#drew this because I’m not feeling that great in school but drawing it made me feel better

[larkinjustwanderin]

Snufkin is going to be a good father. If he would one day that is.

[amiableness]

Threads ; part one

Pairing: Sirius Black x Fem!Reader

Word Count: 2.4k

Warnings: Language, angst, anxiety? Let me know if there's more!

A/N 💌 Part one is finally here, thank you for all being so patient with me and I promise the future parts will be better!

Interaction keeps me motivated to write, so I would love to hear your thoughts!

Series Masterlist!

The Great Hall is thrumming with activity as the anticipation of the new school year sets in. 

Sunlight pours through the windows, casting a warm, golden hue onto the tables and cold walls. The clinking of cutlery melds with the lively chatter and bursts of laughter that permeate the hall. Students eagerly catch up with their friends after the summer break, their faces illuminated with excitement and anticipation for the year ahead.

"I don’t know if I’m quite ready for this year." You admit softly. Lily, seated to your left, casts a surprised glance in your direction. Your tone carries a hint of nervousness, a stark difference from your usual excitement for the new school year.

As seventh year begins, the reality of it all felt surreal, almost as if time had slipped through your fingers without warning. Contemplating life beyond Hogwarts seemed daunting, a foggy landscape you weren't quite prepared to navigate. The thought of a future without the familiar halls and comforting routines left you feeling unsettled. Questions about your path post-Hogwarts lingered causing anxiety to tighten in your stomach. The uncertainty of what lay ahead, and where your friendships would stand in the grand scheme of things, clouded your mind.

"Because this is the year you find your soulmate?" Marlene's question hung in the air, causing your stomach to sink even further.

Soulmates were tethered by a thread, an intangible connection that tightens with proximity, drawing them closer by an irresistible pull. As their 18th birthday approached, the magnetic pull between soulmates intensified, drawing them closer together in an undeniable bond. 

Even in their younger years, soulmates could sense the faint tug of their connection, though it often was difficult to discern between fleeting infatuation and the unbreakable bond between soulmates. However, as the milestone birthday drew nearer, the pull became unmistakable, a magnetic force guiding them to their soulmate. 

At least, that's what you've heard from those who have experienced it firsthand.

“I don’t know if I’m ready for that.” You confirm, and Lily sends you an understanding look. Neither of you had found your soulmates, while Marlene had found her soulmate in Dorcas.

The timing of finding one's soulmate varied greatly from person to person. Some discovered theirs early on in life, while others didn't find theirs until mere days before their 18th birthday. It all depended on the person and how open they were to the connection.

"We'll be going through it together." Lily says, her smile soft as she bumped her shoulder against yours. It did offer some comfort. Lily Evans had been your best friend since first year, and the thought of her being by your side made the upcoming year feel a bit more bearable.

"What if James is your soulmate?" You ask, your tone laced with playful teasing. However, Lily's hopeful expression catches you off guard, prompting you to shift your gaze towards Marlene in shock. Across the table, Marlene and Dorcas appear just as taken aback by Lily's unexpected reaction. It's a stark contrast from the adamant denials she would have offered last year.

"Maybe he is." Lily says quietly, her tone nonchalant as she offers a simple shrug, as if what she just said isn't a big deal.

“Are you..When did this happen?” Dorcas asks, and you and Marlene eye Lily curiously.

Since the moment you met him, Lily had been skillfully evading James's advances, urging him to seek out his true soulmate rather than pursuing her. Despite Lily's dismissals, James remained steadfast in his belief that she was the one destined for him. Deep down, you sensed a potential soulmate connection between them, but you never brought up the subject with Lily, knowing she would vehemently deny the idea.

Lily looks up with feigned innocence, “What?”

Marlene sighs, “Lily Evans, don’t you dare play dumb. When did your feelings towards James change?” 

"I don’t know. Over the summer, I guess, I realized I’ve been a bit unfair to him," She sighs. "He’s been nothing but kind, and I’ve just blown him off. And honestly, he was on my mind most of the summer."

"Merlin, we've barely been here for two hours, and the soulmate bonds are already starting." Marlene grins, amused.

"I didn't say I thought he was mine!" Lily cries out.

"You said maybe. That heavily implies that you do." You chuckle at the panicked look on Lily’s face, fully aware that she's going to be teased about this relentlessly.

"Have you felt a pull with him?" Dorcas asks, and Lily's cheeks flush with a delicate shade of pink.

“I mean, yes. But couldn’t that just be the annoyance I feel towards him half the time?” Lily asks.

"With that logic, you and Sirius are soulmates." Marlene interjects, her grin mischievous as she takes a sip of her tea, her gaze fixed on you over the brim of her mug. Your expression sours at the mere mention of his name, a subtle shift in mood palpable in the air.

“There is no way that Sirius Black is my soulmate.” You snark, the mere thought of Sirius causing your stomach to knot with intense emotion. Hatred, you conclude.

It's the mere mention of Sirius Black that tends to stir up the worst in you. His name alone triggers a cascade of emotions within you, igniting a visceral reaction that you struggle to contain. Just the thought of him is enough to set your nerves on edge, reminding you of past conflicts and tensions that still linger beneath the surface.

It's not as though you hadn't attempted to be friendly with Sirius. Shortly after your arrival at Hogwarts, James Potter had introduced himself to you and Lily in the Gryffindor common room. He was accompanied by Remus, and while James eagerly engaged Lily in conversation, you found yourself drawn to Remus, the two of you hitting it off. You chatted for what felt like hours, so engrossed in your conversation that you barely noticed Sirius and Peter entering the common room.

However, the moment your eyes landed on Sirius, it felt as though the air had been knocked out of your lungs. For a brief second you had wondered if he was your soulmate. Everything blurred into a hazy backdrop, your eyes unable to part from his figure.

Remus didn’t miss the way you seemed to drift away from the conversation, your gaze fixed on Sirius as he made his way over to where you all were seated. You and Remus occupied the couch, while Lily and James were comfortable in their own armchairs. Sirius and Peter hovered nearby, a curious expression etched across their features, clearly unsure who the two unfamiliar girls engaged in conversation with their friends were.

Remus had introduced you while James and Lily remained preoccupied, not yet noticing the two boys, "Mates, this is Y/n," Remus had said, his warm smile welcoming.

Peter had been friendly and eager, extending his hand with enthusiasm as he shared a bit about himself. But Sirius remained silent, his expression etched with a subtle frown. When you attempted to engage him in conversation, he responded with curt one-word answers, leaving you feeling increasingly self-conscious, questioning what you might have done wrong.

Remus had assured you that Sirius wasn't usually like that, and he promised that the next time you saw him, he would likely be more talkative and outgoing. You clung to hope, eagerly anticipating a change in Sirius' demeanor, only to be met with disappointment when his behavior remained unchanged. In the company of others, he exuded friendliness, cracking jokes and radiating outgoing energy. 

Yet, when his attention turned to you, he completely shifted, hardly communicating and barely sparing you a glance.

You couldn't figure out what you might have done wrong. From the moment you met Sirius, you had been nothing but friendly, offering a warm smile and introducing yourself with genuine enthusiasm. Lily, who shared many similarities with you, greeted Sirius in much the same manner, yet he responded to her without hesitation. It left you wondering: what had been so different about your interaction with him?

Over time, frustration crept in, and you found yourself growing increasingly sarcastic or curt in your interactions with him. Before long, your relationship devolved into incessant bickering and exchanging snide comments.

Any inkling that Sirius might be your soulmate was swiftly forgotten.

"Oi! Princess! You talking about me over there?" Sirius' voice cuts through the chatter, drawing your attention to the Marauders down the table. His cocky smirk meets your gaze, and for a fleeting moment, you wonder if he overheard your conversation. But he's too far away to have eavesdropped, yet close enough to call out to you, and his voice effortlessly grabs the attention of quite a few other students at the Gryffindor table. 

The students in your year hardly flinch, accustomed to the heated banter that often erupted between you and Sirius. Observing the familiar fighting between you and Sirius was almost expected; it wouldn't have felt like the first day of school without it for some of the students.

“Not everything revolves around you, Black.” You retort, rolling your eyes at his arrogance. Anger begins to simmer within you, heat radiating through your body as frustration builds.

You assume he must have just noticed you, considering you've been had a peaceful morning so far. But little did you know, Sirius had fixed his gaze on you the moment he entered the hall, and he's been eager to get under your skin. Anything to capture your attention.

Sirius, undeterred, flashes a grin that seems to stretch from ear to ear. “So mean already. Didn’t you miss me? The months without you were unbearable.” He calls, his tone dripping with amusement, clearly deriving great enjoyment from riling you up.

“Do you really think I spend my free time thinking about you?” You're sending him an irritated frown, but your eyes are lit up with a fire that's reserved only for him. It's the same look you get every time the two of you fight, and he loves it.

"I think you do, princess. I think I drive you crazy.” He declares with that smug grin plastered on his face, igniting a burning sensation in your stomach.

You remain silent, too consumed by anger to muster a response. His words strike a chord because, deep down, you know he's right. He has a way of driving you to the brink of frustration. You have wracked your brain, relentlessly trying to decipher why he harbors such animosity towards you and where you might have gone wrong with him.

You're momentarily caught off guard, your mind racing to come up with a response that doesn't betray your irritation, much less let Sirius think he's gotten to you. Fortunately, Remus swiftly engages him in conversation, likely sensing the tension brewing on your face.

"I'm telling you, there's a connection there." Marlene insists, and you shoot her a glare, prompting a laugh to escape her lips.

.·。.·゜✭·.·✫·゜·。.

The initial night back at Hogwarts always proved the most challenging for you. It took a few nights before you could finally settle into the unfamiliar bed and drift off to sleep without difficulty. The weight of it being your final year lingered heavily in your mind, along with the daunting task of uncovering your soulmate.

Seated before the crackling fire, you enveloped yourself in the warmth of your blanket, captivated by the dancing of the flames. Your silent wish lingered in the air - that, perhaps, if you remained in this cozy atmosphere long enough, fatigue would gradually claim you.

"Up late thinking of me, princess?" Sirius's voice breaks the silence, causing your body to tense reflexively. You shoot him a glare over your shoulder as he settles into the floor beside you, his gaze fixed on the flickering flames instead of meeting yours.

"What are you doing?" You quip, your tone laced with irritation. Sirius glances in your direction, leaning back on his palms with a subtle smirk playing on his lips. Amusement dances in his eyes as he takes in your furrowed brows and the unmistakable look of irritation etched across your features.

“Warming up. It’s rather cold in the dorm,” He says, before glancing down at the blanket that’s wrapped around your figure. “Care to share? ”

“Get fucked,” You huff, pulling the blanket tighter around your figure, your gaze fixed on the fireplace as you ignore Sirius's laughter, “Why are you sitting here? Go somewhere else.”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

“I’m not in the mood to deal with you.” You snark, your hopes of relaxing by the fire dashed by the unexpected disruption.

“And when are you?” Sirius's tone carries a teasing edge, and a mischievous grin tugs at his lips as he observes your bristling reaction. 

He longs for you to turn and meet his gaze, to shoot him the scathing glare he's so accustomed to receiving.

You turn sharply, your eyes narrowing into thin slits as you fix them on Sirius, a silent warning brewing in your gaze. There she is, he thinks.

“Go somewhere else.” You repeat, staring Sirius down.

“No.” He declares, shifting his position to squarely face you, leaving no doubt that he has no intention of backing down or leaving anytime soon.

“What’s your problem?” You grit out your words, and Sirius narrows his eyes at you as though you've struck a nerve. His reaction is swift, catching you off guard. While you and Sirius have always engaged in banter, he had never looked at you with such palpable hatred before.

“You.” He snaps, his voice dripping with disdain, devoid of its usual teasing lilt that never fails to irk you. Instead, his expression morphs into one of genuine animosity, a stark departure from the usual banter that fuels your frustration.

“Why? What have I ever done to you?” You're worked up now, your heart thumping with frustration as you pivot to fully face him. In your angered state, you miscalculate the proximity between you, and you're startled to find yourselves mere inches apart. Neither of you budges, both refusing to back away, as doing so would feel like conceding defeat.

Neither of you speaks, the air heavy with tension as you stare at each other through narrowed eyes, chests heaving with unresolved emotions. And in a heart-stopping moment, you feel it—the undeniable tug, the unspoken connection between you.

Your mouth parts in surprise, caught off guard by the intensity of the moment. Before you can truly react, Sirius rises abruptly and strides back to his room, leaving you sitting in stunned silence by the fireplace.

TAGS: @daisiesformylove @idkbbyx3 @dreamingofmarauders @siriuslyjanhvi @urmomw4ntsme @arwensloanebarnes @harahettania @kitchenbread @ghostheartbeat @dovahqueen22 @y0urm0m12 @thebiggestnaturaldisaster @opalesquegirl @galaxystern08 @scvtdy @123iloveyou456

[kel-lance]

Movie Night: fem!reader x Itadori, Megumi, Toge, Yuta Part 2

Warnings: MDNI, Group sex, camera use, teasing, humiliation, mmfmm, everyone’s bi/pan, overstimulation, worship, etc(?)

premise: You hosted a game and movie night, bc it was making and nobara s anniversary and they were going out for the weekend. Okay so sodas, pizzas, snacks, really really bad movies…. sad movies, and finally scary movies. Perfect to watch with whoever could make it to your last minute plans. Turned out to be Yuuji, Megumi, Toge, and Yuta… oh great…

————————————————

“Megumi, are you paying attention?”

“And if you want them to do this,” you yelp higher this time, more surprised than anyone that Toge knew exactly which spot Yuta was talking about. He does it again to show his underclassman, slowly this time drawing out the same noise.

“Remember what I said, if you make her come before I get to I’m unleashing mahagara on all of us.” The other guys sigh and let you go. They sit back, beaming, almost satisfied with what they got out of the moment.

You’re moved from everyone’s reach, to sitting in-between megumi’s legs, his body almost swallowing yours. His long arms tried to hide you away from the others’ greedy hands and you almost let him erase you before feeling more of him. It almost took you by surprise, that he was poking at you.

You let your head fell back onto his shoulder, wondering what face megs could be making. He’s trying so hard to hold back right now. The faint grinding of your ass onto his thighs was already enough. He gasped hard, trying not to look at you, focusing so his body could last.

You crane up and kiss his cheek, this was the cutest thing you’ve ever seen. Megumi never fights back against you, so seeing him trying to deny what he’s fantasized for years, you regained your playfulness and hopped off his lap.

Turning to face him, you grasp his face and pull him into a kiss, continuing his streak of pleasure. “They thought they had the upper hand because of numbers, hah.” You were surprised, they almost made you forget how they melt under your touch. You got them to keep up with you, though, of course no one else could compare to Yuuji’s.

Either way, you’ve got fresh meat now and everything from the past comes flooding back. You met tsumiki-chan in elementary school and knew she was going through hard times. You just had a knack of figuring people out as a kid and something drew you to her, more or less a curse found her because of the loss of her parents, you pitied her and exorcised it.

Megumi wondering what happened to that weird thing he used to see on tsumiki and she suddenly feels better when she’s around me? You didn’t mind as they were a fun duo, and you get how they grew up, though you had the school take you in for your sorcery instead of certain super famous super powerful super hot descendants of certain clans. *rolls eyes*

“This is my best friend’s brother, she knew about his crush but will she kill me?!” You’re brought back as you felt meg’s tongue trace your bottom lip. “She’d be happy for us.” You dive into him, pushing him back into the headboard, ignoring the other guys watching, commenting among themselves of the show before them.

You’re on all fours while kissing him into the bed frame, ass in the air, hands pressing onto his hard chest and abs. It was someone completely new, a body that you haven’t fully familiarized yourself with, yet it’s been waiting for you.

“Are you ready?” You asked, pulling yourself back to take off just the t shirt you were wearing for movie night. I mean it was your house and you asked them to come over… you could’ve started this whenever you wanted.

——switching writing style-——

- you hover over him and tease him by dipping your hips down, he’s barely entering you but still getting his raw head

- He’s whimpering and holding onto you as he cums right away and you’re loving it, giving him words of encouragement and saying how he’s so good

- He’s whisperer he’s sorry and you tell him he’s gonna fuck you as much as he’s waited for

- “She’s loving this” they chatter

- “I remember our first time…”

- “Salmon salmon”

- Tell me when you want me to move. You’re still hard, unless you need a second?

- He huffs as he holds you and says yeah

- Yuuji comes over to sit him up and hold him as he needs aftercare.

- I guess we have our order now. Don’t tire yourself out y/n yuujis bright eyes gave a lustful hint that he’s really going to enjoy todays session

- Toge pulls you to the end of the bed and has you bend kneed on the floor as he uses his fingers to fuck you into finishing and to make it easier to scoop out megumi’s cum

- He licks you clean and spits it onto megumi who both try to fight before you hazily ask them to help you do that again and you loved it

- Yuta has you sit on his dick, showing the others about the rules of your body and how to treat you until you try to move.

- He gets excited and start to go crazy with the angles and how he’ll manipulate how gravity will make you fall back onto his dick splitting you open, getting deeper and deeper, getting more intense, so intense you gave up breathing until the involuntary gasping comes.

- There was no one else but you two, his hand grabbing at your throat to keep you up, the other hand across your womb, feeling himself through and jerking his hips. Your arms were pinned by his chest and behind your back. “Yuta, plea-“ That was the final straw, he didn’t care anymore. Taking his time? Saving his energy? Fuck that, he’s known you once, letting you love him was a huge step from coming out of “neglectbernation” or his hermit phase, but he couldn’t choose between his trauma and you, his past or his future, Rika or you. You knew he didn’t need her, you were fine with it actually when he broke the curse, but then he started to be weird about it. almost forgetting that you and rika weren’t the same person, that you weren’t a body replacement for her, it just was bad to be around so you left, noticing that he and toge started to hang out together more if they’re not watching u.

- Anyway from this position if he lets go of the weight of your whole body falls onto his cock, and he bounces you back you in ease. This would be so hot if the other boys weren’t trying to claim your face

- Yuta was the most fixed on you while toge was the most needy. Yuuji was the most clingy and Megumi was the most yearned.

- Toge come over here and help us out. Toge puts himself in you too, you can feel yuta digging in deep from behind while toge rubs against your g-spot or is that your bladder?

- You don’t know as yuta holds you up between the two boys.

- You lol your head to the side and the boys nip at your neck and ear and kiss at each other, tongues twirling before they separate on soft parts of your body

- Toge pulls himself out and brings your head down on him. Changing angles yuta rhythmically pounds into you from behind. The angle making him feel larger, you waste no time taking toge in your mouth, you tasted megumis cum, your own juices and the precum of the other two.

- This was an average Tuesday tbh, sometimes yuuji comes by to watch, sometimes we just record and watch later with everyone.

- Right now could be a good time, maybe they set up a camera somewhere before you milked Megs.

- You’ll think about it later, right now why don’t you give him a show.

- You held yourself up with your hands, sometimes with your knees. Putting your hands on the back of his hips to pull and push him into your head rather they bob your head all around.

- You pull him all the way into your throat, letting him adjust and lose himself into the tight wet hot hole. Yuta moving you all around was also aiding in his pleasure.

- Looking up trying to get a glimpse of his pretty purple eyes, you loved being able to hear his voice, so him whimpering had you all sorts of messed up

- Yuta knew it too, his voice being so pretty though demanding, it was so cool. But he also knew because you’d squeeze in him whenever toge got loud.

- Megumi couldn’t stop watching you, he could only admire you, his best friend holding him as he caught his breath.

- He was eating up every angle of you, Yuuji also watching intently, patiently. His bulge was grinding into Megumi, his hands teasing and sensually grabbing at the mess you’ve created. “He could control himself.” We all hoped.

————————————————-

A/N: Next ch is 3/9 (megs fr this time, yuuj, n sukuna. (And finishing off these two.))

[synthwayve]

Hi have this absolute crackpot of an AU my delirious 4:00 AM brain came up with where Micolash fulfills the role of the Plain Doll. Doodles+rambling below the cut \o/

Imagining him saying “Ah, good hunter” has been killing me for the past 30 minutes

In all honesty I have no idea where any of this came from, I think I just wondered what it would’ve been like if Insight was the loose stat that does not progress the story, and Beasthood/Blood became the story-dependent stat. That brought up the possibility of Laurence and Gehrman communicating with Kos rather than MP, and THAT made me think “what if Laurence got whisked away like he was supposed to, instead of Gehrman taking the fall for him?”

Since the doll looks like Maria and not Laurence, I figured if Laurence were in Gehrman’s place, his doll wouldn’t resemble Gehrman. So I started wondering who else would fit the role AND. YEAH. Then I just went insane from there. In this AU, moon presence would be dead(maybe “washed up” in the field of asphodels rather than the beach?) and Yahar’gul would fulfill Yharnam’s role (since it’s the more insight-heavy area, so there’s be Old Yahar’gul and New Yahar’gul lmao). I think Kos would take an arm rather than a leg thanks to the placement of the Kos Parasite, but I still drew Laurence in a wheelchair because I imagine after a certain point he’d lose the energy/mobility to walk due to an unclean cut and eldritch shenanigans.

I like to think that while Gehrman has the know-how to create the doll and MP gave it life pygmalion style, if Laurence were in his position, he would 1. Not know how to do that and 2. Not create Micolash anyway. So I thought it’d be funny if Kos just dumps him in the dream like “hey I heard you were upset, here’s something that’ll make you more upset” because Great Ones don’t understand human feelings. Kos thinks having a curious doll that can’t be killed is a gift, but obviously Laurence would Have Issues with seeing his old academic rival who died horribly just be “Brought Back But Wrong” like that. Perhaps Lady Maria and her research patients would be a really big deal and Micolash+The School of Mensis would have been the first “faction” to die in this AU. I haven’t exactly marked out who “”swaps”” with who since there are quite a few characters who dabble in both Blood AND Insight, so their biases are hard to figure out(maybe Rom would fulfill Carylls role and you’d get to fight an ascended/beastified Caryll, The Byrgenwerth Runesmith?) idk!

This is all just silly half-asleep “hey what if”s and “oh this would be goofy to draw”s so obviously I’m just tossing ideas around. And doodles! I’m tossing doodles around too :,) okay goodnight

[valentinxd]

mark me.

Soulmate Au | What you write on your skin appears on the other.

Pairing: Keanu Reeves x Fem Reader

Prompt: You can’t always go on tour with him but that doesn’t either of you from letting you know you both feel.

Warnings: age gap, Keanu is 59 and Reader is 30. Reader is also in college and can’t leave at the moment. Both of you keep your relationship private.

Note: Hi I’m kinda back and I probably won’t finish what I started and I still need to do those requests I got sent in - sorry. here’s this?

Keanu had been on tour for a while now and while he enjoyed it, being able to explore the musician in him he so desperately missed you. You couldn’t go while they traveled around the country as you were finishing up this semester. You were taking a few classes that demanded a little too much of your time and while you could text, FaceTime, or call Keanu much preferred the little notes on his arms.

He found the act of you drawing or writing on him very intimate. When he would be in the hotel late at night attempting to sleep he could feel the soft swift scratches of the pen as you drew a bunny, or wrote an answer to a test, or a simple “I love you.” and “I miss you."

His handwriting was a bit more chaotic than yours, as he was used to quickly writing his signature and various notes in his busy life. Your arms would have his messy words, sometimes random reminders of “be here at 11.” or “this would be a cool idea.” and oftentimes “I really fucking miss you.”

You both kept your relationship as private as possible, you wearing long sleeves to hide it and him washing off the ink before he got on stage. He hated doing that, scrubbing away all the little notes and reminders you made for him or yourself. He didn’t want to, but because you weren’t famous and you both had a thirty-year age difference, he wasn’t about to let the world tear you apart.

You both fell into a routine and a schedule for when and where you could write to him. People were aware that Keanu had a soulmate, your handiwork on his forearms as he played bass got a lot of attention. The inked flowers you drew were impressive, which got people thinking of what he would look like with tattoos.

“I miss you.” You write.

“You could have come with me.” He writes back with a little smiley face.

“I couldn’t because of school.” You respond, though you wished you could have you didn’t want to be distracted.

“I know and you’re doing good. Proud of you honey.” His words almost made you cry.

“I’ll call you later?”

“Yes I want to hear your voice.” He drew a little heart.

He followed the routine and washed off all the ink, the water dark blue with your favorite pen. He hated doing this, erasing the part of you that was with him, but he wanted to hold on to this privacy a little longer. He took great care to avoid where you wrote that you loved him, he needed that to stay. He went to a tattoo the next day and got it permanently inked.

That still didn’t stop you from writing it again and again.

[secretmellowblog]

One of the more devastating things about the rise of AI “art” to me, outside of the obvious theft and Silicon Valley corporate evil and threat to the livelihoods of so many people, is just…the realization that so many of the people who’ve interacted with my art or writing don’t see me as a human being.

Like? Ever since high school I’d do drawing requests for people. I always thought it was like playing a game with those people, or having a conversation, or connecting in some small way.

And it’s crushing to realize that might never have been true? That everyone who was “talking” to me could have replaced me with an algorithm that spat out content and it wouldn’t have made a difference. I look back on the hundreds of free requests I drew for people because I was a lonely teenager flattered they liked something about me or the way I drew, and suddenly realize that basically none of those people liked anything about me as a person or the way I saw the world— the only viewed me as a tool they could use.

Idk I think a lot about how after Kim Jung Gi died, someone fed his work into an algorithm and generated copies of it as if that was the same thing— when no! He’s more than an art style and type of brushstroke! He wasn’t a tool, he was a thinking feeling human being. But even a great artist like him isn’t really perceived as a person? He’s just a mash of data you can shove into an algorithm to automatically generate products for you to consume. And an art producing machine is “superior” to the original person because it doesn’t get sad or tired or sick and it doesn’t die, and the only downside is that it creates art entirely absent of purpose or meaning or care or intent.

I don’t know, it’s weird to spend so much time on social media and then suddenly be hit by the horrifying realization that there might not be anyone on the other end. And that hurts even when, like me, most of the stuff you post is just sorta cute and goofy and inane. When people talk to you, they’re not talking to you; and when you try to talk to them, it’s like you’ve been talking to no one. You’re a tool that generates content and the moment they can automate some shallow surface level aspects of what you create it genuinely doesn’t matter to them if you’re alive or dead.

And I know that’s not true for some people who follow or interact with me, and I’m genuinely thankful for that; but the massive callous indifference a very weird thing to have to come to terms with, idk ahsjdjd XD.

[kkbardd]

hello! i haven’t sent an ask in a while because schoolwork has been piling up infinitely :[ , but your recent posts have been really interesting to me! i really liked the room sketch one, I can’t exactly explain why but there’s something so indescribably human about it. i love spaces that looked lived in, that have personality, and I think that your room (current one? made up? old one?) has done a great job of showing that. and I’m not very good at giving advice— I can hardly follow it myself, but if you don’t know something, don’t know what you want to do, try things. it’s okay if you don’t like them. i recently found out I’m more competent in languages than I thought! i can already read and understand simple sentences in german.

there’s always more to yourself than you’ll know, I think, but the world is kinder than people think. If anything, everyone is still very new at this. we’ve never lived before. do the things you like, branch out, don’t become less of yourself for other people. everything has a place, and my best advice is to treat life as you would a vacation. do all the things you can while you’re here. build a life that makes it worth it. (sorry for the long ask and my rambling, or if this is overstepping in any way. i just read what you wrote and kind of related to it in a way. thank you for continuing to create art, it brings me a lot of joy! :] )

hey isopod!!! thanks for the ask & I wish u good luck with ur school work!

Thank u so much for the compliments, im really glad the vibe of my room was conveyed in those doodles. i absolutely looove drawing my room! It’s extremely small (a renovated utility closet) and just barely fits a bed + my desk but its packed full of the things i love. It’s very lived in and I feel like it reflects my character well.

when i drew that page I was in my senior year of high school and pressures to decide my future were overwhelming. I never thought much about it until then and I didn’t have any idea of what I was going to do. The only thing I felt I had going for me was art but I didn’t want to turn my only hobby into a job I hated. I remember going through a master list of majors on random college websites and one-by-one asking myself if I’d be okay doing it. In the end I had nothing. I was really crushed about it and felt stuck. This was right after the covid quarantine too so focusing in school was difficult & I couldn’t bring myself to apply for scholarships. I started skipping classes, smoking weed, and pushing off my assignments. All of this only made me feel more miserable, of course, so everything seemed pretty bleak at the time.

But luckily I had the support of my family and especially my mother. She would always remind me that “we have option”, “we always have options”. Because I did! This was a fresh start to try my hand at a totally different experience than what I’ve done so far. I ended up choosing my major on a complete whim after hearing my aunt had a job in an adjacent field. I was pretty sure I’d drop out after a semester, yet here I am about to graduate soon & I’m having a ton of fun!! (Hell, I’m 10 hours out in the middle of nowhere right now for my Field Methods class!) It’s not that I had a knack for Geology that I just never tapped into, or that i secretly had a passion for rocks this entire time; I just found something that seemed like an okay fit and grew interest from there. I think that a small level of commitment like that is more than enough to get you going. I had a ton of ideas in my head about how I needed to have a perfect fit major that would connect every dot I’ve laid out in my life thus far, but that’s not true at all. Life is much more messy and unpredictable than that.

But enough of my rambling!! That time of my life may have been stressful but I’m very grateful that I went through it! It changed how I viewed problems and it taught me to always look for other options when everything seems helpless.

Thank u so much for ur encouragement, I really appreciate it <33 I completely agree with everything u said!! Life is an ever changing experience & often leads u in unpredictable directions!

[brynnamonroll]

I am bothering you with questions and statements.

Do you also sketch what you paint?

How often do you paint?

Are there any pieces you've done lately (or in the past) that you're super proud of?

Is it just a hobby, or do you want to make it more than that? (Nothing wrong with either, just curious)

I swear, I'm not actually the Leanansidhe, and I'm not angling to trade your life forces for inspiration.

Any other artistic impetus besides the need to breathe life into pigment?

Oh! Many questions! Yay!

1. These days I do most of my painting in sketchbooks full of watercolor paper. I sketch in colored pencil (sometimes wax-based where you can see the lines through the paint like Marcille, sometimes watercolor pencil where the lines will blend into the painting like Chappell Roan) and ink and paint right on top of the drawing! If I have a big composition I want to treat with care I’ll draw it on a different piece of paper first and then trace it onto a fresh sheet of watercolor paper with a lightbox.

2. Not as often as I’d like! I did a ton of little paintings during the pandemic but I hit a bit of creative block after I quit grad school and my Horrible Job earlier this year. I got through that by taking up crochet, but the Marcille and Chappell Roan paintings I did recently have help unblock the painting dam a bit. I should paint something this week when I have a bit of free time. I’m ordering some books of stock photos so I can copy the poses since Pinterest (where I used to keep all my drawing references) is nigh unusable these days, between the AI and the ads.

3. As an adult, I’ve really mellowed out about my art being perfectly presentable (and as such the quality has improved a lot.) I’m proud of basically anything that escapes my brain and gets to paper, but I’m especially proud of anything I’ve composed with a background. Riding Home (can’t believe that painting is five years old!) is still one of my favorites and I love the response it’s gotten. On here, my piece with the most notes is this Doropetra piece, which… I think that was my first time drawing something queer? Either way I’m quite proud of it and I know it’s made a lot of people happy.

4. It’s strictly a hobby. I’m addicted to being a W-2 employee and knowing where my next paycheck is coming from. If I drew more high-concept things than fandom stuff, I might try entering into local art shows. My friend is involved in the local poetry scene and I can’t imagine my paintings would be poorly received.

5. >:)

6. I have a big binder full of trading card-sized swatches of all my watercolors and notes on their pigment properties. I am incredibly intense about the pigments, fret not. I like to think that my art is a reflection of my education in art history. When I’m not feeling super inspired, I will go to my local museums and see what bits and pieces I can take for my own work. I think I learned more about how to paint from studying art history than from most of my actual art classes over the years. In practice though, I’ve been drawing and painting seriously since I was about 12 because I couldn’t find a better way to express how much I loved Pokémon, and honestly most of my art since then has been fandom related. It helps get some of the inspiration out of me.

And anyone who knows me from my days of cranking out Fire Emblem art knows I love to draw a Pretty Lady in a Nice Dress. (I love being a Pretty Lady in a Nice Dress too, frankly.) I love making new dress designs and incorporating my knowledge of historical fashion into them.

I have a lot of drawings I want to get too soon (I want to draw a full body piece of Marcille and of Chappell Roan’s VMAs look, for one… Maybe Susato Mikotoba Great Ace Attorney too… and I just started playing Baldur’s Gate 3 in earnest and I need to draw those ladies too. And maybe Wyll for fun. I like him.)

[marxism-leninism-meowism]

Hot take but the way the MCYT fandom treats CC boundaries like the word of god is annoying as fuck and parasocial as hell. Boundaries and consent are an incredibly important tool for close relationships regarding matters that directly affect the people involved. They are not for the public, for the matters of what people do in their spare time.

It’s totally fine for a CC to say they don’t want ship fic sent to them. However, them asking for their roleplay characters not to be shipped is not a boundary. It is not an issue of consent. What someone ships in their own free time is none of their business or anyone else’s.

Imagine in real life you walk up to a cashier at a grocery store and say “you better not have any sexual fantasies about me” and then suddenly the person behind you starts harassing the cashier for having sexual fantasies about you, whether or not they are actually doing that. You cannot control what someone thinks or does without your knowledge in a way that does not affect you, even if it relates to you!

Another scenario: someone in one of your classes thinks you’re hot. They’d like to ask you out, and start discussing it with one of their friends, who’s also friends with your roommate. You’ve never met this person before, and you’re not attracted to people of their gender. But the friend of your roommate tells you, and you freak out—you have stated that sex and romance makes you uncomfortable to your friends, and that you hate the idea of someone having sexual or romantic fantasies about you. You and your friends all immediately begin harassing this person, even though they did absolutely nothing wrong and made no moves to ask you out yet, and certainly wouldn’t have pushed if you’d said no.

But the thing is, none of this would have been an issue if the friend hadn’t told you directly, and people can’t control who they’re attracted to, what fantasies they have, or just what they think about in general! There’s a dozen other people on campus that think you’re hot that you’ll never find out about, and overall it’s doing absolutely zero harm to you. Except, well, now you’re uncomfortable because you’re now very aware of at least one person with those fantasies, and the person in question has been harassed so much by your friends that they dropped the class. But hey! Your friends feel like they’ve enacted justice on your behalf. They’re extremely happy with themselves for defending you.

Both of these scenarios very easily apply to a lot of boundary related discourse in the fandom. No matter what you do, you can’t control what other people think about, write, read, or draw on their own terms. People that know the characters/people they’re shipping or attracted to or whatever wouldn’t be comfortable with it go to great lengths to keep their content hidden, but then a bunch of white-knighting teenagers flood their spaces, dig up all this content, and wave it in front of the CC’s faces like proud elementary school tattle-tales telling the teacher that the kid in the back of the class drew a dick on their notebook paper. Look! Look! I caught the filthy sinner! Pat me on the head and tell me I’m a perfect little god-loving puritan!

This fandom would be a lot more enjoyable if people just left the shit they don’t like alone and stop trying to be good little white knights for their parasocial besties. They don’t know you exist. They don’t want to know you successfully bullied someone that wrote porn about them. People aren’t gonna stop doing it, so the best option is to live and let live. You’re just making matters worse by fanning the flames so much that the CCs start getting pestered by people that wanna be praised for hating porn of them. Like, they get it. We all get it. Chill the fuck out.

TLDR don’t like don’t read. Close the tab. Hit the back button. Grow up.

[cartoonfangirl1218]

Dork Diaries 15 Thoughts

Alright so I read the latest dork diaries, and while it’s cute. I’m left with more questions than answers. 

When I rereading the series last year, I wrote that I felt by the 10th book, Russell was dragging it out and had lost sense of its original charm. Or I lost my nostalgia. Either way, it is dragging on and this case was no exception. 

There is a minor incident that Nikki overdramatically feels like it’s her fault when it really isn’t a big deal except for the requisite Mackenzie blackmail plot device. Which is never brought up again. 

Nikki and her friends don’t actually go to the titular Paris until halfway through the book as Russell fills it up with other minor incidents and overdramatic airport chaos hysterics.

Paris is great except Mackenzie trying to steal Nikki’s place in the photo-shoot and Brandon-Andre-Nikki love triangle miscommunication. The former is annoying, the latter was predictable but not too bad. The best parts was Nikki’s mistranslation mishap, and she and Mackenzie getting lost in the catacombs. I do like how Russell managed to fit in info of major Parisian sights so kids can learn about how tres chic and amazing it is. I also liked the art style shift in some drawings as Nikki experiments with fashion illustration. 

Now for my questions, and slight disappointments. I feel like the continuity is getting glossed over. Theo who was by far the nerdiest and dorkiest of the band originally (remember Nikki drew him as the human equivalent to Spongebob?), well now he has a glow-up and isn’t it basketball instead of wizarding. Okay, I guess people can change over the year but it feels so sudden in the art and the personality. 

Also the Chloe, Zoey, Theo and Marcus pairings are completely gone. I guess they got over their crushes to each other even though them asking each other out to the Valentines Day dance was so sweet. But nope.

I just miss it, and them being librarian volunteers and Nikki's excitment over Tyra Banks or her advice column and other stuff that made this series feel grounded.

Also I'm just so tired of Mackenzie popping up as an obstacle like her trying to sabotoge Nikki to get a spot in the photoshoot. It makes no sense. Even if Nikki wasn't there, they would replace her with Mackenzie because she's NOT IN THE BAND. It's totally implausible. I know she's rich and gets away with stuff but it's becoming so unrealistic and annoying.

And remember the big secret of Brandon’s parents and his past? I remember it being brought up in books 4 & 5 and it was implied there was a reason that Brandon was so good at french relating to that. This would have been an excellent chance to have some of that mysterious past revealed but nope. Not a word. I actually wonder if Russell forgot about it? 

In fact the whole Brandon and Nikki situation is the most drawn out ever and I’m starting to think that Russell is retconning it to the beginning. Nikki is still wondering if they’re friends or MORE than friends when after being kissed by him, going to the dance with him, his obvious jealousy of Andre, and going on actual dates, I think this position is quite clear. But Russell hits them squarely with the friends phrasing and minor interactions that make me feel she is holding them back. They’ve gone through such big moments and now it feels like they’re regressing, not progressing. 

Know what else is regressing? Even though the whole series is about Nikki’s eighth grade year at school, and this book takes us to the end of Aug, there is absolutely no mention of high school. Unless NY schools work differently, 9th grade should be high school and then this series would be out of items reading demographic and thus an excellent time to finish the series. 

But Nikki only says they’re returning to school, no pressure or worrying about big bad high school. Just school.

So is Russell retconning this too? In her a acknowledgements she says she's excited to introduce a new generation to Nikki's dork dairies so is she going to be an eternal eight grader?

Also Nikki in general has regressed and I feel she has learned nothing about appreciating what she has or freaking communication in general.

Yeah I think I have definately aged out of this since I'm so focused on these questions instead of enjoying it for what it is.

[teememdee]

2023 ART SUMMARY!!!

2023 was uhhhhhhh a year! And I made art! And I’m going to talk for a long time about everything I did month by month! Yippee!!!

original individual posts can be found in my #tanner art tag!

JANUARY

Started off the year with my favorite skrunklies sleepy and snuggling. Then sleeping together while holding one another is so incredibly important to me, they’re so cute and I needed to draw it. Struggled with Kai’Sa’s face but I particularly like the drapery of the pillow behind them.

FEBRUARY

First off, just a simple Kai’Sa piece for the Vibes(TM) and background practice. I was also fairly miserable and when I get miserable I draw Kai’Sa being miserable as well. I love my favorite character of all time <3

Then a quick Valentine’s Day piece, soft gradient map stuff. Love my skrunklies, hopefully this year I can make something for the day that isn’t rushed

MARCH

In March I FINALLY finished my Star Guardian Kahri fic, be the light to carry me, and drew Kiko and Ina being adorable together to go along with it. They’re SO cute and people LOVE that fic. Chapter 3 ended up being a whole 20k words and every time I re-read I’m amazed that I wrote it.

A kiss for Kai’Sa’s birthday! This was actually two sketches mashed together because I had a good Kai’Sa and a good Ahri on separate attempts. Love Kai’Sa’s smile on this one.

NOW. Strong contender for my favorite piece of the year. Captioned “please don’t lose yourself,” my K/DA-verse Kassadin’s very dead wife’s ghost weighs on him, begging him to not get lost in his grief and lose sight of their daughter. Kassadin feels lost and broken without her. I love the emotions in this one, and I think the idea comes across even without knowledge of my headcanons. Love it so much.

APRIL

Full-body piece that took me all month. I just love this one so much. It’s just pure Kahri, pure love, pure joy. Pose inspired by Blake Belladonna from RWBY’s leg pop during the long-awaited Bumblby kiss. This piece just makes me so happy.

MAY

Oops! No art! Was too busy being on a (student) film set every weekend as well as dealing with classes and multiple other stressors. I did START a piece though, but wouldn’t finish it until the middle of June.

JUNE

I actually did the first sketch of the Evelynn piece in February, but I decided to revamp it in May, and then when school finally set me free I finished it, and it turned out exactly how I wanted it to. Her hair was a labor to render but I'm so so pleased with how it looks, as well as the blood. The first time I've finished a fully rendered Evelynn piece!

Naafiri is so fucking cool. Upon her reveal, I was seeing so much incredible fanart and I just needed to get in on it. The shapes and points are just so good. I used to draw dogs all the time as a kid, and my younger self would absolutely flip out at seeing this. I did this piece in one day, and I have no idea how I pulled that background off but hopefully I can do it again some day lol

JULY

Two drastically different vibes here. Realized it had been forever since I had drawn Kahri so I just wanted to make a cute summertime piece. Their hands should be bigger and it bugs me but this is still really cute, I missed my girls dearly.

And then my very very sad man Kassadin being very very sad about his very very dead wife. This is what I call his phase 2 design, when he's at the peak of his grief (spiraling, as emphasized by the background) and feels just so sad and alone. In my head this and the March piece are part of a series that I hope to continue.

AUGUST

Just one piece that took me all month because I was quite busy in August, and Runeterra Kahri pieces take forever, but as I always say, it's always worth it. This pose comes from mellon_soup on instagram, who makes a lot of really great pose references for artists to use, highly recommend checking them out. This piece is just so soft to me. Captioned "'you're beautiful, you know that?'" they're saying it to each other, two people that struggle with their self image finding love and confidence in the other. Also I'm so very happy with the background. I love these two so so so so much, they're my world.

SEPTEMBER

One of my goals for this year was to branch out in the fanart I made. Baldur's Gate 3 came along and I love watching my best friend play it, we love Shadowheart and I just wanted to draw her. This came after a lot of sketches of both her and our favorite Tav that ended up changing how I draw eyes. The rendering of her face here is also something I'm proud of, her nose looks great. And again, the background! This piece didn't get a lot of attention at all but that's okay, I made it for me and I'm very happy with it.

OCTOBER

STAR WARS TOXIC YURI WENT CRAZY THIS YEAR!!! Wolfwren (Sabine Wren x Shin Hati, from the Ahsoka TV series) had me by the THROAT for a solid two months or so, I haven't been that feral and deranged over a ship in a hot minute. They had me frothing at the mouth every episode even though I did not like the show overall. Anyways. First piece is a redraw of the part in episode 4 where they just have the most charged eye contact of all time, and I decided to take that in stride with inspiration from Horimiya, a favorite anime of mine, during particularly emotionally charged moments, the background changes and there's a particular color silhouette behind them. It really fits that moment of the show and I am SO proud of these faces, especially Sabine's. Drawing from a real human face reference was kinda new to me but it's taught me a lot. The file size also ended up enormous somehow idk lol

Then, my most popular piece of the year, on both tumblr and twitter. I LOVE hand imagery, I love subtle hand touches, I churned this out in I think exactly one day, it's so soft it's so cute and I totally understand the overwhelming positivity it received.

NOVEMBER

I was not doing well at this time in the year. The state of the world just had me in a horrible mental state, I wasn't taking care of myself well at all, I couldn't get myself to make art, especially something happy or cute, it just felt wrong. But then sometimes you feel something so strong and specific there's no other way to process it than to make art. To make a long story short, earlier in the year I thought a girl liked me, I liked her back, but it turned out she did indeed have a boyfriend the whole time. We didn't see or talk to each other for a few months but in November we (and the bf, lol) met up again. When she saw me at the door she smiled at me so sweetly and it was just the worst feeling ever and I just had to hide it behind a smile and a wave. Oversharing aside, this is a style I'd wanted to execute for a while and I'm really pleased with how it turned out, would love to make more like this.

DECEMBER

All of this was done / finished in the first two weeks of the month because then I got sick + was visiting family + jet lag took me out. Kinda sad I didn't get something done for Ahri's birthday or a traditional Kahri Winter piece but that's what January is for. Anyway.

Sometimes you just want to draw girls kissing and sometimes you wanna make it a little suggestive. Not much to say. Proud of the drapery on Kai'Sa's sleeve and you can always tell I love drawing hands.

Now it's time for classwork. Here I just have two pages but I've posted the whole comic on its own, this was for my "Art and Text" class, I have it printed in a booklet and my classmates + friends have responded to it so sweetly I'm really proud, I really really want to make more comics. This project was a culmination of so many inspirations from other artists and I'm really happy with the execution even if it was really rough for me to manage my time well for that class.

Then for my "Fiction and Allegory" class, two of my friends and I made a storyboard film (which I don't want to share publicly, but if I know you you can ask for a link) and during the all-nighter two of us pulled to get it done on time, I decided one scene needed music instead of diegetic sound, so I churned this out on garageband in about an hour. Would definitely love to try my hand at making more music in the future. Wish my classmates / teacher liked / understood the film more but oh well. I learned a lot and for the thousandth time, I'm proud of what I did.

IN CONCLUSION:

I ended up with less full pieces than 2022 but what I did create in 2023 are big, detailed, emotional pieces, and I'm more than satisfied. I think my skills in rendering, backgrounds, and colors really improved and I'm looking forward to how I continue to improve in 2024. This upcoming year has a lot of scary stuff ahead (namely graduating college) but I will come out the other side regardless, hopefully with just as much art I'm proud of.

If you read all of this, thank you!! If you've liked, shared, or commented on any of my art, thank you!!!!!! It means the world, always.

[robo-milky]

[Vent: This will be my last update about my wrists! Thank you for those who took the time to read and/or sent “get-well-soon”s- It does mean a lot! Anything relating to more personal issues can be very taxing to read or “not what I signed up for” and that’s perfectly valid!! In the end, we are strangers on the web ^^ Feels like the more I post updates or anything— it feels very attention seeking— so I want to make this a good send off. I might update/edit the log if anything comes up.]

A little bit about why the sudden change in art style

Acknowledgements: There are bigger issues in the world, there are threatening crises and positions people face that could be physically/and or emotionally damaging. My condition isn’t chronic, but for those who have do have life-long issues— my heart really goes out to them; I’ve only been through the tip of the iceberg of what they might have been through.

It’s hypocritical of me to make posts about having to recover/exhausting myself from writing/drawing, yet I still draw anyways. I guess I wanted to end this off comically— making silly memes or inside jokes with friends definitely lifted my mood. (Edit: I can’t type (on a keyboard)/write, but you know what I can do? Text.)

Having to do art in school and outside is not great for recovery (if I want both my wrists back to normal) but I compulsively draw anyways- I think it’s probably because I’m aiming for an art school, I’m scared of ever stopping and getting rusty with art again. While it’s true that a lot of art is really boiled down to how well you can break down concepts and memorizing the technical knowledge, it took me years to finally develop a hand that could draw clean lines and hold things steadily.

Compared to Summer 2022, I definitely recovered much more and made a lot of progress. I didn’t have to eat painkillers every single day, I didn’t have to rely on wrist splints, I can hold a half-filled mug with one hand, and so much more. I’d say the conditions of my wrists is tolerable; it still hinders me when I try to open doorknobs, but I’ll take whatever accomplishments I can get.

It wasn’t until finally seeing a physiotherapist, after god knows how long (Please- I grew up in a traditionally Chinese family that doesn’t believe in western medicines ;;), I was diagnosed with early osteoarthritis on my left wrist. Even though only one wrist is diagnosed, I have difficulties moving both my wrists, and according to my X-ray back in September 2022, the bones in both my wrist have narrowed from a lack of use. I’m kinda baffled because you’d think it’d be my dominant hand, the hand I use everyday and stress out, would be diagnosed. I’m told that I’ll need an MRI for my left, so hopefully nothing goes too wrong.

I love drawing, fanart or original— for myself or others. I don’t think it’s something I can ever stop? Maybe I’ve gotten on a high now that I’ve recovered bit by bit, and having gotten out of art block for months helped too. I can’t help but feel like part of my art block is because of my wrists. Even when my wrists were not as bad, I still couldn’t find the motivation to do line art. Maybe my current development in art isn’t actually laziness but just how my wrists have subconsciously been affecting my performance. When I looked back on my old art, I truly loved line art, rendering, having to press hard with pencil crayons to blend, oil pastels— I really did enjoy them.

If I ever drew gifts/requests/others for you, I want to say that I opened them because I wanted to— I knew what I was signing up for. Heck— when I did them— I did them on a good day.

* Am I ever going to take a break? I’ll be honest- probably not. Plus- the watercolour mimic style let’s me draw looser lines and with the colouring? I don’t have to worry about pen pressure or pressing hard- But I’ll try?? I might try to see if I can dig up any older art of mine that still holds up to my standards.

With school, I always feel like I have to take on extra jobs and volunteer to help out in areas that are within my field. I’ve also contemplated telling or broadcasting my needs to others because I’m always scared they’ll think I’m “being dramatic” or “faking it”. I’m also scared that the one time I ask for help to do a “simple” task, my peers will start questioning my recovery. I can’t describe how shameful it feels to not be able to help out a friend if they want to move a desk or even with chores. Maybe it’s me self projecting, but I always feel like if I can’t help someone, I’d be selfish.

Since I can never truly articulate my experiences and thoughts in person (cause I’d forget details or cut out too much because I feel rushed), I’ll be using this to send out ^^

If you *actually* read all of this- thank you and please don’t think too much of it! I don’t want this post to be the reason someone’s mood gets drained— so I drew the cat maid instead of putting my usual reaction images. I hope my attempt at humour came through?? But at what cost…

[magentatechnician]

School chemistry vs. Real chemistry

Recently I’ve become interested in the concept of “microscale” chemistry and the philosophy of its approach to practical work in schools. It’s had a lot of publicity in the relevant bits of social media over the last years, and the reaction to it seems to have been largely positive. There are books dedicated to it, and training courses. 

I don’t think it’s the right approach. I don’t think it’s enough for students simply to “do practicals” - there has to be a deeper philosophy to it, or we might as well stick to demonstrations and videos. The approach has led to great ideas (I wrote about one here), but overall I’m sceptical. The detailed critique will have to wait, however, because…

Working as a technician after years as a researcher in industry has convinced me that there is a difference between those who do chemistry and those who teach it, and that we need to bridge that gap. A line from the first article I linked to illustrates this:

“One pioneer of Microscale Chemistry in the UK, Stephen Breuer said, why make 5g of an organic chemical, use 0.1g for spectra and experiments and throw 4.9g away?”

Well. As an organic chemist I never tired of simply making compounds. The satisfaction of seeing that white powder in your flask never dimmed, and it was even more heart-warming if you could take the brown sludge from your first stage and purify it to a crystalline solid. Every synthetic chemist knows that feeling.

If we want some of our students to go on to be professional chemists then the joy of simply making stuff will draw them in. It doesn’t have to be organic - making copper sulfate is always popular, and suitable for students under 16. Growing crystals is a great activity for science clubs (I present the alum and chrome alum crystals I made for, ahem, research purposes). But you have to be able to see it, to have enough to scrape into a vial and weigh, and stick a label on it. Making a few mg, a thin layer on a filter paper, for analysis just won’t cut it. Doing chemistry on a larger scale also makes it easier for inexperienced chemists.

I can’t remember what drew me to chemistry in the first place. I ended up wanting to do it for a living because I found designing and making compounds interesting, challenging and fun. With properly designed practical work we can give today's school students a taste of that. We just have to make sure that teachers and those who write the syllabuses get it too.

P.S. This isn’t the only example of a disconnect between school chemistry and chemistry as she is practised in the real world. More examples to follow if I get the chance.

[sowerrr]

The ‘cocooning’: A new clothing brand’s orgin story.

TW: depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation.

Hello! Hope you are having a great day. If you’re new, my name is Kennedy Harris, and I own the latest fashion brand: SOWER. In today’s article, I will discuss how the ‘cocooning’ was my most significant catalyst for starting SOWER. I will strive to answer questions like “What does SOWER mean?” “Did you even like fashion before the ‘cocooning’?” “What is the ‘cocooning,’ and why does it even matter to the brand’s creation?” So buckle up, get your tissues ready, and put on your blue light glasses, because this is gonna be an emotional one. Enjoy!

So now you might be asking: what was so crucial about sixth grade? Well, sixth grade was the first time that school did not come easy to me. I had just finished the best school year of my life (and that opinion still stands as I write to you in the 12th grade), and immediately once I entered middle school, I felt a very negative shift within myself. So many new changes were happening; I was going through some of the most pivotal changes that puberty had to offer, I was being separated from my peers, and, most notably, doing the schoolwork that my teachers gave me was actually hard.

These things led to a steady decline in my grades, and I couldn’t have been more distraught. Admittedly, I’m a bit competitive, so I wanted my grades to be high, and it felt like I was letting myself down. But, what really put the nail in the coffin for me was thinking that I was letting my family down, letting my mom down. And I couldn’t deal with that.

Anyway, before I knew it, my room was a mess, my sleeping patterns were ridiculous, I was exhausted all the time, and I cried every day after school. I knew that what was happening to me and around me wasn’t normal in the slightest. On top of that, I was also realizing that I didn’t trust anyone to know about this information. I thought that if I told my family how I was feeling, I would be burdening them, and I wouldn’t tell my “friends” because they were all gifted kids and seemed to be able to handle everything.

As I said before, I try to find ways to fix my problems, especially when I am in a bind and feel like I have no one else to turn to. So the first thing I figured was, “I need to earn money so I can get a therapist. And maybe, just maybe, I can go back to being my old self”. That goal wasn’t strong enough to rid me of my suicidal thoughts, however, and I continued my downward spiral. My grades were getting worse, my relationships were getting worse, my mom was expressing more and more disappointment in me, and I was getting closer and closer to the point of not being able to take it.

But one day, a particularly bad progress report graced my mother’s home screen. I had been lying to her about my grades. I mean, she still knew I was doing poorly, but she didn’t know that I was doing this poorly. And I thought to myself, “This is it; she’s going to give me a spanking.” I had never gotten a spanking before because of my good behavior and grades, and to think that my mother was finally going to give me one, really made me feel like I was a no-good, lowlife scum who was better off gone. I had finally driven the woman who meant most to me to the point of hitting me, of punishing me.

But she didn’t.

She gave me mercy. She believed in me and my ability to pull myself back up. And at that moment, when she told me that, I figured that I could do this, I could live for her. I can live, I should live, because someone actually believes in me. Once that was over, I started to hone in on finding a true purpose for myself instead of just living for my mother. I didn’t find it, however, until about the 7th grade.

I was still depressed during the seventh grade, so I couldn’t work on it in full force, but bit by bit, I started building a brand around the lemon drawing. I made descriptions for the first collections, I drew up a few sketches, and I could even vividly picture in my head how I wanted everything to go. I chose SOWER because it’s ‘power’ with an ‘s,’ and I thought it would be too on the nose to call the brand ‘sour.’ When the pandemic hit, I started taking SOWER more seriously by drawing up more mockups and establishing characters. Things were really starting to come together. However, the first year or so of me putting more force behind it didn’t bear any fruit. But I hope that this third year is really the charm!

Welp, that is all from me today! Hope you have a great rest of your day. Sorry, I didn’t get to talk about my new brand mascot today; I promise you that I’ll have all that information in my next article. Stay tuned!

Remember to be kind to yourself and accept yourself for everything you are and may be. Kennedy, signing off!

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[cats-napss]

Bluestar and Firepaw i drew in middle school because i was feeling distant from my mother (late 2015 or early 2016 maybe?) (my mom and i have a great relationship now btw)

Bluestar and Firestar character references that i put on a background (August 2023, present day)

i think the change in medium here is not really important, but i would like to note the first drawing is only about four inches across, while i now prefer to draw on large digital canvasses (and then i delete all my layers when i’m done bc my computer doesnt have space lol).

as far as design goes, i have obviously made their patterns more complicated than solid color/simple stripes. honestly my mental image of these characters has been informed by warriors youtube animations for a long long time so i have no recollection of what my mental image was of the characters when i first read Into the Wild, but they probably did have those simple designs in my mind. Nowadays i draw blue and fire with various different designs since i can’t pick a favorite way to depict them, but Bluestar does sometimes still have a simple solid gray coat and Firestar is sometimes just a ginger mackerel tabby.

In terms of art, 8-ish years of very frequent practice has certainly caused my technique to improve. The first thing that jumps out to me as a technical issue in the first drawing is Bluestar’s proportions (she needs more leg), but the second thing i notice is the line quality! this is an area i have worked very hard to improve in and i am rather proud of my progress! my linework when i was younger was very scratchy and lacked confidence, but now i can make smooth lines very quickly and accurately :)) also, the first drawing makes no use of fur as a texture or flowy moving object. i’m working on textures still (i really admire art that looks like you could reach out and touch it) but i’m definitely better than before!

anyways i love art and i love becoming better at art and i still have a lot of learning to do‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️

Hi reblog this with your old and recent designs/art of a wc character for comparison. Also feel free to ramble about them, like what you changed/improved or if it's for an au, etc

[osakiharu]

3:23PM : kazutora hanemiya

wc : 595

notes : i was thinking about the time i saw this boy drawing a girl (this is with a gn reader !!) in this really pretty spot of a park i was in and it was so cute :(( and i’ve seen baby kazutora drawing in a few official arts being the only one who’s drawing too so i was like y’know what… that’s kazutora and i’m writing that shit. not proofread.

“why don’t you draw me again?” you smiled from behind his sketchbook.

“no! not right now, my drawings always turn out shitty when someone know’s i’m drawing them!”

kazutora has always enjoyed drawing. ever since he was younger he’d happily scratch away at a piece of paper with a little worn down pencil he had in his school bag. they were messy, plain, simple pictures of him and his friends or a little flower he found in the park. as he got older he improved. the faces he drew became more accurate and proportional, the little anatomy studies he did got better and better each time, and he finally figured out how to draw creases in clothes without making them look out of place. kazutora kept his art to himself, hiding his sketchbook in his desk drawer until he decided to bring it with him when he met up with you one day.

you both sat in a pretty spot between two blossom trees, one pink, one white. whenever the wind blew, petals would fall down on you both like confetti and onto his book. “fuck, these fucking flowers.” kazutora mumbled as he brushed them off once again, the side of his palm turning a little grey from rubbing his drawing so much. you giggled at his frustration knowing he was probably nervous about drawing you. “calm down, tora, it’s gonna look fine!” you reassured him with a hand on his knee but he quickly moved it back to where it was on the grass next to where you were laying down. “yeah well the last time mitsuya knew i was drawing him it took me like…” he paused to look at your eyes, taking note of how they sparkle a little in the light, “thirty minutes to get his nose right, i swear!” again, you laughed at his silly excuse for apparently being ‘bad at art.’

“that doesn’t mean the whole thing turned out bad though, does it?” you picked up a few blossoms that had fallen off the tree, making a bunch between your fingers whilst listening to the scratch of kazutora’s pencil come to a stop. “you finished?” kazutora bit his lip and nodded. “‘kay, if it’s good, you can have these flowers.” you teased, holding them out to show him. “say shit like that and i won’t show you any of my drawings ever again.” he laughed at how your mouth dropped open at his empty threat, knowing thats the last thing you wanted.

the drawing wasn’t very big, the page only being a small one that already occupied a few drawings of his own hand and one of mikey in sunglasses in the corner. it didn’t matter though because your eyes still widened at how he did so well every single time. never had you come across a bad drawing in his book, all of them being so accurate and never once had you struggled to identify one of your friends. he knew how to get your hair just right, despite the blossom and wind. he didn’t miss a single detail of your pretty face, though it was be impossible for him to do so considering how much he looks at you. it was beautiful. “d’you like it? ‘m sorry it’s not on a clean page, i’m running out of space.” he spoke into your hair as your head was now leaning on his shoulder. “‘course i do, it’s great, tora!” you kissed his cheek to say thank you. you always made him feel more confident about his little talent.

reblogs appreciated <3

@swtsuya because it’s kazutora <3