#but i'm using it as an example to illustrate my point bc i don't have anything loaded skdjfhs; i haven't thought too hard on any of that)

[astarab1aze]

Do nightfolk have... lawyers?

yes! they're still people, of course, and they more or less live similarly structurally to humans (a lot of wild differences, but still). in the us, their lawyers are usually tommy-knockers (who also help the gilde family run the banks), but really, they could be fey, goblins, vampires, shifters, at one time there was a barghest (how? magic), another a beholder, etc etc. nightfolk aren't exactly the most strict when it comes to who can do what, so long as so-and-so can actually perform the job functions (and are certified, depending on the field).

nightfolk lawyers are kind of- cut-throat. the lawyering game is just as messy and convoluted as it is in a human context, worse actually, and there aren't very many to go 'round so they're very expensive. in most cases, any who can't afford them have to represent themselves, one won't be provided by the state except in very 'particular circumstances' (where it pertains to really old laws like, er, consider laws like 'the law of surprise' - stuff like that, weird laws, binding vow removal too (that entire process is a paaaaain in the ass)). it seems cruel and unusual, but nightfolk are taught throughout childhood all about the legalities of their society since it's still adapting to human expansion and industrialism, modernizing, balancing their own traditions, ways of life, in some ways protecting humans from them and the monsters and such that still very much lurk in the world and one world-ending cataclysm after another-- they have to know everything, they have to be prepared. whether they end up needing to use any of that information is irrelevant. anyway-

you could theoretically divorce a god and it be totally accepted legally by everyone involved, few questions asked. attitudes about wacky, surely mindboggling stuff, are by and large best summed up as a roll of the shoulders most of the time. they all hear wild shit all day, every day, so lawyers, judges, and all kinds of legislative types have an easier time being objective and decisive, er, pragmatic (as well as being corrupt, but that's not what this post is about!).

as i think on it now, how one would become a lawyer is by apprenticeship. you work with a lawyer, they teach you everything, you learn, you take certification classes, the nightfolky bar exam lol, and there you go i guess. it takes a good long time, cos you need your mentor's approval and recommendations from several other supervisor types, character letters, and then you have to go through extensive background checks, take an oath, a binding vow to your firm as a condition of proper employment (and to the department of regulatory sorceries)-- and so on. it's an enormous pain in the ass to become a lawyer and that's why it's an undersaturated field.

[vilevampirez]

long list of funny things abt my experience doing emote commissions for mike

first of all I wasn't expecting to get commissioned at all (my commissions weren't even open, I just made an exception for mike) let alone by MIKETHELINK of all fucking people, so I had nothing prepared. I had no portfolio, commission sheet, nothing. I had never made any twitch emotes, so I had no examples to show either. meaning that when barbmine showed up in my dms asking if I took emote commissions, first I lost my fucking shit, then I panicked and rushed to find the most recent emote-like illustrations I had, including animation, and the most recent animation I had on hand happened to be a viewtiful joe one lmao. the animation in question 👇

(the usernames on the watermark aren't even accurate anymore..)

I have some experience taking commissions but they'd always been for friends of mine, this was my first time getting commissioned by a real "client" and the client was fucking mikethelink tazercraft of all fucking people . I know he "found" me through Mine, she sent me a dm first asking for commission info, saying she would show it to mike later. the thing is that when she said that she also implied that she was in touch with other artists too, so I was like "oh ok I'll send my stuff but I probably won't get chosen lol" and then a few hours later I got two twitter notifs, one saying that mr. thelink tazercraft was now following me and another was his DM. to say I almost had a heart attack would be an understatement

later I found out Mine had made a tweet asking for artists to reach out/people to rec artists for mike's twitch emotes. that post had around 40 comments. many people had been recommended more than once. I wasn't mentioned by anyone once, and in fact, I had no fucking idea that post even EXISTED until way after the fact. I have no idea how I ended up getting this job

mike happened to contact me on a day where I was severely sleep deprived. our entire business conversation took place while I was half-panicking, half-almost-passing-out. I don't know how I survived

at many points during our conversation I gave a lot of leeway for mike to give up on commissioning me, implying multiple times that he would be better off commissioning a different artist. and it's not because I lacked confidence (though a bit of that too, of course), but because of my lack of experience. I was very open about that to him, so many times I expected him to second guess his decision to commission me. unexpectedly, he was really insistent. I think partially he didn't want to go through the trouble of finding and contacting a different artist, but also I guess he just liked my art that much (??!?)

I definitely undercharged him lol. it's not that I don't value my work, it's just that I was absolutely not prepared for any of this shit to happen and didn't have enough time to think

I use adobe after effects for animating mike's emotes. I already knew how to animate (though I had never animated anything big), but I had never used after effects before. I even told mike this before accepting the commission, but he just said it was easy and I could totally do it, and I was just like "fucking hell. fine". and look, I know my limits, I knew I'd be able to learn after effects with relative ease. if I thought it'be too much for me to handle, I wouldn't have accepted the commission. it just that to this day I'm still shocked that mike commissioned an artist who HAD NEVER USED THE TOOL NECESSARY FOR THE COMMISSION HE WANTED.

due to the point above I was pretty apprehensive about animating the emotes, but now I'm glad I got this opportunity bc it reignited my passion for animation that had been dwindling for a long time and I've been learning a lot while working. also with every new emote I figure out how to use a different feature of after effects and it makes the job a little bit easier

before giving my payment information I came out to him to avoid confusion with my legal name being different from the name on my socials. he was very chill about it and always used the right name and pronouns for me whenever he mentions me on stream

fun fact: I was reached out to by another big (brazilian, not in qsmp) youtuber for a commission but I had to refuse because I had too much on my plate already (still do..)

my favorite emotes are the devil one and the nerd one

I made his twitch avatar and banner too! I'm really proud of the avatar. the banner was absolute hell

I'm a lurker (and nowadays a vod watcher since I've been busy w/ uni work) but I do watch every single one of mike's streams, so just know that I'm always seeing you guys use the emotes :3

[kiddycup]

hi!!! i wanted to ask you if you had any tips for going about choosing colors? your art provokes very distinct feelings/atmospheres via the colors & i do hope to do the same someday ^_^

hello! thank you... i'm actually quite insecure about my colouring, but i think a big thing that helped me was putting down one base undercolour that i base all my other colours around and not just picking random colours from wherever (sticking close to it on the colour wheel)

i'll use these colours from my comic as an example bc it has 2 different schemes for mood change effect:

the left panel is kinda goofy or whatever, so i chose that green/yellow in the bg there to have a happier/sillier tone. their skin/clothing are still around that colour, though.

this is for ena's (girl on left) skin tone and shirt respectively:

the top half of that colour preview is the undercolour i used, and the bottom half are the subject colours. you can see that if that shirt colour is isolated, it's orange; but put on top of this green, it looks red. you can also see that i dont deviate too much from that undertone on the side slider.

you can see the same thing done w the right panel, which a red tone was used instead of the green/yellow (because red=scary/tense) etc.

these are for clare's (shocked one) skin tone, and then renee's (girl on her right) shirt colour.

you can see that for the left panel, i tended to stay on the upper yellow, while for the right panel i stayed more within the bottom red range on the slider. for both of these, i stayed within the top left of the picker area--thats where the earthier/soft look comes from. it would be different if i strayed further right, which is much more saturated and bright.

i also usually like to choose a less severe line colour, in this case its more of a very dark brown instead of black. i find that it tends to compliment these colours more with the same reasoning as everything else i talked about.... and it kind of gives it a faded vintage look?

anyway, im usually more of a sketcher than an illustrator so take it as a starting point... and don't hesitate to colour drop drawings with colours/moods you like and see how they interact with each other on the sliders/wheels. that's how i learned when i started out.

also, a little colour overlay on top of your drawing is an easy cheat to get your colours more cohesive--i still use it at times. learning the ins-and-outs of how it works without resorting to it is still useful though, and in my experience it makes your colours more specific and stand out

i hope this makes sense and/or helps!!!!

[lionheartedmusings]

i saw a post earlier that q!tubbo is the only "moral" character even after purgatory and it's kinda kept me awake, not because i don't agree with the sentiment (i do) but because the idea of morality as intrinsically important in fandom / character analysis is fascinating to me, *especially* when we're talking about the morality of someone who's basically just spent two weeks in some eye guy's budget hunger games.

first off, while i fully agree that by the end of this q!tubbo *is* a character that tried at every turn to be kind and generous even to his own detriment, how does that make him more or less "moral" than q!phil or q!fit? he still killed, the same as them. he still strategized to beat his friends, has blood on his hands — why is he marked above x, y, or z in the moral scale?

well, one could argue that he did what he did for his team, for the eggs, and because he was forced to when he was put in the game in the first place, yeah? it's not his fault he's in this position, and he's doing his best to survive it. i personally think that's totally valid and justifiable, but it leaves a huge elephant in the room.

what about everyone else?

i'm going to use q!bad as an example because he's my main pov, and before i go into this analysis i want it known i'm very much playing the devil's advocate and illustrating a point — i am not saying his actions are "good". good? good.

okay. so, q!bad. here we have a non-human father who was told by his missing child to win regardless of the cost, or whomever he had to run over. he had to win. is it immoral then for him to take that to heart and play the game the way it was presented? is it immoral for him to kill for his child, or to be determined to win even in detriment of others? to want to use the same strategies in the battlefield that everyone else would, even if they're not kind or polite?

i don't fucking know, because morality isn't linear — this situation *isn't* linear bc if people will go on the record saying they would kill for their child and are praised for it, what makes q!bad's actions in the universe he's existing in any different?

you can even say that by some perspectives, q!tubbo extending so much kindness to his competitors over and over again was at times (or could've been) detrimental to his team ergo their childrens' lives and yet he still did it. is it more moral to save children or be nice to someone else?

my point being, i feel that the morality argument while very very interesting is kind of irrelevant bc when push comes to shove, characters aren't compelling bc they have more or less morals — i genuinely think a lot of media / character consumption has *actively* been harmed by everyone's need to have the thing they enjoy be "good" or "moral" or "right" bc if it isn't, what does that say about us?

the answer to that one is: absolutely nothing, but man do i think sometimes people in fandom feel guilty if they like or prefer an immoral or grey character vs a "stereotypical" moral one.

anyway, all this to say that i think by the end of purgatory, q!tubbo is the character that was most true to himself and his values from start to finish, and it's been a great watch. is he the most morally correct? eh. who the fuck knows.

[nigelgraz]

hello! i have been following you for a while now and i want to tell you that im in love your illustrations and your drawing style! (literally, im in love with your men, specially alucard) 💞💞💞 and I wanted to ask since I’ve been wanting to draw lately, do you have any advice for those of us who are just starting to learn?

have a nice day :) ♡

Hii!! Thank you so much for the kind words snd support, it makes me so happy to know you like my work this much🥹❤️❤️

My advice would be to try to find a balance between drawing fun self indulgent things AND all the boring difficult subjects and studies that might be less enjoyable and engaging to do but will help your foundation and painting skills a ton in the long run! For examples i used to pretty much only draw heads in 3/4 angle with a white background when i was starting out bc it was my comfort zone and i was pretty good at it, but i realized i was rlly lacking in all the other aspects like anatomy and backgrounds and lighting and wasn't learning anything new! Always make time to do anatomy, lighting, shading and color thoery studies and if they were too boring for you, try to combine the studies with subjects and characters you like :) personally i'm still lacking in Anatomy but i've been doing some anatomy studies with my favorite characters as the models lately and it's way more fun and motivating.

Another thing is to always look at a ton of art by different skilled artists and analyze and study their work and try to find the purpose behind their color choices and brush strokes, how they stylize features, how they draw some parts of a painting very detailed and leave the rest with minimum rendering to draw the attention to the focal point, etc. Doing this makes you see things with a fresh pair of eyes and you can even spot your own mistakes and correct them instead of repeating them over and over because you don't have any other point of reference other than your own work. I've definitely been there :'D

These are the tips that would've helped me a lot when i started properly painting, i hope they can help you too! Good luck and i hope you have fun drawing❤️

[ozwuv]

How did you learn to draw hands?

HANDS I'm a freak who loves drawing hands... This is going to sound odd, but it's another thing that ties into being autistic for me kfdsjkfsd I have poor facial recognition skills and generally avoid eye contact, so I tend to identify people by their hands. I couldn't reliably visualize my own mother's face if my life depended on it, but I sure do know exactly what the back of her hands look like. As a result, I have hands burnt into my memory lol. But more importantly, I love to draw character interaction, and hands are sooo integral to that. If I force myself to enjoy something or at least hold a lot of interest in it, it'll be easier to learn long term and I think that's something a lot of people can relate to.

More under the cut bc I'm longwinded

The other thing is something nobody wants to hear, but tbh just studying them lol. Short gesture drawings are best for this (think 60 seconds max), but tbh Mochijun's way of drawing hands really inspired me when PH was still running in the last quarter of the manga. I wouldn't suggest studying purely from one person's illustrations, but it helps to pick out a few artist who draws hands in a way you love. Nowadays Hoshino's (DGM's mangaka) way of drawing hands inspires the heeeell out of me.

Like are you seeing this shit? The way she draws hands fucking rules lol

I wouldn't stick to 100% studying irl hands or 100% studying drawn hands -- a mix of both is great, bc you can have all the knowledge in the world of how to realistically emulate hands, but studying how others stylize hands can be helpful for actually drawing them. This goes for anything in general because not having an idea of how to incorporate something you're studying into your art can be really frustrating. For example, the thing I enjoy most about how Hoshino draws hands is how the fingers are not just straight lines -- they have dips and jut out to indicate knuckles/joints and such. I find the way she draws hands to be so expressive, unique, and beautiful.

Another thing to keep in mind: don't focus on the details. Just get the general silhouette down for a bunch of different poses -- details can come later. This is why gesture drawing is so useful, it forces you to get the key points down so you don't over-detail something you don't fully understand yet and wind up making things look awkward/stiff.

Also, never forget you (most likely) have two hands right in front of you that you can reference any time! Take pics of your own hands from various angles if you must. Really useful!

Btw: Quickposes a really useful resource for gesture and figure drawing. It has options specifically for hands (!), humans, animals, landscapes, etc, with time intervals as short as 30 seconds, and an option for custom intervals. Line of Action is also great, but it's limited to just human options.

I haven't used either of the above in a while since I'm too lazy to draw anything but anime lol but if they're still as good as I remember, I would highly recommend them.

OH ALSO SONIC FANART you have to git gud at drawing hands if you want to draw sonic characters they got bigass hands. Sonic also taught me how to draw shoes kfjDOIWGJI

ALSO PT 2 just trace shit. Literally. People act like tracing is evil but it's a great way to learn. You can even trace other artist's work, just don't post it and claim it as yours lol

[keymintt]

Not sure if this has been asked before but, how did you start doing professional work for traffic cabinets? Was there some sort of job fair or exhibit that you advertised your art at and the city decides "this guy is really good, let's get his art in public"?

OKAY so the thing with public art is it's all local and every city kinda does it differently, but so far in my career all of the public art stuff i've done has been application-based

this got long so i'll go into details about what the searching/application process looks like under the cut but tldr: a big part of finding work like this is knowing where to look for local opportunities and submitting applications

generally the cities/towns/whatever will put out a call for artists (also sometimes called a request for qualifications or RFQ) that's basically like "hey we need some artists to do this, this is how much we'll pay you and the details for the project" and from there they'll link a form (or sometimes give you an email address) to apply to where you submit stuff like your contact info, resume/portfolio, sometimes references, and usually a letter of interest on the project

because i submit applications to things pretty regularly, i'm usually good about keeping track of what i use to apply to things—this includes what i've written for applications and stuff like image descriptions—so when I apply to new things it's a lot of copypasting and editing things to explain how i'm a fit for the specific project yadda yadda it's cover letters. it's basically cover letters. pain and agony

in terms of finding the applications, i'm signed up for several local newsletters and arts organizations, but i also check sites like the az commission of the arts (bc i'm az-based) for their updated list of opportunities pretty regularly, as well as searching for stuff like [city] arts and culture and poking around the .gov sites to see if they have an arts opportunities page. in all honesty a pretty big component of finding this work is knowing where to look, and unfortunately if you're doing public art a) it's not always listed on social media b) the best places to look/start are local, and that differs for everyone so i can't say like "oh look here and you'll find something"

once you apply it usually takes awhile to hear back (they usually give you a timeline on the initial application of how long it takes to review all the applications), but i've found people in these fields are good about letting you know when you didn't get something so you can move on with your life lol. atm i'm waiting to hear back from....over five things so i'm kind of always doing this "applying to projects while i'm working on other projects" song and dance which is honestly just...kind of the freelance artist experience?

i feel the need to mention that public art stuff like this consists of about...2/5 of my yearly income...? i'm not solely making a living off of doing these things bc i also usually have teaching and ttrpg illustration stuff in the mix BUT there are artists who can and do make a living off public art and murals and whatnot. i simply cannot resist the urge to stick my finger into any pie i'm even remotely qualified for

working with public art stuff is also that same thing with a lot of fields where once you get some sort of experience, it's easier to get more jobs, BUT as an artist your portfolio can do a lot of speaking for you, even if you don't have experience with public art specifically. take my traffic boxes for example: i've done three of them now and have a fourth lined up, i know that if there's an application for one i have the exact experience they're looking for and will in all likelihood be one of the selected artists at this point. however with my very first one, i obviously didn't have a traffic box in my portfolio so i included a digitally illustrated city banner i designed, several other digital illustrations of mine (bc they wanted a digital artist), and a mural i had painted on a 3d object (to demonstrate i could design with 3d forms in mind), and together these things all helped my credibility as someone who could do this project. as much as i loathe writing letters of interest these are also good places to elaborate on how your portfolio can connect to the project

also with public art starting local is also your best bet at first (not to say you can't land other opportunities right off the bat though), bc people like their artists to know the local scene. i have the experience to back me up more nowadays, but when i was first applying to things you bet your ass i was all like 'i love it here and want to give art back to my local community bc i'm an artist and i'm fresh out of college yaaaaayyyy' you don't have to mean this when you say it, but they don't have to know

thank you for the ask !! and best of luck with any of your potential artistic endeavors (to anyone reading this)!! feel free to ask any more questions, i'm happy to elaborate on anythin btw for anyone :>

[visualsandvoices]

I think we're in the midst of a new genre of 4th wall breaks, for lack of a better term, where the character isn't actually speaking to the audience, but the writer is.

Marvel, disney shows and remakes...it feels as though the writers are so hyper-aware of the audience, so hyper-cautious of coming across as pleasing and so crystal-clear to the viewer, that it feels disingenuous.

I don't want to watch something that feels like a training video HR told corporate to show in the boardroom -- here's how women prefer to be spoken to, here's how parents can nurture their children, here's how women can learn to be leaders. You're lonely? Here's an example of a dialogue about how to discuss your emotions with a friend -- All to be performed for you in a hastily written skit that illustrates the point only vaguely more engagingly than a basic power point would have.

Listen. my guy. People so rarely say exactly what they are thinking or feeling. Usually we layer our speech with subtext.

Think of Andor, which uses environmental story telling (set design, colour palettes, costume design, lighting) as well as camera work/editing, music, and physical performance to say so much without a word spoken.

Or Wall-E. Literally Wall-E. Very little dialogue, so much story.

And then you watch the new Thor movies and it's just...I'm so sorry to be a party pooper but it's frustrating the way we are hand-held through every emotional beat.

Good dialogue is not on-the-nose all the time.

Same with the second season of Good Omens. Season 1 was riddled with feelings not verbalized but understood, both by characters and the viewers, and season 2 bulldozed that and put it all into dialogue...which was not only pointless bc like we just did all this in season 1 (I don't care if it's a "bridging season" that's such a weird excuse), but it's the perfect example of feeling the angst along side characters vs. being told by the dialogue--the characters themselves telling us--that they are angsty. You know the writing advice "show don't tell"? yeah, this is that. "Say it" without actually saying it.

I just...I don't know how to wrap this up except to say that i'm tired of being excited to watch stuff only to be disappointed by feeling like i'm being introduced to a new Emotional Experience and they wanna make sure I've wrapped my lil noggin around it. You can hit all those same beats, explore all those themes and emotions, but write a good story. That means stop leaning on dialogue so heavily, and if you must use dialogue it can be indirect. Let Michael Sheen do all the facial acting if that's what it takes. Just stop piling every thought you have while writing into dialogue because my god it's so wooden.

Maybe this is to do with the writer's strikes that has gone on, in all fairness. I understand writers are badly paid and are under stupid deadlines, so you gotta spit out what work you can under those conditions. I do get that. But...yeah. Just had to shout this into the void before going to sleep.

[beatcroc]

Okay I finally generated an ask for you!!!!

What is your favourite genre of music? Or if you don't know how to categorize the music you listen to (like me), what is your favourite song? Or band? Or album? Something like that.

ohhhhh #1 question i am categorically incapable of being normal about <3

i typically just define my favorite music as "loud" or "aggressive" or "abrasive" bc most stuff that fits those descriptors will be in my faves regardless of the genre.

a more specific answer is that there are 3 main things i've noticed that will typically make me go apeshit without fail and they are: 1. hardstyle/gabber/industrial hardcore- sorta basskick 2. sickass metal guitar shredding 3. huge dramatic grandiose orchestral

if something has 1 of these i will probably like it, if it has 2 it will be a top fave, and all 3.... well i have yet to find it yet but im sure i will Ascend. here are examples of said top fave combos.

laur covers hardstyle+orchestral and i Cannot Get Enough of his shit man it goes so fucking crazy hard

metal+orchestral is unquestionably ruled by nightwish, but theyre not on bandcamp and i dont feel like finding other links so this one goes to the still-very-fucking-awesome runner-up, POWERWOLF

riikira and rabbitjunk hit metal+hardstyle, though it's less strictly hardstyle and more just general hardcore* electronica. if its got crazy amens its enough who cares. i put the ones that use actual kicks for the sake of illustrating the point here but these tracks are both pretty far from my faves from each lmao *hardcore referring to hardcore [edm] in this case, even though the genre these belong to is called "digital hardcore", which instead refers to hardcore [punk]. it's a mess out here. did you know theres two completely different things called doomcore where one is derived from metal and the other is derived from hardcore. and you never know which itsd going to be when you click on something in the doomcore tag. im dying squirtle

anyway on the other side of the hardstyle+metal combo is kobaryo [with his alias blaxervant], who's much more about the hardcore side of things and just has the metal as flair, but it is still: the best shit ever

laur also on occasion hits this side of hardstyle+metal becaue he just likes using whatever the fuck instruments

there are of course many other things i love a lot, primary examples being ambient/atmospheric, folk, and anything with a lot of Texture. im not gonna get into all that but i do have an extended list of faves/recs from the last time i was asked about this and went insane abt it. it took forever to make and my actual recs are not entirely the same as my Faves so im putting it on here too.

i keep these curated to the top of my bandcamp profile so they're the first things that display there. it's a bit old by now and some have since been shuffled out, but it's still like 80% accurate.

as for the actual recs: the angel's message is there because it's my fave brand of intense and chaotic stuff and want it to kill you full force. it already has some tracks up there so im not re-linking it

this one i recommend just because i think it's really interesting and out there and i'm curious what other people think of this sort of stuff. it's also the prime example of what i mean when i talk about Textures in music.

wolfgun is an actual rec for being genuinely just really good music. probably the most objectively cool/platonically enjoyable thing in my library

[just-antithings]

https://www.tumblr.com/just-antithings/724299265801961472/behold-terfs-having-nuclear-waster-tier?source=share

I have. So many comments to make on this person's points.

Not everyone who write fanfiction is writing it as 'practice' for 'real writing'. Most do it because they enjoy writing it?? And of course they're going to improve! The only way to improve in writing is really to just...write?? You'll improve faster by incorporating other things like editing outlines etc but like what is their point??

'All fanfiction writers write the same' proceeds to give the most generic two word examples that illustrate nothing. I'm sorry but 'she murmured' is not indicative of a generic style it's just two words

I like how they basically say you shouldn't have fun writing/reading content??

If I wanna pull out a card this person has likely used, I'd say they're 'terminally online'. You think FANFICTION is the reason media literacy has gone down and there is a rise in generic quick content? Grow UP omg. Fanfic is more prevalent than it once was, but it's still a rather niche interest. They only think it's the reason bc they spend so much time in fandom oriented online spaces. The fault (imo) lies with major publishers/production companies/etc that are valuing that content and flood the market with it bc of profit reasons. Idk just my opinion.

Blatantly ignoring jkrs transphobia/other issues and glossing it over as like 'oh she just controls her own content!!1'. Stupidest take ive heard.

Tldr ig not liking fanfiction is fine just don't make up some moral crusade against it that boils down to 'I don't think fanfic counts as REAL writing so anyone who enjoys it is an idiot and a sheep and I will blame things on them'

My dudes (Gender neutral) I am so tired

.

[povestotrischane]

gawaine from the uhm. mecha vn adaptation. just dropped + a gringolet sketch (not to scale) bc i wanted to include it buttttt really didn't want to commit to a design quite yet or spend an excess of time on something that really just exists to sit on the side and justify the image dimensions other than the need to prevent this from becoming sfw gawaine

lore notes under the cut

- it's not really that clear based on this illustration but the armored parts of gawaine's plugsuit are actually meant to be a sort of science fantasy material similar to a clear acryllic, with gold + green paint on the inside . i'm genuinely considering learning to make resin molds just so i can have a real life example of the effect i'm going for just to reference it bc i have absolutely no idea how to begin to properly convey this

- this isn't actually the (in-universe) intended design of a plugsuit. remember what i said the other day about arthur's kingdom being well past its prime and most things being in a state of disrepair? yeah this is a big example of that. the means to produce plugsuits are long gone and so instead of each knight getting their own proper one which covers everything, is tailored to fit and looks a lot more like an actual medieval suit of armor, they just wear the most important pieces bc the vast majority of plugsuits haven't survived the test of time in their entirety and. as previously mentioned. are tailored to fit their original wearer. and thus cobbling together pieces wouldn't exactly work.

- the not-quite-acryllic plugsuit pieces actually connect to the mecha (which is why wearing the biggest pieces are important, as the connection can still be achieved without a full suit if the major connection points are intact)

- plugsuit pieces are harder to come by than actual mechs themselves, knights will fight tooth and nail for the minimum number of pieces, force them to fit just well enough to not fall off, comfort be damned (the big example of this is lancelot bc uh. sorry babe but the big tits ascribed to you by the vulgate aren't doing you any favors here), and then just show up at the nearest liege lord's door and immediately get the job + a mech bc they're in such high demand.

- under their plugsuits, knights usually just wear their uniforms. they didn't used to but uhm. judging by the fact that plugsuits used to cover "more" rather than "less", times have changed. the uniforms themselves are very thick, almost like cloth armor.

- the uniforms worn under plugsuits are changed out with whichever region of arthur's kingdom the knights are in, largely according to dialect changes, which is mainly just my way to lend a nod to the slight distinction between, say, gwalchmai and walewein (welsh gawaine and dutch gawaine 4 when i inevitably throw this at my main which has a higher population of mecha fans than med lit enthusiasts) with a visual queue which goes farther than just the name switching i mentioned the other day

- gawaine has a helmet i just forgot to add it anywhere. it's fine its only worn while actively piloting

- mechs are mainly piloted with a system than relies heavily on pulling on different ropes. this is bc of the whole. horse thing.

- if you look closely (please don't) you'll see that the sword gawaine is holding is dinged up. once again, everything in this kingdom is well past its prime, his... everything is in v good condition bc he's Literally Arthur's Heir. once you get to say, aggravaine (who is, if i may reiterate, 3rd in line for the throne after gawaine and yvain), you start to see damage to plugsuits and it just gets worse from there on.

- gringolet is a biomechanical organism but most mechs aren't, it's just particularly special

[moe-broey]

I do really want to buckle down and get my old WIPs presentable though, even if I do resort to just cleaning up pencil sketches (though ideally I would like to ink and color -- or even just settle for inking).

I talk a lot about my concepts and I feel bad/frustrated that I can't present them...

I would say the Veronica focused comic is like a one-shot, initially planned to have two pages (though only one was sketched/written out).

Meanwhile I have a long ongoing plotline that started off as a non-serious, silly comic, that I ended up having Strong Feelings about actually, which eventually would kick off all of my Askr sibs/Alfàr thoughts. There's a short interlude with Sharena and Lif as well in the og silly comic as well, as I was drawing parallels/trying to grasp the vibe... this comic did actually reach coloring stage, almost all character illustrations are fully colored, bg blank (which. The art is so old. I almost just want to leave it.)

And I guess that Is the nice thing about doing all of this as a hobby, like, nothing Actually has to be done perfectly, it just needs to look presentable. I can take as many or as few shortcuts as I want, and learn in the process what works for me.

Like, actually, I feel like my Henry/Libra/Nowi comic is a fantastic example of that -- the bg is extremely basic (borderline looks childishly done), and I Know I could do way more than that, but. All I really wanted was to draw something quick and fun that was exclusively focused on the characters, the joke, and the actions taking place. The background only existed for the purpose of Making it work -- you need to see that there's a river, that Henry is currently dragging Nowi towards as if he was disposing a body. And later, you need to see the river still, when Libra picks her up and throws her into it. Core point, it doesn't have to Look nice -- it just needs to perform a function.

Something else nice that I learned in letting myself do it poorly is that watercolors are really good for broad quick coverage. Which IS something I knew and was going to utilize in some Genshin comics, which ultimately got abandoned esp bc I lost the interest -- I just haven't actually Used the method in a larger piece. Which! I think is actually what I'm getting at.... being able to draw something small, not serious, with the lowest amount of effort required to serve its purpose, actually helped a lot in conceptualizing how I can approach future projects. And likewise, how I can approach cleaning up older ones that don't quite stand the test of time.... but again, I may just opt for filling in the necessary blanks (fully coloring The Characters if it got to that stage) and cleaning up what I can with updated art (which would end up being pencil sketches).

Another thing is I really want to organize everything somehow, beyond my art tag. Especially because a lot of these thoughts are interconnected, even in the case of the Veronica one-shot. And of course, the other WIPs, while disconnected at first glance, Are the jumping off point for a storyline that has A Lot of different parts. Plus, on top of all that, I actually have a lot of comic/story ideas for my summoner OC. Either to present characterization/parallels, or to be a part of another broader storyline that's interconnected as well.

I think. Maybe the main thing to get sorted Is whatever is closest to being finished, and starting from there. Which also means I'll want to figure out a navigation system..... hgnghghnhghbngh......

[againtodreaming]

Hi dear :))

For the ask game:

Chamomile, camelia, orchid, ivy,

(Sorry not sorry you didn't set a limit-)

Hi Misfortune!!! Tysm for the ask <3 (and i will never set time limit on these things ;)) ALSO!!!! THE BIRD IS SO CUTE!!!! 😍💖 Back to another episode of "Mila tries and fails to answer questions in less than 10 sentences"

chamomile ⇢ what kind of things do you like receiving as gifts?

I mean, it depends? It's a case-by-case basis thing.…ok, I'm lost so let's go back to the words I wrote when I was trying to outline my answers to see if I can figure out how to elaborate the logic behind that. 

[Meaning. Useful. Emotion.]

Like…well, that? Not sure how to explain it. Like my uncle last year gave me a hammock bc it was on sale and like, why would i even want a hammock 😭 Even if i did want it, there is no place to put it in my house!! I can’t even use it.  It’s useless and minimum effort bc like, he knows I like to draw and write and read. Like, buy me office supplies at least! Those are cheap too and I will actually use them. He bought me the 6th book of a fantasy series when I was a kid and ok, idk why he only got me the 6th book of a series I had never heard of when I didn’t even have the 1st 5 books but at least I enjoyed reading it even if I was somewhat lost with the plot. And last year he bought me some cheap notebooks for Christmas I think which I did like bc I love notebooks and can always have more so it’s like. If u are not going to put some thought or effort into the gift and make it meaningful, like, at least give me smth I will actually use. If not it feels like such a waste since it will be just shoved somewhere in a closet never to be seen again. But another example, my aunt. She rarely buys me stuff bc money, but when she does they are things she likes that she thinks I will like which I love!! And even when she doesn’t buy me stuff, she makes really pretty illustrations for me. Or even my younger siblings!! There have been a lot of times they have given me handmade crafts (or drawings) they made and like, okay, most of them were not exactly what u would call pretty, but their intentions and the effort they put into it is what mattered!! Or a great-aunt who knitted a scarf for me. I haven’t seen her many times in my life so we don’t really know each other well, and I don’t care much for scarfs, but she didn’t have to give me anything but she wanted to and decided to make a scarf herself which I appreciate a lot plus I will probably need to use a scarf during winter, so you know, useful too.

orchid ⇢ what’s a song you consider to be perfect?

@irritable123 you also asked orchid: 

None I think? I mean like…What is perfection?

Ended up going to the dictionary:

perfect (adjective): complete and correct in every way, of the best possible type or without fault

So like, perfection doesn't really exist? Bc like, are we judging it under whose parameters? It doesn't exist. It's all subjective. Unless maybe we add religion to the discussion but that's a whole other thing and I haven't had religion classes since primary school (it wasn't even a favorite class so I didn't really care for keeping the notebooks after the school year either) and that was only Catholicism, so not knowledgeable enough either to even try to debate that. So, back to the point, songs. Perfection has never entered my mind when judging anything but my own stuff and I know nothing about music (can't even remember how to read the music sheets and I know I knew that in primary school, like that's the most basic thing, we probably learned it in 2nd grade or smth) so I don't have enough (not even the basic) knowledge to even try to judge it on a technical standpoint either. If we are going to judge perfection using my own likes as parameters……..can't be done either. I just listen to whatever I'm in the mood for? I just add every new song I like to the same playlist I have since I was like 12 or 13 years old and favorites come and go. I do have more specific playlists in youtube but it's mostly categorized by the fandom of each AMV and a couple for WIPs and one that's like, comfort music. And I speed up almost all of them up every time I listen to them (reason why I prefer to listen in Youtube rather than Spotify but I'll accept Spotify when I need to use my phone for background music), so even if I did consider a song perfect, would it even count when I prefer to listen to it in the speed up version? 😅😂

camellia ⇢ what were you like when you were younger? do you think you’ve changed a lot?

....look. I can remember the most random details about my childhood, most emotions and summarizing strokes, but ask for specific memories and I'm lost (unless u are asking for a few negative ones or random snapshots). So like, trying to be accurate here but no idea how correct I am being aasdfghj

Okay I was always described as: shy, quiet, kind, and creative. Smart by adults. Which like…I mean, they always told me that I became really talkative after I knew someone for a while. I don’t know if i have become more talkative after all the moving countries plus growing up, or maybe it just feels like I’m more talkative bc most of my childhood friends were really extroverted and more talkative (they usually talked to other people for me…I was REALLY quiet with people I didn’t know, even if they were classmates) (just you know, shaking my head for yes or now and 1 sentence answers at the most) (i did talk a little more with some classmates after i got familiar with them and if i liked them) than me so maybe I just didn’t notice it?? And okay, social confidence has always been super low, but I was fine in general in other aspects. Then moving countries and like, confidence in every part of myself dropped below zero. I didn’t even feel capable of washing vegetables for a time (idk!! but in my brain i could surely find a way to mess it up and wash it wrong and then everyone would maybe get sick and and and yep i couldn’t)  and I’ve been doing that since I was probably like 5 years old so like omg 😭����‍♀️💀 Then, this last year the confidence levels have started rising to more normal levels, wouldn’t say they are very high, but they are good enough to function. Somehow, definitely better with social situations than when I was 13 so that’s at least an improvement. I've become a lot worse in academic stuff, mostly bc depression and anxiety and at first the foreign language thing and well, the zero confidence for anything so I just haven’t been doing anything in fear I will mess up. Like, I’m sort of all or nothing with stuff 😅 Been doing well this school year so far but like, the classes have been easy so far so like yeah, we’ll see how it goes. I don’t know, I just used to be more active, present, useful, productive, I actually did the stuff I wanted when I was younger. But most things, it’s just…I mean, aside from being more mature and self-aware (from so much overthinking lol) I don’t think I’ve changed much? Same interests, same likes, same values, same personality. Things got added but that's it i think? It’s just how the way I act that has changed a bit but trying to get back into doing the stuff I used to so it’s like, the want is still there, it’s just my willpower that’s a work in progress ig? Not sure what more to add in this section so just stopping here 😂

ivy ⇢ what are your ‘tells’ for your emotions and moods? how can someone tell you’re happy, annoyed, upset or tired?

Happy = this one is usually obvious (pretty sure at least, my sister says i'm usually easy to read; also, i don't really bother trying to hide my emotions except in some occasions). The more happy, the more energetic i get, the higher and faster i talk (although this one also happens when I'm annoyed), and I just get really...I don't energetic, I want to do stuff, have fun, more optimistic, laughing a lot, more social, affectionate

Annoyed. Depends on levels? As I said, higher and louder and faster I talk. I will either be complaining a LOT or staying really silent, with some trying to not be snarky comments with varying levels of success if someone directs any question to me or if the annoyance just gets too much (i usually try to retreat before that happens tho). Also, dramatic.

Upset..right, remember me saying that i don't really like to hide my emotions unless it seems necessary? It's this section (sometimes annoyance, like it, depends but mostly here bc I can complain a lot but a lot of it is mostly out of principle). Depends on the level and category of upset really, and how close someone is to the situation. And if it's useful to share. Like, if i think telling someone will help my problem, I will probably share but if not, I'll just keep quiet and deal with it myself. Or if it's too recent. A lot of stuff is old news by now even if they are still problems so sharing those is easier than new stuff that are still doing their obligatory rounds around my head. If I feel like it's...idk, justified or inconsequential for me to be upset I will be upset. Either complaining about anything minor that has suddenly become annoying bc of my mayor annoyance, or complaining about whatever thing i'm being forced to do, or silent or taking turns doing both and just with no wants for anything and just like, no energy for anything and wanting to be alone and not wanting to talk or do stuff or anything. If I'm hiding it...it's not actually hiding bc it's not like I'm actually making an effort to hide it but just like, no complaining and I will not make efforts to behave happily or anything but I will also not express that I'm upset? Like, you can ask me whatever and I will just lie and either deny feeling upset, downplay it, attribute it to whatever else or just shrug and shake my head in yes or no and try to escape the conversation. Like, just will be more quiet and subdued. I actually don't know how good I'm at lying bc I really dont like lying but also, the few times I have lied nobody has said anything about it so ig they believe it? Or are they just giving me the benefit of doubt??? Like no idea, I don't lie enough to have much data. Also, half the time I'm upset about smth I can be more passive aggressive but, unlike my sister who will be doing passive aggressive comments each time she seems me, I will be so passive about it that the only one who ends up knowing about it it's me which is both frustrating and relieving and embarrassing so...yep. I just don’t like fighting ig. Can't do silent treatment tho, my sister does it and it's like ugh. I hate it. Plus I don't like being upset, anger requires so much energy and feels awful and it's my least favorite emotion, and the sooner the conflict is over the better. Tend to fidget a lot with my rings or hair-ties or rocks (if i have them near) or strands of hair when anxious. Also, almost forgot to mention this part but if I'm upset about smth and the people I'm talking with are not related at all with the problem, I usually don't mind talking about it

Tired....i mean tired? Quiet, subdued, maybe complaining, no energy to want to do anything, stressed about all the stuff I have to do.

ps: no idea how obvious i am when i'm upset when i'm not trying to make it obvious. bc sometimes people notice and sometimes they don't?? even when i think i'm pretty obvious?? So like yeah, no idea

[revasserium]

Do you have any tips writing childhood friends to lovers? I'm trying to get it sweet and nostalgic but it's just ehhhh not working.

Also do you watch daiya no ace?

ohhh!! i love childhood friends to lovers :)

i guess the biggest thing is to really lean into the "childhood" part -- and i always love writing kids bc the way the look at the world is so "new", right? they're always encountering new things because their world view is literally always expanding. and love to them is such a basic, obvious thing, because (hopefully), they're born into it -- they should know love implicitly from their parents, and so when kids love something, it's a pure, almost overwhelming kind of thing --

think about when you'd love stuff as a kid -- it was your whole fucking world!!! and it's all-consuming bc you don't know any other way to a feel a thing. you only know huge happiness and huge sadness and HUGE HUGE HUGE good and bad things!!! and you don't have the words to explain it all but you feel it. and that's what i love about childhood friends bc the love is so unbiased and unabashed and so, so true.

you can write a love that's the purest form of love, without any ulterior motive or nuance.

in terms of technically writing childhood friends, i like to keep my language simple and the concepts simple. put yourself in the mind of a kid -- you only have so much vocabulary to explain the things around you, so you gotta make do. you can also get away with absolutes, like "momma said its true so it must be true" that kind of thing because to a kid, if an adult and esp a parents says something is true, then it's like... law. so you can play with concepts that way.

and then as you track the development of the childhood and the growth and the friendship, i like to focus on the complication of emotions as the characters learn to process them -- ie, when someone's 7 vs when they're 13, the way they think and feel about a thing is totally different. the feelings of a 13 year old are much more faceted and you can start to have actual conflict.

also, if you're really going for the nostalgia factor, put in repeating jokes! develop it into a theme and then use it as a recurring thing in your fic! there's no better way to show the progression of a relationship than to use literally one or two "stationary" points and show how both characters change in their relationship with "the thing". in haikyuu, for kageyama -- it's the whole "king" thing.

for childhood friends, it could be as simple as sharing icecream -- having that as idk... a way for character A to apologize to reader via offering them icecream. and then build the entire fic around that. then the icecream becomes a metaphor, it becomes something more than itself.

mmmmm let me know if you need more concrete examples, anon! :) i'm happy to try and dig through my own childhood friends to lovers fics to try and illustrate, but yeah! idk if this advice will do you any good but!!! i hope it kinda helps! :D

[theplanetprince]

Unpopular opinion, but some characters who are just jerks, don't need a redemption arc. They don't need it. Like there obviously aren't more prominent examples to illustrate my point, but what I'm getting at here is that unless a character cares about forgiveness or other characters opinions its not really a redemption arc. The closest thing I can think of is how Akira Toriyama writes Piccolo and Vegeta. Theyre aliens who want to conquer earth who are then spared by goku and later form a bond through being shown kindness by goku and his son gohan. Granted for Vegeta he never really softens up until he meets Bulma and has a child of his very own, and even then unlike Piccolo he seems to have challenges with emotional intimacy.

But what I find particularly compelling about these two characters is that they never feel the need to turn to the audience and apologize for their past behavior. Even though they did commit murder, like a lot. Their pride just won't allow them to do it. However, by the time Vegeta and Piccolo are sacrificing themselves on planet Namek to spare Gohan and Krillen a few seconds from Frieza-- you don't need to be convinced that these are "good" people.

Whether or not your character is a Vegeta depends on if their goals just so happen to align with the morally good, this one instance.

Obviously, this comes back to our culture and especially fandom's culture with moral goods and bads. Theyre a very nuanced topic. It can feel unfair when a character whom you think bc they made a slight against the protagonist you've parasocially bonded with and projected onto, so, of course, you want the apology.

But even then, there are so many inoffensive characters who are used by the writer to create speed bumps in our protagonist's lives, most of the time unknowingly, so do they really have to go through a redemption arc?

[globodamorte]

FUCK. HOLD ON.

remember how some people said the Korean name for the webtoon was 'survivorship bias'

(i can't really tell if that was true bc when I put 꼬리잡기 on a translator it said chasing tail so...)

BUT. BUT. BUT. my point is. the whole survivorship bias thing was abt focusing on things that shouldn't be the focus. there's a famous example that illustrates this: imagine sending a bunch of planes to war. some of them come back with gunshot holes on some areas, while others don't come back at all. seeing the damaged areas, they decide to reinforce THOSE. but if you stop and think about it, the OTHER planes who didn't make it back were hit on more fragile places that should be reinforced instead, but they can't see where bc they didn't make it back. so: you should focus on the the ones who didn't make it instead of the ones who did. (look it up it'll make more sense than whatever I say)

now what does that tell us? we should be focusing on Yun, hyesong and junho? maybe even juntaek since he was almost killed as well? or can we stretch and abstract this concept a bit more?

if we do focus on the victims (and almost victim) what do we get? what do they all have in common that have got them killed? so far seem to be the fact that they were all suspicious one way or another of what was going on in there. Yun kept talking about the whispers, hyesong noticed something was wrong with the water order (and realized seongbin was imitating others), junho realized the whole ponnamephrin situation and could tell those deaths were not normal. juntaek was suspicious as well and was trying to find a way for nobody else to get killed.

ok. they all were seemingly killed for noticing something strange going on. this much is a given. but what about the circumstances in which they were killed? what the crime scene says?

the police established a height for the killer, but given all the rubble that could be faked fairly easily, specially since the killer had light at their disposal. they also seemed to be either a leftie or ambidextrous but idk there might be a way around this as well. there are many people out there who genetically, have a dominant hand but were raised to use the other, so in certain situations where one would typically to use the dominant hand, they'd use their 'true' hand.

I feel like this connects to jeongdo's tunnel vision as well, like I'm sorry I'm so bad at putting my thoughts into words, but what I mean is I think this kinda ties with the police pretty much excluding the girls from the suspect list (juntaek also). they're focusing on certain things and choosing to ignore others.

now, if we instead take the 'survivorship bias' concept into a more abstract analysis, we could analyze how among the suspects there are people being excluded from the investigation. regarding the girls, we have yujeong's hallucination right at the start of the story. he sees a long haired figure that threatens him into 'not telling anyone'. the figure's hair is dark but that could be more abstract since they were in the dark so probably the shapes matter more than the color - seeing a long haired shadow person and them being blonde instead of brunette makes more sense than it having a bob cut - I've seen people theorize that maybe that hallucination is of his younger sister but that sounds unlikely... also btw when are we getting more info on that???

now regarding juntaek, a couple chapters ago he says he remembers everything from before he got knocked out. and I found that really interesting because here's the thing: does he? we have this guy's memories be really important now, crucial even, but we also have someone else whose memories are just as valuable: Hanna's. she was awarded for her good memory and I think they definitely need to cross and compare his statements to hers. I don't believe the author would just mention this incredibly valuable information to only use it for those water testimonies. now we have someone who could lie on one side (Hanna), and on the other we have someone who could both lie or be confused bc of brain injury (juntaek) so that'll be interesting to see. why would they lie though? now that is the question lmao

and taeyeon has this thing where she was basically excluded from the suspect list by both the police AND junho. and idk that does sound suspicious to me. she's laying low even though she lied to the police and kept just bringing new evidence and statements whenever she wanted. but instead of keeping an eye on her they simply ignore everything else in favor of what the circumstantial evidence points to: seongbin.

there are many theories to explain seongbin's involvement (or lack thereof), some being him as an unwilling accomplice, threatened by the true killer, others with him being used and manipulated by someone who took advantage of his mental state, others about him being framed, not necessarily participating in the murders (consciously or not)

this latest chapter (62) ends with seongbin asking jeongdo if he's sure it was him. he said "I said, are you sure? because I don't think I would" <- seems like he doesn't remember doing anything. and while yes of course the presence of a mimic during the murders has been confirmed, we can't confirm it was seongbin because we can't confirm he was the only person capable of doing that. they're actors after all. one could denifitely be able to mimic voices without it being caused by a seizure.

how crazy is this, to receive so much information but not have anything to do with it, to not be able to draw any solid conclusion from it, because it's all so circumstantial. there's so much we know, but also so much to be uncovered.

I often don't have a point or conclusion to these posts. most of the time they make no sense, and this one is no different. it's mostly for myself to vent and try to organize my thoughts about what's going on in this story

my brain is juiceless now I've used up all my juice and I don't even know if this made any sense bc I don't have the capacity to go read it again.... oh well

I'll be back next week probably with more nonsense meta that's all folks~!