#made a few more personal drawings as well. both were posted. drawing has been very theraputic

[sludge-saturday]

pencil and charcoal

you've been riding with the van der linde gang for a few months now, pulling your weight and helping out when you can. you've earned the trust of nearly everyone there with your hard work and are starting to capture the interest of a certain someone...

pairing: arthur morgan x gn!artist!reader

summary: you show arthur your artwork by the fire. how will he react when he sees himself amongst your drawings?

tags: fluff, arthur has low self-esteem, high honor arthur

warnings: very brief mention of alcohol consumption

word count: 1,141

a/n: i can't tell if my writing style is too corny or not so feedback is encouraged. :)

☆ the trotting of your horses' hooves served as gentle ambience as you and arthur watched the van der linde camp come into view. an involuntary feeling of relief washed over you, knowing that you were safe here. the two of you were just arriving from a particularly difficult bounty hunt, but your combined skills proved to be efficient. "a job well done," as arthur had told you.

☆ you both approach the camp and hop off of your horses, hitching them to an available post. arthur gives boadicea a gentle, appreciative pat on the neck. "i'm gonna go tell dutch how much we made." he says, walking toward where the gang leader is standing. dutch is next to one of the posts holding up his tent and a fire had been made not too far away by some of the other gang members. karen, tilly, charles, javier, and lenny all sat around the flame, a couple with bottles in their hands.

☆ you wanted to stop at your tent for your sketchbook before heading over to sit with them. now would be a perfect time to keep practicing, you thought to yourself. after making the short trip to where your belongings were, you swiped the leather-bound book and the rest of your supplies off of your cot. as you walk towards the fire you glance at everyone sitting around it. no one had left yet, but another person had joined: arthur.

☆ scanning for a place to sit, you decide on an open spot next to the gunslinger. you had to admit, you've grown fond of arthur's presence since you first started traveling with the gang. it was something about his get-it-done attitude, his undying loyalty to those he cares about, and, of course, his rugged handsomeness. you kept your affection for him a secret, though, afraid of what might happen if anyone ever found out. you drew one of your knees up to your chest, propping your sketchbook up on your thigh in an attempt to dispel the thought.

☆ arthur's gaze couldn't help but wander to what you were doing beside him. as you opened your sketchbook, flipping through the pages to find where you last left off, arthur's eyes were able to steal a few glances at what was inside. from what he able to see, there were sketched pictures of people he could have sworn he recognized. was that... dutch? and sean? and mary beth? arthur gestured to the book in your hands and spoke in a hushed tone, as if afraid someone else would hear what he had to say. "you draw too?"

☆ you looked up at arthur with a smile already on your face. "it's been one of my passions since i was a child. i practically clung to my pencils when i fell on hard times." your eyes sparkled as you spoke to him, and you could have sworn you saw the same kind of shimmer in his eyes as he listened. "can i..." he started, "can i see 'em?" arthur had never met anyone else that shared his love of drawing and thought he never would, he had made peace with that. but this new discovery, this moment he was now sharing with you, it made him feel more alive and more connected to someone than he felt in a while.

☆ a flush threatened to creep onto your cheeks as you process arthur's request. you can't remember the last time someone asked to actually see what you were making. anxiety bubbled in your stomach as your mind raced through everything that could happen if you agreed. but, when you looked at arthur, his features were graced with a subtle glow, an expression of wonder and pure curiosity. how could you refuse?

☆ "of course." you gave him a sweet smile. "should i start from the beginning?" your hand prepares to move all of the pages on the left back to the right, but you look at arthur for approval anyway. "sure." he answered, nodding his head.

☆ and so you do. you show him everything, from your finished portraits of the gang members to sketches of your horse to quick scribbles of plants and animals you spot on your adventures. and arthur found it all so breathtaking. your art style, the way you chose to characterize your figures, your ability to make photo-realistic images from just pencil and charcoal, he never knew you had this in you.

☆ he watched as you flipped through the pages, admiring your work and pointing out ones he particularly liked. the person drawn on the last page had a dark cowboy hat on with rope tied around the base. he had a dark kerchief draped around his neck and a stubbly face. "recognize him?" you smooth your hand over the paper, remembering the unforgettable process that was drawing arthur for the first time. "this is one of my favorites." smiling at the page, you turn to look at his reaction.

☆ arthur was utterly dumbfounded. he couldn't believe what he was looking at. someone, especially someone like you, had deemed him worthy enough of being a muse for artwork. he thought he was so... ugly. he thought everyone found him that way. at a loss for words, the man felt tears prick his eyes. he didn't know why he was getting so emotional! he couldn't cry in front of anyone, so he cleared his throat and searched for what to say. "is that me?"

☆ you noticed that arthur's eyes looked glossier and that his expression shifted. you couldn't gauge how he was feeling from the look on his face, so you looked back down at the drawing. "it is," you said, fiddling with the corner of the book. "you are a joy to create." your smile was genuine, the apple of your cheeks shining in the firelight as you turned your head to face arthur again. his expression was still unreadable, his gaze tilted down towards his lap. after a few seconds of silence, arthur speaks softly. "ya really mean that?"

☆ arthur's eyes were still glassy, but softer this time around. he looked like the answer to his question would make or break him. he looked... vulnerable. even you knew that this was not a disposition you would typically, if ever, expect of him. you were careful with your response, knowing that you held the very livelihood of arthur morgan in your hands. "i do."

☆those two simple words sent a small swarm of butterflies through his gut. for him, nothing would be able to compare to the way you just made him feel. for him, this moment would be occupying his mind for longer than he cared to admit. for him, this gesture was just another piece of the stunning mosaic created in your image. after this, there's no more room for doubt. he's smitten.

[artsymeeshee]

Hello! I just found your laundry list of art last week, and I have to say…I LOVE IT! Love the instinct comics, Ford being cool never ceases to make me giggle, and I loved the autumn drawing. I’ll admit, that one had me in tears…made be believe in the what-if’s of my own family. What they…could be like someday. Or what I wish they were. Thanks for the tears, they were much needed.

 Anyway! This is what I came to message you about! Although,…I am extremely sorry for the late message. I tend to check back into tumblr at…weird hours of the night. Heck, it’s almost the next day as I type this. I seriously need to sleep more. So! I had a few thoughts on Stan and Ford relationship, and I wanted to hear your thoughts on it. Just a disclaimer, I’m kinda basing this off my actual life as I find these characters mirror personal events very closely! I am also a writer and soon to be author! Might post some archive of our own content about these two soon. Also, and this is the most important, I have NOT read book of Bill yet. So plz…no spoilers. Anyway, long introduction aside, let’s begin!

In my personal head cannon of these two, which I don’t imagine is “too” different than how anyone else could see them, Stan and Ford have an extremely awkward and emotional conversation after Weirdmagedon. Why? B/c they’re both, to some degree, emotionally numb. In my opinion, why wouldn’t they? They haven’t spoken to each other in 40 years, properly, and they have repressed a ton of their emotions since then. It’s hard to bring that back up. (Speaking off of experience) I’d say even harder for Ford. Stan, thanks to the twins, has learned to loosen the locks on his heart while Ford kept running away from those emotions to defeat Bill. Just like his ambitions, that was the main priority, and everything else later. To me, this would explain why Ford never bothered to talk to Stan properly since coming back during the show. He wouldn’t know how to. If they were to talk, and this is where the writer in me comes out, I’d write Ford as the one that needs it most. He’s been traveling dimension for decades, running from the past that held him back…but he has no anchor now. Stan becomes that anchor, paralleling what he wasn’t when Ford was lost. And Ford…he just breaks. Like, completely breaks. And Stan is there with him, breaking like he is, but still there for him brother. Finally back after all those years apart. And as someone who has been on the side of neglect from one’s own brother…nothing would be me happier if we went to connect. Just like Stanley and Ford. And eventually, soon to be sailing on the seas to connect even more.

Phew…that was a lot. Sorry for the rambling. Told you I had some ideas! So, what do you think? Do you see Ford acting like this? If not…why? Genuinely, I’d like to know. Anyway, thanks for taking your time to read this. Again, sorry for the ramblings. Oh! One more thing, I know you aren’t taking art request right now, but would you be open to take them in the future? Say in 2 months time? Anyway, bye!

Well first off, thank you! I appreciate it! :D

And to answer your headcanon, I agree on it. Stan is definitely more open to talking, especially thanks to the kids. I mean there's still moments where it's hard and awkward for sure. And Ford would for sure have a harder time opening up, especially with the constant guilt and mistakes that replay over and over. And there's always that lingering feeling of "well, Stan has to hate me for what I've done" and it's always so surprising when Stan tells him differently and he never once hated Ford. Sure, was angry but never hated him. He had too much self-hatred to feel that way with Ford. And as many times as it needs to be said or repeated, it really makes all the difference when they tell each other how much they love and care for each other. As Alex said, "they're both so damaged, they desperately need each other."

As for the requests thing, most likely not. Only because I'm entering the busiest time of year for my work so it's gonna be a miracle if I even have enough energy or motivation for drawing if I'm not completely burnt out.

[genericpuff]

Hey quick question.

How do you know if you should make a webcomic? I have this story idea that’s been floating around in the back of my head that I think could work well for a comic series. But the problem is I’m mainly used to writing screenplays and more traditional writing.

What I’m saying is, how can I tell if making a webcomic is worth it or if I should stick in my comfort zone?

I mean, there's no definitive right answer when it comes to "knowing" if you should make a webcomic. It really just comes down to you. Do you really like the medium? Do you feel your story has to be told within that medium to achieve its goals?

Same thing goes for whether or not it's "worth it", it really comes down to how you define that. For some people, simply posting their comics online to a few readers each week is worth it. For others, if it doesn't get into print or publishing or whatever have you, it might not be quite so justifiable to keep up with. Neither is better or worse than the other, both reasons are valid because it ultimately comes down to what we as individuals are trying to accomplish and what we define as "worth it" on a personal level.

I actually live on both sides of the spectrum right now because with Rekindled, posting it on Tumblr and getting all the great feedback and company through the audience it's gained makes it worth it. But that worth was defined by my expectations going in - I wasn't making Rekindled for money (legally I can't), I wasn't making it to get an Originals deal or anything of the sort, I was just making it because I found myself deadset on going through with it after months of it living in my head rent free, and so what I've gotten out of it as a result is very much worth it, all I was really looking for was maybe some other readers who would enjoy reading a transformative 'foe fiction' from a former LO fan and I've found those readers in spades simply due to the demand.

Time Gate, on the other hand, was something that I wanted for years to be a 'successful' project, defined more by actual tangible growth and gain. Because I came up with it as a kid, for a long time it was my "magnum opus" project, the thing that I wanted to see get turned into books and an anime and a video game and all those sorts of things as 'proof' of how good it was. Of course, I know now years later that those expectations were WAY too high and it resulted in me feeling incredibly depressed over it for ages. It made it hard to work on and even though I did have some readers, I didn't see it as "worth it" because my expectations were a lot higher than that of Rekindled's going in. But that was simply a matter of experience at that point, because I had been making original comics for so long, when I went into Rekindled I knew a lot more what I was capable of, what I wasn't capable of, and what boundaries I was willing to put down for myself. Even still, I do still want to return to Time Gate some day and when I do, I want to still treat it like a series I want to get off the ground as an actual published piece of work - it's just that this time around, I actually know how to make those steps and be proactive in my approach (and I know where to keep my expectations) which is certainly a perspective and skillset I didn't have when I was 15 LMAO

I will say, realistically speaking, it is a lot harder to pursue webcomics as a writer, because the reality of this medium is that most people who go into it are artists who learn how to write to make a webcomic, not the other way around. Unless you're willing to learn how to draw - which is a whole other skillset that requires years of work and patience - you're likely going to have to seek someone to collaborate with and - I cannot stress this enough - it's not going to be someone you simply find on reddit who's willing to work for free. Again, many of us as artists went into webcomics with a project already in mind, so most artists are already working on their own passion projects, trying to convince someone else to work on yours is just not realistic or fair. I'm fortunate enough to have @banshriek along for the production of Rekindled and even then I still pay for their contributions out of pocket, they're as invested in an LO rewrite project as I am (and thus they're given a lot of room to make suggestions in both the set designs and the writing), and I still had to carry the first 20ish episodes on my own before they joined along, i.e. I would still be making Rekindled if they weren't onboard, but having them is a massive help that's taken the comic to a whole other level in its artistic production.

But that doesn't mean it's hopeless! There's a lot of interest right now in webnovels and writing comic scripts is still a completely viable way to get into the comics industry if you're really interested in doing so (fun fact: before I was making comics, I wrote fanfiction! This is probably not shocking to hear all things considered LMAO) There's a reason Webtoons owns Wattpad now, webnovels are a no-brainer when it comes to adaptations to visual mediums, and webcomics have become part of that environment by extension. So at the very least, if you want to get your story out there, there are loads of ways to do it that don't require you to make a comic - but if you really want to make one, there are ways to get into that industry through writing in other ways such as pitching scripts to comic publishers and/or going indie with webnovels. Ultimately, if many of us webcomic creators stopped drawing our works, we'd still be coming up with stories to write, because that's what's really at the heart of these sorts of projects. So even if you can't get into comics right away due to lack of visual artistry, that doesn't mean it's off the table forever ( ´ ∀ `)ノ～ ♡

Sorry, that was a lot of rambling but I hope it helps ! Remember to keep your goals and expectations manageable, and most of all, write lots! You'll be doing it anyways regardless of whether or not you get into comics, so whatever value you see in getting into comics is up to you to determine! You don't have to know right away, it might be something you'll find along the way or have to adjust as you get more experience, but don't stop yourself from getting creative and messing around until you find out what works! You won't know if it was worth leaving your comfort zone until you try it <3

Good luck! (•̀ᴗ•́)و

[theambivalentagender]

Hello all! So if you follow me, you likely also follow my comic Valley Echoes as well as any of my other art drabbles. You may also know that I've been financially limping along for some time.

For context, my day job is dog grooming. It's a "career" I came into relatively recently and honestly love. However, my location has recently been incredibly dead. I haven't been able to make commission from lack of dogs and my hours have been cut drastically.

I'm currently looking into finding extra work where I can that will still fit with my technically full time schedule. This has been a big part of why the comic updates have slowed considerably in the last few months.

In the meantime, however, I did want to show that I am available for commissions at this time. This is the first time I'd be getting into commissions, so if folks do request I just ask for patience as I figure it all out, but I'd love to be able to draw your requests. I have a vgen account that's still being set up at the moment.

I also want to plug my Patreon again - honestly, the fact you all give this much for what I do now is incredible to me. I recently met the fun "milestone" of Patreon temporarily locking access to my withdrawals because I had made enough money this year to require filling out a tax form before my funds could be released, which I did. Maybe it's silly but it made me a little happy. I also have a Kofi though that's updated less.

This next part ended up being much longer and more personal than I expected so I'll put it under a cut.

Anything at this time would help immensely. Cost of living is insane, I just turned 30 and keep wondering how much longer I'll be able to keep renting, let alone ever saving to afford a home. I'm very, very lucky in that I have support from my dad, who has honestly been one of my strongest lifelines for years. But I obviously don't want to have to keep taking so much of that support from someone who should be enjoying retirement.

There are a lot of expenses I keep having, and things I'm putting off. The ipad I use for art has been cracked for months, but is still functional thank god. I recently finally bought myself clothes that aren't falling off my body after losing over 100 lbs in the last year. I have to buy and maintain my own tools for my grooming job, and I have to maintain my own health, both mentally and physically. My left hand/arm probably has nerve impingements and muscle strains science hasn't even named yet lmao. And of course there's taking care of my two terrible feline children who cause nothing but chaos in my home and who I love dearly.

Even if you don't give monetary support though, I so, so greatly appreciate every one of you who shares, likes, or comments on my work. I just recently got an anon who I mean to reply to soon gushing about they love Valley Echoes. Nothing makes my day more than waking up to see a million notifications that's just one person liking each of my comics as they read through it the first time.

Ever since I was 6 years old I wanted to be a storyteller in some way. I used to draw my own Dilbert and Far Side comics, and I constantly wrote wild fantasy stories. But after going through college, dealing with a huge amount of stress, burnout, and just one random person online telling me that I needed to hear the harsh "truth" that my writing skills were garbage, that spark was just gone. Excluding occasional stuttering starts, I didn't really write for years.

Doing this "silly" comic and getting the feedback I have is starting to rekindle that spark. I have so many stories of my own that I'm starting to make tentative plans on producing in some way. But even if I never become some official published recognized author, I feel like just putting out this comic is fulfilling that dream I had as a kid. So thank you again, as cheesy and long winded as this post has become.

[hellosweetart]

Remember that drawing you made of SK Francis meeting regular Francis? Well, I got an idea on how to expand on that as well.

You know that ending where SK Francis killed Nacha and Anastacha and stitched up their corpses to create his own version of a happy family. Well, their bodies didn’t last long. They decomposed into nothing but skeletons. SK Francis tried so hard to put them back together but he failed. He couldn’t keep them. All he had were their skeletons. In the midst of his despair and desperation, he somehow found a portal to a universe where Nacha and Anastacha are alive with regular Francis. Not wanting to lose his chance at a happy life, SK Francis kidnaps Nacha and Anastacha from the different universe and forced them to be apart of his family, all the while they had to sit with the skeletons of their dead counterparts.

I’m not too sure about your version of Francis but my regular version of Francis is this tired, shy, hardworking guy who supports Nacha and Anastacha despite not being married. He has a relatively normal life with a few friends and he’s in a healthy relationship with Nacha. So regular Francis finds out the mother daughter duo had been kidnapped so he travelled to the other dimension to save them.

Upon arriving, regular Francis finds SK Francis holding them hostage. They both thought they were a doppelgänger of each other but they soon realised that they’re alternate versions of themselves. It’s like they’re looking into a mirror of each other, one with a good reflection and the other one a dark reflection. As SK and regular Francis fought, SK Francis finds out that regular Francis has a normal life and have loved ones. SK Francis became jealous and attempts to kill regular Francis as he sheds angry tears.

“YOU! HOW DARE YOU!! HOW COULD WE BOTH BE THE SAME PERSON AND YOU GET TO HAVE IT BETTER THAN ME?! WHY DOES NACHA AND ANA LOVE YOU MORE THAN ME?! WHY DO YOU GET TO HAVE FAMILY AND FRIENDS THAT CARE FOR YOU?! WHY HASNT ANYONE ABANDONED YOU YET?!”

Regular Francis was scared and confused but sympathetic about the other version of him. It’s like looking into a future version of himself that went down the wrong path. But then, both Francis’s continue to fight. Regular Francis isn’t going down without a fight because he’ll save Nacha and Anastacha. And SK Francis isn’t backing down either because no one is taking away his family from him again.

That’s all I have for now. Feel free to expand upon this if you like. Btw, I finished 3/4 of the fanfic so it should be on A03 by next week probably. I’ll be sure to send you the link.

~ SK Francis anon 🔪

Oh yeah I remember that!

This is a saddening scene

Also SK anon, I wanna thank you for sharing your ideas with me via asks. Sorry I haven't posted them all, but I do wanna let you know that I appreciate every single one of your asks and they are all very intriguing! Feel free to share more via messages if you want 🥲

And sure! Please do share the link of your AO3. I can't wait to read it before my bedtime!

[spicymotte]

How fandom culture killed my creativity

hi. I have some thoughts about my time in a huge fandom and how it changed me:

First of all, I would like to say that these are my personal experiences in a large anime fandom. I have made very good friends with whom I am still in contact today - and I was exposed to a kind of brain rot that has changed the way I deal with art forever. However, this does not apply to every fandom/every person.

this - essay? - is way longer than I thought it would be. More under the cut:

In 2020, after a long break, I was able to get excited about One Piece again. Until then, I had always considered art important to me and I had never been able to do it professionally. (maybe someday...!)

The One Piece fandom is huge. There are now over 1000 manga chapters and anime episodes, which is gigantic; and the fandom itself is just as huge: millions of fans love this manga/anime and exchange ideas about it on the internet. I was previously very limited to tumblr, but then I ventured into OPtwt, the One Piece community on Twitter. There is a lot of fan art, fan fiction and small cliques that like the same character. There is something for everyone. It was great! I had a hyperfixation phase on OP before, in 2017. Now it came back - so violently that I realized very quickly that I could hardly think of anything else but One Piece.

Hyperfixations involve two major factors: an intense obsession with a character (or theme/media/whatever), which often brings with it a bottomless well of inspiration and motivation for artists – and a strange influence on brain chemistry. Neurodivergent people are prone to difficulties with the release of happiness and rewarding hormones anyway, and even though I am in no way qualified to make grand statements, as a person living with AuDHD, hyperfixations are both a blessing and a curse.

Often, the neurodivergent niches in the fandom communities are very lively. On extremely interactive social media like Twitter, TikTok and Instagram, you are flooded with posts of fan art, discussions and also escalation. It quickly becomes stressful for the brain to keep up with it - especially if you manage to accumulate a large number of followers. (also a blessing and a curse!)

I started posting fanart and OC x canon in 2020. I spent most of the last three years on Twitter and I have to say that it set me back in some ways. At first, I was slow to get to know people through fanart, but then I got to know people very quickly: fellow artists that I am still good friends with today and, unfortunately, people who have also succumbed to an incredible, destructive brainrot. I had chosen a character (or rather, my brain did) who plays almost no role in One Piece. All the better, so I pretty much had him to myself and I could do whatever I wanted. The OC x canon community is generally very friendly and respectful, so I found quite a few people who liked what I drew. Cool!

And then it started. With fanart and a small fan club for my OCs, I got more followers and more likes. More retweets and comments, more notifications. The algorithm started to like me and the growth increased steadily. My fandom (OP) account grew, as did my reach.

I checked Twitter more and more. Every free second I took my smartphone in my hand and checked my notifications. I reloaded the page until I had a new notification. I repeated this on Instagram and tumblr. Sometimes I catch myself doing it today, even though I haven't been active in this fandom for over a year!

Likes were good, retweets better. Every notification of an interaction with my art was a push on the feel-good button in my brain. It's very addictive, even if I talked myself out of it at first. The pandemic was at its peak and the internet was the only way to meet friends anyway. All this shit was fast food for my brain.

Then I started drawing fanarts, even though I didn't feel like it. But the likes had to come from somewhere, didn't they? I drew favorites from manga, characters that I didn't even like that much myself. But they were popular, so that promised likes and reach! Every single day, really every day, I drew fanarts. I was disappointed with myself if I didn't.

As of today, my two One Piece art folders have 80GB of data in it! what the fuck!! That's not normal!

I learned a lot during that time and was able to develop my art. I was able to participate in projects, to draw for several zines and also had a lot of fun – but I treated it like a job. Making fan art your job is very difficult – and has a lot of consequences. If you run a merch shop (as I did for a short time), you always have to follow the hype and draw what's in style. You switch fandoms because the hype has just burned out and the next new thing is already in style. If you're one of the first to offer keychains and stickers - or plushies - you make the big money. That brings profit, but in my opinion you can very quickly step on the wrong foot in this jumping around and slip into burnout. (Or stagnate to such an extent that you lose all motivation to refine your artistic skills and become better at your craft.)

I see friends of mine, many of them, who are trying to live off of fandom merch. They all have one thing in common: their skills in art have remained absolutely the same over the past few years or have even declined. If you have to churn out a new batch of merchandise every week, you have to cut corners. There is no time for experiments and crazy studies when you can hardly live and have to produce merch/fan art that sells 100% well.

I don't mean to offend anyone - it's just that I've been thinking a lot about my own setbacks as an artist since I've been dealing with them so intimately. And I've definitely made some setbacks!

In 2021-2023, fandom life continued and got worse and worse. Checking my smartphone, drawing something every day to post it - just so that the algorithm doesn't sort me out. Posting daily is the number one rule on all Social Media, unfortunately. But I did it, no matter how burned out I felt.

And then there were the dramas on Twitter: internet puritans, antis and proshippers were screaming at each other and tearing each other to shreds (a trap I almost fell into myself! anti and pro are the biggest bullshit ever and I'm lucky enough to have reached a point where I can say: I don't give a shit lol). Callout posts, vague tweeting and aggression instead of simply blocking and moving on. Harassment that I myself experienced: I blocked a few people because I found them strange and unpleasant. They posted explicit things that I did not want to see on my timeline. This triggered a wave of harassment that was simply disgusting. These are people who hate their own lives so much that they can't do anything but feel miserable and stalk strangers online. Admittedly, this made me paranoid: a group of people had chosen me as a target. They passed around screenshots of many of my tweets and made fun of me, copying and stealing my art 1:1. They lied and cheated to make me look like an asshole – and this went on for years. It made me paranoid and was the first step away from fandoms, as it escalated more and more.

So, I was successfully bullied out of the fandom and my hyperfixation was over. It left a terrible void that I am still trying to fill today. Neurodivergence sucks, I'll tell you.

That's when I honestly asked myself for the first time: What the fuck am I doing here? When did I become a content machine for strangers on the internet? Why the hell do I feel so bad when I don't draw for a day? And why do I care what strangers think about me?!

Then I realized that I can't draw anymore.

Without references or the 3D models from Clip Studio Paint, I'm lost. When I try to draw something without any help, I sit in front of an empty canvas. My hands don't do what they're supposed to do and my brain blocks the thought of how drawing even works. My eyes only see the mistakes I make. Everything I draw looks bad to me.

I realized I have a problem.

So I try again and learn it all again from scratch: Anatomy, perspective, color theory, everything. But every time I sit down and try to put something on paper, there's nothing there. I've been drawing things every day for the last four years. Now my hyperfixation on this character and this manga is over and there's nothing left. I've been burning the candle at both ends and I've broken something in the process. Art is no longer something I enjoy. I need art to live and breathe, no doubt, but… the barrel now has a bottom again and it's empty to the last drop.

The little motivation I can muster goes into my webcomic, which is my everything. It's just mine, not a fandom. I feel honored that so many people read this comic. At the same time, I'm afraid that it's not enough; in my eyes, my art doesn't look good. Being surrounded by perfect illustrations on social media all day long distorts one's own perception of art, like the beauty industry that gives you body dysmorphia. On top of that, I haven't had any financial success with my comics in recent years, none at all. The dream of being an independent comic artist has receded so far into the distance that I can no longer see it. Bummer.

The constant stream of content that I gave during my fandom days has set me back incredibly. I can no longer enjoy the process of art, but my brain constantly pushes me to finish it, to have a finished product - because then I can post the drawing and get the virtual handshake that my weird brain likes so much.

Social media detox, of course, is the first thing that comes to mind. It's actually bullshit that we're all so addicted to these apps, but here we are. It's uncomfortable for me to admit, but I have hardly any friends in real life. I'm very introverted and many people find my autism very unpleasant (I can't blame them, I often come across as rude), so I only have 1-2 friends. I would like to have more friends, but maintaining social contact is terribly exhausting. It's hard enough to reply to my mutuals in the DMs (sorryyyyy if I forget sometimes………).

And what if I just take a break for a while and don't draw so much? Recharge my batteries? Right now I'm taking a 6-week break, partly because my jaw surgery is coming up soon. I'll be sick anyway, so why not put the webcomic on hiatus and take a break for a while? I don't know if it will work out, but I have a hunch that it won't, because I always have the fast-paced internet in the back of my mind. How can I be a freelancer if I don't do fanart? How can I make money with it to help my partner, who is currently financing our lives, financially? How can I, as a disabled person, find a job that I can do and at the same time build my career as an artist? As an independent comic artist, I have to do the job of so many people (artist, author, manager, taxes, work organization), how am I supposed to do that?

I have no answers to these questions. Original works don't go nearly as well as fanart! So you have to work ten times as hard and play by the vague rules of the algorithms, which is exhausting enough. Nowadays, you can only be lucky and ride the viral wave if it falls into your lap.

But reflecting on my time in a huge fandom has made me realize that I was going down a very wrong path and am now experiencing the consequences. I'm completely burnt out and no longer know why I'm even making art anymore. I don't know if I want to make art much longer. (I think shit-life-syndrome plays a big role here, but not exclusively.)

As I said, I don't have any answers - but I would at least like to warn those who are having difficulties with distancing themselves from the internet and are quickly losing themselves in this maelstrom of social media.

I have since deleted Twitter from my smartphone and, fortunately, have hardly ever used TikTok (dodged a bullet there!). I try to get back into traditional art and get away from my computer. I am all the more grateful to the people, my community, so to speak, who do nonsense with me on tumblr. They read my comics and are extremely nice to me, which I really appreciate. Thank you!

I don't know yet if and how it will continue, but I would like to finish Berserkir in the next few years. I'd love to find a way to finish all the short comics I want to make, even though it's just me and not a whole team. Maybe I'll find a way, maybe I don't. Anyways, thanks for sticking around!

[asingleshampdition]

Sympathy for Jin Shirato

In all honesty, I actually feel just as, if not worse for Jin, than I do Chidori; especially in Reload, despite Chidori being the most fleshed out of the Strega three. This character analysis will not include developments from Shadow Cry, as I'm not aware of most of its contents enough to include it. (P.S. There are no visuals because for some reason, Tumblr doesn't want to save with them.) I think the motivations of the three Strega members are very important. All of them came from the same background, as child experiments; and thus, we can draw fair conclusions from them.

Takaya wants to get back at the world for hurting him. He's a man who is very weak-willed, and wishes for death, as long as it means others come along with him. He's adopted this view in which his only purpose in life is to bring everyone down with him: as he's been granted the power to do such (in the form of Hypnos), he's under the impression that his life is meaningless otherwise. This is why he's so unwilling to give up the Dark Hour to SEES; he's unwilling to start over, because in his mind, he's built up meaning for himself. Takaya doesn't really care for anyone; everyone he comes across, to him, is either an asset he can use to achieve his goal (Jin and Chidori), or an obstacle (SEES). As much as I'd like to believe Takaya genuinely did care for Jin and Chidori, I can't see it. At the end of the game, Takaya becomes a cult leader; Strega had always had parallels to such, and cult leaders, like Takaya, don't typically care about their followers. Rather, they see them as tools, to get their way. From my point of view, Takaya is an irredeemable piece of garbage, in the games, and cannot compare to Jin or Chidori in terms of sympathizing potential. As previously stated, I'm not accounting for Shadow Cry in this post, so I don't really know how the pathetic wet cat man is portrayed there. Chidori's motivation is that she, quite literally, has no motivation. She finds no purpose in life, and therefore, doesn't really care what happens either way. In her eyes, dying just means she'll never wake up again, and the end of the Dark Hour? "Cool, more days to live until I inevitably die," is probably what she would've made of it. Either that, or, "oh no, Medea!" Chidori's motivations are so radically different than both Takaya and Jin's motivations, and I believe this is why she was able to break away from such a cynical, nihilistic line of thought, much more easily than the other two. The only reason she followed, and was loyal, to Strega, was because Jin and Takaya were similar to her. Other than that, she held no regard for them, and did not consider them friends. It did not matter, to her, who she followed. If Takaya had been a better guy, maybe with hopes of reform, she probably would've turned out better as well. The only person she really cared about, until Junpei, was herself; as selfish as that sounds. She considers Medea her only true friend, as a representation of how she isolates herself, in order to not be afraid of death. So, where does that leave Jin? I believe Jin, unlike Takaya and Chidori, possesses a trait that neither of the other two have: genuine care for the few people close to him. The reason Jin doesn't want the Dark Hour to disappear is very similar to Takaya's; however, as shown in Reload, this isn't really the case. We have to remember that Takaya, essentially being a cult leader, even before he starts such, is incredibly manipulative and charismatic. Think of Jin as a young, impressionable dude, who is at an incredibly low point in his life; someone who is emotionally vulnerable, someone who can be targeted. The perfect candidate for a potential cult member. Then comes along Takaya: someone who is kind to him. Someone who treats him with dignity, with respect; someone who is there for him when he needs it most. Someone who 'saves' him. Kind of like Chidori, I believe Jin could've fallen for anyone; it didn't have to be for Takaya, it just had to be someone who was kind to him during the darkest time of his life. Unfortunately for him, Takaya does not truly care for him, unlike the vice versa, and whatever kindness Jin experienced from Takaya may or may not have been an act of manipulation. Kind of like how cults usually target young, impressionable, emotionally vulnerable individuals. Jin was manipulated into siding with Takaya; and kind of like a cult member and a cult leader, the member would align with the leader's ideals. Therefore, I do not believe Jin's true reason for standing against the Dark Hour's absence is the same as Takaya's.

This is not to say Jin doesn't have a 'real' reason; unlike Chidori, I believe he does. His statements on 10/31, being: "If the Dark Hour disappears, we might forget everything that happened, won't we? / I'd forget you and Chidori, the things we did together, our time at the facility... All of it." I find this line an incredibly simple way of painting Jin in a sympathetic way; and yet, it's incredibly tactful. Jin values the time he's spent with Takaya and Chidori; he values them. To him, they're like family. They are what SEES is to Makoto/the protagonist: his friends, the only friends he's ever had, and he'd rather die than forget about them. The only problem is that both Takaya and Chidori hold little to no regard for him. I'm somewhat sure he knows this, and yet, he still chooses to view them in such a way; even after Chidori pays virtually no mind to him as a person, and when Takaya separates from him in the final stretch of Tartarus, knowing that Jin would probably die.

This conclusion does raise some questions, though; when Chidori sacrificed herself for Junpei, why didn't Jin say anything? Rather, why didn't he try and stop her? After all, he's mostly silent, and Takaya does most of the talking during the sequence. Strega's philosophy on death is to not fear it, as it is inevitable. Perhaps this is also why Jin does not show sadness when Chidori dies? To Jin, as well as Takaya and Chidori, they've accepted that they will all die someday, because of the suppressants, as well as their Personas. Jin doesn't view Chidori's death as sad, not because he doesn't care for her, but because Strega has already established that death is inevitable for people like them. Another potential reason for Jin supposedly not caring for Chidori's death is the presence of Takaya. As a cult member is to a cult leader, Jin is dependent on Takaya. Since Takaya only views Chidori as a pawn, perhaps Jin would take on Takaya's view on the matter; to Jin, Takaya is wiser than anyone else. I really can't think of any other reasons as to why Jin wouldn't show much emotion during Chidori's death, other than either one: Jin specifically referring to Takaya, and only adding Chidori in as an afterthought, in his quote, or two: bad writing. The first one I doubt, as I feel like Jin would be one of the last people to tell a half-truth (to Takaya, of all people, to boot); especially since his last name is Shirato (white door), referring to how he can't keep his fatass mouth shut when talking about important information with SEES. I don't really think the writers would make such an oversight; adding Jin's sympathetic statement, and then forgetting to make him sympathetic otherwise. Not saying it's not possible; it definitely was, considering the quality of the villains' writing in the older versions of Persona 3. I just find it unlikely. This all just goes to show that Jin could've ended up just like the SEES members, if not to a greater extent than Chidori. He loved the ones he was close to, and he believed in bonds, to some extent. Of course, maybe not in the way SEES does, but the point is that he did; and bonds are the entire premise of the Persona series. Takaya never believed in bonds at all, throughout the entire game; he's too focused on himself, so he's out of the question. Chidori doesn't believe in bonds until Junpei shows up, even with Jin and Takaya in the picture. Jin is the only Strega member who would go as far to die for his found family, the only member who loved his companions from the start.

The more I think about it, the less I really blame Jin for who he became. Like I've mentioned before, you have to think of Jin as a cult member. A cult member who was 'indoctrinated' by Takaya, because he was naive, impressionable, and a lost soul; looking for someone to love him, respect him, stay by his side, and 'save' him. Would you fault a lost soul, someone who is incredibly emotionally vulnerable, as well as naive, for being manipulated into a cult? Sure, you could view Jin as 'stupid' for falling for Takaya, but that's the thing: people who become cult members aren't always stupid. They could be the brightest, most mature person you know; and that's not the point. Cults target people who are lonely; who want love. No matter how bright, mature, talented, well-read you are; at the end of the day, you are not immune to manipulation, if the manipulators pull the right strings. I think that's what's most scary about Jin: his story revolves around how someone so bright, so talented, someone who was one the right track, who more or less had the right mindset about relationships, was thrown off course, because he was also lonely, naive, and lost. It's very similar to many people who join cults; his character, even in Reload, can be written off as just some cynical, Takaya-obsessed bomb maniac, kind of like how a lot of people write cult members off as off-putting, evil, and sadistic. I think Reload did a terrific job at exploring this part of his character, even if it was just a few extra scenes. Or maybe I'm just overanalyzing because he's my favorite character lmao, who knows?

[hsslilly-blog]

Here's Grace and Sofia, Claire and Hunt’s babies. Grace is the older one and she was born on January 12th, 2021. Sofia came three years later, on November 24th. So they're not here yet.

Both their birth-dates are prone to change, as I think Grace may have been born a year or two later, and I don't think Sofia is a November baby. This post has been in my drafts since August 7th and I haven't been able to decide that yet. I use mostly she/her for Sofia throughout this post, but later in life they start going by them/them. Anyhow, I've written a bit about them both under the cut.

Grace was born prematurely at 28 weeks, so she had to spend a few weeks in a NICU in a respirator. As a consequence, she ended up developing asthma. It’s not something life-threatening nowadays, but the entire situation was very stressful for her parents and it definitely strengthened Claire's anxieties around being a mother. Nevertheless, Grace grows up to be a happy girl. As for Sofia, she was a full term pregnancy and she was born a little under 8 pounds... big baby. This was a much more positive experience for everyone.

They were both planned pregnancies. Claire took a lot of issue with this at first — with Grace — due to her own upbringing. Overall, her first pregnancy really took a toll on her and it added to a list of problems Claire had been ignoring and bottling up. She went through a little crisis some time after Grace was born, which, well, made her feel even more inadequate as a mother. Hunt stepped in so Claire could take a moment for herself and work through her issues. It worked out in the end, but it did leave her wondering if her relationship with Grace is what it could've been.

Personality-wise, they're both very cheery and sunny kids. Sofia is the extroverted one and she's very practical. Grace is more measured and shy, but she's very friendly. Sofia takes things easily, is very quick to apologise when wrong and doesn't hold grudges. Meanwhile, Grace is very stubborn, but very dedicated too. And they get along very well! Grace enjoys being a big sister.

Out of the two, Grace is the one most interested in their parents' careers and in the arts, in general. When they were planning for their kids, Claire and Hunt both agreed they'd allow their babies to pursue whatever artistic endeavour they wanted to as long as they didn't do it professionally until older. This means Grace starts acting, and she enjoys it a lot, but her true passion turns out to be filmmaking. She loves making short films, usually with her sister or with her friends from school.

On the other hand, Sofia loves football and basically every other sport there is. They do gymnastics for a while, then she plays baseball for another while, and once she gets bored of that too they take up swimming. Most of all, Sofia loves dancing. She starts taking ballet classes after watching Barbie's The Swan Lake. She also loves drawing. As you may notice, she's very fleeting and always trying new things. Sofia starts experimenting with their gender very young and they start going by Fee and using they/them pronouns around the time they're 12.

They're named after Grace Kelly and Sophia Loren (by me, not in universe; though it could be in universe too since their parents are nerds.) That's all I have to share for now!

[i-heart-hxh]

Hey! Hope you’re doing well, I’m sorry I haven’t responded to that last question of mine you answered but I absolutely loved it! Your answers are always super insightful. Today though I want to ask about another scene that I believe has big Killugon implications, but I have yet to see a single person really cover so far. I noticed it as I was re-reading the manga and instantly I knew something was up (oh and apologies in advance for the image quality but I had to take them off of my physical manga copies with my phone lol):

Now for context this scene takes place in the direct lead up to the palace invasion, which each character having a short inner monologue about how they feel in the lead up to the fight. In the case of Shoot he chooses to focus on Killua and how he has changed since they’re fight, noting how Killua look very sad every “once in a while”.

Now when I first got to this panel I was a little caught off guard as I feel most readers would be, the reason being that prior to this scene we haven’t had any indication that Killua was sad at all. After all this is post-needle Killua after his big emotional fight with a Rammot, he hadn’t shown any signs of further sadness since then and, as Shoot says, was a lot more confident in himself and his abilities. So why would Togashi deliberately choose to draw attention to Killua’s feelings this way, and why now when there was no prior indication that he was feeling bad at all?

Well, I think the reason lies in a pair of scenes that happen prior to this revelation by Shoot, the first of which is this:

Again, this is in the lead up to the palace invasion where the gang is working out their final plan of attack, while Palm is already enacting her part of the plan in the palace by herself.

Now this scene is interesting to me for a few reasons:

1. Togashi is using all this space (almost two and a half pages of it) to convey to make it clear to us how worried Gon obviously is about Palm since there’s a high chance she could die or already has at this point.

2. Togashi chose Killua specifically to be the one to explain this part of the plan to Gon, even when the more obvious choice would have been Knuckle or Shoot since they were with Morel and Knov when the plan was first made.

3. Killua is very clearly annoyed/dismissive/generally just put off by Gon’s worry about Palm, and is so harsh to Gon in the way he handles it that BOTH Knuckle and Meleoron call him out on it. Clearly there’s something more going on with Killua that Togashi wishes to highlight here, to the point where a scene about Gon’s feelings and worries about Palm quickly turns into a scene about KILLUA’S feelings about Gon’s feelings and worries about Palm!

But that’s not all! There’s also this science which takes place directly before we get Shoot’s reflection on Killua’s feelings:

Again we see Gon ask about Palm the second he has the opportunity and is once more clearly upset by the fact that there is still no word from her.

So why do I bring these two scenes up? Well because when Shoot says that “once in a while” he sees Killua get very sad, we as readers have to then ask the question of when he would have the opportunity to be around Killua enough to gauge his emotions this way, as prior to this the gang has been very much speedster from one another for awhile.

In fact, some of the only scenes we see Killua and Shoot even in the same location are both instances where Gon asks about Palm, which would logically imply that it was some point during those interactions where Shoot came to this conclusion about Killua’s feelings. And considering how Killua’s reaction to Gon’s worries about Palm, it only makes sense that this is what Shoot saw. Killua getting visibly sad when Gon shows concern for Palm.

So essentially, I believe that what Togashi was trying to get the reader to understand in this scene was something like this: shoot comments on how sad Killua is. “Sad? Why would he be sad?” The reader thinks, “he didn’t seem sad at all prior to this, what is he sad about?” They then think back to how annoyed Killua was when Gon was talking about Palm and think “well he must be sad about that then, but he’s never liked Palm, why would he be sad that Gon cares about… OH, maybe he’s just jealous!”

And THAT I think is the point of this scene, or at the very least to keep Killua’s sadness in the back of the reader’s mind for later where it’ll come to fruition.

Now, obviously anyone who knows the story knows that Killua has his big emotional scene with Palm where he confesses that he thinks Gon cares more about her than him, and how heartbreaking that is for him to feel. When you first read that though it may seem to come a little bit out of nowhere and a bit delusional on Killua’s part if you take it on it’s own. However, in the context of this scene with shoot and Gon’s earlier vocal worry about Palm, it all starts to make sense. Killua sees this play out and gets jealous because he thinks Gon cares more about Palm, whom Killua still would think is Gon’s romantic partner because Gon never showed interest to him in stopping his date with her and they never officially called off their “relationship”. So to Killua Palm means more to Gon because she’s romantically involved with him (in his eyes) and he gets sad and… well… jealous honestly whenever he’s reminded of that fact. I don’t really see any other way to explain why Killua would think Palm is more important to Gon than him keeping the context of these scenes in mind.

It also doesn’t help that Gon basically confirmed it by pushing Killua away after he expressed so much outward worry for Palm so yeah. Oof. It makes sense why Killua thinks the way he does and this whole scene is Togashi hinting at that early on. That’s why he orders these scenes the way he does and why he brings Killua’s feelings to light there for the reader to notice.

But honestly what REALLY got to me about this scene, and what inspired me to write this whole long ass ramble on the first place, was one key detail. Togashi chose an objective character like Shoot (who’s about as objective as objective can be in this situation) to clearly highlight Killua’s deeper feelings for the reader in a way Killua himself can’t.

Sound familiar? Well it should because there is one other VERY important scene where Togashi does the exact same thing, and it happens a bit later on:

(I had to cut out the first page for the sake of image number limits, but we both know what scene this is lol)

Isn’t it funny that Togashi would parallel Shoot’s revelations about Killua’s feelings here in the most romantically coded scene in the entire manga, with an equally objective character in Meleoron pointing out the same thing?

It’s hard to articulate this part but I hope you see what I’m getting at here.

It’s a very curious choice by Togashi indeed, to frame those hidden feelings that Meleoron sees explicitly around romantically love, and parallel that with Shoot’s earlier revelation about Killua being very sad even prior to Gon pushing him away… very curious indeed.

Anyway, wow this went on for longer than I thought but I needed to get this out of my head. If you have any insight I’d love to hear about it because I haven’t heard anyone talk about this scene and I need to know I’m not just crazy with what I see lol. To me, it’s just another case of that subtle, genius storytelling g by Togashi, but let me know what you think. Thanks!

Wow, this is a wonderful piece of meta, thank you so much for writing it all up and submitting it to me!! I had noticed/considered how snappy Killua gets to Gon when Gon is worrying over Palm, but this is a very carefully considered argument that the jealousy over Palm is an important part of Killua's sadness and uncertainty about his place in Gon's life going into the palace invasion. I had mostly read Killua's sadness here as Gon being distant prior and Killua picking up on that, Killua just generally being worried about the outcome, plus being hurt that Gon wants to fight Pitou on his own. I think those are all factors, too, but it's true that Killua is very focused and worried specifically about whether Gon considers him just a teammate or a friend.

I've always thought this whole dilemma comes off as "odd" in the sense that it wasn't long ago that Gon openly stated that Killua is his best friend in the whole world, under no uncertain terms. Why would Killua doubt his friendship with Gon? Plus there's the whole theme of not having to "qualify" to be a friend (an attitude towards friendship that Killua later passes on to Ikalgo). It's worth noting he's worrying about this prior to Gon's breakdown in front of Pitou and the "It's none of your business" (essentially) line that breaks Killua's heart. This happens just a bit before they confront Pitou.

I'm having a hard time explaining this because it's more of a feeling I have about this scene than something I can concretely prove, but I feel like from a purely friendship standpoint, it's strange for Killua to be so fixated on whether they're friends or not when Gon has stated his friendship with Killua over and over again. Even if Gon has been more distant and insists on fighting Pitou alone (which is definitely part of the problem here), it's not as though there's some clear reason presented that shows Killua has been demoted and Gon no longer considers him a friend.

EXCEPT...Killua is so devoted to Gon that he has it in his mind that he and Gon might do a lovers' suicide if worst comes to worst. If Gon cares more about Palm than him, where does that put him? This whole struggle Killua is having of friendship vs teammates makes so much more sense when you consider Killua having romantic feelings for Gon, whether or not he's aware that that's what they are. And it especially makes sense tying in with the argument you're making, that the whole situation with Palm is a big piece of what's bothering and hurting Killua and causing him to doubt his standing with Gon. It is also a logical build up between the date with Palm and the ultimate climax of this subplot, where Palm assures Killua that he's the one means the most to Gon, and the only one who has any hope of saving him.

I think this whole friendship vs teammate thing is Togashi code for what Killua is really struggling with, which is the strong romantic feelings he has for Gon and his concern that they're not requited. Of course it's improbable Jump would allow Togashi to state this outright so of course he has to frame it differently, but as usual he makes it clear what he's really saying in a number of ways for those of us who look into it deeply, while also not alienating readers who aren't interested in viewing it in that light.

What you're pointing out here makes this whole subplot more clear and understandable, and also further cements the romantic reading of Killua in Chimera Ant Arc--bravo for pointing it out! I think you're totally right on your reading of this, it ties so much together, and it seems like carefully laid puzzle pieces all arranged in a meaningful order.

This is why I love discussing HxH with people--even after all the times I've watched and read the series, all the meta I've read through the years, there's always some new way to see things or something I hadn't considered yet. Togashi is truly a genius storyteller, and it's an absolute blast pulling apart his writing because it's so rich and filled with intention. Even tiny scenes and little snippets of dialogue that don't seem that important in the big picture can have so much meaning once you make connections like this.

Thanks again for sending this in, it was enlightening to me and I'm sure it will be for lots of other people as well! Feel free to send more observations any time!

[storgicdealer]

ehehehehehe okay. first things first i figured out a good name for stohio: carteblan (i cannot believe it took me this long ive been calling it stohio for like ? oh my god just over a year now)

anyways yeah.

i havent figured out the exact timeline, but a couple years before victim "came back to life"/escaped the ava1 youtube video (that's a whole other can of worms), stickfigures were just finding out about the existence of other living sticks. in particular, freedom was a rather popular figure as one of the first sticks to break out of stick slavery (many living stickfigures were put to tasks, similar to chosen and second, where it was either do the task or die). freedom specifically was the first to discover the outernet, and quickly provided a link to others online.

he then created the "stick freedom ad" (which earned him his name; prior to this, he was simply known as unti (short for untitled) (sticks having Names outside of their roles was not a common thing yet)). he made this ad and scammed several websites into displaying it without actually paying for it by using fraudulent money (there are a couple very old blog posts and forum posts about the Stick Freedom Ad and what its supposed to mean, since clicking on it leads to an error 404).

as more sticks were freed and entered the outernet, they began to build houses. some sticks that had experience with drawing helped draw the sketches for these houses, which was then built upon using the surrounding resources. this eventually developed into carteblan, the city that mango and purple live in today.

however as time passed the culture in carteblan became a little elitist--- victim-blamey (haha), acting like all sticks should be strong, and turning down their noses on sticks who look a little too different from the norm (like paleo, ballista and hazard) (the norm being hollowheads, fullheads and whiteheads).

like i mentioned in my reblog, the sticks in carteblan began to crave more, lives similar to human lives, and amongst that was a demand for stick children. in my headcanon, sticks cannot reproduce and any sex they have is entirely recreational, so they had to devise another method for having kids. adoption, like mango did with gold in my hc, is the most common way of doing this.

sticks like second, that can draw things to life, are extremely rare (like 1 out of a thousand) in the outernet, but theres a couple thousand people in carteblan as of 2024 so there are a few sticks that can actually draw sticks to life. thus, they do 'kid' commissions where they literally draw a kid to life in exchange for money. there are also some website sticks in touch with their animators who ask their animators do do kid commissions as well for people in the outernet.

wow okay this is long. there are other stick cities too but the two major cities are carteblan and adagia most other sticks live in solitude or on websites ok im done woo

grabs you by the shoulders. falls onto the floor. has a fucking awakening

DUDE.

this is one of the most amazing things ive seen recently that inspired me to make a ramble/srs.

im going to create another part of my ramble series and pin it because of it im fr

foundation of the outernet, development of outernet sticks and creation of living beings

(a ramble made with the help of an immaculate person with amazing ideas)

OH MY GOD?????? FIRSTLY. i need to mention that i ADORE that we both have an idea that outernet was discovered by created internet/pc sticks. that its appearance began to be a place for a whole race to live in. and that its not something that exists completely naturally and independently from it. this is the theory of their origins i believe most right now

freedom being the founder IS SICK. ITS SO FUCKING SICK im rolling on the floor

in my "rules of code" ramble also i supposed sticks being in touch with their creators as well and them also BEING DRAWN!!! by sticks and creators. ill put a screenshot of everything hold on

outernets creation

my thoughts about outernets existence that most of which i think i explained

lives of stickmen and reproduction

my thoughts were about reproduction as well!!!!! its mostly accepted as canon in the fandom that sticks reproduce naturally but i cannot say that it actually is canon. everything that was going on with purple was symbolic and didnt showcase like. natural birth

alan said that for gold to exist king would have to marry a very neon yellow stick.

AND THIS made me confirm my headcanon that stick children are created by parent(s) own code. that they cannot influence it or prefer a color, that their code INHERENTLY has the variety of the color palette and hexcodes embedded into it.

ABOUT the code and colors. (i believe that the colors of sticks mixing up with each others is COMPLETELY code.)

all sticks inherently have a code and a name that gives them associated power. that can be messed with as well by a user (tdl command). its something that ive also talked in my rules of code ramble and mentioned the concept of "levels" and name power hierarchy

the chosen one, created and possessing a grandeu amount of power

the dark lord, also posessing a lot of power (that i dont believe couldve came from the command that was written into them. the command of destroying chosen is a goal that i believe is able to not be achieved)

the second coming, the name of someone that ties them with their predecessor (does make me wonder though how exactly their code made a connection with our chosen. maybe its possible that the name "the second coming" by itself, as a level, implies being a coming of someone powerful)

victim, being quite weak by themselves and not posessing any power by their own and having to rely on pc programs they're aware of.

i believe that being able to code a stick into a specific power and duty is something that could only be achieved and controlled through the feature of the program the stick was created in. in case of outernet, since they dont have access to computer programs and therefore, programs of creation such as adobe they cannot influence or change one's code

when it comes to creation of a stick i truly believe that you are able to give them color by yourself, unless the child is made by connecting it to the codes of its supposed parent(s). they gain hue by either actually taking/mixing up the colors of the parents or by taking one color in case of a sole parent.

(societal thought: its possible that outernet sticks, due to not wanting to have a literal copy and just an extension of themselves and wanting to create an "actual new life" by mixing colours prefer to have children with a partner, and not by themselves only)

have thought that color/code of the stick could be influenced by the parent(s) preferences, like a parent would like to have a kid similar to them and name them the same way (thus resulting/having their hexcode being picked out individually) BUT. i remembered alans words about kings spouse.

that for gold to exist king would need to marry a really neon yellow stick.

would it imply that sticks that subtract parent(s) code cannot influence the color of the stick created? as much as it impossible to influence the features of a born child in our real life, only taking it from parents and letting the nature play a randomizer. and that the only thing that they are able to influence is the shape of their creation?

society of outernet

THE CONCEPT OF STICKS SOCIETY BEING ELITIST ABOUT THIS STUFF. im eating it im not sure what fully do with it yet but im eating it

ive also talked about society there

when talking about creators of mercs king purple and co i was mostly thinking about real users. BUT YOUR CONCEPT OF STICKS BEING DRAWN BY OTHER STICKS AND ME THINKING ABOUT IT AS WELL . THIS IS SO FUCKING AMAZING. this is canon for me IDC!!!!!!

it does, however, make me wonder of their living process. we know that alan's hollowheads are created for a reason, are born aware of themselves, how to walk/run/interact/fight and havent been seen aging or changing. and due to chosen, victim and second surviving a whole bunch of damage that should've killed them, second literally REFUSING to delete, the fate of dark lord being unknown and alan not giving a straight answer about it and, very important: cg as created sticks being unable to actually die and needing only refresh of a page to continue living, having all their memories intact... makes me wonder that stickmen created directly by a human hand are unable to die.

(does make me wonder about another completely different thing. the societal perception. is it acceptable to be in touch with your stick creators? how would it even feel. do they perceive them as a distant relative?? do sticks that are able to create life consider their creations close to them as well??? im imagining something along the lines about detroit stuff with connor&kamski but way less intense)

connection of realms and creation of life

ive rambled A TON about connection of internet and outernet and how sticks especially of outernet could connect and travel between realms. hear ye hear ye.

right now i genuinely believe that stick society advanced so far in the outernet and got to live there that their connection with the internet mightve severed:

sticks of outernet don't physically interact neither with internet/pc programs OR travel there unless they obtained something that could allow them to travel to a pc/internet (the minecraft block and nether portals that seem doing quite fine in the outernet dimension) or have powers that can allow them to break through (chosen and the computer/ip sky which, interestingly, has only been seen broken through on the alanspc ip adress//dark portals to the internet).

given this, there's not a lot of accesible methods of traveling to the internet and most of them are available only to pc sticks.

(except. for king and purple. except for king getting a block from minecraft that was not supposed to be in the outernet from that merchant in his backstory. but it is a whole another can of worms as well)

as far as we've seen sticks that werent exposed to pc and internet tech dont really use or possess any tech that could access it??????? the times where we've seen tech such as computers/phones/tvs/pc and programs interface were always in possession of sticks that came from a pc or were there at least once (hollowheads, the cg, purple) or were entrusted with it from someone that was on a pc (mercenaries). talking about the video used on the tv in "the king" episode... it has never been shown that this video was being shown directly from the youtubes platform either. and that lead me to a thought that outernet sticks might not even interacted with internet's properties except for the tools used to create a life that came along with the foundation of the internet and most likely were developed from tools brought by the first sticks. but the way outernet progressed they might not even know that this stuff is literally from another realm

heck, a daring thought.

in case of outernet being almost completely cut off from its original internet history recent sticks of outernet might not even know of the existence of pcs and internet.

this does however clash with sticks being still created by people and sticks that are able to create life being in touch with them. but its still supposable that only rare sticks with an ability to create life somewhat have a.. gene? passed through to them from some of their ancestors that could've been able to create life. and users dont exactly come into this (also given its unlikely that its a regular experience for a user to be emulated in the outernet world like it was with alans cursor in showdown)

continuing to talk about elitism. again this is such a sick concept

im thinking right now that elitism towards stickmen that arent completely strong/prefer not to engage in fighting due to the progress of their civilization//different kinds of stickmen mightve also came from the original stickmen (im going start coloring this concept now. also this whole is some adam and eve stuff) that were created to fight. we know from our real world that the first appearance of sticks in the internet didnt come from a desire to animate them in a fighting ring but the whole scene and culture of fighting sticks came around pretty quickly. the whole reason avam exists as a series

its possible that while predecessors of original stickmen werent created with fighting in mind the stickmen that discovered the outernet might as well been the first sticks created for fight. and since it isnt a thing that gone away and is most likely embedded into the code of sticks themselves in the avam universe the whole "fighting code gene" mightve been carried over to recent sticks as well. and this elitism exists that even though sticks dont have to fight anymore (to literally survive in most cases) due to the progress of their kind some conservative mfs might believe that "this is what our ancestors intendeeeddd you need to bow to your roots and your existing gene"

the elitism towards kinds of sticks is. god its such a big and very explainable and amazing concept

due to sticks just beginning existing in the internet a long while ago and mostly drawn pretty similarly (since most creators were just exploring how to draw them digitally) the race of stickmen that passed down from original stickmen could've been all just fullheads and whiteheads and perhaps hollowheads?.. im really thinking hard about it because. we havent seen hollowheads in the outernet and the fact that orange didnt even know of their existence anywhere else and even WE didnt up until they saw victim (and were probably quite damn shocked) and the fact it was possibly quite a grand moment to them confuses me.

im not sure for what reason, but the number of sticks of the race of hollowheads might have been reduced in present outernet, only having the ones that posses incredible power survive. (yet. also victim. that does not posses such power. but its a whole another idea on that they could've acquired it through different means and not from power coming from their own self)

or, it just is an avam universe rule that users didnt really think of drawing hollowheads when creating first sticks because it was hard for them to keep track of the background besides their damn hollow head and it was easier to have a stick that covered it fully on another layer LOL

either way, coming back to elitism (this sounds funny out of context), due to original sticks being simply drawn as fullheads whiteheads and possibly hollowheads it was the main race that stickmen were used to creating when drawing a new life. but with the progress of their civilization they started to experiment, eventually inventing new kinds of sticks (the kinds of hazard, ballista and paleo). due to some conservative sticks clinging to their roots they didnt like the difference from the norm.

elitism thought.

even with a possible inability to code a stick into doing something by outernet sticks would people still try to draw a stick with a specific build associated with certain jobs and tasks, trying to force them into a mold of who they are "supposed" to be? like, drawing a stick that resembles a sign (like hazard) and having them work for example as an aircraft marshaller or some other job that requires caution and directive? the grey sticks working in rocketcorp, possibly made as clerks and errand dudes?

..could purple be drawn being stronger and having a greater build than a usual stick would have, therefore disappointing navy when they dont match their expectations of a stick they wanted?

would it be a problem that progressive sticks would try to solve? allowing different kinds of sticks to exist, but not forcing them into a certain shape?

another thing. YOUVE OPENED A GATEWAY TO A SEA OF WORMS BY TELLING ME ABOUT POSSIBLE ESCAPE OF VICTIM FROM A YOUTUBE VIDEO.

my previous ramble (rocketcorp, dimensions and virtual reality) made a theory that victim, in one way or another essentially brought pc programs and tech into outernet, thus obtaining power that is, quite literally, linked with their whole creation. (very symbolic considering their whole power is the one that made their life end so fast) and, due to outernet being cut off from programs and powers of internet and pcs, became a being that literally stood higher than the reality and fabric of the outernet realm itself, possesing power that could possibly meddle with it (mercs cannons literally changing structure and whole being of objects like the corndog stand or literally messing with a sticks state and body with chosen). and i have thought that victim is the one that could use internet itself as one of their grand tools.

and. animation vs youtube. we fucking know. that a stick is able to upload itself and break the interface of internet.

no one said that the original ava video on youtube is the whole thing that victim used to escape.

also. remember me mentioning that the original video of animation vs minecraft wasnt shown to be accessed through youtube. this video looked like it was downloaded having a whole different bar at the bottom and everything. couldve it been downloaded by vic or rocketcorp?

(victim interneted the fucking internet and started showing avam series like their own show. by the way its ALSO a potential scenario i talked about before. that due to potential severing of outernet citizens with the internet the recorded adventures of the cg on pc, internet and minecraft (ESPECIALLY considering that minecraft existed as a fun simulation game on a festival) that was broadcasted could've been interpreted by outernet sticks as fiction. but its an independent funny concept to be thought about and i still didnt fully figure it out)

op.

you cracked my mind open like a walnut and i cannot stop thinking about all of your ideas

oh my god this did so much to me. ive been writing for the past two hours due to how much ideas it gave me. im going to pin this ramble because its very important to me and puts a lot of theories and headcanons in stone. you are my saviour cindersnows and you are probably going to be fucking FLABBERGASTED by the length of this post

sincerely yours storgic "the aspiring matpat of the avam fandom" dealer

[ereyies]

i love your of mice and men oc. let me tell you i was scrolling thru the omam tag after reading that book for class because GOSH that ending destroyed me. bronwyn is so cute!!! and i love the ideas you have for her character and how she’d add onto the book. is there any more of your character that u thought of?? i’d love it hear it! ur art is stunning btw!!!

artists and writers are the backbone of dead fandoms. but i dont know if you could even call this fandom dead cuz i dont think it even had a life 💀

THANK YOU SO INCREDIBLY MUCH!!

this means the entire world to me you have no idea just how touched i am that you love my oc 💖 💖!! be VERY careful going through the of mice and men tag because unfortunately there are a LOT of nsfw bots!!

as for anything else relating to Bronwyn and her character, I don't have much else written/in mind other than that I have already shared other than maybe two things (copied and pasted from a document i made just to keep track of her lore):

Candy and Bronwyn probably wouldn't be close despite Candy having worked at the ranch for years. Not because of anything bad that happened between them, however I imagine that Candy was initially the main contributor to all the gossip said about her on the ranch and later on he learned she wasn't a bad person at all and just a lonely ill child, but by that point he had both immortalised her as a legend but condemned her from ever making real connections with people again. Knowing what he started and how he unintentionally isolated her and prevented her from being easily able to make friends with people on the ranch, the guilt would probably prevent him from forming any close connections with her.

I feel like if she were actually a character within the novel, her presence within the story would be similar to Andrey Bolkonsky in the musical Natasha, Pierre, & the Great Comet of 1812 (brilliant but strange musical btw, if you're interested in musicals it's definitely worth a listen!!). She is this looming presence amongst all the characters, always being mentioned in passing during conversation, this figure that everyone is aware of yet never sees, never actually being present in person up until the very end.

Candy would probably be the reader's introduction to Bronwyn, since Candy is a known gossiper. She'd be this influence in the story but is never truly there. I'm not too sure how she'd be important if that were the case though? Perhaps she'd be a figure symbolic of a 'point of no return' for all the characters. They all have a dream that isn't totally impossible which they come very close to achieving, and could very well leave their situation, but Bronwyn never had a chance and can never truly escape, locked up just to be forgotten about. Maybe she'd be a warning of the terrible fate which Lennie would have faced if he had lived and been institutionalised.

ANYWAYS moving past all of that; i have only made very few drawings of Bronwyn since my last post talking about her (admittedly due to extreme art block). But I’ve mostly been brainstorming about Curley and Bronwyn, the similarities and differences between them, mostly differences. Here is some of my recent art:

I always love experimenting and playing around with my style, trying out new brushes, techniques and colours <33 The last isn’t exactly my favourite mostly because i was just getting a feel for how to draw Curley and had little to no references for the pose and so it looks a little stiff. But!! I made many notes for my ideas while I was doing the sketch:

Thank you once more for your ask!! It means the world to me <33 I was so embarrassed when I first made her and feared being called ‘cringe’ or that people wouldn’t like her or something else along those lines, but the reception so far has been nothing but positive and encouraging!! I definitely plan to make more art and potentially even write some short fanfics including her in the future!!

oh one final thing, i also made a spotify playlist for her!! https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0qrBhwqopc6KrC7RouFxOZ?si=GPudTv12S92QwBBXqxw0Bg&pi=khdpmOzjTfeQP

Thank you once more for being so kind <33 I hope you have the most wonderful day/evening/night!!

[bethanythebogwitch]

Origins of legendary Pokemon: Gen III

I am doing a series of posts exploring the real-life inspirations for various Pokémon. Previously I have covered all fish Pokémon, all other aquatic Pokémon, and all starters. Currently I am working through all legendary and mythical Pokémon. It has been a few months since I last updated this series but I’m back now. Today I’m covering gen III. For previous posts see gen I and gen II.

Starting off with the legendary golems, I decided I’ll cover the gen III and gen XIII golems together. All of them are based on, well, golems. In Jewish folklore, a golem is a creature made of inanimate material that has been magically animated. The most famous story about golems, and the one that most modern depictions draw from is the golem of Prague. Dating back to the 16th century, the story goes that Rabbi Loew (a real person) built the golem out of clay and animated it by inserting a clay tablet inscribed with the name of God (a shem) into its mouth. The golem protected the Prague ghetto from pogroms. Every Friday, the Rabbi took the shem out of the golem’s mouth to deactivate it for the sabbath. Eventually the golem went on a violent rampage for reasons that vary depending on who tells the story. Sometimes the Rabbi forgot to take the shem out before the sabbath, other times the golem fell in love and was rejected. Either way, the rabbi eventually managed to pull the shem out, causing the golem to fall apart. The pieces were then stored in the attic of the synagogue, where it can be revived if ever needed again. The attic does exist, but is closed to the public. The idea that golems are animated through certain words either held in the mouth or inscribed on the forehead is common. In some stories (including some variants of the Prague story), the word used is “emét” (אמת) meaning “truth” and the golem can be deactivated by removing the final letter, changing the word to “mét” (מת) meaning “dead”. All of the regis are golems made from some mind of inanimate material: stone for Regirock, ice for Regice, metal for Registeel, electricity for Regieleki, and crystallized dragon energy for Regidrago. Like golems, they needed to be made by an already exiting being, in this case Regigigas. The unique sequence of dots on each regi represents the word carved on a golem’s head to bring it to life. Each regi also represents a historical time period. Regirock represents the stone age, Regice the ice age, Registeel the iron age, and Regieleki the moderm or electric age. Regidrago is harder to pin down since the only dragon age is a series of video games. It could represent the middle ages, with medieval Europe having plenty of dragon legends, or maybe a more general age of myths.

(Image: a statue of the golem of Prague, found in Prague. It is a brownish, mostly-featureless humanoid with several cracks on its body held together by rivets. End ID)

The eon duo are weird. They’re dragons with elements of birds and airplanes (the latter more visible in their mega evolutions). The biggest hint to what they’re supposed to represent might come from both being the eon Pokémon and explicitly brothers and sisters. Eon could just indicate they’ve been around for eons, but it also could come from aeon, a concept in Gnosticism. Gnosticism was a group of early Christian sects that were  very different from modern Christianity and are pretty much extinct now. In Gnostocism, aeons were divine beings that were emanations from the true God. You can think of the as the Gnostic version of angels except they’re more like less perfect derivations of God who can in turn make their own even less pure derivations and so on. It’s weird and complicated. In one of the most popular Gnostic sects, Valentinianism, aeons come in complementary male/female pairs called syzygies.

This is one of the simpler diagrams of how the aeons and syzygies are related to each other. Yeah. (Image: a diagram of the relations between aeons in Valentinianism, consisting of pairs of spheres connected with lines. Sourced from Histoire critique du Gnosticisme by Jacques Matter)

Latias and Latios being male and female counterparts could make them a syzygy of two (a)eons. They might also draw from the Chinese concept of yin and yang, opposing but complimentary forces. Yin is usually associated with femininity and passivity and fits Latias while yang is masculine and more passionate, fitting Latias. The pair’s ability to levitate and bird-like feathers may draw from the martlet, a legendary bird with no legs that spends its entire life flying. Martlets are often depicted with tufts in place of legs like the two tufts that the latis have. Finally, the name of the latis comes from the latin “lateō” which means “I conceal” or “I am hidden”, which fits both the two using illusions to stay hidden.

(Image: a heraldic depiction of a martlet, shown as the silhouette of a bird with two tufts where the legs should be. End ID)

The big names of gen III are of course the super-ancient weather trio of Groudon, Kyogre, and Rayquaza. They each represent one of the “spheres” of Earth. Groudon represents the lithosphere, the outer layer of rock that makes up the planet’s crust. Kyogre represents the hydrosphere, all of the planet’s water in solid, liquid, and gas forms. Finally, Rayquaza represents the atmosphere, the gasses that are trapped on the planet by its gravity. As mythical beasts representing the land, sea, and sky, the trio draw from a trio of creatures in Jewish mythology that were passed down to Christianity and Islam. These creatures are behemoth, leviathan, and ziz, who were primordial beasts that dwelled in and represented land, sea, and sky. Of the three, behemoth and leviathan get most of the representation while ziz remains fairly obscure. This is likely because they are both described in the old testament/Tanakh’s Book of Job as part of what is essentially God spending several passages bragging about how powerful he is and saying therefore he can be as much of an asshole as he likes. Behemoth is a grass-eating swamp-dweller likely inspired by a hippo or elephant while leviathan is a scaly, armored carnivore that (once you strip away all the fantastical elements) was probably inspired by a crocodile. Ziz is usually depicted as a colossal bird or griffon. Behemoth and leviathan are often depicted as mortal enemies who will kill each other in a battle at the end of time, fitting with Groudon and Kyogre being enemies that nearly destroyed the world with their battle.

(Image: a depiction of behemoth, leviathan, and ziz. Behemoth is shown as a red bull. Leviathan is depicted as a brown fish. Ziz is situated above the other two and resembles a griffon with no front legs. End ID. Sourced from the Ambrosiana Bible)

The designs of the three Pokemon draw from animals or mythical creatures who live in their associated biome. The lines covering them may also draw from the Nazca lines of Peru, though only Kyogre has a direct counterpart in the lines with the whale geoglyph.

(Image: the whale Nacza line, seen from above. it is a geoglyph in the form of a whale, drawn in a line lighter than the surrounding desert. End ID)

Kyogre is based on an orca. It’s fitting that the Pokémon who created the ocean is based on the ocean’s most badass animal. Leviathan is usually depicted as a sea serpent nowadays, but it has historically been depicted as a fish or whale (and a lot of ancient cultures didn’t realize that whales aren’t fish). Groudon is based on outdated depictions of theropod dinosaurs that had them standing upright and dragging their tails on the ground like Godzilla. The spikes on its side and tail may come from dinosaurs like Ankylosaurus. It also visually resembles molten or superheated rock (moreso in its primal reversion), a reference to volcanoes and their role in raising islands out of the ocean. Rayquaza is based off of the serpentine, wingless eastern dragons while it having front legs but no hind legs comes from the European lindworm dragons (though lindworms being strictly serpentine dragons with only front legs is a more recent thing). Asian dragons often had power over weather, which Rayquaza has with its ability to negate all weather conditions. it being specifically a dragon that lives in the upper atmosphere and occasionally comes down to earth might come from the draconid meteor shower, which itself is named after the constellation Draco. Oh, and to keep the ancient Judaism origins going, Rayquaza’s name might come from the Hebrew word “rāqī́aʿ”which means “firmament”. The firmament is a giant crystal dome that covers the earth and makes up the sky, found in many different mythologies including ancient Judaism.

Moving over to the mythicals we have this generation’s Mew clone: Jirachi. It being associated with a certain comet and having the ability to grant wishes is a big shout-out to the idea of wishing on a star. Its head is shaped like a star and shooting stars (the ones you usually wish on) are actually meteors. Many meteors are composed of iron, likely why Jirachi is steel-type. Jirachi is also based on Tanabata, a Japanese festival based on mythology and astrology where two deities, represented by the stars Vega and Altair, are only allowed to meet once a year. During Tanabata, people will write wishes on pieces of paper called tanzaku and hang them on bamboo or trees. Three tanzaku are present on Jirachi’s head.

(image: a branch with a paper chain and multiple tanzaku on it. The Tanzaku are multicolored, rectangular strips of paper with Japanese writing on them. End ID)

The connection to Tanabata is more explicit in the anime, where the movie featuring Jirachi has a festival celebrating the return of the comet that awakens Jirachi every thousand years. Lots of comets have very elliptical orbits that only bring them to the inner solar system once every several decades or even centuries. While comets are usually depicted with one tail, they actually have two, generated by the sun’s heat and solar wind. One tail is formed from dust while the other is formed from gas. The two streamer or tail like things coming from Jirachi’s back probably represents the two tails of a comet.

(Image: Comet Hale-Bopp, showing the large, white dust tail and the smaller, blue gas tail. End ID)

Deoxys is the first mythical to be un-mythicaled when it showed up in ORAS as a normally-catchable mon in the postgame. Shame they didn’t keep that up. Anyway, Deoxys is an alien, specifically a virus that mutated while falling into Earth’s atmosphere. The idea of a virus or alien falling from the sky is common in science fiction. Think The Andromeda Strain (book and movie, not the shitty miniseries) or The Blob, or if you want a Japanese example, Space Amoeba. Deoxys is also heavily associated with DNA. Its name comes from the full name of DNA: deoxyribonucleic acid and its tentacles in normal form take the same double helix shape that DNA strands do. Its original 3 forms also come DNA: defense, normal, and attack. Speed form messed this up when it came out. I would have called it rapid form so at least it can reference RNA. The x-shaped silhouette of Deoxys also looks like a chromosome. Deoxys also draws from the idea of mutation, which is the result of changes in the structure of DNA. It is a mutated virus and it can mutate itself into specialized forms. The crystal in its chest (which in the movie continuity is the real Deoxys, with the body being an extension of the crystal) probably comes from the sci-fi trope of silicon-based alien life.  Silicon is the next element down from Carbon on the periodic table and also has 4 valence electrons, leading to speculation that alien life could use silicon as a basis instead of carbon. Silicon-based aliens are often depicted as living crystals.

(Image: a drawing of a cell, zoomed in to show a chromosome, zoomed in to show a DNA strand. The cell is a blue blob, the chromosomes are blue, globular, and shaped like the letter x. The DNA is two blue strands arranged in a double helix structure connected by small rods. End ID. Source).

[saintmeghanmarkle]

Organizations Need to Stop Giving Harry a Platform by u/Ask_DontTell

Organizations Need to Stop Giving Harry a Platform Harry is going to be speaking at the Clinton Global Initiative with Jill Biden and will also be at a WellChild event. He recently received the Pat Tillman Award. it's time for all these organizations that are supposedly trying to make the world a better a place to stop giving Harry a platform simply for being the son of a king and for donors and media to call him and them out. Harry is not credible and he is an undeserving role model, esp for children. the BRF needs to strip his titles and organizations need to stop engaging him. it is dangerous to continue to give him a platform, esp, wrt to children, for the following reasons:His wife is a reported bully to staff and others and he her enabler. He is a self-professed drug addict. He has not spoken against the use of drugs like cocaine and seems to promote the use of mushrooms and other psychedelics.He is apparently lazy and has no real accomplishments of his own. IG was co-founded w Prince William. He has also turned the Invictus Games into his own publicity vehicle. Spotify called him lazy.He appears to be a racist. He implies others are racists but has himself worn a Nazi uniform and used a racial slur referring to a fellow serviceman.He is referenced in a lawsuit against P. Diddy, an accused sex trafficker. It is unclear what the association is but the fact he is the only person of renown mentioned in the suit can't be good.He arguably has committed elder abuse, demanding things of his elderly grandparents, allowing his wife to mock the late Queen, not supporting his sick father-in-law or his own father during his battle w cancer, depriving him even of visits w his grand children.He has no real education or specialized knowledge (other than his own "lived truth") in the things he has been espousing and yet acts like an expert, putting out statements and pontificating.His Archewell Foundation is and has been delinquent in its filings.Harry has made a career out of attacking his family and is alienated from both his and his wife's family. It is very telling that he has so few close friends and supporters. He has been accused of being cruel to animals, including riding a pregnant pony and drawing blood from another during a polo match.He is the butt of jokes and has no credibility. See the South Park episode. he is a hypocrite who wants the perks of his title but none of the responsibility.He is a known liar/ has allowed his wife to tell lies w/o correcting them. Eg. he knew or should have known his children were not immediately given titles b/c of the way the laws worked, that he had not bee married 3 days earlier. He claimed his wife did not say his family was racist.He is a self-promoter. everything he does appears to be to bolster his own image rather than the organization he is promoting. Eg. how could he have with any conscience accepted the Pat Tillman award knowing Mr. Tillman's mother was against his selection? How could he accept the Living Legend of Aviation award when his flying experience has been extremely limited.He may or may not be in the US under false representations on his visa applications.There are more examples but at the end of the day, Harry is not a good role model. He comes across as an entitled prince. any organization that thinks he is (even just to get publicity) loses credibility and donors should be outraged that harry gets to pretend to be an authority on something, espousing at best dribble and at worst, dangerous ideas, to an unsuspecting public.sorry for the long rant. post link: https://ift.tt/U1LXF9f author: Ask_DontTell submitted: September 18, 2024 at 11:46PM via SaintMeghanMarkle on Reddit disclaimer: all views + opinions expressed by the author of this post, as well as any comments and reblogs, are solely the author's own; they do not necessarily reflect the views of the administrator of this Tumblr blog. For entertainment only.

[comingdownwithme]

Hello!! You, your (amazing) artwork and your headcannons have single-handedly gotten me back into the Creepypasta fandom, I cannot describe the reaction I had to seeing your artwork but everything you draw just feels so good to look at? I’m not explaining this very well, but your art style is so pleasing to my eyes, there’s just something about the shading, the lines and the way you capture emotions/expressions it’s just; chef’s kiss (I had a question I promise lol)

What made you draw Toby and Jeff as a ship/what are some past/future headcannons that you have for them? Or just in general if you want to use this as an excuse to ramble about them go for it, anything you say about them I will listen!

Secondly, what is your general headcannon for the rest of the Creepypasta’s? Also it might be because I’ve been out of the loop for a few years but I didn’t really realise there were ex-proxies now, if it’s something you’ve come up with for your story that is insanely cool to read about (anything involving the like, political(?) state of the proxies is fascinating to me).

This has gone on longer than I thought it would, many apologies! I hope you’re having a good day!

I'm?? So honored that my art and headcanons have influenced you?? Skjdjd IM SO GLAD YOU LIKE MY ART AND MY CONTENT, REALLY MEANS A LOT TO ME AND ADDS A FEW MORE YEARS TO MY LIFE SPAN LMAO

As for what got me to drawing Ticcijeff, honestly? It started out as simply drawing the two characters I liked when I was a kid back at the archaic era of 2015 Youtube interacting, then it kinda... it snowballed from there– 😭

They both make me happy individually, so I figured bringing them both together would give me twice the serotonin (which did tbh) alongside the parallels of them both being reborn through fire, and my growing interest in these two were only enabled further by the few good Ticcijeff fanfics on AO3 lmao

As for headcanons? I'm just gonna,,, link some posts abt my dynamics for them and their lore and background so far because if I wrote all my thoughts abt them here we'd be here all day. (though there's absolutely more to come)

About their Childhood friendship

Another post about their childhood friendship! (Featuring the two's dynamic, Jeff's intrusive thoughts, and some additional background info on Jeff)

About Jeff and Toby meeting years later

What happened following the previous post

As for general headcanons for the creepypastas? Their world is a little bit more fucked than our own. Strict rules are set by authorities, there's a tight curfew in place for the safety of people, and death and missing persons cases have become common enough in recent times that it's become a morbid part of normal life.

Unbeknownst to the lay person though, the killers and criminals roaming the night aren't the worst one could encounter. There are incomprehensible- even malevolent horrors that defy the rules of the universe, that cross the boundaries of logic and reason, and even the dead won't stay dead for long in this world. In a twisted universe plagued by death and unknown creatures, even the scum of humanity have to carve a place out for themselves and survive.

Soooo uh, yeah, that's a gist of it lmao, but I'm gonna dump some specific headcanons too for the creeps, especially for each characters like I did here for the girls and here for Jack and Ben eventually!

Also, as someone who's been out of the loop for years (I just joined the fandom officially this year, the only social media site I had back in 2015 was YouTube 😭) I HAD??? NO IDEA EX PROXIES WERE A THING WHICH IS HELLA INTERESTING

I'm definitely gonna write down and flesh out the proxies and their relationship with the Slenderman, but thaaatssss for another time 👉👉

[tunamayuuu]

“i actually stopped being into bsd for a full ass year and ever since that shin soukoku doodle i made, it comforted a big part of me that felt horrible everytime i'd post bsd onto socmed knowing my more passionate works didn't get as much engagement as shitposts ahaha...”

• Oh yeah I remember you mentioning that somewhere and tbh I get that it happened to me too but with Kny (⁠〒ω〒) It's unfair, and upsetting, the engagement rate on most art posts–that aren't either skk nor a meme–in this fandom, but I'm glad you're getting more love, because you deserve all of it with your work!! You put a lot of care into it and your hard work bears fruit to beautiful art! I can't really blame the people for wanting some relief from the depressive canon through memes and shitposts, but I also can't deny that it does sting.

“the kny-ified bsd au was and still is an au project i want to keep working on!! i have a looong list of the full cast, it's just that i always get side quests and wanting to draw OTHER things and getting into OTHER new medias i wanna draw and yeah that's why it's taken years for me to complete anything orz (i have plenty of files of the au that i never posted because they're all unfinished or uncolored and i thought i won't do my au justice if none of them were colored yk?)”

• I felt that on a spiritual level istg ಥ⁠‿⁠ಥ It's understandable, and imo drawing for a different fandom is a good change of pace and helps avoid burnout since drawing the same fandom all the time could get tiresome, even if you would generally find it fun. (I get it, and I honestly admire your dedication to give the best you have for your works, so take your time with your projects, I know you're working hard and I think I speak for a lot of us when I say we'll never rush you to have anything finished and posted right away.)

“i'm not an inokana fan myself but i'd love to hear your take on them! i just wanted to draw kyokenji at that time ehehei will always say that rengokunikida was def not my idea. it was an idea from a bsd friend! they even explained to me how it could work and i never looked back”

• My take on inokana: They complement each other in many ways. Inosuke is very loud, and Kanao is very quiet, but they've both seen each other in the rare state where they're not. I feel like Inosuke could bring out a little immaturity in Kanao and that she could teach Inosuke a fraction of patience. Inosuke definitely has some form of appreciation for her skills and capabilities, and he'd definitely hold her in high regard in his own mountain king way. I don't know why, but a gut feeling tells me they'd agree on a lot of things for completely different reasons, and I suppose she'd humour him when he wants to go exploring in the forests because why not? Personal hc: they would've stayed by each other's side during recovery where Kanao would tell Inosuke more about Shinobu, and would also tell him the occult stories Shinobu always used to tell while Kanae covered her ears. Anyways yeah I care about them a lot. The bsd friend that suggested rengokunikida is a genius because it's so fitting. The immaculate coincidence of both of them getting impaled in the stomach by an immortal being WHILE SMILING AND LOOKING AT PEACE is too perfect.

“i'm actually not sure who would take murata's role in the au because we know next to nothing about canon tecchou. michizou already takes sabito's role so.....? ALSO I FINALLY GOT TO ANSWER THIS BECAUSE! fukuchi is not urokodaki in this au! fukuchi takes kokushibo's role”

• we'll probably get backstory in the next few chapters when he melts so we'll possibly get an option for murata in the next two months. KOKUSHIBO FUKUCHI??? I'M INSANE OVER THISAAAAAJDJDBD???

“jouno and fukuchi unfortunately do not interact in this au.. i'm so happy to see my au still getting love even after the years i've been on and off in activity! comments like these fill me with so much motivation to upkeep this au!”

• oh well, we can't have it all. I'm glad!! I will keep supporting and I'm excited for what's to come !!!

-anon called Grace

grace we have GOT to stop this yap contest (huge slash joking, i love these thank you)

"the engagement rate on most art posts–that aren't either skk nor a meme"

literally my most popular post on this account is STILL the soukoku memes i made back in 2021. which i'm grateful for! yet at the same time, it's a little ironic i guess because i'm not crazy about soukoku or fukumori anymore :(

"but I'm glad you're getting more love, because you deserve all of it with your work"

i am super grateful for the followers that have stuck with me throughout the years!! (yes i can recognize some of you in my notes haha) and i was honestly really comforted when i saw love for my traditional work in the reblogs and asks.. it genuinely healed a huge insecurity i had about my art...

"drawing for a different fandom is a good change of pace and helps avoid burnout since drawing the same fandom all the time could get tiresome, even if you would generally find it fun"

i have a friend who's crazy abt one pairing in their account and they've kept it up for probably more than half a decade now? i just realized along the way that i can't be like that... i literally joined the community wanting to be a ranpoe acct but ahaha... i get interested in too many things...

"I think I speak for a lot of us when I say we'll never rush you to have anything finished and posted right away"

uuu i've read this sentiment so many times on my account, and i'm always grateful... it brings me so much joy to see love for an au that's basically 2 years old now...

"They complement each other in many ways. Inosuke is very loud, and Kanao is very quiet, but they've both seen each other in the rare state where they're not. I feel like Inosuke could bring out a little immaturity in Kanao and that she could teach Inosuke a fraction of patience."

stop this. you're convincing me. you can't do this to me i'm already attached to too many pairings in kny PLEASE /j but fr though, this is such a sweet interpretation of their relationship! personally, i still see them as more platonic, or even queerplatonic if they're more committed to each other specifically... but that's just because i think inosuke being aroace would be silly...

"The bsd friend that suggested rengokunikida is a genius because it's so fitting. The immaculate coincidence of both of them getting impaled in the stomach by an immortal being WHILE SMILING AND LOOKING AT PEACE is too perfect."

what's crazy to me is the fact that my friend made that comparison two years ago. we never would have known kunikida would've been a donut too......

"KOKUSHIBO FUKUCHI??? I'M INSANE OVER THISAAAAAJDJDBD???"

fantastic! because i think fukuzawa and fukuchi would make for amazing tsukiguni twins

super happy to hear from you again, grace!

[strangestcase]

Griffin being canonically blind isn't canon actually. He was able to throw stones in Kemp's windows, meaning he knew where to throw, his notes were not in Braille and contained Greek letters and numbers other characters were able to see and read (but not understand), and Griffin himself made multiple visual descriptions while telling his story.

It's okay to have headcanons, but calling anyone ableist for not sharing your vision is just disgusting. Also, there are numerous albino people who have pretty normal eyesight, even if it's not perfect. Stating that albino person necessarily must have visual impairment is in fact ableistic itself.

Well, last time I asked an expert they said all people with albinism have visual impairments and most of them are legally blind (not completely blind, mind you), and last time I checked H. G. Wells was not an expert.* Like, did you know people with albinism usually don’t have bright red eyes irl? Their irises are pink or purple. But Griffin is described with red eyes rather than pink, which would be a more common eye color. And that’s (another) thing Wells got wrong, because, guess what, writers can get things wrong. He also doesn’t mention strabismus or nistagmus anywhere, even though very much all people who have albinism have one or both.

(I only know like, two artists who draw Griffin with strabismus. And that’s counting myself.)

Griffin has albinism. I did research before writing him, including asking dermatologists and ophthalmologists, and if I had access to people with the same condition I would have asked them too (and in fact I regret not reaching out to do so). But like… Either you write him with actual real life albinism or you don’t. Unlike Wells, who only mentions he has light sensitivity like, once?

Let me ask you some things, anon: are YOU a person with albinism? In which case, I get it, I get your complaints! Because you’re technically right, and I concede it’s not my job as a physically abled person to police what you do in fandom. I can only do so much.

But if you’re not, would you have been assed to do research to write a character that has albinism, beyond “ummm actually not ALL albinos are blind”? Do you even know what “blind” means, like, medically? And, more importantly: are you saying these things to me because you want me to do better? or is it because you got butthurt I made some posts about the way the fandom ignores Griffin’s disability and treats it as a simple cosmetic effect rather than a medical condition that impacts his quality of life… like, forever ago? Actual, genuine question here. Do you WANT me to do BETTER with disabled rep? Or are you just angry I said you’re getting a disorder wrong (sometimes on purpose!) a few times in the past? Because from your tone I can’t tell and your use of “albino” rather than “person with albinism” makes it more confusing.

Let’s be clear here. “Griffin is visually impaired and should probably be blind” isn’t a headcanon, it’s what would happen if he had albinism, a real life condition from an array of real life conditions, in real life— if he was not a Fantasy White-Haired Freak to Wells and half of the fandom. H. G. Wells could have had a type 1 diabetic character spend a whole day without injecting insulin and you lot would be like “well them needing to inject insulin to not die painfully isn’t canon, stop saying all diabetics need insulin”.

*(Also some of my now late uncles all had type one OCA and, according to my mother, they were all legally blind to various degrees. I don’t count this as a firsthand source but yknow.)