#but i might not have time to draw in general. i still haven’t figured out my plan yet

[ra-vio]

Two-Bee

[thehmn]

It might simply be that I don’t frequent ADHD forums enough but I haven’t seen a whole lot of talk about learned social withdrawal.

As a child I made friends left and right but as we all turned into self-conscious teenagers it slowly became more and more difficult for me. Plain and simple, other people thought I was weird. For some reason I never got bullied which I think is related to something my teachers kept telling my parents “She’s such a sweet, bright child and we can tell she’s not malicious or trying to be disruptive on purpose but we can’t teach her anything”

Basically people couldn’t figure me out. I had good social skills with both children and adults, I had a good moral compass, i felt compassion and empathy for others and was willing to go against my friends if I felt they were being bullies, I taught myself English and my drawings showed good observation skills. Because of all that it was decided I should start school a year sooner than most kids and my parents were very proud. Unfortunately that’s probably one of the main reasons why I was never diagnosed with raging ADHD as a child. People soon realized I didn’t do well in a school setting but assumed it was because I “wasn’t done playing” and my ADHD symptoms were interpreted as childishness.

So as I got older my classmates started to distance themselves from me. They were always kind and friendly but they didn’t know how to deal with me and ever since then people have always been worryingly comfortable with calling me weird to my face. I get the impression it’s because they think it’s a choice on my part. To them I’m clearly of “normal intelligence” so I must be acting like this on purpose and my parents would repeatedly tell me to “just act normal” as a child when I told them I was struggling to make friends. I tried so damn hard but kept failing. I knew something had to be different about me and when I first heard about ADHD I thought “That’s me! That’s how I feel!” but my parents said that was impossible because I wasn’t hyperactive.

Because nobody wanted to help me I eventually learned to just stop trying to make friends and keep to myself. I was so tired of being told by friendly, well-meaning people that I was so weird and quirky and unique only for them to distance themselves once they realized it was permanent and not something I could turn on and off for parties. I always enjoyed being alone so it wasn’t a huge loss but it did feel incredibly lonely at times.

Things got a lot better when I became an adult, mostly because adults are generally more chill than teens so my ADHD behavior isn’t as embarrassing to them and ironically they’re often surprised to learn I don’t make friends easily. Unfortunately I learned to be withdrawn in my formative years so new friends are still a rarity. Before I really sat down and put my past into context I even started to wonder if I had autism despite not connecting with anything autistic people said about their experiences. I went as far as to be tested but wasn’t surprised when the diagnosis was negative because of course it was, I kinda already knew that. I was just looking for an explanation.

So while there can be overlap between ADHD and autism (I have just such a friend) my experience is also that oftentimes people with ADHD simply learn to stay away from social situations and entertain ourselves which ends up looking like autism to outsiders.

[haza1ll]

animation for THE NEON VOIDD BABYYYY

this post is for @sugarpasteltmnt

‼️‼️MEGA YAPPING AHEAD PLEASE BEWARE‼️‼️

this might end up being really long and rambly and sappy but maybe not who knows.( it was) (and also featuring numerous spelling errors i am way too tired to fix and i am not re reading what i just wrote) SO. yknow how when chap idek..25(?) came out and i was all like “yeah so i made this animation for TNV and ill drop it when the fic ends” in your ask box? so. I FINISHED IT RAHHH. technically it has been finished since i sent that ask but ohhh my goodness did it need polishing. i haven’t animated in 4 years before that and omg it felt so good getting back into it but IDFK SOMETHING IS STILL NOT UP TO MY STANDARDS. i feel like i could have done so much more with it and i deffo wanted to but as soon as i told myself “oh yeah this is basically done” art block literally sucker punched me in the gut out of NOWHERE. I COULD NOT PICK UP MY I PAD. I COULD NOT DRAW. I WOULD STARE AT THE WIP ANIMATION AND BE UPSET BC I DDINT WANNA WORK ON IT AHH. that goes with saying. i kept having this thought in the back of my head “you need to finish it. you have a wip sitting. finish it. go do it. what are you doing are you STARTING ANOTHER PROJECT??? anddd yeah i got super distracted with other stuff and other projects and then i started spending my free time rewatching 2012 turtles and omg this summer has been a mess. i have all the free time in the world and i choose to be the least productive as possible with it even though i have a job that lets me literally sit on my phone and do whatever i want if no one is there. (i’ve brought my switch to work numerous times ☠️) what i was trying to get at is the fact that TNV has inspired a lot of the old me to come back and i lowk missed her. i really missed the point in all those words up there but im here now so whatever. BUT. TNV made me make a tumblr account, i got back in to animation AND digital art in general, got back into longfics that are ongoing, AND it also helped kickstart ideas for writing. i’ve got so many stories now!! you are such an inspirational person pastels i just- every time i read a new chapter of yours it made me wanna go get up and do something. i wanted to create something. because at the end of each chapter, i would think- “woah. a person out there just wrote this. they just sat down one day and committed. i wanna do that” so i did that. just huge thank you and shoutout to you pastel. like damn. idk no words from me here. just a bunch of platonic hugs and kisses and thankyouthankyouthsnkuou for this lovely heart wrenching but also sweet story. i love this fandom (tmnt) so SO much and i think it’s so awesome how interactive you are with your own personal NV fans. crazy how we’re all here because of a bunch of turtles. 

STUFF ABOUT THE ANIMATION:

okay i really like to talk and if you let me, i will run my mouth. this is the internet so im gonna do just that. so more words for you to read 😁. AHEM. so like i stated before in the genuinely scary mess of words up there, i haven’t touched animation in a while, like, 4 years a while. yes i’ve done digital art here and there along the years, i haven’t been doing it nearly as much as i need to to use some programs to their full potential. layers are still confusing, and don’t even get me started on multiply and all that jazz. shading never comes out right on digital for me, i gotta work that one out. so, for this animation, i decided to go with a very rough style. nothing needed to be perfect, i just wanted to live my little life of trying to experiment with a bunch of different things all at once in one short animatic. I wanted to do that little ball bounce thing all animation artists start with (i kinda included that with the key). i also wanted to have a go at lip sync (no hate it was my first time) and also timing the animation with the music. i wanted to see how smoothly i could move a figure in and out of and out of the screen as well, which honestly, i think that part might be my favorite. i think i did a good job, and thats what matters. the animation itself lost a bunch of quality on importing it- no clue how it happened but now the ending is grainy af. ignore that pls lol- but it was sitting in my flipaclip for god, i dont even know, 3 months now? i kept going back and forth on if i wanted to share it or not, so im throwing it to the wolves and i guess whatrver happrns happens and im good with that. yay. im actually rrwlly tired now sooo *leaves this absolute pile of words with a video attached at your feet and stumbles away quickly*

also i’ve genuinely never posted anything so i’m learning how to use tumblr too ☠️

[quibbs126]

could you do a blackberry x adventurer fankid if you havent already pretty please :3

I can’t really say that I made this because of the aforementioned “I haven’t drawn anything in a while” post, it’s just because I was scrolling through my requests and remembered that I was in the middle of drawing her before and thought “might as well finish��

Anyways sorry, this is Blackberry Scone Cookie

So if I’m being perfectly honest, I don’t entirely know what her deal is. I know that, unlike her father, she is very willing to acknowledge that she’s rich and uphold that side of her family. She’s also at least outwardly, very similar to her mother in being generally reserved in her emotions. I think one idea I had for her is that she does cool things, she just does with a disinterested face, which kind of just heightens the coolness

Okay so I’m gonna be completely honest, I am now going to just make something up as I write. That top part was in part for me to figure something out

Outwardly, she seems disinterested, but she has plenty of emotions, you just either need to pay attention to her actual words instead of tone, or you just need to get close enough to her for the mask to fall. She also has quite an interest in stories of magic and in mystical artifacts, though she prefers simply reading about them over going out to find them. Also, despite her interest in the subject, she just doesn’t have that much of an ability for magic/the occult, and has difficulty seeing ghosts (best she has is that she can sometimes see Onion), which is one of the reasons she sticks to simply reading about them rather than going out herself

While she has respect for her father in how he goes out on his own to seek out treasure and artifacts, she just doesn’t understand why he hates his rich life. Her only real guess is that he sees it as clashing with his adventurer persona, which she thinks is kind of stupid. She’s also pretty much the one running the estate while he’s gone (she’s an adult by this point) and being the one to actually deal with things such as house guests. Not to say Adventurer was an absent parent, and he’d actually take her along when she was younger on some of his expeditions, but he can disappear sometimes now

She doesn’t hate her parents, and it’s not like they were horrible parents to her, but she feels distant from her mother due to her lack of ghost abilities, and some amount of resentment for her father for being so attached to this persona of his and his disdain for his actual heritage, especially since she’s fully accepting of it and it unintentionally makes her self conscious about it

She’s not super sure of her place in the world, but for now she’s just trying to do her job as a member of a rich family

Hm, so I ended up writing more on her than I thought I would. Ah well, not a bad thing. Well, design time

So her name’s Blackberry Scone due to me headcanoning Adventurer to be some sort of shortbread or biscuit (I know they’re the same thing in other countries, but I’m unsure as to what kind of biscuit he is now). Scones are kind of like biscuits, add some blackberry and there you go, blackberry scones

A potential name was Blackberry Cobbler, but I think I prefer scone, especially since I made her more rich-seeming

Blackberry scone:

So almost everything I made of her, outside of the small sketches and some of the colors, I made a couple weeks ago while waiting at the dentist’s office, and I mostly blocked her out of my mind after that as a result. So I don’t really remember a lot of the design process

I feel like I gave her that hairstyle to make her look “cool”, but then I kind of threw that aspect of her character away. But I still like it, so she keeps it

Also, her suit was originally a bit more reddish, but I changed it today to make it more purple so it’d fit with the color of the scones. They don’t really look that red, so I changed it. But I think now the colors may not all look the best together

I feel like I may have made her colors all a bit too similar to each other, and/or not given her enough, but I don’t really know what else to change

Also when I came back today, the thickness of the lines was bothering me. Maybe it’s because I’ve been dabbling with the Syrup brush now, but I think I need to play with line width more now, since some of the smaller things like the brooch feel like they have too thick of lines

I don’t think her design is necessarily bad though, it’s mostly color wise I have issues with

And yeah, that’s Blackberry Scone, I hope you enjoy her

[a-clown-with-wings]

can I have an outline of how you draw bodies for reference please ^^ if u can and want too

I’m not good with tutorials because I’ve never been asked, but I’ll try my best tee hee

Also forgive the crusty art, it’s 2 am and I’m drawing mermaids.

Now, personally, I have a very different style that’s mainly culminated of many other styles that I have studied from other artists that I like, so this might not work for you or any other person that sees this, but I think trying in general is a big step in the right direction!

1. BLOCKING!!

Funny enough, I just started this step very recently, so if anything, it’s just an extra step to make sure everything is right. It’s actually helped me quite a lot since I have problems with anatomy and posing, so I really recommend it as a first step.

Think of it as a really messy sketch. In this step, you can do literally anything without being upset for getting frustrated because it doesn’t look right. It’s just a silhouette of an idea that you will expand on in the next step. I also recommend this for character design since silhouette is a BIG part of it and can make or break a line of characters. The last thing you want is for everyone character to look like a recolor of each other. ^^’

2. SHAPES!

I cannot stress enough how important shape language is for literally every single thing. Everything is made of shapes. People, animals, buildings, food. It all can be broken down into squares and circles. This is a part of anatomy that takes a little study, but once you get it, you get it.

For me, it’s changed a lot, but to put it simply: trapezoid and triangles. That’s all you really need for torsos really.

Now, for people of different body types, that’s a whole different story. Of course pear shaped people are not going to be built the same as people that are under rectangle or apple. That’s for another day, though. Slow and steady winds the race. If you take in too much, you’ll stress yourself out.

3. DETAILS!

Warning! If this part stresses you out the most, you are not alone.

I am better at drawing women and femmes because that was what my first Ocs were, so I’m still learning maize anatomy, but whatever. Nothing to worry about now.

This is completely reliant on what the person looks like. People have different bodies so not everyone is going to have a perfect hourglass figure. That being said, simply making the body wider or taller is not enough!! People have fat, it’s just one of the many things we are made of. Some people have more, some have less.

Think of it like a blanket almost. If you were to put a bed sheet over a chair, you would be able to see almost everything regarding the shape of it. If it was made of something thicker, like chunky crochet yarn, it would be harder to see the shape of the chair underneath. That’s putting it very simply. Things like muscle and stuff would be like throwing clothes onto the chair before putting the blanket on. Not a nursing major or anything, so take this with a grain of salt. I’m a stupid little guy.

It would take me forever to explain all of this, so I suggest looking into it on your own time in order to get a more in depth understanding of bodies and stuff like that. :)

EXTRAS!

If you haven’t noticed already p, which I completely understand, I am not that good at robots. I joined fnaf when Security Breach came out cus I like Suna nd Moon and I started this account with the intent of gaining an audience for my other Ocs. You goobers reeled me in and now I’m stuck here.

Anyway, when it comes to metal people, I draw them slightly different. They don’t have organs or anything, and are video game characters, so they don’t need a space for them. And nothing is better than saving space :)

I also make their bust a literal circle because I come on this app each day and see someone else draw them better and I start to sob uncontrollably. /j

This is completely up to you since people draw them all kinds of silly ways and I see no problem with that.

I don’t know how to end this but I hope this helped in some way :)

[princess-of-the-corner]

I think Shoto’s Scar Theories would probably be (in order of most believable to least believable):

Quirk Accident - Shoto’s, like, 6 or something when this happens. Within a year of Quirk Manifestation is probably when the most personal Quirk related injuries happen to kids. When they are still figuring out control. Plus, in CC, depending On how popular Toya is, the public might know about his issues with his Quirk, and draw conclusions from that. This theory is the most widely accepted.

Quirk Accident (Roughhousing) - Those who believe Shoto’s scar was caused by one of his siblings, but again, most think it was an accident.

Villain - No one heard anything about a major villain attack on Endeavour’s family, but if it involved injuring a kid (and possibly the guy’s wife?) it makes sense they wouldn’t want to publicize this. At least one person tried to start a public betting ring on which villain gave Shoto his scar. This was regarded widely as in poor taste, and said person was buried in lawsuits.

Rei - at least a few people somewhat correctly guess Rei gave Shoto his scar, connecting the time of his injury to her hospitalization. Reactions range, but only one reporter was stupid enough to ask Enji, to his face, if this was true. That interview never made it to air (the reporter likely didn’t either).

Endeavour - really only popular among those with hardcore anti-hero sentiment, like Stain followers. Most dismiss this immediately, because Endeavour is a Hero, and there’s NO WAY a Hero could be a child abuser! Rarely escapes its specific corners of the internet.

Then, of course, the Crack Theories:

It’s just makeup

He has a terrible skin infection

Its actually a Tattoo

Shoto was just Born With It (ignore all photographic evidence otherwise)

He did it on purpose so he would look cool

What Scar?

-

Yeah exactly like!

I think the ‘they got attacked by some villain’ thing would be the most popular theory given Rei’s mental health issues. Like the public doesn’t know about the larger aspect of what’s going on with Rei’s mental health so there’s this assumption that it was a new thing rather than a slow decline.

And sure. She could have intense guilt blaming herself for something accidental. Whether it be just general ‘my baby got hurt’ parental guilt, the ‘I looked away for five minutes and something went wrong’ guilt, or even something like the tea kettle but more genuinely accidental, that could bring guilt. But enough for a full mental hospital check in? Especially as time goes on and she stays there?

But trauma from some villain attacking her and her kid(s)? That’s the sort of thing where someone would need to be in a mental health facility for a while. So yeah I think this is probably the assumption.

other notes:

the public knowledge on the kids’ Quirks is somewhat spotty. Again, while the kids haven’t avoided the media entirely, they’re pretty low-key. So while there may be some information about their Quirks, they don’t know all the details. I think at most they’d know what Element the kids can create, but not much else (ie: they know Toya can make Fire, but not that he got Ice Resistance instead of Fireproofing)

Some of this gets more known later down the line(in CC at least) when Toya and then later Shoto make it to high school and start showing off their own skills and drawbacks. Fuyumi and Natsuo get a lot less attention, though both did participate in UA’s Sports Festivals during their time so there’s at least confirmation about them using Ice.

So yeah that might not fully factor into everyone’s perceptions at first.

[pansy-picnics]

Hiya!

I’m curious, what do you think uknighted dream would argue about and how would they apologise to each other?

Cause I personally think Cass hates apologising, Eugene’s not used to it, and Rapunzel according to the show can do no wrong!

Oh, and if you don’t mind me asking, are you planning on updating Children of the moon soon? Sorry, it’s just one of my favourite fics for this ship!

Thank you x

God ive been so bad about that fic i swear i have so many ideas for it but this year has been SOOO busy for me 😭😭 most of my free time has been dedicated to drawing and playing games cuz writing doesn’t come as naturally to me ngl….BUT SOON ENOUGH I WILL LOCK IN I PROMISE!!!! its been crossing my mind a lot more recently snd ive started a little bit of the next chapter…Ur guys’ support means the world to me im so happy to know people enjoy it as much as i do 🥹 and i desperately wish i had more time to dedicate to all my projects

as for your first question though….LMAO yeah the show did rapunzel DIRTY….Honestly it really depends for me, but i think you’re definitely right about cass and eugene. and rapunzel definitely struggles i think to apologize Genuinely, because she can get really overwhelmed with her guilt and anxiety to the point that she loses sight of the actual problem. its kind of a rough spot for all of them

I honestly haven’t thought abt it a lot so idk if i know what they’d fight about Specifically, but what i can come up with off the top of my head is ummm

rapunzel is a chronic Fixer. whenever someone expresses a problem to her shes quicker to try and “solve” it than she is to just. Listen because she kind of has grown up with the idea that everything is Her fault and She needs to fix everything. I think cass and eugene can end up feeling really unheard because of this. Usually it’s just something they can quickly talk through but when put on top of other conflicts it exacerbates things a LOT.

Raps, cass and eugene can all be INCREDIBLY stubborn and set in their ways and they sometimes struggle to hear each other out. rapunzel i think has her moments, but generally she isn’t too bad about it; eugene has a temper and he can be VERY petty but i think unless he REALLY has a reason to hold a grudge against you, he usually just needs about a week to cool down- but Queen of Anxious Attachment Cassandra Tangled (tm) can end up going AGES holding a grudge and just refusing to check in with anyone. as you probably can imagine it does not go well

i think bc rapunzel has such a strong belief that love is transactional she sometimes gets trapped in a cycle where she basically attempts to min-max her time with eugene and cass respectively because she worries if she isn’t spending “equal” amounts of time with them then it means she must not love them enough. as you might imagine this causes a lot more harm than good….

cass is REALLY REALLY bad at asking for help and being vulnerable and especially admitting when someone does something that hurts her. i think this causes a LOT of really stupid miscommunications between them. eugene or rapunzel are both usually able to talk her through it depending on who shes upset at…and it really helps to have a third party there who she trusts because otherwise it could easily just spiral out of control and cause her to grow bitter and distant (As seen in canon LOL)

Ummm….To be completely honest i cant really see a lot of situations where cass and eugene like, Genuinely fight after they get with rapunzel. they obviously still bicker a lot but like, frankly after they’ve both figured their shit out i just don’t think they have much of a reason to fight anymore. Their whole rivalry has always been really childish and most of the more serious stressors have already been taken care of by the time the series ends. i think most of their fights are just over stupid shit and get resolved within the hour. i think they’d have to both go through a MAJOR traumatic event to actually get as bad as they were in season 1 again LMAOOO

How they apologize definitely depends a lot on the situation (go figure) but i genuinely dont think they get into Big fights very often…so when it does happen it takes a toll on all of them.

eugene i imagine is a little extra but sincere. doesn’t do Too much because he doesn’t want to overwhelm the girls, but probably just picks a quiet night and orders takeout or makes a small dinner to talk over. sometimes it can take eugene a while to realize when he’s fucked up but when he DOES realize it, it hits him like a TRUCK and he IMMEDIATELY jumps to do everything in his power to rectify it. he’s a big softie <3

cass is a lot more prideful than raps and eugene whether she realizes it or not, so its a lot harder for her to admit her faults, even when she knows she was wrong. she doesn’t like to make a big deal of when she apologizes because it’s really embarrassing for her. she’s the kind of person to send the apology text to the group chat and have to like physically put her phone down and start pacing around the room. To me.

rapunzel, like i said struggles to genuinely apologize because her anxiety and guilt can just become so overwhelming….she usually has to spend a bit of time away before shes ready to Really talk things out. When she is she definitely shows it quietly but clearly, she writes little notes with a paper bouquet and leaves them around where the other two will find them. they leave her little notes back and let her come to them when she’s ready.

admittedly i’m Not good with thinking of character conflicts off the top of my head, they have to come to me in Visions, and i just don’t end up thinking about a lot of ukd conflicts so hopefully this is okay LOL…..I would love to hear other ppls thoughts….. :3

[sillygoofylittleartist]

I just realized that my inbox is full and I haven’t answered anyone so here I’ll answer some of the questions that people have asked me because I feel bad for ignoring all these lovely people.

-Yes I’m okay, thanks to everyone for asking. I just didn’t post in a while because I’m mad inconsistent and also got busy with other things. This redesign series is just something I do for fun so if I don’t have time or get involved with other interests I might not post for a while.

- after I finish the superheroes redesigns I’ll do some of their civilian forms. I really dislike some of their outfits and think they could be improved in some ways. I’m also open to doing some akumas though I would have to be very selective on which I would do since there are just far too many for me to tackle without losing interest. I might even make some original heroes based on the miraculous in the North American box.

- I probably won’t do any of the New York special characters but you never know I could change my mind. I probably will do ladydragon from the Shanghai special but I’m still trying to figure out what direction to go with her since she technically doesn’t have a miraculous and doesn’t need to follow some of the design aspects of miraculous holders.

- I don’t know if I’ll do shadow moth with the ladybug or black cat miraculous since in the show he only had those looks for a very short amount of time, and since combining either cat or ladybug with both peacock and butterfly all together would be incredibly challenging to make a cohesive look. Like there are a lot of conflicting color palettes and motifs and I can’t see any way you could add cat ears to him without it being silly. Like honestly how do you turn shadow moth into a cat boy and keep him menacing, it’s something to ponder.

- I might do some season six lb and chat designs but I’ll probably wait to see what the show comes up with first to base mine off of. I generally like to take inspiration from canon when I can and just try to elevate those designs.

- some characters I haven’t done simply because I like the canon designs too much for example chat noir, shady bug, ryuko, and queen bee are all peak to me. That being said there are others that I also thought were peak that I either made small changes to or tried other directions with that I really enjoyed (bunnix, Rena rouge, Viperion, and purple tigress) so I might go back and do that to the other ones that I genuinely think have good designs.

- if anyone wants to use my miraculous art for fics, or draw any of my designs with credit I give full permission.

- finally I have a few redesigns that I’ve finished and have ready to post. I’ve got polymouse, ladybugs guardian upgrade, and the ice power ups for both ladybug and chat noir. I’m currently working on carapace and plan to do the water and space power ups next. I’m not super inspired to do Pegasus, minatourox, and king monkey but I do plan to do them I just need to play around with some ideas.

I like getting asks and comments so please feel free to do so, I’ll try to be better about checking my inbox and responding 😅

[cattocavo]

Six sketch sunday

Thanks so much for tagging me @thewholelemon

I actually have something pretty exciting to share if i do say so myself!

In november 2022 i did a master study of romeo and juliet by frank bernard dicksee. I was very happy with it. But over time I’ve become less and less happy with it, specifically how baz looks :((

This is due to the fact that i traced A LOT in late 2022 (I was 15 ok, I’m sure we’ve all had one of those phases😭) I traced the whole painting, but baz was hard bc the original painting featured a woman, and her whole figure was covered by a white loose dress. 2022 me did their best interpreting the shapes and forming a new body for baz, but honestly they didn’t do it very well. Ive hated Baz’s face and body for a while now, but still loved simon and the painting in general. Which is why I came to the conclusion that for me to be at peace and happy with it again, I have to remaster it!

And again I’ve had this on my mind for a while now, mulling it over, because it’s quite a big project. But 7 days ago i finalized my decision and started looking at references and whatnot. It took me so long to find references bc I was confused of the angle of Juliet’s head in the original painting (so I’ve changed the angle whoops) and i needed to make sense of it all. Before i knew it i had spent 5 hours (according to procreates tracker) drawing, and literally nothing had changed.. but then i spent like 2 hours more and THAT did it. It was like digging a whole in the ground searching for water. You dig a little and nothing happens, and when you finally dig deep enough the water reveals itself like a goldmine.

Anyways, i haven’t gotten around to do any recoloring yet, so ill show you the sketch (ahem, traced) of my 2022 version versus what I have now

The one on the left is the 2022 version. The one on the right is the current sketch.

I’m trying to incorporate a lot more body language from baz this time around. I think the old sketch of baz was very rigid. His torso is very short 💀 my biggest issue was his face though. It was far too feminine. The bone structure wasn’t exactly giving baz, in fact the whole face didn’t look like baz to me. The expression also bothered me, it was too superficial. Like it’s exactly the predictable expression you expect him to have. I tried to spice it up in the new version by making him appear a bit more anguished. It’s romeo and juliet after all.

Im currently looking at references to what clothes he should be wearing (don’t worry, i wont cover up his sleeves. Even if it’s more time period accurate) so if y’all have any inspo or suggestions, feel free to share them with me!

While baz is the inly thing getting completely redone, I’m also touching up some other thins. Just giving it a more refined, finished look overall. The plants in the original were really messily done, so i’m gonna work a lot on those. 2022 me also slacked on the curtains, so I’m repainting those to match the original frank bernard painting.

Once I’m done with it all i think i might sell some prints. Ive gotten requests to sell prints of this one before, but never really got around to do more than research. If i do make prints, I’m a bit worried they’ll all go to waste bc they’ll have to be shipped from denmark, and shipping in expensive :(( (I’ve tried to set up middlemen and it didn’t work for me. Red bubble wont even allow me to add a credit card😬) but if y’all are still interested in prints, do let me know! Ill definitely put in more of an effort to make it happen if i know it wont be in vain :))

Thats all from me for today :3 see ya next time

(Also check out what my COBB partner @thewholelemon is doing! It’s gonna be so good!)

Tags! @monbons @raenestee @j-nipper-95 @orange-peony

Id love to see what y’all are doing!

[honourablejester]

I have seen you put together a number of character concepts involving Warforged (with Silence, your Grave Cleric, being a personal favorite), but I was curious what your thoughts are on Warforged as a whole and how to characterize them? What themes do they play with, who are they? Basically, if you had the opportunity to rewrite Warforged however you liked, what would they be like?

Oh, I do love Silence too. Definitely one of my favourite concepts I’ve done. I’m so glad you enjoyed her!

As for the warforged in general … I love them, but artificial life has always been one of my favourite themes in genre fiction. And one of the primary themes when it comes to artificial life is that it was built, it was no accident of biology, an artificial lifeform was consciously created by someone. And, most often, for a purpose. So if you were built/born for a specific purpose, how does that sit with you? How do you react to what you were intended, given life, to accomplish? You can get this with non-artificial lifeforms as well, people have children for very specific purposes all the time, but barring settings with genetic engineering or similar concepts, there’s still some luck of the draw in how such a child might turn out. But robots, warforged, are purpose built. Your body, your form, was crafted to spec. The evidence of your purpose is written onto your body. How do you react to that? And is there more for you outside of it?

So some questions to ask when building a warforged character: What were they designed for? How does that design show in their physical form? Are they aware of what they were built for? If so, how do they react to that knowledge? Did they obey their design and fill the role set out for them? For how long? Do they still? Or have they found a new purpose for themselves? If so, did they have to fight for it? How do they feel about their creator(s)? Do they know their creator? Were they mass produced or personally crafted? Do they have feelings about that distinction? Are things such as them common in the setting? How do they feel about that? Does the setting have a position re artificial life and souls/gods/the afterlife? Do they have beliefs about souls/gods/the afterlife, and how it might apply to them? Do they believe they are a person? Do those around them encourage or despise that belief?

Which, actually, is a point. Warforged as a D&D race were designed for the Eberron setting, and I don’t actually play that setting? Or I haven’t so far, anyway. So when I’m talking about warforged, I’m leaving out a lot of the setting-specific lore for them, like how old they are, the war they were built for, the Eberron-specific backstory of House Cannith and the Last War. Though most/all of these questions will still apply in Eberron, you just have some premade answers for some of them. But pulling warforged outside of Eberron, you are going to have to work with your group/DM to figure out how artificial lifeforms fit in and are viewed in the setting you’re playing.

If you mean how would I rewrite them within Eberron, I don’t necessarily have an answer, as I haven’t read too much into the setting. My general view on most settings/lore is to just tweak things if you have themes you want to explore on a character. For example, if you wanted to ignore that most Eberron warforged have a sexless form and therefore a more abstract concept of gender, in order to explore a warforged that was purpose built to appear as a certain sex, so long as everyone else you’re playing with is okay with that, I’d say go for it. Or if you wanted to explore a warforged that was much, much older than the 30-odd years since the Last War, then maybe House Cannith got their ideas from somewhere, an ancient cache of technology, and you are evidence of that and that puts you in a very, very dangerous position. Talk with your group/DM and find out what’s possible.

And mechanically, they’re fine. I like what they have. I do specifically enjoy Specialised Design, that they get one skill and one tool proficiency built in, because it plays back into that theme I enjoy of your body being built for a purpose. A warforged with proficiency in history and calligraphy tools was designed for a very different purpose than a warforged with proficiency in stealth and thieves tools. It’s such a nice little detail to throw in and built some character around. Were you built as an infiltrator droid (anyone seen The Zeta Project?), or as an elegant automata for a king to show off at court? I know a lot of people use that free skill and tool proficiency to tailor to their class, but I really enjoy stopping to think and use it to show what they were originally built for. Which may or may not match well with what they’re doing now. Maybe you have a dissonant skill/tool, because you fully rejected what you were designed for and sought your own path, but the original design can never be fully overwritten, and your hands still remember what they were made to do. It’s a nice little feature to build some character concepts around (and, yes, you can never go wrong with a free skill/tool).

So, um. Does any of that help? Heh.

[hsslilly-blog]

been thinking about my bratz doll post. im going to start sharing my doll customising journey here so i get motivated enough to get back into it lol. the last time i posted about it was back in february i think? anyway

my plan is to make three custom dolls. claire (hwu mc), blair (hss mc) and addison (hwu). i also hope to make a bianca custom doll as i’ve found the perfect base doll for her, but she wasn’t in my original plans.

here’s my progress so far. all the pictures are going to be terrible btw:

blair stewart

outfit: their outfit is pretty much complete. the only thing missing is their sweater and their hairband. and i really really want to find/make a tie for them. i dislike the fact the skirt is a VERY grayish dark blue (in the picture it looks straight up gray) and i’ve thought about dyeing it blue but i’m afraid to ruin it and end up with nothing. so i’m keeping it as is for the time being. the boots are a perfect match. i plan on painting the gray details on the purse and making it completely white. but it’s very cute, it looks a lot like the one from this post.

the doll: this is a 2015 fashionista barbie doll that was WAY overpriced when i got her. i really like her hair colour though… it’s not exactly copper, it’s a very nice shade of pinkish orange. the picture does it no justice, but it looks a lot like the shade of orange i used to use for blair’s hair in my early 2021 drawings of them. the only issue with this doll: she has flat feet. which sucks. but she’s plastic so we just need to throw her in boiling water and mold it to my liking. medieval torture style.

my plan: i plan on repainting her face. i like this screening, but it looks… weird. im going to give her blair’s heterochromia + their scar and i plan on giving her less eyebrows. blair doesn’t have much of those. as for the hair, it still has some remains of box glue so i need to get rid of that before anything else. i plan on cutting it shoulder length and flipping the ends. i don’t know how i’m doing blair’s hairstyle though (the hair part/bangs) because this doll’s rooting is really weird. but we’ll see.

what do we think. hairstyle ofc not 100% blair compliant but gives me a general idea of what to do. there’s a really cool way of doing the bump/beehive-like/teased crown i sometimes draw them in, so i might try it if the doll has enough hair. also i realized just now how the eyes in this sculpt are very far apart. lol. i think it fits blair.

addison sinclair

outfit: and nothing for her!! i have her jacket and her boots (which have not been painted yet) and that’s it. addison has been the reason of my restless nights. i just can’t find a cropped top that looks like hers!!!! i didn’t think it would be so hard to find a blue/grayish/jeans-like cropped top but my god!! and the worst part of it all: i found a dress online that is a perfect match to hers but it’s been OUT OF STOCK since february!! here it is:

it’s not a Perfect Match, but i can work around it. it’s more than close enough to me. i’ve been checking the website every week but they haven’t restocked it yet and i fear they aren’t going to do so anytime soon. atp i think i’ll just sew it myself. i just need to find a similiar fabric to her dress. as for the socks… i have some white doll socks and i’m going to dye them purple. no bracelets yet.

the doll: i cannot for the life of me tell you which doll this is. she looks like a ~2012 barbie doll but i can’t figure out which one. and i don’t think these are the original clothes. the ad said she’s a fashionista but i don’t believe this. she does have articulated legs, but she doesn’t Look Like a fashionista. i think she’s from the early i can be line before they started using rubber legs. anyway. i fell in love with her hair. it’s perfect for addi.

my plan: i plan on repainting her eyes. here’s the thing guys. i’m a brown eyed addison truther. sorry that’s just who i am. i also want to close her mouth LOL. give her addison’s red lipstick and thin the eyebrows. as for the hair i think it’s perfect as is. i’m probably just going to style it better.

i plan on closing her mouth w/ apoxie paste or like. makeup clay (is that what it’s called?). her lips are going to be smaller too but i got lazy with the drawing.

claire swanson

outfit: isn’t she pretty!!!! i’m still having issues with her casual outfit but her formal outfit/the red dress i always draw her in is done. besides the shoes. i don’t like these open toed heels with this dress. for her Signature Look i have this cute red top which is a great match but i can’t find any shorts that match hers/the top. so far i have a miniskirt and these.. jean shorts. not my favourite. i have to paint the heels white but i found these gold hoops!!! w for me. no bracelets yet.

the doll: this is a 2011 glitz barbie doll and she’s been my holy grail for years now. the blue variant is so so so pretty. i never thought i’d find her since 1. it’s an old barbie doll and 2. i live in brazil. and then…. i found a listing online IN BOX!!! i got the purple variant but the screening is basically the same. i think her makeup is stronger though? but maybe it’s just a stock image thing. anyway i’m obsessed with the hair colour. this was such a great period for barbie if you were into almost-white-platinum-blonde hair. barbie bleach era.

my plan: i didn’t want to touch this doll but she is missing… claire-ness. i plan on repainting the eyes, giving her claire’s beauty mark and her red lipstick. the hair is perfect and honestly. such great box hair. like 13 year old box hair.

it’s not visible on the first picture and i edited out here, but she two black spots in her nose. otherwise she’s fine.

alright. my main issue at the moment is that i can’t seem to find any 100% acetone nail polish remover so i can get started on the repaints. they don’t sell these here anymore. so i’ve been looking for SOMETHING that can clean off the screening of the dolls. so far, no luck. which is why i got demotivated back in february. also something i probably should have mentioned: i have terrible motor skills so repainting these dolls is going to be so much fun!

setting some goals for the time being: 1. paint the accessories that need to be painted and 2. style blair’s hair. okay! that’s it!

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Guess what I did last night, everyone? I performed stand-up in a club for the first time! I’d done five nights at pub open mics, which I can quickly summarize as:

- July 26: Go to a pub night with my brother, who’s been performing comedy for years. They have about eight scheduled comedians, plus a “lotto spot”, where literally anyone can put their name in a pitcher and they draw one out and that person can perform. The lotto is mostly used by comedians who aren’t on the bill, but turn up to watch, and throw their name in on the off chance that they’ll get stage time. It’s also sometimes used by new comedians who haven’t established themselves enough to get booked spots when they ask for them, but they can build up some cred by doing lotto spots. It is not generally used by random members of the audience, but it technically could be.

I wasn’t quite a completely random member of the audience. I’d been going to open mic comedy nights at a different pub, which ran every Thursday, for a few months. Just going to watch, but often enough so I had an idea of how they work and who performs at these things. And my brother’s been doing it for thirteen years, early in his career I used to go see him all the time. And I had written some stuff down, practiced saying it out loud a few times, thought maybe I’d try performing someday. But had no concrete plans to start at any specific time.

Then I went with my brother to a night at a different pub from the one where I normally went, he convinced me to put my name in the lotto, just to try, it probably won’t get picked. Obviously it did get picked. I think there were about ten names in that pitcher, I’m still not 100% convinced my name really did get picked, I think my brother might have told the comedians that this is his sister’s name, if they want to see his sister try comedy then just call that name out regardless of what paper is drawn. But I have no proof.

Anyway, I did it. I talked for about six minutes. I said the things I had written down and tried out in my bedroom. It was less terrifying than I’d expected. The crowd laughed quite a bit, but only because I’d said at the beginning that I have never done this before and didn’t expect my name to get picked so they were all being nice. But it was fun. It was a huge adrenaline rush. Afterward I got drunk with comedians.

- That was a Monday. Three days later, I go out to the regular pub open mic night that I’d been going to for ages on Thursdays. Turns out the guy who runs that night was at the other pub on Monday and saw me there. After the comedy show ends, he goes up to me at the bar and asks if I want to be on the bill in two weeks time. I say yes. Get very excited for my first time on an actual bill, not just going up with the lotto.

- August 10: I perform at the Thursday night. I’m incredibly nervous. I have spent two weeks refining my material, figuring I can do a better job if I actually properly write a set for a specific day, rather than just get up unexpectedly and say some stuff I’d only vaguely planned. It’s definitely better this way. It goes quite well.

- Some other day in late August: I go back to the Thursday comedy place just to watch. I put my name in the lotto, thinking there’s no way it’ll get called again, may as well just do that, but I’m just here to watch. My brother is hosting. He’s just had a breakup and is messing around with the crowd so much that it distracted me from doing any mental preparation. My name gets called from the lotto. I go up unexpectedly. I can’t remember most of what I was going to say. I panic and stutter a lot. It’s fucking horrible. I get off stage and want to hide under my bed forever. After, my brother tells me it wasn’t quite as bad as I thought. But still. Not great. I have just moved to the suburbs to housesit for a few months, making it hard to get downtown where the comedy venues are anyway, so I don’t go back for a while.

- Early October: I go back to the Thursday pub night, just to watch. It’s an exciting night and inspires me to try again. I go through the proper process this time, of going on their Facebook page to request a spot for the following Thursday. I get one.

- October 12: On this Thursday, I show up and try something slightly different. The previous nights, I had just told one story for six minutes. This time, I trim that story and add a separate bit at the beginning. I am, again, very nervous, with the fear that maybe I just happened to have only one funny story in me but can’t actually write good stuff generally so the other bit will fail.

It doesn’t. Both bits go great. This feels like my best one yet. I leave happy and excited and wanting to do it again. I go back on Facebook and request a spot at the other pub that runs on Monday nights for the next week. I get it.

I also email one a local comedy club. There are three comedy clubs in the city, and those are where the “proper comedy” happens. New and established comedians alike work out their material at pub nights like the Monday and Thursday ones, so that they can perform at clubs. At the club amateur nights, where no one gets paid but if you do enough of them then you’ll get noticed by the owners and maybe get to go on the pro nights, where people do get paid. Multiple people had told me I should sign up for a club amateur night, but I’d been too nervous until that point. Then, however, I send an email to the designated address requesting a spot in November (that’s how it works – you email the club on the fifteen of one month to see if they’ll give you a spot at any of the amateur Mondays the following month).

- October 23: I perform at the Monday night pub. Do the same two bits as before. They go okay. At this time I remember them, I’m not up there panicking and stuttering. They just don’t get as much from the crowd, and the more they go badly, the more I doubt myself and then don’t perform as well. Afterward, my brother tells me my stuff was good, and not to feel bad because the crowd didn’t laugh much at anyone who was on that night.

I am sufficiently demoralized to think maybe I won’t go back for a bit, at least not until December when I go back to living at my own place downtown and it’s easier to get to these places. However, this plan falls apart in November, when I receive an email telling me my request for a club spot has been granted, I can perform at the club’s amateur night on Monday, November 13. I am terrified.

- For about four days before the night of November 13, particularly all day at work on November 13: I am fucking terrified. Going to a club to perform material that didn’t go well last time.

- November 13: I arrive at the comedy club. See the sign that reminds me the audience has paid $10 to get in. None of the pub nights cost money for the audience. So this will be my first time performing to people who have paid money so if I’m terrible then I am personally wasting their money as well as their time. There is an actual stage (a very low one, but still). They turn out the lights and put a spotlight on the performer. They play entrance music and everything. It is much more intimidating than a pub night.

I’m on third. The host is a comedian I very much like, doing stuff that I think is funny, but the audience isn’t laughing. The first guy up is an established pro comedian whom I also like (and used to run a school wrestling team with him in 2015, actually, but that’s another story), he also doesn’t do great. I talk to my brother, who’s on later in the bill than I am. He warns me that this crowd seems quiet in general, so I shouldn’t feel bad if they don’t laugh much at me either, I should be mentally prepared for that. I pace around the back being very nervous.

- November 13: Guys it went so fucking well! I did my two bits, I remembered everything, I think I said it in all the right order and did it right. And it worked! They laughed! Afterward multiple came and told me I did well! I was not mentally prepared for how you can’t see the audience if you’re in a spotlight and they’re in the dark, that threw me off, also the light hurt my eyes a bit, but once I was used to it I realized that not seeing the audience is slightly easier. It was good! It was so good and I’m so happy.

I have to say thank you, again, to my Tumblr friends @my-excellent-bicycle, who listened to the stuff I'd recorded alone in bedroom early in the year and told me what was good in it, because the bit he said was good is what became the first bit I performed. The second bit I ran by @lastweeksshirttonight, who was also super kind and supportive and helpful with advice. And, you know, I never would have tried without having comedy Tumblr in general. I am still a bit high on the adrenaline of how exciting that was.

...I feel like I should clarify, again, that all I actually did was sign up for an amateur night and do six minutes. It was the bar area in the basement, not even the proper club room, which is upstairs. It was not particularly objectively impressive. But subjectively, I'm really fucking excited about it.

[bvannn]

Weekly update November 22 2024

Still haven’t caught a break, still in an awful mood. I did a ton of art stuff this week but as a consequence I might be burning myself out. I’m trying my usual anti-burnout strategies though so I’m still fighting it.

So most progress I made was on the epithet TTRPG stuff, since the stream at the beginning of the week got some of the juices flowing. I’ve mentioned before that I want to do a character building tutorial video, maybe once I’m too burnt out to draw I’ll switch to writing that for a bit. But for my own campaign I got a ton of minis done, and tonight if my current plans fall through I was going to try finishing up the maps for the first stage, and/or preparing to get a tileset done for the second stage. Also got a couple more statblocks done.

Comic: page 12 is done except for lettering, another thing I could do tonight. If I get in a sketching mood I’ll jump right on page 13, but again if I’m burned out I can’t really do that. We’ll see. Also did a bit of general writing for the other story, got past a pretty big snag. Not the biggest snag, right now the sticking point with that is the remaining half of the ‘pilot’, but again I can just focus on O’Malley again, that’s not at all time sensitive.

Music: RR has been done for a while but I got a visual and a lyric video done for that too that will go up as soon as I stop feeling bad about myself. Blow Off Steam re-edit will probably get one too pretty soon, since the lyric video wasn’t that hard to make just really annoying. I did it in after effects when I probably shouldn’t have, I need to figure out what gets done in premiere, what gets done in flash, and what gets done in after effects.

Also finishing off sound balancing for BATB, in the same boat as RR where I want a video for it but I think I’ll do something simpler first just to get it out. Also have a few smaller lower effort instrumental songs done that’ll probably get posted in like a batch once I have a visual for them. FF is going well, pretty close to done tuning on that one, trying new strategies for tuning and they sound nice. Hoping people will like that since it’s a space-flavored cover of a pretty popular song that’s also old enough that it’s nostalgic now.

Kinda hit a brick wall at the other smaller animation I wanted to do, but it’s fine I think I can fix it by making it shorter. That’ll also let me get it out faster.

Right now everything’s kinda dependent on my mood right now and that hasn’t been very good. I’m doing what I can but the universe hates me and I’m not allowed to have anything go well beyond little art pieces that look nice and make a couple people online happy but don’t really help my well being. I guess it’s better than nothing, and I’m glad that there are people who are enjoying what I’m doing, I just wish I could be in a more comfortable spot so I could actually appreciate how my art’s going properly. Thanks everyone for being patient!

[ironicxblue]

Why The Mad Hatter Character Fits Izumi Sena So Well

I said I’d to a whole essay on this and I’m here to do so. Obviously this counts as a headcanon for this as an rp account. But I’m tagging it with the character in general, because it is something that other IzumiP’s might want to read. Or I at least hope so. I’ve got piles of books next to me for this.

So, let’s start off with the basics. The Mad Hatter was a character from Alice In Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll. They were originally published in the Victorian times.

Due to the time of writing, it’s often thought that the Mad Hatter was mad due to his profession. Hatters would commonly wind up with mercury poisoning, which could also affect their brain. There’s no confirmation of this within the text. Especially when you consider Wonderland to be a very whimsical world.

The modern adaptation of the Hatter has often taken on a darker tone. Rarely is he shown as whimsical, instead his pride and bad attitude are lifted from the book and instead you tend to find a much more attractive, and sometimes quite brooding character. The possible mental instability also remains, so Hatter is often a dangerous character. From Jefferson in Once Upon a Time, to Blood Dupre in the Alice in the Country Of series, The Mad Hatter is often seen as a character that you don’t want to mess with.

Now, you might be wondering, how does all this relate to Izumi. As a character, Izumi is both incredibly popular but also commonly hated. He’s proud, is supposed to be a yandere but often presents more as tsundere and is often rude to those many consider to be innocent. Sound familiar?

Here are some quotes from the original book that wouldn’t sound strange coming out of Izumi’s mouth.

“Your hair wants cutting,” said the Hatter. He had been looking at Alice for some time with great curiousity, and this was his first speech.

“You can draw water out of a water-well,” said the Hatter; ‘so I think you could draw treacle out of a treacle-well- eh, stupid?”

“I don’t think-”

“Then you shouldn’t talk,” said the Hatter.

This piece of rudeness was more than Alice could bear.

(Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll)

As well as that, Hatter enraged Time at a concert for the Queen of Hearts where he was singing on stage. Now, I imagine he wasn’t supposed to be a good singer, but it does highlight that the character was a performer.

So with the Hatter we have a blunt, rude character who has been known to take a turn on the stage and has made important figures mad. The character already fits Izumi.

Now, moving onto the modern interpretations. 

I’ve mentioned how they’re often quite dark, and there are definitely those that fit the yandere trope quite well. These are characters who have quite often lost something and are mad about it. Something has pushed them to brink where others might decry them as ‘mad’ even if their actual mental health isn’t in question. Something has happened to them to make them a ticking time bomb.

That is something we have with Izumi.

We know he’s a difficult character. We know he still holds onto his anger from the war-era. We know he feels guilty about Leo, and there’s also his relationship with Makoto where he’s vastly trying to overcompensate it.

These are aspects of his character which haven’t really been touched in the !! era though. Though Izumi has seemingly moved on from a lot of it, there are definite aspects that he never had closure on. We’ve seen that he still hates Eichi in Sudden Death and the guilt over Leo was still somewhat there in Next Door. Which is the whole reason he dragged him back to Italy with him. 

There is a darkness and a selfishness to Izumi and he feels terrible about it. He has regrets in the past, he has somewhat experienced loss and the way he reacts to things often has people looking at him like he’s strange because he does overcompensate.

At the end of the On the Beautiful Golden Drop music video, we had Izumi pull a horrible face. As someone who likes to be seen as beautiful, this might seem hilarious and out of character. But it works for the role he’s playing. A role he might see as fitting of him. And we also know from Butlers that when it comes to acting he’ll take as many takes as he need to present the character exactly right. So this could just be part of the role. And hell, the Euthanasia story and Little Romance didn’t exactly line up.

But other character stories and center songs since have.

Naru dealt with her feelings for Kunigi and we had a Swan Lake theme for Mystic Fragrance.

Leo’s story for Coruscate Breeze was about how he’s struggling less because he has his friends around and he’s healing. The song and the video was cute, and fun.

So it would make sense that for this Izumi center that we’re dealing with his darker side again. And the Mad Hatter is a great way to showcase this.

We have a beautiful man who sometimes shows an ugly side, who’s mental stability is maybe a little questionable who has lost something in the past and is still dealing with that anger. But hey, he’s still moving around the table, so it doesn’t really matter if someone else gets a worse end of the stick.

This could be great for Izumi and we could see him begin to move on and heal from some things.

But we could also see him go in the other direction, as the Hatter often does, and that too is very exciting.

[warden-melli]

Not pokemon related but fuck these last few years have been tough. Been trying to distract myself all night but I think I need to vent for a sec

Trigger warning after the cut

I don’t want to get into details, but my uncle killed himself this morning. I knew something was wrong straight away when my mother randomly turned up with that look on her face. My grandmother was diagnosed with dementia last year, and my grandfather is in kidney failure, so at first I thought something bad and happened to them, but no. It was my uncle.

I spent a lot of today with my dad. My uncle was his little brother, and quite frankly as sad as I am for what happened to my uncle, I’m most worried about my dad right now. Not only did he lose both his father and older sister within the last year or so, but he’s been in pretty poor health himself. He was involved in an accident at work earlier this year involving a chainsaw, and honestly he’s lucky to be alive. PPE did it’s job, but even so he still ended up losing a tooth, and he’s had to have dental/implant surgeries to repair the damage. The last few weeks he’s also been extremely ill having caught Ross River fever from a job site. I have never seen him this sick in my entire life, and it has been extremely distressing seeing him in so much pain. He’s recovering from being sick, but he’s had an absolutely terrible run of luck, and that’s not even all of it. His best friend/brother in law has lung cancer, his sister just had a heart attack after contracting covid, and another of his sisters was just in a major car accident (he’s one of 10 kids btw). Also his pet budgie died last week. I feel horrible for him and I wish I could do something to make it better.

The last few weeks have been really tough. I broke my wisdom tooth, and because I am really bad at telling if/where I’m in pain I kinda tried to live with an exposed nerve for a few weeks before realising that it was serious. I knew something was wrong, but I have tmjd so I just kinda thought it was a chronic pain flare up at first. Like a really bad one, but I tried to ignore it. I had the back of my knee tattooed while dealing with a cracked wisdom tooth oof. After I figured out it wasn’t going to go away I eventually went to the dentist and had it extracted, but that was really hard for me to deal with. I was happy that the sharp pain had gone, but my jaw has been extremely sore since, and I really struggled sensory wise during the healing period. Then I broke my guitar and my fridge broke, so that’s over $1000 on top of the dental bills -_-

Idk life feels really hard lately. Haven’t been able to draw much, and have just been feeling flat in general. And now my uncle has passed and I just feel terrible. I’ll be okay. My sister is due to have a baby within weeks, and I’ve got some good concerts to look forward to, so it’s not all bad. One of my little sisters has been a twenty one pilots fan since she was literally an infant, and she’s finally old enough to see them live and I was able to get her really good tickets. She’s autistic too and has been working on her outfit and making stickers, and every time I see her that’s all she can talk about. I’m so happy for her and that I get to take her. There is good stuff, and good people and as silly as it sounds Melli/Pokemon really helps. He’s so so special to me. I’m glad I have him to focus on

I just needed to get stuff off of my chest, so if you’ve made it this far thanks for listening. Even if no one reads this just typing it out made me feel a bit better. May be a bit less active for a while, might be way more active. Idk how my brain wants to handle this lol

[wirewitchviolet]

“Hey why did this review of this absolutely terrible game give it a 9/10?”

A lot of people seem really confused/amused today about this one major “video game news” site running a review of that one absolute garbage game that directly funds hate-mongering, where the text of the review makes it pretty clear that it’s complete garbage, but then it gives it a super high score. Luckily for you, once upon a time in what really was basically another lifetime at this point, there was a period where I wrote reviews of video games for one of those “video game news” websites, so unless things have radically changed in the intervening years, which they haven’t, I know plenty of people still working in the field, I can break down for you how this sort of sausage gets made.

The first thing you need to understand is that there basically is no such thing as “video game news.”

I mean that’s not entirely true. There’s the occasional big corporate merger, that’s news. A major industry figure dies now and then. But like, there’s never a major earthquake in Capcom or a violent coup in Infogrames or whatever. Actual news involving video games is way too rare to base a whole site about, and honestly “video game news” sites might decide to not even cover things like that. You get a mix of weird features someone feels like writing that nobody is inclined to block when people have the time and inclination, but mostly, you have press releases.

See, every major video game publisher ever has what’s called a press site. Usually it’s www.whatevercompany.com/press/ and back in the day they were public-facing even. It would make this explanation even easier if that was still the case, but for now you’ll just have to take my word for it that basically every single “news story” about a game you’ve ever read started life on whatever publisher’s press site, in, honestly, pretty much exactly the same form as when you see it on some “gaming news site.” Maybe even word for word if someone’s in a real hurry and can’t be bothered to rephrase it or wrap it in some speculation.  Actually hell, as I poke around, Square Enix’s main site these days just cuts out the middleman and has all their press releases gussied up like it’s a “game news” site. Perfect.

So... from the perspective of the publisher, and also reality, all those press releases are just straight up raw naked advertising for whatever they have coming up soon or just released. BUT, from the perspective of someone who runs a “game news” site, and anyone who ever looks at one, that’s CONTENT. That’s the draw, the stuff people show up to read, the stuff you run ads on in order to make money.

So uh... this is already just kind of the worst. Generally speaking the people who work for sites like this are REALLY young and inexperienced and not really inclined to consider that their job is literally just repackaging advertising for large companies that don’t even pay them to do so. I got into this sort of thing when I was something like 15, personally.

But anyway, yeah, the publishers don’t actually pay the sites to rewrite their ad copy. That all happens due to some combination of carrot and stick tactics, the blind desperate need to have something to print every day, and the people involved genuinely being excited about particular games and publishers and really wanting to get all the information they can about upcoming games out there. Those are, generally, in increasing order of significance, but that carrot and stick stuff can be pretty extreme.

You know earlier when I said press sites aren’t public facing anymore? Publishers, knowing that “game news” sites are 100% reliant on them to continue existing, can afford to be picky. If they don’t like a site, they don’t have access to anything, and if they really like you they might grant you interviews or contests or extremely lucrative ad campaigns of the more obvious sort, with the big huge banners and widgets and click-throughs which honestly comprise, last I checked, almost the entirety of a given site’s actual income. And of course how much a publisher likes a company is directly tied to their willingness to hype an upcoming game to the moon by running every single press release they put out, and declaring the game to be like a 9 out of 10 or 10 out of 10 when it comes out. Oh and when someone’s really splashing money around there’s usually embargoes where nobody in the press can make any statement anywhere that could be construed as an opinion on a game until the day of release, or maybe even like a week after.

So if I, the poor shmoe assigned to review the “shofars exist mainly to annoy people” game give it an honest review and say “this is one of the worst pieces of garbage I’ve ever had the misfortune of playing, nobody should buy this, 0 out of 10,” that is going to make the publisher, Warner Bros., very unhappy. They might kill my site’s press credentials so we can’t run any “stories” about... let’s see... Mortal Kombat, that Multiversus thing, uh, Lego Star Wars. And they are DEFINITELY going to snub us on big splashy ad campaigns, which are, again, the whole way we pay the bills.

Plus the other thing to keep in mind is that much as people generally like to pretend otherwise, advertising works. Partcularly by volume. If you hear some random thing about Blobbity Bloopers every single day for the 3 months leading up to its release, you’re basically guaranteed to check it out. Doesn’t matter what’s being said or who’s saying it, you’re just gonna be marinating in that Blobbity Bloopers discourse and compelled to check it out so you can properly put your two cents in and become part of the problem. So when a site is just regurgitating every single press release on a game, their readers are going to get all hyped up about it and since press releases are ads and only focus on positives, they’re going to be really expectant to be told this thing people have been talking about being great for months is in fact great, otherwise they’re going to be angry, and honestly the people regurgitating those press releases are internalizing them and getting primed in the same way.

If you want an actual honest review of a game, you are, fundamentally, never going to get it from a “game news site” because they inherently both have some serious skin in the game, and have been marrinating in propaganda for months. Assuming anyway the publisher has the pull to make that happen. Indie games and minor releases from publishers of varying size tend to completely miss the boat on all of this and if they’re getting reviewed at all it’s because someone’s just being thorough.

This by the way is why weirdly enough, Nintendo Power, the direct product of a game company just directly advertising their own stuff in magazine form, is generally agreed to be the most sober and honest game magazine of all time. Nintendo got a cut of the profits from literally every game on the system, and knew that no given person is going to buy more than a fraction of that total library any given year, so it was first off actually in their best interest to point out what’s actually good, and make sure they have satisfied customers, and they’re also basically acting as an overall product catalog, so they’re going to say something about nearly everything and that makes it easier to see where the actual enthusiasm lies.

So... yeah. That’s why pure garbage gets good reviews if a big publisher is putting serious money behind it. Stuff with serious money behind it has to get good reviews for publications to survive.