reference from the show and generally real photo of ny? Or do you come up with them? And last question- The shadow and light on the background- Like HOW

i know it’s a lot of questions but i’m just so curious qwq and wanna learn to be better, thank you again in case you read this and respond, in case you don’t, i hope you have a nice day and a wonderful life uwu keep up the great work! (≧◡≦) ♡

Backgrounds are a really broad subject and I'm always a little overwhelmed when asked this question. Just like drawing the human body, backgrounds take time, repetition, and practice!

My answer got a bit long, so it's going under a read more :) but if you digest info better in video format I found this on youtube

It pretty much goes over everything I wanted to say, but in a much better way. I wish I had found it before writing all this out lol

ok, first of all, I'm not a teacher nor was I built to be one of those cool helpful art tutorial people who do a full coloured tutorial filled with illustrations. This is just going to be a messy "how I do backgrounds / environment layouts from start to finish." kinda thing.

... lets start with a sight tangent.

Sketch from Life!!!

If you want to get better at backgrounds I recommend doing some sketching out in the real world!

When I was first getting into doing backgrounds I went to cafes and parks to just sketch the buildings and objects. Sketch rocks, flowers, clumps of grass, garbage cans, bottles, tables, street signs, etc. If you are drawing a tree observe how the trunks twist, how the bark flows, or how the leaves are bunched.

If you can't leave the house the same still applies! Sketch the interiors of your house, the walls, or common objects like chairs and bookshelves. How are objects stacked? items on the floor?

If you aren't comfortable with drawing outside or in public you can take some photos to draw from! They are good for practice and you can use them again as references later. Alternatively you can find pictures online of buildings and objects to sketch as practice.

All spaces have objects in them, it becomes easier to draw those kinds of spaces when you already have spent time observing and sketching them.

ALSO! They don't have to be good sketches! It's just to build out your mental catalogue and strengthen your perception of perspective.

now the actual thing...

BACKGROUNDS

(the pictures used for this are my own. I dug them out of my 2022 folder)

Backgrounds have slightly different rules based on what you are making them for. Videogame Environment Concept Art vs Animation Layouts vs Comic Backgrounds vs Illustration backgrounds.

They all follow the same basics, which I will go over here, but the intention and function of those designs are going to be different. It's all about how you set up the scene and what it's purpose is!

Brainstorming and Thumbnailing

I like to think about a location as though it is a character. An abandoned old house with creaky sagging floorboards is very different from a futuristic space ship with sharp metal floor panels. A gas station has a very different feeling from a library.

I usually start by asking what is this location's story? Why was it built and for what purpose? What kinds of things does this room need to fulfill that purpose? You don’t need solid answers, but its good to be thinking about it while you are working.

Next, sketch some ideas for how this place is going to look. For me, this usually involves drawing the idea from multiple angles and then making lists & small sketches of the objects I think should be filling the space.

Example: The main character of my original work is a Wanderer. They collect a lot of things on their travels, but those items have to be small enough to be easily carried in a backpack. I wanted his room to be in the corner of an attic, walled off by curtains, and filled with trinkets. You can see some of my brainstorming above.

References

I only look for references after I've done some sketching and planning; this is to solidify my idea first so that I don't accidentally copy anyone else's work. I will make a moodboard with pictures of lighting, colours, items, rooms with specific ceiling beams, old chairs, etc. basically whatever I feel fits the vibe.

Honestly, I don't use references as much as I should. For ROTTMNT fanart I look at backgrounds and screenshots from the series to study the style. I also reference actual photos of NYC to get a feel for how Rise condenses the visual information.

In general, it's good to have references of real life objects/locations, because there are so many details like cracks in pavement, stickers on polls, crowning on buildings, fancy fencing, weird chair legs, etc. that you might not think of. It's the imperfect details that can make a location feel more alive.

Perspective

Once you have your chosen sketch we move to.... the infamous perspective boxes. Doing backgrounds is just learning to be comfortable drawing So Many boxes and carving items out of them.

Many better artists than myself have made videos on perspective, vanishing points, and all the technical bits. Videos like THIS ONE and THIS ONE are helpful (this post is great too!!). There are probably a lot of classes to be found on Skillshare or Schoolism. I learned a lot of this in my college art course, so I can't give you a specific video which helped me.

You can get by and be a good artist without learning this stuff. There are quite a few successful artists who have admitted they never bothered to learn perspective (one of these people even made a whole graphic novel series).

I personally avoided properly learning this stuff until I was in my 20s because I thought it would be boring and difficult to do. tbh I really wish I had learned it earlier because it's so much fun to make those silly little boxes imo. It looks scary and complicated but, just like drawing humans, it just takes time, repetition, and practice to develop the knowledge and skills.

Cleanup

You have your boxes and lines! Cool! Now to make a scene out of it. Fill in the details, get everything placed were you want it! Generally, the lines of each item will point back towards the horizon line, but they can have different perspective points.

Generally you would want to clean it up and get your room completely sketched before doing the lineart. I tend to combine the steps (not recommended)

Lineart

I've mentioned how I do this before. Closer objects have thicker lines and more detailed inside. Further objects have thinner lines and less detail. I didn't quite achieve that balance with the image below, but it's close enough.

Colours and Shading will have to be a separate post. In the meantime, I highly recommend the book "Color and Light" by James Gurney. I used to borrow it from my local library and a good chunk of my knowledge was learned from it :)

[miseta]

Chapter 3 ➺ Calmly panicking 

Starting over In Madrid

Misa Rodriguez x Reader (Nicky/first person)

After moving to Madrid as the new Real Madrid photographer, Nicky's eyes can't look away from the pretty face of Misa Rodriguez. But how is she going to handle her growing desire for the Canarian goalkeeper when her working contract's strictly forbidding her to date players?

Chapter 1 ➺ A harder job than I thought Chapter 2 ➺ Clearly on a bad slope

Holà, this is chapter 3. Not sure about the trigger warnings but I don't think it needs one. I think the way I want to tell my story works better by leaving some suspense. Let's say it's a slow burn and obviously and they will make out one day, so at a time there will be some explicit but not crude scenes. Reminder: I'm french. Don't hesitate to tell me if there there's very strange sentences or things you don't get. Sorry I hope to get better by writing.  

3K words

✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧✧ 

"That one’s actually very good, Hayley !" The camera screen displayed the goalkeeper in the air, her jumping body suspended as she grabbed the ball in her gloves. Droplets of sweat nimbed her forehead and spread all around her. Her thick brows were frowned in the effort. In addition to her beauty, what made the photo stood out was the technically tricky to capture action of Misa s’moving body. 

Things were surprisingly going well at the Ciudad. Nothing had changed between Misa and I and as I was getting very fond of my job so I had commited for it to stay that way. We were having photo lessons almost every day after training sessions, occasionally joined by the northern girls Sofie, Freja and Caroline. But most of the time, it was the three of us that sat in a pitch corner, talking for hours until the staff would finally kicked us out of the stadium. 

"Thanks Nicky! I’m thinking about buying a camera, I love photography for real!." Boasted Hayley. 

"You should, teacher says you’re ready". Hayley had indeed proven herself an implicated student. She had applied my technical advices but she had also been willing to experiment on her own. As a result, she showed a taste for moving models and lights effects. Sometimes she would take neat actions with sharp details, sometime she’d rather set the presets to create blurry scenes where the bodies outlines melted in the background. 

As to Misa… well Misa’s photos were Misa’s. She was having a hard time to concentrate and her taste level was really questionnable. She would put too much grain or contrast. Every shots were oddly framed. When I tried to guide her toward subtler artistic choices, she had said "Pero me gusta el efecto !" or "Vale Nicky, but I am the artist" with her now well known over the top manners. Misa was much: pretty, athletic, funny, goofy… and stubborn. She was doing everything at a hundred per cent, perhaps except listening.

So, I was rather irritated when she sat on the grass, ostentatiously sulking because I had not complimented her own work. Hayley, of course, wasn’t helping. "Maria Isabel hasn’t done her homework but wants to be praised!". 

"I did but teacher doesn’t like me !" She moaned. 

"Maria Isabel should be in detention." I said calmly. 

"Por qué !? No !" She shot me an offended look and grumpily crossed her arms on her chest. 

"Porque no escuchas nada and teacher is fed up." I was clearly enjoying myself at teasing Misa with the most calm. 

"You don’t like my style, that’s all." She laid on her back, arms still crossed. Hayley walked over her, bent and angled the camera into her face and started taking pictures of the moody girl. "It’s because you don’t have one sweetie" She said. Misa opened her mouth wide, outraged. She rolled over on her belly, hiding her face from Hayley unceasing photoshoot. "Come on Misa! I’m sure you can do better, you’re not even trying!" 

"I may have one last idea to help Misa get it…"Both head turned to me." There is a photo exhibit at Matadero Art Center just now. Maybe we should give it a try. And Misa will find what she likes." 

"That would be great !" Said Hayley. She had stopped taking pictures and was now sat besides the goalkeeper. Misa moved to the side. "I already know what I like" she said frowning. We stared at her, eyebrows raised. "All right, we’ll go to your museo…". She sat up still pouting. "But before…" She stood up and reached out to me with an incredible speed. She easily heaved me in her arms and had me laying on my back before I got to know what was happening. "Misaaaa what the fuck ?!"

Misa, on all four over me, smirked and pined me to the ground with her strong hands. "Let’s switch roles ! Hayley come over and take some silly photos of Nicky for a change !" I was laughing hard and… getting aroused by Misa topping me. Her firms grasp and her weight were burying my hands into the grass. A naughty smile appeared on her beautiful face. "Let me go !" I shouted. I was breathing hard from struggle against her and from growing frankly excited. Hayley clicked madly on the camera trigger. She couldn’t see Misa’s penetrating gaze. Was it me or was she breathing harder too while keeping me lying down didn’t seem to cost her in the slightest? I closed my eyelid, too aware of the lens focused on me to look Misa in the eyes. Too turned on by everything that was going on… appart from the oppressing clicking noise and Hayley’s presence. 

"I think we’re good and that it will be ugly, I promise" I heard Hayley. I felt the pression of Misa’s hands disappeared. I opened my eyes to find she had straighten up. Her legs on each side of my waist, she was peering down at me intensely. "I think you deserved that" she said, satisfied. 

"I don’t think I deserved that much" I responded, catching my breath. 

"You two, go get a room it’s becoming embarrassing ! Cuidad is closing, we have to leave". I had almost forgotten Hayley. Her voice was taking me back to reality. We both smiled nervously. 

Misa got up, held out her hands to help me standing. As I took them she pulled me a bit too strongly, I lost balance and landed against her. My mouth touched the base of her neck only a second. She smelled a mix of sweat and perfume. She steadied me in her arms an instant. "I just saved the teacher, does it mean I’m no longer in detention ?" She released me. She hadn’t lost her smirk. 

I composed myself again and took my authoritarian tone at once. "You are grounded for a month, both of you ! And in detention at the museum without question!"  

***

I called Angela on the evening. I felt the urged to talk. Not especially about me. I just wanted to feel the connection with my best mate again but surely the conversation topic went on my new footballer friends. 

"… and you’ve given them photo lessons almost every day ? Wow, Nicky I didn’t know you had that kind of patience !" 

"How you would you know Angela, Madrid is changing me. I am a much more sensible and patiente personne." 

"Still hard to believe… Anyway, I’m glad you hang with them. I like this Hayley, fuck the clause I would have seen you getting together. She has a sensitive fiber like you and seems fun !"

"humm, no Hayley’s a friend." I was laying down in my bed, calling Angela for at least an hour and a half now. I pictured Hayley in my mind. In derry, she was the total package and the two of us were really getting along well. But as pretty as she was, I wasn’t attracted by her. I was, despite all my efforts, always caught up with my attraction to Misa. Her poor photographer skills and moody behavior were so endearing to me and I felt more and more charmed by the goalkeeper’s whole personality. 

"Nicky are you there ?" I didn’t realized I had stopped listening. 

"Sorry ? What ?" 

"I was saying I admire you, just being friend with such hotties ! I couldn’t !

"Yeah, incredible right ?! I closed my eyes, I was sure Angela had heard the nervousness of my tone.  

"Oh no Nicky! Which one ?!" I smiled. It felt good she knew me so well.

"You won’t believe me…" 

"Spit it out !"

"It’s Misa…" I was gazing at the celling, my absent smile widened as I spoke her name. 

"Misa?? But she seems… I mean you don’t seem to have a lot in common."

"I know, anyway I shouldn’t even think about it…"

"But you do… ?" 

I heavily sighed. Misa’s smirking face appeared in front of my eyes. "Yes… but I also think about the clause, the fact that I’m bound to it, that my working visa depends on this job that I love, and so is my lease…"

"Ok ok Nicky it’s alright, calm down. You’re finding a girl cute, what a big deal? You’re at least allowed that ! You are not doing anything wrong, you’re not doing anything at all, relax !" 

"You’re right" As usual, Angela had found the words to reassure me. "But still, fucking clause !" I sweared. 

"Fucking clause…" echoed Angela. 

***

I received a message from Hayley on the morning before the exhibition visit. 

My family are paying me a surprise visit just now. They came from Sidney I had no idea !!! This is crazy sorry for the museum I really wanted to go but I’ll spend the day with them. Im so happy 

I answered it was ok and to enjoy her family time. Then I texted Misa. 

"Hayley’s family’s just showed up and she can’t come. Do you still wanna go ?"

Misa’s text bubble appeared and disappeared a few times leaving me wondering what answer I was wishing for. 

"Do I have the choice ? I thought it was my punishment…" 

I grined, loving her playful side. Or was she … flirting ? 

"You’re right but teacher would rather you go to your detention willingly." 

"huh teacher wants a lot. What else teacher wants from me ?" 

I gasped. She was flirting ! My mind ran wild, imagining the numerous things I craved from Misa. I breathed out deeply, tried to focus again as I pictured myself fiery kissing her. I had to take control of my brain again. I had to bury the surging wave of desire I felt at the simple idea of Misa wishing to give me what I wanted. 

"Teacher wants you to have a good time" was the most diplomatic and sober answer I could come up with. I quickly added "See you then" to put a stop to that dangerous conversation. 

"I’d say let’s see what’s going to happen. See you Nicky"

Wow, she was going for real ! How the hell was I going to survive the afternoon ?! 

***

I was gulping down hard when I joined Misa at the entrance of Matadero Arts Center of Madrid. I felt so tensed when we hugged but Misa appeared to be her usual self. Once again, she gave no sign that something was going on between us and once again I wondered if I hadn’t misjudged her intentions. 

We headed inside. The center was formed by many huge bricked houses which happened to be old slaughterhouses. None of the previous gloomy functions of the place has remained, it was now very pleasant to walk in the large aisles between the red buildings. In the middle of the afternoon, the sun was knocking hard on our heads. Misa was looking all around us, her hand above her dazzled eyes. "It’s a shame I’ve never been there before, living all these years in Madrid" 

We reached the exhibition hall a few minutes later. I bought the tickets. Misa was following me closely. She clearly wasn’t in her element as we moved forward inside the vast hall. The exhibition was called "Deportes: fotografía en movimiento" and shown various approaches of taking picture of athletes. I was surprised to see Misa very focused. She looked at each photo, paused a long time when she seemed interested or intrigued by something. 

"Misa, look at this one" The framed picture was showing gymnasts doing incredible acrobatic tricks. "Look at the geometric composition, that's what I was trying to explain about framing." Misa shook her head with enthusiasm. "I think I get it now, yes. But I have found what I want to do." 

She took my hand and led me to a more hidden corner where another series of photos were displayed on the walls. "Wait, what ?" I let out. There were cats and dogs on every pictures, and even a baby pig. "They are the athlete’s pets" She said happily. She hasn’t let go of my hand. "I think I want to photograph animals, or nature." She came to face me with the cutest smile, and thought I had severe doubts this was going to help Misa progress technically, I replied "Yes! Ok! Let’s give a try on naturalistic photography!". 

She smiled more widely, her hand still in mine, and her fingers softly stroked my palm while she loosened her grip. I started to panic. Her lips wore a more discreet smile as she watched me unsurely. She took a step forward. I had to react quickly but I didn’t want her to feel rejected. 

"Come on, I’m taking you to the park along the river. There is plenty of birds and plants for you to shoot." I grasped her hand back to take us out of the hall and out of the prickly situation. 

However, as we arrived at the park, I realized I had put myself in an even more perilous condition. The sun was setting. A light breeze was blowing in the trees. Birds were melodiously twitting nearby. An empty bench shield from the view was waiting for us at the end of a very lovely flowery path. I tried hard not to look at Misa. She was walking close to me, unusually quiet. I dared to take a look at her. She caught my side-eye and a shy smile appeared on her lips. What did I do? She was probably getting all wrong, imagining I had picked such a romantic place on purpose! 

We reached the oh so welcoming bench. None of us spoke as we sat. I starred at the distance. I was feeling my heart pounding hard in my chest. Misa was looking at her laps, timid all of a sudden. I had to say something. 

"You should try to shoot those flowers for a start" I tried as a diversion. "The red and bleu ones that look like the Barça kit. See, I’ve learnt about football." I added wanting to diminish the growing tension. "Oh no Barça please…" She rubbed a hand across her face. I had clearly said the wrong thing. 

"Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you" I put my hand on her shoulder. Her long hair was partially hiding her face. "Do… do you want to talk about it ?" I said hesitantly. She tensed. 

"You don’t know about the Clasico. We keep loosing against them every times and honestly, I’m used to it. It’s ok even though I’m doing my best but…" her voice trailed down as she took a deep breath. "Next Clasico is one week away and that’s the finale of the Copa de la Reina." She lifted her head to look me in the eyes. "I don’t know if I can take the pressure this time..." She was talking so openly to me. The fierce and funny goalkeeper was allowing her unsecured part to finally surface. And that was when I realized I cared for her. 

I took Misa into a hug. She sighed and buried her face in my neck. "You can do it Misa. I don’t know you for very long but I am certain that you can." She stayed there, her heavy breathing gently blowing my hair. "I really want to win!" She almost cried. "We keep doing better but we haven’t won any Spanish championship! Quiero ganar ostia!" She lifted her head again and I stopped hugging her. I was glad to see a frustrated grin back on her face. "You can do it! Hala Madrid! I feel part of the family now." I genuinely said to boost her up. She let out a soft laugh and ran her fingers through her hair. She took my hand again. "Gracias" she muttered. Her brown eyes found mine again. Her expression was so soft at this very moment. Her gaze went down to my mouth. I wanted to kiss her so bad. Her slightly parted lips quivered. My chest was about to explode as I slowly moved my face closer to hers.

At that precise moment, a loud buzzing sound came from Misa's pocket and had us both jump in fear. Misa straightened herself and took her phone out. I sled appart on the bench, breathing out a mix of relief and deep frustration. 

"Holà Jenni" Misa answered in a slightly irritated voice. "no, no conozco las noticias…" She rolled her eyes at me. I was too shaken to be amused by the situation. Misa and Jenni kept on talking on the phone. In fact, it was more like Misa was listening to an unstoppable Jenni. I wasn’t getting much of the quick flowing Spanish of Misa. Besides, I was once again buried deep in my thoughts. My heart and reason were battling heavily against each other. Misa was getting seriously annoyed the call wouldn’t finish. She was founding hard to even speak a world between the endless sentences of her best friend. She turned for me to read the word "Perdón!" on her lips several times as I scrolled mechanically on my phone. 

Minutes went by and night started to fall when Misa finally hung up. "I’m so sorry I should never have taken that call !" She sighted. I got up quickly "No prob. But it’s getting late, we should get going". Reason had won over heart for now. Or at least, chance had buy me time to really sort things out. Misa looked up at me, surprised. She hadn’t expected that. This time I didn’t dared to even take a glimpse at her. As I gave her no reaction, she let her head fall down in her hands. I heard her taking a deep breath before she finally stood up and started following me. 

Lulled by the light swing of the train, a part of me had cooled down. An other part was going crazy for real. Misa was wanting me. A calm, almost pleasant panic was filling me entirely on the way home. 

Chapter 4 ➺ Hell Clasico

[marvel-ous-m]

Been thinking about modern AU Elementary School Librarian!Eddie and Substitute Teacher!Steve.

Eddie, who doesn’t really know how he ended up working at the school. A series of events that made him luck out, he supposed. He had always loved books, and practically lived at the public library in between working at the shop and sleeping. He had gotten to know the librarians there over time, had familiarized himself with the Dewey Decimal System from browsing the aisles, and had begun to explore different genres of books after finishing his sci-fi/fantasy bucket list. One evening, while he was curled up on one of the couches in the corner, re-reading The Hobbit for the hundredth time, a little girl with fire-red hair and her front two teeth missing ran up to him and begged him to read to her. He had glanced around the room for a moment, searching for the girl’s parent, but came up with nothing. At a loss, he decided he might as well read to her.

They got through three books that the girl- Max, she had said her name was- had picked out. By the end of his time reading to her, a small group of kids had crowded around him, and a couple of parents were on the outskirts of the makeshift circle smiling at him, clearly pleased that their kids were enjoying “story time”. One of the librarians noticed too, apparently. As Eddie was leaving to walk back to his apartment that night, he was slid a printed-out job posting for the librarian at the elementary school. Eddie never really saw himself as a ‘kids’ guy, but reading to them had been the highlight of his day, and they had all said he’d done the voices well… maybe this would be a good thing. Certainly better than the muscle strain he had almost daily from fixing cars.

So he submitted a resume. He got a letter of recommendation from the librarian who slid him the job posting, and somehow, even without having any certification past his High School Diploma, he landed an interview. They had been desperate, apparently. It was a tiny school in their tiny town and they needed someone to fill in. After only fifteen minutes, he got offered the job- pending results of a four week job shadow with the retiring librarian they were trying to replace and background checks. Two months later and he had become a well-established faculty member at the school, ‘Mr. M’, who did the best monster voices (according to the kids), decorated the library to make it look like it was out of a fairytale (with the help of the art teacher and his now-best-friend Robin Buckley), and even filled in for the music teacher on occasion. It was the best thing to ever happen to him.

Roughly three years after he was hired, he finds one of his lunch breaks being interrupted by Mrs. Harrington’s 3rd grade class. She had always been a bit of a bitch, but she never operated off-schedule. Eddie put his lunch away and observed as the kids flooded into the library and ran around, all finding a book to read or an activity to quietly play with. Will Byers (one of his favorite kids- not that he had favorites, but he totally did) ran up to him, holding watercolor markers and giving him puppy dog eyes. Eddie sighed and rolled up his sleeve, then helped Will sit on his desk so he could reach Eddie’s arm better. Will had asked about Eddie’s tattoos at the beginning of the year, wondering why there wasn’t any color on some of them, and then had been determined to color them in. And Eddie? Well, he couldn’t say no to the kid. Plus it was pretty adorable to have his ‘metal’ tattoos covered in washable marker.

“Will! Did he say you could do that?” Eddie looked up at the exclamation, surprised to come face-to-face with somebody who was definitely not Mrs. Harrington.

“Wait- who are you? Do I need to get the security guard?”

“What? No- no, I’m Mrs. Harrington’s substitute. They sent an email out about me I think? I’m- her son, actually. But you can just call me Steve. Or- probably Mr. Steve in front of the kids? I’m still kind of new at this- my mom called me last week and said she needed to stop teaching for a while because she needed to go on my dad’s business trips with him, she’s always been a bit suspicious of what he really does on the trip, and since I just got my teaching certification she figured it would be best for me too be her substitute- and shi-oot, shoot, I’m totally over sharing right now- it’s just the kids begged me to come here and they weren’t doing our math activity so I kinda panicked-“

“Whoa, alright, slow down big boy.” Eddie chuckled under his breath, then grabbed a sticky note and a pen with his free hand and scrawled out his number. Once he was done he handed it to Steve with a smirk. “I’m absolutely terrible at checking my email. So there ya go- the first number is for my cell- teaching these rascals can be a handful, especially with Henderson and Mayfield in your class, so feel free to text me anytime. We can talk about school or… other things.” Eddie let his eyes take in the man in front of him- and damn, this guy was hot.

Steve blushed, stuttering as he spoke. “A-and the second?” Oh shit, he wasn’t just hot, he was cute too. Eddie suddenly wanted to make Steve this flustered all the time.

“Second number is my extension for the phones here, if the kids get to be too much I can come down the hall for a visit and get them focused while you take a break. They have library time on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1pm to 2:30pm.” Eddie smiled at him, softer this time. “I’m sure you’re doing a great job. They’re just antsy because of the change- but I think they’d like anybody more than your mom- um, no offense.”

“None taken, she’s a bitc- um, a not super nice lady.” Steve coughed, smiling nervously. “Still getting used to kid-friendly language.”

Eddie shook his head fondly. This was certainly the start of something very interesting.

[slylock-syl]

hallo!! i have a class where i get to work on a single, big independent project and i’m planning on making a comic. under/source has been one of my favorites for a long time so i was just wondering how you started out making it and the process and any tips etc etc. my teacher said a 22-page series would suffice and i have ibispaint and procreate at my disposal. thanks!! <3<3

dskjgLSKDJ A! I'm honored!

The way I started everything was more or less I forced myself to sit down and work on it, cuz I knew if I didn't I would procrastinate it into oblivion and never start it-

First I make sure I have the plot figured out and scripted out so drawing the scenes goes (relatively) smooth, always keep in mind rewrites can be done at ANY stage if needed! If I get stuck somewhere or need to think, often I'll get up and pace around the room just thinking. If I get REALLY stuck then I'll leave the section alone to return to it later and continue writing other scenes.

For the drawing stage, personally I break down the process amongst multiple days, having a schedule to stick to REALLY helps me X'D I use Clip Studio myself so my process may differ a bit.

Day 1: The roughest sketch imaginable, where the pages are planned out in the loosest, stick figured sketches for basic planning

Day 2: Find and place any assets I may need in the pages, like new brushes or objects, models/posing, etc

Day 3: Rough sketch time, where the stick figures actually become something I can turn into line art

Day 4: Line art day, where I usually complete all the line art and some other character details

Day 5: Coloring day, I do ALL the coloring for both the characters and the backgrounds, and finish any other character details

Day 6: Everything else because posting is in a few hours! XD, any background shading/modifications, character shading/modifications, the borders, text, and any other FX or details

Day 7: Day off, either a complete day off or a day 100% reserved for doing any other work (commissions, other comic work/projects, etc)

That's more or less my full process! Some steps can definitely be consolidated into less days but this seems to work best for my brain XD Good luck on your project! 💜

[chibigaia-art]

how did you learn to draw? Would you recommend any classes or certain resources? do you have any tips, general or hyperspecific or anywhere in between, other than "just practice"?

sorry to bombard you with questions. I'm just a frustrated amateur artist trying desperately to improve, so I'm asking around some of the artists i particularly like.

I learned to draw by bashing my head on my desk for several hours, which means practice (sorry,) and also by staring intently at artists I like, trying to 'steal' how they draw some things

I never followed a class online, so I wouldn't be able to give out recommendations for those, and I haven't actually looked up an art tutorial online in years so I can't remember anything, but here's a few resources/general tips under the cut

RESOURCES

haven't used this myself, but my teachers during the first year at comic school mentioned proko as a good YT channel for beginners

quickposes - useful for gesture drawing, I acc use this one when I feel like I need to draw but dont have any ideas

I know some people use designdoll for poses as well, I never used it myself because I tend to use the csp models for that, but if you don't have csp, I think it's a good alternative

coolors - for color palettes

adorkastock - more poses! I don't check it anymore at this point but it was my first actual 'art landmark' when I was a kid and I needed to find some poses, I could always rely on their photoshoots

I'm not linking any tutorials because, as I said, I haven't looked up any online in 10+ years, but I used to watch a lot of speedpaints as a teen, and it should be fairly easy to find decent tutorials on YT at this point;

GENERAL TIPS

if you have a sketchbook, please don't let the internet make you believe every single page has to be a masterpiece, that attitude is gonna break you

not everything will be a hit piece and thats ok

when shading, avoid pure black

experiment with styles!

when inking, you shouldn't move just your wrist but use your elbow as well! also rotate your canvas, both when doing traditional art and digital

true to traditional and digital art as well - flip the canvas to see the art mirrored and find mistakes (for traditional you can hold up the paper to a source of light and look at it from the back)

use references whenever possible

what works for another artist might not work for you ( re my ink tip: I follow that, but I know a couple mutuals don't do that and their art still slaps and looks clean and crisp)

when drawing a full illustration with a background, work on the background perspective first and THEN add the character,, this should be basic knowledge but my idiot ass actually processed this info only a few years ago

learn how to use perspective grids asap, dont be like me

IF YOU DON'T WANT TO LINE YOU DON'T HAVE TO!!! be free

rule of thirds is always useful to keep in mind

I'm not super good at giving advice because tbh I don't think I'm good enough to give it, but I hope at least one of these things will help you out!

[tartrat]

I want to give some more context to the Knight Light Painting that I'm working on for school.

The theme that we have to work on is based around viewpoints and i have gone with how people interpret fictional characters and how they completely change them, as well as how an outsider would view these actions.

So how does Knight Light fall into this theme?

Well firstly, since his backstory is kind of vague (it really is just him triumphing over luminous in battle that lasted like a week at most and being stranded in the light realm) and his personality is just typical Knight and Angel stuff, I wanted to add on to it to give my own view on it.

My headcanon for him is that, he is just lost, tries his best to make others happy and always sacrifices himself for them, but doesn't know that they don't care, after losing his parents and sibling he feels a continuous need to try and protect the other Light skylanders (mainly Astroblast and Aurora), has strange relations with the rest of the trap masters. I feel like i should make a whole post relating to these headcanons but the basic takeaway is that i view him more as someone who has to put up a strong front but isn't fine inside. Again I would need to fully explain in it's own post.

Face wise i wanted to change the emotions he's showing from a somewhat stern look to a more solemn one contrasting with the brightness of the armour. Relating to this is my colour choice for his armour. In game its pure white, but the figure as an iridescent purple glitter to it. However, in this painting I'm making it look pink and purple. Knight Light does have a quite masculine design, so i want the pink and purple to contrast as well as make his armour appear softer to match the expression on his face. The now actually yellow/golden background (previously supposed to be a light greyish yellow but came out as a vomit green) is there to make the colours less harsh as well as unintentionally being close to the colour that was used for Knight Light and spotlight's official artwork background.

I guess that what drew me towards him compared to the other skylanders that were in my collection was that he was my first Light element skylander and that was what was special, and surprisingly not the fact that I was an eight year old boy who these buff heroes were to appeal to, well thats part of it now so maybe he was part of my realisation that I was gay (that and probably preferring to play as the girl ghostbuster in the ghostbusters wii game because she was a lot cooler than the guy)

It is hard to explain this sort of stuff to a teacher so I'm my sketchbook I literally just said "The game he is from is very vague with his backstory, like with all characters in the series" which to an extent is true, however other characters such as Spyro (coincidentally sharing a voice actor with Knight Light) are more fleshed out because they were around from the start.

If i were to able to analyse better this would be more coherent. I do want to talk about Just Dance maps (as Just Dance is actually my main interest) and give my own thoughts and theories on them so I'll probably make a side blog for that. This post mainly serves as an exercise for me to get better at giving context in my school art work.

Anyway to basically end me explaining a headcanon and school work i leave you with the refence photo (top) and two extra photos that i took to decide on (ignore the last one being sideways).

I don't know if this will make much sense to anyone else so when i actually finish the painting I'll rewrite this when i develop my thoughts more, as there is more i want to say but I don't know how to phrase it as of now.

[olivia-anderson-fanfic]

Yuu can do it!

Part 22

First<Previous>Next

Masterlist

The brand new side-shenanigans fic has come out so I'm going to plug it HERE

Enma wasn’t sure what he was expecting when he went to go pick up Kuroki and Grim from their class on yagujen, but it certainly wasn’t to find Ito with them.

He raised an eyebrow. “Weren’t you supposed to be in…” He trailed off, his eyebrows furrowing as he struggled to remember what their schedule was.

“Religion. And, yeah, I left. Professor Frollo’s vibes were off,” they said, their nose scrunching.

Kuroki mouthed that Enma shouldn’t ask and, for once, Enma decided that maybe there were questions he didn’t need the answers to.

“Can you transfer out?” He asked instead.

They shrugged. “Doubt it. Those contracts we signed seemed binding. But I saw – uh – B…B… letras… Vanrouge-senpai before I left, so I’ll just get the assignments from him.”

Enma nodded. There had been an empty seat next to him in his art class and the teacher hadn’t seemed concerned nor surprised, so it probably wasn’t a big deal to skip here.

But… he fought off the smirk threatening to play across his features as a terrible realization came to him. Enma sniffed and pretended to wipe a tear from his eye. “Wait, you could go anywhere and you went to hang out with him?”

“I’m Ito’s favorite,” Kuroki caught on quickly, grinning.

“You’re Ito’s favorite,” Enma nodded along.

Ito rolled their eyes. “It’s ‘cause, out of the two of you, I trust Enma to not get his ass kicked on the first day a lot more.”

Kuroki sputtered. “Hey! That’s only because of Grim!”

“And you’re the one that wanted him,” Ito reminded him, reaching over to poke his nose.

Grim gave them a look that would be more fitting if they had killed his child right in front of them. Since they did not, as far as Enma was aware, he thought the monster might be overreacting a little. “Everyone wants me.”

Ito hummed and patted the monster on the top of the head. “Very true. My mistake, Grim-sama.”

Grim nodded, easily placated.

Now this just wouldn’t do. Enma sniffed. “You don’t have to make excuses, Ito. Just say Kuorki is the favorite. I won’t hold it against you, promise.”

Ito groaned. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I can’t wait to go to work for Crowley. Fuck you guys.”

Kuroki gave them a disgusted look. “I’d rather not.”

Ito gave him a tiny shove. “I hate you both. Don’t do anything stupid while I’m gone.”

“No promises,” Grim said. At least he was self-aware.

“Yeah, I figured that was too much to hope for.”

~

“There really are chestnuts all over the place!” Grim said.

Which, thank you for stating the obvious, Grim. Enma hadn’t noticed. Honestly, you’d think they were playing a visual novel where the graphic designers hadn’t had enough budget to create another background. They could see the chestnut trees.

(Which, as far as he could tell, were perfectly normal. The chestnuts didn’t even seem to be larger than normal. Sad.)

Deuce grinned, pushing himself up from where he and Ace had been waiting under a tree. He held out a hand to help Ace up as well, but Ace ignored it.

“Took you guys long enough,” Ace teased. “Weren’t your guys’ classes closer than ours?”

Kuroki shrugged. “We were tormenting Ito.”

Deuce and Ace nodded sagely. Enma and Kuroki nodded back. An understanding had been met.

But, sadly, this couldn’t go on forever; Enma had work soon, so he reminded them all that they needed to get a move on at some point.

“So, 250, right? So divided by the five of us, that’s… 50 each, right?”

“Yeah,” Ace said. And then his eyes strayed to Grim and he grimaced. “Er… actually… it’ll probably be closer to 60 each, if we’re gonna be honest with ourselves.”

“The more the better! If we get enough, maybe we can have all-you-can-eat chestnut tarts! Let’s get to picking!” Grim launched himself from his usual spot and curled around Kuroki’s shoulders

“Wait,” Enma said, pulling a branch down to inspect it closer.

Kuroki’s hand shot out just in time to snag Grim by the tail. The monster squeaked and bounced back towards him like a rubber band. The four humans tuned out their friend’s complaints with practiced ease.

“They have thorns,” Enma pointed out.

Deuce frowned, leaning closer. “Didn’t know chestnuts had those… we should probably get some gloves. I don’t think we can pick those up with our bare hands.”

“You can do it if you’re not a coward,” Kuroki said. He pulled one from the branch, and Enma watched as his friend experienced all of the stages of grief in real time. Tiny beads of blood spilled between his fingers. “... I have made a severe and continuous lapse in my judgment.”

~

Deuce and Kuroki had to go find a first aid kit, so that left Ace, Enma, and Grim to search the botanical gardens for a tool shed – or, at the very least, a caretaker.

And then they split up. A terrible thing to do when your life is ruled by no Laws other than Murphy’s.

‘It’s just a few minutes’, Enma had thought. ‘I have Grim with me so he will not be able to cause any trouble. And Ace is sometimes competent on his own. What can happen in five minutes?’

He can step on a tail. That’s what can happen.

In his defense, the area around him was gorgeous. Colorful, magical, plants surrounded him on all sides, even hanging from the ceiling. Signs with glowing script poked out from between the leaves, telling him what they were all called and what their magical properties were, and he couldn’t help glancing over every single one. How could he not get distracted? This place was practically heaven for the nerdy part of him that wanted to know everything there was to know about the new world he was in.

And, so, he stepped on what one would assume was a vine in a place like this, and jolted back in horror, thinking he had trodden on one of the plants that had so effortlessly caught his attention… and found a tail. It pulled itself away from him, slinking into a nearby bush, and Enma frowned as he started to follow after it.

A disgruntled face popped out of the bush. Their hair was a bit messy, what one would call a literal bedhead, and there was a few pieces of grass stuck to one of the man’s tan cheeks.

“Sorry,” Enma said, backing up so the man could leave his bush prison.

He did so with what was either a practiced ease or an uncaring attitude. Assumedly the first one, as the man brushed away the leaves sticking to his school uniform without even sparing them a glance.

“What are you doing in my garden?” The man asked, fixing Enma with a glower.

Enma smiled despite it. “Oh! You’re the caretaker, then? Could you help me find something?”

“He seems kinda young for that,” Grim pointed out.

“I mean, he’s older than any of the other students we’ve seen so far,” Enma reasoned. “And he could be an apprentice or something, not the caretaker, I suppose.”

The man ignored them, pulling his tail upwards to inspect it. “And stepped on my fucking tail, too…”

“And he’s more vulgar than you’d expect from someone on the school staff,” Grim added.

Enma conceded on that point.

“And I was in the middle of such a good nap. This sucks,” the maybe-not-a-caretaker continued to complain to no one.

Oh. Wait.

Enma dipped forward in apology. “I’m really sorry about that, I should have been paying more attention.”

The man’s nose twitched as Enma got closer, and he raised his eyebrows at him. “Aren’t you the herbivore from the ceremony? One of the ones that doesn’t have any magic?” He leaned closer, and Enma realized he was being sniffed. He went stock-still, unsure what to do in this kind of situation. Was this something that all yajugen do? Is it a cultural greeting? Would it be wrong to stop him? And, really, Enma had stepped on his tail, so maybe he could let the weirdness slide…? “Why do you smell like…?” The man trailed off, confused.

“I showered this morning,” Enma said, more self-conscious than he had ever been before.

“Earth,” the man decided. “That’s what you smell like. Earth.”

Enma reeled back, no longer concerned about the potential social ramifications as he looked at the man with wide eyes. “Holy – you know what Earth is?”

The stranger looked just as confused by his reaction as Enma was by the entire interaction they were having. He nodded slowly and pointed downwards.

“We’re on… Earth?” Enma said slowly, confused.

“Yeah…?” the man said, looking at him like he was stupid.

But he wasn’t, was he? The mirror had said that Earth didn’t exist in this world, it was a whole thing, kinda the whole reason they were still in this world –.

And then it clicked.

“Oh, you mean ‘earth’ as in dirt,” he said, groaning internally because he had never felt quite so stupid before.

“Yeah? What the fuck did you think I was saying?”

“Wait, you think I smell like dirt?” He ignored him in favor of sniffing himself aggressively, but he couldn’t detect any of the supposed ‘dirt’ smell. Was it so entrenched in him that he couldn’t smell it? How would he get rid of it then? And where did it even come from? When did it start? Why did no one tell him? This interaction was making his self-esteem plummet. He was about to meet Kuroki down there.

Grim bristled on Leona’s shoulders, his fur standing on end. “Hey! No one is allowed to be mean to any of my Henchmen except for me! Who do you think you are to judge us, anyways? What, are you king or something?”

The man’s mild confusion wiped itself off of his face, and the yagujen bared his teeth at them. A low growling sound began to rumble in his throat. “Alright, you know what? You insolent whelps better prepare yourselves to lose a tooth –.”

Enma jerked back to himself, holding his hands up in a way that he hoped looked placating, but he was really just preparing himself to get into a defensive position. “Wait! What? Nonono, I’m sorry about your nap and your tail and – uh – whatever Grim said to upset you, but I’m sure there’s a better way to go about this?”

The man cocked his fist.

“Leona-saaaaaan!”

‘Leona’ flinched in surprise. The lion ears atop the man’s head flicked and he turned just in time to see another person rush into their part of the greenhouse.

This one was far shorter, but also a yagujen. Enma wasn’t sure what animal, exactly, he had traits of, but it was something furry. Besides that, though, the boy wasn’t the type that would get a second glance. Dirty blond hair and sharp blue eyes were hardly surprising in a world where approximately 1 in 5 people had white hair. His clothes were too large on him, too, which didn’t help him stand out.

The blond raced over, far faster than Enma had thought possible. Was it because he was a yagujen or a unique magic or something else? “So this is where you’ve been hiding out,” he said, shaking his head. “You’ve got remedial classes, y’know.”

“I know.”

The new stranger stared for a moment, expectant, before seeming to realize that he shouldn’t have held his breath. “You need to go to your classes.”

“You need to stop annoying me.”

“It’s ‘cause you keep failing that I gotta keep bothering you, y’know,” he said. “If you fail another year we’re gonna end up being classmates.”

“Lay off, Ruggie,” said Leona. “Why can’t you annoying people just leave so I can nap?”

“If you think… er… Ruggie-senpai is annoying now, then you might want to graduate before he ends up being classmates with you. Then you’ll never escape,” Enma pointed out.

Leona looked horrified at the very prospect. Ruggie, in turn, didn’t seem to know whether to be offended or relieved, which was fair.

Ruggie settled for neither. He just adapted to the new situation, grabbing a stunned Leona’s arm and starting to drag him out of the garden. “C’mon. It’s not like you’re stupid, you’d pass if you just tried. Let’s go.”

Leona clicked his tongue and jerked his arm out of Ruggie’s grasp, but followed along resignedly regardless. He shot one last glare Enma’s way, and Enma wasn’t completely sure which of the long series of events Leona was currently mad at him about.

But whatever. It probably wouldn’t matter, anyways. What were the chances they would see each other again? They weren’t even in the same year.

So, he sighed to himself and turned to go back

Grim frowned as he settled back down on Enma’s shoulder, his furry face tucked close to his neck. “Man, that caretaker was awful, we should file a complaint.”

Enma laughed so hard that Grim almost fell off.

~

Picking chestnuts sucked, regardless of their gloves. Not because it hurt, the gloves that Ace had found were so perfect that Enma was pretty sure they had to be enchanted in some way…

No, it was awful because Kuroki spent the entire time complaining about his hand despite the fact that it hadn’t taken all that long for it to stop bleeding, and Grim gave up once he reached the expected 10 chestnuts and curled up in the shade of a tree, and Deuce and Ace argued about whether or not Deuce was secretly a delinquent (Enma was willing to bet good money that he was, but when asked to settle the tie he had decided remaining neutral was probably the best for his health, something he came to regret when the argument did not finish), and Grim had gone on a rant about how terrible their experience with the caretaker was, and then all of them had had to explain the dorms again because Grim called Savanaclaw ‘The Banana Dorm’ of all things...

Needless to say, Enma was glad when he realized that it was about time for him to start heading to work. He pulled the last few down hastily and tossed them in the general direction of the basket before tearing off his gloves and making a break for it.

~

Ah, work. Everyone’s least favorite responsibility, outside of all of their other responsibilities. Enma was regretting running there. Especially since he hadn’t forgotten the way he had reacted to the shop the first time he had approached it. The way it felt like his skeleton was about to rattle its way right out from under its skin and try to make a break for it. He wasn’t eager to have a repeat of that, and he was even less eager to do so when he didn’t have his emotional support idiots hanging off of him.

But, surprisingly, as he made his way closer and closer, his feet picking their way along the stone paths covered in knickknacks he couldn’t make heads or tails of (and some things he thought might actually be heads and tails)... he couldn’t seem to find that weird feeling from before. Maybe it was a fluke? Or maybe he was just allergic to shady people and having both Dire Crowley and Azul Ashengrotto in the same place had given him a very adverse reaction.

Haha, funny, but also what the heck?

He brought his thumb up to his mouth to bite it, considering everything. This world was interesting, and he wanted to know more, but there was something eating away at him. Something was wrong.

The door swung open before Enma could open it, and he jolted into awareness.

“How’d you know…?”

“I have friends on the other side that tell me everything I need to know, little ghoul!” Sam said, smiling at him.

Enma continued to stare.

“There’s a window.”

Oh. Enma glanced over at the tinted glass windows. He had noticed them earlier but had forgotten about them because he was busy being vaguely unsettled by the lack of unsettling feelings.

A flush crept up his cheeks, but Sam didn’t give him all that long to dwell on it. He looped an arm over Enma’s shoulders and led him inside.

“Now, since it’s your first day, and because I’m sure that that Crow didn’t give you much, I’m going to make things easier for you.” Magenta eyes flashed. “So, I will be allowing you to shop around today – all on my dime, of course – and familiarize yourself with the placement of all of the items.”

Enma’s eyes widened. He looked up at Sam with stars in his eyes. “Really?”

“Yup. Go ahead. You have until the store opens in half an hour to look around.”

He ruffled Enma’s hair with a smile.

His smile lessened somewhat when he realized that Enma had been quietly making mental notes to himself the entire time he’d been in the magical world and, in fact, had a very detailed list of things they needed already thought up. Tinted shower curtains, blankets and pillows that hadn’t been eaten by moths, enough tuna to feed Grim and enough Coke to tide over Ito, cooking supplies, a couple of outfits for different occasions, every nonperishable food he could think of, and actually decent soaps… yeah, no, it was very clear that Sam hadn’t expected the bill to be quite as large as it was, but he learned one very crucial lesson that day: never underestimate Enma Yuuken.

“Well…” Sam said, staring at the pile of items so large that were almost falling off the counter, his eyes crinkled at the corners in something that was either pain or pride or a mix of both. “At least I know you’ll be able to handle being a customer service worker.”

[texasobserver]

“A Paris to Marfa March for Reproductive Rights” by Gayle Reaves, from the November/December issue of Texas Observer magazine:

Above: Louise Culbertson, 15, organized protests and rallies all over Texas on behalf of reproductive rights.

Louise Culbertson’s passion for political activism started when she heard about the murders of 17 students at a Parkland, Florida, school in 2018. With her mother’s help, she organized a demonstration in support of stronger gun laws in her hometown of Marfa. About 200 people showed up.

Culbertson was 10 years old at the time. She was proud to put Marfa on the map of places that had marched against gun violence, a list kept by March for Our Lives, the national organization of young people formed in the wake of Parkland to push back against the epidemic of shootings. 

It was something Marfa needed, Culbertson said. The fear of a mass shooting at her own school was real. The shooting at a Santa Fe, Texas, school had happened the same year as Parkland. Four years later, Uvalde’s tragedy would reinforce the bitter, tragic lesson. What happened at Parkland and the other schools “really, really scared me,” she said.

Fast-forward to summer of this year, and Culbertson, now 15, was organizing protests and rallies all over Texas, this time in support of reproductive rights. And doing it from Paris, France. Anger at the reversal of Roe v. Wade had turned up her activism by a couple of notches. Thanks to her mother’s French background, Culbertson and her brother had been able to enroll in school in Paris two years earlier. But Culbertson was coming home to Texas for the summer with a mission.

She started planning in April, and in May got in touch with a nonprofit called Deeds Not Words (founded by former state senator and gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis) that helps young women build a stronger voice in politics. With their mentoring, Culbertson put together protest events in five cities. Amid Texas’ mind-numbing summer heat, she and her mom, Valerie Breuvart, drove from Austin to Houston, then to Dallas, El Paso, and home to Marfa. In Austin, only a handful of young people showed. In Houston, Dallas, and El Paso, Culbertson said, the turnout was about 20 to 30, from young teenagers to adults. Back home in Marfa, her event drew about 50 fellow protesters. In the other cities, Culbertson said, the events were in one place and featured speakers and people chanting and holding up signs. But in Marfa, she said, “We actually marched.”

“I loved it,” Culbertson said. “I definitely learned a lot. … We had great speakers.” And of course, she got to meet people all over the state and immerse herself in politics.

Where does her determination and interest in politics come from? Her father, Don Culbertson, is a physician’s assistant and her mother a teacher of art history. For more than a decade, they have owned and run a medical clinic in Marfa, with Breuvart working on the business side. “I was raised with my parents talking a lot about politics,” Culbertson said. She described them as “strong Democrats” who took her to polling places to show her how elections worked. “All my passion for politics comes from my parents cheering me along.”

The couple shared their daughter’s fears about gun violence and her concerns about the quality of the schooling that she and her brother would get in Texas. In 2021, they took a year’s sabbatical and went to France.

“We live here [in Marfa]; we have a business, our home. Louise was born on the living room floor here,” Don Culbertson said. But his wife’s background gave them the “opportunity to get a kick-ass education” in Paris for their kids. “And so we’re doing that. We’re so excited,” he said. For now, he and his wife return to Texas for a few weeks several times a year. While in France, Don Culbertson participates in the clinic via telemedicine. The whole family comes home in the summer. 

Louise Culbertson said that the language instruction she’s getting in Paris is the best part. The schools she would be going to in Texas offer little in the way of foreign language programs, she said, whereas in Paris, “half of my courses are in English, half in French, and you have to take a third language.” A small city in Texas—even if it’s Marfa—can’t offer the social life that is available in Paris, and then there are, of course, the opportunities for activism.

In Paris, Culbertson is active in a group called Democrats Abroad France doing things like helping register Americans to vote back home. Her brother Victor, 18, is “even more happy than I was to move to Paris.” She called him a “classic teenager … having fun.”

Her activism probably wouldn’t go over as well in other parts of conservative rural Texas. But Marfa and Presidio County tend to be a world of their own—very oriented toward the arts and politically, as she said, “one blue county in a whole pool of red.”

Culbertson “grew up in this town. Everybody looks out for each other here,” said Lisa Kettyle, a founding member of the Big Bend Reproductive Coalition. Culbertson said the coalition has helped her plan her local protest events. 

Natasha Acevedo, an outreach manager with Deeds Not Words, said Culbertson contacted the nonprofit last spring via Instagram. She shared her idea of a series of events around the state supporting reproductive freedom. The Roe v. Wade decision had “really made her feel heartbroken,” Acevedo said. Culbertson was one of the youngest activists they’d ever worked with, she’d reached out to them only about six weeks before the first event, and “she lived in a whole other country,” Acevedo said. But Culbertson “wanted some mentorship, and that’s what we do.” So the nonprofit agreed to help.

Deeds Not Words, which has been around about five years, has chapters on a handful of college campuses and is looking to add more. Acevedo said the group’s goal is to empower young people to deal with problems of gender inequality and to think about what a society built on equity would look like. “A lot of young people are very passionate about wanting things to change” but don’t know how to get started, Acevedo said. The nonprofit teaches them about building a community of like-minded people and starting with smaller concepts.

Acevedo helped Culbertson find the people she needed in each city, showed her how to create a pitch for her ideas, and met with her weekly to check on her progress. The 15-year-old was tenacious, passionate, and intelligent in how she dealt with people.

“She ended up having all the events she wanted,” Acevedo said, even though turnout was small for some. It shows that “no matter how young you are, you can make a difference.”

Culbertson said her aim is to “continue to grow awareness” about the repercussions of Texas’ severe abortion laws. A year after Roe v. Wade was overturned, she told the Big Bend Sentinel, “It’s still important to keep on marching … because this hasn’t gone away yet. And I’m not going to stop until it does go away.” 

Texas needs an Observer! Become a member to get our magazine, six times per year!

[lacepockets]

That Time I Helped A Book Get Published

I've been what you would classify as "an artist" for pretty much my entire life. Or, at least, as long as I could hold a pencil. As soon as I even vaguely figured out how to make a picture transfer from my brain onto paper (or whatever surface, including the walls, and woe betide anyone who tries to clean that away), I completely unloaded on the world.

Not much of my art survived until now, but here's a few from I think around when I was 8 or 9 years old. Forever stuck in the 3/4 angle facing viewer left.

That said, I was never much of a fanartist; I've always preferred to create original characters, either that exist in series I was a fan of (which I GUESS is a type of fanart? but not really what people think of when they say fanart) or I would make up entire worlds and populate them. I would make up stories to go with this too, and often made either comics or pseudo-books out of them which I just stapled together. Some things never change, really.

I would even LARP my stories all by myself (I was every character), complete with costumes and background music that was usually comprised of the soundtracks of Disney movies, video games, and later anime, which I would blast from my awesome 1990s audio player.

(I also had a Discman eventually but I have more memories of this thing)

When I learned how to, I would even make like mixtapes from the songs I used to make up my story's soundtrack. I would pretend(?) that these stories were "real" as in they were actual cartoons or whatever that I was a fan of. I didn't have any friends so it's not like I shared these things with anyone, but that didn't really stop me. I simply talked to myself about them and wrote my own critic reviews and "episode summaries".

I really do not know how I was not screened for autism when I was a child, but whatever, I'm here now.

Drawing and making up stories and such took up pretty much all of my time that wasn't already taken up by video games or books.

I was even drawing in class. To be honest I was a terrible student — I never really paid attention to anything unless it happened to be about something I was already hyperinterested in, and I subsequently did not give a flying hoot about grades. Instead of doing classwork or, yknow, listening to my teachers, I would be drawing. Some teachers caught on to the fact that I was drawing, and for those classes I switched to pretending to be taking notes or doing work but I was actually writing about my OCs.

Anyway, all this is to say, one of my teachers really liked my drawings, even though they weren't really any better than typical child doodles in my opinion.

I don't fully remember what grade this was, maybe 2nd or 3rd? This teacher was supportive of my drawings even though it was technically disruptive of my learning. She'd ask to see what I was drawing and would talk to me about it, though I wasn't ever really keen on talking about it with her, and sometimes she asked me to draw something for her. She really liked Mickey Mouse so it was usually him.

One day this teacher told me she was writing a children's book, but she needed an artist to illustrate it. So she asked me if I wanted to be the illustrator for her book. I said yes, and she and I worked together on the book for I think a couple months? I can't fully say what the book was about, all I remember is that it was about a little girl with freakishly big pigtails. I don't even remember the title, I wish I could.

The book was eventually published.

It's really funny to think that there's a book out there that my 2nd or 3rd grade teacher wrote and little baby me illustrated, and I just have zero memory of what it is. I sometimes wonder how many people have read the book or bought it for their kids or something and I am just completely ignorant of it.

[captinbenny]

Time to be controversial:

So I'm in school right now at an internationally recognized, accredited college. I'm taking an intro class to computer programming and an introduction to Python. The only requisites for this class were that you needed to know how to turn on a computer.

1st day of class, we're told that instead of us spending over $100 on a textbook, we were instead supposed to choose an AI search engine, put prompts from the teacher provided PowerPoints, and build our own textbook as the class goes along.

Needless to say, the class was stunned with silence.

He proceeded to tell us that we were his guinea pig class to test this out and he expected us all to get 100% A's because everything we were graded on (HW, quizzes, exams, everything) was open note, open book, open internet.

Now I've been following the discussion and capabilities on AI for a while in several different industries that it has been effecting. (Art, code, hiring/HR, professional writing) and every single one of them has said that AI is not reliable and is quickly approaching the status of shitification. Like a snake eating it's tail, it is slowly corrupting its own data by feeding itself it's own incorrect data.

Coming from a fine art background with 2 degrees in it already, I had never used AI before. I finally used chatgpt because of this programming class, and what I found was surprising. The way it answers questions was very straight forward and reminded me a lot of how the Internet worked in the late 90s/early 2000s. The prompts need to be very specific and they're good for getting the ball rolling on understanding base line information. Really, it's a great tool for preliminary research, and then seeking out other websites to deep dive further into actual articles and research papers. It is NOT good or shouldn't be used for finished end products (essays, papers, ART, creative works.) it's also trash at math ATM.

Still, my experience with it in the field of learning python coding to help understanding what certain functions do/are, and in my business class for gathering information on infrastructure in an area half way across the world for a potential Olympics there, has been extremely helpful.

In the past I would get frustrated with swimming through the trash heap of AD and Sponsored articles on Google search to get a simple question answered. I used to turn to reddit for answers because Google got so terrible with it. But reddit was more opinion and first hand experience based. Great for insight into an industry from a people perspective but not great in answering the question: what does the "f" do in python's print(f"..")

Chatgpt was great for that.

I still think AI is good and bad for the art/creative industries. If used ethically (paying the artists and getting their permission) in gathering it's data sets. It could be a very helpful tool in selecting color palates, workshoping compositions, and generating a written idea prompt to get a piece started. It should not/never be used for finished final products.

But that's just my 2 cents.

“i asked chatgpt-” ohhh ok so nothing you are about to say matters at all

[douchebagbrainwaves]

HOW TO LOSE TIME AND SPEAKING

It takes a conscious effort to remind oneself that the real world doesn't work that way. Don't ignore your dreams; don't work too much; say what you think; cultivate friendships; be happy. To kids, wealth is a fixed pie that's shared out, and if one person gets more it's at the expense of another. Editors. When I notice something surprising, it's usually very faint at first. But there is also huge source of implicit tags that they ignore: the text within web links. Errors of omission are a particularly dangerous type of mistake, because you couldn't reproduce it in most of the US.

Silicon Valley don't seem to be taking their time. That doesn't sound right either. All a city needs is to be the kind of effervescent feel that attracts the young. Till recently I thought it didn't, but the Internet got me because it became addictive while I was using it. Day about half the startups were doing something significantly different than they started with. Interestingly, while Kate said that she could never pick out successful founders, she could recognize VCs, both by the way they dressed and the way they did. Perhaps, if design and research converge, the best research is also good design, and in those detecting bias is straightforward. In 1958 these ideas were anything but obvious. The same is true in the arts could tell you, the way to succeed was to launch something fast, listen to users, and then iterate; that startups required resilience because they were built one building at a time. Is there some way to beat this limitation? Paradoxically, one of the reasons I disliked the term Web 2. Those three used the English language like they owned it.

Poverty and economic inequality are not identical. Google set off the tagging movement. Historically the closest analogy to what he does are the great Renaissance patrons of the arts, and particularly in oil painting. And to reproduce that you need time to grow a silicon valley; you let one grow. The other thing that made him different was that he liked us. That has two important implications. You have to calibrate your ideas on actual users constantly, especially in the beginning. I think the goal of an essay should be to discover surprising things. If it were a conscious trick, he would have slipped in a moment of excitement. A lot of people. Even people sophisticated enough to know about the pie fallacy: that the rich get rich by creating wealth, that would not only not eliminate great variations in wealth would mean eliminating startups. Which means applicants of type x have to be new, but it happens surprisingly rarely.

There's a physical analog in the Intel and Microsoft stickers that come on some laptops. Few startups happen in Miami, for example, the idea was discovered during the Renaissance, journeymen from northern Europe were often employed to do the landscapes in the backgrounds of Italian paintings. Bureaucrats by their nature are the exact opposite sort of people from startup investors. In software, my rule is: always have working code. And technology for targeting ads continues to improve. But it's not. That idea is almost as old as the web. The top US Computer Science departments are said to be MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, and Carnegie-Mellon? It's populated by people who talk a lot with one another as they work slowly but harmoniously on conservative, expensive projects whose destinations are decided in advance, and who carefully adjust their manner to reflect their position in the hierarchy. In retrospect, he was out of place as an elementary school teacher, and I suspect the human brain is just as lumpy and idiosyncratic as the human body. They just wanted to make the point that the web mattered again. Those companies were apparently willing to establish subsidiaries wherever the experts wanted to live.

But in retrospect, something was happening: the web was finding its natural angle of repose. His most impressive work, to me, is his drawings. Extraordinary devotion went into it, and focus our efforts where they'll do the most good. I say pick b. It was a killing machine. It's so easy to slip from talking about income shifting from one quantile to another, as a source of economic inequality, it would not. What would it look like? And while some of the growth in economic inequality, it would be good to be precise about what we want. Now the standard excuse is openly circular: that other languages are more popular. The closest is the colloquial sense of addictive. But it was obvious what users wanted, so Apple flew under the labels. But when they do notice startups in other towns they prefer them to move.

Thanks to the Berkeley CSUA, Patrick Collison, Robert Morris, and Trevor Blackwell for sparking my interest in this topic.

[lesbiantalks]

Beginners problems in art

I am looking for courses to improve my drawings, I am browsing through books. One of the books I liked is pretty basic and it feels that it was written for the beginner, but by a person who is very proficient in the profession, so advice placed on the page are basically: “Draw that like me, put a shadow here, sketch everything you see, you got this”.

What would I appreciate more:

- How to frame the view around me, so sketch will be composed better. Cause it is a misconception that reality is composed well. Even when you are taking photos, you need to find a good shot and of course, you need to clean it a bit, erase some stuff from background.

- Some angles are more common in drawing than others, and it is not easy to get at first. If you really look on still lifes, for example vases are usually placed straight and you can’t see the inside of them, but coffee cups are quite often are drawn a little from top, so you can actually see the beverage inside.

- To find good references that push you forward, you need to collect a lot of them and systematize them to doable and undoable. Then you need to select a good proportion of different topics - shapes, light and shadows, work with color (how in eerie and dark images you need to distinguish between a lot of shades of gray, for example), anatomy, animals, plot and composition. I would be glad to have assistance in that process, and usually teachers provide that, they help you to develop a versatile overview of techniques and forms. When you are self-taught by books, you need to rely on your own background. I have some of that, but I can’t find a book that dives in into that. Honestly, most of them just go “Draw everything around you!”.

- “Just draw everything you want” is good when you are surrounded by art for a valid chunk of time. And it is not about museums. I did a lot of that, but you need to actually redraw these paintings to really understand them. And also, you need a lot more than that - you need to know the story behind, the techniques, the limitations of time. So you logically turn to modern artists, you try to find different approaches, you start searching for travelers, for less known artists, for photo reports from galleries, and then - then your mind really start giving you ideas. You can’t generate ideas out of plain air. You need to know it beforehand, to be familiar with it.

- The reason though why they insist to turn to your life is that from some level of skill, the main thing is your own vision. Vision is everything, your experience is unique and your sensing of world around is what every other artist wants to know about. You want to see your colleagues to share more that inner magic and inner self and therefore, this advice is a constant component of every guide. Funny, that in writing where I am not so focused on my skills, cause I am somewhere on intermediate stages, I really take inspiration from that advice and I am pretty sure that I said it a lot of time to a lot of beginners. :) When they just needed some help with literally descriptions or character introducing, I would be like “Be yourself!” >) Cause really, the technicalities will come in time, yes.

- How hard should it be? How much do I need to push myself? Should I get every drawing to perfection? Should I try to do complex works? Should I try to mix materials and approaches? Should I try to draw people everyday? No one can tell you that. You need to rely on your instincts. Or on study group. But it is confusing, I can tell. I want to draw everything - a fantasy about mouse family tucked in their beds, a serious sketch with dreamlike dark forest, a replica of portraits of one of the artists I love, I want to try the textures of shells, I want to draw the slices of fruit in watercolor, I want to fill in my sketchbook with doodles and comics, with citations from songs, with random sketch on the train. I want all of that and I am just sorry I can’t do it all simultaneously. I haven't found a book yet that encourages that passion.

[the-mind-of-a-teacher-to-be]

Martes 17 de Octubre, 2023

Day 9

I can’t believe it has passed 9 days of school observation already. Everything has happened so fast! and I’m still processing what I have been able to experience in the school.

about my day…

This Tuesday our head teacher came back from her medical leave, feeling better than ever.

In comparison to her previous lesson, this time she seemed very reluctant and energized to direct her class.

Before starting, she made sure to ask every student <one by one>, how they were feeling, to test the waters…

And well, as you can expect… inside the classroom we can find different type of students. Some can be very interest in the lesson, some others are not very focused, and some don’t even bother to show a bit of interest on the class; and I been able to observe each kind.

Although it’s still difficult for me to find a way to approach those so called “difficult students”, I’m interested in getting to know what’s behind their attitude. Perhaps, they just need someone to talk to or a space in which they can feel some peace - who knows? - I wish I could get to know more about their backgrounds, but that seems not possible since I’m not legally working for the school.

Agh! Sometimes I wish I could do more than what I’m able to. The most I’m allowed to do is to ask if they’re okay, and from that, see if they’re comfortable sharing their thoughts. If they’re not, I’ll just go, but if they are willing to express their concerns I’ll be very happy to listen. However, I know that that’s not an usual situation inside the classroom. From what I have seen, students often have an attitude whenever they don’t feel okay. They have a tendency to not be very expressive with their emotions and prefer to be quiet at the back of the classroom.

Sometimes I wonder what’s on their minds.

Maybe there’s a need of socio emotional learning.

Not only because of those situations, but because it could be a useful tool to cope with demanding situations that students might go through in their lives.

— (i just noticed I wondered too much that I lost my first idea, I’m sorry, reader) —

… after doing that, she started the lesson by asking her students if they remember what they saw on their last class (which was weeks ago though) and they clearly said no, so she started to recall the content seen in order to refresh their minds.

Then she showed a ppt and started to explain it.

What caught my attention the most was the selection of the vocabulary. She putted 20 new words for students’ to learn on it, that were connected with a video.

Then, the students had to do a vocabulary activity with the words they learned and, in here, we (our group) have to intervene in order to help the students who were a little bit confused by the amount and difficulty or the words selected.

Regarding this point, what I was able to evidence was that students get usually confused by non-cognates. However, I’m not stating that cognates are easy for them because that’s not true, but students were able to suppose what they meant in Spanish by guessing.

Now, in regards of the vocabulary selected I was very concerned, too because of the selection of words because there was no connection.

For example: there was the word

Hater - Work of art - Make feel - Own

(These were taken from a video of Lana Del Rey, but in my perspective, they were very difficult for students to understand because her level of English is obviously very high in comparison to the proficiency level of students)

I’m NOT saying they are not capable of learning them. What I’m trying to say it’s that the material selected might not be the most appropriate thing to apply in relation to the actual level of English of the students.

Learners feel unmotivated when they notice they don’t understand, and we don’t want that.

However, the class went by and we help the students finish their work.

Then we had our break and here, we asked the Math teacher if we could go to his classes and he said that he was going to make students work in a worksheet and he didn’t need help (I was a little bit upset about this), but at least we had some time to eat peacefully.

Then we went to the last class of the day, and then we went home.

That’s it for that day

[sparklyeevee]

Also, like, and I'm mostly summarizing other people's thoughts here, which I'll link to if my headache gets better before I finish writing this.

Say you're a museum curator, a high school biology teacher, an author of popular nonfiction (for children or adults), an art or film critic. You're not usually gonna be deeply involved in knowledge production, because research is usually expensive and your position likely doesn't come with funding for it, and in any case there are only so many hours in a working day and you're using yours for other things. If everything is working how it's supposed to, you likely have a BA or BS, maybe even an MA or MS, in the field. If everything is working how it's supposed to, this means you understand the big words. If everything is working how it's supposed to, you make an effort to stay up to date on your subject matter. Like I said, you don't have time to do your own research. You also don't have time to slog through a layman-friendly explanation of the entire current state of a topic in order to learn about every new thing that comes out, and even if you did, the researchers, the users of the big words, don't have time to write it, nor do most of them have the aptitude for it. That's someone else's job. In point of fact, in this scenario, its your job. You read the short articles with the long words, and figure out how to explain what's in them to people who lack the ability or inclination to do so, because that's literally your job. You figure out how to provide the necessary background, the appropriate plain language (or explanation of specialized terms), to present the information in a book that the regular bookstore will carry, or a lecture in your classroom, or a little sign at the museum, or hell, in this day and age, a podcast or a YouTube video.

Now, maybe I don't trust you to interpret all those long words for me. That's my right, yeah? But in that case my choices are to either learn to make sense of the big words my own self (hard) or live in ignorance (risky).

And like, yeah, some researchers are also absolutely shit writers whose work is difficult even for other experts to make sense of, and some people in the knowledge transmission roles described above either have an agenda or are just terrible at their jobs, but that's kind of a separate issue. We need to push the humanities, and basic writing skills, harder for the STEM guys, and we need to push Touching Grass Occasionally harder on the humanities guys, and we've all got to use our critical thinking skills, but beyond that I don't know a workaround for this one. But like, I don't know if this is still a thing, but back when podcasts were something you downloaded on the computer and put on your iPod, the American Journal of Psychiatry, and in fact a number of the big journals, had podcasts, which explained the important findings in the latest issue in terms a 9th grader (me) could follow with an occasional Google search.

Anyway, if you're feeling sorta walled out by the actual research in an area of interest, go find other nonfiction about it by people whose actual job includes explaining things to non-experts. If you're not sure how to identify what's useful and reliable, here's some off the top of my head tips

More recent is typically better. If there's something older that's still highly relevant, your newer sources will likely reference it.

They cite their damn sources. You should be able to work backwards to the actual research and/or primary sources from which the author is working.

They acknowledge controversies and points of uncertainty within the field, and acknowledge the case for all legitimate sides, even if they're firm in their own position on a contentious issue.

They do not frequently use block capitals or, in the case of audio or audiovisual materials, raise their voice.

Their reasoning is easy to follow. Relatively easy, anyway - I know this is the ADHD website, but if you find it more than usually difficult to follow what you're reading or hearing, either they're not communicating well or they're trying to convince you of something for which they can't make a well-supported, well-reasoned argument.

You can figure out what their qualifications are.

The text does not open with excessive self-promotion. It may take a minute to get a sense of what's usual for any given medium and field, but if it feels like they're trying weirdly hard to sell you something, including their other work, go careful.

The whole “scientists use big words on purpose to be exclusive” is such a bunch of anti-intellectual bullshit. Specific and concise language exists for a reason; you need the right words to convey the right meaning, and explaining stuff right is a hugely important part of science. Cultures that live around loads of snow have loads of words to describe different types of snow; cultures that live in deserts have loads of words to describe different types of sand. Complex language is needed for complex meaning.

[sleepymarmot]

TÁR (2022)

[Watched on February 18th. Beware, this post is 4k words long.]

Glad I was watching this at home and alone. I don’t think I’ve ever done so much googling during a movie. The experience felt like reading a heavy novel that needed footnotes but lacked them. A note taken during the first half hour: “Was the script written by musicians? I feel like I’m watching a documentary”. Wikipedia says that the writer/director has a background in music, and a conductor served as a consultant; the work really shows — I don’t have the expertise to tell if it’s realistic or not, but at least the illusion of realism is strong.

The interview and the master class felt painfully immersive. I was genuinely intimidated by Lydia’s presence as the teacher from hell. That poor kid was just waiting for this to be over and then leave and never return… I was surprised to see him (them?) snap and actually walk out, good for them! Also was surprised that Lydia didn’t make the obvious comeback about the student’s antifeminist usage of the word “bitch”. And to address the actual content of the debate: I think Lydia’s argument about reducing people to their demographic was backwards. Marginalized people already get judged in this way; giving the straight white men who formed the canon the same treatment instead of accepting them as the default is an intentional reversal. Sure, the student fails to present their opinion in a rhetorically strong way, because they didn’t come here for a political dispute and because they’re currently being bullied by an extremely powerful person, but said powerful person then presents an even weaker point as a counterargument!

“Finally, a film with the appropriate amount of Discourse,” I thought during this scene! And it’s not the only one where Lydia’s opinions on these matters are contrasted with others’ — notably, with the younger and more progressive Francesca and Olga. Relatedly, the fact that Lydia doesn’t recognize the date of the International Women’s Day was hilarious to me both as a feminist and as a Russian (it’s a public holiday over here, even if completely depoliticized in quite a misogynistic way). Overall the film felt like a very honest and good-faith look at a person who rejects solidarity/class consciousness (as opposed to a certain Best Picture winner, I have to add). I wonder, to what extent did Lydia think she was behaving in a normal and okay way, until the consequences caught up with her? The film maintains a balance between artful ambiguity of the protagonist’s intentions and commitment to following her around and showing her subjective world. I thought it was even more successful in creating another balance: neither whitewashing Lydia’s behavior nor making her overly hate-inducing in a satirical way, but letting the viewers see her up close, in different contexts, both as how she chooses to present herself for the public and how she acts in private, and leaving the viewer the space to empathize with her or judge her as they see fit.

Even if the pacing was noticeably slow for my awful attention span, and the combination of that pacing with the difficult content led to many breaks in the viewing, in a lot of ways the film was more aligned with my taste than much of what I’ve seen recently. I mean, even the density of the script isn’t exactly a downside; I enjoy looking things up while reading, so doing the same while watching a movie isn’t inherently bad, just unusual. I liked the realistic, psychological style of writing, directing, and acting. Making almost all music diegetic worked well. The sets and costumes were beautiful and expressed the setting’s aesthetic and personality of the characters inhabiting them just as well as they should. I wasn’t as in love with the cinematography as some seem to be, but there’s a lot to praise there too.

I was slightly unprepared for the secondhand embarrassment. The Elgar concerto announcement was excruciating to watch, I had to take a break. Same with the big recording at the end, to a lesser extent. I’d seen a gif of Lydia attacking someone on stage and I was worried she’d have a breakdown while performing; thankfully, what actually happened was less embarrassing.

Somewhere near the middle of the movie I wrote down “So far this film’s only flaw is how much effort it takes to watch it”. Further into the second half, I did find something to be dissatisfied with. I was confused by the hauntings; at first I assumed Lydia was just hallucinating, but as they became more and more real I couldn’t understand whether Lydia was getting worse or the film genuinely took a supernatural turn. Krista’s ghost sitting in the background when Lydia wakes up at night was a “when you see it you’ll shit bricks” moment. I understand that making the viewer question reality is the intention of these scenes, but that didn’t seem to have a proper resolution. Same with Olga disappearing into the mysterious building; I almost wondered if she was a ghost too. Was she conspiring with Francesca the entire time in order to take Lydia down? Was that supposed to be ambiguous or am I just stupid?

Finally, the ending just lost me (with the exception of the “massage parlor” scene, which was great). Throughout the film I kept wanting for Lydia’s downfall to begin already, but when it did, it felt rushed. I didn’t like or understand the thinking behind the montage of Lydia in Asia. There’s some commentary to be made about how intensely European most of the film is, and the jarring orientalism of the final ten minutes. A film so meticulous about referencing various names and trivia of Western high culture doesn’t bother to even name the entire Asian country where its ending takes place, and I’ve seen viewers argue whether it’s Thailand or the Philippines because of contradictory evidence.

I can see many people praise the closing scene, but I don’t understand the intent behind it. Is Lydia miserable, confined by the material and setting that are unworthy of her talent, with the predetermined tempo dictated to her through the headphones, seething with resentment for the vulgar music as someone conservative and elitist enough to bash even Cage and Þorvaldsdóttir? Or is she relearning to enjoy the essence of her job without the trappings of wealth and high status — “good music (…) bare as a potting shed”, as she said at the beginning of the film — and treating a video game soundtrack and a kid orchestra as seriously as she did Mahler and the most prestigious orchestra in the world? Blanchett says “those readings coexist”, but in my opinion these meanings are mutually exclusive, and neither was communicated clearly.

More about the master class

There was something about the way camera moved and refocused in the master class scene that I took note of, but I didn’t realize that was all filmed in one shot until someone pointed it out. Rewatched, and was amazed. Very clever to present that as raw unedited material that will later be cut and edited in bad faith. (Not my observation, but I can’t remember where I saw it.)

Context for Max’s words, from the Bach page on Wikipedia: “Later the same year, their first child, Catharina Dorothea, was born, and Maria Barbara's elder, unmarried sister joined them. (…) Three sons were also born in Weimar (…). Johann Sebastian and Maria Barbara had three more children, who however did not live to their first birthday, including twins born in 1713. (…) On 7 July 1720, while Bach was away in Carlsbad with Prince Leopold, Bach's wife suddenly died. The following year, he met Anna Magdalena Wilcke, a young, highly gifted soprano 16 years his junior, who performed at the court in Köthen; they married on 3 December 1721. Together they had 13 children, six of whom survived into adulthood”.

A celebrated genius in a relationship with a much younger female musician — sounds familiar? Is it any surprise that Lydia is so determined to separate the art from the artist in this case? Max didn’t even say that they’d never played Bach (they’re a violinist…), that they refuse to study Bach or that Bach should not be admired, simply that they personally prefer to focus on other composers — but a rejection even on that small of a scale was enough to set Lydia off. See which of them is easily offended and insecure in this scene? Not the nervous Twitter generation kid! Whether she is aware of it or not, what Lydia hears is “Lydia Tár’s misogynistic life makes it kind of impossible for me to take her music seriously,” and she wants to prevent this phrase from ever being heard outside of her repressed guilty conscience.

It’s also remarkable how much more personally Lydia takes an accusation of misogyny directed at Bach than a misogynistic slur directed at herself. She relates to a man who can be seen as exploitative towards women more than she identifies as a woman. Being accused of misogyny hits closer to home than being the target of it.

Also note how Max’s initial point was “I don’t like this composer because of what he did”, and Lydia’s Intellectual Comeback was “Aha! But you like another composer despite what he said! I am very smart”. Because making a single racist statement is toootally the same as having your wife give birth every year 13 times in a row…

By the way, the number of people online who are like “wait, what does fathering 20 children have to do with structural oppression of women?” is staggering. Hey, quick question, where do you think children come from??

Following up on the previous point: it’s interesting that the writer built the argument around Bach and a very specific feminist criticism against him that apparently sounds absurd to a significant portion of the audience, instead of picking a widely controversial composer like Wagner.

For context, I’m saying all this as someone who enjoyed playing Bach as a teen on an amateur level, enjoys listening to Bach occasionally now, and has not heard of this detail of his biography until today. As you might guess, I find Max’s position very relatable — because even though I’ve never had or encountered this conversation about Bach, I sure did about Tolstoy! Except this specific Bach debate manages to be more absurd than the usual squabbles on the topic of problematic classics. It’s like a literature professor saying “Why did you choose this contemporary female poet as the subject of your essay/thesis? I think her work sucks. Why didn’t you pick Tolstoy instead? Oh you think he was a huge misogynist, and prefer to focus on the work of many other writers who aren’t? Well you’re a woke SJW snowflake!!!”

I think what many people miss about this scene, and other scenes in fiction that portray verbalized ideological disagreements, is that in many cases, the arguments are not presented in pure platonic form, but are voiced by characters who have their own personal reasons to think and talk like they do. Max’s argument is reductive not because their position is inherently shallow, but because of the situation in which they are forced to make it. Lydia’s argument is not what the viewer is supposed to agree with, or what the writer thinks, or even what the character thinks; she is confident and eloquent not because she is right, but because of who she is and what the power dynamic in the room is.

So much of what Lydia says during the scene is deeply hypocritical. “They will also have been handled rating sheets, the purpose of which is to rate you. Now, what kind of criteria would you hope that they would use to do this?” — yeah, what kind of criteria do we see Lydia use to select her performers? “You gotta sublimate yourself, your ego and, yes, your identity” — we know the enormity of her ego, and how carefully constructed her identity is. The scene is brilliant, but it also loses most of its meaning without the context of the entire film. I’ve seen a few posts with isolated screenshots of Lydia’s punchy quotes from this scene, and it feels like witnessing the birth of a new cinephile red flag.

There’s also a very different, Doylist aspect to this debate. Lydia starts praising Bach as a positive example after bashing not a musical strawman, not a fragment written for this movie to represent “bad music” — but a real work of another real composer, Anna Þorvaldsdóttir, a 2013 piece that was presumably used with the composer’s blessing. The composer chosen for the film’s score, Hildur Guðnadóttir, is also a young woman from Iceland, and the styles of these two composers are closer to each other than to the classics Lydia promotes; this alone should be evidence enough that the director isn’t trying to disparage Þorvaldsdóttir’s work. An interview with Guðnadóttir provides a comfortingly decisive Word of God: “It has to be absolutely clear that none of us—myself, Todd, Cate—agree with Lydia’s opinion!” In her interpretation, the scene “represents Lydia trying to fight the side of her that she wants to be more connected to”.

Lydia’s own composition work is much more modern than her conservative rhetoric would make you expect. The same interview explains that the dissonance was intentional: “One of the main points that Todd and I discussed is that there’s a real disconnect between the music she is writing and what she conducts. We see in the beginning that she had previously explored music from other cultures. We felt [earlier in her life, before the film takes place] she was much more curious and adventurous than the roles she ends up taking, and then she starts manipulating and fooling herself, and other people. She creates this fake persona to become this magnificent conductor, and she’s very strong and powerful, but we felt like that was not who she really was, in her heart of hearts. One of the main problems for her is this disconnect, and that’s where she starts being more aggressive and disconnected from basic humanity.” The final line of the interview, where Guðnadóttir rejects the hierarchy of music that puts video game soundtracks on the bottom, is also relevant to the ending’s interpretation.

Short notes, mostly about specific scenes

The first time I heard of this movie’s existence, I saw a picture of Cate Blanchett and thought “women must go wild for her in this role”. It was only much later that I learned that the character actually was a lesbian. Is Blanchett starting to get typecast now? I’m all for it…

Took me like a week to find a moment when I had enough free hours in a row to dedicate to this and also felt relatively confident to bet on staying sharp and awake enough during them to appreciate it. (For context, after viewing I couldn’t stop thinking about the film for approximately 24 hours straight, not counting sleep.) I’m glad I did, watching this when sleepy and unable to fully pay attention would be a nightmare. It might have been an easier experience if it were split into multiple episodes, but the structure and everything else are entirely cinematic and not at all TV-like.

I’m glad other viewers are addressing the fan and her handbag, I thought I was missing something because this one night stand was never brought up again. Also relieved to see other people confirm that I understood Lydia’s line about Sebastian living on the same floor as another man correctly; that line also seemed to hang in the air.

Appreciate the ability to pause and read Lydia’s Wikipedia article. Nitpick: the film names are not italicized and none of the links have been visited :p

From the script: “Tár’s eyes, satisfied with her mimicry, suddenly fill with concern. She turns and looks back into the suite, as if sensing someone or something. But there’s nothing there.” I completely misunderstood this scene then, I thought it was about the bouquet having been quietly delivered (presumably from Krista) and Lydia being startled by its sudden appearance. But turns out it’s the first of the eerie unreality scenes.

Another confirmation from the script: “There is an underlying tension between [Lydia and Francesca]. The tension of people who have at times slept together, but no longer do.”

Having watched Phantom Thread only three weeks ago, I took note of the discourse about the famous artist and his wife Alma. Was Mahler the reference all along? I’d only seen Hitchcock mentioned…

I totally missed that Lydia stole Sharon’s medication. Took me a while to find the line that confirmed it.

“I’m Petra’s father”… How dare she be this hot while threatening a small child lmao

On a more serious note, as someone pointed out, “If you tell any grown-up what I just said, they won’t believe you” is likely something Lydia also said to Krista (and possibly others). Ouch.

At one point I realized that Blanchett was playing the piano by herself, and went to google if she learned it for the film. In the very next scene, I went to google the same thing about her the first violin’s actress, but for the opposite reason. I know little about the piano so Blanchett’s work seemed impressively natural to me, but wasn’t the violinist gripping the bow a bit too tensely for a pro?

I know they had to make the contrast between the two cellists during the audition obvious, but how does the first one even have a job at such a prestigious orchestra? That was terrible lmao

How ironic that after everything Lydia did to deserve and set up her own downfall, it happened in no small part due to a total fabrication that misrepresented her to the world.

Lydia’s intense expression and disheveled hair in the scene where he attacks the replacement conductor reminded me of Beethoven’s famous portrait. I wonder if that was the intent, especially considering her mention of “old Ludwig” in the master class scene.

How many mirror reflection shots are in this movie? Grateful for the opportunity to see Blanchett’s acting from two angles at once.

I’ve seen one or two people compare the film to Tell-Tale Heart. This film really does have gothic horror elements! The word “haunted” even appears on screen during the opening shot.

The neighbor subplot is such an artistic combination of everything Lydia fears and wants to avoid. She’s glamorous, she’s tidy, she’s germophobic, she’s hyper-intellectual, she’s afraid of being left behind, she’s afraid of death, she’s drawn to young and vibrant people. And the life that is the opposite of what she wants has been next door all along, becoming more and more visible to her, like an omen of the impending destruction of her lifestyle.

There’s a similar clash between Lydia’s intellectual, refined façade and the crude exploitation mirroring the side she refuses to acknowledge in herself in the “massage parlor” scene, and this one is not a continuous haunting but a singular shock strong enough to get through her wall of denial. I have to give credit to the discussion post on Reddit (there are several subthreads, this one is probably the cleanest) for breaking it down: there’s so much symbolism packed into a single shot there I didn’t pick up on all of it by myself from one viewing. To sum up: Lydia is shot with her back to the camera from the same angle as she was at work, standing with a hand raised like a conductor over a group of women seated like an orchestra, and the woman who looks up at Lydia is sitting in Olga’s place and bearing the same number as the symphony that Lydia was conducting throughout the film. It’s obvious in retrospect if you look at the shots side by side, but I found the scene striking even before noticing the woman’s position or number.

The list of music in the closing titles includes Partita for 8 Voices, one of the few pieces of contemporary music that I actually happen to have listened to, but I don’t remember it in the film. Seems like it was only used for promotion?

About backstory and identity

- Todd Field revealed in an interview that Lydia never even met Bernstein. That’s wild. How did she successfully fake being his student throughout her entire career?! It also changes her character in a huge way: either she is aware the entire time that her career is based on a lie, or she’s far more disconnected from reality than it seemed.

- In retrospect, it’s also strange that a celebrity accused of sexual misconduct would be invited to lead a youth orchestra. This characterizes her Asian employers as either ignorant or negligent — and I don’t know which option is worse, that it was one of the many ways in which the film decides to present the country as inferior, or that the writer wasn’t thinking about the motivations behind this plot point at all.

- There’s a blink-and-you-miss-it detail on the Wikipedia page we see on screen that is very relevant to the conception of Lydia’s stage name. We know she renamed herself from Linda Tarr to Lydia Tár; I’ve seen many people point out that the last name isn’t real and she added the accent mark to make herself seem fancier and European. But the Wikipedia page shows the name and background of her father: “Zoltán Tarr, an Hungarian immigrant to the US”. It’s a detail that the perfectionist Lydia leaves in on purpose. So it seems that the accent mark is a tribute to her late father and their family’s European roots. Lydia constructs a new European identity, just like she creates a new benchmark for what a person of her demographics can achieve. At the same time, that identity bears the mark of her European heritage, which she reclaims by basically re-immigrating into Europe; she claims it as her birthright, which seems relevant to her conservative, assimilationist worldview.

It also seems important that her original last name, Tarr, is on Wikipedia, but the original first name, Linda, isn’t. The inconsistency breaks immersion a bit, like the Bernstein lie, but also adds something to Lydia’s characterization. She doesn’t mind the name of her late Hungarian father being known to the public; in fact, it’s important to her image. Zoltán Tarr was European, presumably forced to flee his country — a dramatic, romantic backstory; Linda was an ordinary American girl, which is something she’d rather forget.

- Lydia is committed to proving that she belongs in the boys’ club and that being a woman shouldn’t stop one from becoming an abusive male genius. It’s easy to imagine a version of this story where young Linda has changed name not to Lydia but to Leo and rejected the identity of a woman altogether.

- I can see the criticism about the “predatory lesbian” stereotype. That could have been addressed on screen, actually, since the film already deals with identity politics. (Though that wouldn’t fix the issue of basing the biography of the main character on a real person and then making her an abuser — that seems irreparably insulting no matter what!)

- So thrilled to live in a time where the epic tales of a hubristic, charismatic genius’s downfall and mental unraveling can be about very well-dressed and attractive women. Have you ever wished for something like Lawrence of Arabia to be about a lesbian musician? I guess many actual lesbian musicians haven’t, considering the criticism that I feel no right to dismiss; but I have no personal stakes here, and I guess I solve this film’s dilemma in favor of the art — my own viewing pleasure over someone else’s representation.

Links

The script, via Variety

Hildur Guðnadóttir on Soundtracking Tàr and Sexism in Classical Music

How Composer Hildur Guðnadóttir’s TÁR Soundtrack Unlocks the Film’s Eerie Mysteries

That Last Scene in ‘Tár’ Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Means — an article by Somtow Sucharitkul, the conductor of the Thai youth orchestra seen in the film

The Lesbian Allure And Colonial Unconscious Of Todd Field’s Tár — an essay in a feminist journal

What “Tár” Knows About the Artist as Abuser — a “cultural comment” in The New Yorker

Un-Tár-nished — a review by conductor and composer Leonard Slatkin

How to Disappear Completely: A Lesbian Musician Watches Tár — a review