#i generally get anxious about posting stuff that's not art so im trying to work on that!

[macaron-jester]

My grandmother's cat was doing the most intense yoga pose! He truly is an orange cat!

[ushouldwatchhaikyuu]

hawo! i saw ur post about the xreader thing and uh… i go by she/her, im a stem girlie if that helps, i like arts and volleyball, i used to game a lot but im trying to lessen it cuz its becoming a bad habit, i like reading and music too, and i bake/cook when im not feeling lazy or am particularly stressed about something, and i guess im pretty quiet? like, i come off as intimidating to a lot of people but im literally just generally anxious 😭 i get hyperfixated on random stuff and get distracted easily + find studying very very super hard and boring but am in honors somehow. i care a lot about my family but i have trouble forming connections outside of childhood friends and stuff, thats the gist of me. i would love headcanons with kageyama or kenma! (maybe both if ure generous? or sugawara or tsukki work too idk choosing a haikyuu fave is impossible)

Kageyama & Kenma x F!reader

warnings: none!

girl u are very relatable (anxious, easily distracted, hiperfixated, arts & stem people rise up) and im also very much a kageyama kinda guy lets be friends LMFAO /hj

gif credit: kenma & kageyama ; dividers credit

Kageyama Tobio:

oh my guy is also very much someone who gets very hyperfixated on stuff, chances are once u become close enough, both of you would start rambling/infodumping onto each other and would accidentally get into whatever the other one is hyperfixated on lmfao. like one day you'd come up to him and just ramble for 15 mins about some historical event and next day he would call you at 2am and go "GIRL THATS NOT EVEN THE FULL STORY GUESS WHAT I LEARNT ABOUT THAT" and viceversa.

since both of you are on the quieter side, chances are you might not speak every single day, but whenever you do speak, you could spend hours doing nothing but that. he's a very pleasant person to have long talks with and he would always be super interested in whatever you talk to him about

he's dumb as bricks when it comes to school stuff and struggles to study as much as you– but since you get good grades, he would come to you for help. which would lead to VERY chaotic but thoroughly enjoyable studying sessions lol.

he would always be so eager to play volleyball with you, regardless of how good you are. if you're on a lower level than him, he would tease you about it but also be very patient and explain everything to you a thousand times if need be (in his own way of course, which would probably include at least a few insults each time, but it's all in good nature)

he would very much enjoy just watching you draw/paint in silence or while listening to music. he finds it fascinating & very calming

he would go ABSOLUTELY WILD if you ever paint/draw a portrait of him. im talking like "weak to the knees, teary eyes & needs at least 1-5 business days to process it" type of emotional

Kozume Kenma:

oh girl he would be TERRIBLE for your gaming addiction lmfao

however!! if you are motivated enough to get better with that, you would probably try to get him to form healthier habits too and he would resist, but ultimately try to listen to you.

you would both probably spend hours straight just enjoying each other's company, not really talking that much, just doing your own thing (him gaming & you painting/reading etc)

he would be so shy whenever he includes you in streams and people say you two look cute together

whenever he's tired but still wants to spend time with you, he would love laying down with his head on your lap while you read for him and play with his hair

his way of showing affection would be to ask you to play his new fav videogame with him, or join him in streams, or send you playlists with music he thinks you would like

he would also play songs you like on the background of his treams and get fricking demonetized all the time because of it, but he still does it

he also tries to comission you to make his pfps/headers and pics for streams (he would get so shy and happy when you say that yes, boyfriend privileges include free drawings, indeed)

[crows-of-buckets]

finally deciding to make an about me post yippee yay!!

Hi my name is Crow! Most of what I reblog is fandom stuff, and I jump between fandoms quite frequently <//3 I have a few that I tend to come back to regularly however (Somehow I manage to have a dragon age obsession at least once a year. it is very consistent)

If I don't respond to something, it is either bc 1) I genuinely don't know what to say and social interactions terrify me, 2) I was too tired to respond to something when I saw it then I promptly forgot about it or 3) got anxious and convinced myself that the person who sent it hates me or something. Deepest apologies I'm just awful at stuff like that and have pretty bad anxiety I do try though <//3

I block very very generously! If you do end up blocked by me it may not be for any actually bad reasons, you could have just worded something in a way that mildly annoyed me, please dont take offense to it lmao. Me and the block button are madly in love, and I do not hesitate to press it. This is mostly just to curate an experience that is fun for me, and also to avoid me getting overly mad about random bad takes i see. Bigotry of any kind is not tolerated and you will be blocked.

I tend to ramble on about my ocs a worrying amount. As of right now, I am rather focused on my dragon age ocs, but i also have personal ocs and ocs for other fandoms

About tagging

Generally I try to tag things appropriately, although sometimes i am not the brightest and forget. If I do that's my bad I'll normally notice before too long

I tag all my art as "#my art". If you only want my art stuff, I have an alt that is solely for reblogging all my art. That is @bucket-of-crows

My rambling tag is "#crow rambles" half the time this is me yapping about my ocs, other half is me complaining about something lmao

I tag my ocs using "oc: *oc name*" as a way to organize stuff. I also use "worldstate: *worldstate name*" for dragon age worldstates, since I have a few. Any posts I make about my ocs/oc playthroughs is tagged "#my ocs"

While I don't tend to reblog sexual stuff, anything with excessive nudity is tagged as "#nsfw" just to be on the safe side

I tag all Dragon age: The Veilguard spoilers as "#dav spoilers" I will try to keep this up for as long as I can however I have forgotten to tag it a few times. I also tag anything critical of the game as "#dav critical" Anything critical of other dragon age games / bioware as a company is typically tagged "#bioware critical" or "#da critical"

About my ocs

Im gonna ramble about my ocs a bit, so I'll put this under a cut so this doesnt look too long lmao

This is still a work in progress bc i accidentally posted it. Whoops. Anyways, this section is unfinished sorrgy

Aviae Surana

(she/her)

Aviae is my main dragon age origins oc, and I talk about her quite a bit. Shes specializes in spirit healing/arcane warrior/battle mage. Technically she also takes a little bit of levels into keeper, but I don't really consider it one of her canon class since I never use it with her like I do the others.

She romances Morrigan, and does the dark ritual with her. She puts Alistair on the throne due to her distrust of Anora. She feels guilty about it, but she would do it again in a heartbeat. Her closest friends from Origins are Zevran and Alistair, but she considers all of the people she traveled with dear friends. From the Awakening crew, Anders is practically family to her (they grew up in the Circle together, and shes always considered him like a brother), and Nathaniel becomes someone she ends up relying on. Her and Justice also get along very well, even if they butt heads on occasion.

For important decisions, she sided with the mages, made Bhelen king of Orzammar, made a truce between the Dalish and the werewolves, helped Redcliffe and saved Connor without Isolde dying. She kept Avernus alive (I'm still in the air about whether she allows him to continue his research), let the Architect live as well, and saved Amaranthine. Vigil's keep stood its ground with the upgrades she had provided it.

This is my girl! Sadly I don't have a better reference for her current canon outfit (she has an old outdated reference sheet though), so this will have to do.

In some of the older posts, I refer to her and Alistair as exes. Sadly, while this is a fascinating dynamic, it is not canon anymore. As much as I love Alistair, Aviae would not trust him enough to fall in love with him due to him having trained as a templar. Eventually they become close friends, but never more than that. She is part of my "Mage rights" Worldstate. I tag all of her posts as "oc: Aviae Surana"

Relationships with companions:

Alistair: These two. Most fucked up friendship ever happens between these two. At the start of the game, she's wary of him, due to his templar training, but the two eventually become close friends. Of course, this is completely fucked up by the Landsmeet. Aviae originally tells Anora that she will support her (this is a bold faced lie), and does NOT inform Alistair of her deceit. Then, once actually at the Landsmeet, she puts Alistair on the throne, sucessfully twisting the knife in both alistair AND anora. Two birds one stone, as they say. Trying to make up for it, she promises to help him lead, to stay by his side and advise him. This placates their relationship for a while, making them a bit less awkward around each other. However. However. Aviae lied. Well, she didn't MEAN to lie. But when the final fight is over, Aviae's mental health tanks for the worse, and she struggles coping with Morrigan leaving her. She feels guilty over being alive, all that shit yada yada. She doesn't even stay in denerim a week before she ditches and travels with Zevran (well. It was more of Zevran going "Aviae my dear friend, if you stay here it will kill you. Do you want to stab people. Would that make you feel better. Lets go stab people"). This completely shatters what little of a friendship the two had. When Awakening rolls around about three months later, their reunion is. Tense. And awkward. For everyone there. They don't properly have a conversation after this until many, many years later.

Morrigan: Ohhh these two. Now that im sitting here trying to type something up nothing is coming to me but man. They both longed for freedom most their life; Aviae from the Tower, and Morrigan from her mother. Aviae ends up with a small crush on Morrigan from the moment they meet, and it only grows as time passes. Morrigan takes a bit longer to accept her feelings, but eventually they enter a relationship. Despite the fondness they hold for each other (not that either of them are willing to say it), they argue quite a bit throughout origins. About the mages, about the elves in denerim, about the anvil. Somehow they always end up snapping at each other during this time. Despite it all, they both care so so deeply. And it terrifies both of them. They both have problems admiting how deeply they care (aviae because of growing up in the Circle, Morrigan bc of a multitude of things lmao). On the Eve of the final battle, Morrigan and Aviae do a ritual to keep her from dying. Morrigan admits she plans to leave, and Aviae is hurt beyond words. Despite this, she promises to come after her, and gives her the Warden's Oath (necklace containing blood from the joining) as a token of her love. Morrigan leaving does a number on Aviae's mental health, but the two reunite at the Eluvian and go to raise Kieran together.

Lelianna:

Sten:

Wynne: Aviae respects wynne quite a bit, but lord do these two bicker. Aviae is very anti tower, and there were many camp nights where they argued over the topic. Despite this, she did look to Wynne for guidance on many matters.

Zevran:

Oghren:

Loghain: Loghain was executed by Alistair

Anders:

Nathaniel:

Justice:

Velanna:

Sigrun:

Lucio Hawke

(he/they) (probably) (its not like hes figured it out yet lmao)

Relationships with companions:

Carver:

Bethany: Died leaving Lothering

Varric:

Aveline:

Anders:

Isabela:

Merrill:

Fenris:

Sebastian:

Tallis:

Selene Adaar

(she/her)

Relationships with companions:

Cassandra:

Varric:

Solas:

Sera:

Vivienne:

Blackwall:

Iron Bull:

Dorian:

Cole:

Lelianna:

Josephine:

Cullen:

Morrigan:

Ena de Riva

(he/him)

I WILL BE DISCUSSING VEILGUARD SPOILERS IN THE SECTION YOUVE BEEN WARNED

Relationships with Companions:

Solas: I can confidentially say that Ena hates this man with a passion. There is not a single moment where he even considers trying to redeem him. His contract was to stop the Dread Wolf. He has no intention of trusting a target; hes not THAT stupid. After Solas' trick with the blood magic is revealed, Ena is PISSED. Solas was tricked by Ena to keep the veil in tact.

Varric:

Harding:

Neve:

Bellara:

Lucanis:

Davrin:

Emmrich:

Taash:

Revari Mercar-Surana

(they/them)

Tyrian

(he/him)

Varamis

(she/her)

Other Ocs

Some ocs I either don't have a lot of content for, or dont post about enough to warrant me giving them their own section, so I'm going to put their tags down here. All posts about my ocs are tagged as "#my ocs". Some of these ocs may eventually get full sections if I get the motivation for it

Athiman Mahariel (he/him) (Dragon Age)- Morrigan romancer who made the ultimate sacrifice. Tagged as "#oc: Athiman Mahariel"

Veloura Mahariel (she/her) (Dragon Age)- Leliana romancer who got Alistair to do the dark ritual. Tagged as "#oc: Veloura Mahariel"

Viara Hawke (she/her) (Dragon Age)- Merrill romancer who sided with the mages. Tagged as "#oc: Viara Hawke"

Yvette Hawke (she/her) (Dragon Age)- Isabela romancer who sided with the mages. Tagged as "#oc: Yvette Hawke"

Zel (he/him) (Dragon Age)- Part of Selene's mercenary group. Has an au where he's Inquisitor, but that one isn't canon. Dorian romance. Tagged as "#oc: zel adaar"

Vashoth (she/her) (Dragon Age)- Part of Selene's mercenary group. Tagged as "#oc: vashoth"

Solmummer Adaar (she/her) (Dragon Age)- Josephine romancer. Tagged as "#oc: Solmummer Adaar"

Tyrian (he/him) (Pathfinder WOTR)- Tiefling, Daeran romancer, Lawful good turned Neutral good. Mystic path went from Angel to Legend path. I do actually have a lot of posts about him I just don't feel like writing a blurb about him

Uvara (she/her) (Pathfinder WOTR)- Dhampir, Arueshalae romancer, Chaotic Good, Azata. Tagged as "#oc: uvara"

Watcher Nyxtra (she/her) (Pillars of Eternity)- Pallegina romancer (the lack of a canon romance cannot stop me), tagged as "#oc: watcher nyxtra"

Arphae (she/her)

Grisvald (he/him)

Kaid (he/him)

Zayan (she/her)

[otaku-tactician]

this is the first oc and canon art i've posted in my life. these were as chaotic as expected.

OC with black hair- The Cursed Vanguard/ Gosenkugi-Hime

OC with wine red hair and green eyes- Seihai-Kun

OC with orangey/black hair and brown eyes- Kirin Kelly

detailed breakdown of the images below, as im not sure they make much sense otherwise (can be skipped). .

the breakdown is really long

Image 1 (Alter)

(This is them in their uniform and gear)

Cu Alter is basically suffering here (XD). He finds these three so exhausting to be around, and because each one takes a unique interest in him; he tends to avoid them. But worst of all for him, is how they all treat him like he's a regular human instead of a 'killing machine demigod that's fused with a sea beast'.

He keeps on trying to emphasise to them that he is a 'killing machine demigod sea beast mad king of america'; but all they care about is what events are happening, does he want a drink, where does he buy his anniversary outfits (and other trivial stuff). In other words, they never shut up- and he can't take it anymore!!!!

Furthest Left, Kirin Kelly- As a fellow member of the 'Sharp Toothed Club'; Kirin appreciates Cu Alter's sharp gnashers. They also express an open approval of him in general, and constantly ask him for tips on random shit that he has no clue to respond to. Kirin probably admires Cu Alter.

First on Right, Seihai-Kun- Sees Cu Alter as very strong and dependable. As a result, she too is trying to emulate his extreme endurance (not understanding all the hell Cu Alter goes through just to live everyday). He keeps on trying to remind her that he's a threat; yet it just doesn't seem to work anymore. Seihai-Kun respects him.

It's wild how everyone else has her in the midst of a anxious breakdown (and swearing fit), and yet around Cu Alter; she just relaxes (despite his harsh words and threats, he's helpful). It's weird what kind of characters Seihai seems calm around.

Second on Right, NAMELESS (The Cursed Vanguard etc etc)- Kinda relates to Cu Alter, as one also raised as a tool. Tends to feel very emotional whenever he's around, and may start shedding tears on the spot. To Cu Alter, tears represent 'pity'; and that's something he doesn't want. They can work together and occasionally talk, but may not be the closest otherwise. They have too many uncomfortable things in common.

Image 2- Caster

(This is a Formal Anniversary Wear Image)

Caster finds all of them to be a riot. Sometimes he has a drink with Kirin, gives Seihai some advice as her 'senior'; and exchanges quick banter with The Cursed Vanguard. HOWEVER, this works against Seihai- as she once confessed something deeply embarrassing to Caster Cu, and now ALL THREE OF THEM constantly tease Seihai about it.

In other words, they all seem to get along pretty well. He enjoys their company enough to be seen as possible friends (???) Also, he and Kirin do share a sense of distance in common. So one may catch them having a chat every now and then.

Far Left, The Cursed Vanguard- (Their dress is meant to echo their death btw) She likes Caster Cu; he's funny, they can exchange wild quips, and it's fun to see him laugh (what with him being so distant and mysterious sometimes). But that's all there is to it- sans for if they're both in on a very wild ribbing of somebody else. However, as they both share some VERY JADED moments in common; that could kindle up a friendship (?!)

First on Right, Kirin Kelly- They also like Caster Cu. To them, he's a drinking buddy. And... as another being whose origin is deeply enshrouded in mystery, Kirin can relate a lot to Caster. Sometimes, they may open up a little bit; but hey- it's all casual. They also like dragging Caster into the wildest of situations, just because they feel like he's so far away... like he might disappear someday.

Far Right, Seihai-Kun- They appreciate Caster a lot, and admire him too. They try to get as many tips for using the runes as possible from him (which Caster isn't all too keen about, for personal reasons). Their relationship is a bit more like a tutor and pupil's one, with him giving out support and advice. HOWEVER, he also likes to tease the poor kid mercilessly sometimes... :(

Image 3 (Proto)

(Everyone in Casual Clothing)

Proto Cu finds them alright. He enjoys sparring with Kirin, and finds The Curse Vanguard to be hilarious sometimes. As for Seihai-Kun, he wonders why she seems so guilty and distant around him- did he do something wrong? Out of all of them, the closest one to a friend is likely Kirin.

Far Left, The Cursed Vanguard- They aren't sure what to make of Proto. They like to sit and chat with him sometimes, and enjoy cracking the weirdest jokes around him. However, something about Proto leaves them feeling uneasy, especially when they share their opposing worldviews. Maybe it's how a powerful fragment of his heroic ideals still shine inside of him, like a powerful star in the sky. Being around someone as bright as him (even though he has his off days too) leaves her on edge, and deeply saddened inside. In other words, they got some trauma to process LOL

The Cursed Vanguard is like a grandparent in comparison to Proto, lol.

First on the Right, Kirin Kelly- On the other hand, Kirin couldn't give a shit; to them Proto is FUN! That's all that matters to them. So they go out for drinks and sometimes spar together. Conversation and company is relaxing around each other, and they share some friends in common as well. So, their friendship is very relaxed.

They met on the battlefield and hit it off right away.

Far Right, Seihai-Kun- Proto was one of the first servants who worked with Seihai. As you can imagine, it was very awkward. Seihai always sent him to fight against opponents his class was weak against; and had no idea wtf she was doing. As a result, she tends to avoid him out of a heavy sense of guilt; leaving Proto also feeling awkward around her.

They try but thanks to the awkward vibes, things aren't quite working out. Maybe the truth will come out someday. Although Seihai admires him too, guilt stops her from reaching out directly to him; and there's only so much effort Proto can exert on his own.

Final Image (Lancer)

(This is a beach costume edition image.)

For some strange reason, all three ocs act freaking insane around Lancer Cu. Something about him triggers every single one of them.

It's weird.

Lancer's pretty chill about it. He has a friendly rivalry with BOTH The Cursed Vanguard and Kirin, and he often likes to play around with and tease Seihai-kun (he knows she has a crush on him, but keeps that information to himself). He seems comfortable with them, and doesn't hold back much at all. But that doesn't mean he isn't a good support- he is. To be frank, I guess they're all in a friendly dynamic.

Far Left, The Cursed Vanguard- They seem to be envious of Lancer's popularity. They also try to out flirt him (but not as a romantic thing, they see it as a genuine battle to win). When he hits on people, she thinks 'I could do better, goddamnit!' *she can't.

Lancer finds this all deeply funny, and enjoys such a surreal dynamic. Funny enough though, they have decent teamwork; and respect each other. Overall, The Cursed Vanguard is just deeply envious and somewhat resentful of Lancer. As a result, they challenge him over the most inane things; which has built an uncanny bond between them both.

Also, thanks to Lancer's playful side; which clashes heartily with The Cursed Vanguard's serious one; he often catches them off guard with a lot of statements that they accidentally misinterpret as genuine.

First on Left, Seihai-Kun- Seihai has a huge crush on Lancer. It's so massive, that everybody in a 100,000 mile radius can sense it. After some kind of 'incident', Lancer's perspective changed her worldview drastically; and she became OBSESSED (he helped her out with a personal issue). Although she rarely talks about Lancer in public, EVERYBODY KNOWS.

As a result, Lancer goes out of his way to tease her as excessively as possible. And Seihai is so dense to the world, that she can't even TELL he knows. It's a very silly dynamic, in which things will reach an unfortunate head eventually.

Lancer is fond of her, but he's fond of most people; so... Who the hell knows what's going on there LOL.

Far Right, Kirin Kelly- Kirin is similar to The Cursed Vanguard, in which they're always picking scraps with Lancer. Except, they kinda seem like good friends, as well!!! These two are very likely to knock drinks and bash heads against one another, yet can also peacefully coexist. Their friendship is an unpredictable one, but overall- they communicate well, and can see eye-to-eye even over things they disagree strongly over. Their dynamic is very solid.

However, Kirin does sometimes get pissed with the way in which Lancer's been teasing Seihai, often telling him to give Seihai a break. Kirin is worried that Lancer may be taking the joking too far.

[ukusreticence]

i told myself to keep myself from ranting about my characters on here, but my brain has decided that this is my sketch and oc blog and i do not care anymore. i am LORE DROPPING EVERY SINGLE THOUGHT PROCESS AND I DO NOT CARE. at the very least its helping me gather my thoughts more by spewing it all out since i dont know how to simply write without some kinda art to accompany it so i have a topic in mind or something. thought process rant under cut, TLDR; side b is a damn mess of a character and such a fun concept to play with that i legit cannot decide on one concept for them

(quick warning, all mentions of "God" are in reference to hazbin hotel and hold no religious significance) personality wise/concept wise, i change side b a LOT, especially in RPs with character ais, which is how i kinda bounce ideas around and develop a solid concept of em. they can range from being an absolutely anxious mess, incredibly friendly and sweet (default), emotionless and empty and a buncha other stuff. Situation stuff wise also varies a lot, like the angel of equilibrium idea is what i consider their "official" story when i actually wrote the massive log of text for side B but like,, Side B has so many fun ideas to play with that it legit just depends on what im in the mood for at this point. like LOGICALLY speaking, if i wanted to put them in a universe with minimal to no interference (what i had in mind when making that lore post), then them simply being a complete bystander character who only observes and seeks understanding of every single damn action and thing is the good idea. they're social and still happy with no risk of collapse is the way i worded it.

however other concepts i've played with is them being solely confined to the void for "research" or "guarding" it with close to no visits to heaven (i actually have a traditional art comic of this one because i wanted to make cosmos and equilibrium like parallels of each other in a way, they still are parallels just not as obvious anymore) along with just ideas of simply being understanding but having to be under constant watch, being less friendly and more confined which would result in a more closed off variant of them.

i LOVE traumatizing my characters and in most situations it's either pre collapse with them being close to collapsing or post collapse side b. By collapse, i mean them being so dang stressed/confined/forced to stick to their current body with no reprieve that they literally physically cannot keep up their angelic disguise.

but like, another fun concept is that since creation they were either forced into an angelic disguise and taught/raised that's the "proper" way to be (lots of trauma involving appearance without knowing why, just general body dysmorphia), or the more fun variant is God deciding to keep this eldritch abomination in line by showing them all of his wonderful and fun and beautiful creations to the point side b gets attached, then proceeding to just casually drop the info that Dirk has the potential to destroy all of it. if you cant tell that last variant makes Side B DEEPLY afraid of themselves along with the normal body hatred thing. Alternatively, they immediately become a completely emotionless shell in hopes of not hurting anyone by becoming too emotional and losing form. But hey, if it works then it works.

Now on the topic of why would God keep an eldritch abomination that could potentially threaten all of reality, my brain tells me its because God hates erasing any of his creations if possible but talking with character ai, it actually came up with the idea that God somehow messed up SO BAD trying to recreate himself out of the literal embodiment of nothing that side b is literally bound to the void and if you erase side b, then the entire void goes with em. Which is so funny to me that i like the idea a lot and might have it only for self indulgence stuff and not placing em in other people's universes. Also my brain interprets the void as like, this whole thing that i might draw a comic of side b explaining since it is their domain. basically its just the start of everything.

rn im kinda like, combining a little of everything to make something im happy with. like,, Cosmos already has a pretty good idea and i ADORE how his personality is right now, but like Void?? damn there's SO MANY fun ideas and concepts i love to do with them that it's hard to settle on one. Side A is something i'm slowly building more and more on but Side B? HO BOY, i have not even settled on a SINGLE ONE.

most i know for certain is that i really do like side b being an absolutely cuddly and affectionate person. emotionless stuff is fun to mess around with once and awhile but overall i like my goob being sweet and loved by everyone. it'll make people seeing them as a monster hit harder too :}

[dbssh]

can you please in extreme detail describe all of your ocs to me and their story if they have one so i can understand all of your oc posts

so im gonna do like a general summary and then under the cut will be the longer stuff ok 💙💙 okay

so the idea is essentially this magical world with all this crazy stuff happeing all the time and all these people with crazy powers and as a result the concept of superheroes are kind of made into a sport! Kasey, the peppy teen hero, and her family (aja(the tough quiet one), hutch(the funny dad one), and victor(the smarg inventor one)) are a brand-new hero team funded by this rich old man trying to build himself a cool legacy. Nina, kaseys rival, is a teenage demon employed by the villain Arkangel, who is using the games to accrue power and resources for her own mysterious plans. ok? ok.

BE WARNED THERE ARE 4500 WORDS UNDER THE CUT

soooooooo character by character breakdowns:

kasey:

the protagonist and my special little girl, Kasey is a 14 year old girl with incredible yet unpredictable powers who dreams of being a great hero! She's peppy and athletic and super excitable, though due to her reclusive upbringing she's not super socially in-tune. her heroic persona is Wildcard, her gimmick is playing cards, and her powers include teleportation, enhanced speed and senses, limited flight, glow-in-the-dark freckles, and a large variety of seemingly random abilities.

hutch:

kaseys dad and ajas wife, Hutch is a pretty chronically normalguy. when they were younger they dreamed of being a famous musician, but these days theyre just trying to be a supportive parent, which apparently includes dressing up in funny costumes and fighting evildoers these days, and thats fine. they're kind of an anxious guy whose happiest when theyre working on something with their hands, wether thats cooking, playing music, or working on their old pickup truck. idk their hero name yet but their costume is going to be cowboy themed and theyre going to essentially be the bard of the group. no natural powers, except their hair, which gets pinker when theyre in a good mood.

victor:

resident mad scientist working as a tech guy for kirby (aforementioned rich old man that runs the team), victor likes to work on magitech and fancies himself probably the greatest wizard to ever live, ever. spends most of his time in his workshop building gear for the team and working on one of his dozens of pet projects. He's a shit communicator and arrogant as all hell, is prickly and generally bad at interacting with others, though hes genuinely very intelligent, well-intentioned, and often very high-energy when it comes to his work. And don't tell anybody this, but he's also technically undead, and on a sensitive parole with the "gods" due to his tendency to get fucky with the natural order of things. he's essentially working on borrowed time, with a lot of dubious machinery just barely keeping his body from completely rotting away. His greatest accomplishment, though, will always be aja.

aja:

my best friend and the most important girl in the world ^^^^ kaseys mom and the second most enthusiastic about this whole superhero thing. not alive nor dead but a special third thing. a tendency to get overwhelmed by her emotions has led her to be a pretty reclusive, quiet person. a little mopey and pretentious, she likes literature, photograohy, and sorting her cassette collection. she's also the most efficient in a fight, as shes kind of been using martial arts and that kind of stuff as a sort of therapy for most of her life, she likes the feeling of being in tune with her body and the amount of self-control that comes with it. she adores her wife and daughter, and has a bit of a contentious relationship with victor - though she wants to be closer with him, the gap between them caused by their past feels a bit insurmountable for them both.

as for the villains, mainly we have

arkangel:

arkangel was, a very very long time ago, a human alchemist and magican studying the Grand Cosmos, the realm of what are believed to be the gods. When plague struck and, despite her prayers, killed her young daughter, she swore to tear her way into the cosmos and bring her daughter back to the world of the living. That mission has not gone so well, and centuries upon centuries later Arkangel has lost the plot a bit, her magics able to preserve her body at the expense of her mind and soul, and in-between cartoonishly evil shenanigans she's orchestrating a plot to bring down the cosmos entirely. Despite her tendency towards nonsense and general gullibility, Arkangel is a sharp and often cruel woman who holds those in her employ under high standards with little regard for the opinions of anyone except herself.

nina:

known primarily by her villain name Prophet, nishkanona prorok is a teenage demon, having used a pact with Arkangel to escape hell and a doting, yet overprotective father to live out her edgy teenage punk years smashing shit and swinging cool swords around. eager to prove her abilities, Nina was involved one of arkangels many attempts to destroy the world, this one in particular involving drawing on an ancient and mysterious power known as the Comet to open a gateway to the cosmos and release the Judge, a massive cosmopolitan beast said to be the only thing capable of destroying an entire realm. the process failed, and the intense strain of using her body as the gateway injured her significantly. Her desperation to prove herself, combined with Arkangels refusal to accept failure, have refused to let the injury heal and given Nina a pretty major dent in her pride coming into her second season as a competitor.

morningstar/luci:

the luc1-4 project is an experimental copycat AI designed to mimic an opponents strategy and siphon their powers through the nodes on its palms, and was used as Arkangel's primary footsoldier and representative before Nina's arrival left it obsolete, and it remained in storage, only acknowledged for training excercises or occassional maitenence. That is, until Nina abandons Arkangel, and Morningstar is needed once more. but years of sitting in the dark have left it resentful and beginning to question its true purpose in this world.

THOSE ARE ALL THE MAJOR CHARACTERS I HAVE DEVELOPED RN...theres a few more late-game villains and supporting cast members i want to flesh out and some worldbuilding stuff i want to explore more.

AS FOR THE PLOT. well. its all a bit vague but i have the general structure so lets lay it out!

starting out in the status quo with K/A/H going about their daily lives in the quaint small texas town they live in when kasey gets a letter in the mail inviting her to professional league of heroics and villany (note: im gonna try and come up with a catchier name but im bad at names) tryouts in New york city in response to her video audition (i think it would b cute to have the opening pages be her video audition but idk). ANYWAYS obviously they go and they do tryouts, and kaseys nervous but she does okay, but every time she needs to use one of her powers on command she just cant quite get them to cooperate and most of the teams there write her off as not pro potential. except for this weird old man, stanley kirby, who is trying to scrape together a hero team with his legacy money. see, his granddad managed an incredibly famous and successful team, but when he died kirbys father didnt see the business as worth the cost and shut it all down, and kirby wants to revive that legacy. problem is, hes never done anything successfully on his own in his life and nobody has faith in him. but he has money, and he offers to take kasey on if her family comes along to round out the team because literally nobody else wants to work with him. They agree, and when theyre touring the facility discover that victor, ajas estranged father, actually works for kirby, as kirby throws money at any project victor wants in exchange for v developing any inane comic book tech project kirby sets his heart on. aja lies and tells kasey victor is her brother, mostly because she isnt sure how to explain the. complicated history between them. more on that later. anyways, kirby cajoles victor into agreeing to be on the team because you need a 4-person team to be eligible for the maximum amount of events possible. so theyre all working together yippieeeee.

a few months pass and they do qualifiers, a team-based event that decides the rank you start the season in, and due to shoddy teamwork and general inexperience team kirby comes dead last. thats okay, theyll figure it out! the first event of the season is the opening tournament, one-on-one hero v villain brackets to show the audience and judges what youre made of. see, heroism and villany are judged on a combination of skill and style. theres gotta be balance between being a good fighter and a good performer, flashy combos, witty banter, and showstopping signature moves are the kind of thing people come here for (think fighting game-esque). victor goes in the first round and completely wipes his opponent, knocking them out of the ring in two seconds flat by cutting them off in the middle of an opening monologue. despite winning and winning efficiently, victor gets a shit score because there was absolutely no spirit or performance at all, and the guy he beat actually gets a better score just for his flashy entrance. aja and hutch also do some battles and teach us some more about how the game works, but the other important one is Kaseys opener, because she's pitted against Prophet(nina), who turns out to be a deathly efficient fighter with perfectly practiced form and a Silent Sentinel vibe that bounces pretty well against Wildcard (k)s chaotic, bubbly energy. It's a good fight, and in the end kasey barely wins, something that is INCREDIBLY frustrating for nina, and the first spark of their rivalry.

a few more events happen that set up the range of the games, establish some supporting cast, ect, kasey starts coming into her own with her powers, theres a b-plot about her school life, aja and victor have some family baggage and drama ect. but the major conflict of this season is arkangel. remember when i mentioned she wanted to use the Comet, an ancient well of mysterious cosmic power, to summon the Judge, an ancient destructive cosmic beast? yeah she hasnt given up on that, but shes needing to change her strategy. see, the comet is mysterious and everybody has a different theory about how it works, but its known that it doesnt give its power to just anybody. according to legends, it only grants itself to someone of pure heart in moments of pure need, and according to some magicians it needs something of equal power to pull its energy out. arkangel tries a few different things to pull out the energy she needs and i havent quite ironed out all the details of that stuff yet have mercy but. Somehow, She Figures It Out and summons the judge and it starts wrecking shop and there is a big awesomesauce chaotic battle. nina runs away, just fully ditchihg arkangel, and in a moment where it looks like shes about to lose, arkangel stabs aja and causes some of her hero gear to backfire and . well she is dead. this causes 2 things - 1, kasey summons the full power of the comet and just completely annihilates the judge, reducing it to an egg (its a wishing star type deal, power bends to the users truest desire and kaseys desire was to stop it from hurting anyone, which leaves it in a harmless form. she doesnt want to kill anything :( ) 2, victor freaks out. remember how hes on parole with the death gaurdians? yeah well one of these spirits is his "warden", basically this creepy ghost thing only he can see that follows him around and criticizes his life choices and makes sure hes not, yknow, damaging the fabric of reality or whatever. well AAs whole thing is that she wants 2 tear reality to shreds, so victor makes a deal that the warden will lend him its power and in exchange he'll let them arrest her, and this works out, he goes full necromancer and wipes the floor with her in seconds. its awesome. she gets arrested and dragged to spirit jail by a bunch of creepy ghosts.

after that is the next major "season". in this bit we learn a lot more about the grand cosmos and the things that live there. theyre not strictly gods, just beings of a different realm with higher concentrates of magical energy, letting them get even bigger and even crazier than stuff on the earthly realm can, and a few of the residents (which im debating on a catchy name for, cosmopolitan or cosmonaut both sound fun to me) decided to use their power to kind of sheperd the mortal realm. some are predators that eat souls, others try to maintain balance, others try to keep up the divide between the worlds, some want to tear it all down. but the section our heroes are involved with fancy themselves universe cops basically, arbiters of justice to souls who defy the natural order of life and death including, yknow, people artificially inflating their lifespans through magicks and whatnot. this is all organized by a being called the pale lady [or aomething idk] who operates this big cosmic courtroom, which is where arkangels "trial" is held to kick off the season.

i say "trial", but the question isnt really if if shes done anything wrong, its more of a character thing, like, people she knew in life who were affected by her actions weighing in on if they think she was right or wrong. this is where she explains her sad backstory, and the big conflict here is with victor. arkangel wanted to tear the system down for the sake of her daughter, and, well. his pet project, the thing hes spent most of his time working on for centuries? it isnt too different from what shes doing. a little less violent, yeah, but fundementally... well. the trial continues on and our heroes return to earth with arkangel officially condemned to sit around in heavenly prison, presumably forever.

aja is still dead. this is a bummer. bringing people back from the dead is hard, its simply not done, but if anyone could do it its victor. he explains, though, that souls are just collections of energy and that after death, souls dont really "go" anywhere, they just disperse back into the environment. this process takes some time, but because aja was kind of a patchwork project and was never technically fully alive, he has no idea if her soul could exist without her body at all, let alone if it would last, or if using the same process he used to bring her to life would actually bring her back or if it would just create a new soul in its place. so hes sort of. stuck. and his special project? well, thats not ready yet. its so, so close, but he just doesnt have the power he needs.

he wouldnt, at least. but after the trial the warden offers to make him a deal. if he agrees to hunt bounties for the pale lady and act in service when hes needed, the wardens power is granted to him to use as he'd like. much more freedom, more power, a cool new form with like a crazy scythe hand that im super excited about and will eventually draw someday. he agrees.

victor uses his power to finish his project, which he swears will fix all of this. see, hes been working on a time machine.

time travel isnt really a thing you can just DO, yknow, time doesnt really work like that, its not a tangible thing you can touch and trace and go backwards and forwards in. so its not really technically time travel. its a much more elaborate form of a type of technology he'd been tinkering with earlier in the comic, a sort of holodeck-style simulation that creates simulations based on the users memories and desires. so basically he creates this dream universe for himself, and uses it to go back to a little while before he'd brought aja to life, waaay back when.

see, the first time victor did this, he was only 19. he knew what he was doing, but he didnt know what he was doing. he was going to create life, a spark, a new soul. but you cant create something out of nothing, and the process of bringing aja to life fully killed him. upon his death, in that brief period before souls fade away, he begged the pale lady to give him more time, just to go back and see his creation, make sure she was safe. and she agreed, but when he woke up, it was far too late. six months had already passed and aja was long gone. he assumed she was dead, until a few years later she turned up on his doorstep begging him to help her. see, shes horribly lonely, completely outcast in a world she doesnt understand by people who dont know any better except to be afraid of her. she wants a little sister, someone to take care of and nurture and be with.

from this point on, the story is never quite clear. neither of them like to talk about it, and the most we see as an audience is brief flashbacks, sillouhettes and vague implications. but it ended with two people dead, aja down an arm and victor an eye, and both with blood on their hands.

victor holds a lot of guilt for everything that happened, and hes never really been able to get over it. he only ever really sees aja as this kind of... not mistake, really, he just had all these wonderful plans for her and for the life he wanted to give her and it all just. fell apart. because he wasnt prepared. he knows he couldve done, and shouldve done better, and hes going to prove it, hes going to do everything right and shes going to be so so happy this time.

but its not really real. he can kind of convince himself it is, for a little while, and he can live out this perfect life with his daughter and husband and everything is exactly how it was supposed to be. but its not right, its not her, its not his family. hes not fixing anything by doing this, hes just wallowing in his guilt and shame and abandoning the real, actual aja, his actual kid who needs him to be there. thats kind of always been his blind spot. he loves her, but his guilt keeps him from forming a real relationship with her because he can only think about how he hurt her even when shes basically begging him to come be a part of her life.

he snaps out of it and comes back, to find that, whoops, he miscalculated something and its actually been almost four months that hes been gone, literally just dissapeared into thin air one day leaving hutch alone with a dead wife and a bunch of spellbooks they could never in a million zillion years hope to understand, trying to figure out how to cope. bit of a dick move. they talk it out. they bond. eventually they do bring aja back, and as a little bonus shes actually really, fully alive this time. thats that haircut with the white streak in it, thats Alive Aja. she also gets more special powers now that shes alive and can actually use her magics(ill explain this fr one day but for now i digress)

OH slight digression at some point around this area - probably after or as a b-plot during victors stuff, the judge egg transforms again into bucket, my adorable little octopus girl who i love with all my heart i dont have a picture on hand but just trust me shes so cute and swag.

after this bit the next season of the game picks up and we start to get back to kasey, and nina. kaseys been having a hell of a time through those last four months, with crazier new powers from the comet, crazy teenage angst and relationship drama, and crazy weird dreams. crazy.

nina, on the other hand, has been totally fucked. see at some point in season1, during one of the games, she allied with this other villain, a low-level grunt called Bruiser. its a battle royale type game competing for a magic prize that gives the winner a wish yadda yadda and after becoming friends with bruiser and winning she stabs him in the back to take the prize, but feeling guilty uses her wish to make sure hes okay. hes kind of been watching out for her since, as he just kind of happened to live around the same area of the arizona desert that arkangels base is at, and hes kind of a big brother figure for nina. so when she ditches arkangel, she turns to him, knowing she cant really go home. he lets her crash on the couch in his shitty trailer, and does his best as a loser 30something who doesnt get paid enough to make sure shes mostly taken care of. and he lets her team up with him in games so she can still compete, because, despite her injury getting worse and worse, shes still determined to prove she can do this.

over the course of the games, nina and kaseys relationship gets kind of explored in some cool fun ways and they get to start to be actual friends in-between ninas "i hate you i have to be better than you fuck you" complex, and this climaxes in a big battle where nina slips kasey a fusion ring (something used for an event in s1 because its swag) and they fuse to take down like a big evil robot. its an awesome fight, but. during the battle with arkangel nina had left before kasey channeled the comet, so this is when she really realizes just what kasey had done. and it pisses her the fuck off. the one thing nina couldnt do and kasey is whipping it out like its nothing? why? why her? nobody wanted it more than nina did. nobody worked harder or needed it more. so why didnt she deserve it? what makes kasey so special? its not fair. so she punches her in the face, hard, and truly and honestly tells her how much she fucking hates her. eventually after some more Events they have a heart-to-heart about it and nina opens up about everything, about her injury and how badly she fucked up, and mostly about the fact that shes been lying about... everything.

see, ninas been telling people shes this ancient demon princess with royal hell powers, but shes actually just. some kid. her dad is like the chairman of the city council in their circle of hell or something, and shes just his daughter. she lied to sound cool. hes overprotective of her, because when she was born he was told she was particularly fragile, and so he kept her away from a lot of the things she wanted to do, making her a bit of an outcast and when his overprotectiveness turned away from just "dont participate in bloodsport" to the kind of music she listened to or clothes she wore, she decided to just get out. she made a pact with arkangel that if AA could convince her dad to let her go to earth for a "boarding school", she'd be her servant and blah blah blah. eventually it worked and ninas been keeping up the lie for the past like, three years now or however long its been. but the thing about demonic pacts is that theyre not just like, a pinky promise, theyre super dense legalese and theres a lot of consequences for breaking them, and nina is being chased down by hellhounds trying to get her arrested for breaking her pact with AA, so she has to come clean to her dad. this results in a fun little adventure down to hell for K and nina and also, nina and her dad work things out. he tells her hes just worried about her she tells him she feels like he doesnt believe in her or support her, her arc about proving herself kind of culminates in being able to accept her limits and that "pushing past" is only ever going to hurt her, you have to take care of yourself if you want to keep doing the things you love longterm, blah blah art burnout sports injuries ecetera. eventually they decide she can keep doing the villain thing, but she has to do it like, fucking safely and stuff. frm this point forward shes an ambulatory wheelchair user because i think it would be fun and awesome

theres some endgame stuff but its all a bit fuzzy! AA is busted out of space prison by an even eviler villain who wants to destroy even more stuff (so much to the point that even arkangel who was totally onboard with "destroy the great cosmos" kind of goes "hey we cant really destroy the earth i have to live there" and "wow this guy is a freak"), luci gets to be a villain and have her little arc too, kaseys aforementioned crazy dreams and crazy comet powers build up to something, but like, this is all pretty rough.

theres a lot more details.like the actual games themselves and some of the filler stuff, sidecast, some cool episode concepts, some of the more interpersonal sideplots especially a lot of the ones with hutch and all the kasey normal teen bplot which i adore but dont fit in neatly to a more concise linear summary and are also again a bit fuzzy. ANYWAYS.

also one last thing nina is a skateboarder and if kasey was playing a normal sport and not This Bullshit i think she would be either a baseball player or a track runner. also aja gets a motorcycle and she loves it to death.

OKEYYY if you havr any further questions plsz feel free to ask this was SO MUCH FUN i hope it more or less made sense!!!! thank youuuuuuuu i love youuuuuuu goodbyeeeee

[zenosanalytic]

Paintbrush, PlasGlue, and Holy Clippers: Sparse Marns Part IV: Basecoats Part I

Heya! So my painting project's going well, but the steps are... So Much, and my time to paint each day is So Limited, and the photos Im taking are So Numerous, so I'm changing the terms of the deal and covering the painting in multiple posts instead of one OvO

Ok So: Here's an idea of how they all looked just before I started painting, via Stumbly and Done, with I think two days of the prime drying, and in Crispier, more artificial light than I've been shooting:

And now: The Team

Brushes

These are two different packs, from two different brands, from the local Michaels, in a paintcup from Lowes. I think the orange ones were 5 bucks(Hodge-Podge I wanna say?) and the white ones were 8? I should have probably recorded prices at time of purchase -__-

Next: Some towels for wiping my brushes with and general cleanliness-Utility:

These are disposable microfiber cloths, again from Lowes. Im pretty sure paper towels would work just as well but I've found myself in the painting section often of late, was curious how these would do, and they were EXTREMELY cheap.

Then: some jars for cleaning my brushes.

I used two so that I would have a jar of absolutely CLEAN water for wetting my brush after I've washed it in the other one and dried it on the cloth. Im using exclusively water-based paints so it's just water in these jars; there's no reason to use a mask for the painting part of this project as no turpentine or other such solvents will come anywhere NEAR this project(except for Mr. Dissolved, of course, and we're passed that uwu uwu uwu)

Ok next I wanted to try using a wet palette, something I've never done before, and, while I COULD just go buy one, I figured I'd try making one instead as it seemed fairly easy to do(actl it seems easier that the official version? Looking around at Michaels the "Acrylic paper" they use for wet palettes requires soaking in BOILING WATER for like 15 MINUTES before use??? Maybe I found the wrong stuff tho). So, I went and got a rubbermaid box I wasn't using

(Pentel R.S.V.P. bk90 Fine for scale), Put a paper towel in it like so

Got it wet(just damp; not soaked), poured off(and wrung out) any excess, then cut a piece of waxpaper to shape and pressed it in

The idea here is that the paint will sit safe from slurp and dissolution on the waxpaper while water wicks up SLOOOOOWLYYYY through it from the paper towel, keeping it moist without diluting it. This generally worked well, tho it took me awhile to get used to it and to working with the paint, which I got anxious/paranoid over a few times.

And lastly, of course, because one should NEVER go ANYWHERE without at least 3-5 notebooks on their person, a memobook and pen

Obvsl I'd include these purely on Principle, but as a practical matter it's useful to have a method for recording how many Parts of Which Color go into any colors you might mix in the course of painting u_u u_u

OK: Now it's time to make some Motherfucking CHOICES >:3

Originally, my plan was to paint these as Ultramarines. They're a Pretty Basic Blue, Red, Gold(with some white accents; GEE I wonder where that color scheme comes from???) scheme, which are all really Solid, Vibrant, Reliable colors. This subfaction is also quite literally the Model Spess Marins and posterboys for the whole model line/faction, and so there are LOTS of painting tutorials and examples out there for them and also-also I could use the box art as a handy painting-reference :> :>

BUT!

If I ever decide to play WH40k, I wouldnt want to do it with Gillman's Legionnaires(no offense to them; they're about the closest things to 'Good Guys' as Spess Marins[and WH40K humans generally outside the Adeptus Custodes/sisters of silence] GET), but rather with mine own Best Lad brainfruits: the Nova Paladins uvu uvu uvu

if I painted them as Ultramrines, I could never use them as part of that army(well I could, but only as an allied detachment, which would cause all sorts of complicated rules Shenanigans that I dont want to get into, unless I played the NPs under UM rules cuz, obvsl, you cant just PLAY your own madeup ruleset with other ppl--- It's Complicated Alright >:| >:|)

This is supposed to be a Fun and Learning experience and, as Dear Old Bob was so fond of saying, painting is about Doing What You Want; this is my own world with ALL the Happy Little Trees I WANT godsdammit so:

I decided to paint them as the Nova Paladins :3

But this Immediately presents a problem! The Nova Paladin paint scheme is (a skeletal, yellowish)white, yellow, and orange, and these are the three MOST finicky and difficult paints to paint with(allegedly u_u u_u and, spoilers, they SORT of are but theyre not THAT bad u_u u_u u_u) u_u My solution was simple: I LIKE difficult and finicky things and thus Do Not Care >:3 >:3

SO:

The Paints: and oh no! The initial pictures I took of these SUCKED so I just took some new ones with better, more LEGIBLE, lighting X| X| X|

These are my basecoats. I Know this looks intimidating but plz calm down!

The general concept for the Nova Paladins is a Bright, Warm, Friendly, almost EXPLODY(hence the name) "Heroic" color scheme: Knights in Shining Armor, vaporizing everyone they meet with the fury of 10000 Suns(ie: concentrated plasma rifles). The majority of each model(like 90% of them) is going to be the corax white there on the left: that's the "Primary" color which I planned to use for their armor. Then the imperial fist yellow would be my secondary color, for their pauldrons(the big shoulder bits), and for the sergeant's helmet. The Orange I planned to use as an accent color, tho at the time I hadn't really decided WHAT I'd be accenting with it. The mid-brown(bloodreaver flesh) I'd use for any leather details, such as their belts and pouches. The light beige there(Zandri dust) I'd use for any scroll or ribbon details. The red is a sort of secondary accent I planned to use exclusively for their grenades, and I held to that. Next to it, entirely illegible(X| X|), is Screamer Pink, which Im going to use for the seals/rosettes(which they are is a question whose answer properly lies only in the heart of each individual painter, and dont let anyone tell you different u_u) any ribbons will be attached to, and then the abaddon black I planned to use on the joint-bits showing through the armor, any tubing, and the Iron Sights on the guns, because Im Insane -__- I would MOSTLY follow this plan, but not entirely u_u u_u u_u

So, using This brush

I applied the white-layer, and here's Sarge to show how that looked

Pretty Spiffy! This was, I think, after the 2nd coat, and unfortunately a mouldline managed to survive through my ministrations on this one |:T It's not a HUGE deal; it disappeared as I built up layers.

I didn't find the white PHYSICALLY difficult to work with as others warned(it pretty much went where I wanted it too and didn't slink around), but it DID take me awhile to figure out the proper paint-water ratio with the brush, and I had a really hard time seeing it on the palette. Also, most painting vids will tell you to paint in "two thin coats" of each color, both to avoid globbing/unruly paint and to get a smoother, fuller finish without visible paintstrokes, but I ended up doing... A LOT of coats on these. Somewhere between 4 and 6 per model, and some sections maybe even more. Probably should have taken notes in my memopad during the painting for the sake of later accuracy :p :p That MIGHT have been the paint, it might have also been me using the wrong brush(I felt it worked fine, but it's a little short and bristly and its possible that's meant as a drybrush) but honestly it felt more like a combination of my learning how to properly work with the paint and my obsessive meticulousness. Building up progressive thin layers to a creamy full coat was... Satisfying OuO

Also, obvsl, I really struggled with workflow on this bit. My idea was to do All The Armor on one, then All The Armor on the next, etc etc, but I kept both circling back to sections I wasn't satisfied with AND forgetting sections I intended to paint with that approach which is BAD cuz you need to give the paint time to set; it was simply Too Broad a remit for my brain's Tendencies and I needed to pare it down. I would Form Resolves, considering this.

This step was my longest; my painting times have been deeply uneven day-to-day, but I'd say I easily spent 8 hours spread over 2.5 just on this. Again: I AM VERY DETAIL ORIENTED AND FINICKY: most ppl would NOT take this long on the primary base coat on their minis, even using white paint(which I'm pretty sure I was thinning down WAY too much at the start), and nor should they. But: I got the results I wanted, gained valuable experience with the paint and brush, and realized I needed to think harder about my workflow to get it Efficient. Also I think the black-grey-white tonal I used for the priming may have been too dark for such a bright scheme, but I'll get into that in my concluding/future projects post.

Once I was satisfied with the white coat, I turned to the yellow, and a different brush

This fellow. It's a longer brush, but the tip is finer and I thought that would help with the more detailed work. Generally I feel it worked well, tho there were moments where I or it slipped, and it painted where I didn't want it to. Not to worry! The base layer's just the start and touchup is always possible later. If, in your painting, you do get paint where you dont want you can either just paint over it once it dries with the color you like or, if you're fast enough and have a clean brush handy, try to swipe some of that paint off onto a brush, or even push some water into it to dilute it.

Immediately I recognized that Imperial Fist was too thin for what I wanted, especially with the prime I'd given it. tl;dr: Imperial Fist is a "Contrast Paint" and Contrast paints are a new line by GW meant to compete with "speedpaint" lines from other manufacturers which,building from a full-white prime, allow you to quickly paint up allot of figures. As thin paints(practically inks and nearly washes, imo) they settle into the recesses of the model giving you, as the name implies, good Contrasts and gradients across the model as a whole with just a few coats of a single color, and eliminating the need for lots of shading thereby. Imperial Fist just did not work with the prime I had. I thought this might be the case(despite some of the GW painting guides I'd found reccing it) so I bought a backup yellow which I now turned to:

Yriel yellow was much thicker, though "cooler" and not as red/orange/redgold a yellow as I really want for this scheme(IF absolutely has that sort of punch). I decided to give it a shot though, and it worked fine.

As I began to paint, I put my Resolves from the white layer into action. I would start painting section-by-section model-to-model (ie left shoulder on all of them, then right shoulder, then gun, etc etc). This approach worked allot better, for Me: it helped me to stay focused on One Thing and to move btwn the miniatures, letting each layer lay as it lie, knowing I could come back to "fix" any issues I had with it once dry, and preventing me from endlessly circling one model, trying to get everything Just So. Also: I began to move the minis from one side of the workspace to the other as I finished a layer, which helped me to keep track of which ones were done and which ones still needed work, and gave a satisfyingly tactile, concrete, and repetitive aspect to my progression. I feel like this approach would have sped up the white layer SIGNIFICANTLY.

It took about 3-4 coats until I was satisfied with the intensity of color on thier shoulders and the sergeant's helmet...

...and that was when I decided to do their guns in yellow too. GW aims for a bit of a 'Tacticool' aesthetic these days and as such the guns tend to be dark and metallic, but back when I first started following the hobby they were much more colorful and cartoony(with DANGER STRIPES, Even!), and I thought it'd be kind of a waste of that great yellow to just put it on the shoulders, and and I always preferred that more colorful approach anyway, so I painted the gun casings too :> :>

...and THEN I decided to paint their knees, also, in this yellow, cuz why not >:> >:> >:> Sometimes having one knee painted in the secondary color is used as a rank signifier for Spice Mariners, but I didn't care and different chapters do thing different all the time so It's Fine.

... and THEN-then, I decided the circle bits at the ankle of Primaris marine boots would look Neat in that yellow, too, so I painted THAT yellow also >:D >:D AND the matching interior circles >:D

Then, glutted with my POWA, I took some pics maniacally giggling ONLY SLIGHTLY:

Starting to come together >:> >:> I thought this looked really nice, but I still wanted that reddish PUNCH the Imperial Fist yellow had, and it occurred to me that, seeing as it looked like a wash and ACTED like a wash, I might as well try USING IT as a wash, so I did! And this is after that:

I think that IF contrast wash really gave the yellow bits a fuller, warmer, Snappier tone ^v^ ^v^ ^v^ Or at least I hope so: again, the pics are pretty blurry in the editor so idk how they look to y'all.

Anyway! I think I'll stop there for today cuz this post is Huge and has lots of pictures in it. Basecoats part 2 will include the Accents, All of the 8its, and also the Metallics :> :> Seeya then ^v^

[traumacatholic]

hello! i dont know if you ever had to deal with this but, i am so ashamed of showing my faith to people i know. everyone around me is not very religious and i am afraid my friends will laugh at me or being shamed by my family. im scared of being caught praying and stuff like that and i dont know how to fix it because i know i shouldn't hide my faith but also i dont feel comfortable showing it.

Hello! I'm sorry that you feel so anxious and ashamed of showing your faith. I've also went through a period of this, largely because of anxiety around being a convert and because I had actively unsupportive people in my life.

I think it's important to pinpoint whether our anxiety around showing our faith to certain people is based off of imagined rejection, or if we have actual certainty that they would reject us in some capacity because of our faith. If someone wants to exclude, mock, insult us, etc for our faith then where possible we should be trying to limit our contact with them as much as possible. We don't need to cut people out of our life for not having the same faith as us, but we shouldn't be putting ourselves in a place where people are actively hostile and disrespectful to important parts of our identity.

If people do reject you for your faith, then we can try and take comfort in the words of the Bible.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you." [Matthew 5:10-12

It's an unfortunate part of life, that sometimes things that we integrate into our lifestyles can alienate others. Sometimes people will just move to respectfully distance themselves as your values come into conflict with their values. Other people will be more hostile to this, and attempt to conform you to their set of values. This can even happen when we encounter strangers - we're not always going to meet people that are open to liking us or even respecting us. And there's nothing that we can really do about this. No amount of attempting to conform, no amount of hiding ourselves, will protect us from this.

I think it's also important to know that we don't need to introduce ourselves as Catholics/Christians to everyone that we meet - the way that we live should be a form of profession of our faith. Where people can look at us and identify the values we have and where we come from from the decisions we make and the reasonings behind them. I don't generally introduce myself as Catholic to new people, I just bring it up in conversation where relevant.

Some things that worked for me confidence wise, were just beginning to share or like social media posts about the faith. And this could be as simple as sharing Christian art, sharing information about a feast day etc. I feel like these posts are really good because they can be interesting to a wider audience, but over time, it demonstrates your connection to the faith because they see you engaging with that content regularly. It also attracts Catholic followers to your social media platform, and you can engage with them that way and develop confidence in speaking publicly about your faith. These posts around art / feast days tend to create the least amount of arguments in response, so it's a good way of sharing content without having to engage in theological debate.

Just experiment dropping it into conversation ever so often. Share a funny story from Church or an interesting fact about Church history or a funny Saint story you came across. You don't have to tell people about when you go pray, but I'd also again say that it's normal to feel awkward if someone 'catches' us praying. I know that I always feel a bit startled if someone comes into my room when I'm attempting to pray. I think it's largely about just getting used to these things. Practice praying in your head when you're around other people, and you can slowly develop confidence in your faith this way. Maybe even invite your family to a Church celebration (maybe not a Mass, but even something like a Church BBQ or a Mass for a specific feast day). They might say no - my family are completely disinterested in the faith. But for some people they might still come along to show support even if it's not their thing.

For me, some of that shame also came from not being able to defend the faith well. I was still learning it, and I didn't have answers to people's questions (I still largely don't!). But developing a basic understanding of the faith, and learning the kinds of arguments that come up and defences to them can go a long way to strengthening our own confidence. We might not be able to win people over, and certainly not everyone that asks questions about the faith are doing so with a serious interest or desire to understand/learn, but we can still feel a lot less awkward than the times where we completely don't know an answer.

But again, I think you can comfortably live a Christian life without going out of your way to tell others. You don't need to tell others, but if they ask you if you are Christian or religious, then you should answer them honestly. If you don't feel confident telling them, then that's fine! Just don't hide it from them, and if they mock the faith around you, then maybe you can step in and go "hey, I'm actually Christian, and I don't like it when you talk about the faith in this way". People will likely pick up on your faith once they find out that you're going to Church anyway

[cecilsstorycorner]

The Book of Broken Strings - Updated Intro

A love story without romance, a horror story without ghosts

Genres: Fantasy, horror, character study (of sorts)

Themes/tropes: Trauma/healing, abuse, found family, human nature, a frankly obnoxious amount of metaphors, sprits/monsters (that’s where at least half the metaphors are), love, growth, identity

Influences: Folklore/culture of Russia, Scandinavia, Ukraine, and Germany + some other sprinklings, also very Hill House/Bly Manor influenced in terms of themes and storytelling conventions

Content warnings: Horror, depiction and exploration of abuse of several kinds, as well as of mental illness/trauma, some violence

Summary

Ollie receives a note. A child has a dream. They have been led to each other, and neither know quite why.

The child, now given the name Twig, reveals she’s been told to find a place called Henkia Sanctuary. Their journey soon finds them in a woodland crawling with Spirits who once were not, two new friends in tow, and the distinct feeling of something more hanging above their heads.

Ollie, in particular, can’t seem to shake what drove him out into the snow all those weeks ago. And as it turns out, neither can the person responsible.

Characters

Ollie Alimose - The Tinkerer - 24: A very sweet, very anxious lad who’s been through a Lot and has learned the hard way the kind of effects that leaves. He has a lot of love in his heart, none of which he grants to himself. A skilled tinkerer, with a fondness for small mechanical toys, but it’s been a while since his hands have been steady enough, or such things allowed.

Twig - The Child - 7: A little girl absolutley brimming with curiosity for the wild, complicated world she’s been finally let out into. Has already found and happily embraced her snarky side, having no trouble saying just what she means whenever she very well pleases. Part Spirit, but doesn’t quite know what that means yet. Learning a little too much about the nature of trust for someone her age.

Sabina Tkachuk - 23 - The Guide: A rather tired daughter of a Fate Weaver, following what she assumes is her purpose by assisting those she can, as she attempts to find something beyond the woods of her home. Quite frankly does not have time for your shit, and will let you know. Has only had a reindeer and old woman as her friends for most of her life, and is a little out of her element when she notices new Postive Emotions towards these people.

Juno Goldspire - 19 - The Bard: An incredibly obnoxious teenager who is confident she knows everything, despite the fact she didn’t even know she was a woman until halfway through the groups adventure. Trying to make a name for herself as a preformer, all while crossing her fingers some old faces don’t recognize her as in fact not dead, as she would like them to believe. Deeply self centred. She’ll learn. Give her time.

Links

playlist - aesthetic board

Taglist + Extra info under cut

yes this is like the forth intro post im so sorry im gonna try so hard to make it the last

juno doesnt have a link yet because her intro post was the ‘minor characters’ one and has a bunch of outdated stuff so ill make a new one at some point

this is actually a trilogy that im calling in my head ‘string break series’ which let’s be honest isn’t very good. so for now just calling it by the first books name seems to work just fine

art tag is ‘doodles’! And the general tag is just ‘tbobs’ because I tend to only tag big posts with the full title, so that’s where you’ll find all the extras!

as it is currently, the setting and pacing change starkly from book to book but im trying to get it to work

basically just know this is extremely character driven even if it looks kinda adventurey on the surface, im working to get it more consistent

Taglist: @oceancold @zielenbloesem @henrike-does-writing-sometimes @dramaticvoiceover @andiwriteunderthemoon @feathered-inkling @piyawrites @halfbloodlycan @kalis-scribbles @true-trans-space-pirate @chayscribbles @ladywithalamp @metanoiamorii @alicewestwater @nsanleyawkward @little-boats-on-a-lake @crystallized-ink

[toonbly]

i am here to ask abt ur gordon and joshua headcanons. tell us abt Them and their relationship

WELL IM GLAD YOU ASKED *stops holding you at gunpoint*

HERE’S A GOOD BIT OF FREEMAN FAMILY HCS (some of which were provided by my good pal @/sunkizt )

Joshua’s always been this kinda shy anxious kid but once he gets to high school ( I like to think he’s like? 15 in the art I posted earlier ) he starts trying to impress his peers and fit in a little better with VARYING DEGREES of success

Due to the shit that happened at Black Mesa Gordon kiiiinda tends to be a little overbearing. He got THIS CLOSE to dying so many times after the Rescas, so now he wants to be as involved in Joshua’s life as heavenly possible. He’s not controlling or anything but he tends to butt in on Joshua’s business a lot and pesters him pretty often.

So yes Joshua and Gordon are basically the “Shy kid who wants to fit in with an overbearing and embarrassing parent who means well” trope

That said whenever he was much younger Joshua clung to Gordon like his life depended on it after the incident. He’s gotten better, but even now if Gordon is away at the store for too long or gets home from work late without calling it’ll make Joshua super anxious

Gordon’s the living embodiment of the “Are you winning, son?” image. He doesn’t understand a lot of Joshua’s interests but he certainly tries

This is more a Joshua in general headcanon than a Freeman family one but- Joshua is mute! He communicates via ASL!

Circling back to Gordon being a little overbearing- this defo causes a bit of a rift until they can sort it out. Gordon being overprotective can be a little much for Joshua sometimes, and it causes iiiisssuuuuueesss

Gordon never telling Joshua exactly what happened at Black Mesa certainly DOESN’T HELP. Like he doesn’t wanna dump all his trauma on his kid so it’s understandable why he doesn’t. But to Joshua it just seems like Gordon just thinks he can’t handle himself which to a teenager is really! Not good

They talk it out eventually, of course but not until after a really emotional and SOMEWHAT HEATED argument that results in lots of tears and them both just shutting off from the other for the rest of the night so they can cool down. They talk about it the next morning.

Gordon starts tryna be less overprotective- Joshua understands why he was doing it now and is less hard on the guy for it, but Gordon’s working on himself still tho bro because thats what GOOD DADS DO, BAY BEE

On a fluffier note- Gordon’s that dad who’s super supportive of all of Joshua’s “phases.” Like I like to think Gordon had a rebellious phase in high school (not necesarrily fullblown Punk- yes the mentality bc Gordon being an anarchist is CANON, BAYBEE, but he never dressed that way. It was more old flannels and ripped up jeans for him) so when Joshua has any alternative phases Gordon is IMMEDIATELY on board.

Gordon’s a shovel talk kinda dad. Joshua brings home a boy one day and Gordon gives him a very GENTLE shovel talk- bc yknow, Joshie can handle himself it’s alright. It’s less a “You hurt him and you’ll die” and more a “I’m trusting you to be good to Joshua. It’s no surprise that you love him, everyone should love Joshua, so be good to him.” sort of thing

JOSHUA ALSO GIVES ANYONE GORDON DATES SHOVEL TALKS. BUT THEY’RE LIKE FULL ON THREATENING SHOVEL TALKS. Like “Listen my dad fucking rules and if you break his heart I will BURY YOU.” The problem being that Joshua’s this baby faced 15 year old with freckles and he’s like 5′2″ cause he hasn’t hit his growth spurt yet so like it’s hardly intimidating

Joshua’s that one vine where it’s like “Hahah yeah cool party guys! Hold on I gotta go to the restroom- *grabs phone* MOM I NEED YOU TO COME PICK ME UP KIDS ARE DRINKING BEER-”

Joshua’s like. A nerdy jock. He’s into high school football but doesn’t play it himself, he’s more into nerdy shit like books and podcasts n stuff

He’s still drawing too! He’s gotten better at it over the years

[yunatheintrovert]

Tis I again! Idk if you got my last message, but I apologize for my rambling if you did. I hope Im not bothering you either!! How are you and Zombie-Nymph doing? Well I hope! I absolutely love your new fic!!! Poor Nikolaevich; first those kids n now Leonid. The personality of your characters is just *chefs kiss* I wish i could explain it; how they actually act lifelike and not some YA protaganist (not a bad thing, but w/ stories like that it makes it soooooooooo much better), how they are so distinct, and how their flaws and strengths work together.

And Zombie-Nymphs Antanov art!!! I can't get over her art in general, but drawing a gas mask well!?!? Especially the hose and how it moves; the depth and perspective is *mwah*. The little details on the hat, mouth piece and tube end. The way the simplicity of the eyes and mask compliment each other. And of course the colors and shading! They work so well together and the mask looks like I could just.. Grab it or touch it; and it would feel right, if that makes sense?

I wanted to send a msg sooner, but my brain is a bitch ;-;. Happy I can say hi again now lmao. Im glad to see you guys posting works again and Im hoping that life has been just as good as them!!! <3

I am so, so sorry, anon!!! slkdfjsl idk how it took me over a month to respond to this. But I am such an idiot. I feel really guilty about this and I hope I didn't make you feel like a bother. Once again, my overthinking came into play. I hope we can still talk over asks still. But if not, I totally understand with how long it took for me to respond. You are absolutely not bothering me at all! And you weren't rambling especially since I loved to get that ask from you! I just overthought stuff too much and with some stress going on in my life, it slipped from my mind.

Anyways, my anxious mind aside, me and Zombie-Nymph are doing well! Thank you for asking! I hope you are doing well too, anon!

Also, in regards to Zombie-Nymph's art, Ikr!!! Her art is so good!!! She actually drew another thing and I hope she posts it soon since it involves another Russian character I simp for XD. I tag @zombie-nymph in this so she can see as definite proof that her art is so great!!!

And awww thank you so much for sending this ask! I really appreciate it. And it means a lot to both me and zombie-nymph. Again, I am so sorry for taking so long to respond to this. I never meant to give you the impression that you were annoying me. I hope we can talk again sometime soon. But if not, I totally understand.

Also in regards to what you said about the new fic I wrote a little while ago...

thank you so much!!! I am so glad that you liked my new fic. I know it probably wasn't everyone's cup of tea with how Leonid and Maxim were close in that. I also really appreciate what you said about my OCs! I try to make the personality of my characters a bit different like how I had Maxim be an operator with anxiety and Leonid have a few quirks of his own XD. To be honest, I'm not experienced with making OCs so this means a lot to me. Anyways, thank you for letting me know you liked the new fic! I actually do plan on posting more Leonid & Maxim content since I'm going through a creative/writer's block and somehow my brain thinks of ideas for these two. I already have some AU ideas for these two involving a Private Military Company Modern AU that involves some cracky stuff along with an AU where Maxim actually is "Bell" and he goes through MK Ultra. But I wasn't sure if anyone wanted to read it so this was really nice to hear.

[angel-archivist]

Well, I’d say you have a few option.

1) Make a new blog! Dedicate that one to your ocs/au alone

2) Post it anyways! I think people who genuinely enjoy your art would stay no matter what you post!

3) Take a 2 day break from posting art. Or posting in general if you can handle that. If your longest has been three days than a 1-2 should be fine but Indont know how your brain works

1. ahhhh i dont have the attention span for more then one blog! thats why i slam all my interests and also why my clownfcuker blog has been dead :(((( rip clownfcuker blog u were so beautiful 

2. I think i will just post my ocs!! And im gonna try to get more comfy sharing my current interests and stuff, less trying to repress it and ONLY drawing tss u know??? Bc ive also been kinda anxious about drawing tma centered content but i might make some more of that bc ive enjoyed doing it so far and i have ideas!!! I might also try revamping my tss designs and trying to make them more fun for me to draw! Also yeah: def gonna be posting more about my ocs... or at least trying to!!!

3. if i need to take a break bc schools too much or its just not fun for me ill try to do that!!! Ive been liking my art recently, but mostly when i draw things i enjoy so ill.. ill try to be better about doing that!!! thank you butcher <3 

[unproduciblesmackdown]

The opposite of your last post for the ask meme! Like 1, 5, 9..

thank you lol sorry it took me a minute to get to posting these answers......i also skipped a couple that got asked previously via answering all primes lol

1: What inspires you?

hm well just basic stuff like “being in a good mood” lol or “being hyped up by friends” or “having reason to be particularly excited about something” which is all like, factors that Contribute Energy......learning about stuff / trying something and discovering like oh i’m Into this thing, or that for whatever reason something turns out to be more within reach / doable than i might’ve thought, like, hey i wanna get on this maybe.......~creatively~ it’s great to like, see other ppl’s art, and while i’ve sure been Inspired by professional artists, overall i’m more like, influenced and motivated by seeing the styles / specific works of Online Randos like me.......i also Draw to create [self-indulgent (usually fairly) niche fanart which is also probably gay and is all the time of characters i like] so like, the Stuff I Wanna Make Fanart Of (which has Whatever characters i specifically would like to draw lol) is sure directly Inspiring in that way. i’d say i never had that experience of like, ppl being kids and seeing some [distributed work in a certain art medium] like oh i want to make my own [distributed work in a certain art medium] as in like, i wanna publish a book, i wanna make movies, etc, but i guess i Did b/c i was like elementary school age in the early-to-mid 00s and experienced some instances of online fanart like :o :o wow damn ppl can do that?? just be a rando drawing fanart and sharing it w/ other people online???? and today i am living that dream, so good for me lol. and also i’d like to shoutout marge simpson anime, which is a particular piece of Online Art (technically fanart even lol) which was like, unusually Motivating as a single work of art lol, i made a notes app fanart like immediately and then a way more “painterly” piece of fanart that was v directly inspired by it lol.......and i was sure Drawing It Up last last winter when bmc 3.0 was impending / happening, b/c i got into like Just in the dec before, so that was Fresh, and then bam the Content is happening concurrently and as soon as we even just learned that jeremy has glasses i immediately spent like honestly 25 consecutive hours making fanart for that exact Inspiration. we didn’t even know abt the hello kitty shoes yet!!! and naturally im not out here for stats or clout but it is Inspiring when ppl enjoy the stuff i make and let me know one way or another. [tag comments that express enthusiasm in any way.....Appreciated]

9: Do you trust people easily, or do people have to earn your trust?

i have to say i am wary! that’s in part just like, a default anxiety defensive mode lol. but it takes me a hot minute (aka weeks....or months.....) to realize when someone like, would like to be friends or something, so while i can be Friendly and Outgoing w/ people like, immediately, i’m not picking up relationships left and right that are close enough that i’d particularly talk about “trust” or whatever. i’m not necessarily Distrustful either lol, it’s more just like, again re: the constant wariness thing. it is not unlike a cat lmao i vibe with them lol i Get that [approach]....and there’s been times i’ve been like “hmm i sure do Not vibe with this person ever and am not comfortable around them / interacting with them to any extent beyond occasional casual interactions that i don’t super enjoy. that’s me being overly anxious and failing to be personable i guess!!” and then that person Does give that reason down the line like oh, actually, that eternal uneasiness was warranted :/ damb

21: How does someone become friends with you?

yknow i was like “didn’t i Also answer this one previously” but it turned out the question i was thinking of, which i Had answered, was “how does someone become important to you” lmao.....same diff

tbh it’s kind of an arduous process lmao like. first of all i am Bad about initiating shit, and a lot of times will like, be wary of Directly Interacting with people for a while b/c i am also Bad At not being too passive / unwilling to assert anything so like, if someone’s regularly interacting with me but i’m not into it / Eventually Realize i’m not into it, it’s that thing again where my main strat is [v gradually sidle away] lol and just find it difficult to extricate myself from interactions / relationships and so that plays into me really feeling like i have to have some real confidence that i’d get on with / vibe with someone Before i start significantly interacting with / getting involved with them which....is also difficult natch lol like. can’t rly get a great feel for what someone’s like w/o talking to them.......but then if i Distance myself at all at any point will that be taken as rejection or whatever.......and then anyways say i Am talking to someone, then it’s like, also i’m just not fantastic at casual conversation always and that stage where you don’t know someone too well and talking is mostly a Polite Ritual and it’s like oh god don’t mess up, respond Normally lmaoo......i am nervous. and i also have a tendency to just naturally try to make an interaction go smoothly than immediately prioritize / feel comfortable busting out My Personality lmao.....so then even if ppl are responding well enough it’s like ah jeez i know we’re all performing always but have i shown them What I’m Actually Like to any significant degree, am i just masking it up / mirroring the crap out of how they talk?? and also it then takes me quite a while to put together “if someone keeps talking to you / choosing to interact with you for like, weeks, it probably means they want to / are interested in doing so” lol.........and then i’ll take ages more of trying to consciously Be More Myself without *also* feeling like this is too much of an act lol, and gradually picking up like oh they’re still not like, annoyed or disinterested or something..............what i am trying to say is it sure takes a minute lol

also when i Am attempting sometimes to like [initiate interaction] with people my version of being Active is still not all that active lmao i will be like [occasional Like] or [even more occasional reply] or [tag comments or no comments coz it’s twitter and im rt-ing stuff] and it’s like oh wow if we’re not having more regular interaction i suppose i’ve failed or something?? does this mean anything further lol, did i do anything.....but welp gotta have that perspective that Not Necessarily lol and i’m not the only person in the world who might not make friends or even friendly acquaintances easily / at the drop of a hat and u can’t necessarily read way into shit that hasn’t Actually been communicated to you.......naturally though it is easier to have some ~perspective~ and Serenity about all this sort of thing when you do already have some Friends lmao........been feeling (and consciously nudging myself towards feeling) More Chill about say like, friendly acquaintances i have who aren’t raring to interact with me on the reg.......ppl i’ll go months or half a year or more between having a convo with and then we’ll be like trading dm’s for a couple days and then it’s back to not really talking, and that Is What It Is, not necessarily a tragedy, and really it feels “rude” to acknowledge to myself like oh i’m not sure that me and whomever even Vibe well enough that *i’d* be raring to talk all the time either, but hey, it’s also true, i don’t have to be Validated by ppl who know me having me in their friend circles in any significant way......i be out here on the peripheral / outer orbits and i can appreciate that for what it is, even if, again, easier to be more Cool with that when i’m not Only in ppl’s periphery...........i appreciate the pal i have who like, 99% of how we Communicate is occasionally sending each other pics of our cats, not very intimate but also back when i was offline for months on end they eventually went out of their way to find someone to get in touch with to verify i hadn’t like died or anything lol........i appreciate the Gestures of Caring that ppl have and do extend, even if we do not actually talk regularly. 

and like also i’m bad at like. idk the main way i talk is again, At Some Length and often about real specific shit lol so im like woop aware that many ppl are not into that, or they might be down for having an exchange like that for a day and then they’re done.........not at all like wholly Against more lol Conversational conversations but i gotta say that’s more of a struggle lmao..........so let’s say befriending me takes some Patience. i kinda operate on [cat] rules. jellicle

25: How do you stop yourself from going back to toxic people?

i absolutely am Refraining from launching off on a ted talk of a tangent that is also me being the [the guy about to throw down a card on the pile on the table and that card pile is like “any conversation” and the guy is labeled “me” and the One Card about to be played is labeled “it’s capitalism” or smthing like that and also it’s all in spanish].jpg.......

anyways idk just try to keep things in perspective, right......i generally am pretty Passive about gradually sidling away from relationships that are bad and so by the time i Have exited them it’s pretty overdue lmao and i get to be quite confident that it was The Right Thing........and just when looking back on stuff it’s like, well if you remember the Good or “Not That Bad(tm)” parts maybe consciously think about the whole of it And specifically the Bad parts / the reasons for peacing out.......also the other day i was mulling over some standard [conflicted / complicated feelings about having cut certain ppl out entirely] and it also occurred to me that a lot of the [conflicted] feeling part came from sympathy for them, whereas from the perspective of Entirely My Own Feelings On The Matter minus that “how do/would they feel about it” consideration, the thought of never interacting w/ these ppl is like. fine with me lol........stuff like this is always Complicated and Individual and there’s certainly no like, one-stop simple Guide To Navigating All This Kind Of Thing, Cmon It’s Easy........another consideration i saw the other day via a graphic on twitter, which is probably most relevant re: say, controlling / abusive Partners, was how like, to think about how someone is acting if they’re saying you should Take Them Back b/c they’ve Changed their behavior, but to pay attention to if they’re trying to guilt you into it / justifying or downplaying their previous behavior / shifting blame and otherwise manifesting the inherently harmful and controlling patterns that are supposed to be gone now........anyways yeah complicated stuff and also just p.s. (and what would’ve been the jumping off point for the It’s-Capitalism tangential essay lol) ppl shouldn’t be blamed if they do choose to let someone back in their life like oh now they’re responsible for bringing their mistreatment upon themself.....no better than blaming someone for, say, having a harmful / controlling romantic partner in the first place like oh well they should’ve known better than to have gotten involved with this person..........ppl are in control of their own abusive behavior and shouldn’t be considered Forces Of Nature no matter how intransigent they are

33: Do you have someone you know you can always rely on?

tbt question 9 lol there’s defo some people that i do trust! love it....

45: Do you consider yourself creative?

another #tbt to question 1 lol.......i mean Yes i am creative in ways but like, who Isn’t, really.......think sometimes “creativity” means “do you like, do Art things” which, yes i do, but then within that there’s art that’s deemed more ~creative~ or w/e......not to mention that i don’t think something has to be definitively labeled an Art to be creative. like, for example, Science and Art aren’t opposites / the antithesis of each other, and anytime defines ~science~ as like, people just memorizing and outputting Facts and Numbers and considers this a distinction from Being An Artist.....wild and i Will fight you lmao. i tell you i can v much remember times i have had to completely disengage to keep from losing my cool at people arguing about “why i respect science but could only be an artist :’|” or “why Art is actually harder than Science and also we’re the underdogs b/c society values science so much more :’|” like.....mf...........anyways scientific pursuits may certainly have a different Methodology (see: scientific method) than art but lbr it still requires creativity and science and art are friends you fucking fools................and then also just zooming in on the Art-Making business here, i also like, have never had any interest in coming up with Original stories / characters and the like, and i don’t enjoy trying and it just really is not my thing, and it’s Funny or something when people wanna say that creative fanworks have value b/c they let ppl cut their teeth for what really matters, inevitably making their own original content(tm)......that isn’t inevitable for me lol and certainly is nothing i aim to do ever, and when there’s the suggestion that if you’re Good enough at ur medium you gotta manifest some of that original the character do not steal shit.........anyways i’m not pressed to claim i am an Artist(tm) or Creative(tm) lol like i guess technically i am both but i have no professional aspirations and my brain does not Do [generate original content] so it’s all like, i’m just out here.........s/o to this time i was trying to do my fuckin thing drawing on a tablet in a cafe and some random annoying guy is trying to talk and i happen to mention like “lol i don’t exactly call myself an artist really” and Guy goes “OH REALLY??? WHAT’S WRONG WITH ARTISTS? WHAT’S YOUR ISSUE WITH ART” like please cool it lmao but god p sure it was a guy who was just. very Around and very annoying in general

49: Do you feel like you’re a good person?

yeah i think i’m alright but really what is the use in like considering there 2 be achievable Good or Bad Person Statuses for everyone........let’s say it’s an ongoing, active state to be in the process of consciously choosing to be Good and working towards Better. especially considering that We Live In A Society which tries to teach everyone and continuously imbues our existence with Bad Messages about how to perceive and engage with other people, and being A Good Person is a lifelong effort and it’s unhelpful to feel that if you’re already Good or well-intentioned enough you can just dust off your hands and be like “well my work here is done” and be unprepared to examine your beliefs/actions or deal with the might-as-well-assume-it’s-an-inevitability that even if u have some noble-ass beliefs you’ll fail to live up to them at some point/s.......so like yeah lol again i feel like i am a pretty good person but can always be better and ought to be aware of / willing to work on that at any point

[infiniteglitterfall]

Hi! I have atypical autism and I’m having trouble at work. I feel like no work place is working out for me because of my diagnosis. I’m uncomfortable around my colleagues, I’m quiet, I don’t know when to speak or what to say etc. I’m sad, mad and frustrated that this ruins every work place for me and I don’t know what job would fit me. I’ve never told my bosses that I have atypical autism and I don’t want to do it either. I want advice on what I should do

this is a great question!  I didn’t know what atypical autism was, but I googled it and it sounds like  they came up with this because they can’t call it asperger’s anymore? “a subthreshold diagnosis, presenting with some symptoms of autism but insufficient to meet criteria for a diagnosis of childhood autism (or autistic disorder). Alternatively, atypical autism can be diagnosed when there is a late onset of symptomatology.” Aka DDNOS, apparently.  From my perspective, it doesn’t sound different from any other autistic experience. FWIW. I think they tend to base their diagnostic labels more on how we seem from the outside than what our experiences really are. just my onion It sounds like you’re struggling with social anxiety, in that special vicious-cycle kind of way where not knowing how to interact with people makes you more anxious, and that makes it harder to interact with them, which makes you more anxious....?  The nice thing about vicious cycles is that you only have to knock out part of the cycle to make the whole thing fall apart. Like: if you didn’t feel anxious about not knowing when to speak or what to say, it would be easier to figure out when to speak or what to say. Which, in turn, would give you less reason to feel anxious about it, et cetera.  Or, if you knew what to say to them and how to hit it off, you would have fewer triggers for your anxiety, which would then make it easier to.... you get the idea.  There are a lot of things that help with social anxiety. I am going to give a shout-out to medication, first of all. There are a lot of life hacks and therapeutic techniques that help a lot. And for yeeeeeaaaars, I didn’t realize that I really had anxiety, and also, thought that I “should” see if I could manage anything myself before “resorting to” meds.  Turns out, medication saves me a TON of spoons, which I was previously using to “manage” depression, anxiety, and ADHD. You would not BELIEVE how much more energy and just general functionality I had when I finally got my meds right. OMFG.  It can be a pain in the ass to find the right medication, especially if it means first having to find a medical practitioner that can help you and then having to explain the situation. Sometimes you find something that helps you right away. Sometimes you have to try different things to find something that works well enough. Sometimes you get the fun of “doesn’t work for me AND has bad side effects for me.” (OTOH, when looking at side effects, always remember that you might not get any of the side effects.)  IMHO, the hardest part of finding the right medication is that a lot of practitioners don’t know how to track whether it’s helping you or not. Or whether it’s helping ENOUGH. Like: I got on anxiety meds that were starting to help, but which were making my ADHD meds not work.  I tried a bunch of other things, and finally got Vyvanse to work for my ADHD. But I managed to FORGET that my anxiety meds weren’t doing anything, for a full year, until things got really bad and I was like “wait a minute... these should be helping????” And I did some research, accidentally found a competent psychiatrist, and found that Cymbalta worked for me... but even then, if I hadn’t found decent tools for assessing if it was enough, I would’ve stopped at like half the dose I actually needed to be on.  This post is gonna be long as it is, so I’m gonna reblog to add different tools you can use to gauge what’s working, and which will help medical professionals understand what you’re experiencing. (Because tbh, they’re often just plain ignorant about this shit.)  You do not necessarily have to go to a psychiatrist to get medication for anxiety, social or otherwise! My partner’s OBGYN prescribed him depression meds. My family doctor was willing to prescribe stuff for depression and anxiety, but only if it was something that didn’t potentially interact with ADHD meds. My chosen brother’s doctor was asking EVERYBODY, after the 2016 election, how they were doing and if they needed depression/anxiety meds. (And they’re in North Carolina!) He had never really thought about it before, and in fact, when he started taking them, his social anxiety got so much better that he was doing shit like going back into the store to tell them they’d given him too much change. He was the one who got me to think about taking them. He had a little kid, and he was like, "I’m doing this for my family.”  Ok, medication aside:  Some kinds of therapy are really good for figuring out how to interact with people. I’ve been learning a lot about different modalities, and I would recommend finding someone who does what’s called “relational therapy” or “relational-cultural therapy.”  Basically, relational therapy is ALL about learning how to interact with people and have better relationships of all kinds. It’s very connected with issues of marginalization: people who are into relational therapy learn about how marginalization, and abuse, affect us and our relationships. Like, how we can internalize a ton of shame, just from being autistic and being devalued by the people around us. Even just from existing in a world that doesn’t value or understand how we communicate, and how we experience things.  And it’s really good for identifying that stuff, healing from the struggles of trying to interact with people, and learning how to relate to people in a way that works for you.  I found an organization that explains it pretty well (”Are you anxious when it comes to social situations like the workplace?... If we are depressed or anxious, inevitably it can be traced back to tension or breakdowns in relationships, or an inability to connect”), has a blog post in the sidebar called “Signs of Aspergers In Adults - Sound Familiar?” and apparently does therapy globally via Skype. I have never used them, I don’t know anything about them, I just googled “relational therapy” “online therapist.” (Shockingly, tho, that blog post not only links to one by an actually autistic person, but is very positive about autistic traits. I’m impressed so far. And I’m sure there are other options out there, too.) Lastly (as far as Things That I Personally Know Work go), I’ve gotten a LOT of recovery around social anxiety, and learned how to build relationships at work, from 12-step programs.  The reason it works for that, as far as I can tell, is:  • It’s a peer-led model, where everyone is equal. (this was huge to me, because I really struggled for a long time with feeling like everyone knew better than I did and had more of a right to talk about anything than I did, and therapy was a tough way to deal with things at that point because I saw the therapist as A Professional who’s In Charge.)  • There’s a lot of emphasis on the fact that the newcomer who just walked into the room has as much of a right to give input in a business meeting, or to volunteer to help out with something that doesn’t require specific experience, or to share what’s going on with them, as anybody else.  • Everybody there has gone through the same stuff as you, and anybody who’s helping you is showing you what worked for them, not what they were taught would work for people. That can be a pretty big difference, especially in terms of being able to relate to them and share personal things with them.  • Working the steps involves a lot of writing about your fears and resentments, and looking at, basically, what has and hasn’t worked for you, and why it hasn’t worked. Really, what you're doing there is seeing where you can reclaim your power. And then you deal with a lot of shame, and get to discover how much you’re like other people, and how much you’re equal to other people, and that you’re a good addition to the world. • You also connect with your intuition, when working the steps, and develop a better sense of what’s intuition and what’s fear/anxiety. That, and sharing in meetings, REALLY helped me get a sense of what to say to people and get comfortable saying things. (A lot of people shorthand what I’m calling “intuition” as “god,” but it’s very much supposed to be a nonreligious idea of “god.” and IME, it’s basically your intuition, whether your belief system says that’s god talking to you, or a psychological thing, or a mystical force, or what.)  Plus, 12-step stuff is free, which I’m very much in favor of lol. And most 12-step orgs have phone meetings and online meetings, so you don’t even have to go in person if that’s a barrier. (and in a phone meeting, they might not even know you’re there!) The tricky part can be figuring out which 12-step groups are good in your area and what might work for you. Because they range from Alcoholics Anonymous to, like... what’s the most obscure one I can think of? ARTS Anonymous, I guess. (it’s for artists who are stuck, it’s not saying art is an addiction)  But if you wanted to try 12-step for this, I would say that Emotions Anonymous is really good for dealing with all sorts of emotional and mental health stuff. (and holy shit, they have an app????) Adult Children of Alcoholic and Dysfunctional Families has, iirc, a good book, (as well as all the meetings and whatnot) and most people probably qualify for that. If you have any experience with sexual assault, abuse, harassment, or being cheated on, COSA is good, and you end up working on all your other relationships and emotional stuff along the way. 

[dotzines]

Artist Spotlights!

🎤 Delight 🥁 DoomSweater 🎷 Empoh

🎺 Emsi Art 🎸 f.loramy 🎻 Fairythearthog

Interview below the cut!

Introduce yourself

🥁 Hi my name is Doomsweater or Aki and i'm a cartoony artist who loves Danganronpa and plenty of other things! Im a mostly digital artist but its honestly hard to find any of my recent art cause i'm dead on most of my social medias. But you can find my older art on my DeviantArt (Doomsweater89) and my twitter @Aki_Rainbowgays 🎺 I am a digital artist, also learnt how to animate so I consider myself an animator (despite not animating as much since finishing uni), I also like manga and anime, books and movies and I play a lot of games, the two I play almost exclusively everyday is league of legends and final fantasy 14!! I'm also into history and You can find my art on my tumblr art blog and my twitter here: https://twitter.com/art_emsi and https://emsi-art.tumblr.com/ 🎸 Heyo I'm flor, a digital artist and I have a lot of love to give. All my links are here: https://campsite.bio/floramy 🎻 I'm known as Fairy in most Internet circles. I've been known to do both traditional and digital art, and absolutely love magical creatures! Dragons are my favorite but I like most others as well. Beyond drawing I love playing video games, sewing cosplays, and cats. You can find me at various places, and check out all the links to them here: https://linktr.ee/fairythearthog

Do you do commissions post? Where can we find the info?

🥁 Well I dont have a post but https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/652005504759103513/652005627648016424/Quick_Commisshie_sheet.png here's the link to the sheet 🎸 https://lordfloramy.wixsite.com/portfolio/commissions 🎻 https://fairythearthog.wordpress.com/art-commissions/

Do you listen to music (or tv shows/films/anything else) when drawing?

🥁 All the time! If i'm not listening to music I have YouTube videos on in the background and it helps keep my ADD Brain interested in things 🎺 I do listen to music, I also sometimes put on youtube videos, and rarely but sometimes but on a show to listen to in the background. 🎸 Yep ! I listen to youtube video essays about movies, shows and stuff, my taste changes pretty often. Also, podcasts, my favorite is The Adventure Zone. 🎻 Not always, but I do! I cycle between TV shows, Youtube, Podcasts, and Music.

What’s your favorite music artist/band? If you could ask your favorite band/music artist one question, what would it be?

🥁 Oh gosh that's a hard question but I guess my current favorite artist is Cavetown and I would ask what inspired the songs Home or Talk To Me. 🎺 One of my favourites its actually Babymetal, and I would like ask them if I could what did they think of metal and rock in general when they started and what they think of it now? 🎸 "Hm, that's always been a hard question for me. My taste changes pretty often and I find myself having kind of a frankenstein playlist of a bunch of artists and genres, so choosing one is hard. I guess OneRepublic and Mika have always been somewhere near the top tho so I'm gonna go with them. I don't really have any questions? I guess I'd thank them for sharing their stuff and say I'm glad we're alive at the same time :]" 🎻 I listen to various types of bands and music so this question is always hard! I guess one band I like is Skillet. I'm not quite sure what I would ask since I would be so anxious and starstruck!

Do you play an instrument? If not would you like to play one? Which one?

🥁 I played the Viola for about 3 years in middle school but haven't done it since 🎺 I don't but I would like to properly learn how to play the guitar and also the violin, which I did start learning as a kid but I gave up too soon on it and even now I still regret it a little. 🎸 I do play the acoustic guitar for fun, I don't know many things, but when i hear a song I like in a video game or show I learn it and play it for my enjoyment. 🎻 I used to play the flute, and occasionally play the Ocarina for fun.

Which song(s) are you going to draw?

🥁 I'm drawing No More by Versache and Borderline by Thomas Sanders 🎺 I am doing Nine in the Afternoon by Panic! at the Disco 🎸 Marchin On by OneRepublic, which is my long time favorite and x by x which i currently love very much. 🎻 "Stardust" by T&Sugah and "I'm Not Afraid" by Tom Profitt

What do you expect from this zine?

🥁 I'm not sure honestly, this is my first Zine so I have no idea what to expect but i'm excited!! 🎺 I expect to see a good arrange of different art styles and also maybe even find new music to listen to from the selection that people have chosen, as well as helping me with doing more art and getting out there more in the art community. 🎸 Honestly, to try out some new things in my art style and to see everyone's finished work, that's always fun. 🎻 Lots of cool artists being shown off.

Anything else you want to add?

🥁 Hope you all like what I do! 🎸 Nothing special, hope we all have fun and looking forward to seeing the finished thing ♡ 🎻 All these artists are creative and deserve all the attention!

[caden]

i feel we should examine the whole idea of “do spoilers matter” or not at a deeper level then ‘people who complain about spoilers are annoying so spoiler warnings are stupid’. like the idea that a lot of you guys seem to have of “if having the plot spoiled ruins the movie for you then the plot wasnt any good anyways” seems sort of... not fully wrong but also underdeveloped to me. like, there are tons and tons and tons of stories that are widely considered to be amazing and have clear artistic merit that you absolutely wouldn’t want spoiled. Like, you wouldnt want to know darth vader was lukes father. you wouldnt want to know bruce willis was a ghost the whole time. For drama to be effective you need tension, and a very very efficient way of keeping the audience engaged is by putting them in a mindset where they’re unsure of what will happen next, or by revealing a game-changing plot twist, or by suddenly putting a character into an unexpected position. It seems totally disingenuous to me to be like ‘well it shouldnt matter to the audience whether or not they get to be surprised by what happens in the film they’re watching’. You can’t honestly believe that to be true. Being able to be surprised by a story is like one of the fundamental draws of good storytelling and probably has been for all of human history. Imagine how much worse US or Get Out or any Shakespeare play would be if you knew exactly where the plot would go before you saw it. I know there’s some research that suggests people actually enjoy stuff more if they already know what will happen but you can cast a lot of doubt on that data-- i think that it indicates more that people are more likely to appreciate a good plot once they understand it more thoroughly, hence why you might like a great movie more the second time you watch it. That doesnt mean there isnt value in the first time, it’s just a different way of viewing it.

All that said, the stuff with people not wanting spoilers for endgame has different wrinkles to it. (dont worry im not about to spoil anything). It can’t all be chalked up to ‘people care super deeply about the characters and plot and the writing is always so unpredictable and engaging that they dont want to know a single thing before going in’. Ive spent a lot of time recently thinking about the way infinity war and endgame are constructed, and they’re made in such a way that REALLY facilitates them being ‘spoiled’. because they’re written around moments. The plot isn’t so much a naturally moving thing with motivations and momentum of its own as much as a connective tissue between various cool things happening. Like, whoa, spider-man just met the guardians of the galaxy. oh sick, theyre in wakanda. holy shit, half of them died. Endgame goes REAAAAAALLY hard on this style of writing. And as a method of milking emotion from the audience, it really really works. Assuming the moments themselves are all effective, you’re guaranteeing constant engagement because every three minutes another epic thing is gonna happen. And I think when people fault marvel fans for being obsessed with spoiler warnings, this style of filmmaking is really what they’re trying to critique. because there’s a suggestion that if your movie is just jumping from crazy twist to shocking death to funny reference to epic fight, you’re losing the thing that should actually be the connective tissue of a film-- its themes, character arcs, ideas, setting... etc. And while I personally don’t think those things are mutually exclusive, (bc i do believe that infinity war and endgame genuinely have themes they try to discuss), i would also agree with the argument that reliance on shocking moments over actual ideas is bad writing. But as I mentioned earlier, a filmmaker like Jordan Peele whose works are generally agreed to be very good also uses this writing style-- his plots escalate via twists and turns and are expertly constructed to keep the audience wondering what’ll happen next, and he does a really great job with it. 

Now, i DEFINITELY think there’s an argument for ‘disney intentionally plays up the spoiler warning angle in a way that’s ultimately toxic to the filmmaking process’. Like I don’t believe that the “tom holland doesnt get to read the script” stuff is true, I 100% think it’s all a publicity stunt-- but they shouldnt be setting a precedent that makes people think doing something like that to a lead actor is acceptable. It’s not how films should be made, and the only reason I’m sure its all fake is because I have enough filmmaking experience to know itd literally be impossible to efficiently shoot a big-budget film under those conditions. Of course all the buzz about endgame spoilers is HUGELY beneficial to their marketing teams, so obviously they’re gonna go hard as hell on enforcing that narrative. Like they 100% WANT everyone to both be spoiling the movie and getting anxious about having the movie spoiled, because its all free advertising for them. But in terms of ‘big movie studios having greedy practices that harmfully affect the artistic process and make their films worse’, its incredibly low on the list of bad stuff that studios do imo. 

So, like, if you’re gonna critique all the various aspects of that, I think you should A) put your efforts towards exposing all the spoiler panic through the lens of how it affects the way that films are produced and consumed, or B) put your efforts towards analyzing the media itself, watch the film and ask ‘is this film more engaging and well-made because of its reliance on moments that can be spoiled? If no, why is that not working? If yes, is that engagement coming at a cost or is it justified? Essentially, I’d like to feel that the criticism was either coming from a social angle or an artistic one. And if that were the case I think i’d have less of an issue with it. Just saying “people are dumb for caring about spoilers” is silly. Maybe it’s dumb, but that’s not the point. People will consume media however they want to and if they want to care about spoilers then they have a right to care. You guys aren’t wrong if you think marvel shit is stupid and badly made, because art is subjective and no opinion on it is wrong. But other people also aren’t wrong for liking and caring about it, and being like ‘we should spoil it for them to teach them a lesson” is gross and totally unproductive. I know 99% of it is jokes but you gotta remember that some people have spent a very long time being very excited to see this movie and doing something that wrecks that for them is just mean and inconsiderate. It’s not about whether them feeling that way is stupid or not, because yeah, it’s stupid to be that invested in superhero movies. It’s about it not being cool to intentionally hurt someone just because you can. And the reason i don’t have a lot of tolerance for it is because I feel like saying “caring about spoilers is stupid” is a kneejerk, surface level attempt at media criticism and we can do better. I obviously care pretty deeply about the way we consume and criticize pop culture and i think it’s in everyone’s benefit to have more productive discourse about this stuff. No ill will towards my friends who are saying the things that i’m ragging on, i obviously don’t think it’s coming from a malicious place or anything-- this is just my read on the situation. Was gonna post this like two days ago but then decided someone would prob message me a spoiler because of it lol