#creative risks

[nicholasandriani]

The truth behind stories, heroines journey, and the war of art: a 1-month plan to pursuing the Artists Journey

Fairy tales are more than true: not because they ” tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell usthat dragons can be beaten. — Neil Gaiman, Coraline In the vast landscape of storytelling, there exists a journey that has captured the imagination of humanity for centuries — the Hero’s Journey. It’s a timeless narrative structure, beautifully explored by Joseph Campbell, that takes our…

[hey-hey-j]

okay you can have some happy Bruce art now

I realize I haven't done a lot of Clay and Bruce interactions

(★ my Kofi) | (★ commission info)

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

In Regards To Your 2024 Summary:

Holy shit it’s been another year????? The hell?????

Also! Your art style is gorgeous and that being found in 2023 and then refined throughout late 2023 and the entirety of 2024 really shows, as does your growth in panel layouts, perspective, and — as you said — experimentation. If you ever post your animation or video game art I’m looking forward to it.

As cheesy as it sounds, being able to laugh at funny comics and look at all the details of your art really made my 2024 brighter, even when things were hard. Including looking at your older art— it doesn’t need to be new to be enjoyable! I’m glad your art is well loved and it’s a privilege to have been here since the (near) beginning. I hope you take care of yourself in 2025 and beyond!

You and your art bring a lot of people a lot of joy never forget that <3

Thank you so much for keeping up with my art journey throughout these last two years! Two years!!! I am baffled at how that feels both too long and too short!

Admittedly, my art summary didn't manage to capture the fact that I did a lot of comic layouts that I'm really proud of. I also drew more backgrounds and made some very detailed works (*Dungeon Meshi spoilers for these examples*).

The growth is lot more evident when comparing my 'best' comics of 2023 to 2024:

Sometimes the growth is vertical, sometimes it is horizontal - and damn, sometimes it goes out of sight into the Z-plane. But it is always happening!

[kaynineacademy]

every. page. that. i. wrote. you. were. on. it.

[chimerical-daydreams]

Hello so im drawing fanart for your au and i’ll be honest i have a lot of idea for it but since its also your au i really dont want to step on your idea or plan for king

Basically the idea was that the reason king was still able to barely remember the island is because he had tattoed on his chest his birth constelation (the lion with the star regulus [little king or heart of the lion] in the middle of his chest) while on each back hand of his hands there is the birth constellation of his parents but it got faded and cause such a headache that he hides it behind his gauntlet protecting the last memoria of his genitor

But yeah thats what i had in mind and i wanted to run by you before doing anything hope it doesnt bother :’)

@captain-h0pe I'm gonna be honest, I was planning on clocking out for the night before getting this ask and getting so giddy with excitement I had to draw this out.

If you'll bear with me here, I have some fun cultural headcannons for the Forgotten Island. From birth, a child is assigned a Core Star (usually based on what shines brightest/is most central in the sky/has significance to the parents). After a few years, at around 6 or so, the child is bonded to their Core Star's constellation. Later in life, they can choose to bond to someone else's Core Constellation, which becomes one of their Supporting Constellations. This is often done with family, friends, partners, caretakers, and other figures of personal importance. Physical markings of these bonds are not a requirement, but are admired as a sign of loyalty and steadfastness.

Being bonded to a Star (the ones with spikes) means that they will listen when you wish. Your Core Star, in particular, can be called for the most complex wishes, if you know how to do it.

The constellations I gave him are Leo (chest, as specified in the ask), Corvus (right hand), Cassiopeia (left hand), Corona Borealis (left arm) and Horologium (right arm). Not represented is Perseus on the back.

Maybe when King tries too hard to Remember, the tattoos take on various colors, which only makes the ensuing headache worse.

[dragonroilz]

May the muses sing forever, the well remain filled, and the music stay electric...

[youreonyourown-kid]

Okay I know award shows are silly but Flow just won best animated motion picture at the golden globes and I love that it’s getting recognized 🥹 it’s really such a beautiful film I hope this inspires more people to give it a chance

[nocreativityfornames]

I have to say, MC is kind of crazy for helping Belphie because I would've never attempted that in their position.

Like, wdym I just got in hell and you want me to somehow figure out how convince Lucifer and his brothers - six of the most powerful demons in hell - to make pacts with me without giving away any interior motives? To consistently lie to the only people guaranteeing my safety in this place and risk angering them just to try and free you??

I mean, you're practically immortal so a year for you isn't that much time, you're in a nice room, you don't have to go to RAD like the rest of us, you're getting fed, and you spend most of his time asleep! Your situation is NOT that bad. Oh, but you don't want to be in isolation for the rest of the year till the exchange program ends? Well, tough luck bud, that's what most of us had to go through during the pandemic. You can wait.

I could bring you some card games or whatever to help you pass time but no babe, I'm not working to free you. Sorry, I'm already busy stressing over how I'm gonna survive a year in hell, I don't need more anxiety in me right now.

[sharas]

what’s funny about velma (2023) is that they’ve already tried a dark and edgy scooby doo remake. the first live action movie from 2002 was originally directed towards adults, and was rife with dirty jokes, drug references, and cleavage shots of daphne and velma.

you know why the final product didn’t resemble that at all? bc they realized early on that the edgy grimdark angle fucking sucked. they reworked the movie to be more family-friendly— still with a complex plotline, but without the gratuitous sexual references and adult jokes. they did end up keeping a few references to shaggy smoking marijuana (his love interest being named mary jane, for one) but they were super toned down so that they’d go right over the heads of any kids watching.

it wasn’t necessarily a kids movie. i was five years old when it came out, and i loved it, but it was fun for teens and adults to watch too. and even with the dated cgi for scooby, it still has a lot of rewatch value. ask yourself if you think anyone is going to be rewatching velma in 2043 the way people still watch scooby doo twenty years after it was released.

this weird trend of the past few years of remaking fun and campy media into something edgy and full of shock value (wednesday, riverdale, and that awful winx club series come to mind) is so boring and trite and misguided. if you want to make dark media so bad, write something original instead of borrowing the barest skeletons of existing media and distorting them until they’re unrecognizable. it’s such an insult to the creators to have their stories mutilated by people who have no understanding of or appreciation for the characters or audience.

[angelsdean]

I need people to understand how S&P (standards and practices) works in television and how much influence they have over what gets to stay IN an episode of a show and how the big time network execs are the ones holding the purse strings and making final decisions on a show's content, not the writers / showrunners / creatives involved.

So many creators have shared S&P notes over the years of the wild and nonsensical things networks wanted them to omit / change / forbid. Most famously on tumblr, I've seen it so many times, is the notes from Gravity Falls. But here's a post compiling a bunch of particularly bad ones from various networks too. Do you see the things they're asking to be changed / cut ?

Now imagine, anything you want to get into your show and actually air has to get through S&P and the network execs. A lot of creators have had to resort to underhanded methods. A lot of creators have had to relegate things to subtext and innuendo and scenes that are "open to interpretation" instead of explicit in meaning. Things have had to be coded and symbolized. And they're relying on their audience to be good readers, good at media literacy, to notice and get it. This stuff isn't the ramblings of conspiracy theorists, it's the true practices creatives have had to use to be able to tell diverse stories for ages. The Hays Code is pretty well known, it exists because of censorship. It was a way to symbolize certain things and get past censors.

Queercoding, in particular, has been used for ages in both visual media and literature do signal to queer audiences that yes, this character is one of us, but no, we can't be explicit about it because TPTB won't allow it. It's a wink-wink, nudge-nudge to those in the know. It's the deliberate use of certain queer imagery / clothing / mannerisms / phrases / references to other queer media / subtle glances and lingering touches. Things that offer plausible deniability and can be explained away or go unnoticed by straight audiences to get past those network censors. But that queer viewers WILL (hopefully) pick up on.

Because, unfortunately, still to this day, a lot of antiquated network execs don't think queer narratives are profitable. They don't think they'll appeal to general audiences, because that's what matters, whatever appeals to most of the audience demographic so they can keep watching and keep making the network more money. The networks don't care about telling good stories! Most of them are old white cishet business men, not creatives. They don't care about character arcs and what will make fans happy. They don't care about storytelling. What they care about is profit and they're basing their ideas of what's profitable on what they believe is the predominate target demographic, usually white cis heterosexual audiences.

So, imagine a show that started airing in the early 2000s. Imagine a show where the two main characters are based on two characters from a famous Beat Generation novel, where one of the characters is queer! based on a real like bisexual man! The creator is aware of this, most definitely. And sure, it's 2005, there's no way they were thinking of making that explicit about Dean in the text because it just wouldn't fly back then to have a main character be queer. But! it's made subtext. And there are nods to that queerness placed in the text. Things that are open to interpretation. Things that are drenched in metaphor (looking at you 1x06 Skin "I know I'm a freak" "maybe this thing was born human but was different...hated. Until he learned to become someone else.") Things that are blink-and-you-miss-it and left to plausible deniability (things like seemingly spending an hour in the men's bathroom, or always reacting a little vulnerable and awkward when you're clocked instead of laughing it off and making a homophobic joke abt it)

And then, years later there's a ship! It's popular and at first the writers aren't really seriously thinking about it but they'll throw the fans a bone here and there. Then, some writers do get on the destiel train and start actively writing scenes for them that are suggestive. And only a fraction of what they write actually makes it into the text. So many lines left on the cutting room floor: i love past you. i forgive you i love you. i lost cas and it damn near broke me. spread cas's ashes alone. of course i wanted you to stay. if cas were here. -- etc. Everything cut was not cut by the writers! Why would a writer write something to then sabotage their own story and cut it? No, these are things that didn't make it past the network. Somewhere a note was made maybe "too gay" or "don't feed the shippers" or simply "no destiel."

So, "no destiel." That's pretty clearly the message we got from the CW for years. "No destiel. Destiel will alienate our general audience. Two of our main characters being queer? And in a relationship? No way." So what can the pro-destiel creatives involved do, if the network is saying no? What can the writers do if most of their explicit destiel (or queer dean) lines / moments are getting cut? Relegate things to subtext. Make jokes that straight people can wave off but queer people can read into. Make costuming and set design choices that the hardcore fans who are already looking will notice while the general audience and the out-of-touch network execs won't blink and eye at (I'm looking at you Jerry and your lamps and disappearing second nightstands and your gay flamingo bar!)

And then, when the audience asks, "is destiel real? is this proof of destiel?" what can the creatives do but deny? Yes, it hurts, to be told "No no I don't know what you're talking about. There's no destiel in supernatural" a la "there is no war in Ba Sing Se" but! if the network said "no destiel!" and you and your creative team have been working to keep putting destiel in the subtext of the narrative in a way that will get past censors, you can't just go "Yes, actually, all that subtext and symbolism you're picking up, yea it's because destiel is actually in the narrative."

But, there's a BIG difference between actively putting queer themes and subtext into the narrative and then saying it's not there (but it is! and the audience sees it!) versus NOT putting any queer content into the text but SAYING it is there to entice queer fans to continue watching. The latter, is textbook queerbaiting. The former? Is not. The former is the tactics so many creatives have had to use for years, decades, centuries, to get past censorship and signal to those in the know that yea, characters like you are here, they exist in this story.

Were the spn writers perfect? No, absolutely not. And I don't think every instance of queer content was a secret signal. Some stuff, depending on the writer, might've been a period-typical gay joke. These writers are flawed. But it's no secret that there were pro-destiel writers in the writing room throughout the years, and that efforts were made to make it explicitly canon (the market research!)

So no, the writers weren't ever perfect or a homogeneous entity. But they definitely were fighting an uphill battle constantly for 15 yrs against S&P and network execs with antiquated ideas of what's profitable / appealing.

Spn even called out the networks before, on the show, using a silly example of complaints abt the lighting of the show and how dark the early seasons were. Brightening the later seasons wasn't a creative choice, but a network choice. And if the networks can complain abt and change something as trivial as the lighting of a show, they definitely are having a hand in influencing the content of the show, especially queer content.

Even in s15, (seasons fifteen!!!) Misha has said he worried Castiel's confession would not air. In 2020!!! And Jensen recorded that scene on his personal phone! Why? Sure, for the memories. But also, I do not doubt for a second that part of it was for insurance, should the scene mysteriously disappear completely. We've seen the finale script. We've seen the omitted omitted omitted scenes. We all saw how they hacked the confession scene to bits. The weird cuts and close-ups. That's not the writers doing. That's likely not even the editors (willingly). That's orders from on high. All of the fuckery we saw in s15 reeks of network interference. Writers are not trying to sabotage their own stories, believe me.

Anyways, TLDR: Networks have a lot more power than many think and they get final say in what makes it to air. And for years creative teams have had to find ways to get past network censorship if they want "banned" or "unapproved" "unprofitable" "unwanted" content to make it into the show. That means relying on techniques like symbolism, subtext, and queercoding, and then shutting up about it. Denying its there, saying it's all "open to interpretation" all while they continue to put that open to interpretation content into the show. And that's not queerbaiting, as frustrating as it might be for queer audiences to be told that what they're seeing isn't there, it's still not queerbaiting. Queerbaiting is a marketing technique to draw in queer fans by baiting them with the promise of queer content and then having no queer content in said media. But if you are picking up on queer themes / subtext / symbolism / coding that is in front of your face IN the text, that's not queerbaiting. It's there, covertly, for you, because someone higher up didn't want it to be there explicitly or at all.

[sugar-grigri]

If Fumiko is monstrous then Fujimoto should start presenting her as such

Fumiko is written to remind us that Denji is a child, and I repeat, she is the symbol of a child's sexual trauma in all its horror and "paradoxes".

Touching Denji without his consent, catching an adolescent who hasn't yet discovered himself off guard, is the most obvious way of proving the link between the theme of sexual assault and Fumiko, but it doesn't stop there.

The fact that Denji accepts only proves this point: it shows just how much he's someone who needs boundaries and protection. He passively listens to what he's told without question simply because Fumiko has the upper hand.

She has one, but spends her time pretending she doesn't, in particular by disguising her age like a predator, calling him "senpai" when she's 22, and playing up her protective role as a "bodyguard" when she's only there to stop Denji thinking for himself

As can be seen in the dialogue between Miri and Denji, she positions herself as an interlocutor, standing in Denji's shadow, influencing his decisions and distracting the boy from the substance of Miri's message.

But she's a complete paradox, still trying to make Denji believe she's protecting him, she refers to Chainsaw Man as a "child", which rather than demonstrating a good intention shows that she's well aware of what Denji is and that she's abusing him head-on.

Who protects a child by attacking him?

Once again, I insist, these are two pages from the same chapter. Dare you tell me that Fumiko doesn't present any contradictions?

Above all, she makes it seem as if she only wants what's best for Denji, even when he hasn't responded to her pleas for help. Once again, there's a paradox: the predator blames her victim for not having seen her own vulnerability, whereas she’s only abusing those of her victim.

Fumiko is a metaphor for the very dangerousness of sexual assault, gentle on the surface but insidious, its violence only made clear and felt after the event, rising like a tide.

When Yoshida convinces Denji to give up his normal life, he leaves him in the hands of Fumiko, a public hunter, who symbolises the extent to which, despite the monster in front of them, danger also exists among men, and that the milieu of public hunters is a harmful world for a child.

I think the reason Fujimoto doesn't immediately place Fumiko in a position of condemnation is to instil a feeling of frustration and powerlessness at seeing Denji unprotected, to make it clear that "he's missing something", a parental figure.

But I think that for the writing to be complete, the author has to take a clear stance on the subject, in his own way of course, but explicitly

Seeing Fumiko next to Denji makes me anxious, it's such a common form of violence that it pulls me out of my reading.

Fumiko is a monster, so I pray that Fujimoto will have fun explicitly detailing her dark side and her horror.

If he doesn't, then she'll remain an unfinished and confusing chimera, the result of lazy writing and a fear of commitment.

[thirdity]

I shall create whatever happened to me. Only because life cannot be retold. Life is not livable. I shall have to create atop life. And without lying. Create yes, lie no. Creating isn’t imagination, it’s taking the great risk of grasping reality. Understanding is a creation, my only way.

Clarice Lispector, The Passion According to G. H.

[arjunasearth]

The older I get, the more I am learning from children.

I have been working with children as a caregiver for almost 14 years -practically for half of my life. They have always been a part of my life. They are the true healers because they continously teach me to reaccess my inner child energy. To be joyous towards life, no matter how hard it may get. To never stop playing or being foolish. To keep taking risks, being courageous and to go for adventures. To collect things in Nature and dance. To move, to shake my body out and to laugh, to cry,to feel my emotions on the full spectrum. To never lose hope and to keep my dreams big. To follow my intuition and to speak and act from the heartcenter. To cherish Nature and to dance to the rhythm of life. To get creative whenever I can and to never lose connection to my creative energy, which is the Source of my Being. They truly are healers. And I am so grateful for having them in my life, for their lessons , for their reminder to always realign with my inner child, to see her smile. To be there for her. To reparent myself. Cause I know that when she is smiling and truly happy, than I am , too.

~She is me and I am her.~

[pjharvey]

yah middling/extremely radio friendly pop artists have been doing crazy and provocative visuals for their videos, stage performances, album art, etc for ages and having outfits that are “too out there” for how their music sounds so re: chappell roan this is nothing new. lil nas x kind of does pop rap that isn’t bad but also nothing particularly special, and he has had some insane music videos. lady gaga did this, miley cyrus did this, halsey is doing this, the weeknd did this, even taylor swift in her reputation era did this

[kaynineacademy]

when gracie abrams said “felt good about you til i didn’t” and when hozier said “the blood is rare and sweet as cherry wine” and when josé olivarez said “lord, i worry that love is violence” and when taylor swift said “did the love affair maim you, too?”

[robotacap]

Dear Brother…

This was my contribution to the Risk of Rain Fanzine (Link to post here: https://www.tumblr.com/dragonroilz/755191014168346624?source=share)

I had an amazing time making this and being apart of the Zine and getting to work alongside so many artists that I look up to and am inspired by!