#if a tool has to do the major work for you you're not an artist you're a clown tools are meant to make a task easier not entirely for you

[momochiiee-reblogs]

Really trying to not be mean and throw up all my indignation at some random people calling themselves artists on a discrd chat dedicated to art and fanart and complimenting eachother's skill using FUCKING A I PROMPTS

Congratulations you dipshits, you have stolen from real people!

I really hope this scammy tools get severely punished and disappear for all the stolen intellectual property one day

[mortalityplays]

You need more free art.

I quit my job yesterday. Well, actually I quit my job eight weeks ago, but they finally released me yesterday for good behaviour. Don't get me wrong, I love what I do - but I do it for the wrong reasons. Working for major charities, you learn very fast that 'I want to make the world a better place' is a phrase you use to ask people for money, not to give them things. I was an ass-backwards fit for that world.

You need more free art. I need more free art. Everyone has felt the shift in our media landscape over the last ten years, away from access and towards nickel-and-diming the human experience. That lack of access is making life and culture worse for all of us, across the board. Paywalled news sites leave us less informed, attacks on the Internet Archive leave us less capable of research. Algorithmic social feeds and streaming walled gardens trap us inside smaller and smaller demographic bubbles, where we are increasingly only likely to encounter ideas that have been curated for us by marketing departments. Hasty efforts to resist AI commodification have only led to more artists locking their work away and calling for even more onerous systems of copyright law. This is not good for us.

We all need more free art.

So what am I going to do about it?

This is a question I have been asking myself for years. It's easy to sit here feeilng frustrated and thinking 'boy I hope SOMEONE does SOMETHING'. It's harder to take action in a world where I still have rent to pay. But hard doesn't mean impossible. Sometimes hard just means time-consuming, frustrating and slow. And sometimes it's worth doing something time-consuming, frustrating and slow because...I want to make the world a better place.

I'm going to do this:

1. From April 1st, I am relaunching as a freelance writer and editor.

This is the one that will (hopefully) help to pay the bills. I am a very good and experienced editor. I've worked on hollywood movies, I'm a member of the Chartered Institute of Editors and Proofreaders, I have clients who have been coming to me exclusively for more than 10 years.

Alongside bigger contract jobs, I am going to refocus on offering my services to small-press creators at a reduced rate. That means you, graphic novelists. That means you, itch and amazon writers. I want to help you develop your work, the same way I help large organisations. You can learn more about what an editor even does and what kind of pricing you can expect here.

2. I'm also going to start giving shit away. Like, constantly.

Next week I'm going to launch a new free shop. If you're unfamiliar, a free shop, giveaway shop, swap shop, etc. is an anarchist tradition of setting up a storefront where anyone can take what they like for no cost. Offline, this often means second-hand clothes, tools, furniture, food etc. Online, I am going to be giving away digital art. Copyright-free, no strings attached. It will (eventually) feature everything from print-res posters to zines, poems, tattoo flash, t-shirt designs and anything else we come up with.

Yes, I said 'we' - while this is a curated collection, it will feature work from a variety of credited and anonymous artists and activists, all of whom have agreed to give their work away to the public domain. Some of it will be practical, some of it will be political, but a lot of it will be decorative or personal. This is, in part, a response to recent difficulty I had finding somewhere that would print a one-off joke poster for a friend that featured the word 'faggot'. Enough. No middlemen - no explaining ourselves. Just print our shit and enjoy it.

I'm very, very excited about this project. I'll have more to say about it closer to the launch, but you can expect it to go live on March 27th.

2.2 I forgot to mention the ACTUAL LAUNCH GIVEAWAY

To celebrate my launch, I am going to be giving away a ton of physical prints. When I went looking for my old stock to see if it was worth setting a new (paid) storefront up, I realised I had way more old work in storage than I thought. This will be announced in its own right on Monday, but this is why I've been hinting you should go follow my Patreon.

On April 1st, I will pick 8 random patrons (from across all tiers including non-paying followers!) and mail them a bundle of assorted prints and postcards. The prize pool includes A3 and A4 posters, packs of A6 postcards, and printed minicomics that I've previously sold for up to £12 each.

You don't have to be a paying subscriber to enter - this is strictly no-purchase necessary. It is purely and entirely a celebration of the concept of GIVING ART AWAY FOR FREE.

3. PORN, YOU PERVERTS

Because I still have to pay to stay alive, I am going to be subsidising all this free art with the introduction of Fuck You Fridays. Starting from March 29th, I will drop a new 18+ short story on the last Friday of every month, over on itch.io (yes I know my page is desolate right now, don't worry I'll get there).

The first edition, Go Fuck Yourself, is about, well - telling your boss where to stick it. Julia has had it with her millionaire man-child manager, and is just about ready to let him know what she really thinks. It's a short and steamy 5k words, with a gorgeous cover illustration by @taylor-titmouse, and you can pick it up for $3 starting from March 29th.

4. ANOTHER BIG SURPRISE

I'm keeping this one under wraps for now, but April 1st will also play host to one more (FREE) launch. If you've been following me for a long time, you might remember the other significance of this date (no not April Fool's day, though that is certainly thematically relevant to this entire effort). That's all I'll say right now. Watch this space.

tl;dr: I'm sick of paywalls and career ladders. I'm literally putting my money where my mouth is. More free art for everyone and I'm not kidding around!!!

[pinkyjulien]

Dragon Age: The Veilguard

▶ Extracted Asset Drive Folder

Recently finished my first DAV playthrough and wanted to get my hands into the files 🤚 so just like I did with CP77, I put up little google drive folder with extracted assets! Made possible thanks to the Frostbite Modding Tool ◀

OBVIOUS Spoiler warning - I don't recommend looking at the files until you're done with the game's main story!

I wasn't able to grab everything just yet as the majority of assets aren't fully accessible yet (corrupted/missing data). Expect some extracted assets to have some artifacts as well!

But you can already find:

HUD elements

Codex entries's full art

CC, Map, Journal Icons

...and more!

Every elements has been sorted in folders for an (hopefully) easy browsing - I'll try to keep this drive updated :3

▶ THIS IS FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY!

You can use the assets for your videos, thumbnails, character templates, art, mods... but do NOT use these assets for any commercial purposes! Every assets and files are the property of Bioware and their artists

This is from a fan for fans, let's keep it fair and fun! 🙏

If you appreciate my work consider supporting me on Ko-Fi 💜

[alexanderwales]

The high-level prophecy interpreters all worked for the government or major corporations. They were the ones with the money, and the ones most likely to be the subject of a prophecy. Sometimes you'd have a multi-billionaire hire on a prophecy interpreter, but usually they just had one on retainer. The same went for celebrities who were famous enough to attract significant prophecies.

But at the lower level, there were prophecy interpreters who opened up their own firms, usually just one or two if they weren't in a major city. That was me: I had gotten in prophecy interpretation in college and ended up majoring in it after the Kepler Incident. I had my name on bus stops and billboards, and a single secretary in my employ who thankfully handled most of the phone calls.

In the field we sometimes divide the business up into three sectors based on timing. There's "prophecy impact", which is when we do a consultation right after the prophecy has been made, or at least sometime before it rears its head. Some prophecies are decades in the making, but people want to be told what to do about them. I hate that part of the job, personally, because there's not a whole lot to do, depending on the language. Plus the conversations are pretty repetitive: a guy hears a pretty clear-cut prophecy that he's going to die falling out of a plane, and he's begging for some way out, as though there's something I can do about it, as though I can tell him that prophecies are lairs sometimes. Prophecies are liars, but they're clever liars, hiding meanings inside words, only clear after they've passed. You can't escape prophecy, and at least half of "prophecy impact" clients explaining that fact to them.

The second sector is "prophetic immanence", when the client has a prophecy that they think is coming true. Sometimes this can be because there's a trigger phrase in the prophecy, a conditional that appears to have been met. One of the dirty secrets of the industry is that nine times out of the ten, people are mistaken: the nature of prophecy is such that you can't often pinpoint when the prophecy is nigh. In my opinion, you can judge a prophecy interpreter by how upfront they are about this. The weasels will milk their clients dry by pretending that every moment is a crisis moment.

It's the last sector that I find the most satisfaction from, which is why it's a disappointment that it's the least in demand. This is post facto prophecy interpretation. You're not trying to prevent anything, you're not formulating a reaction, you're just trying to figure out what happened and how it all fit together. These are clients that are in the aftermath of prophecy, or what they're pretty sure is the aftermath, and a lot of the time, they just want someone to talk to more than they want my specific expertise.

My client that day was an artist, a rising star who had a few very successful gallery showings. It had been prophesied that her older brother would accidentally kill her father, but it had been her instead. This wasn't a recent trauma, but the wound was clearly still there, so I tried to navigate it as carefully as I could.

"One of the things that makes prophecy tricky is ambiguity," I said gently. "There are some, outliers, that depend on pretty tortured readings. But in this case, I think it's just an alternate meaning. From what you gave me, the prophecy was specifically 'the child who first draws breath', and that's in reference to your career as an artist."

"That's stupid," she said. "He's two years older than me, would he really never have doodled a person drawing? Just a few lines indicating that something is coming out of their mouth?" Her hands were folded in her lap. They were curiously still, for someone who used her hands for a living, but maybe artists were like that, preserving the tools of their trade.

"It's stupid," I agreed. "But I do think it's entirely possible that his drawings didn't include anyone breathing, and that yours did."

"How can we know for sure?" she asked.

"We can't," I replied. "Though if we take for granted that the prophecy was fulfilled, and that you were the one to fulfill it, then we have to search for answers within the realm of what we know. And if you're not satisfied with that answer, then I need to spend some time searching for alternate meanings, to find some interpretation that lands better."

"I could understand it if I had some obsession with drawing breath," she said. "If I had done a series of paintings of visible breath escaping from a person's body, then that would make sense. But it's not that, it's the first to draw breath, and that's just ... I mean, doodles we did when we were children. It means nothing. We have no way to mark that. It wasn't pivotal."

I shrugged. "It is what it is." I use that phrase a lot. "There's a selection effect with prophecies. The ones we hear about are hugely ironic, they show the hand of fate, they warp and twist people. But many of them are just," I shrugged again. "Things that happened."

"My brother moved away," she said. "My father had kind of accepted it, probably from the moment we were born, or before that. He'd made peace with it, hadn't tried to fight it. But it was a hard thing to learn for my brother, and he'd just left to go to school a thousand miles away, and coming home was always stressful for him, because maybe this was when it was going to happen."

I nodded. "I can see where that would be difficult. How did he handle it?"

"Poorly," she sighed. "Dad was a good guy. My brother lost all that time, and it had always been a source of tension between them, not the death, but their perspective, you know? Dad preached acceptance, my brother wanted to avoid it, and so when my brother went out west, dad was disappointed. He said it was like losing his son, and that he'd have rather died than have that happen. So not only did my brother not have a close relationship with my dad because of the prophecy, it turns out that dad was right all along. It would have been better for everyone not to fight it."

"Maybe," I said. "In the business we don't counsel people not to fight prophecies. Sometimes it's the right thing to do."

"Well, sorry for wasting your time," she said. "Though I guess I'm paying by the hour, and I'm not going to apologize for something I paid for. So I'd like my apology back, please."

I smiled at her. "Certainly."

She stood up to go, and I marked the time so I could bill her later, but she paused for a moment. I put in the time all the same; so far as I was concerned, we were off the clock.

"Do you have any unresolved prophecies that you know of?" she asked.

"That's sort of a personal question," I said. "But I get it a lot, and if it might help you, I can share: I'm going to be eaten by an alligator."

"You're ... what?" she asked.

"An alligator?" I asked. "They live in swamps."

"And how are you going to be eaten by one?" she asked.

"Well, I don't know," I replied. "There's a chance I've dodged it already, or ... dodged it in the way that you can sometimes dodge an obvious reading." I held up my hand and showed her my pinky, or rather, my lack of pinky. "I went down to Florida, had my finger amputated, then fed it to three baby alligators under the supervision of a zoo keeper."

She stared at me. "And that works?" she finally asked.

"We'll see," I replied. "In general, yes, it's an approach with relatively good outcomes. A self-fulfilling prophecy. It's a peace of mind thing."

"But ... your finger?" she asked. She was looking at it. I sometimes thought that going with a toe would be better, or a chunk of flesh from somewhere else, but I had heard that losing a toe could interfere with balance. I had never regretted that it was a pinky finger.

"If I didn't avert the prophecy, I want to be the kind of guy who says 'oh, well that's funny'," I replied. "I think ... whatever helps you, you know? And now I don't need to stay up at night wondering how the hell it's going to happen. See, your father had it right, I think. You have to find a way to make peace with it. And this was what it took for me to make peace with mine. Though I have to admit that I'm not a fan of zoos, and I don't take vacations south of the Mason Dixon, so maybe I'm not as much at peace as I would like myself to believe."

"Huh," she said. She looked away from the missing finger and to my eyes. "Thank you for sharing that."

"It's okay if you think it's kooky," I replied.

"No," she said. "I was just ... thinking that if my brother had something like that, he might have had more time with dad before he passed."

I nodded. "You can share that story, if you think it will help. Sometimes it does."

When she left I went back to my computer, cruising the local news sites to see whether there had been any updates. I hadn't given her the best advice. My mind had been elsewhere.

A local guy had been busted for breeding reptiles without a license. I was sure it was nothing, but they hadn't said what specific reptiles it had been. It was probably nothing. I mean, a full-grown alligator escaping from custody, finding me, and managing to eat me was a little too much for me to believe.

But fate is a funny thing sometimes, and I was going to keep my eyes open.

[blossomthepinkbunny]

Vivzepop will always be the biggest issue with her own show if she doesn't change. And i'm not saying that because I desperately want to shit on her but rather because it's so clear that her attitude is what made Hazbin Hotel be so dissapointing after the long wait. The pilot released four years ago and Viv had these characters for much longer than that. One could assume that with this much time on her hands she would have a concise plan for how a series of her story would play out (I can imagine that having an own show is a dream for lots of creative people out there). And I get that that plan might get screwed up by a shorter episode count then expected, but she should be the one who knows her story best and who should know what stuff could also be cut out. The first season of Hazbin Hotel is so incredibly overstuffed with characters and plot that it completely looses the main premise the show was originally pitched with (the idea of a hotel were sinners are redeemed. As it is now the hotel is really not important at all). People have talked endlessly about how Viv can't handle criticism and it really sucks because criticism is one of the best ways to improve your writing, drawings, music etc. Without criticism you won't refine the thing you're working on in a meaningful way. Of course it feels bad when you put something out there you wanted to share and then people critique it, but that's part of pretty much every creative journey, or atleast it should be and Vivzepop shouldn't get a pass from this just because she doesn't like it. And there are great shows, movies or books that are rarely or almost never criticised. But the artists behind these works probably went trough years of honing what they do by being criticised for the stuff they put out. And I don't want to say that Vivzepop didn't work hard to make Hazbin Hotel, but it is hard to claim that she improves in her craft, when everytime someone says they don't like her show she throws a hissy fit. She wants the same reactions that these other amazing pieces of media get without ever listening to criticism. Which she sees as a personal attack rather than a tool that could help her to achieve the same level of writing prowess the creators behind media like that have. She believes she is already on the same level as them, just because she basically shuts anyone out who disagrees with her. There's this clip at the end of a Drew Gooden Video which I think sums up the situation with Viv pretty good (the Video is called "Leaving the YouTube Bubble"). He is talking about Lily Singh and her talk show but I feel like a lot of the stuff he says about handling criticism applies to Vivzepop as well.

(you might have to turn up the audio).

Unprofessional behaviour like that might be excusable when the creator is pretty young or they are interacting with publicity for the first time really. But neither of that applies to Viv. And Hazbin Hotel isn't just an indie animation pilot on youtube anymore. It's now a fully realized show created with a pretty prominent studio on a major streaming network and it should be held to the same standards as other shows or movies alike (not saying indie animation or animation on youtube doesn't have a standard but with more budget and support, there's obviously going to be different expectations for the show now). There have been issues in Helluva Boss and the Hazbin Hotel pilot ever since their release which could've been handled with more time and the new show. But Vivzepop shows time and time again that she isn't willing to listen to people who criticise her, which could actually lead to her show getting better. I don't like Viv or her work a lot. I think she is incredibly unprofessional and she has done her fair share of questionable or problematic stuff, which often leads to issues in her shows. There have been some characters I like, some songs or scenes that were pretty well done, very cool animation and an actually interesting premise on paper in HH and HB. There are things that make me come back to these shows to watch the next episode. And i'm obviously passionate enough about these shows to make whole posts about what I think was done badly and what could be changed. But for the aspects of HH or HB I enjoy, there are soo many more problems I have with it. Problems that won't go away unless Viv stops seeing every criticism as a personal attack. Because if Vivzepop doesn't stop acting like her writing is some unreachable stuff that needs no changes I don't really see a point in assuming that these shows will ever get better.

[beloved-calypso]

・ ゜ ʚɞ ゜ ゜𝕳𝖔𝖜 𝖈𝖆𝖓 𝖞𝖔𝖚 𝖆𝖈𝖍𝖎𝖊𝖛𝖊 𝖞𝖔𝖚𝖗 𝖉𝖊𝖘𝖎𝖗𝖊𝖉 𝖇𝖊𝖆𝖚𝖙𝖞? ♡ ・ ゜ ʚɞ ゜ ゜‎♡‧₊˚✧ ૮ ˶ᵔ ᵕ ᵔ˶ ა ✧˚₊‧♡

♡ “𝒯𝒽𝑒𝓇𝑒 𝒶𝓇𝑒 𝒶𝓈 𝓂𝒶𝓃𝓎 𝓈𝓉𝓎𝓁𝑒𝓈 𝑜𝒻 𝒷𝑒𝒶𝓊𝓉𝓎 𝒶𝓈 𝓉𝒽𝑒𝓇𝑒 𝒶𝓇𝑒 𝓋𝒾𝓈𝒾𝑜𝓃𝓈 𝑜𝒻 𝒽𝒶𝓅𝓅𝒾𝓃𝑒𝓈𝓈. ~ 𝒮𝓉𝑒𝓃𝒹𝒽𝒶𝓁" ♡

All pictures and gifs are not mine but belong to their original artists.♡

I. -> II. -> III.

ᴛʜɪꜱ ᴘᴀᴄ ꜰᴏᴄᴜꜱᴇꜱ ᴏɴ ʜᴏᴡ ᴛᴏ ᴀᴄʜɪᴇᴠᴇ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴅᴇꜱɪʀᴇᴅ ᴘʜʏꜱɪᴄᴀʟ ʙᴇᴀᴜᴛʏ ᴛʜʀᴏᴜɢʜ ᴄʜᴀɴɢᴇꜱ ɪɴ ʏᴏᴜʀ ʙᴇᴀᴜᴛʏ ʀᴏᴜᴛɪɴᴇ. ᴘʟᴇᴀꜱᴇ ᴀᴘᴘʟʏ ᴛʜᴇꜱᴇ ᴛᴏ ᴀɴʏ ʀᴇᴀʟᴍꜱ ᴏꜰ ᴘʜʏꜱɪᴄᴀʟɪᴛʏ ʏᴏᴜ ᴀʀᴇ ꜱᴛʀᴜɢɢʟɪɴɢ ᴡɪᴛʜ, ꜱᴜᴄʜ ᴀꜱ ʙᴏᴅʏ ᴡᴇɪɢʜᴛ, ᴅɪᴇᴛ, ꜰɪᴛɴᴇꜱꜱ, ꜱᴋɪɴ, ʜᴀɪʀ, ᴛᴇᴇᴛʜ, ᴇᴛᴄ. ♡ ɪ ᴀᴍ ɴᴏᴛ ᴀ ᴅᴏᴄᴛᴏʀ ɴᴏʀ ᴅᴏ ɪ ᴄʟᴀɪᴍ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴍʏ ʀᴇᴀᴅɪɴɢꜱ ᴄᴀɴ ꜰɪx ᴡʜᴀᴛᴇᴠᴇʀ ᴘʜʏꜱɪᴄᴀʟ ᴀɪʟᴍᴇɴᴛꜱ ʏᴏᴜ ʜᴀᴠᴇ. ꜱᴇᴇᴋ ᴀ ᴘʀᴏꜰꜰᴇꜱꜱɪᴏɴᴀʟ ᴍᴇᴅɪᴄᴀʟ ᴘʀᴀᴄᴛɪᴛɪᴏɴᴇʀ ɪꜰ ʏᴏᴜ ᴄᴀɴ.

~ XOXO 💋🎀

P.S ✨️Remember to check the collective message AND the poll at the end!✨️

⊰᯽⊱┈───✧

౿૮꒰ྀི collective message◞꒱ა

This is what I channeled. To all my readers, please know that beauty is an INVESTMENT. You must treat it as such! Things like smooth skin and weight loss typically take months to achieve. Be wary of miracle cures, overnight subliminals, or trendy products (even if they are said to be scientifically backed up). I know with subliminals the whole point is to have unfaltering belief, but don't put so much pressure on yourself to where all the time you're listening to subliminals and overloading your brain with them. Everybody's body is different. Everybody's journey of expression is different. Remember that your body loves and supports you. It's the vessel for which we navigate through life and we only have 1 for this current lifetime. I would say with any beauty routine moderation is key (think of the Temperance card). These types of things take just as much mental strength as physical to keep up with, so it's good to treat them with simplicity, not just in consideration for what you physically can do, but what mentally you can handle. ♡

౿૮꒰ྀི pile 1 ๑◞꒱ა

9 wands (rx), 5 of wands (rx), The Lovers (rx), 9 of Swords (rx)

So this pac was supposed to focus on improving your external beauty, but apparently spirit is saying that you need to focus on what's going on internally. The major reason why you haven't achieved your desired beauty results is because you're burnt out. You've overloaded yourself with so much information and recommendations on how to achieve your desired results through the internet (video tutorials, how-to guides, beauty forums, subliminals, product reviews, etc.) that you think you should have had your results by now, and that it's a punishment from the universe that you are stuck in your "ugly duckling phase". This has led you to being perpetually frustrated, underconfident, and jealous of those that fit your beauty ideals. The truth of the matter as to why you haven't seen much results is that you try too hard and you lack the motivation to commit to any of these self-improvement tools. You may have researched so much that now you're confused and intimidated by all the information with some ideas and opinions even overlapping or contradicting thotherser. You may have tried multiple things at once and expected that to accelerate your results. You may also be the type to buy a bunch of recommended products in bulk and so far nothing has been working. Spirit is saying that your body itself is confused and cannot adjust to all these routines you keep trying out. It's like you go through aup-and-downwn cycle: you try one routine for 2-3 weeks and if it doesn't work, you leave it, go through an inactive wallowing stage for the next 2 weeks, and start over with a new routine. Your body cannot support these constant switch-ups and exposure to new chemicals (yes, even 100% natural ingredients). They're taxing your body and you're not giving it the chance to properly process what you've put in/on it. Your body and mind are also in conflict; it's like you've detached yourself from it out of anger and resentment. I have to say it: self-love is VERY much needed here. The Lovers in reverse just emphasizes that you need to compromise your wants and desires with what your body is physically capable of doing. Be patient and gentle with it. A few weeks is not enough time for many products/actions to take effect. When they do, the effects are usually internal first before they show in the external. Your body needs consistency and simplicity. Spirit is saying you only need a few products and to stick to a strict routine for a few months. Extensive routines will do more damage than good. Regarding forming your routines, you need to create solid habits. Your main obstacle is you are impatient. Given for most of you, it's probably been years that you've been working on your body and confidence, but a few months seem little in comparison to those many painstaking years of trial and error. Another obstacle here is you worry excessively and tend to assume the worst. By not caring for your mental and spiritual well beiyou'reyour psyching yourself out from doing the groundwork that's needed to solidify your imaginings into reality. Your moods heavily affect your motivation which is essential in moving your results forward. Know that success is destined for you! You just need to take the long road and to simplify the things carrying you along the journey.

⊰᯽⊱┈───── ✧

౿૮꒰ྀི pile 2 ๑◞꒱ა

9 of Swords, Page of Pentacles, 3 of Pentacles, The Devil (rx), 2 of Swords

Pile 2 you also need hug! I can tell you are overly anxious and stressed out. I think self love is very much needed here as well. In order for you to improve your beauty routine, you need to get out of your toxic headspace and have faith in your ideas. I can see that you suffer from periods of anxiety and isolation. Maybe you avoid going out as much because of your insecurities. You have very low confidence and don't have much faith in your future. I think the main problem stopping you from getting your desired beauty results is low self esteem and an obssessive mentality. You are self sabatoging yourself from taking action. It's like your stuck in a cycle of rumination. Your scared of having to commit to one thing and if that one thing doesn't work out you have to tear down all of what you've built and start over. The process of dissapointment is one you try your hardest to avoid by doing...nothing. Could also be that you do too much but feel you never do enough. Either way, your in your head a lot about what you can do and you don't know how to navigate the wealth of information that's out there, but you are scared on who and what to trust. I think in order for you to get your desires, you first need to ground yourself, start believing that change is possible and you are not stuck in your circumstances. Beauty is an investment, and it's not so much as what you put on that matters as much as how often you do it. Spirit is saying take the time to formulate a plan and stick with it, make sure every moving piece correlates well together. You may be young and fairly new to making routines like this. Take your time and have patience, it's not a race, but you should start making these plans for the longterm future. It can't be something that you quit right after seeing results, these will be things that you will need to give consistent care and attention towards, just so you know how to care for your body and recognize the signs it gives you moving forward. You also need to detach the results from your mind. You need to think clearly and objectively, let the changes come to you and don't try to force it, because I'm getting that some of you will stress so much that your body will have bad physical reactions, like migraines, rashes, breakouts, food cravings, and more. I'm also getting the message that for some of you, ya'll need to go to the doctor (nutritionist, dermatologist, gynecologist, whatever). Everyone needs to visit a doctor if they can, but ya'll especially. I think you would do well to go to professionals and get expert advice rather than trust unknown sources on the web. Some of ya'll maybe even need coaching, like a trainer or life coach. There's a lot of confusion and doubt in this pile. I think a clear, defined path is what you need, so do please be open to seeking help from others. I do think you've been working hard on the spiritual front to manifest your results, but you are constantly being disheartened. I think ya'll need to fix yourselves mentally first because its inhibiting your motivation. For some of you, you have even formed obsessive attachments to your appearance and do things to feel "right" or stable. It's giving me OCD. It's even giving me Cassie from Euphoria's excessive beauty routine (look it up). Like in the TV, it appeared as if she was doing all those things for Nate's attention, but really she did it because it was her way of grounding herself and feeling in control. I think ya'll have an issue with feeling in control and may be prone to acting out of impulse, like buying unnecessary things out of desperation or just simply overinvesting your time and energy in the wrong things. For the others, you lose steam and don't actually do the things you need to do. Be more wise with your money and where your putting it, as well as your energy. Try not to over exert yourself or comit to a bunch of things at once. Your time and energy is precious, and your mental wellbeing comes before all.

(I had a headache while doing this reading, so sorry for the confusion. That 2 of Swords energy was strong, lol)

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౿૮꒰ྀི pile 3 ๑◞꒱ა

5 of wands, Page of Wands, Ace of Wands (rx), Judgement, The Tower

Oof, all this fire energy Pile 3. So I do sense that ya'll have problems with taking on too much. You have a lot of insecurities you want to tackle, for example, skin, weight, hair, teeth, etc. and you are trying to "fix" all those things at once. Maybe you are around people that make you feel insecure and you're in this unspoken competition with them on who's prettier. There maybe even family members or friends that speak out on your appearance ( I'm so sorry if this resonates) and make you feel insecure and like you have to work on yourself. I think you've been stretching yourself thin, searching for ways to constantly improve all the while you are already trying your hardest, and instead of achieving your desired looks your heading towards a total burn out. The Tower here is telling me loud and clear, you need to slow down and take a deep breath before you crash. What other people's opinions of you don't matter. Like at all. What matters is how comfortable you are in your own skin, and what makes you feel authentic and beautiful. I don't think you are even insecure or underconfident, but rather nitpicky, and those around you are making you so. I see that you're intentions in your beauty routines are either not genuine or are unnecessary, and are forced and uncomfortable. You don't feel motivated enough to keep doing them but you still do it anyway. It maybe compulsive, but you are taking on so much at a time that it's building frustration within. What you need to do to improve your beauty routine and improve your mental health is to do a serious self evaluation. Check that you are doing these things for the right reason and not because of outside influences. Check on whether these things make you feel confident or are downsizing you. Check if your overall happiness and wellbeing is in order, whether you've spent too much money or have invested so much into your routines you've neglected other aspects of your life. I don't think what you've been doing has been necessarily bad, but it is somewhat obssessive and it will eventually backfire if you don't lessen the burden. I think you've once enjoyed doing all these things in your routine; they were fun and kept you on your toes, but now you've fallen out of love with the whole monotony of them. I think you should take a break from your beauty routine, maybe just do the bare minimum if you can't afford to drop everything. Focus on one focal point at a time, like skin and hair, or body and skin, and make sure your setting boundaries and prioritizing your mental and emotional wellbeing. I think your body is currently feeling overloaded with all that your putting in/on it. You may feel low energy and because your neglecting sleep or not staying hydrated. Make sure your also doing these bare basics and not just whats in your itinerary as they can greatly hinder your results if not catered too. Consider changing the direction of your journey or take a momentary break.

⊰᯽⊱┈─── ✧

Put in the comments down below if you would like me to make PACs focusing on specific bodily insecurities, like a pac for how to improve your skincare routine, how can I achieve my desired dream body, and how can I improve my physical health, stuff like that!

⊰᯽⊱┈───── ✧

ᴀɴʏ ᴄʀɪᴛɪᴄɪꜱᴍꜱ ᴏʀ ꜰᴇᴇᴅʙᴀᴄᴋ ᴀʀᴇ ᴡᴇʟᴄᴏᴍᴇᴅ. ɪ'ᴍ ᴛᴀᴋɪɴɢ ᴀ ɴᴇᴡ ᴅɪʀᴇᴄᴛɪᴏɴ ᴡɪᴛʜ ᴛʜɪꜱ ʙʟᴏɢ ᴀɴᴅ ᴀᴍ ᴏᴘᴇɴ ᴛᴏ ᴀɴʏ ᴏᴘɪɴɪᴏɴꜱ ᴀꜱ ᴛᴏ ᴡʜᴇʀᴇ ɪ ᴄᴀɴ ɪᴍᴘʀᴏᴠᴇ ɪᴛ. ♡

ᴅɪꜱᴄʟᴀɪᴍᴇʀ

© lolita-bonita — Please do not plagiarize, translate, or repost any of my work on other social media platforms without my permission. This is the only platform that I post this type of content. If you see my work being posted anywhere else, please kindly report them to me. ♡

⊱┈───── ✧

✨️ᴘʟᴇᴀꜱᴇ ɴᴏᴛᴇ: Tarot is not an exact science, nor can it produce information that is factually true. All things posted are alleged and for entertainment purposes only. The future is fluid, and what may happen is based on your choices and actions, not what I and a deck of cards say. You are still the creator of your future. ✨️

⊰᯽⊱┈───── ✧

[genericpuff]

hello! i'm not sure if you remember me, a while ago i asked about digital art and if it's possible to do on an ipad or something similar. i was really grateful for your response and i got an ipad over christmas! i didn't realize how expensive the pencils were though and was only able to get one recently. now that i have all of that, i download the first art program i saw (ibispaint x, i don't know how good that is) and feel super overwhelmed by everything, all the tools and brushes and i have no idea where to begin. i know this is a super broad topic, but i don't know if you have any advice for a beginner hoping to become a digital artist? or know of any resources? thank you so much in advance and no worries if this topic is too broad to really get into properly!

Oh hey!! Congrats on getting an iPad! And yeah, shopping for the pens is a big pain in the butt, but I'm glad you finally got it all setup!

So most of the advice I'm gonna give you is very basic, starter advice that can apply to virtually any digital art software, as the vast majority of them are built with the exact same base tools, they just vary in their intended purposes which means they may differ in more advanced settings and what they offer beyond the basics (ex. Photoshop has more colors than Clip Studio because it's built for editing high quality photos whereas Clip Studio is meant to emulate comic art, but Clip Studio offers more in the way of comic-creating tools such as specialized rulers, 3D material support, built-in screentoning, etc. and all of the software available will tend to have different brush engines, meaning it doesn't always 'feel' the same to draw in one software as it does in another).

Your bestest friends:

Layers! This is the biggest pro to going digital, because now you can work with layers! So anything you draw on each layer is preserved and can't touch or affect whatever's on the other ones :3 You can find the layers tab in Ibis Paint X in the bottom right, don't be afraid to make a bunch of them and mess around with what you can do. Play around with the different blending mode settings (in Ibis Paint it's the menu that's labelled 'Normal' in the layers popup) especially Multiply, Color Dodge, and Overlay, as those three are the most commonly used to make coloring more efficient and give your art some extra pop.

Lasso/marquee/magic wand tools! These are basic selection tools that allow you to select an area within the layer you're working on, so that whatever you paint won't travel outside of that area. The Lasso is a free draw tool, the marquee tool is typically 4 sides by default (so squares/rectangles) and the magic wand detects and selects a closed area with one click! (just note that by default it's only on the layer you're on, so if you use it on a layer that has nothing, it will typically select the entire canvas).

Alpha locking! This is a simple button setting you can click to 'lock' the layer you're working on, which basically means that whatever you've drawn on that layer, anything you add can't travel outside of that drawing. So if you want to quickly shade something without going outside the lines, alpha locking is your solution!

Clipping groups/layers! This is a bit more advanced but is basically an even better version of alpha locking that you can use in conjunction with it. Clipping layers are basically additional layers that , when you click the 'clipping group' button, 'attaches' that new layer to the layer that's below it. It performs the same function as the alpha lock by preventing whatever you draw on that layer from travelling outside of it, HOWEVER it comes with the added benefit that it's on an entirely different layer, meaning you can erase and mess with whatever's on that new layer as much as you like and it won't hurt the base layer. It kinda follows the same logic as animation cels !

Masking! Y'know when you're doing a traditional painting, and you put down tape to cover the area so you can paint over it and later remove the tape and everything underneath is untouched? That's basically what masking is! Once you put down a layer mask, using the erase tool on it will 'erase' whatever the mask is applied to, and using the brush will make it magically return! This may sound silly at first, but I find masking is especially helpful if you want to erase something on the layer you're working on without it disappearing forever! It's also really helpful for comic work because you can mask whatever's outside of the panels and voila, nothing you draw will travel outside of those panels!

Stabilization! I don't know how extensive Ibis Paint X is with offering stabilization tools, but many digital art software comes with it and it's a LIFE SAVER for new digital artists adjusting to the feel of digital art. It essentially 'slows down' the output of the ink on the canvas which helps a lot with getting cleaner lines in fewer tries. It's not quite as big of a deal when drawing on iPads because obviously you have more control by default by drawing directly on the screen, but it can still be really helpful when you need to pace your hand ahead of the actual drawing tool to pull cleaner lines!

That's pretty much all I can think of for now! But here are some other commonly asked questions:

1.) There are so many brushes to choose from, which one do I use?

The round brush is small but mighty. Virtually anything can be painted with it, it's simple, but malleable, especially when you start messing around with the hardness and opacity settings. Don't get too lost in the sauce with the brushes that are available to you, it can be very easy to get overwhelmed by all the options and variety. Some artists still work purely with just round brushes, some artists have custom brushes they like to use to speed up their drawing process or achieve certain textures. Play around with them, but don't get too stressed about which one you use because there's no wrong answer, the right brush to use is the one that gets the job done ! <3

2.) What canvas size should I use?

It depends on a variety of factors such as whether or not you're planning to print, where you're going to be posting it, etc. By default I like to work on 8.5 x 11 inch canvases (standard printer paper size) at 350 dpi, which if you want to make that canvas in Ibis Paint X, means you just have to make a canvas with a pixel ratio of 2975 x 3850 pixels! Just note that the lower you go in either pixel count or dpi, the lower the resolution, so it's typically encouraged you work at a minimum of 300 dpi (but you usually don't have to go any higher than 600) to ensure you don't wind up with any blurry low res JPG's/PNG's.

3.) Should I export my final drawing as JPG or PNG?

This is usually just up to personal preference, but like the canvas size, it depends on what you're using the image for. You can always export as both, the biggest difference between them is that PNG is lossless meaning you won't experience image compression like you will with JPG, BUT you're also going to have much larger image sizes. JPG is often fine for any standard posting, PNG is typically recommended if you want to have a drawing with a transparent background for printing (as JPG can't do transparent backgrounds) or if you just want to have a really high res image file for sharing outside of social media sites (as social media sites like FB/IG/etc. will typically compress the hell out of your images anyways)

Here are some other super helpful resources as well if you need some visual and/or audio guides:

Sinix Design - How to Learn Digital Painting (Beginners)

Marc Brunet - The Beginner's Guide to Digital Art

Skynix Art - 50 Digital Art Tips in 5 Minutes

One thing I also like to do is watch speedpaints of digital artists as it can really help pull back the curtain on what they're doing (or at least, it can help you see what they start with which can help you better picture the process of turning a blank canvas into a finished work of art!) And though I don't do it as often, if there's an artist whose work I REALLY like, I'll try and find their actual work files (many bigger artists sell them on their crowdfunding sites/Gumroad/etc.) so that I can actually break the drawings apart layer by layer for the purpose of analysis. Of course, all that is something that you'll grasp better over time as you learn the tools and learn to recognize what artists are doing in their own workflow, so don't worry if you don't glean a whole lot of info from the "big guys" right away, you should always be referencing artists who are higher along the skill ceiling from you but not too high that they're using techniques and tools that are outside of your realm of understanding.

Other than that, just try to have fun, don't stress too much about it, and save often!!! Part of creating art is learning to be at peace with the process, so don't stress too much if it takes you a while to get adjusted to the layouts and tools - at the end of the day, digital art is another medium entirely, so it's not uncommon at all for traditional artists to need a lot of practice to 'switch' to digital, because they both utilize different tools and techniques. Be patient with yourself, always be on the hunt for new resources and guides and references, and don't be afraid to experiment and make mistakes (the best part about digital art? Mistakes don't cost you any paint or materials!)

Good luck!! And congrats again! 🥰

[cannibal-nightmares]

Some of my Stein Soul Eater playlists

I do a lot of driving for my day job. Before I was a driver, I used to work at a record store doing album reviews and critique, but even before then, music has always been at the center of my story ever since I was a wee child. To friends, I'm the designated car DJ, the guy with the playlist, the genre-bender. I've had all kinds of people ask me for music reccs, and, much to my surprise, Soul Eater-specific music reccs... This is all to say that every time I get into my car for work now and I reach to put on one of my playlists, I can't help but think "damn I need to make a public compilation or something." SO HUZZAH! Enjoy this mess of a collection. Everything here is a perpetual WIP and will be added onto until the end of time. (also feel free to send me music in my ask box, some of you have, I'm always clawing for new music, but I listen to a lot of music...)

So without further adieu, I'll start with my most-frequented playlist:

[Spotify] Somewhere more adjacent to a personal(!) fictionkin playlist, this is so far my longest and most-listened to [Soul Eater] mix. It mostly consists of metalcore and alt metal, with tonal themes of turmoil and chaos, but there are a couple curve-ball tracks to keep you on your toes (mostly of which came from recommendations of other people ^^;). I like to "smart shuffle" this list to find new alt bands. Word of warning that there's all kind of provocative unreality narratives throughout this playlist, that's just how it goes (my logic is a sort of comfort in discomfort). SHUFFLE IT!

Track highlight: "CANVAS" by AVRALIZE (rose, if you're reading this. hi. 📯)

[Spotify] WAAAHHHH While not one of my more-frequented listens, I've really enjoyed putting this one together over the past year. Songs of heartbreaking, "Will they? Won't they?" I've tried to remain true to alternative genres for the sake of consistent character tone, but there are streaks of teasing whimsy as per the dynamic of our calamity duo ^^

Track highlight: "The Void" by Spiritbox

[Spotify] One of my first Soul Eater playlists, I was really dissatisfied with other public Spirit-oriented playlists I had found. Semi-inspired by fan-made playlists for Tamaki Suoh of "Ouran High School Host Club," I love putting this one on if I'm feeling prideful and femme, hahaha. I revel in the occasional dirtiness sprinkled throughout this one and I plan to add more eventually, heh.

Track highlight: "Love Taste" by Moe Shop (ZOEY U KNO I HAD TO)

[Spotify] Alright, I'll admit this one is currently an ambitious mess. I've kind of just been passively adding onto this as I find music I think Stein might be interested in. I'm swayed to think he is a lyric-oriented person until a genre bends into avant garde (as I currently quite literally have it opening with a new-era Of Montreal song, WOOF). Every time I think about this playlist or move to listen to Tool or Radiohead I am reminded I really need to clean this one up. I'm an avid believer Stein would like Tool, lol. This one nears close to a similar-enough idea to a following playlist, "Franken's Static Calm." Ideally, this list will become very long in the future as it's supposed to be a pretend library of albums and artists, not necessarily individual tracks.

Track highlight: "Cardium" by Trigg & Gusset

[Spotify] Although very obviously a WIP at the moment, I'm including this playlist because I could have sworn I've extensively worked on it already (knowing me, I've probably made a Soul Eater playlist under a non-specific title, I have a terrible habit of doing that). This one is particularly in no specific order right now; I intend to include a lot more music parallel to the canon score including that of acid jazz, as cleverly and observantly curated in "soul eater vibes" by sacccstry. (WHICH IS A FANTASTIC PLAYLIST I highly recommend; I put it on in the car when I'm driving friends around for the viiibes) Currently, this playlist is majority made up of electronic call-to-arms. :)

Track highlight: "Killing Giants" by Puppet

[Spotify] OKAY WAIT HEAR ME OUT HOLD ON WAIT NO-- Essentially Soul's iPod, this is (and will continue to be) a disaster mess. I just think Soul likes it all. I think he has his favourite genres in eastern music, underground surfpunk, and acid jazz, I think he picks up tidbits of different songs by different artists from friends, I think he's the guy who can name random tracks from Bollywood films out of nowhere (cough this might be me I'm describing). I find Soul to seek complexity in easy-listening, and vise versa. ...Also to say that every time I hear Nirvana these days, I'm thinking about Soul Eater Evans ^^;; This playlist is a fustercluck right now, but I think a keen ear for music and en eye for the character will understand where I'm going with this one.

Track highlight: "Trick of the Light" by CIVIC (which. woof. I've seen CIVIC, El Khat, and Stonefield all in concert and is where my Soul-specific inspiration and intention derives from)

[Spotify] I'll make an attempt at justifying this one: It's simply that I get really dissatisfied by the generalization that Stein is nothing more than an edgelord reduced to cartoony theatrics, ones that depict him as inherently self-loathing while simultaneously and paradoxically prideful. ...This being said, I am guilty of frothing over edgy angst themes often found in heavy alternative music. As I add onto this playlist, it is mostly of tone, generally catering to a sort of juvenile taste of edge, and I might even begin to include classic emo genres.(Don't get it misconstrued: I love it all. /gen) Think the grunge side of Warped Tour.

Track highlight: "Gauze" by Deftones

[Spotify] Currently closely adjacent and overlapping to the WIP that is "Franken's iPod," this is one I am trying to keep to it's more calming paces. Somewhere in between a rainy night and [eventually to include] ambiance, I started this one to have something to put on in the background. Eventually it will have more melodic noise and ambient soundscape like that of The Black Dog and Aphex Twin and Yellow Swans, but as for now it is a major WIP that I wouldn't mind folks taking a peek into. (...Also "Ultraviolet" by Spiritbox is in here because for some reason it provokes in my mind's eye that of younger Stein having a quiet moment of peace to himself. I don't know why.) In this vein of reason, I'd love to make a Stein-oriented harsh noise playlist sometime.

Track highlight: "Cup Noodle" by The Black Dog

[Spotify] A guilty-pleasure playlist, this is a short list of songs I've found either lyrically or tonally fit Stein, but, distinctly, not both. I can be particular like that.

Track highlight: "Wet Specimen" by SWEET SPINE

Although a long list, I still have so many other SE/FF playlists as their time comes. I constantly have my feelers out for new music and soundscapes, other work in progresses to include Stein/Justin, fanfic playlists (of my own and for others), and one specifically for Black Star which currently only has "When I Grow Up" by NF on it at the moment ^^;

ANYWAYS ENJOY ENJOY I can't continue sitting on these, GO FORTH AND EXPLORE!

a bonus secret-not-so-secret playlist, heh -> "you're one sadistic man"

[skeletoninthemelonland]

hey starbs! I was wondering something, I know you are studying biolgy in uni and as someone who wants to be a biolgist but has been told im too "artistic and creative" to spend my life working with such precise things. I know you are also and artist, obviously, how has it been for you that you are a creative person, yet working with a course that is so strict to what it is (like not incudlign the different types of biolgist, like how you work there you rcant do what you want like you could with art or writing etc)

do you have any advice on how to reach for this goal or how youve felt just wanting to be a biolgist? im struggling alot with future stuff and it would be nice to hear from a fellow artist. (keep up the great work)

I'll be honest and say that studying Biology was a bit of a rushed decision (?)

I had no idea what I truly wanted to do while studying for the entrance exam. I knew I enjoyed different subjects and could work flexibly, but depending on the path I took, things would become either enjoyable or difficult for me. Biology has always been a subject I loved as a kid, but never something I was constantly interacting with growing up. With art that was different. I was definitely more passionate and skilled at art than at anything else.

I would have choosed to work with art, if only I had scored higher in the entrance exam and if only it was easy to make art for a living. Still, I don't regret choosing to study Biology.

It was a little discouraging in the beginning with how little I knew about the subject. Some students had far more knowledge than I ever had growing up. Some of them know exactly how a biology major will help them in the future. There were also people like me who had no idea what they wanted to do, but were willing to learn.

Turns out that Biology is one of the least precise things you could ever work with. Sciences in general is a subject that functions on uncertainty, and is what brings people forward to gather more information. My Plant Anatomy teacher often says "Mas é isso né gente, as plantas não lêem livros" (Which can be translated to "But yeah, plants don't read books"), because very often you'll find exceptions and unexplainable occurances everywhere (In this case, students are taught not to make assumptions about certain morphological characteristics that are present in plants... but not in all of them).

Artistic and creative are traits that are incredibly helpful and often necessary as skills. In a more literal approach, it might help you understand illustrated examples and "train your eye" for the tiniest details. Using your creativity as a tool to learn will immediately make things easier for you. I can't always draw and paint like I used to, but I can say that "motor proteins travelling along microtubules look like tiny people going for a walk :D" and never forget the information.

Being creative helps you make analogies with already existing information, so it's easier to retain it. I could also say "motor proteins travelling along microtubules remind me of Michael Afton walking down the sidewalk :D" and it's even easier to remember! Play with the information like it's a toy. If you can explain it to a 5 year old, that's because you learned.

But of course, there will always be classes that are more difficult than others. Mathematics will always be that one for me. You can't escape the challenging parts ^^'

Overall, it really depends on the person. It might work for me, and it might not work for you. The key is to explore and experiment on your own pace. Answers will come to you if you keep searching for them.

My best advice (in any major you're choosing), which will likely save your time, energy and sanity, is to find people like you. Not necessarily people who share similar interests as you, but people that you can count on and share your struggles — and they'll sometimes share their own. Befriending people often keeps you grounded and less anxious about how you'll perceive yourself and the future. It's a win-win interaction. Everyone is struggling, so we'll help each other out.

Remember it's okay to not know things right away. Remember it's okay that you're not as skilled as x person. Remember it's okay to be kind to yourself.

I could be saying all of this, but every day there's a huge effort to remind myself to take it slow. Reality oftens becomes skewed when we don't give ourselves a break.

I hope I helped you somehow, with the little to no experience I've had over the past few months. Wishing you and any other person reading this and who's in a similar situation good luck.

-----

One last advice.

Please, SLEEP!

SLEEP. SLEEP. SLEEP.

Don't even think about staying up late. SLEEP. Eat healthy whenever you can. Carry a banana with you, they have potassium — which is fucking great for your organism !!!

CARRY WATER. EVERYWHERE. TAKE 💧💧💧💦💦💦💦💧💧💦💦

How is anyone supposed to make good decisions while exhausted, grumpy, dehydrated, overwhelmed and hungry? THERE IS NO WAY. TREAT YOURSELF WITH CARE !!!! NOOOWWWW

[spockandawe]

Hello! I've been thinking about binding some danmei novels in my native language, but I don't know where to start. I found your blog recently and find it very inspiring! I was wondering if maybe you could share with me what tools and materials would be good to get started with?

Sure!!!! So, I'm on mobile and don't have links at hand, but if you go back through my bookbinding tag, there are other replies I've got about the materials for making a book specifically. The renegade publishing blog also has resource documents that walk through the bookbinding process and include links to educational materials, etc. So for here, I'll focus on the danmei side of things!

So, a fun feature about these books is that they tend to run LONG. I've seen a number of people try to take up bookbinding in google docs, and honestly, it's doing things on hard mode. For many danmei, it's basically impossible. I think my EARLIEST earliest attempt at svsss began in gdocs, and that's not a super long novel, but gdocs was choking on it. A word processor on your desktop is going to be your best bet. Personally, i invested in a microsoft office license, because it was familiar and i could afford it. But the free parallel to that will be libre office, which does basically everything word can do, with just minor differences.

On the fancy end of bookbinding software, affinity, indesign, and microsoft publisher are also names you may hear tossed around. These can do fancier, more artistic layouts, but also come with a heavier price tag. And because i had webnovels on my radar from the start, i wanted something ROBUST. I wanted to be able to dump all of the husky and his white cat shizun into a single file and work from it. And i did eventually do that! Being able to typeset a single file rather than repeat each step across several is great, especially since i tend to tweak design choices as i go.

For danmei, you're also going to want a robust printer. I have a color laser that's been an absolute beast of a machine, but a black and white laser can get you a long ways, and monochrome designs can be very elegant. You don't want an HP brand printer, their toner subscription practices are downright predatory, but Brother and Canon are names I've seen recommended highly. You probably don't want an inkjet printer, because long books take a LOT of ink. The one exception would be if you can find an affordable ink tank printer.

And the last major thing i can think of is that if your main computer is a laptop, consider typesetting with an external mouse and keyboard! Danmei novels are split into lots of short chapters, frequently split across just as many web pages, with lots of footnotes to format, and laptops are convenient but not ergonomic. Doing too much on there is just asking for a repetitive strain injury. I've done it, but often paid for my sins in pain! And your laptop keyboard may start complaining too, I'm almost certain my first typeset of mdzs was the nail in the coffin for my last laptop's keyboard, haha

I hope that helps! Best of luck to you! Ive found binding cnovels to be EXTREMELY rewarding, even though my original reason was because these things would NEVER be licensed in english 😂 I'm delighted to see people experimenting with it for other translations in other languages, I really hope it goes well for you!!!!

[spewagepipe]

On Performer-GM vs. Player-GM

After some analysis and introspection both of my own blog and the discourse I've seen elsewhere, I think I've identified a valuable schism not just in how people design and play RPGs, but in how they fundamentally understand what an RPG is – or more specifically, what a "Game Master" is.

It appears to me that this difference in understanding is leading to a lot of miscommunication, so I want to try to present my findings here as neutrally as I can in the hopes of enabling folks on either side of that schism to avoid talking straight past one another.

I'm calling the first perspective the "Game-Master-as-Performer".

I give it this name because it views an RPG (or more specifically, the campaign) as a kind of show or performance that is being created and presented by the GM. To be clear: I don't mean this in the sense that GMs (or players) are expected to do voices and acting – the "show" can be a totally mechanical and flavourless one and still exist within this philosophy. Nor do I mean that the GM is pre-writing the story and the players are just along for the ride – the "show" is usually highly interactive (compare it to, say, an improv comic doing crowd work).

What I mean, instead, is that a Performer-GM is seen as a kind of auteur – their job is to create a game for their players (whether in real time or using prepared materials) by whatever means they have available. The novice Performer-GM is regarded like a novice painter might be: their first works are bound to be crude and clumsy because they haven't mastered proper technique yet. The Performer-GM is expected to learn from these awkward first steps, improve their methods and adopt additional techniques garnered from a combination of practice, experimentation, and studying the "works" of other GMs – be it through YouTube videos, personal mentorship, or game rulebooks.

Indeed, a vital feature of the Performer-GM perspective is the idea that systems, mechanics, and other game procedures are treated like "tools in one's toolbox" – to be learned and incorporated into one's personal style in the same way that the developing painter might incorporate chiaroscuro, point perspective, or caricature. The Performer-GM, in their growing mastery of the medium, decides if and when to employ any given tool in the pursuit of the artistic experience they are trying to deliver to their audience. Implicitly, they also therefore ignore the tools that they deem would distract from those aesthetic goals.

I'm calling the second perspective the "Game-Master-as-Player".

I give it this name because it views an RPG as a kind of asymmetrical tabletop game, in which the GM is also a player – but one who is following a different set of rules from the other players. If you're not familiar with the concept of asymmetrical games, the (hopefully familiar) example to use as an analogy is Simon Says. In order to play Simon Says, one of the players has to be "Simon" – that player has to follow a different set of rules from the others, much like the GM follows a different set of rules from the other players of an RPG.

The vital feature of the Player-GM perspective is that the game system (in the sense of the Baker-Care-Boss Principle) is seen as the responsibility of the game's designer, and not as a responsibility of the GM. That is, the RPG designer decides the aesthetic goals of a particular game, and then, through a combination of their own artistic expertise and extensive play-testing, the designer identifies a system (rules, procedures, mechanics, et cetera) that achieves those aesthetic goals with some reliability.

The Player-GM's job, once the designer has completed that task, is to simply use the system as the designer has instructed them to use it –in the exact same way that they would if they were any other player sitting down to any other sort of tabletop game.

The major distinction between these two perspectives, if you will, is the question of who is responsible for the game system? Both perspectives agree that whoever is in charge of the system is clearly the principal "artist" of the game, the auteur who has the greatest ability to guide the game towards some certain aesthetic vision. But the GM-as-Performer crowd says that person is the GM, and the GM-as-Player crowd says that person is the game designer.

From what I have seen, however, neither crowd is particularly aware of the other's frame of reference – more on that next time.

[corvidmellow]

moved cause i genuinely hated thinking about my main LMAOO

anyways

welcome to my blog!!

here is where i post art i’ve made and reblog art i like!

i’m a traditional artist who usually uses alcohol markers for my colour work

…undertale and oc hell, sorry not sorry. the special interest is strong and underfell sans has had a vice grip on me since 2016

asks are open! feel free to bug me about my little shit characters or request a sketch

more under the cut

here's some stuff about me :D

favorite colour? cyan!

favorite genre of movie? horror!

favorite genre of music? ...quite literally everything. my liked songs is a minefield. rn i really like rage rap and swing though!

favorite song?

favorite musical artists? will wood, hozier, jhariah, do not resurrect, BABY GRAVY, pierce the veil, melancolia, deftones, kendrick lamar, tyler, the creator, nothing but thieves, etc.

favorite literature? oscar wilde my beloved (i left his book at home don't ask me trivia blease i just love him), biology, thrillers, societal commentary

fandoms? undertale (obviously), UTMV (obviously), homestuck, deltarune, the magnus archives/protocol (no spoilers pls), the arcana, marble hornets, creepypasta… sorry.

favorite aus? underfell!!!! though i am also very fond of understate, echotale, and sunnemona’s dreamtale!

gender and sexuality? am trans and some flavor of asexual idk. but i'm also the asexual who's posting pure filth on ao3 and will not shut up about being attracted to underfell sans and nightmare

my aus and fics, currently! (corvid_mellow on ao3)

-UnderHeist (unpublished)

-Veneraverse (unpublished)

-Death and Despair Multiverse (unpublished)

-FINAL GIRL (18+)

-Finis Via

-being so normal series (on hiatus)

-Should I Stay or Should I Go (on hiatus)

-The Cat and the Canary (under major reconstruction and hiatus LMAO)

-a surprise tool that will help us later (i need to finish my breakdown and analysis so i can start on my rewrite)

i consider myself to be somewhat ship neutral!

that being said, i don’t go through and block people for ships and stuff, and the less i think about it the better, BUT!! i am incredibly uncomfortable with incest and a lot of comships! whether that be fontcest, dreammare, frans, etc. sanscest is fine (id fuck an alternate version of myself, but never my siblings), but please don’t bring any of that onto my posts 🫶

also dni if you're any kind of queerphobic, racist, fatphobic, ableist, hateful in general, OR support the harassment of people over silly internet things. you really won’t like me anyways lmfao. i will be mostly avoiding fighting with people on this blog, so i'll just block you if i catch your ass being hateful in here. i do not tolerate the hate of those who have done nothing to deserve it.

#'s!

i tag my art with “steel arts”

reblogs are “steel bebloggin”

asks and text posts are “steel blogs” and/or “steel says stuff”

me being absolutely down bad (usually underfell sans) is “steel simpery”

my writing tag is “steel be writin”

the (hopefully) occasional drama is tagged with “interfandom drama oops”

aaaaaand my ocs are tagged with “[character name] posting”

i try to tag everything i reblog with important tags, and i don’t do politics here!!

love y’all :)

divider by @kodaswrld !!

[blaacknoir]

Thanks for clarifying the mistype, I was confused. Also, let me know if you would rather I not message you about this topic, I can disengage from it if you would prefer. Otherwise, my reply is below:

Actually, I presumed that it was fairly likely that you do have ADHD as it's not uncommon, especially on this website, but I wanted my message to be understandable regardless. In my message, I expressed that I want people who dismiss the use of AI in creative activities to actually listen to the people with disabilities Who Do Use It because not all people with the same disability have the same needs, experiences or opinions.

I am jumping the gun and making an assumption here that you may be especially irritated to have people argue for the use of AI on behalf of people with disabilities. If it is the case that you feel as if "ablism" is a mask that pro-ai people are using to excuse for not standing up for artists and writers, please consider that not all people with a disability have the same needs. I am not attempting to speak for all people with ADHD, but instead to provide the voice of one person with ADHD who uses NLPs in specific ways as a tool to compensate for specific issues. This is a voice that is especially shouted down on the tumblr platform, and I have gotten pretty tired of the way people talk over people *like me here.

*like me = has a disability that they sometimes or frequently compensate for by using a machine learning tool

Anon, I'm going to be real with you here. I've got plenty of reasons--ones that I feel are good reasons, and ones that I've explained--for disliking AI. There are other tools that disabled people can use to help with their disabilities, and quite frankly, I get a little put off when someone tells me that it's ableist to think nobody needs a planet-killing plagerism machine to write a novel. As do many, many other disabled people in the comments of the post. I understand that you think you need it, and why you think you need it, but there are plenty of other less destructive ways to work around your disability.

I'm a little curious why you're sending me these asks. I don't mind discussing this with you (provided you understand, I'm never going to agree with you), but I'm curious as to why you singled me out. Are you sending these asks to other people? Are you a follower of mine? I'm genuinely curious.

(Also worth noting is that the primary reason NaNoWriMo is defending the use of AI and calling anti-AI sentiments "ableist" and "classist" is because they're getting major funding from an AI company this year.)

[alexanderwales]

My web serial, Worth the Candle, has been adapted into a webcomic. This was thanks to my agent, who I have a great fondness for, since without him I would have to spend time trying to make connections and call people and do a bunch of work that I don't know how to do and am not good at.

I was offered the chance to write the webcomic, but declined, mostly because writing Worth the Candle had taken four years and was pretty draining, and was a story that I feel like I'm done with, minus some editorial stuff, answering fan questions, and the odd bit of promotion. So my level of involvement is that I get the pages as they come in, make some comments on them, and generally just give feedback which they are free to ignore.

So let's talk about some of the adaptational changes! You can read the first three issues on Webtoon here, or the first eight issues if you're willing to pay, and the books start here, but I'll assume that you haven't read either, and there won't be substantial spoilers because I'm talking about stuff from the very beginning. Actually, I guess there will be some spoilers, but later on, and I'll mark them, mostly having to do with some foreshadowing that the webcomic does which I didn't do.

(I licensed the rights to make the webcomic to WebToon and took my money upfront, they didn't ask me to write this post, I have not actually asked the artist/writer why they made these changes, it's just me guessing and commenting, for fun. Edit: My agent has informed me that I'm mistaken, I do get a cut. So apologies for the misinformation, and hooray for me, I guess I signed the contract ages ago and just forgot the details.)

Character Design

Here's how Juniper Smith is described in the books, ch 2:

I won’t belabor my physical description. My friend Greg had once said that I looked like someone had chosen ‘default’ for every option in the character creator, which I’d tried to laugh at but cut kind of deep. I wasn’t handsome, I wasn’t ugly, none of my features were very prominent, my eyes were blue, my hair was brown, average build, average height … After Greg had made his comment at one of our D&D games, my nickname had been ‘default’ for a while, at least until I stopped pretending to find it funny, and even after that my friends would use similar lines to trash talk me, saying that I was “the most generic man alive”, “a white bread with skim milk motherfucker”, or “the human equivalent of vanilla ice cream”. Not that I was any less of an asshole to them.

This is how he looks in the comic:

I would more or less give this full marks.

In terms of other aspects of character design, Juniper is here given a black shirt with a red symbol on it rather than the stock white t-shirt he's wearing in the opening chapters of the first book, probably in the interests of adding in some visual variety. On the page, it's perfectly fine that every person in the first 50k words is wearing basically the same stock outfit. In a visual medium, I do think that you need that pop. I do think it's interesting that Juniper is wearing the same clothes in the classroom as he is on the plane, implying that when he transmigrated his clothes ... came with him? I don't know.

The other major character of the first section is Amaryllis, who is a major character in the entire work. Here's her description in the book:

Standing by a workbench, among various car parts, tools, and cans of unidentified fluids, was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen.

I’m not really sure what protocol is here, in terms of prose. I mean, I don’t want to sound like a creep, so maybe I should stay as generic as possible and tell you about her dark red hair pulled back in a braid, the glacial blue of her eyes, how starkly alert she looked as she peered over the parts in front of her, or her grease-smeared clothes. Save for her eyes, I wasn’t really focused on any of that. My mind was consumed by tracing her curves, the shape of her chest in her blood-stained t-shirt, the fullness of her lips and the delicate way she had them parted -- and yeah, it was pretty fucked up that the splatter of blood on her shirt wasn’t worth rating much of a mention. I was consumed with staring at her and thinking how gorgeous she was, until I noticed that she was having a powerful effect on me, at which point different parts of my mind were given over to marveling at the sensation of being so attracted to a girl, and others were still focused on her.

Imagine that someone spent a few years studying your likes and dislikes, running through video of your every private moment, somehow surreptitiously hooking up EKGs to measure your physiological responses without you knowing. Then imagine that they sat down with that data and the best photo manipulation artists in the world and made the absolute perfect picture to cause your heart rate to spike, a jolt to run up your spine, butterflies in your stomach, and a cold sweat on your palms. Then imagine that they did this again, over and over in slight variations, until they had a full 4K 60fps 3D movie to show you. That was what it was like watching her.

And here she is (as she's introduced) in the comic:

Aside from the change in clothes, which in the book are the same white t-shirt and blue jeans that everyone else is wearing, Amaryllis has a scar on her face, of unknown provenance. This was probably added for visual variety, but I do find scars to be very fetching, and in one of the early versions of Worth the Candle she did have one (patterned off a woman with an extremely attractive facial scar I had met, the kind of facial scar that looked like it was applied by a Hollywood makeup artist specifically to give a touch of the exotic and mysterious, except she was a just a Midwestern mom).

And of course Amaryllis was always going to be an adaptational challenge, because the books are told through Juniper's eyes, and she's The Most Beautiful Girl in the World to him, and conventionally attractive to everyone else. Juniper tries to be normal about this. But if you're in the visual medium, you have to show both how Juniper feels and how she actually looks, and attractiveness is just so incredibly personal. My wife and I get in these kinds of discussions a lot, where she'll think someone is good-looking and I'll say "him?" or vice versa.

I think the above panel in particular is a good middle ground, a glamour shot that snaps back to the reality of their first meeting:

(The void gun she's holding there is much different from the one described in the book, not something cobbled together from spare parts and void equipment, but this is another very minor change that I would assume is meant for communicating immediately that this is a lethal weapon, and there's probably not a place for explaining how and from what it was cobbled together, which is also under-explained in the book for reasons of pacing.)

Story

I've read the first nine episodes, and overall, it's hewing very closely. There are a few bits in particular that stand out to me in how they're handled.

Spoilers for later in the series follow, I guess.

These are the opening lines of the webcomic. This is much stronger foreshadowing than I used, and I like it. Part of Juniper's backstory is that he's been deeply depressed and self-destructive, and he's slow to open up about this with other characters or the reader. The "it" that he couldn't go through with is, then, suicide. In the books? This comes very very late. Juniper being depressed after Arthur's death is brought up after the first major arc, halfway through what's now Book 1, and gets more explicit as the books go on, eventually getting to Juniper talking about his attempted suicide with people and grappling with it like ... almost halfway through?

I don't know what the plans for the webcomic are, but my guess is that they're setting up for much, much later on in a way that I didn't. This was always a background element, something that informed Juniper's character, not so much the suicide attempt as the feeling that came after, this understanding that yes, he did want to live, a heady, energizing kind of "I guess I don't have the way out that I thought I did" sort of thing.

So I take it as a good sign that this is the opening line. It points toward them understanding where they're going.

One of the other major adaptational changes is that they signpost Arthur's death with a memorial on his desk:

When I was getting pages, this was one of the first moments where I was like "yes, this is a good change, visual storytelling to replace my walls of text, flows and offers indirect information". I am very happy with the adaptation thus far, and stuff like this is what I love about adaptation in general, the need to grapple with the strengths and weaknesses of the medium.

Content Rating

Worth the Candle gets grim and dark in places. It at least attempts to grapple with serious things. The webcomic is rated Young Adult, and I'm not sure how they're going to handle the later stuff, but I can talk about how they're handling the stuff now, and what I think it means overall.

First, there's a lot less swearing. Worth the Candle in its entirety uses the word "fuck" ~1200 times. Granted, this is over the course of 1.6 million words, so a fuck density of one every 1.3k words, and some of those are in the verb "soulfuck" rather used descriptively, as exclamations, etc. My personal feeling is that this doesn't matter basically at all. I don't think I notice when someone isn't swearing unless they're using corny substitutions or trying to get cute with it.

Second, the violence is toned down in that YA way, where they're still showing much of the same things, just not with the same level of visceral detail. When a Marvel comic has someone thrown into a wall, they're no blood or snapping of bones or mangling of bodies, at least if it's a comic at a certain rating (I have definitely read some edgy 90s comics that do go hard on the violence). I think, overall, that this isn't my preference, which might be obvious from the way that I try to write fight scenes and such. But I'm also sort of inured to this toning down of violence, since it's omnipresent.

Third, there's the sex stuff, and ... well, it hasn't come up in the webcomic yet. I think I laid out my reasoning for why I think sex scenes should be written/included in Why to Write a Sex Scene, but the brief version is that sometimes you're showing how characters relate to each other, what they think of each other, and the sex scene shouldn't always just be something that's skipped over and left to the reader's imagination, because things happen, there are moments of communication, it can and does develop a relationship in the moment rather than after the fact. Plus a little titillation is, in my opinion, usually good.

The great thing about writing webfic is that no one can stop you from just including three solid chapters of hardcore pornography in the middle of your story. I have never done that, but I could is the point, and I would only get complaints from people who have no power over me. That same freedom doesn't exist here, and ... yeah, it makes my heart sink a little bit.

Fourth, there's some of the more mature content stuff, the topics that might not be broached. I don't know how they're handling that, so I reserve judgment, but I think my opinion is probably going to be "well, you do what you have to do", and if my version of the story is superior because there are no brakes, then I can be smugly superior about that.

Conclusion

This is already a fairly long post, and there are a few other things that I could have remarked on, but I think this is all the most interesting stuff.

Alright, just one real quick: Arthur is adaptationally more attractive, though this is also how Juniper sees Arthur and I think by the standards of webcomics, this is actually sort of necessary. Most of the flashback cast is not described until much later on, and by then you kind of know and understand them from the things they've said, if you can keep track of them. Many of the flashbacks are nearly disembodied. But if you're showing Arthur early, then the first impression he's going to make is in his appearance, and that really anchors people.

So overall, I am happy with the adaptation. There are challenges ahead, and I'm thankful that I'm not the one who needs to tackle those challenges.

[deoidesign]

Two things

Any tips for line work?

Any tips for drawing eyes?

You’ve got a killer style for that and I struggle for things like that, so was wondering what you do for that and have any advice for a young artist? Also Steve is gender goals and me and him have the same haircut which makes me happy. Comics with an older queer character are nice, makes me happy to see someone like me get to get older like that :]

This ended up really long, sorry...

"Style" is really just an amalgamation of every decision an artist makes. When you're starting to learn, your brain is processing a LOT on the technical and fundamental side. In time, these will become tools for you to use as you please.

Your style is in you already, I assure you. It's the clothes you love, your favorite color, the season that makes you comfy... Art is a form of communication, and the first person you have to learn to communicate with is yourself. It's a lifelong process of growth, self love, and personal expression. It's nothing to rush!

these are from 2011, 2016, and 2023!

(13, 18, and 25 years old)

You can see how my skills have evolved, but my tastes are rather much the same. I've still got an absolute ton to learn.

When it comes to lineart, if you find yourself regularly struggling with "losing energy from the sketch", then making your lineart thicker might be a solution; thicker lines are a lot more forgiving!

This is a common issue many artists struggle with. It happens because the sketch has multiple lines, so the brain gets to choose which one it likes most. When you do lineart that choice isn't up to the brain, so it's not tricking itself to seeing all its favorite lines anymore.

Lineart can also help you define depth. Generally speaking, thicker lines tend to be on closer objects, and further away objects have thinner lines. You'll also lose more and more detail (and sometimes edges) the further away an object gets.

It can also define light in your lines. solid blacks can block out entire sections of shadow. Another option is hatching, and another is stippling. It doesn't have to define light, though, many styles define their light through various other shading methods.

My biggest tip for lineart is to practice "line confidence." fill a sketchbook page with lines that span the entire length of the page, evenly distanced, as straight as you can, without lifting the pen. Do this every day. Fill a page with ellipses, fill a page with circles. Do this every day. Eventually, you'll learn to 1: draw with your entire arm, which will save you a lot of quite literal pain in the future, and 2: you'll be able to draw the right line the first time more often, which will save you time and frustration!

I didn't have an example offhand so I did this to show what I mean, but I highly suggest doing this on paper in ink and not on the computer, if you can.

When it comes to eyes, definitely look lots to real people, and also pay attention to how artists stylize them! There's generally 4 main things to keep in mind:

1: the top lid. This one is major for defining the expression, so it changes a lot depending on context.

2: the bottom lid! this one doesn't move nearly as much.

Each lid has a vertex, and changing where the relative high and low points are on them between characters can change a lot about what the eyes are saying.

3: the sclera (whites of the eyes), iris (color of the eyes), and pupil (the hole we see out of)! These change an absolute TON based on style.

4: the eyelid!

and here's me just moving each of the elements around! it changes a lot about what the eye is saying as you change each element, play around with them! try not to always go with your first choices.

There's a lot more to eyes than this, and a lot more to lineart as well... but I hope this is something of a starting point! Getting better about art is about learning to think and study everything you see. I genuinely see the world differently than I did 10 years ago, and I'm much happier for it (and a much better artist!)

And when it comes to writing stories about queer characters who get to be older and still happy, I hope to someday see you making stories that bring someone the same sense of comfort you had reading my work. I hope it someday becomes normalized, mundane even. And I know it starts with people like you deciding it's important! We're here, we've always been here, and we're not going anywhere.

Best of luck on your artistic journey, I wish you a long lifetime of growing closer to yourself through your art.

[csvent-2]

This is long and moved in a particular direction that I ran with. I don't care because I need to rant and am very, very sober this July 4th weekend.

To our whataboutism anon: If you're going to go off on a tangent, it needs to be convincing. Which means it needs to be well-written. The irony of all of this, I pray, is not lost on you.

Favor has always been to visual artists and writing has, until recently, almost always been devalued. Traditional art was once in the same category as writing, by the way. It's not just writers who have complained in the past. I think the traditional artists just had the option to try digital or better cameras and scanners while we writers have no such option.

Someone who can't speak English (or has a learning disability like dyslexia, which would be just as common in CS spaces but somehow missed anon's attention) is of course more than welcome to draw and always has been.

CS is mainly a hobby of looking at things, collecting them usually via money or trade, then looking at more things. So I can agree with the marketplace metaphor but I think where I take exception is how writing is, once again, being treated as a dump instead of a craft (used in a synonymous way here with "art"), and people who play in the dump have no right to complain when someone heaps more garbage in their space.

Anon even says, "bullshitting".

Just vomit on the page, turn it in. Why make a place for it? Even AI will do it for you these days. People who express this attitude have never seriously written anything, not even a postcard. I question if they can read material more complex than the back of a cereal box.

I question if they read at all, because even a semi-regular reader can spot the soulless, sometimes hallucinatory, mark of AI.

Hypothetically AI-generated drawings, such as backgrounds, could be hard to spot if the artist knows how to paint over the mistakes. It'd speed up the process a little. So does this mean each submission has to have a recording to prove it's all you? No, that's patently ridiculous. If someone wants to remark how the paintover actually takes time compared to writing, then I point you to the paragraph that begins with, "Just vomit on the page...".

-------

If you want to use writing to "last-minute" a prompt for whatever reason, that's your prerogative. It's no different then slapping together a visual prompt with the help of various brushes and stamps (the irony in how offended some people would be if I held that these tools make visual art a great dumping ground for busy writers because hey, it's so easy when I can just brush or stamp in a majority of what I need! Maybe I could even bash some bases together....

If you need to ask, yes, I was a digital artist for three years and a traditional artist for about five before discovering writing is more my flavor.)

Where lines cross is some visual artists will use writing as a shortcut when they're tired, don't have time, etc., and mistake the ability to hammer out a bunch of words in a short time as art, not quota, and this somehow gets morphed into, "this is so easy, why is this even allowed? What's the point?"

They do this even as they enjoy (or criticize or lambaste, depending) our work outside of CS in the form of TV shows, movies, comics, video games, and just about anything else that needs to convey story and character within a coherent structure. The same people who complain about the pathetic state of lore in most CS! Who do you think would make good lore?

It's easy to bullshit, I suppose, but very, very hard to write. Don't mix up these two concepts. Don't scoff, either, that you're allowed to bullshit if you participate in the bullshitting.

If writing-for-quota is what serves the particular need of the moment, then so be it. If you're particularly good, it may even be writing-for-art.

Remember that to some of us, this craft is as serious as your drawings, paintings, sculptures, etc. We are part of the art community, even the micro-communities of CS.

Writing is not a dump for you to throw your bags of shit in and then grumble that the place stinks. Bullshit vs writing. Don't mix them up. Don't expect everyone to shit as fast as you, either.

🌸