#im having troubles theres just too many ways for me to draw things i just cant decide.

[meringuejellyfish]

bugs when you pick up a rock that are honestly chill as fuck

[be-good-to-bugs]

[reegis]

Yo! Do you have any notes/tips for your coloring process? I've always had trouble with that part of drawings looking good lmao and I really like yours! If not for your specific style, do you have any tips with that in general?

Iv gotten a few asks about how I color but iv always avoided answering because

A) I am absolutely awful at explaining things, and

B) I am a very Very lazy artist you should probably Not do the things that I do

BUT i feel bad gatekeeping(?) my horrible technique if it helps anybody ig ill try and explain so

✨✨✨Welcome to Reegis’ Probably Not Reputable (But Very Long Winded) Art Advice✨✨✨✨

line art of a random character for the example, just pic whatever colors you have in mind for your base colors, you can try using palette generators or basing it off of existing palettes/characters/whatever I have absolutely no idea how color theory works (& this is why you shouldnt listen to me) so im solely going off of vibes. but it is Rough so onto step 2 & 3

(edit to add i usually start off with the skin hair & clothes on separate clipping layers and merge them together towards the end.. i think i forgot to say that at all here oops)

I abuse the hellll out of layer blending modes. overlay, saturation & multiply mainly, but also difference, brightness & screen. (just doodle something & try all of em out to get a feel for them honestly ik theres a Lot and they can be intimidating) for this i just wanted a more cohesive warmer tone to start with so i added a peachy overlay & a slight ombré to the hair to add a bit more interest to the character.

then just the most basic of rendering, some blush & highlights just wherever i think theyd go.

Another thing they tell you Not to do, my next step is to block out all my shading in a vaguely purpleish multiply layer!!! i cant be assed to do it any other way im sorry…. once i have the basic shading down, i lock the layer & go in with air brush eraser & also airbrush in other colors wherever I think the purple is maybe too harsh/clashing

still wasnt 100% happy with the colors so messed around with some more layer filter/modes/whatever you call them then colored in my line art! i think this is honestly the saving grace for all of my art shshsdhhf color your lines people. doesnt have to be all (i dont, i like the contrast) but it usually helps to make some at least a little less harsh

then with a little more color tweaking im done! one random sleepy dude, fully colored (by my standards)

and then if a piece needs more dramatic lighting you justttt

im so serious play around with layer settings! these are just basic multiply & add(glow), there as so many others you can abuse the shit out of & nobody will know or care in your finished piece.

was this?? in any way helpful???? I hope so.

[andromeddog]

hi! love your art :) i just wanted to ask if you have any resources you’d recommend for WWI uniform/gear references for art purposes? i��ve been struggling to find good refs (especially for officers/anything beyond just the basic infantry uniforms) so i thought i’d ask what you tend to use! thanks & have a great day!

hello hey hi!!! ty for the message i love talking about uniforms and spend way too many hours of the day looking for reference of them

so i talked a bit about this before in this post! i stand by a lot of what was said there aka pinterest, google searching/scouring, and that book i linked........ these are all good for officers too! looking for officer ref is often very similar to infantry stuff, tho there may just be less of it depending on what specifically you're looking for. if you are looking for very specific references and want to get insane about it i can talk about that too.... tho i would like to say i dont have like one specific website to link bc i use so many different ones only like once or twice

if you're willing to spend money i'd recommend looking for books on the subject- there is always one strange book from like 1970 about the helmets of ww1 on ebay or something. the nice thing about that is they will typically name the different parts of a uniform, which allows you to google that specific thing to get a closer look. learning about the makeup of a uniform/everything's specific use helps when its time to draw them. ofc this isnt a super sustainable option but investing in a good encyclopedia once has saved me so much time. that guide to ww1 has been well loved

if youre not looking to spend money there are still a lot of options. stuff i like in no particular order:

reenactment pictures- action shots, higher quality pictures than something from 1918. you can find whole galleries of people's reenactment battles (?? is that what theyre called??) if you do a little clicking around.

stock photo websites- be really careful here bc you dont want to get into trouble with usage rights. i only rly use these if im desperate and then very sparingly and piecemeal bc i dont want to get in trouble lol

websites where they sell reproduction/reenactment uniforms- here is an example. reproduction stuff is great bc u can usually find every little bit of the uniform being sold somewhere by someone. ebay has also been surprisingly helpful.

& the thing i would like to stress the most is that i rly dig for references. i literally have 21 tabs open with different searches for super specific things on my phone at this very moment. i use google image search extensively and scroll through literally so many jpegs, pngs, pdfs, webps, etc etc etc. the unfortunate truth is that the more specific you get the harder it is to find stuff. i recently drew a ussr female fighter pilot and had to get ref for her uniform from about 5 different sources (and that was one drawing!!!!!) sometimes i find a reference for the exact thing i need on a website that has nothing else of use to me. the best advice i have here is just keep scouring and clicking and you will eventually find something. i wish this was more helpful but once you know what you are looking for you can search for that thing specifically and that's a big help

this did not need to be so long but if theres one thing about me i will go on and on and on given the chance. im insane can you tell

[lilysaus]

okay. this fucking picture made me so mad i went on a 15 minute rant to my sister while she was trying to read her book.

so ive been looking at a lot of pictures of posts on pinterest because thats just where i spend most of my time. most of these posts are on the topic of adhd. ive never been properly diagnosed, but reading through these posts has made me feel so welcomed and understood (more than my parents have made me feel, pretending that this is "all just a phase that ill get over soon because pretending to have adhd is just the thing right now") that i realized ON MY OWN that "hey maybe i do have adhd." well.

i found this post while scrolling through pinterest, and it really sparked my anger.

i have a friend who was diagnosed with add before it was considered an "outdated" term and scrapped because apparently ALL FUCKING FORMS OF NEURODIVERGENCY THAT ARENT AUTISM ARE JUST "ADHD".

i read this post and it was what sparked my anger and my 15 minute rant to my sister. people who get degrees in this stuff, or counselors at schools, never really know what youre going through. all they know is that youre having some problems and they need to be solved.

which brings me back to this picture. if you look up "is add still a thing" on google, this is the first picture to pop up. and just seeing the visual aids they put with it makes me furious enough to throw something or someone out a fifth story window. the little girl is fucking SMILING while thinking about the most common shit people think us neurodivergent folks think when distracted. first off, no. false. we dont just think of video games and candy. we think of the randomest shit possible, like how long can i sit here without blinking or what kind of funny shit can i draw on this one sheet of paper.

and ALSO.

you cant just categorize adhd as TWO SEPARATE THINGS and call it good. we dont fit under two umbrellas. theres too many of us. we each have our own figurative umbrellas that only we ourselves can fit under, no one else. thats the problem with neurotypicals. they fit the typical stereotype for humans: we try to understand everything by putting it in a box. those lists of "symptoms"? i match every single one. on both sides. so ha. take that SCIENTISTS. what am i? some kind of freak of nature because i dont fit under just ONE of your precious categories?

i also looked up what "inattentive" means and it made me angrier. according to oxford languages, "inattentive" means "not paying attention to something", which doesnt seem too bad, right? it fits some people perfectly with their symptoms, right? but its not the definition that bugs me. its the example sentence thats used. "a particularly dull and inattentive student". basically saying that if you dont pay attention well to something, youre dull and boring.

im sorry, what? sometimes i have trouble paying attention, sure, but you ask any of my friends and they can agree i am NOT boring in any way, shape, or form. non of them would describe me as "dull". inattentive? sure, but not dull. so to call it "inattentive" adhd, instead of just add, is stupid! my friend with ADD (not fucking adhd, stupid scientists) is one of the funniest, most entertaining people ive ever met. shes an incredible artist, super smart, and knows how to make anyone laugh. does that sound dull to you? does she have problems focusing sometimes? yes. does she struggle with doing something sometimes? yes. but dont the rest of us?

my point is, when i see things like this, it pisses me off. like, unless all of the scientists who agreed "add" is an outdated term have it themselves, i refuse to believe its outdated and i will continue to say that my friend has it. she was literally diagnosed by the doctor telling her "you have attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder without the hyperactivity." THATS JUST FUCKING ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER YOU DUMBASS!!!

anyway, i hope im not the only one who feels this way. i just felt it necessary to get this out there. maybe someday, people wont be so dumb and single minded. in my opinion, neurodivergent people are superior in intellect and creativity, but i guess until someone like that takes over the world and dropkicks neurotypicals into the stratosphere, we'll never know.

[spearxwind]

Hi hello I wanna talk a bit about CD currently but Im not sure if its gonna be too long/negative so I'm gonna put my thoughts under a lid <3

So like. To start off it's really not a secret that I have a lot of trouble when it comes to crafting stories. This has been the case for many years, and will continue to be the case probably forever.

Challenger Deep felt like an exception to this at first, but since starting development on it my life took some turns that made it clear that CD suffers from the same and from different problems

To start with... I started using it as a vehicle for my grief at the start. Talas (especially) and Graves were both used as vehicles for my grief while I was going through stuff the past couple of years, and that inevitably bled through into The Everything.

It's not a bad thing to do this at all mind you (It helped me immensely) but it gave CD a strange foundation for me to build on that now I feel like I am at a major disconnect with, so I would like to build some more foundation around it, so to speak.

I would like to recraft the story (not rewrite it entirely because theres things i rly love, but theres others that I'd like to improve), and a lot of the lore (I feel like I closed my options a bit too much with some of it so I want to make it more expansive too. Part of why I wrote it the way it was was so I could invite friends to make stuff for CD but that did not go over well at all so I think I am going to not do that again). I just havent had the time to work on it properly, and since it's in this state where I feel like I need to "fix" it, I don't feel as passionate about it as last year so at the moment I'm letting it ride and waiting for when I'm excited to work on it again

I would like to add more characters as well and actually do justice writing-wise to the characters that are already in there too.

Also I won't lie, a big part of my investment in CD until recently was my oc ship, with Talas and Hades, and ever since I got into my current relationship I just havent thought much about them at all because I started pretty much actually living all of the shitposts and tropes I'd written and it started making me feel a bit strange to write/draw about that, so I need to fix that as well. See why I feel weird about it and what I can do to stop it and get back to those two

Additionally I've had a redesign of talas and hades' markings in my WIPs for months now. Hades is done, but on Talas' side Im not sure how to add in his bioluminescence pattern because something isnt working for me. I wanted him to be more visibly purble though with said markings. Everything else I really like, its just the glowy pattern (though watch me change the markings anyways bc im an indecesive beast)

Here's a snippet of them:

I wanted them both to have more natural fishy looking markings pretty much

So yeah, that's currently the state of things. I miss it a lot and i rly wanna work on it again proper, maybe now that I've acknowlegded it and made a post about it I will get a second wind like I've gotten before after getting The Gunk out of my chest.

If you read all that thank you I hope you have a swag day <3

[shjiyemis]

can you share some of the refs you use for your art? specifically the anatomy ones

I really use whatever I can find! I also tend to play around with my pose that kind of differentistes from the actual reference sometimes as well. I also sometimes frankenstein poses if im having a hard time with BS'ing the pose from the ref too.

Rennaissance paintings and other painting similar to them are also really helpful when trying to make accurate anatomy poses and stuff too! I also recently started taking pictures of myself to get a quick ref instead of searching online for one.

I also recommend looking at music videos and scenes from movies and screenshot poses you like rather then finding an already set up pose picture! sometimes those are too stiff but in music videos and movie clips theres much more movement so their poses feel more fluid!

Practicing different bodytypes help a lot too! I find myself being able to draw anatomy much better when I learned multiple types of body shapes bc it made it easier for me too understand that ppls bodies are very different and all you need to do is take away any strict rules about the body and build the pose and character without those limitations!

Another thing that helped me with anatomy is tracing!! Whether its poses or other art it helps A LOT! Especially if your having trouble with stuff. Honestly the way I got best at anatomy is from tracing and being more open minded about bodies and their individuality. For me I got really good at building fat on to a body when I learned how to properly draw muscular figures! Not sure why but it helped!!!

Examples:

^^^Love this sheet bc it shows so many different bodies, shapes, and sizes! You can easily find bigger/better pictures on google of you search "olympic athlete(s) bodies"

I also sometimes use those 3d models in clip studio, but thats a rarity, others use them a lot tho.

I also simply BS poses and body types until im satisfied, I do just NOT use references a lot of the times bc sometimes I just need to do my own thing without a blueprint. And a lot of the time it turns out good!! Trust ur gut and ur eyes bruv GYVBHJNK

[unmotivatedartistry]

click for better quality

I MADE A SIXTY DESIGN HSJAFHGAJSF

and im so happy with it

extra details I forgot to write/show/didn't have time to do:

he can be very erratic because his software got REALLY buggy from getting a bullet blasted through his head

because of having said buggy software, he often has days where he has trouble doing stuff because he has too many errors'n'shit

trust issues

also he tries way too hard to hide his bugged out gunshot wound skin (which, because of some kind of botched repair or lack there of, retracts and refuses to work there) because of insecurity, but when he's overwhelmed or asleep he doesn't have the energy to keep his skin from retracting so it retracts a whole lot more (will show it in individual screenshots for the close-ups)

also he hates the color blue. will explain if someone wants me to but in short, it's because of cyberlife and blood

he literally cannot express emotions correctly. sure, he looks like he's either angry or just dead the entire time, but that's just because that's the only thing he's learned how to express.

that's what the "emotionless" part means

theres a lot more i've imagined up for him but i can talk about it more later

ok. close ups that i really like

listen. just. IM SO PROUD OF THE WAY I DREW THE SKIN AND HSI LED AND THE HAIR AND WHQBJHWAA

More of an example on how Sixty's skin retracts normally without him having the energy/trying to reduce or hide it.

Aaaand then just Sixty Death Stare TM and then me listening to music while drawing and being like "wouldn't it be so cool if I put a quote from this song in this because Sixty would agree with that statement"

Aaaaanyways enjoy this project that I only finished because my LA teacher from like last year also really likes DBH and lets me rant to her about DBH and also show her my cool art of DBH because she's a very cool LA teacher 10/10

Also yes I did make almost every dot on each i an LED, you can't stop me.

[actualbird]

Hi Zak!! This is a pretty random ask but i was just wondering if you have any tips for starting a fanfic/story? I just keep getting stuck on how to start one (I really love your work/blog 🙏 feeds my tot brain rot fr!!)

hi anon, im glad you like the stuff i make ;w; !!! and ohhh, sure i got tons of tips for that!.....so many that i actually wish i cld get u back here to ask what specifically about starting a story u'd want tips on but for now, i'll go for a general overview :D!!

cuz....to me (i.e. based on my writing process, which i'll be drawing heavily from for these tips), the act of Starting comes in three distinct steps, one after the other:

Idea Generation (what is the story gonna be about and how do i get ideas for that?)

Concept Organization/Outlining (how is the story going to be about this idea and how will i be executing it?)

Creation (GAH, HOW PUT WORDS ON PAGE!?!?!?)

so i'll give general tips for all three!!!

-

Idea Generation Tips

(this is the step that i personally have the least trouble with because my brain makes 5 new ideas every day. it's kinda a curse now because it leads to me having too many wips and concepts and only 1% of them gets to the Creation period jhvjhVJKSHFVHJS BUT ANYHOO, TIPS-)

Check Out Prompt Lists (super fun and easy way to get an idea! theres tons of story and fic prompts out there that you can search up here on tumblr, some of them being lists of lines of dialog or lists of AUs or scenarios. even if you dont follow a prompt exactly, they can be great at kickstarting ur brain into thinking of something related that you Do wanna pursue)

Open/Ask For Prompt Requests (if ur brain doesnt have any ideas, u can ask around and see if anyone ELSE has ideas theyre alright with you writing! my tot fics "reviews for Time's Antiquities, South Stellis | Average Rating: 4.8 Stars" and "but little do we know, the stars welcome him with open arms" were both inspired by anon asks i got!! to those anons who sent those asks, i owe u my life....but yea, maybe other people can give ideas to you! or, again, give Something that can inspire another thing in ur brain to take shape)

Just Ramble With A Friend (SO MANY OF MY FIC IDEAS started because i was just goofing off and playing idea volleyball with fandom buddies in our DMs (shoutout to sam samsspambox, z lukevonhagen, and beck beckthebeetle for being the main culprits of this). like, what started out as a joke conversation eventually makes go "oh no wait i actually wanna see that as a fic" and then boom, Idea Has Been Acquired. but fr, talking with another person makes your brain create things u never thought about before. it's both tons of fun to chat with a buddy as a sounding board, and it yields awesome concepts for stories!)

For Fanfic Specifically, Think About What You Want To See In Canon But Hasn't Happened And You Want It So Bad It's Driving You NUTS (this can be anything from missing scenes you wish were expanded on, scenes you wish went a different way, character relationships you wish you could see more of in canon, go nuts! the fun thing with fanfic is that it's a fertile playground for all the what-ifs, and a lot of my fics' ideas were simply found because i thought "man i know tears of themis is never gonna show me deep found fam moments/artem ptsd consequences after main story 6.2/mariluke, so imma make it myself" JHVSJDHF. ideas are hard to make sometimes, but brains are so good at desiring things. and all those desires? those can also be Ideas for a fic!)

-

Concept Organization/Outlining

(very much skippable if your writing style/personality is more receptive to free-wheeling!! im just the type of writer who always needs an outline to begin something. it helps me structure a raw idea with no shape into something clearer that i can envision a story for)

Outline A Rough Chain Of Events Chronologically (this can be as simple as three bullet points, what happens at the Start of the story, the Middle, and the End. or maybe you can go list down the portions of your fic according to the Freytag's Pyramid Plot Structure: Exposition, Inciting Incident, Rising Action, etc etc.)

Outline A Rough List Of Stuff You Just Want To Happen In The Fic (if your brain is like mine and isnt too great at chronological thinking, make a list of just all the plot points and events or even dialog exchanges u Want to see in the fic. you can organize it in the order u want later once uve put everything down)

Outline The Themes (moving away from plot, many stories are more focused on feelings or characterization or themes. so make a list of the Concepts you want to tackle. this is something i do for my fics that are more introspective, so i outline shit like "EVENT THAT MAKES LUKE INTERNALIZE SELF-LOATHING followed by EVENT THAT MAKES LUKE'S VIEW BE NOTICED BY ANOTHER CHARACTER")

-

Creation

(the worst part of writing....is the writing JAVFJVSDKHFDJHJ but nah fr this is the part i have the hardest time with, so here are tips that help me kickstart the word engine)

You Dont Have To Start Writing The Fic From The Beginning Of Its Story, Start Writing Wherever (confession: a good 75% of my fics are ones where the first scene i actually wrote down was not the start. instead, i just wrote the scene i was most excited to write. and usually thats somewhere in the middle! i do this cuz it makes my brain happy, and a happy brain is much easier to pull words from than a sad brain. plus, when i see the scene I Like Best already written, it gives me motivation to do the rest of the fic because oh my god i want everybody to sEE THIS ONE DANG SCENE!!! start writing the fic at whatever point you want, in whatever order comes most naturally to you, is my point. you can fill the rest in later, but hey, starting to write where you Want has gotten you Started. now you just gotta finish, and finishing when you already have something down is much easier than starting from 0)

Set Tiny Wordcount Goals. And When I Say Tiny, I MEAN TINY!!! (writing is intimidating but if you set a goal of say, 100 words written for a wip per day, at the end of one week, you'll have 700 words. at the end of two, you'll have 1400 words. at the end of a month, 3000. small goals help since it makes you do Something, and that Something will inevitably compound, no matter what goal uve set. and let urself be proud of the goals uve achieved!!! writer brain gets happy when you tell it it's done a good job at reaching a wordcount goal, and like i said earlier, happy brain is much easier to work with than sad brain)

Give Yourself All The Time You Need (i know this sounds counterproductive but sometimes....the best thing you can do for the part of your brain that wants to start creating....is waiting til it's ready. dont pressure yourself, cuz brain will get sad. dont be too hard on yourself, cuz brain will get sad. start when you want to start in the way that works best with your brain and see where things go, but be patient with yourself. sometims Starting is actually the longest part of writing a story and thats fine. it will happen. trust)

-

thats all the tips ive got! and of course, what will work for me wont always work for other people, so please feel free to take what you think applies to you and discard what doesnt resonate.

i hope some part of this can help! happy writing :D

[daedalusdavinci]

spell homestuck

GOD. THIS IS SO MUCH LONGER THAN TWO FACE. i typed too much and theres too many qs so under the cut it goes

H - What is your favorite source text for fandom stuff (e.g., TV shows, movies, books, anime, Western animation, etc.)?

books!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! or....... i guess comics, these days, but i HATE READING COMICS they juST HAVE MORE COMPELLING FANDOMS. book fandoms are PUNY nad everyone is STUPID. youd think actual literary fandoms would have reading comprehension and understanding of literary critique but no!!!!!!!!!!!!! its literally my eternal fuckign struggle. somehow comic fandoms hit the perfect medium between compelling, readable content and the enthusiasm of cartoon fans without the childishness of cartoon fans

O - Choose a song at random. Which ship or character does it remind you of?

this isnt really a thing i do. the only time i associate characters w songs is my own ocs. barbies theme is miltons tower from the what remains of edith finch soundtrack!

M - Name a character that you’d like to have for a friend.

i have also never really been one to project myself into stories. its just not how i consume media. i think sollux and rose already closely resemble the kinds of friends i make, so maybe them?

E - Have you added anything cracky/hilarious to your fandom? If so, what?

(freddy fazbear vc) vanessa.... ive done things, im not proud of.

i dont even know if i want to answer this question bc its so fucking humiliating LKJSNDLFSDNFSDF the truth is yes. i am solely responsible for. a lot. particularly in the pjo fandom. i created several crackships ground up all on my own way back in 2014 and developed a following for them and i. dont wantto tell you what those ships were. LSKJDFNSLDJNSDFSDDF ive also pioneered many ship tags for other fandoms and i ship a lot of rarepairs and stuff but i dont think im RESPONSIBLE for them?? in that some ppl already were into them/talking abotu them or tht theyre still not popular (augh. to the ones that became popular) but i AM liTERALLY responsible for some crack shit in the pjo fandom and its. it haunts me sometimes. i dont want to talk about it. IF YOU REMEMBER WHAT I DID NO YOU DONT

S - Show us an example of your personal headcanon (prompts optional but encouraged)

this is so vague. my headcanons are shifting and nebulous and aus are my constant companion in everything, but uhhhhhhghhusjkdjnsdg i think. roxy writes the same way dave draws comics. its extremely memey and meta and self aware and largely just for the personal lolz, and were all doing her a disservice by pretending her writing looks like roses, when in reality dirk is probably the one whod make comics the way rose makes books (which is probably why he doesnt make comics). its more of that thing where roxy and dave are the same and rose and dirk are the same ykwim. well YOU dont corvus but im sure someone else does

T - Do you have any hard and fast headcanons that you will die defending?

jason takes after bruce in terms of like. adopting entirely too many kids. he broods

U - Three favorite characters from three different fandoms, and why they’re your favorites.

harvey is a heartwrenching character when written well, with a complicated view of morality, heartbreaking ties to our main hero, and a lot of internal conflict. something about such a hopeful character deadset on making a different in the system becoming a victim of it, and the potential he has as a vehicle for critiquing the law.

percy is my favorite character from pjo bc it was the very first time in my life i ever read a book and saw myself in it. hes aggressive, impulsive, and rebellious, he fidgets and has a hard time standing still, he acts on emotion without always thinking it through, he gets in trouble in school and hands his mom a murder weapon to kill his stepdad, hes just... hes a lot of the things ive always gotten in trouble for, things i couldnt help being, and hes a hero. he means everything to me.

vriska, i will maintain until the day i die, is one of the best homestuck characters- maybe just characters?- ever written. shes dramatic, shes impulsive, shes manipulative and mean and creative, and shes just so messy about it. shes a mean girl in a way that feels real, where her trauma impacts and shapes her as a person, and shes complex, with warring wants, and people she cares about, and dreams, and shes so messy. shes rough and rude and shes doing what SHE wants to, being a version of herself that feels right to HER, rather than some caricature of the hot badass evil lady. shes thirteen!! and she FEELS thirteen. shes a thirteen year old weird girl who is kind of an asshole, and she means literally fucking everything to me. shes a pirate!!!!! shes a swashbuckling badass dressing up in her larping outfit and yelling at her friends on the playground to swab the deck and she is the bestest ever, the end.

i didnt mean for each one of these to be longer than the last but here we are.

C - A ship you have never liked and probably never will.

i hate jdedave peace and love it just feels weird as hell to me. dave, for the most part, is hyper respectful of other peoples choices and boundaries but when it comes to jade hes always trying to mke choices for her, to protect her, and it gets to the point where even jade points out how much it bugs her. jades crush on dave also seems to come from a place of misunderstanding to me, admiring a lot of the parts of himself that he exaggerates and pretends to care about as a result of trauma. it always felt like a kid crush that they shouldve grown out of with time. dave also just sort of seems to... go along with whatever romantic relationships people push him into at that age, rolling with whoever flirts with him jsut bc hes trying to maintain the image of a player, so its really hard to take him seriously any time he hits on someone?

that is just my interpretation of it tho

K - What character has your favorite development arc/the best development arc?

well. i havent finished my reread of homestuck, so that feels difficult to comment on just yet, bc im sure ill have a different opinion when i do finish it. no one in dc gets character arc bc theyre all just undone immediately, so thats like. yeah. and in pjo the arcs are pretty weak bc 1) kids books and 2) RICK UNDOES THEM ALL. AUGH. regardless of all of this, i am going to say jason grace. he had a lot of development in like the last two hoo books, or maybe just like.... hints of how he couldve developed? promise? which rick immediately set fire to in toa when he killed him, but fUCKING WHATEVER. UGH.

anyway actually tho eleanor from the good place. bisexual icon. queen. probably one of the best character arcs of all time. the episode w her mom has some of the most powerful fucking dialogue ever and i think about it. all the time. i should rewatch the good place.....

[dykesbat]

yk what mutuals are asleep im gonna blab abt how much i love ibispaint :3

ibispaintx is my favorite mobile art app as someone whos been using it for like. three? four? years now.

the majority of its features are free. if you watch a short ad you unlock all the brushes for 18 hours, and while the ads are annoying and the fact that there are some features that are locked for premium users sucks, i still think it's worth it. (the most notable locked premium feature for me would be the lack of the gradient adjustment layer

stabilization. LIFE CHANGER TO ME <- guy w shaky hands and wasn't used to drawing w their finger. this + forced fade could be helpful to anyone having trouble with lineart esp bc we don't really have enough room to work from our shoulders nkjbhgvfc. it's honestly my favorite part about ibis. it's not super adjustable unfortunately but i really like it.

reference window. this ones a rather new feature but it can help a lot w proportions and ofc regular references :) you can add multiple pictures and resize both the picture and the window as you please AND you can color pick from it. the pictures will stay the same from canvas to canvas though but i just use that as an opportunity to have an image of batman looking silly on every drawing i do on ibis.

fonts. sooo many fonts and! you can download fonts into ibis too!

brushes!! you can customize them (its not the best but like. it works) and download them :) there's a color mixing mode that makes it really easy to blend colors and its super fun to play w that if you're not very good at colors yet. theres also fun textures. i think their pencil textures are the best pencil textures ive seen in an art program.

THE UI! ALSO ONE OF MY FAVORITE THINGS ABT IBIS EVER. the ui is super beginner friendly imo and it's not as cluttered as other programs (which is sm i personally like bc i find it hard to focus if the small screen im using is also cluttered. i struggle w the reference window sometimes

automatic timelapse + drawing time :)) good for keeping track of time and progress! it's vv rewarding to see the difference of a piece that took me 3 hours a year ago vs a piece that took me 30 minutes today.

clipping masks and alpha lock. I MISS THEM SO MUCH I WISH KRITA HAD THEM THE SAME WAY IBIS HAD THEM

SO MANY ADJUSTMENT LAYER OPTIONS. these were sooo fun when i had a vaguer understanding of color

ill update this list later it is so hot im dying brbsies. <3

[anonymocha]

hi i. i may have been the. the culprit. for the ship. possibly singlehandedly.

short answer: i made them the fuck up and spawned it upon tumblr

long answer: okay so it started as literally IRONIC like “haha what if i draw the character i simp (kb) and the character i kin (mp) together :))) this will not alter the rest of my fandom activity forever whatsoever” so i drew them for the very first time HERE and it also happens to be one of my first r99 fanarts and KB ISNT EVEN OUT YEETTTTTT (is already heads over heels for her even then). i have already admitted that medpoc is a character i project to and a schrodinger self-insert so theres also that. also i easily go insane over any nblw since its so rare and a hungry nb lesbian like me gotta cook somehow! also kb is MY TYPE of fictional women so yay

after that initial silly doodle i wasn’t super into them then 1.3 happened. and this literal goddess (who is troubled) x sweaty lesbian (who is troubled) dynamic hits WAY TOO HARD and i practically locked the fuck in on them okay enough about me im gonna. be a TINY insane abt them. as a treat.

IGNORING THE FACT THAT THEY NEVER INTERACTED IN THE GAME AT ALL BECAUSE LIVE LAUGH LOVE RAREPAIRS 😍

I started piecing together more things that make them more appealing to me outside the “i kin this character, i like this character” thing. AKA making it the fuck up! To me, how I find their relationship interesting is the many possibilities of it going HORRIBLY WRONG AS GOD INTENDED (toxic yuri) or surprisingly but satisfyingly sweet if they manage to resolve the things that make the two of them not be able to work out in the first place (healing yuri)!

There is like a million alternate plots for them in my head but the horrible problematic nasty mutually destructive yuri vs rough but evident and warm healing growth tender calm-after-storm yuri are the two main ones i rotate in my head. The second of which may have happened after the first one.

The things they have in common is a devotion to research in their own respective strategies. One has a methodical but fragile approach the other a reckless but intricate approach to research. Both of them has a parental/mentor figure who tries to change them/projects into them one way or another. Medicine Pocket is a dog. Kaalaa Baunaa ate food already bitten off by a dog. Yuri. <<<delusional

Their relationship also has the appeal of being “forbidden” due to the age gap and just how much power they hold over each other. You might think that I see one of them with greater power but in reality both of them really holds the other at a chokehold. Her grief and projections of Kumar (which deeply tragically resembles how Kumar sees her in the first place as Kumar mentors her) onto them causing her to have a soft spot for them at the hopes they don’t end up like Kumar, she cares for them, helps them, keeps their secrets, spoils them, at one point parents them (neg), all of which makes her want to tear her hair out VS them wanting to exploit her prestige and kindness to further their own excellence but feeling that good ol’ guilt and weird weird weird fuzzy feeling in their throat that makes them want to tear their hair out ALSO nobody wants to piss of a senior researcher. They love the expression of her submitting to their whims as much as it eats at them. Whether this entire setup goes for a good ending in which both of them manage to navigate through their own vulnerabilities and see through their own wrongs/awful perceptions about each other then they may start to build/rebuild each other into better people, taking care of each other, being good adults that still break down from time to time. Alternatively they get stuck in the toxic yuri limbo. Your choice.

I am projecting a lot of my “fuck i have to do anything i can to succeed as an adult since im 18 now and the world wont tolerate if i lose my ‘prodigy’ status im getting into uni and they will tolerate much less academic faults” into Medpoc and having a kind and understanding mentor figure who’d hold them while they’re bloody and losing their mind over the needless intricacies/rules in tje research/academic/pragmatism world would help a lot I think! Especially since she spent a longer time in said field and SAW how this system fucks ppl up.

i made like. some tumblr yappings abt them. where i elaborate a mix of both plots in it. you can look at it to see my thought process

1 - https://www.tumblr.com/anonymocha/745307513988268032/suddenly-seeing-parallels-between-kumar-and

2 - https://www.tumblr.com/anonymocha/747092685637206016/my-insanity-ahead-textwall-i-mean-kaalaapocket

3 - https://www.tumblr.com/anonymocha/748712797312090112/ngl-my-first-thought-for-your-pfp-is-how-strangely

this doesnt include the shit i dumped to my partner theyre a real one for listening to my dissertation abt characters who never interacted in game. i could talk more but im tired after uni orientation week so im closing it off here but if u want me to like yap abt them more erm feel free to shoot me with anything

anyways thank you for showing an interest in the ship bc everytime someone asks abt it or mentions it or writes it or draws it i die a little /pos

EDIT:

would like to add something

in the toxic yuri beginnings neither of them sees each other as who they really are. where their relationship goes is determined by if both chose to see through the illusions they put up on each other by themselves. or not.

I haven't played since 1.4 but I NEED to know why kaalaa and medicine pocket are a ship now, I'm obsessed

Also have we had anymore The Fool content

[surrender-souls]

maybe i shouldve told someone other than the gossip besties that the art teacher when talking about her friends autistic kid and then promptly finding out im autistic and took offense with how she talked about them basically said ”not like that though”

[poppy-metal]

so uh,,,,this ended up being alot softer then i was expecting LMAO.

Bully!eren x reader

Cw: not alot, some smut at the end. Tame for me but i was in my FEELINGS okay.

Word count: 2.3k

The familiar sleek black of erens benz pulls up to the side of your house as you walk home from a late night trip to the grocery store, pints of ben & jerrys ice cream in the bags, as well as several other snack items one might munch on to cram for an exam, which is what you planned on doing. 

You side step more onto the sidewalk when he pulls up beside you, still driving just slow enough to match your pace. He rolls down the window, jerking his head, “Just the girl i wanted to see,” he drawls hooking his arm out his window to lean out a little, he grins, “its fate” 

You scrunch your nose up and scoff “Stalking is another word for it, jaeger”. You look him over suspiciously, “you wanted to see me?” 

He rolls his eyes. He’s wearing aviator sunglasses, pushed up his forehead. Loitering in front of your house like this, you’re aware of how different the worlds you live in are. Everything about eren is expensive, from his car to his sunglasses to his clothes, even the way he smells, the cologne he wears, all tells how important he is. Meanwhile here you are in your oversized hoodie and leggings, hands full of stuff you’d bought from the convenience store, prepared to spend your night busting your ass to even stay in the college you had to claw your way to get into, wherein he had gotten in without even trying. You’re not self conscious, at least not usually. You’d never yearned to be apart of erens world too terribly, and it was eren who always sought you out, not the other way around, when there was plenty of rich girls right up his alley and status that would be glad to be with him and yet here he was at 11pm at night. You try to push down the way your heart flutters at that fact.

“Uh huh. Get in the car, bambi, m’taking you somewhere” his teeth are a flash of white against the night, promising trouble, as always. Your grip on your bags tightens, as does your heart in your chest. You glance away, “i have to study” 

“Study?”

Your brows pinch together and you hold up your bags “Not that you’d care, jaeger, but some of us have to actually study to achieve our goals. I can't entertain you tonight, im busy” 

Eren doesn’t look put out in the slightest, glancing down at your bags with casual disinterest“You dont need to study”. And then he looks up at you and meets your eyes, your breath catching, they look closer to the shade of seaglass today. “You’re smarter than anyone i know, ___, and i know alot of people. Whatever you want to pass? You’re already there. Just come with me, please”  

Your eyes widen and your heart spasms in your chest, caught off guard by the raw honesty in his voice. He has moments like this, where he usually teases you and gets under your skin but sometimes he says something that makes everything in you jolt. Its not fair. Its confusing and it messes with your head, makes it fuzzy, weakens you and makes you do things you’d never do with a clear mind.  

You wish you could fight it, wish you could roll your eyes and tell him no and do what you need to do. But you don’t. Huffing you say, “Ugh, fine. Just let me put this stuff up, my ice creams probably already a puddle by now” you turn and rush up to your house, ears burning when you hear him call out, “Thatta girl!” 

You try not to put everything away to hastily, thinking he ought to squirm just a little, but even you can’t deny the eager buzzing under your skin. When you clamber into the passenger seat of his car eren turns to grin at you as he flicks his sunglasses back over his eyes. “Knew you’d see reason, bambi”. You roll your eyes at the nickname, crossing your arms over your chest as you side eye him warily, “where are you taking me jaeger, is this a kidnapping?” 

“Not a kidnapping when you want it, sweetheart”, eren says, putting his arm around the back of your seat as he backs up his car to make a uturn. You dont know if the flustered leap in your chest is from the petname or the way his forearm looks flexing, the cords in his neck prominent as he looks behind him for any oncoming cars. “Just trust me, yeah? You’ll like it” 

You sink in the seat, trying to get away from the warm heat of his arm so close to you, but hes taking it away soon enough, only to draw your attention again to the way his hands look steering the wheel. His hands….You turn to look out the window, opting for silence, because you feel like you’re about to lose your mind. This car is just so..him and its overwhelming your senses. It smells good, it smells like him, his cologne wafting all around you. The sleek interior of his car is crisp, clean, sharp, and just so richboy it feels surreal. You haven’t been in his car before. 

Eren seems okay with the silence though, tapping his finger idly against the wheel as soft music plays from the radio. Its strangely peaceful, actually. Before you know it, the whirring of houses and neighborhoods and highway turns into palm trees and sand. You sit up straighter, coming out of your daze when you realize eren is pulling his car into the sandy bank by a large body of water. The beach. You haven’t had a chance to go here. 

The water looks like black at this time of night, there are no waves, just sparkling dark abyss that stretches out for ages and ages, glittering under the moonlight. There are no other cars parked close to you so its just you, eren, and the sea. 

You spend quite awhile gawking at the ocean before you come to your senses and turn to face eren. He has his elbow propped on the wheel, chewing idly on his thumb as he peers at you from over his sunglasses. A small smile is playing at his lips as he watches you. 

You gape, “What…” 

“You’re cute when you’re excited, you know” his voice is low, dropped in that way that makes your toes curl in your shoes. You ignore the way your heart skips at his words, probing him, “Why did you bring me here, ren?” 

He turns to face forward, flipping the radio off so theres no background noise between the two of you. Taking his sunglasses off the folds them and puts them on the dash, sighing as he watches the ocean from out the windshield, gnawing on his lips. Tap, tap, tap, his fingers on the wheel go as you wait for him to speak. “Last week,” he starts, glancing at you, “When we had to do those presentations in class about places we feel at home..you talked about the library” 

He laughs under his breath like its some kind of endearing joke, shaking his head a little. You dont speak. “The library is where i first saw you, you know? I mean, before all this, before i..talked to you, i noticed you before you ever noticed me.” A small secret smile plays on his lips, “You were reading ‘percy jackson and the lightning thief’, and you haid your hair in pigtails. Your glasses were way to big your face. My first thought was ‘wow she looks like an owl’, but then i saw you laugh at something on the page and my second thought was ‘i want to know her’. We were in middle school.” 

Green eyes connect with yours, “You still go there, i know. But anyway..this is. My place, i guess”. He purses his lips “i figure since i'm always intruding on your little sanctuary , i’d let you see mine” 

You take everything he just said in. He’d known about you, noticed you, since middle school? You hadn’t acknowledged him until sophomore year of highschool, hadn’t spoken to him since senior year, when this tug and pull had first begun between you two. You remembered that day, your mother wouldn't buy you the series so you’d relied on constantly re-reading the books at the library. It was around that time you began to see that place as something special, too. Tucked away from the world, you could lose yourself in another's story. It was like magic. And to realize eren had been there the whole time, had glimpsed that, realized that the library was your special place, that he’d even payed attention to your presentation in class at all in the first place...that he was here, showing you something of himself in return, even though you’d never asked. You’d wondered of course. 

Eren was an enigma, he was on most days, the bane of your existence. He had made your life a living hell on many occasions, but with that, he also made you feel more alive than ever before. He’d dragged you out of your bubble and challenged you to see the world beyond school and books and fiction, he raised your emotions and forced you to experience everything head on. Anger, confusion, happiness, anxiety, thrill, lust and…

You look at him. The way the moonlight curls into the car like a kind of mist, making his eyes look absolutely beautiful. The soft wave to his brown hair, his eyelashes, everything about him made you ache with desire. All the time, even when you swore you hated him, you wanted him. 

“Kiss me”. Its whispered out so low, for a moment you worry he might not hear it. Its the first time you’ve asked for him, reached for him first without his taunting to guide a confession from you. With this request, filling the air between you, you’re making it known that you want him, want this. It doesn’t change anything and yet it somehow changes everything. You can’t look in the mirror and tell yourself he doesn’t occupy your mind and your heart anymore. Not after this. 

Eren seems to realize this too, his intake of breath letting you know he heard you loud and clear. “__..” he says, inching closer. His eyes, dark now, are so very hungry as he closes in. In a moment his lips, soft, so soft, are on yours. You sigh into his kiss, opening for him easily when his tongue glides into your mouth. His hand comes up to cup your jaw, tenderly, thumb stroking it. God, you want to eat him, you want him to eat you. The wet smack of your lips fills the car as you hungrily nip, and suck, and kiss at each others lips. 

When eren pulls back, he’s panting, hair disheveled. You don’t remember when your hands first sunk into his hair, but they must have, messed up as it is now. He looks at you like he wants to devour you, he licks his lips. “I’m gonna put your seat back,” he tells you slowly, each word dripping with finality, “im going to kiss every inch of your body and then you’re opening those legs for me and letting me inside, baby” 

You don’t have it in you to act scandalised, you know what you want. You’d basically asked for it. You just nod, never taking your eyes off his face when he reaches down and pulls the lever. And then you feel yourself being tilted backwards as the seat goes back, laying you flat. Your chest heaves with barely contained need as eren then settles above you, every clothed inch of him hovering just barely above you. 

Holding your eyes, eren lowers himself. You spread your legs easily to accommodate him, gasping when you feel his clothed cock settle right against your clit through your leggings. He rocks once, gently, against you, his hair hanging over his forehead as he looks down at you with utter want in his eyes, “Want you to feel me”, he murmurs, and rocks again, “Wanna fill you up so good, you can’t ever pretend that im not apart of you. Because, this, baby?” Another rock, a shuddered moan leaving your lips, “This is it. No ones gonna fuck you like i do, no ones gonna get inside that little head and play the games we play so well together.” 

One of his hands trails up your thigh, dipping his hand under the fabric of your leggings and pulling them slightly down, he pecks your lips, once, twice, three times. “Tell me”, he groans into your mouth, peeling your clothes off you slowly, “Tell me you understand, Tell me this is everything” 

And you tell him. Tell him through your whimpers when he parts the folds of your slick cunt with his fingers buried inside you. Tell him through your moans into his mouth when he shoves his jeans down and splits you open on his cock. Tell him through sighs of his name, when he rocks into you, licking into your mouth as he spears you open. Tell him through the way you claw your fingers down his back when starts to fuck you hard, rocking the car with the force of his thrusts. Tell him through the way you spread your legs, even wider, toes curling as he wrings orgasm after orgasm out of your tight little pussy milking him. 

“Its everything, you’re everything…” You cry out again and again, clutching onto him as he pumps you full of his cum, groaning brokenly into your neck. 

“Fuck”. He pulls back to look down at you, brushing your damp hair back from your face, still inside you. “You’re gonna fucking kill me, you little nerd” 

[southern--downpour]

hello Virgil when you have the time you should explain your coloring and lining process

they way i do both lines and ESPECIALLY color changes basically every time i draw but yeah sure! im also p bad at explaining myself so idk if this is gonna make sense to anyone but me!

(first off dont draw on pure white canvases!! itll psyche you out and intimidate you because of the blank canvas, also its fucking eye bleeding!! i like going with a medium/light grey but ive seen people use a beige or light brown too just anything but pure white. also helps to just get SOMETHING onto the page if your having trouble w/ artblock, doesnt matter if its good it just has to be something u can work with. trust the process 100% and if it doesnt turn out good theres no shame in restarting from scratch, at least the idea is out of your head and easier to work through what was wrong)

my sketches are usually super messy and i go through like two to four different layers of refining it before starting lineart, and with lineart i usually use either a simple hard round brush or a sketchier one if im doing painting? my go-to ones are the default G-Pen in clip studio edited a bit to fit how i like pen pressure and 1834113 and 1761353 in the asset store but i like messing w/ whatever i can find on there and whatever feels fun at the time lmao so its not very consistent

i try and keep my lines pretty thin on the inside and thicker on the outer edge? as well as adding bits of cross-hatching and hatching both in the lines and when i go in with shading!

i keep my lineart brushes pretty minimal with the pen pressure as im not the best with my pen control and just change the size of pen as i go lmao. More prevalent when i'm doing super clean lines for comics and not sketchy ones like this for painting but its generally the same, i'm not the neatest person when it comes to lines

I draw a lot of the individual parts (head, facial features, hair, clothes, hands, etc.) on separate layers so if something looks wrong i can either wipe the layer entirely or go in with the transform tool and not mess with the rest of the lineart in the process lol

(also i saw someone keep the eyes and facial features visible under the hair but erase where they meet the lines for the hair? and just yoinked it for myself because it looks super nice lmao.)

starting colors is almost always the same, where i just go in and block in the base color for each part (skin, hair, clothes, etc.) on a separate layer to make going back and editing colors a lot easier. with painting like here i also go in and add basic shading, mostly around the skin! usually i add a darker & warmer color around the cheeks, nose, eyes, fingertips and joints as well as in places where theres shading like under the head and under the nose.

also in the darkest parts of the shading like under the head/neck and under the nose i like to add a light bluish/purpleish color very lightly as a bounce light! it doesnt always fit with the piece but it does look very nice when i can make it fit so i try to remember to do that lol.

(I dont take many progress shots or timelapses so i apologize for not having the best reference images lmao)

if im doing painting, after finishing the base colors & light shading i put everything ive done into one folder and make a clipping mask over top of it and paint over it!

i usually add more detailed shading + heavier highlights on places like the nose and edges of the skin showing to make it look nice and shiny lol

(i dont have any recent drawings i can show progress pics of but just trust me on this) if im doing cell shading though i do the same thing with putting the lineart and colors into a layer, but add a multiply layer on top of it and pick a pretty saturated color to go in with the shading. if i have a background i try and keep in mind what colors are in the background and what the lighting situation is to make sure the characters blend into the background more realistically. also airbrush tool and the add glow layer is your best friend in this situation

usually after that i go back and color the line art! I pick the darkest color in a part of the drawing like the clothes or hair, make it warmer and darker and go in on the innermost parts of the lineart with it and keep a lot of the outer lines black for contrast

then i just go completely fucking ham with overlay layers and gradient maps lmao, they ARE the fucking best and are usually what i use to finish off a drawing lol.

usually i use a combination of just fucking with the default "sky" graidents in clip studio or one set i got from the asset store (1814319) on a soft light layer at like, 10-30 opacity because it gives it a REALLY nice look. again just keep in mind the lighting situation (darker night? daylight? funky bright colors?) and just go until it looks good lol.

that's basically it? though tbh i tend to just grab onto whatever technique or tip i saw on tiktok or someone on youtube do and use that, as well as changing how i color hair/skin depending on what i think looks nice at the time. none of my shit is consistent what so ever so i just kinda change things or try new brushes/coloring styles on the fly if i think it looks nice lmao. pure essence of fuck around and find out every time i open clip studio

really hope this makes sense to anyone but me and hope this was helpful!

[shadeslayer]

it took me a few reads to really get a handle on it, but yeah i would agree with you! theres a struggle in discussion of gender (and other things too, like in the paper im stalled out on re: social construction of racial identity) to reconcile what feels like "internal truths" or "just plain true, but only able to be pinned down through biological or 'essence' concepts which i know are wrong" with a purely social approach to definition of these things, especially when youre coming at it with an understanding of oppression and marginalization

theres an underlying automatic defensiveness of wanting to prove that "oppressed people dont choose to be oppressed" - like youve said with "born this way" and transmedicalism arguments, these have a hold over the way theory is presented. these texts always exist in the context of a transphobic society, and so reactions to transphobia and trying to anticipate counter-arguments and trying to justify your existence as a trans person writing about conception of gender can often be so automatic esp when writing theory for a wide audience

especially when it comes to trans people pulling from their own experiences. ive never been someone whos felt the "born this way" feeling or draw, though looking back i can spot things that place me 'out of the norm' and i could call early signs of my transness. but ive met & read works by a lot of trans people who very strongly stand in their own experience of "always knowing" and they can agree with social constructionism of gender but they cant reconcile it (and its baggage in popular understanding as weaker than biological explanations etc) with their experiences of a lifelong unexplainable, inexplicable Understanding that they were transgender. and social explanations for this can too often feel like theyre watering down or invalidating their experiences and feelings - especially when ur existing, like prev mentioned, within context as a trans writer in a transphobic field and a transphobic world and youre already starting defensively/feeling at disadvantage

so something you run into with ~academic discussion and especially with people who like to be very scientific is an underlying unconscious bias of not being able to let go their own feelings on it and to say that their experiences were purely social as well. which is very understandable! especially considering the state of gender theory and transphobia and the prevalance of the "born this way" narrative and how its taken as being the get-out-of-jail-free card for trans people to be allowed to be trans without being in trouble for "choosing" it (which, even though thats not what the social model means, is the felt-truth of many people that others will see it that way and so they have to answer that and justify their existence)

but, and i was reminded of this bc of your last post mentioning problems in the scientific method, its also a general failing of the state of academia/theory/"proving truth." to examine and put forth your own biases in the topic and to weave them into your work would be ruining the "objectivity," and thus, the Empirical Value of it. im very much of a view that there is no true objectivity and that positionality is the only way forward, especially for discussions about social issues and identity - which, in interest of positionality(!), comes from my own life as a two-spirited person whos been personally failed by 'scientific objectivity' + has had this 'but it feels true to me' struggle in my undergrad philosophy work + is very aware of the history of 'it 'objectivity' being used as a weapon against native americans. when you try to be objective and scientific, it so often leads to moments like this where there is something you feel to be true but doesnt fit your theory, so you have to add a caveat about it being a compounding factor. when truly, it may not be a compounding factor for the theory but is a compounding factor for you. which isnt even a problem - if you engaged with it as your own bias, you could bring that into the conversation and ask why do i feel this way, why do i need this to be objectively true, is it because of living and publishing in a context where i need to be on the defensive? how has this same context failed other trans writers and activists before me? but that examination of how trans people writing about gender, trans people in general, and especially trans women! are pushed to always be fighting the uphill battle to justify their existence and it so often undercuts the ability to have a robust discussion about gender identity - it gets lost in the weeds of being "another factor that i cant quite account for"

(idk if this adds anything or if its all over the place, i just love love discussions like this and it ties into stuff im working on/reading so i wanted to join the conversation. it brings me so much warmth to see interesting and non-hostile discussions of stuff like this on tumblr again. i feel like i used to see them a lot more but over the years so many people got run off by hostility and constant bad faith replies or just went inactive bc of life)

reading whipping girl again and I’m still stuck on Serano’s critique of the “social constructionist” model of gender, seen here:

Unfortunately, a strict social constructionist model does not easily account for exceptional gender expression either. Many girls who are masculine and boys who are feminine show signs of such behaviour at a very early age (often before such children have been fully socialised with regard to gender norms), and generally continue to express such behaviour into adulthood (despite the extreme amount of societal pressure that we place on individuals to reproduce gender expression appropriate for their assigned sex). This strongly suggests that certain expressions of femininity and masculinity represent deep, subconscious inclinations in a manner similar to those of sexual orientation and subconscious sex. […] While I believe that such inclinations are hardwired into our brains (as they exist on a subconscious level and often remain constant throughout our lives), I hesitate to define them as purely biological phenomena, as social factors clearly play a strong role in how each individual interprets these inclinations. (p 98, 2nd edition)

I don’t think she’s actually demonstrated how a failure to respond to cisgender and heterosexual gender norms is biological in nature, unless you assume that the only way a person can “socially” respond to societal pressure is by accepting it fully. Am I “biologically” a communist because I failed to accept the hegemonic liberal values that are pushed on us since birth? Liberalism is arguably just as engrained in my society (ie, Canadian society) as cisgender norms are. Trans resistance to cisgenderism can just as easily be argued on social grounds, because the resistance is itself a response to social pressure. I also disagree that children can exist in a pre-social state, that children are a blank slate whose earliest expressions of gender indicate some biological mechanism that precedes social expectations. Who takes care of you, the food you have access to, the type of housing you live in, the toys and activities available to you, what media you are exposed to, the levels of medical and social support your mother received prior to giving birth to you - these are all social! Those things are all deeply involved in the social production of gender! Children cannot exist outside of society anymore than adults can, and I think it does a disservice to the autonomy of children to ascribe any gender deviance they may express as simply biological, out of their control. They are expressing things that they witness in the world, and just because they aren’t doing it “correctly,” the way they “ought to,” does not mean there is some hidden biological mechanism that produces this deviance.