#i have no idea how to twitter accurately so i just post art there no extra opinions XD

[vilevampirez]

long list of funny things abt my experience doing emote commissions for mike

first of all I wasn't expecting to get commissioned at all (my commissions weren't even open, I just made an exception for mike) let alone by MIKETHELINK of all fucking people, so I had nothing prepared. I had no portfolio, commission sheet, nothing. I had never made any twitch emotes, so I had no examples to show either. meaning that when barbmine showed up in my dms asking if I took emote commissions, first I lost my fucking shit, then I panicked and rushed to find the most recent emote-like illustrations I had, including animation, and the most recent animation I had on hand happened to be a viewtiful joe one lmao. the animation in question 👇

(the usernames on the watermark aren't even accurate anymore..)

I have some experience taking commissions but they'd always been for friends of mine, this was my first time getting commissioned by a real "client" and the client was fucking mikethelink tazercraft of all fucking people . I know he "found" me through Mine, she sent me a dm first asking for commission info, saying she would show it to mike later. the thing is that when she said that she also implied that she was in touch with other artists too, so I was like "oh ok I'll send my stuff but I probably won't get chosen lol" and then a few hours later I got two twitter notifs, one saying that mr. thelink tazercraft was now following me and another was his DM. to say I almost had a heart attack would be an understatement

later I found out Mine had made a tweet asking for artists to reach out/people to rec artists for mike's twitch emotes. that post had around 40 comments. many people had been recommended more than once. I wasn't mentioned by anyone once, and in fact, I had no fucking idea that post even EXISTED until way after the fact. I have no idea how I ended up getting this job

mike happened to contact me on a day where I was severely sleep deprived. our entire business conversation took place while I was half-panicking, half-almost-passing-out. I don't know how I survived

at many points during our conversation I gave a lot of leeway for mike to give up on commissioning me, implying multiple times that he would be better off commissioning a different artist. and it's not because I lacked confidence (though a bit of that too, of course), but because of my lack of experience. I was very open about that to him, so many times I expected him to second guess his decision to commission me. unexpectedly, he was really insistent. I think partially he didn't want to go through the trouble of finding and contacting a different artist, but also I guess he just liked my art that much (??!?)

I definitely undercharged him lol. it's not that I don't value my work, it's just that I was absolutely not prepared for any of this shit to happen and didn't have enough time to think

I use adobe after effects for animating mike's emotes. I already knew how to animate (though I had never animated anything big), but I had never used after effects before. I even told mike this before accepting the commission, but he just said it was easy and I could totally do it, and I was just like "fucking hell. fine". and look, I know my limits, I knew I'd be able to learn after effects with relative ease. if I thought it'be too much for me to handle, I wouldn't have accepted the commission. it just that to this day I'm still shocked that mike commissioned an artist who HAD NEVER USED THE TOOL NECESSARY FOR THE COMMISSION HE WANTED.

due to the point above I was pretty apprehensive about animating the emotes, but now I'm glad I got this opportunity bc it reignited my passion for animation that had been dwindling for a long time and I've been learning a lot while working. also with every new emote I figure out how to use a different feature of after effects and it makes the job a little bit easier

before giving my payment information I came out to him to avoid confusion with my legal name being different from the name on my socials. he was very chill about it and always used the right name and pronouns for me whenever he mentions me on stream

fun fact: I was reached out to by another big (brazilian, not in qsmp) youtuber for a commission but I had to refuse because I had too much on my plate already (still do..)

my favorite emotes are the devil one and the nerd one

I made his twitch avatar and banner too! I'm really proud of the avatar. the banner was absolute hell

I'm a lurker (and nowadays a vod watcher since I've been busy w/ uni work) but I do watch every single one of mike's streams, so just know that I'm always seeing you guys use the emotes :3

[dorky-kawa]

Is the avant mv really predicting the jjk ending? - an analysis

There's no way to be sure, but on the other hand, it sure is racking up to be a lot of strange coincidences if not. People have made several observations that the MV seemed to have foreshadowed Nobara's return all along, while others have made other theories on how the MV may be telling us of the return of the glorious blue-eyed king.

Putting the stuff about our blue-eyed king aside (we'll return to it), the MV was scarily accurate about Nobara's return.

But one thing that I noticed from the latest chapter is that the MV may have also showed us Sukuna's defeat months ago.

References from the MV -> chapter 268:

In a brief panel of the MV, there is a blob that looks similar enough to the Sukuna blob we saw this chapter. The blob is coughing up black ink/blood? as if it were punched, almost like Sukuna taking damage from Yuji's black flash.

Sequence in the MV:

Also, at the start of the sequence, there appears a pair of hands holding on to the blob, just like Yuji holding Sukuna with both hands as Sukuna faded away.

Now, if this convinces you snippets of jjk's ending have been hidden in this MV, it gets interesting regarding what else this MV might be foretelling. Interpreting an MV is a subjective art, but users on twitter have pointed out another sequence in the MV in which a portrait with two eyes (that have clouds floating in them) becomes blotted with ink over one of the eye.

This connects to the suspicious amount of official content with Gojo that only has one eye opened. Why do you keep drawing him with only one eye, Gege?

In the end, what does it mean for Gojo? No idea. Some people are saying he's coming back with a binding vow that requires him to give up an eye/Six Eyes. You can probably find the theories on twitter. What would be the purpose of him coming back at the end of the story? Who knows.

— but the picture is there, and depending on whether you're convinced or not, the MV seems to have referenced the jjk ending in it, so it might be worth it to check it out to see if we can figure out more about the ending before it's ending in 3 chapters anyways.

As an aside, this post is just talking about whether we can rely on the MV to predict the ending; the MV itself has other panels that refer to canon events in the manga. It's pretty cool - check it out on Youtube if you have the time.

Also, in case anyone is not familiar with how the MV predicted Nobara's return:

References from the MV -> chapter 266-267

[cookiesandbiscuits]

Obey Me! Nightbringer's New Feature: Date Tickets

Hello hello! Today, I'll be talking about the newly released feature on the game, the date tickets!

Obey Me's official YT channel just posted a trailer for this new feature. Here's the link if you want to watch it: video link

Before I start rambling about this feature, I just want to share my thoughts about this:

👀👀👀

SOLMARE!!! YOU CANNOT JUST POST SOMETHING LIKE THIS WITHOUT ANY WARNING!!

SEEING MY HUSBAND, LYING ON A BED HALF-NAKED, HAIR SLIGHTLY DISHEVELED AND WITH THAT LOOK IN HIS EYES.... HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO REACT TO THIS, HUH?!?! *screams in incoherent noises*

Now with that out of the way, let's talk about the date ticket feature.

So according to the video they posted, the date ticket feature allows you to "ask your favorite character on a date". Basically, you'll contact them via De-Comm and use the ticket to ask them out.

Nothing much was revealed in the video about what the new feature will entail, so I tried to look into X/Twitter if someone will say something.

And, I did found it:

First of all, the price. $30 for a phone call, story, and a premium picture? Seriously?

It does come with 300 Devil Points, which probably is the reason why it was expensive, but I digress.

I knew the company is money-hungry, but wow, this is on another level (which is not very shocking, tbh).

This is just my opinion but I don't think locking a romance feature of an OTOME GAME behind a steep paywall is such a good idea, especially since most of the players are f2p.

The last time I played the game was months ago so this is not very accurate anymore, but the main story of the game lacks romance, even though it is a dating sim. Ironic, isn't it?

I'm thankful for having more lore about the characters and the three worlds, don't get me wrong. But the scarce amount of romance in the game, not to mention most of it are in Devilgram stories of the cards that are SO HARD TO GET IF YOU'RE A BROKE F2P PLAYER WITH TERRIBLE LUCK, and the consecutive events with no break to replenish the resources you spent on previous ones is what did me in to give up the game.

I still love the characters, and they will always have a special place in my heart. However, I can't find it in me to enjoy the game as I once did.

You can't expect me to pay that amount of money just to get 10 minutes worth of romantic content with my fave, not when I could just read and make fanfics and fan art.

I'm still curious about the content of the date ticket feature, but I guess I'll just have to wait for someone to post it on YT or something.

[determunition]

Hi so I’ve curious, (Been nervous about starting my own AU) When you first started posting OFH (on twitter/ao3) how did you get the courage to post it? Were you ever afraid of getting called ‘cringe’ or ‘weird’ or anything else negative? If so how were you able to get over it? (Btw I do love this AU with all my heart!) Sorry if any of these questions are too sensitive!

hi!! thanks for the questions, i'm flattered to be considered a source of wisdom about this x3

OFH/retyrement, like most fandom things i do, started as kind of a silly shitpost thing; i love human AUs, and when my buddy squid_hug made that original text post about the retirement home it tickled me too much to ignore. objectively the scrybes being human old people bickering in a retirement home is a goofy, silly idea, and that's how it started as an AU, down to the written fic. i think that in itself made it a bit easier to post about

however! even with that, when i started posting the first pieces of art it was definitely a "do it scared" situation lmao; i don't remember where i heard this, but in some cases it takes even more courage to do something new when you're already known for something than it does to start something new with no presence at all, and that was definitely true with the retyrement AU. it was my first contribution to the fandom too! i was definitely worried it wouldn't go over well with anyone bc it was so damn niche lolol

my main piece of advice for getting over this fear (besides just doing it scared until you're not scared anymore) is to get yourself a hype squad lmao; though maybe the more accurate term would be a mutual AU ecosystem. i had squid to develop a lot of the AU with me at the start and we bounced a lot of silly ideas off of each other, and now i have a lot more folks around to crack jokes and hype each other up about our art and fics! also at the beginning i had a point where i was feeling a little self-conscious about continuing to post (the AU had a painfully small amount of engagement at the beginning lol), but as soon as i got one (1) ask saying "i wanna see more of this" i took that as my green light to get as silly with it as possible lmao

so ig my TL;DR advice is: don't take shit too seriously, remember it's all in good fun, and surround yourself with folks who enjoy funny lil AUs as much as you do! the second thing can be hard, as it involves uh, putting yourself out there in the first place, but embracing that discomfort is a necessary evil for having a good-ass time! if you can successfully kill the part of yourself that cringes then you'll never be cringe again

godspeed on your own AU endeavors, the digital world is always better for having another crazy creative alternate universe in it <3

[davekat-sucks]

Found this on Reddit and I wanted to share it here because it's a really good read and it actually isn't bias.

OP: Not to sound racist, but why are so many people headcannoning Jade as black?

Like with every other character in different artists interpretations we get a wide variety of skin tones, from lightest beige to the darkest brown. But with Jade I literally never saw her drawn with light skin (unless she is drawn as accurately to the comic as possible). Why is that? Is it related to the official material somehow, or it's just a headcannon, that happened to be really popular for no particular reason?

Reply: This is a perfectly valid question to ask, and I think I know the answer!

Homestuck was most popular between 2012 and 2014, and tumblr was the main platform where the fandom discussed and shared things related to Homestuck (or any fandom for that matter). Around this time, young people also started becoming more aware of media's bias towards portraying race. There was an increased awareness that white was seen as the "default" race for fictional characters, and that characters in books and podcasts with no official artwork attached to them tended to be imagined as white for no reason other than this bias.

The result of this awareness was that brown and black people felt increasingly comfortable drawing "blank" characters (what they look like is entirely up to the fans) with dark skin colours, or re-imagining existing light skinned characters as having dark skin. The latter was done either to make an active contribution to undoing decades of racial bias in media, or simply because the artist wanted to see a particular character as being part of an underrepresented culture. Dark skinned characters were also regularly drawn with more darker skin than what was canon, because of bias related to colourism, which is the idea that even non-white (real life!) people are viewed as more beautiful when they're less dark.

Back then, tumblr was a lot less chill about things, and anything that could be remotely interpreted as problematic was met with intense vitriol and villification. This behaviour is now mostly present on twitter, but back then it was unique to mid 2010-s tumblr. Words like "tumbr-ification" and "tumblrina" came from this time. Anyone who was accused of having drawn a dark skinned character with a slightly less dark colour than canon was deemed racist. Anyone who drew a blank character as white was racist if the dominant view ("fanon" vs canon) was them having dark skin. Which was often the case. These people who cried racist were a loud, EXTREMELY loud minority, and with call out posts and dogpiling easily convinced others that everyone agreed with them. So not everyone was like that, far from it, but if your post gained traction and it was found you made a transgression, the harassment you would experience could make you feel like everyone hated you. So even for people who did their best to ignore this "side" of tumblr, there was a lot of pressure to not cross a line with this vocal minority if you wanted to keep sharing your art online, or wanted to stay part of the online fandom community.

Now, how this affected Homestuck. The fan art for Homestuck existed in this cultural bubble that I just described. First, you had these characters with very identifiable features (glasses, accessoiries, T-shirt prints) that lended themselves well to being drawn with all sorts of different colours and hair styles while still being recognisable. Second, their skin colour was left up to interpretation, after the original author recognised that his view of his characters as being white came from personal bias and there was no reason why they would or wouldn't be a particular skin colour. So, this was seen as an extra approval to go wild with fan interpretations and why there is such a wide range of dark skinned Homestuck characters. Jade and Jake in particular are being drawn with dark skin more often than the other kids, because in-universe there is a logical argument for them being non-white: they're islanders! Their dark skinned interpretations are more readily adopted by others as head canon for this reason. As a result, their counterparts John and Jane were also often drawn with tan skin. For obvious reasons, Homestuck 2 made a dark skinned interpretation of Jane significantly less popular.

Last part of the puzzle: why do dark skinned interpretations of Homestuck characters often appear to outweigh light skinned interpretations? It is a direct result of the intense pushback from both white and non-white fans to white interpretations, which I explained two paragraphs earlier. Depictions of Jade and Jake as white in particular were, without exception, met with either blunt criticism or straight up harassment. Sometimes overwhelmingly so, though most of the time only some comments fell into these categories. But it would always be pointed out publicly, and rarely with a friendly tone. Even to this day, on reddit, you'll see that half the comments on any artwork featuring four Homestuck kids all having light skin (or human versions of trolls) simply say "whitestuck" "why they all mayonnaise 💀" or something like that. This heavily discourages people from drawing their light skinned interpretations. People who have posted their light skinned interpretations of the entire group of kids are not likely to do so again, as it will be perceived as willfully ignorant at best and an active statement against dark skinned interpretations at worst.

I hope I was able to explain this without adding a value judgment on what is right or wrong. I have my own opinions and I'm happy to share my own feelings about fandom from a decade ago if anyone wants to know more about what it was like.

[the-pobble-terrarium]

can I get an info dump on how you feel about princess celestia and or twilight

GIGGLES I'm glad to see interest in them !!! (assuming this is AU related)

I haven't fleshed out Twilight's and the Princesses backgrounds very much- mainly because I can't think of anything to change, but compared to in-show Twilight, the rewrite AU one is much more. quiet and threatening if you don't know her well- she's kinda got that thousand yard stare and she's more or less completely non-verbal. Her name also changes in the AU! From Twilight Sparkle to Meteor Strike!

(Here, have some old concept art!)

And as expected, Meteor- the socially awkward barely verbal anxiety horse is NOT happy when she's made a princess on the spot Speaking just off the top of my head, I think it would lead her to resent Celestia a bit for putting something so big on her without even asking, and she might begin to connect with Luna a bit more, sharing how it felt Celestia sort of just. Does stuff without asking- like she knows what’s best always. I think this would accumulate in them confronting Celestia and telling her “hey we know you think this is what's best but it’s actually not. Please ask before you make such big changes.” Celestia takes it hard at first but eventually understands sometimes she needs to take a step back and not assume.

If this where an actual MLP episode, it would probably go something along the lines of Celestia making assumptions on how to help without asking constantly, leading to a LOT of unhappy ponies confronting her on it and Celestia at the end writing what SHE learnt for once- "Sometimes you think you know what's best for somepony, but today I learnt it's important to ask before you make such big assumptions. A good friend always makes sure their friend is comfortable, rather than simply assuming they are."

Speaking of Luna and Celestia! These designs were originally made completely separate as a way to mess around with a "biblically accurate princesses" idea, but I think they could fit really nicely into this AU with a few minor tweaks!

(Sorry for such low quality, I had to pluck them from an old twitter post because I can't find the Sai file I drew them on)

That would also probably mean Meteor would gain "biblically accurate" qualities after her 'graduation' over time... Which would probably make her even freakier looking to outsiders LMAO

I also imagine the process of transformation is VERY painful for the immediate part of the spell (growing wings/a horn), and for the rest it takes time to form. What I mean by that is when a pony is made an alicorn via magic it's pulling magic from their body to form entirely new limbs, nervous systems, shifting magical components to specific parts- which is PAINFUL. And when these limbs are formed, they're small- over time they'll grow, like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis! They've emerged from their cocoon, but it still takes time for them to pump fluids into their wings before they can fly! Which means Meteors wings are more or less useless for a few months...

(“Really? I don’t even get to use these things??”)

[bluesturngold]

Misinformation's Role in Sensationalizing the Arrest of a Florida Furry

People on Twitter are posting memes about a member of the furry community who was arrested in Florida for murder.

This isn't typically something I would write about, but the furry in question commissioned a profile photo from the same artist who created my profile photo, and people have essentially harassed the artist off of twitter by sharing the art he commissioned from her.

The memes are predicated on a screenshot taken from the Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office inmate booking blotter, as pictured below:

I'm not humorless and can see how the average terminally online person could find the thought of a furry blowing someone away with a missile funny, but the unfortunate combination of an inadequate booking system and a misunderstanding of what "missile" refers to legally are why this meme exists in the first place.

Here is the full text of Florida Statute 790.19:

"Whoever, wantonly or maliciously, shoots at, within, or into, OR throws any missile OR hurls or projects a stone or other hard substance which would produce death or great bodily harm, at, within, or in any public or private building, occupied or unoccupied, or public or private bus or any train, locomotive, railway car, caboose, cable railway car, street railway car, monorail car, or vehicle of any kind which is being used or occupied by any person, or any boat, vessel, ship, or barge lying in or plying the waters of this state, or aircraft flying through the airspace of this state shall be guilty of a felony of the second degree."

I've bolded the important bits there: this statute covers both shooting within/into an occupied space as well as throwing or otherwise launching something that could cause physical harm within/into an occupied space, i.e. a brick through a window into a business that has customers inside. As someone who's reported on court cases like this before, I would expect to see charges relating to incendiary devices or explosives if someone truly had fired a missile into a dwelling.

This is why I say the booking system is inadequate: the person who typed up the summary of this statute did so with no regard for how easy it is for a layperson to misinterpret, and then the person who selected statute 790.19 whilst filling out this guy's booking information was stuck with the statute description it had already been given... unless they wanted to find someone in their IT department or the vendor who built the booking system and file a ticket for them to change it, which could take weeks.

Misleading statute descriptions are a huge issue when your inmate bookings can be viewed online by members of the public, and it's just another sign of how little law enforcement cares about inmates and the public that they didn't put more consideration into making their statue descriptions easier to understand.

The premeditated first degree murder charge also just isn't accurate; presumably the sheriff's office had little to no idea whether the murder was or wasn't premeditated when they arrested the guy, so the person doing the booking picked the more severe one. (Pretend I repeated the line about how little law enforcement cares again.)

If you didn't know this, here's a public service announcement: it's basically never a good idea to read a law enforcement agency's inmate listings and take what they say as fact. Cross referencing the inmate listing with the county court clerk's online case search made it really clear that the inmate listing was misleading:

'Second degree murder with a firearm' and 'shooting into building' paint such a simple and effective picture of what the defendant is being charged with.

I know a fair number of terminally online people who aren't furries just think it's inherently funny or meme-worthy when a furry gets arrested for anything, but I think if the sheriff's office or the vendor who created their booking system wasn't inept and careless more people would've realized this was just a tragic but otherwise mundane murder allegedly committed by someone with an unconventional, unrelated hobby.

[velvetvexations]

(i am not very accurate all the time so take this with a grain of salt this is half remembered and i wasn't in the drama while it happened) (also im getting like 90% my info from moonkitti) OKAY so it all starts with this character Dovewing(whom i will call dove). Thing that is important to note, the erin hunters are ghost writers and they do not have a warrior cat bible, so they use the wiki when they need info. which is really really bad cause the wiki at the time was dogshit. like really really shit. you wanted a characters personality? friends? anything? have fun scrolling through the mini essay they wrote which is bascially just a summary of the book. not fun. Also ppl didn't really like Dove for some other reasons which i can talk about if wanted.

So Dove's eyes were debated cause like every book they'd change color. One book it'd be green, another blue, sometimes it'd switch up in the book, others the cover would be one color, and the words another. Another thing to note, the fandom is mainly artists, AKA, people who need a solid character design. So naturally, they argued, and some of the time, in animations they'd switch the colors, in joke ones it would be rainbow.

Kate Cary(a ghostwriter) at one point said her eyes were blue so the wiki(which at the time listened to the word of the authors rather then what was in the books more) put it like that on the wiki. After a while, Dove got a solid eye color, green. Naturally people saw this and were like, "Hey, its green now." The admin of the wiki disagreed and eventually started blocking people who said it was green. This started a 9~ hour twitter mess were people were getting blocked left and right. The people getting blocked were having a good time.

Eventually, the fight stopped and the person(who also had some other stuff apparently) stepped down and moonkitti made a video on the whole thing. During that video, she talked about how shit the wiki was and how they really should fix it. Surprisingly they actually did fix it, its way better, they added official art, the pixel art doesnt look hideous, its better now. The end! (theres a reddit post that probably explains it better on the sub hobbydrama(?))

I had no idea the author of Warrior Cats is actually a team of ghostwriters. No wonder it feels so Homestuckian and stuff like this drama happens. Way too many cooks, I'd imagine.

[cqtlatte]

could you post about your thought process for your art? i always love the colors you choose!! and the themes n composition always are AMAZING AAAA

a lot of the time it's p much head empty swirly painting HAHA but I'll ramble below!

Honestly sometimes I have an immediate idea/theme in mind and I just play around a lot when I'm sketching, and other times it kind of just evolves while painting. I remember with the Yoimiya Pyro flamenco piece came around when I asked my Twitter followers which Genshin girl they wanted to see next, and I got a LOT of Yoimiya requests. And literally it went like this LOL

I have a couple of other sketches I could pull out but I'd have to find them...

It actually wasn't supposed to be a flamenco dress in the beginning, more like a mermaid tail style dress?? But while I was sketching I thought to myself,, yo... this would actually make a sick flamenco dress! So I started to look up tons of flamenco photos for reference to make it look accurate. :)

---

As for my coloring thought process, analogous colors are my best friend! (colors that sit side by side on the color wheel) I like to choose one color that all the other colors will revolve around. Kind of like how for my previous commission, the client asked for a cherry blossom theme. As you can see in the sketches I offered, almost all of the pieces have the same cherry blossom color, but different colors revolving around them.

If you take an eyedropper and drag it across, you'll see the colors change along the color wheel. That's what analogous colors are! They're pretty great for tricking the eye too ;) The grass from the sketch may look like a blue-ish teal with all the colors surrounding it, but it actually does fall under blue! (I made a little video to show this but it won't upload for some reason, so I put it on Drive!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zYFu2MTvwOY8KsLzWsa7oyCLz03x4H7d/view?usp=sharing )

__________

I guess if I were to describe my thought process from a technical standpoint, I like to capture moments (as if the piece were photography or a page in a picture book) and movement (the swirls and other patterned lines blending into the composition. )??

obligatory link to an earlier ask for a deeper look into the work process itself (although it may not be relevant)

Hopefully this is helpful anon!!

[yourpintilts]

Only Friends and Genre Theory

Well - I guess I'll start this blog off with post about everyone's (my) favorite series (it literally has not aired yet) of 2023: Only Friends.

Recently, the nominees for the ContentAsia awards were released, and my friends and I were celebrating the nomination of The Eclipse for Best LGBTQ+ Show (yay!) when a really interesting topic arose. Someone pointed out that Jojo Tichakorn's Never Let Me Go was chosen over The Warp Effect, which they felt was his better work in 2022. Regardless of your opinion on that (though, I agree), we wondered if The Warp Effect is even eligible at all. Of course, the category is LGBTQ+ Shows, but every single nominee is a BL.

I've noticed, in my perusing of BL Twitter and Tumblr that most fans seem to differentiate between BL, lakorns/dramas, and the LGBTQ+ genre, but nobody seems to define them. They are designating the genre by, for lack of a better word (although I consider it pretty accurate), the vibes.

I've seen the off-handed "I wonder what genre it will be" or "It seems like Jojo is leaning away from BL with this series" comment more than once about Only Friends. And really, it's hard to say at all when all we have is a trailer and cryptic social media posts from the cast and crew, but, uh, I'm gonna try. Sort of.

So, let's get into it: Is Only Friends going to be a BL, drama, an LGBTQ+ show, or something else entirely?

Alright, before we get into trying to put a label on the series, let's talk about the labels themselves: it's Genre Theory time!

So, what is genre? Well, most of us would consider it to be the category that we put a type of media or art into: country music, romance novels, etc. Genres help us differentiate amongst the huge sea of art, find patterns and create links between work, and, most practically, help us decide if we will likely enjoy something or not.

Normally, it's not much more complicated than that. Sci-fi, drama, noir, biography - each of these gives you a basic idea of what you're getting into, what tropes you might expect, or how you might feel while consuming it. But film theorists will be film theorists, and it's not actually that simple.

Let's take the horror genre as an example. At its face, we define films as horror because they follow certain tropes and patterns: things like jump scares, the final girl, dark and saturated style, slashers and paranormal, etc. But what about movies like Parasite or Get Out? These films rely less on jump scares and physical horror - it's their concepts themselves that are so scary. And so this is where sub-genres come in, in which Parasite and Get Out are labeled as psychological horror to further define them. And then there are films that just... don't seem to be anything at all. Something like (because I recently watched it) In Bruges, which mixes crime, drama, and comedy, but also never fully leans in to any of them. It sort of defies genre altogether.

So, that's the gist of genre theory. Basically, the point is that sometimes you can put a film or other piece of art in a category, and sometimes you can't.

But, let's be honest. We don't care about other movies. Let's talk about sexy, spectacular, groundbreaking masterpiece that will be Only Friends, and how we can apply genre theory in order to try to figure out what label best fits.

There are several different indicators of a BL, and Only Friends does fit some of them:

Most straightforwardly: the primary story in a BL is a relationship between two male characters. Of course, in this case there are six male leads (and who knows how many different pairings... TopSan, NickSan, RayBoston, and more have their advocates, some even seem likely), but the point is that the series is focused on their relationships together. Along with this, two of the three primary couples - ForceBook and FirstKhaotung - featured in the show are official pairings at GMMTV. BLs nearly always feature couples who have worked or will work together in multiple shows.

The series is also being produced by GMMTV, a company well-known for its stake in the BL genre, and it follows the logistical style of a 12-episode limited series.

But in several other ways, the show is in direct opposition to many of the components of BL. Some may not be intentional, or hard and fast "rules," but they occur so often that they are undeniably associated with BL as a genre.

As mentioned above, two of the lead couples are official pairings, but the other isn't. In fact, Neo and Mark both auditioned for their roles in Only Friends, and Director Jojo Tichakorn has spoken about his intention in casting them: to divert the expectation of clear masculine/feminine and top/bottom roles in queer relationships. The "seme" and "uke" trope, designating who gives and receives sexually (and usually indicating personality and relationship dynamics), has been pervasive in BL. It panders to the homophobic notion that queer relationships must still follow heteronormative standards. With NeoMark - and, as I believe, with all of the relationships in the series - Jojo will subvert that standard.

Also, Only Friends has a not insignificant amount of openly queer people writing, directing, etc. for the show. This certainly isn't the first time this has happened, but since BL began as a genre made by women and for women, Only Friends seems determined to be a series by queer people and for queer people.

And, because we've already established genre is not black and white, there are other aspects of Only Friends that blur the lines of its BL status. Only Friends seems to be much darker, grittier, and realistic the typical dramedy BL. We already know we will see smoking, drug use, sex, cheating, and according to Jojo, this is only scratching the surface. But, of course, the BL genre has evolved as of late, giving us shows like KinnPorsche, which also delve into such topics. So, while BL is largely more comedic and lighthearted, a darker series still can fit the genre.

Of course, there are many other characteristics of BL that Only Friends exhibits and opposes - I could be here forever if I wanted to list every single one, but we have less than a week until episode one, and personally, I want to watch the trailer a thousand more times before Saturday. So hopefully these examples gave you enough of an idea that Only Friends sort of straddles the line of BL (but also that BL itself is incredibly difficult to define, especially as it continues to evolve).

What about the LGBTQ+ genre - can Only Friends better be defined by this? Likely, yes, but my answer is so because the LGBTQ+ genre itself is even vaguer than BL.

(Some even argue that it isn't a genre at all. That's a post for another time.)

Shows labeled as LGBTQ+ are often done so because of a few defining characteristics, usually occurring at the same time: the show features LGBTQ+ characters, depicts LGBTQ+ themes (coming-of-age, acceptance, found family, etc), and is broadly accepted as such by the queer community. Only Friends certainly does the first two, but the third might be a bit trickier than it seems. With the divide between the LGBTQ+ and BL genres, some audiences will argue it fits one over the other.

And perhaps there are some important differences: the LGBTQ+ genre exists on an international scale, with media added to the queer canon from all over the world. Comparatively, I'm not sure I can think of a show outside of Asia that has been labeled as a BL. The LGBTQ+ genre does tend to be more diverse in gender and sexuality than the typical gay male leads in BL, too - BL does stand specifically for Boys' Love while LGBTQ+ encompasses any form of queerness.

But if we're focusing on these standards, I think Only Friends checks these boxes as well. The show seems to clearly be a test for a less conservative international market. And it is more diverse than just gay male leads; Namchueam is sapphic, Jojo has indicated that Ray is bisexual, and Yo is played by Jennie, a trans woman. Sure, there can always be more diversity, but this is absolutely a step forward compared to past, and many current, GMMTV series.

After positioning Only Friends next to the BL genre, then the LGBTQ+ genre, I would love to be able to make a judgment and wrap this all up in a neat little bow.

Actually, that's a lie. I don't want to do that - I am the complicated film theorist I was talking about before. So, it's a good thing I can't, isn't it?

Ultimately, Only Friends is a show that is here to break boundaries, to subvert expectations, to give us something we've never seen before in Thai, or maybe even international, entertainment. It would be an injustice to the series to try to put it in a box, to ignore its little nuances out of convenience.

It doesn't matter whether Only Friends is a BL or LGBTQ+ drama. We should be looking at the show holistically, taking it in as it is rather than through the lens of the things we come to expect from a specific genre. Genre can be useful, yes, but we can't get too held up on applying it where it may not be productive.

And yet (plot twist!), it sort of... does matter? It matters, not in the sense of changing what the show is, but changing the way we perceive and discuss it. The implications that come with a BL series are different than those of an LGBTQ+ series, even though both genres are difficult to define and are ever-changing.

The conversations we have about how innovative Only Friends is, its place in Asian versus international culture, whether it can be considered a success or not, if it's "good" representation and who gets to decide that... all of that is a product of the genre we label a series with. And I'm not really here to argue whether that is a good or a bad thing; like I said, genre can be useful, and fun - there's a reason specific genres remain popular! What I hope this post sparks is external and internal conversation about why we label, and how that might do a service and/or disservice to the media we engage with. Think about the way that you, personally, want to interact with Only Friends and shows like it, accept it, and then challenge it.

[yukidragon]

I remember a while ago there was discussion about how if Y/N has period cramps Jack may be able to feel them-I’m just confused on if that’s actually canon or not. Was it ever confirmed or disproven?

From what I've been informed, additional content is only counted as canon if it appears on an official website such as the Sunny Day Jack tumblr, twitter, itch, steam, kickstarter, or patreon pages. That means that any comments or art drawn by anyone on the SnaccPop Studios team posted on their personal socials shouldn't be taken as canon. It might be just someone playing around with concepts, or it might be ideas in development since the game is still being worked on.

We also can't rule out the possibility of silly shitposts just for the fun of it. Even VN creators need to have fun cutting loose with their stories and characters after all.

As such, the comment that Jack can feel MC's period pain or that he gets drunk whenever they are should be taken with a grain of salt. It hasn't been explicitly proven yet, nor has it ever been explicitly disproven.

I'm sorry that I can't give you a definitive answer on this point. I don't know the answer myself at this time. I only have personal theories on the topic, which I've touched on here, here, and here, and my headcanons that I apply for my fanfiction.

While we're on this topic, I want to remind everyone why I call these posts headcanon ramblings. Discussions here are typically about what I think about a certain topic, what I theorize is going on, and particularly for my headcanons as they apply to the Sunshine in Hell continuity and its various AUs.

If there is canon information, I do my best to link to the official sources, such as the websites I mentioned above, or I'll give a direct quote from the official source like the demo.

Oh, and speaking of quotes, I'd like to make mention that while I have written up transcripts for audio from the demo or publicly posted audio dramas in the past, keep in mind that they might not be entirely accurate, as I am not an official source, and I suffer from an auditory processing disorder that might make me mishear some things.

Remember, I'm just a silly, chatty fan writing out my fun rambling thoughts about this game that has captured my heart and imagination. I fully encourage everyone to look at official sources for themselves and come up with their theories and headcanons to things that haven't been proven yet. I love seeing the ideas others in the fandom come up with. Some people have come up with brilliant thoughts that totally changed my perspective on some of my past theories.

So, back to the original topic about whether Jack feels Y/N's period cramps - I have not seen it confirmed or disproven on any official source at this time. Sorry, but all we have are headcanons and theories at the moment... unless I missed something, which is also a possibility.

If anyone comes across official information that proves or disproves any of my theories, please by all means send me the link. I'm just as eager you are to learn more about this game's engaging story. ��

@channydraws @earthgirlaesthetic @sai-of-the-7-stars @cheriihoney @illary-kore @okamiliqueur

[carnivoured]

it’s so disappointing how people will look at an art post and comment things like “kms” or even something rude just because the artist has very detailed art. they are real people.

especially when the artist is foreign. sometimes the translation isn’t accurate and people always get the wrong idea. At least once a week I see art go viral on twitter and their comments are flooded with the most useless people known to man and I have to wonder what kind of rotten sperm did these people come from to be so idiotic and inconsiderate.

there’s an art gaining popularity from a foreign artist and english speakers are being so rude just for using the word “sketch” being used in their post. not only does it not matter at all what word they use to label their art THE TRANSLATION DOESNT SEEM TO BE ACCURATE or with the same meaning??? it’s sickening to have such wonderful art work have rude commenters that absolutely reek. it truly puzzles me how you can treat another person in such a way

[butterflies-and-bumble-bees]

6 and 9 for the book ask game

6. What book would you change the end of?

Moriarty by Anthony Horowitz - there is a twist ending that (I at least felt) was completely out of the blue and only there for shock value. it drove me crazy (also they killed one of my favourite characters)

..............................................................................................................................

9. Have you attempted to write a book or something? What?

I have like 5 writing WIPs atm

Ones that I actually have done some amount of work on:

The dystopian story I posted an excerpt from back in December, for the inklings challenge. ~ My word doc for the story, including the excerpt from the inklings challenge, currently has 2933 words. ~ I also have two more documents: one with a detailed outline, and another with character/world-building notes.

A short story I wrote a first draft for, about a little girl who gets lost while on a hike with her family and receives help from an unlikely source. ~ As I never finished typing up my handwritten draft I have no idea how many words

My dimension/time travel story. It kinda dips into a bunch of different genres including several flavors of scifi, fantasy, mystery, and more I can't think of rn. ~ I have written out multiple outlines/timelines for this story, (and made several Pinterest boards) to try and help me wrap my head around what happens/wrestle it into a narrative that makes sense to people who are not me.

A unfinished short story about Ni Ban, the Irish mermaid princess who became a saint. I hope to write a collection of short saint stories for children in the vein of Once Upon A Time Saints by Ethel Pochaki. But this is the only one I've begun work on for it so far. ~ My working draft currently has about 500 words

The Cow, an as of now completed short story I wrote about the traveling theatre troupe from the Comedia Del Arte plays my theatre group did. It's kind of a slice of life story about one of the many misadventures this group of wanna-be dnd bards encounters. ~ It's just about 1000 words. ~ I might post it if anyone's interested.

Ones I have living min my brain rent free

The (short?) story I came up with the basics of a few days ago. It's set in the western frontier. (Or a steampunk version of it {I'm not sure if I wanna go the historically accurate/or historical fantasy route just yet})

Another concept I just came up with that's essentially my version of the Twitter ARG gr3gory88, cause I watched the episode of creepcast about it and they came up with a bunch of different variations of the story that I wanted to explore. ~ I have at least 2 or 3 versions/ways the story could go rn. Part of this is cause I can see a few different approaches being taken by different protagonists. It also depends on how close one wishes to follow the gr3gory88 story. (I basically have a punnet square with protags on one side and different plots on the other).

[milkypiggybeans]

8 and 17 for the askgame? :D

8. How would you describe your artstyle?

kare why would you make me do this. (/lh) I genuinely don’t know? I guess I render with a painterly style, and I fluctuate between using lineart and not. I wouldn’t describe my style as cartoonish but it’s also not realistic, and I’m not sure if there’s a word for something in the middle. I tend to go for warm, vivid colors, which were once described to me as “heavy” which seems accurate. that’s all I got lol hope that works!

17. Your personal favorite works of art (not made by you) are…?

ohh this is a good one! but also very hard! I’m gonna limit myself to 6 and I’m gonna try to get in as many different mediums/kinds of art as possible. I’m also gonna stay away from any hermitcraft/life series fanartists cause there’s too many to choose from i can’t

1. Digital art: off the top of my head this has got to be one of my favorites! i just think it’s absolutely gorgeous. honorable mention is this drawing by bdubs it’s so good

2. Painting: I visited the Musée d’Orsay and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s work on cardboard really amazed me! I don’t remember a specific work I liked the most but I’ll list him as one of my favorite painters. Very interesting guy in general I’d recommended reading his wikipedia article

3. Sculpture (installation): I discovered this work by Walter De Maria while doing research for a class and I love it so much. here’s a post i made about it lol

4. Animation: I mean I know this is an obvious one but Into and Across the Spiderverse are just incredible. they have to be on this list it’s just no contest

5. Writing: My favorite book is so hard to choose but I think I have to go with Slaughterhouse 5. Great book about WWII, death, and time travel. It’s described as a dark comedy and is an incredible novel with some really thought provoking ideas. I’d 100% recommend it, it remains relevant 50 years after it was written

6. Other: Idk what medium this counts as and I talk about it often on twitter but 17776 (what football will look like in the future) is genuinely one of my favorite things ever I think about it all the time. kare I know you’ve read it but if whoever else is reading this hasn’t, PLEASE do it’s a speculative fiction piece about human nature and I love it so much

[multitrackdrifting]

my thoughts on how AI Art is bad

you could write thousands of words about parameter refinement through AI Art, but it will never be famous for anything but destroying art hosting websites, selling commissions generated via AI & becoming the next scourge after NFT art theft

i don't care about the potential good uses of it (e.g. generate an icon for a dnd campaign nobody but you and your friends will see), if the line has already been crossed and no implementation of ethics guidelines or better programming is going to stop the scourge. for every one person looking to create something interesting and meaningful with ai are 99 opportunities looking to profit from it whether they sell commissions that they didn't draw, they sell piecemeal access to the generators or even more obviously they create NFTs with AI art trained on someone's style and then profit from it.

i'm not intrigued by first year philosophy student arguments about whether its real art or whatever the fuck, the negative implications are already observed (see: deviantart, twitter and pixiv being overrun by novelAI). shit is ass because it relies on the users to be honourable and ethical in their usage, because of how open-ended the technology often is and the idea couldn't be any clearer than that. and for some people, as long as they can produce a funny or novel outcome it's fine. i thought the initial dall-e stuff was funny cause you could render random characters into an elder scrolls game, but this latest shit is just so slimy with how it can accurately replicate people's artstyles against their wishes. its how they get you, once the novelty wears off, you become cognizant of jsut how dangerous the technology is - it wont replace traditional or digital art as a whole, but it cheapens the medium tremendously by drowning out people that would already struggle to be visible in the current art landscape with "here's this genshin character i like being put in every position xD generated by my AI"

the volume of artworks flooding pixiv and deviant art is kinda funny, and god help you if you're training your skills only to have your posts buried by a shit load of spam uploads.

[cheer-soli-art]

It was a good year for art

Commentary for each artwork under the cut :D

February - biblically accurate bam - This was back when the jokes of ‘biblically accurate (insert noun here)’ had really hit mainstream, or maybe I just finally got inspiration to do something about this topic. Since Bam is the night, I added the usual night symbols of moons and stars. The waves at the bottom represent how the tides change with the cycle of the moon, and it ties in well with the idea of Bam being a ‘new wave’ in the Tower.

February - biblically accurate bam - This was back when the jokes of ‘biblically accurate (insert noun here)’ had really hit mainstream, or maybe I just finally got inspiration to do something about this topic. Since Bam is the night, I added the usual night symbols of moons and stars. The waves at the bottom represent how the tides change with the cycle of the moon, and it ties in well with the idea of Bam being a ‘new wave’ in the Tower.

March - double city - An artwork that I haven’t released anywhere on the internet until today, as it was part of a school exhibition. The idea behind it was taking the place I grew up in and the city I lived in at the time and merging them into one location, representing how I am influenced by both cultures.

April - Marpril Colors Series - 17 Azure - This was a series of sketches I did over March and April, as a countdown for my return from Tower’s Tale (TT) hiatus. During these months, I was busy with school stuff and working on TT, so I didn’t have much time or desire to make other artworks.

May - Part 1_Page 201 - I started working on this TT page in December of the previous year, as the scene this page is a part of was important for me (oh, and the plot too). I was still practicing a new style, and though I don’t like it as much now, I still think it was worth the experimentation.

June - yanfei.jpg - This one was part of a Six Fanart Challenge that I never finished. Whoops. Anyways, I drew her because she’s the character that I’ve played with the most. I’m really proud of how I was able to capture most of the details, especially that staff, haha.

July - KBWday5.PNG - Ah, yes. The KhunBam month, where I spend 3 weeks thinking about what to post only for me to procrastinate on it until KhunBam Week arrives. I like this artwork because it’s where I finally started using references (lol), as well as understanding more organic backgrounds.

August - glitterandgold_01 - One of the two artworks I made for a WIP Big Bang. This is also the first artwork of the entire year that I finished on my laptop instead of my phone, as I had lost my stylus and only bought a new one around this time. I like that I was able to carry the dramatic mood from the sketch to the final version.

September - Part 1_Page 237 - There wasn’t a lot of artwork activity this month, apart from TT, so here is another page I’m really proud of. I wanted to communicate the overwhelming difference in power between the characters, so the pages before have a lot of open paneling and negative space that progressively build up to this one, which covers nearly the entire background in green. The frame around Goseng and Bam is actually the same proportions as the usual page border, but shrunken, to make it look like the fire was spreading beyond the edges of the page, to really emphasize the probable helplessness Bam is feeling in the situation… Sometimes, a lot of thought goes into these pages.

October - kitsune khun - This is a drawing I made for a raffle winner on Twitter. I included it here because this and the other artworks I made that week felt like they ‘clicked’. They were the ones that all the process from previous artworks were leading up to - finally I had an artwork that I was very satisfied with, where the process was fun and the final result was pretty to look at too. I’m a huge fan of using complementary colors, especially orange lighting and blue shadows..

November - Snow Study (gasp) - I don’t do studies as often as I should, so this one came as a surprise. I save a lot of images from Bing’s daily wallpaper, and since the cold weather was coming, I painted this chilly town with one as a reference. I also wanted to update my blog so it matched my current style, so this was drawn for that reason too.

December - ‘Polaroid’ mini series - “with hyung.png” - This is one of four artworks I made in a ‘polaroid photo’ style. I really like that aesthetic. There is something very nostalgic and deep about it - capturing a moment you deem important. Taking the context of polaroids and film into account, you don’t have the luxury to take various copies of a moment and pick the right one afterwards like we do nowadays, so ideally you’d want everything to be perfectly in place and extremely important before you press the shutter. And yet, in these ‘photos’, the moments captured are not of grandiose events or life-changing moments, but of casual, daily life. I wanted to appreciate the ordinary in this small series. Maybe I’ll revisit it next year.

Bonus round

There were a few artworks that didn’t make the cut, but I still wanted to talk about them. So here they are.

“A summoning ritual (that worked a little too well)” - This is where I started the habit of drawing genshin characters when I wanted them on my team. Though this one is a little rough around the edges, I still like the colors and texture of the artwork.

“met gala hwar” - I was watching a video talking about how the Gilded Gala was a disaster (unsurprisingly), and one of the looks that went by (as examples of what worked) caught my eye. So I drew Hwaryun in it.

“Part 1_Page 216.PNG” - I have a very consistent system for numbering pages - just thought you might wanna know. I didn’t count this one in the final cut because some of the panels here were from pages drawn last year, so I felt that I was cheating a bit. There is a lot of thought behind this particular panel, but I will discuss that one when I release the full cleaned-up version sometime in the next few months.

“a precious jewel” - This artwork means a lot to me. Though it was rather quick (done under an hour, curse my comic panel habits), a lot of ‘feeling’ went into it. I think that out of all of the artworks, this is the one where I’m pouring what I’m actually feeling at the moment - I can’t quite put it into words here (as it is a little awkward, and I’m afraid of things getting lost in translation too), but I’ll try. I think that for that hour, I understood where Khun was getting at with the jewel metaphor, but rather than wanting to hide someone away, it was more of wanting to keep those feelings close to my heart… that kind of thing.

“Bleak December_07” - My entry for Secret Santa this year. Just thought I’d include it. I signed up to an email address sending Edgar Allen Poe’s works, and was floored by The Raven, so the title and tone of this short comic reflect that too.

“fall for you, fall for me” - i like khunbam. and i like autumn, now. i like coloring khun’s hair, ‘cuz its color can look so different under different lightings. it’s a simple and easygoing artwork. i like simple and easygoing things sometimes too.