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littlespaceporgs · 4 years ago

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Inevitable

Leah! Congrats on your follower milestone! 🥳💕 May I request 5. a gentle “i love you” whispered after a soft kiss, followed immediately by a stronger kiss for Anakin Skywalker? Thank you, love! 🥰

A/N: Hey! This is my first time writing for Anakin, I tried to make him not as whiny as he is in the movies, so I ran with tcw! *cough* this is also my longest one somehow *cough* So spoiler alert! It does have references and is set in the Zygerria arc in tcw, just a heads up, though it makes sense still if you haven’t seen the arc. Also fair warning, if you want it to stay fluffy at the very end, I recommend you don’t read the final paragraph. Anyway, enjoy :D

Want to Request? See Here.

Inevitable

Prompt: #5 - a gentle “i love you” whispered after a soft kiss, followed immediately by a stronger kiss

Word Count: 1.9k Pairing: Anakin x Jedi!Reader Warnings: slavery, torture, hint of depression Description: Post-Zygerria, you contemplate your feelings for Anakin.

Tags for the fam: @anakin-danvers @fractiouskat

It hadn’t gone well to say the least. Mind, it was rare that this type of thing went well. It was supposed to just be a trip to check on the Togrutans. Naturally, you had walked onto Kiros expecting a fight, after all, the last thing the Jedi had heard from them, a separatist fleet had entered the atmosphere. But this was by far the worst thing you’d ever gotten yourself into.

Kiros itself was a beautiful planet. The art and architecture was something to marvel at, and the landscape was vastly different to the cold grey of Coruscant. You found yourself hoping that one day you’d be able to holiday there, it was nice climate, there hadn’t been any traces of the war due to their neutrality until recently. The lack of habitants however was quite frankly disturbing.

Between Anakin, Obi-Wan, Ahsoka, the troopers and yourself, you all had made quick work of the droids. When you received word that the Zygerrians had a part to play in all of this, Obi-Wan went to meet up with the separatist leader, you stayed behind to comfort Anakin. Said Anakin was currently sitting in front of a speeder, looking highly volatile. The best way to approach Anakin when he was in such a mood was with quiet and a steady hand, so you started by placing a hand on his shoulder.

“Ani? Are you ok?” While he didn’t turn to look at you, his hands did stop fiddling with the machinery. He exhaled heavily through his nose and went back to modifying the speeder.

“Yeah. I’m fine.�� You sat down next to him, and snatched the wrench out of his hands, which prompted a noise of protest as he turned to glare at you.

“See you say that, but there’s this thing called a ‘facial expression’ which says otherwise.” Using the force to snatch the wrench back, he went back to using the wrench. “Ani, you know you can talk to me right?” He sighed and stopped once more.

“Yeah, I know,” you reached over, and took one of his hands in yours, “this is just digging up some memories I’d rather not think about.” He twisted his hand over, so that his fingers locked in yours, and squeezed gently.

“I’m really sorry that you went through that, Ani, truly I am. I can’t even begin to imagine what it was like,” you paused and took a breath, “but what I do know, is that you’re one of the strongest people I know, and I know that because of that you’ll move past this.” Though not seeming totally happy, one of the corners of his mouth pulled a little, he shook his head and looked directly into your eyes before they flicked to your hands.

“Honestly, what would I ever do without you?” The jedi in you wanted to recite the code, say that he would be perfectly fine without you, that he’d have to find a way to move on and accept it, say that he shouldn’t be saying such things. But the utterly human part of you felt overly fuzzy, and affection reared its head in your stomach. Ignoring the trepidation, you smiled back at him.

“Probably something stupid, or make more poor decisions.” He snorted out an airy laugh and squeezed your hand a little tighter. The moment didn’t last however, as the tone of a comm rang out from his wrist from Obi-Wan.

That was what led you to Zygerria, attempting to find the Togrutans. With quick assurances and a look that seemed to be forlorn, you and Anakin separated. He went with Ahsoka to find the Queen, while you, Obi-Wan and Rex went on the hunt for the missing people. You should have listened to the awful, rotting feeling in your stomach, then maybe, you all wouldn’t have been taken.

As a jedi, you relished in the feeling of freedom. With a connection to the force, you could feel everything around you, feel the flow of energy between all if you will. It made you feel light, like a small breeze could carry you away, like every breath of fresh was your first. Down here, that was all taken away from you. The walls combined with the heat made you suddenly feel claustrophobic and the collar around your neck weighed you down. Between you and Obi-Wan, it normally would’ve been easy to break out. A tiny twitch of a finger, and the collar would be crushed. A swipe of the hand would smack the guards into a wall. Then you’d both be able to grab Rex and go. If Anakin were here, maybe you’d be able to achieve that.

It wasn’t a normal situation however.

There were others involved. If either of you even threatened to do something, they would torture a civilian, possibly even drive them to death. In your current state, you wouldn’t be able to take out the sheer number of guards quick enough before lives would be lost. They had realised that there was little in the way of physical torture that would cause a jedi to break. This, however, felt hopeless. Your hands were tied. You were hungry, exhausted, and felt overwhelmed with the sadness that practically poured out of their force signatures.

When the slaver was finally dead, you couldn’t help the sense of sick satisfaction that came with it. He deserved to die for what he did, and the subtle brush of a force signature told you Obi-Wan felt similarly. Despite being able to breathe without a collar for the first time in days, your lungs couldn’t seem to get any air, and your knees were aching, and your back was pounding with angry pain. Vaguely you remembered your knees slamming the ground and Obi-Wan kneeling near your head and calling your name.

Out of habit from the past few days, you woke up abruptly, although things were different. You started hyperventilating, and suddenly the world felt too small again. No matter what was actually happening, you couldn’t see anything except the dirty halls of the mine, the faces of the Togrutans who were tortured because you couldn’t keep your mouth shut. And then blue eyes. There was a hand stroking your hair, and another trying to get you to keeping looking into the eyes. And then a whisper. It wasn’t loud, but it was comforting, soft. The words steadily became clearer and you finally noticed your surroundings. For one, instead of the smell of coal and grime, it smelt like a forest on Naboo. Instead of a metal bench, there was a mattress and a soft blanket covering your legs. The light was low, but you could see the glow of hyperspace speeding past. And Anakin.

The glow was luminating his face, which looked both soft and concentrated. You could see the shadows under his eyes that you likely mirrored. As he stopped speaking, the foggy feeling lifted, and you realised that he had been trying to force suggest you to calm down. Now that your breathing had returned to some semblance of normal, his hand moved from your face, though he didn’t stop stroking your hair.

“Are you ok?” You took a deep breath to steady yourself.

“Yeah. Yeah I think I’m ok.” It was silent for a minute before Anakin moved to sit in front of you on the bed. You sat with your back up against the wall with a pillow wedged between and your legs crossed. The meaning of the silence was clear. “I just – I don’t think that I want to talk about it yet.” You turned your head to your lap, and watched as he placed his much larger hands over your own.

“It’s okay, I understand the feeling.” The silence swept over you, the words got caught in your throat, choking you. Your eyes and throat seemed to burn. He only moved his thumb over your hand, acting as an anchor. He shoved your knee slightly, getting your attention.

“Y’know, as a wise jedi knight once told me, ‘you’re the strongest person I know, you’ll get through this’.” You laughed despite yourself, and Anakin’s hand beat yours to wiping the tears from your face.

“Thanks, Ani,” you sniffled, and you couldn’t help the warmth that flooded your cheeks when he didn’t move his hand.

“Of course, you know I’d do anything for you right? I was really worried when Obi-Wan had to carry you back here.” Your heart skipped a beat, and your stomach churned. If that wasn’t attachment, you don’t know what was. You couldn’t bring yourself to point that out however. You knew that you’d do the same for him. You sighed.

“Anakin-I” you started, but you couldn’t seem to string together the words. Your heart raised in your throat, and he gave you a momentarily confused look. “You’re amazing, you know that? You-just-I- you always seem to ‘get’ me and I really appreciate that you’re always here for me and I-um” It was something that you’d never said before. You’d felt that way for him for the longest time, but you ignored it for the code. So instead of saying it, you closed your eyes, and pushed your signature out to brush his, hoping that it carried the years of longing, and the warmth that just looking at him brought you. And then a wave of the same feeling washed over you. It made your heart jump and you almost cried at the pure joy that came from him.

And then you could feel his breath on your face, and the most cautious of kisses. It was barely there, almost just a brush of the lips, but the feelings were all there. Foreheads pressed together, two hearts racing. Cautious, because of the code, because you both knew what could happen it you strayed, because of all the secrets that would have to exist. A whisper, like he was afraid that if he said it too loud, someone else might hear him, despite it just being the two of you.

“I love you.” Both your hands flew to his cheeks and pulled him closer again, and one of his drifted from your cheek to the back of your neck to hold you there. When you kissed this time, you threw caution to the wind. He kissed just as hard as you did, and stole your breath as he did.

When you pulled apart, the look you shared said everything. You smiled and breathed out a short laugh. To hell with the kriffing code.

“I love you too.”

You supposed it was inevitable, you were the one he went to when he was mad at Obi-Wan, when he was so overwhelmed that he could barely think, when a mission hadn’t gone well and he needed to calm down. Therefore, this meant all the secret moments you were to share in the future were inevitable. You hadn’t even considered the possibility of what would happen in the future when you threw out caution. Was it inevitable that you were at least partly at fault for everything going to shit? Had that meant his fall was inevitable too?

#anakin x reader #Obi-Wan Kenobi #captain rex #clone wars anakin #anakin skywalker #anakin skywalker x reader #the clone wars #tcw #star wars #fanfiction #zygerria

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harley-sunday · 6 years ago

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The Draw (09)

Summary: The whirlwind starts at the 2018 ACE Comic Con in Phoenix but you’re not sure where it will end...

Pairing: Sebastian Stan x reader

Warnings: Language.

Word count: 2653

AN: This one’s beautiful and sad and not really suited for Valentine’s Day but I hope you like it anyway. Let me know what you think :) I don’t have a taglist, but if you follow Harley Sunday x Sebastian Stan you should see any update I post.

Masterlist

You whisper something about knowing the perfect spot for ‘Tomorrow’ then and hurry to your feet, leaving a stunned Sebastian behind. Of course it’s just a bullshit excuse but at least it gives you a moment alone so you can try to make sense of everything that has happened in the last two hours. So far you’re failing miserably though and you feel bad for running out on Sebastian like that, so you actually do what you set out to do in attempt to make you feel better.

“There,” you say to no one in particular once you’ve rearranged the frames on the shelf that’s in between the two big windows in the hall, allowing them to accommodate your newest addition. You take a step back, wanting to admire the new set up, when you bump into Sebastian, who must have followed you here.

His hand is on the small of your back then, keeping you from stumbling backwards any further, his mouth close to your ear, “Careful,”

You nod, trying to ignore the heat that seems to be radiating from where he’s touching you, instead focusing on the painting again, trying to decide if you like the way it’s displayed, when he drops his hand and you have to fight the urge to grab it and put it back.

“I get it,” he says quietly.

You turn to him and find him staring at the painting, a smile playing on his lips.

“When I went to pick it up at the art gallery and the girl showed it to me,” he shakes his head and chuckles, “it really did put a smile on my face. Just like you said it would.” He must anticipate your question before you even have a chance to ask it and continues, “I found the card on the desk in your hotel room and I don’t know,” he shrugs, running a hand through his hair, “I remembered how happy you were when you were talking about it and I just want you to feel like that every day.”

“Thank you.” It comes out barely a whisper and you actually open your mouth to say more but then your mind’s racing again, a million questions popping into your head and you don’t know really know how or where to start.

The silence is deafening for a moment before Sebastian breaks it with a soft, “Where’s your head at?”

You shake your head, trying to gather your thoughts before you answer. “I think we need to talk.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “I think we do.”

Putting the inevitable off a little longer you busy yourself making a fresh brew of coffee after you’ve asked him if he’d like another round, your back to him as you will the machine to go slower and slower and slower. It doesn’t of course, and so you turn around sooner than you want, handing him what seems to be his cup now, his fingers brushing your hand as he takes it from you. You lean against the counter, hugging your own cup of coffee close to your chest. You wonder if you should move things to the living room, or even sit down at the dining table, but then figure the kitchen is as good a place as any to have this conversation.

There’s not a lot of space between the two of you, with him leaning against the counter opposite to you, and your gaze drops to your feet, his just inches away from yours, and you can’t help but smile when you see you’re both wearing black Converse, even though yours are little worse for wear.

“Hey,” he toes your shoe with his then, making you look up at him, and he smiles, simply stating “I like you.”

“And I like you,” you admit easily.

“But?” he says at the same time as you do.

“But,” you reply, “I just can’t do this right now.” You drop your gaze back to your feet, his shoe still touching yours, “Don’t get me wrong, Los Angeles was amazing and I can’t thank you enough for everything you’ve done, but,” you take a moment to gather your thoughts, “it’s just, with Nathan in the hospital and Jake being here, I don’t know, it would feel like my focus isn’t on them right now, you know? And I don’t want to half-ass things with you either, but it feels like it has to be one or the other.” You all but slam your cup down on the counter out of frustration and run your hands over your face before you continue, “I feel like maybe if we had more time before all this happened it would be easier. I mean, I know that probably doesn’t make any sense-”

“It kind of does,” he says so quietly that you doubt you’ve even heard him right but then he pushes himself off the counter and gently places his pointer finger under your chin, making you look up at him, “It’s ok.”

You just shake your head, not trusting your own voice.

“It is,” he counters, a sad smile on his lips, dropping his hand, “Maybe I shouldn’t have come here-”

“Sebastian,”

“No, hear me out, ok?” He smiles then, “It’s my turn now,” but the sentiment doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “I get it, and honestly, I agree. I think it would have been easier if we’d known each other longer, but,” he shrugs, “it is what is, you know? And the truth is I really like you and I really wanted to see you again but the reason I couldn’t wait any longer is ‘cause I’m leaving tomorrow. We’re doing press in Europe and Asia for the next two weeks.”

“Oh,”

He rubs his neck, his eyes never even leaving yours, “I just wanted to know if we were good and maybe see if there’s a future for us,” a sad smile on his lips now, “I think maybe I should have given you some space, because if anything I just made this harder.”

“So we could have this conversation two weeks from now?” You hate the way it comes out as an accusation and so you make sure your voice is softer when you say, “Maybe this just isn’t meant to be,”

“But we never even tried,” he counters.

“I know,” you whisper, and your heart, oh your heart breaks when you continue, “but I really can’t right now.”

Your text to Lauren is short.

911

“Babe?”

You want to call out to her but just hearing her voice brings on a fresh set of tears.

She must have heard you though, because she pretty much runs up the stairs and is kneeling in front of you mere seconds later. She takes one of your hands in hers, the other gently wiping away your tears, her eyes filled with worry.

“Where’s Jake?” you manage in between sobs, not wanting your nephew to see you like this.

She smiles one of her reassuring smiles, “I dropped him off at the hospital with your parents and asked if they could take him tonight, told them you had food poisoning from some takeout we ordered after we took Jake to McDonald's.” She laughs then, “Told Jake I would buy him his body weight in ice cream if he doesn’t tell anyone about your unexpected visitor. Oh, and Nathan says hi, by the way.”

You nod, because honestly it’s one less thing to worry about.

Lauren stands up then and motions for you to scoot over before she lies down next to you, both of you on your backs, eyes trained on the ceiling, her hand still holding yours as she gives it a gentle squeeze, “Talk to me.”

She doesn’t look at you and somehow that makes it easier to tell her what happened after she and Jake left, ending your story with a sob, “And then he left.”

“Babe,”

“No Laur,” you interrupt her, not wanting her sympathy right now, because you’re not sad, not really anyway. You’re just mad. “I fucked up, ok? He basically tells me that he wants to give us a try and what do I do? I fucking tell him that I can’t right now.” You scoff, “Who does that?”

She lets go of your hand then and sits up, turning around so she’s facing you, her legs crossed in front of her. She flicks your upper arm, “First of all, that wasn’t a sympathetic ‘Babe’ and I am offended that you would even think so, so I’ll try again,” she clears her throat, “Babe,” the accusatory tone much clearer now.

You can’t help but smile through your tears, “Noted.”

“Second of all,” she continues without missing a beat, “to answer your question: only an idiot would do that and you, my dear, are just that.” She puts her hand over your mouth when you start to protest, “Ah, ah, ah, let me finish.”

She looks at you, one eyebrow raised and you nod to let her know you won’t interrupt her.

“Let me see if I can make this clear to you,” she starts, removing her hand so she can take yours in hers again. “He shows up here, unannounced, because not only did he buy you that ridiculous colorful painting you wouldn’t stop talking about, because let’s be real, that was just an excuse to see you again, he also knows there are some things you two need to talk about after that whirlwind romance in Los Angeles-”

“I wouldn’t call it a romance per se,” you mutter, but the way she looks at you then shuts you up almost instantly.

“And you do, I mean, you talk right? Lauren continues, unfazed by your comment. “But then you tell him you don’t know how he fits into your life right now, and even though he tells you he wants to go for it anyway, you give him some bullshit reason as to why you can’t and then you fucking let him leave without so much as a kiss goodbye.” She shakes her head, “You really did fuck up and you really are an idiot.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” you deadpan, throwing her an irritated look. “I believe I reached that conclusion all on my own a couple of minutes ago.”

“I know,” she shrugs with a halfhearted grin, “I just wanted to rub it in.”

“I call bullshit,” you say, because you know it’s not true. If anything she just wants you to understand how ridiculous you’ve been. Which is working, by the way.

“Yeah, ok,” she agrees quietly, dropping her smile, “but I still can’t believe you let this happen.”

“I know,”

“He wanted to try,”

“I know,”

“Jesus, I was rooting for you two so hard,”

“I know,”

“Will you stop saying that and help me figure out how you can fix this!”

“I-” you start, but not sure what to say next so the word just hangs in the air.

“You do want to fix this, right?” Lauren asks, her eyebrows knitted together in confusion when you don’t answer immediately.

You sigh. “I just don’t want to put my life on hold again-”

“Jesus!” She throws her hands in the air before she jabs her finger at you, “Nobody ever said anything about you having to put your life on hold, especially not him. But hey, if you want to come up with some more lame ass excuses as to why you shouldn’t just go for it, you can do that without me, because I’m done.”

“Laur,” you watch her as she gets up off the bed and so you push yourself into a seated position, not wanting her to leave.

“No!” she spits, her eyes blazing. She points at you, “Enough with this already! I know, ok? I know Mark was an asshole, I know that the three years you spent with him made you feel like you were stuck in a life you never wanted and I know how much he hurt you while you were together. I was there to pick up the pieces every goddamn time, remember? But he is not Mark! Fuck, Mark never even got you so much as flowers for your birthday and here we have Sebastian, buying you a painting because you once mentioned to him how much you love it.”

She lets out a frustrated groan. “You need to realize that you are not the same person anymore and that it’s ok to be happy. And it’s ok to let Sebastian be the one that makes you happy. And that yes, the timing sucks, what with Nathan in the hospital, and Sebastian having to leave for Europe, but if not now then when, babe?” She takes a deep breath before she continues,”Is it going to be hard? Fuck yeah it is. Are there going to be times when you wish he wasn’t a famous actor? More often than not, probably. But you don’t get to worry about this now, because all you need to do is live in the fucking moment, babe, and go make this right. Do it now or forever wish you had!”

“You and your fucking Hairspray quotes,” you groan, letting yourself fall back on the bed with a dramatic sigh.

She jumps on top of you then, straddling you, “Jesus! You suck, you know that? I give you, maybe the greatest motivational speech of our lives and all you take away from it is that?” She pins your arms down, her face hovering over yours closely, her eyes narrowed, “You are beyond help, my dear.”

“But I love you,” you counter with a grin, blowing her a kiss, already feeling a little bit better.

Just as you step out of the shower that Lauren has all but shoved you into, you hear her talking to the one person you know can help you with making things right.

“Hi, it’s Lauren,” you hear her say with her most cheery voice. “You probably don’t know me, but I’m (Y/N)’s best friend and well, we have a bit of a situation here.” She explains then, how Sebastian showed up here and how you fucked up.

You groan at her honesty and can only imagine the response on the other end when you hear her agree, “Hmm, I know right?”

You decide to ignore her while you carefully apply your makeup before you loosely braid your hair.

She finishes the conversation just as you walk into your bedroom and you hear her say goodbye, “Thank you so much, Julie. I’ll definitely keep you updated,” before she turns to you with a shit-eating grin. “Ok, he’s staying at The Ritz until tomorrow, here’s his room number,” she says, handing you a piece of paper, “and Julie’s calling him right now, telling him there’s something being delivered to his room that he needs to take with him on the press tour, so he’ll be there.”

You throw your arms around her and hug her tight, “Thank you.”

You take a deep breath, trying to calm your nerves, as you ride the elevator up the to seventeenth floor, eyeing yourself in the mirror. The striped a-line skirt you’re wearing hits just below your knee, the black top you’ve paired it with is simple but elegant and the black pumps Lauren insisted you’d wear finish off the look perfectly. You hesitate just for a second when the doors open, but then you nod at your reflection in the mirror before you straighten your back and walk out, following the signs to his room.

You knock and wait for him to open the door. When he does you can feel your heart skip a beat and you quietly curse yourself for letting him go this afternoon.

“Hi,” you say, looking at him with from underneath your lashes, your hands holding on to your clutch, “Can I come in?”

#The Draw #Sebastian Stan x reader #Harley Sunday x Sebastian Stan #sebastian stan imagine

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icequeen-shiva · 6 years ago

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alright, you know what

about two weeks ago maybe by now, i made a post about how i’ve recently hit 200 followers and i’d like to do a q&a again, and even with a reblog from someone more ~*popular*~ than me, and multiple reblogs once a day for a few days by myself, i didn’t get a single fucking question. not one. earlier today i posted two pictures of myself where i felt pretty (i’ve since deleted them) and nobody i actually know of liked it and i got asked by a stranger who doesn’t even follow me if i had any nsfw pictures. i don’t get asks anymore, i don’t get shit. and that tells me that, you may be following me, but you aren’t connecting with me. and i feel that. i get on tumblr and i don’t feel like i’m friends with fucking anybody. and i did that. i know i did that. 9/10 times i let my fear of rejection and embarrassing myself overcome my desire to talk to people, so i don’t do it, or i let it fizzle out and we go our own ways and we don’t become friends. 1/10 times i actually function as a human being and make a connection or at least something that sticks a little.

so here, below the cut, is a comprehensive (loosely) list of things that i like, in no particular order at all, besides tickling, because apparently both sides of this need a little help connecting on any front.

scooby-doo

beetlejuice

the addams family

the sims

the mcu

classic disney animations; my favorites are dumbo, the great mouse detective, the rescuers, sleeping beauty, and oliver and company (it’s old enough that i consider it in the classic category)

~modern disney animations too; my favorites are treasure fucking planet, coco, and... i’m a sap, beauty and the beast. rise of the guardians too even though it isn’t disney.

musicals; i can’t pick a favorite just fucking ask me, but i don’t know a lot of newer ones honestly

empire records

the greatest showman still

cats (i mean the animals but i also like the show even though it is Weird As Hell)

my cat in particular

alice in wonderland

stranger things

space jam

tsum tsums

elvira, mistress of the dark

dice

kiki’s delivery service and specifically jiji things

winnie the pooh i don’t even fucking care i LOVE HIM AND ALL OF HIS FRIENDS

silly hats

playdoh

interesting earrings

exploring libraries or big bookstores

true crime mysteries; my favorite youtuber for this is georgia marie, bless her. i also watch bella fiori and kendall rae

fictional mysteries too

i have a kind of fascination with jack the ripper and with the lizzie borden case

shipwrecks! i don’t know why but shipwrecks fascinate me! why did they go down? all the stories that went with them!

i once read a novel that was told as a series of letters, or journal entries, by people on the titanic, including the iceberg and it was THE absolute saddest book i have ever read in my life. like, obviously i knew what was coming, but i got attached to the characters, the letters made them alive and it was just like... NO. NO I DON’T WANT THEM TO DIE. I KNOW THEY’RE GOING TO BUT THEY CAN’T. and it was awful. i had to put it down and cry.

cryptozoology

the bermuda triangle theories (i’m not saying i believe sOmEtHiNg’S gOiNg On but i think some of the theories are interesting)

ghosts

the nancy drew computer games

monopoly

i still play a lot of my snes games; my go-to time killer and head-clearer honestly is kirby’s avalanche. i also play a lot of super mario rpg legend of the seven stars, super mario world, kirby’s dreamland 3, and donkey kong 2 and 3

final fantasy x in which i’m guaranteed to call almost (i can’t stress that enough) every character at some point “my child”

hyrule warriors, i know it’s not a tRuE zelda game but it’s fucking fun

same with fire emblem warriors

red dead redemption

kingdom hearts

the uncharted series

splatoon but i don’t have it wahhhhh

mind you i am not very Good at videogames, i just like to play them anyway

game grumps

ninja sex party

jacksepticeye

markiplier

monty python

crocheting

tea

harry potter

classic rock. pretty big on queen lately. i like tom petty and the heartbreakers. i like joan jett and the blackhearts.

i just... like rock. across the board. i like the offspring. i like some rage against the machine songs. acdc on the radio makes me happy. def leppard on the radio makes me happy. beartooth, starset, powerman 5000, as long as it’s got a good beat and good stuff going on behind the vocals then i’m gonna be happy. i’m way more into the guitars and the bass and everything going on instrumentally than i am vocally, honestly. the whole big guitar solo to van halen’s “you really got me” and then that bassline that comes in, that bassline is sexy. it’s so simple but i LIKE it.

anyway music as a whole gets me right in the heart and can lift me up when i am at my literal worst point

it’s hard for me to name a favorite or specific bands that i like because there’s so many and i’m not really picky about it.

pop vinyls

good ol’ vines

buffalo wings

mac and cheese

grilled cheese

dr. pepper

i drink a l o t of dr. pepper

pretending i know how to do makeup well

history; i watch a lot of expedition unknown and mysteries at the museum, and sometimes i’ll watch a free documentary on youtube if it catches my attention. last weekend i explained the donner party to my boyfriend. just.. on a whim. because i’d just watched a thing on it and he said he didn’t really know what it was. i’m that person.

OH I SHOULD HAVE MENTIONED THIS BACK AROUND TRUE CRIME BUT I READ A BOOK ABOUT H.H. HOLMES AND HIS MURDER CASTLE AND THE CHICAGO WORLD’S FAIR. it was by erik larson, i believe. larsen? i could google this. devil in the white city. there’s been talks to make it a movie. it’s a good read though i will admit i skipped a lot of the fair parts because i was there for the murder.

i also read a book about the lusitania by the same author and i was like ohhh my goooood what. it got a little boring sometimes, i had to push myself to keep going, but i would read dead wake again.

csi: miami reruns are the greatest thing don’t @ me

dark purple and black aesthetics

just like... witchy aesthetics. those colors and black cats

if you haven’t noticed by any selfies i’ve posted, i do have my lip pierced and i love finding new lip jewelry. i have a new opal stud in and i love its look

leather jackets

combat boots; i have a galaxy print pair and a pair with classic marvel comics stuff printed on the inside and you can fold down the sides to show it. they’re my faves.

owls

drunk history

the first 5 seasons of supernatural and i still have a soft spot for the winchesters and castiel

i’m slowly making my way through watching the librarians

i’m also making my way slowly through watching the magicians

(american) football

nature walks

going to the zoo

going to the aquarium

like really take me to either of the above and i will lose my shit

road trips

savannah, georgia

the smokey mountains

last august i drove by myself from ohio to boone, north carolina for a friend’s wedding and that wedding was smack on a mountain top and it was the coolest thing i think i’ve ever done

roller coasters BUT NOT EXTREME ONES baby steps ok

log rides tho, i don’t know why, i always love the water rides

ren faires!

cosplay, even though i’m not exactly active in it myself (but i want to be; one of my offline friends is an actually-getting-kind-of-internet-famous mei from overwatch cosplayer)

cards against humanity

foosball

pool but i suck at it

speaking of pools i love swimming ... but i suck at it, i just like boppin’ along in a pool

cookouts

summer

there is nothing like being out in the middle of nowhere in summer when the evening starts to fall and the sky is dark, dark blue and there’s a sea of shimmering lightning bugs out over a field. it’s beautiful. it’s peaceful.

there’s nothing like sitting outside on a calm spring night and listening to the spring peepers (they’re frogs) either.

if you couldn’t tell, i live in the middle of nowhere. i have to find enjoyment in the little things.

campfires

dancing around said campfire, you cannot have a campfire without good music. this is when a lot of my classic rock education came to pass.

elephants

my favorite books are the abhorsen trilogy by garth nix, tied with the serpent’s shadow by mercedes lackey

i am trying to get into comic books by way of the youtube channel comicstorian. they break comic books down for you and read them aloud with the images, altered slightly to avoid copyright strikes (and that’s all made very clear, it’s not done sketchily), and it’s been really easy for someone like me who doesn’t just have a comics store close (and i would otherwise continue on as i have been, forgetting to ever look for them on the internet). i listened to injustice 1 and 2, and they covered the game. i’m actively following scooby apocalypse, and there was some teen titans stuff i went all the way through up until now. i don’t think it’s finished yet from what i remember.

i love museums

candles

i actually kind of collect tea sets

i also have a collection of sand art bottles AND IF I’M EVER AT A FESTIVAL OR A FAIR WHERE THERE IS A SAND ART STAND YOU CAN BET I AM GOING TO MAKE ONE

yugioh duels; i’m definitely just a novice and it’s just a fun pastime my friends got me into when they found their giant binders of cards again

i’m not actually that big on pokemon, i don’t know a lot of them but it’s still fun and i know some. but i did love pokemon go when my friends still played it (don’t really have time anymore, and it kept crashing way too badly on one of their phones anymore anytime they tried to join a raid and it just wasn’t fun as a group then)

i don’t have any but i like the ~look of crystals and would like to have some, not for my own aesthetic but i just... like having pretty things!

listening to the rain

how the air smells (at least where i live) after a long rain and everything is just cleansed

depression has stopped me from writing for a long time but, in my heart, writing has always been something that has touched me ever since i knew how to do it and could put my stories down on paper instead of having to just talk about them... so i’m going to include that here

root beer floats

hotdogs

hard dip ice cream (if you don’t know what hard dip means... as my boyfriend didn’t... it means ice cream that you have to use a scoop with, not soft serve)

soft serve’s good too tho don’t get me wrong

strawberry milkshakes

this isn’t even stuff that anyone would need to know on this site to befriend me at this point, nobody’s gonna message me like HEY I READ YOU LIKE STRAWBERRY MILKSHAKES ME FUCKING TOO

you’re cool if you do that lmao

so bad they’re good creature features from the 50s and 60s

the old godzilla movies

i like the moon more than the stars, but i like them too

flower crowns

bouncy balls

original skittles

this has gone on way too long, nobody is reading this, your mom’s a hoe, goodnight

no she’s not, i’m sorry, if you got this far then i hope your mom is a nice person

#about me #THERE'S A LONGASS LIST OF THINGS I LIKE IN HERE SO IF YOU WANT TO BE MY FRIEND THEN THERE'S A PLACE TO START #OK THEN

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meny-sempai · 6 years ago

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MO DAO ZU SHI IS A MASTERPIECE – part 01

OH MY GOD EP 15! That was so… UGH. I have so much to say, yet I’m speechless at the same time! Aaaaa! Ok, that’s it! It’s time!

The first season is over and I can finally talk about my experience with the piece of art that is Mo Dao Zu Shi. Yes, it is a piece of art and I will prove it to you in this short series of my thoughts about the show.

I just have to say – I’m not a native English speaker so bear with the mistakes I’m bound to make. I did read the novel, but only as far as the Exiled Rebels Scanlations translated it (thank you Rebels, you’re gods). I started reading the novel after the first airing of the third episode, so at the very beginning of MDZS mania – I went in blind and… it was FUNNY. I’ll talk more about that down below. And yes, I know a lot of spoilers, but I can’t say I know the whole story – If I start theorizing be aware that I’m just theorizing, I’m not actually telling the plot, but, just to be sure: SPOILERS ahead, I will use the facts I know for my analysis.

For the first two episodes I’m going to tell you my blind reactions and compare them with my impressions after finishing the season. My misinterpretations are hilarious and I admit I was really dumb. Enjoy my stupidity.

The rest of the episodes will have my impressions and analysis that I now have after finishing the show. There will be a few of these kind of posts on my profile because I can’t fit everything I have to say in just one. I don’t actually do analysis of shows here, because this is my personal art blog, but I sometimes make exceptions. As an animation student I just had to talk about Mo Dao Zu Shi. I want more people to see it. I want people to know that it is much more than BL.

So… Here we go!

INTRODUCTION – or, who the hell even asked for my opinion?

I’ve been a fan of anime/manga since I was 13, which was 12 years ago (I’m old, I know). Sure, I’ve watched Digimon, Pokemon, Bayblade and all that jazz when I was even younger, but that doesn’t count, because I had no clue about the concept of anime.

I’ve seen a lot of shit, I’m quite open to a lot of shit and if I’m in the right mood I can take a lot of shit, but I still regard myself as someone who has a good taste. The older I get the less time I have to take a chance at something I wouldn’t normally watch. Even if there is something I’d watch I usually end up not having time for it. Since I started studying and doing animation myself, my criteria for the quality skyrocketed. I long gave up on the three episode rule. One episode is enough to see potential if there is potential (some shows can still trick me – I’m looking at you Sirius the Jaeger).

Ok, ok, I’m not bashing on Sirius the Jaeger. I’m just saying the show had a lot of potential and threw it out of the window. If there was no Mikhail and Yuliy dynamics… Scratch that – if there was no Mikhail in the show, the story would have been completely empty. At least for me.

Since we’re talking about other shows, I’ll use this opportunity to declare Mo Dao Zu Shi as the animation of the year. Sure, the year’s still not over, sure I only watched Cells at Work, Free! Dive in to the Future, Sirius the Jaeger and BANANA FISH, but I still believe in what I say.

Sorry Cells, you’re cute, you make me care more about my body, you make me have weird feelings about Cancer (WTF). I wish I can show you to all the school kids in my country, but you’re not the best this time. Please, give me another season, thank you. Love the manga. Guys, please watch this anime!

Sorry Free, you… Pfff… Ok, yeah, FREE, I love you dude, thank you for all the sexy muscles and almost BL drama (and some actual deep moments). Thank you for all the Rin, we can never have enough of Rin. And thank you for Kisumi and Asahi – didn’t know I needed that. Thank you, but… yeah, know your place (hint: it’s right here in my arms).

Sorry Sirius, I wish you had more episodes to explore the story and the characters. Liked the OP and the animation.

Sorry BANANA FISH, oh god, I really am. Before MDZS I lived for you BF, I lived for you! I was an old fan of the manga and I was so hyped. I can’t say I’m dissatisfied with the anime adaptation. I liked a lot of things they did, the way they adapted stuff, added and changed stuff, but it was just too much plot for 13 episodes and the effects of it became clearer and worse while the anime progressed. I have no idea how MAPPA will handle the second season. My fingers are crossed. Guys, watch this anime. Even with all the flaws it’s worth your time.

And yes, I watched Voltron and The Dragon Prince. This will be a really long post if I start on those, so I won’t.

So… YES. Mo Dao Zu Shi came out of nowhere for me and took the crown. Wow… where to start…?

How did I find this show…? Actually, how did this show find me? Well… It was my beta reader, I think. After 13 years of being a silent fan of Asian comics and animation, I decided to finally write a fanfiction. Surprisingly, it was for the small fandom of the Korean comic Noblesse (nobody cares, carry on). I don’t know why, but my beta told me about this new BL “anime”. When I realized it was Chinese I rolled my eyes. I’m an asshole, I know, but I just never liked anything I saw from the Chinese (I haven’t seen much, but what I saw was poorly animated/was in 3D and I’m not a huge fan of 3D). I also never liked the voice acting… Ok. OK, I admit! I never liked the language, ok? Shoot me!

Then… Everything changed when the Wen clan attacked.

Anyway… I was bored, I was lazy and didn’t want to do work for my university, so I said: “What the heck! Hit me with some Chinese BL.” I clicked on the first episode not even bothering to read the summary. Man… My expectations were the low of the lowest.

EPISODE 01 – or, what the fuck did I just watch and is there more of it?

Oh shit… I’m terrible at names, especially Chinese names! Am I supposed to remember all this, is this important? The clans, the wars, the titles? This is BL, right? Should I take out my note book? Fuck, pause it. Ok… Ok… I get it? Let’s just continue.

(When I look at it now it was pretty clear. I really am dumb. To be fair, you need time to get used to how they use names. And for someone who never watched Chinese animation seriously and doesn’t know anything about the culture it really was a lot of new information. But don’t let that stop you from watching it!)

Ughhhhh…. 3D… damn it. And it was going so well. Ugh, just look at those wings flapping! Are the wings broken? What the hell! Why do they do this?

(Lol, I was so triggered. XD The bird is actually fine. I like how the scene transitioned from the pupil of a scared man to the pupil of the crow. As if they were watching each other in the eye, only adding to the creepiness. The lighting is also great. Everything is dark and gloomy, fitting the “horror” atmosphere really well, yet at the same time the dark scenes are vivid and clear. It’s hard to make the misty night look clear and colorful. The flying is a bit iffy, but it doesn’t really matter because the effect of hundred birds covering the sky is strong and meaningful.)

Holly shit! This is amazing! Pause it! No, go back, I wanna see this again. Oh my god, that flute! The music is awesome, I’m having goosebumps. Ooohh, love the music, I never heard something like this. Oh, this dude is so cool. Red eyes and zombies and… What is this show about again? Zombie BL? Really? It’s not really zombies, right? Please don’t be about zombies, I hate zombies.

(Honestly, this scene is stunning. A really effective way to reveal a character. Especially a character that we are not sure whether he is good or bad. The most amazing thing for me about this is how they used music. It isn’t just the background music to accompany the atmosphere. It isn’t there just to tell something about the character and make him stand out (it’s not a character theme). The flute is not alone here, there are many themes working with it. Together they are not there to tell us “this is a scary action scene” so feel this, or “this is a sad scene”, or a “funny scene”. No. The music here is its own art piece. It’s actually there to tell us in its own language the story that we are seeing on screen. I don’t know how to explain it. For me, the way the music changed was perfectly synchronized with the way people were saying words, the way Wei Wuxian moved his head, the way the corpses stood up to attack. If I close my eyes I can see the scene by only listening to the music. This is something that regularly happens in this show. I don’t know how they do it, but I applaud to it. I can’t remember the last time the music left such an impact on me in the animation series. And this is just the first episode and the first scene. We have no idea who these people are. We are not expected to feel emotional for them. But I felt the connection. I felt like I was there and the corpses were about to get me.)

Ugh! 3D, you’re killing me! And it was such a cool intro! Ok, calm down, what are they saying? So… That’s the guy with the flute, right? No, it was Wei, but Wei Something else. No, wait, it has to be him. Go back. Yeah, it is him. What the hell is a courtesy name? Ok, never mind, try to remember.

Oh no…! More exposition, more names and clans! My brain is melting! Cool smoke/ink animation, though. Hmm, purple ring. Nice. That’s important, right? Oh! The amulet thing! Remember that. That’s gonna bite us in the ass later, ain’t it? Alright, so “Wei something” died. Killed by… shidi? So… the younger clan member? So…? This Wei also had his own clan? Am I getting this right? I’m probably not getting this right. Ugh, just watch the damn episode, quit pausing every goddamn second! It’ll explain itself.

I like the OP! The similar smoke/ink animation and… Wow, ok, there are too many handsome guys here. I’ll have to focus. The music is catchy. I like the singer’s voice. Cool!

(I’m now quite fond of the 3D in here. The tortoise and everything. XD Also, in my defense - they have three names, like, come on. I didn’t see that coming. I don’t even have a middle name. Although, I do think having three ways to be addressed is pretty interesting. You can tell and convey a lot by just picking a name the character uses in his speech.

Fun fact no1. – at the time I couldn’t even recognition the names when they would speak. All of the words sounded the same to me, which was so unusual. I can now recognize a lot of words and phrases. And, I think… Well, you’ll see what I now think about Chinese and VAs. I’m just gonna say this: I’d like to learn Chinese just so that I can write a love letter to Guo Haoran.

Fun fact no2. – It took me 6 episodes to actually pay attention to the lyrics of the OP and ED and to realize that they are representing Wei Wuxian and Lan WangJi. That’s a really beautiful touch, very smart. And it brings so much meaning to the table when the ED changes. I don’t think I ever saw OP and ED used in this particular way.)

Well, this is getting really dark and interesting. This Wei may be a refreshing MC. Probably a good guy at heart, but shady as fuck and ready to kill. I do have another name to worry about, but Mo is easy to remember (“Don’t close mountain” – if you know what I mean :P). I wonder if Mo is important to the plot. I see potential for some twists here.

2D animation is looking good so far. I like how they made us look from the protagonist’s POV. Really refreshing directing… hmm… Still not buying the Chinese, but Wei has a nice voice. The music is still great.

Bahahahaha! Scratch that, Wei is an idiot! Good to know that liquor is your priority, Wei! XD Omg the donkey, too, look at that face, look at the eyelashes!

The fuck is this shit? Are those people flying? While standing? Are they standing on something? What the hell? XD Man, that sky is nice. Oh! Oh, oh, wait, those guys! Those were the shadows I saw a scene earlier. Mmm… Attention to detail. Nice. Looks like I’ll have to pay close attention to every scene. Been a long time I had to focus so hard on an “anime”.

(10 minutes and I was already very intrigued. I didn’t know shit, but I was in. With all the pausing I probably spent 50 minutes on this episode, but it felt like barely 20 minutes had passed. At the beginning I paused a lot because I was too slow to read the subtitles (no, I don’t watch dubs, I’m just too used to Japanese and their culture references that reading subs is child’s play, but this was new territory for me). I also paused a lot because I felt I’ve missed something, or because I was surprised at how some scenes looked.

I don’t pause that often now. Mo Dao Zu Shi trained me to see and hunt for detail. As I said, it’s been a long time since I had the need to carefully look at the backgrounds and pay attention to all of the characters’ expressions. Mo Dao Zu Shi tells a lot in silence and in small details. It awards you if you take time to look at the scenery. When I find something that I’d usually miss, I don’t necessarily feel smarter, but I feel the show is treating me as someone smart. MDZS respects its audience. It makes them think and remember. Which makes this show 100% re-watchable. I watched all the episodes 3 times. Some I watched even more – like episode 11. And I always have a new experience. I love coming back to it. Even when I work I play the episodes and listen to them. It’s interesting. Try it. Try just to listen to the audio. It has rare quality to it. The sounds and music are used wisely and a piece of music always has a legit reason why it’s played.)

Ok, this run is too slow. I get that he’s fat, but still, the foot exchange doesn’t fit with the distance he’s making. Also, the flying guys are not flying anymore. I got more info. And MORE NAMES. Kill me now. The info is interesting, though. Cultivators are Chinese exorcist, right? I really should have read the summery.

(I still think the running was not convincing. There are moments such as these in the show, but honestly, MDZS has fascinating animation and it only gets better in the later episodes (I’m not even gonna start with ep 11 – ep 11 will get its own post). The animators know what they are doing and the director knows how to make a scene work at full capacity.

Fun Fact no3. – D.Gray-man destroyed me. I now only know how to say “exorcist” the Japanese way.

MDZS also has a way of making seemingly stupid stuff look and be cool. Surfing on swords sounds pretty dumb, but when you actually see it and have it explained to you, when it has plot significance it becomes a fresh idea. I want to have my own sword to surf on!)

Well, hello… Lan… Jingyi ~ (How do you read this? O.O) Mmm… I’m digging the art style. Cute boys~

Also, Wei, you’re a fucking genius! XD The Oscar goes to you, my dude.

(… I still think Wei Wuxian is a fucking genius. I’m not gonna talk a lot about him right now, but I just gotta say that he is such a classic MC, yet at the same time he is so original. He’s just one of the proofs how great the writing this series has.

Speaking of writing – this show has some of the best dialog I’ve ever seen. Not only because of what is being said, but also because of the VAs, directing, music and animation. Dialog often has more than one meaning and always serves to deepen the characters and their relationships. I love how they use animation to show how the characters are truly feeling while saying something and what they actually mean when they say it. Everything they say has a reason and it makes you pay attention to other’s reaction to what is being said. I love how the character can say the same thing in so many different ways and that this is used to show his development and growth. I’m also amazed at how simple “hmm-s” and “mmm-s” mean so much in this show.

I’m not saying character animation and rich expressiveness is something new, but it is rare and this show is really good at it. For example, quite a few characters laugh or cry but they all do it differently. They raise their eyebrows differently, they’re surprised and scared differently etc. This all sounds as a no-brainer, but it’s not so common. It’s difficult to pull off and I’m not saying MDZS is perfect, but it’s close.)

(Please… You think you can take down someone who spent his whole life perfecting the art of climbing up trees? Pff! You’re not Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan.)

(He looks so comfortable among corpses. It’s funny, yet so sad. These are all great hints for the mind-set of a character that you’ll miss at first watching, but you won’t forget about it. And when the memory clicks – it makes a loud click. Not a second is wasted in this show. Everything has a point. I’ll elaborate more on that with some examples in other posts.)

Bahahaha! I feel you bro! XD

But I feel you too. I mean, I don’t care about you, wench, don’t get me wrong, but it’s kinda sad. I’m liking these zombies. They’re my way of creepy and there’s potential for a deeper plot for them if it’s true that their personalities are still there somewhere. This just adds to the debate whether Wei is good or bad. The grey area… I love the grey the most. All 50 shades of it. And I’m enjoying the mystery vibe of this episode. Was there a mystery tag on this “anime”? Also, the fight scenes are not bad. And it’s cool how they all hate Wei but use his technics and knowledge. Realistic. Cool.

Oh my god! The colors! Whaaat? What the hell, look at that hair animation! And the music from that… string thingy- instrument – so cool. Ooohh, wait, this is the white dude, THE dude. Here comes the BL!

Ooohhh, I see what you did there. Kudos for you, director! Similarities and contrasts. Nice. And it’s over, I can’t believe it’s over! How can you cliff hang like that?! There’s a second episode, right? Mm, the ED is so pure. There IS a second episode! Well, while I’m here, don’t mind if I do!

EPISODE 2 – or, how I got everything wrong!

I bet he’s thinking: “The fuck is with this aim? The little shit almost killed me! I’m annoyed and amazed! Better play a fool and run for it.” But, seriously, that aim! Wei actually paused (love the little wobble effect on the arrow). And I have another name to remember! Ugh! And another color! Are they color coded? That could be helpful. Also, look at that tree. Wow… They’re blending the 3D backgrounds quite well with the 2D.

And Mo is important to the plot! Nice! So he has connections with the Yellow clan. The plot thickens.

I just gotta say – all of them have interesting designs. I wonder if every cultivator has his own sword. Bleach style or something. On the other hand, animators must be pulling out their hair because of all the details. XD

Cool little battle. Great camera work. They showed the difference between a student cultivator and an experienced one in an entertaining way. That soul summoning was nice too.

(This fight served as a nice show of power difference. It adds a lot to the future episodes where all of the main cast are students and have to face various trials. It gives us a hint at how powerful the clan leaders must be, it gives us a new perspective on the war and its casualties. We now get why many cultivators died so “easy”. It also hints at how talented students are different from the average which is an important detail in the plot. This little “unimportant” fight grounds it all and makes the levels in the clan system believable and palpable.)

This is really clever. Kudos for the reflection. Wei, haven’t you ever watched an anime? It’s clear the kid doesn’t have a mom. He probably doesn’t even have a dad.

(Ok… prepare for a full on fangirl attack.)

… My ears are tingling.

… This voice… Oh my ears, please calm down, something big is happening right now. Wait… Oh wow, he knows him! Look at the face he’s making, oh shit! And this new guy…! We haven’t even seen his face and he’s making threats! Hmm… Can’t say I don’t like that. Yeah, I like that… He’s gonna be the villain, isn’t he? I always like the villains and they always have the best voices. Well… if he’s a villain, let’s hope he’s hot-

Oh, wow, this is really good. The way the light appears, and that little shine of the… bell? Purple… Purple? The purple ring? Is this connected? Well, anyway, he has a pretty dramatic reveal and nice music – yep, he’s the bad guy. Let me see your face-

Wei… why are you so scared? They sure take their sweet time in revealing this guy. This may be more important than I thought. Don’t miss anything!

(Are you prepared?)

HOLLY MOTHER OF GOD WHAT THE FUCK OH MY GOD WHAAATT??? Was he this beautiful in the OP? Whaaaatt? AAAAHHHHHH!!!! SCREENSHOT! WALLPAPER! GO BACK, REPEAT THE SCENE! YOU! YOU, MY BOY, HAVE ENTERED MY HAREM. Oh what a day to be alive! Mmmm, ok, calm down, we’ll draw him later, let’s try to focus. Jiang Cheng. Ok, it’s a more common name, I’ll remember him. Heh. Like I could forget this boy. Oh, no, not a boy, a MAN. This is a man. Uhuhuhu~

(Aaaand my mind was a bit hazy for the rest of the episode – you will see the results.

Fun fact no4. – Immediately after this episode I looked up MDZS on Tumblr and realized that the fandom is calling Jiang Cheng JC. Still under the effects of what I just saw I thought calling him God was quite appropriate.)

NICE PROFILE!!! Is he going to be the other love interest for the MC? Are we gonna see the cliché love triangle? If it’s with this dude, maybe it won’t be so bad~ Ok, seriously, watch the show!

Ok, the magic light here is a nice touch. This Jiang Cheng is a bit cold even to his nephew. He doesn’t recognize Wei, but that’s expected. Wei is strongly reacting to him. What’s the connection? Judging by the music – it’s sad? I expected something more, I don’t know, menacing? Evil? But it’s just sad. Maybe he’s not a villain. That… that could open so many doors… TO MY KOKORO.

“Feed your dogs.” Ouch, that’s dark. Someone really hates the “demon” cultivators.

“Could this boy be…?” What? What is he? Want’s the connection? Should I know, did I miss something?

The white dude and my purple man clash! Holly, Jiang Chang sounds pissed (passive aggressive enough?), while White poster boy here doesn’t give a damn! XD Ahahaha! Could Jiang Cheng be the Chinese tsundere? No, no, no, let’s not call such a man a tsundere. It’s too early.

Oh, Uncle is the leader of the sect. Nice. How old is the Uncle? Is he married?

This obvious metaphor of concealing the light is distracting me from fangirling. It’s interesting how it connects with the Jiang Cheng reveal. I feel that… shit is about to go down.

I was right! He’s the ring! What does the ring represent? And he’s doing what I always do! I play with my ring like that all the time! Nice.

SCREENSHOT! Oh, but he’s pissed. Oh, but I love the way he looks at me~ I feel all mushy.

Ha! Interesting. He’s smart, he has some self-control. Refreshing. But don’t turn your anger at your nephew, please. Also, it seems like the white dude and the Uncle have some history. Hmm…

I thought so. The white dude was the one who killed Wei. The tragic love. I can already see it.

(Yep. I thought Lan WangJi was the Shidi who “killed” Wei Wuxian. You are allowed to face palm.)

Oh no… I know where this is going. And the music…

Oh man… It’s the second episode and I’m already having the feels. What happened, Wei?! I refuse to believe you’re a bad guy!

But, I get Wei’s reaction to Jiang Cheng now.

(I don’t know how it happened, but I was thinking… What if she was killed by Jin Zixuan’s sword? We know Wei Wuxian stopped using his. From this shot we know he wasn’t the one who stabbed her, so was it Wen Ning? It’s obvious he was involved in the tragedy. As far as I know SPOILERS Wen Ning killed Jin Zixuan. If the killer sword is the one we know – if it’s Jin Zixuan’s then Wei’s reflection in this episode has a deeper meaning.)

Bahahaha I feel you, honor student. I like the kids.

(Honestly, they balance the humor and the serious stuff masterfully.)

I died.

This is giving me Gantz PTSD. That shit gave me nightmares. Nephew is really bold.

(I believe Jin Ling has some of his Uncle Wei’s recklessness and hero complex, but he also wants to prove himself just like his other two Uncles. I’ll talk more about them in another post.)

Uuhh, Wei is playing the flute! Risky, I like it.

(Ok, people. Be prepared for the ultimate face palm.)

Oh my god! Don’t tell me he summoned his own body! This resembles the scene from the narration… and he’s wearing black!

I’m right! Nephew wants revenge! Great shot by the way. You can feel the rage in the movement.

(You face palmed yet?)

I really love the way they use the flute! It depicts the flow of the camera so well!

… Wen… Wen what? Wen Ning? Who’s Wen Ning? What? Wait, are they talking about the corpse? What’s going on??? O_O Who’s Wen Ning?! Did I miss something? What’s the full name of the MC again? Ugh… This is so tiring… Ok, never mind, enjoy the beautiful flute song.

Busted!

I swear to god, this guy is illegal!

Oh, boy he figured it out too and he’s… sadistically happy? Eh… But, I get it. If he believes that Wei killed his sister, I get it. And her husband? Did he “kill” the dad, too?

I can’t believe he has a whip AND a braid? And he’s purple??? Did someone look into my diary? Is it Christmas yet? XD Am I dead?

Did he just smile? Am I imagining things? XD I can’t figure him out!

Please! Don’t lie, white dude! “He’s path is uncommon”, yeah right, we all know what you want.

THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST THINGS I’VE SEEN AND HEARD IN MY LIFE.

(This would have annoyed anyone no matter who said it, but because it was Wei Wuxian, I think it was even more annoying in Jiang Cheng’s head. Wei Wuxian knows him too well. It’s even funnier when you know that JC is blacklisted. XD He’s no good even to the lunatic.)

And at this exact moment Wei knew he fucked up. XD This is golden.

... Please DON’T turn into rape BL.

(It so DID NOT.)

Oh Wei, you’re no match for this guy! :D

Hmm, looks like we’re going back in time. I love me some juicy flashbacks. Can’t wait to see more.

... I can’t believe I actually like this zombie BL. I just hope they don’t fuck up the animation later on.

(And the rest is history. As you can see - I’m obsessed.)

-----

That’s all for today! Next posts will have more character, story and art analysis. Hope you liked this and please forgive me for making this so long. See you!

#mo dao zu shi #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #wei wuxian #lan wangji #Jiang Cheng #jin ling #wen ning #jin zixuan #analysis #donghua #animation

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maiji · 7 years ago

Photo

Process and wip images for A House That Holds Long Limbs (Part 4)

Previous process and wip documentation: Part 1 / Part 2 / Part 3

Read the pages for part 4 here (full complete version will be linked from YYH North Bound master post)

This is a rare glimpse into how I tackle action scenes!! It’s rare because I rarely do it. Action is honestly one of the hardest things for me to draw, and as I’m sure I’ve said here many times before, I have the utmost respect for shounen manga artists whose works are steeped in them. It’s a really impressive skill to be able to do it well - to create a cinematic, dynamic sense of motion that doesn’t dissolve into visual confusion and incomprehensibleness.

This was as interesting for me to document my thought process as it hopefully is for you to read and discover what the heck was going on in my head (a big honking mess, that’s what). There was much screaming and crying while working on this hahaha.

Aside from Hokushin’s beautiful face (lmao), Part 4 is packed with things I don’t usually draw. Specifically: action, things taking place in the dark, and corpses. For things taking place in the dark, I heavily referenced the dark room rounds from the tournament for Genkai’s successor in volume 4, because it involves action and Togashi used practically zero screentones in it and I didn’t want to either. For the dead rokurokubi, I looked up photos of skulls and drew on my memory of various horror comics I’ve read, like Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service. (At one point I also googled photos of rotting skulls, but TBH I didn’t really want to spend a lot of time looking at detailed photographic references of corpse and decomposing bodies for obvious reasons, especially as I usually work on these comics late at night before I go to bed. The last thing I need is for images to get stuck in my brain when I’m sleeping.)

The rest of this post focuses mainly on action and redrawing things.

Script

The original script for this section actually ran a little further in the story than what’s shown here, but in order to convey the sequence effectively, I ended up stretching a number of key moments out and have booted the later ones to be completed for Part 5.

Thumbnails

In the thumbnails above, you’ll notice quite a few are redraws of the same page as I struggle - pages 31-33 repeat immediately in the rows after, page 37 was attempted three times, etc.

Page count growth

A script of 8 pages turned into 10 pages at the thumbnail stage, and then ultimately netted out at 12 pages in the final version that was posted. As you can see, effective action sequences generally take me more pages than I think they will. With an exception (documented below).

Thumbnailing/storyboarding things out should theoretically minimize the page count creep! But because I tend to treat my thumbnails as such a loose stage (to avoid later disappointment when I can’t recreate it as nicely in the final page), I rush through them. Unfortunately, action sequences require me to think a lot more carefully through the scene as a director - staging the shot and the experience of the motion and coordinating people’s limbs and all the items in the scene more carefully and whatnot than, say, just a couple of heads talking. So inevitably, when I rush to get ahead to the finished pages, that’s when I realize it doesn’t flow as well as I was imagining (or not really imagining it).

As a result, the actual “live” pages turn into constant mental checks and runthroughs of the panels, realizing it’s not flowing as well as I’d like, and restarting. By restarting I mean mentally reenvisioning the sequence, sometimes quickly doodling alternate thumbnails (I didn’t bother in this case, so I have no alternate examples from after I started redrawing), and erasing and redrawing and adding pages. I guess I could probably avoid this if I just stop and put more time into thinking through the thumbnails… but it seems like I end up revising no matter what. So, constant juggling forever.

The evolution of the key action sequence

In my head, the main sequence was:

Hokushin lands.

He gets up and feels something in the dark.

He discovers the rokurokubi corpse.

He turns around to discover a swarm of hands in the dark!

Ahhh hands!! Ahhhh!!

Then he gets sealed and stringed up. End action sequence, back to people standing - or hanging out, I guess - and talking.

I roughed out my panels and pencils for all the pages following my thumbnails instead of doing one page at a time, because I’m impatient and also tend to think of all the pages as a wholistic narrative and then drilling down to the details on each page (big to small perspective).

As I went back over each page and detailing the base pencil art more, I began noticing more issues with the flow of the action and the pagination. Things started really shifting and changing at point 4. Here’s essentially how my thinking played out as I drew:

He turns around to discover a swarm of hands in the dark! - WAIT he just sees the corpse and then turns around? I should have him sense something is behind him first to get you more into his head and experience. OK, insert another panel of him sensing and whatever. THEN he can turn around. This is also good because I can erase the panel where he’s turning around and give the first panel a bit more room so I can draw more of his body in the first one and make his startled falling back motion a bit clearer.

HANDS!! AHHH HANDS!! - Wait, I have hands coming from BEHIND him and don’t effectively show that before they just appear to grab his hair. Which I suppose they do, but when I review panel flow it seems jarring, like a poorly directed cut and something was missing. Let’s try adding some hands behind him in the panel where he looks shocked. Never mind, this looks dumb and he looks dumb and basically seems even more like an afterthought. Ooh, better idea: let’s have him dodge the first wave of hands. That’ll be kinda cool and more interesting. And then he can land and be like OH SHIT MORE HANDS FROM EVERY DIRECTION

Ahhh hands!! Ahhhh!! - Hmm, maybe I should add a page here to better capture his dodge sequence. So the panels will be hands, dodge, and then the next page is he lands, then he realizes there are more hands behind him. How crouched down should he be? I guess in the later pages I basically drew him in a practically fully upright position… eh.. Working this out...

*starts drawing extra page* … Mmm, thinking about this again, no. It stretches things out too much. Now it feels like he lands, the new page adds an extra pause that could be interpreted unconsciously as he thinks he’s ok, then he gets attacked by hands from behind. But that’s ridiculous because he’s a rokurokubi, he KNOWS the hands can come back around or whatever, and he’s a good and cautious fighter, the extra pause doesn’t seem to fit. Thinking this through, basically I need it to feel faster - he lands (typed “he hands” there first time around haha), and he doesn’t have a chance to react again before it turns out hands are coming from all directions. So, I’ll keep it to the one original page and draw the reaction to the sound of the hands coming from everywhere. Done. (one of the few instances where I reduce page count in an action sequence)

Oh yeah, I forgot about his arms and legs getting sealed. Er, add another page. OK done.

For comparison, below are photos of the pencils for pages 35 and 36 before the above process:

... and after:

Redraws

I generally try to avoid redrawing an entire image/page from scratch if I don’t have to. Even if I don’t like the overall drawing, I’m still terrified of effing up the parts that turned out OK the first time around. However, sometimes you gotta know when to cut your losses and start anew and save yourself time and grief (I’m definitely still learning how to know lol). I do have a few strategies to ease my mind - I often take photos of something before I proceed to the next step or change direction (which is where many of these wip photos come from). This helps calm me down because at least now I have a reference for what it was before I took the leap of faith to move forward. Another option is to just leave it and draw on a completely new blank page.

Page 37, where Hokushin is getting his head pulled back by the hands, was an incredibly rare instance of the pencils for a page turning out almost exactly how I wanted on the first try, so I was loathe to redraw or adjust it. This means I basically forced myself to shuffle things before and after to accommodate not having to change it.

On the flipside, page 40, where the shot backs away so you can see Hokushin tied up with the hands, is one I full-on redrew from scratch. I was having a hard time with his pose and how all the hands were wrapped around him and how everything was actually working. I wasn’t happy with the drawing the first time around, but inked it anyways to see if I would like it better the next morning (sometimes this works, to wait and look at it with a distanced frame of mind). Spoiler, I didn’t lol. However, the process of inking the entire thing helped me better hone in on what parts I liked and didn’t like, so when I sketched it out again I was better able to adjust.

This photo shows the original (with the words REDRAW :/ at the bottom), a sketch I did trying to figure out his posture and where all the hands were/how the wrapping actually worked, and then the pencils of the redraw.

Final miscellaneous things

The end page of Part 4 is once again a last minute addition that resulted because I was facing a blank page (again!) after adding the page where Hokushin gets his arms and legs sealed. I changed the spoken line multiple times. First it was a line that’s been pushed to the upcoming part 5, then it was the “You certainly found my “treasure room” quickly” (that’s on the previous page). In the end, I just wrote a completely new line for it. It seemed to work better with the panel and closing off this part at a good point.

Last but not least, I somehow broke my pen inking this part lmao. Fortunately it’s a Muji pen so I only broke the tip off the cartridge somehow, probably in my intense scribbling/shading at some point. It’s not super clear in the photo but if you look closely at the point you’ll see this thin line coming out of the tip of the pen - it was this metal filament that basically scratched the paper without any ink coming out. I had to make an emergency run to two Mujis, neither of which had the black refills, so I ended up just buying two pens with similar thicknesses. Worst case scenario, I would have just inked with my blue cartridge, since the scanning would turn everything black and white anyways... the original pages would have just looked weird.

Phew! Hopefully it worked out and isn’t a totally incoherent mess!

#yu yu hakusho #comics #fanart #hokushin #wip #process #drawings #yyh north bound #art by maiji/mary huang #action sequences #redrawing #art supplies

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theseadagiodays · 5 years ago

Text

April 20, 2020

No more muzzling my words

OK, so I’m just going to say it. There are times when this really stinks. And it actually feels good to give myself permission to admit that.

One of my favorite novelists, Anne Patchett, author of Bel Canto, also wrote a memoir called Truth & Beauty about her lifelong best friendship with someone who struggled with cancer since childhood. What I remember most is her friend’s very unusual way of enduring horrific hardships that included having her jaw surgically removed, (no less in the middle of self-conscious adolescence). To feel better about her own situation, she would regularly re-read The Diary of Anne Frank in a sort of schadenfreude effort to remember that there were people who’d had it far worse than herself. However, these contrived gestures only took her so far.

I guess the truth is, there is only so much glass-half-full thinking any of us can exercise. Realizing this, I was relieved to hear Brene Brown’s recent podcast about Comparitive Suffering,

https://brenebrown.com/podcast/brene-on-comparative-suffering-the-50-50-myth-and-settling-the-ball/

Here, she recognizes that while the daily news barrages us with crises much greater than our own (lost jobs, health, and even loved ones), many of us feel guilty for bemoaning our own losses at this time, because we think we should be grateful for what we have. Certainly, this universal suffering has allowed us to gain some clearer perspective on our lives and our blessings. And the fact that the entire world is experiencing some similar aspects of this reality has enabled us to build real global empathy. However, it is also true that each micro-loss deserves its own relative mouring period. So, I am going to give myself a little license to acknowledge what I am grieving at this time. But I wanted to find a creative way to do this. So, I am going to write a love letter to the time before COVID, identifying the things I truly miss. This idea came out of an exercise we led with my non-profit’s Women Rock group. They are co-writing songs to express the myriad of feelings they are having during this period. In one song, they plan to write about the solace that nature brings them right now. But they also want a vehicle to communicate their challenges. In other words, they want somewhere to “deposit the negative,” because this can actually be very healing: to name what’s wrong, genuinely feel the impact of it in your life, and then let it go. The etymological root of the word de-posit means to put (poner), away (-de). Ironically, this is similar to the origin of the word positive, which is to formally lay down (or to state absolutely). So, perhaps by absoluting stating what we feel bad about, we leave room to feel good about what’s left.

But in case this is just a little too sad for some people to read, try imagining the theme song to Jimmy Fallon’s regular Thank You Notes segment, for a bit of comic relief while you read. Here he is in his At-Home Edition, writing some with his daughters:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6x2UgPVYJs

Vancouver Mural Festival on Main St

Dear pre-COVID days,

I remember how good it felt to walk down Main St and hug everyone from my neighbor, to my colleague, to the barista. You were so open in the way you invited human touch on a daily basis.

I was so grateful that you allowed me the opportunity to interact with people from all different walks of life. You let me work in so many different environments, from elementary schools, to prisons, to seniors centres, where I was privileged to hear people’s stories as they found their own creative voices.

I loved being free to spend time with my family even though they live far away. You made it possible to see my parents in Arizona, and my brother in NY, and my uncle in Colorado, and my in-laws in Ontario, every year, despite the distance.

I enjoyed all of the opportunities you gave me to experience live art. You animated my world and made it technicolor, with concerts, dance clubs, galleries, theatre performances, and different arts festivals every week.

I loved how healthy I felt running around the tennis courts at Queen Elizabeth Park. You made it so easy to exercise my lungs, my legs, my arms, my focus, my flexibility and my stamina all at the same time.

I felt so much passion for the adventures that you brought me to. You generously satisfied my infinite curiosities with music projects in Zambia, and holidays in Hawaii, and cultural immersions in Guatemala.

I miss all of the the ways you let me love and live and work and play freely. And I long for the day you return,

Laura

April 21, 2020

Neighborhood Art

There are so many signs that we are all missing connection and stimulation during quarantine. But the human spirit is extremely buoyant. So, we’ve found remarkable ways to share artistic moments through the walls of COVID.

In Rome, locals are projecting classic films against their apartment building facades: https://www.wantedinrome.com/news/lockdown-rome-lights-up-with-cinema-by-night.html

In Berlin, neighbors are displaying art installations from their balconies:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/berlin-artists-turn-their-balconies-mini-galleries-180974677/

An art installation by Raul Walch, created for the “Life, art, pandemic and proximity” project

In Ohio, kids play cello duets for an elderly neighbor:

And right here in Vancouver, people lead streetside Zumba classes as seniors home residents dance along:

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1716406851557

April 22, 2020

Earth Day in Isolation

I am hardly the first to note that while this virus has taken so much from mankind, it has also given Mother Earth the long-awaited rest she so deserves. There have been plenty of photos of Himalayan mountain tops viewed from Indian cities for the first time in decades, or Orcas returning to Vancouver’s shores to prove this.

In another gift to our planet, appropriately on Earth Day here in BC, where it has oddly not rained for 30 days, it appears that Gaia is being showered with much needed rain for her day of celebration. And even a sun-worshipper like me has been doing rain dances lately, to ensure that our city will not be shrouded in smoke from a fire-ravaged province, as we have been for the past two summers.

On a different note, a more distorted personification of nature has been touted by many a cynical observer in recent weeks, citing Covid as retribution against humans from a vengeful Mother Earth. I do not subscribe to such punitive thinking. But I do believe there are environmental lessons to be learned from this crisis if we listen closely enough.

Writer Kristin Flyntz makes this point more beautifully than I ever could, in her Greatful Web post: https://www.gratefulweb.com/articles/imagined-letter-covid-19-humans Here, instead of a love letter to pre-Covid days, she has imagined the letter that Covid might write to humans. The tone is intentional and generous but also insistent. It is spoken as if from a friend not an enemy. And it proposes that we ask the hard questions: “As the health of a tree, a river, the sky tells you about the quality of your own health, what might the quality of your health tell you about the health of the rivers, the trees, the sky, and all of us who share this planet with you?”

Another letter, falsely attributed to Bill Gates, whose proven himself to be a true leader of responsiveness in this critical time, also had similar things to say. The anonymous writer claims that this time: “is reminding us that this Earth is sick. It is reminding us that we need to look at the rate of deforestation just as urgently as we look at the speed at which toilet rolls are disappearing off of shelves. We are sick because our home is sick.”

And as usual, artists are responding too. The NY-based NGO, Earth Celebrations has postponed their Virtual Earth Day Pageant for May 9th in the interest of garnering more public participation, with a callout for anyone who wants to craft a costume, mask, puppet, etc. All are welcome. And more details can be found here: https://earthcelebrations.com/?fbclid=IwAR30nj7NtS52E-RLjpvz739L-3fcp-DtnJ1YeVE8Roln4vJXPC7bzBLxew0

April 23

Virtual Festivals

If you’re looking for an alternative to Netflix and chillin’, there are endless arts festivals that have moved content online, for your streaming pleasure. So, I thought I’d recommend a few interesting ones here.

If it’s efficiency you’re after, when browsing thru infinite entertainment options, the Social Distancing Festival does all the work for you, by scouring the globe to curate the best livestreamed events they can find. Links include everything from modern dance to virtual gallery tours to musical theatre:

https://www.socialdistancingfestival.com

Myseum of Toronto’s Art in the Time of Covid - work by Evgeni Tcherkassk

For some lighter fare, this Edmonton Series hosts nightly cabaret, music, and comedy acts performed by local artists from their homes.

https://www.citadeltheatre.com/2019-2020/stuckinthehouse?utm_source=Citadel+Theatre&utm_campaign=67600c620f-Stuck-in-the-House&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_482a5c3fca-67600c620f-80741247

And if you’re looking for a bit more sophistication, Toronto’s Festival of Literary Diversity has managed to move online, and it starts next Thursday. Their line-up features many of Canada’s finest emerging and established voices. My personal favorite, Mona Awad will be reading from her new novel, Bunny, which was the funniest read I’ve had in ages. In this high art version of Mean Girls, she nails the pretentious banter of grad school writing cliques with a dash of magical realism. https://thefoldcanada.org

April 23

Creative Gratitude

Florida police thank-you

Our shared appreciation for front line workers has become a true muse for collective community creativity.

Clockwise: Navajo muralist Ivan Lee; local Vancouver sidewalk; Long Island artist, Kara Hoblin

But this one takes the cake for audacity!

https://gfycat.com/magnificentabsolutegosling-health-workers-coronavirus-thank-you-meme

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thecrookedgavel · 5 years ago

Text

The Black Box Readings - Ep 2 Transcript

Here’s the transcript for episode 2 of The Black Box Readings, the podcast where I read to you the backup of queer blogs that have gone down.

See Other Episodes

An: Hey, all! And welcome back to The Black Box Readings, the podcast where I read to you the backup of queer blogs that have gone down! I’m your host, An Capuano. I want to start off by thanking you for coming back for episode 2. It means a great deal to me. Last time we were introduced to Emmy and started getting into her story. But also, we got into some personal anecdotes from me… Some very personal anecdotes, actually. So a little peek behind the curtain, I’m recording this before the release of episode 1, but I showed an unmastered version to some of my friends and they all thought my little stories really added something to the episode. Which is good, because I felt really empowered by it, even if I didn’t really plan on sharing so much about me.

If you haven’t heard episode 1 yet, I would really recommend taking the time to do so before continuing, but here’s a brief summary of what was covered:

Let’s see, we met our hero Emmy, and we learned that she’s a visual artist, and learned a bit about her being bi-polar and deaf. We also saw some hints of her being a trans lesbian. We come back into the swing of things with a frequently asked questions post as a response to the messages she received after her last post, titled:

“(Unfortunately) FAQ

Thank you for your attempts at cheering me up. I appreciate it, even though some things that were said were not helpful at all. Rather than replying to each of you individually, I decided to make a FAQ. Let’s get into them, shall we?

-You’re deaf? Why don’t you wear hearing aids?

Sorry, it’s not that simple. With the amount of deaf I am, I still can’t understand speech, even with hearing aids. So they’re basically pointless.

-Why don’t you get cochlear implants? Isn’t that the cure for being deaf?

There’s no easy fix for being deaf. Even with cochlear implants, you “hear” in a totally different way, and it’s taxing and torture from what I hear. Plus, my dad says we can’t afford them. I don’t know if I would want to have them if we could tbh. It all seems pretty scary if you ask me.

-Do you have a deaf accent when you talk? I know what you mean, but please don’t call it that. I’m not from the country of “Deaf”, so I wouldn’t call it an accent. But yeah, I talk funny, if that’s what you’re asking

-Are you able to lip read?

Yeah, I can. I’m ok at it, but I can really only follow one on one conversations. Any more than that, and I get lost easily. I understand the most when someone articulates and talks slowly for me.

-Wow, you’re really brave! I would kill myself if I couldn’t listen to music.

Gee, thanks. I’m glad you think my life isn’t worth living. There’s nothing brave about it, I just do what I can, and try not to beat myself up too badly.

-Why not take medication for being bi-polar?

Honestly, it’s complicated. Being on tumblr is what made me realize that I’m bi-polar, not a doctor or anything. So there’s no one I can get meds from. Legally, at least, lol. My dad refuses to accept what I’m going through is a mental illness, he just thinks that I have behavioral problems. That I’m just doing all this to spite him or something. So I’m sort of stuck without meds for the time being. “

She can be very sassy, can’t she? There’s a bit of cleverness to her responses. No swearing or name calling, those things are just implied. It’s nice that she calls out the ableist rhetoric that disabled people are better off dead. It was heartwarming to see, when I originally read this post, that she does believe she has value as a person, even if it is sort of buried at the moment under the doom and gloom of her previous post.

She also talks about how her Dad can’t pay, or maybe even won’t pay for cochlear implants, and refuses to get her psychiatric medication. I’m not the biggest fan of her Dad, to be honest, and why will become clearer as we progress through Emmy’s blog. In fact, our next post is about an interaction between the two of them.

“Got mad at my Dad today

God, I’m so PISSED OFF, you don’t even know. My Dad is being his usual tyrannical self again. He never lets me do anything! Ok, so I just wanted to go to the corner store and pick up a few things we were missing around the house, nothing major, right? I wanted to be helpful, you know? But as I walk out the door, he grabs my shoulder and pulls me back into the house. He YELLS at me, even though he KNOWS I can’t understand him when he does that. After a while of telling him to stop yelling, he finally starts talking slowly for me. He told me that it’s not safe for me to leave the house on my own. That I might get hurt, kidnapped, or worse. I told him that I’d be fine, and that he needs to stop being so controlling all the time. Then he started quoting the Bible at me, I hate it when he does that. Something about the 10 commandments and how I’m supposed to honor him, idk. I know I’m supposed to believe it all, being I’m the son of a pastor, and all that. But I’m seriously an atheist, ok? I just don’t believe in God, fate, or any of it. Anyway, I hate to admit it, but he’s probably right. Not being able to hear a car coming does scare me a lot. Thanks for reading, rant over. “

This is one of many rants that made their way onto Emmy’s blog. I think she was able to use it to feel better about the negative things in her life. You can see at the end that she’s much calmer than she was at the beginning of the post, even going so far as to actually agree with her Dad. Though I get not wanting your child to get hurt, I don’t think he should have pulled her back into the house physically like that. And yelling on top of that? It all rubs me the wrong way. Though they’re not the reasons I truly dislike him. Unfortunately, those will come by in full force later on.

Oh, I realize I haven’t given an anecdote yet, sorry about that. Let’s see… umm… I guess I can really relate with the struggle of wanting to be independent. I’ve been really sick for more than 10 years now, and we had a lot of trouble getting a diagnosis. It’s looking like it’s all due to a concussion I had in my teens. I’m getting treated now, and things are looking up, actually! There’s a lot of hope with me.

But before that, I actually had the opposite dynamic as Emmy. My parents would really push me to be independent, but I had sort of accepted where I was with my level of dependency. I couldn’t do things like exercise, laundry, or even make my own food, even on my best days, without feeling absolutely terrible afterwards. Certain movements would basically knock me out for the rest of the day. This lead to terrible sleep cycles, and my parents would get really upset with me for not appearing “normal.” I think it looked to them like I wasn’t making an effort, when in truth, I wasn’t normal and I was doing exactly what I could every day. It sort of came to a boiling point with them not understanding, and I sort of had to move out and get my own place to stop it from getting truly awful, honestly. It was hard, for a lot of reasons, including money reasons, but that’s a story for another time, I think.

But back to Emmy herself, I guess we really haven’t talked about her religious views yet. She went into a bit of detail in an earlier post, but in the end, I decided to omit it from the podcast. Mostly because the core of it is present here. She doesn’t believe in God or predeterminism, and she has a real disdain for The Bible. It’s probably from oversaturation, to be honest? Like, grow up with a super religious parent, and you’re bound to want to rebel as a teen. Though I find it kind of funny that she says she doesn’t believe in fate, it’s not strictly a religious concept, and bit of a spoiler, but she ends up changing her mind on that front later on.

Next up is a post where Emmy talks about her aspirations and future goals. She wants to be a full time artist, and take the steps necessary to get there. She wants something more out of life, which is pretty natural for a teen. It’s why the “princess wanting more” story is told time and time again. Anyways, the post is titled:

“I Want To Do Art

I’ve been thinking a lot about the future recently, and I’ve been feeling pretty bored just sitting around doing whatever lately. I want to work for a living, but I know I can’t really do that without leaving the house. I want to be an artist. Like an animator or an illustrator. Something like that. It’s something I’m perfectly capable of doing, even if I can’t hear. I know my art needs work before I can make a job out of it, but I think that’s what I want out of life.

I passed high school last year, even if I was homeschooled, it still counts! I don’t know what kind of art school would take me, and I understand that I’m disabled, but my Dad won’t even let me look for an art school. He just won’t fucking listen to me! He thinks I’m just going to sit at home and do nothing for the rest of my life, like some sort of fucking pet! I’m so sick of him! He’s so goddamn controlling and I fucking hate him for it! I don’t know what to live for if I can’t be an artist, tbh…”

Honestly, this is an upsetting post to me, for a number of reasons. It sort of gives me a flashback to high school, which never sounds good, but bear with me. I was told by someone I really looked up to, my acting teacher, that I’d never make it as an actor because of my hearing loss. He encouraged me that I could still work in theater, like being a stage manager, but the damage was kind of done. I always thought that he believed in me, he would give me opportunities like assistant director on several projects. I got a good amount of experience working with him. Maybe he believed I was better suited to being a director, which is something I have been doing, directing my own projects, like The Crooked Gavel. But I also have been voice acting, which is acting, right? Actually, talking through this has made me realize that he would be proud of me. I think he would be happy to have been proven wrong. I actually feel a lot better now. Interesting.

Anyways, where were we? *light chuckle* Right, so I think Emmy has the right to resent her Dad in this case. It sounds like he’s not trying to meet her halfway, not even trying to look into an art school for the disabled. To me, it seems like he just doesn’t want to let go of the idea of Emmy as his child. She’s growing up, and he’s kind of refusing to see it. There’s also the aspect that he might be embarrassed of her, which… *sigh* more on that later.

---

Moving on, here’s another post accompanied by a piece of art. It’s… well it’s part of the reason why her previous post upsets me. Because I remember this post along side of it. If I had a copy of the picture, I’d probably have to warn you first. It was really dark. So, onto the post, titled:

“Here’s how I feel

I feel so trapped and small”

*Sigh* And I’ll try my best to give you a description from memory. I stared at it for a long time, I recall. I remember a figure wrapped in chains. The art style had a very dream-like quality to it, the colours all dark and texture sort of… messy? *Sigh* Anyway, the person in chains had tears streaming from her eyes, and no mouth. The chains lead upwards into puppet strings to those marionette-style crosses. It was good art, but knowing who was behind it, it really scared me. Especially since she hinted in her previous post that she might not see anything to live for. She felt so trapped and like she didn’t have a voice. So I thought it over, and I decided to message her words of encouragement. This was our first interaction.

I told her that I loved looking at her art, and that it brought me a lot of joy when she came up on my dashboard. That I was half deaf, and although I couldn’t get the full picture, I got some of her struggle. I encouraged her that her art was already good enough for commissions without art school.

I’m sure she got a lot of messages like mine, because she never responded directly. Instead, she posted this message on her blog the next day.

“Got a lot of messages

A ton of people messaged me to give me words of encouragement after my post yesterday. I’m sorry I worried everyone, I just needed an outlet to express myself, you know? But people also messaged me to tell me that I’m good enough already to do commissions without art school. I don’t think you’re right, but I’ll think about setting something up. My Dad probably won’t let me make a paypal, but maybe you can pay me in Steam games or something, idk?”

A little later, she reblogged the post and said: “Everyone sending me messages and words of encouragement, thank you! It really means a lot”

I was really happy that I reached out to her, and due to what she posted, It felt more or less like she was thanking me directly. By this point, I was invested in her struggle, and I made sure I’d always message her again if she needed me to.

Alright, we’ve made it to the last post of the episode. It’s kind of exciting, because it’s the mark of a really good thing happening in Emmy’s life. It’s well deserved, and I remember being very happy for her whenever a post of this type came up. I don’t want to spoil it, but I guess the title kind of does that for me, *chuckle* It’s titled:

“I Think I Met Someone

I was playing a lot of Overwatch today, what else is new? LOL. It was the first comp game of the day, and we got Anubis. So I instalocked Mercy like I always do. Anyway, me and the Dva player, her name was EmeraldSkies, were wrecking face together. It was pretty great, actually! Obviously I wasn’t in voice chat, as that would be a whole lot of useless. People usually get mad at me for it, and try and force me to join, but she was chill about it. After the game ended (in a win for us, of course) I got a friend request from her, so I accepted. We ended up chatting for a bit, and then we ended up duoing for a while. I really liked playing with her, and she didn’t pressure me at all to join chat, even if my excuse for why I couldn’t was half assed.

I had to go eat lunch after a while, I gave her my discord and she actually accepted! After I got back online, we talked for a bit, and it was really fun! Idk, she’s just so upbeat and seems so deep. Plus she’s totally not at all judgemental. I really really like her already, is that weird?”

See, I told you it would be exciting! I’m personally a big fan of instant connections. *Sigh* I’ve had a few really intense ones in my life, and they’re always something else. I choose to think of this interaction between her and EmeraldSkies as one of those instant connections, rather than Emmy jumping the gun about developing feelings. There’s just so many people in Overwatch at any given time that running into any given person is pretty rare. She doesn’t talk about it yet, but this may be the point where she starts to question whether or not she believes in fate. Though, I’m sure that’ll be something we talk about later on.

Thank you for listening to this episode of The Black Box Readings! Again, I have no idea what sort of reception the first episode received, since I’m recording this before it releases. I tried to match the energy of the first episode today, and I hope my personal rants mix well with the readings. Follow me on Twitter at TheCrookedGavel to stay up to date on this and other queer podcasts. Feel free to contact me there as well. This is An Capuano, signing off!

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bartsugsy · 8 years ago

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Have you recovered from Thursday's episodes yet? I have mentally binned the one from Friday from my memory as best I can. I wish Sharon hadn't included the scene where Robert pulled Rebecca up off her chair, what the hell was that. Surely there was another way for her to trigger a reaction so that Chrissie could blurt out Rebecca was still pregnant ugh. Maxine is subtle in her script writing and then it feels like these other writers come along and bulldozer over everything

Hey anon!

I honestly didn’t mind Friday’s episode. Ok…

this became…. obscenely long…….

The pub reveal felt sort of clunky in a ‘suddenly everyone relevant is here at the pub to learn of this news!’ sort of way, but it’s a soap, so…. you know. It was like… CAR CRASH HORRIFYING AND AWKWARD TO WATCH AND I GET LIKE… SECOND HAND HORROR IS THAT A THING i just fuckdigndnf scream like it hits A LOT OF MY WEIRD SECOND HAND EMBARRASSMENT BUTTONS AND I CANT i’m literally rewatching now and cringing at robert and aaron having to both suddenly deal with this realisation in full view of a packed pub i’m !!!!!!!!!!

It feels like the point was to sort of… make Robert extra terrible to Rebecca (not hard, he’s usually pretty terrible to her these days lmao) and have Aaron find out about the baby all at once, so that it hits him like a slap in the face, that this isn’t going to be as easy as he thought it was when it was just him and Robert alone in a room together. It’s so often been so much easier for the two of them, when it’s just them in a room.

The one thing that I wasn’t a fan of was Victoria’s non-reaction. Because. Really? idk why are these reveals never as juicy as I want them to be smh. Also I still don’t get Chrissie being so gung ho about the baby given it’s Robert’s and given her relationship with Rebecca and so I’m assuming it must be for a specific plotty reason (bc the state of the white sisters’ relationship is always reliant on what the plot needs) and I’m really wondering what that is??? i’m 100% suspicious.

lawrence on the other hand was 110% #relateable

ALSO aaron’s reaction to finding out about the baby was as relateable as chas’ reaction to finding out about the Incident - i.e. i felt my soul laid bare on screen that day

Ryan and Danny were both amazing and that bathroom scene was a work of art and I will cherish it til I die like THEIR PERFORMANCES IN THAT SCENE??????? LITERALLY STUNNING?????????????????? OH MY GOD?????????????? WHEN YOU THINK RYAN AND DANNY CAN’T DO ANY BETTER THAN THURSDAY AND THEN THEY DO THAT??????? bye. also i’m literally both of them. it’s like me talking to myself about this storyline. we are all one.

anyway that scene was perfect and NEEDED for this episode and so i really can’t trash it all that much because damn

The Aaron and Rebecca scene is…. the funniest most absurd thing I’ve ever laid my own two eyes upon………. she just…. how…. does anyone think she has a leg to stand on?????

Ok. Here’s my thing. It is 1000% Rebecca’s right to have this baby if she wants. That’s fine. She’s gotta do what’s right for her. However, awful as Robert treats her and much as she now rightfully seems to hate him, she has to understand that this decision to have this baby affects Aaron’s life as well. She shouldn’t let her choice be influenced by that at all but, given that this is someone she professes to “like”, she… she slept with his husband and she’s having his baby. She took an active part in helping to destroy his marraige. Unintended consequence or not, that’s still the absolute reality of what happened and as much as, again, I don’t think she should change her mind or her stance on anything Robert related, I still think she should at least be able to recognise her part in Aaron’s pain? I just…. you would think she would be even slightly sympathetic to that? But that last scene sort of came off as her trying to make him see the light - “look how similar we are, we’re in the same boat, it’s us against him”. The show literally couldn’t make it clearer that Aaron and Rebecca don’t have the same relationships with Robert if they had Rob make a flipping shrine to Aaron in his basement next to a burning effegy of Rebecca at this point (….just look at this entire episode), but Rebecca thinks it’s the same thing. And yes, she seems to think she’s doing right by Aaron but.. idk, how fucking patronising can you be? How unsympathetic can you be?

Again - I really do think the point was to really have Aaron question whether he can really forgive Robert and put that seed of doubt in his mind but

sigh

Rebecca.

Also idk if it’s because we know what Aaron’s agression looks like and it wasn’t that heartbroken yell at Rebecca, and Rebecca does not know what it looks like, but her cowering and making him feel bad about yelling at her…. like….

she slept with his husband??????????????????????????????????????

I STILL DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY NO ONE IS ALLOWED TO TREAT THIS AS A SHITTY THING TO DO BC IF MY MATE DID THAT TO ME I WOULD SURE AS HELL SHOUT AT THEM, PREGNANT OR NOT WHAT THE FUCK but as im a lesbian i doubt they’d be pregnant tbh but still WHY CAN’T HE YELL AT HER? SHE STILL ULTIMATELY CHOSE HER FEELINGS FOR ROBERT OVER WHATEVER VERY MINIMAL REGARD SHE MIGHT HAVE HAD FOR AARON’S (AARON HER FRIEND AARON WHO SHE LIKES) MARRIAGE and it’s….. it’s really annoying

and rebecca acting like that shout is…. robert’s fault….. when….. even if aaron was acting agressive…. aaron’s agression issues go back far far before robert even came into the picture….. and robert isn’t responsible for the way aaron reacts to things much in the way aaron isn’t responsible for robert’s reactions we literally just had a massive double bill discussing these exact faults. like, it just hammers home how much she really doesn’t know him.

and like. robert and rebecca were both there. they were both responsible and they both had relationships with aaron. robert has more to apologise for but that doesn’t mean rebecca should be treated like an innocent god damn petal (regardless of whether she genuinely belived rob and aaron had broken up four hours before they did it or whatever… i mean…….. honestly…………)

and potentially all just a way to make sure aaron doesn’t shout at her again? or just to foreshadow whatever the fuck is happening next week. who knows.

Anyway.

What I’m saying is, I think the whole point of this episode was to show that Aaron and Robert’s problems aren’t magically fixed because they spent a day finally talking about their problems. Growing and changing has never been that easy - they’ve taken the first step and admitted to it, recognised their issues but… I think this is just a signal that they still have a lot of work to do and they aren’t going to be in a good place for a while. They’re both going to be trying to work through it for some time. Which is good.

Like. That whole first scene, with them being cheerful but kind of awkward and stilted was just them trying to move past things a little - but this episode was a big neon sign that it’s never gonna be that easy. Long standing problems like theirs don’t just disappear.

ALSO ALSO final note on Maxine (and Sharon I guess, who wrote this ep - and I really wasn’t a massive fan of the writing because it did feel like a mess and it took me a few watches to sort of understand what was happening, but whatever) - because I just… I don’t think every episode that Maxine doesn’t write is doomed to be bad lmao. And I don’t think Friday trampled over them either.

Personally, the reason I love Maxine like she was my own daughter is because she is the exact opposite of subtle. She doesn’t do subtle at all, she spells out everything in black and white and you don’t have to work for it - which I appreciate a lot, to be honest, because who wants to work this hard for a soap???? LOOK AT HOW LONG THIS POST IS???? WHY??? lmaoooo, maybe that’s just me. idk, i just appreciate her blunt approach to writing dialogue and her big love of parallels and callbacks bc it satisfies my inner theorist. plenty of other writers have their strengths when they write robron and plenty of other writers have written beautiful stuff for them, but i like that they give maxine the big stuff if only because i know that she’s gonna try and cram as much shit into there as possible lmaooooo. she makes the most of it.

and by that i mean…. i’m never really left thinking “am i reading too much into this or is this just an accident of the writing that i’m picking up on?” with maxine, like i do for a lot of other writers. like friday’s episode - am i meant to see the rebecca/aaron conversation as firm proof that rebecca doesn’t know aaron but has made a lot of judgements on him and assumes he has as little agency as she does when it comes to robert, based on her terrible terrible relationship with and treatment by robert? or is that just something that i can see from the episode, knowing the characters like i do, that was never intended to be there and won’t be a plot point. with rebecca, especially, it’s hard to know what we should be purposefully pick up on and what is just bad and sloppy writing by literally every single person involved.

I just never feel like I have to write mountains of essays about character motivation and storytelling when Maxine is at the helm of an episode.

i do think she’s one of the most consistent at writing them (though idk whether that’s because she gets the good episodes or it’s just her clear love for them as a couple that leads her to being extra careful with them, it might be very chicken and egg haha) and she handles episodes that could fall apart in some writers hands very very well (my main example for that is always the lachlan trial episode, which i just think should have been an utter trainwreck but ended up being one of my favourites. it’s just incredible to me that she made it work that well, during a time when robert is actively lying and the show itself was SO BAD ON ALL COUNTS???? her ep was like the turning point into ‘not horribleness’ again and i don’t know how she did it. the entire plot was ABSURD. she just made it work.)

(plus it seems like she writes loads of casual affection into episodes and that makes me happy)

idk. I guess I’m saying that there’s a reason I genuinely look forward to Maxine’s episodes, but also… all is not lost and i don’t think she’s the only one who is gonna save us here. we’ve got other people who will help us along the way lmao.

(i’m getting serious de ja vu with this whole sentiment did i write this back in november as well or is that my brain playing tricks on me?)

#I’m keeping my gob shut about the way things led to Chrissie blurting out about the baby bc i’m not sure it’s that out of character going by #past events #anyways #ed #emmerdale meta #sigh when will i shut up hmmmm #robron #anti rebecca white #i guess?#answering anons

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passitonandon · 7 years ago

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The purpose of keeping this private to ONE DAY SAY “I am a writer” and “an artist” and why was this so hard. THE DENIA of safety means everything is questioned & why I make choices based on what I’ve learned.

The past is beautiful again : TY #words

This being to relevant to everything, I’m going to make a connection fortify a new ring, circle, hoop, a record sings on replay, grateful now my mind words this way statements I can recall easily that have much more meaning, are the links to make the strongest bonds, the ones done covalently so taking this post with knowledge of writing it for the purpose over there, finding times I have to hold two thoughts, edit in my brain, push keys, stand still, have to think up words, like poof, in air! Getting my voice is not done easily, going to try and explain this, easy 1, 2, 3 and it also quells the panic growing up in my, from he tingles in my face and spine, it’s like a solid rod I can’t define, if my butt starts to spasm I’ll lose my mind so put it over there & now go back SAFELY, go ahead, you can do it, push rewind.

Write a intro for the feeling “ in the moment” noting physical sensations starting with strongest felt (sharp, acute, burning) to less so (numbness, sensitivity to touch) and then good spots (often my legs feels sturdy)

Read what was written making editing comments : minimize to things you want to recall for later that can help e.g. emotional flared up, body pain became noteworthy, feel free to delete anything that is not relevant to right now or future or is readable or “clear” and has a purpose in keeping.

Recall other moments when making choices were successful & try to connect something to make both memories stick so that you’re habitually feeling capable (this is the connection made to another dimension while manually doing it while conscious to see if it kicks more anxiety to the curb?” note: ever since someone said anxiety & ptsd are not related, I became terrified. There is simply not enough knowledge on topics that big decisions are being made affecting lives. Those making decisions seem to have the least empathy & if not sure if it matters, it does to lil lives every day in mini societies called schools.

The Past

When you feel like you have nothing, are nothing or unsure what meaning is, you can still offer kindness & beauty & you can start right now! It cost nothing & effort is minimal. We all require attention, care & concern. Those most in need do see & feel the subtleties when others turn away, are talked about. I know because to a disorganized/anxious/depressed mind, words are confusing & meaning’s felt first having been both advocate & patient--split between two worlds & at a time found myself somewhere in-between listening & watching the sh&#iest behavior unfurl. I’m so glad that’s not me [I got out!]. More than putdowns & contradictions, but a topsy-turvy belief systems under the guise of protection and support. Stating those words here is a strategy, to put it out there, let the body experience it, react & then one day, attack it hard--say what I want, knowing full well this is the direction to take--follow the triggers. In my experience where students could not imagine themselves capable, smart or social, a little investigating revealed why skills would not stick & it isn’t that they were “low”--shhh, not being taught--when you see how ‘lil collaboration there is, you find yourself in your imagination, a lot thinking of ways to ensure self-advocacy sticks. In some ways, doing this, living out loud (my ideas are private) is super easy in comparison! Children [with or without special needs], the elderly, victims of abuse, homeless & the mentally ill rarely expect generosity, kindness & beauty, so with very ‘lil effort--a smile, a word, gifts in all shapes & sizes, deeds that SHOW protection, what’s the harm in helping them feel safe, emotionally/physically--oh yes, my experiences continues to shape me & the appreciation felt, a cycle of giving like no else, truly anything you can spare. It will mean the world to them in ways that help self-motivate, increase self-reflections, a step in the right direction that being independent thinking & living, a life model that’s more give than take and less dependence on others & systems, too. We ALL want to be seen for who we are, not taken care of, to me that sounds like someone is going to murder you. (Oops, just showed a fear...) That’s right, put them here & dampen the motherfu%ers out.

The content of what you say, how you say it, first impressions, effort & saying hello and goodbye still [or should] matter. Words & emotions held in a delicate balance between what’s inside & that image, the outside, if not in line, a lack of harmony, peace cannot exist--how do I know? Just listen & use your eyes (duh), you’ll see it. Stress & deviousness. Beauty is only skin deep? It penetrates every part of me! I know when I’ve been “unclean.” It’s natural to make assumptions, our brains predictive, consciously & subconsciously processing information through the senses as we navigate our world---that place where my fears culminate, a combo of caustic experiences that happened “out there” or “in this environment,” the world is where people are. Functioning has been altered in ways I cannot fully understand, nor describe, but that is life. No boo hoo, in fact, I’ve learned so much about OT/PT/Vestibular & Vertigo, that I see exactly what my students meant, going back in the past, part of therapy to really identify these fears [make ‘em all real], so like any good teacher I made detailed notes. Thank goodness I did. It’s reminded me of the writer I was & why all their words--I can’t concentrate, my body hurts, my eyes don’t work!--makes sense & where stigma & judgement collide into an invisible stew that’s hard to stomach, but I’ll keep ingesting it. That being a systematic approach (thank you Special Ed) 1/2 exposing myself to what’s most harrowing in my mind & causes the greatest physical reactions, 1/2 dreaming the biggest motherfu%ing dreams ever--getting through & over this--is what’s healing & since I am/was a teacher when you learn something new that can help, you share, and singe I don’t know what’s appropriate, I’ll use tech to do it, had to learn it, was way suspect since my privacy is everything, someone out there knew this/used this to CREATE more fear & shame. The proof, I’m “on” it and it’s true, you can dampen ev-er-y-thing.

One thing I did that many people cannot is leave the country. A safe place where they speak my language, but also familiar to me. It’s where Poetry, Literature, Art & History come together & I rebuilt trust in a city setting, Chicago not that for me. Triggers of these past years are ev-er-y-where--oh, when I share...I just want to make sure it feels good, right, doesn’t make the night come in, see, you must feel in control & no one can control anything except their own misery. Memories are amazing-Wow!-brings me back there--walking through the Tate Museum I come across these wonderful words that concisely says what I feel, affects how I hear since it’s clearer, a model, a way to get these stuck thoughts out. Take a photo. Remind myself of that moment. Revel in the sense of safety. This is real validation, another theme having been around the “phony kind.” This connection gave me back time because when you share an idea with someone whether you know it or not, you have participated in a moment that will never happen again. A true connection that does not lie to my mind & body, a perfect fit that my senses, endocrine & nervous systems can’t argue with.

The Topic I can’t Wrap My Head Around Comes Out in Ebbs & Floe`

So many thoughts that used to comfortably roll & slide in my mind, now collide, events send me spiraling in either direction, too high/too low, the goal I’m told is to be made whole--how about just be safe and prevent more harms from happening? I accept accidents do happen, giving those who made decisions & acted on them the biggest benefit of the doubt that they did not intend, but when you keep doing it, are you really going to ask me to pretend? Learn from tragedy please, that’s the point of ED & it’s practical, so for the next time. At the very least, what happened to me won’t happen again, but then I see, it’s the continual scheming, repeated lying to one’s face, a boundary I didn’t think [some] people could cross, those being the ones who make choices to say “I protect,” we’re a “family.” Good grief! These words/themes are everywhere in life, in stories, on TV, shopping, in loops, and then all the memories of being a “team” player, ok ok, yes you must do things to sure the greater good, just make sure the goal is fully understood by all since that’s when lies are cerated, my parents always told me eventually you won’t be believed & now with memory, I don’t have a need (what am I trying to say?) it’s storage, the capacity, the rule being, whatever comes up comes out. To say it, finally, having listened to myself for over 2 years with these fragmented sounds/words/noises, to just get it out is why I have to scream & shout now--How [some] people can never re-structure after trauma with so many re-triggers & why this task seems insurmountable but I never shied away from a challenge. Those who really know me know that very well.

The way I see the world is different, a combination of Music, Poetry, Science, Education, History, Philosophy, Art, pieces or shards, some painful, some not. I trust my feelings finally, they will dictate everything. The decisions I make, not able to trust a mind that’s been jostled a little too hard lately & why I am thankful for my philosophies, the ones in place from long ago. If don’t have a way to be moral, that part of decision-making you should figure it out fast (you never know) when a tap on the head, punch/kick to the face is going to change all the rules--a displacement of past tools. For me, it’s simple. Go back to Nature. Go back to School! Morality & Mythology, Stories show us how to live, the benefit is we get to do it vicariously & the past, where there were REAL fears. Living every day in darkness, death, daily tears, suffering to body, mind, spirt, no rights, no luxuries, then I walk these streets & see things that will never be okay with me.

Your body will tell you exactly what you need & if given the opportunity try the benefits of offering yourself to another through beauty & kindness, to anyone, really. How did we lose our imagination? Was it back in school when that teacher told us we couldn’t do whatever it was we were putting our minds to? A parent who put us down, left town, growing up doesn’t mean you stop showing up. A relationship who treated us a little too rough? Embarrassment, shame & fear are powerful weapons for some & if you are stuck in loops or using strategies that you know aren’t the right ones, there’s a way to stop. It’s a deliberate mindfu*k, you have to prove to yourself you’re greater than what you’ve been forced to put on that shelf. See, to me, if you do not, you could be missing some great adventures or discovery that such close-minded thinking prevents any possibility for curiosity to spring, it’s all about the seeds you sow and that is unacceptable. Keep writing, keep striving, keep thriving in the ways that work for your unique special heart. Sing, dance, play, draw, make goals, eat well, love much, whatever you choose to do, never..stop...making...art, never stop being in-touch.

source: The Village Voice; Edge.org; Oprah.com; USLegal.com

#tate museum #<3 art #teaching #depression #brain & function #choose your own direction #mark wallinger #lisa feldman barrett #andrew w.k.#@rpbracker #theaster gates

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francu-s · 8 years ago

Text

Laments in 3 parts

Lament part I

Not Les Mis related just sayin’... what you find here are: feelings, life and a couple of progress pics to lessen the pain.

I know my posts are... sparse in number, to say the least. I also know that most of my followers started to follow me due to my les mis related drawings. So every time when I felt like sharing some personal details, or write a random post, I was like “ow no, don’t do it, you just waste others' time, nobody cares about your shit and so-called 'problems', they are just whinings anyway (fuck, if you want to know what 'problem' really means, check out the news)."

Almost everyone knows this feeling I guess - when your bitch of mind is your worst enemy.

But... maybe we should take it as a challenge.

Take it as a challenge and resist the urge to say 'sorry' after telling what needs to be told, or taking the blame for something what has nothing to do with you. Say 'no' to things what you don't want to do, and don't feel bad about it. Say 'no' to shame, sorrow, doubt and fear.

Harder than one might think! I try to live like this since last month and still fail in it every day. Like, I have deleted 5 'sorry'-s and 14 self-degrading sentences so far. I do not want to say sorry for my feelings anymore, or see them a burden what's unfair to share. If writing them out helps me then I have to do so.

To be honest, I wanted to put a "keep reading" button at the very beginning, but then I realized - that's exactly the root of the problem. The need to hide away even from myself, to feel unworthy, and frightened by exposure.

And the sad truth is that whatever happened in the past, I did this to myself. It was not a conscious decision to close up like a seashell of course, but it's time to take responsibility for myself. I have to open up. I have to re-learn how to let things in, and out. How to let a person close, be an old friend or a stranger. How to trust.

I want to be brave and happy again. I want to get better.

So I refuse to put that "keep reading" button there.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Lament part II

And now... let's practise this "sharing" thing.

I work as an au-pair right now, and the little girl I look after always asks somebody to check on her after bedtime. This person is usually her mummy but she travels a lot (like, for 4 days or one whole week) due to her work, and the task then falls on me. Her mom said it isn't really necessary to do so, though - if she is sleeping she will never know if you checked on her or not. The surprising thing is that this possibility of cheating has never occurred to the little girl. Well, I skipped the check-ons many times (still do) I admit that, but I felt bad about it so I usually crept to the door as she asked, but did not go into the room. Mostly bc she was a very poor sleeper in my first couple of months with her and did not wish to wake her up accidently and screw up my night with it.

It was too good to last for long. After the third time period or so alone, she finally stated the logical question:

"How will I know if you checked on me?"

Lol, how indeed...

So that night I made her very first bedtime note. Just a silly drawing on a piece of paper, a little girl in her bed and a short message (something like "I was here at 21:15"). I made three more at that week.

It worked. She loved them.

And the thing is, her mom loved them even more. She liked them so much that she asked me to draw some more so she can collect them and put them on the wall in a nice frame, well how lovely that would be.

I was flattered and happy, said OK but from that minute I just didn't feel so thrilled about this whole bedtime note thing. As that Lakota proverb says: "Force, no matter how concealed, begets resistance." I have made more than 60 bed-time notes so far but only 10 or 15 which I really felt like, "wow I got I good idea for this one, let's do it" (I might share some of them later on). And this - to be unhappy while drawing and almost unable to perform - made me wonder if it was a good idea to pursue this utopia, to draw for a living. And I don't really dare to look at the bottom of this question bc the next logical one is this: "What to do, then?"

And the answer is... nothing. I don't want to do anything. I feel no calling, no enthusiasm by anything, or not for long enough. And I am tired and numb by fear.

The worst thing that maybe drawing IS part of the problem. ("Am I a part of the cure? Or am I part of the disease?") I can't say I'm happy when I'm drawing but I'm in this flowing, timeless state and I feel nothing then. Nothing in a good way. I thought that helps. But maybe this is just a defensive mechanism on my part - I draw bc it makes (made) me feel safe. I draw to isolate myself from the world in body, mind and soul. To shut down, don't think, just be. To procrastinate dealing with Real Life.

All I know that it makes me angry when I feel like drawing and I can't, or when I have to draw something else what I feel for (even if the former is for free and the latter is for money... especially then).

Btw money - let's get back to my host mom/boss. 2 weeks ago she asked if I would draw a picture for her company. She offered 20 pound for it and I said yes bc it actually did seem interesting, so why not? So I asked about the details but haven't gotten much, only vague ideas. I made sketches, made modifications as her idea got more clear (but not much clearer). Never, ever say yes to a job where the customer has no idea what she/he/they actually wants! (yep it seems evident now...).

I have shoved her every progress, she was happy with them.

Then, at the very end of the project, she said there was a different style in her mind. Hand-made watercoloured picture to name it.

For God's sake, man... She knew how my style looks like. She knew I was working on the computer. She saw all the WIP pics.

I thought back the late week then - all the hours I spent drawing it, all the night I could have spent working on something else, or just sleep. I mean, there was at least 3 days when I did not get away from the computer for 5 constant hours, not even to pee. I was thinking of the burning sensation in my eyes (not crying, just too much hours in front of the computer). I was doing some quick maths then - how much time did I waste on this, exactly?... Let's be gracious here - 20 hours or so.

Let's just pretend for a funny moment that I actually hold a proper job, and also pretend that a proper job can be compared to art.

The minimum wage over 25 is currently 7.20 pound per hour in the UK, I just checked it. If you are an apprentice then 3.40, this is the minimum of minimums.

When I said OK to this project I did not do it for the money, but anyway, let's just take out our pocket calculator, shall we? (if you mess with the zero then you don't even need one:)

20 x 7.20 = 144 20 x 3.40 = 68

So. At that point, all my sense of humor has left me.

And the worst part? I felt disappointed - in myself. I felt I failed her. That the whole shit is my fault. And that after all this work, I still owe her. I owe her a finished piece of art, watercoloured as she wants, even if watercolouring (OK, colouring in general) is as far out of my comfort zone as it is possible. I am the line-art type and not the colour type of person. But I felt I have to become a master of watercolour for next day no matter what and DO THE THING.

She has been so kind to print the line-art for me. I told her that I try to do my best but for watercolouring you have to use aquarelle paper.

Some harmful, ill determination and maximalism what made me finish this project. I bought paper, brushes, watercolours, all from my own money. I was not even thinking anymore. If any HR manager asks me during a job interview if I am a dedicated person, I shall tell them this story. (Then they can send me away for being such an idiot.)

Yes, I know I am an idiot. What else can I be when I still feel disappointed in myself, convinced that she did not like the final piece and only that damned English Politeness made her say what she said, and that I almost refused to take the 20 pound when she gave it to me today?

I reckon everyone reading this has already guessed that the whole post is about "releasing some steam". Here, I release some of the progress pics, too, out of gratitude that you haven't clicked on the "unfollow" button yet:

The original concept what I got: 1) hares 2) big hats.

Some random sketches and stages:

She wanted only 3 hares having tea and cylinders like the Mad Hatter's in Alice in Wonderland. (couldn't you just say this much at the very beginning?)

Line art without the hats

Final line-art

Here is the flower border what she asked for (and what I spent one of those constant 5 hours on), and which was not needed after all.

Before colouring

Finished colouring (it's a fabric company and they wanted to show off their new collection on the hats)

Desperate attempt to make it less line-work-ish

Final watercoloured shit

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Lament part III

The gall of me. I am not only an idiot, but an ungrateful, selfish one.

I hesitated to post this as my mind has been mocking me with one word during the whole time while writing it:

fanfiction

I plan to dedicate a proper post for this topic alone some time. For now, I just want to say that reading fanfictions is, shame or not, one of the most important aspect of my life. I have been reading them for more than a decade now, but they were my fuel of life in the last for 3 years or so. I can't be grateful enough for all the stories which kept (and still do keep) me going, and the authors who share their work, not for 20 pound or for one million as they deserve, but for free, without any lament.

If I were religious I would say: God bless you all. I wish you the very best and everything what you might wish for yourselves.

#francu #tldr #written post

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echoeternally · 8 years ago

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its okay im only asking for these ones :). Jk 2 5 6 9 10 11 12 14 15 16 17 18 19 22 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Geez, that’s a lot. Well, 9, 12, 14, 26, & 26 were already answered in previous posts, so I’m skipping those. The rest? Uh…here goes.

2. Is there a ship you didn’t like at first but ultimately started shipping?

Hmm. Um. I guess Alex/Maggie of Supergirl. At first, I liked it better when Maggie rejected Alex, and thought they could go in a better direction for them after Alex came out, but was then rejected. And I still believe that. But, it’s a canon lesbian pairing, and they’re cute, so sure.

5. What is your most fluffy + happy ship?

…Nothing is. I have fluffy and happy moments that I enjoy and love, but ultimately, I don’t think that I have any pairings that started or will remain that purely happy at any time. Which leads to…

6. What is your most angsty ship?

Everything, probably. All of my ships are full of angst. My more known pairings that I support are gay, so easy gayngst right there. And then otherwise, I just like adding drama and struggles in for everyone. Because torture is good.

10. Is there a ship that makes your skin crawl?

Uh, not particularly. Like, you kind of have to reach for stuff that I wouldn’t think works, which most people either wouldn’t think of, or care about themselves.

For example, if anyone seriously shipped something like Fox/Pigma, kudos to you for going the distance on something so hideous and loving it, but goodness, that’s probably my limit.

Also, I guess stuff involving characters that are underage, but do nothing to age them up. Like, if Bowser Jr. is suddenly in an AU fanfic where he’s in his 20s and courting Peach’s daughter or something, ok, sure. But, if Bowser Jr. is paired straight up with Peach, as a child with an adult? Yuck.

11. What is a character you can only imagine in one particular ship?

The struggles of being a multi-shipper include that you’re typically good at pairing off characters and don’t need them to stay in their ships. Continuing on Star Fox’s examples, I guess, I’d pass Fox around to basically anyone else in the series that I think somehow works.

It’s pretty easy when characters aren’t defined enough, or if you’re not close-minded to headcanons like, “Fire Emblem’s Inigo/Laslow likes all the ladies, but would totally get with guys too, when he’s practiced enough.”

15. What is the first ship you had?

Isn’t this just a repeat of that “oldest ship” question? Whatever, I guess something basic. Mario/Peach, out of sheer laziness, because I liked them together as a couple a while ago, like around when the first games came out. I’ve paired them off since, and I did fall out of it at some point probably, but I don’t know, they’re a nice pair overall.

16. Is there a ship that made you realize something about yourself?

…As in…? I mean, I’ve realized that I love writing lots of pairings? And that I like cute, tender moments, amidst all kinds of hard, turbulent trials? Writing hero/villain things makes me realize how to be kinder to those that we don’t immediately understand? I don’t know, one of those should answer this.

17. Is there a type of ship you always go for?

Nerd/Jock or Popular/Shy have become my go-to pairs, especially gay ones, because yes.

Usual stereotypes in stories include some bigger, muscle dude in a bitter relationship/rivalry with a smaller, smarter guy, or otherwise a quiet, lonely girl that struggles to standout against a loud, popular girl.

So, whenever that happens and when I’m not rolling my eyes from it, I’m like, “But what if they secretly had crushes on each other instead?” And honestly, that’s so much more satisfying, like I can’t even begin.

18. Is there a ship the writers have ruined for you?

Oliver/Felicity, no contest. I think I still have it as a couple that I like, but the longer that Arrow goes on for, the more that I don’t like them together anymore.

It was a cute idea, it could have made for a cute endgame or fun one-off idea. But the writers of the show twisted it so hard to work throughout Season 4 and at moments in Season 3 and Season 5 that I literally can’t stand it.

When it gets to the point where Felicity gets a scene to punch not-Laurel, basically feeding into shipping war fans and siding with one over the other, that’s my limit. Shipping wars happen, but it’s best when writers and stories don’t go out of their way to side with one; you pick one to be canon in the end, not give them ammo to be jerks to other fans with.

19. Is there a ship the fandom has ruined for you?

Let’s stray from the above, because I barely touched into the Arrow fandom once to see Olicity shippers, and goodness, I don’t need to go back.

Hmm. I don’t think any Steven Universe ships have been ruined for me yet, but I feel a lot less comfortable supporting them like I used to. An official artist was chased off of Twitter by Amedot (Amethyst/Peridot) fans, and that was a pairing that I totally supported before I learned about that happening.

Outside of that, it’s not so much that ships get ruined as much as they grow stale to me. Keeping it with SU, I’ve grown very weary of Ruby/Sapphire. It’s like, the series has content that could go for any Gem pair-ups, but because they’re the canon lesbians, they win all kinds of cute and lovely fan art.

Like, I love them, but it’s exhausting to see and go, “Oh. Another fan art of Ruby and Sapphire being gay. How original.” It’s especially weird because they’re not main cast individually (Garnet is), so…yeah.

22. Is there a ship you’ll never admit you have?

Probably, I’m sure. By answering it specifically, that means that I’m admitting to it, right? So, good, I don’t have to think, lol.

24. What is one scene you want to see happen for all your ships?

Well, who wouldn’t want to see their OTPs get married? Isn’t that like the most obvious…really, why is that a question?

25. Is there a ship you wish you didn’t know existed?

I guess not really. There are ships that gross me out. There are ships that bore me. There are ships that have fans that turn me off of them. But I don’t think there’s anything that I wish I didn’t know about. Otherwise, that would make me feel ignorant upon learning it, or I’d be missing out on some drama.

28. Is there a character you have several ships for?

Gosh, I really need to make it clearer that I’m a multi-shipper. Yes, I can ship multiple characters in multiple ways.

Mario, Peach, and Bowser are all in one love-triangle. I can pair that one off in any way, if not pairing all three of them off together. I don’t care.

Just because I would fight to have Machamp and Alakazam as a couple being a thing and actively encourage people to follow them, they’re not exclusive, and I could see either with other Pokemon.

I started Arrow and thought that the moments between Oliver and Diggle should have become romantic. Some episodes still make me think they should’ve been a couple.

Steven Universe has no “perfect” canon pairing outside of Ruby/Sapphire, and therefore everyone is open game. Do I like Pearl/Rose more than Greg/Rose? Some days. Sometimes Pearl seems better with Amethyst. Or Lapis. Or Peridot.

Every character I come across has a relationship with other characters that, if they have enough development, could be seen in a romantic light. Therefore, I like the idea of any of those.

29. What is the ship you ignore 98% of canon for?

Well, I guess that’s anything Pokemon, because Trainers are always needed, but I usually say, “screw them, go monsters.”

If it means anything with enough plot, then I guess nothing. I don’t really ignore canon, and like to work with it when possible.

If this means for confirmed canon ships, I usually acknowledge canon relationships, especially if it’s beaten to death with confirmation. It doesn’t mean that I’ll automatically like it, but I won’t pretend that it doesn’t exist.

30. Is there a ship you like but you dislike the fandom?

I think Steven Universe is the go-to for that. It’s most definitely not the entire fandom, but I’ve heard my fair share of stories.

Like in the above posts, I like many ships, and I like pairing off characters in Steven Universe any which way that I can. If anyone is looking to tell me, “No, you can’t do that, it’s not canon,” or, “No, you can’t do that, because this one’s better,” then that’s not ok.

The SU fandom is full of that kind of attitude, and the whole “shipping wars” type of attitude. I don’t approve of shipping wars, period. I like comparing and contrasting ships. I like that everyone has different opinions about pairings.

I like civil conversations on them, and people understanding differences and respecting different approaches to pairs. Even things that I’ve talked against, such as the earlier mentioned Fox/Pigma, I wouldn’t outright hate someone over. Like, do you really ship them together? Ok, cool.

There are all kinds of different flavors out there to try. Some you like, some you won’t. You shouldn’t be close-minded to that, and you shouldn’t hate someone for having a different taste from yours.

If the fandom thrives on debate topics that involve insults and rabid hatred of one another, that’s not worth the time or energy. It’s that simple.

There. Done. I feel like I completed the ask meme already, goodness.

#askecho #calioni12 #ship asks #ask meme #lots #of #things #long post

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ghostfantasyart · 5 years ago

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How Long You Should Draw A Day To Get Better

Do you need to exercise a skill every day to get better?

How Long You Should Draw A Day To Get Better? To get better at drawing you need to dedicate at least 30 minutes a day to the habit. Realistically any amount of drawing you can do a day will improve your skill. It’s important to focus on what to draw instead of drawing in general.

Start from the beginning even if you are knowledgeable about the medium. You never know what has been forgotten. Building a drawing habit isn’t only about advancing a talent, but also how it makes you feel.

Read further how to set a drawing habit, what to cover, and how else this hobby can benefit you.

How to begin a habit

Beginning time should match your schedule

The idea of throwing your entire being into this new undertaking may float through your mind but leave it there. Look at the time that you have in a day. It’s likely everything is filed up with things that you already like to do.

Well, you are going to have to give up one of those things. To do something new you have to give up something old.

After you have decided when you can fit in drawing how much time do you have in the day to do it. Some people have some extra time while others are already squeezed tight as it is.

For those who don’t have as much time, you will have to remember the word flexible. You might not have a certain time right now, nor a certain length. Just get it in when you can.

If that means getting in five minutes with a pen and post-it notes. Do it. When you have more time for a relaxing hobby you can put in more time. There is no need to rush the experience.

As you continue to make time for drawing whether you want to make time for will be clearer. If you feel that more time is needed you will look at the other things that take up your time and see where you can make room.

How good are you at forming habits?

If this something that you want to do the first step is to develop a habit. At first, your drawings will be nowhere near what you have in your mind. You will have to deal with that to varying degrees for a while.

Get over being perfect. Don’t tell people when they ask if you can draw that you can’t even draw a stick figure. It doesn’t matter. As long as you put pencil to paper every day.

The lines will get surer and proportions will start to make sense. At first, all that you need to worry about is putting that pen to paper every day.

Some people can draw for an hour every day from the start. While others immerse themselves to judge their amateur talent by a master’s standards. Just take a deep breath and concentrate on the drawing.

Start out with 30 minutes a day, but each person is an individual. Ask yourself how much time you have per day to dedicate to drawing then go from there.

You don’t want the new habit to feel like a duty your mindset will work against it if it views this new habit as an obligation. Try to frame as something that you are excited about and make it a relaxing venture.

Make your favorite drink to sip on while drawing and get comfortable. Framing your activity this way makes it much more enticing. The video below has some more tips for you to ensure that you will draw every day.

youtube

What you should draw to get better

Just as important as putting assign time to draw is what to draw. There are a lot of wrong ways to go about it. Just sitting in front of a blank piece of paper will just result in doodling, which doesn’t help your technique.

Those that are new to drawing or haven’t done it in a while should start at the beginning. Even if you took art classes in high school you have no idea what you have forgotten since them. It doesn’t hurt to brush up.

It’s not going to be creative at first. But don’t underestimate the feeling you get the first time a circle is shaded perfectly. Take your time and conquer every step it will help out in the long run.

If you don’t know where to begin you can check out tutorials online. A lot of drawing tutorials are floating around online, but not all of them are created equal. Look for one that gives you the basics of drawing.

Lines

Proportion

Perspective

Shape

Form

Each one of these elements builds upon each other. Rather than learning to draw one thing like a lot of tutorials out there practicing the above will help in any art project.

All art starts at lines from fashion to interior. Practice how dark or light you can make your lines. Practice cross-hatching and stippling these will come in handy later with shading.

An understanding proportion will help your drawings look realistic. It forces you to look at the object to see how all the corners and curves interact with each other to make the overall piece. Pay attention to this area, it will make your drawing future a lot easier.

Perspective adds depth to drawings with the objects in them. One point and two-point perspective are where students start on this subject. Think of perspective for city scenes even in distant landscapes.

More than circles and squares shape represents the outline of the thing being drawn. Don’t start with the minor details then outline it. To get the correct proportion you have to learn shape.

The form is when a drawing starts to look real. It’s the little details that give art depth. Shading with values or the above cross-hatching or stippling is where your drawing becomes alive. Learn the realistic method of shading to understand the exact places to place minimalistic values.

What are your intentions for this talent?

Do you want it to be a relaxing hobby that you do for yourself or do you want to take a more commercial path? Each one is a legitimate way to go. Just stick to whatever feels right for you.

How do you maintain a habit?

Keep it up every day. I know that some days it’s harder to maintain a schedule than others, but your life is never going to settle down enough for you to do it later.

For the days where it just doesn’t happen don’t beat yourself up just start again the next day. It’s ok as long as you start again.

How to advance

The simple act of doing something every day will make you better at that thing. After a while, the joy of simply being able to draw something and it looks how you want it to look wears off and you will crave more challenge.

Some people want to go in a more graphic direction and will go with Adobe Illustrator, others will drift into painting capturing more vibrant scenes.

Play with a lot of methods and tools to see what fits for you.

Realistic drawing

Non-objective

Painting

Sculpture

Why you should set a section of your time to draw even if you can’t

Something happens when you start to draw. Your concentration goes from day to day to stark black lines on white paper. Drawing is a productive activity.

Placing that white paper in front of you then producing something with your own hands with plans from your mind. It clears everything.

The simple act of drawing works as a meditative practice for those who struggle with standard forms of meditation. Instead of sitting on the floor trying to clear your mind you are using the act of creation to do it for you.

Doing this once a day especially in the morning sets the pace for the day. You will be more inclined to be in the moment of the day.

We often live lives of consumption with very little creation. No matter how small or wobbly your new creations are they are something that you have made so be proud of them.

Drawing is a simple form of creating something that didn’t exist before now breathes below you on your tablet.

The best way to set a drawing habit is to view it as a pleasurable experience and start at the basics to help when t your talent evolves. Look for quality content instead of one-off tutorials that show the user how to draw one thing one way.

If you learn the basics no matter how tedious you will know how to draw anything.

#Art #Illustration #Anime #Cosplay #Digital Drawing

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read-red · 5 years ago

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Portrait #5

Welcome back to an other episode of Portrait, This time i’m joined by someone i met on Instagram (find her links at the end)

She’s a talented artist from Connecticut, without further ado :

I’m Bryan, i guess i’m Bryan the girl, i’m from New Haven Connecticut and i’m 23 Years old.

When did you start drawing ?

I’ve been drawing on and off my all life but i didn’t really think of my self as an artist until after college when i had to decide on a career. I had tried a lot of different careers and none of them have really felt right. I was bored in them, so i set down and had a good long think about what i could really envisioned myself doing as a career, the only thing i could come up with was art.

The problem was that i wasn’t a very skilled artist at the time. The list of things i was afraid to even attempt to draw was very long and so tackled that list by doing a new year’s resolution to draw every single day for a year. So i did, and i started to share my work and i started forcing myself to post on Instagram twice a day which was a lot, and i would never do that nowadays [sometimes she still does tho] but i didn’t had job at the time so i drew and drew and over time i got good .

Then people started to seeing my started paying me to do art and buying my art. I think i went through and arc of not drawing at all, drawing a little bit, drawing everyday all day and now that it’s my job i don’t draw as much, because i’m doing a lot of business too.

How did you get into drawing ? (tho’)

I’ve done a lot of different types of art, I’ve done traditional figure drawing, some painting… They don’t really teach pen art in school, like in a traditional classroom, it’s not part of the foundations. I was always drawn (ha ha) to it but i didn’t have chance to learn how to do it, so then i realized i would have to teach myself.

That’s what i worked on, i was figuring out how to make my drawings look like the drawings that i really liked in the old hatching and graving ways that i love in the renaissance…(a cute dog passed by and caught her attention:). So my challenge was to just teach my self over time, and that’s how i grew to love ink drawing : by learning out on my own.

How did you build yourself as an artist? Because there’s some construction going on. You can’t like be like « ok now i’m drawing , now i’m an artist » you know, there’s some kind of transition, like who am i as and artist, in what i do…

That’s a really hard question…

For a long time i felt so uncomfortable, saying that i was an artist. Because i either felt like i wasn’t legitimate , like i didn’t have the right to say that or like people would think that i was really egotistic or something. It feels lie saying you’re an artist carries a lot of weight to it.

And it feels like something you’re not allow to call yourself an artist, like you can’t call yourself a genius only other people can call you that and so i’m like i can’t call myself an artist other people have to decide.

But then at a certain point when it’s your career ad it’s all you do and earn a living you have to identify yourself as that. I will say that often times i will say that i’m an illustrator and not an artist. Because when you say that you’re an artist people think that you’re taking your cloth off on the street and screaming and like smearing chicken blood on your body or something but i’m just drawing so i think people get a clearer idea when i way illustrator.

How did you get your name?

Actually i used to be a musician and i remember i was on Soundcloud, way back this was like 7 years ago. I went by my full name, which is Bryan Schiavone ( Italian name ). It’s a very difficult name, and when people have name like that they somehow try to shorten them and nobody would ever be able to spell it or pronounce it so… One day i was on Soundlcoud i saw this person had a username that was whatever-Thegirl, and was like that’s so interesting i’m gonna do that for my name too. So when i started doing art i just kept the same name that i was using for my music. It’s so much simpler.

As a teacher, because you teach on Patreon and you have a podcast too, how does it feel like to teach ? You did some workshop too.

I’m still not fully comfortable with teaching because a part of me still think that in order to teach you have to be the best

A master ?

You have to be a master, and i’m not…i mean you just saw me struggling with my drawing earlier (she didn’t…she was so quick she was halfway through when i was still sketching….). I’m so afraid that i’m gonna be in this situation where a student turns to me and says how do i draw this tree ? And i go i don’t know that looks like a difficult tree… i can’t help you…. A part of being a good teacher is admitting that you don’t know how to do something and learning it with you students. It’s hard to know when to start teaching when you get to the point where you’re like : I’ve learned enough to share with people. I think it helped me just to have people ask me enough how do i do it and i started telling them and i guess that’s teaching.

And i think as a teacher you’re still learning, if you think that you’ve mastered and you’re not gonna learn from nobody any more then you’re closing yourself to new ideas and techniques.

And you’re a bad teacher and bad artist at that point…

Especially in art, you always have to learn something new, something new will always come to you.

When you began, how hard did you hustle ? How hard was it to get from Bryan to BryanThegirl ?

Oh my god, the hours that i put in , unpaid, over the past few years it’s just like… If i had known how much time it would take i would never have done it. Because i remember two years ago, i started selling my drawings for 15$ each. You know I’ve spent hours on these drawings and i was begging people to buy them every day like « i’m selling them i’m selling them ». I remember i made 100$ and i was like i’m making all this money… and even up after this past year i really couldn’t get any commissions and i kept advertising for them but nobody seemed interested. Even if they were interested they’d be so surprised of the cost which was incredibly low, like 30 dollars for a custom portrait. So they’d freak out and say « omg i don’t have money for that » and i would ask « how much money did you think you were gonna spend.

So there was a lot of just being rejected or not finding customers and then there was a lot of finding a lot of customers that would not pay me enough so i’d spend 10 hours doing something for 15$… Which is horrible and it made me unhappy but i guess i knew it was part of the journey, part of something that i had to do in order to get further along.

And then after working for hours and hours and not making money for years it all started to happen. Every body wanted commissions and i started saying no to people, i started raising the prices because i had to many request…

And you also you could afford to ask more

Because if they’d say « i’m not gonna give it to you » then i would get more free time anyway. One time i got a commission request for a tattoo and i didn’t really wanna do it, i wasn’t interested in it so i told the guy this crazy price and he was like « OK, if that’s how much it costs » … ugh* so now i have to do this tattoo request, i’m getting a really good price but i don’t really wanna do it, it was so strange, but in the end its fine.

Nowadays after doing all this commission work, pet portrait Christmas gifts and everything i’m starting to focus more on personal projects, book projects which i find more rewarding and exciting.

Did you think that at some point you should have quit ?

I thought that every single day for about a year. It was a combination of « i’m so tired » « my neck hurts » « my hand hurts » and « i hate this » and then also « this is crazy, i can’t do this i can’t just be an artist ». And everybody was telling me « you gonna have to get a normal job » « it’s not realistic, you should give up ».

I was going to, but i think what happens is that the craziest people just keeps going, all the reasonable people stop and then all the work goes to the people that stuck with it. If you can handle it financially and psychologically then you’ll probably be fine but the key is to not give up.

Yeah, i didn’t start any projects after my school so i can’t say I’m gonna quit because i didn’t do shit… you have to do this for like 2 or 3 years, get straight with your partner about it and then depending on how it goes you might wanna quit.

Yeah, you set a time frame and say « i’m gonna do everything i can in this time frame » and if i doesn’t work out then i’ll know I’ve tried everything and i don’t have to have any regrets i never have to have that dream anymore it’s dead so i can’t move on…

Even at a smaller scale when people come drawing with you and they quit after like 1 hour… that’s not it, i didn’t get here in 1 hour. It took me like 5 years and i’m not even good enough yet. So why would you quit (anything) after 1 hour ?

Everything that’s worth doing is difficult. That’s what i try to tell myself when i’m struggling with something. Would i want to do something that’s so easy that anyone could do it ? NO, the whole fun of it is knowing that you pushed through it.

Every great artist, Rembrandt like u mentioned, they did so many paintings you can’t really count the sketches and the little drawings just for fun, for learning and practice. In the end it was worth it.

What i love about these artist is that you can see their old sketches , like you can see Van Gogh, you an see his beginning sketches and say look he made « stupid » mistakes the same way i make mistakes and look at what he created…so it’s encouraging.

What feelings are you going through, right now, as an artist ?

Right now i’m at a transitional point, although i’d probably say that about every point on my career…hum

I got past the point of can i make it as an artist, can i earn a living. I answered it ; The answer is yes. So now that i’m out of that stress zone and i’m more confident on my ability to make money, the question for me is how do i wanna earn money ? What do i wanna do ?

And i’m starting to think about if i have the choice of doing commissions or working for and agency or doing publications or my own teaching/illustration, in a perfect world what does my life look like ? Because you start to be able to ask questions like that if things are going well. I’m starting to think i want to express myself more beyond just images. Like i wanna tell my story more i wanna talk about my life , i wanna talk about my feelings and i’m trying to find a way to do that. Part of it is done through being opened on social media. I also really wanna write more and illustrate things that are more personal to me and aren’t just still life and landscapes…i wanna share more of myself through my art.

Ofc that sounds like some hairy-fairy-lofty artist talk but I’ve been thinking about it a lot. How do i go from drawing apples and bananas to drawing how i feel inside?

Yeah, maybe that’s the goal we should all thrive to : expressing ourselves and tell a story.

Stories are like the heart of the human experience, it’s everything we do, all our relationships our lives…it’s all about communicating and telling stories. And i wanna contribute to that, i want my story to be a part of that because i love hearing other people’s stories.

At the end it’s tradition that i ask : if you could speak to you past-self or future-self which one would you choose and what would you say ?

My past-self. I think about that a lot because i had a really difficult childhood i was unhappy for most of my life until the past few years and….i don’t even think i would have said anything. If i had just seen as a young person that i would grow up and be OK and alive and have a career and be in love…if i just looked up at my adult self and knew that i was gonna be OK i’d be like « i can get through this ». I don’t think anything that i could say would communicate that. When i was younger i felt so lost and alone i felt like it would never end…if i just knew it would get better then it would have been easier…

It was a very interesting evening with Bryan. I’m really glad she came to Paris, meeting her made me want to hustle more and travel more. Talking with her felt educating and inspiring. I came a stranger, with a camera and recorder, and i left with emotions and stories of an artist i now call friend.

https://linktr.ee/bryanthegirl

Thank you for reading this portrait, it was very dense but i hope you enjoyed getting to know Bryan more, as i did.

#bryanthegirl #portrait #people #paris #red #buttes chaumont #nikon #olympus #film #photography #drawing #artist

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mysticaltyphoonnightmare-blog · 7 years ago

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Tip: Use Vivid Description

What is good writing?

Even though the correct answer is that whether a piece of writing is good or not rests entirely with the reader, many people think that good writing is effective writing. And it’s true.

Good writing follows a flow. Good writing is focused. Good writing is written for a purpose. Good writing is grammatically correct and readable. And…

Good writing uses vivid description.

And I hear you saying: “what is vivid description anyway?”… So here we are!

Vivid Description – What it is

Vivid description is writing which makes you feel as if you are standing there, right there where the author has just described something. Vivid description appeals to the senses — eyes, nose, ears, skin, etc. You use vivid description when you describe something, whatever it may be. And… yeah, you knew it, here’s a note (seems I can’t do without one):

Note: – Vivid description is undesirable in some cases. Too much of a good thing is usually a bad thing (once again!).

How to use vivid description

If you want to use vivid description, then you want to play with all the senses. Don’t just say the wind is fast. Compare it with something that the readers are familiar with. As an example, compare these two sentences:

The wind was very fast.

The wind was as fast as a train.

Which example is better? For most, it’s no. 2.

Rather than leaving the details to the reader’s imagination, why not list them out in your writing? It is incredibly annoying to imagine something based on what has been written only to discover that our image is wrong. (Read this post to see why novels and films differ when writing character description for it). In contrast, if we had the proper details, wouldn’t we imagine better? Wouldn’t we have a clearer image of what the author is saying?

Yes, we would. That’s when vivid description comes in.

Description is necessary but boring, and so you have vivid description. Concrete details. Everything the reader would want to know, and nothing more. You explain it, they understand it, and your writing is okay.

But what if you want your writing to be more than just ‘okay’?

Then you have to write for the senses. Hit your writing with some scent for the nose and make the reader feel as if he’s there with you sniffing. Play with noise. Play with feelings and sensations. Make the writing wash over the reader, as if it’s not there at all, as if he/she is seeing the event or whatever you are describing.

When the reader has that feeling, then you know that your piece was a success. Then you know your work has paid off. Then you know you’re ready to see results, and all from applying a very simple writing tip: just use vivid description.

Concrete Details and Active Voice

When you are using vivid description, it’s better to use the active voice, and for a good reason. The thing is, when you use the passive voice, as for example: “The door was opened by the man” rather than “The man opened the door” your writing loses a bit of its punch. It loses the “vivid” part of vivid description, and along with filler words, can completely weaken your writing. My advice: stay clear of it!

Note: – This applies almost everywhere, but not in exceptions. Is your writing project a scholarly or academic one? Law? Advertising? Then this advice does not apply to you; passive voice and filler words are actually recommended. But not all the time.

When you use active voice on the other hand, your writing becomes concise and more readable. You reach closer to the goal of having the reader feel that he’s there with you when you describe something. Concrete details means the complete opposite of becoming a fancy writer: more punch, more strength, more vigour. Better results.

Brilliant Writing = Brilliant Description

Brilliant writing is an art form. Only few writers pen down something which may be called brilliant, and they make it look easy. For the rest of us… but the art is learnable. As usual, the main thing you should do is: (drumroll) practise!

When your writing is brilliant, your description automatically becomes brilliant. You don’t need to worry because of it; you need to worry because of your writing. Improve how you write and you’ll improve your description.

As with narrative and dialogue, try not to use too much description. It bores us. It bores the heck out of us, and even if you’ve got vivid description, it won’t help if you keep at it. Mix it up — I guarantee you will see positive results! Try it today. Experiment with various techniques. You may want to use some quotes, lists, charts or anything else to break up the description. All are recommended, so you can use any of them which you like.

If you’ve got a description, it’s most likely languishing in your writing, scorned as “boring”. You’re worried. What do you do as a solution? The answer: make it vivid. Make it exciting. End of story.

Finding the Balance of Narrative and Dialogue

In the world of fiction writing, there are many things to explore. Subplots, conflict, POV, characters, you name it. But have you heard of narrative and dialogue? If you’ve got a story, you’ve got to narrate it. If you’ve got a set of characters, they have to converse, i.e., talk. Talking in fiction writing is known as dialogue, and narrating or describing anything is known as narrative.

Now where’s the problem in that?

Too much of a good thing is usually a bad thing, and it applies here. Some writers use narrative a lot. Their characters aren’t talkers. It’s just page after page of narrative, how they did this, their journey, their perils, the people they met, the surroundings, and so on. All description. At which point your story looks like an essay which no one wants to read, rather than an amazing novel.

On the Flip Side

Then there are those who overdo dialogue. Every page is filled up with dialogue. Have you ever read such a book? Me neither — the publishers don’t want to publish a book which readers won’t read, and boring dialogue is high on the list of unpopular writing.

Dialogue is good. Unnecessary dialogue, now that’s a different thing, a different kettle of fish. Your dialogue must never be used for exposition. In some cases, OK fine. But for most, narrative is required for heavy description, simply because in narrative one writes in the author’s tone, but when one is writing dialogue one must write how a certain character talks.

Ideally, dialogue should be used to supplement narrative. I personally like dialogue-driven books way more than I like books which use heavy narrative, but there are separate audiences for the two categories, and there are people who will read both if the story is good. As I said previously in Writing Tip: The Importance of Word Count, things like word count, narrative and dialogue are secondary if you haven’t even got a good story.

Finding the Balance

If you have a riveting plot or characters, you may get away with too much narrative or too much dialogue. But for normal people who want to maximize their chances of getting published, it’s a bad idea, and I don’t in the least recommend it.

Of course, some situations may require heavy narrative, but you must always try to balance it up later by including dialogue. Try to use dialogue to move the plot forward, don’t stall it. That is one of the main dialogue don’ts many editors see on manuscripts.

Even if your book is published, and your writing style is not exceptional, then people will put your book down and say it’s boring. Use riveting narrative. And try to use short paragraphs, please. If you have heavy narrative and long paragraphs, then suffice to say, I won’t want to spend my time reading your novel (and neither would anyone else). Very simple mistake and very easy to avoid (or correct), but it does have drastic effects.

Any Exceptions?

If you’re a regular reader, you know that in nearly every post I have some mention of “exceptions”. Well, this post is no different, read on.

I’m sure you’ve heard of The Lord of the Rings. It’s extremely famous and popular, but have you ever thought that it has too much description? Sure, some people have, but the majority of the public loved the book because the author was exceptionally strong in his story. It didn’t matter that his book was long or that there wasn’t much dialogue (in comparison). It depended on the story, didn’t it?

And every book is like that. Truth be told, I have read a couple of novels which had much more dialogue than narrative, but the story was so gripping that I didn’t even notice. I didn’t care. Most people didn’t. In fact, it may have even worked out to the author’s advantage, because it was a young adult/middle grade novel and typically that age group (I lie in it) likes dialogue much more than heavy narrative. You may have noticed that I keep saying heavy narrative. That’s because narrative is fine and even necessary to a novel. A heavy narrative, however, has adverse effects.

Effective Writing

Narrative can be effective. Even dialogue can. But there is an “if” — it’s only if it is written well. If it is written perfectly. If it is concise.

And for that you simply have to write, write, write and then edit like mad. Freak out at hearing the phrase “editing like mad”? But no, editing can be made easier with simple techniques.

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