#honestly it’s pretty good. I just need references

[hitomisuzuya]

I REALLY LOVED YOUR STONER/ SMOKER SCARA FIC WHERE HE BLOWS SMOKE INTO THE KISS AUHKJAFSHKD Maybe something like a part 2 of that? A smoky (literally) kiss now sounds 😳 Bonus if you make him put the cigarette on reader's neck and lick the burn mark cuz it's kinky (Class of 09 reference HFDSJFHD)

stoner scaramouche x fem!reader. smut. dry humping. kissing. use of pot and cigarettes. burn/pain kink. degrading praise. soft!dom scara.

i really enjoy writing stoner scara, being a stoner myself. also, i love class of 09. nicole is legit a female scara🤣

the deep, physical intimacy of sharing a joint and a cigarette with you is something scaramouche incredibly enjoys. he likes everything a specific way when he does, which is daily.

you, on your back, submissively looking up at him with your pretty eyes, the same red tinged and hazy look reflected in his own. honestly, he didn't know how well you would like pot at first when you asked to try it. But judging from the relaxed, mellow look in your eyes it was a good thing for you. you were a highly anxious person, so it was great you discovered something that could dial that anxiety back a few big notches.

he was quite relieved.

your lifting your head a little to receive his kiss gave him the added pleasure of putting his hand on your shoulder to gently push you back on the bed as he parted your lips with his tongue, exhaling his pot smoke into your mouth.

his tongue would slowly explore your mouth a little as you inhaled his smoke, moaning softly into his mouth. this physical, intimate connection also made him very horny. pot being a natural aphrodisiac only added to that.

inevitably, scaramouche would have to pull away so you could exhale. he either uses those few seconds to either take another hit of his joint to shotgun another hit into your mouth or simply start kissing you again until he wanted to take another hit. his kisses only grew lingering and more hungry with every hit.

the perfect way to unwind after a long day of classes.

by the time he shared a whole joint, followed by a cigarette, which he also kissed drags into your mouth, he was past trying to control himself. in a fit of aggressive passion, he put the lit end of his cigarette on your neck. he held it there for a few moments, taking it off hearing a moan bubbling up in your throat and hastily putting it out in the ashtray.

you shivered feeling the sting on your skin, your cheeks flushing as your pussy clenched around nothing. "such a good girl," scaramouche murmured shakily, leaning down to prod his tongue soothingly on the burn mark.

you'd taken it so well, and seemed to enjoy it. this fact made his cock pulse and harden more. the cool, soothing sensation of his saliva and tongue on the burn jerked your hips up to grind against his erection. your clit throbbing from his approving praise.

resting his weight on you, scaramouche groaned as he grinded between your legs. his tongue flicked and slowly licked the burn mark. you rocked your hips up to match his grinds, putting your arms around him. you smoothed your finger nails along his scalp, making him shiver as he sucked around the burn mark.

bringing his head up, he pressed a lingering kiss on your lips as he moved off of you to unbutton your jeans. you lifted your hips as he tugged them off. "your clothes are little in the way," he mumbled hazily, hastily pushing your shirt and bra up off your breasts.

he needed to feel your panties soaking through his boxers. he just as hastily discarded his jeans, his lips finding yours in a deep kiss as he resumed his grinding between your legs. you moaned into his mouth, obediently opening your mouth for his tongue.

his cock rubbed friction on your clit, your panties clinging and unsticking to the throbbing nub. you rocked your hips in perfect time with his grinds as you chased the delicious feeling that was amplified by the effects of pot. his mouth swallowed every sweet whine and moan.

"such a good girl," scaramouche said, pulling away to lick his lips, "moaning and whining like an obedient slut for me," his teeth nipped at your lips, "my cock is making you feel this good and i haven't fucked it inside you yet.

his precum bled into your juices rapidly soaking your panties, your pussy clenching hard around nothing from his degrading sweet praise. "i want you, scara," you replied, delivering a submissive lick on his mouth, "i always do."

"fuck, you are twice as breathtaking when you talk to me like that," the submissive action only made scaramouche harder. his lips were aggressively back on yours, his grinds increasing in urgency. his hand alternated between stroking your cheek, and groping your bare breasts.

you mewl as his fingers pinch and stroke your nipples, angling your chest up into his hand a little. every fiber of your being screamed that you crave him. and he fed off of this.

"my good girl. my sweet girl," scaramouche babbled against your lips, moaning huskily as his cock throbbed. "shit, i am so close," from how wet you feel, your pussy soaking onto his cock through his boxers to almost embarrassing degree, he knew you were to.

you could do nothing but twitch and moan underneath him, your lips hardly ever leaving his as you surrendered yourself entirely to the friction of his cock rubbing your panties on your clit. for him, cumming on you was just as erotic as cumming inside of you.

your moans rose in octave as your orgasm washed over you, clinging to him as you quivered in hazy bliss. scaramouche let out a shaky chuckle feeling your cum soaking onto his boxers. he pulled away to watch you twitch in pleasure as he chased his own orgasm.

he held you down on the bed as cum spurted into his boxers, soaking onto your panties. once his cock emptied itself into his boxers, he gently collapsed on top of you. he nuzzled into your neck. "you wanna share another joint?" he asked, lifting his head to see you nod.

the rest of your clothes and his were coming off this time.

[genericpuff]

Do you have any entry level recommendations for someone looking to learn a bit more about Greek mythology? I’d love to read up on it but I’m not sure how to find reputable sources and avoid Americanisation.

I mean, at the risk of sounding crass, you're likely going to run into Americanization no matter what you do because America itself was built on many cultures, especially that of Greek philosophy and storytelling.

Buuut if you mean you wanna read some actual Greek myth content that AREN'T modern American spins on classic tales, Emily Wilson is a popular choice for many people dipping their toes into translated mythology as her translations are both simplistic and concise in their language choices as well as fun in their structure to read both internally and orally (iirc her translations are done in iambic pentameter which is very familiar to anyone who's ever read Shakespeare). I've been working through her translation of The Odyssey, it's been pretty enjoyable :)

I've also heard great things about both Lattimore and Fitzgerald, the latter of whom I will be reading next after I finish Wilson's translation. That said, I haven't read either of their works yet, so take my recommendation of them with grains of salt! (I hope you enjoy them though if you check 'em out! If you beat me to it, let me know how they went!)

OH also, I know it's sorta the opposite of what you're likely looking for as it's VERY influenced by modern contexts, but thanks to another anon I recently got into Destripando la Historia which is a super fun animated Youtube series that retells the stories of various different gods from different mythologies. If you're into stuff of the goofy anime variety, you might enjoy them, it's a Spanish series but you can turn on captions to read the translations! It's super beginner-friendly, it covers a lot of different stories and myths without getting into so much detail that it's overwhelming (but gives you a good kickoff point to start with!) and the songs and animations slap, Afrodita is one of my favorites haha

Overall the biggest advice I can give you if you're trying to avoid fanfiction-y / "Americanized" retellings is just to cross-reference. If you find a retelling you really like but aren't completely sure of its legitimacy as a functional retelling, keep reading, watching, and learning more. It's a skill like any other, and the more you read, the more you'll be able to pick out what's a legitimate retelling from studied scholars vs. what's fanfiction that you don't need to take too accurately or seriously LMAO

And honestly, nothing wrong with the fanfiction stuff! Mythology, in its very nature, changes over time, it's an inevitability and many of the myths we still draw from today are often derivative in and of themselves from even older versions that pre-existed them (see: Ovid).

it's okay if your introduction to Greek myth is through derivative fanfic, stuff like Disney's Hercules and even Lore Olympus ARE fun to consume for a lot of people and make for a good entry point into learning more about the myths!

What's frustrating - and what I tend to criticize the most here - is when the fanfiction gets advertised / sold as legitimate retellings; when the fanfiction grossly misrepresents the actual mythology and yet tries to claim it as legitimate anyways which results in fanbases that are running around with completely false information claiming it as fact. If you can give the team behind Hercules credit for one thing, their rendition may not be completely accurate, BUT the folks who made it never bragged about how much smarter they were than other people about Greek myth or call themselves "folklorists" when they didn't even have any formal education/training/etc. in it cough like another creator we know cough 💀 If we want to make a comparison between LO and a Disney film in terms of how it grossly misrepresents the themes and cultural contexts of the original stories it was drawing from... Disney's Pocahontas does exactly that 💅

So if you want to avoid any "grossly" Americanized versions of Greek myth that are borderline disrespectful to the stories they're drawing from... yeah, that's usually a pretty indicative red flag LMAO

But outside of those very specific scenarios, just have fun with it, there really is no "right or wrong" way to engage with the mythology if you're simply just wanting to learn more, the beauty of it being mythology is that it's very diverse in its mediums and thus you don't have to be restricted to learning about it exclusively through academic translations or lectures. Of course, there are cultural intersections with these myths that shouldn't be ignored, we always have to treat it with care when engaging with it so that we aren't overwriting another culture's traditions or beliefs - but if you're simply wanting to learn about and entertain yourself with some amazing stories that have quite literally stood the test of time, do so however you see fit :)

[pumpkinpatchmaniac]

ARCANE SEASON 2 ARC 3 SPOILERS‼️‼️

I noticed this while watching episode 7: “Pretend like its the first time”, not that small of a detail but:

(I’m sorry if it is incoherent i just really needed to get this out.)

During the innovative party scene where Ekko dances with Powder, the song that plays is ”ma meilleure ennemie” by Stromae & Pomme, which translates to ”my best (female) enemy” which clearly refers to Powder, or Jinx.

In the intro begins a small chant where they say

Je t’aime, je t’attends […]

Meaning “ i love you, i am waiting for you” which clearly explains Ekko before coming to terms that Jinx no longer is Powder, since he fell inlove with Powder he keeps waiting for Powder to come back. This mental dilemma of having to accept that even if its the same body, same face its not the same person anymore, which is later supported by the first chorus where Stromae sings

La pire des bénédiction, La plus belle des malédictions

“The worse of all blessings, the best of all curses”, Powder was the best thing that happened to him while Jinx was the worse thing which makes this relationship with her- this connection, both a blessing and a curse.

But what made the scene more interesting was when they danced and the part

Mais ma meilleure ennemie, c'est toi [but my best enemy, that is you.]

Fuis-moi, le pire, c'est toi et moi [flee from me, the worse is you and i]

Mais si tu cherches encore ma voix [but if you keep searching for my voice]

Oublie-moi, le pire, c'est toi et moi [forget me, the worse is you and i]

I know we all wanted Ekko to stay in that timeline and be happy with Powder but remember season 1 where- whilst every Jinx or Vi centric episodes always began with a flashback, the Ekko centric one started from the present. Indicating that Ekko forces himself to always look forward than trying to let the past get to him. For exempel in - please correct me if i’m wrong, season 1 episode 5 when Vi said that she should’ve been there to help Ekko, he only says ”that’s is a good way to drive yourself crazy”. He immidiantly shut down any thought of what could’ve been, indirectly forcing Vi to think about the present. Especially afterwards when Vi talks about getting Powder back when Ekko has already fully acknowledge that there is only Jinx. All of this makes him being in that timeline more difficult for him since it is exactly what he wanted to avoid, being stuck in what could’ve been.

Dancing with Powder just engraves this furthee into him, this is unhealthy for Ekko since it’s the relation ship between him and Jinx. As to reiterate ”if you keep searching for Powder’s, voice, stop, it will just drive you crazy”

Also to refer to the pre-chorus!

First one:

Tu sais c'qu'on dit [you know what they say]

Sois près d'tes amis les plus chers [stay close to your dearest friends]

Mais aussi [but even]

Encore plus près d'tes adversaires [even closer to your adversaries (i.e antagonists, villains)

And the second one

Je t'avais dit : "Ne regarde pas en arrière" [i have told you : “dont look back]

Le passé qui te suit te fait la guerre [the past will follow you and take you to war]

(This is pretty self explanatory)

Additionally, before the kiss scene where Ekko says “can we pretend like it’s the first the first time”, further insinuates the whole, “this is my present even thought it’s a part of your past”.

TL:DR

This scene hurts

(Authors note:

I know it is not a small detail and not that significant but i really wanna acknowledge how every part of the Arcane series have a significance into the story. And honestly i needed to vent. It was so fun last night watching the scene and hearing ”le pire, c’est toi et moi” and just go ”oh, word?”. I am not French but i studied it so it just felt good from that POV too.

Edit: i was not aware that Arcane gets critizied over how litteral the songs are to the scene but i still stand by my point about why i really liked the song and this scene specifically)

[kiko---random-stuff-probably]

Infection

How Kallamar got his scar on his left eye.

For context: Kallamar is seveteen and got recruited by Shamura (who is around 30).

Kallamar did not expect, after being recruited by War themselves as a poisoner, to be in any way met with open arms by the other soldiers, for several reasons.

First of all, he was not a warrior. He only stepped foot on the battlefield after everything was done, and some of the soldiers considered him way too fragile and weak to actually help.

Second, he was a foreigner, and had some problems with the language barrier, even if luckily he came from a place where Silk Cradle's language was pretty used and he even read it on some medical tomes. Still, he had a certain accent (that he was actively trying to lose) and some words were still unknown to him. He was pretty sure thatsome soldiers referred to him with a slur, bbut he was not sure. He wasn't the only foreigner in Shamura's army, but this was not going to stop it.

Also, the fact that he poisoned his ex village was considered by a lot of soldiers as a clear sign that he was, and he could quote the exact words a soldier used behind his back, "a psychotic piece of shit who will not hesitate to stab the Spider's back". Which, obviously, was not true: he had no reason to hurt Shamura! After all, they gave him a home, a role, hot food and sometimes they even talked to him! Way mroe than anything he could had ever wish for!

So, he knew he was not in any way welcome there.

Still, slashing his left eye was a little too much.

Right now, Kallamar was sitting on a brand bed in the medical bay, holding an hand over his now bandaged face.

The doctor was reassuring, once again, that his wound was not going to get infected and that he was going to have a quick recovery, before excusing herself and leaving when Shamura entered.

War glanced at the squid, their expression indecifrable and cold. Disappointed, maybe.

Kallamar looked at the ground, as his mind started to race.

- I was informed of what happened. I still want to hear your side.-

- I didn't... I was not the one to start it.-

- I have no doubt in that, but I still want to hear your version.-

Kallamar was shaking, as he tried to find the words.

- I didn't... I was just... they attacked me out of nowhere, and said i had to "earn my right to live" and things like that, and others were inciting them, and... and... and they had a knife, and...- he was more than omce interrupted by a few sobs - I was scared... I couldn't...-

- You managed to take their knife away and then stabbed your opponent, right?-

- They putted it down, saying something about "a fair fight", and I knew they could had easily snapped my back, I just...-

- You stabbed them in the neck. Precisely in the carotids.-

Kallamar still didn't loook at them.

- And than you stabbed them other fifteen times. Some of the soldiers even report that you started laughing during your rampage.-

Kallamar holded back a sob. As they needed another reason to hate him. He was going to be executed, or thrown in the prison at best. All for a stupid fight.

- I really can't see why you were scared. Honestly, I'm impressed.-

Kallamar looked at the spider, trying to catch an underlying sarcasm. Instead, he found something akin to pride - Do not worry, I am not mad about their death, it was self defense after all.-

- I killed them.-

- They attacked first with the intention to kill you. I can forgive your reasonable outburst of adrenaline. We will have to work on your emotion management and teach you how to incapacitate an opponent without killing them, even if I doubt someone else will decide to try something similar to this.-

Kallamar was sure he must had misheard them.

-... Why aren't you mad? You should be mad that I was the one who survived. You should...- towards the end, he slipped in a swear word in his language.

Shamura's expression was filled with genuine confusion.

- Why would I be mad about that...? You are an important asset in my army and also a good kid with a promising future. I would had been really upset if you actually died.-

Bullshit. They must be lying. He was just a stupid weakling who could not do anything right and who's only role in life was to die and-

- Regardless of whatever your old village made you believe, you matter as much as anyone else. I'm happy you're alive, kid.- the spider gently patted his head, and that was it.

The squid bursted into tears, overwhelmed.

War let him cry, fully knowing how much he needed it.

[that-dreaming-dragon]

Intentional Connection - the Linking Process

Sometimes I like to refer to my linktype shorthanded. Sometimes as either just heartlink, vaguelink, or if I really want, para-linked hearttype, and collectively linked vaguetype.

I like the extra denotation, because near everyone else is talking about linking as if only identify-as. The community does generally put more focus on identify-as identities.

Both our linktypes are important for different reasons. One is to bridge the different paratype feelings, and the other is for bonds with friends (and for general shenanigan).

How we go about linking the two are slightly different because of that.

For the three-tailed enfield, there's already something there, the paratype element from both myself and my hearttype makes for a good foundation, I didn't have much work but to build on top of whatever was already there, all I needed to do was to link them together.

The way we did it was taking more interest in fox related stuff, or more in particular multi-tailed kitsune. We plan to watch some kitsune focused anime eventually, and make a art for our heartlink. At the moment, we have a number of fox and spirit foxes pins around.

Honestly, we aren't sure if the linking started the process or if it was already a thing, and linking just strengthens the connection, which is probably due to the paratypes.

But I think a large part of it was just simply engaging it with a "I have this feeling of a spark, I want to retain that feeling, and fan it to make it large". It's sort of how it happens with a number of my shapeshifter forms. I go around, holding this thing close to my heart, and whenever something pops up that reminds me of the enfield, I will perk up. That sort of feedback loop is what makes the linking stick. I make it happen more via me actively engaging or seeking these reminder. I feel like it trains the brain to hold onto it that much longer, and eventually you just let it be, and it will be fine on its own.

Now I'm not actively looking for stuff, but I don't need to, I can probably take away the link suffix and the three-tailed enfield is there to stay as a parahearttype. But I like it, I like the reminder of where it came from, and I like being in that community, and exist as a reminder to other questioning alterhuman that yes, my way of linking exist.

With a linktype that came from a preexisting fictional source, you'd think all I had to do was to engage with said fiction. I mean, I could, but this whole thing happened after I long left the source environment. Or perhaps not quite.

I still retain the knowledge of the source. And because of this, when others within the alterhuman community engages with it, I took special interest towards the happening. What pretty much started the linking process, was the want to connect to others who are from that same source. Perhaps we previously held fondness towards the source, or the character in specific. We know we have things going on with what the character's "element" is--stars and cosmos. So that had helped our desire to link.

It's definitely not enough to help maintain the link. The failed dragonite hearttype link was also made happen due to the desire to form stronger bonds with other pokemon alterhuman.

I suppose when put side-by-side like this, my successful linktype are due to either paratype element, or other factors to reinforce the overall linktype structure.

Furthermore, the Aurelion Sol vaguelink was a collective decision, something both Akumu and I(Ryuu) are interested in linking. The linking could have fade without both of us there at the same time, and Akumu tends to disappear to places half the time. It made linking this specific identity a little trickier.

What made it start to grow and "stick" properly was perhaps when I put it on as a proxy, for a bit of a joke. It felt wrong without Akumu there during that time, but trying to be Aurelion Sol for a day has done wonders for the linktype. It felt right, it felt like it could really work.

We kept the proxy.

After that, it's like a little tug at the back of our mind, telling us that it's still there, all we need to do is pick it back up. We also aren't really active with this linktype. We never are all that active with our alterhumanity. But at the same time, it's like a tab opened on the browser, whenever draconity or prompt topic came that we can talk about our relationship with Aurelion Sol in, it's like another boost to the linking process--active discussion with the alterhuman community while keeping in mind of this connection. It makes sense, we wanted to link this 'type because of connections to others, so to make it stronger, we need to connect more with others.

Maybe that's how our method works, going in full circles. Start the desire to link, try around for other stuff, and then go back to what first prompted the linking desire.

The fact that we are gaining noemata for this vaguetype tells me that, like the enfield, this one is here to stay. Because when thinking and talking about it, and the rare noemata, the link became self-sustaining.

I feel a bit uncertain to call this linktype done, but it seem to be doing alright. Perhaps more writing and pondering will help more.

[gatoburr0]

Anatomy practice goes wrong (I fell in love)

[samarecharm]

i love makoto so much but fanon does her so much better (the good parts of the fandom) because in the game her character is so lack luster. they butchered her confidant it is so borning and not even about her. they made her a cop. A COP. they pushed this "canon waifu" role onto her (before sumire came along and did it Even Worse). and it SUCKS because SHE IS SO MUCH MORE!!! SHE IS SO MUCH BETTER!!!! SHE COULD'VE BEEN SO MUCH BETTER!!! the way i feel about canon makoto is the same way i feel about the canon ryuji events post komoshida where he's horribly mistreated and used purely as comic relief: i ignore them <3 my game now <3 never happened <3 my ocs <3

You are so right. I generally apply this to all characters in p5 bc the game does such a shit job of staying consistent with character arcs and personalities. Theres a desperate need to throw in perverse jokes at the expense of female characters and a need to show that the police (as a whole) are reliable people who are not influenced by things like money and power; only the BAD cops do that. Not to mention this obvious fatphobia and homophobia but i feel likes thats a given.

But back to Makoto. Shes a victim of bad writing just like everyone else. Ryuji during the kamoshida arc was fighting with self loathing and genuine anxiety, and aside from the like. One comment on Panthers outfit in the metaverse, hes more than well behaved. All of that is shelved as soon as Kamoshida is gone and replaced with him being weird comic relief (and the focus of alot of sexual jokes that were nonexistent in the beginning of the game). Anns arc about self love and empowerment is completely dropped as soon as the nasty bad guy is put away (so that its good to be weird about her w the Good Guys). Makoto loses her a chunk of her personality to be the mature waifu which is INSANE to me bc shes like. Not okay or normal at all 😭😭😭 she THINKS shes responsible and so does everyone else on her team, but its an act! She doesnt know shit! And she doesnt know that she doesnt know shit bc shes respectful and adults dont care about anything as long as u respect them!

Its very telling that for literally every single thief (and goro), you can see the exact moment the writers gave up on adding anything of worth to their characters outside of the social links. Its like they didnt know what to even do w the characters at their disposal after their main arcs were complete. No mention of friends hanging out without you, no mention of having group hangouts. Everyone is treated as a core, important member of the friend group DURING their arc, but outside of it, they are acquaintances at best. Theres nothing in the game that convinces you that these guys are legitimately friends who care for each other and do Friend Things. And i describe it like that bc there IS a game that treats them all as friends, and its strikers! Strikers/Scramble genuinely feels like the game p5 wanted to be; a road trip w your team where they stay up at night talking to each other and hanging out and doing things together that dont necessarily include you, the player. Its refreshing and lovely but it sucks that u get that kind of attention to detail in a ‘spinoff’ title

[mabaris]

alright so now that we’ve gotten some actual crumbs, it feels like it’s a good time to lay out my prediction for what da4 is going to look like. writing this in a letter and mailing it to myself

we are part of an underground organization formed from the ruins of the inquisition to stop solas from ending the world

meanwhile the wardens have been researching the blight/the location of the archdemons and discover some secret about the location of the black city/what is actually contained in it

we’re supposed to be shocked at the reveal that the evanuris are trapped in the black city and the maker doesn’t exist

the ancient elves were in control of some crazy mutating technology (like in hormak) and that was the original source of the darkspawn. the whole thing about them being from the deep roads and a dwarf concern was actually just a red herring, they’re just underground because they’re powered by lyrium and this has ALSO been an elf thing the whole time :)

anyway, now we need to Double Make Sure the veil stays up because the evanuris have something even worse cooking up in the black city and we need to prevent them from unleashing a super blight and destroying all life, and our job is to convince solas to give up, not because we disagree with his plan but because his actions will have unintended consequences. even if he doesn’t care about everyone else and wants to rebuild the world, he won’t even be able to do THAT because the super blight will kill elves too. so although we WERE enemies we will have to band together to defeat the greater threat etc. it will be optional to recruit him as an ally/advisor, or you can just fight him directly and take control of his forces

we will have to cross into the fade AGAIN and storm the black city directly to put a stop to whatever’s going on in there

[skitskatdacat63]

I was looking for boot ref pics and then came across this painting

Oh my fucking god???????????????? Putting this one in the ref folder bcs oh my god??????????? They did not have to serve this hard?????????

[thedevotionaltour]

i havent even read enough gl to justify the feelings and emotions i have about kyle i just have the lovers heart and also something wrong with me. and my projection. in my mind he's just like me. and he would have loved college vending machine frozen cheeseburger and heating it up in the microwave at 1 in the morning because he was bored and didn't want to work on a drawing assignment on 20" x 30" paper that was due tomorrow in his freshman year. he would have loved going to the club to push off finals work that's creating the worst stress known to man in his brain. and he would love to annoy the fuck out of his roommate when high and avoiding homework on a saturday.

[princescar]

Tsumugi, your hair is ugly. I will not apologize.

[sysig]

Working on some designs for one of my oldest OCs, “Cure” (Patreon)

I also managed to track down some of her initial concept sketches from 2018 - why 2018 considering I called her one of my oldest OCs?

Well, her design has always been rather elusive, even more so since she spent so much time in my head without being brought to paper - even these sketches make mention of it!

Pretty sure she got “Cure” in 2018 too - starting to take form!

[tempestclerics]

.

[yuttikkele]

I uhhhhh think the next art joke should be “making your OCs happy and fulfilled” instead of “my only job as a creator is to traumatize my OCs because they’re boring without it”

[vetyr]

hi, i ireally love your work and i don't know if you've answered this before but, what kinds of studies do you do or how did you learn color theory? i wanna get better at rendering and anatomy but im having trouble TT TT

Hi! Long answer alert. Once a chatterbox, always a chatterbox.

When I started actively learning how to draw about 10 1/2 years ago, I exclusively did graphite studies in sketchbooks. Here's a few examples—I mostly stuck to doing line drawings to drill basic shapes/contours and proportions into my brain. The more rendered sketches helped me practice edge control & basic values, and they were REALLY good for learning the actual 3D structure behind what I was drawing.

I'd use reference images that I grabbed from fitness forums, Instagram, Tumblr, Pinterest, and some NSFW places, but you could find adequate ref material from figure drawing sites like Line of Action. LoA has refs for people (you can filter by clothed/unclothed, age, & gender), animals, expressions, hands/feet, and a few other useful things as well. Love them.

Learning how to render digitally was a similar story; it helped a lot that I had a pretty strong foundation for value/anatomy going in. I basically didn't touch color at all for ~2 years (except for a few attempts at bad digital or acrylic paint studies), which may not have been the best idea. I learned color from a lot of trial and error, honestly, and I'm pretty sure this process involved a lot of imitation—there were a number of digital/traditional painters whose styles I really wanted to emulate (notably their edge control, color choices, value distributions, and shape design), so I kiiind of did a mixture of that + my own experimentation.

For example, I really found Benjamin Björklund's style appealing, especially his softened/lost edges & vibrant pops of saturated color, so here's a study I did from some photograph that I'm *pretty* sure was painted with him in mind.

Learning how to detail was definitely a slow process, and like all the aforementioned things (anatomy/color/edge control/values/etc.) I'm still figuring it out. Focusing on edge control first (that is, deciding on where to place hard/soft edges for emphasizing/de-emphasizing certain areas of the image) is super useful, because you can honestly fool a viewer into thinking there's more detail in a piece than there actually is if you're very economical about where you place your hard edges.

The most important part, to me, is probably just doing this stuff over and over again. You're likely not going to see improvement in a few weeks or even a few months, so don't fret about not getting the exact results you want and just keep studying + making art. I like to think about learning art as a process where you *need* to fail and make crappy art/studies—there's literally no way around it—so you might as well fail right now. See, by making bad art you're actually moving forward—isn't that a fun prospect!!

It's useful to have a folder with art you admire, especially if you can dissect the pieces and understand why you like them so much. You can study those aspects (like, you can redraw or repaint that person's work) and break down whether this is art that you just like to look at, or if it's the kind of art that you want to *make.* There's a LOT of art out there that I love looking at, probably tens of thousands of styles/mediums, but there's a very narrow range that I want to make myself.

I've mentioned it in some ask reply in the past, but I really do think looking at other artist's work is such a cheat code for improving your own skills—the other artist does the work to filter reality/ideas for you, and this sort of allows you to contact the subject matter more directly. I can think of so many examples where an artist I admired exaggerated, like, the way sunlight rested on a face and created that orange fringe around its edge, or the greys/dull blues in a wheat field, or the bright indigo in a cast shadow, or the red along the outside of a person's eye, and it just clicked for me that this was a very available & observable aspect of reality, which had up until that point gone completely unnoticed! If you're really perceptive about the art you look at, it's shocking how much it can teach you about how to see the world (in this particular case I mean this literally, in that the art I looked at fully changed the way I visually processed the world, but of course it has had a strong effect on my worldviews/relationships/beliefs).

Thanks so much for sending in a question (& for reading, if you got this far)! I read every single ask I receive, including the kind words & compliments, which I genuinely always appreciate. Best of luck with learning, my friend :)

[boxingcleverrr]

Popular Hades & Persephone "retellings" are, rightly, getting dunked on all over the socials right now and, as a Pagan who has an altar to the Queen, I could not be happier. But also, I feel like a lot of people miss WHY they're bad - aside from just plain bad writing and lazy tropes. Which are, yeah, also REALLY bad.

Pretty much all retellings try to wave away, or excuse, or twist the whole kidnapping bit. And I actually do have sympathy and understanding for why, when speaking from a modern perspective.

But honestly...you gotta get over it. There are other stories to play fix-it with, not this one.

The Abduction is The Thing.

Were I a little more sober I could bring up chapter and verse of the Hymn to Demeter but frankly, if you know even the middle school mythology curriculum version of the story, you SHOULD know the themes. The story of Persephone was one mothers and daughters in the ancient world held dear, because it was a reality: you will, one day, be swept away from your home to go cleave to a man you most likely know nothing about. You will miss your mother, but chances are very good that he will be a good husband, once you get to know him, certainly better than Zeus or Ares, and he will make you a queen of his home.

Leaving home to marry was often scary, and violent (look up the history of the tradition of Bridesmaids, if you don't already know it - they were originally decoys on the marriage road). Centuries later we'd have tales like Beauty & The Beast serving the same function: comfort, hope, you are leaving your safe loving home to figure life out with a (often older, powerful) stranger. Your trauma over this sudden ending of your childhood made manifest in a Beast, or a God of The Underworld.

It's wonderful that we don't NEED stories like this anymore to comfort us (here, at least, in this culture). But if you try to force them into modern vernacular it just will not work, not really, because you're gutting out the whole point just to have a more tidy romantic male hero.

I have read MANY very good ...novelizations? fanfic(? however you would frame them, but they're certainly not "retellings"), etc. that simply take advantage of the blank spaces in the myth, and there are many!

It's not explicit that sexual assault happens - "The Rape of Persephone" as a title was coined in much earlier eras, when the word was just as often used to simply refer to abduction.

"She was starving!" the gods didn't need to eat. So it's easy to read her eating the Pom seeds as a deliberate choice on her part. Like, shit, people, scholars have written whole papers on the symbolism of this moment, between marriage rites and even yeah, Seph choosing both worlds with her husband's knowing consent.

And that, I think, is the real heart of the thing. People want an utterly mundane, spelled-out story here, as opposed to what it really is, has always been, just like any other myth or religious parable: IT'S A METAPHOOOOOOR.

They don't need to be destined, or meet at a goddamned BALL and then CONSPIRE to fake her kidnapping, or shit, I once saw one where Hades got MIND CONTROLLED by Zeus?! Jesus.

Persephone was yoinked into the Underworld against her will.

That's how it went.

I don't mean this in a "stay out of my belief system!" way, shit I'm a white American chick with delusions of witchery. I mean this in a "stop stressing yourself out trying to make things palatable" way:

This is a very real, very precious myth to many people, BECAUSE for at least that one event, Persephone had no autonomy, BECAUSE for thousands of years most women had no autonomy. Erasing that, sanitizing the fact that a girl is ripped out of the spring, from her mother's arms, is erasing the thing that gave comfort to women for centuries. And people can and should still find power and healing in it now!

Fill in the blanks the story leaves in whatever manner seems fit to you, there's plenty of room, but. Come the fuck on.