#im not an artist im more like. those games where you have to hit a target but theyre very rigged | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

blorbopolis · 8 months ago

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hello! im sorry if you get asked this a lot, but I was curious how you got into doing art ttrpg? and what should an interested artist have in their portfolio? thank you 💖

hi! so i wrote out a big "how to" before re-reading your message and considering you maybe just... asked how it happened for *me*, not necessarily how someone else should do it LOL. so, how it happened for me: i've been actively courting freelance art work since ~2009, and fantasy ttrpg is a natural extension of my interests - my portfolio was already full of world of warcraft fanart by the time ttrpgs & D&D really started having their modern moment. TTRPG is a good low-to-mid level place to find leads, as well, because the barrier for entry is super low for creators, which means a lot MORE projects to go around. (If you want to make a board game, your artist has to know a LOT about packaging, printing, manufacturing, graphic design, etc. if you wrote a D&D module and just want to publish it on itch.io? your artist only needs to know how to send you a decent sized .jpg.) as far as portfolio goes, when i started getting consistent replies to my cold emails, my portfolio had mostly covers and half-pages (ie, narrative illustrations), portraits, and animals. If you want to be more well-rounded you could also include pieces focusing on environments, items, and creatures. Don't include anything unless it's GOOD though. (i am so serious about this - bad work in your portfolio makes the good stuff look like a fluke.) now. if you wanted a "how to" answer, here is 600 words lol. I'm gonna start with the base assumption that your work is already hirable so we can focus on just like, specialization + client acquisition tips. getting a folio up to snuff is a whole other can of beans short version goes like this:

this whole thing only works if you have the ability to honestly self-assess. new work & skills: you should have fresh stuff that's a snapshot of what you can do *right now.* this doesn't mean old work can't stay in your folio if it's still good, but a small, current folio that really hits is WAY better than a bloated old one with irrelevant studies or student work. new artistic peers: as you continue to evolve as a professional, you should have an idea of which other working artists your work is most similar to, in terms of skill/tone/specialties/other relevant skills (3D/graphic design/etc) in order to see how you stack up to your """competition""" for lack of a better word. Additionally those artistic peers have hangout zones (discords or FB groups, etc) where you can talk shop & pass around job leads. research peers' clients: research who those peers are contracting with. See if your work would be a fit for them; if so, find their contact info and put it on your list. Those clients are probably also promoting other similar projects or publishers on their feeds; twitter has a handy "you might also want to follow" list that has other similar accounts you can explore. You can also work backwards from the product to the creator (see any cool battle maps, CCGs, board games, etc? find out who made it and whether they're the ones doing the art hiring.) Additionally, those discords & fb groups I mentioned will have leads (of varying quality) shared around that you should be assessing as they come in. reach out to new batch of clients: cold email. be realistic about who's worth contacting, but don't self-disqualify. that part is a balance. art directors are people with problems to solve, and you need to be able to A. anticipate the problems they need solving, and B. confidently (and honestly) let them know exactly what you can do for them. Attach A FEW, SMALL, RELEVANT jpgs that they can easily download and keep for reference. do not send massive high res attachments, their inboxes are full enough as it is. If you're responding to a specific call, attach relevant pieces or curate a page on your portfolio site specifically for work that would fit the project. If reaching out to clients doesn't result in a lead - *or*, if it takes them 3 months to get back to you, you should spend that time doing your own stuff and bolstering your skills. eventually your portfolio will be good enough that it kicks down doors for you.

you'll notice i never included "be active on social media! post your new work! feed instagram's ad revenue by giving it more content!" in this strategy because it doesn't matter. i'm not professionally active on any social media. we were getting hired before twitter existed and we'll still get hired after it dies. just do make sure you have an online portfolio (your own website >> artstation >>> other free folio builders >>>>>>>>>>>> an instagram feed.) the more times you do this cycle the easier it gets; both because you'll just get good at every step of the process, and because more people will know you and have known you for *longer* so you seem like a safer bet. I'll be honest: it's a ton of rejection lmao. I would get a rejection in my inbox at least once a week - even more than that i'd just get radio silence. But eventually you'll get a yes, and if you're lucky that yes will result in high quality new work you're proud of and can put into your folio (taking you back to step 1 lol.)

the freelance life is (INSHALLAH!!!) behind me since i now have a full time job doing marketing/supporting art for video games. But my portfolio never would've gotten there if i didn't have the experience of going through the freelance meat grinder first. it really taught me how to be an actualized *creative* (who can stand up for her own expertise, think like a project manager, and take creative ownership of / responsibility for my assignments) and not just a hired hand. my team likes that. i think

#not art #ask #freelance artist #not sure i want to tag this for discoverability tumblr thank you #art advice

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docilepillow · 7 months ago

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April 2024 Media diary

yea im good thanks PSEUDOREGALIA

by part this game and by part not really this game's kinda burning me out lol like the games objectively good i think its just the game style and some of the design choices that kind of abbrasively make me not like this game as much as i should like i love goats i love platformers i love metroidvanias but after finishing this game i dont really say i lik it persay but at the end i can only bring myself to only hate aspects of it , more then anything? like the ccombats ok its nothing flashy. and like. the main mechanic of this is wall kicking, whicch feels cool as hell . the movement in this game is great. but with how hands-off it is , and in combination with the nonlinearity and intended sequence breaking you can do, it is * horrifically * easy to get lost. i hear an earlier version of this game didn't even have a map, which is awful for this genre in my opinion. id describe this game as very frustrating and it feels like 90 percent of the time you're hitting your head against a wall trying to go anywhere, which, for some people, is absolutely fantasstic. im sure trying to fedangle around with this moveset is awesome. but i spent most of the game just wanting to get the full moveset as soon as possible, because, allthough a completely deterministic game as far as i'm aware, progressing from place to place feels really convoluted. i feel like in between grunting " ugh " and " I want this to be over with " and " god i wish there was an upgrade for this " and " i'm SO lost..! " the game has great ambiance and area design and theres plenty to do, i just kinda wish you had like . a few more quality of life features in the game. like . idk. like an area completion counter for each area, or a cursor for where you're located on the map.... Then again , i dont think thiss game was designed with that in mind, so i think it's just a shame or for people that just aren't like me. Yea, sybil is cute, i guess. ill give credit for that. i just cant really see that over what's , for the bulk of it, a stressful affair that feels like guesswork and trail and error. if this game ever gets a big qol update, i'd probably love it a whole lot more, but once again, i'm pretty sure thats an intentional artistic decision to reflect the era it's from . i went into this wanting to like it a whole lot more, i promise, but this is like a 5 out of 10 game ( for me personally ) ... i basically spent alot of it mentally appologizing to nmh2 for some reason. i need a break for today. i'm kind of really dissapointed right now THE CROODS video game movie

its cool

Also, on the topic of mario maker 2, which, technically, i finished last month, i DID in fact finish mario maker 2's story mode! i simply neglected to before andd i think it's okay. i think its a little bit better then the 3ds version's array of levels, and, playing them so close together, i'm honestly surprised they didn't try to impliment the acheivements you can get in those levels in this game, given the fact that so much is tracked by clear conditions in MM2. i wonder if that was a prototype feature they tried early in 3ds before implimenting it in the sequel? Oh well. i'm glad they just ddint implliment the clear condition where you cant get grabbed by claws, those are just the absolute worst..!

Daemonis Algebra

https://gothbingarbage.itch.io/daemonisalgebra

This one's actually nice and special, because i can say some friends of mine made it! It's for a gamejam, so it's pretty simple, but i think it's relatively effective for the kind of hectic gameplay they were going for with it. I'm actually a little bit clumsy when it comes to assembling the little " creature " you're putting together by running around the map, and, i get the sense they're supposed to match,but, given my luck / level of coordination, my creatures usually end up looking something like this --

Oops. It very much affectionately reminds me of older styled flash games you'd find on coolmath, though it's definitely a lot more polished then most of the ones i think of aestetically and mechanically. You just kind of dash around and collect charming little monster parts. It's a little hard to figure out what part's a leg or an arm or the like sometimes ( I actually thought my animal's head was an arm ); but i'm really confident in saying thats a genuine creative decision- it's kind of like a cute little cartoon dilema. i absolutely love this game's cute spritework and music!!!!!!!!!! go play it right now stupid!!!!!

( I Got Sidetracked And Am Doing The Entries For Everything Below At The Last Minute Because Of Nocturne ) THE PRINCESS BRIDE

I've seen this movie before, but i think it still holds up good. An overall solid movie with basically everything you could want from a classic film. Very very watchable with people or alone. You can't really complain with the film at all but i dont havve any new thoughtss on it or anything pokemon scarlet violet epilogue

TLDR; techniiicallly i've finished scarlet-violet a long, long time ago, and i mostly just.... forgot about it up until decently recently, after the prior movie i think, and was prodded to give it a try by a friend. I think some of the writing at the start is charming enough and it's not completely a waste like the rest of the game , but i'm still of the strong opinion that this dlc isn't even half the bar set by Swoshi's entire DLC lineup, which is a little bit sad.... I guess that's what happens when you rush out an open world supermassive entry in a series known for scopecreep and capital interest..? That seems a bit cynical, but I don' t really remember much of my thoughts about it in retrospect, now. It's a little out of the way, but i'd hate to see what happens to this event when servers go down and you can't get pecharunt's item anymore.

POKEROGUE

There isn't really a good image to represent this game, so just the logo will do, i guess. TLDR, I think this is a fangame with a cute idea, and psudo-decent execution , but it's definitely still a work in progress. the earlygame grind where you're just trying to get started is absolutely brutal in a way that is simply just---- timeconsuming and not that much fun at all. If you want to check out the game yourself, I reccomend catching a paldean tauros as soon as possible so you can use it at the start of future runs. The basegame is set to last around 200 rounds, so it's definitely a massive time commitment to try, but once you do get a run going, it can be fun. I still think the earlygame needs ironing out and some of the moves aren't fully implemented yet because it's still new. I'll be honest and mostly say i jumped on this one out of a bandwagon. If you're curious to see me try a run, this clip might still be up for anyone to watch, but i wouldn't count on it forever - https://streamable.com/44j2v2 STRONG BAD'S COOL GAME FOR ATTRACTIVE PEOPLE

( The first 4 episodes, out of 5 . I ran out of time, once again, thanks to nocturne. Oops! )

SBCGFAP on wiiware is a game based around homestar runner, which i've mostly come to appreciate only recently this year. I got into it around February, where me and my boyfriend incidentally started watching it around the tail end of our trip. A few months later, and i'm super endeared by this show's writing style! It sort of feels like how something like Castlevania or Spore feel like to me now, in that it's not really a thing that's upkept anymore that much, with sparing crumbs of new stuff to see thrown out in little rations . So, when i got home, and, having recently re-modded my wii u ( And, with a Vwii setup, in part due to my sister wanting to play the overseas unreleased Mystery Dungeon games, the means to play wiiware in a way that i'm sure would've been fine to set up, actually, because dolphin is also awesome, just, more convenient for me because it wouldn't be taking up my laptop's storage space ) ; i proposed playing this game with him in call , which we did for a while! I'd say as a complete novice to the Point N' Click and also Telltale Game genre that the writing was pretty suitable. The scenarios are mostly just standard homestar runner stuff, and it did keep a big smile on my face. I actually think my favorite episode so far was the first one, looking back on it, considering how much Homestar is in it and how the puzzles ended up being lighter, but that's to my own preference. I think these games are worth looking into if you have a modded Wii U around, which im sure some people do. I imagine most people getting into HSR would've already watched a lets play or something on youtube already..! Anyway, i think this is good. i think people should give it a try even outside the inherit fact that this game is nearly lost media. I didn't get to finish the trogdor episode more then halfway before getting sidetracked by college preperation stuff. Sorry.. PORTAL 2 - COOPERATIVE TESTING INITATIVE ( technically properly capitalized! )

I've actually never finished any of the portal games! I'm too stupid to finish them ! But my boyfriend is hella into it and I know the story stuff already! And we both haven't done the co-op stuff before! So we did ! On a whim ! And i don't QUITE feel comfortable putting it on my backloggd until i at least finish the singleplayer campaign as well, so that puts me in a neat spot! id like to think i wasnt ccomplete dead weight in this playthrough but i was a little dumb. this game leads to fun banter and silly fun though it lends itself well to being coop and it's not as confusing as it would be when you're working with someone compitent who can backseat you as you completely misinterpret his directions. I'm honestly shocked how high the steam statistic for clearing this mode is , look at this ---

Do a fifth of people really play this???? I can kind of believe that but really ? damn! ! ! ! thats pretty cool you dont usually see numbers like this for modes like this. I'm a little bit sad there aren't more multiplayer co-op experiences like this, but that's kind of what makes them special in the first place. SHIN MEGAMI TENSEI III - NOCTURNE

This game has been one i've been procrastinating on trying since finishing SMT IV and IV-A nearly a year ago now, just in part because of it's reputation as a brutal, arduous journey of an RPG. I've heard many good things about this game. I've heard many bad things about this game. I've heard many things about this game's remaster, and I have it bought on both Steam and PS4. I dunno. Just because it was an SMT game on PS4. The primary thing that's making me finish it now is mostly just in part due to the only game i'm looking forward to, shin megami tensei V - Vengeance, coming out in around a little over a month as of typing this-- and, considering V on switch was how i got into the game, i MOSTLY know what to expect. Though, i never got to finish the DLC in that game . AND if i finished nocturne, i could confidently tackle every ounce of that game's new content under a fresher lens then JUST a series newcomer. I have really high hopes for V-V, but that's not really what this game is about. I knew already in advance that i would need to section off a very large period of time for this game going in , so I basically ended up sticking to logging in a couple of hours over the whole month when not fixating on anything else media wise or when not doing important college preperation shit that I need to get done and in fact STILL HAVE THINGS TO DO FOR. And still i only just barely about had enough time to do it!!! SMT nocturne , for the most part, and as long as you have some expectation and experience in the traditional RPG genre, isn't actually that bad difficulty wise. Like, as long as you're prepared, you'll actually fare way better then in some of the other games in the series that i've played, which is nice. Like, outside something like a super unlucky light / dark magic oneshot hitting you once and a while, as long as you're dilligent and prepare and use the systems you're given, you'll live. Like, i'm not gonna say this is how you get into SMT, but it's reputation is only MOSTLY overblown as unfair and stupidly difficult. But, because i'm stupid, and dont understand the ramifications of my actions, i went for the best ending on my first playthrough, cus, once again, i'm using it as a thing to do before SMT 5 V comes out so i can fully enjoy both. Now, apparently, for most people, it takes 110 hours or so to do the " true demon " ending, but i mostly went in , i dont wanna say rushing, but i mostly went through the game with as little as i'd need to thrive, i guess. optimized? Idk. I think most of the game is very intuitave and very enjoyable. its very somber and very dungeon crawly, and i think its gameplay rules. i think i like IV more still but i think this game is cool most of the time when you don't get cosmiclly unlucky . but like. the final bosses of this game are just fucking cheaterss that kill you . the last dungeon of this game took me like 10 hours by itself its insane thats like my only gripe. like. sometimes id pull up a guide when a boss has like null physical and it kills me because the game doesn't let you double check matchups like the games after it, or when theres a particularly convoluted way forward ( Note - by convoluted, i mostly just mean, i'm too stupid to navigate most 3d games without getting lost at some point unless it's perfectly linear ), or just for convenience, but it's a very fair level of challenge for most of the way if you know what to look out for. my only regret with this game is i'm sorry about any friend discussions ive completely halted by bringing this game up all the time in conversation. oops... That and it takes a surprising amount of effort to go through alos idkd idkd ddikd i just wnana get this log done its way too late at night also i was assuming naively that Nocturne would be my 100th logged game since i've started documenting my own media diaries, but because of how things turned out, it's closer to the 97th on backlogged. Oops! That's an arbitrary achievement only i care enough about! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aloi9Cj6wFA

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nadianova · 1 year ago

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hopeless junction (my wrists)

my hands are hurting again and i cant hyperfixate on this game so its DEAD AND CANCELLED AND well not really but my plan to get this all completed before 16th for vncup are pretty much looking impossible now lmao.

as you may haev noticed i have not been working on trans goetia because i wanted to draw my attention towards something new and exciting and------

this has been it. its really a huge shame that i am the most motivated and most inspired artistically when i get to obsess over a project and just hammer it for day to night and repeat it next day but my hands will explode if i try to do that.

ive been putting like five hours each day into this all week and yesterday i just had to stop becaue my wrists just couldnt hit hte right keys lolll

i compiled all the screenshots ive posted here into one post for your viewing experience. theres a ton of more drawing in this game which no doubt is the reason why my hands are so exhausted now but i just really love drawing and having had the excuse to do so has made my brain feel good

i realize ive not really said anything about this game. its about these three girls who are on a week long special luxury trans continental train journey . ive always been fond of stories that take place in a locked situation, so no doubt il lhave more of those in the future.

but yes, things get weird, friends talking about sex, friends wanting to do sex, cute girls popping accidental boners, friends having a bit of a fight about sex. and i mean one girl ready to torch her life just to create as much chaos as possible. its the nice kind of stuff really

the progress in this game is pretty huge all things considered. in just a week i have a 20k word script and ive written all the events of the first 5 days and i only have hte climax of the story left to write now where things get violent and messy.

it truly is a miracle how much a person can get done with motivation in such a short time. feels liek in just a week ive gotten this game further than trans goetia. it is not a fair comparison since i am omitting all the blender time but still.

well, thats that ima go roll a d20 to decide if my hands will endure more gaymaking today or if im gonna keep resting

#hopeless junction #vndev #indiedev #renpy #gamedev #transgender #lgbt #literally putting the homo tags just casue i like the pwertty colors

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spicyraeman · 1 year ago

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This week's batch of drawings will make you coo gentlepeople! Traumatised murder Bébé Lae'zel and happy Bébé Xan will make you melt like butter in a warm croissant! You never cared for kids? Now you do!

As a french speaker, the charisma check of a froggy frog Lae'zel would probably fail tbh. But it makes me laugh to imagine her accent being 100% harsher and the words mispronounced. They really missed a comical opportunity.

"What do you mean, wizard? Why can't I say 'I want to hit the beach' in front of the hatchlings? I had my hopes to see some phoques there. WHY ARE YOU LAUGHING SHADO-ART! We need to foc-us!"

Buuuuuut in french to say "my love / 🐸 my joy 🐸" you can say "mon cœur" which means "my heart". ( Coincidence? I think not!) I can almost imagine a scene where it's softly choked in a bloody pointy ear at camp after a scary fight. Almost. So just for that I can admit it can be cute. (Want more french lessons? Scream weewoo 🚑 at 3am and I'll appear on your bed, sleep-deprived with a complotist white board ! Special discount for fanfic writers and artists)

I saw briefly the translated version of the game, it's... an experience. They translated SH literally, it really brought out the cringe I probably should've felt in English but didn't. It's wayyy to close to "Shadowcunt" too, but we have Shart here so I can't really speak up. Poor girl is taking punches in every languages 😂

Also I love how everytime I send you something stuck in my brain, you come up with the most reasonable and obvious answers. Why do I forget these characters don't live in a bubble but in a society? Ofc there are gonna be pointy ears headphones 😂🤦‍♀️ All week I imagined some designs for those, then jewelries, then piercings, then I reaaally need to stop this brain. Qquipart is right too, Karlach is def a speaker user!

I live to give you cute drawing ideas. Doing the devil's work I'm sure, adding to the everlasting pile 😈

And take all the time you need to answer, obv. I'm sending a weekly rambling letter to a friend and finding an answer randomly in my mailbox ; waiting is part of the fun.

🫀🚑

Yes! I had kids on the brain at the time! It's not something that happens often, but i couldn't resist baby Xan or Lil'zel

I find French accents incredibly endearing, not particularly attracted to them, but theres something about them i just love. An obscenely french Lae’zel would make me lose my shit, and honestly, it would fit her. I've always had the hc that lae'zels accent is waaayyy more prominent than in game and that she mispronounces words more frequently. I mean, shes probably never had to speak common to anyone before the nautiloid, how would she know how some words are pronounced?

Also bestie ya cant just drop an atomic bomb on me like that, thats too fuckin cute bro my heart 😭

As for reasonable and obvious answers, they're like that cuz ive got terminal worldbuilder disease, and as soon as you sent that ask, i took a whole day just researching headphones and IEMs. I really should draw up some designs for them 🤔 and yeaaa karlach is def bumping the speakers at full volume

It truly is an everlasting pile, i should probably actually start writing them down lmaooo

Trust me, im taking my time lol my brain works at a snails pace, but seeing an ask from you makes my week so ty <3

#asks #long post

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abimee · 2 years ago

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I hope I'm not misinterpreting what you said; your comment on people's reaction to abstract art and things along those lines is how I feel about experimental and abstract music made as a form of art (which some people seem to Hate but is a very important art form to me). I don't have any fancy insightful commentary, but a lot of people just dismiss this stuff because it doesn't instantly draw their attention or makes them uncomfortable for whatever reason. It could be the artist expressing their emotion, trying to showcase a technique, etc any other hundreds of reason. I think regardless of if it's something made in satire, a genuine expression of emotion, or "it just looks/sounds cool!" or anything else they're all worth looking at and thinking about. That person's comment about "I don't think it's worth looking at" makes me a bit sad for that reason

no youve hit it right on the nail. i think a lot of people can be adverse to trying out new genres or even music styles theyre not used to because theyve become accustomed to like, i dont wanna call it ''palatable'' music but music where once again like art they can find something to project/latch onto. like people who refuse to listen to speedcore or lyricless music because they so badly need lyrics/something to attach to and cant feel the emotion within the instruments themselves

im not too well versed in more like experimental music but i know this was peoples reaction to 100 Gecs when they first showed up, because to them it was just ''loud, obnoxous autotune music'' and couldnt see the fact that within the music was laura les' expressions of her identity and emotions. this also just directly happens with classical music. people just wont listen to piano or symphonic music unless its like video game tracks or whatever cause they dont see any worth in sitting through ''long and boring pieces'' and have no concept of like how people express emotions and stories and invigorate a mental image without using words.

i also see this with vocaloid too where english speaking americans just outright refuse to listen to vocaloid/lump it together as an entire genre they ''dont like'' when vocaloid is nothing but an instrument used by thousands of different artists in different genres for different means. like you cant tell me that siinamota's "Metamorphose'' sounds anything like matryoshka by hachi. its all the same people just disrespect art like crazy for the dumbest of reasons

this especially pisses me off with people who only like the ''human sounding AI synth vocaloids'' in a way i cant explain. they cant get over the speed bump of a robot singing to engage with so much beautiful art made by people across the world telling their own emotions and ideas and stories and decide the entire thing is a waste of time. drives me up the wall

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silliest-basilisk · 1 year ago

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so i wanna talk about my hcs/interpretations of otto's relationships to the rest of the psychic 7 because im very sane and normal. putting it under the cut cause theres quite a lot of text:

ford - the og boys. they're made for each other in that they're both fucking insane. i hate these freaks /pos. i like the idea of them having met in college. maybe they dated, maybe they didnt. i like both options. ford has 2 hands. i think after lucrecia joined the psychic 7, they startrd drifting apart which only intensified as more people joined and ford was the leader so everyone wanted to hang out with him, leading to him having less and less time for the og :( but i think that even when they dont talk much, they still have that innate comfortableness when being around each other. like. even just doing regular stuff together feels easy & effortless? but also i think they reconnect post-game!!! hooray for friendship!!!

lucrecia - my personal hc is that they met on an exchange trip in high school bc i dont think otto's grulovian, but i honestly also rly like the idea of them being childhood friends. goated hc. but anyway yeah they're also besties sobs…. on the surface, lucrecia is the calm yhat balances out otto's…. ottoness, but once you get to know her better, shes also insane. idk i dont rly have a lot of thoughts to put into words with these 2 but theyre BESTIES!!!!

cassie - they butt heads obviously, but theyre close methinks. i hc that cassie was the first to join the psy7 after the initial trio, so with ford and lucy too busy canoodling, i think they ended up hanging out a lot. i think cassie is good at pulling otto back down to earth when he gets too lost in the sauce and starts overcomplicating things compton - i think compton is truly the one person in the psychic 7 who being with is actually. quiet. calm. whatever. for otto. cause with everyone else its always high energy - even cassie, whos usually the calm, down to earth one of the group who grounds a dynamic, her personality happens to clash with otto's so they bicker a lot. but compton's gentle nature is a good match for those times where the Introversion hits otto. i think parallel play is their primary form of hanging out. also i think they both struggle with sleeping (otto cause adhd and compton cause anxiety) and it's just like an unspoken agreement between them that when one of them cant sleep they can always come talk. ALSO. i hc that compton also has somewhat of a knack for science (he helped build the gpc and astralathe 100%) so theyre scientist with the mind of an artist x artist with the mind of a scientist. amen. i love electric sheep

bob - my hc for them is pretty much the same as the commonly accepted fan interpretation. 10/10, no notes. theyre stoner buddies and i think they may have kissed a little. and maybe even…. no, i shant say. i listen to for forever from dear evan hansen and goodbye ms flower thief while thinking about them and just sit there feeling utterly despondent

helmut - NOW THIS. NOW THIS IS A DYNAMIC I THINK IS UNDERRATED. theyre so. UEEEEGHHHH. i think they're the type of silly goofy friends who joke around all the time. things that wouldn't normally be funny seem hilarious when they're together. SO MANY INSIDE JOKES. just a good time all around. i think helmuts also the first one to notice otto's Mental Problems post pn2. they're just uuueeghhh. its so so important to me how artistically oriented otto is despite being a scientist and helmut is an artist as well!!! so!!!! they're both so deeply creative and thats just everything. to me.

also honourable mention to the otto/helmut/bob trio bc i dont have anything to say about it that i haven't already said for otto/bob and otto/helmut but like i fucking love them as a trio. they're all so like. sensitive to the world. and creative. YEAH. good fucking trio i love this trio

#psychonauts #psychonauts 2 #psychonauts headcanons #psychic seven #otto mentallis #basil talks #i love making shit up

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blysse-and-blunder · 1 year ago

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in lieu of packing

11pm, saturday, july 15, 2023

the things i could be doing right now could fill multiple volumes, but i listened to a podcast today about academic (im)perfectionism and am deciding i don't need to feel guilty. this summer's Big European Travel starts tomorrow and I! am! nervois! but i've done some smaller trips recently which helped me work up to this in a way. further media and life musings below the cut.

reading i had a few weeks there where my recreational reading was... a little bleak, in that i was reading things that felt dated and/or formulaic and/or just put me straight to sleep, thereby meaning that i took much longer than i normally like to finish anything-- this was enlivened with two excellent new instalments from two different series i love, anne leckie's translation state and samantha shannon's a day of fallen night.

very very fun now thinking of these back to back. two books were so engrossing, built (and built on) such rich worlds, such good command of the vibes/atmosphere/tone they were going for, but so different! to sound like a book reviewer for a moment, leckie's prose is sort of lean where shannon's is lush, something like that. there's a joke in here based on the meme that goes 'sci-fi is where x, fantasy is where y' but i'm too tired to work it out myself. both of these books say-- so there are incomprehensible beings in your world which may wish to eat and/or destroy you, and some people have found ways to work or live with them, but it is very weird and alien to your way of life. day of fallen night feels more like a climate metaphor, and there is plenty that felt pulled straight from the psyche of the years 2020-2023. both do fun/interesting things with gender and relationships, and both made me want to go re-read their respective predecessors to heighten the feeling of connection and resonance with those other works.

watching mostly dimension 20-- i introduced @yogurtforever to fantasy high last week, and I myself have been working my way through the toy island arc of neverafter-- but here is the place to mention watching netflix's new documentary about WHAM!, of all things, with @yogurtforever and @thehibernatinglentil last weekend.

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not being a documentary hound, i never would have watched this without friends, but it was genuinely quite fun! i didn't know a ton about wham! or george michael, which i now realize is a shame because there's a lot to know. making up for it by having the lyrics to their first hit single, the inimitable 'wham rap', stuck in my head for the next 200 years.

listening due in no small part to the wham! doc (and an mama mia 2 rewatch the week before that), i put on a lot of throwback music this week. it ended up being more 70s than 80s, and that got me thinking about how strongly my parents' music taste influenced mine. there are so many good artists from ~back then~ who i have found out about later, because we just didn't listen to them at home? and of the vinyl i remember finding in the basement, you know, it wasn't bowie, it wasn't fleetwood mac, it wasn't springsteen (it was james taylor and paul simon and probably joni mitchell). luckily, summer camp taught me all the lyrics to a bunch of other oldies, and we did listen to the radio oldies station quite a lot, so my education wasn't entirely deficient. i bring this week the don maclean song 'vincent', which i will be thinking a lot about for one reason and another this week.

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playing i have, at long, long last, completed my stardew community center. it was a little anticlimactic, after all the travail that went into it, but i'm so pleased. it only took like two actual human real life years! the last thing i needed was a rabbit's foot, and now at last i feel like i can move to the next tier of game play. i remain unmarried, fighting for my life in skull cavern, but now with two small bunnies to love.

making trying to figure out how to eat most of the food i have in the fridge, how to use up things and make the most of what i have and not leave anything to spoil for the next little while, so i haven't really been cooking big projects. i've been 'making' appointments, got my eyes checked, had coffee with two different profs and chatted with a former student about her med school applications, and that's about it!

working on conference paper, which is both a slideshow (graphic design is my passion, this part is mostly fine) and a draft of what might turn into usable words for the chapter i'm working on. naturally i have built it up into the Biggest Scariest Most Important task, and so am avoiding it and finding it miserable to work on. and i still have time! i had wanted to not work on it on the plane, during my travel week, etc., but there is actually time. there's time. and i keep having small breakthroughs, after 2-5 hours of dicking around, which allow me to believe that there is an end in sight. other things to be worked on, for when i have some 'free' 'time'-- newsletter draft that's so very overdue, multiple students asking for detailed essay feedback and grade breakdowns, emails from students asking for other things, recommendation letter, the next chapter that i'm meant to be finishing this summer. luckily, it's a long plane ride.

#in lieu of a commonplace book #ilcb #weekly roundup #the good thing with writing about two books per post is that i can really easily avoid spoilers; the bad thing is that i can't just yell #about the parts in each one in particular that made me yell!#it's a zoomed-out format and normally i like that #but also: these books were so good

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nomeniko · 5 months ago

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mew mew 12 16 19 for the artist ask game meowing at you meew

VINNNNNNN HELLOOOO THANK UU

12. describe your process while drawing

i think this was the one question i rly wanted to ans out of the list, only bc ive been told multiple times that my process is like that of a maniac LMAOO

p much just this: vague scribble, lines, and color (which rarely happens atp, but if it DOES happen then it mostly stays as flats aka fill tooling my way thru). as close to freehand as i can possibly get

if the drawing im doing is more complicated then the first stage scribble just becomes more convoluted, but the process is the exact same

as a consequence i take a shitton of time while drawing (usually an hr on a simple colorless illus and ONLY on good days. otherwise ive gone past 2-3 hrs on most of the simpler drawings i do)

if drawing process meant everything beyond just the illustration then warmups r p much a given b4 i start any piece!!! my go tos r always cubes or freehand figures (1 min and a half each. the goal is to get used to the flow of it fo the day :3 otherwise my lines end up looking shit)

ive also been told that i draw like a warrior training. idk. i honestly kind of see it LMAOOO its abt forcing my way thru getting the lines i want

16. how do you motivate yourself to draw?

i honestly dont know!!! im trying to think of an ans, but im coming up blank

i dont even try motivating myself, it just hits when it wants to hit. once in a while i get an idea that i REALLY want to draw, so i do it as fast as possible b4 i lose interest; otherwise i can barely draw, and at those times i just let myself rest

the one thing i do have to thank is whatever im interested in at that moment in time. rn milgram took over my life, so everything i draw is just that. tbh b4 i got into milgram, i was demotivated w drawing for multiple years straight, so ive been burning out the time i lost not drawing in the past few months

ig the one thing i cld say helps w motivation is the idea of doing everything now. if i get an idea, i do it immediately, and thats usually enough of a motivator for me. holding off an idea and not drawing it p much guarantees that i lose interest. draw whatever u want whenever u want

19. where do you find inspiration?

other art i like (mostly online artists)!! i have a twt priv that i use solely to rb and bookmark pieces i like frm artists on there. i also have a camera roll album reserved just for inspo, and ig i rb things on this acc for other artists’ art as well

i like looking at what other artists do and applying it to my own drawings. sometimes its general artstyle, other times its the specific way an artist wld draw smth like hands or hair. id admit that ive taken inspo frm how artists compose their work as well lol

im not sure if my art is what ppl wld call inconsistent, but my main goal is to keep that inconsistency as much as possible; it helps w experimentation n lessens the pressure of doing art the same way all the time. its more fun that way imho :3

#asks

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quidfree · 1 year ago

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Hi :), I know you published Sober II like, one year ago, but I've to let you know that it's been keeping me from studying for my exam. I love you for that, it's absolutely beautiful. But I have to know more about Alexander. I've got some Princess Caroline's vibes from him, like, sure, let's help my ex's strange "friend" publish his book, no personal feelings involved. Where did he pop out from? Does he has hobbies? Do he and Richard just talk shit about Francis sometimes? And, most importantly, why does Francis have a strange coral of exes very capable in their fields?

hi hahaha what an ask, can’t believe alex is getting some limelight. im sure the audience has been begging for more information about him.

honestly the answer to several of your questions is that francis runs in wealthy circles and those people are all unbelievably connected in ways the rest of us can’t comprehend.

i think alex is probably pretty good at his job but he’s definitely a nepo baby who got into the publishing game young and has the luxury of doing all his friends solids when they decide they’re poets while broke writers everywhere fight for scraps. francis is not the first to call in a favour.

he and francis most likely met in their early to mid twenties when francis was in new york and after some rich people flirting hooked up semi-regularly without ever being an item bc francis wasn’t interested (never even occurred to him, he’s not a big commitment guy and alex is too nouveau riche for him). alex is way more into francis than the reverse but he also resents this bc francis is annoying. they don’t talk often after that but they occasionally run into each other at cultural events and they’ll chat bc they have similar sarcastic dispositions in some regards.

when francis hits alex up re richard he takes the call bc 1) theyre not on bad terms 2) he thinks francis has decent artistic taste and 3) everyone who knows francis in boston thought he had drowned himself in the charles river, and having this prime gossip / being the first to know is satisfying enough to make him indulge francis’ request. plus he did feel sort of bad about his dying and is wondering if francis reaching out is opening the door to rekindling something. and then he reads the manuscript (journal) and thinks “huh, definitely publishable” so he runs with it. he’s profit-driven but he’s also got an ego-driven urge to have artistic freedom that manifests in taking on the odd rogue project.

i think he and richard get along ok- they’re not like, friend friends, just professional friends, but their temperaments gel well together somehow. they don’t really irritate each other like francis does, but they’re also less interested in each other. i actually think the matter of francis is less of a bonding point and more of a rare friction point for them. alex is sort of jealous / wilfully unimpressed by richard bc why would francis be into this random californian nobody moreso than him, so he plays up the condescension a little sometimes. richard isn’t jealous but he doesn’t like it at all when alex makes any reference to his past w francis. beyond that they do have sort of a casual pen-pal situation going on even outside of work.

what he does outside of work… idk i think he’s quite a workaholic actually. sort of yuppy-culture adjacent (by way of pre-existing wealth, but recent, like second gen). he likes being in a hectic office throwing papers around and complaining about no one doing shit except for him. but he does like a bit of high culture and is also a heavy heavy sports guy. his dating life is a mess. he’s not out to his family but they’re all semi-estranged anyways and he only really speaks to his brother (who is an investment banker).

i do think francis has a lot of exes. not from like serious relationships but he definitely gets around & also probably has quite a few semi-established ‘seeing someone’ situations at various points. i feel like theyre pretty varied except in a socioeconomic sense. definitely some dubious set-ups when he was in his late teens. several ‘straight’ guys. a couple he’s actually friendly with. the clandestine boston rich homosexual dating scene is probably fairly incestuous. kim was probably one of his longest relationships but i think in typical francis style it was a bit up and down / let’s not talk about it (<- various underlying issues) even before the deus ex grandfather.

and sorry about your exam. but thanks for the diligent readership.

#qui parle #qui repond #kunalunasblog #tsh #sober ii #alex from new york

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rivetgoth · 1 year ago

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Today we went to this walk-in art installation presented by the Museum of Contemporary Art made by a DJ meant to capture the experience of clubbing / partying / the nightlife through the lens of high art. It was really interesting for sure. The exhibit was in this MASSIVE warehouse space, full of these lights that slowly changed color and sometimes flashed on and off or went completely dark for periods of time that felt very accurately indicative of club lighting, though the coolest thing about it was the spatiality of the soundscape — there were four speakers, one in each corner of the room, and each one was blaring a different part of the same techno song, and then in the very center of the room beneath a set of off-white lights sort of evocative of a spotlight were four more speakers that played it all together as a single composition. So you could walk around the room and experience this ever-evolving song that changed with each part of the area that you walked to, while all ultimately combining into a single piece of music. It was a cool exploration of sonic landscapes in art and putting audio into a physical sphere but it also just really accurately captured the way different parts of the club can feel like completely different realms while still all being interconnected.

That said, I had one really big critique of the whole thing, aside from my more ornery “Why do we need to convey the club as a transcendent space to non clubgoers anyway? Do we need to prove the worth of it to those on the outside?”, which is the emptiness of the space. There was no sign of human life save for the museum security guards watching to make sure nobody went out the wrong exit and other museum attendees wandering around to see the exhibit. It made the space feel very lifeless. And it made me realize that I think the idea of trying to capture the transcendence and magic of the club without including the clubgoers is kind of destined to not hit quite as hard. It’s a losing game; the club isn’t anything without the people who make it. A club can be an amazing venue, have a great sound system, great drinks, cheap entry, but if it’s crawling with creeps nobody wants to go. Likewise, some of the clubs I adore the most aren’t necessarily anything special when it comes to the music but the people are the thing that make it worth going as often as you can, because you know you’ll meet cool people, see your friends, and just have a good time. Every club scene IME has local club celebrities—sometimes these are “real world” celebrities, like musicians or actors or artists, but a lot of the time these are people who are literally just famous within the club itself because they have cool style, they’re well connected, they’re friendly, they’re interesting, they just stand out in some way and everybody who’s anybody at least knows of them…

Some of the best or most memorable club nights of my life were at kinda shitty venues but the right people turned out and it was just amazing to be within a group of good people. I can’t really imagine an artistic representation of the experience that is the nightlife without the people… It feels a bit hollow to me. Andrew Holleran’s Dancer from the Dance is one of my absolute favorite studies on the art and magic of the club, and it spends so much time on the people, both as individual and as community (hence the very famous use of collective first person throughout the novel, ie. the narrator is often a “we”). I think this art piece captured the spatiality of the club very well but it missed for me the humanity of it, and I struggle to see the former being able to exist without the latter, so the whole exhibit felt less full or complete than it could have been.

The best club nights are the ones where all the right people show up. The DJ could be playing the most uninspired dance set in the world but if you look around and everyone on the dancefloor is a friend, loved one, member of your community, someone you look up to or someone you deeply care about or at the very least dressed to the nines and fun to look at, if you feel at home amongst the crowd, it doesn’t really matter what you’re dancing to… I just wish that a piece of art so invested in the magic of the club gave more of a spotlight to those that make the club magical to begin with.

I dunno, this sounds like a much harsher criticism than it really is, because I did like the exhibit. I think it’s very cool to see the nightlife projected into the high art walk-in installation world. It’s neat to see something I’m so intimately familiar with translated into new mediums. I think one of my favorite things about it was how well it captured the sense of entering a new club; to get into the exhibit you had to walk through a kinda long empty hallway into the back of the warehouse, where you came to these huge semi-transparent doors where you could see the darkness and lights ahead but nothing else and could just hear the booming bass of the sound system inside… there was a little bit of apprehension as you push these heavy glass doors open, like, “What’s it gonna be like in there?”, trying to put a mental image to the noises and configure your expectations. Even though it was just an art installation I think it managed to evoke a very accurate sense of intrigue, wonder, curiosity, and apprehension very much akin to when you’re finally past the security checking IDs and can enter the club after hearing the music blaring from the outside… Really cool!

But I guess I have a lot to say (including my critiques) because it’s something I feel my existence is sort of in direct conversation with. I’m at a club or a concert like twice a week on average so I feel like I am kind of an implicit part of the dialogue of this art and it’s really interesting to me to kinda see something so near and dear to me attempt to be “elevated” into the broader art world like this. So I guess a lot of my criticism is from a place of affection and passion rather than dismissal or dislike. Personally I think TR/ST’s album “Joyland” is the best artistic expression of the nightlife that I’ve seen in a long time and I think it captured the essence that this was attempting to evoke with a bit more heart, but these two things also don’t need to be in competition with each other lol, and I do respect what this artist was doing for sure.

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hellishgayliath · 1 year ago

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Violet, bluebell, and tiger lily for the flower ask game! 🌸

Do you like to cook or bake? if so, what is it that you like to make?

I like doing both a fair equal amount. I'm always looking for new recipes to try out and see if they hit or not( and especially since I live with my sister's kids, their "palettes" are so fucking hard to please sometimes since they don't really like to try anything different, so experimenting has it's downfalls most times). Some dishes I like to make are omurice, egg fried rice, fried chicken, any potato recipe honestly lol, but in baking I really looooooove making bread. Pumpkin bread, apple bread, banana bread, cinnamon swirl bread, milk bread, Hawaiian bread i fucking love bread n pastries (including muffins and scones). I only make other stuff like cookies/cake/ cupcakes for occasions or if somebody's cravin it ( I don't like cookies tho they give me so much trouble when it's time for the oven >:U ) I don't like cake either cept for this one recipe I use where its chocolate but it also has coffee in it to counteract the sweetness of it since I cant handle sweet things too well.

2. Do you have pets? if so, what are their names?

I live with my dad atm so we can't have pets ( he is the fucking worst to animals and it pisses me off, like you live in a family of animal lovers bro wtf is your deal) BUUUUUT my mom's house on the other hand has 4 cats and 1 dog and I miss them each and every day so goddang much. Each of them were taken in as strays( cept the dog Koby, my step bros have a bad habit of bringing in dogs and then expecting my mom n stepdad to take care of them, this pisses off my mom greatly when she already has her own shit to deal with).

The cats are Cleo (Cleopatra, I call her queenie): she's a bit of an old lady with a resting bitch face but she's so cuddly and lovable to me at least.

Mufasa ( who we don't even call him by his name, he's just chunky boy to me): he's a stinky stinky bully to his sisters and very unbothered by most things, he's also very cuddly

Nala ( she doesn't have much names compared to the others, but i do call her Houdini/ nanas): chunky boi's sis, she's a bit of an escape artist, has tried and succeeded escaping the house numerous times, she tends to keep to herself alot of the time and is the one you hear meowing at your door at 5 in the morning, we love her tho, I also like holding her on my shoulder like a parrot

Pudge/Harley (still half n half on her name) : sis to nala n Mufasa, gets picked on the most from chunky boi, she's a bit more skitterish and attached to my lil bro the most, and her fur is just oh so soft like a cloud

3. Do you have any favorite quotes from any movies, tv shows, books, or poetry? (or from people in real life)

First thing I can think of is just most of the lines from Monty Python and the holy grail, there are just so many iconic lines from that movie that me n my sister say on the daily and then we're always compelled to watched it again ( A NEWT?...I got better xD) . Another thing we also love is the guy who didn't like musicals which we also just want to watch again cuz starkid is amazing. Im sure there's more quotes hidden somewhere in my mind but those are the first two pieces of media i could think of

Flower ask game

#the cryptid talks #if yall wanna see my cats lemme know i got pics of em #love those lil goobers

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