#and then i stop because this is great and I'm having fun

[ladysarai]

Fun, true story. Growing up, all I ever wanted to be was a teacher. And I knew that teachers could not have "fun" hair colors. So I never, ever did anything more than the "normal" blonde highlights in my brown hair. Then even when I wasn't able to get a teaching job and had to switch careers (it was the 2008 recession and aftermath, no one was hiring new teachers), I went to work in healthcare--and there were Rules about hair colors, so I still did not do anything fun.

Fast forward to 2021. I got a promotion and started being able to work from home. In 2022, I thought.... Well, we're not going back to the office any time soon. I'm almost 40. I can do What I Want, FINALLY?? SO I DID. And I have kept up what I call my Unicorn Rainbow hair Ever Since.

And you know what? I have never, in my entire time on this planet, EVER received as many compliments on anything as I do on my hair. Even when I go out and it's a Bad Hair Day, or it needs a wash and is a little greasy--someone will still stop and compliment me.

The best thing? 9/10 times, the compliments I get are from Older Women. I'm talking your Little Old Ladies and Conservative-Looking Grannies. I met a woman yesterday going to meet her two great grandchildren and she went on and on about my hair and asking questions about it.

I never thought of myself as someone who would have Fun Hair someday, but you know what? I have had this for two years and I have zero intention of stopping any time soon. It makes ME happy, and APPARENTLY it also makes other people happy. So do what makes you happy, and see how the world reacts.

^Literally me, today. (Meeting my BRAND NEW NEPHEW, born this morning!) My hair is messy and dirty because I slept in an airport overnight and it needs a trim but y'know what? I still got compliments tonight from some nurses and a woman at a grocery store.)

It’s crazy and fucked up that being yourself is actually the solution.

[hansoeii]

Hullo! I’ve been watching a bunch of your Timelapses and I was wondering how do you always come up with the colours for your pieces? They’re always so cohesive and pleasing to look at (I almost exclusively work in greyscale so if I’m using colour it’s always a lucky guess and it never looks quite right)

Hey there!

I have to be honest that most of the time I don't actually know what I'm doing and that I have no idea how most of my pieces are gonna turn out. My work process is usually based on "Fuck around and find out", haha. I'm happy to know that it apparently doesn't come across that way, though.

A lot of it comes very naturally to me simply because I've been drawing non-stop for so long, but I can give you some small tips that really help me:

1. Have as many references as possible!

Here's what my reference sheet looked like for the Jayvik piece:

It helped me a lot to understand the overall color scheme I wanted to convey. Lots of very cold tones, pinks and very light blues and greens. These colours sorround Jayce and Viktor throughout all of season 2 and I wanted to keep them, especially since in my piece they are lying in the glowing hexcore.

Don't shy away from using references, get as many as you possibly can! Look at other poeple's art too and try to understand how they work with colours.

2. Work with complementary colours!

Since I paint a lot of romantic illustrations I want them to look pleasing and comforting, which I can accomplish by using complementary colours! You see this a lot with couples that are blue and red coded, for example. And I wanted to do the same thing in the Jayvik piece! For that I used the highlights in their hair!

Viktor's highlights are a soft pink hue.

While Jayce's are a soft blue hue.

The colour wheel works perfect for figuring out if two colors compliment each other because they are literally right across from one another!

3. It doesn't have to be true to life.

Pretty self-explanatory, but I thought I'd add it in here anyways. It's important to understand how colour and light works, but you don't always have to follow the rules. Does the rim light look cool but it makes zero sense? Who cares! Keep the cool rim light! Just have fun and fuck around.

4. A little trick to make your life easier!

I'm not excatly the best at colour theory, I still struggle with it quite a bit, but here's a little trick I like to use from time to time:

If you want all your colours to look coherent, take one specific color as your flat colour. Choose a hue that you would like your piece to have. Like this:

Now you choose whatever colours your characters have and paint them in. For example, here are the skin colours I chose for Jayce and Viktor:

Looks off, right? These colours don't fit the overall piece at all. So what do we do?

Turn down the opacity! It's that easy, wahoo!

I went from 100 Opacity to 72 for this specific illustration. And look at that!

It's so much nicer already! Now you know what colours to use as your actual flats! Just repeat this with every other part of your illustration and you'll have a great starting point. :)

I really hope this was helpful! I'm not an actual teacher and I don't have a proper illustration degree, so some things might not be completely accurate, but I thought I'd try my hand at this anyways!

[dr-spectre]

After 19 years, they finally let Shadow use a gun again.

Let's. Fucking. GOOOOOOO!!!!!!! WOOHOOO!!!!!

Im gonna be for real with you guys, I'm cautiously optimistic about this movie. Because on one hand, everything to do with Shadow and Adventure 2 looks absolutely spectacular and everything i wanna see out of an adaptation of an IP that I hold near and dear.

But.... when this blue fucker talks... UGH.

"Somebody better call Google Maps."

"Konichi-whaaaaat?"

"Trickshot!"

"Dude... I'm standing right here."

"Okay he took us all at once."

SHUT UP!!!!! GOD JUST SHUT THE FUCK UP!!!!! SONIC DOESN'T TALK LIKE THIS!!!! HE NEVER DID!!! CAN YOU STOPPPP!!!! Sonic is a guy who knows when to take shit seriously but always has a feeling of fun around him. He's like "aww yeah bring it on! Let's go!" He's not making references to fucking god damn google maps or olive garden.

"But it's an adaptation and they are gonna make changes." And I think those changes fucking suck and movie Sonic feels barely anything like game Sonic. Movie Tails is fine, movie Knuckles is okay and it's clear that they mixed in a lot of different elements across his appearances into a single character, movie Eggman is good because it's fucking Jim Carrey, and movie Shadow looks absolutely phenomenonal... but Sonic? No man... nuh uh...

Knuckles is written perfectly decently and I liked the Detective Pikachu joke because it sorta makes sense and fits because they are in Japan and Tails is a fluffy yellow creature. But everything to do with Sonic is just... no. Stop. Enough. God damn.

Im not saying Sonic can't have fun and can't make jokes, I'm just saying that they need to handle it better, because one of my least favourite things in media is when you have something with a lot of emotions and personal stuff that's so intriguing and interesting, and it gets undermined and trampled over by awful jokes.

It's like this movie is being written by two different writing teams, one team that loves Sonic and the Adventure titles, and another team who's just a bunch of Hollywood writers that have been fed a diet of mediocre action comedy movies and Joss Whedon movies.

I really wanna fully love what I'm seeing here, but I can't ignore the blue stain that's bringing it down....

Im also really worried about what they are gonna do with Gerald Robotnik but I have a feeling that Eggman is slowly gonna realise that Gerald is more crazy than he first thought and that there's gonna be a twist in the movie. There HAS to be one and we're gonna see the insane Gerald we know from SA2, right?.... RIGHT?!??!! I HOPE SO!!! OR ELSE IM GONNA GET REALLY MAD!

Sorry if I seem negative, I'm just voicing my opinions and i don't want others to get swept up in the hype and think that this movie is gonna be a masterpiece and have their thoughts muffled. Because this movie won't be a masterpiece, no movie can be.

Im not saying that if you are excited for this movie then you're a dummy, fuck no, IM EXCITED TOO!!! I GREW UP WITH THE BLUE RAT! IM A LONG TIME FAN!! BUT IM ALSO REALLY NERVOUS!!

All I'm hoping for is that I walk out of the theatre and I feel satisfied and happy. I dont wanna feel mixed, I don't wanna feel like my time has been wasted, I wanna feel like this movie is fucking great. And I'm praying with all of my damn heart that it is.

[johanna-swann]

I'm sorry, I just can't stop wondering what the hell happened to 911. It was never highbrow art, but it was genuinely entertaining and enjoyable. And people keep saying it's been going down hill since season 4, but season 8 has hit an entirely new low. They're really limbo-dancing with the devil at this point.

I mean. I wasn't a big fan of the season 5 opening disaster or the ppd arc, the season sure had its ups and downs. But they also did something interesting with Eddie for once, I am always a Taylor Kelly stan first and a 911 fan second so I enjoyed having her there, the story around Jonah was maybe a little far fetched but still fun, we had May at dispatch wihch I LOVED, Michael and David were still around and the season finale was pretty decent.

Season 6 also had a relatively strong first half. Once again not a big fan of the opening disaster, but Hen's med school storyline was still going strong at first, we got that Henren begins episode, we learned more about Athena's family and childhood (including conflict between Bathena and Beatrice), Madney was house-hunting and then we had the lightning strike and its aftermath of course. So most of the protagonists had stuff going on that we hadn't seen x times before.

After that... well. There was no reason to push Buck back into dating so soon after he had just learnt that being himself and by himself could also be enough. For Eddie it sort of made sense at this point? But it still felt like he wasn't dating because it's what he wanted, he did it because it was expected of him. Madney getting engaged was somewhat predictable though I would've also loved it if they hadn't done that. Lots of families with children and a house are happy without the parents ever getting married. And the finale in season 6 was really bad. Very underwhelming, very rushed.

But at least 6b had an excuse? The show was about to be cancelled. At the time those scripts were being written they probably didn't know yet that there'd be a season 7. And then season 7 had even more excuses why it was, well. Like that. (Network change, multiple strikes, the showrunner changed, a drastically shortened season, etc.) I can forgive a lot under those circumstances.

Season 8 though? Season 8 had it all. They had their og showrunner back and he had already had time to find his bearings. They knew about the renewal very early this time, so they had a lot of time to prepare. There were no more huge strikes. They got a full length season again. The network wasn't new anymore. Despite season 7 being a bit of a clusterfuck, they did manage to set up a few storylines to explore further in season 8. Everything was lining up perfectly!

And then they completely dropped the ball. I already went into detail post-8x06 on a different post, I didn't even watch 8x07 in full because it sounded rather boring (and police brutality heavy). Then they gave us a mid-season finale that was centered around an irrelevant comic relief side character who most people found annoying or boring. On the side we had another Athena B plot that had nothing to do with the rest of the episode and didn't influence any of the main characters in any way. Eddie announced that he might consider moving to Texas which for now doesn't mean anything, nothing else of importance happened. And that was the mid-season finale! Like. Guys. The episode wasn't horrible, but for your "great fall finale"?

And Eddie STILL hasn't put even a little bit of work into processing his trauma around Shannon's death. He was told once by a stranger that he deserves nice things and that fixed him? He's ready to confront the conflict between him and Christopher now? Yeah, sure Jan.

Maddie is attacked in her home and gets abducted by a violent and dangerous criminal who has the intention to murder her? Wonder where I've seen that before. Oh right, it was on the same show and it happened to the same character. Cool. Glad to see I won't miss anything new when I don't watch 8b next year.

It's not even funny anymore and I sure hope they have a reason for this and they haven't just lost all their braincells over the summer hiatus. But we won't know if any of the conspiracy theories about impending cancellations or main cast members leaving are correct until sometime next spring.

[twiliunicorn]

Okay so this story has a continuation. Turns out you can still hurt yourself from clinging to a life raft too hard. In the span of 3 years I managed to burn myself out incredibly hard in BG3 fandom. Early Access and the months after the full release were great! But I think as the honeymoon phase waned and a number of disappointments started setting in, I just sort of stopped having fun.

But I'm not immune to the sunk cost fallacy. I tried clinging on to what I loved, and it slowly made me miserable. At the end of the day, as much as being a part of a Big Popular Fandom raises your chances of experiencing that good ol' attention dopamine, its not for me.

And yes. It was playing Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance that made me realize all of this. So there's the chance this will be very ironic if I burn myself out on that. But at the very least I'm not contending with a ginormous, loud fandom in the same way Baldur's Gate 3 had.

I'm also going to try and be kinder to myself about my waxing and waning interests. Because I deserve to exist in spaces that make me happy, creating in a way that makes me happy.

On a funny note, I might switch back to a really old username that exactly one person will remember.

"Where the Hell have you Been?" Update

So the last post on this blog (aside from this one ofc) is circa April 2019. Realistically I kind of stopped posting around January/February of that year. Part of it was The Great Tumblr Tiddy Ban of 2018, which while not affecting me personally definitely drove a lot of people whose content I enjoy to other platforms. And another unfortunately, was personal drama.

And I'd prefer to leave it at that.

In late 2020 I hit a serious lowpoint. I was dealing with horrible back pain, a high-risk family member caught covid, and I couldn't shake the feeling I was stupid and annoying and all my friends secretly hated me.

...And then my very wonderful partner who I shall not be tagging but knows who she is decided to buy me Baldur's Gate 3. Thus a new hyperfixation was born! I rediscovered my love of D&D, became more confident in my artwork and characters, and I started a new blog!

TL;DR: this blog is more or less abandoned, but if you want to see a mix of Baldur's Gate 3, my OCs, and Dungeons & Dragons stuff you can find me at @sunflowerwizard

[deer-carcasses]

"Great Alastor, altruist, died for his friends"

a deeper look into Alastor's solo part of the final song

The entire soundtrack has been stuck in my head since the show ended, but Alastor's part of the final specifically has been playing on a loop in my brain since I first heard it.

The slow downward pan from the Vee's feeling like they are now finally able to take over the city to the upward pan with Alasto's song starting was a fantastic choice, the contrast in their emotions, in the music, and still it all fit perfectly together.

"This place reeks of death," is such an underrated opening for this song in my eyes. We know Alastor is a cannibal, we've seen him eat a dead deer before, [^1] which would point toward him not having a problem with the smell of death and decay, but he goes out of his way to mention it smells of death. I don't think he truly meant the smell of death in this scene though. He might be talking about the death of his career if he had gotten killed in his fight with Adam. The line "Great Alastor, Altruist, died for his friends" is not him referring to himself as an altruist, it is the headlines he already sees if he truly would have died, seemingly for his friends, for the hotel. The way he follows it up with "Sorry to disappoint, this is not where it ends" shows this. It's him stating how absurd it is, but that this would be the story everyone would be thinking should it have happened. But I also feel like he says it because he knows there's the tiniest of truths behind it. Why did he fight Adam alone? Why did he fight in the first place? For the hotel, for his friends. As much as Alastor hates to admit it, he has gotten closer to the people in the hotel for sure, especially when we look at how he interacts with them all. He seems friendlier, even if it's just for show and to keep up his facade, but he truly does act like he at least cares a little but about them. The look he has while even saying it speaks volumes, he looks truly terrified of the implication that hell could see him as an altruist in this fight.

At first, his smile was an angry snarl, aggression about being humiliated by losing this fight clearly written all over his smile. But then it turns genuinely afraid like he fears the mere concept of being seen as a decent person, not even a good person, just decent enough to fight for the people in the hotel.

He digs his nails into his scalp, dragging his hands down the side of his face, but not at the prospect of dying, but at the idea of what would've come after he had died. [^2] At the idea that all of hell would know he not only died but died for someone else. Before this thought of what other people in hell would think of him, he looked more angry, enraged that Adam even dared be an opponent that Alastor had to run from in order to get out of there alive. His reaction is surprisingly human considering how Alastor normally holds himself. Sure he was alone ignoring the eyes following him around his destroyed radio tower, [^3] There's no one here that he would have to lie to, but he knows better than anyone that you're never truly alone in hell, so it still surprised me how honest he was with the viewers in this moment. It's the most we see of him that doesn't seem to be a character, a facade.

His whole persona is this blatant mask he wears constantly, obvious to everyone who knows him. He even admitted to Charlie that his smile is not real in the slightest. But it works. Every scene where Alastor was talking before his Breakdown Ballad in the finale, I second-guessed every single word that left his mouth. Wondering if it all is a performance. I see a lot of people online with the same thought, looking at everything he says twice, trying to see any hidden meaning, any clue as to what he truly wants to say behind words that, if said by any other character, would've been the least interesting thing ever. And even then, his fake smile keeps in place, even if the actual emotions behind it are clear as day, while alone in his destroyed tower. It might be to fool himself like he fools others, but I think his smile is not able to be dropped, let it be part of his deal or part of his punishment, Alastor will never be seen without his smile. [^4]

Overall i feel like Alastor does care about the Hotel staff and guests to a certain extent. I can't fully trust it, and I'd be less than surprised if I were to be wrong, but there are scenes where he seems too much like he cares.

Moving along on the song, the next lyrics are rather straightforward forward "I'm hungry for freedom like never before. The constraints of my deal surely have a backdoor" circling back to what I mentioned above. His current goal is to escape this deal that is constricting his powers, powers that would most likely have saved him from the injury he sustained. The next and final lines"Once I figure out how to unclip my wings. Guess who will be pulling all the strings?" strongly point towards how he is unable to use his full strength, that his full potential can't be reached while he is still under this deal he made. The thought of Alastor not being at his full potential in his fight with Adam is on some level truly terrifying, a Sinner can reach these kinds of powers in hell that he is able to fight someone like Adam, the first man, someone with approximately the same amount of power Lilith must have? I've just today talked to a friend of one about it. Yes, Alastor lost the fight, but he held up quite well and was a worthy opponent to the point that Adam had to seriously take a second, stop joking around, and concentrate on the fight to get a single hit on Alastor. All of this while Alastor also got a few hits in, not as strong as the ones he had to endure later on, but still. They were hits.

Regardless, in the end, Alastor came very close to dying, and that was for a cause that wasn't just for himself. Seeing what Adam did to the Hotel (or Sir Pentious while we're at it), Alastor has to honestly be glad he even survived that blow directly to his chest. There surely was some plot armor behind this decision, but it's still believable when we trust the theory that Alastor made a deal with someone far more powerful than anyone expects.

This show, and Alastor specifically, has taken over my thoughts completely.

[^1]: in my eyes his being a cannibal points to how he has a need for superiority. To always prove his worth. In his days alive he was a serial killer, a hunter, and now in hell, he has aspects of a deer, a prey animal. The cannibalism is purely to show that he is still on top, that he is superior even to those similar to him, to those that are the same as him. He might have characteristics of a prey animal, but he stays the hunter.

[^2]: this strengthens my theory that Alastor is also afraid of dying whiteout escaping the deal he is currently still bound to. I touch on it in this post a bit more clearly, it's almost at the end of the post.

[^3]: I'd like to link everyone to this post for some thoughts on the eyes in this scene. It's incredibly well written and I couldn't have phrased it better.

[^4]: the closest we ever get to not seeing him, or more part of him, not smiling is shortly before he vanishes from the fight with Adam. His shadow can be seen frowning in the background before quickly correcting itself. It's a blink-and-you-miss-it kind of situation.

[buttercupshands]

So.

Act 5, huh?

Oh, and that.

"You can start breakdown now."

Finished the game couple of days ago and had some thoughts I needed to process a little. Like. Yes.

So anyway I actually didn't plan this and just wanted to redraw some sprites to just make sure I understand how to draw Siffrin correctly (still working on that!)

What did I learn from this? How fun it it to draw on a canvas that literally doesn't let you draw with colors without some layer cheating when necessary. Never tried it.

The beans. Sleeping beans.

Basically what happens when you want to sleep AND draw. Draw characters sleeping on your behalf.

Doesn't help, but at least it's cute.

I have no idea what was going on in my mind as I drew this. Feels like a fever dream of 'I want to sleep' at 4 am and 'Hm...' of thinking random things

Also that phone craft sign. Still too funny to imagine. I had to.

[silverware-is-interesting]

have some kinitoPET content, 'cause why not

a version with YOU

+ a thing and a few YOU doodles

[fritzes]

kinda feel like I haven't been enjoying tennis as much lately :/

[kacievvbbbb]

Maybe it's just me and I just don't understand the arc. Or maybe this arc will get some grand conclusion I'm really starting to doubt. But like I'm sick and tired of Tashigi being used as Zoro's misogyny proxy. Like the "a woman swordsman could never beat a man" belief and trauma made sense for both Kuina and Tashigi and was a very valid fear way back in the East Blue when they were still fighting relatively normal people and had no scope of how big the world is

but at this point where there are literally 20 feet tall dudes and people can blow up a whole city with just Haki the only reason Tashigi is still weak is because she is being written that way. Which is really hard to understand because it seems now more than ever One Piece has been getting more and more strong female characters so I don't know why every time Tashigi is on screen with Zoro we have to rehash this. It's even worse cause all she does in the scene is prove Zoro right by getting in a fight that she can't handle and needing saving. It's such a confusing message and honestly doesn't really apply or come up anywhere but with Tashigi and Zoro (outside of that one time where Zoro yells at enel for blasting Robin because she's a woman which was weird because Robin's been in a lot of fights before but seemed there just so enel could point out just how ruthless it is.)

Hell with the exception of the G5 all being in love with her. She is treated like a regular character and not just "the woman"

It honestly feels like both Tashigi and Smoker got lost in the narrative and Oda just doesn't know where to put their arcs. It feels like she was being written to help Zoro overcome whatever mental block Kuina's death instilled in him about facing female opponents with his sword. But she is just sooooo far behind him it renders the point moot and strengthens his convictions (it's weird that he will literally crush a woman's face rather than use his sword and is the only reason I won't say he doesn't fight women he does he just seems to have a mental block about cutting them down especially if they fight with anything blade like) but also we've only ever seen him face female character he knows can't challenge him it would have been interesting to see what he'd do in a fight against someone like big mom, tsuru or smoothie doubt that will happen though. But here's to hoping for Tashigi to have an actual arc.

[oreegaanoo]

Character reference sheets and two frames from the animatic! :3

[sysig]

Challenge level: Impossible (Patreon)

[maulfucker]

This song is making me want to start yet another fic to never finish,, "Tell me... Where is your hideout? Who are we running from? I'm starting to think that you were right, and now I'm afraid of letting go of your hand...." Maul giving up on his Mandalore plan and deciding to just stalk Kenobi to tell him about his vision. Staying illegally in Obi-Wan's room because I love putting these guys in situations (and because Maul would NOT leave him alone until Obi-Wan actually accepted Maul is right, which he won't). Following Obi-Wan to Utapau and helping him escape after the clones attack, feeling equal parts vindicated and enraged (because he was proved right but Sidious still won). Them being on the run together....

[starflungwaddledee]

which ocs in the fandom do you find the most interesting? also, which ocs do you think have the most aesthetically pleasing designs? finally, which ocs have you only heard of but would like to know more about?

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh nooooooo ha haaa noooo i can't possibly answer this because it would be soooo unfair to have favourites wouldn't it's comet knight by @kittenvirus

[fountainpenguin]

Oh gosh, "The Private and Intimate Life of the House" (also Great Comet) would make such a good Dale & Dev animatic... 😬

- "Yes, father; yes, father." - "And I have no friends, no, never go anywhere! Never invited..." - "I can hurt you... but I never, ever, ever, ever, would... No, Father- I love you, father!" - "And my fate slips past; is this all I'll make of my life? Will I never be happy?" - "Oh, that offends you, does it??" - "It's my money and I'll throw it where I want to! Not at you!" - Can't find glasses -> Panic and screaming - "And I dare to judge him... I disgust myself."

Hazel showing up for "A New Dev-elopment": I know they'll like me! Everyone has always liked me :)

Dale: I'm about to end this girl's whole career.

[mushroomsie224]

Suddenly remembered a headcanon of mine from a while back about how Cedric rarely, if ever, drinks around people because of how embarrassing he gets. He's already treated as a joke, imagine if he made a fool of himself when drunk...but he probably drinks alone in his tower sometimes. Never in the workshop, of course...he made that mistake once and that's the last time he's making it. I think he'd be the type to drink away his emotions.