#i should draw more real mom fanart

[televenus]

m3 on the mind..

[ohshi-kaboom]

Murder Drones Rider Au + Uzi fanart

Or should i say... Murder Drive AU HEHEHEHE

This lovely amalgamation was made by yours truly when putting murder drones and pretty bikes on a blender hoping for something fancy. And i did it.

The mechanics are simple! (Haha get it? Mechanics)

Uzi is a moody mechanic (i will get real tired of the word mechanic and so will you.) Working in your local Auto shop: Copper's 9 ! Owned by daddy dearest Khan Doorman! She mostly does repairs and common car maintenance, aaand if she decides she likes you well enough you'll get some neat modifications for half the price! (Its a lie but only she knows that)

In her free time she stays around the back of the store repairing and selling old cars as a hobby that also doubles as a side hustle.

Her life in home isn't as sweet as she would hope for but she's learned to cope, something that she specializes in after her Moms disappearance; Nori Doorman, presumed dead.

Shes the only occupant of a nice little apartment, moving from their parents house a few years after Nori's disappearance and Khan's neglect. Rarely visited by anyone she stays little time in her apartment, either watching anime after a tiring day, eating lunch, showering after a messy oil spill or just existing after closing hours. Youll definitely see her more at the shop doing gods knows what this time. The reson why Uzi doesn't spend more time in the little home shes built herself is because of the atmosphere, too cold and gloomy for her liking, the barren space reminding her too much of her loneliness.

("She looks soo much like Uzi" you all say in unison.)

Nathaniel, or best known as "N" is a Bike racer, youll see him proudly sporting his various motorcycles all earned by his sweat, hard work, and money from illegal races.

N has and incredible set of bad luck, following him like a stubborn rain cloud with every single bike he touches breaking down at some point. No matter how much he dotes over them or how carefull he is; they will break. And thats a promise from the universe, aparently.

He lives in a fairly big house with his other two roommates: Jay, "J" and Veronica, "V". They all participate in their own races, N and V competing frequently while J sits back and collects their winnings. J also participates in rare ocations.

When N is not flying through the streets, or winning the months rent he resides in his little corner of the garage painting, drawing, scrap booking or doing whatever craft he can get his hands onto.

(I will probably add more on N later on)

N and Uzi meet when Ns bike breaks in "the middle of nowhere" according to V, so he just sits quietly besides the road waiting for either backup (V showing up to rescue him after cackling over the phone and then hanging up) or to simply perish. Uzi was heading to the workshop in Railgun (a very beat up, highly modified but very loved minitruck that she herself constructed from other cars parts) When she came across a very puppy kicked to the side of the road sad looking person laying down besides the road by a very nice looking motorcycle. She slows down to take a quick peek to the bike when the person laying down jumps immediately at her side after noticing her slowing down, begging asking for a ride to the closest Auto shop explaining how his bike broke. Uzi (although very begrudgingly) decides to help this weird friendly stranger as her good deed of the year. She parks to the side of the road helping N heave the bike into the trunk and waits until he hops into the passenger seat to begin their way to Copper's 9.

After Fixing N's bike (and getting a tip she will not complain about) She gives the rundown on what the problem of the bike was and how to avoid it. N thanks her (a little too much if you ask Uzi) and parts ways. Uzi not dwelling about it goes on to the rest of her day, not thinking about seeing N again anytime soon.

Not even a week later N shows up again with another bike, this one looking like it went into the devils asscrack and back. Uzi just gives him a glare and gets to work.

That is NOT the last time that happens. (She counts 12 visits in one month, what the hell N?)

So! This is the basic information about my silly little Au, i don't have a name for it yet, I have been calling it Murder Drive for gits and shiggles but i don't know if I should make it the official name of this Au, if you have any suggestions tell me about it!

And I've been thinking about making it a fic buuut I've never written anything lengthy before, and English is not my first language so you can imagine how I feel.

Do tell me how you feel about it, or if you have any asks send 'em my way!

ALSO! THIS IS A HUMAN AU!! YAYAY HUMANS‼️‼️

[dropthedemiurge]

Last Twilight Episode 10 Reaction

I wasn't even going to write my own posts of LT but this episode just delivered punch after punch! I couldn't help but comment, so–

I love to see Jimmy and Mark using their dramatic acting microexpressions attacks on my heart, i'm bleeding but I'm fascinated. Sea has grown a lot and acts so believable, I want to praise him. But damn, maybe it's because I actually remember Jimmy and Mark since Bad Buddy, the contrast is huge here. Jimmy also does that thing with the jaw that makes him look more manly and mature, none of the young and mischeivous Wai, in Vice Versa he also didn't reach this level of complexity, I think we all should bow to P'Aof & team for leading him.

I know I should be talking about Day who isn't crying while his family is devastated (he knew and was prepared and felt comfortable as long as he had Mork, they were not prepared) but I am biased... The way Night didn't even dare to touch Day when he wanted to comfort him at doctor office Т_Т And how later, at the dinner table he looked with such disbelief, and hesitantly started teasing Day as sibling again when Day reached out Т_т And how for months he felt he deserved to be silent, torn apart and uncomfortable, yelled at and judged for not taking care of his brother properly.

Noo, my heart!

But also Day and Mork, of course, the way Day bravely said "The last thing I saw in my life was his face", and Mork said "I'm sorry" and I can understand the mom going "you crossed over all lines with ny son, get out of my house", and it's probably huge red HR violation but Jimmy's big teary eyes aaaaah how could she not fold? I saw some comments on tumblr about the show not calling out her being abusive and everything, but I strongly disagree and I think it all makes sense. The strong single mom, the asian family, the unwanted oppression and self-misery that finally cracked during Christmas dinner – I could probably write my view on this in another post but who cares.

Dhskajvs I love how Porjai and Night are "patpraning" Mork and Day, like they are setting up plans to look like accidents just for two undestined lovebirds to be able to sneak out on a date from the parent who shouldn't know about it, very PatPran behavior xD Only friends are the one making it work xD

That's the face of a man giggling because he just declared himself a father and a future husband on his own (oh their mom is going to have a heart attack but who cares). "That's my child" - look at the sky, this night is so freaking green~ I'd say the real winner of that marathon was Night, Day maybe got a medal and a boyfriend but Night got a girl and a kid! xD His confidence is hot, but also I wouldn't hesitate a second as well if I saw Porjai available to be loved, I mean look at her! What a treasure.

I can't believe I was so on board and rooting for a hetero couple in a BL since the very first second but they are still going too damn strong. I love them. I shall draw a fanart.

Omg, pop-up books shout-out in a BL! First time seeing this. Okay, Day and Mork are freaking cute, I usually lose interest when characters start dating but they are so damn adorable and in their happy bubble here! Smiling and goofy Jimmy is all I need in this economy.

Master Aon is slaying on a dance floor, this actor is honestly stealing the show and I love it for him... I like how he shows being advanced and comfortable as visually impaired person in relationship with a girl that can see, the calling out and gestures and the comfort.

P'Aof and his damn heartwarming community scenes, first with MLC and now here, I knew what I walked in and still wasn't prepared for all the EmOtiOns<3

Promoting Oishii as one of the color paints is very creative but all it makes me think of is a VERY relatable situation with actual artists who put tea cup and water for paint on the same table... Yeah xD

Also, sniff kisses are so cute, fight me, westerns.

Lmao, Day even drew Jimmy's poor 5 o'clock shade above the lips fvsjakjahk I wonder which one of the staffs drew it, or was it actually Sea? No matter what, I bet this person had a lot of fun anyway :D

Okay, THERE ARE MORE SCENES THAT MAKE ME ALMOST CRY Poor Night, he was so unloved and judged in this family for a year, I will actually fight everyone to give him his own special beef stew.

He was going to distance himself out of guilt as a self punishment and feelings of 'the hero is here, the villain should vanish' supported by both people closest to him, but Day insisted he's a family and he should stay, reminding their mother of it… Oh no. So many feelings.

Again, it deserves another post. Where I talk about how Night feels like such a man, a protective adult who changed and is able and actively wants to take care of dear people, but who looks and feels like a small punished kid in his own family house. Day too, btw, but he hasn't found as much confidence as he struggles with blindness as well.

But I loved that family having fun scene. I loved it so much. That family trying out cake eating blindly was so nice, oozing of happiness. The curse of misery deserves to be broken, and the kids are the one breaking it, as usual. Mother should remember what's really important - her and her kids happiness, not control that's led by fear. But it's not easy. This is why this scene is so important, and filled with happy and relieved tears. Tbh I didn't feel like P'Aof glossed over the mother-son conflict, it's just that the narration feels... I don't wanna say more asian, it might be different from the sort of justice/revenge what some of the people wanted to see. I understand it and it hits home.

Oh I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING, P'AOF!

Something tells me in a very loud way that this operation won't go well, look at Sea's face! The scene just screams "I still can't see anything". It would be such a P'Aof type of teaser as well, give hope and then trick into the opposite. I can't imagine him actually getting his vision cured. I'll fight myself if that's what actually happens in the next episode. It's a great way to show that you should just keep enooying life instead of regretting the cure.

[yinza]

Updated commission info! All prices listed in USD.

Flat Color: $65 for half-body, $85 for full-body

Full Color: $95 for half-body, $130 for full-body

Lineless Painting: $125 for half-body, $170 for full-body

A discount of 20% or more may apply to additional characters. Complex designs may increase the price.

Please contact me via email at yinza@yinza.com!

Additional details under the cut. You can send me an ask if you have any general questions, but please submit serious inquiries by email!

When you contact me, please provide the following:

For fan art: the full names of characters and their fandoms

For OCs: a simple description, e.g., “a human woman in plate armor”

A brief description of the interaction (kissing, riding a bike, etc) and any background elements

Your desired style (e.g., full-body flat color, etc). If there are specific pictures in my gallery that you like, please tell me! This is especially helpful, and I’m happy to give price quotes for styles that don’t quite fit my commission examples.

Any deadlines you may have; I will let you know whether or not I can meet them.

If you need specific dimensions, let me know! By default I work at 2550x3300px (8.5x11″).

If you would prefer your commission to remain private, please let me know up-front.

Once I accept the commission, you should be ready to provide reference images and details about character expressions and poses, etc.

I WILL draw:

Fandom characters, including those from fandoms I am unfamiliar with.

OCs and fandom OCs, including OC x canon character pairings. If you have no art/reference sheets, I can work from descriptions. Just please don’t give me their life story, only what’s visually relevant!

Anthro, armor, mecha, animals - these are all fine, but more complicated designs may increase the price.

Real people that you personally know, e.g., you and your friend hanging out or a portrait of your mom.

I will NOT draw:

Crisis Core fanart.

Anything of a sexual nature, including fetish art of fully-clothed characters. I will consider waist-up nudity provided it is not sexualized.

Excessive violence or gore.

Anything bigoted or mean-spirited towards real people.

I reserve the right to decline a commission for any reason.

Payment

I use Square invoices to request payment. Accepted payment methods include: credit/debit, Apple Pay, Google Pay, or ACH. No Square account is required.

I accept payment up-front. I will not begin work until I have received payment. I may accept partial payment up-front for commissions of $200 or more, but you will not receive the completed piece until it has been paid in full.

Copyright & Sharing

By commissioning me, you are purchasing my services. You may share the completed commission with attribution, but you may NOT use it to sell prints or otherwise turn a profit. If you would like to purchase the rights to use my artwork commercially, I will require a written contract and it will affect the price.

Otherwise, I retain copyright over the work, and may choose to post it on my portfolio and social media. I will not post artwork of real people without permission from the subject(s).

How It Works

You email me with a commission request.

I will confirm whether or not I can take on the project, and may ask clarifying questions about your request. (I typically respond within a few days, so if you don’t hear back, check your spam filter!)

Once I have a clear understanding of what you want, I will provide you with a price quote and an estimated completion date.

If you agree to the price, I will then send you an invoice.

You pay the invoice.

Depending on the complexity of the piece, I will send you at least one WIP so that you can confirm the work is progressing according to your wishes.

Once I have completed your commission, I will send you the finished artwork.

At this point, you may request minor tweaks to the artwork, but I will not make any major changes.

[bobbybutterfly]

You know what. I chose to draw something completely different from what I usually post here. I kind of feel like I’m pigeon holing myself by only posting on here what I know other people will respond to. Not getting new people who respond to different things. Thus I decided to take the plunge today and draw fanart of the 2000s web icons, the Zodiac Girlz.

I have no nostalgia for them as I was born in 2005. But I watched the Li Speaks video on them and was like free real estate ya’ll. Off to draw some redesigns and make rewrites. Mainly of the more problematic ones. Such as the Gemini twins. This is tumblr after all baby. For real though there was a comment on the video that inspired me to remake them.

So the problems with the original ones are that they wear school uniforms although none of the other girls do, their superpower is telepathy so they don’t communicate with anyone other then themselves and they don’t even get different names to separate them. In the video Li suggested to give them a different superpower and separate personalities. And the comment that got me to draw them suggested their superpower should be cloning.

There’s only one real Gemini in my illustration and that is the loose blue bow one. The purple eyeball one is her clone. The way clones work in my rewrite is that they’re pretty much meat puppets Gemini moves around with her mind. Everyone who sees them assumes they’re twins. Thus Gemini.

Gemini is from China. She moved to the US when she was 10. Her parents divorced and her mom moved there. Gemini had great difficulty learning English so she got homeschooled. Even though she’s now 15 and intermediate in English she still refuses to speak it outside of when it’s necessary. Like a 911 call. She doesn’t talk in mandarin either because only her mom can understand her. So everyone thinks she’s just mute.

She created her clone out of a deep sense of loneliness. The clone itself isn’t sentient. As I said. It’s a meat puppet. Non the less she made up a personality for it. The clone is a fun loving, extroverted prankster. The opposite of her. Gemini is a pessimistic introvert that’s obsessively studying every chance she gets. She wants to be a journalist one day. Occasionally she writes a gossip blog under a pseudonym. Kind of like Lady Whistledown from Bridgerton. She of course rigorously spell and grammar checks it before putting online. Like I should do with my tumblr posts LOL.

Originally I thought her clone would disappear as she becomes a part of the Zodiac Girlz friend group. But now I think her clone should slowly become her own person. After all Gemini are supposed to be twins.

Lastly I want to mention that Gemini is a code name. She’s a crime fighting superhero after all. She uses her clone as a distraction. Additionally she can use her clone to get to out of reach places as she can make it fly. I suppose she could also make it carry her and fly, but not very far as the clone isn’t very strong.

And that’s it ya’ll. If you yourself are a Chinese person who immigrated to America I would love to hear your opinion on my rewrite of Gemini. I am a white European so I might be ignorant of some things. And also if you just like what I did with Gemini then comment. I just love getting responses LOL.

[steamworksfairy]

For the fandom ask thing: 1, 15 & 16 🎤

Thank you for the ask!!! 💚

1) Otp?

Verde/Everyone

I'll be real, I don't have a true otp for khr. I like too many characters, and Verde never had enough interactions with other characters for me to gravitate towards someone in specific. I do enjoy a lot of Verde/Arco content with Skull/Verde being a tried and true classic. But Reborn/Verde is also so good, and Fon/Verde-

You see what I mean? If I had a true second favorite character, this wouldn't happen. Amano made too many good characters!! But yeah, if you mention a Verde ship to me, chances are I ship it.

15) Have you noticed your style change over time?

I'll answer this for both art and writing!!

The simple answer is yes to both.

Art wise---I've seen so much improvement! I'm actually trying to actively develop an art style. Turns out learning anatomy really does help. Which is crazy because I've only been trying to improve for a year, and the growth I've had is phenomenal!!! I've actually noticed that I'll do this thing in my head where the right way to draw a line so I can draw x thing will just come to me. And I've developed an art beast!!! Whenever I doubt myself, this guy will pop up and tell me,'Shut up, keep going,this is good shit!!!' It's actually more aggressive than that, but I love that I'm developing something to combat perfectionism.

Writing wise---I went from terrible to omg I'm a genius to I'm rusty as hell...so there's definitely been some change lol 😅

I know I'll get to a place in my writing where I am satisfied again. I just need to start writing more. On the upside, I am writing something that I find to be really fun. I keep spaming one of the servers I'm in with my live blogging of it because I can not contain how insane I am over what I'm working on right now. It's so good!!!

16) Do people irl know you participate in fandom?

They do! My family knows I write fanfics and draw fanart. I don't share any of my writings with my family (I'm too embarrassed lmao) but they have seen my fanart. My mom, in particular, has said she wants to see my original stuff again. She says, and I quote, " It's better than whoever designed what you're currently drawing." She went on to give the tried and true mom response of 'My child's art is the best thing in the world. No one compares.' And then asked me to draw my ocs again.

And she's right. I really should, but Verde has a hold on me and refuses to let go. Maybe one day I'll be able to draw ocs again. Maybe one day.

[daydreamerfox]

Hi! I have a few things I wanna say! It's all under the cut so it won't occupy too much space, also, please enjoy this cute fanart of Layla, my child who I relate to way more than I wish I did

Maybe you’ve noticed that I've been kinda quiet the past few weeks… or months… Well, there’s a reason for that. At first I wasn't motivated at all to keep working with art, I mean, let's be real here, it's not really the easiest thing to work with... and we all know that. That fact plus not having my own computer to work whenever I want can lead to a lot of frustration. Feeling like drawing, but not being able to because of many reasons outside of my control can make my motivation vanish really quickly. I’m sure a lot of you can vouch for me on that, artist or not.

The thing is: I have been trying to keep going besides that, because "it's just a phase, things will get better, I just need to push past it" to a point where it was just bad for me in general and completely unhealthy.

I was avoiding drawing as much as I could and, when I did draw, I wasn't as productive as I wanted to be, because I kept getting distracted with everything else, procrastinating it as much as I could without realizing it, which would just lead to more and more frustration with myself.

I felt like I was falling behind, I wasn’t being able to post as frequently as I wanted to, so I thought maybe finishing Illustrations quickly was the way to go, but that would lead to me wanting to draw whatever and even then not being happy with the results. When I was happy with it it just didn’t get the attention I was expecting it to get, which just made me frustrated again and made me try to push myself even more, even though I didn’t have the tools I needed to finish any art piece on the time I decided to do it or I’d just pull all nighters just to get something done.

Whenever I thought of strategies of how to fix my problem I just felt lost. I knew where I wanted to get, what I wanted for myself, but I didn’t know what I should do to get there, I couldn’t get to a conclusion about it no matter what I tried. It just felt like I was doing a lot of work, but with no direction and it just made me be stuck at the same place, which would just tire and stress me instead of giving me any gratification

It got to a point where I genuinely thought about giving up working with art for good. If it was so bad for me, why would I keep trying, right? Maybe I should just try to find something I could work with instead, something that wouldn’t stress me so much, but I have to admit that just thinking about that possibility made me so anxious! Imagine myself not creating something as a career, not working on getting my comic done, not making my ocs be known, not creating art for games, it all just filled me with anxiety.

I wasn’t sure what to do anymore. Continue working in the way I was working was just tiring me, stressing me and just being terrible for me in so many different ways, but at the same time I know I need to do it for my mental health. I need to vent out, I need to express myself and the easiest way for me is through my art!

All I could think of the entire time was that I wanted my mom to still be here and help me find out what I should do!

It was a terrible weekend where I was thinking about it nonstop and wondering what to do and what path I should take. I was trying to organize my bedroom to at least try to keep my head occupied with something else for a moment, and then I found an old notebook where my mom wrote something for me and along with many things she wrote:

“Never give up on your dreams. Know that sometimes they don’t come true in the time we want because there’s always the right time for it to happen”

It might not seem much for you but this sentense alone kind of made everything click for me. It was just the one thing I needed, the advice from my mother I was looking for.

I think it’s important to say that I didn’t feel better right away, but at least I knew I couldn’t give up like I was thinking about doing. When my friends asked me what would be my decision, I still wasn’t sure, but I knew I couldn’t and I wouldn’t give up, so I wanted to try at least one last time…

Honestly I wanted to start working on it right away but I caught a cold right after I had that decision. I guess that was something else I needed: Time for me to plan out what I would do, rest, allow my body and brain to breath for a moment and not feel bad about it, just respect myself and not worry about being late for something I wasn’t late for. I shouldn't strain my body and I'm trying to understand that still. It’s not easy.

While I didn’t feel well enough to work I took a few classes on how to do what I’m planning to work on and, while that didn’t answer all my questions, at least that helped me a lot on knowing what path I should take to get to my goal. I know it won’t be easy, I know it won’t be quick, but knowing what I need to do to get there is enough for me not to be as anxious about running in circles trying to get somewhere. Even if sometimes I still get scared thinking about that possibility.

Ever since then I’ve been trying to organize myself, I’m documenting it, making a few vlogs (It’s in portuguese, but I can subtitle it for the people who can’t speak portuguese, if you guys want it). I’m planning on talking about what’s working for me and what isn’t, what are my thoughts about this process and what I wanna keep doing or not. Maybe some of it might help someone who’s struggling like I was, and if it does, then I’ll already be happy.

Making videos like that is something new for me, so it might take a bit long for now, but I want to make something nice for everyone. I’ll also write down my thoughts about it, post it here and on my other social media (I’ll try to make something kinda regular, but I’m still thinking about how often I’ll do it.) I know not everyone enjoy watching videos and sometimes can focus better on reading things and either way that’s a way for myself to organize my thoughts. I’ll write it down anyway, the difference is that I’ll post it and hopefully help someone.

I might add a few WIPs here and there, but it’ll mostly be focused on my organization and my journey to become the artist I wanna be.

I’ve also found a notion template that is actually working for me and I’m able to organize all the posts for different platforms I was so desperately trying to make (it's easier to keep track of everything if they’re in just one plae and it’s easier to reschedule things if they’re digital)

It’ll be a long way, I know that, but I’m glad I haven’t given up yet and you guys are more than welcome to join me, if you want to! I'll love to share this with you and know what's working and what isn't working for you guys! We can always share tips and tricks with each other!

I hope to be able to show up here more often and that you guys can have fun and maybe feel motivated to follow your dreams or try to reach your goals too. Maybe I’m dreaming a bit too high, but I just need to be patient and keep working for it, trying to make things work and most importantly, not giving up!

On a higher note: my sister helped me fix a laptop so I can work on it most of the time and a friend of mine is helping me build an actually good computer for myself, though I don’t know how long the latter will take, it’s already good news… at least in my opinion.

Here's my youtube channel for those who want to check on the vlogs (though I'll still let you guys know when a new video's out)

And if you prefer any other social medias:

Insta: https://www.instagram.com/daydreamerfox.art/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/daydreamerfox Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/daydreamer_fox

[threegoblinart]

Your art is amazing!!! The style is sooo pretty. How long does it usually take to finish one piece? And what are some tips for a beginner artist?

Hi friend! Thank you so much, you're just lovely. ❤️

At the moment I'd say a real finished painting can be 8-12 hours of work easily when you factor in sketch thumbnails, practicing tricky things and doing more than one draft.

My Willow at the Window was probably 12 hours because I had to reteach myself so perspective stuff I haven't done for 15+ years since set design class in college.

The drawing I posted today is already 5-6 sketches in my notebook and one previous first attempt with watercolor.

All this time is often over weeks - I work full time, have kids and we have a stupid number of hobbies, lessons, so I draw and paint in little snatches of time here and there.... Frequently at around 11 o'clock at night.

Advice... Oh, settle in and let the Art Mom tell you a tale... No, just kidding. I could regurgitate the usual junk (okay it's not junk and very valid, good advice like - yes you have to practice, use references, invest in quality materials whenever you can, explore different mediums until you find your thing, etc.). But instead I'm going to say this...

Remember two things:

1) art should be something you do because it makes you happy

and

2) remember you're an artist no matter what and be fucking proud of that

About point one, at the end of the day making art should make you happy... So that will mean different things to different people some people can find joy being considered a professional in their field, having art be their source of income and some will not. And that's okay.

I learned this the hard way. I tried to be a professional in my field (theatre) and for a while it was great, but I burned out quickly and realized that tying my livelihood to my art did not make me happy. I did not fail, I learned where my boundaries are to be happy, healthy and creative. So now I draw just for fun, sometimes do small commissions for friends, etc. Maybe one day I'll try to do more (I do have goals, I'd love to do more commissions, have my art in a book, have a small print store), but right now drawing my DND characters and fanart and silly little mushroom houses makes me happy and that's enough. Our worth as artists is not determined by sales or contracts or likes or followers, that's a bunch of consumerist, capitalist bullshit and your art and you are inherently worth more than that.

About point two... You're amazing, yep you, and you're an artist. Art is simply the expression of creativity and imagination and inspiration. It doesn't matter if your art is something on chapel ceilings or the back of your maths notebook - it doesn't matter if it's entirely original (I ❤️ fanart and guess what that stuff on the chapel ceiling is just religious fanart). Are you doing something creative, imaginative or inspired - congrats you're an artist (que Newsies "We're a union just by saying soooo!!!") And there are no other qualifiers based on skill or ability.

Whatever you create is something only you can do.

While it's absolutely fine to work on improvement and goals - it is good to study others work and take classes and learn and seek to improve - be proud of what you're making no matter what because you made it and that alone is amazing!

I learned this the hard way... I stopped drawing for 10 years, and only started again 3 years ago (I'm, ahem, not super young) and I'm still learning to take this to heart. I struggle with comparison and self worth as an artist still, it's not a light switch I can turn off but something I work at (and take medication for - stupid insufficient brain chemistry).

Comparison does nothing but rob you of joy. Be proud of what you can do right now. Be proud of what you could make last week or last year or when you were 6. Be inspired by others, but only compare you to you - that way you only see your improvement and surround yourself with people who will hype you up no matter where you are in skill and ability.

... but also, like, practice ... a lot.

P.S. as bonus these pictures are one of the first things I drew three years ago when I finally said "fuck it I'm going to draw again" and my most recent quick sketch. They both are different in skill and ability, but I'm proud of both.

[tetsunabouquet]

Unpopular opinion: Digital Art Is Lacking In Style

Alright, I might get a lot of people disagreeing with me, but it's been bothering me a while now with all the blazed posts. Let me get this straight, I don't think digital art isn't real art, that isn't what I am talking about as having tried myself I know it's damn hard too. What I'm talking about, is my preference for making traditional art and why I have it: Artists in the old days, generally had a unique style, or trademarks. An example of one of my trademarks is my love for pointilism and how I experiment with it. Originally, this style didn't blend colors, but I do blend and mix colors as with things like my mermaid painting, I think pointilism can capture scales in a way more exciting way then trying to make realistic looking scales, or alluding to them. To me, it's just an effect I like to incorporate, and it's way different then what digital artists mean with 'effect'. These are things I generally don't see digital artists do. I don't see them experimenting around with stylistic choices that traditional artists have made, there is nothing that really is specific to that kind of artist, I often see blazed posts going around, where I don't know if I've already seen art of that person before, because digital art is pretty and more cohesive looking but it's also way less unique looking which is why digital art generally feels more boring to me. And I know exactly why a lack of a personal style and art that is perfected to oblivion gets me feeling this way. It's a similar thing to all those YouTube videos with beautiful, realistic drawings of people or characters. It's beautiful, it's art, but it lacks personality and thus, soul. My writing textbooks says, 'Perfection is the death of creativity' just like one of my art teachers when studying illustration spoke out against perfected art pieces because it kills the soul. Digital art showcases this point well. I feel like, a part of this is that not every digital artist actually went to art school, which shows as the few people I did meet who went to art school do in generally have a bit more stylized digital art opposed to the ones without artistic education. I also noticed that art works for smaller fandoms also tends to contain more gems of digital artists who's style stands out like KNB fandom's @ni-kol-koru, you only need to take a look at the digital drawing she made of the Shutoku team with fruit earrings to see digital art with a personality, whereas for popular fandoms you have so many artists without a sense of style that I get too bored at scrolling through fanart to keep up the hope there's someone whose fanart feels unique. So if I want to look at nice fanart that doesn't feels perfected to the point of envoking no emotion whatsoever, I know I should be sticking to the niche ones. I myself was raised by a single mom who failed her illustration exam and would teach me some basics she learnt at illustration when I was a kid which is why I passed illustration myself with ease. She was also involved with the art community even before I was born, and actually was one of the unimportant staff who did Herman Brood's PR. She even had a drawing of his that he made for her during lunch break once which was amongst the things we lost when we moved from the countryside (she was a bit sulky about it when she realized it). I wonder if the young digital artist who doesn't has a solid background in traditional art even knows who people like Herman Brood are. When I scroll through digital art long enough, it tends to blurr and blend together and I don't remember what I saw five art pieces ago. But if I were to look online at art sites who do things like comprise lists in certain genres from various painters, and I barely get that feeling. And it's not like it's impossible. Like I mentioned, there are digital artists who know how to make their drawings stand out from the rest and have potential to really become masters of digital art. But the majority? Pretty stuff that's lifeless to me.

[we-are-inevitable]

long distance javid that starts on tumblr: well-known fan creator edition

(thank you @roideny for listening to me rant!)

jack kelly is a fanartist who starts posting his digital works when he's about 13 and by the time he's 17, he's well known in the fandom he creates for. he gets requests, he does commissions, he uses it as a way to save for college- and also because it's fun and he likes drawing his silly little favorite characters doing their silly little tasks. he has a separate blog for non-fandom pieces (anything from OCs to scans of his traditional paintings, even the odd piece of vent art) and that gets a lot of traction, too. jack kelly rises to Ikimaru/Viria/Burdge level fame on tumblr and its all just this 17 year old Mexican kid with a silly little drawing tablet his foster mom got him as an adoption gift.

david jacobs is a fic writer, and a well-known one at that. he started when he was about 12 and unsupervised, writing really bad Percy Jackson fanfic on wattpad, like any young gay should. his fics started gaining traction and as they did so, his skill became better too; by the time he's 17, he's cracking out chapter fics and fleshing out huge complex AUs. a lot of people follow along for his NaNoWriMo content and original works as well, like his poetry or original fiction pieces, but a LOT of his followers come from his fanfics. his AO3 has at least 85 works and he's one of those people who has thousands of hits on his works bc he's just really good (even if he doesn't think he deserves it). you know how sometimes, you read a fic, and it kind of changes your outlook on life for a bit? davey's the fic writer who creates that. he wants to be in the editing/writing business and he's making it known.

anyway!

jack and dave meeting over tumblr bc theyre in the same fandom. becoming mutuals, constantly rbing each other's stuff, tagging each other in posts, the works. they REALLY start interacting by jack drawing scenes from davey's fics and davey writing little drabbles inspired by jack's fanart, and pretty soon they're kind of Known in the fanon circle- people see one of them, and immediately think of the other.

soon, they start talking about more than just fandom stuff and find out that they're the same age, they like the same stuff, theyve been in the same fandoms for A While and just never put two and two together. and though they live pretty far from each other, their friendship is like. Cemented. they exchange other socials and start video chatting, facetiming, discord voice calls, etc. and are so In Like with each other but also long distance is Scary and Not Ideal and they're both embarrassed to say they met their crush on tumblr anyway so they just ignore it

and this goes on for YEARS. they FINALLY meet up when they both go to a con- as fans, but eventually they'll be vendors (jack for his art and davey for his eventual book series)- and they click instantly. i imagine they do some pretty sick Percy Jackson cosplays, bc i love headcanoning that they both grew up with it, and they have so much fun together. they stay up so late talking about anything and everything, they fall asleep next to each other even though there's another bed in the room, and they both wake up red-faced and awkward bc Wow He Looks Pretty With The Sunrise In His Eyes.

(side note: i imagine they share a hotel room, but Medda and Esther share a room as well, and they become close friends throughout the weekend! these boys aren't completely unsupervised.)

they both part ways- Jack going to New York and Davey going back to Chicago- but their friendship is just that much more important. they talk every day, from junior year of high school to sophomore year of college, and when they FINALLY get together for real, it's at another con. they've both moved onto different fandoms but they're still SO close and just ,, jack, 20, having his first ever booth at a con, and asking davey to come for "moral support" but really he just wants to see him. davey helps him run his booth, helps restock and sell and run the "business" side of things. and when it's less busy, jack beta reads some of davey's new work, but the majority of the time they're just. talking. they stay in the same hotel room that night and it's one of those "i really want to hold him but i don't want to be weird" moments and it's so painfully obvious that they like each other but they're both Really scared of distance

and boom! they kiss in the hotel and the rest is history.

i think ,, davey transferring colleges to be closer to jack, and they move in together once he's For Sure going to school in the city. jack isn't going to school, he's an artist full-time, and his commissions and prints/stickers/mugs/merch/etc. rake in enough to pay the bills, plus with davey's added income from his part time job, they live modestly but comfortably.

once davey graduates, he starts sending his book- one he's been working on and editing and worldbuilding since before he even knew jack- out to editors, and then publishers, and eventually its hitting the shelves in every major bookstore in the country because it's such a hit.

and david gets to brag that his husband drew the cover art.

[heavensenthearty]

hell yeah i wanna play! 1, 5, 7, 14 and 31 for the zutara asks! ❤️🧡💛

1. What made you start shipping Zutara?

Tbh, I'm not exactly sure. The ship has become something so inspiring for me, something that motivates me to write and draw, that teaches me about representation and allows me to dream of a world without racism, that I legit remember very little of my life before Zutara was in it and how that suddenly changed. Being even more honest, when I was little I actually repelled ATLA before I watched a single episode. I was a very girly girl, Barbie was my whole life and since ATLA wasn't The Ty Lee Show and hence had very little pink in it, it didn't catch my interest.

Then I was exposed to the internet and the fanart it enclosed, with some screenshots from the show (specifically from The Waterbending Scroll), and all of it made me squeal. Still, I wasn't the type to engage in a show only because of a ship, so I was in this weird state where I shipped Zutara quietly, without knowing much about the characters, the plot, or anything else. Granted, that could have made me a little biased for when I came around to watch the show.

But, don't get me wrong, I adore the ATLA Latin Spanish dub with all of my heart, but I'm one of those people that believe something is always lost in translate, so I felt like I couldn't connect with the characters properly.

Then everything when the Final Agni Kai...

That scene really hits different in Latin Spanish!!

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand, when Zuko tells Katara how perceives something is off with Azula, he says, textually:

"Hay algo extraño en ella. No puedo explicarlo, pero está dispersa. Siendo así, no quiero que te lastime."

Which, in English, it's literally translated, beautiful word by beautiful word:

"There's something off about her. I can't explain it, but she's dispersed. If it is that way, I don't want her to hurt you."

So antis can go suck a lemon, I have this! 👆🏽

In short, the ATLA Latin Spanish dub was what made me start shipping Zutara. Bless be it! 🙏🏽🙏🏽

5. What are your thoughts on “The Waterbending Scroll”?

When I first introduced the series to my mom, I named this episode "The episode where Katara displays personality". Now, I know that in "Imprisoned" she gave one hell of a speech and stood strong for motivating the earthbenders to escape the prison, but for the way her touching words didn't work the first few times, I was stuck with a permanent Sweetheart, maybe the world isn't as idealistic as you want it to be feeling. "The Waterbending Scroll" changed that. This was the first episode aside from "The Boy in the Iceberg" where Katara let down her happy-faced mask and showed real, raw feelings of frustration over something she truly loved and meant a lot to her but that she wasn't very good at performing. And boy, did I felt identified with her.

I should re-name it "The episode where Katara became my favorite female character ever."

7. What’s your favorite Zutara moment from the show?

Oh, that's a tricky one!

I think I've declared enough of my love for the Zutara hug, their talk outside of Iroh's tent, and Zuko's sacrifice, but if there's a scene that gives me chills every time I watch it is when Zuko confronts Katara about why does she still doesn't trust him and Katara snaps at him. I like that scene and consider it a Zutara scene because it's something I would like to have with someone:

Zuko is truly remorseful of his past actions. He is, he makes it very clear all through this scene with his words and his body language. He even grimaces at the mention of his past self. He is frustrated, but he doesn't feel entitled to Katara's forgiveness, he insists in asking what can he do to earn it by himself.

And he doesn't snaps back at Katara when she puts the bar unrealistically high by asking him to retrieve a city to its original ruler by himself — I stand by the belief that if Zuko had thought that was the only option to compensate Katara for what he had done to her, he would have. (Maybe not retrieve Ba Sing Se as a whole, but he would have done something to start a rebellious movement in the city, and he would asked Katara to help him) — or bring Katara's mother back from the dead. He takes it in, understanding and processing Katara's pain.

Katara's on full crazy mode atm, her eyes are glassy but it's nearly imperceptible because she frowns so hard they are barely open. She's actually reacting very appropriately for a victim of trauma, as ugly and painful as that is to see. And Zuko is seeing it up-close, with her face mere inches away from his, but he doesn't interrupt her. He lets her take it out. He's giving her space to be her darkest, angriest, must hurt self and still be accompanied in the process.

And seriously, if you can't have that with someone, then what's the point?

14. How do you feel about “The Southern Raiders”?

Well, after everything I wrote above you can imagine my opinion on it 😅

Favorite episode, mere mortals cannot compare.

As someone who has been wronged in the past and who has many traumas regarding her mother and family, it was so... freeing to see Katara (a character with whom I identify) to be angry. Maybe overwhelmingly so, but that's exactly how pain feels like. It's not pretty, it's heavy, it's choking, and it fucking sucks when people tells you to just swallow it and bury it in the back! It really fucking does.

People who says that to you don't care about you, they only care about your most superficial self, the one that matches their expectations and the image they want to give to others; not the real you. And I think that also resumes why I have such a problem with Kataang.

31. What’s your favorite Zutara parallel?

You're gonna laugh. It's actually the "You didn't really thought this through, did you?" 😅😅

I know, I know, it seems very small compared to all the other parallels that there are between them, but I think the reason why I like it so much is because it's such a small, realistic thing. You have these two teenagers who have barely spoken to each other, and they probably wouldn't want to do so at this point not even if you paid them for it, but it just happens that they have much more in common than what they think. It's hilarious! 😂😂

[colour-outside-the-liness]

Hey, I'm doing good too. Just normal amounts of stressful stuff right now. Just moved to a country I've never been to before but can't complain, things are not as hard as the last time I did this so. Thanks for asking! Yeah, I saw you posting about some pretty scary health issues before, I'm glad you came out of that alive and hope you're healthier now!

The nerve some people have! Haha I know I would be pissed if people were questioning my intelligence like that especially after a couple of drinks in haha. Though I do like taunting people when I play group games, I'll be like "don't need to try that hard guys, you're gonna lose anyway" just to mess with them or just call people sore losers if they accuse me of cheating haha (they're probably right on the accusations tho). People get real mad sometimes it's kinda funny. 😂

Omg literally laughed out loud reading this! Hahaha, how did you manage to fall over a road sign then end up in a ditch? lol omg hope you didn't get hurt too bad 😂 I was trying to downplay my drunken escapades but since you shared yours I should tell you my worst one:

I was at this summer street party at night and got drunk on something made out of tropical herbs and cachaça (which is about 48% alcohol), drank 3 and a half bottles of that like it was apple juice, made friends with a bunch of strangers in a bathroom queue (who tried to talk to me weeks later but I had no idea who they were), had to be held by my best friend while I peed (mostly missing the toilet), fell in the middle of the street and scraped my knee, threatened this boy who was helping me walk and told him not to try anything funny or I would beat him up, then dragged my friends to the beach and left them shortly after to go make out with my ex, came back with lipstick all over my mouth and chin and when my friends asked what I was doing I said I was just talking to my ex and they were like NO YOU WERE NOT, hahaha then I kissed all my girl friends on a dare and we danced under the full moon, then I told my best friend I had to puke so she took me to the ocean but I changed my mind and happened to step on a dead turtle on the way back and started crying bc of it, but last month my best friend told me it was a rock I had stepped on (I believed it was a dead turtle for 7 years!). Had the worst hangover of my life the next day. ✌️✨

Ah I'm happy you liked it! I've never listened to Six musical before but it sounds fun! I can see why you like it haha made me want to dance around my apartment 💃. And hey if liking musicals is your thing then it's great, I'm sure Hozier will understand if he's not your top artist of the year. 😋 Here's my "damie" Pinterest board if you or anyone else wants to check it out, totally recommend making one if you're a visual person like me!

https://pin.it/UcHVlkq

Oh I could talk about Dani and Jamie forever I think. I love the beast in the jungle speech too and it's so painful to watch, VP delivered that beautifully, but I have to admit I'm always a crying mess from episode 1 when older Jamie starts reciting that song about being sad while waiting for her lover to return, this show is fucking cruel I hate it and love it at the same time hahaha. Omg your mom 😂 but I mean it's truly an honor to be compared to someone like Dani, no? She's really great even if she needs a little help haha (don't we all).

Aaah you're amazing! Thank you so much, I'll read this pirate AU soon!

I used to draw a lot, really loved doing it when I was a kid as I said before, and all throughout adulthood too but I haven't done that in almost a year now bc I've got a bit of a case of burnout I guess, it just takes a lot of effort to do it when it shouldn't be like that at all. I used to do fanart too, for other fandoms. Even made one for Dani x Jamie but ended up not liking how it turned out haha. I've got a lot of respect for writers and fanfic writers also! Yall can make words make sense in really interesting and beautiful ways, build worlds so enthralling I can see them vividly in my head. Writing is such an incredibly fascinating skill to have! And I guess the most important thing is that we enjoy doing these things right? Even if we think we're not particularly good at it.

Anyway, have a lovely weekend! 👋✨

Good I'm glad you're doing great but sorry you're dealing with stressful stuff!! Hope living in a new country goes well for you I'm so jealous that you've lived in different countries I'd love to live somewhere else even if just for s few years!! Awwh thank you so much I definitely came out of it alive and am feeling so much better now thank you I mean I do some pretty ditzy things so when people say it to me it's pretty deserved sometimes, I'm secretly smart and people just don't expect it so I never mind too much haha I might have to start saying the things that you do and just taunting them over it I mean, I usually do win even when they make me answer different questions so I will definitely have to start saying things like that to them Haha I love that you're just like "yeah they're probably right in their accusations" I agree seeing how mad some people get over games and stuff is funny (it's me I'm people I hate loosing games depending on what it is and I am very competitive) So it was very dark and all we had for light was my roommates flashlight on her phone but while we were walking home a friend of ours that lived else where kept texting her to make sure we were still safe (my phone as dead at this point) so while she was texting him her flashlight was facing down and someone had moved this road sign to the footpath and it was on that sits on the floor so while I couldn't see it I walked into it and fell over it but while I feel I grabbed hold of it and flipped with it and fell in a ditch with it on top of me... I was fine and was just laid laughing while my friend looked down at me and in the most northern accent ever just said "get up you dickhead." and helped me off of the floor and then asked if I was okay... and I was so it was all good!! Haha 😂 I love this drunken story that sounds like one hell of a night and is a roller coaster from start to finish!! I'm sorry you thought you had stood on a dead turtle for 7 years though, someone really should've told you that it was just a rock!! But that sounds like my kind of night!! I love nights like that... stories that will last a life time... the only down side is the hangover... luckily I have only ever had one hang over in my life and it wasn't the morning after the road sign fiasco... I felt surprisingly good the morning after that haha 😂 It's such a good musical it's about Henry VIII wives and I just love everything to do with his wives and that musical is so much fun and actually gives a little insight to the lives the six Tudor queens had away from Henry and with him because at school we're mainly just taught about him which sucks!! I loved the Hozier song and am definitely gonna have to listen to more of his stuff!! I love musicals so much I mainly listen to musical soundtracks at the minute- usually, Legally Blonde and Six on repeat haha 😂 Ooo thank you I will definitely check out this Pinterest board thanks for sending it to me!! I could talk about them forever too... since watching Bly Manor my niece has been asking me so many questions about it and I am more than happy to talk to her about it haha!! The beast in the jungle speech just breaks my heart every time I relate to it so much and VP just delivers it so beautifully!! Oh yeah now I know at the beginning that it's older Jamie I am just a wreck the whole show is just so beautiful and heart breaking at the same time I LOVE IT!! Even though it makes me sob- I keep putting myself through it!! I mean, yeah I was happy that she said it Dani is great but it was the way she said it... my mum can be something else sometimes... she said she thought Dani was like me the first time she does the accent when she says "I've fallen quite in love with London" because I just randomly do accents a lot too but it was the way she was like "She needs help... but I like her she reminds me of you" I was just like... "Should I go get help?" I still don't know the answer to my question about if I need help or not but I mean I probably do need it You're welcome I really hope you like it!! It's a

great fic I love it!! Yeah I get that if stuff starts taking too much effort and burns you out you're not gonna wanna keep doing it so it's understandable that you stopped!! I think fan art is great and I really would love to be able to do it myself but I just don't have the skill it takes!! Awwh it's a shame you didn't like the Dani x Jamie one you did I would've loved to have seen it!! Honestly there are so many talented writers out there and when I read their fics I am just in awe of the worlds they have built and the stories they have created we are so blessed in this fandom to have so many amazing writers and so many amazing fics out there Oh yeah definitely its important to enjoy what you do!! I know I love writing and love writing fics for Dani and Jamie so I think I'll be doing it for a while even if I'm not great at it haha Awwh thank you very much I hope you have a great weekend too!! ☺️

[2ndnpc]

Final Questionnaire

by @walkerorteganazarioramsey 

Sorry this took so long to get out, my mom was recently diagnosed with cancer and I started my master’s program so all my time is taken up by those, anyway on with the questions!

31. do you read or write Lovestruck fanfics?

I’ll occasionally read fanfics, Im not very creative or good at writing (as should be obvious by my terrible posts, haha)

32. do you make Lovestruck fanart?

Nope, I cant draw at all

33. if you had to pick a Lovestruck universe/series to be in, which would you choose?

My first choice would be Love and Legends cuz I love high fantasy but I feel like I would miss modern amenities, maybe Astoria cuz my second love is Greek mythology and then it wouldnt be in the past without electricity and plumbing

34. which LI would you date if they were real? (Based on personality only, pretend they aren't gods/monsters/mythical and whatnot lol)

Probably Onyx, I feel like her outgoing personality would be a good foil for my more introverted one.  Plus shes p cute

Maybe Medusa, we have some similar personality traits and Im a sucker for red heads 

35. anything you wish Voltage would do to improve Lovestruck?

Make the series purchasable as a whole like the old apps!! Its so annoying when i want to reread a route and its only 2 tickets every 5 hours ugh i just want to buy them all and get it over with

36. Do you play any related games, ie: Choices / Love 365 / The Arcana / Episode / Chapters / Love Island?

I occasionally play modded Choices, played the Arcana a while ago but something was just off about it, like major scenes were missing, maybe it was just Nadia’s route but it was kinda meh

[mcrmadness]

🌺💘🌷 GET TO KNOW YOUR MUTUALS TAG 🌷💘🌺

Rules: When you get this, it means someone wants to know more about you, so list 5 things about yourself you want your followers to know! They can be as simple as your age or as complex as your deepest fear, as long as it’s something you’re comfortable with sharing. When you’re done and if you want to, send this to 10 people you want to get to know better!

Tagged by: @cats-crushesandhistory, thank you!!! Tagging: @stufenlosregelbar, @hanhan156, @charlotte-lancer, @autumnrebel, @cupcakecurl, @lycanrvc, - six is enough for now. I’m probably forgetting about basically everyone, I literally had to go through these by letters because I can never remember anything when I should make a list and I still feel bad for not including _everyone. But I decided to include only those who I have interacted with at least a little bit - I literally don’t dare to speak to anyone unless they tell me first that I am allowed to approach them. I also did not tag anyone who I haven’t seen doing these tag games or who I don’t know if they like these or not. And all of you can also just skip this if this is not your cup of tea.

***

I can never write anything short (surprise...) so I’ll just give you a short list here and you can click the read more link and see more of my thoughs on each topic there.

I am a teetotaler and I have never even tried alcohol. I also don’t and have never smoked and I stay the f* away from drugs, too.

I love cats. Like, for real, they’re the best thing in this whole world.

I love all animals overall, and I am actually a horse groom, I have a the “Vocational Qualification in Horse Care and Management”, specializing in harness racing, and I have worked with horses for over 10 years so far.

As a kid, I was a huge dinosaur nerd and I still love them.

I love comics and I have also drawn comics since I was a kid. I still have all of my old comics saved. Lately I haven’t been drawing even nearly as much and only fanart, tho. Drawing is fun but I simultaneously love and hate it.

Lol it seems I have love for everything but humans :D:D:D:D:D:D I didn’t even realize that before making this list looooooooool XD But yeah, more rambling under the cut :D But thanks for reading, if you end up reading it.

1. I am a teetotaler and I have never even tried alcohol. I also don’t smoke (and never have) and I avoid drugs - so much so that I don’t know if getting ADHD medication would break this “rule” of mine because they are made from the same stuff as one well-known drug...

I think it started as me just being so “lawful” all the time and the legal drinking age in Finland is 18, so I wanted to follow the rules at all times so I didn’t even think about drinking before the age of 18 and I was often very much shocked by other teens who did that, and I also remember being really worried when my best friend started experimenting with alcohol as a teenager. Despite the legal drinking age being 18, basically everyone here still started (and starts?) drinking between the ages of 13 and 15. So at school, from Monday to Wednesday, all that happened was overhearing the drunk stories of other kids. And from Wednesday to Friday, it changed to them discussing their plans for the next weekend. It was like this every week. And I never could wrap my head around it (I spent my weekends at home being happy that I could have free time and play The Sims 2 or something).

Then at some point I guess I just felt like I don’t even need alcohol for having fun and I still haven’t felt like that, and I don’t think I ever will either. When I turned 18, I was super annoyed by everyone because EVERYONE asked me “So you’re turning 18, did you plan on going to a bar?” and I would always answer something like “I don’t even drink (alcohol) so why would I?” and what still annoys me a little is people telling me “That’s good. That’s a good decision, drinking is bad.” and like... if you really think so, why do you drink yourself, then?

2. I love cats. Maybe that is partially visible from my blog too but I really, really love cats, and for decades my favorite animal has been tiger. When I was born, we had already 3 cats in the house and the last one of them died when I was almost 13 (he would have turned 16 that year). Before I moved out at the age of 23, there was not a single day without cats and currently my parents have 4 (plus a dog). I am still dreaming of my own cat but I can’t take one now because animals are not allowed in my flat but whenever I move out of this, I will choose one with pets allowed and I will adopt a cat. Most likely a rescue cat if I can find one, or even two so they can keep each other company. As cute as kittens are, adult cats are also important and need homes.

3. I also love animals overall. I actually like them more than humans (but technically humans are just apes so they’re my least favorite animal, then) and when I was 7-years-old, whenever I was asked about my dream job, I always said or wrote “I don’t know, probably something to do with animals!” And since my teens I have had lots of different ideas for jobs but when I was 25, I graduated as a horse groom. And have been (on-off) working with horses for over 10 years now (currently unemployed). Originally I chose the horse work because I was so pissed by the capitalist system and the thought of an office job or job at a grocery store and such was just... ew, no, never! So I chose horses because if I have to work, then I will do something useful and someone’s gotta take care of the animals too and I love animals, and animal work doesn’t feel like work but more like a lifestyle, so I’ve been basically fooling the system AND myself by that. Sometimes I also dream of the work as a zookeeper.

4. As a kid, I was a huge dinosaur nerd and I still love them (Land Before Time FTW). With my siblings we had a huge collection of dinosaur toys and I also have always loved evolution and genetics, so what we did was to give an individual name for every dinosaur we had. And we knew the species of each of them, and we knew so many facts about them too. Each dino also had their own personality and we even created family trees for them. There were generations of these dinos and we also created this “growing up order” which meant we put them all standing next to each other, usually under my brother’s bed because we had so many of them and they didn’t fit anywhere else lol, from the youngest/smallest to the oldest. And our biggest mission, that never got finished, was “The Big Play” which was us playing that the ancestor parents aka the oldest and biggest of our toys were born and we would play with them and play how they grow older and eventually start having their own kids - who were the next generation in our “growing up order” :D

No wonder why I still love playing The Sims games, especially TS3! (I even have a Finnish simsblog.) Lots of the things I have done and loved as a kid still live so strong in me, they just come out differently than what they did then. Imagination and toys changed to video games, especially The Sims (but I did play video games a lot as a kid too) and my love for genetics and evolution is still really strong.

5. I love comics. My favorite comic book character of all times is Garfield - he’s a cat and I grew up with cats so obviously I fell in love with the Garfield comics too, and I grew up with them as well. My mom subscribed to the Finnish Garfield comic in the early 90s and I have full volumes starting from the year 1994. I also have lots and lots of earlier comics and I always hunt for them from second-hand shops and I don’t have too many of them missing anymore, and I’m really proud of my collection. I also collect Lucky Luke, Rantanplan and Asterix - I have almost all of the (Finnish publications of) Lucky Lukes and Rantanplan.

I have also always loved drawing and I drew my first actual comic when I was 9 or 10 years old. Before that I had been drawing lots of “image series”, one image per paper. I still have all my old comics here in a drawer and I have had so many different characters and majority of them have had endless “plots” aka no plots whatsoever :D Before I actually never drew humans, I started drawing human portraits as fanart when I was 16 and the first human comic characters I drew (also as a fanart) when I was 18 or so. Before that everything was animals of some sort - I have had ants, flies, dogs, cats, birds... even ghosts at some point, and I also created one very simple anthropomorphic creature just so that it was easy to draw and I could concentrate on drawing clothes and hair. Oh my god I loved drawing hairdos to these, and so often I had one female “main character” and I gave her a “growth spurt” where I just drew her in different ages until she was “adult” and I continued telling about her life as an “adult”. Very often these differen phases were literally phases, there were soooooo many different styles each just for one year :D Then at some point I started coming up with actual ideas and plots instead of just drawing whatever I felt like drawing. I still draw comics nowadays, but those are mainly fanart and I haven’t drawn about OC’s in years and currently I have no active ones (except for the “self-comics” about my deep thoughts etc.) and I don’t know how to create new ones, I just have no creativity unless it’s provoked by a fandom thing or when I get a base like The Sims 3 where I don’t have an empty canvas but am given the tools for creating something new.

It might be fun to share some of my old comics here one day but this blog isn’t really an “art blog”, even tho I post some of my drawings occassionally. But let me know if you’d like to see some and maybe I will make a post about that in the future.

[itsclydebitches]

Just browsing the RWBY reddit. Seeing your post about Oz on there. The usual backlash against you and the idea that RWBY owe Oz an apology. Honest question. Is it just that their probably teenagers? Not experienced with nuanced storytelling? Think lying is always a bad thing to? It's obvious RWBY are not fully in the right. What fan wouldn't see that aside from just young people? I hate this fuck adults mindset in the fandom. Cordovin should have put them in jail at the end.

All fandoms have a very wide range of ages, RWBY included, so I doubt it’s as simple as assuming they’re all teens. Rather, I can think of a number of different factors, any one (or multiple at a time) that might be at play: 

They are in fact teens who identify very strongly with the main cast, to the point where a “screw adults” rhetoric is not just appealing but very logical from their perspective. In the same vein, you have people of any age who have very straight-forward moral views: lying is bad and Ozpin had no right to do it. Period. The problem with this is less the actual belief and more the hypocrisy, as usually the mindset conveniently doesn’t apply to the person’s favorite characters---more on that below. 

They’re fans, young or old, who haven’t been trained in/practiced much media analysis. Ozpin’s situation is a complicated one, requiring that fans recall, understand, and are willing to interrogate a HUGE number of details since roughly Volume Two. A lot of the hatred for Ozpin I see here on tumblr is rooted in really simplified “analysis.” e.g. people honestly asking, “How can you root for him when he got Pyrrha killed??” without understanding (or being willing to accept) that “got Pyrrha killed” is a flawed statement on multiple levels.

Connected to the above, fans who are really active in the fandom all year round and become immersed in theories, headcanons, and the like until they feel like canon. We only get RWBY content for a few weeks out of the year. The rest of the time fans are circulating various perspectives, often biased depending on who you follow. So there’s very little material demonstrating Ozpin’s complex nature vs. a great deal of material (fic, fanart, metas, personal posts about how much you hate characters, etc.) painting him as simplistically evil. That’s then the mindset fans are in when the next volume comes along and it’s rather difficult to break. What do you mean he’s a flawed good guy? I’ve been reading Ozpin hate for nine months out of the year. 

Fans who are invested in their faves and have no desire to grapple with their more loaded mistakes. Yang is a good example of this, given that she’s one of the most beloved characters while also having a range of flaws. Some flaws---like snapping at someone in frustration---are easy to deal with because we know how close the group is, we know how this show functions, and we know she’ll be forgiven within a very short period of time, if anything as deep as “forgiveness” is even needed. We shrug and move on. More loaded flaws though---like her treatment of Ozpin---require fans to balance a love of the character with a critique of their actions, which a lot of people simply aren’t interested in doing. Acknowledging the ways in which Ozpin might have been in the right and the ways in which the group might have been in the wrong requires that they take a number of faves out of that “cinnamon roll too good for this world, too pure, can do no wrong” category. Few fans want to acknowledge that maybe their perfect Ruby shouldn’t have ripped secrets from a mentor. Or perfect Yang wasn’t justified in her manipulative bird anger. Or perfect Weiss shouldn’t be drawing her weapon on Qrow. Or perfect Pyrrha made a horrendous mistake by going after Cinder, etc. For all the people who claim they want flawed characters, fandom is filled with fans who fall in love with characters and then will simply not hear a word against them, not unless (like that snapping example) their flaws are incredibly easy to get past. They want, “My fave is flawed because she yells sometimes but she’s improving!” not, “My fave is flawed because she bought into the rhetoric of a murderous bandit and has been using that to undermine the team’s trust in their leader for weeks now.” 

Connected to the above are fans who are neutral or iffy about Ozpin and thus have a “one strike and you’re out” policy that, notably, doesn’t extend to any other character. You lied? That’s it. We’re done. I was on the fence before but this proves you’re not worth investing in. When others point out that a LOT of our cast has either kept information quiet, manipulated how information is presented, or straight up also lied, they’re exonerated because the fan already likes them. They are invested in keeping them looking pure next to Ozpin’s impurity. And they just keep adding justifications indefinitely. Yang is allowed to keep the Spring Maiden quiet because of trauma with her mom. Oh, Ozpin has trauma too? Well he’s a thousand years old so he should have gotten over it by now. Oh, trauma doesn’t work that way? Well... and on and on. 

Fans who believed Ozpin was an evil mastermind for six years and have been waiting impatiently for the day when his duplicity is finally revealed and they can celebrate being one of the ones who weren’t duped. “The Lost Fable” once and for all debunked that theory. Ozpin is a flawed man trying to do good, a subversion of the puppet-master archetype. It’s hard to say, “Damn. Guess I was wrong about his character,” especially after years of investment in his supposed immorality. So they just don’t. They tweak the new information and find ways to explain how he’s still actually, truly evil. It’s just even more horrendous because it’s subtle and sneaky and kinda hard to notice because it looks like he’s a good man most of the time, but I swear to you he’s not...  

Fans who are attempting to be socially conscious but haven’t gotten the intricacies of that down just yet. Meaning, there are a lot of RWBY fans here on tumblr and tumblr has always been a site that heavily merges social justice with fandom. You read a RWBY post on your dash, then a post about white privilege; more RWBY, post about domestic violence, etc. Generally speaking that’s great (I’m all for learning in low-stakes environments), but that can also create very simplistic views, particularly for those who are young or who are just learning about such issues. Ozpin (Remnant geography and reincarnations aside) appears white. He’s a man. As far as we know he’s cis. He’s doesn’t seem to need his cane outside fighting and is therefore not disabled. He’s in a very significant position of power. He is, in short, everything “bad” that tumblr fans learn to spot in the real world. Ozpin, in that real world context, has a lot privilege and people automatically conflate that with being an aggressor. The villain. We’re living in a society where white guys are raping women and continually getting away with it. Now here’s this white guy preying on Pyrrha! (Again, no close analysis.) The merging of fandom with real world issues makes it very difficult for some people to view Ozpin with any sympathy, particularly when they only have a narrow understanding of these issues. Ozpin a victim of domestic abuse? Pff, that doesn’t happen. The man always abuses the woman. He can’t possibly be the victim here, so by default he must be the villain who tried to steal Salem’s kids away---because we all know that kids are always better off with the mother. That’s just natural. (You can see then how a lot of outdated assumptions color our readings of fictional characters.) 

Straight up trolls. Some people don’t actually care about RWBY. They just enjoy antagonizing others about their views of the show. Or just insulting people for... reasons? It’s not about any investment in the debate. It’s about the rush they feel typing out a curse-laden post about how wrong you are and how much you suck. Are they actually wrong? It doesn’t matter. Saying you’re wrong makes the poster feel right and therefore powerful. 

[ohblackdiamond]

till it shines (peter/paul, nc-17)

"Look, I'm not gonna quit, I swear. If we have to end the tour, we have to end the tour. We get dropped from the label, we get dropped from the label. We lick our wounds and we try somewhere else. But until then, we got awhile in this hotel." "And no shows." "Yeah." During a five-day lull in concerts, stranded in an Atlanta hotel, Peter and Paul find a means to entertain themselves.

Notes: Inspired and based to a heavy extent on a very lovely, NSFW fanart concerning Paul's on-tour artistic endeavors. No, not the ones he showcases in galleries. 

“till it shines”

by Ruriruri

It was the last day of the Gay Kitchen, with honorable maitre d's, cooks, servers, and busboys Peter Criss and Paul Stanley manning KISS' dwindling hotel fridge and supply closet. At least, it was supposed to be. Peter didn't know if after last night, it was still on the table.

At first, they'd really wanted to go all-out with the band dinners, but their budget hadn't permitted it. One last hurrah before they had to limp back to New York, with a single failed record to their names and all the notoriety of four strays in a junkyard. Back to Lydia for Peter-and Lydia wasn't so bad, Lydia wasn't so bad at all; she'd supported him through worse screw-ups and disappointments, but it was what she represented. A guy who still wasn't paying the bills four years into the marriage wasn't any better than a bum. She'd thought she'd found somebody who'd be going places. She'd been wrong.

For Paul, the prospect of going home was just as disastrous. At least, that was how he made it out to be. He'd get into these depressed rambles about his parents and his sister and his niece and how coming back just wasn't an option.

"Not an option? C'mon, you were in college, what, a couple of quarters-"

Paul had winced and licked his lips, a quick, nervous tic Peter had gotten far too accustomed to seeing as the band's money situation worsened.

"I only went a week. Don't tell Gene." And a swallow. "Look, it's stupid. I know. But I was born to play rock and roll, okay?"

"You're preaching to the fucking choir."

"I mean. if I can't do this, if I can't make this happen, I might as well not be here. This is the only outlet I've got."

Peter had rubbed the back of his neck and tried not to groan. Overblown as ever. Paul thought Peter was the dramatic one, the tetchy one, just because he had enough balls to address what was pissing him off instead of keeping it to occasional bitchy comments. Paul never seemed to hear his own whines.

"You think you're the only one with a dream around here?" Peter couldn't even bite back the rest. "How old were you when the Beatles got on Ed Sullivan? Ten?"

"Twelve," Paul had grumbled back. "Don't make this an age thing-"

"I was just out of high school. And I was already in bands-"

"Pete, I know, I know already. You keep telling me." Paul heaved a sigh. "You keep telling all of us."

"You've got to pay your dues, that's all it is."

"Got to pay your dues if you wanna sing the blues." The right edge of Paul's mouth was starting to perk up.

"Yeah." Peter tugged absently at his bangs, trying not to let himself get too good a look at what he'd been seeing since before he even auditioned for KISS. The semi-permanent dye they all used worked fine on brown hair, but past that first wash, it was useless on gray. The streaks were more obvious against the jet-black backdrop than they'd ever been when he left his hair alone. "Look, I'm not gonna quit, I swear. If we have to end the tour, we have to end the tour. We get dropped from the label, we get dropped from the label. We lick our wounds and we try somewhere else. But until then, we got awhile in this hotel."

"And no shows."

"Yeah." No shows for the next five days at least. Their last pitiful handful of concerts, they'd opened for some redneck band. Outlaws or something. That was another depressing thing. Peter had always expected to at least be friendly with the bands they were the lead-in for, but they'd only been met with indifference at best and hostility at worst. Never ended up opening for the same band more than a few times, either. It just made the whole tour all the lonelier.

He realized after a second that Paul was staring at him. The guy had a weird stare. Kind of like a broke bagboy waiting on his tip, or maybe just like a girl who was really hoping for a proposal. Big-eyed, eager, and not remotely calculating. It might have pissed Peter off, if Paul didn't always follow it up with an abashed grin once he was caught.

"You're thinking about something," Paul said, before Peter could make the accusation himself.

"Yeah. I'm thinking we all need cheering up."

"You need cheering up, Peter."

"You just finished telling me you'd die if you didn't make it, Paul." He paused, still staring at the fridge. "And fuck, I'm gonna die if I have to eat at McDonalds one more time."

"Well, they've got Steak 'n Shake here, if you'd rather."

Peter groaned.

"Not when you're in a fucking blouse and heels. The crowd thinking we're fruits is bad enough." Before Paul could even stammer out a protest, something about it being rock and roll, or about needing more practice in the heels-God, c'mon-Peter continued. "No. I thought we could make our own dinner while we're here. Really make it, not just sandwiches and shit. Real food. We got the kitchen for it. And it'd save Bill some money. You know how to cook, right?" He knew Gene didn't. Ace just wouldn't.

"I'd hope so. My mom started leaving us home alone when I was eight."

"Poor, poor little Paulie." Peter rolled his eyes. "We could-we could make it themed, even. Make out like it's a restaurant. Menus and shit. Invite the guys down for dinner."

Paul brightened, which surprised him. Usually he'd be sore for hours over the slightest crack at his expense, like some spoiled, anxious kid. But for once, he actually seemed excited.

"Like Italian one night, maybe? We could make pizza."

"Yeah, sure, lemme get a shopping list going."

After three beers apiece, they'd named their restaurant the Gay Kitchen, decided they'd act the part of its bent proprietors, and written up a menu full of double-entendres. An hour later, still drunk, they'd pooled their money and ventured out to town in jeans and the lowest of their heels. They'd bought twenty bucks' worth of groceries, which should have been plenty. Then they'd started in on meal prep.

Strange how fun it was. Especially that first night, working on a poor man's casserole, with the radio on and Paul standing next to him chopping up onions, his hands encased in Ziploc sandwich bags because he didn't want the smell on his skin, while Peter cut half-frozen chicken breasts into ragged little cubes. They'd tossed the whole thing into the pan with some salt and pepper, dumped a can of cream of mushroom soup on top, stuck it in the oven and hoped for the best. He knew they should've gone with canned stuff entirely, especially for the meat, if they'd really wanted to save money, but the Gay Kitchen experience demanded the expenditure. At least, that was their excuse.

Besides, Ace and Gene had loved it. Not for the food so much. Peter figured their dinners were decent, maybe even good, sometimes, but he couldn't kid himself. There was nothing impressive about a dessert course that included Hostess cupcakes "with fresh Cool Whip." But the makeshift restaurant had done the job. Cheered them all up. No one said a word during any of the dinners about the tour ending or going back home. Not a single word. And he and Paul had screwed around, too, acting faggy, hitting on each other and the guys indiscriminately throughout the meals. Last night, Paul had even groped his ass while he was mincing around plating everyone's food.

"I had to take him off the menu." Peter could've sworn Paul was deliberately making that annoying lisp of his even worse during each dinner. Pitching his voice into a whine, too. Some commitment. Peter had glanced up, questioningly, but Paul had just ignored him and continued. "You see why, right? He's got such a nice ass-all the boys were looking, I couldn't help but get jealous-"

"Course you're jealous. You dieted yours off, Paulie," Ace had retorted with a laugh. Peter had been vaguely surprised Paul didn't break character at that, just clicked his tongue disapprovingly, his hand still on Peter's ass. Not squeezing anymore, thank God, but Peter had still felt the ghost of Paul's fingers there hours later when they'd both turned in for bed.

Looking back, maybe that was where it had really started. Glancing over at Paul on the double bed next to his, watching him, knees up, with the pad of hotel stationery in his lap and a pencil in his hand, Peter had cleared his throat. Paul lifted his head from where he'd been scribbling.

"Yeah?"

"What're you drawing?"

Paul held up the stationery without a hint of embarrassment. The usual weirdly accurate assortment of veiny, disembodied dicks covered the page.

"What do you always draw those for, anyway?"

Paul shrugged.

"I dunno. Why does Gene refuse to shower?"

"Because his mom told him even his B.O. was sacred." Peter rolled his eyes. "You got a fixation."

"<i>You've</i> got a fixation. You're the one always getting your dick out."

"Getting it out's not the same as drawing it. . That's not even your dick. Whose do you keep on-"

"I went to art school, asshole." There wasn't much of an edge to Paul's words, Peter noticed. "Life drawing comes with the territory."

"In high school? Jesus." Peter cocked his head, trying to decide if Paul was bullshitting him, but Paul was already back to doodling, his eyes averted. "You ever gonna attach them to anybody, or are they just gonna keep floating around?"

"Well, I thought I'd attach them to you, but then I realized that'd mean I'd have to draw your face."

"Oh, fuck you, Paul." He didn't know why, but he got up then, moved to sit on Paul's bed. Paul stopped scribbling just long enough to shift over for him. Peter leaned in, vying for a better look at the sketches. Six, no, seven dicks, from a couple different angles, all varying levels of erect. The balls were so accurate it was almost disturbing. "Ain't even mine. They're too small."

"These are scaled down."

"The shape's wrong, too. Was that one supposed to be bent like that?" Peter pointed at the offending cock, right in the center of the paper. He kind of thought it was intentional. There was something uncanny about Paul's artwork-well, the dick drawings, anyway. His other offerings, at least the ones Peter had seen-splattery acrylic abstracts from his high school portfolio, and the occasional insulting cartoon of his bandmates on the back of a paper napkin-lacked that attention to detail. And that enthusiasm. It was weird. Forget the rockstar shit; Peter almost wondered if Paul's true calling was illustrating gay porno mags.

Paul shifted the paper, blinking at him slowly.

"Are you really critiquing my doodles here?"

"Well, yeah. If you're gonna draw dicks, at least don't draw them bent."

"What's wrong with drawing them bent? Some guys have fucked-up dicks."

"Who do you know with a fucked-up dick? Gene?" Paul's was fine. Smaller than his, sure, but there wasn't anything the matter with it. Peter got a good look at it in the showers after concerts, and during occasional threesomes with college girls that didn't qualify as groupies. Paul didn't care about nudity any more than he or Ace did, which was a relief. Especially since Gene was so weird about it. Months on the road and he still wouldn't strip down in front of the band. Peter had asked Paul why. Paul had said something about Gene going to some Jewish school and that giving him hang-ups, which sounded ridiculous to Peter. If Jewish school was anything like Catholic school, then it was a flimsy excuse for changing in closets and behind closed doors like some chick. Gene probably just had something terribly, shamefully wrong with his dick. Smallness or herpes or both.

"What? No."

Pete scooted over some more. Paul's posture was slightly stiffer than it had been before, but he still moved to give Peter room. Not that the double bed had much space to begin with.

"Does that mean you've seen it?" Peter wasn't sure why he was pressing the issue. Probably because Paul didn't seem all that uncomfortable. In fact, ever since the start of the Gay Kitchen, he'd been more relaxed, more talkative. It'd been nice. Peter watched Paul's lips purse for a second before he replied.

"Come off it. I don't have the right equipment for the privilege."

"Just eat some more and you'll get the tits down."

"Oh, fuck you, Pete." Paul jabbed his elbow into Peter's ribs, just hard enough for Peter to jerk back, but after a second he was scooting in closer again, just to prove he couldn't be nudged off that easily.

Maybe it had been a lower blow than Peter had meant to take. God knew the poor guy worried more about his weight than a chick. Lydia once said Paul was shaped like a rectangle. Just thick, straight lines from his shoulders all the way to his ass, and no definition anywhere. And he had been, but that wasn't the case these days. Paul had ended up with a bad bout of stomach flu about a month and a half into the tour. He would pull himself together enough to do the night's show, but afterwards, Peter'd had to listen to him get up, agonized and grunting, at two in the morning, and hear him retching into the hotel toilet. Paul had probably dropped fifteen pounds since then. Maybe more.

He looked better now. His abdomen still wasn't flat and he still cinched in his waist with a corset onstage, but Peter figured Paul did look a little closer to-well, whatever the hell a frontman was supposed to look like-and a little farther from the shy kid from Queens who drove the band's milk truck to and from gigs. Shouldn't be something Peter was already nostalgic about, especially since they were probably right about to head back to the milk trucks and ballrooms, but he was.

He could hear the scratch of Paul's pencil against the stationery. Paul wasn't going to retort. He'd just sulk and doodle more dicks until he got tired enough to turn off the lamp and tell Peter to get off the bed so he could sleep. Peter licked his lips, mouth suddenly dry, and he spoke.

"You know what? Maybe you should draw mine."

He hadn't thought the comment through. It just splattered from the corner of his brain to his mouth. Maybe he was just trying to get a response out of Paul, see if he could come up with an insulting way to put him off, or if he'd just stammer out a refusal. Instead, all Peter got in return was a raised eyebrow.

"Your dick?"

"Yeah, my dick."

"You're volunteering?"

Shit. Shit, now he had to commit to it. Peter shrugged, somehow managed a tilted sort of grin, and leaned back on his hands.

"Why not? Least that'd keep you from doing all those crooked, veiny ones."

"Yeah, 'cause yours is fucking Adonis,' right-"

Adonis must've been some underground rocker only college kids had ever heard of. Peter wasn't about to admit to his own ignorance.

"Nobody's complained yet. C'mon, Paulie, how about it?"

Paul hesitated visibly. Peter almost didn't think he was going to agree to it. Too nerved-out by the suggestion. But then Paul nodded, his black curls-somewhat limper without the Aquanet and teasing brush forcing them into bushy, puffy proportions-bouncing slightly as he did.

"Yeah, sure. Go ahead."

Peter yanked off the ratty pajama pants that were all he ever went to bed in, tossing them to the floor. Turned around so he was facing Paul head-on, legs stretched in front of him. He could feel Paul staring at his face, and then at his cock, as he tore out the doodle-covered paper and started on the fresh one beneath. He hadn't gotten more than a few scribbles in when Peter realized-

"Hey, wait a minute. You're not drawing it soft."

"I'm just gonna draw what I see."

"No, you aren't. Hang on."

"Hang on?"

Paul blinked, the beginnings of a mild smirk edging across his face. The expression didn't really sit right on him, somehow. Paul's mouth seemed to Peter to only really look okay when it was either pursed in a pout or spread in a hopeless kind of smile.

Luckily, that smirk of his dissolved as soon as Peter closed his hand around his dick, starting to pump. He didn't look at Paul while he was doing it, not at first, his gaze veering more towards the pad of paper and the burnt orange florals of the covers. His breath wasn't hitching yet, but the pleasure was starting to seep through on practiced automatic. A little harder. A little faster, and Peter's brow was furrowing, eyes glazed, focus on anything but his own dick starting to fade.

Except it couldn't fade completely. Not with Paul barely a foot away from him, his big brown eyes furtively darting between Peter's cock and the pencil, his mouth tight. Looking over at him, Peter could almost swear he saw the faint start of a blush cropping up on Paul's cheeks. "Jesus, relax, would you? I'm not gonna come here."

"Wow, isn't that a relief," Paul mumbled, rolling the pencil back and forth between his finger and thumb.

"'S not like you haven't seen this before." A solid five or six times by now, minus the fact that it was usually a girl's mouth or hand on Peter's cock instead of his own. They weren't great at sharing the not-quite-groupies yet. It had taken awhile before they figured out positioning that'd get all three of them off, and that always hinged on whether the girl was down for it. Once they'd ended up with a chick who'd gotten too intimidated by two guys at once, and after a round of debate over who'd go first, Paul had ended up slinking off to the shower while Peter made it with her. Unsurprisingly, she'd been so satiated she'd fallen asleep by the time Paul returned, and they'd both had to lug her out of the hotel room and into the hallway. Paul had been pissed off. Peter just found it funny.

Paul looked as if he were about to say something, but then he shut his mouth. Peter exhaled, letting his eyes shut for a second while he kept pumping, no fantasy in mind, just the simple mechanics of pleasure. Jacking off was mindless, with or without an audience. Nothing meaningful. Nothing to consider. And Paul, for whatever reason, was still just watching him do it. That pencil lead hadn't even touched the paper. Peter took a sharp breath before he spoke again.

"Good enough?"

He'd stopped himself once he was fully hard, but before any precome could dribble out from the reddened tip. He could feel his face getting flushed, a little sweat starting to trickle on his forehead, but he was all right. If things got too bad, he could always head over to the shower to finish rubbing it out, after Paul was done drawing. But he didn't think it would come to that, though his cock twitched in protest. Paul gave a distracted nod.

"Yeah. It's fine."

Then he finally started to draw again. Peter leaned over, trying to get a glance in, but Paul kept covering up the pad with his other hand, swatting at him when he got too close. Peter snorted.

"C'mon, you're not drawing the Mona Lisa here."

"You throw me off watching."

"What'm I supposed to do, just sit here?"

"That's exactly what you're supposed to do." Paul was erasing now, but carefully. One of those cheap pink erasers. He brushed the residue off the paper, and it landed on the covers, tiny black streaks of rubber against the orange comforter. Deprived of watching Paul at work, Peter tried to focus his attention on the eraser remnants, flicking them.

It didn't really help. Despite himself, Peter was starting to squirm. He didn't think Paul was drawing anything past his dick, but he'd been trying to stay still anyway. His thighs kept twitching involuntarily. The ache in his balls was getting irritating enough that he gave in to a few more strokes, shoving his hand in the covers as soon as he heard Paul laugh.

"You having trouble keeping it up?"

"Fuck you, you know that's not it-"

"Gimme a couple more minutes, all right, Pete?" A pause. "And get a little closer, there." He reached his hand out, fingers curving lightly around Peter's bare knee, just for a second. Immaculately manicured nails, bizarre for a guitarist, even one who hadn't played a gig in almost a week. The black nail polish hadn't even chipped. But Peter only really noticed how the warmth against his skin seemed to linger on after Paul had withdrawn his hand. "There."

Peter got closer. His legs were flat on the bed and spread slightly, toes touching the wall by the time he got closer; he'd ended up more to Paul's side. His painfully hard, flushed dick stood out sharp against the rest of his body, craving attention he couldn't-wouldn't-give yet. He'd get that touch in later. He'd get off on his own. A couple more minutes, like Paul said. Yeah.

The amused expression on Paul's face had shifted, gotten focused and intent. The way it did when he was trying to pull a riff together, or a set of lyrics. Peter didn't much care for that look-usually it meant Paul would try to banish whoever was in the same room, whether it was him or Ace or even Gene, so he could be alone with whatever brilliant thoughts he had. But now that look was locked on him instead. Partially. Flattering, maybe, to be mulled over like a rhyme that didn't flow, or a chord that wasn't right yet, but Peter knew that if he thought too hard about it, he'd get disgusted. So he just let his mind wander to the sound of Paul's pencil scraping across the page.

Peter didn't really notice at first when that sound stopped. Or when Paul put the pencil down. The pad of paper was still resting on his lap. Peter inhaled, waiting, figuring Paul would hand it over-with a joking autograph, probably-any second-but then a mass of dark curls ended up right in Peter's face. Paul was leaning in, heavily, breaths hot and heavy against Peter's neck. He pushed away the pad of paper, his bare chest pressed up flush against Peter's. Peter opened his mouth, started to say something, and then swallowed it down when Paul's hand wrapped around his dick.

Peter couldn't believe it. Didn't protest or argue-didn't want to. He was surprised, that was all. Surprised Paul would go for it. Have that kind of nerve. Paul didn't pull back enough to look him in the eye. Didn't say a word.

His palm was sweaty against Peter's cock, fingers only a little callused. The first few strokes were too slow, unintentional teasing, but then Paul got steadier, built up a rhythm. Like doing it to yourself, Ace had told him once, lazily, in the worst and best advice Peter had ever gotten on handjobs, but different. Different. Peter could feel Paul's heartbeat against him, like a pinball smashing against the bumpers. Each breath was getting more tattered, soft curses forcing their way from Peter's throat; each inhale pushed more of Paul's Aramis cologne into his lungs. Peter's hands, curled up into the covers, flew up desperately as he got closer, warmth and need pulsating inside him, threatening to burst-clenching Paul's shoulder, his back-holding him there, right there, as he spilled into Paul's hand.

Paul let go as abruptly as he'd started. His whole body froze up, and he shifted backwards, brushing away Peter's hands, dark eyes wide, almost scared. He scrambled off the bed and onto Peter's, yanking the covers around him like a little kid caught up too late.

"Paul?"

"I'm sorry," he said, and shut off the lamp.

--

Peter got up early the next morning, before the alarm clock, but it didn't matter. Paul was already gone-got a cab, evidently, leaving everyone else with the crappy tour bus. Peter could hear Ace and Gene grumbling about it through the wall before he got out of bed, stopping short of the pad of paper and pencil on the floor. He picked both up and took a look.

The drawing was immaculate. Paul had gotten the balls just right. Everything. Taken the time to shade it, even, like it was a serious study. He'd signed it, too-initialed it, rather, P.S. nestled in a forlorn corner. No date. Peter tore the sheet carefully from the pad of paper, looking at it, unsure of what to do with it. Whether to keep it or not. He ended up setting it on the nightstand, face down, before crossing over to what had been his bed up until last night. He didn't have to pull back the sheets to see the semen stain from where Paul had wiped off his hand.

He could've used some washing off himself after last night. No Paul hogging the shower was an empty comfort right now, as Peter turned on the water, letting it get blisteringly hot before stepping inside. It didn't really help.

Paul was back before lunch, anyway, quiet and withdrawn. Bill was talking about booking them a couple more shows further down South-a terrifying prospect, but better than heading home-and Gene was chatting about it with all his usual enthusiasm, while Ace added vodka and ice to his coffee. Paul just looked sunk. Gene kept throwing questioning looks Paul's way, and glancing at Peter, but if he ever asked outright, Peter never heard it.

The band meeting drifted off into nothing after awhile. Paul got up abruptly, saying something about a headache, and excused himself with about as much subtlety as a dying animal. It was a few minutes before Peter got up the nerve to follow him back to their room-and, as expected, Paul had locked the door.

"Paul, c'mon-"

The sound of the knob turning was almost gratifying. Paul was standing there, looking awkward, mouth pursed. Peter noticed, belatedly, that for all Paul had gotten up early that morning, he hadn't shaved, stubble poking hopelessly all around his jaw. His t-shirt and jeans-one of maybe ten street outfits he'd rotated over the tour, same as Peter, same as everyone else-were rumpled past what Paul usually would allow for.

"You didn't have to come check on me."

"I did, we share a room."

Paul swallowed.

"Look, if you wanna change rooms, go ahead, just don't tell Gene about-"

"I ain't telling Gene nothing. And I don't wanna change rooms." Pete exhaled. The look on Paul's face twitched just a bit, but Peter didn't give him a chance to respond before plowing back in. "Are we gonna do Gay Kitchen tonight?"

Paul flinched. Almost like he thought Peter meant it badly, or was making fun of him, or something. Like one of those Japanese trees, the ones with flat leaves that folded up after the briefest brush of a hand. One word and he'd curl back up. One touch, leaving Peter all out of sorts, trying to undo the trick, get those leaves to unfurl again.

"Do you want to?"

"Ace was asking earlier."

"Oh." Paul turned away, walking over to the kitchenette on the other side of the room. He pulled open the fridge, getting out the last can of Coke, popping the top before he really answered. "I guess."

"C'mon, it's our last night here. It'll be fun."

"We're almost out of food."

"We've got enough. Still have those hot dogs." Peter felt awkward, still standing there, barely past the doorframe, as if he was a visitor to his own hotel room. He stepped over to sit on one of the beds. The drawing wasn't on the nightstand anymore. "Hey-"

"What?"

Peter's throat was suddenly a little dry. The words were out before he could hold them back.

"You didn't have to get rid of it."

"It was stupid."

"No, it wasn't. It-it was good, Paulie."

Paul was still all tensed up. Like a battery coil on the verge of springing. Peter almost thought he was going to walk out, more prepared to face Gene and Ace or another lousy cab ride than spend the rest of the day with him, but instead, Paul sat down on the other bed.

"You really don't wanna change rooms." He said it flatly, borderline disbelieving, clasping the Coke can in both hands. He looked strangely young, sitting like that. The six years between them never felt like much except when Peter really let himself give it some thought. At twenty-two, he sure as hell hadn't been on the road with a record, however indifferently-received. Hadn't made it-with threesomes, even-with a whole bunch of girls. He resented it when he considered it, but right now, all Peter was considering was the tightness of Paul's lips and the way he was staring at the floor.

He was just a kid, really. Scared of getting rejected as any other kid, hell, as any other adult. Putting on onstage, putting on during their dinners, only ever peeling back how he really was during all the time in between. The worries and frets, the painful, painful shyness behind every sharp retort. The panicked heartbeat against Peter's chest last night as he'd pushed past his nerves for something he wanted.

Something Peter wanted, too.

"Fuck, no. You and me are the only ones around here that know how to pick up our own shit."

"Pete, that's not it-"

"No. No, it's not it. C'mere. C'mere," he said, quietly, scooting forward on the bed, hands resting awkwardly on either side of him, those orange covers clashing badly with his chipped black nail polish and cheap silver rings. He watched as Paul set down the Coke can and stood up, crossing the tiny threshold between their beds. He still looked like he was about to flee. One wrong word, one sudden movement and it'd be over.

So Peter was slow, agonizingly slow to take his arm and tug him forward. Paul let him do it, didn't go rigid at all, though the fear in those wide eyes was still there. Peter wanted it to fade; suddenly, he wanted it to fade more than anything, as he got to his feet, palm hot against Paul's arm. As he leaned in, pushing Paul's dark curls behind his shoulder, and pressed his lips to Paul's neck.

Paul didn't respond at first. Then, just as Peter was about to pull away, he felt Paul's other hand close around his. Too shy to even lock their fingers together. But that was all right. That was all right. Peter did it for him, shifting his hand in Paul's until their fingers were laced. He raised his head, and Paul's mouth met his, cautious and careful. None of that too-eager fooling around like with the girls. None of that silent desperation from last night. Peter liked this better, every second feeling warmer and fuller than the last. As if he was just on the brink of discovering something grand as his tongue slid across Paul's lips and he let go of Paul's arm to trace the stubble on his jaw, cup his chin in his hand. Paul parted his lips for him, Peter tasting cereal and toothpaste when his tongue slipped inside, but he didn't care. Paul was opening up for him. Finally opening up.

It wasn't too long before Paul started pressing up against him, hips rocking meaningfully against his. Somewhere along the line, he'd ended up with Paul's hair in his fist, and he tugged, lightly, urging him forward as he sat back down on the bed. Tugged his hand, too, as if he needed to. Paul got the picture, following him down, timidity shifting to urgency, until Peter's back was pressed against the mattress. Peter thought about yanking his hair hard for that one, and he might have, except Paul kept kissing him all the way down, except Paul's knee was rubbing against his crotch, his thin blue jeans barely a barrier at all.

Peter's breath hitched as Paul shifted lower, moving off of him enough that Peter could shuck off his own shirt and toss it to the floor. Paul was unzipping him, those long, thin fingers hooking around his belt loops and pulling down his jeans. Freeing his cock, already far too hard, worse than last night, easily. Peter took a sharp inhale when Paul sank down, pushing his thighs apart with his knee, and started to lick at his cock. All the way down, pouring on the attention, fingers pressing hard against his hips, keeping them steady. Peter watched, dazed, breaths hitching, until Paul's warm mouth was around just the tip of his cock.

"Paul, hold on."

Paul pulled back, lifting his head like he'd done something wrong.

"What?"

"You don't know how to do it, don't worry about it." It was just a guess, but Peter figured it was a good enough one. And that wasn't all of it. He didn't think Paul would give himself enough leeway for a screw-up. Perfection or nothing.

Paul hesitated.

"But-"

"It's okay, man." It was hard to think past the blood pumping straight to his dick, going untouched for now, but Peter was managing, barely. The brief image of Paul with his lips around his dick was promising enough, the lead-in for a dozen jerk-off fantasies already. Maybe more than that. "Just-c'mon, let me-"

He tugged Paul back up, helping him peel off his t-shirt, then his jeans and underwear. Taking him in like this, with no girl between them, didn't feel strange or wrong or any of that bullshit; it felt good, every shed layer lending Peter more skin to touch, making him more certain of everything. Despite the concert performances, despite the threesomes and the locker room showers, he'd never really gotten a sense of Paul's physicality before. Now that Paul was straddling him, hair hanging in his face, mouth pressed to his neck, his ear, Peter could really see it all, the wide, powerful build of his chest before it bore down against Peter's, his arms, taut and muscular, tensing as Peter's hands tightened around them. Paul's cock brushed against his, sending a jolt of electricity through Peter, and then he was grinding up against him, their hips flush, flesh against flesh. Peter was cursing before long, the stimulation maddening, almost agonizing because it wasn't quite enough. Paul seemed like he sensed it, reaching over, taking both their cocks together in one hand-but Peter shook his head.

"I've got a better idea."

"Yeah?" Paul's fingers rolled up against his cock just so, the pressure of his hand and his dick incredible enough that Peter almost changed his mind. Looking up at him, that slightly-sweaty brow, those dark eyes, dilated and needy, Peter nodded, fingers closing on Paul's wrist.

"Yeah. I already know you can jack me off." An exhale. "Get on your back and I'll show you what I can do."

Paul let go of him. There was a little consternation somewhere in his expression, a hesitancy Peter tried to erase, hand running down Paul's hairy chest, fingers tweaking a nipple, but Paul did as he'd asked, grasping Peter by the shoulders and rolling them both over. Peter shifted, repositioning himself on top of Paul, putting his hands beneath his thighs. Almost immediately, Paul stiffened up, started to try and lift up his legs. Peter pushed them back down before he could.

"Nah, we're not doing that. Don't worry." Peter watched some of the tension fade from Paul's face, curiosity replacing it. "Spread your legs out a little. there, now." He slid his dick between Paul's thighs, tip right up against Paul's taint. He didn't need to instruct further. Paul's mouth tilted in a distracted grin, his thighs closing tight around Peter's dick-and from there, Peter started to thrust, the soft warmth surrounding his cock nearly overpowering.

Paul was finally making a few sharp sounds as Peter's thrusts sped up, thighs squeezing hard against his cock. The sounds got louder, turned into curses, turned into strangled attempts at Peter's name. Between Paul's moans and his own urgency, Peter couldn't think, his pace speeding up, every brush against Paul's cock, every tensing of Paul's thighs pushing him closer to the brink. He came with a cry, spurting hot between Paul's legs, Paul still urging him to keep going, just a few more, a few more. He managed, grunting, shuddering with exertion as he kept thrusting. Beneath him, Paul looked out of it and focused all at once, dick throbbing against his. So close. Too close. It was seconds before Paul came, quieter, spilling all over them both, head lolling back in the aftermath. Peter was still panting as he slid his cock out from between Paul's slick thighs, as Paul put an arm around him, pressing a kiss to his jaw, his cheek, before finally meeting his lips again.

--

The Gay Kitchen's final evening went well. Ace and Gene had brought dessert-a box of oatmeal creme pies and a gallon of cheap Neapolitan ice cream-and they'd served it along with the hot dogs and stale chips. A beer apiece, except for Gene, who got a Sprite from the machine downstairs in a rare spendthrift moment. Paul's come-ons and gropes weren't any heavier than the night before, but there was a warmth and a relaxation in him that was new to Peter. A softer look to his expression he'd only been privy to late, late at night in the hotels, just before he drifted off.

Peter liked that. He liked that a lot. Feeling that, maybe, something of Paul's might be reserved for him. That maybe he'd be let in for more than an afternoon. He thought he might be. He figured he would be.

They didn't fool around that night. They didn't really have the time to. Once dinner was over and Ace and Gene had gone back to their room, Peter took a shower, and then he started packing, too-aware of how quick check-out came. Particularly when they were headed straight down to the bottom edge of Florida tomorrow, a solid ten or eleven hours on the road, to play at some college or auditorium or-something. Peter was just glad Bill had secured them another handful of tour dates, no matter the location.

He tossed his makeup kit and street clothes and shoes back into his suitcase, fiddling with the wobbly latches, tracing the crack down one side. Ten to one the damn thing would break before they got out of Atlanta, but maybe he could tie a scarf around it or something to hold the luggage together. He turned to Paul, who was sitting on the floor next to him with his own ratty suitcase half on his lap, about to ask him, but Paul spoke first.

"You forgot your heels."

"I didn't. They're in the laundry bag with everyone else's."

"Not the ones that go with your costume. The other pair." Paul pointed under the bed. There they were, three-inch platforms he'd barely worn all tour, neatly placed. He didn't remember putting them there.

He pulled them out, a piece of paper under one heel catching his eye. Setting the heels aside, he picked up the paper.

"Paul?"

It was the drawing of his dick. Paul hadn't thrown it away after all. He glanced over at him, and Paul smiled, a little bashful. That hopeless smile he hadn't been able to plaster on a single promo picture, more endearing and elusive than any sketch.

"It's for you. I don't know if I'd frame it, but."

Peter felt himself grin back.

"Are you kidding? It's the best drawing of my dick anyone's ever gonna give me. I'll keep it forever." Peter held it up, examining it anew. "There's only one problem."

"I thought you were done critiquing my art."

"Hell, no." And Peter handed it back. "You gotta sign it for me."

"I initialed it-"

"Sign it. Make it worth a million bucks someday." Peter didn't think he'd stop smiling as he leaned over, tousling Paul's hair. "You can even add the star."