#ope just realized this tagged you all

[dgdraws]

Artfight Postmortem

as you may know, i am prone to reflection on my art and process and progress. herein, i'm gonna navel gaze a bit about artfight 2024.

top line: really enjoyed myself, did a bunch of new things and this was "The Year of Artist Friends" which is spectacular.

i completed 20 attacks this year, including my first ever mass attacks! altogether I drew 28 different characters (incl 4 of my own).

for the first time, I had *users* i wanted to attack, rather than just characters i'd gathered via search or discord. honestly, three years ago when i picked up the stylus i was just excited at the prospect of drawing for other people, period. artfight was a cool way to be in community without prerequisites. i didn't quite dare to dream i might make some real connections and make proper friends. and yet :) here we are! i went in with three 'art friends' and i'm leaving with at least three more

in addition to being the year of artist friends, this could be "the year of clip studio paint was on megasale a week before artfight" because i knocked out like 2 practice pieces before July 1st so i wouldn't be starting with completely unfamiliar tools, but i used/learned csp for the vast majority of my attacks. one i finished in krita (lonnie), and my final attack i only used krita.

definitely trial-by-fired myself! but it motivated me to explore csp, and most important, gave me a reason to practice practice practice. last year i drew almost exclusively humans, lots of full bodys, because i wanted to get a better grip on anatomy and drawing a variety of faces. it worked then, and, well, i think i learned more of csp in one month of artfight than i would have if i was just plodding through my personal projects for 33 days :) *looks at my wip folder with months old files* pretty sure.

ok i'm gonna look at a few faves/standouts now:

came in hot with 0tt0 here! the main brush for this one (froggy pencil) was a mainstay for the whole month. so versatile!!! and lovely texture. this isn't quiiite brat green but this was what made me go, hmm, what if i... did a few pieces inspired by this album i can't stop listening to?

and then i took a huge turn and just used a soft round brush for Desa and Iryna for my dear friend @bobomcfoe bc i really wanted to turn these out in something approaching my "usual style" of late and i feared getting too deep into the temptations of csp if i put them off. and, um, yeah i love them. i got sooo close to matching that angle but ahh i can see the tilt now! nonetheless, love these two, not least bc brookie has some of the most pleasing color palettes to work w :)

then on to Rosé and baby's first vector lines! you can RESIZE lines in csp. did you know that? i didn't know that. i did forget to use it as much as i could have in later ones though, so i still only kinda know it ig. and halftone shading! bc why not? another thing i really only did this once, but want to experiment with more

Rook here, for my new friend @gender-premium-tm, was me realizing how to use filters/filter layers in csp. now THAT is something i used a lot this month! also something i use often in krita. i must say, though the csp options are slightly more limited (afaik), they have oomph!

okay these two are my "explicitly brat pieces"! artfight keeps you moving, which i find really valuable, bc i could have dithered foreverrr over Lonnie's gif here. like, do i add his arm? maybe he should be wearing a shirt? or, what if i just draw him twice, instead of splitting the expressi--see it just never ends. and as i am always going on about, art is so precious bc it is a reflection of us when we make it. maybe for some future artfight i'll redraw this (as Lonnie's artist @wenmistry did for me with Ebon this year), but for july 2024, i'm amazed at how well i executed this for just 2.5 days of work! (i did forget his glasses, which realization gave me a different take on the composition, so this is high on my list of potential redraws)

and then Aagatha. this is in my top 3 for this year. the pink just works so well with the green and her artist added the song to her character playlist AND added the necklace to her actual dnd inventory. like. omg. the impact your art can have!!! how freaking cool is that???

two mass attacks! i was in a silly goofy mood. i feel like i really got a handle on vectors w the anthro mass attack, i adjusted every single point on that one by hand. weird what hyperfocus makes you do sometimes, but i learned a lot from that. mainly that i will probably never user vectors as my main linework tool. there are circumstances it is perfect for, and outside of that i'm good w my raster lines lol

which is exactly what i used for this other mass attack, featuring mostly my ocs. hey, sometimes you need to shake things up! i can see here the style starting to hew back to my "usual style", though i'm thinking that might have a lot to do with drawing 5 people very quickly. falling back on practiced techniques. and by this time i apparently knew csp well enough to reproduce them pretty closely! ooh, one thing this made me miss was the transform tool in krita. that floor was ROUGH to wrestle into place in csp.

purple and green turned up a lot this year!

Echo is my crowning achievement with the froggy pencil, most of the shading here is just layers w that. and one last nod to brat green :)

i've worked in the paper cut style before (both my pfp's use it) but i really exploited csp's clipping layers to make Scraps here. they did make me briefly forget how they work in krita when i switched back, so well done w that

i played with gradient maps a little earlier in the month but for Okanar i actually made my own gradient! really a useful tool for ref'ing real human skin tones to make non-human ones, without muddying them up too much.

finally, Chaos. this actually might be my favorite! ironically this is the one that i made in krita. it was like, ahh, yes my old friend. wait where is the scroll bar. ah, okay, yes my old friend... the line layer is set to burn which just makes the whole thing so warm (and the cause of the red outlines on the earrings). used my old sable brush, a pattern fill set to overlay... my old stomping grounds! but plus a rendering technique i picked up this month and some other random habits i picked up in csp (like copying a detail to a new layer, moving it where i want a copy, and drawing/tracing it back onto the original layer in the new position. nothing i couldn't have been doing in krita all along, but made easier by the tool layout in csp, and therefore now discovered by me. amazing how one integrates new knowledge. it's like magic sometimes!!!)

that was a good roundup! if you actually read this to the end, wow! and thank you! i hope it was interesting... and inspiring! bc i want to read about your process and reflections too! yes you! and plz tag me, i'm always down to gush about art XD

[transusopp]

Pls draw zoro & usopp together ?? :D they’re one of my favorite duos & they don’t get very much fanart I think (or just usopp if u don’t wanna draw two people ofc!!!!!!)

look at these goobers. i heart them. idgaf what the haters say they're besties. talk to the wall. also i tried a new rendering thing + also drew their postts designs from memory cause i was too lazy to pull a ref (im so responsible). i hope it looks okay </3

[kittlesandbugs]

34. …to pretend. with Riley x Ricardo or Nox x Minthara or Nox x Gortash (whatever sparks joy) please 👀 (no pressure and right there with you in the writing drought) -wayhavenots

OKAY. I wrote this two weeks ago and immediately hated it, but I reread it and I like it better now aldskfjoasdufj anyway. Writer block hard lol.

BG3: Bold maneuvers Pairing: Nox/Minthara Warnings: Canon-typical psychic manipulation games Word Count: 588 Prompt: Kiss to pretend, for Nox/Minthara. Set uhhhhh some indeterminate time post Bhaalspawn Control ending

“To you,” she says, raising a glass of blood red wine in toast. 

Smiling and inclining your head in a humility you haven't really felt since you took control of the Crown, you raise your own glass. 

“To us,” you echo, the clink echoing in your almost unnaturally quiet chamber. “And those that remain.” A swiftly dwindling number. 

She's watching closely, though she tries not to appear that way. She tries to do many things in small attempts to thwart your Authority, to test the limitless boundaries of your perception. She's forgotten how impossible it is to hide from the Netherbrain, with its spawn in her skull, without the Emperor's meddling powers. You've allowed her to have her little games out of some malingering sentiment. 

But that's made her bolder. It's led to this. A soporific in your wine. A thin blade waiting quietly beneath the pillow next to yours. A plot to finally put an end to your madness, though you can't remember your mind having ever been clearer. 

It's a shame, what you have to do. You'll miss this. Her sharp mind, her cunning wit, her claws leaving fresh marks in your back as she takes you. But you've made the mistake of not taking a sentimental threat seriously once before, and it nearly cost you everything. 

Would it have come to this with Gortash, when your plan's finally reached their inevitable and irreconcilable divide?

You only mime taking the drink, letting it but stain your lips and tongue. It doesn't take more than a little nudge of her tadpole to secure the certainty in her mind that you drank deeply and suspect nothing. 

She smiles, sharp and beautiful and real, her baleful blood red eyes glittering like rubies in the torchlight as she approaches. You smile back much the same, teeth stained just as red. Her hand reaches up to knot in your hair, and you let her pull you down into a kiss. Her tongue pushes into your mouth, tasting the poisoned wine. Her mind practically purrs with satisfaction as she moans softly into the kiss. 

You sway a little as she draws back, letting her think what she wants. She smiles again and gives you a push back towards the bed. 

“I want you,” her lips say. Dead, her mind whispers, but there are no secrets to be had from her worm. 

You let your body stumble back, falling onto the duvet with a soft whumph of air. You slide back towards the headboard, the action so familiar it may as well be instinct. She follows on all fours like a cat stalking its prey until she comes to a rest straddling your hips. 

You feel that familiar warmth stirring in your groin. Settling into the pillow, you exhale a long slow wistful breath at what will no longer be. She mistakes it for exhaustion, and you close your eyes. 

“You seem tired,” she comments softly, cool nimble hands tracing up your scarred abdomen to unknot the lacings of your breast band. 

You hum a noncommittal and feel yourself relax, despite the danger looming over you. It's as fleetingly ephemeral as her desire to see you gored in these sheets will be. 

“I am," you admit just as quietly as she peels the fabric back from your breast, placing a kiss over your heart.

“Then you should rest, ustnor.” 

The dagger slides against the satin sheets as she settles above you. And as the cold blade also kisses your breast, you seize control. 

[robinsversion]

The most ironic thing to come out of having not one but multiple of my posts about the James Somerton situation that’s been blowing up over the past couple weeks, is people plagiarizing the additional commentary I put in the tags of those posts ON THE SAME FUCKING POSTS THEYRE USING THOSE TAGS ON

[shoyoist]

omfg 😭

[checkadii]

Horribly easily to tell if my dads drunk

[chemicalarospec]

.

[the-odyssey-of-a-clown]

I hate people who hate rose

can anyone explain to me at what point rose tyler was "unbelievably stupid". was it when she was inventing transdimensional travel

[skyburger]

do NOT ask me a question and then let me go on wikipedia to check something you WILL receive really bizarre useless information

[fuckyeahchinesefashion]

OP: What is the one thing that broke your mind when the Americans came in? Let's talk about it and see if it's different.

Cnetizens and tiktok imigrants begin to exchange facts mainly in clothing, food, housing, transportation, and people's livelihood. They realized that things were very different from what they had heard before. So they call it 对账单dui zhang dan, lit. checking accounting items with eachother (a chinese accounting term). XHS has a trending tag 中美对账 (chinese and americans check account), if you click in it, you'll see a lot of posts both by cnetizens and tt imigrants. And most cnetizens are shocked by what americans told them, and vice versa.

video translation cr 阿美莉真卡

Cnetizens comments

Some Cnetizens don't believe it and feel that the Americans in the video are trolling, these Cnetizens say that when they were studying and working in the US, they saw many Americans were doing very well, living in nice apartments or neighborhoods with villas. Other Americans tell them that it's because either these people's parents are just rich, or they became upper middle class by working hard. They explained to cnetizens that the state runs on debt and loans. If you get a great job at a big company, then you can work for a few years and pay off your loans all at once and your quality of life leaps and bounds, and a lot of people have succeeded that way, so there will be people who keep trying. But if you lose your job, can't afford to pay those taxes that last a lifetime, deplete your savings, and can't pay off your debt, you're likely to lose your house and become homeless.

And then this is how Cnetizens comforted Americans

[neverendingford]

.

[hexiva]

Roleplay Is Not Dead Nor Doth It Sleep

There's a post going around about how text-based, freeform roleplay is dead, and I was typing up a huge response to this, with an accompanying guide on how to find roleplayer in 2024, when I realized it might have a bigger reach if I made it its own post. So here's that guide.

I hesitate to say that there isn't a problem with the new format of social media making roleplay more difficult to find, but in the desire to make that point, the OP of the original post has left people with the idea that there's no way for them to get into freeform text roleplay in 2024. Which just isn't true! Here, look at all the ways.

Forums

The link to RPG-Directory to find roleplaying forums is a good start. Once you've found a forum RPG, even if you don't join, there's usually an 'advertising' section on that forum where other forum RPGs post their ads - this may help you to find forums that don't advertise on RPG-D.

Another really good forum to find roleplay on is Barbermonger. Barbermonger is focused on connecting people for one-on-one roleplays.

This last one's going to be weird, but it turns out that there are still people seeking roleplay on the Gaia Online forums after all these years. I think this is delightfully retro and then crowd there seems a little older than average. No pre-existing knowledge of Gaia required.

Tumblr

You can also find forum roleplay groups (as well as tumblr and Discord groups) right here on Tumblr. Usually, the thing to do is to use the search function - search for "[genre] rp" or "[fandom] rp" and sort by "latest." (If you sort by Top, you are likely to find dead RPs.) For example, here's fantasy rp, historical rp, and marvel rp. You can also try jcink rp, as most roleplay forums are hosted on Jcink these days, or discord rp, depending on your favored platform.

There are also tumblr blogs specifically dedicated to advertising roleplays. I'm not super familiar with these nowadays, but just in the process of searching those tags above, I found these:

Jcink Tinder

RPG Adverts

RPings

There are more, I just don't know them off the top of my head.

Reddit

Listen, don't run away, I swear it's good now - I swear Reddit is good now -

Reddit is a good place to find Discord roleplays. It's a little heavier on smut-only roleplays than other platforms mentioned here, but it's not impossible to find sexless, plot-based roleplay here either. Most ads are for one on one RP, but you can find groups mixed in here too. The big subreddits for text-based freeform RP seem to be:

r/DiscordRP

r/RoleplayPartnerSearch

r/roleplaying

r/Roleplay

Some of these have weird rules about what you can put in your ad, and I don't remember which ones, so read carefully and don't get discouraged if your ad is initially removed.

Discord

In 2024, Discord is by far the biggest and most popular platform for roleplay, and it has its own native roleplay advertising hubs. Here are a bunch:

roleplay partner hub

Rockin Roleplay

The Roleplay Garden

roleplay help

the roleplay connection

RP Central

Roleplay Central

Roleplay Hub

Barbermonger also has a Discord server

Roleplay Meets: Reborn

RP Hub

The Scribes Guild

DM Rp Village

cherry blossom! roleplay hub

DM-RP

Roleplay Round Table (21+)

The Historical Syndicate (specifically for historical roleplay)

The Roleplayer's Directory

If you can't find the Discord roleplay you want on here, you can also try Discord hub websites, like Disboard. These work similar to tumblr tags - search for [genre] rp or [fandom] rp.

Other

The original post specifically mentions that 'all the old "omegle but for role play" type websites died out ages ago'. This is mostly true, but not quite! There's still Rolechat. It's a little janky, but what it needs more than anything is a bigger user base. Their Discord server is also a good place to find one on one discord roleplay. It is, of course, free, but if you want to support its development, they have a patreon.

Please reblog this post, and add your own tips on how to find roleplay!

[copperbadge]

So, I got tagged in a post, and I wrote a bit of a novel in a reblog in drafts, and then I realized that probably it wasn't for the best to post up All That Nonsense when the OP was just making a funny post about Wikipedia's fundraising. And it is a funny post! So I'll link here to the post and where I was tagged but I decided to put my thoughts here. Please take this as a hint to be respectful of OP and the person who tagged me both :)

I will say my initial reaction to seeing Wikipedia selling merch AND asking to be in your will was "Well, they're trying something." It's just such a weird topic to bring up, it's hard to be graceful about it, so I think what they were doing was probably the best you can do.

And the response did make a lot of the points I'd make about making a will and such. In fact, FreeWill is what I made my will with and we recommend them to our donors.

There was a study that came out a decade ago or more, so my numbers probably aren't accurate, but the statistic that knocked me back was that most donors who leave surprise large bequests (gifts to charity in their will) give an average of $17 a year during their lives. So there's likely a reason that Wikipedia is targeting users and not huge donors.

It's an ongoing issue that most people also don't document their bequests. By all means, leave money to charity in your will, they will be happy to have it, but they will be even happier to know ahead of time.

Perfect example, THIS WEEK we got a check for six figures from a woman's estate. It was an eyebrow-raising amount of money for us. My boss, who handles both "eyebrow raising money" and "gifts from dead people", immediately went to look her up in our database.

Which she is not in. We had no idea this woman existed. Never gave to us before.

Had we known she was leaving us this money, my boss would have made sure she understood how grateful we were and like, bought her lunch a couple of times a year, and when she did pass we would have known who to reach out to in order to offer our support.

Instead, he came to me and said, "I have a name and an address," and I set to work to find out why she gave and who we could thank. I found her obit, but she didn't die of anything related to our work. Using information from the obit, I confirmed none of her family were in our database either. I looked up her second husband, mentioned in the obit, and his obit said he died of lung disease, which told me that this gift is because she lost her husband.

This helps because I knew from her obit that they had a blended family; they didn't have any kids together but they each had kids when they married, all of whom are now like, my age. So we want to thank her kids but we want to make sure her stepkids, who lost their dad, get a specific kind of outreach as well. I told my boss their names and he said one of the husband's kids was listed as the executor of the will, but there was nothing (surname-wise) to indicate they were related. I found contact information for that person, and my boss was able to reach out to her. She didn't realize we didn't know about the bequest, and now she and her siblings are talking to us about their dad and their own health while her stepsiblings, whose mother left us this very generous gift, are getting condolences and thanks and getting to say how she will be thanked in our documentation.

And I mean, that's why my job exists, to fill in those blanks. We just...would really like to have told her thank-you while she was alive.

SO! The moral of the story is: please consider leaving money to charity in your will if you can, use FreeWill to make your will (they will also help you document your gift) and let the charity know you're leaving them an estate gift. Not only will you maybe get cool swag but especially if it's a concern close to your heart, you'll get to build your relationship with the charity.

[sitp-recs]

re - your last post, as a writer i find that to be an absurd take. people who write exclusively for validation probably shouldn't. if discovering your work is enjoyed and loved - just privately - is a dealbreaker for you, i think there are probably bigger issues that need to be worked through. the idea that we write fic for free and yet this discussion about "payment" through kudos/comments persists is so backwards and obnoxious.

sorry to tag you on this, obv you have nothing to do with op, but i just wanted to say - as a writer recs are a HUGE deal. to know that you liked something enough to share it with others is the biggest compliment for me personally. thanks for doing what you do.

I’m happy you reached out because this is a really interesting perspective. I definitely see increased messaging around comments = payment that pressures readers into thinking they are required to leave comments, and I agree that there are many layers to this convo that point out to a not-so-healthy relationship with fandom.

I find it hard to join this discussion not being an author myself, because I only have the privileged perspective. I understand how important feedback can be to boost newcomers and those who don’t feel part of the community. We all deal with insecurity in different ways and it’s hard to navigate a big fandom when you don’t have a group of friends to rely on. In the end the fandom experience is about a sense of belonging and it saddens me to realize that I might be part of the problem since my recs can only reach Tumblr and my ao3 comments are far and few in between.

It’s funny because my blog has always targeted other readers: at the beginning I didn’t even tag authors and did not expect them to find or engage with my posts. Over the years the recs became more and more personal, until I realized I was writing them for myself. Sure, they are love letters to the fic and might help more people find them, but at the end of the day this is my little therapy corner where I can let go and babble around to my heart’s content 🙏🏼 I’ve always been proud of this blog and seeing that post gave me mixed feelings about it for the first time, so thank you for your message!

Again, I think this discussion has many layers and I’m a bit wary to get involved being a reader, but I’d be curious to see how others feel about it…

[envahisseurzim]

shadow being an agent for a (human dominated) organization never made sense to me cos even disregarding the obvious (its explicitly stated shadow doesnt forgive humans for the ark massacre so its weird he would work for the very organization that caused it in the first place), it also just doesnt rlly fit his personality? esp after shth i find it hard to believe he would put himself in a position where he has to follow orders without question, when hes known for dealing with things by himself and in his own way. idk maybe im missing something here lol

Actually you know what was the worst thing sega has ever done to Shadow's character?

Making him a GUN agent.

[kiyomitakada]

i know its a classic. possibly cliche already. but i do wonder about Tumblr In The Death Note Universe probably more than i should

2 notes

💅 toxicbff Follow

if i see one more post attributing kira's powers to ~supernatural powers~ instead of the obvious fact that the cia is doing a coup I'm going to start giving You the heart attacks

💅 toxicbff

of course i saw the news how does that not prove my point further

the idea that all the police around the world could be mobilized by one single person is ridiculous (just look at this list of how many civilian militia there are globally)

heart attack victims don't seize the way "lind l tailor" did

i don't know how to tell you that You Can't Kill People Just By Knowing Their Name And Face because this is Real Life and not the newest grimdark marvel villain

people need to stop being scared of the ~bogeyman in the closet~ and wake up to the fact that usamerica is trying to take over the goddamned world

💅 toxicbff

im going to kill you all and nuke this website

#sayonara you weeaboo shits

2,925 notes

👾 lets-go-geeks Follow

DO TRUMP NEXT

🕵🏾‍♀️ penny-penelope Follow

LIKES TO CHARGE REBLOGS TO CAST

16,375 notes

❤️‍🔥 lovesickened Follow

i know its stupid but im so fucking scared for my brother i heard that seven people died this week at the prison he's in and iinjust dont kenow what to do ihate him for ehat he did to mom but i never wanted him to die

#vent tw #delete later

0 notes

🏎 fastandyurious Follow

if i get a single more comment about why i don't tag "genderbend" on my kiratective fics i'm going to blow up the entire building. we don't know EITHER of their genders. why don't YOU tag your mediocre yaoi genderbend instead

🔆 sparkling-world Follow

…OP, you realize the news reports all consistently use "he," right?

🏎 fastandyurious

of course i do???? just because you see something on the news doesn't mean you have to believe it?????? they don't have any information on kira yet but i'm supposed to believe the fbi knows their gender already??????? also kira is literally a fucking girl's name my classmate in elementary school was called kira

🔆 sparkling-world

Kira comes from the Japanese romanization for "killer," it isn't gendered whatsoever.

Also, evidence shows the majority of serial killers are male, so I'd argue that the statistics favor the fujoshis here.

🏎 fastandyurious

well evidence shows that female serial killers are just more fun to write about and I'd argue that you're ignoring my fucking POINT which is that we DON'T KNOW KIRA'S GENDER and if people don't want to read lesbian kiratective they can FUCK OFF MY BLOG

🥚 i-offer-eggman Follow

I offer you an Eggman in these trying times.

🔮 I-stands-for-le-gay Follow

@lashitpostcalligrapher yo can i get "the statistics favor the fujoshis" on my tombstone

#fandom: kira rpf #ship: kiral #never heard it called kiratective before… #also uh. prayer circle for op's classmate lmaoooo

2,107 notes

💃🏻 modelingmadness Follow

BOYCOTT EIGHTEEN MAGAZINE

THEY ALLOW KIRA-SUPPORTING MODELS AND ARE COMPLICIT IN THIS MASSACRE

SOURCES HERE AND HERE (TRIGGER WARNING: KIRA DISCUSSION)

PUSH BACK AGAINST HEART ATTACKS

🧚🏽‍♂️ harubaru Follow

golly gee ^_^ suddenly i feel like taking to the high seas in a way that the eighteen company cant get profit from. oh no ! who left this link here

🐦‍⬛ kuro--misa Follow

thanks for the link but jesus fucking christ man what happened to free speech. misa-misa's parents were killed by a burglar who kira punished. did you all expect her to just sit there, look pretty, and say nothing about it?

you people only like models when they're nice pictures for you to consume. you only like them two-dimensional and smiling and hot. the second a woman actually speaks her mind she's thrown to the wolves

💃🏻 modelingmadness

DID YOU NOT SEE MY BANNER YOU PIECE OF SHIT

#BLOCKED

140 notes

🐦‍⬛ kuro--misa Follow

lol. lmao even

#they blocked me but whatever #official eighteen site just said misamisa wont be in the next issue #(eighteen sucks but i kind of want to use it more out of spite now) #so much for apologism huh? #god. i feel sick. #hasn't she been through enough.

1 note

🥷🏻 kira-imagines Follow

Imagine you're going home after a long day. Suddenly there's a sound. "Huh? Whose there" you ask, dropping your keys on the floor. Then you feel it. A knife pressing in your neck.

"Don't move kitten" Kira purrs behind you. "You're all mine now…"

#kiraxreader #kiraxoc #kira #kira rpf #kira investigation #kira fucker #kira fudger #kira lover #kira haters dont touch #kira haters please touch #kira supporters please touch #l

5,733 notes

asahi-the-student-deactivated201

Hello, everyone! My little sister told me about this microblogging platform (I admit, I'm a Twitter refugee) and that many of you are discussing the Kira investigation on here. I'm really interested in hearing what your thoughts are!

💋 sunny-sayu Follow

let the record show he lasted like. a day

#i think it was the imagines that did him in #bro is so sensitive :p

15 notes

kiyomitakada

the world could be beautiful

[ @deathnotetober day 14: trigger ]