#but at the end of the day i like to think ppl come back to a few scenes sometimes

[creatingblackcharacters]

Do you have any techniques/tips for drawing graying coily hair? I have a lot reference photos saved but when it comes to copying the look, afros in my art style end up looking like a block of color with a hard gradient of gray to deep brown/black or deep brown/black with noticable squiggly gray/white lines. I don't have a realistic style and have not seen many older/aging Black characters from the artists I follow, and I'm not skilled enough in a realistic style to copy a reference 1 to 1. If you have any recommendations of artists who draw graying coiled hair or any tips on how to incorporate lighter colors into a coily texture (this would go for dyed hair too), I would appreciate it so much. I have also struggled to find comprehensive photo references of how graying locs would look, how the lighter strands pattern with the darker ones when locked. Also, is there anything specific you would want ppl to know or include about aging Black and textured hair? Balding patterns, hair care specifically geared to older ppl, any general knowledge off the top of your head that could direct on what to watch for and include? Thank you in advance and have a good day

Ombre effects and/or blending! You can find this in dyed hair as well. Greying is not always even, anyway, if you're worried about symmetry.

But yeah for grey hair I'll usually do a base color of the original hair color, then spray paint the grey towards the roots out to wherever I want it to reach in the hair. Then I go back and use the hair brush textures to add the greying hairs and highlights where necessary. This works for locs and afros for me.

There's also a Black artist, @prinnay , that I think does an excellent job of using color to show different highlights in the hair. Here's a small example of a bit of grey and white in one of her pieces. Just because it's a bunch of different colors not blending when you look close doesn't mean that the effect won't be there when you step back overall. I would suggest studying their work as well, they're a far better artist than I!

As for aging hair care, nothing that I wouldn't say about our hair in general. Maybe that the texture might soften as the hair greys and to be more careful because aging hair might not be as strong. Balding isn't a unique experience to Blackness. And as always, I suggest following more Black artists and studying their work 👍🏾

[luckyofthelawnvariety]

Hi, i just watched gem's episode (it took me almost 2 hours to watch a 50 minute video, I clicked on it the moment it appeared in my notifs. unfortunately haven't seen pearl's yet) i just wanted to rant about shinyduo stuff to someone who would care, bc none of my friends rlly watch, and i found your blog a few days ago:

gem and pearl's dynamic this session was great. i loved it so much

the red/yellow congregation getting a little more playfully bloodthirsty at pearl's remark, and then gem comparing them to her snail?? when gem's thoughts on her snail were "not deadly, if you're careful, just something to keep an eye on. and cute in its attempts to kill"

and then bigb wants a creeper egg, and what does gem want? not pufferfish, not cobwebs, not anything that's gonna win the game. just for him to say nice things about her near pearl's alliance

pearl's guy showing up and immediately going to get gem (and joel and lizzie). gem did kinda let her get cursed but a) i would also be mad if my murder camel buddy forgot some of the shenanigans we got up to and b) the curse was so cute

speaking of the curse, the voice thing was adorable. like i love being able to understand pearl, but also little aussie robo noises. and the conversation! very one sided, but gem's sheer belief in pearl still being around when gem is red, that pearl, despite being first to red in her alliance, will outlive them all. and the offer to come over, to have fun, AGAIN, when it's nothing but swords and teeth (it seems like that's when they get along best, when they have the most fun.) pearl, giving up on her voice, just desperately nodding. i sincerely hope she meant it, and that it was the one thing she wanted to make sure got across in that conversation, because that's how i'm interpreting it

gem knowing pearl's dog's name in this series instantly even tho she's mad at her...

pearl egging mumbo on/joining in on the murder attempt (not properly, she places the lava away from gem, i think. not sure if i think that's being considerate of his kill or just not wanting to kill gem.) and no reaction, whatsoever, from gem. you know, if the whole shinyduo divorce thing wasn't just forced bc gem wants ppl to think she's mad at pearl, if gem was actually mad at pearl, we wouldn't have heard the end of it. instead, i almost didn't write anything bc gem doesn't care

anyway, this got a lot longer than i meant, shinyduo divorce is made up/clickbait, gem is great, and i hope you enjoyed this episode/week's session as much as i did!

HELLO HELLO HELLO!!! I apologize for any errors I accidentally pulled an allnighter and I will be suffering the consequences of my hubris and undiagnosed ADHD today

I will ABSOLUTELY talk shiny duo with you!!!! I watched Pearls ep when it came out and I realized I no longer would be able to sleep if wild life episodes were coming out. That did lead to learning the absolute hilarity that is "Pearl checking to see if Gem is actually mad at her for something and Gem going no actually I'm just mad at you for funsies" which. ma'am. knowing the toxic yuri is on purpose just makes you more deranged.

I can also tell you that Pearl is slow to realize that she not only sounds weird but people cant understand her at ALL, but she makes it VERY CLEAR she's down for murder camel 2.0!!!

Gem is clearly having SO MUCH FUN this episode the amount of insane laughter as the server falls apart around her was CRAZY, and the focus beam on Pearl and what Pearl doin did not escape my view, even if Gem made sure to solidify other alliances in the process.

Also. PEARL KEPT SAYING SHE WANTED GEM DEAD AND THEN KEPT NOT KILLING HER. PEARL YOU DON'T KILL AND ATTACK PEOPLE BY HANGING OUT MENACINGLY. YOU DIDN'T EVEN SET THE CREEPER TRAP IN GEM'S BARN YOU WANTED TO??? WHAT WAS THAT?????

Also, someone else mentioned this and it came back into my brain with a VENGANCE, but Gem was pitting Pearl against Scott and saying "oh scott came here apologizing for you when you did nothing wrong, so you should be mad at him :)))" and I am vibrating GEM WHY WOULD YOU DO THAT SCOTT'S A GOOD ALLY DO YOU JUST WANT PEARL AS YOUR ALLY ONLY THIS TIME AROUND HUH???

I think shinyduo has entered their full situationship phase, where it is definitely not divorce but I think it might be worse in the best way???

Gem is SO GREAT (one of two dark greens left look at her go!!!) and I'm glad you also enjoyed this week's episode!! You should absolutely try to watch Pearl's if you have the time, it's a riot!!! And thank you for letting me have a little ramble :D!!!

[forgottenrian]

6/4

there ~is a brother! his name is garbhan, and he evidentally had some kind of something w eabha asp, but that's all i got for you hahaha

its interesting bc like...i dont think rian ~truly wants to rule like??? that was his dad's dream!! and i don't think he ever got a chance to find one of his own [11/16 edit: what his actual dream here is, is to finally make his papa proud/heal the perceived wrongs of the past/finally achieve some peace but even he doesn't quite realize that tbqh]! he thinks he wants it! more than anything!!!! but i don't think, if he'd grown up w a healthy family etc, that that would be his wish by any stretch yknow [11/16 edit: i think he'd wanna be like..a scholar of some sort honestly!]? however, he has no idea this is the case and he's just chasing it, chasing it, chasing it bc its been impressed upon him that that's what he has to do!! but anyway that's neither here nor there frankly!! except ig that in another universe rian would be like 'same' to his cousin hahaha

but in this one he'll maintain till the bitter end that that's the thing he wants most in the entire world!!! and it ~is, in the sense that he wants his father to have been a happy man and to have found some peace in his life, and he lowkey believes that becoming king will retroactively do that or smth he'd need a v well trained and v patient therapist to help him sort out unfortunately lkajsdfkjlsdf

i do think like...it didn't even occur to rian ~to stay honestly??? Lkjasdklfjjsdf like that that was even an OPTION!! like you go to the trials, you fail, you bail!! that's just what you do! lkjasdfjsjdkf but, even that aside, i do think he had this really false impression of domhnall's family built up in his head that was...pr wild, like i feel like they were presented as these great rivals who cheated his dad out of what was his by rights by stealth and deceit and everything else, and even stole away the woman he loved and like forced her to marry him instead etc etc and like???? i dont think the versions of the staffords that existed in rian's head even remotely resembled their real counterparts, like queen lena was a doomed heroine, domhnall was an evil tyrant, the girls were all spoiled, entitled, manipulative brats who took too much after their evil father since their poor virtuous mother was too much a prisoner to ever really raise them etc lkadsjflkjsdfkjlskdjfdsf

so yeah i do def think rian was, as a result, pr rude from the start and like ready for them to betray him and honestly the first time they behaved honorably he probs thought to himself 'like wow this deception really runs deep huh' lakjsdflkjsdf kjlsdkjfjksdf

and then that selfish lil brat stole ~his rightful inheritance away too just like her father had done to his!! where is justice in this country???? NOWHERE!! and he was like 'these poor ppl they need someone to come in and save them' and like...ok the system didn't seem to be ~quite as rigged as his father had said it was in ~his day, rian did observe what appeared to be a really fair process going on, but his dad couldn't have been ~that wrong abt his own ~family right?! so clearly these ppl have all been deceived! and then, sure enough, the next he really encounters eilia, its one of her envoys preaching abt the evils of roderick whose going around doing nothing but liberating ppl from oppressive systems and spreading justice and enlightenment wherever he goes!!

11/16

omg so i wrote everything above this on june 4th and appreantly never came back to finish/post it till now *facepalm* thank god for the comments site bc i legit thought i had!!! alkdjsfkljsdf anyway, so sorry lovely!!

but anyway went back and read your commen tto refresh and got suuuper emo reading abt aria's feelings re: her dad and uncle bc like???? that's not what aria did!!!! she stayed put, she became eilia's closest advisor and companion and the whole theme of duty coming up again and SOB but anyway!!!! laksjdfkljsdjkf

klasdjflkasjdfksdf omg yeah he probs was, i feel like there was the initial surrender by eilia directly to roderick but then, after his whole court was assembled, he probs had some ceremonial nonsense abt it and idk that rian was necessarily there for surrender the first (im still lowkey working out what his part was in the war so i don't wanna commit him anywhere till ive got that figured out ngl but honestly him having helped w the attack on stafford would make a tonnnn of sense since he'd been there etc but also i deffff feel like since he was given lorcan specifically he had smth to do w fighting them etc so??? idk!! but it might also just be that roderick considers lorcan the second most royal place in astaira and rian the second most royal person after himself etc -- idk!) but he was dEF there for surrender the second, no question!!! BAHAHAHA eilia holding aria back by the scruff of the neck like a kitten from commiting public murder tho lkajsdfkljskjfa eilia: 'ppl were noT kidding when they said that family reunions were STRESSFUL' heehee

rian def comes to the palace a good bit!! for one thing, he's honestly super curious abt it since his dad grew up there and all his ancestors lived there and i just knowwwwww he grew up on stories abt it and has read endlessly abt it in all his studies and research etc etc etc (he would give ANYTHING to see the vault of the heavens w his own eyes!!!!!) but also he's def got networking to do at court!!!!! and he's suuuuper bad at it so he needs all the practice he can get!!!! BAHAHAHA no but for real he gotta try!!!! he's still got his eyes on the prize...esp now that he's realizing that roderick rmaybe ~isn't what he once thought kalsdjfkljsfjkdf big whoops my man!!!! l;ajsdfkljsdf

BAHAHAHAHAHA im picturing this pop quiz set up kinda like a debate team and once again the stafford girls are carrying all the weight here BAHAHAHA but yeah in terms of those kinds of facts, i do think rian would also be able to tell you that!!! what he won't be able to do is pronounce ANYTHING you're getting his varmont-accent and he's ??? abt how 'adh' can make a 'uh' kinda sound rather than an 'ahd' sound etc!!!! but he's only ever read these words, never heard them!!!! so he just sounded them out to the best of his ability!!!! so yeah he's out there like butchering his own native tongue, plus he's also seeing all this through the lens of roderick nonsense, like if you ask him an astairan theological question he'll be like 'they believe these demons can protect them' and the astairans like 'THEY'RE CALLED GUARDIANS' but yeah i feel like what he ~can tell you is abt that distant ormond/calleary relations and that banner of the 14th lord etc...if its smth you could read in a book, he knows it. but if its smth you had to experience he does NOT know it lkdsjfakljsdf research is his one (1) talent alksjdfkljsdjfk jk jk (kinda ;D) but anyway that being said i have no doubtttt aria could and woulD kick his ass in this competish!!!! rian: why do these stafford girls keep doing this to me??? lkajsdklfjskjdf

omg noooo but ur soooo right!!! the fact that ~both sides of the family think the ~other side betrayed them!!!! its both laughable and tragic honestly and you know i eat that irony uppppp laksjdfklsdjfakjlsdf

sooooo i think rian is a lil ????? on the question of religion!!! like i think he's effectively agnostic???? sometimes, when he's feeling a lil more romantic he'll be like 'these are spirits/gods' as he looks up at the stars or whatever, but he never quite names them. when just talking abt things, he def calls the guardians demons, but i think he's actually kinda dubious as to whether they ~or even roderick's god even exist???? he was kinda brought up to both believe in and NOT believe in both/either so he's just ??????? but yeah if you ask him he will def be on abt roderick's one god bc he does noT wanna be burned as a heretic!! laksjdfkljsdf but yeah!!! he's deffff hardcore anti-burning ppl for any reason, frankly, ++ i don't think he believes witches actually exist??? (again, he would call them that not seers!) but does think ppl should be able to believe whatever they want!!!! including smth that's a complely different thing from either varmont OR astairan belief!!!! you guys do you!!!! illl do me!!! its great!!! laksjdfkljsdfjk he's def a freedom of thought kinda guy

if we do go w the his-sister-was-burned-as-a-witch then he's even ~more anti burning/cynical abt roderick etc!!!!!!! if he had no sister its still just an ideological thing w/o the even more personal component but yeah!!! either way that is NOT cool w him and honestly??? he wiLL tell you as much even tho he knows that hurts his chances w roderick, its just suchhh a heinous thing he has to be honest abt that one, tho he ~will be carefully how he phrases it bc he's not stupid hahaha

OOC | Rían & Aria

cousin!!!!! awkward meeting this way...jk jk but only bc they met years ago at the ~queensmoot~ where it was even MORE awkward to meet bc he was a ~25 year old getting his ass handed to him by his ~16 year old lil cousin, and getting all his life's hopes crushed under her lil heel in the process alskdjflkdsfj ;DDDDD

no, but this is all v complicated!!!!! i feel like rian is, in theory, an astairan EXPERT!!!!! he's studied every single detail of their culture, history, beliefs his entire life!!!!!! he lives and breathes this stuff!!!! but he's also never, EVER lived here until now and while he may be able to recite every astairan verse ever written, he says it with a varmont accent, and when he dances astairan dances, he does it with the structure and rigidity of instilled by a varmont dancing master, like...he really is in the weirdest position! he's like a scholar of an ancient religion -- you can ask him anything and he knows all the theory!!!!!!!! but he's never experienced any of it and, as a result, he gets a loT of it wrong -- lotsa book smarts, zero street smarts!

anyway, as a result, rian truly believes he'd be great for astaira and that he knows her backwards and forwards but!!! the truth is quite different!!!! and he doesn't really belong here, he doesn't belong in varmont, he doesn't belong ~anyway and he's only just finding that out

anyway, his feelings about the stafford girls are VERY complex!!!!!! on one hand, he was brought up w the ideals of chivalry and such and like!!!!! this is not how you treat ppl!!!!!! and also its a family embarrassment that his kin were declared bastards and he doesn't like that!!!!!! but he also resents them (esp eilia!!!!) for the whole ~queenship thing! he truly believes that he was astaira's best bet and look what happened!!!!!! ~he never would've lost astaira (but then again eilia never would've fed vital info to roderick!!!!!!)

but alsooooooo he threw in w roderick bc he believed what roderick was saying about strength and stability (and bc he wanted revenge shhhh) but then roderick started quite literally burning ppl!!!! and without trials too!!!!!! and so rian's just sat here quite literally going 'my god what have i done' but he sees no way to fix it save to just...keep going and alkjsdkljf SCREAM

[flowerakatsuka]

gay ppl @ a summer festival, what will they do??

[faaun]

ok let's catch up quickly

[chrisbangs]

hello... (and bye ig 👋)

[northern-passage]

Genuine thought as a fellow trans dude, I’ve seen a lot of (obviously non-serious) questions on other blogs about characters’ genitals such as “how does it look like?” and similar, and I think we all know & understand that such questions are extremely inappropriate to ask and (I hope) no one would actually go around asking these questions irl. Idk, I think we should treat trans characters just like cis ones, without any special “precautions”, so to normalise them and not make cis people treat them like fragile boxes, a thing which happens to a lot of us irl. Hope this doesn’t come off as an attack or anything lol.

no worries, i didn't take this as an attack at all. i actually agree with you, that's why i mentioned feeling conflicted about it and also mentioned that i've changed my stance on how i felt about handling Noel and Clementine in game and in explicit intimate scenes.

however, for me the problem comes from the fact that people... don't ask these kinds of questions about cis characters? i suppose people do get cheeky "who is the biggest 🤪" asks but i would hardly compare the two. to be a bit crude, no one is going to be asking if a cis character has a dick or not, or "what does it look like". of course it's natural for people to be curious, and i honestly encourage the open discussion and am happy to see trans bodies being talked about more in a positive way, but not everyone is going to be comfortable with it due to the inescapable transphobia online and in the community. sending me that kind of ask is like sending out an invitation for a debate or a discussion that i don't necessarily want to have. i also just don't think people should default to asking a random IF author on tumblr dot com to describe what bottom growth looks like.

and with most of these asks typically coming from someone who is anonymous, i have no way of truly knowing what the tone is, what their intentions are or why this is being asked - is it another trans person? or maybe someone who is just genuinely curious? or, more likely in my experience, is it someone who is going to immediately follow up this message with something transphobic after i answer? do i want to roll the dice and find out?

so while i agree with what you're saying, it's important to consider the context and the reality we live in. the IF community is not kind to trans people or trans characters. and as a trans person, my first priority is protecting myself and my mental health. so what i mean when i say "precautions," is that those precautions are for me, because i've had to deal with transphobic harassment here for years now, and i try to mitigate it as much as i can. it's also for my personal comfort - again, to be blunt, i'm simply just not comfortable discussing a trans character's genitals with anonymous strangers on the internet. it makes me feel vulnerable.

also i do want to say i didn't mean for any of that to come across as a dig at other authors - if you're comfortable answering those kinds of questions, that's really only something you can decide for yourself. like i said, this is just coming from my own experiences in IF and for my own personal comfort - i have previously talked a lot about trans stuff and gender and sexuality here, when i'm feeling up to it, but it is something that is very draining for me and can also be very upsetting.

basically: i do agree that it's important not to other trans characters or treat them any differently than cis characters, but i also think there are ways to do it that don't require me answering invasive questions or questions that i don't feel comfortable with as a real life trans person, you know what i mean?

[piplupod]

also while im at it (and by it i mean probably making a fool of myself) i do want to say when i say that i am kind of stupid i am being so genuine. my reading comprehension is so dirt poor.

school did a shit job of teaching me anything and i suppose then it should've been on me to fill in the gaps (grand canyon sized gaps in this case but i digress) but i was struggling just to get thru the days as it was. in english class i learned to just ask my classmates what they thought the answer was to symbolism/meaning questions and then sift thru what they said to find the bits that seemed correct (based on patterns i'd noticed in previous assignments of books/plays/films/etc) and then mash it together until it resembled an original idea. so i never actually learned to think for myself and i'm SOOO MAD at myself for that. did i get thru school with decent grades because of it? yeah sure. but now i haven't even done anything w those good grades except take a couple office admin and accounting/bookkeeping college certificates that im never going to use bc [gestures at my whole situation].

and now i've got piss poor reading comprehension, and i feel foolishly proud of myself when i watch a movie and i figure smth out independently that i then end up learning is like... baby's first symbolism. just skimming the surface of understanding. the sort of thing that everyone else figured out right off the bat and it took me maybe two days of analyzing the movie to figure it out.

head in my hands !!!!!!

[nomairuins]

its so embarassing likee. going to talk abt a feeling you have but you already know ppl will be like Oh that sounds like depression lol and its like. well yes . i know . trust me i am so aware i am depressed . but its still like a thing ive been thinking abt and wanting to talk abt but ik itll just be like Ok hun 👍. idk idk what response i would want tho ig FNFNFNF

[britneyshakespeare]

without doubt one of the worst things about bratz dolls is that you cannot display them without shoes bc they look weird as fuck. stumpy ass bitches

[infizero]

showing my growth by rejecting the “every ship gets happily married and becomes wonderful parents to lovely children” mindset and admitting that many pairings should just not be parents

[wildflowercryptid]

honestly, i think the idea of red stepping out of the spotlight and settling down into a quiet life is a fun outcome for them. dude just wants to rest, let them be a househusband or something.

[phagodyke]

yeah I'm not gonna talk abt it am I...

[loumauve]

I snapped today at work, and by snapped I mean I politely commented on a help desk ticket by summing up an mess of an (type of) issue that's come up for at least the fourth time in the 2+ months I've been managing user accounts, and asked the person responsible to fix it (himself for once) because last time I fixed his mess-up it took me two whole days to work out the details with at least four other colleagues from different departments and I really don't want to do it again. there's other shit that needs doing, I've been working 10+ hour days for most of this week already, so I need to cut down not add on more.

(good thing tho - at least we managed to fix the issue where the dataset of a newer employee got mixed up with another one of the same name and therefore wasn't able to apply for any of the access/accounts she needed. technically not entirely my area but it does impact us not being allowed to create an account for her so I figured I might as well track that issue down. took three days and at least three other people, but hey - it should all work out now. yay for that)

[basslinegrave]

thinking about the sonic 2 premiere i went to alone, at like 3pm (it was def early afternoon but not sure when) with just like 5 other people in the room (moms with kids) and how everyone left before the credits ended and i was sitting there Gripping the fuck out of the seat in front of me after the whole movie and then seeing post creds shadow i yelled (quietly) (sorry to the staff guy coming in to clean) it was the best movie experience ive ever had cant believe its been almost 2 years now

also the very next day i went to see it again with a friend to show him what the fuck i just saw and also make sure what i saw was actually real and not a daydream

[toestalucia]

guy whos gonna feel like a fraud whenever they end up supporting someone to move on