#anyway i'm still proud of these sketches and how i keep improving in drawing this duo

[ad-1812]

i need to see their kiss so bad...

[py-dreamer]

Ooop- so it's almost mid september...

Y'know what that means?

Yea so we have a return of the stickers!!!

Well less stickers and kinda whatever this is Ig

Don't get me wrong I'm still super proud of it! I suppose it was meant to be like stickers from last year but it kinda escalated and sort off got a wee bit out of hand...

...just a tad bit...

Woooh! So anyone who's in the KNY hotpot might recognize this style and yes I did basically use the KNY birthday art format but COME ON!!!

IT'S SO CUTE!!!

LOOK AT MAH BOIII SITTING ON THAT CAKE!!!

I JUST WANNA NOM BIG BITE!!!

(If you can't tell I do really like this cake art)

I promise this time it is really 10 days till my actual birthday unlike the whoopsie 11 I did last year -_-'

And I know it's not Mk's birthday even though it looks like it is, I know. But it's the bloody format of the art and Idk how else to change it. Besides I think they slay in those birthday outfits.

And it was fun to do my sticker style in a bigger thing!

But Idk if it's cause I haven't touched my bloody stylus in ages or I've been swimming in the KNY hotpot for too long BUT WHY WAS MK'S FACE SO HARD TO DRAW FROM THE FRONT VIEW!!!

I HAD TO COMPROMISE, MANS LOOKING TOWARDS THE SIDE!!!! LIKE XIAOTIAN I LOVE YOU AND WANT TO SQUEEZE THEM CUTE LIL CHEEKS OF YOURS BUT WHY ARE YOU SO HARD TO DRAW FROM THE FRONT!??!?

HE LOOKED LIKE A BLOODY CAT WITH SLIT EYES Y'ALL!!!

Oml...regardless, I did have a lot of fun with this and had lots of fun with the decorations and such. If you were here last year, your keen memory and astute eye might notice that the cake is the same cake I used in the 'shenanigans in space' birthday stickers I did last year!

@leesbian42, @cats-and-confusion remember that lol?

So the tiny memory flower thing and star candies are an homage to that :)

(btw, pssttt @emerialyncodevenice I know we haven't talked in a while but you mentioned that you liked the bloomin cake and was thinking of using it. Feel free to use this if you like, Idk how just credit me m'kay?)

But anyways, if y'all wanna use this pic, again. Pls credit me.

AND NO REPOSTING PLEASE!!!

The decorations are meant to be sugar cookies and idk what the icing is. Since I'm thinking more of an east asian fruit cake (those really really soft fluffy spongy ones) I was thinking more like light yellow dyed whipping cream and less buttercream.

Maybe even some kinda custard Idk...(does custard go well with cake?)

The orange chunks are meant to be like mango balls or chunks and hopefully the red thingys in the middle read across as strawberries

I had to include the Monkey king plush, he's just so little!

I was tempted to draw in the other characters as plushies since they are as important to MK probably but it's getting late and I'd already been working on this baby for like 3 hours already.

All in all, I do really like this and ngl, pray this doesn't flop.

I know my single stickers don't always do well but pls y'all I like this very much...

It is nice to compare this year's work and last year and I am proud to say I have improved at least somewhat

And as for why I rarely post, well I've gotten back from my holiday but sadly I'm at that age where work and stuff will be my main focus for the time being.

Got a lot of assignments and tests y'know...

(hell I have one due the 17th and tests to do tomorrow and here I am faffing on about legos on tumblr)

And like I said, I have been blipping and dabbing in demon slayer, read a lot more KNY fics lately (I actually have a mini sketch of kamaboko squad as hashiras, heavily inspired off of other designs but even so-, if I'm in the mood I might post that!)

But enough yapping, I'll try my best to keep up this 10 days thing

(if you don't know up till my birthday for 10 days I try to post a sticker or thingy like this one)

no promises since I am busier this year but this was a lot of fun so you'll definitely see some stuff.

(I just realized I have to keep up this level of detail in my other stuff T^T save meeeeeee plsssss)

[tootditoot]

My first sketches in actually learning how to draw the face

I never expected to have this much followers when I made this blog, (24! that's enough to fill a whole room!), so as a treat (before another critter celebration), I'd figured I'd share some lore of mine if y'all don't mind

You probably are aware that most of my posts are portraits of characters (that is because I am simply obsess with drawing the silliest and prettiest of things imaginable), but I never really drew the faces of characters way back then because it'll always end up looking weird and I'd be disappointed by the end of it. I only took up drawing again last year so it was quite a fresh new start

Anyways, I was talking to my friend a while ago and he mentioned how my drawing improved alot in the span of 8 months (Not PewDiePie level of improvement speed but I'd say it's pretty good), I thought it was an overstatement at first but God damn, looking back at it, it truly was humble beginnings:

Here is when I was still figuring out the shape and where the facial features would go. Pretty sure most of these were drawing by imagination, and some were with references. I made it a habit of mine to only draw a face for a minute and move to the next. Also I heard learning how to draw the skull gives you a better idea of how to draw the face

And now, to think my art would look like this in the present:

I chose this six images because I'm particularly proud how they turned out >:)) (and also because my app wouldn't let me collage more images)

To cut it short (because we're already four paragraphs in):

keep on doing what you're doing! As long as you enjoy it, it'll get prettier and better as time goes by :)

[the1weepinqguitar]

tally hall sketches and other assorted doodles

Here ya go guys! I also have improvement pics from last year! Almost two years in the Tally Hall fandom! Woohoo! My Marvin's CD is gonna hate me even more after all of this

A Ross sketch! I'm super proud of how it turned out! Below is a close-up!

The aforementioned close-up, showing the shading on his face and the folds of his sleeve!

Zubin! I love the side profile, and I used his picture in the MMMM booklet as a reference! Close up below, so you can see some of the more fine details/shading

the close-up!

Here's Andrew! His hair is kinda hard to not fluff-ify, but I dealt with it anyways and tried my best to keep it close to reality. Obligatory close(r)-up below.

next will be some other random stuff, mostly tally hall, but some of it is oc art

drew this drawing of Ross last September. Not amazing but very stylized, which I love/hate. the tag on the bottom left reads, "he's rather disheveled but this is the best I could do back then"

wtf is he doing? He in an action movie or something? btw this was last-year's andrew. very stylized. i hate it.

decided not to include the other last-year Rob cause i hate it deeply. this one's much better. very fluffy. i dont like the collar tho

just me poking fun at my horrendous attempts at stylizing joe. im not gonna draw him as much as the others btw.

This is from an au created by @bonkdd, but i did rob and andrew's designs bc i never saw his designs for them. i also added a lot of lore and plot stuff because i really liked the concept. in simple terms the tallies are robots that were abandoned by Marvin after he passed away so now they're falling apart n stuff without him to care for them (that's why rob hides his face). Anyways, huge thanks to Bonk for the original idea! They're a great artist, you should go check them out!

Edith, drawn/sketched with a ballpoint pen.

Another one. I like this one better, but I spent two days on this one versus a half on hour on the other so i guess it makes sense

Adrian and Reuben (OCs), done in a college-ruled notebook bc i ran out of pages in my sketchbook. next is a close-up so you can see more shading.

probably my favorite gay couple i've ever written ngl

Ace again, but wearing Reuben's favorite sweater.

Looking mighty fine!

He's lookin' tough, he's got the stuff, he's got the spiffy shades... (/lyric)

pose practice

Boll weevil, why don't you get out of your home? (/lyric)

old art jumpscare - i actually kinda like this one, might redraw it. Below is the full thing

why is zubes staring like that??? its creepy

here's another. i don't know why it's sideways. andrew is scared of joe btw, this isn't the entire drawing

Did an embossing peice. It's the Mojo Chessmaster! I tried by best to make it as detailed as possible, and I think I did pretty alright. The neck was probably the worst part to do. Below are close-ups

the head of the guitar was a pain in the ass.

This part was also pretty tricky but it came out okay. the dials at the bottom are raised as much as I could get them to go, so I'm not worried about them. My issue here was the pickups.

I also added Flansburgh's little signature guy but i drew his hair because why not? Anyways this piece took me a good hour or so to finish, I think it'll fetch a good grade (it was for my metal design class).

I'll add a sketch I just did as a bonus:

it's from a tally hall fanfic/au i made back in may after my grandpa passed away. It was a great stress-reliever and I still really like how it turned out. It's about cryptids and monsters and shit. I'll post a summary on a different post because this one was mostly for the drawings. I might post a few installments of it on my ao3. It could be a weekly thing since i usually have time on fridays to write.

Once again, a close-up is available below.

I put literal hours of research on cryptids and of the area (ann harbor, MI) while writing this fic. It was fun though, and it helped me a lot. Feel free to ask me anything about the plot or world-building !

[upthenorthmountain]

One nice thing about drawing the same character over and over is that it lets you see your progress. I feel like I’ve made a fair amount!

When I drew that first picture in September 2014 I was 32 years old. I’d always wanted to be able to draw, but just never got round to it or knew how to get started. Like a lot of people, fandom is what inspired me and gave me the push I needed. It’s the most amazing feeling to be able to draw now, to be able to get down what’s in my head, to make things I love and am proud of. I know I still have a lot to learn but that’s where the fun is!

If you’re one of those people always thinking ‘wow I wish I could draw’, here is how I did it:

I worked through the book You Can Draw in 30 Days by Mark Kistler, which a friend recommended to me (if I'd known then about the book Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards I'd have used that too, but I didn't. It's good though)

I filled up a couple of sketchbooks with terrible drawings, mainly figure studies from quickposes.com and bad drawings of my blorbos

Finally thought I had something good enough to post, posted it, received so much support and love that I carried on, and I honestly cannot thank all of you enough for that

Kept drawing and drawing, making myself do the things that were hard or that I thought were above my skill level (harsh truth: you will never get better at the hands if you don't draw the hands)

After a little while I thought 'I wonder if I can use my iPad as a drawing tablet', and started using the Procreate app (then about £4, now about £10 I think, still a flipping bargain), first with my finger, then with a stylus that came with my iPad case, then with a slightly better stylus I bought on eBay, then two years ago I got a better iPad and could have a Pencil which is AMAZING

I have also recently taken two Procreate courses on Domestika which taught me a lot of things about drawing in general and Procreate in particular and I should probably have sought this information out sooner! They were Atmospheric Scenes in Procreate: Paint with Color and Light by Ramona Wultschner, and Female Character Portraits in Procreate, by Natalia Dias, and I would recommend them both

And I kept drawing a whole bunch and my friends were super encouraging so I just kept going and didn't stop

I have tips! Things I've learnt along the way

If you use Procreate, look up and learn about clipping masks, alpha lock, streamline, liquify, Gaussian blur

Don't worry too much about brushes, I mainly just use the hard and soft airbrushes and two versions of round marker (one with low streamline for sketching and one with high streamline for line art). I have a spotty one for freckles and that's about it really for what I use 99% of the time. People will try and sell you brushes by making you think you'll be able to draw like them if you have the right brushes but you won't and you don't want to draw like them anyway, you want to draw like YOU

Use more layers than you think you'll need, you can always merge them later

You will suck at first. You will suck so bad you will want to cry. But you have to be terrible, it's the only way to get to not terrible. The only way you STAY terrible is if you give up

Just when everything seems awful and everything you draw is crap and you don't ever want to draw again, that is when you must KEEP GOING and PUSH THROUGH because you are about to level up. Persevere just a little bit longer and soon you will be staring at your own hands thinking 'HOW'

Drawing is a learnt skill. There is no such thing as Talent, just people who've spent longer learning and practicing than you have. Eight years ago I couldn't reverse park my car, either, and then I got a new job where it was really handy to be able to reverse park in the car park and now I'm really good at it. You can improve at anything if you're willing to put in the time! GROWTH MINDSET!!

[sequoiareachesforthesky]

I was feeling a bit weird about my art, like I hadn't really improved in a while, not in a way that matters to me at least, and it was bothering me a little. So I did what I usually do when that sort of things happen: I went back through some old drawings to see how I would draw them differently today, what I think I could improve in those works now, and doing that makes me feel a bit better about my current drawing skills (to be clear : I'm still very fond of my more ancient drawings, they're imperfect, and what I draw now still is, but they were genuine and I loved drawing them so I'm very proud of younger me for drawing those back then. I still love all of my old drawings so much).

Anyway, I found this one sketch, and it reminded me of a fun anecdote about it.

So throwback to when I was 15 and I drew this lesbian couple in my notebook during idk, biology class probably, and the girl next to me was asking me to see what's I was drawing. So even though I was reluctant, I showed what I had done so far and she went "wow, that's so pretty!" But the thing is, I had kept the tall girl's hair for last so she passed as a guy until I drew it, and when my neighbour realised it was a girl she made this face like, frowning her nose, kinda judgemental kinda disgusted and she didn't ask to see my drawings ever again.

I still think this drawing is cute. I was so right to draw lesbians instead of listening to whatever the lesson was about<3 Long live lesbians for real, y'all are so cool

Anyway, if you're an artist (any kind of artist), don't be ashamed of your past works. Like I have some stuff that I've drawn and that I find straight up ugly but I still love those drawings so much, because they meant something to me back then, and because idk, it's my art!! I created something!! Took it out of my heart and put it on paper!! And that's so cool!!

At the end of the day, all of this has made me realise that, since I'm not trying to be a professional artist, I don't need to get better, and honestly, I don't particularly want to. I can try if I ever feel the need, but as of now, I think I'm fine with just drawing whatever I can. Sometimes with the intent to share my work, sometimes just to keep it to myself. (Oh dear I love art so much actually it's insane. Every form of art. When it comes from the heart, I always manage to be drawn to it with so much intensity. I love the way people create. Yes this is just another art stan post lol)

[carpisuns]

Hello!!!!

I love drawing and I always try to improve!! But I''ve been losing motivation lately because I try to draw stuff that might be pretty easy for other artists but I struggle with them A LOT.

I KNOW I shouldn't compare myself to others if it's gonna demotivate me but I just can't help it! I see other VERY talented people draw AMAZINGLY and feels so impossible to do and it makes me feel like I don't know how to draw at ALL

I also tried digital art but I don't get how people do it. Maybe it's because I don't have the best app? Most of the better digital art apps aren't free so I'm only limited to the free ones.

Plus I draw with my finger on my tablet.

And I installed a digital drawing app on my laptop but I suck at it. HOW DO PEOPLE DRAW ON A LAPTOP???

I just, need some motivation? And maybe some art tips?? I struggle THE MOST with fingers/hands and well drawing bodies. When I look at something and try to draw it exactly how it is I can do it! But drawing whatever I like (without it being a picture in front of me) is a HUGE challenge for me...

I'm really sorry to bother you... But you seem really nice so I felt like I could ask you that hehe

Have a great day!!

i totally feel you. im in the exact same boat! idk how other people perceive my skill level lol but i struggle A Lot! it takes me a lot of time and effort to get my art to a point that i feel okay about sharing it. even stuff that seems simple probably took me a while haha. and i know that feeling of looking at other really amazing artists and feeling kind of crushed that you can't be like them. it's really hard not to compare and get down on yourself. but since you're gonna be comparing anyway lol try to compare your work with your old work, to appreciate how far you've come! that helps me. i have some EXTREMELY cringey art still on my blog and you really don't have to go that far back in the tag to find it alskdfjaljsfd like stuff that im SUPER embarrassed about now but i can't bring myself to delete them bc it's kinda nice to be able to go back at say, "i was really proud of this drawing when i made it but wow, that is. Terrible. u know what u call that? ✨growth✨"

the truth is, there will always be people who are better than you at art, and that's ok! don't sweat it. art of various styles and skill levels can still be enjoyed. and you will only get better! my advice is to not put too much pressure on yourself. improvement will come naturally as you just keep drawing and try to have fun with it.

it's also helpful to keep in mind that you are not the only one who struggles or feels inadequate. i'd venture to say that most artists feel that way, even popular or highly skilled ones! recently an artist that i really admire and consider the biggest art goals told me that their finished drawings have many layers of sketches and corrections and experimentations underneath. art takes effort for everyone, even your art senpais! ofc, certain things will come easier as you get better, but good artists are always pushing for improvement and expanding their skills so you'll probably always feel a bit out of your comfort zone and it's good to try to develop a healthy mindset about growth/development now

hahaha i used to draw with my finger on my phone too before I got a drawing tablet. i prefer digital art because i totally abuse that undo button lol but it's fine if you prefer traditional art! i know some really amazing artists who do a lot of paper and pencil drawings—@tizzymcwizzy comes to mind!

Lol I also struggle with hands and bodies and I also have a super hard time drawing from my imagination! So I don’t 🤠 I use references for like every single thing I draw, and if you have to do that too, that’s ok! In fact, using refs is a good thing. Hopefully someday I won’t have to rely on them quite so heavily but using refs is always good practice! That’s how you learn what things look like and how to draw them lol.

Well as usual I am simply Rambling lol!! Hope at least something in that was helpful 😂 (can you see why I am not cut out for twitter 🙂 DHJSKS)

Best of luck, u got this! Be patient with yourself, keep drawing, and enjoy creating! You are awesome 😎👉👉

[mrfutureboy]

here's my latest attempt to capture mjf's likeness via realism. it's not perfect, but i'm pretty proud of it! (now i'm going to ramble)

i decided to only use materials from the sketching set i got at five below (besides the paper) so that was also interesting! i also decided to really utilize the tortillon it came with to smooth things out (though i think i still managed to retain my non-uniform shading style in the skin), but that was mostly because this is only 8"x10" so my fingers wouldve been too big for finer details.

materials include: soft charcoal pencil, 2B pencil, tortillon, kneaded eraser, white chalk, black compressed charcoal

i'm not one for doing charcoal drawings with primarily a charcoal pencil. in fact, i typically like to avoid using one unless absolutely necessary! however, for partly the same reason i used the tortillon, the paper was just too small for me to get the details i wanted with vine charcoal.

however i really liked how the soft charcoal pencil in this set performed!! granted, it didn't behave like a general's charcoal pencil, but that's probably why i liked it a lot better. previously, i've had issues with: fallout, needing to sharpen the pencil after literally every stroke, getting charcoal all over my hands if i accidentally touched the tip, and i could NOT erase no matter how light my stroke was. the five below charcoal pencil didn't give me any of these problems (except for a bit of smudging but i really had to rub my finger across the tip of the pencil to get it on my skin). maybe it's not actually charcoal?? maybe other brands of charcoal pencils besides general's don't have these issues?? hard to say.

anyway. this was fun. hope to do more soon and keep improving :)

[gods-and-punks]

Ratatouille Voice: "Anyone Can Draw"

Okay idk I'm not a professional artist, I don't even consider myself "good", though I've made some pieces I'm proud of. [Shameless link if you wanna see how full of shit I am.] But I honestly truly believe that anyone can draw, and anyone can improve. Yeah, you might not be where you want to be, but if you really want to get better, let's harness that "feeling bad about my art" and turn it into drive "so I'm gonna do something about it"!

I've been drawing off an on for over a decade, but I've really improved in the last 3 years, and here's what I think happened:

I learned to 3D model fast. Which is to say, I learned to turn shapes over in my mind and figure out how slight changes in angle affected what I see. I can't conjure images in my head very easily or with much detail, so learning to layer details and give volume to an idea in my mind was a huge hurtle I never realized I had until I uhh had a senior project that required me to face and then get over it.

I started making deliberate decisions about what I wanted. (Ie, my art isn't a passive experience "i guess this is how things are", I started making choices of what I wanted it to be like.

I stopped mindlessly practicing - I started doing research and doing very deliberate practice and experimentation. I did research, I found videos, and I chose what I spent time on. I tried different combinations, I drew low-stakes sketches that no one had to see. I also stsrted doing warm ups!! It matters!!

And I know this doesn't sound like the "ideal" that art should be spontaneous and natural and I feel it too. But I don't have talent, so I have to work at it. And I am a PhD student in a non-art field, so I have limited time - so I have to work smart.

Part 1

So I know 3D modeling isn't really accessible, approachable, and all that (it's also not not accessibly, i just learned school of hard knocks so I literally cannot teach anyone how to do it); but I also don't think it's necessary. What you need to do is draw still life. Yes, its not the fan art you want to draw, but it will help! (And I do not suggest starting with your anime figures either, use simple kindergarten shapes.)

Learn to draw things you see in your room, go pick stock photos and recreate them. Trace parts only to learn how the lines come together, duplicate from sight!

I strongly advocate taking up charcoal if you can, it teaches you how to think not just about the thing you are drawing, but think about it in reference to its surroundings.

https://youtu.be/KD2v0Dwg2og

https://youtu.be/nkDObgH6ixg

https://youtu.be/emcO79uteN4

Part 2

This is the one where you gotta swallow your pride and ideals, and look at things practically. If you want to be in an art industry or just help yourself feel better about your hobby, your art should never be an "accident".

And what that means is that you chose to draw faces like that, you chose to use darker thicker lines, etc. "That's just how I draw x" as a response to art criticism is a really bad sign. But if you've already decided that you aren't happy with your art, then I think you're already... ready... to make a change - you've already had this "come to earth" uncomfortable epiphany that you probably have some room to grow. And honestly, I love and respect you even more for it!! Everyone can grow, and you have done the hard introspection to say that you want to!

So now we need to start looking at what other artists do that make you admire them? I love how sketchy the lines are in Tite Kubo's Bleach manga is, so I try to emulate it. I'm not stealing his art, I'm learning from it. I love how fluid Katsura Hoshino's D Gray Man is, so I embrace that and try to incorporate it in my scenes. But note: these are "qualities" of the art. I am framing these as "attainable characteristics" that come from the art I can look at. Its not "D Gray Man is pretty, why can't I do that" or "Bleach is so cool, I'm just not good enough".

No! Kill your doubt gremlin!! and start looking at the reasons you love and admire the artists you do. Go on insta, find someone to adore, pour your <3's on their pieces and learn from them by looking at how they use line and shape and tone and whatever.

https://youtu.be/NEvMHRgPdyk

Part 3

So I just kind'a put links where I though they would help, so now I'll list the various playlists that I keep my favorite videos in. The people who make them are good, not always gentle, but they have helped me out a lot.

Remember that things that work for one person may not work for another, but you have to try. If you don't have talent (which tbh is pretty common and is 300% not an insult, just just something I had to accept), you have to work for it. And that sucks, but that's life, and you have to decide if this is worth the effort.

And if it is, I hope this helps you see that you already had the agency to learn this!! It's all free on the internet, because of content creators who want you to learn!!

Anyway, take it or leave it, but this actually worked for me so I thought I'd post about it.

[seyaryminamoto]

I've been browsing your blog for Sokkla research as I feel like it has similarities to what I'm trying to write with Azula and Soren. I haven't begun tackling Gladiator yet, as it looks a little daunting, but I feel I should since I keep hearing so much. I am a little hesitant over accidentally using anything you wrote for my own story. I'd be proud if I could make it as long and epic as yours. It's very personal to me. What motivated you to write Gladiator and keep writing for so long?

Yeah, I saw your post about your crossover ship having potential similarities with Sokkla and I agree that it would, since Soren shares a few traits with Sokka, character-wise. Admittedly, Azula interacting with a character like Soren would present quite a lot of fun possibilities, so it seems to be an idea worth exploring :)

As for reading Gladiator and accidentally using similar tropes… well, I don’t know if it will ease your mind much, but there are several tropes that I’ve run into in many Sokkla fics, mine, other people’s, just… lots of them xD and it’s not really a problem. Storytelling can lead to similar places, but usually, every writer handles their tropes and character development differently.

My plan for a certain, poignant scene in Gladiator’s 96th chapter was set in stone in my head back when I started plotting the fic (like I said in that ask I answered yesterday). The scene in question is one I depicted in some artworks for Gladiator’s second anniversary: Sokka defeats Azula in combat for the first time, pins her down, aims his sword at her, and they just stare at each other before things take a pretty heated twist...

A few months after planning this, I read another fic where practically the same thing happened between them (it’s a Spanish fic, I hadn’t tried reading it yet because it was incomplete, sometimes I still scold the writer in question for never finishing it), only, rather than it happening when they could no longer resist the attraction between them, it happened when they were barely getting to know each other: Azula followed Sokka into a forest clearing, where he was training on his own. Upon noticing someone was hiding in the bushes, he leaps at her and pins her down, aiming his sword at her as well. Of course, he freaks out upon realizing it’s her, she isn’t very happy, and no heated things happen other than a lot of blushing, especially on her part xD

So, as you can see, even if the trope is “Sokka holds Azula down, at swordpoint”, the context was entirely different, the outcome was completely different and heck, the wording and even language we used was 100% different.  I came up with the idea for Gladiator before reading Majesty, later on I found out that someone had written a very similar scene already (and it was a close associate of mine, no less xD). As much as I didn’t feel like I was all that original anymore… I didn’t change my plans because of that. As long as I didn’t pull a Cassandra Clare and copy-pasted the whole scene my friend wrote into Gladiator, where was the harm in trying my own hand at it? I wrote the tropey situation in my own way, with my own words, and it’s completely my own thing.

There was something else that happened with Gladiator, another friend read it and thought I was taking inspiration for my portrayal of Sokka and Azula from a couple in a TV show she loved. Turns out I’d heard about the show, but I hadn’t watched it until she nudged me enough to do it (no regrets!), and after watching it I understood where the similarities were, but the context was all different. More than that, a certain situation (Sokka admitting his love for Azula for the first time, she asks him to say it again) was close enough to what happened between the main couple in said TV show…

… But I actually had been inspired by another couple, in ANOTHER TV show, that had a slightly similar exchange too xD

Therefore, tropes are tropes. I’ve recycled so many tropes in so many things I’ve written that people could probably psychoanalyze me and figure out all my brain chemistry damn easily if they did. I tend to have a very particular structure when writing, too (the original story I wrote and finished had 3 parts, Gladiator has 3 parts too, to name the most superficial similarity only), and I’ve frequently explored similar topics in them. It’s hardly a crime to do it again, but as long as you do it in a unique way, there’d be no harm in testing how some tropes would turn out with Soren and Azula. It could be worrisome if you portrayed Soren reacting to events exactly the same way Sokka does, but that’s not very likely to happen. As similar as they can be, they’re also different in several ways and in the post where you compared them you seemed to see those differences pretty clearly.

Therefore, I don’t think there’s any real harm in trying your hand at certain tropes and situations. If the context is different, if there’s logic to what you’re writing, and of course, as long as you write it yourself, there’s absolutely no need to worry about repeating things other people have done before.

That being said, don’t feel pressured to read Gladiator at all. I’m glad people have recommended it, but I understand if it feels not only daunting but that maybe you won’t be sure what to write if you see all the stuff I’ve done so far. Gladiator is many things, and one of them is my playground for testing Sokka and Azula’s relationship in just about every way I can xD it’s so long that I’ve been free to play with all sorts of possibilities with them, to fulfill all my shippiest wishes for these two. Therefore, if you’d rather be true to your own ideas and not get too influenced by it, it’s absolutely understandable not to read it until you feel comfortable about giving it a shot (presumably, once you’ve plotted plenty of own story and feel like you won’t be at risk of taking too much inspiration from it).

As for what motivates me… well, I guess there were many factors. One of them is that Gladiator was an idea worth digging into, with so much to explore that I was completely overwhelmed by the possibilities and I got completely caught up in it. The more I thought about it, the more I wanted the story to exist, so I decided I needed to make it happen. As it’s practically a full re-write of ATLA’s storyline, I had a chance to just… handle everything on my terms. And that meant the developments I didn’t like from the show could change: I could improve on things I thought needed improvements, I could add things that I felt the show needed, and so on and so forth. There were nearly no limits, really, and as I was absolutely lost in the beauty and glory of my OTP, I couldn’t help myself and I decided to dive right in.

It helps a lot that Gladiator’s kind of a multi-faceted thing: as I’ve been developing my art too, whenever I was bored in class I’d sketch things related to it and then, if I had a chance and the sketch was good enough, I’d finish the art digitally later. I have a lot of music that inspires me, so sometimes I just sit down, listen to it, and I let myself evoke scenes that I want to write or draw. Fact is, the whole fifth anniversary project was a mix of art and music: the songs that inspired many arcs of Part 1, along with images that referenced them.

Lastly, though… I generally know where Gladiator’s going, so I don’t usually reach a point where I’m like “Woah I have zero plans for what to do next”. I plot things for the story whenever I have nothing to do (when I’m traveling places, when I’m showering, when I’m waiting for something? Just, whenever, wherever). If an arc isn’t shaping up to be particularly fun, I try to figure out what to do to make it more interesting and appealing for me to write. Whenever I come up with something I’m hyped about writing, it helps me keep on writing until I get there. Sometimes that’s also a curse because I go overboard and write like… 12K in a single day because I am that hyped about whatever I’m doing :’D happened a couple of weeks ago xD

Anyways, always try to fulfill your own needs with your story, first and foremost. Sometimes your public won’t be 100% receptive to your ideas, but sometimes they’ll actually want exactly what you’re putting out there for them. The magic of fanfiction is that, if someone doesn’t like what they’re getting, there’s absolutely nothing to stop them from taking to writing a story they do want, right? So, why should we try to please other people instead of writing what we’d want to read?

Make your story something you can revisit and smile about, make your story something you can find value in, regardless of whoever tries to undermine it. Make it yours, make it everything you want it to be. Want humor? Set up humorous situations (I mean, your lead couple would be Azula and Soren, humor’s basically guaranteed xD). Want tragedy and angst? You can have it too. You really can do anything, as long as you make up your mind to get it done. Figure out what it really is you want to write, the key scenes, the development you’re looking for with your main characters, come up with plans on how to get them where you need them to be, and once you feel you’re in solid grounds for it, feel free to start writing and always keep on looking forward to the big things you’ve wanted to write for your fic.