#putting on my personal blog rather than art blog because I don't know if side blogs can be booped

[hauntinghyrule]

Do you dare? >:]

[verstarppen]

A THANK YOU LETTER

an apology and update! for all you beautiful people - 2 for the price of 1

hello! over the months i've written and deleted this letter because i was too much of a coward to show my face after i left. i contemplated if it would be adequate enough, if it even matters. At the end, i owe this fandom too much, so here it is:

THE APOLOGY

i am truly sorry. there's no better way of putting it.

the more i create the more i realise how this fandom held my hand and i simply wouldn't be the person i am now if this blog never existed. i've always struggled with sharing art and writing online, as i thought it was too lame and took the coward route of keeping it to myself and my closest friends.

ever since this blog, i've found that less of an issue. the more i think about how much i let you and myself down by disappearing the more i feel the shame weigh me down. i never wanted to leave, but life has this funny way of forcing your hand when you least expect it.

without getting too personal, this year hasn't been great for me or anyone close to me - friendships died, family members were hospitalised, university crushed me, expectations from everyone around me made me question if i'm failing in every aspect of my life, i lost passions like art - something i've always thought of as my dream career, and i fear the stress will only grow rather than die down.

in some of those harder moments i would always turn to a distraction, create something for a fandom i enjoy to get my mind off things. to see your comments and your messages always kept me going even when i physically couldn't take the stress of everything around me anymore. being busy made my flame for F1 dwindle, too. it's one of the main reasons i didn't return earlier. I've missed half the races this year, yes that includes both lando and oscar's wins, and although im looking forward to the summer break ending and the racecs coming back, i don't think the enthusiasm will ever return to the way it was when this blog was at its peak.

i feel like a coward for disappearing and it's a big regret of mine this year. i can't promise to write for F1 again, but what i've made will always be archieved here :)

THE UPDATE

not great. i can't even lie i'm not doing too hot right now. i promised i would return to writing when things finally calmed down and yet the more stress there was the more one off projects i made to combat it. throughout the months i've accumulated a lot of side projects for different fandoms like star wars, star trek, dc, merlin and lesser known fandoms such as heavy rain, mortal kombat, the sims (no seriously have you seen the lore) etc. that i have nowhere to post. in april i decided i can't afford (literally) to distract myself with any hobby projects for the sake of my situation and thus... i was an idiot and i deleted my ao3 account. there weren't that many stories on there anyway, but i regret it even if it was the right decision.

i owe @wtfisakilometer2 so much for telling me that the people who love the blog wouldn't mind what fandom it is as long as it's by me, even if i don't fully believe it. it did open my eyes to finally write this, though, so direct all your love to her.

so that leaves me here, sort of homeless on my own blog and with very conflicting feelings about it's direction. i intend to preserve it as an archive of my F1 writing without messing with it, but still let you know about my new ao3 and everything on it so i can keep both our interests in mind.

thank you for reading if you made it this far, i hope you have an awesome day and a lot of cat memes in your pinterest. thank you for all the lovely messages (i read everything) and thank you for everything this fandom has offered me. i will truly never get over you guys.

- star :)

[theygotbitchesinmedia]

ask dump

i have a couple dozen unanswered asks on this blog, most of which i believe are media recommendations, so i'm going to go through those now in a batch!

if you haven't seen it already We Are Lady Parts would be a fantastic recommendation for this blog. I started it last week and really love it. It's about a struggling punk Muslim girls band who recruit the extremely anxious, goody-two-shoes Amina to be their lead guitarist. It balance its moments of drama really well with the comedy and all of the women in the band get to be deeply weird in different and endlessly charming ways. My favorite is Amina because of her very relatable habit to have elaborate silly daydreams about anything and everything. Good show with some really good women!

I've heard good things about this one! Adding it to the list

I can't remember if you take recs for things in progress or not but the webtoon Katlaya Rising is currently the high point of my week, the art style POPS and it is jam-packed with girls and girls who love girls

I will always read things in progress 👍 I honestly in some ways prefer getting into stuff before it's finished. Like an animal with one of those food bowls that stops you from eating too fast. Added to the list.

Please read Villain Initialization!!!! The female characters are really good!!!!!!!!!

Looking at the cover and description for this one it seems like most of the female cast is gonna be side characters. i'll add it to the list but itll probably be reallllly back burner unless someone wants to go to bat hard for it and sway me

if youre taking recommendations bittersweet con panna is a cute yuri manhwa and hacks is an insane tvshow about millenial comedy writer who got cancelled on twitter and a beautiful old standup comic about to lose her vegas residency.

added both! never heard of bittersweet con panna but my sister has been going really hard for hacks and i feel like i owe it to her to watch that sooner rather than later because of all the media im always trying to force onto her

"Kevin Can F*** Himself" on AMC is fantastic and has some really interesting female protags, I recommend. Might be a similar vibe to On Becoming a God in Central Florida actually!

Already on the list!

i'd like to second the rec for no home, probably one of the greatest webtoons of all time

one moth ago anon i can safely say you were correct about this it is certainly one of the greatest webtoons of all time. i do think its not really About women but i get why you all wanted me to read it enough to push it

@whatasmoothgardener Reccing a short manga I've been reading recently called Is Kichijoji the Only Place to Live. Its a manga about twin girls who run a small real estate company in Tokyo from the POV of their clients. It has a unique art style, its female character focused, and it teaches you about the different places in Tokyo. However its kinda episodic.

I don't mind episodic at all. Cool to see female manga protags who arent stick thin! added to the list

@phoenixfangs i got into a webtoon the other day called nevermore and considered recommending it to u, but i second guessed myself like oh what if its not worth recommending and its stupid actually, BUT i had a dream last night that u were talking about it so i think i have to at least put it on ur radar, if it isnt already xD what happens if u take edgar allen poe stories and make it about lesbians? u get the webtoon nevermore ❤️ theres an actual Plot to it too im not trying to sell it based on tropes, i just cant describe it better than the actual synopsis/description on webtoon, so id say its worth a glance!

At first glance i'm not sure how to my personal tastes this owuld be but i feel like i have maybe been unfairly biased against popular webtoons in that front. added to the list !

@counttwinkula listen i know your "media to get around to" list is forever long but i reread the haunting of hill house (the book) for my podcast and eleanor and theodora just. won't stop touching each other. some of the most classic toxic yuri imo. also the 1963 film adaptation (the haunting) is so good

ill always appreciate a horror recommendation from one of my learned Horror Mutuals. added both!

if it changes anything, you can find the main stories of arknights and limbus company here and here respectively without downloading the game: [retcons dot github dot io slash limbus-storylogs] [akgcc dot github dot io slashcc slash story dot html hashtag main] (sorry it wont let me send links) i totally understand if u think its too much trouble, but i do think both games have very good female characters

I'm sorry... i just cant go down this road.... it's a path i'm not willing ot walk. if i was going to read the stories for a gacha game i wasn't playing i would just go read shoujo kageki revue starlight re:LIVE. which i havent been able to make myself do. so its just not gonna end up happening

have you heard of tangle tower… it’s a relatively short murder mystery click and point game about two families & their secrets. the art is gorgeous + the game is fully voiced, and the protagonist + his assistant have a dynamic that reminds me of the classic ace attorney ‘lawyer + weird girl’ duos. the majority of the cast are women, and the game features some of the Girls Of All Time. highly recommend, esp since you’re an ace attorney fan

Added to the list!

if you’re trying to flesh out the book section, i’d like to recommend three parts dead by max gladstone! admittedly it’s been a hot second since I’ve read it so i can’t speak on the quality of the writing itself, but the plot and the worldbuilding had some interesting stuff. the novel follows tara, a necromancer in a world where doing magic is more akin to being a lawyer, who’s hired to resurrect a god. the book is the first in a series, and the books that follow have some other interesting female protagonists + canonical queer women if you enjoy it o7

Sounds neat! Added to the list

ok i still have some more from back in fucking April that i didnt manage to get to. but im getting distracted now

[esprei]

have recently learned there's a bit more hate around trainwreckshipping than i was aware of so i guess i just wanted to talk about it a bit and give my two cents on the ship, how i see it and i guess my perspective on things. i've kind of always wanted to talk about it, but i just haven't been brave enough until now haha (sorry, i am not super eloquent when it comes to writing things like this so my apologies) ((also throwing it under a cut because it may get long and might also include some slightly sad-ish things so i don't want to just throw that in everyone's face you know))

----

i think i'll just preface things by saying i've always totally understood why trainwreckshipping has gotten so much flack since its inception. or hate, because maybe flack just isn't strong enough of a word. but i do understand. there were mischaracterizations of emmet by portraying him as violent to volo because it was assumed that volo was directly responsible for ingo's disappearance. i was guilty of it. suuuuuper guilty. and i can understand why that put the ship in such a position for many people. toxic, unhealthy, etc. but... i think what i'm a bit confused on i guess is the fact that it's still viewed so much this way to this day. viewed as one of the worst ships because of how toxic it is. how unhealthy it is. all because it started that way in fanon only. but you know, from a canon standpoint, it has nothing. nothing at all. so really, this ship could be anything because it's based in fanon only. no canon interactions of emmet and volo exist yet. there is no official basis on how these characters would interact with each other. and yes, while there were misunderstandings of both characters early on, that certainly doesn't mean it's still that way today. that doesn't mean that people haven't studied and looked at these two characters a little closer to understand them better and to try and make them more realistic to their canon portrayals. to make more accurate depictions of these characters and how that fits in to a healthier perspective with them. i dunno. it just kinda baffles me that with the variety of trainwreckshipping content out there now, some still call it toxic and unhealthy as if we're perpetually stuck in that time period of when it was. like it's not allowed to be anything but that ever just because it started that way. and what makes me the saddest about it all is now seeing so many friends and people in the community of the ship start to get disheartened and discouraged from enjoying something they really actually enjoy because there's still such a bad stigma to the ship. personally for a long time i've just ignored that stigma because i try not to let that stuff drag me down. but i will admit that yes, it has made me more reluctant to post any art i do of it. i've definitely had my periods where i've questioned uploading my emmet/volo art, usually as wholesome as it is, because it does have such a dark cloud around it fandom wise. it's why i made my side blog, in fact. because i just didn't feel very comfortable uploading mostly emmet/volo art here to my main because so many people dislike it or outright hate it.

and in regards to the ship itself, i think i've always thought of it in a slightly different way than most. not so much enemies to lovers but rather through the lens of how volo might could change, be redeemed, see the how his actions in the past inadvertently affected others (and by that I mean his involvement in opening the rift... like yes, that could be what caused ingo to be sent to hisui, but we don't know that for sure... and even if that was the case, volo didn't do it specifically to target ingo. volo was only ever interested in trying to get to arceus and build a better world in his vision).

or how volo could look at emmet after getting to know him and potentially see the beauty and value of the current world through him. you know, seeing someone like emmet and admiring that he can still find a reason to smile and be kind despite all of the pain and suffering he must have gone through since ingo's disappearance. volo starting to see a different perspective than he did before (aka wanting to build a new world because the current one was too full of pain and suffering) because of emmet. i dunno. that's just me personally. because since actually looking more at volo's character and his dialogue in game i've been real interested in redemption paths for him. exploring those possibilities. i just enjoy exploring said possibilities mostly through the dynamic i have in my head for him and emmet because it's fun. it interests me. i see cool potential in it. i enjoy it a lot. and while i don't think i ever portray volo super accurately, or even emmet for that matter, i still think i've come a long way since first finishing pla and ever looking at emmet/volo interactions. but regardless of all of that, that's the beauty of a ship of this nature. a ship that has absolutely no basis in canon. because it really can be anything you want it to be. it can be enemies to lovers, it can be more wholesome, it can be whatever. it's not locked into a specific dynamic because the characters have never officially met each other, let alone had a conversation. and even if that were the case... AUs are still a thing. :D

anyway that's pretty much all i had. just wanted to talk about it a bit because i've seen a recent uptick in people mentioning all of the hate and dislike for the ship etc and i dunno. i enjoy the ship a lot. it's just sad to see that there's still so much hate around it even though a lot of the content now is not like how it originally started. not from what i've seen, at least.

and while i don't expect anyone who hates it to ever warm up to it, i just wish it could be understood that the more toxic, unhealthy dynamic is not the basis of anymore. there are healthier portrayals of it now.

[chaifootsteps]

Reading Viv's callout post for DollCreep is kinda frustrating tbh. I wasn't there and none of us know exactly what the dynamic was like but that's why evidence is provided in these callout posts. To convince us that DollCreep is really bad. but.. the evidence provided isn't really on her side?

DC doesn't seem nice, exactly, but I'm not really feeling a lot of malicious intent? Not in the messages where they have normal-ish conversations and when their friendship still kinda existed? I'm not feeling much actual intent on abuse? I've been through some pretty nasty abusive relationships and I can understand being sensitive sometimes and needing a little more assurance but I don't think I'm comfortable calling DC totally abusive? Not without more evidence.

DC has an obsession with copying which isn't healthy. I dunno if I agree with him that the Viv ocs are copies but that also is more of an issue on his part rather than an intent on abusing Viv. I feel like there's gotta be more to that story.

Some of the messages seems more like critique than anything. The whole "those teeth look weird in your style" posts are more critique than abuse. It's not a nice way of phrasing it but DC doesn't seem delicate in general? His language is casual-harsh from the messages. Not horribly cruel? Maybe?

DC seems kind of exhausted with Viv saying the relationship wasn't healthy. To be honest it's probably not a healthy relationship and these two should've just stopped talking a long time ago. When DC does cut Viv off it seemed like it had been a long time coming. I've had to do something similar in my own life. Just sometimes on a certain day you chose to do it. It's not always because of a big blowout it can just be exhaustion. and if panic attacks were happening on the regular then it's not a bad thing they cut each other out.

DC gave Jiji to Viv as something of a peace offering. and in that message in particular (not underlined by Viv) Doll mentions that the copying obsession and character credit issue IS a personal problem that they're trying to work through. Something that isn't acknowledged in the rest of the callout. Viv obviously knows he has an issue with this subject and I feel like she could've spared a little more grace in acknowledging this is a personal problem for him. It's wrong for him to feel that way but it's clearly not just a 'DC is an asshole' situation. It's a mental issue. A hangup. A really nasty and unhealthy mental hangup.

His Afkinz stuff about Viv saying 'It's my story' in her underlined bits.. She bought Afkinz from DC. It seems like he's offering his own thoughts based on the character concept he created. He's not demanding anything just saying what he would've done with the character concept he created? Again, not in a NICE way but still.

I understand why Viv would remove part of DC's credit in Die Young but I still think she shouldn't have. She was angry at him but it doesn't change that it was a bad decision. In the art world credit is more highly valued than it is anywhere else and 'special thanks' doesn't mean much in comparison to a design credit.

Some of the parts towards the end are a bit.. weird. I dunno why she put up the original Jiji art mixed with rp logs to.. make fun of Jiji? The character made by DC was obviously a parody of scene girls.. not a real serious character. So it seems strange to say "wow so smart and original". She wasn't a character used in a real project so..

She's calling DC a stalker for just.. visiting her blog? I don't think that's terribly unusual? and Viv rants and talks about DC about as much as he did her? So.. I think they were both being annoying about all of this.

He made a crappy drawing of Viv.. but Viv made Jojo. So.. According to the writing under the drawing this was made AFTER Viv made Jojo. So.. I don't understand why she's shocked when she did the same thing first? and the 'dislikes' part is pretty.. concerning.

I really feel uncomfortable with Viv pointing out DC's characters that do 'extremely disturbing' things. Why even put this here? It adds nothing to the allegations and serves to shame DC. Especially when Viv does the same thing in romanticizing abusive relationships. Which.. I personally don't think is always wrong in every circumstance. and I know Viv doesn't see that as wrong either considering her OWN characters. So the only reason she put it there is to shame DC.

All in all. Pretty wild? I do think DC was a bad friend and they had a very toxic relationship but.. This is also something that should've been handled privately? Callouts really only need to happen if there's a clear and present danger to the general public. Nothing DC did was a danger to anyone but him and Viv. They should've went their separate ways and never spoken about each other again.

Instead this happened. Making it public was such a horrible idea and did nothing positive at all. It COULD NOT have had a positive outcome.

I think that's my takeaway from the whole thing too. DollCreep was no saint and they seem like they were both bad for each other, but from what we've heard of DollCreep, they seem to have disappeared, grown up, and become a better person. Vivzie hasn't.

Also, Dollcreep made a crappy drawing of Viv. Viv made a transphobic caricature of Dollcreep. Viv, you don't get a checkmark on that one.

[sickcroww30]

i found out today you deactivated your side blog and i was sad because all the beautiful art there is gone, but regardless of the reason you had to delete it i just want you to know all the stuff you create is awesome and you're a big inspo, i hope you have a nice week!

Thank you anon for the support, I'm sad that it's gone but it's for the better of my mental health.

I finally bring myself to answer this because a lot is going on in my mind and I don't know how I should put it into words. For anyone who doesn't know about its existence, don't read, not because it's embarrassing but because it may sound very weird without any context.

[rant below, wall of text]

To begin with, I'd like to thank everyone who has been following its growth from the start of it to its final end. I created the blog not only to freely show my (judge-able) interests but also more of my personal thoughts rather than having to keep this one publicly behaved. It was fun and I was super dedicated to what I was making. I poured my time and effort into it, and it quickly became an important part of my life back in 2021-2022.

I thought that if I show people what I like then I might find someone who shares the same idea. But maybe because of being so dedicated to it, it turned into a portrayal of a lonely delusional individual, or at least that's what I think I look like.

I don't blame anyone for this but myself. I thought that maybe it was because I didn't do well enough, or that I didn't make appealing posts, maybe people didn't like what I was doing and that's why there was so little interaction I got. I needed to do better I needed to be more open and show the followers that I'm easy to talk to, please engage with me. Stuff like that. So I pushed it and hurt myself in the process. In the end, I felt so lost and clueless. I even said things I shouldn't say, being harsh with my choices. I was struggling both with real-life matters and with the blog itself. I tried to keep up by posting other stuff that were not the main focus, still, I couldn't help but finalize my decision to deactivate the blog once and for all.

In the end, it was supposed to be fun but it wasn't enjoyable at all. I love to see my art development every time I scroll through the blog. And sometimes read the replies and tags in old posts. I'm sorry that I deleted it, I miss it too, but I don't want to look back at it seeing the person I became because of its existence. I do still and forever appreciate the love that everyone has given to it.

[mediaevalmusereads]

If We Were Villains. By M. L. Rio. Flatiron Books, 2017.

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

Genre: thriller

Series: N/A

Summary: Oliver Marks has just served ten years in jail - for a murder he may or may not have committed. On the day he's released, he's greeted by the man who put him in prison. Detective Colborne is retiring, but before he does, he wants to know what really happened a decade ago.

As one of seven young actors studying Shakespeare at an elite arts college, Oliver and his friends play the same roles onstage and off: hero, villain, tyrant, temptress, ingenue, extra. But when the casting changes, and the secondary characters usurp the stars, the plays spill dangerously over into life, and one of them is found dead. The rest face their greatest acting challenge yet: convincing the police, and themselves, that they are blameless.

***Full review below.***

Content Warnings: violence, misogyny, suicide, blood

Overview: I followed the author of this book on tumblr way back in the day while she was blogging about her writing journey. To be honest, I didn't have a strong opinion about her one way or the other, but I found the premise of her book intriguing. As a lover of premodern and early modern English literature, I figured I should give the finished product a whirl. Well, I finally was in the mood. Overall, my opinions on this book are a little mixed, but leaning towards positive. While I do think Rio does a good job creating a Dark Academia atmosphere and the emotional devastation of the last half of the book was well-executed, I think her characters and prose leave a little something to be desired. Still, for a debut novel, this was fairly memorable, so it gets 3.5 stars from me.

Writing: Rio's prose has its ups and downs, with some parts flowing quite well and others not so much. When the scenes were full of action (for example, the Macbeth performance and the Julius Caesar rehearsal afterwards), I was fairly engrossed in the story, so I think Rio does best when there are moments of tension inserted into performances or just after (like at various parties).

However, I also think Rio could have done more to show rather than tell. Because this book is told in first person, our narrator, Oliver, tends to be very straightforward about what he is feeling as well as side comments about background or context info. Personally, I felt like Rio could have held back a little more or been more abstract about how characters were feeling and acting.

Furthermore, I had some mixed feelings about using Shakespeare quotes as dialogue. Looking at the author's note in the back, it seems like Rio took this quirk from real-life grad students she knew at King's College. So while I don't doubt that some people do this, in a novel, it comes across less as realistic and more as pretentious. Maybe that's the point; after all, most of these characters aren't "good guys" and Oliver does say at one point that the school felt like a cult. But for me, I couldn't quite determine if Rio was deliberately creating a pretentious atmosphere to heighten the Dark Academic mood or if she was simply showing off her knowledge of Shakespeare's works. Either way, I felt the quotes a bit over-used and would have preferred if they were sprinkled in less liberally.

Overall, though, I did like the pace and the ease at which I could move through the novel. I was able to read this book fairly quickly, and things were straightforward enough that I never felt confused or lost.

Characters: There are a number of characters in this book, but I'm going to focus on the 7 protagonists, just to keep things brief (ish).

Plot: The plot of this book follows fourth-year theater student Oliver Marks as he and his classmates defend themselves from a bully while putting on Julius Caesar at their exclusive, elite arts school. (Obviously, it's a little more complicated than that, but I'm trying to avoid major spoilers).

This book is strongest in the second half when all the students grow more and more tormented by their actions and begin fracturing. Rio does a fairly good job of showing how characters began acting irrationally, and in a lot of ways, their descent mirrors some of Shakespeare's works.

I also thing the devastation of the end worked out well, and it was heightened by the emotional tension between Oliver and James. I do want to caution readers that if you're sensitive to the depiction of deaths of queer characters, you should skip this book. But personally, I found it somewhat fitting given the subject matter and the thematic connections to Shakespeare's works.

The main part of the plot that I didn't think flowed well was the beginning. The beginning was a little awkward in that Rio spoon feeds us a lot of information: characters narrate their family situations one after another, like Rio just wanted to get it out of the way. On top of that, there is a scene where one of the instructors interrogates a student until they disclose their greatest strength and greatest insecurity. To me, this seemed a lazy way to communicate characterization, and it almost soured me on the rest of the novel.

As a unit, I really did like the idea of these 7 characters essentially standing in for archetypes. I think it meshed with the themes of the book fairly well, and I liked the easy companionship that a lot of them had. I also liked that their relationships were often messy, especially during the second half of the book; it made them more interesting and when they began to break down, it felt all the more chaotic.

As individuals, however, I think things get a little murky.

Oliver, our narrator, is somewhat of a blank slate in that he doesn't seem to have a very defined personality, but maybe that's the point. He's stereotyped as the "support" or even the "nice guy," and there were times when I could see that shine through. He does seem to care about his friends and does admit to being naive, so I don't want to give the impression that he's entirely without merit. The main thing I didn't like about him was his attitude towards his sister, who has an eating disorder. He's not very considerate of her, and while I can understand being upset that his future at school is financially threatened by her, he snaps at her and says some pretty awful things. He also seems to characterize his family as awful, and while I understand the negativity there, compared to other characters, he has somewhat of a normal suburban middle class family. His whining about them, then, felt entitled.

James, Oliver's roommate and best friend, is stereotyped as a heroic figure, and I could see some of that come out in his actions. What I liked most about James, however, was his relationship with Oliver; the two are best friends, but there are times when their closeness tipped over into homoerotic and romantic intimacy. I enjoyed the tension there, and it did make for a more devastating ending.

Meredith, who is figured as the temptress, could have been written with a little more grace. While I think it's ok that Meredith exists as a sexual woman who is anxious about people overlooking her as a person, it also seems like the narrative does just that, at least until the midpoint of the novel. I very much did not appreciate the misogynistic comments thrown her way, even if they were partially in jest. Her character grew on me more in the second half, though, so she wasn't all bad.

Wren and Philippa are a little harder to define. Wren, I think, is supposed to be the ingenue, but it was hard to see that in the way she was written. Philippa is described as someone who is always overlooked, and I think parts of the narrative do a good job of showing moments when she has a great impact. As individual characters, however, I felt like there wasn't much to distinguish them.

Alexander is a character who is always typecast as (I think) a fool, and off stage, he seems to be mainly defined by his excessive smoking, drinking, and gay sexuality. I didn't quite know how to react to him, in part because his hedonism felt repetitive, but his drug use in the second half made some sense, given all that was going on.

Richard, the "bully," was interesting in that he was simultaneously loved and hated. I liked that the other characters had a complex relationship with him; they agreed he was a phenomenal actor but also loathed his ego. They see him as part of their group and as a friend, but also frequently argue with him. Having this complexity meant that I couldn't quite see him purely as an antagonist, and I like living in that delicious grey area.

TL;DR: If We Were Villains suffers from a few missteps (mainly prose and some characterization), but is rescued by the deft handling of a friend group's ultimate descent into madness. While I think Rio could have done some things to reduce the appearance of pretense and more solidly set up the exposition of the novel, this was a fairly solid debut that delivered an emotional punch towards the end.

[dragonsareoverrated2]

My pinned I guess?

//Ongoing Arc: Beautifly and the Beast!

//Finished Arcs: Dragon Pains, Blood of Blackthorn.

Hi, before you say anything about my name. One) DragonsAreOverrated was taken, and two) I dislike dragon types for very personal reasons that are related to my damn genetics donor of a father, so before you go on and tell me 'Dragons are great actually because-!' I dont wanna fucking hear it.

Alright, now that thats out of the way.

My name is Ichika and my pronouns are she/her, call me anything other than that and I will find you and bite you, or my Crobat will, which ever one of us gets to you first.

I'm the champ of the Naljo, don't know what that region is? Its in between Johto and Kanto, but it's a shithole here so don't come.

... I mean, I cant stop you if you want to visit me, I dont mind visitors...

I'm 23 years old, birthday April 22 (Marianne made me put this here), and am dating my girlfriend who… I think is what you guys would call a faller? She's not from here, but she's still from a place that had pokemon. She's 23 and named Marianne, she was originally from Kalos, moved to Hoenn, beat the league, and then got sucked up into another dimension which is mine.

She sometimes will pop up and write in pink, all her stuff will be tagged with #Mon Amour, which is what I asked to to put it as. I don't know that much Kalosion. She also has her own intro post here.

My team is Kage my Tyranitar (She/Her), Doku my Crobat (He/Him), Yuki my Mamoswine (She/They), Zappu my Ampharos (He/It), Noyaki my Ninetails (She/Her) and Ame my Vaporeon (He/They).

If you wanna battle, schedule it with the league, Im busy trying to fix this stupid region.

Update: I have an assortment of dragons I am taking care of for the foreseeable future.

Any care tips would be appreciated-

I call the Noibat Midori (He/it), the others finally gave me names-

Monterio (He/him), Kin (She/her), Daitan (She/Him), Hoshi (They/It), and Nagisa (She/They)

//Ask games that are open!

//A important note for Pelipper Mail and Musharna Mail

//Naljo Dex Logs Masterlist!

//Ooc info under the cut!

//How she looks!

//This is a sideblog! Unreality. Mod is an adult and goes by she/her he/him pronouns All art I use is my own! I follow from @theshadowqueenofthedistortion, more info about me on my main! Here's some of my other accounts as well!

//Semi-Serious blog, I will participate in active silliness and also write serious stuff. Will sometimes touch on death, abuse and a few other things, I will tag the serious stuff with their appropriate tw/cw tags.

//No Shipping, a lot of the stuff in here is closed off.

//I am very open to crossover stuff!

//Pokemon in this universe have human levels of sentience, though multiverses that don't are well known and won't be questioned.

//Real life animals exist along side Pokemon in her universe, like divergent evolution (not the pokemon thing, the science thing)

//A warning that this character is rather antagonistic but not evil. If you are actually able to get her to like you she will chill out a bit, but you're gonna have to work to that. Also please tell me if she's being too much at all, this is my first time writing a fully bitchy character-

//Magic anons are on! But I am picky about what I let through.

//What the tags mean. //Shadow Mod Speaks: Mod speaking. //Mod Reference: Me and/or Zorana making references for this account //Shadow Art: Art by me that isn't a ref/finished. Stony Ground: Her post/response tag. Stone Edge: Her closed and/or serious RP. I will also use this tag when responding seriously to something. What's with the dragons?: When Ichika is mainly talking to herself. Prismatic Rival (Prism): Ichika talking about her Rival who is a jerk Broken Eggshells (Hatch): Hatchling Posts and Ichika talking about her!

//Marianne related tags will be in her intro post

[the-s1lly-corner]

Hiya. Question regarding the post ab ppl DMing u for intentions that benefit only them. What did u mean by art stuff and baking? Do ppl try to be “friends” with u to commission art or something? And make requests on what u bake? That’s pretty messed up

sorry if this is a personal question

Also, now that u remind me, I was kinda curious ab ur baking. I know this isn’t a baking blog or something, but each time u bake something, could u post ur results? Sorry if that’s weird. U don’t have to do it if u don’t want to ofc. Idk why I request this, but maybe it’s because I kinda wanna do something with myself and seeing someone do it gives me motivation. Does that make sense?? Sorry if this whole thing sounds weird when I can just go to food blogs, but I just think u’r genuinely a cool guy

U could DM me to answer if u wanna which is why I’m not doing anon even tho I freakin want to so badd sorry

Tackling the bamjng real quick!! I gotta admit I totally forget to take pictures of a lot of my stuff unless it's for a client SOBS <\\3 but I'll definitely keep this in mind next time I get the energy to bake something/get an order ehehehe!! Only real reason I haven't started a baking blog yet is because I'm terrible at talking pictures 90% of the time and I already going through it running my main and this blog (/lh I know I can lighten the load and I have done so in the past)

Regarding the first part

Unfortunately I've had people try to form relationships with me with the sole intention of getting art/baking/writing out of me, which no genuine.. well intention of actually being friends/caring, they just want the thing but they don't want to go through the channels others have to.. which has unfortunately made me put the same rules I put on strangers on to my friends in regards to my art n stuff (gifts are a whole different matter, though!!)

It sucks, its happened to me dozens of times. Sometimes people will dip when they get what they wanted, other times they stick around in an attempt to get more. And I've gotten fairly good at telling when people are being genuine and when people aren't (more often than not fake folks feel/sound more like they're talking at me rather than with me, if that makes sense?)

Baking is a little less common though since its tied to irl stuff so while it does happen its extremely rare. ESPECIALLY since I've been selling stuff on the side (though I'm more lax with giving stuff to friends in terms of treats.. but that's usually saved for experimental stuff + people who refused to pay/pick up their order/cancelled)

[dteamain]

i haven't always agreed with you on most things but you're right. i've always leaned more to the dnf side of things but lately a lot of them have been so intense it's scary. i don't know for sure dnf are dating because i don't know them, i don't think they're not for sure, there's signs so i just think of it as 'probably but not sure'. except if i say that i think people would turn on me. the thing is i don't ship. i don't care. but now i'm worried of saying the wrong thing.

it’s never been about people having to agree with me i literally don’t care it’s not about people following me either like if my content doesn’t spark joy great move on I get it. I have been nothing but understanding with people anytime I have had an issue with someone publicly I have reached out personally to deal with it and made it very clear that I don’t care if our opinions are different even if I just get laughed at

Exhibit A:

what baffles me is that because I am up front about my thoughts and opinions all of a sudden I’m not allowed to reblog someone’s dnf art or posts saying omg I love dream like that’s all I want I never ever ever actively engaged with someone in a negative way unless they brought me into it first I leave everyone alone the second I realize they no longer like me but they all get to sit on their private twitters and mock me and my friends to 200 of their closest tumblr followers and they get to be down right mean to people who simply mind their business and I get to find this all out because people who I thought were at least on good terms with me are liking this shit and being complacent in it and its exhausting when really all I want to do is enjoy dteam.

This fandom will always be toxic as long as people are being fake and untruthful on their main blogs well putting their true thoughts and feelings and lowkey bullying people on their side blogs and privates like its fucking normal.

and for some reason lots of people think I should just shut up and take this treatment rather than speak up about this shitty behaviour.

my friendship is not conditioned to who you ship or who you main and it never will be and I will always be upset when someone won’t extend the same branch to me.

[artwithoutblood]

This is more a question about creating than the games. I hope you don’t mind.

TL:DR; New potential fan artist wants to join the fun but is scared because internet How do you manage your internet safety and protect yourself when sharing art? Both your personal data and not letting sus people get to you, avoiding being harassed or doxed. Any tips?

I’ve broken an art block and started drawing some fan art through indie VNs but you do have to come off anon if you want to send a picture. (Understandable.) I also heard that on Tumblr the info in a picture you took yourself can accidentally show your location (metadata).

So because I’m a chicken I’ve recently missed two chances to submit an OC in a sick gender neutral outfit.

(Yes, this is enby uniform anon! I wanted to make an employee OC for Erebus, wearing the loose baggy culottes interpretation drawn by wormsonthebus. Also an MC for Robin, wearing the tight shorts fit from turnthepage. Maybe even have some ideas for some higher ups out of uniform.)

It sounds really paranoid. But over time I saw harassment of VN creators for having adult, taboo or ‘problematic’ content in their games even if they did nothing wrong. I have seen creators complain of creepy NSFW asks directed at the devs/artists themselves. That and other reasons have scared me off being involved in the indie VN fandoms too much, other than sending casual anon asks. But I have half baked ideas and crave validation!

At this point the solution might be creating a new dedicated blog with the asks off and learning how to properly wipe the exif data? So once I improved a bit I could feel more confident randomly gifting little bits of art.

If we’re talking Twisted Wonderland I would be Idia. Ideally the goal is to throw (pleasant, SFW, wanted and asked for!) fan art at the devs and run. Then watch from a safe distance to see how people enjoyed it. 🫥🫣

oh man. i don't really know. i'm not a good person to answer this. sometimes i just copy and paste a picture into paint tool sai and then save it myself rather than saving it to my computer then doing this and that.

i've been doing this online stuff with eyes on my work for a while, so i kind of know what to expect. when i get uncomfortable asks, i don't answer them. i try not to indulge. i think because this community has a much closer connection between fans and developers because of the necessity for their closeness, as well as the tumblr ask box, that makes it seem much rougher. when you're a developer who's super involved in their community, you sort of have an obligation to put forth how your community will act through your own actions.

the tldr for me is that: a lot of people aren't cut out for game development, especially when you're nose to nose with a community like this with little degrees of separation. i think a lot of people want for people to experience their ocs, but they aren't ready for projects in the scope they want and for the social side. that's why a lot of authors have PR teams. because shit is hard. this isn't shaming ANYONE, especially no one in particular, but it's why you hear about most beloved indie developers being radio silent.

if you ever want to send anything, people have sent links, like discord and whatever, and i've just saved and reuploaded it.

[ambiguouspuzuma]

Before I incriminate myself, let's make two things clear.

I do not believe that anybody is obligated to reblog other people's writing. We're all on here to do our own thing, this is a free webbed site, scroll and let scroll. There is no reblobligation. Reblogation. Whatever.

It is nice to reblog other people's writing. I know how great it feels to get a reblog with a lovely comment, and I try to do the same when I see the opportunity. I would like to be the sort of person who does that more often, because it's an easy way of spreading happiness in the world.

Whenever I see these viral "artists are discouraged when you like and don't reblog" posts, I contest whether that is true (I let people have their own say here, and I can tell you the 'discouraged' option didn't win), but I also wonder about the people who endorse them.

How much do these people actually practice what they preach? A lot of prominent art and writing blogs are filled with their own material, self-reblogged to maximise engagement, but little of anybody else's. Do they believe that they, as creator, are not included in the audience? When they support this urge to reblog, do they mean that they should do it too, or just that we should all reblog from them?

When they do reblog, how many of them have a separate side-blog for those purposes, so as not to sully their main or expose their followers to these pieces? What fragment of their followers, if any, do these reblog-only side-blogs have? Is their rationale for quarantining writing into these containment blogs the same as people give for liking rather than reblogging? If they are unwilling to endorse the writing with their whole chest, not wanting to share it with their followers, is there any real difference to the impact on the author?

I don't think that it's many. Some, yes, and fair play to you if that's you, but I see an awful lot of people complaining about the absence of reblogs who are part of the problem. I see such complaints, but I almost never see them actually share somebody else's writing. When they talk about 'readers' and 'writers' it's clear that they only put themselves into the latter category, not subject to the same rules they prescribe.

Would it be nicer if there were more reblogs flying around? Yes. Would I like more reblogs on my writing? Of course. Will I still continue to criticise attempts to guilt-trip people into doing so? Yes. I'm not going to embrace that hypocrisy. Nobody owes me anything that I wouldn't do for them, and that's the way I think that it should be.

[sprawa-przybyszewskiej]

She reserved for herself the full right to her life

A small note at the beginning: the text below was what I presented during my first ever scientific conference this month. The main theme of this event was types of artistic methodology and research, and it was directed at people who knew exactly nothing about Przybyszewska, therefore the readers of this blog probably know all fo this already. I still feel like putting it out there, because I care about spreading awareness of Przybyszewska’s existence and uniqueness any chance I have.

Stanisława Przybyszewska remains to this day relatively unknown, as was the case for the majority of her life. She was painfully aware of it, especially since she has grown up by the side of her mother – Aniela Pająkówna,  a celebrated Polish painter – as well as growing up in the shadow of her extremely popular father, Stanisław Przybyszewski, a writer whose fame only few could have matched back in the day. There is no surprise then, that little Stasia from very early on decided not to settle for anything less but to be celebrated as a genius she always felt she was.

Her life was marked by hard work since the very beginning. Given her mother’s unlucky circumstances, she was a witness to how a woman can – and must – survive on her own, with a small help from friends and family, but mostly making living through her own works. It was in a time and place where this much independence was not yet taken for granted for women, and it surely reflects in Stanisława’s later life. Her mother made sure Stasia was extremely well educated when it came down to artistic subjects, taking her to exhibitions (which in the 1910s in Paris were understandably on a very high level) and paying for private lessons in painting and violin; she also always encouraged her to write, and send the fruits of her labours to the distant, mysterious father. Because Aniela was dying from tuberculosis, she made precautions for Stanisława’s fate and secured mentors and guardians from among the family members and close friends, of whom she was sure they would continue pushing her daughter onto the path of greatness.

It did pay off. Stanisława was a very well educated young woman, whose only fault at the time was that she was too interested in too many subjects at once and so she tried her hand at everything, unable to decide on a career path for longer than few months. In her defense, it has to be said that as a child she proved to be brilliant at everything she tried, from painting, through philosophy, to mathematics. Aged 13, she wrote this in a letter to her aunt: Luckily I'm not as bored as I used to be, I found two things to do: [one is] journaling, the second one is easy - […] drawing [passers by]. It requires a lot of craftsmanship, which I would like to train myself to possess. Beside that, I'm studying anatomy for artists and would like to combine fine arts and science, namely electrotechnics and mechanics, but it's almost impossible. I do some sports with monsieur Geroges, namely running, gymnasticks and a bit of fencing. But that in itself isn't much, I don't know enough about fencing yet. Having received her education in various european countries, she spoke several languages and she thought about becoming a painter, a violinist and – naturally – a writer.

While this last choice seems to be heavily influenced by the mysterious on-and-off presence and absence of her father in her life, it was the best one she could have made. Not many of her drawings and paintings have survived, but those which did show off her creativity rather than enormous talent – the later lack of artistry could also be an effect of prolonged morphine usage. The epoch in which Stanisława was growing up was filled to the brim with brilliant painters of both genders (it was a golden age for female painters in Europe, who started gaining artistic and personal independence at a rate unmatched by any previous period in history), the competition was fierce and she surely would not have gained recognition for her visual works. In fact, she knew it herself, having dedicated the entirety of the year 1926 to painting only (setting writing aside, even writing for solely financial purposes as a feuilletonist to a newspaper), but to her dismay, she realised she had not had sufficient talent to lose herself in fine arts. And if she had chosen violin and became a musician, she would not be remembered for much longer after her death. The ephemeric nature of music, especially in times with limited recording technology, would not play in her favour. Thus, choosing literature and theater was the surest way to establish herself as a prodigy.

Due to the lack of family ties she inadverently gained independence at a fairly young age and had to make a living somehow. She tried working as a teacher, later as a secretary and a clerk in a bookshop, but all of these mundane tasks bored her to death. Aware of her exceptional talents, she felt she was wasting away the potential she could exhibit some other way. Luckily for her she did not care for the money – and even more luckily for her, her distant family cared about her and sent her small allowance, just enough to get by. This enabled her to fully immerse herself in the creative process of researching, writing and correcting the texts she wanted to publish.

What were the prevalent factors in making Przybyszewska a great author? In my opinion, a lot of this boils down to strict work ethics. When one takes a glance at her life, it’s clear she was not necesarily predestined to become great: born a bastard, orphaned in young age, betrayed by her father (who sexually abused  her, emotionally manipulated her and introduced her to morphine, resulting in her lifelong addcition), widowed after only two years of marriage – none of this set her on an easy path. Were it not for her aunt Helena Barlińska, Przybyszewska would not have suffficient means to live, nor another person to confide in through letters. Because of her reclusivity and uncompromising way of being, she did not have many friends, and she usually managed to lose the ones she had made. It was as if she did not care at all about what others thought of her, or in what conditions she lived in (and these were abymsal), if only she was permitted to work.

After years of being a gifted child, a good student of various schools and private classes, she was well equipped to discipline herself into a literal working machine. This aligned perfectly with her views on humanity and personhood – she maintained a vision of them that was decidedly mechanical, or even robotical. She demanded of herself an inhumane amount of focus, regarding this as the only sure way to achieve greatness. Soon after her husband’s death in 1925 she cut almost all of the ties with the society and set on the path to become an impeccable author the only way she knew how: by putting herself through a regimen of hard work. I shall never be free, do you understand? Never. A succession of twenty-hour day of ever-heavier work until I die. [...] Today I have no personal life anymore. I cease to be a man: human sensibility, human feelings, desire – all these gradually wither and fall away in that hellish temperature of concentrated effort. I am becoming an impersonal, monstrously expanding, inflamed brain. Today I can see what is happening to me because I have time... and I feel strange. said she through words of Robespierre, her most famous character, but she was expressing her personal views on the matter in the same time.

The date that marks a shift from her previous actions (when she still tried numerous „normal” jobs and hoped for a financial independence from her family) is beginning of 1929. It is then that Przybyszewska writes to her aunt for the first time after 3 years long period of silnce: I have decided on what my profession would be. Two years ago; rather early, isn’t it? – I could be a writer, or nothing at all. Because, aside from this, I am not fit to be anything else, not a cook, nor a stenographer. [...] All questions aside, I flirted with  literature ever since I was seventeen, but until I was twenty five I had serious doubts. My own works were not trustworthy enough. Now I am certain and will act, not only feel, by it. It means that I reserve for myself the full right to my life – this means Liberty with a capital L – no matter the price. And it is quite steep. Firstly and foremostly, it’s my dignity. And comfort. And safety. [...] I know from experience that one has to have their full powers at their disposal, if one wants to work in a creative field. [...] Therefore I balance myself just above the surface of Hades by means of miraculous acrobatics and divine interventions in the eleventh hour. Ever since this day, she fully proclaimed artistic independence rather than any other – looking at it from another side, her deciding on becoming a writer as her sole occupation, meant becoming a parasite as well, passively preying on her benefactors.

There is no doubt, though, that she took her decision very seriosuly and turned out to be a relentlessly hard worker, which can be proved by her epistolography. She has left as her legacy only a handful of creative works, but it’s letters where her natural talent shone. Thanks to professor Stanisław Helsztyński they were all gathered and published some 30-40 years after her death and can now offer a glimpse into her everyday life. Her life – which consisted of little more than writing and rewriting her own works, or pondering over them; she wrote sometimes about everyday matters, especially political ones, but rarely with genuine interest. Her world was then small and narrow, but incredibly deep to plunge into, which created a perfect space for honing her craft.

It is from her letters that we know what her normal day of work looked like. Her American biographers, Jadwiga Kosicka and Daniel Gerould sum it up this way: The pattern of Przybyszewska’s daily existence was rigorous but dreary: eight to ten hours of serious work (her artistic ‘output’), done almost entirely by night, occasional trips to a nearby grocery store to buy essentials on credit [...] visits to her German doctor Paul Ehmke to ger prescriptions for morphine, without which she could not concentrate or write, ventures out to the tobacco shop to get cigarettes (another addiction), or to the newsstand to buy papers, which she despised but could not stop reading, and rarer outings to the movies (she [...] found film superior to theater [...]). It is worth noting that even if she spent ‘only’ ten hours on the physical act of writing, almsot all of the other actions she undertook during the day were aimed in one way or another at bettering herself as an artist; even morphine she considered absoltely necessary for writing, while she abandoned such ‘luxuries’ (which any other person would consider ‘necesities’ rather) as kerosene for her stove. And in fact, the life described sketches in just few lines how self-denying her existence was.

Another part of a work-oriented life is undeniably studying. In the case of Przybyszewska, whose works were based on a specific period in european history (the Great French Revolution), this aspect was even more important. She researched Robespierre in times when it was in fashion to demonize him in order to jusitify the Dantonists. She studied in depth Albert Mathiez’s history books, the only ones who at least partially spoke to her convictions. Out of all of numerous plays about either the fall of Danton or the fall of Robespierre that had been written up to that point, she was the first to present a thouroughly Robespierre-centric point of view. She felt so misunderstood and alone in this position, she was often frustrated with her studies, but nonetheless, she persisted and almost all of her works depict this period of history.

How was it that a person so completely focused on work alone has produced not much more than what we now know to be her texts? Only three dramas, only one of them celebrated and fully finished. It’s important to say, too, that despite their excellency, she faced refusal after refusal when she tried to show them on stage and during her life time it looked like she would never be able to do it (the only premiere she had she did not even go to, sensing that the director did not do justice to her vision, and the play was taken off stage in a record setting time). A handful of short stories, which were not published in fullness until few years ago. Even lesser amount of sketches and paintings, which were never exhibited at all, and are stored away in the national archives in Poznań, never to be seen. The regimen she put herself through was her final undoing. She kept losing herself in her work, literally going mad whenever her cheap, rusting typewriter was  in need of repairs, but did not agree to any help, including medical (after refusing to go to a drug rehab, she lost the last source of income she had). Just like characters from her works, she finally lost the battle of intellect&spirit, and flesh – in this instance: weak, plundered by addiction and malnutrition flesh – finally gave in. She died of an unknown cause, of which the most probable was freezing to death in her own apartment.

[bellaklak]

sexuality prototype execution (week 7)

I made this execution of my main prototype during class using cardboard, the cheapest white soap i could find at acme, ziploc bags, and packaging tape. Since this is the first life-sized version of this prototype I was working in a pretty rudimentary fashion. I ended up tracing the basic outlines of one of my classmates (male but he volunteered so i wasn't gonna say no) and turned it into the depiction of a naked woman. I didn't have enough cardboard to have her legs spread out but I feel like the indication of her genitals was enough in this case. I walked over the soap bags myself and it was a lot more slippery than I anticipated so I'd like to try mixing it with flour or something to get a more formed squishing feel for the next iteration.

I know this prototype blog post was supposed to be done before people interacted with it but I'll talk about the reactions and my takeaways here anyway for documentation purposes. In the video, you'll see that most people traversed the cardboard with caution, and even if they stepped on the soap bags they always avoided the vaginal area of the woman. I wish I had recorded from the other side so I could see people's expressions too. I put the woman in the doorway in order to indicate that you had to pass over her somehow (I'm still working on incentive for that) and I think it was pretty clear that way (and also unavoidable). Some notes I took from the discussion afterward mentioned that people experienced a sense of wrongness stepping on the likeness of a person/art and people generally, consciously or not, avoided what might be a sensitive spot on the body if stepped on. I thought this was interesting because it's not a super realistic depiction of a body at all, in fact it's just an outline. One person specifically stated that, though they knew they were supposed to step on the prototype that 1. it felt like a part of them was feeling like it violated something and 2. that they questioned if they were a bad person if they stepped on it (what does it mean?). I took this to mean that even with instructions, the interactivity of the prototype felt like some sort of moral test for the viewer. This is similar to the effect I wanted to achieve, but not quite. I want people to feel uncomfortable and feel how it feels wrong, I don't want them to avoid it but I do want them to think about how this relates to their own life (without the judgment, but rather a moment of self-reflection). I have a few ideas that I'd like to execute next week that would allow people to maybe compare 2+ experiences that are similar, and also I really wanna sort out a better way to encase the soap.

[umichenginabroad]

Kayak voyages and el Rio Misterioso...

Week 6

It's come to my attention that more people than I thought read my blog posts, so here's to all of my adoring fans who've been here since the early weeks! If you're new, I gotta say that these are definitely a treat (but of course I'm a bit biased). This post might be shorter than my other ones since it was a pretty relaxed week with not too much going on. However, read till the end! Treat it as waiting for the post-credits at the movies, I might have a hint about where I'm going this weekend...

Pirates of the San Sebastián Bay

I'm going to skip past Monday and Tuesday to just jump right into the rest of the week since those were mainly more days of research. Due to Tecnun having a university holiday on Wednesday, we were able to have that day off! It was super nice out so we decided to seize the day (most of the day after napping for maybe half of it) to embark on a kayak excursion. With the luck from a shilling and 5 euro note I found on the ground, I had high hopes that we would have the blessing of the sea on our side. The rental wasn't that expensive at all, especially for a two-person kayak and roughly 2 hour time slot. We originally planned to set sail for the island itself, but decided that we wanted to aim for an even bigger goal of going around the island. Everything was going smoothly until we reached the mouth of the bay, since this area featured a lot of unexpected rocky patches. As newly appointed seafarers, Jayashree and I wouldn't let this be our end. We successfully entered the choppy waters and were officially now out in open water! At this point, we should've been cast alongside Captain Jack Sparrow because we would make phenomenal pirates. Seeing the back of the island was really neat along with feeling how different it is being the only boat on the water. We ended up having a really good time and 100% would do it again!

Land Ho!

Afterwards we stopped by an icecream stand to reward ourselves on our journey, where I found a rather interesting choice to say the least. It was called a Frigo Pie, or Refrigerator Foot, and it was actually shaped... just like a foot. If I had to rate it overall, I would say a 6/10 for taste and 9/10 for presentation. What better way to cool off on a hot day, right?

It was a bit smaller than expected. I think to improve their product they should make it somewhere around a size 7-8 in US shoe sizes. More bang for your buck you know.

Photo Ops and Friendly Competitions

On Thursday, the night had a lot in store for us. To start, Jayashree, Izzy, Deidra, and I had the amazing idea to recreate some classic JCPenney-esque family photos. I don't really know how else to explain them besides just showing the results, so take a look below at the outcome and I'll do my very best to explain our vision:

We were attempting to create a square with all our hands. We almost got there but it resembles more of a rhombus.

Izzy may or may not have dropped me before taking this picture for the second time.

A big thank you to Diego for being our photographer! Later on, some of us had bought tickets to go to the local club, Bataplán, to get the experience of going out in Spain. To sum it up, we had a great time! We did some rounds of arm wrestling where Jayashree was the reigning champion, and enjoyed listening to all the spanish reggaeton music (there were also some english songs and also a random Can-Can remix).

A quick showcase!

Lately whenever I'm not at work doing research or something with my friends, I've been spending time getting back into drawing. It's always been something that I love to put time into and see how much I've improved over the years. At one point I considered going to school for storyboard animation, but I figured that I like art more as a hobby anyways :). I don't usually do architecture drawings, but I wanted to do a challenge for myself and also sketch it only in pen to up the stakes. Take a look and leave a review in the comments!

This street is from a picture I took when I was just walking around San Sebastián one day.

The Big Finale of the Week: Amusement Park!

On our very first day here, we were taken to Monte Igueldo for a lunch and the best view of the city. We decided to go back on Sunday since there's an amusement park at the top (meant for little kids but I mean we had to check it out). After disembarking from the cable car and reminiscing about the time we've spent here so far, we took a lap around to see what we wanted to do. Almost instantly, we locked eyes with a sign that read: Rio Misterioso. Intrigued, we saw that it was a little boat ride and immediately knew that this should be saved as the best for last. From there, our first stop was the rollercoaster, and boy was it actually more of a thrill than we thought it would be. Not on the same level as Cedar Point, but there were some worthy drops that gave a decent adrenaline rush. We decided to split up briefly, since Izzy and Jayashree wanted to do the bumper cars and Deidra and I wanted to take on the Casa del Terror. I was surprised that Deidra wanted in on this since she's not a fan of all things spooky, but this would be her first haunted house and one at a kid's amusement park is a pretty good starter. For 3 euros, it definitely was an experience. The theme inside wasn't exactly cohesive and varied between movie theatre, jurassic park, the shining, catacombs, and skeletons playing chess. I won't name names but a certain someone was jumpscared by a door, and I almost tripped because I didn't see the stairs. Once we left, we found Jayashree and Izzy living it up in the bumper car arena and then strolled our way with anticipation to el Rio Misterioso. It was a pretty calm and scenic ride with a view of the ocean and city, just shorter than we expected it to be. The route led us into a small underpass where we saw...Peter Pan? Seeing him made me feel magical and whimsical, making for a truly life-changing boat ride. With that, I think the mysterious river really did live up to its name.

The view from the top!

My homies Pennywise and Peter Pan!

As promised, I said that I have a sneak peak into what next week's post will bring. First of all, thanks for staying this long! I really do appreciate when people read my posts and get to see what I'm doing day-to-day :). Now for the hint!

You get 5 blanks: _ _ _ _ _

It's a city in France, there's a show with my name in it and this city, and the Olympics will be taking place here this year. It's probably a dead giveaway, but still fun to guess!

See you soon,

Emily Dobao

IPE San Sebastian, Spain

July 2nd, 2024

[pass1onepr1ncess]

I've mentioned Genshin on this blog and posted an art piece a bit ago about Furina for 4.2 but here's my first actual Genshin text post.

I have a lot of mixed feelings on Sumeru. When I first saw the characters, I was extremely disappointed. The designs are pretty cool in terms of clothing and shape and such, but the skin colors are so pale for a nation based on SWANA and Egyptian cultures. Not to say that either of these groups can't be pale or light-skinned, but like. When your darkest characters are Cyno and Candace and they're still BARELY dark at all? It just rubs me the wrong way. Not only that, but Nahida- the Archon of said nation- being nearly PAPER white is just. Hm. Idk. But the stories and personalities of these characters are really good! I think other than Fontaine, the Sumeru characters are some of my favorites in terms of backstory! Plus, as we get more nations and Hoyo actually starts to know what they're doing, the cast of each nation has intertwining relationships and dynamics and it's wonderful!! Cyno, Tighnari, and Collei are such a sweet found family dynamic, Kaveh and Alhaitham are so so chewable whether you ship them or not, Candace and Dehya being the girl's girls of the desert while still being strong fighters and warriors is lovely!! And I could talk about Nahida and Wanderer all day, don't even get me started. Or Nilou, Dehya, and Dunyarzad! The fact that even an NPC was so well done!!

And the stories of Sumeru are good, don't get me wrong. The Archon Quest was a wild ride and it was extremely captivating, but here's the thing. Every single Sumeru quest feels like I have to spend three months to get them done.They have good stories to tell and they're genuinely really interesting, but because doing the actual quests takes for-fucking-ever, I lose interest and start skipping dialogue and such. And listen, I'm a lore-player. I play Genshin specifically for the lore, and I just cannot sit through this fucking Aranara quest. Everytime it tells me to go do another side quest, my love for Sumeru drops a little bit more and more.

Sumeru isn't my least favorite nation. Well, it just barely misses that mark. Inazuma is at the bottom of the list solely because the way they did the Archon Quest has the exact opposite problem of Sumeru: It felt rushed and ended so abruptly, and I felt like I didn't have time to connect to any of the main characters in the quest. I think this could be solved at least a little bit by having Ei's story quest be part of the Archon Quest where we go and battle Raiden Shogun. And the reason I say this isn't even necessarily to make the Archon Quest longer but because I feel like without it, the Archon Quest isn't complete.

The whole reason Ei and Raiden put Inazuma in a lockdown was because of two factors: the Fatui's manipulation and Ei's grief for Makoto. We solved the Fatui issues in the Archon Quest, but that was only part of it. The reason Ei and Raiden were able to be tricked by the Fatui in the first place was because of her grief, because she doesn't want anything in Inazuma to change after Makoto's death and she's willing to go to extreme measures to keep it that way because she's grieving for Makoto and doesn't want to- or rather can't- let go of the past. We hardly touch on that in the Archon Quest, so it feels like we only solve part of the problem. Ei still isolates herself in her Plane of Euthymia and meditates, still dwelling on the past and letting her grief consume her.

But in her story quest, we see her start to heal and let go and we see her grief start to lessen. It doesn't go away right away, of course, that's not how grief works, but we see her make progress and realize that she has to move on in order to help both herself and her nation. And that is what makes the whole story of Inazuma complete. The source of the Sakoku Decree to keep Inazuma the same was because she wanted to keep everything as it was when Makoto was the Electro Archon, like how a parent will keep their kid's bedroom untouched even after that kid grows up and moves away. It was because of that mindset of holding on to Makoto that she didn't see how the Fatui were pulling the strings and hurting her people. But because of the events in her story quest, she's able to see past her pain and past Makoto and realize that her people need her.

But again, because that was in her story quest and not the Archon Quest, it feels unfished and rushed. And then with Sumeru, it just feels like they stretch it out too far and fill their quests with a lot of unnecessary details and small side quests. It drags it out too long and I start to lose interest in the actual important parts of the story. It kinda feels like Sumeru is a big run-on sentence, if that makes sense? I've spent so fucking long on this Aranara quest and I'm STILL not done, it's insane.

In a way, especially with Sumeru being released directly after Inazuma, it was like they reazlied Inazuma was so rushed and went "Well, we gotta make the next one longer!" and then turned the dial WAY too far to the other side.

Anyway, that's all I really had to say! Like I said, they're getting better at handling these issues as we get more nations and they listen to the players. Fontaine was absolutely wonderful! Not too short, not too long, and the characters and dynamics were great!! I'm a little scared for Natlan since Hoyo has such a shit reputation for handling any culture that's not European or East Asian, but I'm not gonna get my hopes up just to be disappointed, but here's to hoping that at least the stories will be good!