#i actually have imposter syndrome with this artwork…

[mathias-wanabe]

Ok… so I know I did a poll n everything for who I should draw next for my deity redesign… and I know mind was NOT on it….

But I ended up doing mind anyways hope yall like it :]

Chat mimb is me real

[asteraceaye]

I'm changing my major concentration to drawing and I'm like Ah maybe this is a mistake I cannot draw well enough to major in it

[crescencestudio]

2023: A Year of Connection

Hi everyone!

As I told you last month, this month's "devlog" will be more like an end-of-year recap. For those of you who have known me a while, you'll know that I get ~in my feels~ and Very Nostalgic at the end of the year. And this year is no exception to that.

Looking back on this year, I realize I did much more than I thought I did. The year was filled with so many waves of uncertainty, burnout, and ruts, that I felt like I wasn't accomplishing anything in the moment. Now that the year has actually wrapped up, I can see that was Once Again my imposter syndrome whispering words of sweet nothings into my ears.

In fact, this year, I find that I did Way More than what I did last year. Crazy, considering how busy I remember 2022 being. Let's take a walk down memory lane, shall we?

Writing

If there is one thing this bitch did, it's fucking write LFMASODIJ. For all my complaining this year of routes taking too long, getting creative ruts, etc., I still wrote (what I consider) a Very Good amount. While I may not have hit my writing goals that I had set out, I still ended up writing around 255k words in total this year. Most of this being for Alaris, and some of it being for my dissertation (LOL) and other side games, like Intertwine and Jam Games.

This number also doesn't include deleted passages, edited passages, etc., so the amount I've spent writing, reviewing, etc. was Significant this year. Here's to hoping that momentum continues into next year and finishing the rest of Alaris!

Side Games

Something completely unexpected, but that I'll forever be grateful for, was my decision(s) to join game jams this year. It all started with Otojam, a visual novel jam I'd wanted to join for a WHILE.

Intertwine was, without a doubt, one of my most memorable moments from this year. The friends I made/grew closer to during that jam. The people I connected with because of Intertwine. The people I got to work with. Everything about the experience surpassed my expectations, and Van and Summer 2023 will always hold a very special place in my heart because of it. Thank you to everyone who enjoyed that game. It was my first full game I ever released, and I couldn't have been more nervous about it (no literally. I wasn't sleeping and I was nauseous for a week before release).

Knowing there was no "revision" afterwards that I could hide behind or promise that there would be a "better"/"enhanced" version made the release terrifying. But the reception you all gave to it and support from so many friends made me feel so connected and grateful for the community.

The other three side projects were... well, Unexpected. LOL. Before these jams, I'd never wanted to work in team settings, mostly because I have Mad Imposter Syndrome, and I've always imagined I'd be dead weight in any given game dev team. My skills on writing, art, and/or coding alone aren't "exemplary" enough for me to think I, well, deserve to be on a team. But when a couple of short jams were being held by a friend, and teams were being made filled with other friends, I thought maybe I could help, even if it's just to QA/playtest. But I've walked away from each of these experiences learning so much from other talented people and with very dear friends.

Each of these side games truly tested my chops in terms of writing, narrative design, and coding. But I'm glad I challenged myself to take part in each of these experiences because I've walked away with so much more than I would've expected.

Alaris

My Heart. My Soul. And at times, My Worst Enemy.

As much as I may have talked about how I Wasn't making progress on this baby. I, in fact, made A LOT of progress:

Art: 15 CGs, Updated Sprites, Kickstarter Artwork

Commissions: 20 BGs, Complete GUI, Personality/Affection Indicators, Editing, Voice Acted Lines, Complete OST (8 Tracks!)

Writing: Three Finished Routes

Shipped Kickstarter Merchandise

I'm going to be Real with you all. I'm not in the mood to recap everything for Alaris in the way I did with everything else LAFKMSDFOIJWOEI. Main reason being, I do that Every Month, and at this point, I would feel like I'm repeating myself for no reason. But let me tell you, when the Enhanced Demo comes out, you will see what I'm talking about with progress made. And I'm excited for the next year when I start getting to show things off (read: Demo Release and Route Beta Releases) now that assets have really come together ^^

I will say, thank you for sticking with this project for so long. It's easy to get bogged down in development when a project like this is as big as it is. It's just as easy to think that no one will care about this by the time I release, or people will start losing their patience with me as development goes on. So I'm forever grateful for how kind, supportive, and patient you all are, especially this year <3

Connections: The True Theme of 2023

If you've made it this far, I'm extremely impressed with you. And to reward you, I'll give you a moment of honesty and vulnerability which, to be frank, I Don't Do as a person and especially with my dev persona LMFAOO ((Before I do, let it be known, CW: mention of death, grief, alcoholism, chronic illness, suicidal thoughts))

Something I don't talk about much is that for all of 2022 and most of 2023, I was not in a good place mentally. At the beginning of 2022, I lost three very important people in my life back-to-back (I'm not exaggerating when I say back-to-back it was within 2 weeks, three separate deaths lol). That, on its own, was hard to deal with. But on top of that, I soon found myself having to cope/help with a family member's chronic illness and another family member's mental health (read: alcoholism, suicidality).

While this isn't a particularly unique situation, it was one that I found myself struggling with pretty severely on top of a pretty demanding work life. And it was a situation I found myself in until about midway through this year. Things have lightened up. I navigate a new life with some pretty severe triggers, and without the presence of some of my most loved ones. But overall, I at least feel like I can breathe and function, which is a state I didn't feel like I could exist in for over a year (and started to believe I may never exist in again).

Because of this new room in my life, I was able to connect with people again, in a more genuine way. I've grown closer to a lot of dev friends, to the point I consider some of them genuine close friends. And IRL, I've been able to reconnect with some of my dearest loved ones. The main reason I bring all of this up is because this year, I felt unbelievably connected to people, whether that was dev friends in the community, people who support my games, and IRL people.

And sometimes, when you interact with people solely online, it's easy to think they don't care as much about you as you do for them. But this has been disproven to me time and time again this year. And I've found myself in a state of appreciation for so many of the people I've been blessed to meet and befriend <3 I felt this especially so during some of the game jams, with the Secret Santa gift exchange, and with my recent Holiday Tree.

So thank you for everyone who has let me take up some space in their life. You literally Do Not Know how much it means to me and impacts me. This year, while I started it in a state of slightly hopelessness and numbness, I find myself ending it with gratitude and connection.

I hope the rest of this year (the very few couple of days we have left LOL) treats everyone well. I'm excited for how we get to start 2024 and what we'll get to experience together <3 Thank you again for the memories and support, love you all very dearly ^^

[vaelzz]

do you post AI art or did you make it

It's a mixture, I've been making art for about 10 years now but some of the more recent ones are incorporating AI. I'm currently combining older methods and techniques with AI to come up with some new and cool results. It still ends up taking tons of time and effort but I can get ideas out from my head much quicker and better now. I do get overly anxious and a sense of imposter syndrome because I'm not entirely doing things by hand but I've been trying to get over that. I've had a few people be negative or dismissive about me using it but I don't think they understand it's not as simple as me writing a couple of sentences to instantly get some masterpiece. I have a lot more I've worked on but I've just been too in my head overthinking it to post because I feel irrationally guilty? I mean most of my work is photographic except I've painted over them with a Wacom tablet in Photoshop which was also enough for me to feel the imposter syndrome and avoid making things. So yeah I am still super conflicted because I have a few hundreds artworks I've made throughout my life and then I have these newer ones using a blend of digital painting and AI to better assist in my process but I get anxious because I don't want it to discredit everything I've done but I also know with these new tools it's going to be harder than ever to keep up unless I use them. It really isn't worth me spending 30-40 hours on a single artwork when no one really cares and I'm not getting paid for it either, just sitting alone in my room suffering and forcing myself to make a single artwork for what? I actually had someone accuse one of my artworks as being AI made before I even used it until I showed them the earlier versions and the slow time consuming process. Like I am a bit cut up over AI because I spent so much of my life learning art and making sacrifices so I'd have the time and space for it.. but it's an adapt or die situation for digital artists. These AI models do keep getting better though so whilst not there yet it does make me debate what things will look like when they are good enough for you to simply ask it to make you an artwork of whatever you want and for it to instantly pull out a masterpiece. I find that scary because what is there left for me to do? What is my purpose in it all? Would that even be my own self-expression? (The overthinking list goes on and on lol) Perhaps it's just an ego thing though and the accessibility gives more people the means of self-expression which they previously did not have the opportunity. I guess the only part that worries me is that I put so much time, effort and thought into everything that the idea of someone dismissing or disregarding it is quite hurtful. (which tbh is the reason I barely post) All I really wanted to do was make cool things and have people go "wow, that's so cool, how did you think of that? How does your mind work?" as opposed to "Nice AI artwork". So yee TL;DR Mixture of AI but all my older stuff is done completely by me. I'm working on putting together a portfolio/collection of older works just so I can have some distinction there.

[sakarrie-creates]

It’s that time of year! Here’s my 2023 art summary! After two years of having to include non-colored pieces, I finally did enough ‘full’ pieces to fill my art summary template! I did have to get a bit creative with the months since I was able to draw a LOT more during the summer, but I’ll take it! Sorry it's a bit blurry. I'm not sure if that's just for the preview or not, but it was a smaller file than normal and since these reflections are 99% for my own interest, I decided it wasn't worth trying to change.

As usual, I got rambly so reflection questions are answered under the cut. The template I used is available here in case anyone else wants to make their own! My fic summary will be coming in a week or so, so stay tuned for the stats and round-up there. :)

What events did you participate in (with art)? Player Appreciation Week, Fandom Trumps Hate, Dear Fellow Traveler (Animatic), Weird People (Editing), SPN Comfortably Queer Zine (dropped), and lots of zine applications for page artist, merch artist, comic artist, and spot artist roles!

What was your biggest challenge this year? While time, like last year, was still a challenge, I think my biggest challenge was a mix of low motivation and an intense perfectionistic mindset. At the start of the year, I got super into TOH and was super hyped about all the zines with apps opening. I really REALLY wanted to get into them and figured I should apply for art too just cause it would increase my overall chances of getting in. After the finale, I did a screenshot redraw that ended up being absolutely fantastic for where my skill level is. I went deeper into rendering than ever before, and somehow it worked for me. 

That probably was the start of my unreasonably high expectations, and I got it into my head that maybe if I could make a whole portfolio of artwork at that quality level, I actually stood a chance at getting into a zine as an artist. From then on, I was hardcore crash-coursing perspective, rendering techniques, and generally trying to improve without allowing room for mistakes. While I do think it helped me grow a lot, it burnt me out so I struggled to work on stuff past summary (when all the zine apps were) and even dropped from the SPN Comfortably Queer Zine cause my imposter syndrome was so strong. (Though that was also partially because it was a ‘sign-up and you’re in’ zine, so they never saw my art during the application process and had no way of knowing if I was good enough.

What was something you were surprised by? I’m pretty sure I discovered the perspective tool is CSP this year! CSP has so many tools I’m not aware of (despite watching tons of tutorials and guides), so it wasn’t super surprising but it was nice. I have to say, they’re a serious hassle to work with and require a higher understanding of vanishing points and such than I currently have, but I could see it being very useful for future scene art pieces.

Did you try anything new this year?

Yes! This year I kicked down the door to the merch world and have been collecting and designing throughout the year. Though the designs have mostly just been for zine app portfolio’s, everything has worked out really well for me and I hope to produce charms for my collection as I improve my skills. Where do you think you most improved? Definitely my confidence in rendering! And probably my rendering itself too. I did a ton more pieces with it this year and it’s definitely a favorite part of the art process for me. I think I’ll have a lot more fun with it this year too, since I’m trying to keep it lower pressure, so I can experiment more to find out what brushes and styles I like most. What are you most proud of? I think I’m most proud of how ambitious I was with my zine apps. Though I didn’t get into any for art and it burned me out a fair bit, I did a lot of hard work and made pieces I can be mostly happy with. As for specific pieces, I’m very proud of my animatic clip for the Dear Fellow Traveler MAP (which is what the Belos art from the summary is from). My portion was about 5 seconds with 24 fully colored and shaded frames. A few of those were moving frames too, so the end result is the closest thing to actual animation I’ve done. I also really like the rendering on the Huntlow Epilogue art and generally how the Steve&Matt hug turned out.

How’d this year compare to your 2023 goals? I honestly couldn’t remember what my goals were, but all things considered, I didn’t do too bad! Thankfully past-Sakarrie was wise and made it a bullet list so I can just check things off. Met: -Player Appreciation Week -Add to zine portfolio -Apply to at least one zine as an artist (fine if don’t get accepted) -Keep experimenting with backgrounds and shading -Pull out some old WIPs -Build more consistency of style

The checked off ones I definitely met, so good for me! This was a very zine-focused year, so I way exceeded those goals. The last two I did do, but they’re a bit subjective. Specifically, I think the ‘WIPs’ I was referring to were old sketches, but most of the old WIPs I revisited were already colored and I was either adding rendered or cleaning them up for zine usage. As for style, I’m REALLY bad at telling haha. That said, my characters seem reasonably similar when I draw them, so I’m going to tentatively count it. Kinda: -One fully colored piece per month

I’m gonna give myself a half check on this one. I didn’t have a fully colored piece every month, but I did have over 12 fully rendered pieces in the end, several of which had backgrounds. So while I didn’t meet the letter of the goal, I feel like I met the spirit of it.

Did Not Meet: -Finish Huntlow comic -30 minutes animatic digitalize rough draft -Maybe make some fanart of my favorite fics

These don’t shock me. They’re all personal projects and this was a very external-goal-driven year for me. The Huntlow comic is a big love of mine but it’s definitely ambitious for where my skill is. I’ve got the whole thing messy-sketched and most of it has been clean sketched, but the jump from that to lineart is gonna be hard, and I have no idea what I’d be doing with color since the panels don’t have a background. That said, I do feel like it’s some solid work and I adore the angst vibe of it, so maybe I’ll get it done one day. I could also see myself posting it as a messy lineart comic so that others could enjoy the concept being executed in case it never gets finished.

As for the 30 Minutes animatic, I still 100% intend to complete it eventually. I love the way it fits to the music and I’m so proud of the thumbnails. Even if it never becomes a full animatic, I want to digitize the frames and line it up with music so I can share the concept I see in my mind with others. My brain was somewhat overtaken suddenly by TOH this year, so now that that’s settled and I’m hoping to follow my muse more this year, maybe this will be something I can get excited about again.

The fanart for favorite fics is no surprise since it’s kinda the tack on. With low motivation and projects with deadlines that needed my focus, personal art like this was buried way below other priorities. It’s a nice though for sure though.

Alrighty then, now it’s time for 2024 goals!! Oh goodness, I really don’t know what to expect of myself. I definitely am going to try to allow for more personal projects with lower pressure, but I do still have some goals. Hopefully most can be accomplished without applying big pressure though.

2024 Goals:

-Number One Priority: Create for my and don’t put myself in a place to get crazy burnt out and still have requirements. If I meet this goal, then it’s okay if I don’t meet any of the others. (It would be sad.... But I would still count it as meeting overall goals.) -Participate in Summergen and PAW Week (Art or Fic) -Design Handplates charm as anniversary gift (November) -Design CS Charm -Have a fully usable Zine Portfolio (Currently need more merch samples and rendered pieces with backgrounds) -Apply to new TOH Zines or other loved fandom zines. If I end up getting into any, I can pull back, but since that doesn’t seem likely, I want to get into the habit of always being ready to apply with what I have. -Make an ongoing project list to pin to my tumblr. This applies mostly for fics, but that way people coming to my page can see what fandoms I’m actively creating for and what they can look forward to (as well as have an opening to ask questions if they’re interested). -Post more (at least 10 times throughout the year) and add my best pieces to instagram (8+ pieces by end of year). -Do ONE of the following:     1. 30 minutes digitized so it can be shared with music      2. Open Up Your Eyes fully thumbnail      3. Fanworks for other people’s fics      4. Participate in an extra bang or exchange with art      5. Design and manufacture a pin -Play with different brushes and rendering styles -Draw something from scratch every month, no matter how small -Not exactly art, but I want to have a finalized long-term merch display plan for all my items Overall, how’d the year go? I think I did well! I didn’t meet all my goals and I pushed myself too far, but I learned and improved a LOT this year. All things considered, I made pieces that last year me would be blown away by, so I think that’s an automatic win. I’m pretty uncertain on how this next year will go (even more so than last year, which is surprising since I was changing schools last year), but I’m hoping to enjoy what I do and create art semi-regularly. Here’s to 2024!

[iantimony]

this tuesdaypost was drafted on monday, please clap

we are cookin with Gas this week

listening: listened to antimai a few times through, favorite track i think is 'ring 5: middle class'. dorian electra - man to man: really fun video too charasho (benny friedman): was linked in jew chat. very charming and funky. 5 Old French Dances: No. 5. Le Basque (arr. for 2 recorders and harpsichord): i heard this a billion year ago on the radio (my wakeup radio station on my alarm clock is classical) and i finally got around to saving a link for it. very bouncy very cute. makes me think of rabbits running in circles a la beatrix potter.

EDIT TO ADD: i also finally listened to beyonce 'cowboy carter'!! i know im late! it's good i like it! not a revolutionary opinion! obsessed with her jolene cover! that's all!

reading: big one this week! i FINISHED 'the left hand of darkness'! i really liked it! still marinating on the themes etc. i started 'the dispossessed', also by le guin, and am devouring that as well. there's some stuff in there that oof ough. existential. but i'm liking it so far, i'm around chapter 5 right now. physicists!

fanfic: imposter syndrome (mikkeneko): i might have already linked it but i can't be assed to go back through a few weeks of tuesdaypost to see if i already have. so if i did, here it is again. really charming premise, gut-punch of an ending, cool twist on the doppelganger setup from dungeon meshi with svsss.

the articles, some of which were actually read a while ago but i forgot to link and am now cleaning out my phone tabs: how will the golden age of 'making it worse' end? (david roth) new canada policy lets indigenous people reclaim their names (emma bowman) what happens to the stay-at-home girlfriend after a breakup? (erika w smith) unschooling is the parenting trend that's pissing everyone off (ej dickson) in defense of 'coffee badging' (monica torres): if i had a job that was all zoom calls i would literally go insane over being made to go into an office to take zoom calls. fuck that what my mother's wardrobe taught me about style and grief after she died: thinking a lot about all my dad's shit will semen destroy your shower drain? granny davis' geocaching page: found when i was looking at some reviews for caches near my apartment. im kind of obsessed with her. she also has a facebook page called 'granny's geo page' if you don't have a geocaching account. literally she is everything to me. she has found So Many fucking geocaches good god. wedding trivia questions: used as reference to create some wedding trivia for a bridal shower! similarly, the wikipedia page for morganatic marriages my fight with a sidewalk robot (emily ackerman): my school has these. hate them. my boyfriend just linked this to me and im obsessed, laser etched paperweights, i am not a huge paperweight girlie but wowwww prettyyyyy. the electron orbitals!!!! i had a search open for "anti mega #1 cray street". i have no idea what this is.

special edition: the link dump from my trip to the uk last month! some very related to the trip itself, a few random extras! top of the poops, an architectural firm bc i saw a sign with their logo and thought it was cool but now i can't find their logo, waring ader space invaders because i saw someone's shirt with the little space invader guys and was like ooh the tate museum joel meyerowitz (and another page about him) wikipedia on gratin dauphinois, wikipedia page on doncaster for some reason i did not go there list of artworks at the national portrait gallery of scotland wikipedia page on the jacobite uprising of 1745 washi tape that would match the edinburgh one i bought there, tintin in the land of the soviets postcard that i didnt end up getting wikipedia for a quaich which is a traditional scottish bowl, a wiki page on the geology of arthur's seat, a book in the scottish national galleries that i thought about purchasing but didn't want to try and fit in my luggage (she is definitely one of my new favorite artists though) wikipedia page on lauryn hill for some reason not sure how i got there, wikipedia page on salome halpir this post was on tumblr and i tried to find the item in the victoria and albert museum but it was sadly not on display, one of the audio guides i listened to a bit of in the v & a, a scarf i almost bought in the v & a a google search for the fabric library at harrods because my mom mentioned that it existed but i could not find it search for blinq (apparently spelled that way) blossoms because of a cocktail my brother's friend ordered that had one as a garnish wikipedia page on the mechanical explanations of gravitation

watching: from wool to cloth using a historical weaving technique (jillian eve): oughhh colors

emma in the moment/made in the moment: a deep dive into the chunky boy crochet lore the crochet stardew valley pillow drama untangling the shocking tale of mystical creations yarn i tried red heart's new all in one granny square yarn

some crochet tips videos from play hooky with me

tiffanyferg: 'personal style' discourse hgtv is a gentrification masterclass cleantok villains and the morality of messiness

playing: a teeny bit of wizard101

making: fallow. well i guess i drew on some cards for my friend's bridal shower. but generally fallow.

eating: made deb smittenkitchen's delicious carrot cake recipe. mine was a little ugly but really really delicious. i bought a bag of preshredded carrots and just sort of roughly chopped em up a little smaller because i couldn't be assed to grate them. i also couldn't be assed to trim the cakes, i did two smaller round pans and stacked them up but because i didn't trim them they were a little wibbly. oh well.

i'm going to bake another cake for my brother's birthday next weekend and i'm between her chocolate olive oil cake (looks really easy) and bittersweet chocolate and pear cake (a little more involved but highly recommended by bee)

misc: my mom wanted to take a sailing class but didn't want to do it alone so she offered to pay for me to come. sure, said i! i have never sailed! i like learning new skills! reader, it is So Fucking Hot Outside. the wind died and we had to get towed back to shore. the sun was so strong. there are so many ropes with all different names and they all Do Something. sunday's class got cancelled/rescheduled because the weather was That Bad (hot as fuck and no wind) so we're doing it probably friday instead (and saturday. and sunday. it's two weekends in a row of both days at 9am yayyyyy) but i just hope the weather is. better.

[alchemistc]

You know say what you will about my serial procrastination and the way I am consistently circling the drain knowing people (especially ones in a position of authority) think I have my shit together while experiencing near constant imposter syndrome bc I can't tell people the well thought out project/paper/artwork/writing I told ppl I was working on for WEEKS I actually started and finished in one caffeine-and-stress-induced-high 8 hours before it was due, they'll realize I'm a fucking disaster --

Say what you will. But I actually procrastinated buying Blink tickets for so long that the resale price of pit tickets dropped almost $200 over the course of the week I was sending it to pay for them, so I saved like, 400+ dollars (fucking resale fees and vendor fees and treating that shit like taxes instead of a flat fee).

(This is almost never how this works. There is a surcharge for ADHD. It is groceries you never use bc you have no sense of object permanence and the 'produce in the door' trick doesn't work for you. It is spending 3-4x more money on your morning coffee because you were up until 3 in the morning reliving The Horrors (That time a server told you to enjoy your meal and you said 'you too') so you didn't have time to pick it up yourself and had to have it delivered to survive your day. It is putting off replacing your tires until the threads are visible and having one just slowly deflate overnight so now you've got to put the donut on only you never did your six-month check and your donut is also flat.)

[sweetestpopcorn]

Hello 😄

Here I have not read the GRRM books but at the end of game of thrones I became interested in the Targaryen family. I read several things on the internet and then your story which is incredible. However there is a question that I ask myself, why rhaenys and corlys supported rhaenyra? She insulted them and laenor with her bastards. Is it only because their granddaughters rhaena and baela are daemon's daughters? Or there is an another reason? Especially since in addition there are rumors that say that daemon would have killed laenor. I'm sorry if that seems like a silly question. But as reading your story the reason why the velaryons support rhaenyra is well explained. I was wondering if this was also the case for the books so since you seem to be an expert on this period I allow myself to ask you.

Good luck, I can't wait to read your next chapter !

Hi there 🤗

Hum... if you want I would suggest you read "The World of Ice and Fire" just because of the amazing artwork <3 and the condensed version of the story which I think it's still enough for a very good understanding, though "Rise of the Dragon" is coming out later this month so that might also be worth it <3 it's only about House Targaryen. Ahhh I'm PRAYING for some good artwork because I need something good this year to lift my spirits!

About your question, I don’t like to call myself an expert on anything (my particular field of work teach us a LOT of humility (and imposter syndrome)), but I can say I maybe have spent more time reading and writing about this time period than most people -> anyone of you funny people brings out my word count and I’m blocking! I am kidding -> so I will do my best to answer you 🤗

We are never told directly but it's very clear they did so because Rhaenyra had been Laenor's wife (on paper), and their children were for all intents and purposes Laenor's children (on paper). 

Now to elaborate a bit on this, Laenor and Rhaenyra were terrible at best at pretending to have a functional wedding and a "Do you think everyone and their dogs is stupid AF?!" at worse. To avoid any confusions on anyone's part there is no mention whatsoever in the books that they had a bedding ceremony, even because Laenor left mid celebrations and left (haha double left) everyone wondering if the marriage had been consummated - very (very!) safe to assume it never was. In the meantime they spent their time apart (sorry y'all they weren't friends or besties watching each other's backs), and Rhaenyra spent all her time with Harwin Strong. For context she married in 114 AC - we don't know the month - and by the end of the year she had given birth to Jace. Moreover, his sisters were her favourites :) So besides not being good at pretending to actually having a marriage with Laenor, she was also not very good at pretending to be faithful. Same was true of Laenor though, who had his boy toys especially Qarl, but unlike Rhaenyra he couldn't get pregnant or get Qarl pregnant so no one cared. She went on to have two more kids by Harwin as we know. 3 in 4 years.

I will say that again because this gives me trauma. THREE IN FOUR YEARS.

I'm not even going to bring up that later on there was not even two years between Aegon III and Viserys II.

Ok I am.

At 25 Rhaenyra had five children and had been married twice. So look yourselves (I'm doing that right now) in the mirror and ask yourselves wtf are you doing with your lives.

Moving on.

Apart from this later on Laenor is killed, very likely by Daemon's orders so he could have Rhaenyra, and Rhaenyra and Daemon remarry like what 3 months after their spouses die? - baby Aegon was born by the end of 120 AC so they had to marry no later than month 4 and be like "Haha :D the baby came "early"". The rule here would be to wait between 6 months to a year before remarrying we are told by asoiaf standards to show respect. So by doing this, Daemon and Rhaenyra were showing they didn't really care their spouses had died recently.

Daemon and Rhaenyra:

That's nice of them.

So, so far on Rhaenyra's track record of daughter-in-law she:

-Didn't have or pretended to have a real marriage with their son;

-Had a public affair with Harwin Strong, three sons that were clearly his, and even turned his sisters in her favourites;

-F_cked and married and got pregnant by their daughter's widow - her sister-in-law's husband - couple of months after their son died;

That was nice of her. 

Why would they still side with her anyone might ask?

Well, it's not really very well explained. Like me and @xenonwitch have discussed at length, and like she pointed out, Fire and Blood remains George's weakest work. I agree. I think it has tons of potential (that was recently completely wasted to the point it makes the book read like a f_cking masterpiece with absolutely no flaws in logic or plot or even character development) but it wasn't really expanded upon enough and we are left with trying to tie together all the missing links - and boy oh boy! do we have copious amounts of them - to the best of our abilities. I think there is something pretty cool about it in the sense that you can almost create your own story in how you think it makes the most sense. It's also frustrating because at the times you really have to make your brain work overtime to make something out of it that is believable and makes sense.

But my take on it. Well, from what we know of Corlys and Rhaenys they do strike me as pragmatic people who couldn't have illusions about who their son was. -> hells, as an Anon once pointed out, every lord plus their dog knew Laenor was gay. Gay gay. Like if there is a spectrum for sexuality it's like at one end.

I mean. I get him. I am all about the men too. Like ladies no, thank you. No, thank you! If I was a man I would like d:ck as well.

This to say, they likely knew that the "Velaryon" princes were the best they were going to get so it was either take it or leave it. Let's say they said leave it because there's Baela and Rhaena. Well... ok sure, but Daemon was not the second in line for the Iron Throne. Baela and Rhaena were too far down in the line of succession, in fact so far, I believe this could be why they were not given the title of princesses.

So if they left it that was it for House Velaryon's aspirations to ever have a Velaryon king.

And now people can turn to me and say "Go f_ck yourself" to which I say "Bold of you to assume I have not already 🤗". I'm kidding.

They could turn to me and say "But Popcorn, maybe the Velaryons could push to have Baela and Rhaena married to Viserys's sons who were heirs after Rhaenyra. Maybe Baela could marry Aegon II and Rhaena could Aemond or some other similar arrangement.” BUT -> here comes that but-

How likely would it be that Viserys, our sweet lovable Viserys, would like to have an alliance with the people who accused his beloved daughter and heir of High Treason and denounced her children and his grandchildren as bastards?

I would say not likely. Not likely at all.

So instead, Rhaenys and Corlys called it a day. The "Velaryon" princes did not have their blood but they had their names. Plus, with their engagement with their granddaughters they would get their blood on the throne eventually. Better to let things run smoothly.

As for Daemon very likely having ordered Laenor's death, all that was known for sure was that Qarl had killed him. If Daemon did it or not was a matter of dispute and likely, either the Velaryons didn't suspect him, or if they did maybe they rather not know the answer.

This is related to what I do in real life, but most of us have such experience with people we know, and the lengths most of us go to try and have peace and keep the family together knows almost no limits. While Viserys liked to bury his head in the sand I also think Rhaenys and Corlys had to do this sometimes for the sake of their heads maybe. 🤷🏽‍♀️

Now we never see it, or are told about it, but I would also suggest Rhaenys had some level of respect for Rhaenrya, and that she looked like she wanted her to be queen. At least her actions certainly say it. Hell she died for Rhaenyra's cause and fought for her too. Might have to do with what herself went through of being denied the throne for her sex, or maybe everything aside, they got along well enough. Maybe Rhaenys understood where Rhaenyra was coming from (i.e., gay husband) and knew herself well enough to assume to herself that in Rhaenyra's position she would have done either the same or similar. About her marriage to Daemon, again I think Rhaenys and Corlys had no illusions.

Rhaenyra and Daemon had a thing -> that we can debate how far it went but we talking third base at the very least -> before they ever married Laenor and Laena.

And we know they wanted to marry but were told no by Walserys -> the OG Daemyra anti. Given that Rhaenys and Corlys married for love, maybe again they knew where their son and daughter in law were coming from and were like “Meh at least all the grandkids are together. Saves us a trip or two!” 

I know sometimes we look at such situations and get enraged like HOW DARE THEY?! I WOULD HAVE NEVER STOOD SILENTLY WHEN... But what I see most in life is people staying silent and not bothering themselves or not wanting to cause trouble, especially in situations in which they will really gain nothing except lifting some weight from themselves and letting it out from their chests. 

I also know this all requires a LOT of maturity from Rhaenys and Corlys and that (especially in light of recent clear cash grabbing events) I might be giving turtle man too much of a benefit of a doubt. This said, and Rhaenys and Corlys do strike me as being very pragmatic and rational. And all things considered, it’s the best explanation I got XD 

I hope it makes some sense and thank you for having liked my version 🤗 I did my best to make it believable.

Tons of love to you! ❤️ And yes everyone I am writing the next chapter see: 

This is so I remember to make some reference to eating trout and to give credit to Lucifer210 over at AO3 who mentioned it in the comments. 

XOXO, 

Gossip Popcorn. 

[knight-gwaine]

Today's reflective thoughts on life

I want the things I make and do to gain fame but when I think about myself being famous, I'd rather just be a mystery 🤷🏻‍♀️

I be thinking about this because I have cravings of having my work be seen and appreciated but when I imagine myself actually doing something like becoming an actress or musician but I just don't enjoy such scrutiny under the limelight. With things like that, you have to turn yourself into a brand and that's a no from me.

My artwork, however... There's something so satisfying about having my artwork speak for itself, unbound by me.

It's delightful to have a piece of me that goes beyond myself.

I like being someone that you have to really do some research to get to know, which is why I love this hidey hole of the internet 😈

It's crazy y'all, I started on this site as a depressed little 13yr old nobody with undiagnosed ADHD and now I am a 24yr old SOMEBODY who has worked so HARD. To heal and to build a life of safety, love, connections, and FUCKING TALENT OKAY. I believed I couldn't do Jack shit and now I constantly have people in awe of all my artistic talents (art, singing, modeling, photography, etc.) And I'm SEEN. VALUED.

Heck even to the degree that I have gained ACTUAL HATERS?? Lol in my own community?? That I have.. fans?? I have strangers in my town that recognize me and admire my work. PEERS. FELLOW ARTISTS. it's fucking wack man. I've been on the news several times, in multiple local and A NATIONAL commercial??? I just won. The contest to have MY ARTWORK ON OUR STATE LICENSE PLATE FOR THE NEXT 5 YEARS, ALSO SETTING MYSELF UP FOR PASSIVE INCOME FOR THE NEXT FORESEEABLE FUTURE??? LITERALLY SETTING MY FUTURE UP FOR MY DREAMS?????

Y'all. I am seen. For the first time. For real. In my life. And God, I am scared but I refuse to submit to imposter syndrome and I'm finding my way somewhere. But expect me to do it quietly.

[s3899602]

Blog #10 - Week 10

Wednesday

Upside Down People

Today Mai Han and I showed Sara and Helen our progress in the Capitol. They thought the colours I chose worked well, I thought they fit with the colours in the video so that was a relief that they thought so too. Sara and Helen said the colours that I used were fantastic even though the purple on the ceiling was a little mistake, so that was extremely lucky. 

Mai Han and I will also be working on the Dragon Tree Story scene, which is a low flickering candlelight. This should be pretty simple, I have already created a few different states already which I didn’t show Sara in the space but showed her after and she thought they were good. I think it would be best to avoid the arch throughout the whole scene and just focus on the walls. I’ll see how I go with improving what I have so far.

Thursday

Kingdom Dance 

I’m not sure that I liked it when it played in the Capitol and I’m not sure if it was actually bad or if I was just imposter syndrome and I wasn’t watching it right. I was really excited to see it in space so I don’t know why I wouldn’t think it was good if it was so I’m confused. Darrin and Nik didn’t seem to dislike it (apart from the music and a few colour choices). I’m going to have a look over it this week to see if there’s anything to change. I recorded another work in the capitol that I thought was exhilarating, they used a lot of techniques that I hadn’t thought of before so I will watch that again and see if anything inspires me to change what I already have. 

Jo’s Project 

Light’s Project 

Light and I had a long chat about his project and the kind of feeling he wants the sound to evoke and what he wants the sound to highlight in the video. We decided that I can just go crazy and do what I want with the sound which, admittedly, I am slightly afraid of, but Light has given me a lot of direction and has sent me a lot of inspiration from games and movies that he thinks I can draw my own inspiration from. We have very similar tastes when it comes to sci-fi movies so that’s a relief because I know I can make something that not only will fit the video, but that he will enjoy. 

We had a talk about surreal and how Light’s other project is now very Surreal and we could chage up the word in this project. We settled on uncanny, but depending on how the sound design goes, Light says I can change it again if need be. I think with the visuals we probably can’t go very far from surreal or uncanny because the stop-motion AI is so out-there that no matter what the audio is, the video would still have surreal elements. We were also talking about movies and both thought the soundtrack to Arrival (2016) was spectacular and really fits the eerie, uncanny feeling that we are going for. There’s also Coraline and a few other movies that fit the essence of the video so I will have a deeper look at all of them and see what ideas emerge. 

I had a listen to the Arrival soundtrack and really liked Sapir Whorf https://youtu.be/m87uapjnvKU?si=p4T4K9-K6JmnFtLf and Transmutation at a Distance https://youtu.be/swD1eqFSdYQ?si=AvKczhmvViMRgs0x because they both have a very otherworldly ethereal sort of feel to them which is what Light really wants the audience to feel. I love the use of vocals throughout the soundtrack as well. The whole soundtrack is honestly genius. Another great track was One of Twelve, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8adiipvZTRg&list=PLff_8M2LCnlCP3deJhXdYJCxlqCIJjItL&index=18 I really loved the use of (what I’m pretty sure was) distorted string instruments to create a sense of realisation and a heightened sense of danger. 

Research

https://www.tate.org.uk/art/art-terms/s/surrealism

Surreal artwork is about artists finding ‘magic and strange beauty in the unexpected and the uncanny’ 

As we settled on the work Uncanny, I thought I would do some research on surreal and uncanny. They’re have very similar meanings and sometimes used synonymously. Something uncanny is strange and unexpected, and surreal artwork is the celebration of that. AI is something that is widely considered to be ‘uncanny’ because it’s new and is not something we have seen before. Especially when talking to chat AI’s, it can feel as if you’re talking to a real human being and that can be jarring for a lot of people. What Light is doing with the AI generated images is quite uncanny and surreal already so so far it hasn’t been difficult trying to match that feeling. 

[thepermanentrainpress]

THE PERMANENT RAIN PRESS INTERVIEW WITH QUINN LETENDRE OF GREYSHADING

The ability to tell stories comes in multiple shapes and forms: print, music, artwork, audiovisual, the list is is always expanding. For Quinn Letendre’s (of bands Kid Lucifer/Les Soniques) latest project, he dives into the world of narrative podcasting with Greyshading. Developed under the newly established Q19 Media banner, the anthology series “tackles some of the most difficult questions facing our modern society, digging deep into both interpersonal and larger, sociological issues and confronting our notions of black and white.”

Can you tell us more about yourself as an artist, musician, and creator? Who and/or what inspires you on a daily basis?

Sure! Ever since I was young I was always creative, and I wrote short stories in high school, but I soon fell into music and left writing behind for a while. I played in Kid Lucifer and other bands for several years starting in 2015, and while I still wrote occasionally, it wasn’t until the pandemic when I started getting into film more deeply and began writing scripts.

In early 2021 when I couldn’t play shows and Kid Lucifer was disbanded, I made the decision to move back from Montreal, where I had been living for the past few years, to Vancouver. When I moved back, I was fairly disconnected from the music scene, but quickly fell into a group who I started making short films with and shifted my focus to writing and filmmaking.

I’m constantly inspired by so many artists and creatives who are so much better than I am! It might be the only case of imposter syndrome actually working out for the better! I’m constantly writing down little bits of dialogue and ideas that come to me and trying to shape them into full stories. Sometimes I get ideas stuck in my head and they’ll just rattle around there and drive me crazy until I can put them down into a script or story. So in a sense writing is really healthy for me, I guess!

I’m also consistently inspired by my friends I’ve been making films and podcasts with. Nothing inspires creativity more than surrounding yourself with creative people.

What inspired you to create Q19 Media?

The idea of Q19 Media was born out of a frustration with the process of filming. In 2022 I helped make three short films, and while they were super fun to shoot, the pre-production and especially post-production process can be quite taxing. It tends to move slowly and involve a lot of people, all of whom have jobs and lives, and waiting can be frustrating. I had a lot of experience in recording and figured working on a narrative podcast – a medium I had been a fan of for a while, dating back to the original release of the Homecoming podcast – would be a great project that I could control almost all aspects of.

Once I started making Greyshading, I fell in love with the process and the creative freedom of it. I realized so many story/script ideas I had could be created in this medium for cheap and without having to rely on anyone else. It was very liberating creatively, and I’ve got plenty more stories I want to tell, which I why I created the Q19 Media name.

Greyshading is your first narrative podcast. It's an anthology series, so each episode is self-contained. As the writer and director, what went into your design and creative process (format, themes, sound quality) for the podcast?

The single hardest aspect of the project was the writing. It was an interesting challenge to create stories where the audience could follow and understand the location, characters, and storyline without the benefit of visuals and without the writing being overly expository and obvious. This challenge was partially what attracted me to the concept initially, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t difficult at times.

Once the scripts were done the process was fairly quick. I was blessed to find and work with a wildly talented group of actors who understood and made the most of the material. We recorded the episodes with wireless mics, so the actors could move around, use the space and record sound effects (knocking on doors, pouring drinks, etc.) live as we recorded. It felt almost like having them perform a one act play, but just for me! I honestly didn’t have to do a whole lot of directing; the actors were great, and they brought some ideas and takeaways from the scripts I never would have come up with.

Appearing in your first two episodes are your friends and Vancouver actors Johnnier Mejia, Sabrina Valana, and Liam Tait. For many of your actors, this is their first voice role. How did you find your cast and work with them to tell your stories using only audio as a guide?

I was lucky enough to run into and connect with Liam Tait last year, who was a friend of a friend. It turned out that he was transitioning from acting into working behind the camera right when I started dipping my toes into screenwriting. Pretty quickly we started meeting up to talk concepts and developed what turned into “Detour,” the first episode. We filmed it originally as a short film, and when I was conceptualizing the podcast I realized I could rewrite and rework it for an audio only medium.

Through the process of filming the original short Liam introduced me to his circle of friends, an incredibly talented group of people he came up with. Through him I met Johnnier (they worked together on Riverdale) and a bunch of other actors including Vince Song and Lauren Tagliafierro, Sabrina, who also linked me up with a ton of her actor friends, and everyone else. If there’s one thing I know for certain now about actors, it’s that they all know a lot of other actors.

Was any of the dialogue improvised?

I wouldn’t say we improvised necessarily; we stuck fairly close to the script for the recording of the episodes. That said, throughout the process I always encouraged the actors to make whatever tweaks they wanted to the dialogue to make it sound more natural. I wanted the acting to feel very naturalistic and reflect the way that person would actually talk. One of my biggest pet peeves in writing is stilted, unnatural dialogue. I had the actors make small changes to the wording to make it feel more real and authentic, but overall we stuck to the scripts I had written.

Did you go through a lot of re-writes? Were there any episodes that stood out to you as a favourite, or one whose message resonated closest with you?

I certainly did rewrite a fair amount. Both “Detour” and “Divebomb” (episode 3) were originally written to be filmed, so I had to restructure the story to make sense in an audio-only medium, and while I rewrote, I was able to sharpen the scripts as a whole. I tend to do a lot of rewriting - all four of these episodes have first drafts that are significantly worse than the final product.

Plus, for the two episodes I recorded with Sabrina Valana, I had to do a fair bit of rewriting. She’s very in depth and analytical with her preparation process, so she always dives deep and by asking me questions, ends up exposing all the flaws in my scripts! It’s not the most fun process in the world, but it’s worth it.

We listened to the first 2 episodes, and it's very heavy material and intense dialogue (former partners, priorities, panic attacks, estrangement and responsibility). How would you best describe your target audience?

Honestly, I try not to think too hard about the audience for what I’m writing. I find it’s easy to get distracted and lost by trying to imagine the reception for something you’re creating, and you can never know who will and won’t be affected by it.

I hope all kinds of people can relate and appreciate these stories, because while certain perspectives in them are certainly specific, storytelling can be so universal even when it’s specific. But I can easily drive myself crazy thinking about this kind of thing, so I like to just put it out there and hope for the best.

What do you hope listeners learn and take away from Greyshading?

All these episodes are about very different things, so each one has its own themes and takeaways. That said, overall, the idea tying all these stories together is that the idea of things being black or white, or having a grey area ITSELF is never black and white. Some things are black and white. Sometimes there is a grey area, and right and wrong isn’t clear. Life is messy and complicated and if we try to box everything up the same way, we’ll miss the bigger picture. It's important to see things for what they are and take each problem that arises as it comes.

What plans do you have for Q19 Media? How about future seasons of Greyshading?

Q19 Media is a banner under which I hope to host all my fiction and non-fiction podcasts. I’m very excited about my future podcast projects – some of my next projects include a mini-series focused on monologues rather than conversations, a fantasy western audiobook style story with music accompaniment, an adaptation of a science fiction short story I wrote years ago.

I’m certainly interested in doing more seasons of Greyshading. Seeing as it’s an anthology series, it’s a perfect place to house shorter self-contained stories, and I can see myself releasing multiple seasons, but I don’t have any set plan. I see it as something that will continuously be updated when I feel inspired. I’m focused on other projects right now post-release to refresh my creative brain, but I’ll certainly keep updating it with new episodes and seasons when I have some more ideas!

You also co-host The Cine Club with Lauren Tagliafierro. What can you share about that podcast and your love for all things film?

In the last few years I’ve gotten very (unhealthily, you could say) into film and filmmaking. I watch movies constantly, horror especially, and it fuels my creativity in so many ways.

The Cine Club is really just an outlet for me to express all my thoughts about movies so I don’t bottle them up and go crazy! Lauren (another actor I met through Liam and have worked with on multiple projects including Greyshading) and I connected through our mutual love of my favourite film podcast – The Big Picture – and basically just decided to do our own version.

I almost don’t even care if anyone listens to it, I just have a blast recording it and love having the chance to get all my opinions out of my brain. Plus, Lauren and I have very different taste, so it can be fun to argue sometimes!

What films or television series are you looking forward to this year and why?

Too many to count, but to name a few:

TV: I’m really hoping we get a new season of Barry this year, season three was leagues ahead of the already great first two seasons. I also CAN’T WAIT for Yellowjackets season two. Yellowjackets RULES.

Film: Scream 6, I absolutely love the Scream series but came to it late, so I’m super excited to catch one in the theatre for the first time. I’m also super excited for Dune part two, the Boston Strangler movie due to my undying love for Carrie Coon, and Greta Gerwig’s Barbie, of course.

-

Thanks to Quinn for taking the time to chat about his new projects! 

Check out Greyshading on Instagram and your favourite streaming platforms (Spotify and Apple Podcasts). Follow Quinn Letendre on Instagram to stay updated with his current projects. 

[onehawtwriter-blog]

My 1st hello

I guess I could introduce myself – not an easy feat for someone who is not the biggest fan of being perceived. It is far easier to lurk here and reblog things that resonate while never actually penetrating the veil between observer and possibly observed (I say possibly, because I do not find myself interesting enough to garner many views and that is okay, honestly).

I had a tumblr once before, years ago, but I do not know what happened to it. I started this one maybe 6-ish years ago, but never did anything with it. I preferred Twitter (but it is a hellscape there now and maybe always was) and no where has quite the same presence. Certainly, lacks the mass fandoms and art one finds here. Inane little detail, but I do love certain fandoms. I found some of my longest lasted and closest friends because I was a Buffy fan. Some of the smartest fans I’ve seen belong to the Warrior Nun fandom – I thought I was intelligent, I really did, but dayum y’all. I don’t know how to say “I want to be friends because your brain makes me happy” and not sound insanely weird. So, I lurk and sometimes comment. The art here also blows my mind. I would trade just about anything I have to be able to do half of what I see some of these artists capable of.

I am a reader and a writer. I took a hiatus from writing for a good ten years, both as a result of crippling imposter syndrome and because I was pursuing a higher education (part of the imposter syndrome believe it or not) and that shit puts a damper on the creativity. I worried that I’d lost my ability to tell stories because I could no longer see or hear them in my head. Then, towards the end of my internship for my Masters in Clinical Mental Health, the voices returned. Started as a Skyrim fanfic (yes, I am just nerd enough) and then kind of developed a life of its own. Now, though it has some easter eggs related to the original inspiration, it is its own little world filled with monsters, magic, elves, vampires, seriously pissed off gods, and a love story akin to Orpheus and Eurydice (or, for the Warrior Nun fans out there: Ava and Beatrice) between a DL Disney Princess (my sunshine girl) and her gloriously grumpy, morally dark grey vampire girlfriend – I don’t write everyone LGBT, but I do always have a bi lead and a feral little demi LI. The one little fanfiction turned into a trilogy, with a prequel, and a planned collection of short stories filled with the lore, mythology, and legends of the world I created.

I call it (atm) The Overhaven Trilogy.

Book One will be In Pursuit of Lost Echoes (working title).

If my AuDHD (and the imposter syndrome that tells me it isn’t interesting/important) will allow me to remember to make regular updates I might post things here. Artwork I’ve commissioned of the characters. Notes on things I’ve picked up or researched (there’s a LOT). My writing method. Short stories or snippets I want to share. If anyone is interested, they’re also, always, welcome to ask questions, because I never know exactly what to talk about. Asking makes it easier for me.

So… maybe some of my character art next? A bit of an introduction to the characters that have overtaken my brain for over a year now – and the one that has existed there since I was 17 years old.

I’ll try to include a link to the artist (check to see if they have tumblr first. If not than to their twitter, which is where I found them).

[causticsunshine]

.

[epicspheal]

Hey! I remember a while back I read a fanfic of yours regarding twilight wings- the unofficial Raihan episode. In it their was an oc of yours, and I was wondering if you have any more? I like making oc's myself and it's fun to see other people's ideas and stories.

Hi there!  You have...opened the floodgates (in a good way). I have quite a few champion OCs. I’ll focus on the various champion OCs I have since I’ve mentioned this on my blog before the champions of Pokemon remain my favorite class of characters as they have so much potential as we’ve seen with Leon in SwSh. This is going to be a somewhat long post as I have 5 champions to talk about (plus there are pics here, most of them commissions from some very talented artists that I’ve tagged as I can’t draw)

(There’s Marsha and her starter/ace Rosemary the Audino with @hayleyb100 ‘s character Richard. Thank you HayleyB for drawing this! And if you guys haven’t please check out her amazing art and stories)

I’ll start off with the OC you mentioned in your ask...Marsha (full name Marsha Miller). She’s the Alolan champion that we see in my Conviction, the Raihan twilight wings episode (also shameless plug for my fic). Like many champions she’s a mixed type trainer, but she does have a slight preference for fairy types on her team. Unlike the SM/USUM protagonist, she actually hails from Unova but her family is military (her father used to serve under Lt. Surge before becoming a lieutenant himself) and so she’s lived in Unova, Kanto, and Alola. Before she ended up becoming Alola’s champion, she was content with being head of the cheer squad at her high school while in Kanto (before her family announced moving again and she was needless to say, quite upset at the prospect of throwing away her cheer captain title). Back when she lived in Unova, she would often stop by her grandparents herbalist shop to learn about various medicinal herbs.

I hint to this a bit in my Convictions fic when Marsha asks Raihan a question about him becoming champion elsewhere, but Marsha has a huge bout of imposter syndrome from being the first ever champion of Alola as she doesn’t feel like she measures up to the legends like Red or Blue or known superstar champions like Leon and Cynthia. A lot of her character growth comes after she wins the title as she learns to work with Kukui to help build up the Alola League and make it famous. Luckily she happens to be a pretty friendly, if somewhat reserved character making it easy for her to befriend the likes of Leon and Raihan (and she also gets them to be a couple). Both Leon and Raihan give her tips they’ve learned from being in Galar to help boost the reputation of the Alola League. Back in Alola she is good friends with Mallow, Plumeria and Mina as they often visit Mallow’s restaurant to eat and catch up. She ends up being a big sister friend to Gladion, Lillie and Hau (being in her late teens when she first met the kids) as well as Iris when she meets her at the champion’s conference. 

(Credit to @roseltheteacup for this amazing sugimori style artpiece of Calla. Please check out rosel’s artwork as well) 

The next one is my probably my most well-developed champion OC and my version of Victor/Gloria...Calla Okoro. She’s the Sword Hero of Galar to go with Hop’s Shield Hero. Calla is a baby genius with an IQ of 162 (so she’d qualify for MENSA in the real world) and graduated college at the age of 12 with a degree in chemistry, a year before she ends up taking on the gym challenge. Her favorite type is poison and she decided that she would take on the gym challenge by using only Poison types, refusing a starter from Leon to train up her Budew and other poison types she found along the way. 

Her knowledge of poison types would become very useful towards the end of the challenge and Eternatus awakening and possessing Leon , however this girl struggled so much at the beginning as the poison types she caught don’t really get good until they evolve. It was also a testament to having book knowledge of Pokemon and type advantages doesn’t equate to automatically winning a battle. She struggled especially at Kabu’s gym, resulting in her first official loss (outside of losing her second battle to Hop at Magnolia’s house due to his Rookidee being super effective against her Budew nicknamed Sabi). Calla is persistent though and patient so she worked with her team developing a killer toxic stall strategy (that helped her be the first person to take Leon down). As champion Calla uses her position to promote science and eventually goes back to school to get PhD, becoming the first Galar champion to also be a professor. When Calla is not doing Pokemon battles or giving science demos, she tends to enjoy doing backflip competitions with Gordie or rocking out at Piers’ concerts with Marnie and Hop and Bede (Bede will deny hanging out with them) 

(thank you RPG Picrew, I have yet to get official commissioned work of him done) 

This is Jabari Revere, my Kalos champion OC and part of the Kalos 5. I’m still working on his backstory and personality as I replay Pokemon Y (I tend to replay the games for my champion OCs to build up their teams and get a sense for the personality). Jabari is a water type champion who enjoys his days swimming in the ocean and surfing on his Mantine, nicknamed Monterey. Like Serena from the anime he is a bit at odds with his mother Grace for wanting him to take up the family tradiiton of Rhyhorn racing. However unlike anipoke!Serena, he did have a goal of training water type Pokemon with the aim of becoming a water type champion just like Wallace from Hoenn. Jabari is definitely an easy going fellow, which helps him befriend Serena, Tierno, Trevor and Shauna as well as Grant and Clemont. Unlike my Galar champion Calla, he is more willing to use Pokemon other than water types, such as when he fought Korrina at the Mega Evolution tower using the Lucario who was attracted to his aura, or when he rescued Yveltal from Team flare and let it get revenge on Lysandre 

(this piece was done by @snowythesoft aka ChibiGirl! Thank you again for this and also please check out her art as well)

Yes, you’re looking at a robot. His name is Valen and is actually my first non-self insert Pokemon OC. After watching the first Pokemon movie and seeing Mewtwo be a Pokemon trainer, and also after watching the Watson computer on Jeopardy, I came up with the idea of “what if someone made a robot as a Pokemon trainer”. Hence Valen, the world champion of my version of the Pokemon World

Created by Molayne and Sophocles at the request of Red and Blue as a new fixture for the battle tree, Valen quickly began to learn from the some of the strongest trainers how to battle (with a frequent opponent being Marsha as she needed someone who could challenge her in battle). Once he figured out how to consistently beat the likes of Red, Blue and Marsha in battle...it was a wrap. Valen travelled to every known region and soon became the undisputed most powerful trainer in the world defeating every last living champion. He even took on Leon, Cynthia and Red in a triple battle and won. Despite his absolutely monstrous skill Valen is an absolute sweetheart and always compliments his opponents in battle. He also loves bowties, with his first gift being the red bowtie he sports from Sophocles do not touch or harm that bowtie if you value your life, it’s one of the few things that will actually piss off this gentle giant of a robot.

(credits to the VillainSona Picrew)

So this is my final non-self insert champion OC,  His Royal Highness Jack, Duke of Stow-On-Side. In a discord server and on some messages here on tumblr, I’ve described Jack as the unholy combination of Caillou and Jack the Ripper.  Jack hails from a disgraced family of aura guardians who learned that they could use their aura powers to create shadow Pokemon. 150 years prior to the main Sword and Shield story line his family managed to beat back the Hammerlocke Royal family (aka the great Raihan’s family) from Stow-On-Side and Ballonlea to claim the two towns for themselves. When Peony stepped down as champion Jack ended up taking the champion title. Now Jack is actually a legitimately powerful trainer without the need to shadowfy his Pokemon, but he does so anyway to ensure absolute control and to hopefully make his royal family the absolute rulers of Galar (his actions would years later inspire Sordward and Shieldbert, the Dukes of Motostoke). He even bribed gym leaders to be extra difficult on challengers he deemed to be a threat (so Leon, Raihan, Nessa and Sonia got hit hard with this).

Jack’s misdeeds are pretty vast. The reason why Sonia is so unconfident in her battling skills? Jack ambushed her in the wild area and destroyed her in a match while mocking her. Why does Leon have that perfect image as champion? He’s trying to build back the reputation the Galar league has after Jack nearly destroyed it’s rep on the world stage with his actions. Why are Leon and Sonia so insistent on you focusing on the gym challenge and leaving the problems to the adults? The adults during their gym challenge were either on Jack’s side or were actually useless against him and his shadow Pokemon. To quote my friends in an rp server I’m in “Jack is the absolute worst”  So that’s all of the champion OCs I have. As I continue to write more fanfic will definitely see all of them pop up in various stories. 

[mamthew]

As always during tumultuous times, I've been thinking a lot about T. S. Eliot. Previously, when things have been difficult, I've listened to and read "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" a lot. Like...a lot a lot. It's pretty consistently been my favorite poem, since high school. One of my most vivid memories is of drunkenly stumbling down the streets of my town at 3 in the morning on my 25th birthday, listening to a reading of the poem on my phone and uncontrollably sobbing (it was not a good day; it was not a good year).

I've had times when I had almost the entire poem memorized, due to repetition alone. But - like with all of his poems - what Eliot intended for the poem to be about...wasn't especially interesting or insightful, and certainly didn't have any real bearing on my own experiences. To Eliot, "Prufrock" was a poem about being introverted at parties. To me, it's a poem about existential anxiety, the fear of being left behind by the passage of time, and the irony that that very fear might leave one paralyzed, unable to act at all because of the anxiety. Literary Modernism, as with most art movements, was a response to what came before it. In this case, it was a response to Victorian literature. Most people characterize the difference between the two as something along the lines of, "Victorian literature involves rigid binary oppositions and unquestionable truths, while Modernist literature questions those oppositions and problematizes whether there is a such thing as objective truth." What this tends to ignore, and what I find simultaneously most appealing and most appalling about much (though certainly not all) of Modernist literature is that it doesn't tend to purposely break down these binaries and truths so much as comment that these binaries and truths have been broken down, and then grieve their loss. This may sound familiar, but in case it doesn't, studying Modernist literature was how I came to learn about Fascism. Eliot wrote extensively about how the perfect governmental system would be a form of feudalism in which the feudal lords were intellectual elites, rather than moneyed elites. He believed that most humans weren't really "individuals" in the same way Eliot and his associates were, and therefore must be stripped of their rights and resources so those who were true "individuals" could finally flourish. One such associate, Wyndham Lewis, wrote in support of Hitler before World War II, and even created his own protofascist brownshirt gang as part of an art movement inspired by Cubism and Marinetti's Futurism. Many Fascists love to "reject" "Modernism" for not being traditional, or whatever, but a good chunk of actual Modernist art is driven by Fascist impulses. I think the real reason they hate Modernism is that in order to grieve the breakdown of rigid binaries, one must first (if subconsciously) understand that these binaries have broken down, which kinda puts some holes in the whole "cult of tradition" thing. Similarly to how most scholars of Fascism differentiate between Fascist movements and Fascist states, I tend to think of Modernism as the art of the Fascist bourgeoisie, while they publicly decry it in favor of more traditionalist Neoclassicist art for the "unwashed masses." Modernism is rejected because it cannot be used to effectively propagandize. I think this is part of why I've always found such comfort in Modernist literature at difficult times. Grief and anxiety at the realization that the world isn't what you had always believed it to be is a natural, human impulse, and reading art by someone else experiencing that same grief and anxiety is cathartic. Maybe Eliot didn't mean to write about Prufrock's debilitating imposter syndrome, but that doesn't mean I don't see myself in it. I think it's a good reminder, too, that there is still value to be found in problematic artwork, and that horrible political movements that must be opposed at all costs are still rooted in something recognizeably human. My having learned all this about Eliot and the larger Modernist movement means that now I think about Eliot both during personally tumultuous times and during politically tumultuous times. As time has gone on, however, the line between those two has blurred substantially. Now, there is no line. More likely, the line was never there to begin with, and I simply hadn't meaningfully internalized that truth yet. Still, now I'm moving to a completely new city in less than a week, to a city that has been placed under martial law several times recently, during a pandemic that has been corrupted into a culture war, while the government threatens to start kidnapping people off the streets in many major cities, in an election year pitting a Fascist against a..."corporatist anti-leftist running on a platform of a return to an idealized past." And I am uprooting my life so that I might learn about America. This is the first time I've thought this much about Eliot without actually going and reading "Prufrock," or "The Waste Land." Much as the political has finally eclipsed the personal, so too has my image of Eliot and what he represents to me eclipsed the minutiae of his works.

[annaspoolstra]

Reading Response #2

🔍Thoughts on “Art is Pretentious” video:

I found it really interesting that the video didn’t deny that art is pretentious. It caught me a little off guard that she actually agreed that both artists and art in general can be pretentious, and actually have to be in order to create art and to be art, respectively. I loved her description of the creative process (1:30). In fact, it made me really think this class is going to debunk a lot of presuppositions I have about art and the artistic process. Sometimes I struggle with identifying myself as an artist, because it can be hard for me to create things. But when she laid out the creative process, I could 100% relate. It starts with insecurity and doubt, interspersed with “brief moments of pleasure at having made something halfway decent” (haha, so true!), followed by summoning enormous amounts of confidence to share your work with others, and concluding with the forever occurrence of what many Instagram artists I follow call “imposter syndrome”. You forever doubt your work’s worth in the eyes of the world, regardless of how many people say they like it. For me, it’s more like my work rarely lives up to my own standards, so it’s hard to accept its worth from others. And it’s hard to go on creating when I’ve made something deemed “bad;” you have to summon perseverance and that hope that the next thing you make will be better.

Gosh it’s stressful being an artist! No wonder the video calls them brave! 😅

🔍Thoughts on “I Could Do That” video:

I’ll be honest, I’m not always the biggest fan of abstract and conceptual art. I’ve gained a more open mind in recent years, but there have been times where I just had to laugh with my mom over our shared confusion and the absurdity of certain pieces. Sometimes abstract pieces look simple enough that I feel like I actually could do them myself. But this video really challenged that thinking. It pointed out that the piece by itself isn’t always meant to tell you the whole story. Every piece of artwork has a backstory, and an explantation (I’ve realized that this is actually part of art for me! I always love learning more of the why behind things). A piece of art may look simple, but that doesn’t mean it’s of little value. So to truly assess the value of artwork, you have to understand the backstory of the piece: the who, what, why, and how behind it. So instead of criticizing the art for being simple, we need to acknowledge that maybe our thinking is that “[t]his doesn’t display a remarkable amount of technical skill, and that’s what I really look for in art.” But that doesn’t mean the piece is worthless, or even of lesser value than a classic painting. As was pointed out in the video, ”[I]t’s not that these [pieces] don’t take skill, they just take different kinds of skill” (4:39).

🔍Further Exploration:

To explore this idea further, I chose to research a piece by Felix González-Torres called Untitled (Perfect Lovers), which depicts two battery-powered clocks side-by-side, ticking in perfect synchronization. At first glance, this is an incredibly simple piece of artwork––in fact, had the two clocks not been positioned side-by-side, you may wonder if it’s even art at all. You can’t understand the significance and inspiration for this piece just by looking at the clocks. So really, especially for conceptual art, the piece itself is just the tip of the iceberg, so to speak. So after doing some research, I found that the clocks represent González-Torres and his lover, Ross Laycock. The piece was made as a portrayal of Laycock’s decline in his battle against AIDS, which is illustrated by one clock eventually falling out of sync with the other. While this piece mainly appears to symbolize González-Torres’ relationship with his partner, it’s also an exploration of “the temporal nature of life.”

Truthfully, I can appreciate the symbolism of this piece; however, I have a hard time fully appreciating it because of my beliefs. I think the artist’s metaphor for two clocks representing lovers in perfect harmony is beautiful. But knowing that he was referring to his own homosexual relationship somewhat taints the piece for me, since God forbids homosexuality in the Bible. However, although the artist’s lifestyle doesn’t align with my faith, that doesn’t mean his art isn’t valuable. This is a very unique, thought-provoking piece, and I appreciate the artist’s meaning behind its creation. I just view it through a different lens because of my faith.

🔍Sites Referenced:

https://publicdelivery.org/felix-gonzalez-torres-clocks/

https://www.theartstory.org/artist/gonzalez-torres-felix/artworks/

📷Image Above:

From “I Could Do That” video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67EKAIY43kg&feature=emb_logo