#but those skin artists cant find a place thats not being walked over in the broader mcyt community that needs skins way less often than mcrp

[becca4leafclover]

I could write an essay on how the MCRP community fundamentally screws over pixel skin artists

I hate sitting in like 4 different corners and feeling like NO ONE actually cares about my work

[doomsdaydicecascader]

:fire: pixel art in indie video games

there are so many angles to approach this one from. like okay this is a homestuck blog and i’m making a webcomic where i do art on a canvas meant to be viewed without any magnific8ion or up-scaling but for like. 3 years before this i was a full-time indie dev, and one of the things i took the most pride in was my pixel art - i still love doing pixel art but it’s hard to find places to put good pixel art into a homestuck comic. 

last year i put together a game for a game jam where i spent most of the time in the week i was working on environment art (@janederscore killed it on character animations) and the final score was, in terms of graphics, #5 out of 114 entries.

check out witch machine if you have the time, sound of the summer.

i’m personally really proud of this shot of the curtains in the dining room. 

all this to say, i feel like i’ve got a non-zero amount of skin in the game, with this ask. and the skin in the game is, i feel like pixel art is an EXTREMELY devalued medium, especially in the context of indie games, like. i can think of exactly one holistic pixel artist, where like, their work exists as its own thing and not as an extension of a game’s aesthetic, and that’s fucking paul robertson. 

you may know him as the guy who did all the pixel-pushing work in gravity falls - both giffany and the street fighter parody were his art. and that dude bites. that dude made graphic fan art of custer’s revenge, you know - the game that exists to be pointed at in gdc talks where the late-20s, early-30s dsa member says “we have to do better than this”. and they’re right, that game sucks. 

and even then, his work is only really holistic because the scott pilgrim game got fucking. unpersoned, and if it was still around he’d be the scott pilgrim game guy. even homestuck has homages to that dude’s work in it - eridan and sollux’s fight is in that exact style. 

thats a tangent but heres my feeling: the prevalence of pixel art in games is like a thing that has to be done in every other artistic medium, that is - you have to make a fucking choice, about what your game is, about what your narrative is. 

i wrote a whole blog post last year about what i was doing with the game i was working on at the time, box game, since i spent ages doing a pass on all the art in-game, redrawing things and reshaping them to be more visually coherent, less bad, and why i made those choices, and i stick by those to this day but here’s a less masturbatory example:

one of my favorite pixel art games, visually speaking, is space funeral. space funeral is a game about MOON, an artist who saw the CITY OF FORMS, a perfect city based on the platonic theory of forms and after being driven mad, destroyed it. over the course of the game, your goal is to defeat moon and restore the city of forms. 

at the beginning, phillip walks in weird ways, like the animator just drew some frames without really knowing how they fit together, the tiles are all given this black outline that’d be horrifying to ship, since there’s this pixel art concept known as “jaggies” - when drawing lines, there’s certain kinds of curves that you follow to create the illusion of curves and almost always, it’s on diagonals. 

the difference between these two lines is palpable, no? it effortlessly creates the illusion of amateur pixel art. also it is amateur pixel art, for as heady and interesting as thecatamites games can be i wouldnt put “pixel art quality” at the top of their merits. its still gr8 but you know. 

anyway, it starts out with this really comparatively desaturated look, using lots of neutral versions of colors. but........

as you approach the city of forms, it grows garish. the only colors that arent blown out are the yellow of leg horse and philip’s skin. as you approach moon, and restore the city of forms, restoring this “perfect model city” and restoring the world as it was known, the whole game’s aesthetic shifts again. 

to the RPG maker default tileset, something so thoroughly soulless that the only place you would ever see it in 2020 is in this context, a melancholy ending as the unique world you just spent the whole game exploring, is stamped out for a world that conforms to the very assets its packaged with by default. 

(youll also find them in hentai games on steam, where they bring out big bucks for busts of their buxom babes but barely break a babys bank over things like tilesets, though trying to talk truthfully about that seems thoroughly tedious) 

all this to say, i feel like you cant just have a take like “:fire: pixel art in indie games” because its like. “whats your opinion on art in comics”. “whats your opinion on acting in films”. its just a medium and there are good and bad examples of that medium and i think its kind of unfair to judge a medium by its terrarias when its also got games like deltarune, gato roboto, and hyper light drifter 

and again this is just in games, pixel art is a medium unto itself which is a whole other topic but i dunno how much i can get into that, just bc i dont have the experience

[evangclines-blog1]

what  if  we  ......  pretended  this  was  a  good  intro  .....  aha  just  kidding  .....  unless  ?  i  was  just  gonna  link  to  all  my  stuff  but  ...  ur  girl  wrote  a  lot  and  i  don’t  wanna  be  cruel  and  force  u  all  to  read  everything  JDBWBDJBWJ  so  here we  go  !!   <3

( VENUS, PARK SOOYOUNG, CIS FEMALE, SHE /HER ) guess what, EVANGELINE RHEE has just landed in cannes with their private jet. they are a TWENTY-TWO year old socialite, who spends much of their time & money UPDATING THEIR SKINCARE ROUTINE. i think their family is in the ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY and their net worth is around 10B USD.   

first things first ... i’m gonna drop some links in case u want to read everything i wrote at 6 am the day the submit closed bc im stoopid like that <3 

here u can find her full bio, stats, extended stats, and hcs ! the hcs are definitely the most fun to read so i recommend going to that page hehe

into the summary we go !

BACKSTORY:  suicide mention tw

eva’s dad is a movie producer and her mom was the beautiful woman he met at a train station <3 her parents had a very whirlwind romance, very love at first sight, very passionate and intense type of relationship literally everything you see in hollywood ? they had that ! they got married after only a year of knowing each other and had eva soon after 

thats when things got not-so-picturesque /: after having eva, her mom entered a pretty dark depression. eva’s dad ( who had been aware of his wife’s mental health and even warned by her family against doing anything crazy like getting married and having a whole baby so fast ) was kinda in denial about everything. eva’s mom still had her good days, but the bad days were really bad & when eva was only two years old her mom had an accident & passed away 

so while eva’s dad was grieving, he sent little eva to new york city to go live with her grandma !! eva adored her grandmother more than anyone else. she was a retired jazz singer, and a lot of what they did together was sit around and listen to old records <3 eva lived with her until she was five years old & that’s pretty much the only childhood she can remember since her mom died when she was so young !! 

when her dad brings eva back to france, he’s doing a lot better. he’s back to producing movies and throwing parties and being a part of society again ( things he had stopped while he was grieving for his wife ) and he even found his own form of “medicine” which was simply the company of beautiful women ! most of them were young actresses he met through his work, all of them were gorgeous, and they all adored little eva <3 

eva adored them right back ! they taught her stuff she imagined all mother’s teach their daughters: how to dress well, how to smell nice, how to get people’s attention, what makeup to wear, how to do your hair, how to speak so everyone hangs on to your every word, etc. she was still a little girl but she was absorbing all these lessons like a sponge, & it’s a big part of why she’s so obsessed with her own femininity and why she’s got this mindset about being beautiful inside & out in order to feel balanced. 

none of the women her dad brought home were ever at her house for more than a week. her father, who had been a notorious bachelor before eva’s mother, seemed incapable of falling in love again. that was his first and maybe only lesson to eva, which was how to break hearts, which is something else she absorbed & carried with her as she grew up

as eva grew up, she kinda became obsessed with trying to imagine what her mom had been like. no one in her family liked to talk about her, especially not her dad, but she knew she looked just like her and she was kinda always trying to fill in the blanks. but then one christmas her dad let it slip that her mom’s death hadn’t been an accident at all, that it had been on purpose. that was kind of the turning point for eva & she just kind of....stopped trying to re imagine her mom after that just kinda wanting to let her rest /:

she also went through a phase of doing stuff just because she could. she’d flirt with people’s boyfriends, she’d make strangers fall in love with her, she’d date people just to break up with them suddenly, etc. she kind of realized just how much she could get away with, but more than that, just how far people would go when they fell in love. she was obsessed with that, but also kind of jealous of those people just because she’d never felt that kind of soul shattering love for someone before and she really does want to </3 while she’s never been in love before, and while she does get bored of lovers easily, she still feels a type of attachment that is sometimes so strong she’s not willing to let the other person go even if she’s being selfish by hanging onto people she can’t get serious abt /: thats just life sometimes......whore rights !

FUN FACTS , PERSONALITY, AND TIDBITS: whore antics tw

 goes by eva, never evangeline. her grandma has always called her angel, and so that nickname has also carried over naturally

libra sun AND moon babey ! read abt it here

wears euphoria makeup to do groceries

 moved from paris to new york city for college to attend columbia university. double majored in english literature and business management. 

created what she called the “manhattan group” in reference to the bloomsbury group, which was a group of associated english writers, intellectuals, philosophers and artists in the first half of the 20th century ( that included writers like virginia woolf ) duringher freshman year. although meetings were supposed to be about discussing literature, it mostly became a place to drink warming champagne, flirt, and gossip. eva hosted the events & meetings off campus inside her loft. the manhattan group only lasted her freshman year though, as rumors of all the underage drinking and “cult-like behavior” persuaded her to drop it. that, and the fact that more than one member had fallen in love with her and things were getting quite tense. 

she never carries a lighter because she likes the way more than one person will offer her one if she asks for a light <3 

it’s a famous rumor that eva once spilled her drink on her chanel mini-dress at a charity gala and stripped down to her lingerie in front of everyone. it would have stayed a rumor if it wasn’t for the instagram story that went up of her only her underwear. 

she has a house phone in her nyc loft that only a select few people ( minus the strangers she’s given the number to while drunk ) know the number 

has a three year old black cat named june that she brought with ehr to cannes <3 

is the proud owner of a black maserati despite being an infamous bad driver. no one in their right mind, especially not her friends, would ever trust eva to drive.

it’s rumored she once snuck onto the yacht of a ceo to a fortune 500 company, only for him to find her in nothing but a bath towel eating chocolates while flipping through his playboy magazines, and that he was so taken with her instead of pressing charges he decided to name the boat after eva.

once spent a whole day walking around paris in a cheap pink wig and calling herself yvette. nobody could figure out why. eva often pulls stunts like this on a whim.

believes 2 is an unlucky number and is very superstitious about it, as that is the year her mother died. fully believes her twenties are cursed and is actually looking forward to the day she turns 30 just to escape the 2′s.

leonardo dicaprio once made a pass at her during the after party of a movie premiere she was attending.

during full moons, eva always has sex with the windows open. even if it’s winter, a window will be cracked open. this is one of her many personal superstitions. 

has a collection of old love letters, mixtapes, and presents past suitors and secret admirers have gifted her. while she cannot remember the origin of quite a few of the objects in her collection, she is attached to them still.

owns a replica of the famous cross necklace filled with cocaine that kathryn had in cruel intentions.

literally i basically just copied most of my hcs page im a clown i cant do summaries...

ok so personality wise ? shes a flirt. a whore, if u will. yes thats a personality trait now. literally if ur breathing shes flirting doesnt matter who u are doesnt matter if ur married if u have 10 kids doesnt matter like she will flirt....does not know how to open her mouth without flirting 

big on aesthetics /: believes everyone should get manicures like if ur cuticles are showing shes gonna gag . get help <3

not good at being held accountable for her actions. she’s not really the type to be malicious on purpose, but since she really does play with ppls feelings a lot it’s inevitable she’s gonna hurt someone but if u bring it up shes just gonna be like .. me ? at fault ? u must have the wrong girl i’m angel ...

likes 2 play games JSBDWBDJW clearly....matters of the heart are her fave kind but she also likes doing kinda ridiculous stuff for fun just to see how ppl are gonna react, also likes to do stuff just bc she knows she can usually get away with it 

loves skin care like she will be ur dermatologist ( self appointed ) she will gift u a moisturizer she will get everyone to do facemasks with her u cannot escape it ...

has trouble being alone but won’t admit it / doesn’t even really realize it ??? like it is... very rare u will ever find her sleeping alone or spending a whole day in just her own company 

not shy.....at all like JBSJDWBJDW she could use some shame but she has zero unfortunately 

despite being a whore....she is a HUGE romantic like whew she is obsessed with old love songs & is always playing them on her record player she loves to slow dance <3 she often gives ppl her fave poems ( usually poems abt sex ), she loves getting roses, loves kissing ppl on the cheek when she’s wearing lipstick, & she likes to leave ppl voicemails like ... shes really living like she is the main chara of a romance movie and everyone else is extra #5 most of the time... 

idk what else to say im sure shes gonna evolve once we start rping bc that always happens to me but....for now.....this is the end ! *cue feel special by twice*

[sheencko]

mr. moreau

an unfinished scrap of a novel i am not sure ill continue

i can see it its a diamond with the crossroads its white borders from my cracked window up here

i ‘ave to get that fixed)—  just below the fog (the fog is low today)

—and its on top of the street that was just painted

oh yesterday or maybe the day before that

or something,

i think

black as my genevieve’s ‘air

two bodies crisscrossed atop of each other and splattered like paint on a black canvas, a pollack of angry reds and i cant see their face cause theyve been ravaged by the hard concrete and im so high up looking down like a dreamer into a field of rye and i shudder because oh, how painful is that but i also suppose,

when youre fallin i guess you only feel the woosh of the wind under you and maybe your soul leaves your body before your body breaks into a million teeny tiny pieces and everything inside you that youve ever dreamed flows out of you like a bucket tipping over onto a tile floor—maybe

maybe its a perpetual fear and youre trapped inside a perpetual cycle of mind numbing terror because youre falling to your doom and you regret that your feet left the edge in the first place and maybe, maybe you shoulda called your mom and then told her that you loved her one last time or apologized to the man that you bumped into while you were hurrying home yesterday and the tears are flying from your face ‘cause you can see them surrounding your grave wearin nothing but black and your father is silent but a kind of silent youve never seen before and in that second you can just SEE him taking the same path you are and then

maybe the fear grips your limbs like god coming down and punishing you but all you feel is a childish sort of aversion an “i dont wanna” cause you dont wanna—you dont wanna die cause you have so so much to live for and youre cryin to some big fat man up in the sky but whats he gonna do? he cant stop you

but i wouldn’ know but i took the elevator and went down to look at the scene anyway cause we’re all drawn to the misfortune of others anyway like nothing more than moths having an orgy on a blue flame

mr. steinway was next to me in the elevator; he lived on the 13th floor and i on the 12th i saw him smoking up on the roof sometimes. he was a gentleman by any other name, except the part where his wife left him cause hed been caught with a particularly young mistress but i suppose that didnt matter because he played ravel’s jeux d’eau like no one else in the world could and maybe he played her body like that homonymous six figure grand he has, who knows

his face was wrinkled and ugly but the melodies he played were smooth and beautiful so who cared about his damn visage i guess

“oh, mister moreau,” and for that matter, his voice wasnt particularly musical either

“steinway, are you heading down to see what happened?”

“arent we all,” he chuckled like the deaths were a funny little joke he had made up,

“i think i’ll stop by the grocery store”

“is that so?” he spoke like a conductor introducing a symphony to an ignorant audience and he was just trying to find a way to relive his days of performing inside carnegie hall’s stern auditorium because all he performed in now was his empty apartment, we around ‘im the unwilling listeners. he silently watched the floor numbers count down on the bar above the elevator doors 10 9 8 7 “i ‘aven’t been there lately.” he finally said like he had wondered how to talk without being offensive while still showing his pockets were full of gold.

dick, i thought 4 5

and waited and 2 1 and the doors opened.

our doorman greeted us. he was a fine fellow and i talked with him when it was too awkward for silence. he had a prized son about to head off to columbia on some scholarship or another and his younger daughter was expected to follow in his shoes. his mother was bedridden his dad dead and apparently he made a great deal of money working as a valet for the most expensive hotel in the city on the weekends. he liked the color orange and his ties were sometimes tied with a different knot because his daughter liked to practice on him. for lunch he preferred a simple tomato and mozzarella panini from the cafe a few blocks away but occasionally he partook in the pita bread and hummus that mrs. tomadakis on the fourth floor gave him and he always always despised it when someone moved the rug in front of the door. i didnt know his name.

“another suicide, huh?” he gave me a warm smile and mr. steinway a slightly cooler one

he said ‘another’ because it had been the eighth one this month and we were only fourteen days into it and silently, slowly we found ourselves heading towards a point of numb disassociation—when one person committed suicide it was all over the news like mr. steinway’s scandal and you learned their birthday, their name, their age,

every tiny detail of they had been, the sorrow of their friends and family,

and everything that happened between the day that they they came into the world and the day they left

and the people reacted with horror, the parents apologized to their kids and the kids to their parents, and the grief counselors opened their doors to those who had lost someone in a similar fashion and had to relive the memory through someone else’s eyes and maybe a wide-eyed girl holdin the blade to her small wrist told herself not today, not today

but of course, thats me being optimistic

sometime after the third suicide all that popped up was a name and a vague somethingorother reason they lit themselves on fire or shot themselves in the ‘ead or something and then a frown from the casters, maybe a tinge of sympathy entered their tone but then 10 seconds passed and they forgot because this was all part of a trend that would end. the people talked about the suicides in hushed tones but now the conservations were turning into a more questioning again? and a response of yeses and then it tended to be never discussed again because hey it didnt involve us anyhow

so the nameless bodies started to pile up one on top of each other and i knew the faces and names of maybe three or four but no more.

i nodded to him. “troubling,” i said, because what else could i say

“yes, definitely. my wife had me turn off the news last night because she was so… distressed at all the incidents lately” the doorman replied and there was a hint of something unknown when he said it. nonetheless he turned to the man next to me because his priorities were his own “I heard your playing the other day, mr. steinway. marvelous as always,” he said, voice turned slick because steinway gave good tips. he couldn’t hear anything from all the way on the 1st floor of course

mr. steinway looked chuffed, a prizewinning cock who fought with all the other roosters. “the debussy or the khachaturian?”

“the khachaturian, of course. i always find myself partial to the contemporary—“ the doorman said in an inviting tone to begin an conversation that would undoubtedly net him a few more dollars or maybe a lot more next week—

“interesting!” steinway murmured in that hushed tone since discussion of classical music was clearly some covert operation that no one was supposed to know about. i walked outside into the cool fall air knowing that they would be stuck there for a good ten minutes or more and noticed that the crowd around the two corpses in the middle was gone already and the first thing i wondered was not who they were but rather if dear genevieve had heard the news

there is a photographer standing by the bodies with her big old camera snap snap and she looks up and stares at me staring at her she stands up and i notice that the bottom of her pants have been scuffed by the road she smiles at me without dusting herself off,

“hello!” she was too cheery for the death in front of her “do you live here?” she is the only one out here and the world feels strangely empty

“yes, i” i pointed to the clean, modern building to the left “live just over there,”

she looked at me up and down up and down “you wouldn’t know these people would you?” no i wouldnt

“no” her face fell but then it rose again as she stuffed a card into my clammy hand and the bracelets on her hand jangled and she grinned at me with white teeth but the front two were crooked as if someone ‘ad taken a pair of pliers to them and her brown ‘air was messy, her skin lighter than mine—“i was just wondering since no one seems to know who they are” (she spoke in a rush like she was breathless) and i finally start to wonder indeed, who they are because even as corpses their hands are entwined together “i’m” and now that im down here i can see the fine details in their “photographer, i” faces and the one on the left has that dead fish look in their dark eyes and the eyes are wide open and theyre staring into “crime scenes” my very soul and i wonder if theyre blaming me for my being complicit in their deaths because i too heard the news and did nothing but “ive been in the news” my hands are shaking and i think i couldnt have done anything because i didnt know but something jabs me — a maybe i did know because i too heard the news and passed by disinterested “but i also do” and im staring back at them and theyre staring back at me in a staring contest that i know i will lose “family portraits, anything you need basically” and the one on the rights eyes are closed and the part of their face that isnt all burst open and spilling onto the floor has a tender charm and their lips are fixed in what seems like a peaceful smile but im thinking no there is no way that could be peaceful and oh “call the number if” their ‘ands are all so small if i could just have grabbed those before they jumped maybe id be staring at an empty black canvas instead of a grotesque exhibit of all that we ‘ave done wrong

work title:

artist:

medium: human on concrete

[grubhivemind]

RILEY: -while ryan falling  back into the web of addiction wasn't a good thing, she was grateful that she was given the chance to support her through this. she took advantage of every day's two hour long visiting period no matter what. the last she wanted was for ryan to feel like she was going through this alone- 

RILEY: -she gets clearance into the facility and knows by now not to bring much of anything--everything could be used as a weapon these days. and she walks into the common area, looking for her daughter-

RYAN: -she's got herself perched in an arm chair near a window, away from other small groups of visitors with patients. she seems to be zoning out a little, watching the happenings of the outside world, but she already looks like she's on the upswing in general, even with the pensive look on her face.- 

RYAN: -when riley enters, she catches a glimpse of the movement and perks to attention. a smile returns to her weary face, brightening her look immensely and she waves in case riley hasn't spotted her yet.-

RILEY: -her attention is grabbed by the waving and she greets her youngest with a warm grin- hey, baby.

RYAN: -hops up from her seat to capture riley in a hug. she really appreciates her visits... the loneliness really worsens the restlessness.- hey!!! i missed you.

RYAN: its only been a day but i missed you!!!

RILEY: -hugs her tightly and smooches her head- i missed you too, cutie. 

RILEY: how are you doing?

RYAN: im alright... just a little bored i guess. -sighs-

RYAN: i mean aside from all the gross withdrawal shit but hey. 

RYAN: its not as bad as it could be???

RILEY: -she pulls away to take a seat next to ryan's chair- you really feeling that optimistic despite all of this? i mean...you totally should. because it's gonna get better. i just know how hard it is to.

RYAN: -wringes her hands and then takes a seat again too.- yeah. i dunno. 

RYAN: last time i was in a place like this it wasnt really... my decision?

RYAN: guess its easier to be optimistic if you sorta feel in control.

RILEY: -nods- yeah. i totally agree. 

RILEY: it took a lot of maturity, you know. for you to put yourself first and come here. 

RILEY: i wouldn't have been able to do that at your age at all.

RYAN: ... -she just shrugs about that- just took advantage of a moment of clarity. 

RYAN: i had some motivation but... 

RYAN: i think mostly i was disappointed in myself? and i was tired of feeling bad about that. 

RYAN: time to put on me big girl panties i guess.

RILEY: -she smiles a little, listening to ryan talk- and you're pretty fucking amazing for it.

RILEY: but you've always been amazing.

RYAN: -she blush... she isn't sure how to receive a compliment like that. at least not in THIS context. she doesn't feel all that amazing. its just necessary.- aw gee. 

RYAN: youre just saying that. :blush: -still gonna act coy about it tho.-

RILEY: -ruffles her a hair a little- nah. 

RILEY: i'm real proud of you, kid. 

RILEY: just happy i get to hang around you this time around. 

RILEY: you know, impart my motherly wisdom or some shit like that.

RYAN: oh?? what nuggets of wisdom do you have to share with me today?

RILEY: fuck bitches get money.

RYAN: -snorts then pops and locks it- no no no no silly boys cant tame me. 

RYAN: bennys the only one whos ever gonna claim me. 

RYAN: uh uh uh uh im in love with the price tag. 

RYAN: gimmie your number imma give that shit right back. 

RYAN: fuck boyz get money. 

RYAN: fuck boyz get money.

RILEY: i like that better. 

RILEY: okay, but for real, i never got any motherly wisdom to impart in the first place. it's all just winging it.

RYAN: hehe... i figured thats how the parenting thing works. 

RYAN: i mean no offense.

RYAN: youre good at winging it.

RILEY: yeah? 

RILEY: good enough to get a g on my report card?

RYAN: more like straight up g.

RILEY: daaaaaaaaaaamn! 

RILEY: didn't see that one coming. 

RILEY: so have you made any friends here yet? 

RILEY: places like these are friend central.

RYAN: i mean... im friends with pretty much everyone. -looks around at all the folks visiting with their family and friends.- 

RYAN: im of moderate popularity. people either love me or hate me cuz im being so bitterly optimistic haha. 

RYAN: so you know. 

RYAN: love me or hate me its still an obsession.

RILEY: love me or hate me that is the question. 

RILEY: you've always been the light that draws all the moths and big bugs. 

RILEY: it sounds less like a compliment when i say it like that but i swear it is.

RYAN: -snorts- oh yeah... i attract all KINDS of creepy crawlies.

RILEY: where's the lie?

RYAN: -snickers, but then pauses thoughtfully.- hey... 

RYAN: im sure theres some wisdom you can share though? advice on how to like... 

RYAN: keep myself from feeling so  restless?

RILEY: -looks over at her as her expression softens a little- you can't. 

RILEY: it's a fun part of withdrawal, baby. 

RILEY: what you can do is try and distract yourself. or make sure you're never completely alone. cuz it's when you're alone that it gets unbearable.

RYAN: ... -looks down at her lap.-distractions are hard.

RILEY: they are. 

RILEY: or you can channel that energy into something artistic. 

RILEY: it's not going to take it away but at least you'll get something out of it, you know?

RYAN: -fidgets, but then nods.- i always try singing. 

RYAN: it usually helps a lil bit.

RILEY: keep singing. even if you don't want to anymore. 

RILEY: that's my advice.

RYAN: -some days it is harder to find her voice and it feels like those have been more often than not lately.- you wanna sing with me?

RILEY: -she smiles sweetly at her- there's no question about it. 

RILEY: i'd fuckin love to.

RYAN: -nods again, taking a deep breath.- alright cool. 

RYAN: -shuts her eyes, thinking of what she wants to sing... and then just lets it happen.- 

RYAN: when it went down it was hard to breathe. 

RYAN: i gave up everything in a slow fall down to the floor. RYAN: life was escaping me. i couldnt find myself. 

RYAN: til it was all lost. 

RYAN: not anymore. 

RYAN: im holding on to all the pieces of my hearts debris. 

RYAN: til its time. 

RYAN: ill put it together and fix myself eventually. 

RYAN: and know its mine.

RILEY: i found gold in the wreckage, put it on a necklace. 

RILEY: keepin' it cause i, i, i, i know that it's mine. 

RILEY: i wear it like a message so i don't forget it. 

RILEY: keepin' it cause i, i, i, i know that it's mine.

RILEY: i know that it's mine no matter what i do. -reaches over to push ryan's hair back- 

RILEY: i know that it's mine whether i win or lose. 

RILEY: and even though my heart needs to take its time. 

RILEY: i know that's mine, i know that it's mine.

RYAN: -chest tightens at the simple gesture.- facing the change but its still tough to see. 

RYAN: at first i fought it all. i was so mean. 

RYAN: im still unsure how its supposed to be. 

RYAN: but taking every day now by the skin of my teeth.

RYAN: until i learn. 

RYAN: im holding on to all the pieces of my hearts debris. 

RYAN: til its time. oh. 

RYAN: ill pull it together and fix myself eventually. 

RYAN: and know its mine. -she starts to sniffle, watching her mother sing with her.-

RILEY: i found gold in the wreckage, put it on a necklace. 

RILEY: keepin' it 'cause i, i, i, i know that it's mine. 

RILEY: i wear it like a message so i don't forget it. 

RILEY: keepin' it 'cause i, i, i, i know that it's mine. -takes the opportunity to bring Ryan against her, holding her and singing more softly.- 

RILEY: know that it's mine no matter what I do. 

RILEY: i know that it's mine whether I win or lose. 

RILEY: and even though my heart needs to take its time. 

RILEY: i know that it's mine, i know that it's mine.

RYAN: -curls up against her, clinging tightly and giving up on singing the rest of the song because she's trembling too badly now.-

RILEY: -just holds her safely in her arms and leans her head against her daughter's.. she's still singing, just very softly-

RYAN: -she just listens to her for a long while, letting the tears that escape from her to cleanse the heaviness in her heart. she feels like a kid again, crying over something trivial that her mother effortlessly cast away with her soothing songs. it reminds her of all the ways she wanted to be just like riley. maybe she got that wish in too many different ways, but she wouldn't change this connection they have now for anything. she feels safe just like this.-