#its hard bc I worked on art with such intent for years so now like Art i am ...good... at and writing I used to consider myself good at but

[crk-kr-to-en]

Now that I've read the KR text of the game and fully realized who Shamil and Pyuba are actually supposed to be, I think of how many artworks and fanfics probably wouldn't exist if those people knew, too, and I both shake my head in sorrow and feel this little sardonic giggle bubbling in my throat lol. Lovely art and beautifully written fiction proudly depicting the wrong people as wrongly as possible. Would trading them all away in exchange for proper understanding of the true story and characters be a trade any of us would be willing to make? Just something to think about, I suppose I wouldn't miss most of it tbh. ShadowVanilla has mostly devolved into regular horny yaoi slop anyway

On another note, a big reason I've been struggling a lot with writing a ShadowVanilla fic I've had in my drafts for 400 years is bc I keep worrying that I'm writing Shamil "wrong". I kept leaning away from the silly clownish behavior+dialogue bc I'm not used to writing characters who sound... like that (characters like that usually irritate tf out of me lol). But now I see that I've been writing Shamil correctly after all - I've unknowingly been writing the Korean one and not the English one! I feel infinitely less dumb and useless now, so thank you x1000 for showing me I was on the right path all along 🙏🙏🙏 (thank you for your hard work doing these translation in general, they've been very enlightening)

No problem! Its always pleasure doing translations.

Fr fr. I barely even took so much from En Shamil when I made analysis posts about him back in Ep 7 release because his character still felt so underwhelming that I had to resort looking into the plotline, the emotions found in his trailers or the character design. (And in terms of fanart, I lonly liked the more serious depictions of his character before translating the Kr version.)

I will never forgive En localization team for removing MOST of the clues about Shamil's self loathing in Ep 8 to become some silly marketable character (I can't even explain how many times there is). And how they took away Pyuba's "Jesusness" despite being literal Cookie Jesus by making him sound overly polite and gentle through his dialogue, contrasting Kr Pyuba's stern kindness and sincerity. And Pyuba's Awakening title as well. The quality of being Compassionate has ALWAYS been present for him through all of the story. His entrie plot line in ep 8 was UNDERSTANDING Shamil, not pity him. "Let me be your... friend." and "I want to be your friend." are NOT the same nor they feel similar in tone. The former sounding like he's sorry for him, while the latter is a DESIRE and an invitation Shamil couldn't escape PERFECTLY MIRRORING Shamil's intentions of wanting Pyuba to stay with him forever.

SO MUCH in Ep 7 is so diluted as well and I hate it. The first translation I've actually seen was the part where En said "other half" when it's actually "lesser half" in Kr that I clocked that it's actually him thinking so highly of himself when he's clearly self-loathing (which perfectly fit into my favorite "Control Freak" character category paired with a "Hope Personified" character.)

People may like English Shamil's lore, but that's the DILUTED (and tumblr sexyfied™) version of him, meanwhile I come out of the Original Korean Shamil lore dragging myself across the floor covered in blood.

[hoshinamylove]

ALNST FRIDAY; Mizi's facade

Here is my take on this weeks alien stage friday! We find out that this whole time, Mizi’s whole personality and feeling was a facade. It was fake. She did it to survive. She thought if she could come off as clueless or naive then no one would see her as a threat, increasing her chance of survival. She had lied to everyone: till, Ivan and sua.

Mizi was aware of tills feelings for her this whole time, in the past people have always reduced her down to her looks, she thought that maybe till would be different, that he would prove her opinion on men wrong. But till ended up panicking and saying “because you’re pretty” I don’t think this is all to tills feelings, I think bro just got scared and said the first thing that made sense and was obvious.

Over here we see mizis collar turns red at the mention of tills name, clearly uncomfortable, this could convey her disinterest in him? After the comment he made. Also this guy she is talking to, we see him in the pile of bodies under mizi. Basically after that talk he ended up slapping her n shit because mizi said a man and women being together was gross and he got offended. His dead body being under mizi along w everyone else could show that the pile of people represent either 1. The people’s death mizi feels responsible for or 2. Everyone that fell for her facade.

Also over here? The image with the thrown is from top 3. A clear parallel to mizi on the bodies, i always thought that throne was meant for Luka but seeing this now omfg bro its so much more deeper, everyone is saying mizi is dying next but over here it looks like she is going to end up killing Luka and make it to the next season. Or maybe not even that, she could make it to the end and end up dying either way.

over here I think mizi slapped sua because she didn’t like how sua was like ‘you have it better than me’ it angered her because sua didn’t know mizis true feelings behind what she showed to everyone else. Sua thought mizi was happy, she was content with suffering as long as it meant mizi could be happy, Sua was blinded with love. I don’t think her comment had the intention to mock mizi? Almost in a way where she is proud of herself for protecting Mizi from misfortune

Also I refuse to believe it was all fake it can't all be fake, it's partially mizi's survivor's guilt talking bcs then she wouldn't risk the life she's worked so hard for just to go save till in r7. When she says ‘it’s all a waste’ she might be talking about her efforts to save Till, she might had seen this as her chance to redeem herself, maybe saving her friend would make her feel less of a villian.

It’s clear that with her time with shine she learnt how to act in order to not die, almost like Ivan who learnt to be obedient because if he didn’t then he would get in trouble, Mizi clearly took that to another extent though, her cluelessness is what allowed her to keep on living, Mizi’s action were to protect herself, which is why it was hidden so well. Which is why in round 5 after beating up Luka when she was taken by the guard she was screaming, that’s the first time we saw her true self behind the facade, she was screaming because she thought she was going to die

This art made me go crazy, as you can see it made me come back to this account which i had left for a year. This is my personal take on the comic and my opinion, of course i could be wrong. I will be trying to be more active! so be on a lookout for posts! Take care

[yukirozx]

I saw someone doing a post of how they see Andrew’s, Neil’s, Jean’s and Kevin’s body type. NOW ITS MY TURN 😈😈

How I see the Foxe’s body types with random arts (and someone’s thoughts)

To begin with: Andrew! He’s such a fucking sweet tooth and doesn’t give a fuck about working out, but he’s still very strong and quite muscular from practicing and swinging that fucking stick so hard.

Neil ofc acts like a damn dog every time Andrew takes his shirt of, he’s like: “sheesh… I think I’m gay for him” when their like, 10 years together.

Neil!!

He’s a runner, so he can’t be too built. But… once in a while his midnight trainings with Kevin are in the gym, so he’s quite muscular. And I think his shoulders are circular (because I can)

Every time Neil gets naked to shower, Andrew stares at him like he’s a living sculpture. But his stare doesn’t have second intentions, he’s just admiring how his junkie is beautiful while he mutters an “I hate you”

Kevin!!

Everyone one knows this diva is the living form of healthy lifestyle and taking care of his visual form. He goes to the gym every Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays when the Sun’s up. His tall frame makes him still slim (?) but very built and muscular, his arms are well marked and the buds are really visible.

He’s the self steam in person, so he likes to wear tight shirts to workout.

Nicky!!

HES A FUCKING TWINK!!

Ofc he has a slutty waist and flat abdomen. He’a muscular? A bit, because he has a hight metabolism and doesn’t work out as much.

Every time he sends Eric a picture of himself in front of the mirror, he knows how to mess with his boyfriend’s head. He always text back something like: “I’m buying flying tickets rn.”

Aaron!!

Aaron (doesn’t five a fuck about my appearance) Minyard. He’s too focused to finish college and the infinite exams to care about futile things like this, but he doesn’t get too carried away cause he knows about the consequences.

He has a slight tummy showing around and horrible posture. His arms are quite built because of the exy, but this is the only activity he does. (Kateryn thinks he’s the most hot man in the world)

Matt!!

He’s a jock.

You know that gym rats that the only thing in their instagram profile is their workouts and diet? That’s Matt. He wakes early in the morning to workout in the gym, he doesn’t miss a single day in the week.

Dan be like: “he’s my baby girl” but then you saw the giant muscular guy behind her

Allison!!

She’s our fashion icon diva, so ofc she thinks all body types are beautiful and deserves praise. She has large hips, quite small waist, big thighs, “fatty” arms and a tummy she always makes sure to show around. (Visible hip dips.)

Seth always made sure to say how Allison was hot and the prettiest girl ever, how he loved her body and how confident she’s with it. Allison knows all of that, but it’s nice to hear it from somebody else

Renee!!

On the other hand, Renee’s features aren’t as marked as Allison’s. She’s really strong but her arms doesn’t show it much, circular shoulder (once again, bc I can) and a thin waist. She doesn’t have large hips or big thighs, only a long neck that give harmony to her appearance even more.

(SHE’S SO BEAUTIFULLLLLL)

Dan!!

Last of all, our dear (and mommy material) captain! She’s a jock as well, really muscular and strong, thing waist and large hips from the workout. Dan is training since the pole dancing, because it demands strength from the arms specially.

While she calls Matt a “baby girl”, Matt practically drool over her. He always questions himself of how he managed to get with such a goddess.

[ganondoodle]

Hello 👋

Swallowing my nerves at last to send you an ask! I was just wondering, what inspires your designs? Are their inspirations in stuff like movies or games? Or just things you come up with yourself?

i .. honestly its kinda hard to tell, sometimes i just randomly think of something, like some detail, or color combination and try to incorporate that into a design somehow; it can come from anywhere, like the color scheme of a pithaya/dragonfruit is something i have been wanting to make a design with for ages but havent come up with anything good in all those years ;O;

im a very easily fascinated by color, espeically in nature, like sometimes i just stop and stare at something like i froze in time bc i just woooooooooooooah color! i probably look like a weirdo doing that though

its really hard to pinpoint anything specifically, the most is probably .. other artists? i guess? which always makes me nervous bc my memory is shit in most areas of life and i worry myself to pieces whether i unintentionally "stole" an idea and just dont remember and think it was my own, it goes further that sometimes i see something that makes me want to draw a similar concept but dont bc i dont want to 'steal' even if that couldnt be further from my intention (have been accused of that before ..)

that said for my ocs specifically .. most are rather old and have just kinda evolved out of their awkward first iterations (shargons first iteration was a hauro-howl- copy that was really just some human covered in feathers .. another oc was once a hellboy copy but in green- havent drawn nor redeisgn them in ages lol), the biggest inspirations for them is a mix of animals, bonus if you dont see them often- im a big shark, whale and sea creatures in general nerd so i tend to take from them as a priority but always trying to be less directly animal and mostly just .. features that work together

Eadrya is one of the newer OCs- i started to write but then looked at my folders and oh they are from 2017 .., i even made a design timeline for them how much they, and my art, have changed back in 2020, so thats also way outdated now lol (they apparently started as a whale .. thing? its like a pokemon evolution lol)

this is them now (i like this sketch still, though shargons design is now also outdated lmao)

this ones from early 2023 so also outdated now but you get the point

for demons i try to be a bit more wild on shapes and colors while still adhering to the rules of how they work (humanoid form, demon form, animalistic, one element each and more or less made to fit that, 4 arms is very common, look to be bost scary and wild but also something that would make you stop in tracks and stare in awe and fear if you crossed paths)

often times designs just kinda .. happen, i have maybe the idea ok i wanna make something with a white and red pattern also moose or those big horned cows are cool and kinda scary so maybe sth akin to that (though this one is technically a redesign too- its also pretty much entirely different)

for non demons but still non human i go for a much more restrained design, mainly inspired directly by an animal and giving the color scheme a good spin, plus adding unconventional body shapes, like ki'ita is also a good example, her old idea was just orca anthro pirate and just by making the white green instead in her most recent redesign already adds that little spin to it

that can have its pitfalls though, as i often fall into the big arm small head small legs scheme over and over xD

alot of it is trial and error, deciding on the colors can take me hours bc im always searching for my little rule of having one contrast color that shows up in very few places to draw attention to it (like with Eadrya its those bright yellow eyes and thingy at their tail)

and that is all about myy own ocs, when its fandom stuff it works kinda similar though, either in the connections i wanna draw or just thinking it further- like how deities in destiny work also just kinda .. happened like an ever derailing train

like for demise i was at first really just im gonna give him horns bc horns are cool and he got those on the starting mural in the game- so how his hair work? well maybe it isnt hair actually and just unbound energy, im making him a deity too and fit hylias design to his so, yeah, then so how does it work, ok he gotta have a skeleton still, but what if his entire actual body is made up of pure magical energy with its core in the ribcage? with the core in the ribcage >:3c and the scales you see are just like cooled down lava as an armor bc his thing is fire and earth !! the normal blood? is a thin layer of skin imiated from mortals to keep the scales together and flexible so if he ACTUALLY gets hurt hed bleed magic that looks more like lava and any normal blood you see is just the armor- so why does he have a skeleton still instead of being just energy? maybe its gotta be bound to something OH and what if all of the deities started as mortals like a mirror to the trio later on and the gods cannot have direct influence to the worlds so they needed a right hand that is neither god nor mortal but both by killing a mortal by whatever their element will be (demise burned, hylia drowned etc) and their skeleton and spirit is kept but put into a body of magic- OH what if their spirit core is like almost piloting their bodies like a mech in a way bc if youd look close youd see that every strand of magic is actual a hand of their spirit so it makes it more weird and other bc hed be able to reach out with thousands of burning claws of all shapes and sizes like the beheaded forest god at the end of mononoke- SO if hed lose and arm or something all those strands would untangle and rearrange his bones back together-OH MY GOD the whole armor idea works so well for ghirahims dark armor so what if demise had two swords once and lost one and since has forged an armor similar to his own for ghirahim out fo fear of losing him t---

and that all is a process that happens over several weeks and months not rarely while i am drawing something mindlessly and suddendly *have a thought* and omg that makes so much sense-

so "what" inspires my designs? an ever derailing train of thought about making cool thick monsters that arent the evil thing to get rid of for once? cool color schemes? idk it just kinda happens??

[3terna15unshin3]

Connected

—

A/N: idea came from this ask, so thank u anon🥰🥰 it was so fun to think of how Matty and Este’s relationship was seen from the other side like what fans pick up on, and also establish how much they decide to share with fans vs keep to themselves. this concept is so interesting to me but i had a hard time writing from the pov of a fan hahaha so i just did it this way instead :))

This obvs is based heavily on TBSG lore so none of this makes sense if you haven’t read the main fic - go do that first!! and also check out the Instagram AUs, they add to the pizazz

—

“Love, look what I just saw on Twitter. This is hilarious.”

Este points her phone screen towards Matty as they sit in bed on a Sunday morning. He yawns, tired and still half asleep, then blinks his eyes a few times to read what she’s showing him. It’s a tweet from a fan that sits in her mentions from a couple of days ago when a clip from his Zane Lowe interview resurfaced.

megs ⎕ PL4YINGONMYM1ND

thinking about the fact that matty mentioned meeting e.manansala when she worked at a bookstore in manc to zane and in this 2018 interview he said his fav spot in the city is Greenhouse Books …….. what are the chances this is the same bookstore bc that would be so😭😭😭💔💔💔💔 https://manchesterwire.co.uk/?s=matty+healy+give-yourself-a-try/arts&culture/article

jaymie SAW UNDO LIVE trmanb1ackk

→ Replying to PL4YINGONMYM1ND

Hold on you might be onto something

megs ⎕ PL4YINGONMYM1ND

→ Replying to trmanb1ackk

right like okaayyy bookstore worker x customer to lovers notting hill pipeline????? 🤭 huge if true

She watches his eyes scan over the text and a fuzzy smile grow on his face. Matty loves talking about Este when he can—to bring some much deserved attention to her writing—and did so often, but does’t always mention many the details of their relationship. That was until strolling around the Northern Quarter with Zane brought a bit of it out of him.

Este is what brings him back to Manchester the most often, from visiting her family and Cate and Georgia to just needing a bit of a homey feeling from its familiar pubs and nostalgic shops. So, naturally, Matty talked about her in the interview done for the release of Being Funny—explaining how they’d met and how much the city means to them both.

“How they put two and two together is beyond me,” he says, scratching his head. “That Manchester Wire interview was five years ago now, you know. Did you ever read that?”

She chuckles. “Course I did! We had a few fans come in that summer with the sole intention of coming to a place you recommended, actually.”

“Why have you never told me that?” Matty asks, “You’re welcome for the business, by the way.”

“You never even told me about your little shout out, to be fair. I had to find out on my own,” Este teases. “Plus, we weren’t even a thing at that point—we’d met once! Quite creepy, in retrospect.”

“When you put it like that it’s honestly so cringe so please change the subject now.” Matty buries his head in the bunches of sheets that sit in her lap, embarrassed and frankly too sleepy to defend himself.

Este giggles, letting her hands settle into his curls. “Oh c’mon, you weren’t cringe. I’m just pulling your leg. It was sweet,” she reassures him.

“You’re just saying that because you feel bad,” he whines, then rubs his eyes to try and get the sleep out of them. “That’s so crazy that they dug that up, though. I’m not sure if many people know you’ve been around since then.”

“They probably looked at your life in 2019 and figured you were a rockstar with a new girl in every city but in reality you were calling me to get to sleep every night and doing origami in your free time because it reminded you of me.”

Matty’s jaw drops at her blunt comments. “I was about to get mad but I can’t even disagree.” He sits up, raking the hair out of his eyes. “Do people still use the word ‘simp’? Can that be applied to this situation? Was I a simp?”

She throws her head back, mouth wide, as she laughs at how ridiculous his question is.

“Please don’t say ‘simp’, love. You’re 34.” Este squeezes out between her giggles, “But no, people don’t use that word anymore. And yes it can be applied. And also yes, you were. And still are.”

“Proudly am,” he adds.

She leans into his side and he snakes his arm around her waist. They sit there, Matty only in a pair of pyjama pants and her an oversized tee, scrolling through the funny replies to the tweet and how big of a deal some fans were making it.

“You should respond. Tell Megs that she’s right.”

“Seriously?” Este asks, shocked that he’d want her to engage in something so meaningless and speculative.

But alas, he nods casually with a smile. “Yeah. They seem sweet, and just curious. And maybe being such a simp will give me some brownie points,” confirms Matty.

“God, enough of that word!”

Este e.manansala

→ Replying to PL4YINGONMYM1ND

Can confirm🤝

liv livmymistake_

→ Replying to PL4YINGONMYM1ND and e.manansala

MEGS OH MY GOD

Jude 🥾🌎 ittsjudesk

→ Replying to PL4YINGONMYM1ND and e.manansala

UMMMMMMMMMMM

megs ⎕ PL4YINGONMYM1ND

→ Replying to e.manansala

omg hi😭😭😭 are being fr i can’t cope

Este e.manansala

→ Replying to PL4YINGONMYM1ND

Greenhouse is the bookstore i worked at and is where matty and i met that year:)) and hi💌

megs ⎕ PL4YINGONMYM1ND

→ Replying to e.manansala

i think i’m psychic for guessing that🤭🤭🤭🤭

—

megs ⎕ PL4YINGONMYM1ND

k now i’m going crazy bc i had no clue him and este had been dating for that long💀 was genuinely convinced it had been 3 years max

Jude 🥾🌎 ittsjudesk

→ Replying to PL4YINGONMYM1ND

Literally they didn’t post each other until like 2020

sarah🧸 _102sar

→ Replying to PL4YINGONMYM1ND

I think she was at the 2018 Pryzm show too. Not sure but I was at the after party and remember seeing her there lol

megs ⎕ PL4YINGONMYM1ND

→ Replying to _102sar

WHAT…….. this lore being uncovered omg

“Someone recognises you from the Brief Inquiry album release show?!” exclaims Matty in disbelief. “There’s no way.”

They still sit in bed as Este types away, having fun interacting with the small group. He leans his head on her shoulder and watches her as she does it.

“They’ve known you longer than I have, you know. They know their stuff,” she responds.

“Even I don’t remember you being at the Pryzm show.”

Este’s mouth falls open in shock, thoroughly offended. “You prick.”

“I’m joking!” Matty defends through fits of laughter. “C’mon E, I’m joking.”

She knows he is, but enjoys the theatrics of it all; shoving his head off her shoulder and scooting away from his touch in protest.

“That was a special night for me! The first time I saw you play and met the guys! Don’t make fun!” Este pouts, crossing her arms playfully.

“Fine. I take it back, I take it back,” Matty begs, dragging her back over to him and bringing her legs over top of his. He grabs her hand and places a kiss on her palm. “I remember meeting Cate, and introducing you to Louis. And Ross making fun of my gallbladder surgery, and leaving Cate on the dance floor to get drinks, and screaming at each other over the music at the bar. You telling me about the anniversary party. I very much remember!”

“Okay, okay. Enough gushing. I forgive you.”

Matty pecks her palm once more and shuffles her even closer. “Open Twitter back up. This is fun.”

Jude 🥾🌎 ittsjudesk

→ Replying to PL4YINGONMYM1ND and _102sar

This is absolutely shocking bc how did his chronically online ass manage to hide a whole gf that long

megs ⎕ PL4YINGONMYM1ND

→ Replying to ittsjudesk

fr!!! like do we think she was on the abiior tour with them bc i swear jordan absolutely fed us with so much bts content it would be impossible to miss?? someone dig

sarah🧸 _102sar

→ Replying to PL4YINGONMYM1D and ittsjudesk

If u scroll back on her IG u can see Matty in her comments since then. And they’d repost each other on their stories and stuff🥲 So not that hidden if ur a stalker like me lmao

megs ⎕ PL4YINGONMYM1ND

→ Replying to _102sar

thoroughly upset that i missed so much bf matty content </3

Este e.manansala

→ Replying to PL4YINGONMYM1ND and _102sar

Ignore me stalking u🤭🤭 i was indeed at that Pryzm show lol but we weren’t dating yet. And during abiior tour I saw a few UK shows but otherwise i was just in Manc working/being a bad groupie x

Este e.manansala

→ Replying to PL4YINGONMYM1ND

Also matty is sitting beside me now and he is cool with me filling u in (it was his idea) and he says hi. and that u guys are cute

megs ⎕ PL4YINGONMYM1ND

→ Replying to e.manansala

ohhh yes u are a working woman how could i forget!! bookstore worker/groupie same difference. thank u for responding😭 u are the coolest❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥 (also hi matty😳)

Jude 🥾🌎 ittsjudesk

→ Replying to e.manansala

Hi Matty sorry for calling u chronically online x

Este e.manansala

→ Replying to ittsjudesk

He forgives you (but it’s true imo)

liv livmymistake_

→ Replying to e.manansala

este wait i have to know …. since u are a former bookstore girlie turned writer are u the reason matty periodically spam posts a bunch of literature on his instagram stories???? did u convert him to bookstoregirlieism??

Este e.manansala

→ Replying to livmymistake_

I am obsessed with the idea that he was illiterate before meeting me so i’m gonna say yes. thank u for that

Este e.manansala

→ Replying to livmymistake_

Liv it’s me I stole the phone and don’t appreciate this sentiment tbh. You should know I’ve always been a wanker so all the literature spams are just me letting that out and este just enables me. hope that helps x Matty

[l00ney-m00ny]

Just realised I never posted these newer ref sheets for my OCs!!

My art style has changed a lot since I did the other ones and I wanted to redo them, but I also ended up redesigning them a little too hahah lol (shrimp posture, Help)

Me geeking over designs and oc lore down below:

Some designs I kept mostly the same, like 01 literally just changed the colour of her shirt. I changed her eye colour to be less of a gold and more of a brown too, I wanted Obie to be special with having golden eyes. (She also got a girlfriend!! That's what Clementine is here for!)

Fun fact about Moon is that she is actually my first OC ever, like the first one I've ever made, and in the 5 and a half years I've had her, this is the very first time I'm changing her design. The other one was good, but I'm so happy I changed it I like this so much better. I might still use the other one, she is a character who might dress very masculine at times, so yeah. Her head is still like a dice, just eyes instead of numbers!

Tyler has changed the most, outfit wise and lore wise. I wanted to age her down so she was the same age as the rest of the cast, so by doing that she went from cult leader, to weird stalker child? Idk I'm still figuring it out. (Yes, this is cult erasure, I'm sorry.) Before visually she was fully covered up skin wise, but because It's summer and I'm hot its reflected in the outfits I draw.

Elias has changed from his weird overalls I hated drawing to this funner hoodie and cropped turtlneck. Idk I just likes the look, and he's a little bit of a diva so i thought it'd fit. He also has a jellyfish cut now instead of the Wolf cut/mullet he had before.

Obie I wasn't too sure what to do with the shirt, I changes SO MUCH of his lore so now he is a government experiment? Kinda? Think 11 from Strangers Things but also not? Anyways bc I was drawing on a blue background and he has blue shoes and blue wings it was hard to figure out something that didn't clash with his whole thing. Yes, his wings are Catalina Mcaw wings. Personally, I'm not the fondest, I like scarlet macaw and culture crested cockatoos, but my brother LOVES the Catalina macaw so that's what Obie has.

Apollo has a belt and his shirt has sleeves. That's all that's changed.

OKOKOK so! Kathy! If you look at the colour of her turtleneck it's the same colour as Moon's choker, and the purple in her hair is the same vibrancy as the yellow from Moon's jumper, which is the same yellow in Kathy's socks!! All this is very intentional! Same with them both having the same style of jumper. Moon used to work for the Watchers, was basically like their pet/kid, and now that she has left, Kathy is theirs now bc she made a deal with them. They are basically giving her ideas or saying she'd look good wearing certain clothes or colours, because they liked Moon so much they're influencing Kathy to be more like Moon in a way. Isn't that fun!!

Clementine is pretty cool. I git her outfit from pintrest, she is not exactly the opposite to 01? They like the same things, but personalities sometimes clash. Anyways, I love them both.

[basement-buddy]

did you ever run into art block when you first started posting art online? if so, do you have any advice for getting out of it? i recently decided to push through my anxiety and make an art account but found myself unable to draw anything because of how harsh of a critic i turned into thinking its not worth to post even trying to change my style bc my current one doesnt seem nice enough ( ;´ - `;) so im not able to motivate to draw at all these days ;;

I hit art block all of the time and I know this might not work for everyone, but honestly the only way I get through it is just by drawing whatever, even if it doesn’t meet my standards. Take this time to try some new things, learn some new stuff, draw whatever you want without pressure. Don’t worry about posting anything for a bit and just go head first into a bunch of new stuff. And don’t worry about it looking perfect or anything, or trying to meet your own standards or appease the critic inside you. I know that’s harder said than done, but if nothing is going to turn out how you want it right now, anyway, then why not just try something new?

This helps with your style dilemma, too, every few months I get upset about my artstyle, so I just do some studies or follow some anatomy tutorials, some nature drawing videos, get used to seeing something else on the paper in front of you, you know? If you go a while without seeing your style, when you finally get back to it, you can see less of the flaws. Or better yet, you’ve learned some new things that could help fix the things you don’t like about it.

Sometimes it also helps to look at my old art. The younger me would’ve done anything to draw how I am drawing now, and I’m sure it applies to you as well. You’re always improving no matter how much you’re not vibing with your work.

Most importantly, don’t put too much pressure on yourself! Creating something at all is wonderful. No matter how it turns out, you’ve done something most others just mourn not ever trying. I think it’s wonderful that you’ve created an art account, and I’m super happy that you want to share your art with the world, but don’t beat yourself up too hard. Don’t draw something with the intention to post, draw it for you! Back when I first started, I was nervous enough that I wouldn’t post things for upwards of half a year. I would sit on drawings because I was too shy to show them. If it helps, don’t post at all unless you absolutely want to. When you sit down to draw, don’t imagine the reactions, or other artists with other styles, imagine just what you want out of that particular drawing. I had to learn the hard way that posting should ALWAYS be an afterthought.

Sorry if this was rambly, I’m very very experienced with artblock and there’s just so many ways I’ve personally learned to deal with it that it’s hard to organize my thoughts properly. A lot of these are easier said than done, so just take it one step at a time, and remember that you’re doing awesome, that YOU’RE awesome, and no matter how you feel about it, your art is awesome, too! Take it at your own pace and be easy on yourself. ♥️

[hinamie]

hiii hope ur doing well hina :3 i loveeeee your art sososososo much !!! i was wondering how u started developing your own art style??

i used to draw a lot and im trying to get back into it, but all i can do is copy images fkjdg so any advice or even just hearing abt your own experience would be super helpful :D

again realllyyy love your art especially the way u capture emotions its so (chefs kiss)

HIIIII hello hiiii !!! and thank u !!!!!!!

ahhh th art style question :') i think i've told this story before but I'm very much in the same boat in that a lot of my early drawing years were spent copying other people's art that i would find online . not to post or anything obv but i sort of treated them as my own personal studies (this was back in my traditional art days) so i just had sketchbooks filled with art tht was, fr all intents and purposes, Not My Own :'> I don't think it was until i got into digital art and posting my own stuff that i really had to start nurturing a style that i could call my own and it was clumsy and awkward and hard but like anything it gets easier !

and look ik copying (and even to an extent using reference) can get a bit of a bad rep but i honestly think it's such a good way to train the eye and learn what u like and just practice in general . ofc u run the risk of copying another artist's mistakes but that's besides the point rn. at the end of the day the things we like and the media we consume influence us !!! there's no shame in it !!! my style has run the gauntlet of cutesy to whatever tf im working with now and so much of it depends on the media im currently into ! like go back to my tg and yoi days and i think it's so obvious that i was very influenced by more shoujou anime/kyotani/idol game art styles whereas now i think it's Very apparent that my tastes have changed fHFDHh

it's so hard to put a timeline on how u Develop an art style.,, i think it just happens when you're not looking until one day u look at a collection of ur work and go Huh! but tbh even the whole concept of an "art style" is so arbitrary bc it rly is so fluid? like yeah there r elements that might b a bit more specific to each artist but i think those r just more Ingrained habits that we carry with us even while experimenting with other techniques . as fr advice i can offer its probably obvious given th earlier part of this answer but i am, as always, a huge proponent of using references and insp pics and here is my obligatory call to practice practice practice but all that to say i think as long as u r drawing u r on the right track <3

theres this quote by Yohji Yamamoto i think of often tht goes smth like 'start copying what u love and at the end of the copy u will find yourself' and tbh. life philosophy . art and media do not exist in a vacuum so embrace what inspires u to create ! i am like kirby. i see what i like, i Absorb and, to an extent, i Become :)

[mallbangs]

in 2017, i tried to start this project where anyone could call a number and leave a voicemail of literally anything; sounds, memories, whatever they wanted that was tied to a music project called enoshima that had gone dormant until “recently”. i put “recently” in quotes bc i guess we will just have to wait and see (if ur like me with trying to find new music, if u do enough digging on the internet i’m sure you’ll find some stuff) the goal was to use a landline phone with cassette answering machine so i could keep hard copies for a future use of an idea. after buying three used landline phones and phone calls not triggering the answering machines but luckily would still get email copies of the few voicemail audio files i did…in short, the idea failed miserably due to lack of reach, personal reasons, and money because its not free to have a phone number lol and the enoshima project just went dormant with its own reasons as well…

in 2019, i started to brainstorm a more intentional concept that would connect the caller/listener with the music i had started to write (the current project, mallbangs, that i feel lucky enough and honored to work with the people i do now and have had worked with previously, when it always feels so embarrassing for me to release any of it) and the kind of experience i am trying to thread together now, community and a space in the art, music from inside and outside the digital space. i guess attempting to ground the way that i and i think a lot of ppl consume art these days; strictly through their phones.. it’s why i use my music in the voicemail videos and posts with the hope that ppl make the connection that it’s tied together..well.. it sorta started to gain very little traction but better than it had ever previously.

i think the fact that it began to reach ppl was in part due to 2020 and everything that started unfolding that year; pandemic, quarantine, school years and graduations/normal experiences just evaporated, here in the united states the murders of george floyd and rayshard brooks and the summer uprising of 2020.. i could obviously go on… come january 4th 2022, after a year or so of randomly posting about it because i started to think it wasn’t something ppl were really interested in, it went viral. i spent literally 24 hrs, multiple days, no sleep, emptying the voicemail box every 10 - 20 minutes because that many ppl were calling. i got so anxious, and this feeling of guilt because i wanted everyone who was calling to have the ability to leave one. i didn’t want to let anyone down those first weeks. it’s not as intense as it was then but im still emptying the voicemail box multiple times a day. i’m ngl i freaked out. it was completely overwhelming.

through out last year the project, my personal, and music accounts nearly got banned about 20 times or so because i was unaware that i was doing something that wasn’t allowed on a certain platform. somehow, all of the accounts survived, and it’s up to over 80k voicemails. i even started accepting DMs to post just in case speaking was too much for someone and that’s at a few thousand now. started a p.o. box as well and that’s been very little. allowing the project to evolve into web of different formats naturally as it feels that it wants to. i’m not sure if someone’s written words are any easier to absorb than hearing some ppls pain audibly. both written and audio recorded msgs have made me breakdown more than i can count on what seems inevitable but still for unknown reasons to myself, unexpected.

the new song gutter was inherently inspired and written about all of those emotions i had and have been feeling from the voicemails and what not as well as my own personal shit whether i was consciously aware of it at the time or not. some of the time im oblivious when writing. more often than not it just happens melodies and lyrics fall out like word vomit. stream of consciousness or serendipitous i guess. it became evident it was inspired by all of the aforementioned when i started trying to piece together random lyrics it already had ruminating and while demoing it out. the song had started to, in a way, show me what i was trying to convey. which is why you hear the guttural stutter in the beginning and end. its the dying sound of the radio in my car i no longer have for transportation and hundreds of voicemails collaged together in the demo. When i went to actually record the song, i insisted on keeping that collaged stutter of voicemail’s and noise bc it would have lost what i felt made it even more personal for me. idk if this is fucking pretentious or stupid to say, but that incessant stutter is like symbolic for getting drowned out when u need to be heard.. isolation.. denial.. i guess, if the lyrics are even that revealing. i always try to make lyrics not so surface level but yea i think this one is maybe more surface level than others and yea i just think the stutter sounds cool too.

if you’ve been following the music or the voicemail project for a while, this song could either have been a subliminal experience (of) or maybe surface level at best what its place is in either the VM project or in the music; descending from the official version, a demo version lazily titled “sorry demo”, and the early version which was an acoustic demo. the latter of said three versions had long been the de facto voicemail project song for a while, I guess. 

if its familiar to you because you know me its probably because, as you know, I tend to neurotically play so many song ideas on the guitar into the ground that it’s to the point I don’t realize Im playing them when im around y’all lol 

to everyone else, if this song had been familiar at all to you prior to it being released it is because the acoustic demo version was used around that period of time in 2022 when i was repeatedly getting threatened with being banned.. potentially losing the VM project’s account, the art, and the memories of genuine interactions with strangers that I often tend to think isn’t really real sometimes. Like having felt some of you accepted me for me or what I am emotionally/comfortably able to present to you online..and in that sentiment irl I maybe take for granted interactions with new potential friends or even strangers sometimes as well tbh. 

I realize all of that previous paragraph could be redundant, im sorry :/ But, I have such strong passion for the music and the voicemail thing. So much so that i’ve never monetized any of the voicemail stuff. i’ve never made any “merch/products” to sell or have tried to turn it into a business because these things i create or write mean more to me than the idea of “curating for profit”. never intended for any of the voicemail stuff to be a “marketing strategy” thing. the music hasn’t been recognized as part of this thing, probably due to my lack of making the concept of all of this clear, and probably because of my pride in not wanting any of this to be perceived as such. which i know in this capitalistic hellscape it will be ripped off and done in such a way that someone may be successful from it, its already happening as many have pointed out to me.

out of all this silly voicemail thing and my musical attempt, the most important thing i’ve learned is that everyone just needs someone to speak to even if they don’t talk back. someone just to listen. to be able to get lost in music that takes them somewhere they can feel comfortable like i try to do everyday when listening to music. the voicemails, the DMs, writing music.. it gets very mentally and emotionally overwhelming for me.. listening to them everyday, reading the DMs everyday, struggling to gather the energy in me that never seems to wither to just write.. and if someone offered me a path that is without any of that? i wouldn’t take it. even if it meant making some of these lingering feelings just go away for good.

a few people have told me to end the project because they’re afraid of what it could be doing to me. their concern is valid. i won’t deny that. but i feel as if this thing is larger than myself at this point. and i think the take away for me from all of this is that, im just glad this silly little idea may be helping someone when i myself most times feel like i have nowhere to go or no one to run to. and if i die tomorrow ill be at some what of peace knowing that if i have done anything worth meaning in this short experience of life that we all get to share with one another, its the music and this voicemail project and the community, the safe space ..all of whatever the music and this project has given someone…everything i feel that i never had. i feel eternally honored and grateful that if at all, it has helped someone when i couldnt even help myself.

there’s nothing i could give that’s of equal value to the gratitude i have for anyone that has ever left a msg of some sort and has or continues to support this project and the music. so all i can say is thank you.

with all the love i have,

aidy <3

[girlyliondragon]

Pinned Post/About Me

Firstly, if you like my work and wanna support me, Feel free to support me on ko-fi! It’s just a lil’ tipjar is all:

https://ko-fi.com/girlyliondragon

(Strap in, this one ended up being even longer than last time lmao)

Name: Emerald, this is not my real name but an alias. I very much prefer you call me this. Gender: Female Sexuality: Bisexual; I have a sapphic lean typically, but I have no preferences at all when it comes to fictional characters. Do not try to redefine my sexuality please. Age: Currently 27, almost 28 Status: Single FOREVER IRL, I do not wanna even date real people anymore nor deal with the issues that come with it. Hopefully I can get the confidence to say I'm taken fictionally sometime on the other hand. u3u 🙏

This acc started in its early days as a reblog-only account, but then I started actually using it as a blog. It's life has been very shaky and tumultuous, and frankly if I could start it over without losing everything but the things I want to forget I could. But alas, consider this a soft reset.

I am a lover of pastels, bunnies, hyenas, and cats. I've been doing digital art since I was 13 and started off on MS Paint like everyone has, now exclusively sticking to Paint Tool Sai. I do my everyday thing on a pretty shoddy and weak work laptop and draw using a Wacom Intuos Pro. I also do origami as a casual hobby from my childhood now. I also love pet care games and have been nursing a fondness for them again as a dead genre by playing the old 3DS ones I have, and animation will always be my preferred tv/movie style to watch (I prefer 2D so much more tho).

I am autistic and need a fair amount of support (Not everyday 24/7, and I am able to do basic care stuff but the more 'complex' stuff I need help with, unless it's taking care of pets, but I am not able to blend in with non-autistics either like many that talk over us that can't can do), but am not shy about living under an extremely smothering and restrictive home that refuses to let me be a damn adult to learn my own limits, especially in the current political climate. Thus my art and games are my escape, for better or for worse.

Despite the pastels and my like for cute stuff, I can be rather blunt and standoffish if it calls for it. I warm up only to those I trust, which is really hard to get me to do unless I'm certain you're someone I can see myself doing so with. I do try to be cordial but I don't want anyone being weirdly personal with me unless I actively allow that sorta thing, otherwise I get easily uncomfortable if you try and you risk a block. Saying that so that IG to say there is no Umbridge Effect going on here. My presentation is just stuff I like and not an intention to deceive anyone much less to act as a mask. (Especially as I am mask-off now compared to two years ago when I had went severely inactive here as a result of a mental shut down and depression) I have a genuine hatred for the people who do fall into the Umbridge Effect, as they tend to be the most hateful, spiteful and bigoted people. (That's not to say I can't be spiteful, but the context and how it's done is different you could say)

I wish to make money off my art someday but for now I just have the ko-fi in hopes folks tip me through there. I might need it later.

My current fandom fixation is Deltarune, I am a shipper of Suselle and wish I could draw them more often than I do bc I just love them sm, and adore Ralsei as a character, but I love all the mains tbh. I also have a growing crush on Asgore Dreemurr (Who I've liked since UT and that refuses to change in DR) and hope to self-insert myself so I can draw my sona with him and maybe be serious in the future... 👉👈

Do Not Interact/Follow/Do not follow me if you’re (IK these never work but still): Racist, sexist, homophobic/biphobic/transphobic in any degree, ableist, a pedophile (Yes this includes the “non-offending” types, please just get fucking help), a Zoophile in any way/condone and support Zoophilia or are contempt with folks associated with it, a Radfem, a Radinclus, a Nazi, Trump supporter/MAGAt, someone who sends death/suicide threats, are anti-vaxx or agree with its rhetoric in any way, or are a TERF/SWERF, blah blah blah just too much to list here you know the drill.

IF YOU USE OR SUPPORT THE USE OF GENERATIVE AI STAY THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME. If you're even neutral about it don't talk to me.

- Also don't follow/interact with me if you diminish self-shippers experiences with their F/Os and are the type to tell them to "get over" their feelings with their relationships. You are Very Much Not welcome here.

- MAP stands for Multi-Animator-Project to me and forever will be and I will stand by that as an artist. Don’t try to think you’re slick.

- I block liberally. Usually I start with a softblock and hope people respect that before I hardblock. But sometimes I will hardblock immediately, such as if you're an empty acc, or you go rbing old now-private art (I do not want stuff from my past fandom here spread about). Please don’t try to contact me or interact if you see I do soft/hardblock you. You likely made me uneasy/uncomfortable/etc.

Selfshipping Tangent and my relationship with such a thing under cut bc it's longer winded:

My relationship with Self-shipping is so extremely complicated you can't unweave it if you tried, and if you did you'd only get tangled further. I consider myself a reluctant retired self-shipper, though I have been fighting tooth and nail to get myself out of that status as it is not one I chose willingly. My fictional relations and my status as a self-shipper started at the age of 12, rather young for me and when I made my very first OC ever and not only that but to be my partner, this age where I was extremely imaginative was where I developed a sort of "mind space" in my head where I essentially lived alongside my F/Os in my head on the daily life, where I would imagine them and how they'd feel about certain things, think of them as a form of comfort, have conversations in my head with them, and essentially lived day to day with them alongside my already shitty and tumultuous IRL life. It was essentially maladaptive daydreaming that turned into a massive source of escapism and comfort for me, and so the fictional relationships I had were very intense, strong to the point they mingled with my everyday mind, and I think of my F/Os strongly and in a way as if they were real to me, but compared to when I was a kid I am very much knowing they are not and can separate fiction and what happens in it from reality. I never spoke of these fictional relationships IRL, nor will I ever. As of early 2023 however, this intensity has caused me to lose friendships by those that refused to understand this and how it made me interact with people, where the ex-friend group in question (Also containing some people who self-shipped, but they basically saw themselves as more "normal" compared to me) essentially severed my link to fiction, sending me on a downward spiral, and I've lived feeling empty and aimless and lonely for years going through an identity crisis until I found a friend group who actually DID understand my feelings of how I was with fiction. Though that was only one side of the issue dealt with.

I cannot nor should you tell me to get over my connections and strong emotions about fictional characters I love. I will not hesitate to block you now. I've dealt with even a past (and most recent, as my exes before him were very supportive of how I selfshipped) ex among that ex-friend group (Who was also a self-shipper, but ig saw himself as more "normal" because apparently I had to "get over" my extreme feelings of fiction and mingle with shitty irl in his eyes) who tried this and it led to that """relationship""" being destroyed. Ever since I cut them out of my life, I've been trying to mend this part of me, but it is very slow and hard to rebuild something you have created as part of your own self since childhood and so didn't have that imaginative brain anymore, and as a result my ability to connect to fictional characters on the degree I had was and still is a struggle and thus the hard part. This is a part of me, it has always BEEN a part of me, had been a lifestyle for me and a huge chunk of my identity until it had been messed with, and while I'm stuck in a rut, I refuse to have people tell me to change for them so that I am less intense to them any longer.

If that's weird to you, then I want you to at least be able to actually accept it. I am very aware I am not typical. Please don't be like them and tell me you're fine with that, and even enable it, only for me to show how strong it can get and then drop me after that happens. I hate being lied to but I especially hate fake trust over my coping mechanism.

Lately I have had crushes, but nothing that has stuck as strongly to last years and I feel a lot of guilt over this, to where I am very reluctant to still call myself a self-shipper nor deserve the title. I don't treat my fictional others as toys to throw away, nor am I very lackadaisical with my feelings. My current hopping around is not by choice, I actually struggle to find a permanent F/O and keep feelings for them bc of this"fracturing" (as I personally call it) and said lack of permanence and stability has caused me immense distress. My longest F/O relationship was 3 years, including a marriage in those years, the first I've had, but I was made to feel bad about my choice of F/O I stopped shipping myself with them for reasons I don't wanna go over, as a result I've struggled to have such commitment with them to try again, and even harder with later ones. I have yet to find an fictional crush I can see myself in life with the same way, and always feel wrong when I think I potentially could many times with the ones I find. Though I do feel I found one I can now, I can't say for sure yet...

I am extremely selective in regards to sharing F/Os, and sensitive about sharing in general. Friends I tend to be a little lenient with, but this too varied depending on the F/O. I like being validated that I am my F/Os' choice tho. I don't really wanna humor talk you give about how "X is my husband too" or whatever. I'm happy you're happy! But you don't need to tell me and I do lean more on the nonsharing side if you were to put me on a sliding scale. I'm a lot quieter about this than others tend to be tho if anything. ^^'

I am not against Canon x Canon nor have issues with such. I actively ship Canon x Canon of my character crushes if they are taken in canon and I like the relationship (I'm typically drawn to healthy relationships in media, if it's bad, then my feelings are different). IK this sets me apart from many self-shippers, but IG you can say I am not too stingy. - If I end up crushing on both ends of the canon ship and like both characters, I might polyship. I only do this if both are sexually compatible to me. - On a similar note, I don't readily self-ship with taken characters off the guff, I feel weird about it, and I wish to respect their relationship even still, hence the poly self-ship idea, which typically comes after I do a lot of thinking beforehand anyways. I refuse to throw the other half away bc that's just not how my brain works with this.

On that note, respecting characters' sexualities is something I stick very heavily to, and it bothers me a lot to go against it. Thus I will not ship myself with gay male characters, or straight female characters, or any ones outside that binary that aren't into women. This is for my personal comfort, I never liked the "So what if they're *confirmed sexuality here* you can still ship yourself with them!" mindset bc again that is not how my brain works. These characters have full fledged identities and lives to me in my head and so I refuse to go against this sorta thing even for the sake of wish fulfillment, bc it makes me feel extremely uncomfortable and like I'm engaging in erasure. I tend to quietly block people that run by this sorta thinking too.

Do not make me feel bad for my choice in F/O(s) and character crushes. This is kinda obvious and is just a dick move for you to do. My fictional relationships are all consenting and with adults and whatever configuration of F/O be they a big monster thing to villains to demons down to a normal furry is not something to judge someone over. I've dealt with this with my first married F/O and it hurt my ability to enjoy them beyond repair. I will hardblock anyone who does this instantly.

In relation: Don't be those "Selfshipping is fine as long as you're not super serious about it" people. Don't judge me for how serious I selfship or turn on a dime when I show how serious I am about my fictional others/relationships or others that are like me. Those that were of that line of thinking were just like my ex and ex-friend group that dropped me. I want nothing to do with you if you are this.

The vast majority of my self-ships I did get into have no conflict nor heavy angst or drama between me/my sonas and my F/O(s). I wish to have a very happy and domestic life with them with a lot of fluff that lasts a long time and so that reflects on how I self-ship. I only insert conflict if my brain actively can envision it, but there was only one (and I do mean one) instance where this did apply tho I never was out about who it was with, otherwise in other cases it would feel forced. Calmness and stability make me happy and comforts me greatly and is what I need in life rn, and so I wish to grant myself such.

If ya read all this and are willing to understand, tysm and I hope ya enjoy your stay. If you didn't read it all bc it was too long, I get it, tho you lose a lot of context for why I act the way I am when I do try to mend myself back into self-shipping again in the future. If you read all this and think I'm weird, I hope ya find a blog that suits ya better, and I don't mean that passive aggressively, it just means we won't get along is all and you're better off somewhere else. Just don't be a douche and I'll not acknowledge ya if that's what you prefer.

That is I think all. Ty for reading. <3

[stellarcobweb]

things tht ive been feeling pulled to do/learn fr the spiral (this started with the intent of former sentence but then Things Happened and idk where that train of thought went. ended up rambling)

read house of leaves

learn the most complicated shorthand ever

make a cipher and use it religiously. make needlessly complicated

remake playlists

buy kaleidoscope

linguistics for some reason (language is bullshit. im learning toki pona and asl. i wish i

on the topic of toki pona ve been staring at different writing systems and im feelin particularly drawn to the . sitelen kule. that sounds so fun and so annoying /pos

retroactively associating my sudoku and nonogram obsession w spiral

i really like symbolism. edvard munch is my fav artist bc i feel like i can sink my teeth real hard into his art. also abstract art

............i think ihave dyscalculia and also general sleep cycle and time issues. i literally had an appointment in the middle of writing this that told me i spend like 35 mins under 90% oxygen and def have sleep apnea. wild. also time is bullshit. ALSO i have such insane issues differentiating right and left

sometimes my ability to speak english is just Fucked. hell language

i wish i could use the lunisolar calendar by default tbh. alternative calendar systems are my ideal. my memory is so fucked my brain decides on like. "it happen when i was 8 - when The Mental Illness started, when i was 13/14 - when i first started dating my ex, when i was 16 - when my dad died, or after i turned 21 - breakup w ex and also i can drink alcohol now". i wanna bust out new calendars and have new and exciting ways to figure time out. legit. i wanna b inherently confusing to everyone around me its The Ideal

astrology probably but tbh i also associate that w various others if going off of Smirke's labelling of fears

occasional urge to get into pottery and buy some really nice clay to play with. i wanna make mugs and bowls that i can use tbh. playing w Good Clay in art class literal years ago rewired my brain

want to stare at fractals (i misspelled that as frals for a sec n tbh. real)

my memory is hell. zero object/emotional permanence, real bad memory issues, sleeping is complicated and my sleep cycle relies on the stars aligning and fucks itself up super easy. also chronic delusions. most of this isnt that much of a bother tho tbh . the delusions upset me the most but thats moreso bc i hate being wrong and falling Out of delusions moreso than the delusions themselves. yes i am an angel no i cant explain why. yes sometimes i dont think im one however i am Wrong

bookbinding ....... making a leitner sounds fun. also i want to make an ARG - i CAN MAKE AN UNFICTION/IMMERSIVE FICTION/ARG BOOK. house of leaves style. i feel like itd end up being web/spiral/eye and possibly also /lonely or others tbh. just based on what i like writing about. poss /hunt as well. millioms.

web stuff i want/like doing (theres more here but the Spiral yoinked me into focusing on it instead so. shrug. unfinished)

want to learn to code. no idea what language yet

dolls. just realized i could combine this and spiral clay and make spiralweb dolls. (also techinically stranger too but tbh i dont see stranger and spiral as . all that separate . same w slaughter and hunt not being all that separate. based entirely on how i myself perceive them obvi. i should work on my conpantheon ...)

yarn. crochet, knitting

lace, crossstitch, embroidery. thread

sewing tbh. i get urge to grab various fabrics just as bad as i get w yarn and tbh its sometimes worse bc making plushies is my hobby

[cheswirls]

oh the woes of having multiple hobbies....

i think it being artfight month is making me sink back into the 'i shouldn't want to do anythin but draw until this is done' mood i usually have during the semester which is.. ick, kinda

the other day i had the urge to write (unmedicated too!! that doesn't happen very often anymore!) and i should've jus acted upon that but i ended up guilttripping myself w the whole 'you should do art instead its only 30 days its only once a year' which is already so suffocating. i ended up doing neither actually in part bc i psyched myself out abt making a choice so in the nd i made no choice (typical when unmedicated so this is the okay-ish norm tbh) and think i tired myself out enough to go to sleep. i woke up to an art file on my laptop so i intented to start smth i guess

also i think checking out an ipad from campus during the semester is so much easier to draw on vs the hassle that is drawing on my display tablet these days. i miss my wacom if only bc it was wireless and thin and easy to power on and get going. with this new tablet i have to plug in 3 diff cords and its bulkier nd i gotta scoot my laptop on my desk to still be in reach bc the tablet has no touch function and it takes A LOT of power and effort out of my laptop thats 12 yrs old now. it makes drawing digitally that much more of a chore tbh and is partially the reason i've doodled so much traditionally in the past year and kept all my digital art for uni work only

which another point. is uh. idk i think i'm rambling now but. last year i got super excited for artfight and drafted a bunch of stuff digitally and was sitting at the coffee table in the main room of my apt for the first time in so long and it was going well until i got rly into tetherverse again n started working on the sequel like mad and that stole away a lot of my drawing motivation. i had two handfuls of of artfight attacks sketched and only ever finished a SINGLE one last year which was terribly disappointing. and then i think realizing that at the end of the month absolutely killed my desire to work on the writing project i'd grown so passionate about too. vicious cycle all around rly.

i dont want it to be llike that this year but once again now that artfight is here even tho its a fun thing i've made it a "requirement" in my mind which kills all my passion to work on it. i think the term is... obligation? when something turns from doing it for fun into an obligation i Have to complete then i lose allllllll motivation and desire to do it. it's THEEE reason i'm always telling my dad i could never write books for a living, bc writing is a hobby first nd foremost and although i enjoy it a lot i know as soon as i become tied down to a project and i Have To complete it or face consequences then it will suck all the fun out of it

this is the same way for school and part of the reason uni's been so hard since.... ever, really, and it's jus taken me long to realise it. i get really into an art project at the start and then as deadlines and check-ins and such creep up i become less and less engaged. i have no trouble completing things in one sitting if given the time to do so if i'm 100% invested and engaged. during spring break 2022 i stayed up for almost three nights and two days and did nothing but research and write almost 25k for a fic opener. if i had work or anything else those days i literally cannot recall. the only thing i remember doing is taking a break to walk 15min to go and pay rent and that's when it rly set in how much caffeine i'd had and how long i'd been up writing.

all of that to say that if i'm into something i can waste away working until it's done. i've said this before bit making a wip folder for art Killed™ my art creating process. i used to have one file open and work on it until it was done, and if that took me more than one full day then i'd sleep on it and finish it the very next day. i don't rmember that happening very often. now i leave things unfinished all the time and its terrible. i also have a Lot Less free time to be fair but also. also. i cannot multitask so as soon as i save a wip and move on to the next it fucking bites the dust. i've gotten into the habit of leaving smth unfinished in another window on csp in hopes that i'll jump bck to it but i stopped that after a while bc i jus collect windows like i collect internet browser tabs.

i also think to go along w the time thing.. i have to mentally acknowledge that i have sufficient time to devote to smth. i'm not the type of person that can do smth for 15 min then jump up and do smth else. if i could write 100 words a day for a fic every day then i'd have far, far less wips than i do now. its harder especially to do this for fic bc a lot of what i do is longer work and sometimes i have to sink into it. if i'm writing for a 50k+ fic i haven't touched for even a month then i need time to go over what i have and what my plans are. it's much harder to work on a longer fic after a bit has passed than it is to pick up a shorter one bc it requires less time to dive back into the world. especially if its been like 6mo-1yr, before i even start writing again i gotta reread everything i've written up to that point. that takes more than a day, and i might get tired and move on to smth else before i've even finished rereading which is so exhausting. it's exhausting to work on so many diff things at once.

with art that means i gotta have time to fight w my display tablet and get everything settled. it takes so much work and effort that if i only have a couple hours, i feel like even that's not enough bc i know i'll have to stop before i'm done. if it takes me 90 minutes to get into drawing and i gotta be ready to leave in another 30 then like whats???? the point rly???? that's how i think tho!!!! it sucks !!!!! if i'm up at 8am but ik i have smth to do at 5p then my whole day revolves around that thing happening in 9 hrs. when it hits 12p i theoretically have enough time to do smth but executive dysfunction makes it hard to pick a singular task to prioritize, and when its 3hrs away from w/e i have to do suddenly nothing is worth it anymore. i'm very much a 'sink into it' creative person which means i cannot jus dive in and work on smth. i gotta have music, i gotta have some focus, i gotta be comfortable, i gotta have my mood set to w/e i'm doing, i gotta know what direction i'm going in,a nd i gotta have energy and enthusiasm to do said creative task. all of that aligning w/ inattentive adhd is so hard and makes life so miserable, but this is compounded even moreeeeeee by not being able to work unless i make my mind feel like i have ample time to do so. mainly bc if i get rly into smth then have to stop for an obligation that i'd rather do less (mainly work! rather would do anything but work but alas) than what i'm doing currently then it drains all my energy very rapidly and i get so disappointed. w/e i'm doing after, whether it be work or class or w/e, is with an air of such disdain bc it interrupted the 'special thing i was doing' that it makes life hell in all honesty. i want to put myself thru that the least amount of times possible which is why i never start anything i know i'll have to put down w/o being able to finish. let me rephrase that. being able to finish as i'd like it. working on a super long fic but writing enough for a chapter or running out of steam on my own and finishing a scene and then being dragged away to smth else is fine, bc i've "finished" on my end even if not in full. it's being interrupted in the middle of the process when i'm not ready to quit, basically. that kind of "finished" is what i mean. if i have 2 hrs and it takes me an hr to find references and i'm not exhausted after that then another 20m to sketch smth decent and only with like half an hr or so left am i into what i'm doing then what's the point?? especially when, as established, i can push a drawing into the wip folder and forget abt it if i'm no longer "into it" when i'm back and have time to draw again.

long rambling i'm tired of but basically it's the season of drawing obligations again and i wanna try this year to have fun and do what i want but ALSo not feel guilty abt doing smth that is not drawing for other ppl, which i already do so much of year round anyway (i love it, this is not a complaint). i wanna be able to write and play pkmn and read and do whatever and not feel like i Have to be artfighting every second of the day.

[hekatekun]

yaoi was horrendous this week genuinely great job i am always obsessed with your uncanny ability to put todomatsu under a magnifying glass and burn him like an ant ^__^ cannot wait for chapter 5!!! i noticed a change in direction though particularly in how you characterize todomatsu's interactions w atsushi which i really liked!! i am curious though what prompted it :33

thank you^^<3 there's probably a few different reasons both intentional and unintentional. to start, ccckk will have 10 chapters, however in its original "outlining" i intended to have 9 chapters

i've shared my hyperlinked table of contents on a few different posts now, mostly as cockteasers. but also i literally don't think i could navigate the google doc without it atp

i think theres like 30k of it published? so there's on average at least 1-2k worth of a scene in all 6 of the unpublished chapters that i've chipped away at over the last 3 years, bc ofc some are more developed than others. there's never been a solid outline for ccckk but rather a string of scenes i knew i wanted at certain intervals, like milestones, and i had wanted to retro-engineer the rest around those concepts

with that in mind, ch10 isn't a real chapter but more like a coda i wrote right after publishing ch1 and so the rest has been "how do i move the story from ch1 to this epilogue?" the plot is only in the first 9 chapters, so i structured it with three "acts" in mind and tried to have the chapter titles reflect that - both for my own amusement and to ground the ideas better lest i forget what wasn't written yet. so if ch4 starts "act 2" then it should show off that shift. but also, i never intended ccckk to be a slowburn, more like a...... medium burn ig? it's supposed to be a todomatty character study first and foremost, after all

each chapter should feel episodic to some extent, since i paced it on individual chapter "goals" rather than wordcount or anything (tbh i actually thought i would only ever hit ~50k total but if i'm not even halfway done and i'm at 30k now? jesus fuck. fuck me. what the fuck did i do.) if i've planned/structured the story like i'm fitting individual glass pieces into a metal frame, then by god you're gonna get the yaoi-est stain-glass art you've ever seen outside church in your life. it's why ch4 utilizes something like a montage, to show that ~passage of time~ and what that did to their dynamic now in this act 2

as to what that situationship dynamic actually ended up looking like on the big screen, i definitely blame @moeatsushi's art for that one^^ a lot of it made me realize i could definitely make them..... messier? nastier? gayer? [insert tumblrbait adjective]? for a lack of a better word. and that i could balance That with the surrealist realism that i wanted to achieve when translating the show into prose. also helped me get out of a general writer's block<3

beyond all that, i think part of it comes from me now being 23 writing yaoi instead of writing yaoi at 20. not that my brains developed any more, but my opinions have changed. like, to the point i find it hard to read the previous chapters when i have to reference them. ch1 really is a mark of shame to me ngl only god knows how i wouldve wrote it now. i had a friend look at it a few weeks ago and they called that shit "college freshmen posting on wattpad" 😓 which is already how i felt about it but whatever. post and move on. i (probably) won't repost/edit since that's more work that no one's paying me for, and it (probably) isn't as bad as my perfectionist monkey brain feels. anyway this isn't about being emo it's my precursor to admitting that there's a good chance i went off script bc i refused to look super close at my own goddamn source material/notes and decided winging it was better out of a mixture of laziness and pride at the cost of tighter consistency/characterization

[masschase]

you can answer now or later but i’d be interested to hear you rank all the games

Getting drunk, want to ask me anything?

Ok I'm not there yet, I've had 3.5 shots now and I only feel a little tipsy but I'm wary bc my mum made this stuff and gave it to me last year so the % is a mystery. It may suddenly hit me while writing.

Anyway, oh my god so really like this is so hard because I know I'm not supposed to like 4 but you all know I do 😆 but also I find it really hard to rank games? To me it's hard enough to rank which of all the games/series I like I like best(fwiw I mostly rotate around Borderlands, Binding of Isaac, The Sims if it counts and obviously SR but there are definitely others that are my favourites on some days) and then SR I see as a whole in a way because of the way I've written it! Not a cop-out I swear like genuinely ranking is something I really struggle with and then I wonder if that's weird?

I guess how much I enjoy just hopping on them and fucking about them it's like 4, 1&3 joint, 2(probably jusr bc I've not played it much), gooh. And then I say this and I'm like what do I actually do on sr4 on my switch at the moment? Usually dress Casey up, take screenshots, leave. Anyway if I was looking at how well written they are I'd probably concede to 1&2, 3, 4, GOOH bc like 1 and 2 are linked for me like here's the thing. (Also I'm sorry but GOOH is something where I've used some plot points but a lot have been removed from my hc over time but I really didn't play that much of it. I liked that there were musical numbers though and giving me the new planet ending ofc bc thats been handy. But acrually... what would I have come up with without that ending but still following 4? I'm super curious)

Anyway back to 1&2. There's some stuff the creators knew in 1, right? That isn't *in* 1 but they knew it? Right? I've said before my favourite story arc just in terms of writing is just the whole arc between Playa and Julius. Idk nowadays I wish there was more like that in the later games. I wish the narrative weaved throughout a lot better. When I was first playing though I wasn't as concerned, like I always said I wanted games with an interesting storyline but I wasn't too bothered with amazingly written.

Also at the same time I like weaving a story around what we are given. Obviously I was intent on writing a romance. But I do sometimes think about writing the whole thing, in my canon adjacent manner. Start to finish. I see these games all spanning a matter of months so there is a lot that goes on that we don't see. But then again I lose confidence in writing it bc I lose confidence in my own oc. It doesn't help that I characterise her differently on tumblr than my fanfic because I started off just wanting to do silly cartoons. Like I never thought art as such, I thought... accompany my writing with a visual, you know? I thought if I started with some little moments I could work up to telling the more serious and/or romantic shit later I guess? Shout out to my friends I rp with for helping me get back to that more tangible real person Casey bc I obviously do love her. In her own way. Even if I don't want to. Kind of like SR4.

Anyway to get back to thr point I was going to say, this will not surprise anyone but I haven't sunk a lot of time into the games. I finished 4 years ago and restarted on switch bc I traded in my 360 version ajd lost my XB1 version. I finished 1 years ago and I don't have it anymore because I used to work in a game shop and could borrow most pre-owned games for a month, i should re-buy it digitally. I semi-finished 3 and then went back and finished it this year. And I haven-T actually finished 2, although I've watched it all which I know is not the same. 🥲 so yeah. I'm a fail fan. My brain wants to create and create and create things for this series (ok maybe not in the last few weeks but its still been on my mind. Like a lot) but I'm genuinely sorry if they're lacking in substance sometimes because of all of this.

I was going to replay them all in order this summer but I didn't. I have maybe an hour or so a day when I can actually play whereas I can write or draw or rp with smol people around or on the bus to/from work. When I worked in the game shop that really sucked out my passion for games. I know it sounds silly bc I was selling them not playing them but it did do that. I think it was mostly just having a full time job that did it and some of it being gaming was coincidal. But hey at least I played SR1 for free right? 😆

BTW I constantly think about if I went the route of having my SR1 Playa I made be the actual Playa, maybe sr2 Boss too and then Casey take over later and be the original age I guess I would've seen for her? Idk that would have been interesting. Don't think I don't love working it all into one too though! You know I have such a soft spot for baby Casey 😭 in fact of the in-game you've seen her the most. I mean think about it, most of my content is post-sr4 not during. Actually a lot of it is gap filling in general. It's something I like, obviously.

Just to go back to like... the shifting hcs thing. It's not super evident but a lot has changed since I wrote my fanfic. I'm not going to go crazy main universe, I'll save that for AUs. But there are a few things I've tweaked in the back of my mind because I've let go of canon a little. I used to be glued to canon, now we're in an intricate little dance. Anyway this is long enough already. I sort of answered. It may seem like a spineless dodging the point way. But I've said on numerous occasions my hcs change regularly, and the same is true here tbh. Its very mood dependant, what I want to play.

But if nothing else interesting comes from this I AM PURCHASING SR1. POSSIBLY RIGHT NOW. IT'S BEEN YEARS. I WANT TO PLAY IT AGAIN. :D

BTW I'm sure a little while ago I noticed Dex says "aight" but his subtitles say "alright" whereas Troy says "alright" but his subtitles say "aight"? Like if it was just one of them fair could just be the difference between writing and speaking but I think they're flipped? Anyone know what I'm on about?

[tarantula-hawk-wasp]

sometimes you need to tell yourself “im a shit writer” and then Write Anyways. 

[nanjokei]

on what is considered "official art" and conduct between fandom across the globe

i think there is a fascinating cultural difference between what is considered free to use by fans in the """west""" in general and specifically japan. in recent years, the playing field has become somewhat leveled: most people who are in the know know that fanart should not be reposted or used without permission whether it be for copyright reasons or just out of respect for the human being who made it, but it's ok to use what is agreed upon to be "official art"—

er, what IS official art? if you ask the answer is different between regions. tying back to strict copyright, a lot of japanese fans will consider even anime screenshots a big no-no, because they are not yours, unless they were posted to be used (for example when an official twitter account gives out heavily embellished promotional graphics to use as icons and sometimes headers). so really, there isn't any such thing as "official art is ok" unless the express worded intention of the rights owner is "you can use this". of course, not everyone observes it, but it IS upheld and kinda faux pas to violate. and i said japan specifically because other nearby countries like s korea and china, their fandoms aren't so strict (i assume bc the rights holder can't do shit outside of japan), but they still uphold rules if a creator says it out loud. i'll come back to this later

for us, official art is anything coming from the horse's mouth really, be it magazine scans, promotional art, standing images, art from the original artist/mangaka, game files— these are free reign to this side of the globe culturally. it's not a social faux pas and in fact considered more ethical to do this (but not to be trumped by just making your own rendition, still). now for stuff like magazine scans, that stuff is definitely very NG because it's sold, you have to buy the magazine to see it. but due to inaccessibility in early animanga fandom days (and honestly, for a lot of magazines, you still need savvy to get your hands on them), a culture of sharing with others was born. the topic of how and why cds and magazines are still alive in japan is a conversation on its own so i won't go into it. it's a whole can of worms we can open another day.

for anime and commercial games, it's honestly whatever right? like who cares. what i wanna circle back to is individual creators tackling the culture gap here. your indie game, web manga/novel, music etc creators of the world/internet. though i'll mostly use indie game devs as an example as those cases i am most familiar with. in japan AND other eastern countries, there's a level of respect leveraged to the individual creator's wishes— they're usually simple requests like DON'T USE OR EDIT MY ART. my beef here is, why do people on this side have so much trouble respecting guidelines? some creators will allow people to use even in-game files, so long as it isn't edited. but they ask, for example, their personal art not be used.

a segway but, this is also a difference that exists in japan (i'm not sure about other places), but an artist that works on an official work... not all their art is "official art"! for example, an artist who makes art for an otome game. they may doodle a character they like. i think by our definition, this is considered official art, but in reality it is FANART. a lot of them will cover their asses just to be safe and explicitly state it's fanart so it's not misconstrued as official art— often either so as not to influence the work with their own personal expressions OR not to get in trouble with the rights holder. this is really important to know in this topic

and yes, even if the characters belong to an individual creator, sometimes their art can be personal art that they don't want people to use. it's really not hard to grasp and yet there are cases of artists being peeved by the actions of overseas fans (i try to avoid using "western" as much as possible bc its such a weird term that leaves a bad taste in my mouth, eastern too but lol). one case where a creator halted a translation project due to them being sick of overseas fans using and editing their art after trying to get them to stop several times but to no avail. i'm surprised this isn't happening more often because honestly i'll be frank for a second and say that while they tend to skew young, fans of free games have no excuse. i understand it's either immaturity or "it's online so i can take it" culture OR most likely, i think it is the cultural misunderstanding of "it's official art". but also in that specific case, a certain western indie game dev commented that that creator "should be grateful that people are playing their games at all". are you for fucking real?

you literally only see """western""" fandom commit such faux pas though. is it individualism? is it because i am raised in a collectivist culture that i don't fully get it? the subject fascinates me until it gets to thinking about the disrespect of indie creators. then i just get kinda smad