#just april and i'm not even asking for anything that insane unless you want insane and sorry for posting about feelings✌️

[melissa-titanium]

the ask game stuff..001 for N nd doll (giggles

GO FUCK YOURSELF . but thank uou... anime berdly emoji . ill answer...FOR NOW

001 | send me a ship and I will tell you:

when I started shipping it if I did: VERY RECENTLY ACTUALLY id say within the last like two weeks. ive always loved doll and always loved n but then i realized like. oh huh i connect alot with n and want to make out with doll . boom. its like borderline selfship at this point its cringe as fuck but let me do whatever i want.

my thoughts: surprisingly i don't have as many thoughts on them as i did but i feel like. because of how much of a foil doll is to uzi i think thats the word it would be like. IDK i feel like for doll it'd help to understand the 'humanity' of the dds. if she witnesses a disassembly drone killing war machine trip over his own tail or bump his head into a doorframe and wince and laugh and talk and hug with gentle arms and do things that she specifically reprogrammed herself NOT to do so she'd have a better chance to kill her worst enemy and avenge her parents... she would short circuit. to actually get to the point of not killing him on sight would take a while or lots of coercing via ... lizzy? or hell maybe even uzi im not sure. unless they had an individual encounter (which, you know, could totally happen! doll out in the wastes and n is on a solo hunt, you know her ass was following them.) that lead to a stalemate, i'm not sure how they'd even meet. HM OK NOW IM THINKING ABOUT THIS. either way tho n has a habit of befriending insane drones (or like... smoochin depending on how you see enzi tho i see them as platonic) and i think he could. Not fix her but he could be there for her bless. and again i think she could help him be not a doormat 💛 also stupid hc i had aboit them i hv always thought doll to have like... a freakishly good memory. which, works perfectly paired with n because like .you know. his memory prahblems . dolls ass can remember the angle of your arm when you were like fucking sitting on a chair on the 13th of april last year or some shit like she PAYS ATTENTION even if she doesn't often share her input... which is also a good thing bcos n is super inclusive always. n voice DOLLLL LOOK WE ARE DOING A THING!!!! :D & shes just like. sighs okay (comes ova 2 him) and eventually.. i think itd get to the point where she can go do shit on her own without being explicitly invited YAY

What makes me happy about them: gotta bring up the Me & My Wife shit again bcos its borderline selfship at this point. i just think its interesting and awesome I REALLY HOPE THEY HAVE AN INTERACTION... tho i doubt it; i think they might fight or smt in ep 7 WHICH HONESTLY I WOULDNT BE SAD ABOUT my goil needs moe screenrtime

What makes me sad about them: doll probably hasnt experienced like. affection in fucking ages & frankly n really hasnt either. i think they'd hold hands and talk about their kill counts. also i just realized they both kind of went thru a period of time tht was little socialization only KILL. doll had school & lizzy, sure, but also living in an apartment with ur parents' & dozens of others' corpses its like. tht fucks w u. but the interesting thing about them is… n and doll don't experience guilt over Killing And Eating People the same way i think. like. just for example v and uzi do (atleast in my perception). like v couldnt cope with the knowledge she had so she fell extra EXTRA hard into her role (atleast using her maid self as an accurate portrayal of her old self) and uzi has never ever experiuenced anything like that before so its fucking terrifying to her. however, with doll and n… they dont percieve it the same way. we understand that both of them are capable of guilt but it takes a very strong connection for them to experience it. ep one; n feels bad for making uzi argue with khan & ruining the card game. does he say a single thing about killing and eating half a dozen workers? No! because it's natural to him. there's nothing out of the ordinary in that situation except for the fact that he was "rude" by interrupting someone & "rude" by causing an argument. yes, he's very sweet and patient and all of the above but he doesn't see killing as really a BAD THING… he sees it as a necessity; as him being useful, higher numbers means hes doing a good job. but, really, that's all he's known. he doesn't remember being a worker. after meeting uzi he's capable of realizing… oh, these are living creatures! i feel a little bad now. but the guilt doesn't come crashing down onto him and leave him utterly devastated at his kill count, it just sits there. it festers. similarly, in my opinion, to how doll reacts to guilt. we see her as this unstoppable force at every point until the end of promening. she knows her goals, she knows what she has to do to get to them, and has shaped herself into the perfect killing machine to do what she needs, removing all forms of guilt from her person to make sure it doesn't get in the way. though, again, it comes bubbling to the surface back from where she buried it so deeply under all her anger when uzi pops her emo little head in. she isnt instantly all "oh my god, what have i done?" but it eats away at her all of this fucking time, she has been killing and hurting her kind, believing she was the only one who could possibly shoulder this burden and deal justice to those who deserved it. but now that she knows she isn't alone… it festers.

things done in fanfic that annoys me: i've seen like three n/doll fics literally EVER but i'd honestly say. major mischaracterization of doll... i feel like doll gets mischaracterized more than n? n's behaviours are easy to understand and read with a surface level understanding because he has more screentime and again ON THE SURFACE looks relatively simple. i think a huge thing in some fanfics that bugs me is that. imitation of speech patterns = perfect characterization WHICH IS NOT TRUE... but also understandably makes it difficult to do with doll because she doesn't talk alot, while N talks a LOT so it leads to a heavy imbalance in mischaracterization. just because the characters would fucking say that, doesnt mean they would Fucking Do That

apparently there is a word limit on tumblr. pleasantly surprised this will be two posts instead

[dash-the-guitar-ghoul]

Ghost OC Week Part 7

April 9th - Exploration - Feel free to choose anything about this character you wish to elaborate on. If you wanted to dive deeper into their relationships or if you wanted to explain their past more, or if there’s anything at all that you want to talk about now is the time!

TW for character death and emotional abuse.

I left this day to talk about my past and how I regained my memories. 

I went for a pretty long time without knowing anything at all, and to be honest, it had kind of stopped bothering me now that I had Swiss. But, one insane day, someone new showed up in the cafeteria when I was having lunch. One of the bus boys came up to me and started talking to me like he had known me forever. I thought maybe he was mistaken, and then he mentioned a birthmark I had on my hip. It's nothing special, just a bit of discoloration in a weird shape…but no one really knows about it unless they have spent a lot of time with me naked. I'm not even sure Dew noticed it and we fucked a lot..but this man knew something that no one else should have known. And to be honest, as excited as I was, I was also incredibly scared. He said his name was Soot (created by @popias-gloves ) and he told me we had been quite an item back when I lived in hell, before I was summoned. He told me so many things..how I didn't look like I used to (basically confirming that my hair was definitely never white before), how the mother I never knew I had was desperately looking for me, and most of all how much it hurt him when I disappeared. He also told me my real name…Shade. 

The shock of it all left me a little reeling, but considering how much I had always wanted more information about myself, I agreed to meet up with Soot later in his room. Swiss almost didn't let me, or at least didn't want me to go alone. I didn't understand why at first, but considering Swiss seemed to always have a sixth sense about these things, I should have listened. 

When I met up with Soot that night, he told me more about my life. How we met at a show with a band I had formed and had some mild success in, how the two of us fucked within probably a couple hours of meeting underneath the stage, and how our relationship, while rocky at times, was full of passion that Soot said he had never felt with anyone else before. 

It was that same passion that made Soot want to see if I remembered anything from our past. That's why he asked me to kiss him. To be honest, I almost wanted to see if maybe kissing him would help me remember anything, even if it meant kissing someone who was not my own mate. But, when I let him do it, I didn't feel like I expected. Really, I just hoped I felt nothing…I loved Swiss and he was all I wanted. But when I kissed Soot, I actually felt…fear. Once that happened, I hurried up and left as politely as I could and immediately told Swiss what happened. I was lucky Swiss wasn't angry with me, but I think the fact that I told him how it scared me helped. I never understood why I felt that way until months later…when everyone in our church was forced to go back to Hell.

Going back to Hell was just the product of a lot of missteps our little church took over the years, but we found out later that another rival Church in Genoa had a hand in it too when they got a little power hungry and tried to take over. Long story short, we got everything back, but shit was crazy for awhile.

Before any of that happened though, a lot of things changed in my life. I found out Swiss actually had powers but they were so dangerous that they were suppressed and his memory blocked every time it was mentioned for his own and everyone else's safety. However, just finding out this information sent me on a little trip to a corner of Hell I had never even been to and introduced me to the most hideous Dealer ghoul I had ever seen. I eventually got out of that alive, but I was injured enough to keep me incapacitated for a few days. While I was injured, Soot had apparently gone through his own soul searching and told me that he lied to me about our relationship and how we weren't as happy as he had made it seem. Sure, we had a lot of passion…but he was incredibly jealous of the attention I was getting in my band, mostly because people would practically throw themselves at me since they wanted to sleep with me. However, I didn't help to keep them away by covering the mating mark that Soot had left on my neck. Soot and I had apparently fought all the time over things like money, food, my job etc..but when he found out me covering his mark, we fought so much that he left me. 

The problem was that once he left, I found out that I had a bit of a stalker who ended up finding where I lived. I had seen her before at shows and knew her name, but I kept turning her down every time, I just never told her why. But, that night, after my fight with Soot, I did what I always did and took comfort in the first body I could find and invited the girl in my house. 

Unfortunately, Soot thought that maybe he could come back and make up with me and ended up finding us fucking in the bed that him and I shared. At the time of my injury, that was where Soot's story stopped. He lied to me again and just said he left again and didn't tell me the rest of the story (but I'll get what really happened in a moment.)

Not long after this, a pandemic hit the entire Church. We found out later that the water supply was contaminated making everyone violently ill, but since I never drink tap water (I'm a soda addict) I was never affected. Since I was still being punished for my unauthorized trip to Hell to get more info about Swiss, I was recruited to help heal the sick ones. But, since I am only one ghoul and my power is pretty rare, I asked that my mother Andromeda be summoned to help. 

Soot told me about her, she had black hair like mine used to be, and had the same color eyes. We we're also both quintessence ghouls, hence why our powers manifested as healing as opposed to how the other elements manifest. Coincidentally, my father, who was a fire ghoul, had also disappeared one day, kind of like I did, so Soot said I never knew him and was raised by my mother. 

When my mother arrived, we didn't have much time to get to know each other right away because we had work to do. But once it was all over, I started to get the feeling why Soot and her didn't get along, and also why he said that she and I had a strained relationship while I still lived in Hell. Not that she didn't care about me, that I could tell for sure, but it was almost like she wanted what was best for her and not for me. I didn't understand it fully until later, but felt an inkling of it when she made Swiss feel guilty for not living in the same dorm as me. The two of us didn't really care and spent most nights together anyway, but moving all our stuff together was impossible where we were and Swiss didn't want to leave the band wing because it would take him away from his family, the band. I understood, and didn't really care too much, but my mother made it seem like it was wrong for us to not cohabitate all the time when we were already mated. Little did I know, we had more problems than she wasn't telling me.

To get to the final part of this story, our little trip to Hell was a game changer for me. Apparently, my first trip to Hell didn't cause anything to happen because we weren't in the area where ghouls lived. But, when we were forced to go there this time, my memories came flooding back and I basically passed out from the pain. 

When I woke up, I remembered everything. My life with my mother where she never let me pursue my dreams as a guitarist and kept trying to get me to be a healer like her. It was actually her fault that I lived in a tiny house, struggling to make ends meet because I wouldn't let her make me do something I didn't want to do. 

But, the worst of all…Soot and I were responsible for the death of my stalker, causing us to bury her in my own backyard. 

The story that Soot didn't want to tell me was that he didn't just leave after he found me cheating on him. The real story is that when he found me, the three of us argued and apparently, my fuck buddy for the night got on Soot's bad side enough that he attacked her. She didn't stand a chance against a fire ghoul who had been raised to be a fighter and she was practically ripped to shreds before I could even stop Soot. 

After we buried her in my yard, I let Soot stay with me for awhile, but he scared me every day. I felt forced into sleeping with him for fear that he might end up hurting me if I didn't pretend that I still loved him. Looking back at it, maybe it was for the best that I was summoned because that allowed me to get away from Soot, and technically also allowed me to meet Swiss too, until the moment I got my memories back, I had no idea.

These days though, Soot has reformed quite a lot, he even met someone too and they seem to be happy. 

My mom and I have talked a lot and she's gotten better too. Right now, we are trying to get more information about my father because apparently he didn't just disappear or run off with someone like my mom had been telling me. However, we haven't found much out yet.

Well...I think that's basically the end of my story, for now at least. Hopefully I get the chance to tell you more later on, but thank you for reading if you did..it's been fun!

(art by @smoke-and-silver )

[asher-writes]

Why hello there, little friend! Thank you very much for summoning me - here's your question! ~☆

People don’t behave the same way all the time. In fact, they generally have a mask for every social group – friends, family, business. Sometimes they have a different mask for different groups of friends. How does your character act around different people? How does their personality shift and change?

This is possibly the most adorable way to send asks, I'm just putting that out there!

I think for April he only really has three different masks – the first is when he's at work, he tends to act very smily, happy, euphoric, perhaps even a little manic so that the people he works with see him as generally cheerful, but also a little insane. He likes to unnerve people a little - it's a sort of defence mechanism.

But then when he's around strangers that he wants something from he plays into the fact he looks young, trying to come across as naive, innocent, a bit dumb. He makes intelligent people feel like they're the smartest people on earth so that he can get information from them.

Then there's how he is around Ember, his queerplatonic partner. When the two of them are alone, he becomes much quieter, relaxed. Though he's naturally a restless person (thank you, ADHD), he doesn't act as anything around Ember. Ember has seen every side of him and doesn't require a show. He might be the only person April will just lie down and cuddle for a few hours; no conversation necessary.

I think April is the simplest one because he doesn't alter his personality for others unless he has a specific reason to do so (like wanting something from them), otherwise he doesn't care here or there what other people think of him. Sometimes the people he's with wish he would care just a teeny tiny bit what other people think of him.

Thank you for the ask!

[the-space-case]

Hello, yes, hi, I recently found your art and account and I love what you do. I'm turning 14 in April and I've asked for a drawing pad, but I have no idea how to use one as of yet. Have you got any tips or anything? Because I've wanted to try digital art for a while and your art makes me want to even more lmao. Thanks! - B.A.

BOI OH BOI DO I GOT SOME TIPS FOR U

(I’m not sure what kind of comp you’re going to be using, so I’ll list for both.)

FIRST: Drawing Programs; the free and the great.

-Firealpaca: Lightweight drawing program. I draw Recovery using this! It’s easy on the RAM if you have a weak comp/are paranoid about yours like I am, it is mainly for basic comic making, and has all the basic brushes you need (pen/pencil/airbrush/symmetry/etc). You can add your own brushes as well but they’re p basic settings. Has basic Animation/Gif making as well using Onion Mode! Layout is a piece of cake. Please note that If you leave it open for a week it’ll crash on you, even if you haven’t anything on it at the moment, and sometimes the brush sensitivity just stops working so you just have to close and then open it again. (Also I have no idea how to update it aside from deleting it completely and just downloading the new version from scratch, so thats a thing.) Mac/Windows

-MedibangPaint: This is basically FireAlpaca But Better. Has tons of screen tones, brush patterns, and tools. I don’t use it much because I’m used to FA’s layout and get confused with the the placement of tools in here, so if you can I highly suggest just going with this first. Also has basic animation/gif making! Has storage for the website as well, and you can upload more preset brushes. It’s v anime. This program has waaay more in terms of basically everything, so it just takes more RAM. NBD, you don’t have to have every brush downloaded from the storage ^u^. Mac/Windows

-Clip Studio Paint: Okay this one isn’t free, it’s a pricey one, HOWEVER once a year they take the price way fuckin down by at least 75%. Sign up for the email list and it’ll let you know when that precious day comes. It’s how I got it @u@, around christmastime? This program is basically MedibangPaint On Steroids. I do all of my digital-yet-tradition-style-painting on here! The brushes all have some neat af settings to play with, you can make your own brushes, has tons of screen tones, pre-made panels, and settings. You can save projects as basically anything you need, is a hardy program that almost never crashes, and It’ll take a nice chunk of space on your comp depending on how much memory you have but hey, its worth it. It’s much more complex layout-wise than the other two here, but you get used to it after playing around and watching tutorials haha.

-Mischief: It’s a 25$ app, has like four brushes and five layers only but is vector-based with an endless canvas. Not really worth having unless you like the vector thing. UP TO YOU. I spent forever with this one doing all that homestuck stuff, so it’s not really bad so much as it is a basic bitch. Mac

-MyPaint: I used this a bunch when I still did digital art on my windows laptop before I upgraded to a Mac. It’s easy on the comp and has plenty of brushes and settings. You can also get brush packages if you don’t feel like you have enough that comes with the program! Also has endless canvas; pretty sure you can just select an area and then export as is. I barely remember the rest but It’s pretty great. Windows/MacPorts(which I hate)

-GIMP: I hate this thing. I cannot figure it out for the life of me. It’s got loads of shit though, can handle layers, has plenty of brushes, and can do basic animation/gifs if you ever figure it out. Windows/mac

I’ve heard good things from paint tool SAI and Krita as well, but have never used them myself.

***You can always pay through the nose/use a student discount for the photoshop series and pay that shit monthly, those fuckers have literally everything, but I am a cheap college kid making minimum wage with a car payment; I’d rather just pay once/not at all.

TABLETS: treat that shit like a newborn babe 24/7

-I have literally only ever owned a Wacom Intuos4. It has lasted me six years, and at least five moves across many miles. I broke one of the cord ports the day I opened it by holding it wrong, have one left, and now treat it like it’s going to die if the cord moves badly. Please be aware that if you break both ports, you better either sodder it back together yourself or upgrade to smth else because it costs about as much as the tablet itself was bought at to be fixed. Good news, though, it comes with at least six extra pen nibs, has programable buttons on the side (that I have never bothered to use) and a scroll bar in case you’re too lazy to use the keyboard (…I don’t really use that either unless I’m just scrolling through tumblr LMFAO).

-I would die for a Cintiq.

HOT TIPS: its useful.

-most of the programs listed use the same keyboard shortcuts. MEMORIZE THEM. It’s pretty easy, since you’ll use em a lot. [cntrl/cmmd+T] lets you resize what you just drew on that layer, and [cntrl/cmmd+z] is undo. I use those the most, for obvious reasons.

-vector-based programs are pretty great because when you resize an image it looks prefect. You can’t do that with a program that isn’t, so I just resize the base roughdraft and draw the lineart again on the layer above so I don’t get weird JPEG quality lines.

-You can use a ruler with your tablet, just slap it on and go, but honestly most programs have settings for that. just use those.

-You can also trace stuff on your tablet, so long as the paper isn’t too thick. I just scan/take a photo and then open it up in the program, though. much easier.

-SAVE CONSTANTLY. Art programs like to crash on you, even when they’re hardy and you have a good comp. make it a habit to quick save your work.

-Use a desk and have good posture. You’ll be able to draw a hell of a lot longer if you do. I personally keep fucking up my knees by sitting on my legs as I work out of habit, and don’t actually have a desk chair. Keep your screen at eye level and at a fair distance to prevent eyestrain and also neck-strain haha

-Chances are you won’t be used to the tablet right away. Most places you buy from say it’ll take a couple of months to get used to how weird it is to draw while not looking at your own hand, so don’t be frustrated If your drawings look a bit off at first.

-if you draw at least one thing every day, by the end of the year you’ll have improved exponentially. I literally made this blog to make myself draw once a day.

-don’t be afraid to check out speedpaints and tutorials. It’s always good to get more familiar with the program you’re using and new techniques previously unconsidered.

-get familiar with clipping layers. They are insanely useful; you clip one layer to the one below and then when you draw it only shows up on the drawing of that layer below. Shit is a godsend if you’re bad at coloring in the lines/lazy. The bucket tool is also really useful, and you can adjust the expansion by pixel so you don’t miss anything between the lines.

-experiment with your brushes, shit be fun af

-warmup your wrists before and after drawing. prevent swollen veins and such. dont want hand pain/numbness, its reaaaaally bad.

—basically if your hands hurt stop for the day.

-PNGS are for internet, JPEGS are for printing/fucking with quality (cough hack homestuck)

-resolution doesn’t have to be much more than 350 dpi if its just going to be on a webpage. Maximize that shit if you’re going to be printing, though. Especially if you put stuff on redbubble.

-DeviantArt has this thing called Sta.sh where you can dump art, keep it in perfect quality and just share it with certain people with a link instead of all of the website. Great for storing commission pieces, its the only reason I have DA in the first place.

-you get a different audience depending on what site you use for posting art, so keep that in mind for the kind of feedback you want.

-after awhile of drawing using a tablet, you may lose patience/forget that in traditional art there isn’t an undo button lmfao It’s cool; you don’t have to choose one over the other or anything.

-Honestly you can work around almost anything. You just invent new ways and techniques for yourself and you’ll do just fine.

Aaaaand that’s all I got for today! Thanks for sticking around