#since i've drawn this bastard enough lol

[ramlightly]

An illustration from my dnd game, where the twink we've been hanging out with has turned out be big bad of the campaign! WHOOPS!

(Dorian belongs to the wonderful @mmothmanners )

[skitskatdacat63]

Mark Alan, Count of Queanbeyan

+ explanation & lore

Okay first I'll explain the drawing itself, and then go into Mark's lore a bit, so stay with me!!!

First of all, yep. Mark with long hair. When I first conceptualized how he'd look in this au, I just genuinely could not imagine him with the typical long curly wig. And that irked me, bcs its just sooooooo historically inaccurate for him to have had short hair, no wig. I sketched him and Jense out as chibis, I drew Mark with short hair, and literally wrote "haha wow he looks so bad with long hair!!" Hello, can I take back that statement? It's actually shocking how good he looks???? Maybe it's a testament to my skill that I could make this work. But I did! And man, shameful to admit, but this might be my best portrait ever 😭😭 Funny tho, guy I've barely drawn, and never as detailed as this, ends up being one of my favs. Mark, you bastard!!

^ lmao as you can see, I tried out a more Seb type wig and then realized ahhhhh nah, he needs a different style. And it worked so, yay!!! I've thought a lot recently, "man it would suck back then if you looked shitty in a wig" and I rescind that. I'm telling you, you think a man would look bad in a wig? I say think again, you're just not conceptualizing the right type of wig for him.

Also wow, its crazy thst I can finally actually visually see what he would look like next to others like Seb and Fernando in this au. Hehehe look at them!!! The boys!!!! Just need Jense :,)

Anyways, I digress, some lore notes about Mark since I don't think I've really talked about him in this au on main much.

He is, of course, Seb's closest servant. His Groom of the Bedchamber(yes that term makes me feel rabid.) He's actually also based on a real guy, whom was described as the Emperor's "favorite" and despite not technically having very important positions, he had a lot of influence because of his closeness and connection with the Emperor. So, yeah, I think that's gives a pretty good pic of Mark in this au :)

He's actually pretty satisfied with his role, but he does feel a bitter and jealous when interacting with others like Jenson and Fernando. Because Mark doesn't have a title, well not in the same way. He's a count, not a King, not a Prince. Yes he's nobility, but not in the same way. And he's satisfied being under Seb, because that's what Mark was raised to do, take care of and keep Seb in line. But often realizes he's never going to be on par with him, not in the same way Fernando can, even if he's Seb's closest confidant.

To build on that. He's very satisfied with his role, and even continues to be satisfied when Fernando comes into the picture. Fernando and Seb don't get along, Mark is always going to be the closest to Seb, always going to know him the best, take care of him the best. But he realizes, he would never get to marry Seb, he's not ranked high enough for that. He was raised to do what's best for the Emperor, he's never going to be able to compete with Seb the same way Fernando can. He really wants Seb and Fernando to succeed! To grow closer! But it still really hurts sometimes.

His closest friend, other than Seb, is Jenson of course(and eventually Fernando, after they stop growling at each other like they're Seb's dogs.) But he does get bitter about Jenson sometimes. Jenson is a prince, who had some great performances in battle. But eventually got tired of that lifestyle, and "retired" to being part of Seb's court. Mark can't really understand that. How do you throw that level of prestige and freedom away. How do you just become the Emperor's servant, when that was never what you were born for. But also, I think Jense definitely uplifts him, they just get along so well, and Jense truly cares for him, no other motives :)

LOL sorry I realize how depressing this sounds 😭 I think all of the above is just Mark at his most bitter, but he's genuinely pretty happy. Think of the whole "not bad for a number 2 driver thing", that's him in this AU. He knows his station, and god damn it, he's gonna be the best, most loyal groom there ever was!! He just cares for Seb so deeply, and it truly is his life path to serve him. Seb cares for him too, feels like he can always rely on him and always be reassured by him and his eternal presence in Seb's life. It's nice to have someone you can always fall back on. Sometimes literally. Yes he makes Mark carry him to bed.

Not to stray away from just Mark, but aaaaahhh the Martian in this AU. Just Mark having to put up with Seb's brattiness all the time, and care for him all the time :) He's so tired of catching Seb naked tho...Seb please put clothes on, this is not befitting of your station. Seb takes Mark with him everywhere, and they share the same bed on trips. Mark is always the first Seb goes to to ask his opinion. I said earlier that Mark feels like he cannot challenge Seb in the same way Fernando can, but Seb really wants him to honestly! He loves hearing Mark's thoughts and opinions. Mark is widely known as Seb's favorite, and is often seen as the second authority in the palace and in the court.

As for Webbonso? I think they really dislike each other in the beginning just because the roles that they're in. They both feel like they're pitted against each other, and ir doesn't help that Seb loves to tease them and often favor one in front of the other(he later realizes how shitty this is, and tries to rectify it, because he never intended to make them actually jealous, he just loves being bratty.) Eventually they realize they're in extremely similar situations(both beholden to and stuck eternally with the Emperor), and find comfort in each other in that.

Yep that's right...the palace is honestly one big polycule djkfkglg. But I hope thay explains Mark in this AU well enougg???? All you need to know: Seb's long-suffering servant.

[dirtyoldmanhole]

hentai trope musing

i think a lot of the Discourse around ~*male gaze*~ is silly on multiple levels but it's been a lot of fun playing with hentai-as-historically-a-dude-medium with this strip and fucking around deliberately with gaze switch.

cuz like if you read more than one hentai you'll notice the genre tags are not the most. hm.... balanced, lol. to put it one way (or tasteful). and a lot of the hentai i've been enjoying is in the 'ugly bastard' tag -

(this meme below is a perfect example + also of my taste lol)

(git gud, etc)

and it's like... that's not how *i personally* would classify it, but that's not a war i'm gonna wage, and this strip does exactly the kind of work subverting the expectation that 'oh neat, the old dude can be hot too' that i want to see anyways? (like i also roll my eyes that it's only the dude that has to be objectified too. i like crude sexy drawn titty universally across genders u know.)

BUT

relatedly, it's funny that i'm seeing 'dilf' as a tag on the standard sites, which yay, BUT i'd argue that dilf has been kinda watered down to be more of a 'generically young-middle-aged-adult' tag especially in recent years. "A" wrinkle or two, you know. not obviously.... Old As Balls, enough the normies balk at. like that also circles back to the 'ugly bastard' tag existing as a point as just a cruder way of saying 'outside the normie pov'. cue the 'ugly bastard' tag actually being a better match for me in general for those sites, at least, since to me it's the contrast that's the hot shit.

blah blah blah back to drawing said titty

[fainthedcherry]

2024 Human Art VS 2019 Human Art !!!!!

AS PROMISED, HERE'S A POST WITH SOME NEW ART!!!

And also an art comparison, just to see, how much I improved in drawing the 2 bois <3

I'm MEGA tired despite having slept after work, but I WON'T let that deter me from writing a description!! YAPNADO AHEAD;

FINN AND MARCOOO. FINNANMARCO. BEEN A WHILE SINCE I'VE ACOUSTICALLY AND FERALLY YELLED ABOUT MY 2 FICTIONAL MEN WHOM ARE CLOSE TO MY HEART.

I'm SO glad, that in the new drawing, Marco finally looks like the twink he always was, but still enough meat on the bones to look NORMAL lmao, can't say that about the 4 other sketches of me trying to redraw this ref for years. xD (why yes, his wings took forever, why do you ask? /lh)

I'M MEGA SUPER DUPER GLAD, that Finn FINALLY looks like a chubby, wild bastard TOO, OH TOOTHPASTE MAN, HOW MANY HEARTACHES YOU GAVE ME OVER STRUGGLING TO DRAW AN ENDOMORPHIC BODY TYPE. BUT I CAN NOWWWWWWWwwww!!!!!

God this habit of loudly reading out my posts as I type them made me realise what a bad Schwarzenegger impression I do on accident bc I'm overly excited to post something after a month of silence SDKFSKLDG

ONE THING I ALWAYS WANTED TO DO. IS PUT EVERY DETAIL I NEEDED ON A BIG REF. SO I DID! I've drawn closeups of the boys's eyes, I've drawn Finn's tongue so that I don't need to constantly remind myself what his blush and flesh colours were sdfkldsgkl, I FINALLY denoted their heights, so people know that they're tall TALL dudes (and that Finn obviously will struggle w/ his lanky mfing legs, we LOVE giving a middle-aged man heart attacks once he reaches his 40's!!!)

ANNDDD ALSO SOME SIDE VIEWS OF THEM. The last side-view I had of F & M, looked REAL bad. Like, Marco's face looked WAY too stereotypically European (to my fault bc surprise surprise not many African people live in Europe so I had poor frame of reference but I've been fixing it via looking up images online instead, at least it helps but yeah, I have a hard time so far unfortunately💀), Finn's was just... B u c k e t. NOT LIKE HANDSOME BUCKET. BUT JUST BUCKET. IT NEEDED FIXING (fun fact I accidentally made Finn have the most attractive jaw shape for men according to beauty standards and I DIDN'T EVEN KNOW I JUST WANTED THIS MAN TO LOOK S Q U A R E AND THAT'S IT, MINECRAFT STEVE HAS MORE RIZZ THAN MOST MEN OFFICIALLY).

OH YEAH ALSO A CLAW REF AGAIN FOR FINN!!! His old ref looks too cool for me to give up on it tbh even as dated as it is sfjklsdglk, BUT I felt like I needed to redraw them properly.

FUNNILY ENOUGH A PERSON I COMMISSIONED SAID I HAVE SOME REALLY CLEAN AND NICE LINEART. I wish I heard that 5 years ago when I was really insecure about my bad lineart skills xD, I don't use lineart anymore nowadays outside of reference-drawings like these I don't plan to redraw in the next years unless necessary soooo yeah! They're gonna appear much rarer unless I go off and about making more ref sheets of all of my Sonc OC's sfklsdgsdfksdg

This drawing took 5 days to make btw. Not the hours spent on this LOL. 5 days of my life I'll never get back tho bc I care too much about my babies and I feel they deserve proper refs sdfklsdglk

WHAT ELSE SHOULD I MENTION.....HOPEFULLY I PLAN TO DRAW MORE HUMAN REFS IN THE FUTURE INSTEAD OF STAY IN MY COMFORT ZONE OF SONIC OCS ONLY. I for years wasn't confident in my ability to draw humans, but I can do so NOW at least!!!!!!!!!! Even if I'm like...3 years too late to how I wish my art looked back then already dsklfdsg, I have some high standards I need to continue to knock down as my 2024 resolution sdfklsdg

^IT'S BEEN WORKING THOUGH AS YOU CAN TELL BC I'VE BEEN UPLOADING SOME BAD DOODLES AND SKETCHES, BEEN DRAWING MORE GARBAGE AND BECAME MORE INVOLVED IN MY BELOVED FANDOMS. I wanna continue doing so! It was the most fun I've had with art ever. I hope to properly meet more fandoms I left in the past bc I thought it'd be embarrassing to share my passion for a franchise back then. I EMBRACE THE CRINGE NOW AS AN ADULT AT LEAST EVEN IF 7 YEARS TOO LATE ON THAT FRONT TOO. We all age and mature ig but I just become more silly year by year,,, c:

Oh yeah if you also see this btw lemme know, whether the new watermark tiles are subtle enough to not be noticed!!!! I know, watermarks are annoying and nobody likes them, but ever since AI invasions, I REFUSE to put my work online without ANY form of proof that somebody took it from my page. I just want people to stop lying on the internet for cloud and pick up a pencil. It's not that hard smfh. The only time I could excuse AI art is w/ amputees man. That's the only time I could empathise with someone, who wants to be an artist but LITERALLY can't bc they got dealt a bad hand in life. I digress my AI hate can be rambled about some other day, I know I love yapping and writing essays about THAT topic for sure sfklsdklg

I chose to post this ref to my Tumblr first tho, bc I still wanna work on my drawing of Abbacchio,,,, he is quite dear to me and I'd love to put effort into a doodle of him that won't take too long. Like 4 hours or 5 hours tops. I still have yet to figure out, if his cute star shape on his head is a hat or part of his hair. Bc I CAN'T TELL TBH AND I'VE BEEN DRAWING IT AS PART OF HIS HAIR PATTERN BUT I THINK IT'S A HAT NOW EVER SINCE I LOOKED AT MORE ASBR CAPS OF HIM I TOOK FOR REFERENCES. xD

Also another side-note, but I've ofc reduced down the lankiness of the dudes I draw™, but I in result wanted to sliiightly make larger feet/hands bc my Sonic phase will continue to possess me 'til the end of time /hj, if you also wanna lemme know what you think on that, bls do! I am messing about with stylization still. I am finding my footing with stylizing humans sOOO yeah!!!! I hope to some day be satisfied with my artstyle change of '24! So far it's been really rewarding and eye-opening to me and my journey as an artist for my 7 years of existing on the 'net w/ my silly goobers I like to scream about to in the void <3

Once again, tagnado also incoming below bc I dunno how to properly tag my art so lemme throw in things I THINK are relevant to this post sdkldsgkl

See you hopefully tomorrow w/ a lil doodle dump if I get around to it!!!! : D

[nuclearforest]

10, 12, 25, 36 for the writing ask game

Howdy and thanks for the ask!! I already answered #12 for Rotten which will appear under the mun rambles tag, so if you don't mind I'll go for 11 since it's between 10 and 12 lol.

10. How do you decide what to write?

Partially on a whim (which happens a lot) and partially due to interaction! Somebody says they want something and I just love to try and provide. I've got something of a wildbacklog with suggestions and the like rn. But the most consistent theme is that it's goofy shit for my favorite awful bastard man.

Also want to say the backlog just gets longer and longer because those damn whims of mine always creep up on me. Currently looking at doing another little fic around the holidays for Rotten's OC Barrett (guess im out here simping for the whole family); I have like 2 funny romcom ideas (one also from Rotten); my probably eternally unfulfilled desire to write Doc doing something science related; and then whatever else comes to mind.

My life would be easier if I just stuck to drabbles, but alas. I'm always down for goofy ideas and am willing to broaden my horizons.

11. Are you partial to a certain character/pairing or are you more equal-opportunity? If you are partial to any character/pairing, why do you think that is?

Honestly I am a simp for Hans and I think I advertise that well enough. But beyond that, I wanna just talk for a bit about why I'm kinda drawn to Millennium as characters.

So first and foremost they're all awful people with horrible motivations and Hirano did a good job describing that. But beyond their motivations they were surprisingly well written, each with their own personality and goals. I just like the idea between dropping their characters into situations and seeing how they work. Trying to work in other stuff and testing theories to see if they work. Shrodinger and his implications on the crossover between physics and magic in Hellsing is just 👀👀👀

Like Hellsing and Iscariot are fun, too, but as far as my nerd interests and shit: the group with the mad scientist and the werewolf not-stripper I'm out here simping for kinda win that tug of war.

25. What other websites or resources do you use most often when you write?

Google, funny enough. I don't have a go-to because if I'm not wildly pulling things out of my ass or drawing on the plethora of random facts I've amassed over the years, I'm probably just googling something to check. I mean, to be fair the bulk of what I'm writing is supernatural reader-insert smut where there are next to no rules so there isn't exactly a lot to fact check lmao. I wing thr bulk of my work, for better or worse. At least I hope it's entertaining.

But if you're looking for any particular kinds of resources for knowledge or character design I could totally find something for you!

Otherwise for some of the detailed technical historical stuff, I do quite a bit of reading in my spare time. Most if my knowledge of stuff about the Nazi atomic weapons development program (what a mouthful AND a nightmare) comes from the book The Bastard Brigade. I tend to read a lot of nonfiction and I loved that one to bits.

36. Do you visualize what you read/write?

Yep! I do try, anyway. Sometimes because I want to make sure that what I write matches what's going on in my head or that physically things make sense. There's a lot of time I'll double back and say "wait shit I forgot to have so-and-so move this and now they have THREE HANDS"

So when I write I do try to keep a bit of a running visualization. And then I go back through it (maybe) and make sure it makes sense. Hopefully if you read things of mine, you find that I don't miss too much! I do all this without a formal beta, too, so it's a hell of a time if I just churn out a 26k monster. 💀

[deniigi]

I love how you characterize everyone you write so uniquely, you're one of my favorite authors, and you inspired me to do my own writing (let's just say I've got like almost 30k of spiderman and daredevil stuff now and leave it at that), but I was wondering if you had any tips on how to get a better read on characters that give you trouble?

Anon, this is a really fucking hard question and I’ve been ruminating on it for ages.

I’m not 100% sure what you mean, is part of the issue, I think.

Are you asking me what I do when I find myself stuck in writing certain characters? Or do you mean: how do I break down characters I am not overly familiar with to write them in a coherent way?

I think you might be asking more of the second question than the first, but on the off chance that I’ve misunderstood, I’ll answer both and then we can continue the conversation based on which you need more help with; is that cool?

——————–

So for the first question about getting stuck while writing a character:

What I mean when I say ‘stuck’ is like, you find that you’ve introduced this person and you’ve built a context around them, but something just doesn’t feel right and no matter how much you write, you just feel like it’s not working or feels just plain wrong.

So you usually run out of things to say or get frustrated and can’t seem to move forward with other parts of your story.

That’s ‘stuck’ for me. And when I get stuck like that, I’ve usually got a couple of things going on, but the main two are that

I don’t know this character well enough

My narrative has problems

The first issue, I handle by doing research on a character to remind myself who they are, what their past is, what their past behavior in similar environments/with similar people has been, etc.

The way to deal with the second issue is both straight forward and difficult to hear sometimes, and that’s this:

Your narrative ain’t workin’.

Scrap it. Make a new one.

A lot of times, when I get stuck, it’s because my narrative is too complicated and I have to do too much explaining in order for me to move forward with a character or event.

Straight up? When I find myself having to explain things in big blocks of text (as in, blocks of text which are backstory and not descriptions of the scene) I know I’ve gone too far. Maybe I’ll do that once in a first draft of a narrative, but most of the time, after I’ve gotten it out once, I will scrap that piece and draft another one, this time omitting the explaining.

The next time around, I’ll rework my narrative to make a character do something which makes them reveal a little of this backstory and I’ll have someone else notice, question, or contextualize it for them.

But at the same time, if your problem isn’t about too much explaining to do (this happens most in AUs I find), it might be due an overly complicated plot (lol. See fuckin’ sidebars for that. Christ. Never again. 4 narratives is too many in one story for me)

So the answer to that is stepping back, taking a deep breath, and either relaxing the rigidity of your planned plot or dropping a narrative or point altogether.

I get that that sucks to hear sometimes because we all seem to consider a fucked up plot or a skipped opportunity to talk about X cool thing a sign of personal failure, but that’s not at all true.

think of it like this: if something’s not working, there’s no use in hammering away at it the way you have been. You’re just gonna end up with blisters when you could be making a whole new fence.

ANYWAYS. what I’m trying to say here is that your read on a character might not be the thing that’s tripping you up in your writing. You might just need to do a little reading on the character and some reworking of your narrative, and then you might find that you understand the character just fine!

—————–

In the case that you haven’t started writing yet or you have, but you keep getting stuck in breaking down a character into their parts so you can figure out what you can do with them–that’s a little more tricky.

I’m sure that everyone has their own method, so bear with me and know that mine might not work for you.

But the first thing I do when I approach a new character is that I read up on them. I use fandom wikis. I look for comic appearances, book appearances, appearances in general. I look for fandom representations of them, both the really old and the really new, in images and writing.

Basically I build a picture of what this character is to the canon and the fandom and then I pick through those piles deciding with the capriciousness of a prince what I want to keep and what I want to throw to the lions.

From there, I will take this shiny, new, bastardized version of a character who now pleases me, and I will ask the following thing from them in every narrative that I write:

What do they want?

If you constantly ask yourself what your character wants, then you force yourself to address why they want that thing and what they’re willing to do get it. (this is the actual breaking down process that you need to do to figure out someone’s characterization)

so like, as an example for you: Wade Wilson.

I fucking hate the way that people have characterized Deadpool in both comic canon and in fandom, but I do actually really like the way that Ryan Reynolds has characterized him. So working with that foundation and a lot of details about Wade from the comics, I have asked myself ‘what does Wade want?’

The answer is surprising. And it’s security.

Why does he want that thing? And how do I know it’s something like ‘security’ and not ‘chaos?’ Well, think about his background: he’s been abused by his family, which he resents, he joined the army, he’s picked a lucrative field to become a professional in, he was very attached to Vanessa.

These are not the actions of a man seeking chaos. These are the actions of someone seeking to make chaos work for him. Now you could take that in any number of ways, but since I am interested in distancing my Wade from his current context of completely “””random””” violence, I have focused primarily on him seeking happiness, satisfaction, and stability in his own ways.

As for the ‘what is he willing to do to get it’ part of that question, the comics and movie and fandom all point to Wade as erratic and unpredictable, but I disagree with that interpretation. I think what Wade actually is is adaptable, and that adaptability and the absurd lengths to which he will go to do something silly or vindictive seems to me to suggest that he’ll do pretty much anything to achieve what he wants. This gives me a sense of what Wade will and won’t do in a narrative. For example, he will use violence when he thinks it will achieve a goal, but he won’t say, fuck up a relationship with someone for laughs when that person offers him something that speaks to what he wants overall.

The main thing with characters like Wade and Peter and Matt and heroes in media in general is that, fundamentally, they cannot have what they ultimately want. They can build their whole lives around it, they can get close to it, they have even have parts of it, but if they got what they really, really wanted, for good and forever, then their stories would end. There’s nowhere to go from there.

If you want to end your story that way, great. Excellent. I whole-heartedly support you.God knows we need more happy ending in this world to give us glimmer of fucking hope. 

But if you’re working in a verse which has no clear end and you don’t want it to have a clear end (like, for example, my dumpster fires verse) then you need to keep shit just out of reach for your characters.

That will drive your narrative and it will give you room for breaking down and developing your character along the way in a believable way, at least for the narrative that you are writing for them.

——-

Anyways anon, this has been way too long and drawn out and I’m sorry for that. If you want to discuss personally what’s going on with your work, I’m happy to chat with you about it!