#for the amt of content in fanfic at least

[chromatic-lamina]

I was laying down my gauntlet yesterday. Sigh. Picks up discarded glove and dusts it off.

One Piece Shipping War - Round 2 Side B

ZoLaw art by @jack-pictures. Check out the original post here!

Propaganda under the cut.

Propaganda for Sanji x Law:

North blue bitches unite!! Law is definitely a nerdy fanboy who fell in love, just look at the gif i submitted. Also remember the extremely gay way law landed on sanji's shoulder in wano? Other ships could never!

Why have one traumatized north blue twins when you can have two?

North Blue boys and their trauma

Propaganda for Zoro x Law:

they're just both really good at sword play :P

Grumpy swordmen? What's a better ship?!

Sword guys, great way to go from releasing tension to topless and sweaty and close together, Zoro gets lost and Law enjoys wandering so they just go on walks together, both incredibly intense in what they do, both unlikely to back down, understand each other reasonably well, Zoro can deal with Law's brand of stupid/crazy/D

I think their interactions are fun :)

Law: "Let them kill you! Be ready to die for the plan!" Zoro: *is ready to die for the plan* Law: "NO!"

They have ao much in common! Both are swordsmen and they both have cursed swords (at least one). They're both pretty deadpan but not above getting into shenanigans with luffy. They just fit!

Two moody, broody swordsmen who are really bad at expressing their feelings, but deep down, you know that they are softies. They would bicker with each other but at least understand that the sarcasm is like a love language. They can at least share that mutual respect of having to be the strong one, especially surrounded by a crew of silly goofy guys.

They are perfect together because they are both massive nerds who think they're just so freaking cool, but they're not. Literally every time everyone else is freaking out about something they're like "pfft losers." But THEY are the losers.

It's two guys who are obsessed with Luffy who are in love, it's swordsman x swordsman, it's the two straight men together, it's jock/goth. I just think they would have nasty sex and I'm into it.

Both of these poor gay boys accidentally fell in love with the most aroace mf in all the blues. So they fuck each other to cope.

[meruz]

hi im putting all my asks in one post again. these are from like the past month and a half approx? some digimon thoughts some tmnt thoughts some art musings u know the usual

@waywardistics YAYY thank you so much for ordering! I'm glad it got to you & that you are enjoying it!

this is kind of a missive to everyone who ordered but: I am very nervous about pre-orders whenever I do them... nervous that not very many people will order, nervous that there will be supply chain or production dilemmas and I won't be able to get copies out to people in a timely fashion, nervous about having people's money but having an indeterminate amt of time where i have not yet "held up my part of the bargain" etc etc SO. THANK U GUYS...FOR ORDERING and being patient and im so glad it got to y'all

@seanonthemoon (idk why i cant tag u BUT) interesting... i gotta be honest I don't think abt the crests that much. i agree that they're very much like heres the "girl" crest heres the "nerd boy" crest etc to the point that it becomes almost meaningless. but i think what makes them even more meaningless to me, and is probably the reason they kind of designated girl/boy crests etc is that i think like the digivices they're toys and merchandise more than they are actual narrative tools LOL. I wouldve loved something with cody and mimi! theyre both so deeply empathetic and sensitive.. theres a lot they share but i think because they look so different on the surface it would make it difficult to market that merch...booo capitalism boooo toy marketing its all sexist bullshit at least here in the u.s. idk if japan is that different though.

I'm actually a little frustrated with how often 02 and 02 related media squanders cody in general lol. he feels like a parallel of izzy, joe, and TK(season 1 tk) while also being kind of none of those and suffering through lackluster characterization as a result... and then once ken joins the team it feels a little redundant. there's a couple cody-centric eps of 02 I remember really liking but then i think abt how he's been used since in like post-series content and 02:the beginning where they made him type on the computer even though obviously that's yoleis thing but because he had nothing else to do and aghh... my blood boils. i feel like the youngest but most serious anime achetype even at its bare bones is actually rly interesting idk why they don't play it up. UM. Once again my opinion is that he should be taller LOL and maybe they should play up his kendo martial arts honorable training stuff more idk. tallest + youngest + most serious just seems like a recipe for success for me. well. theres still time. and theres always fanfic.

THIS IS SO NICE TO SAY and not the first time someone has said it but i appreciate it everytime because i really admire the mm art style so much. It's like part of why I got really into the movie because I really recognized my own artistic sensibilities and aspirations in the way they stylized everything.

UM And i feel like since watching the movie and looking at all the concept art and making my own art i do feel like its only become more obvious how much my own art is lacking LOL LIKE when you see something that feels so similar I think the differences only become more stark. those artists are definitely on a different level than me. But it's nice to hear people say it doesn't look so different from their pov. thank u ^^

thank u!!!!!!! i love mundanity and naturalism... there's something so beautiful abt it to me lol... I feel like my anatomy needs work actually but ive been feeling better abt it this year so it's good to hear! thank you!

DLKGDSGDLALSNDF WAS IT TOO FAR..?? firstly, yeah I was thinking late teen/young adult ages for both of them ie 18-19ish, definitely not the age the kids are in the movie lol.

but also they arent DOING anything in that pic it is literally just a confrontation + some innuendo... I think teens should be allowed some less than subtle innuendo.. its like one of the top 3 classically teen pastimes...

this is such a funny ask to get because i feel like i haven't been able to do thin lineart until like. this past year or two maybe LOL. UM having a line-centric art job helped I think. I started on craig of the creek back in 2022 and thats a show where we spend a lot of time inking so I had a job where I was constantly moderating my line weight 40 hours a week every week for over a year. disappointingly, much of improvement is simply horrendous amounts of practice.

Here's a tip though: I think a lot of thin lineart boils down to confidence. I think instinctively we read thick, bold, fast lines as confident but theres actually a lot of obscuring you can do with a thick line. if you're not sure whether the nose on the face or a browline should be a little more left or a little more down you can hide that with a thick line and pretend its a shadow. or hide it with a bunch of quick lines and the eye can kind of approximate where looks best among the mass.. whereas a thin line is rly singular and stark and hides nothing, it needs to be precise. so anytime i know i want thin lineart i spend a LOT of time sketching, making sure i know exactly where i want my lines to go. so im not second guessing by the time im inking...

ok thats kind of a broad tip lol... here's one thats more applicable: IF POSSIBLE, lower your pressure sensitivity on your device. most devices have some way to edit your pressure sensitivity curve. I use a surface pro at home and this is what my pressure curve looks like most of the time.

When I work on a wacom it looks even more like a reverse L shape LOL. I'm naturally a really heavy-handed artist and I use a "light" or "hard" pressure curve to compensate for how hard I'm always pressing on the pen lol. if you're like me and you struggle with going too hard with the ink too fast... this will probably help a lot!

SFHASLDFH I LOVE THIS ASK this is like the type of question a person gets asked when chalk drawing on the sidewalk at recess LOL. but i understand because I've been struggling also for like. months. I think I'm finally starting to nail it down though so here's some of my observations.

[feel free to save this img but **please do not re-post it or share broadly**. my biggest fear in the world is to spend 30 min on some notes and become a widely proliferated art tutorial im not even kidding. i made it low contrast and difficult to read on purpose.]

my other tip is to just look at and study a lot of reference because that's all ive been doing. the tmnt are really cartoony so its difficult to use like actual anatomical reference unless ur going for that look BUT theres been so many adaptions in so many different styles that there's a real treasure trove of stuff to look at for how to simplify, stylize, and dissect these characters while keeping the recognizable essence. so theres lots to pull from.

If you want to expand further, it's also good to have 5) something sci-fi 6)something fantasy 7)something mundane/slice of life. a bedroom is a really good go-to. And of course some bgs can be two or more of these things at once.

I've definitely answered asks abt bg tips before but here's one specifically for if you want to do bg design for a job:

Your portfolio should probably have at least one of each of the following 1) an interior 2) an exterior 3) a cityscape 4) a nature scene. Just to cover kind of the basics of what you'd be asked to draw on any given project.

I actually feel like I don't have that many cityscrapes in my portfolio... this is something I'm gonna try to work on in the coming year LOL. OH ALSO. This is a very basic tip and people will tell you it all the time but its worth repeating: look up portfolio websites of artists who have the job you want. An easy way to do this is to go onto imdb for any cartoon or movie you like and to find the names listed as "bg/background designer" or whatever then just google that name +"art" or "animation" most artists have some public facing internet presence so it's not hard. spend time studying their work and hold those images in your head! it's a good way to get a good idea of what "industry standard" looks like and comparing ur own art to it... I know people sometimes get bummed comparing their art to others but if you can keep your head up lol.. it'll help you figure out what you need to work on!

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ok thats all i have to say sorry for typing so much. happy new year everybody who read this far LMAO!!!!!

[cielospeaks]

idk... comparing f-h to g-f (which i quit maybe a yr... 2 yrs? ago)

story: they both have really annoying stories but in different ways. g-f’s protagonists’ hypocrisy was what annoyed me the most- “ohhh belial is too horny we cant ever summon him” but then “theres a sexual killer and oodles of other nasty ppl were best buds lol!” and just the cutesy and kinda bland tone of a lot of the stories- always around the same cluster of characters who you have to like but theyre just so generic and bleh.

with f-h its still like a.... cutesy “you have to like them” tone w the main characters, but i think its a different annoyance. whereas the g-f ones are admittedly just bland and bleh, they arent rlly doing much bad? necessarily. whereas the f-h protagonists are. murdering ppl for their own agendas, being creepy, ect.

gameplay: for g-f what turned me away was the difficulty spike and the fact a lot of content was inaccessible if you dont have the whatever grid build bullshit. whereas in f-h i can count on my fingers things you lose without grid build nonsense and its all pretty inconsequential (sure, somes like “1 orb a week” but honestly its a fair payoff imo. the other stuff is like.. rokkr acces, those throne thingies, bragging rights, all stuff that i dont need). in f-h at least you can enjoy the game without pooling huge amts of time and energy and stress into the like.... nitty gritty, and what nitty gritty it does have is at least fairly ok to understand.

gacha: i think theres likely more characters i like in gacha in f-h than in g-f, since most of my favs were event free characters or npcs. i think the fact that f-h (and go tbh) are based on an existing source/story makes me more invested in the characters added to gacha rather than g-f’s “generic anime character trope number 24″. i think for me its bc i already have an impression on the character, good or bad, so i know if i want to roll them or stay away from the gacha. i never got the appeal of gachapin bc theres like a 1 in... how many chance of rolling selfi or on rare occasion sturm and drang, so it didnt rlly pay off. also sparking was too steep imo, i think the f-h method of guaranteed summon is more fair/achievable (like... clear 3 temp trials without spending orbs? thats tote fair)

and to be fair also go bc im not quitting it lol. im in it for the long run bc of sal and izou

story: ranges from rlly good and satisfying (ooku, lb 1-5.1, white day ‘19) to insultingly bad (gw ‘19-20, mystery ‘19, part 1/1.5, lb 5.2). unfortunately a lot of the stories dont understand that comedy and drama arent mutually exclusive and tend to be either “this character is so random xd” or “this character is so badly written they read like an ow the edge fanfic”. but some concepts are kinda cool- heck, most concepts are cool as concepts at least. so theres a lot of self-imagining potential. and like i said, some are good. most recently 5.1 was super nice and had a good balance of comedy and drama, which was awesome. and sad. very depressing

gameplay: difficulty spikes are rlly ew. but besides that it can be kinda fun and enjoyable. heck, even some of the difficult stuff is satisfying to complete in a way, just bc u can use your favorite/trusted characters to defeat someone really smug and annoying, looking at my ruler team and a 51 turn clear. imo a lot of draw in the “serious” story things is my personal gameplay/experience w it so seeing just the “ow the edge” story isolated really kills a lot of the enjoyment. which means the gameplay’s doing something right lol. the class strengths and weaknesses mean a lot of fun opportunities to use a variety of characters.

gacha: absolute heck. but it has gotten kinder- the most notable is the sorta yearly? free 4 star tickets and the very generous free 5 star due to gw delay. (unfortunately permanent/non locked only but still! it was a tough choice between sanzo and nastaya!). the gacha itself has gone from no pity rate 40 quartz/10 pieces to yes pity rate 30 quartz/11 pieces. theyve even added low rarity characters (albeit only 7... rip but its a start!) that also become relevant in the story.

so yea, i think go is obviously winning. i honestly have no urge to go back to g-f, and depending on what happens w f-h i could end up putting it on the backburner (esp if more 16 characters are added, considering i rlly dont like the game lol)

[kiragecko]

I’d love X-Men fans to get suggestions to PLEASE put their fic in the correct movie fandom. It would make it so much easier to find the small amount of comics-specific fanfic. The All Media Types tag mostly causes suffering, there. But it’s still necessary! Because sometimes you want to read about Iceman and Rogue hanging out together, and it doesn’t matter WHICH universe they’re doing it in.

And there are a lot of fic that are ambiguously Marvel Comics and ambiguously the MCU movies. They aren’t crossovers! They’re just … setting-agnostic. Hawkeye is more comics, Winter Soldier is more movies, Iron Man is a bit of everything - you can’t untangle it.

Going through the comments, a LOT are about the DCU. And they’re right, the DCU is a snarled mess of related fandoms and continuities that would be impossible to search or tag without All Media Types tags. The Batfandom is bigger than the DCU fandom, even though it’s a subset. Many fans write in a mostly comics universe, without having ever read the comics, and have no clue where various bits of continuity come from. They often start as fans of the movies or cartoons, and SLOWLY add bits of continuity as they learn them. How are they supposed to tag that? I pretty much ONLY search using the ‘Batman - All Media Types’ or the ‘DCU’ tags, because there’s about 8 different continuities I’m actively interested in, and most of them blend together.

(On the other hand, after every new movie I go hide in the comics tags, because new fans NEVER know how to tag correctly. And everything gets flooded with AMT tagged movie fic.)

Other people are talking about media where the manga, anime, and light novels have only the slightest differences, and they’re desperate for an AMT tag, because tagging only one … just hides them from possible readers. It’s three silos for the same content, and people are missing out.

-

Another thread talks about how AMT tags used to add a lot of load to the servers, but the code is better now. That’s a good reason to have stopped making AMT tags! That was a functional policy! If they look into the situation and discover that it IS still be hard on the servers, I respect them wanting to get rid of non-essential AMT tags. Or at least not add more.

But if it’s possible, I hope we can keep these high level metatags. They really shape how the site can be used.

Regarding Fandom Trees & AMTs

Tag wrangling is, on the whole, a fluid process. It's meant to be, because the way language is used and the way tags are used change over time. We're the first to admit that we don’t always get it right, and that we do sometimes make mistakes despite our best intentions. This is why wrangling decisions are not set in stone and are reevaluated periodically as circumstances change or as new information becomes available. 

In light of the impact that removing the Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms metatag has had, we have put that metatag back in place. 

When it comes to fandom metatags and fandom trees, there is no 'one size fits all' approach that works for all fandoms. Consequently, we have placed a hold on all structural changes to fandom metatags, All Media Types fandoms (commonly called AMTs), and fandom trees while wranglers discuss the need for additional guidelines and adjustments to our approach regarding these tags going forward. 

This hold will remain in place until tag wranglers have had ample time to fully reevaluate our fandom wrangling guidelines with the aim of making it easier for Archive users to find the content they’re looking for and filter out the content they aren’t. This guideline reevaluation process is something we are actively working on, but it will likely take some time to complete. We will update again once these fandom guideline discussions have come to a close.

Thank you for your patience and understanding.

(From time to time, ao3org posts announcements of recent or upcoming wrangling changes on behalf of the Tag Wrangling Committee.)