#given that I'm mostly drawing fandom stuff

[solanj]

sometimes in the fandom you see some art that is SO beautifully made but goes SO against the grain of how you perceive the drawn character(s) like I want to reblog it so much because it's so visually gorgeous and the artist is amazing and deserves to know this but I'll fucking die before letting that particular interpretation of the character(s) anywhere near my blog

[xbraveheartx]

So I know the quality sucks and we don't get any better quality to compare, but I just wanted to point out that, yes. Baby Carlo has freckles. Very few of them. But you can see the ones he had since he was a wee young lad standing out in his painting.

Go ahead and go into the game and stand in front of the portrait. Compare their faces. I'll wait c:

Here's a full/clean version of his portrait if you want to stare at it

So anyways like I was saying before--

[dogtoling]

General life- and blog update , since I assume at least a few people might have been wondering where I've been and what i've been up to recently. I obviously haven't been posting or drawing much this year in general. This will probably be an important post if you care about stuff on this blog, and I already rambled on Sheezy, but that site isn't very populated yet and it's also very good at hiding journals so let's just ramble again...

The summary of this post if you hate reading: I'm heavily considering just stepping away from Splatoon. That decision obviously would affect this blog (mostly, my OCs, which is kinda most of the blog at this point). I don't think the blog itself will go anywhere, and I'll probably use it for something in the future... alternatively i'll cherry pick stuff from here into an archive for people who like the worldbuilding.

Longer post under cut:

So what have I been up to this year? The answer is quite simple: NOTHING. Like, actually absolutely nothing. Aside from Art Fight, this has probably been one of my worst art output years of all time, which is really frustrating. That's between my horrendous mental health and depression chasms this year and a complete lack of both focus and inspiration (which can also get chalked down to the depression to a degree, yeah). So the very real reason to why there hasn't been much activity on this blog this year is because I just haven't Done Anything in general.

Now because I know there will be a few people who think "that's fine! you shouldn't judge yourself based on productivity!" you're right! I also agree. However the issue for me specifically is that most (if not all) the time I spend NOT drawing or creating, I spend sitting around wishing I could start drawing or creating, because that is like the 1 thing that keeps me sane on this freaking earth. Unfortunately coming up with OC scenarios in my head doesn't really result in output I can feel fulfilled by in any form as much as I wish it did, lol.

Now; The Issue. It doesn't take a genius to see that if you spend 9 months trying to finish like a dozen OC pages that you COULD do in a week or 2 if you wanted to, then there's probably more than just the problem of executive dysfunction (even though that's at least 60% of it for sure). Obviously my other major problem is that I live by imaginary rules and structures that make sense, but aren't actually useful at ALL in reality and are more than a hindrance if anything (the mental to do-list in my head that says i can't do X until I've done Y doesn't do very much if task Y takes 10 months and I also don't want to do it, and it also has no structured ending).

How does this tie into stepping away from Splatoon, you may ask. Well, the issue is that I have foreseeably fallen out of love with the series. Which isn't exactly news lol. Currently, I'm not even sure i will get the next game, if and when the time comes. Yes, the loss of interest is also expected, given that Splatoon 3 has ended and every fandom has this kind of downtime and lukewarm in-between-titles period. But the truth is that modern Splatoon (almost 10 years old!!!!) is tangibly different from the way the series was back when I fell in love with it. That was Splatoon 1, and while the series has improved in a lot of aspects and is thriving, it's grown in a direction that I just don't really like. Splatoon 3 had the most freaking horrendous, immersion breaking story mode they could've done, then they followed it up with a DLC story that was pretty cool but also compounded a lot of my fears about the series' future and played into every single thing i do not want Splatoon stories to be - fully character focused, random fucking villain, mundane event that's unrealistically world-threatening just because a kids video game needs a scary climax even though it's immersion breaking AGAIN, the whole thing taking place in cyberspace and thus offering basically no worldbuilding even though there is SO MUCH WORLD. I COULD GO ON.

The gist of it is that nowadays, rather than playing Splatoon and being inspired and excited at what comes next, I mostly find myself dreading what dumbass plot they will do next to throw a wrench in the otherwise good stuff. And when that's like THE main approach I have to what's supposed to be my favorite series, it is HARROWING. I can't even really blame the game for this; the story is NOT its selling point, the developers probably do their best to get the bits to us that they really want to tell, and at the end of the day the game is unfortunately a product. Worldbuilding for Splatoon is fun to a point. It's less fun when in order to actually write or create something coherent, instead of filling in the blanks, the blanks are 90% of the freaking thing. At that point you're just better off making something of your own instead of being anchored onto an IP that gives more problems than answers and occasionally shoots you with like a machine gun. Working in the realm of Splatoon is frustrating because more often than not, the questions I have ARE NOT MINE TO ANSWER, and the likelihood that the specific-ass questions I need answers to will ever be actually addressed is really low.

Tying this back to my OCs. Obviously I love my OCs more than I love myself which admittedly isn't that high of a bar but you get the point. The problem is that I spend a lot of time mulling over worldbuilding that, again, frankly isn't mine to do. Because if I want it to be Splatoon, then it should be mostly accurate to how Splatoon is! But the problem with that is that there's really not THAT MUCH worldbuilding in the series that you can work with, and most of the core game mechanics are just abstract enough that it's actually horrendous to try and come up with workarounds and ways for things to make sense that don't require just constructing a full knockoff version mirror dimension of the game and saying fuck everything that's in place here because Inkopolis Plaza literally has no roads in or out of there and I have no fucking idea how that's allowed when your only option is to jump the fence (or, nowadays, take the train which also isnt connected to a street as far as I remember). Between the face value issue and the lack of REALLY IMPORTANT worldbuilding, like - I will always come back to this - THE INK TANK'S FUNCTION 10 YEARS DOWN THE LINE - there's a goddamn ocean of plot holes and things that end up being obstacles to creativity rather than inspiration. I feel like I'm pretty solidly at the point (and have been for a while) where hanging onto Splatoon is really only contributing to creativity block and frustration with lack of freedom and the ability to actually do things.

So I guess those are my reasonings that I've put together just sitting here for the time being. The TL;DR is that I wish I could just do stuff without Splatoon's canon getting in the way, which is a really stupid problem to have if you're making Splatoon OCs. I feel this frustration extremely strongly every time I have to work with actual bigger aspects of the world; we still don't have an Inkopolis map, we don't know what the world around Inkopolis looks like, we don't know what the wilderness is like aside from Just Normal Forest and Desert and very few snippets as to what modern wildlife MIGHT be, I still don't know how the fuck the Inklings teleport to the goddamn arctic ocean to play a turf war at Shipshape Cargo co. These are all actually really important things if you're trying to establish a setting in any kind of storytelling that's outside of immediate city bounds (and even there, you need to know the layout of the city and its important areas). Also a fucking mutant bear and a baby salmon and a squid not wearing suitable gear went to space and fought on a rocket in space. These are some things that would give me peace of mind to not have to deal with in my own writing, probably.

So where do we go from here? Unsure. I haven't really made a decision on this front yet, though right now I'm leaning more towards actually going ahead with trying to do my own thing. That will result in obvious design and setting changes for my OCs whenever I get around to it. This blog probably won't go anywhere (again, unless I impulse delete it during a mood swing like i've almost done on like three separate occasions this year), but it will probably get less use, and I will probably end up making a new blog to post about whatever I end up doing once I get to a point where it feels like it makes sense. There's a chance that I will delete this blog and put all the interesting stuff on an archive blog for the people who are here just for the worldbuilding. My actual true passion for a long time now hasn't even been Splatoon anymore, it's just been cephalopods. I'm kind of done having Splatoon get in the way of the cephalopods, as thankful as I am that it introduced me to them...

If you read this to the end heres a treat for you = 🍪

[some-triangles]

I found a video essay which is about Neil Gaiman but is also a critique of fandom culture from the left. It's fun! My guy dresses up as Death from the Seventh Seal and talks about Roland Barthes in rhyming couplets. It's too long and overly pleased with itself but hey, leftists.

I took a break while watching it to go on a milk run to the bourgeois grocery store (might as well not abbreviate it under the circumstances) and saw this:

Given that the video was just talking about Gaiman being more a brand than an author I took this as a sign to share my two cents.

The cents are these: beyond considerations of fandom, parasocial attachment, Death of the Author and capitalism, which the video covers admirably*, can we posit that the art you find yourself the most attracted to as a teenager might not be stuff you should be buying as an adult?

*(they do quote an Alan Moore article from The Fucking Guardian in which he says he hates the growing trend of treating authors as "part of the costumed entertainment" without pointing out that the man wears a costume at all times, which is part of his branding, just like Gaiman. Also maybe given the company he keeps we should start asking more questions about Lost Girls. But I digress.)

Do you want to live in the moral universe of C.S. Lewis? J.D. Salinger? J.K. Rowling? J.R.R. Tolkien? (Maybe going by one's initials is the problem here, actually.) A grown person who thinks for a living shouldn't be going around saying that Neil Gaiman is one of their heroes. Even if you like his books, you've got to admit that the dude's mostly style and reference, that his actual insights don't go beyond those of a bright teenager. It's commodified rebellion for rebellion fans, sitting on the shelf next to Rowling's commodified conformity for conformity fans. We can still have fun with pop but we have to understand that the people who make it are in the sales business. (Yes, even Kendrick.)

The reason this stuff is constantly sold back to you is that it's really easy to sell things to children. The less like a child you become, the harder it is to market to you, so it's in the interests of money to draw you back to your childhood in a million different ways. So: grow up and get some esoteric, contradictory tastes, just to fuck with them. Cut out the hero worship - don't respect people for their "talent" any more than you would respect them for being rich. This will make you less likely to be starstruck enough to follow around a third-rate tumblr daddy dom who thinks he's a wizard.

(no, not me)

Finally, because I'm also a leftist, here's the overlong and self-satisfied part. I read a lot of Gaiman in high school but I also read a lot of one of Gaiman's heroes, Harlan Ellison. He was my favorite! I liked him because he was stylish, aggressive, arrogant and brutal. Teenagers like power and he had it. The fact that none of his stories had real people in them and that he seemed to have a problem with women in particular was nothing to me in the face of his Muscular Prose. Then I went to college and met some people who were smarter than me.

I ended up dumping Ellison for what was in his work, long before I knew much about all the other stuff. Same thing with Gaiman. So if you're worried about being let down by one of your heroes, I suggest looking at all of them carefully. Particularly at their feet. (Not for horny reasons.) And then maybe stop looking at them at all and go do something else.

[creatingblackcharacters]

Hi Ice! This one is maybe a little on the outskirts of 'creating Black characters', but it is related to the introspective questions you posted a little while back, so I thought I'd ask for your opinion. I'm sure this isn't an one-easy-answer thing, so I'd love to hear from any other Black people reading this as well!

I'll try to keep it short.

I'm seven years and 300k+ words deep in a fanfiction about anthropomorphic animal characters, and your introspective questions made me face the fact that I've been the ignorant fandom racist. I wrote my main character as white. Now, 7 years later, I stumble over a post pointing out ... those are locs

I don't know if the authors intended for this character to be Black (nonblack voice actors, supplementary material also clearly doesn't draw him this way, though that stuff was all over the place re: consistency) and I frankly also am not sure if they Should have, given his role in the narrative, but a) that's not really up to me to speak on and b) he's got locs and mostly black fur and was inspired by Anubis. I've been whitewashing, there's no way around it.

I briefly considered going back and just straight up changing the story to make him Black, but I quickly realized that I have been writing him from a white-centered narrative and just slotting a Black character into that would arguably be Worse. Or at least racist in a brand new way. I can change how he takes care of his hair, but not the themes on which the entire narrative is built upon. I've been writing about a white man and I can't just pretend I haven't.

So my question to you is ... what now? How do I best acknowledge this? Do I just quietly come to terms with the fact that this story is racist and do better next time? I would like to acknowledge it in some way, I have a small but loyal audience and if I could use that platform to start a conversation (or just put out a 'hey, don't be like me') that would ... maybe at least be better than nothing? Possibly?

I know there's not a simple solution here that will Fix It, but I thought I'd ask an actual Black person who's open to educating what might be a good next move. Maybe avoid making another, new White Person Blunder. Here's to hoping.

I really appreciate all you do, your blog rocks and so do you.

Is that Shadow?

Okay, so I had to have a conversation with Hot Chocolate on this one because this one's a doozy! I appreciate that you're willing to stop and reflect though. Most people wouldn't be willing to do so this far in!

Admittedly, the fact that you're seven years into this means this will require a lot of effort. And, tbh, I might be confused bc I cannot tell what that character is 😅 So! After some thought, here's what we came up with:

Take a hiatus. Point blank period. Take a BREAK, do not pass go, do not collect $200! Idk what lore you've written, but you've written a lot of it. Take as long as you need to reread your works, and see if at any point you ever made it clear that this was a white person, or anything other than the Black character you now think they should be. If it feels undefined, where you can turn "hair" into "locs" or add in small details, then that could be your smooth way out. It doesn't have to be massive changes, but it could help. It'll take you time, for sure! But you dug seven years in, it's gone take you time to dig out. Maybe if you skim 15k words a week (or ctrl-F it for hair, for examples), that's... 20 weeks? Go at your own pace, faster or slower.

Unfortunately this happens a lot, where influences for characters will be taken from cultures of colors and improperly represented (the "African" god from Genshin). That's just a fact. So I don't necessarily blame you for the confusion, but... Now you know.

If possible, get a sensitivity reader! Preferably a Black one. Ngl, given the massive amount of work, you're likely going to have to pay them. Maybe give them half and you take half. Idk, but let another pair of eyes look at your work. Or maybe there's a Black reader that you could speak to and see how they feel about the potential change.

Should you choose to keep going, just try to be more purposeful and intentional about that character's Blackness. Definitely tell your readers what you figured out, why it's important to you, and then move forward from there.

Now, RECOGNIZE that many of them will NOT be pleased! That's kind of the thing about opening your eyes when it comes to racism in media! A lot of people will NOT be happy that you decided to be more intentional, especially if they've been imagining their favorite white guy for seven years. You're going to have to weigh your integrity and your will to create against that. People might leave, people that you thought were cool AF until it was time to show true colors. Be ready for that.

But that's just what I would do 🤷🏾‍♀️

[rococo-sonata]

Kunikida HEADCANONS☆📗

they're sitting in my notes for so long i can't take it anymore

it's mostly silly stuff (*^ー^)ノ♪

- Kunikida doesn't really need glasses (given the amount of time he breaks them and does just fine, when i don't have my glasses i'm walking into walls) they're mainly for rest but he keeps them all the time bcs it makes him look cool

- you know that scene where he's showed as a teacher. it's atsushi imagining him. my hcs is he wasn't actually a highschool teacher but an elementary school part time teacher (or some kind of trainee which explain why he was already teaching at 19-20yo) and he came to give math and science classes. Because there is so many time where we see him being so sweet with kids (aya, that poor girl with the bombs, also in beast that boy he hugs after akutagawa scared him💔). He would be so nice even if he would be strict and would 100% make his students do magic coloring with multiplication and all.

- the fandom often pictures him as some goody two shoes or whatever. he really is not☠️ They mostly think that because he values discipline and excellence, which is only bcs their part of his ideals. He literally hates autority and he'll only follows the rules that goes along with his ideals. You know what that is. Anarchism!!!!

- everyday he waters the agency's plants being unaware they're all fake

- super strict with grammar in texts. he'll send shit like "Dear Atsushi, Can you please take out the trash? Love, Kunikida Doppo."

- during the episode that mention his ideal partner, when atsushi reads the list he seems super weirded out and embarassed, and he mentions a "drawing" Kunikida made, while Kunikida doesn't seem ashamed of it at all. so in my head he probably drew some stick figure with absurdly big boobs or smth. (i know the anime ruined Dazai Entrance Exam but i still like this idea it's funny.)

- sleeps with his notebook under his pillow and freaks out when he find it on the ground in the morning.

- reposts ai videos asking "did that really happen...?😰😮"

- he is autistic and his notebook is basically a list of his ocd

- he was bullied by ranpo when he was still a newbie (it's mentionned in Kunikida and katai magnificient day)

- having kids was on his ideal list. he crossed it after rokuzo

- kenji gives him drawings sometimes and he frames them all and keep them on his desk

- he can't tie a tie for shit that's why he sticks with his ribbon

i have some more about him and others characters maybe i'll post them later ^_^

[rangerangel]

Given that it's been almost 6 months since I was last on tumblr or in the RA community, I thought it was time to talk about some of the stuff that was going on with Ranger Angel these days.

I haven't painted or drawn a single thing since August of 2024. I haven't regularly drawn for Ranger's Apprentice since November of 2023. In some ways, it feels unbelievable that time has passed that quickly--during my early 20s I woke up and pretty much lived and breathed in this fandom. But as time has gone on, I've felt incredibly creatively stunted. If I learned how to draw by drawing the same 7 characters, how do I draw anything else? Where do I pull creativity from if it's not RA? What do I do when the books no longer spark the same joy?

I've really missed this community too. You guys were the people who encouraged me to learn to draw, and the ones who celebrated every piece I put out--even when they sucked! I met my husband here and I've even travelled internationally to meet several of you. And yet when I sit down to express myself on a canvas, I don't have anything left to give to Ranger's Apprentice or the people that love the series. I've got no more artistic energy, and no more thoughts to share on the series for now.

At the end of the day, I don't want this to be a goodbye. For a lot of you in this fandom who did not ever know me, I'm sure this is a little melodramatic. This is mostly just a thank you to the people who were here while I learned and grew, and a "hope I see you again" to everyone who loves the series the way I once did. <3 I'll be around, and maybe one day I'll come back to this fandom with the energy I think it deserves.

[jerich0two]

While I'm at it, here's a belated

Intro Post

because I've been more active on Tumblr than I thought I would be (which is always the way!)

Also, a quick "before you ask" section!

You can repost my work on other sites if you want, but please credit me there so people can find my page if they like my work ^^

You can use my fanart for personal stuff! (e.g., profile pics, wallpapers, banners, etc.) Credit is appreciated but not necessary. But please don't try to profit off it or claim you made it yourself.

(I've given my intro post a bit of a revamp now that I've spent some more time on Tumblr!)

Hey! I'm Jeri. I use any pronouns. I'm happiest when you use whatever you like on me, no caveats, no rules, totally up to you. Mix it up or stick to one. Ah, the marvel of choice!

I'm aroace, and I post content relating to both spectrums now and then. My personal experience is no attraction of any kind in either respect, but I try to read about other experiences too ^^

I mostly post fanart on this blog, with the very occasional, once-in-a-blue-moon fanart-adjacent post. I like to experiment with new brushes and techniques each time I draw, so my art doesn't end up looking all that consistent. The primary fandom I make art for is Hazbin Hotel, but I'm also a big fan of Lackadaisy! Along with a scattering of other things that I'll mention if it ever seems prudent.

I don't do commissions at the moment, but I'm considering mayyybe opening them at some point during the summer, once I figure out how I'll take payment! Fanart requests for the fandoms I'm in are A-OK through asks, but no promises I'll get them done.

That seems about it for things worth knowing!

(If I think of anything else that I ought to put here, I'll edit it in.)

(P.S. I don't consider myself a furry, the fox is just my mascot, and, not at all coincidentally, my favourite animal. AND (while I'm sure the concept is as old as time) I was inspired to make the little intro drawing after seeing the one @/nouverx made! Remove the slash if you'd like to check him out, I don't want to bother anyone by tagging them /lh)

[kaiserouo]

Wow i actually have enough rendered pieces to make an art summary this year. Just barely tho

Ramble below, also template ref

Oh god where do i even start. This is the part where i reflect on myself and do nothing about it afterwards.

In thems of topics, it's mostly just apex d2 and wf. I've never made my own world and characters because most ideas that i have the motivation to make into art comes from me playing the game. Maybe that's why I don't really treat a lot of my original character as "original characters", because they're still bound to a game instead of, you know, born out of the blue i guess.

I barely did render this year... I mean, not just this year of course. I think I slightly got the hang of it these two months? At least I kinda have a pipeline that I can follow and could tolerate / fix some of my mistakes in the later stages (e.g., picking wrong colors for flat color and wanna fix it during rendering etc.). It's... kinda like OOP? Decoupling code? I think it just comes down to opening a million layers and not feeling bad about it. Anyway I think one of my improvements comes from here.

Another improvement would be the speed of doing sketches and the complexity of the lineart I can handle (idk how to say that). I need to draw comics and there would be a lot of people in there, so even if I don't practice specifically I still need to draw some human figures. The complexity part is due to me getting into warframe just because of how fucking complicated they all are. Maybe instead of lineart complexity I should say I'm comfortable drawing somewhat complex characters now without my brain overloading and immediately giving up. Still haven't drawn BT though.

That's probably all the obvious improvements I can think of. I didn't read as many books as last year, but the two main books I read last year are for perspective and anatomy, which I do find very very useful. I still often go back to check some anatomy stuff this year, and with me spam drawing comics I think I can draw human figures better than before... if I only consider proportion that is. I think I have to redo anatomy all over again especially for the muscle part. Also probably should do more real human reference practice... Well, you can probably guess why I said that at the start.

I do think the reason why I do so little rendering is because I mostly do comics. Most of my ideas have a plot and my idea list is waaaaay too long to actually color the comics. And as I feel more comfortable drawing comics I fear more when I wanna do rendering because of the skill gap I have between the two subjects. Also most of you come for silly comics so why do I do full rendered pieces anyways... Yeah, after typing that sentence I do feel wrong thinking like that. But oh well, I guess I can't escape the curse of liking to see numbers go up.

Speaking of numbers, here's some of them. Good thing I don't have to deal with Tumblr API myself.

That's... quite a lot of followers, for me. I mean I don't stay in only one fandom so I have no idea why most of you followed me. Also sorry to ultrakill fans I just don't draw a lot for that game but I see some of you liking a ton of ultrakill post and immediately follows me. Kinda felt that I baited you folks for following me tbh...

Also 3 of my top 5 posts (2234 > 1726 > 1641 > 1531 > 1321) are ultrakill and I only have 27 ultrakill art posts (a lot fewer than other games) so... um, maaaaybe you should consider unfollowing me to clean up your timeline...?

Aaand here are the note stats per month because I've already typed this much so why not just include literally everything in one post

The only thing I can analyze is that the note and post number started to lose correlation due to how much ramble shitpost I have these months.

Okay that's it. I intended to make another art summary for the lineart / unrendered art pieces, but there's just too many to choose from and I don't think you can infer more from these given that the rendered pieces already has lineart in them. Mostly.

[thedragonagebigbang]

Bang Creator Interview: Tumblr: @vaamiel  |  AO3: vaamiel

The Collaboration period has begun! In these quiet months before works are due, we want to foster a sense of excitement, camaraderie, and celebration among our participants. To that end, all participants were given the option of a formal interview by our mod, Dema, or an informal “ask-game” survey. We hope you enjoy getting to know our phenomenal creators as much as we have!

Interview with Vaamiel

Vaamiel and Dema talk artistic development, childhood anime obsessions (-cough-Naruto-cough), and hoping to see Dorian in DA4

Dema: So, I know you take commissions, but have you done many exchanges before? Any Big Bangs?

Vaamiel: I've done a handful of exchanges over the years, but nothing really substantial. No big bangs either - though I've certainly read enough fics and seen enough art that others have done, haha. I'm sort of just... dipping my toes into the world of fanart for the first time since I was a teenager, so even though I've been drawing for ages, a lot of this is completely new territory for me.

Dema: Oh that is awesome! Welcome to the bang! What led you to return to fanart?

Vaamiel: I think a combination of a couple things: confidence in my own ability plays a big part of it – it's really intimidating to draw characters that I love so much and translating them into my style has always been difficult – but this past year is also the first time I've been really passionate about a game in... well, about a decade, and I think that's led to more experimentation and willingness to stick to learning subject matter that I otherwise struggle with. Mostly, Dragon Age coming back and Baldur's Gate 3 being out at the same time really pushed me back into the world of wanting to participate in fandom from more than the sidelines.

Dema: I really love your work. Artist to artist, how did you develop that confidence and style expression? What has that journey looked like for you?

Vaamiel: Thank you so much! It's funny actually, because the way I draw now has kind of... always been my style? It's just my technique and understanding of fundamentals that has improved. I can look back through my childhood sketchbooks and go, this was for SURE made by the same person, haha. As a kid I was all about anime and comics and games – particularly early gamecube and xbox stuff that relied on very stylized graphics to compensate for the technology. All of those things really saturated my brain and effectively became super tied to my own understanding of art and artistry and how I wanted to make art.

I've tried to emulate other styles or artists' techniques over the years, but (and I think this ties back to why I struggle with fanart) my own voice is so strong in my work that it really took all the joy out of creating. I've learnt over time that my personal art evolution is all about small changes and improvements, rather than trying to force ideas or ability through radical stylistic changes. Basically, I draw what I like and add things here or there as I come across something that I think would fit organically into my own style. That's been things like brushes or expressions or even the way I structure my sketches - all things that are small but can make a big difference in the overall picture. Add to that how my confidence has improved as my actual ability has improved, I think I've really organically grown into being better able to wrangle my style and apply that to fanart, original art, et cetera.

Dema: So now I do have to ask what fanart you were making as a kid and high-schooler? (I was a Sailor Moon kid. Sailor Scouts for ALL the most obscure celestial bodies one can imagine 😂)

Vaamiel: Hah! oh no 😂I was CRAZY about Naruto as a kid - actually, the first fanfiction I ever read was Naruto fanfiction. Then after that it was Homestuck, Inuyasha, Steven Universe, Pokemon, Dragon Age/Mass Effect... not necessarily in that order! I wish I was a Sailor Moon kid to be honest – would be WAY cooler than admitting I was a Naruto kid!

Dema: Inuyasha!!!!

Vaamiel: YES!

Dema: To be fair I am older than you by a pretty big margin LOL, I probably would have been a Naruto kid as well.

Vaamiel: LOL fair enough! It was in just the right time slot on cable when I was about...9 that the 4kids dub formed the foundation of my entire personality from that point onward.

Dema: So cute! Was there a particular moment that got you into Dragon Age fanwork?

Vaamiel: So, for my own work, I think it was the trailer last Dragon Age day and then in… January of this year or so, replaying Origins that had the cup finally spill over and I sat down and started making fanart. It was like my love for the series hit critical mass and with Veilguard coming up, it felt like the perfect time to actually try to make it work, you know? When it comes to appreciating Dragon Age fanart as a fan, it was two creators from tumblr that did it. Crystalvfae did a series of fanart that fundamentally altered my brain chemistry (I still look back on their painting of Morrigan and sigh sometimes - it is SO good). Then I found Spicyshimmy and was never the same. Their Anders/Hawke work is so special and got me into reading fanfiction voraciously in general. It totally reignited my love for reading and was the thing that got me into AO3!

Dema: Is there any specific bit of Veilguard that has you most excited? Or are you mostly avoiding spoilers?

Vaamiel: I am SO all in on all the Veilguard content honestly. I love trying to pick little bits out of the trailers and stills we've gotten so far and make connections to the lore/put together potential plot theories. I think I'm so excited for all of it? Like, I'm just ready to get back into the world of Thedas itself and experience a cool new story. Of course, I do love the graphical upgrade and all the locations we've seen so far and the costuming!! It's really all been exactly what I've been wanting. Also seeing Dorian again. That's probably pretty up there too.

Dema: Yes! Man. I cannot believe how cool Minrathous is. Dorian tried to tell us, but I am still flabbergasted.

Vaamiel: He was right!! All along!!! We really were in a different century.

Dema: As far as the current collaboration process goes, how are you feeling? Are the ideas percolating? Are the sketches sketching?

Vaamiel: Yes! I feel amazing about the partnership I've got!! I've got some scenes that I've got some sketches going for already – as soon as I read my fic I could see exactly where I wanted to take the art. The atmosphere is so good and the writing lends itself perfectly to the kind of pieces that I love to make. I'm really, really excited to be creating for this fic and collaboration!

Dema: I am delighted to hear that, we cannot wait to see what everyone creates!

Vaamiel: That was Very Difficult to be appropriately vague for haha - it really is an absolute delight to be working with my partners and I can't wait to talk about this fic and the art I'm making for it.

Dema: It is soooo hard to ask questions that are not POINTED hahahahaha, as someone on the inside who knows everyone's matches. You get an A+

Vaamiel: Yay!!!! I’m glad I was able to keep things appropriately mysterious 😌

Dema: Thank you so much for taking the time to chat with me today, it has been super fun!

Vaamiel: Absolutely! Thank you so much for hosting this interview and all the work you've put in for this event!! This has been a blast!

[journey-to-the-attic]

Is it weird that I want some reaction, and conon reaction to demigod!IK (It would be cool if you did)

i'll see what i can cook up!! just keep in mind that i don't really know how pj works lol - i'm basically looking at the fandom wiki page for demigod abilities and trying to construct stuff around that

it'd be funny if ik had started encountering monsters shortly before being summoned to the devildom, so when she gets there she immediately starts trying to fight everyone

she was given a scimitar imbued with abilities of some sort but she keeps defaulting to hitting people with a frying pan

i say maybe this is a situation where monsters found them first and (drawing on my faint memory of the first book) she fully thinks her dad was killed by one, and is currently on the run

meanwhile the actual gods are trying to track her down to tell her what's going on and ik is somehow evading every last one of them

basically she has no idea what's going on and is super paranoid and is also discovering a whole bunch of demigod powers so she is going CRAZY

so she just. keeps going. diavolo is trying to defuse the situation and explain things but ik is just like "ARGHHH GO AWAY" and THWACKS him the pan

lucifer has to send his other brothers out of the council room while he attempts to help get things under control, but wow is ik a handful

of course they don't want to actually kill her, but ik thinks they do, and is retaliating accordingly

i'm going to say that the powers she gets from melinoe are mostly diminished versions of the powers of children of hades - which includes a whole bunch of stuff actually

but at this point she hasn't really developed them, so what's happening is that she keeps zipping around the dark spots of the room, hitting the demons in the face with her frying pan, then running away again

then she smashes through a window and starts running, and now everyone is really panicking

past a certain point they have to resort to trying to settle her down using force - which is unnerving, because ik just keeps going through all the injuries that were meant to immobilise her

the thing that finally gets her to calm down is when diavolo and lucifer accidentally run into each other cartoon-style, and it makes her laugh so hard that it snaps her out of it

she gets like half an explanation out before one of the rad professors arrives and immediately sedates her

diavolo finally gets to have a proper conversation with her. prior to going in he has a serious talk with lucifer about how they might have to just send her back if she's going to be so disruptive and hostile

when he comes out of the conversation he's immediately like "actually she is staying here forever"

he feels so bad for her dude. like, that is way too much to be going through at that age

lucifer is hesitant but can't go against diavolo's wishes, so he begrudgingly agrees to keep watch over her

ik is actually quite well-behaved after resting for a while, but the other brothers are low-key a little terrified of her now

lucifer, to be honest, thinks it's a bit of a blessing because at least now they're a bit quieter around the house. though he does feel a little bad for ik now

ik befriends solomon first in this au (he hears about what she did upon first arrival and thinks it's hilarious)

maybe solomon already knows about demigod thing (perhaps he even is one himself) so he's the one who explains everything

then monsters start appearing in the devildom as well and the brothers wake up at like 2am to find ik basically fist-fighting one in the yard while simultaneously trying to shush it

they sort of warm up to each other after that

hmm would belphie be able to kill ik in this au?? maybe if he tried really hard... although at the same time ik does have some nightmare-related powers from melinoe so maybe she just helps him out and he doesn't end up trying

[gt-jar]

The poll is far from being over and the majority of the g/t community probably doesn't know about secret santa 2024 yet, but I wanna start with organizing everything as soon as possible!!!

I'm not gonna explain what secret santa is in general (or is that necessary?) and will skip to the important changes right away.

MAJOR CHANGES:

Here are a few things I want to exclude this year.

- fandom g/t (This secret santa is going to be for original artists/writers only. If your blog is centered around fandom g/t, no problem :) But the gift you're going to make has to be original!)

- vore (Sorry, guys! Last year only a small portion of participates was into vore, which will probably be the case this year too. And the chances of a vore blog drawing a giftee who's also into vore are so low that there's no point in including it. Also last year I was exposed to many different types of vore (the list you had to sent me) and... I want to avoid that this time. If your blog includes vore, no problem! But make sure it's tagged properly, if you want to participate, so your secret santa can block it in case it makes them uncomfortable.)

- nsfw (This one is a given. And doesn't count as change, since it wasn't allowed last year either, but I wanted to make this one clear. Also! Don't participate with a blog that includes nsfw stuff! I have 'NSFW DNI' in my bio for a reason!)

...

Something else I want to adress:

If you're going to participate I want you to take this event seriously.

What does that mean you ask?

Well, it means that you should put effort into the gift you're going make (and don't participate if you know you won't have the time, obviously) :)

I don't want people to think they can get a commission basically for free and can get away with spending like 10 minutues on the gift for their giftee...

How do I make sure that doesn't happen?

For writing it's easy. If you want to participate solely as a writer (or already know you're going to write a one-shot as a gift) the one-shot you're going to write has to have a certain word count. Aiming for at least 1k words.

When it comes to art, it unfortunately gets a little tricky, because you can't really measures art. Well you can based on the time you spent on it, but that's something I can't supervise and also depends on the artist's skill level. Speaking of skill level, I don't want to exclude anybody depending on their skill level nor do I want to discourage beginner artists, BUT!

You don't have to be a professional artist nor do you need years of experience to ensure (This mostly applies to traditional art. Digital art will be allowed as well, of course!):

- you erase something completely, if you need to use an eraser

- the pencil lines look clean and aren't smudged or wonky

- that if you use colored pencils the color is applied evenly (no visible pencil strokes, no paper showing)

- the drawing is on paper made for drawing and not writing (don't use checkered paper for example)

And I know anatomy is hard (I know shit about it myself, so who am I to judge?), but I believe it doesn't take years of anatomy lessons to not draw one arm/leg/eye twice as thick as the other.

And just so you know... if I can't find any art/writing on your blog, I won't let you participate.

Which brings me to one of the most important and drastic changes:

I RESERVE THE RIGHT TO REFUSE ENTRY TO ANYONE!

Sorry, not sorry!

Like I said in my last post, if I'm going to host secret santa this year, I want to guarantee the exchange runs soothly. Last year definitely taught me a lesson and now I know I was way too naive :)

I let anyone who wanted to participate, even though I never saw that person in the g/t community before, even though that person didn't have a g/t centric blog and I needed to scroll for ages to find a g/t related post/reblog (if I could find any at all), even though my guts were telling me 'maybe I shouldn't let that person participate'.... BIG MISTSKE!

Also this is something that @might-be-tiny-gt point out to me (and I'm kinda dumb for not looking at it from this perspective), but I want you to know that not a single one of the participates who never posted the gift for their giftee reached out to me to inform me about being unable to provide a gift, so yeah...

I won't be so lax this year!

...

There will also be some organizational changes, I'll go into more detail about it in a separate post (general guide how to participate), but something I want to adress now is the "Do's & Don't's" lists.

First of all, you won't send me your list/I won't send you the list of your giftee. Waaaaay too much unnecessary work for me.

All the participates are going to post it on their blog, so your secret santa can look it up for themself. But more on that later!

What's more important is the list itself. Something I noticed last year was that the people were waaaaaaaay too specific. Remember that the "Do's" are merely a suggestion for your secret santa, so me pointing this out isn't all that important, but if you're looking/hoping for something super specific as a gift, maybe you should look for people who are making commissions instead.

"Do's" are supposed to be things like general g/t genres, like romanctic/platonic relationships, fluff/angst/fearplay, shrinking/size-shifting, fantasy (fairies)/classic borrower stories, etc...

Or simple prompts like first meetings, giant finds tiny in the snow, sick fics and so on.

...

That was the most important information for now, I think...

If you want to participate, you can let me know already :)

So far not too many people have voiced that they want to participate, I hope that's going to change in the next few days, I also think last year was such a success (participate number wise) because some really popular g/t blogs reblogged my original post, and maybe it's not the best decision to post this when most of the g/t community is asleep, but... meh!

Let's get this party started!

[ask-yha]

Welcome to Ask YHA Characters!!!

Hello! As this blog's name would imply, you can ask anything to any Year Hare Affair character, and they'll answer accordingly, accompanied with some art, of course!

((Some outside info here: The author of this blog is PaleoHansi! You can also find me on Reddit, YouTube and Fandom if you're interested!))

General rules and other stuff to keep in mind:

I do not know every single YHA character. I am working on finding and documenting all of them, tho

Keep things civil. I will not draw NSFW, gore or anything like that.

On politics and history, I will try to keep things accurate to time period and how I think characters would act, meaning not every opinion that may be expressed on answers reflect my own.

Also on politics and history, I will not just be drawing nazi Hans or whatever other fishy political stuff for an ask that doesn't add something else interesting.

I'm not native to every single country, so don't expect me to know everything about them! If you feel like a depiction is wrong, let me know about and I will be morethan happy to look deeper into stuff.

On shipping, send me anything! Unless your ship actively makes me uncomfortable, I will be more than hapy to do something relating to it. Keep in mind that this blog is mainly my headcannons, tho.

Every time a comment is between (()), it means it is out of character! Mostly will be used for author talks or extra notes.

Comments made on the comment section of any given post, unless said otherwise, is out of character.

Thanks for reading, and happy asking!

[misc-obeyme]

i really think i would have preferred it to end sooner, you know? one last og game season to finally progress our relationship with barbatos and give luke time to process the fact that simeon's human now, then wrap it all up with an actual *ending*. it was supposed to end a long time ago i think. it would have been sad, but not as sad as watching this degradation in quality and seeing solmare flanderise all their characters and get progressively money hungry.

idk its just. theyre in a hole and they seem to think that if they keep digging, one day they'll make it back to the surface. ill stay where i am on the outskirts of the fandom, im still attached to the characters but i dont know if ill bother with any new content. but to you and everyone who was still regularly playing and staying up to date with the new lessons i can imagine how much it would suck to have that suddenly come out of nowhere. they really should have given way more advance warnin, they really fucked everyone over. who knows! maybe ill get involved with the fandom again like i used to be. i still think it's important to keep the fandom alive, it's been so impactful to so many people. it's been so impactful to me -- i really had some of the best fandom experiences of my life here, and i know im not alone in that. im glad you're not leaving entirely, and the same goes to the other asks who said they're still gonna draw/write even with the game ending. if the fandom's managed to stay alive despite. (gestures vaguely at whatever happens at solmare hq) i don't think this has to be the end of it.

(sorry for the fucking Mini Essay i guess i had more thoughts than i thought lmao)

No need to apologize, this blog is famous for essays because I have a problem lol.

Anyway, I have to agree with you. I think it would have been much better story-wise if they did one or maybe two more seasons in OG to wrap everything up and then ended things.

Especially because all of the potential they set up with Nightbringer's first two seasons was completely squandered. They could have gone in a good and interesting direction after that, but they didn't for whatever reason.

I have no problem admitting that I'm not quite as heartbroken as I would have expected to be. I've seen a lot of stuff going down in this fandom, both good and bad. And for myself personally, it's mostly been good. I'm here because I have a Barbatos obsession and he was vastly neglected by the games from the very beginning lol.

I feel like I can expand on what we've been given in a way that will be FAR more satisfying to me personally than whatever new content they would be giving us anyway.

I write fic because I want to interact with this characters in a way that is specific to me, you know? I share it because sometimes other people like what I do as well.

I do think the fandom will stay alive for some time. My experience is that fandoms live on far after their source has ended. People also join fandoms after the source has ended. I don't know exactly what that's going to be like for OM, since I'm uncertain about the availability of the apps going forward. But I do think there will be people still engaging with the fandom for some time.

Whether you decide to remain as you are or get more involved, I'm happy you're in the fandom and I hope that you enjoy interacting with it!

[theus-what-are-you-doing]

Hello! I saw quite a few people going around doing these "About me" things and I thought it would be fun to let any mutuals know some things about me, given they want to talk about different interests as such!

So let's give this a try, I'm always open to conversation so feel free to privately message me if you want to info dump or just talk!

Name: On here, I go by Theus, and although I do have a real name, I will not be giving it to any of the Tumblr Fae today

Age: 18+ Yes, I am an adult!

Birthday: 30th June, though I usually ask for other's birthdays because I like to draw gifts for friends :D

Star Sign: Cancer

Personality type: Neutral Good, INFP-T

Current Hobbies: Drawing, Writing, Mild editing, crocheting, Singing (I won't tell you if that's good or bad singing, mind you), Roleplaying, Designing

There are a lot of fandoms here, feel free to go through and find any things you like! Warning, a lot of these are current, or previous hyper fixations or special interests, I will talk about them a lot if brought up.

Bugsnax

Cinderella Boy (Webtoon)

Cult of The Lamb

DND

Genshin Impact

Good Omens

Gravity Falls

Honkai Star Rail

Legend of Zelda (Mostly BOTW, TOTK, SS)

Little Nightmares 1 & 2

Obey Me, One Master To Rule Them All

Pokemon (Sword & Shield)

SCP universe

Stardew Valley

Studio Ghibli

That's Not My Neighbour

The Arcana Visual novel

Wizarding World (Not JKR, I just grew up with it and I like magic)

Here I'll go over my favourite things at the moment!

Colours: Purple and Green

Season: Winter

Foods: Mac & Cheese, Noodles, Bao Buns, Garlic bread

Drinks: Tea, especially peppermint or raspberry but I'm also a sucker for iced coffees

Time: That very specific 3am to 5am period where the world is quiet and the air has a nice chill. This is when I'm the most productive within my art, and probably why I'm so tired all the time.

Fandom: Cinderella Boy

Flowers: Lavender or Wisteria

Gemstones: Alexandrite or Bismuth, they're colourful af

Characters: Stanford Pines (GF), Buddy (Cb), Silver (CB), Kaveh (GI), Narinder (COTL), Snorpy (Bugsnaxs), Chandlo (Bugsnaxs)

You want to know any other favourites? Just ask!

So, I'll be putting other places you can find me here, I suppose? If it's super personal stuff, you might have to PM me to have me sharing it, might not be very comfortable other wise!

A03: TheusWhatAreYouDoing

Discord: Ask in PM, please!

Tumblr: Boo, you're already here <3

Cara: TheusWhatAreYouDoing (Inactive atm)

Commissions: I'll be setting up my commissions page soon, but feel free to ask, I do have examples and prices ready!

[davidthephoneguy]

Welcome to CD's list of Canceled and Unfinished projects! :D

First we got the canceled ones Part 2

These go from oldest to newest

Gameboy Who Cried Wolf

This was an oc story in which I was attempting to making a non fandom oc comic. The storyline involved two main characters named Daniel who had a GameBoy for a head and Julias who was a werewolf but had to try and hide it from Daniel and everyone else due to werewolves in this world were hunted to extinction. There was a bunch of other monster types existed n stuff like that. Only made a few artworks of it. Canceled due to lack of motivation and I felt like I was forcing myself to do something I didn't really want to. Storyline was also non-existent and yet confusing.

Moon Base Freddy's au

Can't say a lot on this one's reason for existing other then it was heavily inspired by the song The Fine Print by Stupendium. I drew a few artworks for it in some privated live streams. Basically the whole au was a space capitalist dystopia in which all the employees were owned by the company, oh yeah also the restaurant was a moon base that they lived in. Canceled due to not really having anything to do with Freddys, it just sorta had a Freddys mask on. Also lack of motivation which tends to kill a lot of my ideas.

Floral Flurry

Not much to say on this one either, didn't have much to it either. Was another attempt at making a non fandom project that died very quickly. Had help from @/systemfailuretpd for the designs. The storyline was pretty basic being about a parasite plant that learns empathy from its new host and has to go back and fix what it did with its past host. Canceled due to just not really wanting to work on it, was kinda boring and felt too cutesy and simple despite one of the characters previously being basically a genocidal dictator.

Dr Surus' Experiments

Another oc story, this one was about a Dr Frankienstien type who would bring people (several of my oc's) back to life as basically zombies for fame. The story was mainly about David, Jannette, Stevm and another oc that I can't remember rn. Their whole deal was going to be talking about the ethics of bringing someone back to life and how they can't give consent. It was planned to be my next big thing that I was gonna reveal in the animation I'm still working on. Honestly given my track record I would not have been able to convey the messaging very well. Canceled due to lack of interest and generally loosing motivation to work on it.

Pet Shoppe Cats

Another oc story comic that was meant to be a non fandom project. It stared two main characters named Felix and Chip, Chip was an immortal parental figure to Felix. Both were half self inserts and sorta didn't do much. They worked at a pet shop together as they were both animal hybrids which was mostly a trans allegory but despite that I didn't really focus on that with the story being a slice of life thing about them just working at the pet store with not much else happening. I made a few panels and character sheets but not much. Canceled for pretty obvious reasons, was boring and lacked focus. Art style was also just not fitting to my style and i was just sorta forcing myself to not draw something cutesy which my style cannot break from without lookin really odd. Basically I was trying to make myself do something I can't do.

Aaaaaand that is the end of Part 2 my fellows!

A lil shorter then the first one due to me removing a few as upon looking at them again they would be rift content.

The final part will be the unfinished ones on the verge of being canceled so their fate is very up in the air.