#everyone involved in this project is really passionate about Art

[literalsunhobi]

The reason why the Come Back To Me mv is a cinematic masterpiece

[hearthomelesbian]

for anyone who has been following project voltage (pokemiku), an interview with subaki matoba (planning and production leader) and wataru sasaki (miku's creator!) has been posted on famitsu!

[ghostlyferrettarot]

🌌5th house and your creative expression🌌

❗️All the observations in this post are based on personal experience and research, it's completely fine if it doesn't resonate with everyone❗️

✨️Paid Services ✨️ (Natal charts and tarot readings) Open.

🪷If you like my work you can support me through Ko-fi. Thank you!🪷

🪷Masterlist🪷

🔮5th house in Aries: They constantly have all kinds of project ideas in their heads, they are always on the move. He never sits still and gets very nervous in the quiet moments of his career. They have an impulsive nature that leads them to implement numerous projects, although most of them are never completed. They have a competitive nature and like to show their individuality when it comes to their art.

🔮5th house in Taurus: Art lovers, enjoy visiting exhibitions, museums or attending music concerts of the most varied styles. The pleasure that these activities provide them is very remarkable. They also practice developing their creativity, such as painting, sculpting in stone or molding clay. They admire beauty and try to get closer to it with all the means at their disposal. Taurus in the 5th house is really ambitious.

🔮5th house in Gemini: They have an agile mind and are open to new ideas. They perform well in activities such as teaching, research and all types of areas where intellect is applied. They like it and they acquire information about what they are developing and also about themselves. There is a lot of will to achieve your goals and with a positive attitude. You can also carry out creative activities related to the arts, advertising, marketing, etc.

🔮5th house in Cancer: They will be eager to learn always and especially when the topics have to do with creation and emotion, above logic and pragmatism. They are great writers and poets. Their works are more imaginative and expressive and, to the public's liking, they tend to be more creative at night.

🔮5th house in Leo: they are very creative and love to be the center of attention. They can find their creativity and fun in activities such as acting, music, and art in general. They can also be very romantic and enjoy romance and passion. They show a lot of harmony and balance in their creative expression, as well as eccentricity.

🔮5th house in Virgo: They are very perfectionists and can find their creativity and fun in activities that allow them to be useful, such as organizing events and planning. They are analytical, they need to feel that what they talk about is based on clear rules that they can explain and control, and not just in an arbitrary idea about aesthetics or pleasure.

🔮5th house in Libra: They are very aesthetic and can find their creativity and fun in activities related to art and beauty. They can be very romantic and enjoy balanced and harmonious relationships. Their ideas are innovative, harmonious, aesthetic and original. They like to have fun together with others and when they get involved in a project, they have more confidence in themselves and are able to take advantage of their abilities when working in partnership with others.

🔮5th house in Scorpio: They like to create in isolation and experiment when no one is watching. They are very passionate and can find their creativity and fun in activities that allow them to explore the deeper aspects of life. They can be very intense and dramatic. He has a lot of imagination and intuition, as well as a great capacity for analysis, willpower and firmness.

🔮5th house in Sagittarius: they are good improvisers, they know how to create in extreme situations and they never say no to a challenge. They are very adventurous and can find their creativity and fun in activities related to travel and exploration. They can be very playful and enjoy sports and other physical activities.

🔮5th house in Capricorn: They are very responsible and can find their creativity and fun in activities that allow them to build and achieve their goals, such as business administration and investment. They can be very cautious. They are ambitious, they do not embark on trivial projects or projects that will not give them significant benefits, not always economic, but creative. They tend to be good architects, furniture and fashion designers.

🔮5th house in Aquarius: you need to move freely, without conditions or ties; Possession does not fit into their way of seeing life; furthermore, it is a sign characterized by their detachment. They are very original and can find their creativity and fun in activities that allow them to experiment and explore new ideas and technologies. They tend to be the trend setters in their environment and have great vision for the future and mental clarity.

🔮5th house in Pisces: They are very sensitive and can find their creativity and fun in activities related to art and music. They can be very romantic and have a very deep emotional connection with their projects. Although they possess a high level of intelligence and creativity, they can get stuck in their imagination due to their emotional and sensitive nature. They tend to be great therapists or psychologists.

[headspace-hotel]

i promised myself "before I go back to school in the fall, something HAS to get better. SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER."

and i made the appointments, had the conversations, I spent hours wringing my brain out googling discussing with friends and family, thinking of SOMETHING, ANYTHING i could approach disability services about now that my previous suggestions had been shot down, and i went there with a list and i was like "hey is there ANY of this stuff you can do to help me" and basically? No

i asked "maybe i could have few extra excused absences so I can rest when i'm overloaded" but the lady was like Well we couldn't do that because you would miss the material in class

I asked "maybe i could have limited group projects so i don't have to be working on something with 4 other people every single day because social interaction is really tiring" she was like Well we can't do it if it would change the course substantially but we can ask that professors tell you if there's going to be lots of group projects so you can drop the class

I asked "maybe i can do in class writing assignments in a separate room so it will be less stressful" she was like well what if we couldn't guarantee that another room would be available where some one could monitor you

This is after the possibility of a partial course load was shot down (i could request it because of 'extenuating circumstances' but there's no guarantee it would be approved, and anyway i don't even know if it would fucking help) and several other things

Going back to school is just weighing on me crushing me. The past two semesters I have been so unrelentingly exhausted, miserable and alone. I hated my classes SO much and spent so much time crying.

All my classes are stupid busy work , just like worksheets that are like "do all these tiny little steps" that micromanage you painfully as if you can't be trusted to have your own independent thoughts" while the professor sits on their phone.

The grades are made up of a thousand tiny bullshit assignments that you have to remember at the right time, if you know the material and even care about learning it, it doesn't even matter.

I took a PLANT science class last semester that I honest to god hated so much it took all the strength in my body to even go to class. I LOATHED it and I got a C in it even though it was highschool level crap and the assignments were so restrictive that they basically punished you for being passionate about anything, I would try to be creative or dig more deeply on things and my classmates (it was always a mother fucking group project because the professor didn't want to fucking lecture, just give us something to kill time like we were fucking preschoolers) hated it because creativity or thinking outside the box would always make the assignment harder for everyone and I would fuck up the grade and it made me feel so ashamed

Same class where the professor said "you can tell this is a peer reviewed journal article because it's written in two columns along the page" like what. What. Huh. What.

There is so little flexibility too like the requirements are so specifically made to "mold" me a certain way. No one sees anything I have already learned or is interested in my potential and ability and passion and keen interest that i HAVE IN ABUNDANCE by the way, and the classes are so boring and passionless

I approached a lady in the arts department about an independent study involving natural plant fibers but she was like "no sorry i only work with seniors and you would have to take these 2 of my other classes"

There is so much more that's stupid and dysfunctional about this college that is too specific to discuss with privacy online, but let it suffice to say that it's a school that wants the reputation of being really challenging and rigorous soooooo bad but it actually just has 1000 inflexible requirements that eliminate everyone's free time and assigns metric tons of tedious busy work, because being "hard" means our academics are "rigorous" right? but the quality of the academics is not good, the classes are not engaging or encouraging you to think more deeply they are just painful.

And no one, fucking no one in these classes is engaging with the work with any energy or passion or enthusiasm, the professors can't get a discussion going, everyone is just staring like a bunch of zombies because their classes r like the equivalent of two full time jobs so of course no one can Engage Deeply with them they have no fucking energy

the food is like eating out of the garbage. they reheat the same pieces of pizza over and over until they're like dried out and leathery like something from a pharaohs tomb. they have bagels kept in a box and they're so stale you can't even bite into them. I got sour, rotten milk from the milk machine so many times my stomach eventually couldn't take drinking milk from there at all.

i hate, hate, hate, HATE that place so much i start crying every time I try to make plans for fall because there is so little fucking joy in my life when i'm there it's like being trapped underground.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

Dear Raven ven venny ven, do you have any favourite ships in the twst cast? If so, why?

I don’t have any ships among the TWST cast that I’m crazy about! That doesn’t mean I “hate” all the combinations, it’s just that I feel neutral about most of them. I would say I’m pretty open to considering rare pairs and all kinds of tropes (enemies to lovers, childhood friends, etc.), but I’ve yet to find one in TWST that solidly lands with me.

Certainly there are dynamics I enjoy—the Science Club boys, for example—but do I see them being romantically engaged with one another? Eeeeeh, debatable. I could really go either way.

It’s actually easy to (temporarily) influence my takes on certain ships 😂 Sometimes I’ll listen to my friends talk ad nauseam about a ship they’re super into and their excitement is so infectious that it rubs off on me. I’ll go, “Wow, that really is a cute interaction! I can see why you ship them.” This had happened before with Malleus x Cater a few years back, though now I’ve returned to a neutral state on it since the shipper friend hasn’t been as active talking about the two. I appreciate my friends for popping off because even if I don’t have the same passion as they do for the ship, it helps me see the characters and their interactions under a new lens or from a different angle. (I actually wrote a fic where Cater takes Malleus to a maid cafe, inspired by my friend’s speeches about the duo. It’s meant to be platonic, but I think it could also be read as romantic if you choose to view it that way.)

I get easily influenced by fan art too, even if I don’t know the creator on a personal level. A few weeks back, I saw this Jade x Jamil post and it was so wholesome and tooth rottingly sweet (even though it was a ship I did not gave the time of day to before) 😭 And then I started to think about their similarities (both vice dorm leaders, both passive aggressive, both manipulators, etc.) and gradually convinced myself “Hey, it could work!” Now that I’ve had some time to be weaned off of the fan art though, I’m back to that baseline feeling of neutrality. It’s the exposure therapy wearing off/j

On the topic of Yuu (they’re technically a part of the TWST cast), I’m particularly lukewarm about any ships involving them—and Yuu ships are the only exception to my “I’m easily influenced to change my mind” rule; I’m always neutral about Yuu ships. They’re a blank slate, so the dynamics they have with other characters changes drastically depending on what “kind” of Yuu they are. I don’t have a Yuusona of my own, nor do I project onto Yuu, so I find little value in their character (or lack thereof). This extends to ships too; because I don’t see (my) Yuu as a “real” character, I also don’t see the potential in shipping them with those in the cast. I’ll support everyone’s right to their own Yuu and related ships, but I don’t necessarily get gung-ho about them unless I know the creators well. This is because the familiarity I have with them then extends to their Yuus; I can see bits of them and their own personalities and experiences in their Yuus, and that makes me feel like I have a more meaningful bond with whatever their interpretation (and romantic involvement!) is.

Of course, there are also some ships that I don’t like or that personally make me uncomfortable (for example, incest ships) 💦 I don’t want to like… yuck your yums, so I won’t go into explicit detail about which other ships I’m not a fan of or would prefer as platonic. Regardless of how I may feel about those, I don’t want to give the impression that I’m going to judge you for what you do or don’t ship. You do you—just be sure to respect boundaries and don’t push what you ship onto others, especially if they have indicated they’re not into the same things you are.

Just to make things clear, please do NOT send me asks like “Here is my ship and here is why you should consider it!” and “How do you feel about [Character A] x [Character B]?” or any variant (which includes polycules, love triangles, etc.). I will also not be responding to asks pressing me for which ships I dislike. I won’t be providing a tier list either since there are way too many possible combinations to account for. Shipping talk with strangers/the public makes me anxious and I’d rather not have that level of stress on a consistent basis.

Thank you for understanding ^^

[ecto-hazard]

Blu team guys v inspired by other blu team interpretations I’ve seen (Quazies, Emmet, several fanfics).

Info stuff under read more

Basically after the spy head was kidnapped and studied, the cat was out of the bag that Blu team is made up of clones with some genetic variations. They share the same memories as the Red team prior to the gravel wars, but red team cannot completely rule out that both teams arent made up of clones. Plus they get paid to kill each other repeatedly, so they go on fighting as normal except with some existentialism

General BLU team differences:

though the teams are more or less matched, BLU tends to lose more battles

Members are a lot more scarred up than Red on account that they got the technology for the medigun after red did

Heavy | Boris: Big Brother of the team. Very sociable and fond of the other members. If you have a problem, you go to Boris about it. His English is a little limited, but he's a great listener. He has a penchant for gardening. Gay for Blu Medic, but more in a QPR way.

Demo | Malcolm DeGroot: Less an alcoholic, more a workaholic. Quite obsessed with perfecting his craft as a demoman. Constantly urging everyone to work harder on the battlefield. The only way to get him to take time off is by dragging him kicking and screaming. Works closely with the Engineer on projects. Takes great pride in the payload bombs.

Medic | Hans Ludwig: much more socially awkward and timid in battle than the Red Medic. He prioritizes his work and ability to support the team way more than his own health. Only really opens up with Heavy and Engie, and sometimes Pyro. Gay for blu heavy and engie. (I called him Victor before but the name hans grew on me sry for the confusion)

Soldier | John Doe: Very goofy but in a more self aware way. He plays into his identity as a soldier, but doesn't take it quite as seriously as Red. He has a strong passion for animals and the wilderness. Would love to work as a national park ranger someday. He likes photographing wild animals and landscapes. Gay for Red Demo.

Sniper | Sammy Mundy: A rather polite young man. Sure he throws piss jars on the battlefield, but he's very respectful to his teammates. Takes a lot of care to keep his living space tidy. Washes his hands very thoroughly after every battle.

Pyro: Really not too different from Red's Pyro, mainly in that we know very little about them. Uses sign language to communicate (mainly with Engie and Spy).

Spy: Originally behaved much more like the Red spy, but experiencing firsthand the experiments that confirmed they were clones made him weird and existential. He became particularly more involved in the Blu Scout's life.

Scout | Chase: Quieter than Red's Scout most of the time, but becomes hella competitive on the battlefield. Very artistically inclined, and is particularly into street art. Looks up to Heavy and Spy.

Engie | Sid Conagher: Probably the closest thing the team has to a leader. MUCH less sociable than Red engie, though he's got the best head on his shoulders and takes his job very seriously. Gay for Blu Medic.

[yjzine2024]

Yellowjackets Zine - Applications Open!

You might have seen the poll going around for interest, and well, it convinced me enough to start this up. A zine for Yellowjackets! Yeah!

The plan is to make this a relatively small but hopefully exciting project to cross the current lack of things between seasons. Think you have a good idea? Submit it!

You can apply for the zine via this form

So far I'm thinking of keeping it at max 30 participants, but this mostly comes down to a first-come-first-serve basis. Fear not, I may include you if you have a really cool idea for a submission.

Guidelines for applying are copied below but will also be in the form.

Cheers!

What is a zine? "Zine" is short for magazine. What a Yellowjackets zine would entail is a small, digital booklet with artworks, writing, collages, lists, etc. related to the show that it's all connected to. There are zines that have a print run alongside digital versions, but to keep it all running smoothly, I'd like to keep this digital only. So I can't offer compensation in financial means. This is first and foremost a passion project, and also things would get tricky on a legal front if there were to be any money involved.

So if I want to contribute, it can be anything? Basicallly! But there are some hard rules I would like to be followed for it to stay coherent.

Canon Compliant. Writing or art, hard AUs aren't really something for this zine. It's a little celebration of the show that is there, and tonally there might be too much dissonance if AUs are included in this. Guesses at the yet to be seen months in the Wilderness, or in the present day are very much welcome!

Self-contained works. Putting chapter 1 of your fic in a zine isn't really ideal. For art this is easier to accomplish, but written submissions should be completed within the pages they are on.

Not just shipping. Yes, I know, shipping is big. But like I put in the first point, I would like to keep things more generally on events, plot, characters, and a neat discussion of it. There's of course degrees to how much you can ship within canon in a show like this. It's totally cool if you put something in that is (Basically) Canon (f.e. TaiVan but also JackieShauna) or Has Strong Potential (f.e. LottieLee, MistyNat). Don't come to me with something like Shauna/Walter. Explorations of characters and relationships are of course okay! But don't make it a smut fest.

Nothing too NSFW. This is Cannibalism Show (TM) we're talking about, so there is some leniency. But let's say if you would rate it as E on Ao3, then maybe try to get it a bit lower in rating or think of something different.

(Previously) Unpublished works. This may be a given, but a zine is the most fun when it's full of original content. You are of course free to publish what you made on your own accounts/profiles once the zine is online.

Other than that, it's pretty free to fill in for yourself! What can be published should be able to go in a hypothetically printed magazine, but if you would write fic, and essay, compile a mixtape list, make some meta newspaper article on the events, graphics, collages, a poster design, or banger fanart, it's all up to you as long as it gets you excited to work on it!

I'm splitting them up in written and graphic types of contributions, but there's room to give a pitch for your specific idea.

Practical stuff!

Max wordcount for written contributions should be about 2500 words. I'm not going to be too strict, but keep any overflow within reason.

Graphic works should be able to be displayed well on a 2100x3000px canvas on. This is the size of page I'm using at the moment.

How much time would there be to prep? For now I'm thinking of putting the final deadline on November 30 so hopefully everyone will have time to work on their submission (from scratch). I also gotta get the hang of a publishing design program lol.

[tiredfairywings]

[Applications CLOSED.] Wҽʅƈσɱҽ ƚσ Tɯιʂƚҽԃ Rҽʋҽɾιҽ~

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❀﹋﹋❀﹋﹋❀﹋﹋❀

My name is Mafuki and I run an art group for twisted wonderland! I am looking for twst yume artists who are also looking for friends!

The goal of our group will be to collaborate to create artpieces together (ex. art style challenge), and collab with each other (ex, 2 artists one base)! Something I'd love is for us to create a video with our ocs and their love interests together! All of this is non-profit so no one, including me will be gaining any monetary gain (unless you wanna post YOUR own pieces online aka not the other members unless you get permission). This is all for fun and you own the pieces you draw! We don't gatekeep pieces lol

We would love to make a group-home for people who just love twst and are passionate about it! The goal is for us to become a really close group of friends who just…love twst. If you have any questions, feel free to comment/pm me!

I've been put in a bind due to a missing member so if someone can start a prompt right away I would be very appreciative!

p.s. currently most members like to rp if youre into that

｡ﾟﾟ･｡･ﾟﾟ｡｡ﾟﾟ･｡･ﾟﾟ｡

❀﹋﹋❀﹋﹋❀﹋﹋❀

𝐈𝐌𝐏𝐎𝐑𝐓𝐀𝐍𝐓

Just because you reply and fill in an introduction does not mean you'll automatically get an invite link to the discord group.

Due to the intent of the group, I would like to stay as far away from Drama as possible but also allow for there to be a safe space for anyone to vent and feel accepted. The goal is to operate similarly to Nightcord@25 [a project sekai reference].

As the person who decided to create the group, I hold all responsibility for anything that goes wrong and as such, I'll be speaking to each potential member first through chatting. There is nothing you need to do except be yourself. This is simply a vibe check. I'm looking to foster a safe environment for all those involved and will not tolerate extreme personas.

❀⌇Guidelines Before Applying:

➼ Must be between 16-25 (if you're slightly older, it's still okay! Around 20's is preferred but vibes are the most important aspect) ➼ Your race, gender, sexuality of both you and oc WILL NOT eliminate you. The goal is for this to be a safe space and as such, the only thing that matters is personality. Timezone also does not matter! ➼If you have a mental illness that is okay!! As long as you won't let it effect/use it as an excuse to hurt other members it is alright. Everyone I've recruited (including myself) has experience with various mental illnesses. ➼Even though this is an art group, art ability does NOT matter!! The goal is for us to have fun, and all that matters is that you're passionate about twst. And that you actually draw lol No need to know how to edit videos! As long as I have the assets I can edit the videos for the group! Bases are also okay with credit. ➼Since we're all making yume art, I'd like to try to keep to different characters per person ➼ Remain Relatively: Drama free, generally will have a good vibe aka not being judgmental, and is alright with criticism. Communicates well with other members and does not belittle.

Current taken characters: Azul, Malleus, Epel, Ruggie, Idia, Rollo, Rook, Lilia Potentially Taken characters**: Riddle, Jade, Leona, Kalim, Trey, Deuce

**DISCLAIMER: I accept people on a first come-first taken basis. It's purely on vibes so if I like someone's vibes then they're accepted along with their Yume choice. If I don't like their vibes, then I'll let someone else take that yume for the group.

𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐈𝐕𝐈𝐓𝐈𝐄𝐒

If you're cool with everything, feel free to fill out this form and dm it to me! I'll speak with you shortly :3

TEMPLATE: ❀⌇Name (preferred, not irl obviously): ❀⌇Age or Age range: ❀⌇Timezone: ❀⌇Yume Interest: ❀⌇MBTI and Enneagram (not necessary --> I know psychology quite well so I can usually tell your top 3 so don't worry if you're mistyped or don't know your type [This is just for me to keep in mind so I can be mindful of you as a person]): ❀⌇Other interests: ❀⌇Important things to note (ie. accommodations): ❀⌇Triggers: ❀⌇Extra Info: ❀⌇Art Samples (just so I know you are able to draw! Preferably yume art but otherwise is okay!!)

❀﹋﹋❀﹋﹋❀﹋﹋❀

Template Credit: https://aminoapps.com/c/templatesand/page/item/soft-welcome-message/jlEV_rbcoIlpdadYbEoNdgelnl55woxdj Document below is linked if you would like info on the others who have joined!

[motivatedtobeunmotivated]

You guys, x-men '97 is so good. The art is phenomenal, the plot direction, keeping true to shoving the most devastating plot into a 40 minute episode and punching you in the gut at the end of the episode. It's such a faithful continuation that really respects the original while conveying nostalgia while also being an amazing piece all on its own. Chef's kisses all around.

(nobody talk to me about magneto and rogue or else i'll throw up and send in a warrant)

But also, I watched the making of documentary, and it's so obvious how much everyone involved in the show absolutely LOVES the project, and it makes me so happy for them, but also as a viewer because content that the creators care about just makes a good project and it's so easy to forget what projects with passion look like in a time where production companies just want to churn out the highest grossing slop

[ezrazone]

hello, huge admirer of your work & words in general

do you have any advice/ just thoughs for artists in their early 20s trying to make a living off of their passions in the current climate? i think you have very interesting perspective

thank you for the lovely message! i must admit though this entire question is made up of phrases i generally (but compassionately, not indifferently) shrug my shoulders at.

i’m never sure what to say to people asking for career advice specifically, especially people whose particular circumstance and desired field i don’t know. i’m also not sure what to say to anyone in their early 20s that has to do with that life period in particular, since it’s so different for everybody. i have good friends in their early 20s as well as comics students that age, but i don’t have age-specific wisdom for them since i’m not that much older than they are! my early 20s were spent beginning my transition and working a string of back-breaking jobs that i would happen to quit at precisely the right time to qualify for lockdown-era increased unemployment benefits (BERNIE BUCKS!!!!). remember how the united states showed its hand that it could use all the superprofits that it extracts thru blood all around the world to create a cushy welfare state for millions of people but only did it for a few months (partly because it sought to increase repression again after the george floyd uprisings)? anyway.... during that brief period of financial peace i was able to shape up my portrait skills and find the beginnings of my voice as a cartoonist. i wish i could gift that to everybody. every person deserves periods of quiet to figure out what they're doing. the truth is just that i got very lucky. so i'm not interested in being an aspirational symbol if anyone is under the impression that my advice can guarantee an artmaking practice that might resemble the one i have found for myself. i guess when i think about your phrase, "make a living off of their passions", i just want to reassure you that no matter your circumstances, the value of your passions is not dictated by your ability to make a living off of them. like let's just unpack the phrase "make a living" and pause for a moment to feel just a smidgen of how violent this cultural pay-to-play arrangement is. whenever possible, you should make money in whatever way will crush your spirit the least while meeting the needs that you have. my priority is always pursuing the maximum amount of freedom; sometimes that means freedom from losing my mind about rent every month, so i need to pick up a few shifts as a house manager at a local theater. sometimes that freedom means thinking about hot draculas the entire time i'm working at the theater. sometimes it means ending a project! i also really want to encourage every artist, if i possibly can, to attempt in their every day life and in their work to divest from the REAL CAREER vs. HOBBY psychic binary as much as possible. always. forever, until the distinctions explode. the truth of the matter, as i understand it, is not just that the best things in life are free or fucking whatever, but that the most meaningful ways you can spend your time do not necessarily involve deliberately optimizing your goddamn personal brand. you never need to be embarrassed about not spending enough time doing art, as if your status as an artist is paid for in any kind of labor that you can simply increase until the A in Artist becomes capitalized. to believe that would require a belief that everyone who is universally regarded as an Artist has simply worked hard enough. that's a myth and we know better. what horseshit! and as an adult i have also learned that periods of deep rest are often more enriching to me than periods of work. and even when i am employed up to my gills i am always cultivating the wise and endless spirit of a NEET. i am passionate about my art but i am also passionate about my life, and i welcome art in when it is actually viable and beneficial for me to do so. the only actual art-career-specific advice i will tell everyone though is: think bigger than fame as a protective suit (like, thinking that if you can just get a big enough audience you will be OK forever) and solo-written graphic novels (or whatever the "look what i did all by myself" equivalent is in your industry) and the fucking psychic wedgie that is relying on commissioned illustrations to survive.

there are grants that you can discover via many search engines that may allow you to fund the art career you actually want. do you want to teach? you get to teach. do you want to host reading nights? you can do that, too. i cannot tell you how much time i wasted trying to squeeze the things i was actually interested in into an "art career" shape that had little to nothing to do with what actually fed my life.

also: other artists are the greatest gift to all artists. your contribution to something is never diminished by another person's work. i think the best way to come back to this for myself as a cartoonist is to just initiate jam comic sessions (drawing panels back and forth to create one-page stories). little else brings me back down to earth as fast as passing a piece of paper back and forth with @tomb-of-madeline lol

i hope any kernel of this is helpful to you. i wish you the best on your journey, and i'd love to know what you end up making if we connect again anytime in the future.*

*there is no deadline to anything i have said here. you do not need to impress me ever and certainly not anytime soon.

oh and if you are a comics person i have a three-part lecture available to watch for free called experimental mini-comics for all! a lot of what i’ve said here is also there if only in spirit lol my attitude towards artmaking is fairly consistent in these regards

ezra

[kookiyu]

I've been rereading from the start for the 28th time and was thinking about the first chapter Namari appears and how strong it is...

We don't know anything about her before now but this exchange she has with Laios is really engaging and tells us a lot about her place in the party and her personality. She and Laios have a shared obsessive fussiness about their particular passions that comes across as really overbearing and offputting to other people... We see throughout the series and in the daydream hour omake chapters that prior to chapter 1 Laios had been hiding his interest in monsters from everyone for a Long Time. He sits on his feelings about things and is a terrible communicator because he's afraid to open his mouth and be completely ostracized by everyone around him, based on his experiences growing up. His silence and passivity usually turns into him being exploited by others (we never learn the exact reason for his desertion but we do know that the caravan he used to work for seemed to treat him especially poorly before Falin showed up.)

Namari, on the other hand, is a huge bitch. She's extremely vocal and opinionated about things and is fearlessly insistent and unashamed of it... Laios sees this part of her and where it comes from and he respects her for it, probably because he looks up to her lack of a filter. The 'undiagnosed autistic person being ruled by shame and self-censoring by just never raising their voice' is a real and common phenomenon and we see it a lot in Laios. His line at the end of the page here and his willingness to face the brunt of her criticism shows how much he appreciates her.

Meanwhile when she listens to Laios and Senshi talk about how to prepare tentacles and sees him expressing himself unfiltered her expression is just raw shame and dread... In the context of the chapter there's definitely the practical element of "oh my god, he's eating the monster that killed Kiki" but the expressiveness in Kui's art conveys a really particular mix of emotions to me and I can only see it as a kind of projected anxiety towards Laios. It's compromising for her; She cares a lot more than she lets on about the Touden party and Laios himself. There's a sense of responsibility for enabling him and a sense of protectiveness, like 'if anyone else finds out what you're doing they're going to treat you worse than you can imagine!' But I think more than anything she's afraid for herself. Namari is a Dwarf's Dwarf. She was exiled because of something her father did and it's haunted her her entire life... Being closely associated with Laios and the rest of the party would mean not only is she associated with a criminal, she's also involved with the psychos who've been eating monsters. That's on top of the fact that seeing someone she cares about behave the same way that she does without any of the defensive reflexes she falls back on to shield herself makes her scared! You can't just be yourself in front of others like that, because they'll always see the worst in you and run with it. She also seems to struggle with her own feelings towards the party, considering how she's not shy about letting other people know she thinks Laios is weird in contrast to how she can't abandon him or the others when they need her... It's great character writing.

There's a brief exchange near the end of the chapter/beginning of the next where she talks about the importance of an adventurer's reputation... Other peoples opinions of her matter a Lot, and reasonably so! She's had an unbelievably hard time of it, being exiled from a culture built around extremely close-knit communities and networks of support for something she didn't do... I think it makes complete sense why her motivations seem completely self-interested on the surface, and it's because she needs to find her people. For as shitty as Mr. Tansu can treat her (the human shield thing is bananas; you get the sense that he wouldn't be doing it if he didn't know he could just revive her after), they're also a really close adoptive family, and they all seem to love her a lot (the twins in particular, for obvious reasons). Wanting to be a part of that makes so much sense for her. I love how dense this chapter is looking back with the full context of the series as a whole... As much as I wish she'd had more scenes with everyone, I'm really happy with what we got anyway. Namari leaves such a strong impression in spite how infrequently she shows up... One of my favs for sure

[pesterquestrewritten]

Sorry if this is an inappropriate question to ask, but why do you want to rewrite pesterquest? Was there anything wrong with its original version, or are you just doing this for fun?

brain is a Lil Loopy rn so please excuse if this answer is semi incoherent - recovering from ankle surgery rn.

im gonna try to not harp on the original pesterquest as a project/talk about my percieved issues with it. from what I understand about the work environment where it was developed, it was hell -- poor communication, tiny budgets, little overall direction. plus every artist/writer involved was likely busy with other things at the same time (for example finishing the development of Hiveswap Act 2). they had so much going against them, and... it sorts shows in the final work, which isn't their fault. the original PQ team was passionate and cared and like. the absolutely last thing i want to do is disrespect them.

(generally also stating for the record that calling the original PQ "trash" or "replaced" is like. not good vibes. please don't do this if you're trying to enjoy PQR -- the last thing the original postcanon team needs is more harassment.)

anyway.

pqr is fanfiction, fundamentally.

i started making pqr because in september i was sick with covid, i wanted to learn renpy, and i wanted to study homestuck more. i wanted to figure out what made PQ tick, literally, figuratively, all of the above.

plus i really wanted to write a different story arc for mspar.

i also really love the side characters in Homestuck, and wish they all got more time to shine. the pqr prologue including a set of Spades Slick sprites just for a brief encounter i think helps establish what i want to do with the like. raw potential of the premise of a Homestuck visual novel.

damara is the other big thing -- i've wanted to make a story with her in it work for ages. (if anyone remembers the old MEGIDO hades mod, that was my first big public attempt. she was gonna be the protagonist, breaking out of scratch's mansion. turns out coding in renpy is WAY easier LMAO)

like. the plan wasn't even initially to have the prologue be a full damara route? i just let the writing take me where it wanted to take me. it's been deeply fun and cathartic.

the prologue's "bad end" has some incredibly intimate themes of like. inevitability, and worrying you've let everyone you love down, and i showed it to a college friend who i hadn't spoken to for ages and she set a screenshot from it as her background.

like. to me. that's pqr. that's why i make it.

pqr is the laundry room ending of rose's route, a deeply personal look into my own fears and anxieties as an author reflected back through this girl's circumstances. pqr is also the retcon ending of rose's route, a wildly stupid and indulgent romp through my own past fanfiction for a silly gag that people seemed to really love.

pqr is about dave and myself looking for a place to stay simultaneously -- pqr is about jade leaving prospit, and how i was adding to that part of the game in real-time as i dropped out of college, changing both of our destinies to something unexpected but hopefully better, at the same time.

pqr is also a silly extended sleepover scene. it's just fun to see them interact.

pqr is an excuse to turn over corners of homestuck and see if we can't peek behind them. what was it like for roxy, to think she lost joey and then find rose's meteor barely a year later? of course she'd think it's impossible for her to succeed as a mother. pqr is about finding empathy for yourself for your own mistakes, reflected back at you through homestuck characters.

because really, isn't that what we're all here for?

pqr is me coming back to my last long-abandoned attempt at an act 5 rewrite. pqr is an excuse to watch my girlfriend grow in confidence and style as she makes all the endcards and incidental art (except for joey route pt 2, but THAT was an excuse to work with a NEW friend!!!!!!!)

pqr is a friendship simulator that i am winning by having an incredibly supportive and collaborative group of friends in the dev thread who are cheering me on with every segment of text i post, friends who will hop in vc to check out the newest segment. friends like @dare0451 who literally yesterday rendered out some new audio to upgrade the June route to be even more fucking amazing and terrifying than it already was, AND DARE HASN'T EVEN PLAYED IT????? IT'S LITERALLY JUST. IT'S FRIENDSHIP MAN. PQR IS FRIENDSHIP

what the hell was this question again.

oh right.

yeah it's been fun basically. that's why i do it lol

[qibilette]

Your voice claims made me realize that you haven't really talked about what you're doing with the RainWing queens, so I'm passing you a "free to ramble about your rewrite" card across the table :3

YAYYYYYYYYYY THANK YOU

firstly: i approach all of the queens as a series of leadership examples that the dragonets of destiny learn from to judge the options for sandwing queen. the rainwings queens are all examples of negligent leaders - they're varying levels of good-to-bad, but none of them go after the missing rainwings and they all put their own desires before the kingdom's best interest.

other than that, theyre kind of my wildcard group to explore different dynamics & ideas! i tried to give all of them a specific Thing theyre passionate about. here they are ->

queen magnificent - has hear rumors of war and prophecy beyond the rainforest, she believes in it but is wary of changing the status quo & endangering her people by getting involved - enjoys being personal with citizens and traveling to visit different villages - most well-known rainwing queen

queen splendor - generally friendly and loving, she's heavily involved in inter-rainforest trade and travels a lot for it - uninterested in outside affairs and tends to micromanage when working on trade routes

queen grandeur - the oldest queen - rather stuck-up and a strong defender of "rainwing ideals", she wants everything to stay exactly as it is and gets cold with those who believe otherwise - she works a lot with wingeries and hatcheries - she gets along well with exquisite

queen fruit bat - kind, public, and casual, she works with gardens and food production and leaves the rest to everyone else - she's also a huge supporter of the arts! her pet project is perfumery and she smells delightful

queen exquisite - she doesn't believe the war exists and is generally obnoxious and xenophobic; she thinks the dod are here to drag the rainwings out of isolation and into danger for no reason - she cares a lot about the rainforest and is known for promoting animal safety and education - she gets along well with grandeur

queen dazzling - confident, charming, and envious, she seeks out pleasure in all things and focuses her life around that - she's easy to bribe and placate and some dragons take advantage of this to get special treatment

i've actually revamped the rainwings (and glory's arc) quite a bit, but i'll save that for another post :] tysm for sending an ask!!! asks are always open if anyone has questions or comments!

[shiraishi--kanade]

tell me all your favoritve things about proseka! Could be story or gameplay or art :)

I think my favourite thing about pjsk is just how much of an absolute passion project it is for everyone involved. It really shows, especially in later songs, how much producers and writers and voice actors are involved with the story. Producers especially, since they barely get lyrical direction from sega irrc, so all the cool Themes? Lyrics? Vocal direction? That's all them just genuinely being in love with the original characters. I don't want to hear anything about clout-chasing and OCs dragging attention away form Miku from vocaloid fans when we get superfans on level of Sasakure and Giga.

Also I like how involved the production is in the game itself. Something something Akina having to spark for Kohane twice in a row (Valentines and WLE I think?). Oh god Akina must be the one true Kohane oshi suffering out there with the lims.

Despite everything I feel like the game is a very warm presence in vocaloid community ngl. At time I think the people involved like pjsk more than pjsk fans like pjsk lmao

[tangibletechnomancy]

The problem with AI and the entertainment industry in particular is that...okay, fine, technology marches on. Digital art made physical ink-on-cels animation into mostly a hobbyist novelty (though boy howdy did it ever make it an impressive one). Photography turned portrait painting into a luxury, rather than something everyone who could afford it saved to do at least once for every family member because it was the only way to keep their likenesses alive. Photo editing has gone through so many changes that it's almost unrecognizable compared to what it looked like as recently as the 80s and 90s, and the older methods are, again, super impressive hobbyist passion projects now. Digital painting made physical painting less viable in an economy of scale, but way more impressive as an art form. These kinds of changes always really fucking suck for some people, but you can't really prevent them without stifling human development in general.

But.

The entertainment industry wants to make it suck way more than it has to for everyone but their executives and shareholders. They want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to take advantage of the inherent marketing power of celebrity culture without ACTUALLY involving, let alone paying, the people whose names and likenesses they're using. That, I hope we can all agree, is vile.

Now, the logical endpoint of this is that we push back against that, and as an alternative we get more fictional celebrities in the near-ish future, and as a Vocaloid fan, theoretically, I dont see much of a problem with that. Theoretically, at least. In the best case scenario, I think it could be a lot of fun! But the problem is, well...

See, in the early days, Vocaloid producers tended to take a very backstage role. Very few people were fans of specific producers; they were fans of Miku or any other character. Eventually, though, producers just kind of came more into the spotlight on their own because everyone has their own style and taste. We still love the characters, but we all started to notice when half our favorite songs by Miku were produced by the same person, well, perhaps we were fans of that producer as well!

But in American-born entertainment culture...

You may notice that CGI was conspicuously absent from my Technology Marches On breakdown. That's because while, yes, it has made for an interesting highlight of practical effects, with love for the work and nostalgia for their jank the same way other new art media has shone a spotlight on its predecessors, it hasn't actually gotten to be recognized as an art form the way the others listed have. We've barely moved on from the attitude that got Tron disqualified from the Academy Awards for SFX because "the computer did those effects, not you" (in 1982). In fact, I'm strongly of the belief that if Disney were a halfway decent company, they would be bragging about how they're pioneering photorealistic animation, rather than trying to pass off 90+% CGI animated films, usually (but not always; see: The Lion King remake) with live celebrity actors' faces composited in, as "live-action". Instead, they treat the VFX department as mindless dancing monkeys, and perpetuate the idea that VFX is just "select material, press button, get polished scene" - because to brag about it as its own art form might imply that the people doing it are skilled artists who deserve to be paid fairly and treated like human beings, and oh, we can't have THAT, now can we?

VFX labor is all hidden; very few people have a favorite VFX artist or director, instead we treat the artists, who put the time and effort into wrangling code and semiconductors and routines and layers into creating a professional-looking end product, as just part of the machine themselves, to save the companies some money - and culturally, I fear we're well on the way to regarding AI exactly the same way but worse.

As such, I fear that we wouldn't have the same effect with any digital idols produced by Silicon Valley.

Now, I don't fear virtual celebrities being able to fully replace human ones. Half of the draw of celebrity culture is the illusion of human connection. As much as the word "parasociality" has grown to be associated with only the negative effects of this, in reality, it's also the driving mechanism behind why representation matters. It's fun to be able to feel a connection to a fictional celebrity, but it doesn't replace the feeling of knowing that your fave is a human being with a real life - ...whether you use that knowledge for better or worse.

What I do fear is the fight against using AI to replicate real humans without their input, or with their manufactured consent, being long and drawn-out and doing a lot of harm before we can fully put a lock on it, and virtual celebrities being used to hide the work that the human directors and producers put into them for the sake of saving a parent company a buck.

[mysticjourneys]

A Flame In The Dark

(Closed rp with @a-fantastic-time )

Joanna Higashikata, a young girl who was deemed the strongest girl in school, given her athletic prowess. Although the only sport she was passionate for was martial arts. Her strength was comparable to Undyne, the police officer, but that was an over exaggeration. Still, Joanna felt very out of place among the school as she was the only human around... well, second to another.

Joanna's family had moved into the monster town near Mt Ebott last year. It was currently her and her father, her mother having died in an accident long ago. Joanna was a delinquent, having been several school fights that got police to be involved. They came here for Joanna to have a new lease on life, for her and her father to rebuild their bond.

Joanna didn't really mind the monsters. It was actually pretty cool. But, she still felt she belonged as people saw her weird at times. She was too tall, she was intimidating, she had a record, what happened to her left arm? It was disheartening to try and socialize with anyone. So she just kept to herself and focused on training and meditating.

One day, she would be paired up for a school project with the fellow human in town. Kris. She had seen the boy from time to time, seeing him be quiet and hanging out with a purple dinosaur girl and a reindeer girl, sometimes a nerdy bird boy. She was envious but didn't say anything. Now, she was coming to his own home after school. She wondered what waited for her, what she could see what Kris was all about. How he was able to make friends.

When the bell rang, Joanna had taken some cleanup supplies for the classroom and was on her way to the closet to return it. Only to notice Kris going into a room while everyone was leaving. She recalled that being the recreational room. Figure it be a chance to walk together, Joanna made her way to the door Kris went through.

Only for her to be greeted by darkness when she opened it. Confusion hit her with a bit of unease.

"Where'd he go?" Joanna questioned out loud. She took a step, only to find no ground to step in, and this caused her to stumble and fall. Her scream echoed as she fell further and further into the abyss. She didn't know how far she fell, only that everything went dark and her consciousness faded. Unaware of the changes she would be faced.