#idk if the rendering is even good tbh

[eddsworld-nonsense]

I will now forever have "clown lingerie" in my search history because of this I hope you are happy.

Unfiltered + Flats under cut

[hinamie]

playing around w slightly different hair renders

[kaiserouo]

Fine Dining

[bonestrouslingbones]

i finally got an idea to make fluff's outfit just a little more "papyrus" (aka just a bit more faggy) but i haven't even tried to draw it out yet because i cannot for the life of me figure out how to represent low-rise pants with fishnets underneath on a fucking skeleton

[skunkes]

Kinda wanna try alcohol based markers again but i. Hate not having control of texture and the layering and it being so. Not opaque...even though i usually love marker texture....

[numbuh424]

decided to make some stuff last minute for lawlight week cause I've got just a bit of free time and wanted to mess around with some brushes. tell me why I'm fucking COOKING rn.....

[linabirb]

OKAY UH. REMEMBER HOW I SAID I. SHOULD POST MORE OF MY SYNTHV COVERS. WELL UH. HERE YALL GO

i wasn't sure which one i should post, i've made a lot of them but all of them. have their issues and i think my binomi and samsa covers are probably the best ones atm so i went with binomi. might post samsa later

i used eri (flt) and genbu (lite) for this one though genbu doesn't do much other than. ee-aa-ooing. please be nice i have the basic version of synthv and i can't do anything there every cover is a fight for my life

(volume warning just in case!)

(ust link) (instrumental link)

[genacity]

DAY SIX. BURNING TIES

ft. simon “ghost” riley — call of duty

you and your partner ghost have to train on how to get out of hostage situations. luckily for you, you’re good at tying knots.

ruling. suggestive — mature content

content warnings. sadist! reader, masochist! ghost, bondage, temperature/wax play, nothing actually inherently sexual ?? besides vocabulary and the fact ghost has his cock out

an. this is short and bad bcs tbh i didn’t wanna write this one and idk how to write ghost. enjoy

kinktober 2023 masterlist

simon groaned as you held the lit candle over his exposed skin. grunting against the restraints you had so effortlessly used to tie him flush against the metal pole that rendered him near motionless.

you were supposed to be training for a hostage situation— said that tying him up was supposed to help.

and now, he was staring at his flush cock being illuminated by the light of a long, flickering candle. where the hell did you even get one of those?

but he didn’t dare question it. not when his eyes were watching as the wax slowly began to melt down and—

“fuck!” simon thrashed against the ties with a loud groan as the drop of wax fell right onto his lower abdomen. he gulped, panting as he tried to find his way out of the rope restraints.

“hurry up,” you prompted. “if you’re this slow in a real situation, by now you’d might as well be dead.”

he hissed. “can’t help it, it’s— shit!” simon was promptly cut off as another drop of wax hit his skin, just at the base of his cock. “fuck, that hurts!”

you laughed as he jolted from another fresh splat of wax hit his skin. “this hurts? wow, i’d expected a lot more from you.” you chuckled, and ghost grunted in response.

the ropes slowly began to loosen around his wrists. good, he was close to freeing himself somehow. simon couldn’t take any more of this— never had this been a way he’d trained to handle a hostage situation.

a large glob of fresh wax dripped down from the burning candle right down onto the base of his cock and right then and there he could have screamed. when you proposed the idea of using wax to better the training, never did he imagine it would hurt so bad.

it was borderline cruel the way you laughed as he struggled. the way you just sat and watched him nearly cry at every drop of wax that hit his skin.

simon was just about to free himself from the restraints holding his arms down when a drop of wax hit his tip and he moaned.

not out of pain. this was a pleasurable moan. not like before, when every noise was a grunt or groan of pain. this was a rough, strained, unmistakable noise of pleasure.

your eyebrows raised and simon froze, no longer struggling to move. “what was that?”

“nothin’.” he dismissed, continuing to writhe against the ropes. but you bent down and held the candle just above his twitching cock— reddening tip flushing from the heat beating down from the candle onto his skin.

“that was not nothing.” you insisted. “did that feel good, simon?”

you tipped the candle as another fresh drip of wax dribbled from the tip of the candle and simon visibly began to panic. it clung to the rim, threatening to fall, and when it did, fresh onto his shaft, he jolted and moaned again.

you couldn’t stifle your laughter. not when you watched his hips buck up, thick cock nearly tearing through the flame and burning himself. it would have if you hadn’t pulled it back.

“oh my god.” you snickered. he panted, still focused on trying to escape the confinements of the rope.

“this ain’t funny, y/n.” simon grumbled, but was promptly cut off by another droplet of wax onto his balls and he choked. “ah. hey, fuck.” his expressions and reactions were just too good to stop short.

good thing you brought a few more candles.

[devotion-disorder]

happy new year devo, wishing you the best and for another wonderful year. any resolutions you'd be willing to share? i do hope to see more of your art because you never miss 🫶 anyway, much love!!

Happy new year to you too anon!!!!!!!!! i haven't thought all too hard about new years resolutions so i had to give it a proper thunk but anyways here is a list that is sorta arranged from most to least urgent:

Fix my sleeping schedule - i sleep at 5-6am so ig im practically strangling all my neurons to death or something please send help

Read more books - tbh for a myriad of reasons im just ashamed that this is even on here

Get better at art - specifically anatomy, fluidity/readability in figures, values and colors......on a brighter note i want to (try to) do more "finished" illustrations or just at least properly rendered stuff. i also might want to do more fanart :think:

maybe get a new hobby

maybe get good at japanese (grammar) - i think i have everything except grammar down to at least N3 level, which evens out so i have the linguistic capacity of like, a grade schooler

be less of an edgelord and just be sincere for once - idk im honestly thinking about opening a twitter account or an alt where maybe i'll be less obsessed with being ~ironic~ but idk if anyone cares to see what i have to say LOL

thank you for the very sweet ask anon, im glad you like my stuff TqT wishing u all the best this year as well!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!!!!!!!!1 <333

[confusedasever]

I love your human designs!! Did something inspire them? Especially Logans and Virgils

How I made the human au designs!

All my designs are based off common fandom headcanons I’ve seen and enjoyed. I’m sure it’s pretty obvious lol. I loved taking inspiration from the other amazing human fander artists out there. It’s like a group project also isn’t it cute how the “light” sides hair goes one way and the “dark” sides hair goes the other? That was accidental.

(Fun fact a former dear friend helped with the designs of Patton and Virgil. So props to them. Thanks star!)

The designs:

🌩️Virgil: short, black hair, purple streak to look cool, (the eyes were my friends idea) really good fashion. He’s part of the freckle club. Plus he has pointy elf ears! Often wears earrings and is haunted by the ghosts of his past. My friend did the heavy lifting so if you like Virgil’s design thank them.

🪐Logan: tbh it’s just character designs I like + normal Logan, dark eyes, eye bags, freckles, ties, glasses, why change perfection any more than you have to right? I just draw him like first try every time too it’s scary lol he just appears

🍰Patton: (Another design I got help with) rounder body type, fluffy curly blonde hair, round glasses freckle club member. Manages to look like the worlds cutest man. He’s the only one with a fully rendered drawing. Logan steals his clothes.

🥇🥈Roman & Remus: these identical twins look like Alex and Alex’s evil twin from stardew valley ngl but they’re designs are inspired by Roman typically being coloured tanner than the others. Remus dresses like he wants attention, Roman dresses like he’s a cartoon character. They’re ahoge’s are crowns cause why not?

🐍Janus: first Janus appearance. Pale, angular and blonde. The scales are now a scar that covers most of his body. (Blind and dead on that side) Still managing to slay. Even if he dresses very oddly. Tries to look rich looks lame instead. Kinda a bad person. Sorry Janus at least you still have a hat. I hate drawing hats.

☕️🍬Remy&Emile both have designs but tbh they’re pretty much entirely just ocs me and my friend made very loosely based on sander sides so idk if I’ll ever share them.

[yingdu-lover]

people comparing eiden and aoba pls stop like-

ik aoba this aoba that yaoi jesus agree ok calm down

but nu carnival is that classic "came for the corn, stayed for the lore" thing. I am not kidding, eiden is one of my top favourite fictional characters ever. corn maybe the thing that lured you into the game but bro...eiden is different. if most anime/donghua viewers didn't have that "purity" bias, nu carnival lore would actually be discussed like...the way we very enthusiastically and intellectually™ discuss link click. corn is not diluting your plot if your plot is strong enough. my link click fever and nu carnival fever started simultaneously and there are reasons why I adore eiden as much as I adore cheng xiaoshi. (lmao their character design sometimes feel so similar)

Eiden's story is a nuanced social commentary, not on your face shit. He is an overworked young man who often works overtime to afford good food. He is struggling to get a satisfying permanent job, his financial hardships are so relatable. IK we can't have (lmao it's 2024) the portrayal of the life narrative of a realistic queer character who scrolls through grindr, hooks up with hot partners and struggles to have a work-private life balance in mainstream anime media so yaoi otome game it is!

(like if it were an overworked heterosexual single woman with identical issues, the feminist lens would have been enough to keep it as a convincing main plot, but a gay young man pursuing his desires no way! I won't even talk about queer women here)

idk what I initially wanted to say but overall mainstream media is very heteronormative and puts way too much premium in monogamy. I think the perks of being an aro-ace-spec is that you can feel how the allosexual essentialist culture is SO bothered by sex and it renders them insane, they almost have an allergic reaction.

y'all who moralise and do 'purifying' rituals for your queer ships - " oh no they are so pure, their they can't have sex-" fuck you. honestly. queer representation is not your weird personal aesthetic and it's problematic!

1. Fetishizing queer characters

2. Doing 'purity rituals' on queer characters

both are equally damaging and tbh queerphobic. They need to have sex to validate they are queer and their love is spiritually higher™ because they have no carnal desire - bro 😭 one thing I can say and that is you are pathetic.

Eiden's vibrant sex life is IMPORTANT to know him as a queer character. It's simply a part of him and the way he bonds with his clan members is important too. But that's simply not the entirety of nu carnival. Eiden as a character just stands out...you distinguish him as that nice fella you would strike a nice conversation and 10 minutes later he is holding you in his arms when you are bawling your eyes out and he is giving you life advice as your personal therapist because...that orphan self made man has seen the cruelties and absurdities of the world and STILL believes in empathy, still wants to fulfill someone's last wish, small or big not because he is naive but he is mature and knows a simple truth : life already throws a lot of shits upon us, let us not create more trauma for us and others.

cheng xiaoshi and eiden would be bestfriends really

same empathy level. both orphans. both struggling young men. The former is naive, the latter is mature but both know how hurting others just logically doesn't make sense. both would do those poignant little things or endanger their own lives to make people believe why against all odds, they matter, their emotions matter, the bondings they had mattered, their last wish before death mattered. this is such a simple trait but in my opinion, one of the most powerful and humane traits a protagonist can ever have.

[moonsun2010]

I'm mad Tumblr ate my anon asks (it's not appearing in my Drafts????) but luckily I have a copy saved to my email so:

HEY YOUR DRACULA ANIMATIC IS SO SO GOOD I can't comment on youtube (bc I have no account) but I've watched it like 10 times now, the song fits so well and the art is incredible, I love all your character designs and the way you portray all the scenes is so spot on!

I just finished re: dracula and idk how you managed to tell the whole story so well in under 4 minutes but it was amazing I love the way you use color in the animatic, the use of mostly black/white/grey is so good for evoking the specific type of horror story this is, and it makes the red in the blood and in dracula's eyes stick out in a way that is absolutely brilliant and that last shot with the sunset is GORGEOUS and then the epilogue!!! I love that you did the epilogue to and having the gentle piano music and doing it in full color gives it such a peaceful and comforting feeling, the drawing of quincey and lucy in it in the afterlife together is so sweet <3 the detail that went into this is amazing, like the captain of the demeter having the rosary even though we only see it for a second, I keep wanting to pause on every single frame so I can properly admire all the cool art lol, also the things like jonathan's beard growing out after dracula breaks the mirror, and the rosary hanging above his bed, and dracula still having the scar from the shovel in the final showdown

AND THE PART WHERE DRACULA CATCHES THE LETTER... literally the way you tell the whole story with (almost) NO WORDS in not even 4 minutes and the whole thing flows so smoothly is incredible I love the way you do like the zoom out thing on some places, it adds a whole new dimension to it visually also the way you draw mina and jonathan after the october 3rd bit is lovely, your jonathan looks so cool with the white hair and i love how you did mina's scar, and the part where her scar disappears at the end was such a cool way to depict that and the difference between human lucy and vampire lucy is done so well, like it's so clearly the same character but you can really see how she's not herself anymore, and the way you used that when they kill vampire lucy and show arthur's resolve to use the stake bc he's now seeing her as a monster who replaced and essentially killed the woman he loved and he wants revenge, literally I will never be over how much story and emotion you managed to fit into a single music video and the way you did quincey's death? crying at that part tbh.

AND THE FRAME OF DRACULA GETTING BEHEADED WITH THE RED BACKGROUND.... IS JUST *chef's kiss* I was going to say I have no words for how much I love this but clearly I have quite a lot of words lol, thank you tumblr for not having a character limit anyway have a good day/night :)

Anon I'm so sorry for this delayed reply,,, I kept rereading this in awe and didn't want to release it into the wild (and it still got eaten anyways-)

I'm so glad you enjoyed the character design!! It's not my strong suit at all so that's reassuring. The colour scheme lowkey started out as a timesaving measure, but it also allowed for me to render scenes with detail that I otherwise couldn't've with the tight time frame I had, since at the time I was also juggling university assignments. I'm glad the sunset scene hit as hard as it did, since I had also just discovered Disco Elys/ium, so it was an attempt to emulate Rostov's illustration of Harry on Filippe III's statue). It worked out in the end anyways, since the grayscale + red accent combined with a colourful epilogue gave a "the horror is now in the past, and we are in a (literally visually) livelier future)" <3

I've seen so many people say they want to pause on each frame to examine it in detail, and guess what, you can get a zip file of them all as watermarkless pngs in my kofi! For free! It's pay-what-you-want since I just really wanted to get as many eyes on this as possible, but any tips would definitely still be appreciated.

It was fun mapping out the match cuts and transitions e.g Dracula catching the letter, Mina and Dracula with Lucy in the churchyard, since the previous semester I'd taken a storyboarding class that taught that, so I HAD to include it. Zoom outs helped add visual interest to otherwise still shots, so I'm glad they didn't come off as overdone haha.

It was tough mapping out what storybeats to include, but I'm super happy that the angst for all the key moments in the video hit right :D Was worried about losing momentum after leaving the Jonathan in Dracula's castle bit, and so I really wanted the ending of each verse(?) to correspond with a red screen injury— notice that "you'd better let yourself off and, while you still have strength in your legs, escape from this horrible hell/你最好放过自己 趁双脚还有力气, 快逃出这可怕地狱" always ends with some character harming another, and when the verse repeats again but with the ending lyrics changed "you’d better let yourself off, rather than crying out to another, “Save me!”... Save me!/你最好放过自己 胜过跟谁叫救命... 救命!", it still ends with Van Helsing staking the 3 vampire women. And of course, the ending "escape from this horrible hell/快逃出这可怕地狱" ends with the sunset, its red now replacing that of the blood the characters had to spill previously, signalling an end to their necessary monstrosity (and also a literal monster with Dracula dying).

Like with the frame of Dracula getting beheaded, the timesaving measures, limited skills (plus lack of any sort of storyboarding software, I was just ""animating"" the movements with Shotcut) forced me to find creative workarounds. I could fill at least 3 pages with writing dissecting all my choices lol but idt therell be much interest in me analysing my own art. Thank you so much for watching my animatic :)

[goatcheesecak3]

HIII HI HI HI I LOVE YOUR WORKS AND I WANTED TI REQUEST SOMETHING WITH RODRICK?? okay so my idea is that rodrick and the reader are neighbors, aaand so one of them sneaks out to go to the others house (doesnt matter who tbh!) and they js cuddle fir a bit HLEP IDK IM BAD AT THIS anyways thats alll!!! sorry for the long ass thing 💔💔

Hello! I firstly, thank you so much for saying you enjoy my other stuff! And thank you for the suggestion :^) I'll admit, I've tweaked the idea ever so slightly, but it's still very much a cuddly Rodrick as your neighbour story, so I'm sure you'll enjoy :^)

Happy reading!

It was a cold autumn evening, you had the house to yourself and the heating on full blast. Despite the bitter chill outside, the radiator in your room was enough to render heavy pjs useless, so instead you wore shorts and a tank top. The air was still and the house was quiet, it was the perfect opportunity to get some reading done. You reclined in your bed, far away in your own world - until the peace was disturbed. You became aware of a furious banging coming from outside, and upon looking out the window toward your neighbours house, it was revealed that the source of this disturbance was your neighbour, Rodrick. He was rapping on the door with a sense of urgency, occasionally blurting out "I'll remember my keys next time I swear".

You watched inquisitively, wondering where this would go, until a second noise caught your attention, that of an upstairs window flinging open. A man's head poked out, you recognised this man as Frank Heffley, the father of Rodrick. Frank began to shout down to him,

"I've told you a million times, bring your keys or you'll be locked out"

Then you heard Rodrick's protest

"I know, but you can't seriously expect me to stay outside all night, it's FREEZING"

"sleep in your van then"

And with that the window slammed shut.

You watched as Rodrick kicked the gravel in the driveway, as he made his way back to his van, head hung in a defeated sulk. You knew Rodrick quite well, he was pretty much the posterchild for the phrase "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" - he was a couple sandwiches short of a picnic but he wasn't a bad guy. He got himself in trouble a lot, but it never really seemed to be intentional. You found yourself taking pity on him and before you knew what was happening you were opening your window and leaning out.

"Psssst! Rodrick, up here"

He turned on his feet, glancing around him with a bewildered expression until his eyes landed on you.

"What is it?" He asked

"Go to the door, I'll let you in"

He nodded.

You hesitantly opened the front door, in your thin pjs you felt the cold air smite you.

"Come in, quick, it's freezing"

Rodrick obliged.

"I saw what went down out there. Pretty rough"

"Yeah, " he grumbled, "sleep in your van" he mimicked his father, "can you believe that?"

All too suddenly you felt a nurturing instinct that you didn't know you had, and reached out to take Rodrick's frosty hands inbetween your own.

"Oh sweetpea, you're freezing! You can stay here tonight, come on let's get you warmed up."

Rodrick smiled as if to say thank you, and let himself be lead upstairs to your room. He watched curiously as you rummaged through a drawer, before emerging holding a pair of red checkered men's pyjamas bottoms.

"Lucky for you, I've always got some men's pjs knocking about somewhere, they're so much cheaper than women's" you chuckled, handing them to him

"Aw man, thank god for that. I really didn't feel like sleeping in skinny jeans, " he joked back.

You left the room to give him some privacy while he changed, and returned once he'd let you know he was decent.

Rodrick looked more than adorable in pyjamas, with his tatty little Avenged Sevenfold shirt and his sleepy eyes, hugging himself to try and warm up.

"Still cold?" You asked gently

Rodrick nodded shyly, "I was out there for about a good hour before I stopped calling and just started banging on the door."

"An hour?! Oh honey you must have caught a chill" you cooed, walking over until you were stood right in front of him. Staring affectionately into Rodrick's big brown eyes, which had seemed to triple in size as a result of your sympathy, you placed a warm hand on his cold red cheek.

Rodrick winced slightly, the warmth stinging his face

"Let's get you under a blanket okay sweetheart?"

"Yes please" he nodded with a sheepish smile.

You lifted up the duvet and patted the bed, inviting him to make himself at home.

He accepted the offer without hesitation, wrapping the duvet around himself and curling into a ball. You smiled at him, he looked so sweet all scrunched up with his messy hair. You gave his hair a gentle ruffle, and were about to leave him be and go sleep on the sofa, when you felt a hand grab your arm.

"Where are you goinggggg" whined Rodrick sleepily.

"You want me to stay?"

"Mhm" he mumbled, nodding his head without opening his eyes.

"Alright honey, I'll stay," you smiled, climbing into the bed with him.

Rodrick immediately shuffled over to you, nuzzling his face into your chest and making happy grumbling noises.

You draped an arm over him, tenderly rubbing his back just to generate a little bit of heat.

"Can you do that thing with my hair again please?" He murmured

"Of course baby" you replied, hearing the smile in your own voice.

As you lay there, softly stroking his unruly hair, Rodrick's sleepy hums gradually became quiet snores.

"Night, big guy" you whispered, even though you knew he wouldn't hear you.

And with that, you turned out your lamp and let the rhythm of Rodrick's breathing lull you to sleep.

A/n this is the first fic I've written in YEARS, so sorry if I'm a little rusty lol. Hope u enjoyed regardless :^)

[dalkyeom]

shua for VOUGE

gift for the lovely @dalkyeom my biggest calming-color-pallete pretty-sparkle-shua inspiration~

[autisticandroids]

I was thinking about tma and I have a thought about it but idk if maybe ppl would think it's kind of??? A cop out??? Idk but like my thought on this is like tma hinges on Smirkes 14 which- I strongly agree with you- is a patently stupid system of organizing the fears but tbh I feel like that stupidity strengthens tmas themes of cosmic horror and its critique of the philosophical ripples of 1. Enlightenment era ideas of empiricism and the resurgence of those sorts of attitudes in Victorian times (aka slotting all data into taxonomies regardless of their actual accuracy- for example in the real world Race Science comes to mind an inaccurate, arbitrary, stupid, harmful taxonomy developed out of whole cloth to harm and exploit the vulnerable. I consider smirkes 14 to be analogous to that sort of thing- the human impulse towards pattern seeking taken to the logical extreme of applying arbitrary and harmful taxonomies as though they have any internal accuracy when they just dont) 2. Entrenched English systems of power that assert themselves thru institutions- in this case aristocracy and academia (Jonah magnus, the magnus archives itself, the fairchildes, and the Lukas family explicitly. In terms of metaphor I consider those that serve the fears to sort of be metaphorically resonant w those irl who uphold unfair hierarchies such as monarchy or aristocracy. It even kind of plays out in the granular interpersonal workplace dynamics of the archive wherein martin - working class bg- had to fake his cv to get a job and is subsequently mistreated by his boss for not being competent or how Sasha was passed over for a promotion a she was clearly better suited for by a man who was not as qualified)

I don't think this is just a watsonian reading of something poorly written btw (tho tma definitely has its flaws and this interpretation still doesn't necessarily have to retroactively justify this writing choice.) I think it was intended to be understood this way since there are allusions in-text to the Christian parable of the blind men and the elephant and at another point someone (I think it was peter Lukas?) describes Robert smirkes 14 fears as analogous to an ants perception of a human hand descending upon it (paraphrasing here but like something like "would an ant perceive these massive separate appendages descending upon it as a single entity- fingers on a hand- or would the shear massiveness and incomprehensibility render each finger a unique tormentor, separate and independent, all torturing the ant.")

Sorry to be out of the blue but ur one of the few ppl I see critiquing the tma pantheon on the grounds that it's bad (which it is) and I was curious what u might think of what I had to say here

ok this is aggressive haterism so i'm not putting it in the tag and if you are super super super into the magnus archives this isn't meant as an attack or whatever this is just me doing criticism for fun.

so okay. i get wanting to view it this way because if you are trying to work with the text to come to an interpretation that is like. good. then this makes sense. so like this makes sense as an interpretation, but it doesn't really work for me because my critique is more doylist and also less willing to give the benefit of the doubt.

so part one is. in the end. i just think that the fourteen fears make the stories themselves worse. like i think that real human author jonathan sims is "writing to the fears" as in, he is writing horror stories to slot specifically into these little categories. which make his horror stories less interesting. both because he tends to invent cliches for himself and then double back to them and also for more reasons i will discuss later. so on a very basic "i want [MEDIA PRODUCT] to be good (as in fun and enjoyable to consume), and this is making it bad (as in kinda boring)" level, i think this isn't really a justification, you know? like you can say you made the thing bad on purpose but it's still bad. very occasionally a thing being bad on purpose as a self-reflexive critique makes it good, but not as often as just being good in the first place does.

and then part two is. i think you could argue that tma is a critique of the victorian urge to categorize and rationalize things but it's also just. an example of it. the fourteen fears make the individual stories hostile to analysis because they attempt to pre-chew and pre-analyze the stories, assigning them preexisting meanings so that they are already made-sense-of. this hampers them as horror (see part one) because for really good horror you need a sense of otherness a sense of uncanny and if you're like oh this one is the stranger and this one is the eye and etc. it lends a fundamental knowability that just. deflates them. but then also it means you can't analyze them and it's like.

okay. case study. so did you guys remember that tma has a mummy curse episode? i do. it's like flabbergasting to me that tma unironically has a mummy curse episode that's like. you know that's old school racist. are you serious? but like okay. analytically. the episode comes *pre-chewed*. because we know which power this is. this is terminus. this is death. so the underlying fear in this story is the fear of death. that's how we are *meant* to understand this tale. but like be serious. any idiot with half a brain can like, comprehend the underlying anxiety of The Mummy's Curse: it's a story about what if all the tomb raiding, the grave robbing, the mummy eating, in short all of the colonial violence done to things, which is only possible because of all the colonial violence done to people, came back to bite you. it's the anxiety of the colonizer, manifest guilt about what they have done to the colonized. and as much as jonny sims is essentially just copying his influences, those victorian stories he loves so much, that's still what it's about. hell, sims knows this: the reason the woman in the story is so unlikable, so greedy and grasping, so unsympathetic is that jonny sims is soothing his own anxiety: "well i want to write a mummy curse episode, but what if people think i, a white british man writing a mummy curse episode, am racist? what if they think i don't know colonialism is bad? better put a little 'colonialism is bad, mmmmmmmmkay?' opener in to make sure no one thinks i'm racist." but of course the other thing he does is he attempts to gut the story of that unpleasant little meaning. oh it's not the anxiety of the colonizer. it's not about the violence of the victorian era. it's just about death. well, phew, i'm glad i don't have to think about that.

and i'm using the mummy curse one as a case study but that's EVERYTHING. that's EVERYTHING. oh this story about being trapped in an infinite factory where you work isn't processing the horrors of work or of the violence inherent in every product under capitalism that you will never seen or of alienation or of bodies, this is just the fear of slaughterhouse animals. oh this clone of the most dangerous game isn't about colonialism or about dehumanizing people into animals it's just about the fears of literal animals. oh this fucking guy marrying a bug isn't processing any anxieties about sex or our bodies it's just fear of disease. like it flattens everything. the meaning of horror is super overdetermined, i'm not even saying that the mummy curse, which has a pretty obvious meaning as the anxiety of the colonizer, necessarily means only that! it's can certainly also be about death and about a thousand other things. stuff has multiple meanings. but the fourteen fears method rejects overdetermination, meaning bounces off these stories. and that makes them a lot more comfortable: you don't have to deal with the miserable, horrible, sick, reactionary underpinnings of horror stories, the way they (all horror stories, really) function to guard the boundaries of our sick society with slavering hateful jaws, if you just pretend they're about fear of heights or whatever.

like to be clear my argument here is that it's kind of impossible to make horror without reactionary elements so i'm not really criticizing jonny sims for Not doing that, and i'm also not arguing that jonny sims intentionally tried to build an anti-critique wall into his stories by inventing the fourteen fears, i'm just arguing that he kind of did and that makes the stories worse. and i think the way it rejects meaning is unconsciously self-protective from having to see the more unpleasant meaning of the work. and is therefore in itself kind of reactionary.

and i'm also criticizing him for writing a mummy curse episode because come on man, are you serious? but that's not as related to my larger point. though i do think his critique-proof wall shields him from noticing the implications.

part two point five: also i will not give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he was trying to kind of fix this issue with season five because season five was worse. guy who learned about progressive politics from twitter last year type understanding of systemic critique. guy who writes every character arc as a kind of Very Special Episode about Important Progressive Topic Of The Day but mostly only because he's scared of getting cancelled on twitter type critique. like horror is overdetermined. "My Horror Show Now Only Does #Issue Episodes Where I Make Systemic Critique For Babies" is a dumb way of reflecting on the way your overarching premise is kind of unintentionally an attempt to make your horror stories critique-proof. not that i necessarily think that was why season five was like that, i just think he got swept up in trying to make Progressive Media, but if it WAS it wouldn't be adequate.

part three: i think the "fingers of a hand" thing was a post-hoc justification because he sort of noticed his fears are a bit stupid. and i think, circle back to part one, that it doesn't solve the fundamentally doylist problem of the stories being written to the fears.

part four: on a very basic sort of ancient greek philosophy type level i just think the fourteen fears are not beautiful and true. quite frankly mister sims, if i was trying to divide all the world's fear into knowable categories, i would not make fucking fourteen of them! that's simultaneously too many and too few! and it's not even a nice number! i would not for some reason collapse together the fear of spiders and the fear of mind control! i would not split the fear of disease from the fear of the fact that we are all bodies with flesh! i would not make the fear of otherness mostly about clowns!

i would not different the hunt from the slaughter from the desolation you FUCKING BUFFOON.

^directed at jonny sims.

anyway thank you for the ask that was fun. i feel like i exorcised a demon out of my body.

[kaiserouo]

Wow i actually have enough rendered pieces to make an art summary this year. Just barely tho

Ramble below, also template ref

Oh god where do i even start. This is the part where i reflect on myself and do nothing about it afterwards.

In thems of topics, it's mostly just apex d2 and wf. I've never made my own world and characters because most ideas that i have the motivation to make into art comes from me playing the game. Maybe that's why I don't really treat a lot of my original character as "original characters", because they're still bound to a game instead of, you know, born out of the blue i guess.

I barely did render this year... I mean, not just this year of course. I think I slightly got the hang of it these two months? At least I kinda have a pipeline that I can follow and could tolerate / fix some of my mistakes in the later stages (e.g., picking wrong colors for flat color and wanna fix it during rendering etc.). It's... kinda like OOP? Decoupling code? I think it just comes down to opening a million layers and not feeling bad about it. Anyway I think one of my improvements comes from here.

Another improvement would be the speed of doing sketches and the complexity of the lineart I can handle (idk how to say that). I need to draw comics and there would be a lot of people in there, so even if I don't practice specifically I still need to draw some human figures. The complexity part is due to me getting into warframe just because of how fucking complicated they all are. Maybe instead of lineart complexity I should say I'm comfortable drawing somewhat complex characters now without my brain overloading and immediately giving up. Still haven't drawn BT though.

That's probably all the obvious improvements I can think of. I didn't read as many books as last year, but the two main books I read last year are for perspective and anatomy, which I do find very very useful. I still often go back to check some anatomy stuff this year, and with me spam drawing comics I think I can draw human figures better than before... if I only consider proportion that is. I think I have to redo anatomy all over again especially for the muscle part. Also probably should do more real human reference practice... Well, you can probably guess why I said that at the start.

I do think the reason why I do so little rendering is because I mostly do comics. Most of my ideas have a plot and my idea list is waaaaay too long to actually color the comics. And as I feel more comfortable drawing comics I fear more when I wanna do rendering because of the skill gap I have between the two subjects. Also most of you come for silly comics so why do I do full rendered pieces anyways... Yeah, after typing that sentence I do feel wrong thinking like that. But oh well, I guess I can't escape the curse of liking to see numbers go up.

Speaking of numbers, here's some of them. Good thing I don't have to deal with Tumblr API myself.

That's... quite a lot of followers, for me. I mean I don't stay in only one fandom so I have no idea why most of you followed me. Also sorry to ultrakill fans I just don't draw a lot for that game but I see some of you liking a ton of ultrakill post and immediately follows me. Kinda felt that I baited you folks for following me tbh...

Also 3 of my top 5 posts (2234 > 1726 > 1641 > 1531 > 1321) are ultrakill and I only have 27 ultrakill art posts (a lot fewer than other games) so... um, maaaaybe you should consider unfollowing me to clean up your timeline...?

Aaand here are the note stats per month because I've already typed this much so why not just include literally everything in one post

The only thing I can analyze is that the note and post number started to lose correlation due to how much ramble shitpost I have these months.

Okay that's it. I intended to make another art summary for the lineart / unrendered art pieces, but there's just too many to choose from and I don't think you can infer more from these given that the rendered pieces already has lineart in them. Mostly.