#so it’s not really in the right proportion…

[sirswooshnoodles]

My grandma, mom and sister are very scared of spiders. I used to just as scared as them.

For some reason I decided to write my hs communications class speech on why people are afraid of spiders. Finding out that less than 1% of all spider species are medically significant did wonders for my relationship with them.

Now I love spiders. Learning about them, and telling myself constantly that they are friends worked. I still am scared of getting bit; because it will hurt and I’m a wimp, but I also catch spiders barehanded pretty often. I get sad that they will never understand how much I love them. That I don’t want to hurt them. That I think they’re pretty and cute and so darn cool. I love spiders! But I’m also still scared of them.

Bees and especially wasps are critters I love from a distance. My fear of getting stung is probably out of proportion, but it doesn’t stop me from petting bees sometimes, so I think where I’m at is fine. Yeah you read that right! I pet bees!! They’re super soft. You gotta be really really gentle and delicate in your touch. If you do it right, like gently bumping them ever so lightly, they don’t even seem to notice! It’s always nerve wracking but fun too. Never have they ever gotten aggressive over it in my experience.

Oh, and for the love of anything and everything, do not put up sticky traps outside. Don’t.

Been working in pest control for 3 months now and i can confidently say that nobody on earth seems to understand that sometimes You Will See A Bugs and that’s Normal if you live literally anywhere with oxygen

[ranticore]

Hii 🥰 I love your art so so very much and it's inspired me to start drawing again after about a year and a half of nothing. I was wondering if you could do a quick explanation of how you draw creature heads? Even with skull references and stuff I'm having troubles particularly with the eyes / eye placement and cheek areas

hi thank you, i'm happy you've gotten drawing again. i try not to make fully drawn 'here's how i do x' tutorials anymore since realising that i would just be training people to replicate my mistakes and photos really are the best reference

however not many people know HOW to use photorefs so i will show you this thing i made for someone else who asked a similar question in my dms once. step 1 is to discard any hangups you might have about tracing. professionals trace. it's fine.

for an example of what i mean when i say drawn tutorials just teach you how to replicate mistakes: i got the knee visibly wrong in my drawing here lol. but for a guide you get the idea. you basically want to put on x-ray goggles when you're looking at photos. you want to be able to see through the animal and understand 1. the axial skeleton [skull, ribs, spine] first and 2. the appendicular skeleton [pelvis, limbs] secondarily. you want to understand it in a 3D space - see how in my traced sketch, I have blocked out the ribcage as a solid form using contour lines which describe a curve. i didn't draw every individual rib, there's no need. don't get bogged down in the weeds, this drawing should take like 5 minutes max

the reason we are tracing and not just closely referencing is because this saves us from also having to worry about getting angles & proportions right. we will worry about those later. for now we are gaining understanding of how a body is formed without the pressure of having to get it 'right'.

okay so you asked about heads in particular so we'll look at heads. in the thingy above you can see that i traced a kite shape onto the front of the cranium before filling in the snout.

it's a canine and not super interesting but i think they show really well what goes on with the frontal bones. the cheek bones form the two lateral points of a kite shape.

if you start your sketch at the kite shape you can turn it in space

what you are looking for is the kite. the kite is not flat. the kite is the front of the cranium minus the nose/snout etc, it is laid out over a curved surface. you will find the eyes along the horizontal line and the cheekbones tucked under the bottom faces of the kite. the snout/nose/etc emerges from the crosshairs in the middle and the cheekbones follow the outer edge of the kite, but not the jaw. this is how i construct all my faces, human or animal doesn't matter it's all this underneath. using it i can visualise the hidden parts of the face such as the obscured cheekbone

try to find as many different types of animal or human heads as possible and trace the kite onto them. then you will see

[fiddler-on-the-starship]

Spoilers for Transformers One.

On the one hand, I do think Orion was right when he said "rebuilding Iacon cannot begin with an execution" (they'd just thoroughly trounced Sentinel in every way, he wasn't a threat anymore, there wasn't an immediate need to kill him beyond the desire for revenge).

On the other hand, on a purely visceral level I do not have a problem with Sentinel getting ripped in half because fuck that guy lmao. Get your revenge, Dee, you deserve it.

But on the other other hand, I do believe that Orion's actions were motivated not by any desire to save Sentinel, but by concern for Dee. (I think these posts make a good point about that; it doesn't seem that Orion was even deliberately trying to sacrifice himself when he got shot, I think he just wanted to get between Dee and Sentinel so he could talk to Dee.)

But on the other other other hand, Orion really did not choose his words well in that scene. "Don't be like Sentinel" was the WORST thing he could've possibly said, all things considered. A while ago I saw a post that described it as "telling a victim they're just as bad as their abuser" and yeah, I agree with that assessment. That probably wasn't how Orion intended that to come off, but there's no way it wouldn't have sounded like that to Dee. Maybe it wouldn't have been possible to talk Dee down from killing Sentinel in that moment, but if it had been at all possible, that was definitely not the way to do it.

However, while this leads to a horrible outcome for the characters, I'm not sure it's such a bad thing for the narrative. It's painfully realistic, actually. Sometimes, people who have nothing but good intentions will say stupid, hurtful things. Sometimes, when someone is in a state where all they can feel is pain and rage, they will lash out without thinking of the consequences, and in doing so they might hurt someone they love. Obviously in the real world this does not usually involve a giant robot shooting another giant robot with a laser cannon, but that's one of the great things about sci-fi and fantasy; a laser cannon can be a metaphor for the horrors we face in real life.

Also, based on Orion's behaviour up until that point in the movie, it's pretty in-character for him to say the worst possible thing at the worst possible time to someone who is clearly suffering. You can tell he has a lot of compassion and generally means well, but that doesn't stop him from being an insensitive dick at times. And I like that. I like it when characters have Layers. (Orion and Dee both have a lot of Layers, and I am fascinated by the way some of the same personality traits manifest very differently in each of them, but that's not what this post is about, perhaps I'll ramble about that another time.)

Basically what I'm saying is:

I think Orion was both right and wrong (right about it not being necessary to kill Sentinel, and right that a public execution was a bad fucking idea; very, very wrong in the way he expressed that to Dee),

I'm not going to say Dee did nothing wrong, but I completely understand where he is coming from (and I'd be lying if I said that when he killed Sentinel there wasn't a part of my brain screaming YEAAAAH, YOU GO GIRL, RIP THAT FUCKER APART),

I think that Optimus Prime should have flaws and fuck up sometimes, because that makes him more interesting as a character, and in the case of TF1, because having him inadvertently contribute to Dee's downward spiral adds to the tragedy of it all (and I do think this movie can rightly be called a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions),

and, above all,

FUCK Sentinel Prime. Seriously, fuck that guy SO much.

[katerinaaqu]

Finished Chapter 14 of The Song of Achilles and like you I already found one change that gets on my nerves. Why is Odysseus now the Prince of Ithaca? When he was already King by the events of the original poem? What was Madeline Miller’s purpose in demoting him from King to Prince?

This better have a payoff or else… without Odysseus being King I feel his 20 year absence from Ithaca has less serious consequences. I think without him being King of Ithaca, his wife’s suitors wouldn’t be so eager to replace him.

Well I will start with what me and other classics readers say, that Miller is extremely biased with certain characters and that shows in her writing (true she writes in a very beautiful way and has great expression but still...) so certain characters are depicted positively and others negatively (no surprise or news there) and she writes in a feministic way so certain characters in the background are bound to be disregarded or worse changed. However most people have come to know that her writing of characters is really inaccurate or that it comes straight from her imagination (see for example how in order to get her romcom aura we must see a "homophobic character" aka Thetis who acts almost as a villain, we see the stereotype of star-crossed lovers like Achilles and Patroclus (which is a trope she uses by combining elements from the original but ignoring the character development of others in order to fortify her message) etc.

That being said, Miller's style seems to me like she uses SOME elements of the original, blasts them out of proportions, altering it to be more simplified to fit a romcom setting and re-writes the rest to fit the characters. I am not 100% famliar with her books given how I haven't read them in the full but I have seen stuff around and read some passages so take this hypothesis with a grain of salt but this seems to be the case to me. So in this case it is clear that Miller doesn't see Odysseus in a very positive light (given what she goes with to her other novels as well) so yeah her trying to lesser his importance or the status in the story seems more than just a possibility to me.

So here goes my reply, sorry if this is long:

In this case she seems to take advantage of the fact that in translations there is no distinct difference in the text between the word "prince" or "king" in the homeric text (both are being stated by the term άναξ (anax->wanax, from mycenean greek as well) and is being used to speak on the ruler that has under his command the ships and the army. That is to be said some of the commanders of the greek army had living parents back home and Odysseus was included among them. It seems like Laertes was in a way retired since indeed Odysseus seemed to be a king in his own right, in fact Penelope even insinuates he had been so for a long time, given how she tells Antinous the story of his father who arrived to the palace begging Odysseus for his own life, possibly implying that Odysseus was a ruler of his own right more than 20 years prior, possibly before Antinous's birth or during Antinous's childhood or infantry. On the other hand some people seem to separate his father from Odysseus by naming Laertes "King of Cephallenians" and Odysseus "King of Ithaca" aka that technically Laertes is the king of the entirety of the kingdom (Ithaca, Cephallonia, Acarnania etc) and Odysseus's juristiction is Ithaca. Personally I do not fully support that last one given how Odysseus is the only one who seems to be in charge even if Laertes is still alive. It seems that the tradition in Ithaca was a bit more family-like in terms of ruling and the king retired from his duty because of age, letting the younger and more capable son to rule (potentially Laertes is an exception and gave the authority to Odysseus because he thought he was more capable ruler than himself. Odysseus possibly proved his worth during the internal conflicts with the Taphian pirates or in conflict in Messinia [when he received his bow in his youth as a gift])

It also seems to be backed up by how by n large they got married within the kingdom (Eurylochus is from the same kingdom, from the small island of Same and marries Odysseus's sister Ctimene, the suitors of Penelope all come from within the kingdom from different principates and regions). Laertes and Odysseus seem to be exceptions to the rule since Laertes marries Anticlea, daughter to the great thief Autolycus who lived in Parnassus and Odysseus who married Penelope from Sparta) So it seems that the kingdom is more like a "family business" than actually some kingdom with expansive or military construction (unlike Mycenae or Sparta) so it doesn't seem impossible that there is either a tradition for the old ruler to quit and pass the throne to the next generation rather than wait for his death to pass authority or that if one did it wouldn't seem impossible. It also seems that other kingdoms are not necessarily the same as modern kingdoms either. Icarius is still alive when the events of the Odyssey take place. We don't know if Tyndareus also is alive or not, from what I remember, in Homer's writing so it is not clear what kind of rules exist to that realm. Could it be also that the ruler is not only of age (able to grow a beard aka around the final 20s or early 30s) but also marriage that gets them ready to rule? Like Menelaus is a ruler of Sparta by marriage, Odysseus rules as a sovereign ruler because of his marriage? It could be although again the suitors of Helen were often called "kings" in literature, it doesn't seem to be the case given how most of her suitors are either young (Ajax, Menelaus, Antilochus was also mentioned or even Diomedes in some sources even if the two of them would be literal children at that time) or sons of existent rulers let's say Odysseus. So it is possible that marriage AND coming of age play their part in succession. It gets a bit confusing as well since Odysseus leaves order to Penelope that she has to wait till her son is of age (when his beard grows) to pass him the throne, if he hasn't returned till then. Does Odysseus imply that his son would rule if he was of age, regardless of his death or is he implying that they first have to confirm he is dead before Telemachus takes over? It is indeed an enigma but then again the case of Odysseus is complicated; he goes to a war that he doesn't know if he is gonna return from and according to some readings and traditions, he was repared to be off for a long time as well from an omen he heard so his case with Telemachus seems to be an exception rather than the rule given the extreme conditions they deal with.

Either way yeah it doesn't seem that Odysseus is not a ruler in his own right in any shape or form in the Iliad or the Odyssey despite the fact that Laertes was still alive throughout the entire process. Either because it was a consistent tradition or because Laertes made an exception, it seems that Laertes was not an active ruler by the time Odysseus left for Troy and as I said it seems that Penelope implies Odysseus was already a ruler capable of giving pardon to someone (Antinous's father) or command armies (Taphian pirate incident, Messina, Troy) so yeah it doesn't seem that Odysseus is considred "a Prince" like for instance his brother-in-law Eurylochus or the Suitors and their families but he seems to be a king in his own right; he is the one who has the duty to send away the suitors; he is the one to command the army and he is the one to call the counter-attack in the Odyssey against the retalliation of the families after the murder of the suitors and not Laertes.

So to close this already long answer yes among the many changes Miller imposes in her book to fit her narrative, it seems that she takes advantage of modern day perspectives of rule and succession (aka the sovereign ruler's death before the other takes over) plus the fact that there is no distinct word between king and prince in the ancient texts to call Odysseus "a Prince" possibly to decrease his status (similar to how ancient writers mentioned Odysseus not being legitimate son of Laertes but a bastard son by Sisyphus) so yeah it does seem like it as you said given how Miller doesn't seem to be fond of Odysseus as a character. But that would be my hypothesis. Either that or Miller simply doesn't want to consider a different rule of succession than the modern one she and her readers are familiar with aka a king becomes king only after his father's death. Which is ironic though given how many people mention Odysseus "a king" even if they know or possibly because they forget Laertes is still alive.

Hope this helps

[quibbs126]

So I did some more Transformers drawings, and I figured page was full enough

I mean, it isn’t really, I could have fit more in the corner if I wanted, but I can’t think of anything else to draw there, so might as well post it now

So I suppose, let’s talk through all this

First off we have an Optimus I never finished, because I couldn’t get that bending shoulder to look right. It just looks off, and I can’t finish it until it looks right. So I never did

I think he’s supposed to be sad and yearning after the breakup with Megatron, and talking about it with someone

Anyways, then we move on to the Dinobot section, which I made because I started Beast Wars and like Dinobot, and had been attempting to draw him at work the previous day

I think I draw him too skinny, which is why I made that middle one, to be more accurate. But I also kind of like drawing him skinnier? I know it isn’t accurate, but I like making him so. Like he’s got muscles, but has a lean body type. I don’t know

Then today, I wanted to draw a happy, smiling D-16, who’s doing so at something Orion did for him (this isn’t supposed to be a recreation of the race scene)

I was going to do it more like the Dinobot style, but then I ended up going back to 3D boxes anyways

Honestly I think it’s one of the ones I’m most proud of, look at him and his sweet little face

Still can’t get the sticker right though

But anyways, on to the last thing, the Bee and Elita

Honestly I think the two of them need some ships in this universe too. Megatron and Optimus got their whole situation, but what about them? Elita doesn’t really have any options presented right now outside of maybe Arcee and I guess Airachnid (but personally I’m not here for the toxic yuri right now), and I don’t really know about Bee

The sequels should give them new characters to have subplots and shipping with. It can’t all be Megatron and Optimus hogging the spotlight (even if I do like them)

As for the drawings of the two themselves, I mean it’s alright. I think Elita came out better though. But it’s also my first time drawing them, and it takes some practice for me to get them right

I’m realizing as I type this that I have a sketchbook, and I got good at drawing Dinobot after drawing him on sauce paper a few times. So like, I could just do that to try and practice the characters without needing to be at work, and having a handy place to keep those references. Hm, well that’s a solution for later

It also does not help that I don’t have good references for them, especially in their cogged forms. These are about the best I got, and they aren’t the best quality either, I do not know how to draw their heads (well mostly Bee’s)

I also don’t think I’m drawing the Transformers One cast right. Like their bodies and general proportions I mean

Like, I noticed from this random screenshot I saw today that D-16’s noticeably wider than Orion

And I also know that the quartet have their own distinct face shapes from one another

I just don’t know how to convey those things in my drawing of them, it doesn’t want to work

Also I don’t think I have the basic structure of how their bodies work down either. I noticed today that almost all of them have more cylindrical shoulders than the rectangles I sketch, and also they have those middle circle joints

This is an observation I’ve had before, but the Transformers One designs to me really feel like action figures/toys with the way they’re built and designed. I don’t really know how to explain what I mean, but it’s how I see these designs in particular, which I can’t say with Animated or I think Beast Wars either. If this makes sense

But yeah, that’s the drawings. I don’t really know how to end this

[sapphiresaphics]

I’ve literally gotten into arguments with people who said her death had no impact on the story at all, including Jinx. These dog shit takes are unfortunately all over the arcane hashtag right now, very easy to find if you just browse for a few minutes.

And like, I dunno who else was supposed to talk to her about it? Sevika wasn’t even around when all that shit went down and Jinx gave herself up immediately afterwards. The only other characters that interact with her after that are Ekko, Vi, and Caitlyn. Caitlyn is all about getting her revenge, so she’s not a good voice to talk to her. Vi was going to spring her from prison and try to run away with her, so maybe they could’ve gotten around to talking to her… but Jinx is far too damaged at this point and just wants to die, so she runs away to commit suicide. The only other character is Ekko, who never even saw this side of her or Isha. So even when he’s trying to save her from comitting suicide, that’s a part of her despair he’s not even aware of.

So like… I get that you WANT the other characters to bring Isha up… but there really isn’t a good place for that in the story and there’s far more important impending doom things happening around it to work through Jinx’s feelings.

Again, feels like one of those wishful thinking things. Like yeah, sure, I WISH it could’ve happened. But at the end of the day I don’t think it was ultimately necessary to the story they were telling.

And Arcane is good (perhaps even a little too good) at trimming the fat.

It’s a fair criticism, but it’s being blown WAY out of proportion from people who are either misinterpreting the story or writing off everything else that happened because they didn’t get one specific thing they wanted and are being real assholes about it to the fandom in the hashtags.

“Nobody mentions Isha at all in act 3! It’s such a waste of her character that nobody bothers to bring her up ever again!”

Dude… Jinx is SO HEARTBROKEN over it she GIVES HERSELF UP AND GOES TO PRISON. She’s so torn up she’s not eating food and is self harming. She is so damaged and numb from Isha’s death that she attempts to kill herself (for real this time) and is only saved from doing this by Ekko using time magic again and again.

And when she is finally talked out of suicide and decides to build something to help in the fight later, she dresses up her war balloon contraption with symbols and iconography that remind her of Isha.

You cannot in good faith tell me that Isha’s death had no impact on Jinx or that she’s being ignored or forgotten. Fuck your intentionally mischaracterizing analysis and garbage takes.

[rufflywings]

Made this “ornament” back in December and wanted to repost ig

He doesn’t even look like dreamsjshsh

[bixels]

tarpit site.

[canisalbus]

You could say I was horsing around.

.

[b4kuch1n]

polymer broadcast signal hijack

[eeveekitti]

late night unter doodle

[bugtoast]

saw what was goin on with predstrogen, and like!!! thats fucked up as hell!!!! anyways, i wanted to draw her, hopefully so if she sees this it'll lift her spirits a bit! I didn't know what kinda outfits she likes, so I hope the outfit i gave her looks nice <:]

[crabussy]

IS ANYONE ELSE FEELING KIND TODAY!!! IS ANYONE ELSE FEELING GENEROUS TOWARDS OTHER PEOPLE!!! IS ANYBODY ELSE BEING KIND AND TRYING TO UNDERSTAND EVEN WHEN ITS HARD!!! IS ANYONE ELSE ASSUMING THE BEST OF OTHERS INTENTIONS AND RESPONDING IN KIND!!!! CAN ANYONE HEAR ME

[puzzlefaggot]

desmonds wife and doter ?!

[atsr-studios]

I wanted to draw protective mama X because… I felt like it ;w;

I feel like after the events of the x to zero time skip x got fed up with people making zero suffer… and… well, decided to take care of them himself -u-

Zero is worried not for x, but the unfortunate victims xD

[foursaints]

everyones chill with me until I bring up my firm belief that remus and barty r the same size but bartys is just prettier and they tell me to get out 😐😐

literally never agreed with an opinion on here more in my life. CORRECT! i would raise you that the one (1) additional difference is that remus is uncircumcised