#i was going to do a fully rendered thing but i just. i couldnt'

[chonnysinferno]

uhhhh fart and mint i n, yea and soul cause. astrjum watned to draw. himsrlf i guess

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

WIBTA for refusing to do any more art commissions for my mom's friends?

Ok so I (19nb) am a digital artist. If I had to honestly rate my skills I would put them somewhere in the "good enough to get a few commissions but not professional level" range and I wanted to do it professionally.

Keyword being wanted but I'll get to that

Now my mother has been showing off my art pieces to her friends (no problem with this) and it got one of my mom's friends to ask her if I could draw make icons for the website of her upcoming business back in late April (basically one big icon for the main page and five smaller ones, so six in total, all fully rendered) and paid 200 dollars for all of it (which thinking back was extremely low for the amount of time and effort that I put into that if I was going by living wage effort and time)

So I did that, got the money, spent it all and was happy.

And now yesterday (july 6th) my mom said that she asked one of her other friends (who is also her boss) if I could draw her a new logo for her side business.

SHE DIDNT EVEN ASK ME IF I WANTED TO DO THAT! SHE JUST TOLD HER FRIEND THAT I WOULD DO IT!

Now I got a big commission (dont know how much money Im getting paid) dropped on me with no warning. And apparently my mom and her friend are coming with even MORE ideas for me to draw. (Mind you that commission would take at least a week to two weeks at the MINIMUM and now they're coming up with more)

But the thing is I dont want to to do digital art professionally anymore. I want it to stay as a hobby, something to do for fun and my own enjoyment. The reason why? A one year digital art course I did last year that burnt me out so unbelievably bad. I couldnt make ANY art for myself for an entire YEAR because I was constantly working on that stupid useless course (and I didnt even get the final drawing done and submitted before the one year deadline was up so that didnt help. And it was the one I was the most proud of too)

I am burned out and I want to make things for ME, things that absolutely cant go on a portfolio (extreme horror art, fan art, NSFW art, etc)

The amount of times in the past months I have talked myself out of drawing something that would make me happy because everything I make should be fit to go on a professional portfolio is extremely high.

I'm obviously gonna do the new commission and whatever else those two tell me to draw (but it better be more than 200 dollars, like at least 350 minimum) but I am so tired of this and I just wished my mom had asked me first before automatically telling her friend yes.

So would I be the asshole if I told her Im not doing any future commissions from her friends and that I want to just do art as a hobby and not as a career?

What are these acronyms?

[justatalkingface]

I just saw your recent rant on the manga and i couldnt agree more.

My main issue with the current manga chapters is the fact that the characters are not fully developed enough to the point where the main themes and arguements can be handles correctly.

What i mean is, the LOV initially starting out kind of aimless and mad at the world to confronting the fact that the problems they faced were systematic would better help their arguements as well as if they were allowed to be morally grey and showcase compassion and empathy for people who suffered as they did then we would feel more sympathy for them and make the conflict more dynamic. Instead they are saying all the right things but it all seems to be surface level and not like the characters fully contemplated this.

Likewise, the heroes havent been allowed to consider the corruption and ramifications of hero society prior to the war arc in a meaningful way. It all came during the war arc and when it did it felt flat, like there was little depth to their arguements at all. Like Hori didn't really consider the deeper implications of his themes here. This is extreamly prominent in the side characters such as Monoma, Shinsou, Shoji and Tsuyu. All have themes of discrimination they discuss and showcase but Midoriya nor they contemplate it any further which renders the heroes feeling so shallow in their arguements. The most moral greyness we get is Monoma saying that they cannot be heroes the typical way to Shinsou and must act unheroicly to compensate for it.

Its all there. But it hasnt been explored well enough so we end up with Bakugou and Endeavour getting more focus without contemplation for how hero society helped create this and Midoriya being wierdly naive and hypocritical. All the heroes end up being hypocritcal alongside the villains and not in a 'oh theyre just as bad as the other' intentional way but in a 'i did not consider the arguements in their totality' kind of way.

This and the entire premise and consequences of the Nomu's not being acknowledged (thats a whole different rant) feel so underexplored and end up making me very fustrated with the manga. Because the building blocks were there, but for whatever reason it ended up being so underdeveloped.

I've said it before, but a lot of the villain/hero dynamic is built off a situation Hori seems actively afraid to explore after the manga progressed to a certain point.

Originally, MHA was built off the idea of flaws in society, the failures it causes, the people it alienates... deep ideas, and deeply interesting ones. But the thing is, looking at that kind of thing makes the good guys look bad. If heroes are flawed, if they fail people because of their own issues, then that makes them harder to root for, and at some point, probably because of Endeavour and Bakugou, Hori started almost running from that happening.

But, its so baked into the story's lore that he can't ditch it, so we get surface deep nods to 'failure' of heroes, while we watch heroes do and say everything right, all the time. No indivision, no selfishness, just all in devotion to the cause of making everything better.

At the same time, though, the villains are supposed to have a point, but if they go into that, if they seem like rational actors, again, the heroes look bad. So, the villains double down into cartoon villainous bullshit, before spouting out empty sounding platitudes about how unhappy they are... that everyone response to like that makes sense.

It runs the overall narrative, but more than that, without these imperfections, without the real people in the bad guys, it destroys their character development as well. No one like a one dimensional character, they want the interest and depth of a person to connect to, doubly so when this one dimensional character seems to be so wildly disconnected with the actual reality they're living in.

If the heroes, the perfect, selfless heroes, willing to give their lives amass to save one person, live in a society so corrupt as to make these monsters, to the point where that corruption surrounds their day to day life... why aren't doing something about it? Why are they fine with this status quo? Why is no one trying to reform the heroic system, however that works in reality? Why aren't they fighting the HSPC?

If the villains have all these causes and ideas and grievances, why don't they do something about it beyond just killing people? Shigaraki (who lived an absurdly sheltered life before being lead by the nose to losing his shit about reality, before he stopped being a relevent character/villain) and Dabi (who had executed a plan to solve his problem, even if it got fucked up by writing changes later on) have excuses, but why don't Twice, Toga and Compress, these big, dramatic personalities, broadcast... anything about what they want to say? Being part of the League, these big time villains, gives them, among other things, a platform to spread their message to all of Japan, and this is by design on their parts; they joined to fulfil these dreams and ambitions, and fight everything that oppressed them.

Why doesn't Toga, like, break into news stations to spread her message? Why didn't Twice flash-mob an elaborate graffiti manifesto onto an entire city? After all, a hint of them talking would bring slavering reporters to televise everything in droves, there's no way the heroes could suppress the sheer amount of publicity they could so easily generate.

Why? Because then that ruins the story. Not the actual story, but the little one Hori has made inside of it, where the good heroes beat the bad villains, then everyone cheers and goes on with their lives, the end. No depth. No deep thinking. No villains you can truly sympathize with, or heroes you can despise.

[tangy-soup]

Hii lookie! Even though I only made like 4 fully rendered pieces this year, I'm happy with what I've done this year!

(For months where I dont't have fully rendered finished pieces I put in the next closest thing I have that month.)

Ramble under the cut where I try to go over each month

General overview:

Funny thing I've noticed is how often I used cool tones this year bc my older art (that ive never shown from like 2 years ago) was characterized by warm tones

Even though I work through fully rendered pieces super slowly and barely come out of the year with any, I'm super proud of my progress this year! I've learnt and grown a lot as an artist and have also realized my potential. With that though also comes my fear of not being able to top what I've done, which I'm trying to work on! My issue is I tend to produce a lot of art when feeling highly inspired by a media, and right now I don't exactly feel the same kind of spontaneous and passionate inspiration as I did during the year. I'm definitely dealing with some sort of mental block right now when it comes to digital art and I'm hoping to get through that soon because I miss the process of making something I love through drawing!!

January:

honestly thought the boatem piece was done last year so I was surprised to find it in my January files! This piece was kind of a turning point for my art as it was my first more complex pieces (i had not previously done a piece w more than 1 character in it really). It was a lot of work and I was very nervous about it but I'm quite proud of what I was able to do!

Late january is also when i started sketching out the ethubs piece actually (i work slow)!

February:

I didn't actually do a ton of art this month, as I tend to take a break and slow down right after finishing a piece. At this point I was very keen on doing pose studies traditionally. I posted some of these and most of them were desert duo.

This month i started to really figure out my dnd character Ethe's main design as our campaign was starting. So, i did a portrait of her for that. The rest of February was working on ethubs and studying how to paint grass and clouds and just sketching here and there. I think desert duo brain rot was strongest this month

March:

March was also a mix of pose studies and random sketches and FINALLY FINISHING ETHUBS. I was also doing some art for dnd ^_^

April:

I finished the dragonborn npc centered dnd piece this month, and also began sketching out the cleo piece. In between working on cleo I did some joe art including an animatic featuring the wordle boarder and the sketch for biblically accurate joe :D

May:

Pretty much anytime i had procreate open in may I was working on Cleo. This is the most ambitious art project I have taken on and I wasn't sure if I was able to make it how I wanted, so I was kind of slow and on and off with it. I ended up putting it down towards the end of the month and did some more personal illustrations

June:

Big month for my dnd blorbos tbh! I introduced a sister for Ethe and was working on her design and their interactions. I also got a bigger sketchbook this month and did a bunch of traditional studies. I finished the flats for cleo this month and took a break so most of the art I did were sketches

July:

I was in the home stretch for cleo and with the help of my friends telling me to finish it i finally pushed through and finished it. I couldnt be happier w the results!! it's one of my proudest pieces this year and I put in so much work for it. But after I finished it i took a huge break from mcyt art and focused on dnd art yet again.

August:

My work for the multidimensional big bang started this month!! I worked out the character design early august and had a sketch for the full piece by the end of the month. In the meantime I was actually working on a cat painting I never posted... maybe I'll post it in an end of year art dump

September:

This month was all about the big bang piece. I had so much fun doing it and am super proud of the finished product. Im especially happy with the composition and inclusion of the background characters!!

October:

Again. Major break from making full pieces after finishing a huge one last month. I think I spent more of my creative energy elsewhere like my writing. Also school started again and I had moved apartments and there was a lot of irl stuff preventing me from drawing. I did try to do traditional studies if I could

November:

Kind of a dead month for drawing. Super busy w school, chugging my way through Ethe's ref sheet i started months ago.

December:

Literally haven't drawn anything new besides a new years illustration for greeting cards. I picked up crocheting again and have been spending a lot of creative energy on that instead, but to keep my drawing going I've been doing more figure studies in my sketch book i guess!

[jabberwockprince]

thinking thinking thinking thinking very hard

if i do one tapv chapter per day then the main story would be done in 6 more days so thats ok. then the two sidestories. then the zines. then any other extras i have left. ok thats settled

then its the r1999 transcript. 1.1 and 1.4 are fully completed, someone just has to give em a look to check for spelling errors and shit. 1.2, 1.3 and 1.5 are pretty barebones as of now. i could focus on 1.5 since its on-going and makes things much easier. then leave 1.2 for later once. i could do... 3 or 2 main stages per day, since my wrist is still healing

im kinda burnt out from writing so the writing blog is gonna be shoved aside for now. the afflatus thesis requires more research so that is also on hold until i get all info from 1.5. i also just wanna draw, and i have one big commission to work on and so many smaller projects

the FMN piece just needs rendering, the new sprites for spina venatores need the manus uniforms and then color. then the 1.5 skins. then tattoo work and practice, i could try doing the afflatus logos. theres also aianteia but im not looking at him rn hes the least of the priorities. then reworking momus and oizys since hades 2's test dropped and everyone got hotter

and all these reworks and sprites can work for artfight refs. i should make the genshin and nsr OCs invisible bc i couldnt care less abt them rn. right and that also means i have to organize information for everyone's sheets. ophis (touchstarved) can be lumped with ophis (dnd) bc theyre essentially the same guy. and i have to organize my profile too

i also have to work on some merch bc i want r1999 stickers for my redbubble. and i have to actually get that pngtuber program and rework the whole design. then theres the revolutionary utena anime somewhere in there in my brain, which can wait until we finish the anime. ok ok ok ok

[willowwhispersspeakeasy]

Hello! I really am enjoying your blog, especially because I am also neurodivergent can relate (Dislexic)! I dont know if your requests are open as I couldnt see any particular status for it but I was wondering what your headcanon would be for:

A Dislexic MC who often reads words or names and pronouncing them wrong. Possibly being embarrassed when having to read aloud things.

Thank you!

hello fello dyslexic! I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier! I've added a lot of my own experiences here so I hope that helps broaden the spectrum since dyslexia can be very different for each person.

OM! demon bros w/ dyslexic MC

warnings: gender neutral reader, some ablism mention

Lucifer

he was aware of your dyslexia from the very beginning. as it could pose a complication to your ability in the exchange program, accommodations were made. Lucifer insured you had a second person available to you if needed, able to read quizzes or homework aloud to you if required.

he is unlikely to ask you to read anything aloud. as the natural leader he is, he will step in and read something to you in casual settings. weather its reading a menu item, signs, whatever common object that you could have a problem with. he is adaptive, and will change his behavior to cover your weaknesses.

Lucifer if familiar with dyslexia and how it works, fully aware it is not simply a "weakness". he is more likely to ask you to explain three dimensional concepts to others, be that offering directions, moving furniture, what have you. your ability to think in perfect three dimensions is a valuable asset to him, and rare among demons.

Mammon

what do you mean "you can't read"??? you are going to have to explain it to him, and at first he only sees it as an annoyance. Mammon will complain whenever you ask him to read something for you, but he will also be upset if you ask someone else.

once he actually understands just what dyslexia is, that it is why you never seam to get lost, as you can render a perfect 3D map in your head as easily as he can mentally picture a coin, hes shocked. finally understanding why you mix up your letters or numbers because your outside the box brain flips them around.

he laughs at you at first when you misread things, but as time goes on he starts to just naturally step in. he will see you squinting at a menu and slide over, casually asking you if you'd like one item or another, already knowing you were struggling to read what they were.

Leviathan

"that's like, the dumbest superpower ever."

he laughs about it, he also knows what it is and how it works. he recommends you games with full voice acting so you don't have to worry about the subtitles as much.

Levi is to shy to read for you, at least in public. he is willing to in the privacy if his or your bedroom though. hes not very good at reading aloud either, often stumbling over words or pronunciations.

he won't really make fun of you for it but he will tease a little.

Satan

at first hes put off by it. reading is essential to gaining knowledge in his mind and your disinterest or full on blatant dislike is insulting. he will scoff and roll his eyes whenever you stumble while reading aloud. loudly correcting you when you misread something.

Lucifer tries to take him down a peg but he obviously doesn't listen. Mammon has to step in and call him out for being a dick about your learning disability. he will pause, the idea of a complication being the reason for your dislike and behavior having not accrued to him.

upon doing his own research into dyslexia he pins you down to apologize. hes quite frankly embarrassed by his own behavior. he will offer to tutor you, and if you'd like is the most likely brother to be the one studying with you to read for you whenever you ask.

Asmodeus

hes confused at first, but just brushes it off as you not being very... educated. it doesn't take him long to catch on that that surely can't be it. you are far to eloquent in your speech, ideas flow for you easily. you are remarkably intelligent, so why do you lack in such an area?

he will read for you if you ask him to, hes not bothered by it. he likes the attention anyway. once he catches on about just how your brain works hes intrigued and excited.

has you stage and take his Devilgrams photos, you always get the perfect angle for just the right the background!

Beelzebub

unbothered, of course. he won't ask questions, he'll notice, but he doesn't want to pry. hes happy to read small things for you, but reading aloud long paragraphs he can stutter and stumble a little like Levi.

Beel has a hard time expressing himself sometimes, especially with words. he relates and understands any frustration you feel. unlike many of the others Beel understands that you have to work harder to achieve the baseline of success that others have easily.

he supports you he really does, he just wishes he could be of more help.

Belphagor

hes no good at reading, it puts him to sleep. of any of the characters I think Belphie could have dyslexia himself. hes an abstract thinker, with little interests in taxing academics. he sees the value in stories but he'd much rather watch a movie then read a book.

Belphie will ask you about your mind, your power of imagination is uncommon for demons but very well familiar to him. he asks you if you dream in three dimensions as well, perhaps asking your consent to see them for himself.

he will never ask or expect you to read aloud. rather then stepping in to help you read he will opt to avoid the situation entirely if possible.

[piduai]

that part when sugimoto kills jack the ripper and he says "rather than worrying about who gave birth to you, the important part is what you live for" is a nice allusion to ogata being all like: if i had present and loving parents i wouldnt've turned out so fucked up :/ like naaaah man i dont believe it, you would still be the same insane man you are, ogata had present grandparents who cared enough about him to feed him and take care of him when his mother couldnt, (and he liked his granny enough to not kill huci) but still poisoned them for no reason before going to the army. also killing your mother at cold blood at the age of 8 thinking your doing something good for her is not something a good and sane person would do im sorry. i wish he could find peace one day but as you said, he wouldnt recognize it even with a microscope, that man was broken from the start. sad

hmmm i don't know. sugimoto saying that to jack was immediately picked up as having a connection to ogata (not through sugimoto himself lol he's not aware of ogata's past, narratively speaking), and people being able to overcome natural circumstances and better themselves is certainly a theme in gk, or the opposite. look at usami. i'm fully convinced that usami and ogata are juxtaposed and are supposed to be each other's foils - they might be two peas in a pod, but their backgrounds are pretty much the opposite. usami had most stuff ogata lacked as a child yet he turned out the way he did. look at this, for example:

when i say that noda is a good writer, this is what i mean. it's the way he conveys information subtly and succinctly, his attention to detail and the cohesivity of the story. usami's parents were given exactly one page in the whole manga, but it conveyed quite a lot of information. they loved each other - enough to have four children despite being obviously low income, enough to flirt with each other in front of their children, who are welcoming of their display of affection, therefore it's obvious that they don't lack in affection from their parents either. it's a nice detail, an important one, and noda made sure we know. usami had exactly what ogata is convinced makes him defective - a loving family, a warm home, a happy childhood. yet usami still turned out not alright.

however... people are different and complex. two people can be brought up in identical circumstances, yet turn out nothing alike. human brains are incredibly complicated, any given event in a person's life can have a very long-lasting rippling effect and be a turning point. any given psychology course will dedicate a lot of time to developmental and child psychology and therapy is majorly focused on looking at the core of things and searching for it in early childhood. children are malleable because their brains are developing, but once a neuro connection is strongly established, it's quite hard to change later - not impossible, neuroplasticity is a thing, but hard, and requiring a conscious effort. humans are social animals, community is unimaginably important to us, connecting to others is arguably one of the core needs of a human being. we learn how to connect with others from the moment of our birth, and naturally the first-comers, the people who establish us as human by taking care of us and connecting with us are our primary care-givers - namely, our parents.

the truth is that since the child-parent bond is typically the first one in most humans' lives, the relationship between a child and their parents is tremendously important. the other truth is that if a child is not loved and not desired, it is guaranteed to fuck them up for the rest of their life. we need to be loved early on in our childhood in order to be able to create healthy connections with others later in life, it's a must for natural, lasting, positive relationships. a person rendered unable to form healthy bonds with others will still typically seek connection, except in their case they will do it in negative, (self-)destructive ways. which is exactly ogata's case.

when i think ogata i think tunnel vision. he's incredibly self-aware in some areas while being completely blind in others, his perception of himself and others is so wrapped in itself it gives him an emotional handicap and an utter inability to accurately asses his circumstances. i think he is absolutely correct in blaming the fact that he's defective and lacking something fundamental on his parents being the way they were. i do feel sympathy for both him and his mother. you're saying that his grandparents were good to him because they fed him, but don't forget their circumstances either. they were poor. poor enough to either sell their daughter into prostitution or just accept the fact, though i'm inclined to think that they sold her because it was commonplace to do that in order to cover debt and get rid of a hungry mouth. doesn't strike me as the most affectionate household. people keep pets and feed them, but they don't give their cats or dogs the kind of affection a child needs.

i do agree with you that there was obviously something very off about ogata from the very beginning. thing is, even with extremely mentally unstable parents, even with neglect, even with poverty, children rarely poison their mothers on purpose. sure his logic was simplistic and childish, he didn't do it out of malice or ill will, he even thought that he's doing it for her sake, but he still purposefully murdered her. people who aren't naturally missing a few screws don't do that, ogata was well past the age of not understanding why hurting others is wrong.

he's got plenty of traits that make him unlikeable as a person. he is petty, arrogant, self-absorbed, rude, selfish, treacherous, awkward, has poor social skills, berating, 0 charisma, a liar etc etc... these traits can be found aplenty in people who had happy childhoods too. would he still be an asshole if he had better circumstances? most probably. the difference is that he'd be much less likely to self-sabotage, wouldn't waste so much time on introspection, and wouldn't react to basic, human kindness with murder. at the end of the day he's a fictional character and not a real person, being the way he is is very deliberate and constructed, and if he were different or had a different life then he wouldn't be ogata.

[golden-van-fleet]

Your Song

Summary: Gwilym has loved you for a long time and will continue to.

Word Count: ~2.2k

A/N: Hi! I needed to write about Gwilym. I’m not sure about the format? Also on mobile for this one. Enjoy!

It’s a little bit funny, this feeling inside

I’m not one of those who can easily hide

Despite Gwilym being an actor, his fatal flaw was his inability to hide what was on his mind. The entire world knew how he felt about you, except for, well, you. It made his stomach turn, to see you with a man that wasn’t him, holding his hand, kissing his cheek, calling him “babe”. He hoped, wished, and prayed desperately to be that man.

I don’t have much money, but boy if I did

I’d buy a big house where we both could live

He knew you wanted a big house in the countryside. It’d been your dream for as long as either of you could remember. In fact, it was the first thing he bought with his paycheck from Bohemian Rhapsody. He’d be lying if he said he didn’t dream of the two of you living there like Allie and Noah in The Notebook. He didn’t want to buy your love, per se, but if he could afford what you wanted, he wanted to be able to spoil you. For only being your best friend, he treated you a hell of a lot better than that boyfriend of yours ever could. Any of them, really.

And it wasn’t lost on you. You’d lost a couple boyfriends because they felt they couldn’t compete with Gwilym, and they couldn’t. Gwilym was over the top for you and only for you. When he bought the house, you were stunned. He constantly had you over, one of the guest rooms unofficially becoming your room. You’d been by his side before the fame and the fortune, it was only fair in his eyes that you were still there after it.

If I was a sculptor, but then again, no

Or a man who makes potions in a traveling show

I know it’s not much but it’s the best I can do

My gift is my song and this one’s for you

Every performance he did as Brian May was with you in mind. Gwilym was willing to go to the ends of the earth to prove that he was worthy of your love, to prove to you that he was the one you needed. He knew, rationally, you never needed a man to be happy or to succeed. He also knew, selfishly, that he was the one for you. This was a man willing to bend over backwards for you at any given moment, knowing you would do the same.

And you can tell everybody that this is your song

It may be quite simple but now that it’s done

I hope you don’t mind,

I hope you don’t mind that I put down in words

How wonderful life is, now you’re in the world

The day you met was a day he’d never forget. Your eyes piercing back into his own, a stare that sent a delicious shiver down his spine. It wasn’t a malicious stare, it was one of amusement. You were working at a local coffee shop while finishing your bachelor’s degree around the same time Gwilym began filming one of many up and coming projects. He’d come in with an agenda, a man on a mission, but when his eyes met yours, he babbled like an infant. You were so kind, you didn’t make fun of him, you smiled a little and let him compose himself.

Ever since that day, he made a point to visit you at work, seated at one of the tables in the corner as long as he could be without disturbing you, your coworkers, or the other patrons. You found it sweet, and your heart ached to get to know him.

So you did. He’d been to your apartment more times than the members of your family had over the course of the next year. It was around that year mark Gwilym realized he couldn’t live without you. It was also around the time you’d started your string of terrible boyfriends.

Gwilym couldn’t thank you enough for changing his quality of life. You breathed a life into everything that he’d never been able to find. Life by your side was beautiful. You never let him dwell on the bad, and as hard as it could be to find the good sometimes, he always tried. If not for his sake, then for yours.

I sat on the roof, and kicked off the moss

Well, a few of the verses, well they’ve got me quite cross

He had to tell you. He couldn’t say it to your face, but he couldn’t not say it to your face. He wrote letter after letter, page after page, hoping that something, anything would encapsulate his feelings about you. Late night after late night, he failed to document exactly what he wanted to say. He didn’t want to plan out what he wanted to say, but he needed it to be everything he’d had on his mind for years.

When you showed up at his door during one of those late nights, he told himself as soon as he opened the door he’d tell you. What he didn’t expect was to see you sobbing, throwing yourself at him. He caught you before you could hit the floor, catching a glimpse of you before you buried your face into his shoulder. Your eyes were puffy and swollen with tears, your face red and stained with tear tracks. It absolutely broke his heart.

“He broke up with me,” you whimpered. “Almost two years, I thought I was going to marry this man, and then suddenly I’m not good enough?”

But if only you knew how good enough you were. Gwilym saw the sun rise and set within you. You were the very center of his universe. He couldn’t tell you now, you’d just had your heart broken. He could try, in vain, to tell you how wonderful he found you and about the total joy you brought to his life, but his dark secret would have to wait a little longer.

You climbed out onto the roof outside the guest room window, the full moon hanging bright above your head. There was a gentle, almost imperceptible breeze floating through the summer night. This was your favorite part of the house. It was your hideaway, wrapped around the back of the house with a full view of the river in the background. It felt as though time stood still when you were there. You found yourself lost in the peacefulness of it all until Gwilym squeezed himself through the window frame to sit with you.

“He thought you and I had something going on on the side. I told him that you were my best friend, that you always would be, that without you there is no me. And he was jealous.” You sniffled, the tears of sadness now transformed to tears of resentment. “But maybe he had a reason to be jealous. You’re all I need in my life.”

Gwilym was nothing short of stunned. That was the first time in his life that he was utterly lost for words.

“I- I can’t be your rebound, Y/N. I’ve loved you for far too long to let myself be who builds you up for someone else to tear back down. You mean too much to me for that.” He felt a tear slip down his cheek. His heart was on the line. As much as he wanted to be with you immediately, to hold you in his arms and never let go, he couldn’t. Not right now.

“I’m not saying I want to jump from him to you. But I did a lot of thinking on the drive over here. You’ve always been there for me. You’ve been this support, this rock, and I can’t help but feel I’ve taken it for granted. And for that, I’m so sorry. I know the way you look at me when I’m not looking because I look at you the same way. I always have. And maybe I was too afraid of ruining what we had built up so beautifully. Rome wasn’t built in a day, but they were laying bricks every hour, and that’s what we did. We’re still doing it. So if you’ll let me, I’d like to keep building it, I want to know that it’s not going to go away after tonight.”

He forced himself to look at you, your eyes burning with unshed tears. It would never go away. It couldn’t.

But the sun’s been quite kind while I wrote this song

It’s for people like you that keep it turned on

Over the course of the following months, your relationship bloomed into the blossom it was destined to be. The dark cloud that hung over Gwilym’s head had finally given way to the warm rays of the sun, and he embraced them fully. Loving you was diving head first into a pool that had no bottom. There was always a new depth to be reached, and when he thought he’d reached his capacity, there was always more.

You noticed the change, welcomed it, and encouraged it. Gwilym was finally back to the man he was when you first met. The man that you thought you were going to fall in love with. However, you’d hung that up when he brought over one of his girlfriends, unannounced, to your flat the night you were going to tell him how you felt. It crushed you, but you couldn’t tell him that. To know that now, it wouldn’t happen again, he was yours? It was heaven in and of itself.

So excuse me forgetting, but these things I do

You see I've forgotten if they're green or they're blue

Anyway the thing is what I really mean

Yours are the sweetest eyes I've ever seen

He had to ask you to marry him. He made up his mind before the two of you had even been together six months. It took half a lifetime, or so he thought, to get with you in the first place. Hell, you’d moved in together after two months together, what difference would it make?

He found himself in the same position he was years and years prior, back in that tiny coffee shop. Your eyes were focused intently on his, your smile kind and your hand relaxed in his. Gwilym was in his element, at home, alone, with you. And there, in the comfort of your shared bed, he was going to ask you to be his wife, and he couldn’t choke the words out. All he could do was present you with the ring first.

“Marry me. Please,” he added, softening what sounded like a demand.

“Easily,” you smiled, pulling his face towards yours and locking your lips into a breathless kiss. “I would marry you a million times over.”

He found himself in the same predicament when it came to your vows.

“I’m not usually one to forget what I’m saying before I say it, but you look so beautiful I can’t help myself,” he began, chuckling as he bashfully wiped away a tear. “I had this whole thing planned about how you were the one for me and I knew from the moment I met you, but even to this day you render me speechless. So forgive me if I cut this a bit short, but I’d really love to call you my wife sooner rather than later.”

And you can tell everybody this is your song

It may be quite simple, but now that it's done

I hope you don't mind, I hope you don't mind that I put down in words

How wonderful life is while you're in the world

When your daughter was born with your bright, beautiful eyes, Gwilym cried more than he ever thought he would. He was so gentle with her, so gentle with you… You couldn’t love him more if you tried.

Despite having your eyes, your daughter was Gwilym’s clone. She had her father wrapped around her tiny little finger from the first cry she let out the day she was born. Gwilym immediately switched into protective dad mode, refusing to let her go without a fight. Unless she was going to you, of course. But even that took a little convincing.

One night, about three weeks after she was born, Gwilym got up in the middle of the night to tend to her. He took the wailing newborn out of her bassinet in your bedroom to the rocking chair in what would be her nursery.

“Alright, love, it’s okay.” He’d done everything he could think of to soothe her and nothing was working, and the last thing he wanted to do was wake you. He unbuttoned the front of her onesie, placing the newborn over his heart. He’d been told to try skin to skin bonding whenever he could, and by some miracle, it calmed her down.

Gwilym didn’t realize he was humming until he started to sing lyrics to a song he didn’t realize he knew.

I hope you don't mind,

I hope you don't mind that I put down in words

How wonderful life is while you're in the world

Your song had had its share of wrong notes and tweaked lyrics. It conveyed a full spectrum of emotions, highlighting the ups and the downs that came with life and love. Your song was unique, and Gwilym was blessed to share it with you.

[yourhero404]

Request: Mina running on a treadmill while connected to a heart monitor as part of a stress test, the stress proving too much for Mina's heart, resulting in a massive heart attack and (s/o) must revive her. Feel free to tweak this to your liking.

A/N: oof, the poor girl is one of the healthiest in the class! But I shall work some magic and provide this for you TuT

MINA

Interning is hard, Mina decided, and she was exhausted. Class was hard enough, now she has to work during her free time? That sucked! She sighed and told herself it was the curse of becoming a hero, she would have to toughen up even more to make sure the lifestyle was bearable. But why was she feeling much weaker today than she had been lately?  

“Mina! It’s time to head to the gym!”

Mina groaned and swung her legs as they were dangling over the side of the common room couch. She ignored the voice and threw her arm across her eyes, giving them a long sigh.

“I don’t wanna!” She whined, drawing out her words.

“You know you have to if you want to keep interning. Aizawa wants me to give you the test, anyway, so I’ll go with you.”

“You’re gonna do it?” She sat up quickly, a hopeful smile gracing her lips as she finally locked eyes with (S/o), “Really?”

“Lucky for you, yes I am.”

“Yes!” She cheered, hopping to her feet, “What are you doing just standing there? It’s time to go!”

Mina quickly grabbed onto (S/o)’s hand and dragged them towards the gym. Her mouth was moving several miles an hour while her s/o did nothing but smile and make a sound of affirmation every now and again to show she held their attention. They knew their presence at these tests put their girlfriend at ease, so they didn’t hesitate to spend their extra time with Recovery Girl to learn just how to administer it; After her recent run in with a villain who gave her a pretty rough beat down, (S/o) understood why she was so hesitant on taking these tests- she was afraid of being too weak to continue her work and she didn’t want to tell anyone. (S/o), however, knew her very well and could sense that something was wrong but… they couldn’t put their finger on it.

“Mina, stop moving and let me stick these on you.”

They’d made it to the gym, but Mina was too jittery to let (S/o) do what they need to do. She was bouncing around, telling them all about what happened to her today while she was out, begging them to tell her what their day was like but cutting them off with another side story before they could answer. They didn’t mind, they love listening to her after all, but the sooner she finished the test, the sooner the two of them could go do something fun together- if only she’d sit still!

“Please, sweetheart. Stand still and let me put these on you, then you can take out your energy on the treadmill. Okay?”

“Fiiiine!” She drew out dramatically and smacked her chest, “Stick ‘em on me, baby!”

They shook their head but kept their smile towards her antics as they placed the electrodes on her skin and told her to hop onto the treadmill. (S/o) started her out slow and slowly kicked the speed up, leaning against the front of the machine to talk to her while keeping an eye on the monitor beside them. Something seemed… off about her readings- maybe it was just the fact she had been worn out lately? They poked a few buttons and kept double checking on their girlfriend- she stopped talking now and seemed to grow fairly exhausted and seemed almost… pale. She hunched over slightly as though her torso started to grow painful.

“Mina, are you alright?”

“Fine,” she huffed, “Just… just a little… a little lightheaded.”

“You look like you’re going to faint-”

(S/o)’s head whipped towards the monitor as the machine started blaring noises and the readings on the screen became drastic. Before they knew exactly what happened, their girlfriend had made it off of the machine and collapsed to the floor. Immediately, they moved to check on her- tapping her cheek, feeling her pulse; The machine continued to beep rapidly and (S/o) had held their hand in front of her face and felt no breathing coming from her.

“No,” they muttered, “No no no-”

They yelled out for help, hoping someone, anyone, would hear them. Without sparing a moment, they quickly tapped on the first number on their phone and threw it aside, yelling to whoever picked up on the other end to get help. With one hand over the other, they placed it over her breastbone and started chest compressions, pausing every fifty times to check on her breathing.

“Come on!” They cried, “Wake up!”

The beeping of the monitor took over their mind, rendering their thoughts useless as they mindlessly continued their chest compressions. Their arms were growing tired, but they didn’t stop- they couldn’t stop- not until she opened up those golden eyes to look at them once again.

“Dammit, Ashido!” They only used her last name when they were upset, it felt foreign on their tongue, “You’re one of the healthiest people in this damn class! You can’t have a heart attack like this!” Their compressions grew heavier and irritated, “Wake up! Dammit, wake up!”

They continued yelling even as help arrived and made them move out of the way. The recovery team pulled out the paddles, and though (S/o)’s own chest felt tight at the sight of them, they couldn’t take their eyes off of Mina. One jolt, two jolts, their heart was about to burst out of their chest at the rate it was beating out of fear and pure adrenaline. (S/o) almost fainted themselves the moment Mina’s eyes fluttered open. They were obviously heavy and she struggled to keep them open, but she immediately searched for (S/o) and they ran over immediately.

“Mina? Mina, keep calm, alright?”

She attempted to nod but the paramedic helping her asked her to stay still. (S/o) had to beg Aizawa to allow them access to her after she had been taken to the infirmary and was by her side the moment she fully woke up.

“Hey,” (S/o) cooed softly, running their thumb across her cheekbone, “There you are. Feeling okay? I can call Recovery Girl-”

“’M fine,” she clicked her tongue and attempted to clear her throat, “Ew, my mouth’s gross.”

“That’s the first thing you have to say?”

“I could’ve asked if my gross breath was your fault?”

“Ashido!” they cried, dramatically hunching over a moment, “Do you know what happened?”

“I fell off the treadmill!”

“You had a heart attack. A real, whole, heart attack!”

“That’s not good.”

“No!” their voice grew shrill, “It’s not! You’re sixteen! You shouldn’t be having those!”

“That’s wack-”

“Please take this seriously.”

“Sorry sorry,” she grabbed onto (S/o)’s hand and drew small circles on their knuckles with her thumb, “It must have been something to do with that villain the other day- I haven’t been feeling well since then.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“I didn’t want you to worry,” she sighed when she saw their quirked eyebrow and scowl, “Okay okay… I also just didn’t wanna seem… weak. Like I wasn’t cut out for hero work. I want to be a hero,” her voice grew quiet, “I didn’t want to just quit because I didn’t feel well.”

“Honey,” they leaned forward and placed a gentle kiss against her forehead, “Even heroes feel bad sometimes. They need breaks too. And they certainly see a doctor when they feel bad!” They flicked where they had kissed and ignored her whine. “Next time, you need to tell me.”

“Okay… Okay, I will.”

“I’m not giving you CPR again.”

“So my gross breath really is your fault!”  

“Nope, that’s all you. I only did chest compressions.”

“Copping a feel, huh? Pervert.”

“I’m leaving you on the floor next time.”

“(S/o)!!”

[coolspacequips]

How do you draw natural hair???? I can't find a solid reference that isn't just "draw individual strands" or "make blocks and nothing else"

omg thats a tricky question, tbh, anon!!! and also tbh this answer got longer than i expected... i dont rly have the Art Language to rly teach anything v well so uhh i just threw a bunch of stuff in here

ive never made a tutorial, and i dont rly have the time to do one atm, but HERE is a pretty decent one i see floating around from time to time, and HERE is one that loosely goes over some dos/donts of drawing black features, and mentions hair as well. theres a particular one i think is rly good that i cant find, unfortunately, but oh well

the first guide i linked gives a pretty neat rundown of a few things to keep in mind, namely:

texture types

hairline!!

lighting

colors/undertones

just like w straight hair, the first thing to consider is the hairline and HOW the hair falls, which may seem intimidating bc of the natural beautiful voluminousness of black hair, but rly isnt as hard as it seems. 

i think ppl are often intimidated by learning to draw curly hair out of this feeling that they have to render each strand/curl and flyaway, but when ur doing art youre trying to CONVEY something, not render a picture perfect image. you can translate the curl, volume, and texture of hair without fully rendering it, the same way that u can translate the swish and fall of straight hair without having to draw every single strand, but ya, you cant rly draw ‘blocks’ with no nuance or defining features and hope to communicate the same thing

it might be useful to kind of envision it as drawing layers. like, the way that you wear layers of lace and crinoline to give size and volume to a skirt. this applies for rly picturing most styles, but w curly hair in particular its a good way to imagine how/why the volume builds the way it does

this is just a scribble to illustrate my point lol, but u wanna get the shape and stuff down!! when its shorter, it sticks up into those cute, curly afros and bobs, and when its long it gets heavy and the curls tend to droop down more. btw, shrinkage refers 2 the way that ur hair shrinks up from the curls themselves, so keep that in mind when it comes to the hair length that youre drawing, also! if the girl i drew had wet hair, itd probs go to the middle/bottom of her shoulder blades, despite being shoulder length when curled

ur best tool is reference! look at pictures of black hair in different styles. its like, the most versatile hair in the world, u can curl it and shape it and braid it, hell, afro textured hair can be sculpted into just about anything, broaden ur scope of what you think black hair can be!!! and dont just draw sleek 4c ringlet curls and call it a day!! also, get more comfortable drawing the shape of a bald head, dont hide behind hair. itll help you draw all hair and features better, but especially will help w faded styles, braids, and of course shaved heads

reference doesnt have to just be pictures, tho, bc it can be hard to know where to start. look at how other BLACK artists draw black hair, and take note!! focus on what they thought needed to be included to get the point across, what silhouette the hairstyles have, where they draw curls, where they draw parts in the hair, how they highlight and what shapes they make. give braids and locs a try-- its not as hard as it might seem, but it takes practice to get it right!!

if u have a more realistic style, its def worth getting further into the nitty gritty of just how all of those curls come together, im just talking more about the shape and how it translates in a p basic way, especially since i have a more cartoony style afiowejaioej im also still learning!! 

im sure u have all seen asieybarbie’s stuff floating around on tumblr thru the years, and she is one of my Big Inspirations when it comes to drawing varied black hair AND skintones (which she has a tutorial about lol), and HERE is a little sketchpage she posted once that has a small variety of both. some are more rendered, while some are big blocks of color broken up by highlights and loose curls on the edges to define the shape of the hair, and note w the locs how u can see her scalp between the parts in her hair

if u have a simple or comic style u can still convey black hair, either as a block of shape w defining features, or by drawing out the texture of the curls and strands, like this

(first two are old, finished comics lol, and hey look 2 black wlw!!!!! tiger tiger is something ive been working my way thru, but is recent, ongoing, and cute and funny and inspiring lmao. notably tho none of these are black artists :c ive been out of the web comics game for a minute and tiger tiger is the first one ive read in a while lmao)

***its girlswithslingshots.com, made a typo!! 

also when i think mainstream comics, the first character w natural hair that comes to mind is my wife gwendolyn from saga who i couldnt not mention

on the left her curls are more rendered, its cover art, notice how the light hits the curls and the way that they curls end, which is simplified to the right image a lot of the time in the main body of the comic!

and idk ive said too much already, but hopefully that helps!! im just kind of rambling at this point lol, but research and reference and practice are rly the best thing, and looking at other art of respectfully portrayed black characters

[silverjirachi]

a tour of the abandoned mall i went to

There aren’t many opportunities to explore an abandoned mall safely and legally, but ohio is a wasteland, so sometimes that’s exactly what you get to do.

There are currently only 3 stores open. But they’re spread far apart enough that the whole mall is still open for anyone to wander through. I honestly think they might keep it open just for wanderers like myself. I wasn’t the only one aimlessly milling about the halls, but it sure was empty regardless. It’s like walking through a shell or a skeleton of a different time. Like a fossil, but with ghosts.

Walking in, this is the first thing you see. There used to be an arcade/kids play area (similar to chuck e cheese) just to my left out of the frame. While all the doors seem to be open for access, we went in through a Kohl’s just to be safe. We were both kind of surprised that we could just kind of.. walk out. A vending machine to the.left still worked.

This was.. inside the mall in a store. There were a lot of places like this. There were no police, and there was no police training while we were there.

This is in the center of the main strip, where all the corridors (eerily called “Neighborhoods” and “Districts” by this mall) connect. The winged pigs were not alarming. In southwest ohio we worship them. But compared to the last time I was there, which had only been a few years ago, EVERYTHING was closed, including the Claire’s where i bought some earrings shaped like little ice creams and an arrow shaped ring. To the right of this is a dry and empty fountain.

A shot of the “neighborhoods” labeled alphabetically. Each one has a different theme and color, which makes the whole place feel really... toylike and disjointed. It’s like walking through post apocalyptic candyland.

Upstairs, we found some garage access. (None of this entire area is air conditioned, by the way, so we are slowly wasting away in the heat as this progresses). The whole mall is filled with this alarming aura of “you are not supposed to be here” and i cant tell if that’s for lack of people or its abandonedness, but this part especially. It’s kind of pushed off and out of the way behind a line of closed doors, with only one open on either end. Some shady shit DEFINITELY used to go down in that garage (or still does). Some graffiti was on the ceiling. “Penis” and “Grace” were written on an overlook. Nice.

an upstairs information booth outside of the ocean-themed food court. we had been inside long enough that we were really starting to feel the heat and it was starting to feel a little bit like satan’s butthole. i felt like a trickster entity or some entry-level demon lived behind this desk. I left him a coin from the change from our vending machine soda, which we were drinking sporadically like mana to keep our bodies intact like it was spirited away. I wondered what kind of dark and clandestine “information” i had just exchanged 25 cents for.

Across from the middle of the food court there was just... a fully functioning and open arcade? Let me emphasize that this is in the middle of the mall and you have to make an effort to haul your ass over to this point. It was full of nostalgia games including a dungeons and dragons game, and a man behind a desk asked us if we were “here to play” when we walked in. He seemed dead inside, and he seemed like he got stragglers like us a lot. We told him we were just looking. He nodded in defeat. More people seemed to render as we went deeper inside. They offer group discounts. I’m so going here for my next birthday. A couple people passed by in the food court. Most were older, in their 60s-70s, and unaccompanied. This food court also is full of giant fish that hang from the ceiling, and in the middle has one of those bungee cord things you can tie yourself to and jump around. It was closed, sadly.

This was in one of the bathrooms, near one of two abandoned theatres in the mall. There are lots of disjointed messages like this that either appear to be tampered with by teenagers, or placed there deliberately. “REDRUM” is written on one of the storefront windows. There was also what looked like a CRIME SCENE in one of the stores in the food court near this, and once i saw what looked like a struggle and a pool of blood, i couldnt unsee it. It looked a little too cluttered and beaten up for regular decay.

Lots of weird things like this in the store windows. This was one of my favorites. Most ominous storefront award, though, goes to the storefront on the upper level full of black sheets and what looks like two copies of a children’s book called “Lord of Innocence” or something. Except, the copy on the other side is turned upside down. There was also some soap?

Tumblr has a ten-photo limit on posts, sadly, but I don’t have many more to share because my phone died halfway through our excursion. We came across what appeared to be the only staff member in the whole place - a female janitor slowly carting around her cleaning supplies like she was floating through a dream space. We crossed paths with her again when we came across a playground, and she was sitting on a bench. For what felt like a full thirty seconds i locked eyes with her and forgot what i was thinking about. I felt like we werent supposed to climb the playset, but she didnt stop us. My friend asked her and she didnt act like she cared. No one did. That was the most freaky thing. The whole place is filled with a wave of overwhelming listlessness and apathy. The people of ohio come to this abandoned mall just to look around? Sure, go ahead. We can tell you’re not shopping, but we don’t care. We’ll leave the doors open for you. Even among the other people walking there is just this complicit and unspoken understanding that we are all here to see the sights, that it’s a bit of a contemplative and ghostlike experience, and that we’ll greet each other with a faint nod and that will be enough.

There were also a couple stores that appeared to be rented out by business, but only “by appointment.” A lot of them were things like event planning or one promising “the vacation of your dreams.” I don’t know if any of their services are ever actually utilized, though. They didnt appear to be.

That’s about it! I might post the rest of the pictures just so you can see. But if you’re in the ohio/indiana/kentucky area i highly recommend at least stopping by this place if you ever get the chance. Maybe buy something from the Kohl’s so they stay open. I don’t want this place to close its doors permanently. I’m deeply connected to buildings, especially old and abandoned ones, and it’s so surreal being in a place that saw so much life one moment and none the next. And yet, people still visit it just to see it. To experience a place with its past completely behind it and a totally uncertain future. To me, that is reason enough to keep it open, and maybe that’s why they do.

[fairyharps]

hello!! i just finished kh3 so below are my thoughts. obviously, spoiler warning if you havent finished the game.

first of all...... wow!!!!!!!!!! its real!!!!!!! i held the game in my own hands and played it!!!!!!!!! 12 year old me has been screaming non stop since the release im in a fog of emotion. every time i started up the game and heard that new kh3 rendition of dearly beloved with the ocean waves i just absolutely lost it

however, in the end, i feel mixed. i guess the hype over the years built up to an astronomical amount and while the game was incredibly fun and beautiful and i love seeing the story finally pan out into the finale, in a way it also felt very short? as of writing the first few paragraphs here i have just started san fransokyo, so i havent seen the actual finale, but these are my current thoughts and i will update this as i play. i still feel like there is so much more that is going to happen and ive barely even scratched the surface

theres a lot of new information that got me going WILD. piecing everything together & theorizing is always something i find fun about kingdom hearts since its so unpredictable. in fact i got so into it i had to start taking notes and making diagrams. i love a game that makes me bust out a notebook. (i do this for hm/sos/stardew and acnl as well lmao)

also every single time ienzo came on screen i went absolutely HOG WILD. when he laughed? the little laugh?? his smile?????? just thinking about it now is making me misty eyed fellas i love my boy

the implication that demyx, luxord (was his name always pronounced luke-sord??? i always said luck-sord wtf), and obviously marluxia and larxene's somebodies are from before the keyblade war is out of control!!!! vexen and demyx being double agents for ansem the wise?? ANSEM THE WISE'S REUNION WITH IENZO!!!!!!!!?????????? also zemyx is real sdfjsdlkfjsdlkfsdlkfjsdlkf jk

uHHHHHHH VENTUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! MY BABY MY SONION!!!!!!!! AND AQUA!!!!!!!!!! I'M SO EMOTIONAL!!!!!!!!!!!! im honestly losing my mind everything is coming together aaaaaaaaaaaa literally seeing ventus looking SO BEAUTIFUL is making me lose my mind AND UHH AQUA.... REALIZING SHES IN THE WORLD OF LIGHT...........DAMN U NOMURA FOR MAKING ME FEEL

S-SAIX................................. I LOVE EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!

i felt very mixed about the paopu sharing scene. while i know this ship was always going to be endgame, i really hate how little development it actually gets throughout the Whole Series so instead it feels So forced. that scene is bone dry. the whole time i was wondering why they werent including riku since he was like.. 20 feet away.... like hes your best friend too guys.... i really am unable to understand this scene. like... nomura you KNOW how to write compelling relationships so what happened buddy. woody and buzz had more romantic tension than sora and kairi. also like when she leads him into the light or whatever.. whats the deal

i LOVE kairi but god. can you PLEASE let her do SOMETHING????? CAN I PLAY AS KAIRI??? im so tired of her being reduced to a damsel even when she has a weapon shes supposedly adept with now. she has had like.............. no development. im so sorry this happened to you kairi

im surprised there arent more worlds. i thought there would be the same or a greater number of disney worlds as kh2 but theres actually fewer?? and they feel much longer, or at least some of them do. worlds like the caribbean and toybox felt gigantic and took me forever while corona and monstropolis felt smaller. and some of the worlds you cant even fully explore until after you played through the story????

also im very intrigued about this new female character that keeps getting mentioned vaguely. i suspect there will be some intense retcons put in place abt her since she has NEVER been mentioned before dispite it seeming like shes very important. 

the final world place is very interesting conceptually but like how many times in this series am i going to have to collect soras lmao ALTHO i loved hearing from namine ;_; i miss u sweet girl

also uhh i could write for forever about sora as a character and how complex he is when you actually think abt it. i STILL see ppl saying riku is more interesting as a character but i feel like ppl only look at soras optimistic outlook. sora really keeps his feelings locked up way more than you think he would & not only that but hes so empathetic he ends up tackling everyone else's feelings too.. the idea that he is only powerful or useful because he has friends really hammers in how he says "my friends are my power" like.. every 5 seconds.. god  i love u but pls take a break for a Second. i just want him to go home and hug his mom

-

ok i just finished. like 5 mins ago. im still trying to like.. register what happened. the final act really packed a LOT together. i feel like theres too much to even mention right now. and theres still SO many questions. 

like i said before, i feel mixed. while there was a LOT to like about this game, there was also a lot that i did not like or was confused/put off by. i thought the first like, 2/3 of the game was too long and kind of boring sometimes? i couldnt handle in arendelle how they included the songs.. i get why they did it but it was NOT for me. the disney worlds kind of dragged on and, outside of the story connections to the finale, felt a little pointless. nothing happened other than the org popped in to egg on sora and then left. and the final act went by SO QUICKLY i didnt feel like there was enough time to register all the shit that was happening. also i fucking HATE how after everything, kairi was reduced to a damsel YET AGAIN. are you KIDDING ME!!!!!!!!! everything she does is off-screen and her "death" acts as a motivation for sora which is the worst way to do things like what the fuck

i personally really liked the game, even if parts were not as i initially expected. there was a lot of hype surrounding this game, but i think for what it was, it was as enjoyable to play as any kh game, and it delivered a lot of emotions, answered a few questions, created more questions, and wrapped up the dark seeker saga pretty nicely while still leaving room for future stories to be told. and BOY do i have some questions!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

people who dont like how convoluted, dramatic, weird,  tropey  or heavily-retconned the plot is might think its bad. but ppl have thought kh in general is bad for those reasons for years anyway. honestly while these are all things that i can understand and empathize with, in the end for me its about how it makes me feel rather than like, how well it follows storytelling rules? and it sure made me feel a Lot. like im saying this as a long-time superfan so lmao

anyway i cried a lot for a very long time about the following: old man yaoi, ventus and roxas being in the same shot, how everyone looks rendered in beautiful next-gen hd, lea isa  and xions new outfits, namixi date, uhhh seasalt trio finally got to go to the beach together, namine being ALIVE, all the shit everyone said after i beat them in the labrynth, how often everyone cried in this game, sora uhhh not existing??? what happened????? is this what the next game is going to be about??? 

THANKS NOMURA FOR MY FUCKING LIFE????????

[brennbug]

5, 8, 28! :D

5. Estimate of how much of your art you post online vs. the art you keep for yourself

oh god i used to post pretty much everything i drew but i think now after picking up drawing again at least half of what i do doesnt actually see the light of day cause a lot of it is studies or practice or i end up not liking it (and some of its the real cringe thats just for me) but maybe one day ill get around to posting some of it because i think its actually really valuable to see examples of "fails" and studies and ya know i love cringe so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

8. What's an old project idea that you've lost interest in

i dont think i necessarily lose interest in projects its more me deciding my skillset just isnt at a point where i can make exactly what i want so it has to go in my back pocket for later. I've got ideas for animatics and comics swimming around in the back of my head as well as things that ive gone through the effort of fully rendering just to decide i want it to be better (specific ed and winry idea my beloved)

28. Any art events you have participated in the past (like zines)

the only thing ive really done submitted to some competitions (in my experience i wouldnt recommend doing this) i would really like to do some dtiys type things or do zines but im not a popular artist and i have no idea how the whole zine process works so it always struck me as something intimidating that i couldnt do

weirdly specific artist asks

[uniformbravo]

me trying to make a gif part 2 (thrilling finale, buildup ver.)

ok good news and bad news: good news being withheld for Spoilers (not that it’s that hard to guess anyway lol), bad news explained first bc, chronologically, it is first

so yesterday i mentioned in the tags of that post that i had seen that krita has an animation feature so i was gonna try importing the frames into that and then exporting it as a gif. easier said than done, as it turns out

i started by opening the file i made yesterday with 62 layers as the frames and importing that into krita, which worked fine (i didn’t know you could actually open .psd files in clip stuido ((this typo is so fucking stupid it made me laugh so im leaving it)) and krita, so that’s pretty neat, i wonder if it works the other way around too) but i ran into problems when i tried to convert those layers into frames in an animation. because, like, the layout of the program has the layers displayed in one tab, and the animation timeline in another, like so:

(do u like how im using pictures now, i thought of that yesterday after i published the other post and realized hey, visual reference would probably make my plight a lot easier to understand!! so enjoy these educational diagrams from now on)

so my goal was to get the frames from the layers into the timeline, and i still don’t know if i did it right bc lbr krita is not very intuitive at all,,.,, i mean i watched a video tutorial abt how to animate in krita which was v helpful (it’s the one by jesse j james on yt fuckin SHout out) but it was about animating from scratch, not importing an animation you’ve already done elsewhere

so like, the way krita’s animation thing works, from what i could piece together as i bumbled my way around w/ it, is that each layer in the layers tab is a separate timeline in the,,, timeline tab

i want them all to be in the same timeline, not separate ones, and there’s no way to combine them in the timeline tab bc doing that just overwrites whatever layer you’re pasting it down onto, and also if you define the number of frames for that timeline (62 for this project) it just puts the single image of that layer for all of the frames instead of just one of them, so you’d have to go through and delete all the other frames you don’t want it to be, which would be such a fuckin pain

so i found a workaround, which is so tedious that it can’t be the right way to do it, but basically i started w/ layer 1 and defined 62 frames & then emptied frames 2-62, like this

(that blue box is the frame, btw, even tho it says 0, which actually kind of annoys me like why doesn’t it start the first frame on 1????)

from there i went up to layer two and selected that in the timeline, but for some reason the frame doesn’t show up automatically?

& i couldnt fuckin figure out how to make it into like, an Official Timeline Layer or whatever tf bc like, u see on layer 1 how theres that little lightbulb-looking icon on the right? that’s for turning on onion skin which only applies when you actually have frames with things drawn on them, so basically layer 2 in the layers tab has a drawing but in the timeline it doesn’t?

i didn’t find out what the actual reason for this is or how you’re /supposed/ to make the frame appear in the timeline, but what i did was right click on layer 2′s timeline & select “create blank frame” which magically made the frame i want appear

but it’s on top of the layer 1 frame, and i want it to be the frame after. also it’s still in a different timeline. this is the only easy fix in this whole damn process, u can literally just click & drag the frame from layer 2 to layer 1 and put it wherever u want on the timeline

and then u just delete layer 2 and that’s it, frame transferred!! then i just had to do that for 60 more layers and after [unspecified amount of time but it was a fuckin while ok] my timeline looked like this!

(the gaps near the end are held frames, to save me time so i didn’t have to copy a bunch of frames that were exactly the same)

krita is great because as far as i know ur animation can have an unlimited number of frames, at the risk of your own pc’s processing power, which is a definite upside to SOME expensive art programs i know (clip studio, i’m talking abt csp) and u can pick the frame rate too (cough photoshop elements 5.0 even tho u dont technically have an animation feature & it’s a miracle u can even make gifs at all) so once i finally got all the frames situated all nice and in order like on the same timeline, playing it was great! played at the right speed, looped perfectly, it was a dream come true right

well, time to export it as a gif

ha

haha

hoooo oo  o

so u got 2 options for exporting ur animation, u can either hit “export,” which lets u save it as different file types, one of which being gif, or you can hit “render,” which gives you gif and video options

well

i tried export first, bc that seemed like a good idea, but the “””gif””” it made was distinctly not a gif, despite its claim to be one?? this is what i got:

notice: 1. it is not moving, and 2. the black bars to the sides?? those are supposed to be transparent. they’re transparent in the file i made so why didn’t they register as transparent in the export, when gifs have transparency capabilities??

so That was some real live bullshit but i still had the “render” option, right? export was wrong, so rrender must be the correct option to go to that will produce the results i am wanting to see produced in front of me like a silver dinner platter with a correctly functioning gif under the lid, that’s what i want to see and “Render Animation...” is gonna Give me that silver platter righWRONG ok look at this shit rn ok Look

it says GIF it says it RIGHT THERE right??? right?????? then WHY

?????????????

and it also gave me all This bullshit

like did i ask?? did i fucking ask???? i already have all the individual frames why do i need even M o re i mfjgjgk

((rationally ok yea thats v useful for if ur making the animation in krita and want to export the frames to use elsewhere, but like uhhh 1. again, they’re not transparent & 2. i should have the option of saying i don’t want these??? bc *meme voice* i don’t want these)

so in the end i could find NO correct method of exporting animations as a gif in krita bc every ooption that says gif is fuckign LYING to ur face there are NO gifs in krita, aliens made the progam who looked at gifs and went “hmm i thikng this is how a gif works “ and just made jpegs instead but somehow got on the computers good side and got it to lie for them about it being a gif so thats why it says gif on the file still even tho its not a gif illimati confinr

so what is the conclusion to this? well i said there was good news too, and this is the portion where i divulge that sweet nectar (i type dthis 2 seconds ago and @ me what the fuck)

so after wasting a good 2 hours trying to figure out krita i gave up and watched some good old [youtuber name redacted bc what if it shows up in search & ppl see this dumbass post in there but it rhymes with fjackfsepticfeye] to relax into accepting my fate that i’ll never be able to upload my animations to tungle except in poor quality loopless video form, making me into a laughing stock on my own art blog, but THEN i had a stroke of genius, in my Brain

so if u read yesterday’s post u might remember that flipnote studio, the animation program i use on my ds, to animate, has the option to export files as gifs, both animated and sequential (meaning either as one fully animated gif or each individual frame separately), which is super convenient, but as i mentioned yesterday, any time i tried to open the folder with those files on my laptop, it crashed immediately

WELL today i thought “hey, how about instead of opening the folder in the sd card when it’s plugged in, how about i copy that folder from the sd card to my flash drive, and try to open it there, in case it’s the card’s hardware that’s causing the problem, not corrupted files”

so i tried that and it FUCKING WORKED THANK GOD GLORY HALLELUJAH

so now instead of spedning A THOUSAND YEARS trying and failing to force art programs to bend to my will i can just export the animations straight from my ds and drag them onto my computer Just As God Intended oh GOD im so fucking happy

here’s the gif in the end, i’m gonna post it to my art blog too but this is the Green Version bc i animate in green bc of some default settings in flipnote that i got used to, plus it makes me feel like i’m just sketching so nothing really has to be finalized so i’m comfortable while i work, and also it’s just nice ok it’s a Nice Green

(there’s a few frames at the end that are like the extra scraps from while i was working dw i got rid of those in the final version that i’m posting to my art blog later. also i added my blog url to that one too it’s aaaaaall good)

the only downside to this method is that i can’t change the canvas size to be 540px wide to fit with tumbrl s image dimensions but whatever i can just post them in a text post and fix the html to display it at its original size instead of the resizing bullshit tmurbl pulls constantly ugh. anyway it works great on desktop but it’s inevitably gonna look like shit on mobile no matter what i do *Big Ass Shrug*

anyway thats the end of my success story uhh i can’t make the like comment & subscribe joke again bc i already did that in the last post so like bye i guess thanks 4 watchign & have a great day i’ll see u in my next fvideo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYob4uDjEKI&t=0s

(^that’s my outro music)

[mittensmorgul]

The thought of Dean stumbling around drunk in the streets (or worse, driving home in that condition) makes me so sad. I mean the whole scenario does; he's 40, so drunk he can't get to the bed, found passed out with a bra wrapped around him and a whiskey bottle. I mean yeesh:-(

Yeah... we know the Clam Diver was “just outside” the town, which implies driving distance and not drunken stumbling distance. If Dean was so drunk that he couldn’t even make himself land on the bed and looked like he was lucky he managed to hit the floor... I mean, he got one shoe off and used it as a pillow.

If he was really that drunk, the bar wouldn’t have let him drive home. They would’ve called him a cab. Not to mention, aside from his tie headband and his shoe pillow, the rest of him looked relatively well put together (buttons buttoned neatly, coat on properly, etc.).

And did he really walk around the rest of the night wearing a pretty pink bra around his neck? Did he wear it to the liquor store where he bought that bottle? Did he wear it walking through the hotel? Because he was too drunk to care about his appearance in a town where he was pretending to be an FBI agent for a case where one boy was missing and another had been rendered mute by his experience?

And if Dean was really so drunk that he didn’t care about any of that, how did he end up in that spot on the floor without waking Sam up? Opening the door in the middle of the night, so drunk that he could barely stand up (and couldn’t even make it to the bed), and yet not so drunk that his stumbling and fumbling woke Sam up? 

(here’s the embiggened version)

He was apparently messing with the TV remote as well? How? I mean... how did none of this apparent fumbling around the room not wake Sam up?

It’s like Dean was just tired of Sam pushing at him to just be “okay” again. Because Sam wasn’t really pushing Dean to be okay, he was pushing Dean to perform a specific version of Dean. Not because it would make Dean feel better, but because it would make Sam feel better about how Dean is coping.

Dean: I'm fine.Sam: Look, you're not, Dean. You said you don't believe in anything, and -- and that's not true, that's not you. You do believe in things, you believe in people. That's who you are, that's what you do. I know you're in a dark place and I just want to help.Dean: Okay. Look, I've been down this road before and I fought my way back, I will fight my way back again.Sam: How?Dean: Same way I always do: bullets, bacon, and booze. A lot of booze.

That’s what Sam needed Dean to be, to perform for him. To believe in something again, because yeah, Dean believes in people. He said it in 12.23:

DEAN: Yeah. You know, Cas has faith in this kid.SAM: Mm.DEAN: I hope he's right. But me? I have faith in us. You, me, Mom, Cas. And Crowley. Sometimes.

But within an hour of that, 3/5 of the people Dean believed in were gone. And Sam’s now insisting that Dean just magically be okay with that, just let that go and just transfer all of that belief over to Jack, who Dean directly blames for the loss of the 3/5 people he believed in... 

And now that giving Dean the “mission” to help teach Jack (with the hope that Jack might eventually be able to open the rift to fetch Mary again) has failed to help snap Dean out of his funk, Sam is desperate to at least get Dean performing the motions that used to signal his unhealthy coping skills.

Heartily pushing a beer on Dean at breakfast when he just wanted a sandwich, tolerating his music instead of complaining about it, ordering him food he’d normally complain about Dean eating, reading online reviews of a strip club to recommend it to Dean when he typically avoids strip clubs himself, buying Dean hair of the dog. It’s annoying to Dean, but after his display in the motel room, when Sam hands him that bottle, he forgives Sam.

What does he forgive him for? For pushing him to just be okay when he just wanted to be left to grieve in his own way.

Notice Sam doesn’t push him again after that.

Notice also that Dean never drank either breakfast beer.

Sam: You okay?Dean: No. Sam I'm not okay, I'm pretty far from okay. You know my whole life, I always believed that what we do was important. No matter what the cost, no matter who we lost. Whether it was Dad or Bobby or... and I would take the hit. But I kept on fighting because I believed that we were making the world a better place. And now Mom and Cas and I -- I don't know. I don't know.Sam: So you don't believe anymore.Dean: I just need a win. I just need a damn win.

Exactly the mental state Dean had diagnosed Cas with in 12.19. In the past, he’d still had Sam to believe in, the two of them against the world. Just fighting for Sam isn’t enough for him anymore. Something is different this time, and Dean doesn’t feel like he should have to perform the emotional labor to keep up a false front of coping for Sam anymore.

Like twig!Tasha told him in 12.20:

TASHA: Yeah. Family's always complicated. Parents always see smart and strong and perfect. It's only when you grow up that you realize that they're just people.

Sam is finally seeing that Dean is just a person. Not that Sam had ever had illusions about Dean being perfect or whatever, but that act of always believing they could push through anything and come out the other side again isn’t the truth, and has never fully been the truth.

Heck, I’m watching 1.09 in the background while I write this up. And it wasn’t even the truth way back then... Dean kept up the “everything will be fine” act in front of Sam, essentially hid out behind a gas station and made his emotionally charged plea to John for help in the scene we’ve been paralleling to his prayer to God in 13.01. 

In 2.04, Sam confronted Dean yet again on how badly he was handling John’s death, after the case they stumbled over while Sam visited Mary’s grave. I mean, THEEEEEMES. Dabb is pulling all of these themes from early seasons, and standing them all on their heads. Because in 2.05, after Dean had spent weeks putting up a front for Sam, the truth is forced out of him by psychic manipulation:

Dean: We hunt demons.Andy: What?Sam: Dean!Dean: Demons and spirits. Things your worst nightmares wouldn't even touch. Sam here, he's my brother...Sam: Dean, shut up!Dean: I'm trying. He's psychic. Kind of like you. Well, not really like you, but see, he thinks you're a murderer, and he's afraid that he's going to become one himself, 'cause you're all part of something that's terrible. And, I hope to hell that he's wrong, but I'm starting to get a little scared that he might be right.

Dean had buried all of this and kept it from Sam, much the same way Sam had buried some things that were pushed out in the open by another psychic manipulation (by a creepy ghost of a psychiatrist at an asylum, conveniently enough)... in 1.10:

Sam: That's the difference between you and me. I have a mind of my own. I'm not pathetic, like you.Dean: So what are you gonna do, huh? Are you gonna kill me?Sam: You know what, I am sick of doing what you tell me to do. We're no closer to finding Dad today than we were six months ago.Dean: Well, then here. Let me make it easier for you. Come on. Take it. Real bullets are gonna work a hell of a lot better than rock salt. Take it!! You hate me that much? You think you could kill your own brother? Then go ahead. Pull the trigger. Do it!

Sam did it. But just like Dean brushing off the confessions Andy pulled out of him after the fact because it had been coercion, Sam brushed off what he’d said in that asylum, too.

Now in s13, Sam is asking-- nay, begging-- Dean to just brush this off again, to fake it ‘til he makes it, and Dean is saying no.

It’s honestly the healthiest damn way they’ve ever reacted in a situation like this.

I have no idea how I turned this ask into actual meta, but here you go.

[smokewizard992-blog]

Its not done but this is my longest story so far please excuse any grammical errors.

Title: Kurokus revelation Another bright and sunny day in the leaf. kuroku returning from a short and simple misson he took to alive his usual boredom. "Now that im home i wonder what to do now" said kuroku as his coat fluttered in the wind. He stops with a face of uneasy wonder as he places his hand on his chest "the ticks are uneasy" kuroku pondered "something isnt right i probably forgot to clean something in the cafinic.." kuroku said with an uneasy grin. And in an instand several explosions can be heard through out the village. "WHAT THE HELL!" said kuroku as he unwravels the hive. "For once things wont be boring!" Said kuroku confidently as he takes off to go meet the challenge. Moving quickly through the village he notices several large centipede creatures thrashing around the village. One of these large beasts turns its attention twards kuroku and lunges towards him kuroku jumps landing on a near by building. "Have a taste of this then!" With a few flicks of his finger tips the hive takes off into the sky above the centipede. A series whirling and click of gears from the hive is heard as several compartments open in the hive revealing ticks fit to burst. The ticks quickly detach and begin to plummet twards the beast eventually exploding in rapid succession "special move: aburame light show" said kuroku with a large toothy grin on his face as the smoke cleared revealing the beast in multiple pieces but kurokus victory is short lived when he senses another presence close to him but before he can turn and retaliate he takes a hard right hook to the cheek sending him across the rooftop. Kuroku now bleeding from the corner of his mouth he looks up and becomes stricken with suprise "i...its you! Theres no way my ticks blew you to pieces!!!" A deep voice radiates the air "you didnt honestly think those little flys of yours would be enough did you?" Chapter 2: Brains vrs brawn "Ok first off meat head they arent flys they are ticks" said kuroku in a irritated groan as he slowly stands up to his foe "Akui kosodoro this time ill make sure i do more than just give u a parting gift on your face" kuroku muttered wiping blood from his lip. Loud cracks echo through the strangely still air as akui cracks his knuckles. "Speakin of which i need to return the favor bug boy" with out a seconds hesitation akui charges across the roof top chakra collecting in his drawn back fist to deliver a more powerful blow as he lashes out his blow once again connects to kurokus face but before he flys off kuroku bursts into a puff of smoke revealing a log "A Substitution?!" Said akui with a shocked tone of voice. Akui quickly notices a patch of paper on the log showing a crude drawing of kuroku giving the finger saying "catch me if u can boxer breifs" the log then opening two side doors revealing 4 ticks. Akui quickly launches back knowing what those bugs mean. Narrowly escaping the blast akui is forced off the roof top and onto the city streets. "Where did that snail slip off too" said akui angrily quickly throwing up hand signs for a jutsu. Boar,dragon,rat his eyes intensify and chakra forms infront of them in an almost binocular fashion and through his eyes all the scources of concentrated chakra are highlighted in his vision. Akui knotices theres chakra strings all over the street attached to random objects and sputtering off into what seemed to be random dicrections. "Tsk youll have to do better than that" akui then focuses even harder revealing the chakra in each string one in particular glowing brighter than the rest "there u are!" Said akui as he runs following the string leading him to a pottery shop. "This again...WHY DONT U COME OUT AND FIGHT ME LIKE A MAN!" Akui shouted into the building. frothing with anger akui hesitantly walks into the shop following the string up to a gourd in the back of the shop "ive seen this trick of yours hide by disguising yourself as the gourd your puppet rolls up into while that damn doll attacks from the shadows well not this time i have you now!" Akui said excitedly as he smashes the gourd with his fist busting off the top half only to reveal theres no kuroku but more ticks ready to blow akui quickly backing up in a panic he knocks over some other pots which have even more ticks inside "SHI-" akui intterupted as the entire shop bursts into a torrent of smoke and flame. Across the street kuroku hops out from behind a tree "first off i dont fight like a man i fight like a shinobi. Second off. Special move: Basket Bomb" said kuroku as he adjusts his shades and reels the hive back into its gourd shape. (End of chapter 2) Chapter 3: we all know pain As kuroku wraps up everything from he previous encounter which included making sure the shop keep and any civilians were unharmed. A roaring voice echoes throughout the village "ALL MIGHTY PUSH" says the voice as the village begins to shake and rumble and a large crater begins forming during this a large gust of wind and dust blows up sending kuroku flying. Hitting his head upon his landing rendering him unconscious. Moments of kurokus life past by in an instant and yet he experiences every moment like they just happend. Most of these moments included hinata in every moment she appeared kuroku felt a warm joyous feeling overwhelm him but as they went on that feeling faded and shifted into a red hot jealousy because he realized hinata wasnt looking at him but rather naruto instead the memories became blurry as they went by faster faster eventually kuroku saw his own face with a scowl and furrowed brow he opens his mouth and says "its not ment to be". Suddenly kuroku jerks awake realising hes buried under a pile of rubble blood running from the top of his head to his chin on the right side of his face. a small chip in the left lense of his shades. His throat dry his body sore. "I have to find her" kuroku grumbled as he began to shift and move to get out from under the rubble. Upon finally digging out his upper torso he saw something that crushed him not physically but this hurt more than any broken bone down at the bottom of the crater he saw her.. hinata standing in front of what kuroku first thought was the fourth hokage but looking more closely it was naruto trying to protect the village and she was protecting him. Kuroku couldnt hear most of what hinata was saying but the message to kuroku was vividly clear. Kuroku heard these words as if he was right next to them "i love you naruto" and just as kuroku heard these words he felt his body become 100 times heavier and his heart drop into 1000 pieces his ticks became restless as one lonely tear fell down his cheek kuroku didn't fully understand how he felt . he was hurting but there was something else a tiny something a small glimmer of somthing deep down past all the pain....it was peace kuroku felt at peace with what he saw and then he realized why kuroku felt happy so long as hinata was happy and if konohas hyperactive knuckle head ninja was the one who made her happy. Kuroku began to try and pull himself outt of the rubble but he was to exhausted to continue eventually collapsing once more. (End of chapter 3) Chapter 4: recovery Kuroku opens his eyes to realize he was napping in the woods and needed to get back to the village so he stands up and begins walking kuroku eventually reaches behind him to grab something and starts to panic "HEY WHERES MY uhhhh..." he said forgetfully he begins patting all over himself for he couldnt shake the feeling of something thats very symbolic of his character is missing as he pats his coat pocket and finds his shades "ah here they are" kuroku said as the feeling mostly dissapated kuroku eventually stops and kneels at a small creek and leans over to see his reflection and he quickly knotices the one black tuft of hair that sticks up no matter what he does "in my dream it was red...i may do that it looked pretty good" kuroku said to his reflection "that way youll look far cooler when your older" he said with a playful childlike chuckle. Kuroku eventually looks up and sees a man in white cloth staring down at him from atop the hill. Kuroku being the agravatable child he is began to march up to the man to tell him its rude to stare but as he got to the top the man turned and walked away only to reveal to kuroku that theres a small log cabin at the top of the hill but hes sure that he shoulda been able to see the cabin from where he was but ever determined kuroku marched on into the cabin only for him to see rows upon rows of large doll like items of all shapes and sizes kuroku is filled with wonderment he sees the man at a small work desk at the other side of the cabin so kuroku wanders up "what are these things.." kuroku said curiously "Puppets" said the man in a kind but stern voice "i build them to keep from being home sick" said the man again kuroku astonished his mind began to scribble all the possible aplications for these tools "TEACH ME HOW" shouted kuroku as a grin makes its way across the mans face as everything fades away once more with a quick glimpse of kuroku learning building and training eventually completeing the hive as once more he wakes up only in a room he did not recognise on a bed that wasnt his as he felt around he knoticed his legs are in braces and he bumps into a book accidentally "HEY watch it will ya im trying to study here" said a voice as the page gets turned kuroku quickly looks up quickly being a loose term since hes very sore and he knotices hanabi hyuga reading her book at his bedside as she looks up and realizes that hes awake and she stands up and runs out the door kuroku is very confused but remains calm as neji and shino walk in "about time u woke up natsu has been working tirelessly treating you and taking care of hanabi" said neji in his usual stern voice "im actually astonished this isnt a result of more of your breeding projects" said shino as a way to mock kuroku "honestly it kinda is" kurokus face suddenly went strawberry red as natsu walked in and and lit up "oh im so releived your awake" said natsu gently. "Y-your a woman?!" Said kuroku with embarrased suprise in his voice "does my name not give it away?" Said natsu "to be honest its not at all what i imagined" a flash of a pink haired pyromaniac appeared in kurokus head. Natsu looks down and says "sorry i didnt meet your expectations kuro-san " kuroku quickly retorts 'NO no u exeeded them greatly ! Uhh how long was i out anyways? Natsu looks up "about a week." She says reluctantly "A WEEK?!" said kuroku with a shock "that means at somepoint youve......" his face turning even more red natsu walks up and starts removing the braces "it wasnt bad" said natsu very quietly kuroku looks to be on the verge of a heart attack as he falls out of bed from celebrating (End of chapter 4)