#i don't usually do digital art but made an exception since this was something more simple | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

daftpatience · 1 year ago

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Do you have any tips or advice for running an artists booth at a convention? I'm thinking about doing it eventually and been wanting to hear from people who have done it before :^)

yeah!!! lemme rattle off a few things off the top a my head also, pardon me 4 using amazon dot ca links for products that i mention. its just easy to find references that way (and often u can look up the brand and find their non-amazon store etc etc)

this got super long so im putting it under a cut!!

• join an artist alley group!! i'm in this artist alley discord and it is a fantastic place to get info about cons, table display ideas, manufacturer recommendations, etc. there are more than just this group out there and i think there are bigger ones but i personally really like this one ^u^ i make a ton of use of the display resources and manu recommendation channels!

• if you can afford it, be choosy about the events you apply to. there are a lot of cons out there that are fantastic, and a lot that aren't worth the trouble, and i don't necessarily mean small vs big cons. some of my fav events are smaller artist alleys local to me, and most of the artists i know avoid informa (fanexpo) like the plague. check out what other artists have to say about past events and keep an eye out for red flags: personally i find cons with really out of date/poorly advertised social medias and websites that have mismatched info are a warning sign of a mismanaged and not well attended event. • you don't need a lot of fancy display stuff to start, those sorts of things you can build up over time. im a fan of getting a ton of my display stuff from the dollar store >:)

when you're ready and need the space to display a good amount of art the main thing you wanna pick up is definitely something that gives your table some verticality, whether that's a pvc pipe style setup, pegboards, or modular cube shelving (we all used to use these big heavy grid ones until the plastic sheet covered ones came out and now we all use those. theyre cuter and lighter and fit better on a table and come in more colours yayay. im sure some people still like the grid ones since they fit gridwall accessories tho) there are lots of other ways to display stuff but these r what i am most familiar with. definitely helps to look at youtube and pinterest and discord groups for display ideas!!

another thing you will want to start is a tablecloth. not every con has their tables already covered! there are those plastic picnic ones at dollar stores, and you can thrift bedsheets/fabric too.

• depending on the type of display and art you do you'll need some way to attach signs/prints/charms/etc to your display. i just moved from blu-tack to magnets but i used to use sewing clips (back when i used the grid cubes) and before then masking tape. all of them are okay and cool! except blu-tack. don't make the same mistakes as me it adds like 40 whole minutes to teardown and it leaves gross oil on the prints after some time. evil

• if you don't have business cards you can make a sign with a qr code that links to you/your shop! there are lots of qr code makers online that u can even customize with images and colours and stuff. there will be people that wanna know how to find you again after a con!

• these days a lot of people don't bring cash to conventions and it's pretty vital to bring some sort of card reader or other digital payment method. most of us use square - they recently made it so that the phone app can accept tap! so you don't need to jump for the expensive physical readers. i've also got a paypal dot me qr code and my etransfer email (i think this is a canadian thing) on a lil sign on the table so people have lots of payment options. usually over 50% of my con income comes from non-cash sales!

• make sure to bring change!! we've forgotten in the past and done okay but it's always handy to be able to make change for people. you'll want a secure place to put cash as well, whether it's a locked moneybox that you keep out of sight or a place on your person (friend of mine uses a fanny pack!) you never wanna leave your table completely unattended but especially when it comes to the moneybox. if it's a multi day con this is an item you mustn't leave at your table overnight.

• keep count of your sales and expenses properly so that you can see how much you made at the end of the con. i really like spreadsheets but you can even just note it down in a book. here's a little example of one con for me:

• you'll want to make a checklist of stock and display stuff to bring, but don't forget to make a list of minor stuff like phone chargers and scissors and tape and glue and pens and paper. multiple types of tape and paper if possible. they don't feel super important until you're stuck because you forgot to make a price sign and have to get by with a sharpie and a napkin. don't let that be you!! dollar store sticky note pads are super useful for this type of thing.

• plan out your prices and do as much prep (counting, sign making, display planning, packing/sorting) as you can beforehand so that the event doesn't feel too stressful. make sure your merchandise is stored in an easily accessible way for you behind the table so you aren't scrambling or rummaging too much when people are asking for stuff!

• similarly, whatever you can leave out for people to just pick/grab themselves, the more of it you're likely to sell. things like stickers and charms are good for this - people like to touch stuff! and it makes it so you don't need to go fishing for items for people as frequently. generally i don't do this with more expensive items just to be safe.

• if you sell prints, people are gonna ask for sleeves to keep them safe, especially at outdoor events. sometimes people ask for sleeves/bags even if they dont buy anything. they're a good idea to have on hand and you can find em for pretty cheap online and for a bit more expensive at dollar stores (i use OPP bags. if you dont wanna use plastic you can always get paper bags/envelopes/glassine bags instead)

• a cushion for the chair is a good idea. lots of conventions have really uncomfy chairs. some folks even bring camping chairs instead!

• pack snacks/lunch/water/drinks/have lunch plans. if you have a table buddy that is able to run out for food that's always nice. you might be sitting but it uses a lot of energy to interface all day!! you'll be exhausted and hungry and it's gonna be important to get enough fuel for your brain to function properly. i genuinely would recommend juice/soda/coffee/energy dink alongside water and food if you wanna live, especially if its a multi day con. get good sleep on days between!

• if you're excited to do trades with other artists during the con, the general etiquette is to wait until later in the day/near the end when the crowds are winding down! it's always okay to ask if someone's doing trades, and don't be upset or press them if they aren't interested or have certain stuff they don't want to trade.

• speaking of con etiquette, depending on the type of vert you are (intro/extro) and or how much customer service experience you have, interfacing can be nervewracking. my general rule is that if they stop to look, i say Hello and let them browse. if they seem interested in my table i try and do some small talk. stuff like How are you/How's the event been for ya/compliments on their outfit/cosplay/merch they have on like pins etc are good! kids and old folks love this. as tiring as it is to do some of my favourite parts of cons is talking to nice people that like my art!! all the folks that say nice things about my work are what keep me drawing ;w; i keep my sketchbook with me to jot down/doodle nice and funny encounters just cus it makes me happy to look back on XD

• when it's teardown time try to put stuff away as neatly as you can. you might be tired and just wanna toss all your stuff into whatever it is you brought it in but i promise future you (especially next-con you) will be so thankful that you put all your price signs into one baggie etc etc.

• speaking of bringing and putting away merch - you'll need a way to get it all from your home/car to your table and back. lots of people use dollies and other types of utility cart (i can guarantee there are a bunch of those grandma grocery ones at your local thrift store!!) - i personally use a big luggage bag and a collapsible wagon, but back in the day we used to CARRY bin after bin of stuff from the car and back in multiple trips which i would NOT reccomend lol. not every convention hall is easily accessible or close to parking so not having to lift stuff if you can avoid it is gonna be vital.

#sorry this is SO LONG #i have a lot of con onions #artist alley #convention

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wolame-o-ccx · 2 years ago

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would genuinely love to see your process for sketching out your comics!! ive wanted to make my own but i have never really figured out the process and end up overwhelmed- and you're one of the folks who makes stuff in a style that I kinda draw close to, and u do ur comics with pencil and paper- so if you wouldn't mind in the future, it'd be really cool to see how you actually get everything planned :)

This ask is so cute :( probably genuinely the biggest compliment I've ever received! Well, no waiting in the future! I'll tell you now what happens behind the scenes! :)

SO FIRSTLY, I'd like to clarify I am in no way a professional or even close to one, I never even looked up how to do comics, I just kinda do them and use what I've read from DC comics and Pinterest tips.

But! Personally, I find that making comics is fun and that's what I strive on. I won't lie when I say my comics are pretty bland, the surroundings are empty and lame but I think the character's expressions and body language make up for it, and especially the script. So altogether in this post, I'll be breaking down how my comics are made!

↓↓↓ if you're interested, open up the full post!

1 - Scripting

In both dialogue and character detail/placing!

I use a notes app for when I get ideas!

* I usually don't do specific dialogue, only stating the idea and then coming up with dialogue in my head, but there are some exceptions where I do write down pre-thought-out dialogues you can see in the examples I put below!

With the idea / dialogue in tow, we can go to character detail / placing. I don't know the actual word for it but basically how the character acts in a specific scene / dialogue!

Character expression is especially important when it comes to any type of art, be it comics or animation as it can tell a story with little to no dialogue!

* panels taken from 1 and 2 for context

From here you can clearly tell their expressions well! Be sure to exaggerate!

2 - Limit planning

With Tumblr's 10 images limit, as well as Instagram if you post there, it's important to note that limit and know when to end the comic with a good panel where it doesn't feel like it's supposed to continue UNLESS you're making two parts!

I can't tell you how many times I've ruined my sketchbook papers trying to get a perfect script but I've been doing it long enough that my brain has adapted to the limit and every comic I've done since adapting had been a perfect ≤10.

But even if you decide to go with two (or maybe even more) parts, you should make sure it ends well still! Like a book! Those spaces between paragraphs and chapters and such!

Take these for examples too!

* panels taken from 1 and 2 for context

So treat it like a book! I guess ?

3 - Panel placement

This isn't a necessity, but my personal way of drawing each panel is having it scattered around randomly around my sketchbook. I don't use strips or anything like that as it restricts me because using strips on paper is a whole lot harder than on digital. Because I have such a wide area to draw, I'm less restricted from drawing any excess things I want to add in case my dialogue doesn't fit the panel or so!

4 - Draw

Now to put it all together and make the comic! I usually already have my vision in mind so I can just go draw it without a light sketch layer, but I do recommend it!

What that is is essentially a sketch but drawn like.. your pencil is hovered above the page? Like you don't press down on it or something like that. Basically a guideline! So do that if you need it, and when you're satisfied with how it looks, you can draw it! And make sure it's clear!

After that, it's just picture and post! (Make sure you crop it right tho!)

4.5 - BONUS / TIPS

When I started posting Belos drawings, I never expected it to get any attention or even end up as a whole AU 😭 I just drew him in a babygirl hoodie and people ate that shit up so now it's an AU 💀 and because of that you need to prepare personalized tags!

Tags like pitmdau or sharing caleb au ! Very very useful for navigation

More important than tags, make sure you have a Masterpost!

I'm aware mine are unfinished and very messy and I'm trying to work on that right now but it's very difficult but people really need it so when making Masterposts, YOU HAVE KEEP UP WITH IT. I slacked of for ONE POST and now it's a mess.

Also another important note you can only put 100 links in one post so you have to make more Masterposts to navigate through the comics 😭

5 - Have fun!

When getting into comic making, I think really the most important thing to keep in mind is your enjoyment in making said comics. Sometimes some things can burn you out very quickly so when you're getting into things like this, especially when you're not getting paid, you gotta make sure you have fun doing it. It doesn't matter if it doesn't get a lot of traction or not, it only matters that you are enjoying making and posting them!

I've experienced MULTIPLE burn outs from making too many comics for my TOH AUs that at some point I just completely died and lacked motivation. But what drives me into making them are other people's enjoyment! Their enjoyment gives me enjoyment which gives me motivation to make more. Someday I'll know the AUs I've created will inevitably be over, at some point, but right now I'm just having fun with the small community I've built!

So make comics, and have fun!

I hope this was helpful in any way. I just want to clarify that, again, this is my way of making comics, and you don't have to follow anything I put into the post. I'm mostly hoping this was easy to understand as well. I'm more of a visual learner so making up the words to make this was kinda hard so I'm sorry if some parts didn't make sense. If anything, feel free to hit me with another ask or a PM! I know me not posting seems like I'm inactive but I promise I check Tumblr frequently 😭

Happy posting!!! :3

#asks #pitmdau #sharing caleb au #masterpost

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thegrinningkitten · 4 years ago

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Hey youre a wonderful artist there! I just wanted to ask when it comes to drawing a comic or a short one. How do you make it? Like to het an idea and then start making it I allways wanted to make one but since I don't know any pf this just asking from a pro

Obligatory disclaimer: I'm not a pro. I've just been doing this for a while.

Not sure what part of the process you find confusing, so I figured I'd just go over the general steps in comic-making process and give some personal notes. You can ask for clarification for a particular step then, if you still find it confusing. (Also, not gonna cover other drawing skills here, like anatomy, color theory, character design, acting, etc.)

1. Idea. You need one to make a comic. While there are some exceptions, comic ideas are usually stories — yes, even if they're four-panel strips. If you plan on making it a one-shot, you obviously have to know what that story is — beginning to end. If you're making a longer comic, you can leave some parts to be figured out later. (My longest comic, the Apple Incident? Like, half of its contents were improvised as I worked on it. Things often fall in place when you're already making a comic, so you shouldn't procrastinate on starting just because you don't know every last detail.)

2. Should this idea be a comic? An unexpected question maybe, but consider whether this idea is best suited for a comic. For example, sometimes, if what you want to do is highly introspective or relies on monologues, it would make a better written story than a comic. On the other hand, comics allow for the timing and visual descriptions that writing doesn't provide. So consider what art medium is best for what you're doing first. (Side note: if you have a chance, check out Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud. It's an amazing exploration and explanation of comics as a medium.)

3. Assuming you are, in fact, making a comic, figure out the technical stuff.

One-shot or a lengthier comic? Depends on how long your story is.

Strips or pages? Strips are best for humorous and slice-of-life stories; pages are more versatile.

Traditional or digital? Depends on your skillset.

How detailed will the artwork be? Depends on what you're trying to achieve: humorous strips rarely need a lot of background; if you plan to get new pages out quickly they shouldn't take you days to draw, etc. (A lot of my decisions have me cutting corners. I rarely have shading in my digital comics. The Apple Incident is made traditionally and in grayscale because it takes me less time to draw it this way. Etc.)

4. (Optional) Write your script. Some people prefer to have their script written out in advance — at least for the page/strip they're about to work on. Some don't. (I tend to keep scripts only when I have very specific dialogue I want to fit in.)

5. Plan out your page/strip. Make a thumbnail that indicates where the main parts of your comic page/strip go: panels, characters, speech bubbles, etc. You might want to look up a tutorial on comic composition (there are plenty online). Though the basic ways to check yourself are such: If it's unclear what bubble/panel to read next, you're probably doing something wrong. (And yes, it's best to plan the placement of speech bubbles at this stage. Pretend they're also characters you need to fit into the scene. That way their placement would be more coherent and won't interfere with the composition afterwards.)

6. Draw the page/strip. Here the process is the same as with how you normally draw your artwork. One thing to note: it's best to treat the page/strip as a single artwork, so when you're sketching, sketch all of it at once, and the same goes for all the other stages of drawing.

7. If there's more than one page/strip, repeat points 4-6 until you're done.

#Jass rambles #asks

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gisachi · 4 years ago

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Hi ^^ I know that your requests are now closed but I was thinking that, given you have written jealous Shinichi, I would very much enjoy some jealous Ran! Maybe you can mix it with one of the prompts? Just throwing the idea out there, no pressure. Delete this if you don't feel like it, it's okay really. Thank you for writing these amazing fics, the shinran fandom is in your debt. ❤️

So this is the last (!!!) and longest (!!!) of the kiss prompts, and I dedicate it to multiple-requests Anon and to this Anon. I hope both of you still see this. It took me a while. ^^;;

P.S. Special thanks to @artycreaty for keeping this in check. You are awesome. 🥰

41. Kisses shared under an umbrella. 46. A lingering kiss before a long trip apart. (6,489 words)

Ran keeps telling herself she has no right to be jealous.

She has hundreds of reasons not to. They’re merely childhood best friends. Life would be much easier if she didn’t involve herself in his business twenty-four seven. Shinichi absolutely doesn’t look at her that way. And so forth.

She wonders why they’re even friends in the first place. If their parents hadn’t enrolled them in the same kindergarten, she was certain they wouldn’t even be on speaking terms. He lives in a world of grisly books and crimes, she in a world of martial and visual arts. Their hobbies don’t overlap. They excel in different fields. They enter the same university with completely unrelated majors. The only bond they have in common is their shared history. Literally bonded since they were four, until now at nineteen.

So when she sees him all jolly around his newfound circle who hold the same interest in Holmes or detective work, it shouldn’t surprise her as much. It’s part of university life, it’s normal, they expand their horizons, and Ran understands that it hits much differently when they bond with people who like the same stuff they do. Something she’s aware they cannot share a hundred percent.

She’s proud of him, and she absolutely has no right to feel jealous, especially when she sees him around taller, prettier, more interesting women from his course block. There is no reason for her to look away with a heavy weight in her chest everytime the women get giggly and touchy while he’s absorbed in narrating his stories.

Everytime she does, she reminds herself of how he didn’t seem to mind when she was casted as the protagonist of their high school play and the leading man was the handsome Araide-sensei. Or how he simply shrugged when she fawned over the brother of a classmate because he looked so much like the karate senpai she was crushing on. Or when she secretly caught Sonoko dragging the detective behind gym after P.E. to confront him about his opinion regarding an upperclassman courting Ran and his only response was, ‘She can like whoever she likes, Sonoko. I’m not her boyfriend.’

He never showed her any sign of jealousy, therefore he must not be into her. Simple as that. So it’s unfair for her to be treating him differently. Getting snarky just because he received sixteen new fan mails again, more now that they’re in uni, and two even coming from the popular criminology seniors he is often teased to? Or ignoring him unprecedentedly just because his eyes followed the back of a woman with long chestnut hair and voluptuous curves? There are plenty of fish in the sea, and he’s bound to be attracted to someone else. This is a pill she ought to learn to swallow eventually.

Eventually.

“Shinichi-kun, you never told us about your scariest case yet, tell us about it?”

Kaori closes her notes and so do the other two girls across her, and Shinichi’s eyes twinkle. He truly seems to enjoy study sessions with the little group they made consisting of some of his and Ran’s coursemates because they love listening to his stories.

“At the top of my head is this murderer disguised as a bandaged man, and he targeted us one by one…” and so the detective drones. Ran pauses typing and reminisces quietly. Ah, that one from summer three years ago. I was almost injured by that crazy man during my sleep but Shinichi woke me up in time.

“Ran-san,” Shun, her friend and coursemate, mutters beside her, also stopping his typing to listen to the detective’s story. “It’s ridiculous how popular Kudou-kun is with the girls. He’s full of wild adventures.”

“Yes, he is,” Ran says, smiling. “He’s been a girl magnet ever since high school.”

She watches as Kaori inches closer to Shinichi, listening attentively, chin on her palm and flirtatious smile on her lips as the detective rants on and on.

For the third time that afternoon, Ran looks away.

Ran keeps telling herself she has no right to be jealous.

She does, everyday, but it’s hard when he smiles at her, cares for her, holds her in a way she’s never seen him do for anyone else. It gives her hope every time the girls cling to him but he never touches them back, whereas he automatically slings his arm over her shoulder because she’s afraid or cold or he simply feels like it.

Then again, maybe she’s giving herself too much credit. Perhaps it’s a free pass for being around him for too long. She even gets to spend time with him during weekends and holidays. It isn’t special because it’s normal.

And that’s all she’ll ever be, a normal girl in his eyes.

“Ran? She’s pretty special.”

Ran reacts to the mention of her name and catches Shinichi looking at her. “She appears quiet but she can kick anyone’s ass without breaking a sweat. It’s bad if you cross her,” Shinichi gloats with a grin.

“Oh my god, really? We can bring her with us then!” Kaori claps her hands in excitement.

“Ah... But she won’t like that,” he follows up, wary. Ran has missed the topic they were talking about and now she’s curious.

“But ghosts aren’t real and Mouri-san can give them a good beating!”

“Gh-Ghosts?” The color in her cheeks drains, eyes freezing at Shinichi who has probably already expected that reaction, for he sports that same look of concern as those times he had expressed whenever she joined him in his way-past-bedtime elementary school adventures.

“We’ll investigate an abandoned house I always pass by walking home,” Kaori explains. “Last night I saw a faint cigarette light at the second floor window. It might be a fugitive or a homeless person or a ghost, who knows?”

“You don’t need to come if you don’t want to, Ran,” Shinichi assures.

Gulping, Ran contemplates whether going with them will do her any good. It’s a nice change, it’s been a while since she last tagged with Shinichi in his cases. But she isn’t exactly proud of shrieking like a little kid in front of serious criminology majors who may feel like she’ll drag their covert investigation down if she joins.

“...I’ll pass,” she answers meekly, and his coursemates sulk except Shinichi, who offers her a smile of understanding.

“Man, I thought we’ll be able to see Mouri-san in action!”

“That’s ok, maybe next time. We still have Shinichi-kun!”

“Shinichi-kun will protect us, ne?”

“Hah. Right. Invite Hakuba too, use him.”

“Oh c’mooon, Shinichi-kun!”

Ran closes her eyes, struggling to zone their voices out.

In her silence, Ran ponders if she has made a wrong choice.

Ran has no right to be jealous. So it’s unfair for her to be treating him this way.

The following weekend, Shinichi narrates what happened in their late-night investigation. Hakuba wasn’t there so Shinichi was the only available guy as usual. Ran refuses to hear any more details, both of the haunted house and secretly of the girls chancing onto him during the investigation. Shinichi is puzzled.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“Nah, just swamped with work.”

“On a Sunday?”

“Yes.”

“Want me to assist?”

“No.”

Her replies are curt from the couch of his house, not looking at Shinichi on the other end as she mindlessly cleans up her digital sketches. She hates how snappy she sounds but her brain is too absorbed with conjuring spiteful imaginations to even think of masking her annoyance.

“Ran, hey. Look at me.”

His low voice freezes her from drawing, and she slowly looks up to meet Shinichi’s serious eyes.

When this happens, she knows he’s reading her. She inwardly chants a prayer because now isn’t a good time. Whatever time isn’t a good time. She doesn’t know what to say when she’s aware everything she’s been feeling is irrational and unfair. She’s being selfish.

“You’re… stressed.”

“No, I’m… Eh?”

He scoots closer, an arm’s length away. “Your dark circles are more prominent now, you need a break.” His eyes turn a soft blue. “Let’s have dinner out? My treat.”

Ran is surprised, to say the least. The last time he invited her out was two weeks ago. She’s become so used to seeing him around others that any initiative from him sounds too good to be true.

“But I need to finish this project by tonight.”

“Let’s have food delivery then!” Shinichi announces, not rattled by Ran’s indirect refusal. “I know exactly what you want. Ramen and shaved ice.”

Her eyes thin at the absurdly goofy expression she knows he makes when he’s being mischievous. “Clearly you’re ordering that ramen for yourself. I only like shaved ice.”

“Damn! Miss Detective gets it.” A mile-wide grin stretches across his face, earning an eye roll from the half-smiling woman. “Let’s eat together on your short break, please?”

He leans within a respectful distance and she sees his smile better, pair of kind eyes locking with her overworked ones. “It’s been a while.”

Her heart throbs for him. So much.

She caves - of course she does - and breathes her acquiescence.

After two long weeks, they have dinner together, just them and Shinichi’s ramen and Ran’s donburi and shaved ice, Shinichi taking a spoonful of dessert from the cup when she isn’t looking and Ran snatching a slurp from his take-out bowl and laughing when he catches her.

With how heartfelt his laughter is in her presence devoid of any mysteries, Ran knows she’s probably giving herself too much credit, but for once she wants to believe she is the cause of why Shinichi’s happy.

Just for that night, she gives it to herself.

She’ll change the dark colors of her digital artwork to brighter ones after they eat.

Despite everything, Ran finds it difficult to contain her recurring jealousy.

The more she shares precious time with him, the more it gets harder to suppress the selfish emotions. What is so unsatisfying about being the best friend is that she is only the best friend. No more no less. At the end of the day, she isn’t the one he gets to cuddle with, to tease then kiss, to tell ‘I love you’ to, romantically.

“I love you.”

Ran feels her heart about to leap out of her chest.

“But please. Stop. Tearing. The. Cushions!”

The little furball he has scooped underneath a throw pillow wiggle from his grasp. The kitten and detective engage in a brief staring showdown before it jumps away to hide under a farther couch.

Snapping out of reverie, Ran watches her childhood friend slink dejectedly onto the partly scratched furniture. He’s fortunate enough that his mother isn’t around to give him a long lecture on Why Pets Aren’t Allowed in the House 101. She can always take Yukiko-san’s role and reprimand him for it, but as for this and the cat, she finds herself not wanting to intervene.

“Kaori-san sure is taking her time with her parent’s permission. By the time she does, Momo would’ve shredded all the pillows in this house.”

“You named the cat?” Ran asks, amused.

“She did.” He thinks for a moment, then sniggers. “Actually I did. I suggested a random name. She took it.”

Ran merely hums. What can she say? They’re getting close. Close enough to team up as parents to an adopted kitten.

“I’m surprised you also agreed to keep Momo when you never took in animals before.”

“Kaori said she’ll treat me to the latest Detective Samonji movie this weekend if I do. Can’t resist that.”

“Just you two?”

“Yeah.”

A beat. Then he turns to her.

“Wanna join? I can ask her to count you in since you’re kinda helpi—”

“N-no need,” Ran quips, “It’s—It’s fine.”

“No really,” Shinichi insists, “Kaori-san has a lot of money, she—”

“I’m going to Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum with Shun-san this weekend... so... I can’t.”

“Ah.”

Silence.

“It’s, um, for a project,” she bolsters.

“I know.” The faintest smile graces his lips. “It’s your thing. Both of you.”

“Mm.”

He doesn’t say anything else after that.

“Shinichi, you’re a detective, right?” she blurts out of the blue.

“Yeah...and?”

Then deduce what I feel. Here and now.

“Then you’re going to enjoy that movie!” Ran forces a beam, giving Shinichi a thumb of approval. “And you can discuss it with Kaori-san over dinner. I’m sure you two have a lot to say about it.”

Shinichi’s eyes linger on her, reading her like a book, and Ran has her mind reeling again, afraid to be read.

“Yeah, we do,” he finally says, ending the conversation.

Only a few words are uttered the rest of the afternoon.

Momo resurfaces and curls beside Shinichi.

Momo’s purring is loud, but Ran’s shattering heart is louder.

Ran must not feel jealous. She is not a girlfriend.

Because she isn’t a girlfriend, he’s free to fall for and date anyone else. Who is she to gatekeep him? There are plenty of fish in the sea, and he’s one big catch. Ran believes she’s a big catch, too. With the way she loves dearly, her future boyfriend is going to be very lucky.

Her future boyfriend is not going to be him.

“...mber the required fieldwork in one of my majors I told you? We actually go by batches. The first batch did theirs last month. The second batch was last week… and I— Ran, are you listening?”

“Ah! Yes,” Ran notices they have already reached her station and are now walking two blocks to her apartment. “Your fieldwork, right?”

“...Yeah,” he carries on. “I’m in the last batch... This whole winter break.”

“I see, I understand.” She smiles, getting what he means. No Christmas or New Year’s Eve together. The first time since they’re four. It’s fine, honestly. If it’s a required activity, then there’s really no way to go about it. She isn’t going to lash out just because she can’t be with him in her most favorite time of the year.

“And Hattori-kun and Hakuba-kun will be with you?”

“Hattori did his last month. Hakuba is in the previous batch. I’ll be stuck with the girls.”

Ran’s heart momentarily squeezes. “Where will your fieldwork be?”

“In Akita.”

Her pupils constrict. “That far?”

“Yes... so to cut on expenses, Kaori-san offered her house for me and the others to stay while we’re there—”

Kaori. Again with the tall, beautiful, intelligent Kaori. She bets it’s amazing to spend the holidays doing what he loves and with Kaori beside her, snuggling with him by the fireplace in a romantic snowy night and she might even confess, and it’ll be a great catch for Shinichi, and he’ll return with a girlfriend, and—

“Kaori-san is lucky.” The words flow out of her mouth, unbridled.

Shinichi looks at her. “Lucky?”

Ran remains quiet and keeps walking. It’s dangerous to say anything. She only has one thing in her mind and she doesn’t want to say it out loud. She has no right.

“Ran, hey.”

She doesn’t stop walking.

“Ran.”

She ignores his call.

“Ran… you’re jealous.”

She stops walking.

“Excuse me?”

“...You’re jealous…” Shinichi repeats quietly.

A contrast to his calm tone, his irises beset hers in the cold twilight and Ran attempts to shield herself but her bag and umbrella are in the way. She thinks of turning away but her feet are frigid like icicles, and Shinichi steps closer.

For the third time, he declares, “You’re jealous.”

Hearing her thoughts echo through his words renders her speechless.

It seems to take a moment before Shinichi’s brow arches, lips curl up as his eyes refuse to stray, and she hears a faint exhale even, like he’s exasperated, and suddenly he’s smiling - or is he smirking? sneering? - and...and...

It stings, is her immediate reaction.

For the longest time, she’d wanted him to take a hint. But if she had known this was how he’d react, she’d rather live a life having him oblivious of her emotional struggle. Dealing with that is more tolerable than witnessing him gaze her down in blatant mockery. He sneers as though he’s about to crack a joke and move on and forget such a laughable matter. That’s the last form of acknowledgment she wants for her honest feelings.

Heartbreak and shame and pain build up in her chest like a volcano closing eruption. Water begins to cloud her vision. She clenches her fist tight on her umbrella and Shinichi notices, and he takes another step forward.

“Ran…?”

“I am not, and you’re a fool.”

In a span of a breath, she’s sprinting in the opposite direction, tracing the path where they have walked, ignoring the distant yells of her name behind her. She runs and runs, and as she runs farther, with her thoughts muddy and breath short and dry, she wonders if she may have overreacted.

If he’s done that on purpose, screw him. If not, screw her.

After all, they are merely friends and she has no logical reason to act this way.

“Stop... running... will you!”

She hears heavy footsteps close in. It takes all the energy Ran has to prevent herself from turning her body around but his strong grip overpowers her.

“Let me go!”

“Why are you running?!”

“I can’t...deal with you!”

“Why? Was I right?”

“Right or wrong, it doesn’t matter!”

“Why doesn’t it matter?”

“Because I am your best friend!”

On another occasion, she would’ve successfully jilted away and run farther, but Ran is floored when he yanks her into a one-armed hug, so floored she drops her umbrella to the snowy ground.

“Stop saying that!” he hisses in her ear, frustration apparent.

“What are you— Let me go!”

He hugs her tighter.

“If you don’t let go in three seconds, I will screa—”

“I am happy!”

Ran stops struggling, eyes widening in shock.

Icy huffs tickle her neck as he half shouts, “I’m happy you feel that way!”

“You’re...You’re happy because I’m suffering?”

“What? No! I—”

“Is that supposed to make me feel better? How?” The hurt in her tone is impeccable, prattling muffled against his chest as she spares him no moment to butt in. “You think I wanted to feel this? That I enjoy griping in helpless jealousy? And you’re rejoicing that I am? How full of yourself can you be?!”

“That’s not...You don’t underst—”

“I do understand! I understand that I am so incredibly stupid for catching this disgusting heap of emotions for an obnoxious, stuck-up deduction maniac that is my best friend and maybe it’s better after all that he never, ever sees me the way I see him!”

“Stop saying that, Ran!”

She thinks he has broken away, but he drags her back with an insistent tug, crashing his lips onto hers as she stumbles into his arms.

All willpower rippling through her disintegrates quickly like snow in high heat.

An impatient pop resonates as he separates, eyes slowly opening, breath thick and ragged.

“I know that is not how we explain things, but does that explain anything?”

She hears it. The madness. But more than madness, yearning bleeds through his voice so much that her frustration turns into physical pain. Blinded by an all-consuming ache, she tips her chin and presses her lips back against his, demanding for cure in the wrong place. Shinichi freezes, then relaxes. He moves his hand to her nape, four fingers in her hair, thumb treading her jaw.

They look like a scene in a movie.

Under his umbrella and hidden from view, they communicate through brushing lips and tilting heads. His mouth closing over hers with gentle force, her hands splaying across his chest, heavy with something that makes his heart pound under them.

She is so lost in the chase and his tender embrace that for a second she forgets she is kissing her best friend.

Best friend.

This doesn’t explain anything. It worsens it.

She pulls back, ending what she has so recklessly started. “N-no, I’m— No.”

She pushes him away, gathers the stuff she drops, and runs without looking back.

“Ran!”

He shouts her name. Twice.

On the third call, his footfalls die down. On the fourth, he stops running.

She doesn’t.

Thirty minutes before midnight, Ran stands outside his gate, boots buried half foot under the snow as she rings his intercom for the second time, thinking to herself how foolish she must be to cut communications with him for a week and then show up his doorstep looking miserable like a stood-up date.

It’s the start of winter break.

He’ll leave for Akita in ten hours.

She needs to give his Christmas present before his departure.

She’s crazy, pathetic, still frustrated, and hurtfully in love.

“Oi. You better have a good explanation for why you’re buzzing at goddamn midnig—”

“Shinichi.”

His surprised gasp is apparent even through the intercom. A rustle follows and with a croaky voice, he responds. “...Ran.”

Surely he isn’t expecting this. Not after the tantrum she threw days ago. He probably thinks she hates him more than ever. But what she truly feels is more overwhelming than all negative emotions combined, and may god grant her all the strength to address it all, tonight.

“May I come in?”

“The house is—The house is a mess I, um. I’m packing my stuff for...”

“I’ll help you.”

“...”

She’ll understand if he decides to turn her down. But the answer that follows the deafening pause is a low and quiet ‘Okay’.

Despite psyching herself hours before she came, courage wanes when he opens the front door and gate in his pullovers. She is welcomed in, and the trip up his room is wordless. Shinichi only talks when he points out that he’s already packed clothes for two days and will need help for two weeks’ worth. He lamely laughs when he instructs her to pick the tops and layers, and he’ll take care of the pants and underwear.

On a normal instance, she would’ve humored him and they would’ve been talking right after. Now she simply pulls an empty smile and then they fall back into silence.

She supposes he’s trying to act unbothered, to treat what happened a week ago as a one-and-done glitch in their friendship, never to be discussed again. She cannot fault him when she’s trying to do the same. But it’s not easy when in the stillness of the night the echo of their altercation howls, raging persistently in their ears.

What has he been thinking of for the past week?

Has he been kept up all night by the words she said and the words he left unspoken?

Are they still friends? Will they still be friends after this?

The kiss... What about the kiss?

So many questions. So little words. So little time.

Ran is seated on the floor, folding shirts and stuffing them neatly in his duffel bag. Her back faces Shinichi who is sorting out bottoms in his cabinet. She senses him sit on the floor, back against her but not touching. Neither dares to speak first.

A ringing phone cuts the silence.

“Mm, still awake. Good for two weeks right? Gotcha. No, I’ll meet you girls at the station, no need to fetch me. Pfft. I can walk. Ok, see you tomorrow.”

If Ran wasn’t so hyperaware of where she is and what she’s done, her mood would’ve shifted to the one she’d been trying to avoid. Now isn’t the time to think about that. Midnight sneaking out to go to his house is something she wouldn’t do even on good days. She scans her bag on the far couch, deliberately bringing a bigger one to hide his gift. Maybe she can just sneak it in his bag and leave once she’s done and he’ll discover it only when he’s prefectures away. Brown has always suited him, and he’ll definitely find the overcoat useful as spare protective gear.

That’s right. She always cares for him like this. She is his best friend first, and... and nothing second.

“Don’t just leave after putting your present in my bag. At this hour, I can’t let you walk home alone,” he says swiftly.

Ran’s eyes fly wide.

“How did you…”

He doesn’t say anything and continues with his business.

Again with the throat-drying silence.

Something in Ran’s gut compels her to speak, but she is surprised when he does first.

“I... I don’t like Kaori-san. If that’s what you’re thinking.”

Ran stiffens, pausing mid-motion from folding. “I’m not…”

He leans his back completely against her and she shudders, voice reverberating through her skin. “Ran, if you could just hear me out.”

Unable to talk and move, she does.

“Kaori-san and the rest... They know I love mysteries. They know I want to build my own private detective agency. They know my favorite Holmes’ story is The Sign of Four. They know how many crimes I solved in Tokyo. All the information about me which anyone can read from the internet and newspaper and from what I told them when they ask, they know. Ran, you know all that. All that and more.”

He angles his head to the ceiling as if he’s talking to someone there. Ran supports his weight, curling to her knees as she silently listens.

“You know of my first ever deduction because Christ, my first deduction was about you. You know of the two cases which haunt me until this day because I watched the culprit die in front of my very eyes. You were with me the nights I locked myself in here thinking about them. You know of the interesting, the boring, the absurd cases, everything, because I told you or you were there. You know of the odd way I play the violin while I ponder over a case. You know I forget to eat when swamped with new books to read. I have three copies of The Sign of Four but the one I keep beside my bed and read almost weekly is the one you gave me on my tenth birthday and that is all I need. You know me for me, Ran. Everything about me that is off the record, the good and the bad, you know all of those. Only you. The same way I do... about you.”

She feels him crane slightly to the side, addressing her.

“Ran.”

“Mm.”

“I love you.”

Ran’s heart almost completely stops beating.

“I love you,” he whispers, “more than I am even supposed to.”

All words seem to have fizzled out of her vocabulary as she sits still, stunned at what she’s hearing.

“I’m happy growing up with you, studying with you, bickering with you, acting stupid with you, investigating with you, eating with you, napping with you, hugging you, holding you, taking care of you, simply... being with you. Before I know it, it’s not the cases or Holmes or mysteries that complete my days, it’s you.

“For you to keep repeating that ‘best friend’ phrase, I…” He lowers his head.

“For who knows how long, I’ve loved you as that and more.”

Someone pinch her because in no way can this be real.

“I was happy thinking you’re jealous because it meant a sliver of chance you feel the same way. We could’ve remedied the misunderstanding easily, Ran. We could’ve talked it over like we always do. But I was stupid and emotions were high and in the end I… kissed you…” he takes another deep breath, “But—but you kissed me back, and my heart couldn’t stay still...”

Pulse drumming loud, Ran tilts her head on the side where he leans, wanting to see the slightest expression he makes as he continues.

“If my deductions are wrong and you’re mad for a different reason, and—and you returned that for a different reason...” she hears the pang of remorse in his tone, “then please forget I ever said anything and I’ll leave myself to die in humiliation once I’m out of your sight.”

He lays one palm flat on the floor and she notices.

“But if my deductions are right and you were indeed jealous, I...” She feels his head swivel enough to feel his warm breath fan across her cheek, before shifting back front and releasing a slow, guttural exhale he’s kept contained within.

“I’ll wait... until you accept it. Accept me.”

Ran may have choked on her throat for how long she’s held her breath.

In spite of herself, she knows she doesn’t need to think of what to say. She had it all in her head before coming here. Yet expressing it out loud is a different matter.

She isn’t ready, but when will she ever be ready? Shinichi undoubtedly isn’t too. Yet here he is, laying the groundwork for her, no holds barred and a stuttering mess at that. How she plans to build from it is the question she asks herself next.

Inhaling as though bracing herself, she places a hand beside him, pinky slightly grazing his.

“I didn’t... You never showed any signs.”

Careful and calm, he extends his little finger over hers. She doesn’t flinch, and both hands crawl closer until two fingers overlap.

“Either I’m a great pretender or you’re incredibly dense.”

“I’m...I’m not dense.”

“I’m a bad actor, then.” He slides his hand further.

“I was trying so hard to be a supportive best friend for you.”

“I sensed that but ignored it because I didn’t want to assume anything.”

“You did though. Now we’re here.”

“Would you rather we aren’t?”

“I would rather we spend the last weeks of this year talking like normal than being stupid idiots before you leave.”

“It’s just two weeks, Ran.”

“Two special weeks I would’ve wanted to spend with my best frien-... with you.”

Without knowing it, his hand has completely nestled atop hers, four fingers curled between her thumb and index finger.

“Ran... You must really hate the idea of falling in love with me.”

“Eh?”

“You’re so wrapped with the thought that we’re simply best friends that you hold your love in chains as though it isn’t permitted to grow.”

“I… I didn’t want to ruin the only connection we have-”

“Two friends falling in love are still friends… They are also more. You cannot ruin an indefeasible connection. Friendship and love may be the only bond we have, but they’re the most important bond of all.”

Ran falls quiet.

“Geez…”

He releases a thick sigh, brushes his thumb across her splayed fingers.

“I have shit art appreciation skills, but I can take you to museums too... as a friend and as a date.” A beat, and a mumble. “Even to better museums than Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum.”

She darts her head sideways, realizing something.

“Were you also…?”

“No.”

Ran doesn’t suppress the heartfelt giggle that bubbles out.

“Shun-san has a boyfriend, Shinichi.”

“I—” he pauses. “I wasn’t asking.” Ran giggles more.

“Shinichi.”

“Yes.”

“I love you too.”

The hand above squishes hers all too suddenly like he’s been blown away and is needing something to hold onto.

“I came here to give your present and to apologize for being so shallow and for acting without thinking and for a lot of things actually... but now I feel there’s no need, because then I wouldn’t have...” She looks down at their intertwined hands.

Before she can return his squeeze, he recoils.

“Oh, y-you do apologize. Running away like that.” He coughs, and she can practically hear the tripping in his tone.

“Aren’t you already used to it? I’ve done it many times,” she chides.

“No. Apologize,” he insists. “And look at me while you do.”

Ran’s stomach twists, heart kicking up a step.

It’s easy to talk without eye contact, but to be requested so after confessions are exchanged—

“Face me, Ran.”

The familiar voice of yearning strums her heartstrings, tone sounding a lot like a plea than an order and Ran finds her head instinctively craning at an angle, hand coiling on the floor trying to calm her nervous beating heart. She feels him shift behind as well.

She takes all her time to face him, partly unsure what to do, partly knowing exactly what she wants to do. Despite the deliberate slowness of their movements, it is when they lock eyes that time truly seems to stop.

Shinichi appears so different, so soulful. His blue irises glimmering, fixated on nothing but her as she reveres him with matching intensity. The same guy she treats as her best friend looks at her with tender love in his eyes, darting down her lips and up like no best friend ever would.

“I love you,” he says, breathless. “Make me your boyfriend.”

A wave of emotion sweeps over her, heartbeat fluttering in overdrive as they huddle on the floor, bags and clothes and time forgotten.

“From best friend to... such a shift-”

“Nothing will be different.” He rests his forehead on hers, gaze of soft blue patient though more intimate now, knowing what they share is mutual. “We’ll still do what we do... With exclusive romantic commitment and sweet nothings that translate to ‘I love you’ in more ways than one.”

She attempts a jab on his chest but he catches her fist, soft but jesting beam all too apparent and she does but play along.

“What about when we fight?” she asks.

“Same. But...” he slides a thumb over her quiet lips, parting them slightly, “I can do this once we make up.”

“...Like right now?”

“Like right now.”

A genuine smile is the last thing she sees before delicate pair of lips lands on hers, capping their one-week fight and their last night of the year together in the best and most unexpected way imaginable.

Ran keeps telling herself she shouldn’t be jealous.

Not because they are simply best friends, because they aren’t. Not because life would be easier if she didn’t involve herself in his business twenty-four seven, because it wouldn’t.

Not because Shinichi doesn’t look at her that way, because he does.

She shouldn’t be jealous because she absolutely has no reason to, is all.

“I haven’t forgotten about your present. I was planning to buy yours in Akita.”

“Stop lying, you totally forgot it.”

“I didn’t. Stop that.” Half-mast eyes rake her side profile, and Ran covers a mirthful grin with her mitted hand holding the umbrella, then yawns. Hours of packing and talking and laughing left them with roughly four hours of sleep. It isn’t like she slept the whole period because while sleeping in his room isn’t new, cuddling while they sleep is. Ran couldn’t simply shut her eyes and heart to that.

“I believe though,” he wraps a hand around her free one, pocketing both of them in his brand new overcoat, “I gave half of my present already.”

“Hnn. That doesn’t count as a gift.” Her hand shifted, coddling his own to a warm fit.

“Really?” A smug smirk pulls up his face. “I believe I am a nice present, Ran. That’s why they—”

“Screw this. You are unbelievable. A humbug. Why do people like you.”

“I know. Why do you like me?” Shinichi laughs as he avoids the swing of her umbrella.

From afar, they see Kaori and the girls at the meet-up point outside Tokyo Station, though they seem unaware of their presence yet. Suddenly feeling conscious, Ran feels the urge to disentangle her hand, but Shinichi holds on, firm.

“Why?” He asks in a low voice.

“I dunno… maybe this isn’t the best time…”

“Isn’t now the best time?” His smile is proud and natural, not one ounce of reluctance visible.

Although she gets what he means, that doesn’t free her of shyness and guilt. Somehow she feels like apologizing to Kaori for… she doesn’t know. She just wants to. Letting her see them like this makes her think that she’s giving her an indirect slap on the face. Shinichi certainly won’t agree because ‘What’s with women and their logic?’, but still, whether or not it’s all in her head, Ran needs more time to prepare for this.

But to her surprise, Shinichi lets go of her hand. They are still a few feet from view when he steps in front of her and turns around. “Maah, fine, I get it,” he huffs, then smiles. “Then, just give me your umbrella.”

The moment she does, Shinichi closes their distance and dips his face onto hers. Ran is given no leeway to gasp as loving lips seal her quiet. It isn’t as long as what they shared a week ago, but the emotions are loaded and full, speaking fond thanks and temporary farewell.

She doesn’t realize she has closed her eyes until he separates, and she’s met with the most tender, most angelic expression he wears only on the rarest occasions. He’s saying without telling that her feelings are valid, she doesn’t have to worry, and he doesn’t have eyes for anyone but her. Somehow, the snow is the sea and fish are swarming around but neither cares because they have already caught each other.

“You don’t have to, silly.” Three layers of pink blanket Ran’s puffy cheeks.

“But I want to.” Grinning, Shinichi hands her back the umbrella. “You don’t like hand-holding. You don’t like being seen. Don’t you think that’s a great compromise?”

“Idiot, many people saw...”

“No, they didn’t!” Upping the duffel bag slung on his shoulder, he steps back and gives her one last goofy beam. “I’ll see you next year, Ran. I’ll call as often as I can.”

Wordlessly, Ran watches Shinichi’s back as he jogs to his waiting companions, who by then have already had their eyes pinned on the approaching figure.

“That is Shinichi-kun! ...And Mouri-san!”

“Ehhh!!?! You’re a thing!”

So much for being subtle, Ran flushes inwardly as she returns the wave the other girls are giving her. At that moment she really does feel immature for her past conduct. All of them are sweet. Even Kaori.

“I knew it Shinichi-kun! Mouri-san is sooo lucky, I’m so jealous!” Ran hears their banter and sees her jab his bicep before acknowledging her. “We’ll take care of him, Mouri-san!”

The Ran from one week ago would’ve had her heart crushed by such declaration, but now she’s nothing but pleased and the smile that forms across her lips is nothing but honest. “Make sure he doesn’t drag your group into a random dead body, Kaori-san!”

“Hey!” surfaces Shinichi’s shout amidst the mincing laughter of the group and the onlooking passers-by, and Ran bids her last wave before they enter the station.

Smiling to herself, Ran returns home, the lingering promise of his kiss committed to memory, knowing that she doesn’t have to get jealous because she has no reason to. Their indefeasible bond is all the assurance she needs.

#shinran #kiss prompts #fanfic #lmk anon(s) if you see this and if you do then yaaay #thank you for requesting!#and thank you for reading!#:')#I have a love-hate relationship with this fic #it's only supposed to be 4 scenes #oh well it is what it is lmao #it's ok ig since this is the last (awww) from the kiss prompts!#😌#I tried so hard with a jealous Ran haha #jealous fics are good reads but writing them is hard :O

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musicrunsthroughmysoul · 4 years ago

Note

Would you mind sharing a list of visual artists that you know of if it's not a problem? ❤️

Oh, seriously wonderful question - I appreciate it so much, thank you!!

Assuming this is in response to my post about Black and Indigenous creators, I've tried my best to make a good list here. But to be honest, visual art isn't typically a thing I pay a whole lot of attention to except in passing (like, I see a post or something and am like 'OMG!!!' and maybe I think about it for a little bit afterward, but otherwise I tend to move on from it fairly quickly. If you've followed me for a while, you know I tend to obsess over music, and sometimes movies and TV shows, but also literature. Visual art is where I'm, like, a fan, but not usually a super fan, if that makes sense. LOL), so I really had to think and research some in order to properly respond to this ask. But that's not really a problem, so with that preface out of the way, here's my recommendations for you!

Wait I'm sorry one more preface to note: these are contemporary artists and thus they present contemporary art, so if you were wondering about historical art, I'd have to do more research about that. LOL Also, per my previous statement, I'm honestly not familiar with very many visual artists, so those I am listing here will mostly be Indigenous or Afro-Indigenous/Black Native artists. Since I'm not super into visual art as a medium, I shamefully can't name very many Black visual artists (contemporary, in this case, as that is the theme I'm trying to represent by this list). But I'm going to do more research on my own, and once I do, I'll edit this post with my findings or better yet make a whole separate post, since this post is going to be super long. If you were hoping for recommendations of Black and Indigenous historical visual artists, I'd have to get back to you on that another time...although I will say as a gentle reminder: Google is free, and so is Wikipedia. I would probably, to be honest, use Wikipedia as a jumping off point to discover said artists, but it wouldn't be the last or only place I would look (I use Wikipedia as a jumping off point to discover musicians and bands all the time, but as I've found out via this method, lists on Wikipedia and such are often frighteningly incomplete, so I use other methods – even looking for recommendations via the artists I found on Wikipedia at first – to make my research more thorough. And you can do that, too, if you don't already. :) ).

One more (sorry) crucial preface about contacting Indigenous artists and folks in general.

@ChiefLadyBird on IG and Twitter (Chippewa, Potawatomi) - Artist, illustrator. Via social media, this is one of the most well-known artists I could think of off the top of my head (apparently she even has a Wikipedia page, LOL! But actually, that's pretty neat). She makes a lot of nature-themed art, as well as art of Native people (like Buffy Sainte-Marie, AHHH!!!) and erotic art, all of which is simply BEAUTIFUL. She's also made social justice-oriented art, as well, which you might've seen a print of if you're aware of #CancelCanadaDay (since that was quite recent).

@Paige_Pettibon on IG, aka Paige Pettibon, website (Afro-Indigenous/Salish, Black, white) - Visual artist, beader and jewelry maker. For the longest time I only followed her jewelry account (@plain_to_sea) on IG, but when I visited her visual art account I NOTICED SHE DID A PRINT OF BUFFY SAINTE-MARIE AND I'M. :')))) She does all sorts of art judging by her website and IG art account - digital art, charcoal drawings, watercolor paintings, acrylic paintings, and of people and nature and Native art designs, which is all truly beautiful. (I'm a big fan of her charcoal drawings of Audre Lorde and James Baldwin, in addition to her print of Buffy. :'))

@PlateauPop on Twitter and Etsy, @sandrawpb_arton IG, aka Sandra Warriors (Coast Salish) - Artist, jewelry maker, traditional tattoo artist. I've recommended their art before, but I'm more than happy to have an excuse again to recommend them. Their art is some of my VERY FREAKIN' FAVORITE; it moves me and gives me feelings like other art forms I tend to prefer (music, literature) does, which is to say it is incredibly powerful and so beautiful. My favorite piece of theirs is an ink print depicting generations with the Universe as the first generation supporting three future generations of Native people (the first time I saw it I almost cried. It's so gentle and hopeful and just...so achingly beautiful). They mostly make digital art, but they've also shared their ink drawings and if you follow them you can be privy to their paintings and hand print textiles, too! If you've seen my past Settler Saturday posts, they also make and sell jewelry and I would like to buy some some day, heh heh.

@lauren.nicole.creations on IG, aka Lauren Nicole, website (Tongva, Chumash) - Beader, jewelry maker, visual artist. Lauren Nicole not only makes utterly gorgeous beaded jewelry, but she's also a visual artist! I'm most familiar with her floral prints (actually her logo is a calla lily aka A ME, LOL), but she does lots of cool nature prints and stunning abstract art as well as art of people, too. And you can buy her art (or jewelry!) via her website where she has links to her jewelry Etsy shop and Redbubble visual art shop. One day – mark my words – I will own a print of her calla lily painting. :')

@jacobvjoyce on IG, aka Jacob V Joyce, website – Artist, illustrator, singer. I only recently found this person, but it turns out I was almost aware of them much earlier because they're the lead vocalist of the band Screaming Toenail. Their art – occasionally short comics, zine illustrations, digital art, murals – is really lovely, and even if Screaming Toenail isn't a band musically that I can get into (I tried, I will say), I really appreciate Jacob Joyce's art!! Quite a lot of the art on their IG is also on behalf of Out Proud African LGBTI, a UK organization supporting London-area local LGBT+ asylum seekers and refugees.

@nalakwsis on IG, Etsy (Cree) - Beader, illustrator, photographer. I only just recently found this artist via prints shared on behalf of residential school victims and their families (so fucking powerful), but I noticed that they've also shared art depicting what I would consider as: queer love, people, nature and animals, horror (spirits, ghosts...very haunting art, which is tbh also completely up my alley). I love that their art ranges from deeply moving, intense art to calming and curious and maybe vaguely unsettling art.

@emilykewageshig on IG, aka Emily Kewageshig, website (Anishinaabe) – Painter, illustrator. Her art features incredible Native art designs of nature, people, and social justice-oriented art! I didn't follow this artist before now, but when I checked out her account I realized I'd been more aware of her art via other people I follow than I realized.

@inkstitcher on IG, aka Sarah Ayaqi Whalen Lunn (Inupiaq) - Artist and traditional Inuit tattoo artist. I only just now found her account but one of the prints she did of a woman in an eventide gradient is so fucking beautiful I almost started to cry. And she also makes beaded jewelry so, you know, that's an instant follow from me. LOL

@destinyariannastudio on IG, aka Destiny Arianna (Afro-Indigenous/Black, Wampanoag), website - Multidisciplinary artist. She makes absolutely stunning women-centered art that, I would say, also does an incredible job challenging anti-Blackness in Native art. SO IMPORTANT!

@jasmine_shawnaf on IG, aka Jasmine F (Kichwa) - Digital artist. She makes a lot of what I would consider empowering art of Indigenous women, which is so beautiful and touching! She's also done social justice-oriented art, which I also love, ya know. :')

@khavenart1 on IG, aka Kaitlyn Haven, Etsy (Diné) - Digital artist. She does a lot of anime (Ghibli redraws and ATLA-inspired art with Indigenous representation!!!!) themed art, which you can buy on Etsy as stickers and prints. I'm obsessed with her Indigenous ATLA-inspired art oh my god.

@PhilipKaiten on Twitter, website – Digital artist. I found this self-taught artist on Twitter when I happened to stumble across his art not too long ago and thought it was STUNNING. Such beautiful Black art!! And you can buy it on t-shirts and all sorts of products on his TeePublic page (linked), so check it out!

@project_562 on IG, website (created by Matika Wilbur who is Tulalip and Swinomish) - Photographer. Why do you need to know who the fuck Edward Curtis is when Matika Wilbur exists? I'm just saying. (Which, for the record, is not an invitation to look up Edward Curtis, who was a white dude who photographed Native people in a way that heavily contributed to the "vanishing Indian" trope that still persists across the world to this day. You don't need to do that when Matika Wilbur's Project 562 is RIGHT. THERE.) Project 562 is Matika Wilbur's documentary project which endeavors to photograph over 562 Indigenous nations. So if you want to see and be aware of contemporary Native people (of the U.S.A.) in photography FROM a Native photographer's perspective (which is, for example, the best way to consume art about Native people), this is hands-down one of THE BEST photographic examples you can find. Personally, when I look at her photos I can feel the love that went into them, and of course you can visually see the love there, too. :')))))

@artbyciara on IG, website (Chamoru) - Artist. I'm most familiar with her art as the episode covers of the All My Relations podcast, which is always SO beautiful and soft and just...ahh, heart eyes! Apparently she's self-taught, which is incredible as her style feels so familiar and informed. She also makes cool nature and food prints, and she makes and sells jewelry, too! She also sells stickers, socks, bandanas, and enamel pins in her art shop, where you can find and buy all of her art and such!

@deboraiyall, aka Debora Iyall (Cowlitz) - Artist, singer, songwriter, poet. If you've followed me for long enough YOU BETTER KNOW WHO THIS IS. Yeah - she's not just the lead vocalist and songwriter of Romeo Void, one of my very favorite bands ever, but she's also a visual artist and an art teacher!! She was the artist of Romeo Void's It's a Condition album cover art and she's done a lot of amazing art in that linocut style (the style It's a Condition's cover was done in), and she shares her own art as well as her students' art on her personal IG. I adore her and respect her so much, you know, I just can't even.

@lukeswinsonart on IG, aka Luke Swinson (Anishinaabe) – Illustrator, muralist. His art style is so smooth and serene, and I think that such a concept applied to animals which are featured in his art quite often is so amazing...

@ndn.o on IG, aka Otaes (Ramapough Lenape), website - Artist, educator. Does a lot of street art with important Indigenous people-related statistics and facts - seems very (necessarily!) driven to present the truth about Indigenous people and how their well-beings are affected by racism, colonialism, etc.

@morning.star.designs on IG, aka Lanah Jewell, website (French and Oneida) - Illustrator, painter, muralist. I don't know if you all will recognize this piece posted on behalf of MMIW, but I sure recognized it, without knowing the artist the first few times I saw it (now I know!).

@MichaelaGoade on IG and Twitter, website (mixed Tlingit) - Artist, picture book illustrator. Most famously (I personally would say?) she's the illustrator of the book We Are Water Protectors written by Carole Lindstrom, which is a children's book highlighting Indigenous-led movements on behalf of protecting the Earth and water. She's done cover art and illustrations for other books, as well, though! She also did the Google doodle honoring Tlingit activist Elizabeth Peratrovich.

@ty_rushnell on IG, aka Tyler Tabobondung Rushnell, Redbubble (Wasauksing First Nation) - Artist. He does a lot of abstract art with saturated colors, and apparently he's self-taught. His art is SUPER, SUPER cool, and some of his art incorporates pop culture references (Indigenized Addams Family Values, Tupac, Spiderman...) which is a bonus to me. :)

@cedarsageskoden on IG and Twitter, aka Bailey Macabre, website (Cree-Métis) - Artist, writer, beader. I believe they mostly do digital art, but they've drawn comics, social/environmental justice-oriented art, abstract art, and really great prints Indigenizing pop culture classics . :) To be honest, I don't remember seeing their art so much as I see their activism-oriented tweets on Twitter (which is quite often...but certainly not unwelcome!!), but seeing their art now is amazing and so much of it GIVES ME SO MANY FEELS.

@sweetmoonphoto on IG, aka Tenille K Campbell, website (Dené, Métis) - Photographer, poet. I'm not exactly one to recognize what is outstanding in terms of photography, but to me her photos are incredibly striking. And of course, as a writer, I fucking love her poems RIGHT IN THE FEELS.

@salish_artist_margaretaugust on IG, aka Margaret August, website (Shishalh) – Artist. I'm most familiar with their art via Salish Style (mentioned a little bit below), but it turns out Margaret August also makes amazing glass art, cedar sandblasted art, and serigraph/giclee prints, which you can see examples of on their IG and their website. SIMPLY. AMAZING. I was already in love with their art prints and paintings for sure, but their cedar art especially and bentwood boxes are fucking incredible. :')

@ovila79 on IG, aka Ovila Mailhot, website (Nlaka'pamux, Sto:lo) – Graphic artist, designer. You wanna know how much I like his art? I own one of his prints on a mask, and I also bought a sticker of one of his designs for my mom which she put on her water bottle. :) I adore his style, and the recognizable Coast Salish formline style incorporated into his art with a modern touch is just lovely. (DNKHNFHJBFHJD HE ALSO DREW ANIME STYLE ART WITH SALISH INFLUENCES AND IT'S FUCKING AMAZING. CALL ME A FAN.)

@moe.butterfly.art on IG, aka Moe Butterfly Hoffer, Etsy (Seneca) – Artist. He mostly does digital art, which you can find especially on his IG and Etsy, but they have some traditional art they've shared, as well. The quality is seriously fucking stunning. And so much queer art, omg! Their art makes me smile so muuuuuuuch.

@gaysalishart on IG, aka Chase Gray, website (Musqueam/Tsimshian) – Artist. No matter what kind of visual art you were hoping to find via my recommendations, you should NOT be surprised that I’ve recommended an artist who draws Pokemon with Salish influences. COME ON, THAT SHIT IS AMAZING!!! ...well, I love it, at least. :’D

@ninalikesbutts on IG, Etsy (Indigenous) - Artist. Her art is mostly of brown and Black women - nude, half nude (I mean, her handle is "ninalikesbutts" so there's a lot of butts in her art. I'm not complaining. In fact I will NEVER complain. There's your one TMI in this entire post from me, you're welcome) - but she's also done prints and stickers of motivational-type art of (clothed) women in everyday situations. To be honest, I'd call ALL of her art beautiful!!

Edit: I also noticed that the small business Earth Daughters were showcasing Black and Indigenous visual artists on their IG; I’m familiar with Earth Daughters because of their sister business, Piña Soul, who I’ve bought earrings from before that are made by Indigenous Mexican artisans (in case you were also interested in other types of art besides just visual art, consider that a recommendation, as well!). Earth Daughters primarily works to “uplift transnational Indigenous WOC & LGBTQ2S+ through mutual aids & sustainability.”

Also, if you like Pacific Northwest Native art (I do, although of course I've pretty much grown up around here and am pretty familiar with this art), there's this cool website I found a little while ago that sells a TON of different products in Northwest Native art styles, ALL created by Native Northwest artists, so, for example, if you want to peruse different PNW Native nations' art styles and get to know some artists' names, this is a good place to start. As far as I know, the products are available to those living in the U.S. and Canada...I'm not sure if they sell/ship to anywhere else in the world, though, as I haven't bought anything from here YET. I have a list of things I want to buy from here one day, LOL.

Another similar suggestion to the one above: Salish Style is an Indigenous-owned small business that sells a bunch of different products (clothing, stickers, face masks, hats, buttons, etc.) with prints featuring art all designed by Coast Salish artists. So, once again, it's a PNW Native art thing, but still worthwhile! (And since it's local, it's all the more important to me, but also familiar in that way, too!) There's art designed by a bunch of different artists, so you can find more artists that way and look them up if you want to see what other types of art they create.

Finally...I know this post is super long, but I want to end it by recommending that EVERYBODY across North America especially know whose land you are on – the land you reside on, but also whose land you're on WHEREVER you go, like if you visit somewhere new. Even if you don't necessarily use the information to do something activism-oriented, or even if you don't verbally acknowledge it to someone (although that would be great if you COULD do that, especially if you live there), being able to acknowledge it to YOURSELF is a small, but, I would suggest, important step toward decolonization – decolonizing your mind, at least, if you will, and hopefully also a step in supporting Indigenous sovereignty. But why I really said all that is: if you want to support local to YOU Indigenous artists, which is what I WHOLLY encourage, knowing whose land you're on can help you find artists who belong to that/those nation(s) and who you can then support. Like, the reason I recommended so many Coast Salish artists is because I live on, work on, and regularly travel across Coast Salish land; they're the people I want to support so I've done the most research to find them. It can be that way for you, too, wherever you are, if you care enough to do so and put in the effort. (Which is not supposed to sound passive-aggressive, my apologies. I mean it genuinely. It's something that means a lot to me could you tell? so I hope this sort of thing can and will be as meaningful to others, too.)

#I wasn't planning on putting the list under a read more but it's SUPER long so #better than the 'long post' tag which I don't really use and don't trust. LOL #ALSO! If you were wondering about a certain type of art (drawings or paintings or whatever) let me know #I'll gladly narrow my search for this list if that would be helpful!#recommendations #visual artists #sorry I wrote so fucking much I am a writer I CANNOT HELP IT 😂😅

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canmom · 3 months ago

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My initial answer is to do with how the hardware works/worked, but while that explains the triangles, I'm not entirely sure why vector displays didn't stick around longer in the crt era. But let me elaborate:

To draw pixel art, you mainly need to blit (copy) arrays into other arrays. That's something that old computers could do pretty well. The connection to the display would essentially be a linear stream of brightness values as the electron gun swept horizontally across the screen line by line (an interface that more or less still persists in more complex form in the era of digital connections and lcd/led screens, though we rarely touch it directly anymore). That is a very natural fit for conceiving of the screen as a grid of pixels.

Old consoles also had hardware acceleration for common pixel related operations like copying tiles from a buffer, applying palettes, and so on. By contrast, to draw vector shapes in this paradigm, you'd need to rasterise the polygons/bezier curves every frame, which is much more algorithmically demanding than copying a sprite from memory buffer A to memory buffer B.

That explains why you'd likely use pixel art for a 2D console, but there is a bit of a chicken and egg problem here, because they built consoles like that because that's what sort of games people were making. The earliest computer games, like Asteroids, drew vector shapes directly by directly controlling the electron gun, similar to an analogue oscilloscope. I guess the reason these went out of fashion quickly is that while they're very good at drawing lines, drawing filled shapes is a lot harder (you'd basically have to scribble with the electron gun), and colour especially difficult (since it requires you to precisely target the rgb subpixels on the inside of the CRT), so drawing images line by line the way a TV signal does made a lot more sense.

As for voxels - voxels are arrays of 3D values, the same way pixels are arrays of 2D values. Why don't more games use them? The main answer is that no game directly draws voxels. With one exception that I know about, all realtime 3D rendering hardware uses triangles as its rendering primitive. Drawing triangles with rasterisation turned out to be an 'embarrassingly parallel' problem, so we built hardware that is really good at drawing thousands and now millions of triangles in parallel. Vertices are perspective projected in parallel, and then used to generate lists of pixels to shade in parallel. All this ends up going to a big data buffer, similar to those old sprite systems, to be fed to the display line by line.

To make a voxel game, then, you need to turn your array of voxel data into triangles somehow. There are various methods to do this. If you want little cubes like Minecraft, the state of the art is a group of related algorithms called Greedy Meshing (1, 2). If you want something a bit more smooth and natural looking (as in games like Deep Rock Galactic, Space Engineers or No Man's Sky), then you want to use Marching Cubes, which is also used to visualise voxel data in e.g. medical imaging. These algorithms are usually run on the CPU, but I'm sure someone has figured out a way to do it in a compute shader by now.

The other way to do it is raymarching. This means you essentially step through the voxel data in the direction you're looking until you find an opaque voxel, and then draw that somehow. (Raymarching is a versatile technique, and is also commonly used to render signed distance fields.) The best example of this technique being used in a game I know is Teardown. It has a separate voxel volume for each object in the game, rendered using an ingenious combination of rasterisation and raymarching techniques. It's probably the closest thing to a truly '3D sprite' based game, but it is really in a class of its own.

Raymarching is also commonly used in AAA games to render clouds from a 3D texture, and it can be used to create volumetric light effects (e.g. glow through fog).

Note that raymarching still uses triangles - you draw a couple of really big triangles with a complicated fragment shader (program that gets run for every pixel of that triangle), so instead of looking like a triangle, it looks like something else. It's generally quite an expensive technique, depending on how complex the thing you're raymarching is.

Could you somehow 'directly' render voxels from a voxel buffer? You could, in theory, apply the perspective maths to each voxel and draw it as a single pixel at the appropriate spot, and in this way render it as a kind of point cloud representation. This sounds to me like if you tried to do it in parallel you'd have a lot of threads fighting to draw to random points in a buffer, and it wouldn't be very cache friendly, but I haven't really looked into this. However, there's no real reason point clouds need to be arranged on a grid.

Fundamentally I think the problem is that drawing a sprite is simple: it's just a straightforward copy of a region of memory to another. But drawing voxel data to a 2D surface requires some kind of projection, which breaks any semblance of a 1:1 match between voxels and 3D pixels. So voxels are just inherently more complicated. Since you have to speak triangles eventually, it's natural that most games start with triangles, and voxels are only used for specific effects like deformable terrain.

Source for all this: being a big nerd I've been working the last few years on a Worms-like VR game, using voxels (marching cubes type), that runs on mobile hardware. It's gonna go into open beta soon! Look out for Boom Boom Hamster Doom in the next few days - you bet I'll be sharing a lot of technical information about how we made it work in a few weeks.

It seems that in 2D video game graphics pixels definitively won over vector art, but in 3D polygons won over voxels. Anybody around here has any idea why?

#computer games #3dcg #computer graphics

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palimpsessed · 4 years ago

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So @captain-aralias did one of these and invited other writers to do the same. And I wasn't really going to because it feels a bit late now and also I've done quite a few other year in review posts for 2020. But then I got to thinking that it would be really nice to have one of these for each year to look back on and compare, which convinced me. So, here we go!

If you’re a writer, I’d also encourage you to steal this. Tag me on your post so I can see your thoughts! 🥰

List of Complete Fics for 2020 1. At the Top of a Tower, With You- General, 900 words 2. Use Your Words- Teen, 16k 3. A Man of Letters, or Five Times Baz Retreats and the One Time He Doesn’t- Teen, 54k 4. To the Manor Borne- Teen, 43k

Total: 4 fics, 113k words

Every one of these fics was written for an event, which, realistically, is the only reason they got finished. I have so many ideas I'm working on all at once, and I came into fandom with a focus on making art, so to actually find the motivation to sit down and write/finish/post a fic was entirely deadline based. And it's a technique I'm sure I will also employ in 2021.

Best/Worst Title?

Well, I've mentioned a few times before that I usually have a title before I have much in the way of a fic concept. I don't really dislike any of the my titles, because they all did exactly what I needed them to do, which was help me focus on what I wanted to accomplish in the fic. Comparatively speaking, though, I can answer this.

Best: Use Your Words - succinct, idiomatic, a book quote/motif that also has the potential to be a spell, does what it says on the tin, is probably what all of us are constantly yelling at Baz and Simon to do throughout the books and the fic itself

(Honorable mention to A Man of Letters because that title forms a perfect heart shape when viewed on mobile on AO3. ❤️)

Worst: At the Top of a Tower, With You - this is also a quote and it fits the fic perfectly, but it is a bit of a mouthful and it has a comma in the middle of it, which, while I love commas, feels a bit off-putting in terms of a title - also, it's always kind of bothered me that it's a Baz WS quote used for a CO-era Lucy POV

Best/worst summary?

Again, I don't really dislike any of my summaries.

Best:

To the Manor Borne: The gang decides to spend Christmas together at Pitch Manor. Romance, hijinks, and holiday cheer ensue.

Anything that lets me use the word hijinks is always good! - it's short and sweet - it does a fair job of setting up the premise for the fic and giving highlights, without giving anything away

Worst: A Man of Letters

I'm not going to include this one because it's so long, I had to cut down the version I posted on tumblr to fit in the AO3 field, which is really why I rank it below my others - it effectively sets up the world of Simon and Baz in Regency England prior to where the story starts, but it is prohibitively long - and it's set up, not summary, so it also loses points for not doing what it purports to do - I could have said exactly what this fic was in one sentence: "Simon and Baz meet at several Regency-appropriate venues over the course of a London season and reflect on their acquaintance in letters", but instead I did the full book jacket version because it was more interesting to me.

Best/Worst First Line?

Oh, this is interesting. I can honestly say that I have no idea where this will go. Going to pull up my docs and find out! Okay, since I only have four fics to consider, and I'm feeling split, I'm going to do two for each. I feel good about my words, but I will say that half of my first lines actually provide information, and the other half are incomplete thoughts. Those were stylistic decisions I made, but when taken alone, it does somewhat limit the effectivness of a sentence when it can't stand without the rest of the paragraph. Perhaps that decision will lure readers in for more?

Best:

In the end, we wind up at Pitch Manor. (To the Manor Borne)

I know that you won't be surprised when I tell you that I do not like writing letters. (A Man of Letters)

Kind of interesting that these both contain key words from the titles 🤔

Worst:

I'm not sure how I'm supposed to do this. (Use Your Words)

I love how the title seems to be answering Baz's question when the two are put together like this 😂

Strange that it should end here, where it all started. (At the Top of a Tower, With You)

The title also seems to complete the first line in this one, too. I'm learning about my writing as this goes on, so that's cool!

Best/Worst Last Line?

Hmm. Okay, again, no idea. Also, a little leery of including last lines for anyone who hasn't read the fics they're from yet. (Tho I guess it's unlikely those people would be reading this😆) But let's see what we've got.

Use Your Words and A Man of Letters have very similar final lines, and both are somewhat spoilery.

Best: The ending of A Man of Letters felt risky to me, in the way that it is formatted and changes tone from the rest of the story. It was something that happened as I wrote it and I loved it. I had no idea if readers would like it, if they would feel like it worked as an ending, but I felt strongly enough about it to let the entire fic hinge on that and I think it really paid off. So, without giving you the actual last line, which is only one word, I'm going to say that one is my best ending.

Worst:

To the Manor Borne: "Carry on, Simon."

It's not bad, it's just not mine.

Looking back, did you write more fics than you thought you would this year, fewer than you thought, or about what you predicted?

I did not set out to write any fics in 2020. I was supposed to be taking a break from writing. I've been an aspiring novelist for half my life now, and have been going through major ups and downs with my writing. I decided I needed to re-evaluate and figure out if writing was something that was even going to be able to make me happy anymore. The answer is: YES! Just…not original fiction. At the moment. I'm happiest when I can write for the sake of writing and not have to DO something with that writing. Which is why discovering fan fiction was AMAZING!!!! 🥰🥰🥰

To actually answer the question, yes, I wrote more than I thought I would. I also wrote exactly as much as I thought I would, simply because these were all things I signed up for (with the exception of my Countdown fic, but I committed to it as if it were something that required a sign up).

I have a lot more ideas for 2021, but I don't know how many of them will come to fruition. I'm not putting pressure on myself to have to do anything beyond what I sign up for again, because it did work out so well for me starting off.

What pairing/genre/fandom did you write that you would never have predicted last year?

I mean, the pairing and the fandom were in no way a surprise. 😆 They're my only ones, so those were both a given. The genre is also not surprising.

What's your favorite story this year? Not the most popular, but the one that makes you the happiest?

A Man of Letters, without any hesitation. I adore it so much. It's the kind of fic I know I will unabashedly sit down to read over and over, even if I'm the one who wrote it. I had one reader to please and it was ME. By far, my most self-indulgent fic.

Okay, NOW your most popular story?

That depends on the metric.

To the Manor Borne leads in Comments (107), Kudos (153), and Hits (1992), and Use Your Words leads in Bookmarks (26).

But since To the Manor Borne is top in 3 out of 4 metrics, I'll say that one.

Story most upderappreciated by the universe?

I mean, the least popular by a wide margin is At the Top of a Tower, With You, but I don't know if I'd call it underappreciated. It's short, it's angsty, it's got a very unusual style, it's Lucy POV, it's the first fic I wrote and posted. I didn't really go into it with high performance expectations. I'm proud of it, I just didn't expect it to be popular. It would be nice if more people read it, but I'm not broken up over it.

Story that could have been better?

I'm not even going to touch this one. Everything can always be improved upon, but if I go down that route, nothing will ever be done. This is one of the things I have come to appreciate about traditional art versus digital. With traditional, there is only so much you can do before something is permanent and you have to live with it. It's an exercise in letting go and acceptance. Digital is flashier and more flexible, but I could (and have) spend months on a single piece and never feel satisfied, never stop tweaking. I think that's also the reason I started to hate my novels.

Sexiest story?

Based purely on overall vibes, I find the understated tension of the Regency the most appealing, so I'm going to say A Man of Letters. I didn't actually stray into sex territory in any of my fics (though Simon and Baz have had sex by the time To the Manor Borne starts, and refer to it, and probably do it "offscreen"), but A Man of Letters is the one that feels sexiest to me. Lots of thirsting!Baz and feral!Simon and sensual hand touching (how risqué!) - and YEARNING. That, to me, is the sexiest vibe of all. So. Much. Yearning.

Saddest story?

At the Top of a Tower, With You - for this one, I tagged "angst without plot" and I stand by that. It's Lucy losing her connection to Simon at the end of CO and trying to find a way to reconcile herself to leaving him alone again. I gave it as much of a hopeful bent as I could, with the refrain of Baz's spoken "love" to cling to, but it's very sad.

Most fun?

To the Manor Borne - All of my fics have their fair share of angst, but this one also has some good, silly, holiday fluff thrown in. Since I wrote it for the Countdown, each chapter was based on a different prompt, which led to this one going in all sorts of directions no single fic probably ever should. Plus, it has the most Shepard, and Shepard always makes things more fun.

Story with the single sweetest moment?

Oh my god. I don't know. No, never mind. I do. It's To the Manor Borne, but it's split between the two gift giving scenes, the Constellations and Secret Santa/Gift Giving prompts. These were private moments between Simon and Baz, sharing themselves with each other, being vulnerable, and communicating. It's the gifts they give each other, yes, but it's more so the reasons they chose those gifts, and how they show part of themselves and share their love for each other, through those gifts, that had me in tears writing those two scenes. I'm super proud of them.

Hardest story to write?

Use Your Words - it was written for an exchange and that made it really hard to write it knowing there was this pressure of making my gift-ee happy with the fic. I'm proud of it, and they really liked it, but the anxiety was too much for me.

Easiest/most fun story to write?

A Man of Letters - if there is a fic better suited to me as a writer, I haven't met it. I started writing after reading Pride and Prejudice in high school, so I started out writing Regency and I spent years and years and years of my life obsessed. When I transferred into college, an administrator I had never met before heard my name during orientation and said, "Oh, you're the Austen scholar." (It is a small, private college, and I was a transfer, so the pool of students was even smaller. But still. Many years later, I'm clearly not over it.) I also did my senior thesis on an epistolary novel (Frances Burney’s Evelina), and my English Lit emphasis was for that time period. So, I felt like I had been preparing for this fic my entire adult life. 😂

Did any stories shift your perceptions of the characters?

I don't think so. I tend to let my writing be dictated by the characters, so I'm always following their lead. Sometimes they'll do or say something that surprises me and takes me down a route I didn't necessarily foresee, but I don't think there was ever a point where one of them did something that made me rethink who they are as a character.

Most overdue story?

I will say A Man of Letters, since that one felt like a culmination of my seventeen-year-old self's wildest writing dreams. But I should probably say the Scooby Doo AU I still haven't managed to finish, because that one has been a WIP since I joined the fandom. Oops. (I'm hoping when I look over this in a year, I can feel smug that it's finally done.)

Did you take any writing risks this year? What did you learn from them?

Writing at all was a risk for me! And writing fan fic for the very first time! Writing an entire fic told only through letters. And then ending it in a completely different style from the rest of the fic. Doing a multi-chaptered fic for the Countdown, using a different prompt for each chapter, and publishing a chapter every single day for thirty days (with the exception of two days that had art). Signing up for fandom events in the first place!

What I learned from taking risks in my writing is the same thing I learned when I took risks in my art this year. I have a much better appreciation for what I've done when I push myself, I feel better about the end product, and I like it longer. I think it's really good for me to challenge myself creatively.

This year's theme and the story that demonstrates it most?

Oh boy. Um. Therapy! Both Use Your Words and To the Manor Borne had their big HEA moments built around sending Simon and Baz to therapy. I don't think that's likely to change for future fics, either. I feel like therapy as the theme for 2020 seems very fitting. (Also, I think I keep sending the boys to therapy because I'm trying to get myself there…)

What are your fic writing goals for next year?

Just to write what I want to write, have fun, not put any pressure on myself, and to take risks in my writing and my art because it will help me to grow.

#fan fic year in review #my fic #at the top of a tower with you #use your words #a man of letters #to the manor borne

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jackednephi · 6 years ago

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@starseedjenny you have observed my tags and for this you get an infodump

So Dylan (my husband) took levels in carpentry. He's no master carpenter but he can make furniture. His absolute favorite thing to do is to get gnarly tree roots or branches and carve them into odd length walking sticks and then sell them at the local wood shop. It's easier to use a stick instead of a cane (my back hurts a LOT from using my cane but never with a stick) and different people are different heights. Plus, something people don't think about is there are incredibly short people or even children. So why not have something beautiful and sturdy?

What he does is he carefully exposes what it is about the piece of wood that is unique. Are the different bark layers different colors? He'll strip the bark carefully to have a gradient flowing up the stick until the heart of the wood, its true color as it were, is exposed. Did it have a lot of branches? Find a way to show off the cool knots. Basically, he works with what he has to let the thing speak for itself. Less actual carving like swirls or whatever and more revealing what it is that makes that stick special. Takes less technical carving skill but a good eye for natural beauty. My uncle carved my grandmother her cane before he passed and while it's a beautiful piece, it is definitely carved if that makes sense

Anyway, as you know I love arting and crafting and making pretty things with my hands. Because of church, I know how to embroider, quilt, scrapbook, make pretty much anything you could ever want from cloth from actual clothes to scripture holders, and all the usual home stuff afab people get taught in YWs. I know how to knit (with a loom), make paper art, draw traditionally, paint traditionally (and know how to stretch my own canvas), create beautiful digital art, create rough architecture blueprints that are less rough with minecraft now, stain wood, cook, make rugs, and basically if there is a craft out there I don't know, I learn very quickly as I'm great with my hands and my hand-eye coordination is fantastic. Thank you 15 years of piano lessons

Dylan, knowing this, encouraged me to take up wood burning. Painting is difficult as I don't have an easel and unless I find a comfy recliner or wheelchair stat, I can't feasibly paint anytime soon. Due to disability (and lack of materials) there are a great number of hobbies I can no longer engage in as there I'd nothing but pain and frustration. I was a little intimidated, I'll admit, because I had no idea what a wood burning tool looked like and how would I work it anyway? From my time around big saws and other wood working machinery, I wondered if it would be something unwieldy and dangerous

Plus, let's be honest. I have a very hard time justifying spending money on myself if it's more than $5 at a time

He'd been goading me into it since November. He'd basically finished up my stick except for staining and he knew I'd want to burn it. But I hemmed and hawed. Finally, we had a pretty decent paycheck with loads of money leftover and he talked me into it. Even got that nice flat piece to get me started before taking the tips to my stick

It has been a genuine blast and a complete delight. It's like a very hot, very fat pencil and he saw right away I was going to need gloves or I'd burn myself and have loads of scars all over my fingers and hands. I'm glad he did because it hasn't been a day and already my gloves have marks on them. He got real expensive deerskin so they'd be able to move with my fingers and give me more mobility than anything else. They were expensive too and wouldn't hear any complaints I had about money. He wasn't going to have me melting my flesh or unable to do delicate work like I like

What I've been doing is outlining the thin layers of bark he left. He noticed that while the outermost layers were ugly, the innermost were interesting. You can see the grain in a way you can't with the lighter wood and you have a cool looking shade that's a nice contrast to that lighter heart. I've been going over them with the round tip (really good for drawing and writing as it's super smooth) and doing those hair thin lines with the point tip. It feels very similar to drawing a fantasy map all over my stick

I'm about 1/3 of the way up my stick though definitely not 1/3 of the way finished. I lose hours at a time bent over and carefully burning. I found out I can take the tips off hot and put them in a ceramic dish to minimize cool off and maximize time spent working. Which is critical for me as I can't spend more than about three hours tops bent over burning

It's so fun because it's like line art but it's on a piece of wood so it feels like I'm doing something new. It's very methodical and cathartic and I lose so much time focusing on doing this. It keeps me calm and downright happy! Which is EXCELLENT because it means I'm combatting seasonal depression in a very big way. I've already agreed to do this with all of his pieces to enhance what he's already carved. Eventually I'll probably Do Things like Actual Wood Art but for now I'm happy with this

We already have some projects planned too by the way!!! He loves making furniture and he can build better stuff for cheaper than buying it from a furniture store. So he's going to build a lift top coffee table and a dresser for sure that I'll burn. The first piece I want us to do, I'll burn the wood BEFORE he cuts it and see how that turns out. It'll be a little box (probably to hold bunny stuff) but I want to see if that does something unique or if it just is bad. If it's not something we like, hey I didn't waste weeks or months on something huge that ended up looking bad

We're probably going to make all the tables and dressers that go in our home. Maybe an entertainment center. I know we'll make my sister stuff just on the condition she pays for materials and getting it into her place. We'll probably make stuff for people who want it and I KNOW he's willing to take commissions. Closest family (parents, my sister, etc) will only have to pay for materials/shipping. Friends and other family will probably pay that and a little extra because friends and family discount. Everyone else is gonna have to pay retail value on top of materials and shipping because they'd get a unique piece you can't find anywhere else and it'd be worth it y'know?

But that's like way off sometime eventually probably

For now, I LOVE this new hobby. I can't wait to see what my stick is going to look like finished! I'm going to burn "support" on the bottom in kanji before the no slip grip goes on. Not really for any particular reason so much as like. Sentimental? I guess? Kind of like I'm burning a prayer for it to be sturdy and useful and good into it. I tried carving my wife's kanji on it (the first kanji of his middle name means dragon) but it didn't work out well so I'm gonna burn it onto the top and that'll be its name. Again, sentiment. There is also power in naming things and like. Just in case?

It has been such a very long time since I've been able to make something with my hands that I had the materials for and I'm just absolutely pink over it. I really super want people to see this stick and want some useful beauty for themselves that I can give. I love giving and making and seeing people smile over stuff I've made. It's been such a long time since something I've done has made someone smile and I just really want to bring that back y'know?

Anyway thank you for letting me gush. I just super love this and like yeah it's the butchest hobby like ever (according to Phoebe who has the most femme hobby ever of macrame) but it really fits me. It sparks joy in a way I haven't felt in a very very long time and I can't wait to see all the things I can do

#long post #text heavy #wood burning #tw burns mention #just in case :)#ask to tag

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lovely-renard · 3 years ago

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Hiii!! I would love to join your match-up event if that’s alright. My name is Luna, I’m 5’4 and I use she/her pronouns. My star sign is taurus and my MBTI is INFP. My love languages are words of affirmation and quality time. I would like a match up with Tokyo Revengers (boys).💕

• Hobbies: I really enjoy art in general, things like painting and drawing. I’m currently learning digital illustration. Also, I like to cook (very taurus thing) and going on night drives without a specific destination. I’m always listening to music

• Fashion style: I don't specifically have a favorite style of clothing, but I really like grunge and edgy fashion style.

• Favorite songs: depends on my mood, but currently Golden by Harry Styles, Dancer in the dark by chasing Atlantic, Cardigan by Taylor swift and Black by Pearl Jam (this is my favorite since I was kid)

• Series: I’m currently obsessed with Bridgerton, Spy x family and I’m watching again Full metal Alchemist.

• Describe yourself: I'm not that close in the starting but then I'll start being more chill. Once a can really let myself be, I’m very funny and I get more extrovert. I have a funny, chill, calm and loyal personality. I’m very caring and protective to those who I consider family or close to me, I try to always be for them doesn’t matter if is something bad or good. I have long dark brown hair with brown eyes. I have an hourglass body and I’m a little bit thick, like thick thighs and all that XD. I'm the kind of person to steal my significant other's clothes A LOT, I just don't have enough comfy clothes. I dislike some spicy things; I have a preference to sweet and sour food instead. I have a good sense of humour and I like people with good humour too! Sometimes I can be very sarcastic too. I almost forget, but I’m very clumsy and usually a little bit dense xD.

My first time doing a match up, I hope I did this right! thank you in advance my love, so glad I found your blog when i did. Can’t wait for more of your content. 💕💕💕

Pd: sorry if I made a spelling mistake 🥺 English is not my native language

I match you with ... Draken ♡

Your relationship song : Just my type (The Vamps)

“Why don’t they admit they’re in love? It’s getting kinda annoying, looking at them dancing around each other…” Draken grumbles, head comfortably seated on your lap.

“And why can’t you just watch the show without complaining? I warned you: this was my turn to choose a movie.”

“Well I didn’t excepted you to pick such a lame one! The characters are so dense, it’s unbelievable.”

Before he could continue his little rant against the (you had to admit) not that good movie, you place your hand on his head, playing with the strands of his hair. As excepted, he shuts up immediately and adjusts his position, his own hand drawing random patterns on your tights. With this simple yet quite effective trick, you can enjoy the rest of the movie quietly, the only sound besides the TV being your boyfriend’s breathing.

When the credits start to roll, you teasingly ask “See? It wasn’t that bad, right?”. No response. Frowning a bit, you repaeat yourself a bit louder, in case he was distracted. Still no answer from him. You lean forward, wondering if Draken was mad at you for some unknown reason only to be met with his sleepy face, eyes gently closed, chest heaving up and down deeply and steadily. You didn’t even notice he started stopping drawing randoms forms on your skin.

Smiling sweetly, you reach for the blanket on the other end of the couch, trying not to move to not wake him up, and spread it over him, making sure he’s nicely tucked in. You trace his sleeping face, from his jaw to his nose, cheeks and brows, stopping your fingers on his tattoo. You take your time to trace each lines slowly before leaning and kissing it, whispering against his skin “Good night, Ken…” before resting your eyes too.

Little did you know he was actually awake the whole time, finding it hard to not react at such an adorable behavior.

#i hope you'll like your first match up! i'm honored to be your first hehe :3 #and don't worry you're english is really good!!#love is in the air event #from : unknown

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angeloftheisles-blog · 7 years ago

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Angelo snorted at the reaction, giving an amused shake of his head. Of course Phillip would decide that all he needed for salad was lettuce and cheese, even after being advised on other things he could include. Not that he could be too critical: he dug his heels in pretty seriously himself whenever he decided he didn't want to do or eat something. It was almost childish levels of stubbornness, but he didn't really see the need to change it about himself.

"The shop is empty: did you want me to look up a salad recipe for you while you're here? You can do egg salads or pasta salads or chicken salads too: you don't have to stick to veggies. I'll even give you some fresh paper for a shopping list, since I always seem to run through yours," he joked. He did fish out a cheap notebook from one of the little drawers though; they were there to hold various odds and ends that helped to be accessible without being visible, but he always made sure to keep a small pad of paper in one so Phillip never got caught without. He really did tend to make him go through a lot when he was around after all: they just spoke more than Phillip usually expected from his days.

"Whatever you want on the spare pizza. Except tofu. Tofu isn't allowed anywhere near my house." Angelo finished ringing Phillip through, getting the boxset bagged and set down by his feet and out of the way. "Bring that with you and we can have a pizza and Sailor Moon night. Totally manly right?"

The 'request' earned a laugh, Angelo rolling his eyes and swatting playfully at the air near Phillip's head while he was leaning forward enough to do so. Damn tall people. "I just like traditional stuff more, you know that. Not easy to ship big wood carved statues off the islands though, so I'll probably keep the advertisements local. I'll happily draw your lame self insert for actual money though," he retorted. Phillip had heard all the complaints before, so he knew exactly what phrases not to say to an artist and, as any good friend would, made a point of saying all of them to Angelo as often as he could. "For real though, if you ever need some free or super discount art for a website or anything just let me know. You just get stuck with tech support duty when my attempts to work digitally crash and burn."

angeloftheisles:

Angelo laughed at the question, paying more attention to the note than his hands as he rang the boxset through. It was routine by now, so he didn’t really need to pay that much attention. It beeped anyway.

Phillip eating vegetables though? Now that was attention worthy. There were days he half expected him to come down with scurvy or something, the way he ate.

“I’m not big on the whole vegan thing - I like eggs and dairy - but vegetarian isn’t too bad. And you can put pretty much whatever you want in salads, but things like lettuce and tomato and cucumber are pretty standard. Red onion, avocado and cheese too.” He may not be the greatest cook in the world, but even he could throw together a salad. It was a little harder when he was advising somebody who looked at vegetables like they killed his parents though. “If you’re free some time, come to my place for movies or something. We can make pizzas and I’ll have a veggie pizza so you can try it and still have back up pizza if you gag.”

He turned the screen to Phillip, showing him the price listed. “This was what it cost when you ordered it in right? Abi put it in the system, not me, so I dunno if you’re getting charged extra.”

Angelo grinned at the question, giving a little half shrug in reply. Phillip regularly encouraged him to try freelance art, but he kept putting off doing anything about it. It was partially confidence related and partially just his own bad procrastination habits though.

“I’ve got a sort of commission sheet I was going to drop by the Explorer’s Guild after work, see if they’d stick it up on the request boards or something. Other than online, it’s the only place I can really think of to advertise it, especially since most of what I do is traditional. Online works better if you work with digital stuff,” he shrugged. He grabbed his sketchbook, flipping it over and opening the back page to show his drafted ‘request’. “See? Gonna drop a copy in later.”

He stroked his chin, being more than a little dramatic at that request. Angelo was always making offers and suggestions, and he couldn’t fault him for it, but Phillip was absolutely certain that he would get himself in trouble one day for it.

‘All of that sounds gross. Avocado? >8( It’s mushy green butter. Red onions burn in the bad way. Cheese could be good, though. I could just do…lettuce and cheese and dressing or something. That would be pretty cool. Lettuce is healthy’ He was looking for extra space on the paper, and frowned a bit, taking a spare from his coat pocket. Angelo always seemed to get him talking–well, writing, really. ‘I am ALWAYS down for pizza. Better not be poisoned or something. Extra cheese on the spare too. You can’t go wrong with cheese if the other one attacks me or something.’

He checked over the price and shrugged, pulling out his wallet. Not that he gave much attention to the price originally. He nodded.

He leaned over to check out the draft and grinned a bit. It was about time Angelo put some more effort into his work. He definitely understood why he put it off–heck, Phillip did most of the time. There was still a mountain of things on his to-do list–but it was nice to see his coworker a bit more motivated this time around.

‘You should add in what you won’t do, just in case. I’d pay for your stuff. And digital is really awesome, it’s just prone to crashing.’ He tapped his pen and then smirked. ‘Can you draw my OC for exposure? I know a bunch of people who would love your stuff. It’s basically better than money anyway, right?’ He gave a huge grin.

#Phillip #Is That An Anime #no worries i dont know how to do anything #so we're a good match #BUT YOU HAVE ALWAYS BEEN SOEEDY MCSPEEDY #You get in the groove and its like youre possessed by Sonic

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shinahb · 4 years ago

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May favorites 2021!

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GREETINGS

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June 05. 2021

Hello!

Finally finished with all my assessment tests and now I’m free to do whatever, except I can’t do much cause we are still in a third lock down, I’m really sad since all I’ve been seeing is plant nurseries updating their instagram stories of all the new plants they are getting in. Dammit can’t go. I have 16 plants now, it all starts with one and then your space becomes a jungle.lol.

I still don’t have any drama recommendations for you so that will be blank for a while. As for manga/webtoons I have two I want to discuss that I’m currently reading and enjoying, I see the list I have since starting the monthly favorites again and um..there’s like 33 titles, and these are filtered titles meaning I have read more than that.lol. I hope you all are enjoying the recommendations, I realized from seeing this meme, that I always seem to not remember the names of antagonists in these stories and I end up giving them nick names; harry potter, incest red head, boss...(then found out his name is pilwon, started to call him pil-shit.lol), scum red head, pimp, ass hat, tarzan...etc. wow. Then this meme came along and explained everything as to why I do this and it made so much sense.

Replace " crazy general" with "scum" I wish I still remembered where I got this screenshot from, think it was on twitter.

So apparently I don’t care enough to remember is what it is, rightfully so because they are all scum.

I’m still thinking about what to draw for my digital art, I might actually draw fan art for a character’s birthday next week, I usually don’t do this but I think the last one I made didn’t do this person justice.lol. I also plan on drawing some more shounen ai series art, like the draw 6 characters “seme” edition, don't worry I haven’t forgotten about it.

Okay on that note let’s get started! Have fun reading!

Sheena

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DRAMAS:

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No dramas this month ...again

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MANHWA/MANGA/WEBTOONS

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Recap:

1) whose baby is it? (Ongoing)

2) Social temperature (Ongoing)

3) Salad days (Ongoing)

4) To be or not to be (Ongoing)

5) Path to you (Completed)

6) Here u are (Completed)

7) BJ Alex (Completed)

8) No way, vampires don't exist (Completed)

9) Unintentional love story (Ongoing)

10) Karasugoka don’t be shy! (Completed)

11) Semantic Error (Ongoing)

12) Tied up in Twins (Completed)

13) My Suha (Ongoing)

14) Crash into me (Completed)

15) Dine with a vampire (Completed)

16) Inner beauty (Completed)

17) False memories (Completed)

18) Hand in Hand (Completed)

19) Stanning 101 (Completed)

20) Private lessons (Completed)

21) Behind the scenes (Completed)

22) Turn off the camera (Ongoing)

23) Murderous lewellyn candlelit dinner (Ongoing)

24) Unrippened expression (Completed)

25) Oh! My assistant (Completed)

26) The good teacher (Completed)

27) My purrfect boss (Completed)

28) The sales department’s cupid (Ongoing)

29) Pearl boy (Ongoing)

30) Hold me tight (Completed) + side story (Ongoing)

31) The third ending (Ongoing)

32) Stigma (Completed)

33) December rain (Completed)

Updates on ongoing titles:

This is the section where I update you on the previous series I’ve talked about, each month can contain different series depending on what I have to discuss.

Murderous lewellyn candlelit dinner:

So this has been updated for a while now and I recently have just been catching up with it, last time I believed that I mentioned that shevon and lewellyn were interested in each other and apparently they did end up dating, but of course with caution on shevon’s part, as he knows that his boy friend is a murderer. Shevon had been offered a good opportunity to become a full fledged writer by a person scouting him, which honestly sounds fishy to me because this dude approached him by going to his place and just saying that he had been looking for him since he saw some his past articles that were not published during his free lance writing days.

It seemed like this dude was legit working for a good publishing company when shevon was invited over to visit. So of course he wanted to take that opportunity the only thing is that he had to come to this guys house to write as they don’t have work space or something...also sounding fishy...lol. I cannot even tell you how rapey this sounds, my fight or flight senses are tingling...

I honestly don’t remember what happened next but he wanted to tell lewellyn that he got a job as a witter when he took the opportunity and the b guy asks if he had someone waiting for him when shevon decided to leave, he didn’t out fight day he had a boyfriend/lover he just said that he a had a puppy waiting for him at home...I guess he was being cautious in case this dude gets murdered next if he were to introduce lewellyn to him.

I read a bit of the Korean raws and theres this part that did not make sense to me later where I’m sure this part is supposed to be a flashback, lewellyn was in jail and shevon was a policeman watching over him...I’m like okay I’m confused as to how we got here, guess I’ll have to wait to read the translations in English when they are released.

The sales department’s cupid:

Umm...I feel like I didn’t update this yet, it’s actually completed in korean, so i’ll give a small summary of some events that happened that I remember, the two main characters are seeing each other and of course people try to get in the way. There ‘s this pink haired new employee that really likes one of the characters and he wanted taejun to essentially hook them up, but taejun had feelings for that person already so he was reluctant, this of course causes an plethora of misunderstandings, lol the most basic plot point in all these stories, but they solved their issues and it turns out pink haired dude was already matched up with this other dude in their company...okay, I don’t know about you guys but this dude compared to the pink hair boy, he looks like a giant fridge, I’m like why the heck are these “ seme” type characters built like bank safes and the other dude is like a twig...this dude is going to kill him with his penis...lmao. This is one of my pet peeves in manga/webtoons where they can’t be the same size human, it just seems unrealistic. Anyways, the two main characters get together in the end. That’s it...to be honest it’s not all that great, I recommend it if you want something cute to read but the story itself was not really a stand out compared to other ones I’ve read.

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Welcome to Heaven (18+)

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Welcome to the wholesome stories of manga/webtoons, last month I talked about some of the more serious tones stories and it was something that brought up a lot of serious discussions that had to be brought to light. But for this month I’m going to talk about some wholesome stories that I am currently enjoying.

Warning some of these stories have mature themes so please be over the age of 18 if you do decide to read them!

Mr. Miss:

“After being outted by his first love in high school, Juho has been struggling in his romantic endeavors ever since. One evening after a distasteful phone call with a cheating ex, Juho sees someone has been staring at him. Juho recognizes Kang Jaemin, an old high school classmate. Juho and Jaemin briefly catch up on each other's lives when Juho makes a surprising offer for Jaemin to stay the night at his place to which Jaemin agrees. This chance encounter leads Juho and Jaemin to explore a connection they didn't get to have when they were in high school. Perhaps Jaemin's honesty will be enough to give Juho the courage to love and trust someone again.”

I went into this without having any expectations and I was surprised at how some of these characters are really well written, it starts off with jaemin who is an office employee who hates his job..Lmao don’t we all? And he was in a really crappy mood because of a situation that happened at work but he came across a cafe and noticed that someone was arguing over the phone aggressively. Realizing that it was an acquaintance from high school he approached him and they started talking again. That person was juho and apparently jaemin wanted to be friends with him during high school but of course the “ first love” of juho’s was a cock block and literally distance juho from others so he was not able to make any friends, all the friends he made were from that person’s circle...ok first red flag right here, if anyone does this to you tell them to f*ck off , they have no right to decide on who you can and can’t be friends with.

Any ways, jaemin wanted to reacquaint himself with juho and they began to hang out a few times where jaemin made it apparent that he was really interested in him. Juho however didn’t think jaemin was serious due to his past relationships not working out, so therefore he just thought jaemin was going through a phase of just wanting to hook up with a guy. I feel like i’ve seen this plot line so many times and it was getting a little boring, but of course jaemin didn’t spend an eternity questioning his sexuality like how other main protagonists do when they find out they are interested in the same sex. Jaemin knew that he liked juho and it didn’t matter what gender he was. So instead of accepting right away juho wanted to take it slow and wanted to just hang out with jaemin as friends for now. He told this situation to his gal friend “yejin” and she is one of the best well written female characters in BL that I have seen at all. This girl was not afraid to call juho out on his bull sh*t and trying to convince him that the only reason he can’t accept anything is because he’s afraid of getting hurt and he’s only dated assholes, so when someone great comes along he doesn’t want to accept the reality of it. Juho thinks by being “gay” he was ruining the life of another person just because he likes the same sex, and that is not okay, for even thinking that, since none of this is his fault, she said that he deserves to be with a good person.

She also got mad at juho when he was still thinking of his first love even though that dude screwed him over completely, she’s seen how much of a wreck he was when that happened and didn’t want him to get hurt again. She even wanted to take her girl friend with her to beat up the dude that hurt juho.lol.

I honestly love this girl. Every protagonist needs a friend like her, maybe then they would not get involved with sh*tty people...smh. Apparently she also knew jaemin, they had gone to the same cram school for art, and knew good things about him.

Jaemin said something to juho when they graduated high school that they should meet up sometimes, but juho disappeared because of a scandal involving that “first love” dude and there were rumors of him being gay and ruining that dudes life, so people were insulting him on graduation day, jaemin cut a lot of “those” friends out of his life because of that, it was his way of defending juho’s honor. Guys...jaemin is such a good person, he does so much for juho not expecting anything in return , he really wanted to support him as a friend if nothing else.

I think juho’s way of thinking is right considering all the things that happen to him having one failed relationship after another can take a toll on you mentally, I think what was more confusing for him is that his first love and jaemin both say the same sweet words but with different intentions. The first love guy obviously was manipulative and obsessive where as jaemin’s intentions were clear and honest since all he wanted was for juho to sincerely be happy. As a reader you can see all of this but juho can’t, so from his perspective being skeptical is a good thing because you’ll just never know what will happen.

As you read you’ll get to see the juho’s back story and how his feelings were manipulated by the first love character, let’s call him ass hat, I do know his name but he doesn’t deserve to be known, so i’ll address him as this. Ass hat and juho were family friends and theyre families were really close so essential they also became close, outside of ass hat’s friend circle, juho was not seen engaging with other people, until jaemin and juho were assigned to do class prep work together in the morning and they started talking only to get interrupted by ass hat. Since then juho and jaemin only had minor exchanges since every time he tried to talk to juho , ass hat would always be there to grab his attention. So one day jaemin caught juho and ass hat kissing in the classroom and realized that they were in a relationship so he kind of backed off. Until graduation he was smoking out in the back of the school and juho was called out by ass hat’s posy and ridiculed him for pushing his feelings onto ass hat, basically accusing him for coming onto a friend that wasn’t interested. Turns out ass hat got caught and didn’t want to suffer from his family ridiculing him for being gay so he accused juho of starting it fist....this mother f*cker...and this dude has the audacity to call him again and act like they can start over...wtf is wrong with you? What is wrong with these stupid people who don’t know when to quit...

Anyways, there was a classmate getting married and invited some people in high school to get together and they wanted to invite jaemin and ass hat insisted they invite juho...to make him look like a good person, but we all know that’s a f*cken lie. Jaemin originally didn’t want to go but he could not stand seeing juho be torn by this dude messing up with his life any further, trash needs to be taken out right way! So he went to the gathering and confronted ass hat and even got into a fight with him.lol. yas...good job boy! Juho should be the one to punch this ass hat but of course he’s experiencing so trauma that that cannot be fully healed, even with time. After the tussle juho was called over by the guy who hosted the gathering and juho went to jaemin and ignored ass hat when he thought he was there to see him..LMAO this loser, you’re so delusional...

After this juho came to love jaemin even more than he did before they started dating, it turned out jaemin meant a lot to him ever since he talked to him on the last day of high school ceremonies and how he encouraged him and wanted to keep in touch with him. Juho’s family found out then that he was gay and so they were not on good terms, the older brother went ballistic and threatened him, which made juho leave, after he left he went through several jobs until he came to work at this cafe, he saw jaemin walking in a crowd of people during university, but he didn’t say anything to him. Because juho had that fall out with his family he was thinking of how it would affect jaemin if he were to come out to his family. I like how jaemin made it clear that he was not going into this relationship with an end goal, he’s not thinking about how it’s going to end, he’s thinking about now and all the stuff that he’s going to have to deal with he will take care of it when that time comes. To be honest, he’s a fully grown adult and he can make his own choices, how other people will take it is on them, even if your family doesn’t understand your choice, they will eventually come around. they both made the effort to stop antagonizing over things that can't be changed and live in the moment.

Okay so I’ll end that here since it’s pretty much caught up with the updates, please read this series, I’ve never seen a more healthier way to go into a relationship as displayed with these characters, most of these romantic development scenarios always have load of misunderstanding and it gets really predictable and boring, but jaemin didn’t want to waste time misunderstanding and says that they need to talk about what’s bothering them now. That’s a really good way to handle things instead of us readers suffering a good 20 chapters of this going downhill because neither character know how to talk about their problems. So far great story and good development of characters and well written females! in shounen ai, I don’t know what it is but the women written manga/webtoons but they are always the bad person or the scum getting into between your characters and I did not like that portrayal it was kind of disrespectful, so hats off to this for having a great female character like yejin. I also definitely had friends like that in high school where I felt out of place being there and eventually cut ties with them, I didn’t like how they treated me and never contacted them after.lol. So this manhwa is incredibly relatable in all aspects in life.

Liveta (18+):

“Luna and Formicarium are rival factions plotting to seize a territory called Liveta. The Luna family have the upper hand in the area, and thus Victor Luna, notorious for his killing sprees, resides there as de facto ruler. Enter Yohan, a bumbling puppy-dog type who has become a Formicarium spy out of dire circumstances. When Yohan meets Victor under the guise of being his guard, he is expecting sharp edges and a fiery temper... But the first thing Victor wants to confirm about Yohan isn’t his trustworthiness, but the size of what’s in his pants.”

This manhwa is really interesting because I almost dropped this series right in the middle, but because I stuck with it, things got better after wards. I’ll explain that a little later.

So this series starts off by a dude running away from a gang of people chasing him and the dude was dead the next day, yohan was meeting up with van, who is a bodyguard for the district leader’s little brother named victor. Van is essential going to a meeting in luna for a couple days and needed someone he can trust to watch over victor for a couple days, hence he chose yohan from recommendation. Yohan is a “gray” which means that he isn’t a Luna or formicarium citizen, he and his brother were orphans when they were young and was assimilated into working in neural land, neither citizen of both the districts, but greys are not treated very well and are usually bullied by other district citizens and other grays. The districts usually waged war and the weaker ones joined the stronger ones and eventually ended with two districts that are the most powerful. The war became so tiresome they decided to leave the land they call “Liveta” unclaimed and neutral territory that separates the two powerful districts...so think of this like how Canada and the States are separated by the border, these two lands are separated by the boundary land “ Liveta”. As a protective measure both districts will have citizens get a tattoo of their district on their body to distinguish people in the neutral land once people started inhabiting the area from other districts.

Grays also assimilated into groups called the “cleanup crew” which they do cleanup work for the other districts as a way to not get treated badly and bullied by the district citizens. Basically you need to work for the people to stay alive. So yohan works as a cleanup crew member for many years to keep him and his brother alive, his brother is terminally ill and had to be hospitalized, so yohan only calls his care taker to check up on his brother from time to time while working. This will all be explained in chapter 14 in detail so don’t panic if you don’t really get it at first, there is so much history and detail you would think you were reading a shounen manga.lol.

So yohan was trusted by van to watch over victor as his bodyguard while he is away and yohan not only is a gray but is spy for formicarium, this was not something he wanted to do, but because it was a way for him to get his brother into better medical care he decided to see the district leader and made a deal with him. Yohan was in panic due to the rumours surrounding victor as the demon who massacred so many people that his family banished him to liveta. So that image of him alone was enough to make him fear for his life.

Van made it clear not to let victor go out at night and cause trouble, I wasn’t sure what he meant by that but later on in the chapter you realize that victor is sort of a sex addict, he goes out at night and look for one night stands to sleep with, he has these dark bags under his eyes due to insomnia and needs intercourse to wear him out enough to sleep. Lol. Omg. That’s so sad.

Yohan didn’t realize that until victor asks him to shower and take his clothes off.lol.

But because of this development, yohan and victor get to know each other really well to the point where they started to catch feelings for one another, at this point I was like, this is awesome...the story is moving along well, I like both victor and yohan’s developing relationship and them as characters. Then this sh*t happened....

Let me just remind you all that I don’t understand the concept of “threesomes” this development puts me off of reading manhwa many times. So what happens is that yohan and victor visit the bar that yohan likes to hang out in and ran into one of yohan’s friend, we are going to call him “Tarzan” lol. So Tarzan and yohan were part of the cleanup crew and got close due to being the same age. They all went to drink together and Tarzan asks how they knew each other and victor straight up says that they are sex friends..lmao. Yohan didn’t want victor to wander off again alone so he held his hand while they were drinking and this sets off a not so great memory of victor and his ex-boyfriend, and made victor impulsively suggest to Tarzan that they should sleep together tonight...and Tarzan accepts to much of yohan’s objection..lol. yeah this is such a stupid plot point, if you like threesomes, that’s your problem...but let me just say this, I don’t care how close you are your homies are, it is not okay to sleep with your home boy’s love interest/ partner...whatever. This is not okay, if it was a stranger and you didn’t know them, then that makes more sense to me, but you know this person...the next time you see them you’re going to be like, we all had sex together with the same person.

Lmao this was when I was like okay...I’m out, don’t think I’m going to continue. But then I checked out the raws and realized that it was literally nothing, maybe just added content to make yohan realize that he has feelings for victor whether he denies it or not. The story so far gets better from this point on...but knowing that I almost dropped this was pretty funny because of that ordeal. Honestly it would have been fine without it, because in the middle of yohan standing aside and just letting Tarzan and victor do their thing he was looking at a portrait of victor and his sister and it seemed like an important scene.

Then followed by them inviting yohan to “join them”. Ugh...I’m like how did you insert an important scene with this being here?

Anyways, yohan and victor’s relationship is developing really well and I love yohan, he is literally my ideal type manifested, there had not yet been a manhwa character that is remotely close to my ideal but he’s incredibly close to my type. Now saying this, Van is also my type as well, I’m glad he’s getting some character development in the more recent chapters because I want to know more about him too. i'm just saying read this manhwa if not for the plot then for the good looking men! there's plenty of them!

So I’ll stop here, but if you like a story that is BL but more heavily focused on story rather than people having sex for no reason then this is for you. I like stories that have more of that shounen anime feel but is still is clearly bl without having it shoved into your face. There are sex scenes because of victor’s situation being not able to sleep, so it’s not just showing sex for no reason.lol. though there still is a lot of fan service with the whole threesome thing.

Please give this a read if you are interested and of the age of 18. I recommend it.

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Trash segment (18+)

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a.k.a the part of the series where I shit on your favorite manhwa/manga/webtoon etc. Joking but not really, you have been warned.

This is the new section where you’re going to find titles that I dropped and the reasons why I discontinued the series all together, fair warning if you triggered by people criticizing your favorite series then you may want to skip this section all together. Everyone is entitled to their own opinion and not every series that is “popular” or well liked by others will be like by all...therefore if there is content that makes a person uncomfortable enough to stop the series, that is on them and please don’t judge them for their morals.

So to recap, the series that I mentioned dropping so far are

Love or Hate

Yours to claim

Wistful summer

Anti-p.t.

The sound of fire

Okay so for this week I’ll only feature one since I could not really think of any that I recently dropped, this one I’m thinking of dropping as it stands now since I’m sure the plot will be frustrating if I read more.

Kiss damnation:

“A campus hotshot, Yoon Kyunghoo doesn’t enjoy investing much of his time when meeting up with people and prefers light and fun relationships with others. As he steps out to take a smoke, he coincidentally witnesses a gay couple kissing for the first time in his life. 2 months later, his sunbae invites him out to drink along with his co-worker Siyoon who Kyunghoo remembers from somewhere. As Siyoon removes his glasses, he then realizes that Siyoon was one of the gay couple he witnessed kissing before.Will Kyunghoo have some kind of realization? Will Siyoon have a change of heart towards Kyunghoo?”

When I first saw this, I thought the art looked really nice but the cover already says much about the story without me reading it.lol. As you can tell it’s a love triangle which already is a turn off for me personally. I’m a veteran of reading trash and now I just reject it as soon as possible.

Firstly seeing a couple kiss in front of you doesn’t make you gay...I’m like why is he having this realization having witness two men almost kiss.lol. The guy that kyunghoo saw was a friend of his sunbae who is a teaching assistant named siyoon. He was interested after he had a dream of siyoon trying to kiss him after a night out drinking. But of course there’s always that other dude being the main love interest, he of course is a professor from kyunghoo’s department. I’m like ...am I reading private lessons again? Lmao another dilf -like teacher not wanting to be in a relationship and is looking for only sex...I’m like not this again. Dude, just go to a brothel, why do you have to involve someone who has romantic feelings for you just to let them down?

This is manhwa plot garbage, I’m so tired of these dumb ass horny old men preying on younger males, it’s literally disgusting, and you would think they would have their shit together being older but it’s the opposite. Lol.

Anyways, professor glasses only wanted a physical relationship with siyoon , they knew each other because siyoon had him as a tutor when he was younger and that encounter made him have feelings for him, I guess because he admired him. Anyways there is only 6 chapters translated in English so I’m just going to quit while I’m ahead, cause I know where this plot is going, if siyoon ends up with kyunghoo then that’s fine but this professor garbage is going to get in the way of their development and it’s going to annoy the sh*t out of me.

If you like this, go ahead and read it but I personally don’t need a reiteration of private lessons when that already exists and I’ve already read that.lol.

oh this trash list is getting longer every month....

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ANIME

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Mashiro no oto:

“Setsu Sawamura runs away from his small home village following the death of his grandfather, the legendary shamisen master Matsugorou Sawamura. On his deathbed, Matsugorou told Setsu to give up the shamisen if he was only going to imitate others instead of playing in his own way. Grieving, Setsu heads for Tokyo, hoping that the big city can inspire him to discover his own unique playing style. But Tokyo defies his expectations by drowning out all other sounds with the deafening noise of its city life. Concerned about her son, Setsu's rich and successful mother, Umeko, waltzes back into his life and forces him to enroll in Umezono Academy. At the school, he meets Shuri Maeda, a girl who is fascinated by the Tsugaru shamisen and wishes to perform a song her grandmother once heard a long time ago. Shuri starts up a shamisen appreciation club and convinces Setsu to teach the members how to play the instrument. As he becomes more involved with the club, will Setsu be able to recover his love for the shamisen and discover the unique sound he lacks?”- my anime list

This is one of those gems in which anime and music crosses over and it’s really interesting to feature classical music with a classical instrument like the shamisen, this instrument is interesting cause it’s like the olden day version of a guitar and it only has three strings, but it looks really hard play. If I ever get a chance to try playing I would like to see how to play this instrument, I was always interested in playing the hard when I was younger and was thoroughly disappointed when I joined band and realize that instrument did not exist here.lol.

This anime has some interesting characters, setsu is like a wandering musician following in his grand father’s footsteps in playing the shamisen, but also finding his own defining sound that resonates with people that listen to his music. In his journey he met people that were going through their own struggles and got involved with a club that was formed from a person who was interested in playing shamisen. This anime has a good small group of characters that bond together over music and its really great and whole some especially when setsu was able to let all of his club members shine in their playing, even if he had more experience and skill he didn’t be little their effort. So give this a watch, I think if you like music you’ll like this genre.

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MUSIC/PODCASTS:

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I haven’t talked about this series yet but I’m currently watching Tokyo revengers and I really like the girl who sang the ending song, her name is Eill, and I went down the rabbit hole of her music and now I’m stuck.lol.

Her sound is very much like Dean and Hoody if you know k-pop, you know that type of music I mean, but obviously she sings in Japanese, it just has that k-pop r&b feel. Please give her music a listen I’ve been loving all her songs!

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Ending note:

Alright! Finally reached the end, thank you all for reading my favorites, I would have added more recommendations but I think having two features will be better in terms of length because I like to elaborate on the series. Which some people have told me they hated, but I honestly don’t care, since I know there are people who like to be thoroughly informed if they don’t want purchase the series and don't end up reading it because it sucked.

Wish people told me to avoid the incest ones, I wouldn’t have spend ink and coins all together just because the series is recommended as a “popular” series. I’m basically doing the work for you by reading and making a review, if you don’t like it then don't read the post, I don’t know why that’s so hard.

But to those who actually read it and took some of my recommendations in consideration, thanks for reading and I hope you will continue to read these, I have a lot of them to talk about but I’m also trying to organize them by themes to make it easier.

With that being said, if There is anything you’d like to recommend me, in whatever category, feel free to comment below. Leave a like if you want to see this continue!

Thanks take care of your selves!

sheena

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SOCIAL MEDIA

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