#thats probably why they look so similar in my art style at least

[lotus-pear]

im gonna sound insane rn but i love how you've drawn dazai sm that even when you draw new characters i can still see a resemblance to him (kinda) (it's the hair)

LMAO??? is this akechi not beating the dazai allegations again.........

[obviousbaitfish]

woooow they blocked me. i dont know why i followed that person in the first place. i think theyre both assholes. oh well. anyone who Just Posts AI art is probably a dickhead anyway, disabled or no (though talking about killing yourself for a paragraph is giving emotional manipulation to me). Stay mad, stay miserable, im sure youll find comfort in each other with your shitty attitudes.

I'm not here to discuss the ethics of AI or anything I'm coming at it solely from an art discussion place (and environmental sometimes), which is that it's completely soulless and has no thought into it. Effort? To get the right prompt? Maybe. But it doesnt inspire thought or discussion as an art piece. Oh cool. It's a squid. It's a white women looking at a 3/4 angle. With the same kinda bland, flat, art style. Anyway.

Duchamps's Fountain isnt high art. It took no effort. It's a toilet he probably found in the trash. But it inspires discussion that's lasted like... decades. It's one of my favorite pieces because people STILL get mad about it. DaVinci has a similar art style, even - im not a fan of it. Realism, but kinda flat. It is much darker and more neutral though. Soft shading, soft colors. But there's a reason it intrigues people. It's studied portraits of people who existed. At least that's why it intrigues me. were they family? a friend? maybe it was a commission? why did they think that was the most flattering portrait for them if it was? If they didnt EXIST and it's solely the artists imagination, how'd they get that angle? That pose? What inspired this idea? The effort they put into the physical aspect can be a part of it. But then why is Fountain so iconic? The hardest physical part of THAT was lugging it to the gallery.

Maybe THATS why they were so mad. They realize there was no soul in it. The only thing they can bother to create is so menial and pointless. They can type little prompts into a bar and turn up with... something "physical". But theres nothing behind it. They cant explain why they painted the tree that color, or the women has that expression. The robot did that. They can say "I wanted it that way - i saw it on my way home" but I dont know... that doesnt have the same zing. It's not showing me what YOU saw. It's showing me what it's lumped together from 15,000 results for "green tree" on google. I think maybe that's it. Art in any form comes from the mind of a person - no matter how complicated or "good" it is. It's from the direct point of view. A kindergartener draws their family and it sucks but it's like a little snapshot of how they saw that particular moment. They noticed the bright sun and grass and drew it. You can get a robot to do that, but then that's from X amount of people's point of view that it's dredging from. Not yours. You typed in "bright sunny day green grass happy family" but that's not YOUR view of that snapshot in time. Even if it's not from something irl it's a little snapshot into the person's mind, how they were feeling, what colors they liked... a AI cant do that because it's a separate entity doing it.

Anyway. I dont know what moods inspired this. I think I just miss my art history classes and stuff. I'm not smart enough for like ethics or philosophy but art history I can get behind.

[creativesplat]

💘, 🐳, ⛩️, 🙊?

💘, 🐳, ⛩️, 🙊

💘 MIPHLINK!!! Do I have to say it? Absolutely 110% Miphlink. Honestly they are a pairing that I love more than all the other ships I have ever shipped, and I come back to them whenever other hyper fixations fizzle out or I want something comforting. I love them both so much. AoC is one of my favourite zelda games for that reason. (BoTW too, but the tragic lovers vibe is so sad)

Skyward Sword Zelink, a little bit, I wasn’t head over heals for them, but SS Zelda reminded me a fair bit of Mipha (if Mipha had been brought up in a less dangerous time and with less royal duties they would have probably been more similar), so that was that! 

I really wish I shipped Revali with someone, because I love the birb because he is stupid and fun to draw, initially I was a pining Miphvali shipper, but like, I wasn’t a massive fan of that, so maybe ZelVali? Some people ship that, and I’ve got to say the Revali and Zelda talking scene is one of my favourite cutscenes in BoTW, not to mention Zelda’s dialogue to Revali; If not romantic, definitely platonic. 

Teba and Saki are the adorable birb parents so I quite like their couple dynamic? Im not really the biggest shipper outside of Miphlink tbh.  

🐳

I honestly have no idea? Probably a Hylian (boring answer sorry!), but maybe a Rito. I love the decoration styles, and bright colours, and also they live in a cool climate and I do not like hot weather. So maybe a rito. 

⛩️

I think my favourite dungeon would have to be the Ancient Cystern in SS, I just love how beautiful the whole thing is, with all the lotus-y patterns and the pinks and turquoises and the flowers and stuff. ITs just so dang beautiful!! I also really loved the Sandship Dungeon. I think in terms of play through that was my favourite from start to finish. Location is SO much harder. Aesthetically Satori Mountain, and Rito village, story-wise and where I spend my most time in BoTW Zora’s domain, I also Love the Zora’s domain and Rito Village music. Also sweet cozy little skyloft is so nice and permanent and homely. The great plateau is so nostalgic and I love that too… AAA I don’t think I can pick! In AoC it has to be Scero’s Supplies, I know you can’t really go there, but the merging of Zora and Hateno architecture is just so beautiful and I LOVE IT SO MUCH! 

🙊

Ohhh… Unpopular Zelda opinions… I have quite a few of those. Ok. Here we go. 

ToTK is AWUFUL. Hot dang it is the worst thing ever. It wasn’t even the story that made me stop playing. It was one line from an NPC in Rito Village. Molli wants to make elemental arrows, and has an idea for arrow inventions, that can freeze enemies! No way that’s so cool, except… that is literally one of the main things in the last game. You can buy elemental arrows from the shops. Like what the heck? At least explain to me why a very common commodity that EVERYONE but Particularly the people who’s job it is to look after Bows (Harth and Moli) know about and have access to is somethign they want to invent now. I hate is. I hate it. I hate it. I hate it. I ha- anyway. I despise whatever Lazy idiot decided that was the way to go. Who cares about lore? Not us apparently. I also have a massive problem with the imperialist mass-destruction weapon wearing zonai as well. And as a historian I just love BoTW so much better than ToTK. It treats its history with respect, and nuance, and good golly thats not how ruins from 10,000 years ago would work and o my word stop suspending my disbelief!?! 

Anyway. I could rant for far longer about far more things, but I’ll leave it at that. 

Way more unpopular, and Zelink shippers please ignore this: I think BoTW Zelink is creepy. The power dynamic is insanely bad (princess and her servant who literally cannot disobey her father), and the age gap is also awful (16 turned 17 for one day and “20 something” from the BoTW art book). 

Also, the women deserve better from that fandom. But that’s not news.

Thank you so much for the ask Stars!

[trashbins-stuff]

my 2024 art summary..

i was suppsoed to do it earlier today but i forgor and i dont ave my fone rn so i downloaded my art from toyhouse and edit them in whitebaord fox lolzz

me talking abt myart and why i chose these piece specifically vvv

january: okay i actuakly drew the piece/upload it on the VERY FIRST DAY OF 2024 aka 1/1, i..dont evne owed the ocs anymore </3 #regrettbh bakc then i stiluse one of my favourtie ibis defualt brush that i ALWAYS uses bc i didnt know alot abt other brushes back then, i honestly kinda proud of this one bc it was a scene art and i was ahving fun abck the, this piece was me trying to imitate the hfjone art style

february: i rlly like pink lols...i rlly love this oc heosntly lowkey kidna regreted not keeping him, i chose this because comapring to the january one it has more to it, this was me experimenting with stuff such as background, 2 lines on their limbs to indicate paws, i wasnt a pro persay bt i was trying and it was amazing! the effort and stuff :)

march: i got into oc trading and stuff bc my bf sprout introduced me to it, tand i always make sure i draw every oc i get form toehr ppl at least once like it was on top of my priorities, i rlly love this oc and sprout did too,i let him offer and it have been a while...shes been in my pending folder for 9 months what @moonsprout-sys KRKRKKRKR hurry your ass up/silly, anywya i picked this bc i started to draw more complex oc from the on it was like a trebuche that shoot me two complex ocs department

april: unlike the other three, this one is drew on a different brush (and unlike the other two, its GREEB), this was me experienmenting with brushes and other thing si could do with ym art! i rlly rlly love tht brush lol i use dit for almsot everyart, sorry fur da toyhouse watermakr btw oop, another thing u will notice abt is thai used the white line effect which is sooo cool yall

may: i picked this to show yall how abd but also different how i coloured back then, i didnt rlly have a direciton i just pick a colour and select random shade, like how most of the oc is in different shade of greeb wit some blue and purple, cuz my thought wa slike oooh greeeb ooohhh simialr to blue ooohh similar to ourple, like even the glove is jsut black blue lmaooo

june: diversityy, i sitll have no idea abt anything abt colouring but yk, i pciekd this bc it fits into the template

july: woahie JULY, OH-KAY, so i was kinda improving ont eh colouring here, like at least the greeb and black combo is okay, hot pink bc yes, orange bow, the rianbow woodnt look good on it own but it skind of fit with the shad eof the ronage bowm, my designing skill have improved too!! did u see what i did with the rianbow sock and tail>>?? cool right>?? well fang u :)))) i ver prou

august: aside form colouring i start toe xperiemient with LIGHTNING bc i LOVE LIGHTNING IN OTHE RPPL ART SM LIKE OMZ THATS SICK HOW DID U DO THAT and i started to look up totorutial! i was rlly proud of this peice abck then, its simple, but it was my first experienment and it was MINE that was ME like..I DREW THAT oughhh <3333

september: the abckgorund have return atfe rlike what...the past...seven months oop, as u can see..iveimporoved ;3333 the flower was kinda eh but i neevr got over how i made xer ear lokwye relaistic af..liek every else look like 2017 furry art/j but i totally nailed the ear

october: i rmemeber my qpp oscar said that this piece is rlly nice to loom at :DD i also used october to toy aorund with ym art style, expically the backgournd and such, i, too, am podu of this one

november: art for my friend lye! probably my best efforted peice of like the whole month, drew it while i was waiting for my friend yeon to finish praticing forour naitonal teachers day ceremony, it loo very ncie and cool and u should be proud of it

december: my friend tessa said this look like femtanyl and i forgor how tot ake ana ctaulyl compliment, why should i lower my standard why my friend could say tawesomthign slike this omfg best compliment ive ever received ever>??? love u tess :)

[sug01s3al]

I'm curious, you did say that you created puppet designs for the rest of the Spiritfarer cast correct? If so, 1) can we see them, and 2) will you ever revisit those designs one day to make them reality? Love the Gwen puppet by the way.

My sketchbook ended up being a total of 195 pages so I think I would explode my tumblr if I uploaded everything for every character plus the npc's 😅 But I can share a few of my favourites- granted the art is a year old at this point so don't judge too harshly I promise I can draw much better now ^u^

My design process basically went: pick a character -> make a moodboard -> sketch ideas & explanation -> puppet and puppeteer designs -> puppet schematics (this was only for a few of them that I had time to get to, I did get told off by my tutors for doing to much planning because I couldn't settle on who I wanted to actually build). Given the time and resources I'd love to revisit building one of them using what I learned but at the moment I am seeking theatre jobs (not too fabulous in my area sadly) so I only have my spare materials to work with at the moment and many sets of dice to make :'''). I still don't really know who I'd want to make though, even now they all seem so fun to make because not all of the puppets were in the style of Gwen's so each one poses a different challenge to tackle.

It goes without saying but spoilers for Spirit Farer below, ye have been warned~

I should also mention that with curriculum stuff I wasn't allowed to simply replicate the designs so you'll see quite a bit where I talk about changing and adapting the design for stage so if you wonder why its changed thats why :') (I'm aware Gwen doesn't really deviate much from her design but she was supposed to come with a fully sewn costume too which I sadly didn't have the time to make)

I was quite a big fan of the npc designs

Our boy Alex as imagined as a segmented puppet in the style of those wooden hand crank puppets. I think he'd be really easy to make in EVA I want to see if I can replicate the mechanism.

Hades was a particularly fun design to do too

I 100% am gonna reuse my design for Hades for an oc later down the line, that being said they already look a bit like a love child between my oc's Lazarus and Aster :''). I designed Hades to be a giant team puppet with the main actor (above design) pupeteering the head and voicing the character whilst the rest of the body was made up of actors who blended into the puppet whilst still having their own unique costumes. Hades is by far my biggest design, in scale and also with the amount of actors playing him because I really wanted to get that omnipotent, ethereal, imposing vibe down.

As for individual puppeteer designs :3 ->

I won't bore you with the character analysis pages for Jackie but he had a similar puppet design to Gwen.

(That is gold ink on the final page I promise you 😅)

Controversial opinion but I actually love Bruce and Mickey, I know they're the heels (well Bruce at least) but they're such a brilliantly layered character which is probably why his design got a lot more analysis then some. My thoughts are mostly there on my notes but I'll write it out so you don't have to squint at my awful handwriting. Bruce and Mickey are another really interesting character in that Mickey isn't really there at all (spoilers) as Mickey passed away in an accident before Bruce did so as Bruce takes focus in the game (speaking for both and doing the character interactions) I wanted him to be centre stage as the only puppeteer. Mickey's death was in a car accident that left him in a coma, if i remember correctly, Bruce blames himself for so I had this idea for the puppeteer (just like Bruce in game) to literally carry the Mickey puppet around the stage like a physical burden, a physical manifestation that the pain of carrying his brother's death weighs on him. And this idea of a struggle of grief, paired with Mickey being represented by a bull gave way to the idea for their puppeteers costume design being inspired by a bull fighter, a hybrid behind this teddy-boy greaser and bull fighter - of course the colours being big and bright and bold as their personalities.

Cw: Cancer. For Summer I wanted to use a lot of organic colours, shapes and textures within the puppet and costume design because of her love of nature and gardening (I still tear up everytime I play for my crops and she isn't there playing along). Summer, as mentioned in the game, was the girlfriend of Stella's Aunt Rose and inspired Stella's nursing career after witnessing her battle with cancer; in her minigame event you face off against a giant serpent that is 'infected' in a way, it has veins of ores running through it symbolic of the cancer running through her body. Which is why for her puppet design (a long with being able to conveniently hide how she moves) I wanted her puppet to be literally intertwined with her costume. The Klimpt inspiration for her scales I can't really tell you why I picked that other than Klimpt is one of my favourite artists and I thought the organic shapes and motifs in his work would suit her :').

Plans for Buck, my best friend.

Stanley I would say was the closest competition to Gwen and probably the one I would want to make the most if I was able to pick this back up. He was designed to be a smaller marionette style puppet so you could get those large, exaggerated, energetic movements from him that you do in game (for reference he does a lot of bouncing and jumping along with launching himself at Stella when he hugs her which is absolutely adorable). Like Buck, Stanley was planned to be a mixed material puppet, mostly cuddle fleece for body with different textures for the embellishments, like mushroom gills and his spot patterns. It was important to me to try and have an element of sympathetic movement in each design so the puppet was constantly moving in someway. Bonus picture of the costume design ideas for his puppeteer- if it wasn't feasible to have him as a separate puppet I liked the idea of Jacob (his pet beetle) being included in the design somehow which ended up being either as a hair pin or brooch :3.

I'll finish off with Stanley, I have designs for Daria, Astrid, Giovani, Alice and Atul but I'm not as happy with the old art so I'm not going to post it. The Beverly update hadn't been released at the time of this project so she never got a design :')

As for who I wouldn't make it would have to be Atul- for as much as I adore his character and love the design I drew for him having to have a giant Atul hanging around my house would make me sad, he makes me feel like this

That being said I do have the plush of him sat on my bed rn :')

I could keep yapping but this post is long enough lol

Also merry christmas everyone!!

[project-sekai-facts]

hi, just wanted to provide a little help on the balloon cover art ask.

its hard to find evidence for (and i dont have the time to do so) as its one of those things where its kinda "you had to be there" to know it even happened + it was well over two years ago, but there is something of an implied reason "charles" has a different cover art between versions!

after enas first focus, insatiable pale color, and i mean like directly after the event ended (at the same time "infinitely gray" got added), they suddenly changed the cover art on "charles". since release it had been the cover you can see with the vocaloid ver., but after ena's focus, they changed the sekai art to be what it is now, the flowers (what seem to be lilys) on the pink background. i cant remember if it was ever *directly* confirmed, but it seems to be implied that the current art on the sekai cover is something ena made herself! even matching it up to art we've seen previously of hers, such as during release campaigns, card arts (rainbow canvas and portray yourself), and other places, it seems (to me at least) to be in something of a similar style with somewhat-rigid lines and monochromatic palettes, just more simplified and digital!

as for "nomad" and "ame to petra", theres no real known reason why they have different arts. its possible they intended to have something similar to "charles" with "nomad", seeing as its enas second focus song which coincidentally had different arts like "charles" does, but thats purely speculation, and "ame to petra" has no reason to have different arts. its possible they just like giving balloon songs different arts :0 which isnt exactly exclusive to balloon songs either, "inochi bakkari" has a different art depending on the version youre using. maybe it has something to do with the producers themselves, but thats just more speculation.

sorry if this is a little vague and unhelpful, but this is something i remember being pretty big around the change of the art and i guess it mustve faded into obscurity with the expansion of the game and wider community. hope this helps give a little more info! :)

Mm yeah I could see that being true. I'm not entirely sure how the story of that song would connect to the event but considering the date it was changed and the style, it does add up.

Nomad has a different cover because all commissions have a unique in-game cover, adding the original for that as well, alonside the two jackets for Ame to Petra, was probably just to be consistent with Charles having two.

and i actually might be able to give a reason for Inochi Bakkari. Looking at the image history on the wiki, the jacket was added ~july 1st, which was just before the Saying Goodbye to My Masked Self event. and if you look at the lyrics, the song fits a lot with mafuyu's arc. also note the purple butterfly on the jacket, i think it's a nod to Kanade's immiscible discord card.

[werebutch]

@eucyon Oh my god tumblr ate your ask I’m so lucky I screenshotted. So mad I have to type again . Thank you so much for dis question it’s so fun and made me really think to be honest ^__^ ILYSMMMM this is long but it’s too fun

This is Lynx’s most popular album, Conspiracy Theories. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to have a pic of lynx as the cover even if it’s silly. I really like rabbit imagery in music anyways though so I think it’s nice. I was inspired by Alice In Chains album covers and also fleshwater’s ‘we’re not here to be loved’. I tried to find a way to make it more 'gritty' but I couldn’t unfortunately 😭 I like how the title looks, like they just got a label maker and smacked it on..heheh

I imagine that this album is about relationship anxiety, betrayal, resentment, anti social tendencies, infidelity, and aliens. Probably not little green men, maybe more like the thing kind of fleshy imagery. Definitely appealing to atlas and scotch in different ways. Tool’s Undertow is a good example (off the top of my head..) of the sound I’m thinking of, so… prog? Or at least heavily inspired. I’m bad with genres heheh

im currently trying to either become okay with roadkill's name, or decide on a new one.. so im not making any album covers for them yet lol but i will post when i do..

I think roadkill would take a lot of inspo from their fave band so their style is probably heavily influenced by Lynx. Scotch adds a lot of sampling, distortion, whatever..idk I don’t make music.. and atlas is a big fan of slow tempo and bass. think its important to note that atlas doesnt play bass like a bassist in this album, he plays it more like a guitarist. kind of. hope that makes sense. I’ve always been really torn about roadkill’s genre, it’s been everywhere and tends to change. scotch and atlas’ styles would be vastly different if they were solo, so I think that’s why i am so indecisive . I think I just have to keep reminding myself that they’re in a band together, so styles would be mixed.

A part of me is like.. I think roadkill’s first album would be reminiscent of faith no more’s ‘the real thing’, or even some of Primus' stuff in some sense, plus similarities to Lynx and influences of industrial. i know thats a lot of random descriptions. I kinda think of (here’s a goofy genre for ya) sludge metal bands’ instrumental style, not necessarily vocal style... its hard to describe a band that doesnt exist. LMFAO

right now im thinking about 'the pot' by tool as a close example of roadkill.. im having a hard time finding artists that match scotch's vocal range even remotely. also doesnt help that the bands im basing this off of like tool and FNM dont exactly...fit into genres very neatly. roadkill and lynx wouldnt either. HAH. i just know it wouldnt be that high quality but definitely obvious theres a lot of passion in it. i mean this is just an album made by guys who dontknow what theyre doing. like at all. lol

Roadkill’s sound changes quite a bit their next album when seraph is involved. It becomes a lot more ummmm I guess palatable to more people? I don’t exactly know what I mean by that. Ok. LOL. I’ll think about it.. but this is around when Scotch realizes he wants this to be his job. Having Seraph helps A LOT with building a more dedicated and bigger audience, since they’re the one most willing to make changes. Plus they’re in art school, I feel like they’d have connections. So I guess roadkill would sell out in a way.

if you asked me this question a year ago i would have had a completely different answer. i wouldve probably said roadkill is pop punk or garage rock or something. i have trouble fitting scotch and atlas into a genre together. it fits scotch just fine and i think he would enjoy it, but its not roadkill.. also ive been thinking of stylizing roadkill as rdkill.. lmk wat u think.. im unsure about the name is generalHAHA. i know this is a lot so dont feel pressured to reply to everything LMAO im just thinking out loud. and drawing connections between genres that completely do not make sense. peace and LOVE<3

[calpalsworld]

So the behind the scenes for Pizza Tower is literally the worst. The creator is literally the worst. If i was in the same room as someone like this I would probably become a killer. Other fans have already said their opinions, basically "I get why people like the game but I can't engage with it anymore" etc. That's pretty much how I'm feeling. I feel disgusted and betrayed and it hurts to remember something I like about the game, and then remember it was made by these dangerous people. Maybe at some point if I do get the urge to draw the characters again, maybe I'll put a huge DNI banner that says "fuck bigots die mcpig" or something. But I need a bit to think about if thats a good decision or not... I feel like its not... On one hand I want to say "I'm gonna take the good parts of this game and make it what the creator hates" but I also have no clue if thats a good idea, and I need a while to think about it.

One BIG THING I'm asking of everyone, and I may make another post asking this question later, is does anyone know any Pizza Tower alternatives??? Any media that is cartoony and simple and crazy and well animated? I really wish I could find something that had the things I liked in Pizza Tower. Please comment or send me an ask if you have any suggestions.

Anyway heres some PERSONAL thoughts that are NOT as important:

I feel disappointed in myself for noticing problematic character designs from the start and convincing myself that maybe the bigotry was unintentional, that it was just a negative side effect of being inspired by other (bigoted) things. It was obviously not. I should've known it was intentional.

A lot of people have been saying "Pizza Tower being problematic was obvious due to the art style," which is partially true, but at the same time that makes me really sad. My first exposure to the game was my friend saying "this looks like something you would make!" And I've been fucking obsessed with the art style ever since. For those who don't know, I used to be an exclusively "shitpost" artist, which I REALLY enjoyed, and art college has made me more and more corporate. So sadly.... Pizza Tower made me feel connected to how I used to draw and create art. I was really happy to see such a creative and unconventional art style that is like my own thriving with popularity, and I liked to imagine that maybe the creator was similar to me (he is not). Lately I've started saying "I'm not gonna make sanitized art anymore I'm gonna only make crazy stuff" and yeah that was literally because of... Pizza Tower.... which has been revealed to be made by the worst people ever.... (so yeah lmk if you guys have any recommended alternatives).

Last thing is I think it has been cool how Peppino has become an iconic ass trans-headcanoned character for a lot of tumblr. So I guess thats the reason why I most likely won't judge anyone for drawing Pizza Tower. We got something awesome going that was our own thing. But you have to remember McPig is also a racist, and trans headcanons don't do anything to fight against that.

I just hope the people who will continue to draw art to spite McPig's intentions openly acknowledge how fucked up the game's creation is, and don't promote the game. If you continue being a Pizza Tower fan please at least be self-aware and adamantly against the creator. Like post a link to pirate the game along with every time you post art of it or something to counteract your inherent promotion of the game, idk. Don't let bigots get away with being popular. That is dangerous.

TLDR:;

No more Pizza Tower for me, at least for a while, if I do ever post something Pizza Tower-related again it will be staunchly anti-Pizza Tower. Someday, I hope to create something like fun and silly like Pizza Tower, but antifascist. Also, new hyperfixation recommendations that are similar to Pizza Tower strongly encouraged, thank you!

[skyburger]

hello i have read the one-issue 13 page prologue comic to resident evil in my quest to review different iterations of capn wesker.

heres the re wiki page for the comic its kinda barren but tbf what else would they say ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Also i am legally obligated to inform you all that you definitely 100% Cannot go to "read comic online . li" to read this for free okay?

anyway story is unnoteworthy (thats not me being mean! its not bad!! i just have nothing to say) but i did learn jill valentine is a demolitions expert! (i dont know if that was mentioned in any of the games but its possible and tbh pretty likely it Was mentioned i just didnt see / register it 💔)

kinda sad the cover artist (bill sienkiewicz) didnt do the art for the actual comic :( im very sorry to dave johnson but im not crazy about the style...... (to be fair a lot of marvel / dc (ect.) comics' styles are hit or miss for me but this one is definitely more on the miss side of things 😭) the cover art has a very 90s fps game box art feel to it. i dont know art terms

but ya i like some of the panels in this more than others!!! generally i think the ones from further away look better (to me at least) like this one ↑ is pretty nice i love the colors thank you moose baumann.... the bright red phone & a similar orangey color for his glasses but also the very stark contrast between the light & shadows in the shot but on the blinds especially..... idk i like it :)

sadly in contrast i do not like this next example thar much. hes got a comically manly kinda look to him, which i know is just pretty standard for marvel comics & shit, but i dont have to like it </3

this one i feel a liiiiiiittle bit similarly about the close-up i just used but i like it a lot more its closer to the first panel to me. i dont know why im reviewing(???) this in the least articulate way possible im writing this pretty soon before i fall asleep which is probably the reason for that actually. Anyway

this one i actuqlly like quite a bit esp. the left one! nothing much to say for this one but barry looks silly here

he just looks like that one duke nukem picture here thats all i can think of 😭

ok i do actually have smth to say here :) i really really really like the use of his silhouette with just the sunglasses in color i know thats not an insane concept but i do just really like it here it fits him very well i think. i know oftentimes if artists do this the glasses / sunglasses will be white with the rest of the silhouette being just black but the orangey-red looks nice!!!

i think i sound like im trying to drag this out im sorry i do gwnuinely have things 2 say i am just So bad at wording shit sorry 🙏🙏🙏

ok last wesker example picture. rhis is probably my least favorite i dislike it he looks. Bad? i dont know how to describe this right now other than "bad and i dont like it" i will come back to this later after i sleep (if i remember (i will probably remember eventually. it might be a while though))

ok my final message: cube jill valentine panel. Goodbye 🫡

[clover-the-awesomest]

GUYS.

GUYS PLEASE.

LISTEN.

I adore this trailer with my heart and soul. I have rewatched it so many times over already. I've stayed long enough to stare intently at the credits at the very end of the video! I NEVER STARE INTENTLY AT THE CREDITS!!

This animation means so much to me, as someone who's been a fan of Life Mission for... A while. That kind of feeling probably isn't anything new, and a lot of you probably feel the same because you have maybe also been a fan for a long while! But I've been with LM since the beginning, or at least the second batch of pages. (THAT IS STILL VERY EARLY ON OKAY) I've been an avid reader of this comic for a very long time, despite not reblogging much from @daedelweiss. I just. I never got around to it, and now I kind of regret it.

I already went on a whole spiel in the comment section of the youtube version (Go check it out over there and give it a like and share with your friends please) about how much I appreciate daedelwiss and their team for working so hard on such a passionate and long project. But I never really praised the art itself. SO! I'ma do that right here, right now!

If you don't wanna read all of that and just wanna watch the friggin thing, then please do! Everything I wanna say is under the massive void of emptiness below so you can choose to read it. Just wanna show appreciation for one of my absolute all-time favorite AU's in the world.

Daedelwiss.

That was never a username I thought I'd memorize.

From the beginning, I at first thought the art was a bit too stiff, too wonky. April looked a little off at the time, but that's just because I was so used to all the more stretchy and anatomically incorrect art styles. I was too used to seeing art styles replicating or looking similar to the actual show. Other than Bloodbath, Life Mission was the first AU comic that I saw with a whole different art style that I had to get used to! So I wasn't all that intrigued, but I still read the pages I saw for shits and giggles.

Oh boy.

What ensued after like. A minute or two of reading, was just me geeking out over the colors and thick line-art and expressive emotions and pretty great dialogue! I was hooked, and immediately went onto Daedelwiss's blog to find the first pages because I was stupid and didn't see the link right at the bottom of the post.

Then I kept reading and geeking out and wanting more more MORE! I was ecstatic, waiting each day for a new batch of pages like a little kid on Hanukkah waiting for her presents on the eighth night. I was invested in how emotional and tense everything was. How determined Leo was to get his family back. How much he felt for his father in the memory sequence. How he was so close to breaking down when watching his father from the past tell his baby self what his brothers would've been like. How Leo then internalized every single word and made it his life mission to find his brothers and save them and bring them home and...

How everything just felt so raw and emotional. Because... Because how would you feel if you knew you had a loving family outside your home and in danger?

i dont know. thats why i read this comic.

It's not just the story, though. Over time, I quickly got used to seeing incredibly different art styles in the Rise community, and I had a burning love for all these projects within my soul growing. Especially when it came to Life Mission. When I finally got used to all these different AU's and stuff, I looked back at Life Mission, and felt a whole new appreciation for just. The art.

Because it takes a lot of effort, and I mean A LOT OF EFFORT, to draw something as clean and neat and strong as the style of Life Mission. The lines are always so perfectly thick and thin in the right places. The colors are so soothing for the eyes. There are no sketchy mistakes or lines that looked like they were drawn twice. Everything about the art is so expressive and neat, like it's all done by a professional, and once I got used to seeing so many sketchy and warbly drawings of the boys... I just. Adored Life Mission even more for what it was.

The neat art style also just helps the comic and the story stand out from all the rest. In all the other comics I've seen for this fandom, or at least a majority of them anyway, the art styles are all radically different and are all going for a sharpness. Like they are trying to be as unique as Rise itself. And none of them are bad, and I love all the art that every person in this fandom puts out because everyone here is all so lovely and creative! I wouldn't have it any other way! But Life Mission is different. There are no overly sharp edges or sketchy lines or half-assed backgrounds. (I really do adore half-assed backgrounds. I really really do love them. Please half-ass backgrounds more often) It's all just... A clean-cut perfection to the T!

And I adore that.

Amidst all the chaos, all the shenanigans, we have Life Mission. A fully fleshed-out, written, thought-over, basically finished story and comic.

(I meant "Finished" as in: The creator already knows what the story is gonna be like. I mean, what was this trailer even for if they didn't know where the story was going??)

It's all so well-done and just so lovingly crafted. Every panel in each page is drawn with patience and love. Every frame painstakingly animated is done with expertise. Every hiatus is set with purpose and self-love. And I just... I can't stress enough how much I love all of that.

I highly appreciate and look up to Daedelwiss, mostly because of their dedication to this story and the huge commitment they're giving it. In the past, I've tried committing to something not even half as big as this story, and it ended up failing because I just. Can't. Commit. But Daedelwiss was able to keep their head up and keep working, was able to give themselves breaks and time for themself while working on the comic and animations, and managed to make us all collectively feel for their characters and their world with just a few promotional animatics and comic pages. That all takes some serious talent, and I am very glad to say that Daedelwiss had all that talent right there in their pocket.

Speak of the devil, I really hope you see this Daedelwiss and know how much you're appreciated. I adore your art skills now, as I've spent a whole essay's worth of writing stating. But it was your inherit skill in writing that really drew me in from the beginning. As an amateur writer myself who's ran into many drawbacks while trying to write, I just. Really like what you've pulled off so far, and I hope your success continues. You've got a great story here and amazing art/writing skills, and I just really like that. It's cool.

Also good job on prioritizing your health and self-care over this comic/story. I give an A+ just for that alone lol

WELP!! That was a lot...! I spent a lot of time writing all of that, and I still have more to say about just. The characters! But I've wasted enough of your time, dear reader. Thank you so so SO MUCH for reading this, really, this was long even for me! It means a ton to me that you made it this far.

Please share Life Mission with your friends, I really hope they like it because this story is my all-time favorite and I really want it to get an oscar if it's even possible-

(/aff and /hj)

I spent like. I think an hour. Writing that. Hope you somehow liked it.

kthxbye-

finally, after a long wait i present to you the "Life Mission: Save My Brothers" trailer ✨

this trailer was painful to make but it was definitely a labor of love. i learned so many things in making it. i can't wait for all of you to watch the story unfold and i hope you're looking forward to what it has to offer 💖 thank you for being patient with me and i hope you'll all be here until the end!

and here are some of my favorite frames under the cut >:3

( 🌿 please do NOT repost, edit, trace, use, and/or sell 🌿 )

[maskedjoker]

We are getting really close to the scene in lost fragment of snow that was genuinely confusing in the book, and it's the scene were everyone in the circus is killed. I think what we will probably get is a scene were mana finally ends up giving into despair after he is hit and then allen is fed to a lion.

I think that with more current info, i can say for sure that sleeve earl and mana are a hybird. This will likely cause a resurgence of sleeve earl into taking over the body and becoming whole. This only lasts for a short time however and when cross confronts him after the rest of the circus has died from the audience turning into akuma(which i suppose are implied to be constantly just around the earl and is probably one of the many reasons cross warned Allen to stay away) some exchange of words or damage causes a lots of control. This damage however also hurts mana(or potentially just being forced out off control) causing him to loose even more memories as seen when mana and Allen reunite the next day.

Now i think we can agree that sleeve earl exists as a third entity, especially since her recent art exhibit interview, as she talked about the suit being a super sophisticated golem. I think in this case as with tim and lero yhat "golem" refers to AI. Id argue with the weird phrasing like helix of life and all the biotech style that magic is more often than not just more advanced technology, and wherever the noahs came from likely was, hence why they say they only seem strong because we have become so weak. This is only further shown with innocences resemblance to machines like its gear like parts and percentage resonance.

The noah memories in general i think are some kind of AI that passes through generation lines, carrying significant portions of its past forward and then fusing with a similar person in their lineage. For example early on road would have been just road, then through some means either became an AI(or was given a piece of someone that counts as one under golem, its unclear). Regardless once connected to the noah memory, it acts like a save file and becomes more sophisticated with time. It carries each life and gives all those memories, feelings and drives to a new body. So new road would remember being road, her life and everything, but also the life they had been living up until the two combined. Over time the noah memory keeps getting larger and larger to the point new experiences are so small, relatively speaking, that it overrides much more than normal. Since they are fuzed as one being they likely cant be separated without mutually assured destruction, were the current entity will die and any remains will not be the origionals, if anything remains at all. An example of this is that tyki could not be made human by Allen I their fight i the arc, despite having a blade that should destroy only part of him. Admittedly tyki is a special case though, and more tyki backstory is needed.

Changes from body to body become more subtle, but the base, which likely has a distinct core function as seen by its response to certain tasks and ideas, remains a strong aspect. This creates an almost reincarnation like effect for them, needing to only find a new body to continue.

The suit is like this, but different. I don't know how the original earl split, but i do think that some aspect of him was placed on the suit. I would like to say its the original version of the noah memories of the earl and nea got like a brand new copy, but i actually have no idea what memories he has of being past earl so its mostly a guess. Regardless the noah actually all seem to transform in some way when they get mega pissed. Im looking at you skinn, jasdevi, and tyki/joyd. So the suit is likely that kind of thing, but way more distinct and capable of acting autonomously. Since they all have different forms it makes sense that his would also be unique. They all probably represent some inner desire related to their memory. Skinn is just rage so big angry man works fine. Jasdero and devit are bonds so they want most to be one. Tyki got all fucked up before he changed so i got nothing, but it had a heavy does of sadism, which I guess is pleasure? Taking into account that killing in horrible graphic ways is his guilty pleasure it kinda makes sense.

So because of that, this sentient AI is constantly trying to pair with half a fucking brain because nea and mana only share one brain cell. Some kind of resistance from mana or strain causes him to constantly fall ill or comatose. Now to be clear on naming, sleeve earl does not refer to themselves as adam in the mirror scene nor does he refer to mana as adam, and only uses "we" when talking to mana about being the earl. Oddly enough the earls self pronouns are we, using wagashi which is kind of like the japanese equivalent of the royal we used in europe for the entirety of the series. For the record, mana in the flashbacks uses male or single they pronouns, i don't remember if he uses boku or watashi, but he uses at least one if not both.

So from this it seems millennium earl is a title, used by whatever is paired with the suit. Adam is the original name of the noah, and is the preferred name of the current earl aside from the title.

This circumstance was likely caused by the rest of the noah, who are using the earl for something related by the pillar. His separation either by accident or by intent was likely by the hands of his family trying to keep control for their ends. This is why the current earl is called a broken puppet and has so many things around him related to acting and stage plays. He is playing a role, the red clown to allens white clown as stated in the ark arc. He even wears a mask. His memories and mind have been damaged though, therefore broken. However broken puppet for both allen and the earl could also refer to a puppet that doesnt work as a double meaning, implying they can no longer be controlled or puppeted.

It is also implied that he is still unaware of this betrayal, but it is likely nea does to some degree as it would explain why he became a traitor and killed his own family. To be clear, i dont think all of the noah know everything, and i dont think they dont actually care for the earl. It seems they still genuinely follow him to their death and see him as one of their own, especially in cases like road, tyki and wisely.

Now early i said that different generations of noah would cope woth reincarnating differently. Since the earl only died once before 7000 years ago, id say resetting to a new body with only 17 years would be just smashed flat by any algorithm with that much data. However manas feelings are still the newest, and so still have an impact even on the current earl.

Now we come to resurrecting mana. How? Why? Well i dont know. But my guess is whatever part was the memories of mana for the 20 or so years he lived, or at least his memories at death, are in allen. His curse and weird hallucinations of mana seem to suggest it. Alternatively that part of his soul may have passed on, or it fuzed with the noah memory making the origional mana part of the hive and much like tyki and his noah memories cannot be seperated. Not good regardless.

As two additional things, i want to mention that hoshino is a twin and has always been obsessed with it, so having twins in her book was inevitable. What is extra weird is hoshino was actually going to be a triplet, but either her or her sister absorbed it before birth. She has mentioned it in dgm interviews and i cant PROVE it translates to anything in the plot but its suspicious. She also still list mana, nea and the earl as distinct in every book up to date in extra novels and at the start of her books. Oh and her favorite hat for the earl right now? The one featured on the most recent chapter? Has two faces on the front that are visible, and one in the back thats hidden, and the most recent art has the back face as the only one visible, angrily staring allen down. Great art foreshadowing if im right. Its also usually sleeve earl, if not exclusively, that wear it.

The second thing is mana talking about love and drive in the most recent chapter just brings up the earl having the noah memory of love or devotion or something for me. Ive written about it before but it just seems to fit. This character is all about that from the ability to fuze loved ones together to the hearts he talks with and his drives being based on grand acts of devotion, being by their side etc. Mana also loved and adopted both and dog and a homeless child and keeps talking about how the world is so beautiful despite all the bad. The earl literally acts like the whole noah clans mom by his own words and cooks for them, and both of them go out of their way to be cartoony to break tension. The earl literally goes and buys a single red rose from a poor girl while tyki pontificate on how he doesnt act like a villain. He doesnt take an umbrella because he wants to feel the rain. He talks about how what he does is in human nature and requires a connection between two people. He is even designed with his ideal colors as red and purple with white, as well as being designed after flowers. I know this probably doesnt make sense, but its stuck in my head.

[botwstoriesandsuch]

An anon asked my about the Tabantha ruins and while I was researching that I instead got caught up with the Zonai ruins and THAT spiraled down into a botw 2 trailer analysis so here’s that. (Don’t worry anon I’ll get to you eventually)

Ok let’s start off with what the Zonai ruins actually are. You know those stone pillars you see scattered around that sometimes have stone chests at the top? Or those structures in the center of the Thundra Plateau? Or those dragon, owl, and boar statues in the Faron region? Or the Thyphlo Ruins? And all three of the mazes? Yeah, those were all constructed by an ancient civilization that we simply call the Zonai. They are separate from the ancient Sheikah, as they existed for much longer than 10,000 years. And of course, as of the current game their people are now extinct, or have merged with other Hylian/Sheikah races, it’s unknown. 

Anyhow, as you can see, their designs are very similar to that of the structures found in the botw 2 trailer. From the stone carved walls, to the sunken pillars, to the bridge that seems to have carved owls. The Zonai associated owls with wisdom (dragons with courage, and boars with power, triforce, blah blah) But anyhow, this suggests that the place that Zelda and Link are in might be associated with the triforce.

Now let’s get to the Ganondorf stuff.

Ok so firstly, notice how the structure that he’s standing on is actual man made steps, with even the decorated stalagmites pointed directly at him like weapons. In addition, the malice that pours out of him (he’s creating it, not absorbing it) not only pours out across the floor, but also upwards towards that large central stalactite forms. The carvings surrround are actually more Sheikah than Zonai, with the circular designs similar to that of Shrines and Divine Beasts. But, the central one on top is very Zonai, as you can see from this later shot, which I uped the brightness for. 

Anyhow, safe to say this room/place was made with the specific purpose of housing ganondorf, the designs and architecture is too intentional. And given the Zonai existed 10,000 years ago, when the Calamity was first mentioned, might not be a stretch to say they were involved. However, it’s also the clear the Sheikah were also involved. Notice the gradient on the spiraling runes goes from green, to a turquoise that is the exact same color used when the Sheikah monks evaporate.

Fairly certain the hand seen in the trailer is of a Sheikah monk, given the long bony fingers and nails. The carvings on their gold bracelet is also very techy? Like of a circuit almost? But that might be a stretch, because the gold bracelt could ALSO be Gerudo.

I pretty sure that we see at least two seperate locations in the trailer. While they are clearly underground, the structure both include this temple looking place, and the bottom of Hyrule Castle (probably). It’s a trailer, so it’s most likely a mash-up of different cut scenes. You can see when they appear in different shots based on the surroundings. The rat, for example is on more brick like steps, the walls with uniform, rectangular stones like that of the the Hylian structures at the castle or the great plateau. Areas with the temple looking area are more Zonai, with stone carved impressions and more intricate and jagged designs. This means that the location of Ganondorf might nor necessarily be within the Castle, but in a separate location entirely.

This is kinda self explanatory. The eyes are exactly the same as the stuff that reanimates monster gunk  that you see across Hyrule, so reincarnation and yadayada. 

The wall art is of the same style as the tapestry depicting the Calamity and the battle 10,000 years ago that Impa shows you. 

Ganondorf is wielding a spear and riding a horse. I tried to up the brightness to you could see, but there are figure behind him that look like Gerudo warriors. So maybe Ganondorf was trying conquer Hyrule again back when he was hydrated and stuff :P 

Finally, this shot. Sure, it seems normal, its just the view of Hyrule as seen from the Great Plateau, but I think it’s interesting that we see absolutely no Sheikah technology. No shrines, towers, Divine Beasts, and even the pillars surrounding the Castle are gone. Perhaps they’ve all sunken back into the ground since their purpose of defeating the Calamity is supposedly fulfilled? In addition the Sheikah Slate was seen no where in the trailer, so maybe it’s useless now? We’ll have to see

In conclusion, Zonai ruins from 10,000 years ago, at least two separate locations underground, Sheikah probably had something to do with it, and something bad is probably gonna happen to Link, considering the music is just a slowed down version of the original game over music as seen here.

Oh, and while we’re talking about audio, I see stuff floating around that the voices reversed say stuff like “Poor Link has found the body” or “Poor Link is gone” and thats cool and sort of adds up! However, have we considered that the trailer for both the US and Japan appears to be the same? There’s no different Japanese version that I can find online. So why would the Japanese developers go out of their way to make the reversed audio in English? Might just be us trying to assign meaning to a simple chorus singing notes... but hey, we’ll have to see. 

End of rant :P

[wollfling]

Hello! I have an art question, if you don't mind talking about art stuff! I'm trying to get better at drawing, but having a really hard time with figuring out how to draw people. I feel like I've made progress with things like animals, objects, etc but I just can't get my drawings of people to improve! You draw people (and everything else tbh!!) so beautifully, do you mind if I ask how you learned to draw them? Or if you have any advice? Thank you for posting your art here, you're such a big inspiration and I love seeing your posts when they come across my feed! 💗

I love talking about art stuff!!! ♡ firstly, thank you aww ;×;) !! I'm so flattered, its really so sweet of you to say that!!

(( oh my god once again I've written so much I am so sorry! I put a tldr at the end, I couldn't quite go into much detail about specifics because im not quite sure what specifically you would like to improve, but I did try to cover some bases but please don't be afraid to message me with any more info or questions!!! ))

I'm a bit of the opposite where I can only draw people and struggle making progress with everything else lol, I admire you a little bit!! 🤭

People can be hard to capture, because we naturally (subconsciously?) examine them trying to determine things like emotion and im not quite sure how to put it but... health? For most people, its easy to see if someone is tired or sick at a glance. This comes into play when drawing people because we are wired to immediately analyze everything about them and pick up things that are wrong (think of uncanny valley type stuff!)

I often think about something bob Ross said, I dont have the time to hunt it down but what he said was basically along the lines of; he prefers painting scenery, because when we see a scenic painting its easier to think "this looks like somewhere ive been!" And its more believable. Meanwhile, its hard to capture the exact likeness of someone. If its a little off, we feel it looks "bad". I may have changed or added some points in there, but I think that was the general idea? 🤔 thats not to say scenic paint is easy in any way, its just about how we view it.

My point in this is, the key to drawing people is to create a believable figure. And how to achieve this depends on the style you draw them in ! I can only offer advice for stylized drawings (i struggle to draw hyper realistic people, and I also just don't enjoy it? Lol) but im assuming that since you like my art you're okay with that? ^^

In regards to how I learned to draw, well.. ive been doing it since I can remember ^^; I grew up watching anime which definitely altered my style and interests, and when i was in high-school I transitioned from an "anime adjacent " style, to a generalized "stylized" look, and now I strictly use photo reference which has helped make my style less cartoony but it still shares cartoon elements I feel? For a long time I drew without using references at all which im sure also contributed to how I draw things now. I havent had a chance to take art classes, so I've learned mostly by self study. Practicing drawing from reference, looking up tips and tricks youtube videos, watching other artists work and looking closely at their pieces to try and see how they achieve certain looks. Eventually it all adds up! How i draw people is a reflection of like 20 years of this!!

My biggest regret is not taking art "seriously" and going nearly all of those 20 not properly studying. This is my biggest piece of advice :^( unfortunately, im still learning how to do this myself, I think "studying" is a learned skill and hard to do without instruction. But if you can draw animals and objects I think you probably know a little bit on how to. So then looking a bit deeper into "improving", what about your drawings do you feel are lacking?

Circling back to my earlier paragraphs, how you want to improve depends on what sort of style you are going for and the way you want to portray or capture people. Portraits rely on technical skill i think. I'm not sure i could offer valuable advice here..

Comics, manga, and graphic novels sole intention is to tell a story through drawings. They don't give metaphors (usually!! Sometimes they do but not in the context im trying to explain) and/or tell us how characters are feeling, they show us! This is why the art styles of them often have exaggerated features, and simplified features. The eyes tend to have more detail because we read eyes for emotion, mouths are exaggerated because they are key to reading emotion (most importantly so I think! Watch: 🙂☹ the only difference is the mouth, but we can tell they feel totally different emotions.) Noses in comparison are usually more simplified as they, out of all features of the human face, are the least expressive.

If you want to improve your drawings of people so that they are more expressive and relatable, I would try to analyze how your face changes with emotion and perhaps practice with one of those emotion chart meme templates!

Illustration work is similar, but I feel the face doesn't actually matter as much. If you look at full bodied illustrations of people and zoom in on the face, you'll find that they are sometimes quite simplified! When viewing a full bodied person we generally take in the body's language first. It would take me a long time for me to explain in detail on this post (though I would love to talk about body language in illustration please let me know of you would like me to... also the body language of two figures.. but ill spare you for now ♡) I would recommend gesture drawing and timed studies. I improved drawing so much when I started doing this (I use the site quickposes a lot, set a high timer and draw!!) If drawing the face is hard for you and you can't seem to get anywhere, try focusing on the body for a little bit! Especially how bodies look when bending and twisting.. which might sound random, but I think it helps get a better understanding on how proportions can change with pose.

I wrote so much and I really didn't mean to. Its always hard to answer questions like this without much information like what your goal is and what look you want to achieve. I hope I didnt scare you away with my horrible novel of an answer but if you'd like to give more detail or ask any more questions please I welcome you to!! I love talking about art and I love love love hearing about other peoples art ;^; ♡

Tldr; when trying to improve drawing people it may not be as simple as working on technical skill, its important to keep in mind purpose, emotion, body language, and art style

[robinrunsfiction]

Consider..Demon!Gerard (he’s such a sweetheart,,calls herbsugar,,darling-also super shady tho)finds the reader dying (mugged maybe?)And brings her back to life(the afterlife??)she lives with him now because thats what happens when a demon saves u ig?Anyways theyre kinda falling in love,,she falls asleep on him on the couch one night,,the next night what do u know things happen and things are said and they end up making out in their underwear in her room,, suuper fluffy,, they fall asleep

Have You Heard the News That You’re Dead?

Pairing: Demon!Gerard Way x Female ReaderRating: TeenRequested By: AnonWord Count: ~2,400Author’s Note: Hi, my name is Robin and I am physically incapable of writing a short story, but this is super super late so I hope that makes up for it! I use the prompt “Everyone has a guardian angel except you. You have a guardian demon. He deals with things in a much more violent fashion, but much more effective.” from @writing-prompt-s as my guide for this one. Also TW: for mentions of death, but if you didn’t get that from the ask, I can’t help you.

You always knew you were different. You could tell the vibe you gave off wasdifferent of that of everyone else. Dogs growled or ran away when you walkeddown the street. Old ladies would clutch their pearls. If it hadn’t been likethat for as long as you could remember, it would be alarming to say the least.What you weren’t aware of was the fact that most people had a guardian angellooking out for them, and you had a guardian demon.

That’s not to say it made you a bad person, you just had a different way of moving through life. Sure trouble found you more often than others, but you were still having a hell of a good time. That is until the night you stumbled alone out of that bar in a drunken stupor. You’d be fine you reasoned. You were always fine. Until that guy with a knife appeared and you didn’t have any money left to give him and that answer angered him, and then you were bleeding on the ground.

The last thing you saw was a man with black eyes and black hair and a pale face running up, muttering obscenities under his breath, clearly panicked. All youcould wonder was why there was no one to look out for you at that moment.

~

You woke up in a bed that wasn’t familiar in a room you’d never seen. You sat upand saw your shirt still had the hole from where you’d been stabbed, but yourskin was unbroken underneath. You had been certain you were dying on that street. Was this some kind of weird hospital? Had you been in a coma for years? What was going on?

You got out of the bed and moved quietly toward the door. As you wandered down the dark hallway, you could hear music playing. Following the sound, you found yourself in a living room, where someone, a man with black hair, sat with his back to you.

“‘Scuse me,” you started and he turned to look at you with those same black eyes you saw when you were on the street. “What the fuck?” you gasped asyou backed away. “Where am I? Where did you take me?” You demanded.

He sat down the book he was reading and strode over to you. “My name isGerard. I’m your guardian demon and for the sake of honesty, its my fault you’redead.”

“I’m dead?!” You shrieked. “Demon? Am I in hell?!”

“Not exactly. You’re at my place, which dimensionally speaking, is earth-adjacent… on the hell side. Come sit down, I’ll explain everything.”

“No! I wanna go home!”

Gerard winced. “That’s the thing sugar, this is your home now.”

Gerard had to rush to help you sit down, as your legs seemingly were not working at the moment and you looked like you were about to collapse.

“You see,” he started once you were seated, “most of you humans have guardian angels. A few of you lucky ones get us, guardian demons.”

“How is that lucky? I’m doomed to hell before I even get a crack at life?” Youargued.

“Oh you aren’t doomed, you’re destined to become a demon as well. Knowing you guarding another luck human soul until its time they join our ranks.”

“Then what am I doing here?”

“You weren’t supposed to be dead yet. I fucked up.”

“Shocker.”

Gerard descended upon you, his face inches from yours. “Oh sugar, didn’t I dowell for the last however many years? Didn’t you have a life anyone could wishfor?”

You didn’t know how to respond, so you just swallowed thickly.

“I thought so,” he said righting himself. “Besides, my duty to you is not relieved now that you are deceased. We need to keep you hidden here so management doesn’t know that I-”

“Fucked up and let me die.”

Gerard glared down at you. “Exactly. But don’t worry sugar, I intend to keeptaking the best care of you. I promise you that.”

Despite Gerard’s explanation of events you still weren’t totally convinced he wasn’t full of shit. That was until he left you alone in the living area for a whileand you snuck over to the window to look out.

His apartment was a couple stories up on a busy street. But instead of the usualbustle of cars and people there were what could only be described as creatures.

Sure some of them, like Gerard, looked human, save for the black eyes, or horns sticking out of their hair. Some looked like something you’d read about in ahorror novel. You watched wide eyed as they passed along the sidewalk belowyou, going about their demonic business.

“Believe me now?” Gerard asked, startling you away from the window.

“Sure,” you said sitting down again. It was all too much to take. “But what am Igonna until my destined death day?”

“Think of it as if its one of those days you called out sick from work so you couldsit and watch hours of TV.”

“I’m doomed to watch Judge Judy and Maury forever?! I mean one day is fine, but for eternity?!”

“No, anything you want to watch, read, listen to, its all at your disposal,” heexplained.

“Will I need to do live human stuff like… eat or sleep again?”

“Totally optional,” he said. “Just like all other carnal needs.”

You just rolled your eyes and went to examine the bookshelf. Not surprisingly itwas filled with books on the occult, as well as a lot on history, art and music.

“’Bout what I expected,” you said running your fingers over the spines of thebooks, “for a demon.” When you glanced up Gerard was watching youintently and it made you shiver involuntarily.

“Help yourself to any of them. I have to go meet up with some associates. Don’tanswer the door if anyone comes around, remember, you’re alive.”

You just rolled your eyes as you pulled a book off the shelf and sat down to read.

~

You had no idea how long had passed, time being more of a human construct it would appear by the lack of clocks in the apartment. Or maybe they weren’t andGerard’s lack of time management was the cause of your current, or ratherpermanent, state of being.

Eventually you got up and watched the demons on the street for a while, then wandered through the rest of the apartment. Who knew Demons would be so sensible as to have guest bedrooms? The closet will full of clothes that seemed to be similar to the style you like while you were alive. You changed out of the shirt you died in, a thought that made you shudder, and into one that was less holey.

Moving on you noted there was no bathroom, but that made sense given what he had said about things that were “optional”. The kitchen was impressivelystocked with rich foods and fancy wines and liquors. Maybe Gerard liked toentertain? Well he wasn’t doing that impressive of a job of it right now youthought as you found yourself getting bored.

As if on cue, Gerard burst through the door. “Miss me sugar?” He askedas he breezed into the kitchen where you were still standing, feeling slightlyguilty, like you were somewhere you shouldn’t have been.

“Not really,” you mumbled.

“Oh come on sugar,” he said slinking up to you and grazing your cheek with hisfingers, “is that anyway to talk to your roommate?”

You made a disgusted noise and rolled your eyes before pushing past him.

“This is gonna be a fucking long eternity,” he muttered under his breath.

~

The thing you most enjoyed about not being alive was similar to your favorite part of being alive: sleeping. You would sleep as long as you wanted without any repercussions or judgement from others. Gerard certainly didn’t mind, as this left more time for him to do whatever he wanted since he no longer had to watch over you so closely.

Soon though he realized he missed it. He was fond of you, as he had to be based on the nature of the work, but he always enjoyed making trouble for the people who pissed you off during the day. Now he watched as a dark cloud started to gather over your waking hours, the shelves of books and movies and music no longer drawing your interest like it used to. One evening he walked into the living room to find you staring blankly at the wall.

“Novelty of it has worn off, hasn’t it?” He asked.

“Yea, and the permanence is setting in,” you sighed.

Gerard sat down next to you. “I am truly sorry. You probably don’t believe me,but its true.”

“What happened that night?” You asked as you let your head fall against hisshoulder and he moved his arm so it was around you.

“Remember that guy that was bothering you at the bar earlier in the night?”

“Yea…”

“I scared him off, that’s why he left you alone. He found someone else and theywere gonna hook up in the bathroom and I made sure that the whiskey he wasdrinking lived up to its reputation.”

You chuckled at the thought of the douche who had been talking such big game all night not being able to perform.

“I got carried away, but I’ve always hated guys like that,” Gerard admitted.“There really is a special place in hell for them.”

“Good,” you said, as you settled into him even more. A small smile tugged at his lips. “What else did you do for me?”

Gerard reclined to get more comfortable as he launched into his favorite stories of when he dealt out cosmic retribution on your behalf.

“You’re evil, but like, good evil,” you hummed as you slid down so you were laying against his chest. His arms wrapped around you protectively.

The next thing you knew you were being awakened by a hammering at the door. You both sat bolt upright and looked at each other.

“Gerard, you home?” a voice called from the other side.

“Go hide in your room,” he whispered and you hurried off and Gerard went to thedoor.

“Frank, what’s going on?” Gerard asked coolly.

“You got a hot little succubus in there?” Frank asked trying to look past Gerard.

“What’s going on Frank?” Gerard asked again, sounding more exasperated.

“Management is starting to ask about your human. No one has seen her in a while. You still keeping track of her?”

“Of course,” Gerard lied easily. “She’s just been dealing with some shit, so she’sbeen laying low.”

Frank nodded skeptically. “Just looking out for you. I’d hate to have you get fired,that would mean more work for me,” he laughed. “Besides, you know what happens when you get fired.”

Gerard nodded, trying not to let the nerves show. He remembered the last time another demon got fired. He couldn’t sleep for weeks it shook him so bad.

“Alright, I’ll leave you be, I know you got someone in there,” Frank smirked as he left.

Gerard went back to your room and found you hiding in the closet. “You’re good.”

“What’s going on?” You asked getting up.

“I’m gonna have to go topside and act like you’re still alive, or else I’m as deadas you.”

“Demons can die?”

“Not exactly the same, but it sure as shit ain’t pretty when it happens,” Gerard muttered.

“I wish I could help.”

“Not your fault, sugar,” he said as he headed back toward the front door. “I gottaclean up my mess for a while.”

“When will you be back?”

“You’ll barely know I’m gone,” he winked.

You spent what felt like forever sitting around, bored and lonely and thinking.Thinking for hours about what Gerard was risking keeping you here, and everything he had done for you your whole life. When the door finally opened again, you jumped up excitedly.

“Hey sugar,” he greeted you with a smile.

“Is everything ok?”

“Yea, we’re good for a while,” he said shrugging off his jacket. “I don’t thinkanyone will be asking questions anytime soon.”

“Good,” you said as you walked up to him and wrapped him in a hug.

Gerard stiffened momentarily, surprised by the affection, but then softened andwrapped his arms around you as well. “You decided you like me then?”

“Maybe it’s just Stockholm Syndrome, but yea, I think I do kinda like you after all. I have really did have the time of my life when I was alive, and I know you’re tothank for a lot of that,” you said before leaning up and placing a kiss on hischeek.

When you pulled back, he was looking down at you fondly. He reached up and ran his fingers along your jaw and leaned in and kissed you deeply. His lips tasted like coffee and red hots, as his arms wrapped around you and held you closer to him. You ran your hands through his dark hair and allowed his tongue to slip in against yours.

You pulled back and Gerard looked at you in confusion until you grabbed him by the collar and pulled him along back to the bedroom. He started to undo the buttons of his shirt as you peeled yours off as well. You pulled Gerard back to you again and your lips met as you tumbled against the bed. Gerard held himself over you as he undid his pants, and you slipped out of yours as well. Clad only in your respective undergarments, you continued your heated make out session, tongues moving together, hands roaming over bare skin, marks left upon necks. After what could have been 10 minutes, or maybe a decade, Gerard pulled back and looked down at you “(YN), I’ve never felt like this before,” he whispered.

“What, demons don’t do emotions?”

“Yea, but not usually love.”

You looked up at him and grinned. “Yea, I think I’d like to spend eternity here with you.”

Gerard grinned and rolled over to your side. You curled against him as he wrapped his arms around you and you both fell asleep peacefully.

[sharksfood]

I saw Onward last week with my friend who is an avid LARPer and fellow lover of all things fantasy, so it was a perfect movie for the two of us. in general I adored it! I’ll probably see it again if i have the time and of course, i’m getting it on BluRay. i would also LOVE to snag the art book since the character design for this film was probably my favorite part.

[some spoilers]

my biggest complaint (and its not a complaint, just a negative i guess) is that Onward didnt feel like a Pixar movie to me, both in the story and animation. the animation style wasnt as interesting as some of the Pixar movies in the past (though thats been kinda up or down for a while), and it didnt feel as fresh or mind-blowing. to me it fit in better with the regular Disney animated features, not Pixar. Especially in comparison to Toy Story 4, albeit theyre very different styles, something about it didn’t pop for me like most Pixar movies do. The story was a little bland with Pixar in mind, though i did love it! i just always think of Pixar as the studio that gives stories and feelings to things we usually don’t expect. And Onward i guess was so similar to real life that it didn’t feel that way. Maybe if they had pushed the fantasy-realism even more, or changed some modern things to fit with these creatures more (they did do this but i think they didn’t push it far enough), that would have sold me.

and i’m not gonna talk about it at length, but the whole “Disney making a big deal about their ‘first’ LGBT character and acting so high and mighty about it” did dull the magic for me. considering the police officer was in two scenes, plus she didn’t have ANY characterization beyond being a cop and having a gf with a kid, it really did not live up to Disney’s hype. i’m not saying she wasn’t “gay enough” or whatever, but had they not brought it up beforehand or made any “hype” about her, i would have liked her a lot more. To compare this to Paranorman (not everyone agrees its good rep) Mitch being gay wasn’t something for LAIKA to brag about. Had Disney followed suit, their “first” gay character wouldn’t have become a meme.

Okay, so for the good stuff, I am a huge sucker for sibling bonding and especially HEALING in fiction. it gets to me more between sisters, but still. Ian and Barley like each other and get along well, but they still have their problems and doubts. The fact that they grew into their own and with each other is beautiful, especially the fact that Ian now sees Barley as a father figure AND a brother. That is an element i haven’t seen before, let alone done this well. I also really appreciated the tension between them in that Ian thought Barley was a screw up, that he thought less than great about his actions and choices. This sort of thing isn’t explored in media enough, and I’d love to see more. I believe most people don’t consider that our siblings’ opinions do matter to us as much as our parents’.

Again, I LOVE the character designs in this film. Everyone looks unique and distinct while still having key traits for each species. I love these designs way more that those in Monsters U, which felt kinda cut-and-paste with the monsters. I loved how you could tell that even within the elves they were still different races (or at least coded) with hair, facial features, and skin tone, all the while still blue! They did this with other creatures too, like how Corey is black while also being a Manticore bcs of her hair texture (and of course the incredible voice of Octavia Spencer). And you know what diversity Disney added and made not a peep about? One of Ian’s school friends walks with crutches! I can’t say what his affliction is, but its wonderful to see some inclusion to disabled folks.

My favorite characters were Barley and Corey. Barley was just so incredibly well rounded, like he was perfectly imperfect. I could go on and on honestly. Corey on the other hand was just plain AWESOME! Her little personality crisis felt kind of rushed to me, but to me it fit as an allegory for the whole film; she is a magical and powerful creature who let herself become weighed down by modern society and lost her moxie. I also love that Corey and the boy’s mom, Laurel, became friends (but i wouldve died to see them as a couple). I really want to know more about Manticores in this universe, since she seemed like the only one, and also might be immortal?

What initially drew me to this movie was seeing a centaur character in the original trailer, as trivial as that sounds its true. I love centaurs so much, and they hold a special place in my life for many reasons. I was a bit dissapointed in that there was only two centaurs prominently shown in Onward; Colt and the gal playing DDR (which was adorable). In the trailer there was one more, but not in the film. I did really like Colt, and he’s growing on me more. But one thing that has not left my mind is why to the centaurs and satyrs not wear pants?! everyone else does!! its probably bcs Pixar wanted the audience to clearly read them as centaurs/satyrs so pants would cover their cool legs, but still.... Do they just have a different level of decency than others? I have to know. But I love that the centaurs have horse ears instead of human ones <3

Lastly, and this isn’t good or bad, but I just didn’t resonate with Ian and Barley bringing back their dad. I mean, it was very emotional and a great drive to the story, but since I still have my parents I guess I just couldn’t connect to it. I liked how they were able to characterize the boy’s dad with just legs, that was adorable and a huge feat for animation!

Some little things I want to mention: the final boss dragon was SO COOL, it reminded me of the giant Ralph at the end of Ralph Breaks the Internet how it was made out of pieces, Ian was accurately scared to drive for the first time and i FELT THAT, Barley went the entire movie with a broken arm/wrist and took every swing like a champ! that boy is so chaotic i love him. ALSO it was so cool how Ian and Barley had each bits and pieces of their parents looks! like Ian had his dad’s face and body but his mom’s eyes, etc. Love that choice family design

All in all, a dazzling and wonderful movie with great characters and a cool story/theme, just not what I would expect from Pixar.

[aahsokaatano]

ITALY????

Y’all I spent one whole week in Italy in 2017 and it was one of the most bizarre fucking weeks of my life

let’s break it down from the beginning

[under a read more for length]

So, fall of 2017 I was studying abroad in London. One of the classes I was taking was specifically for study abroad students, designed to get us engaging in the culture of London or whatever i dont really remember the class itself but my god do i remember the people i met in it

two in particular were these girls, also American. We shall call them Molly and Ally. They had quickly made friends with each other, and after one of the class trips into London, i was friendly with them as well. The “reading week” or fall break was coming up, and they mentioned that they were going to Italy and asked if I wanted to go. I had booked a short tour to Dover, but thought “oh my god Italy???? Fuck yes!” and so I bought my plane tickets then asked them where they had booked hotel rooms so that I could add myself to their itinerary

“Oh,” Molly said, “we haven’t, don’t worry about it”

Me, a seasoned traveler “?????? uh”

I bugged them about this for at LEAST a week and finally, about THREE DAYS from when we were supposed to leave, I just went ahead and booked an assortment of hostels and airbnbs for us in all the cities they wanted to go to and told them to pay me back later

they actually admitted afterwards that that had been a smart move on my part which like????? no SHIT its a smart move to have a plan where you’re gonna sleep every night while in a foreign country. god.

So, lets go through this day by day

Day 1 - London to Milan

we flew from London to Milan in the evening, getting there pretty late at night. and it was only once we were actually IN Italy that I learned that 1) none of us spoke Italian and 2) despite having grown up in two areas with large Hispanic populations, neither Molly or Ally spoke a lick of Spanish, which is close enough to Italian that you can kind of limp through a conversation of one if you know the other.

so, somehow, I ended up being our Italian translator for the week, armed with nothing but a translator website, a handful of Italian music terms, and the ability to roll my r’s fairly well for a white person. Literally, i figured out where the bus stop was outside of the airport because I saw the word “fermata” painted on the pavement and I knew that meant “long pause” in sheet music terms so I hazarded a guess it meant stop or similar in regular Italian

(sidenote I almost got in a fight with some random Italian dude on the bus because Molly was going on about how excited she was to try the pizza and I told her it wasn’t going to be the same because “the pizza you’re used to is an American invention” and he turned around and started going on about the tradition of pizza in Italy and I was like I just mean that American pizza is different from real Italian pizza i did not mean to offend i’m sorry!!!!!! anyways)

the bus dropped us in a square in the middle of Milan and we got out and i’m lookin at my airbnb app trying to figure out where we need to go and i said “okay we need to get a cab” and Molly and Ally are arguing about something and this RANDOM ASS DUDE walks up to us and is like “you need taxi?” and i said yes to he leads us back to his REGULAR ASS CAR, NOT A TAXI and tells us to get in, and for some unknown fucking reason I do and Molly and Ally follow me and shut up real fast because this is sketchy as fuck but the guy did take us to the airbnb without murdering us so thats a win i guess

The airbnb by the way was more like a mini hostel - it was this apartment where pretty much every room except the bathroom had been converted into a bedroom and so probably not entirely legal but whatever. whatever. 

Day 2 - Milan to Venice

i woke up early the next morning and went to take a shower at the bathroom at the end of the hall and found out that the lights didn’t work. Whatever, I’m mostly blind without my glasses anyways so i just showered in the dark, no biggie

we had an early bus to catch from Milan to Venice, so we headed out to the bus station. I’ll be honest, I do not remember how we got there. I think we walked, because I ended up with a coffee at some point so I probably got it from some cafe on the way? But idk. I was so tired.

We get on the bus, I found two empty seats far away from Molly and Ally, and immediately stretched out and fell asleep.

Ally woke me a little later and said “c’mon, we’re here!”

I was confused as all hell because it had not been nearly long enough for us to get all the way to Venice, but I got off the bus and was greeted by Molly stretching her arms out and proclaiming “Welcome to Venice!” underneath a sign that said we were at the Verona bus station.

They did not believe me when I said Verona and Venice were two different places. “Venice has canals, Verona is where Romeo & Juliet is set. There are no canals in R&J, they’re two different places!” I literally had to pull out my phone, go to google maps, and zoom out until they could see that Venice was still several hours away before they believed me.

The bus driver almost didn’t let us back on but I was able to show him on the tickets that our end destination was, in fact, Venice.

Venice itself was pretty neat. We got to go on a gondola ride and I ate an entire pizza by myself at dinner lmao.

Day 3 - Venice to Florence

we took a train from Venice to Florence the next morning, and that’s when I discovered that Italian train stations have lovely little cafes with AMAZING coffee and really good pastries. The other two didn’t drink coffee but like, their loss. it was fantastic. 

Florence was great, we found a little shop that sold really yummy gelato for only 1 Euro a scoop - Geletaria La Carraia. If you ever end up in Florence, definitely check it out!

We wandered around for a while, took a lot of pictures. There was some famous church that was undergoing some renovations, but as we walked up to it Molly gasped and said “I’ve climbed that in Assassin’s Creed!” which was pretty funny. 

We went to a museum that had made a bunch of models of some of Leonardo DaVinci’s inventions. We went to an art museum and stumbled across Michaelangelo’s David on accident, so that was the big “wtf” moment of the day. Also that night Molly decided to buy a bottle of wine to take home to a friend of her’s back in America, but realized after buying it that her backpack wasn’t big enough to cart it around for the rest of the week so I ended up carrying an entire fucking bottle of wine for the rest of the trip because I was the only one smart enough to bring a proper backpacking backpack and not just my school bag.

Also the hostel we were in had actual skeleton keys for their rooms and actual goddamn keyholes that one could clearly see through so i left the key in the lock all night AND hung my sweatshirt from the door handle so that no one could peek in at us

Day 4 - Florence to Pisa

once again, I woke up early, went into the bathroom attached to our room (the hostel had had a cancellation and so we ended up in a private room instead of a dorm style) and discovered that the lights didn’t work so I had a second shower in the dark

we took another train from Florence to Pisa, and there we ran into our only bit of bad weather

What’s the big draw in Pisa? The Leaning Tower, right?

What was the only day it rained, non-fucking-stop, the entire time we were in Italy? THE DAY WE WERE IN PISA

I got so soaked that I actually bought a new sweatshirt because the one I was wearing was DRIPPING

anyways, after we had taken several dumb touristy pictures and grabbed an early dinner at a nearby restaurant, we decided to head over to the room I had booked. The cheapest place I could find was a tiny cabin at a campground nearby. According to the map on my phone, it was a short walk away.

A solid hour later, we finally trudged up to the main office of the campground, shivering and soaked, and got the keys to our cabin. We set our stuff down, and Ally and Molly decided to go back out to the grocery store we had passed coming in. I waved them off and went to take a shower in the bathroom with fully functioning lights! hooray!

Day 5 - Pisa to Rome

another morning, another train station with excellent coffee. We got into Rome and, at this point, we were all so tired from travelling that I was finally able to take charge. up until this point, Molly had been railroading us, even sort of bullying Ally in the process, but now she was exhausted and I, through a combination of practice in functioning while dead on my feet, lots of travel experience, and Mom Friend Instincts, took the reins. We got to Rome and I said “we’re going to the church with the big hole in the roof (its a thing, look it up) and then we’re going to eat.... at this place around the corner and then we’re going to to go our hostel and check in”

they didn’t argue, and that’s a true testament to how fucking tired the two of them were, especially Molly, because she would argue about anything and everything given half a chance. We also went to the military museum that day, mostly because it was free and also air conditioned

(also while looking through my pictures of this trip i just discovered that i still have the picture i took of the Rome hostel FAQ page that had by the front desk, which i now remember i did because it had the wifi password on it and we weren’t in our room for 30 seconds before one of the other two asked what the wifi password was so, once again, i show that i am a very good traveler/travelling buddy)

Day 6 - Rome

so we had the next full day in Rome, and we got up early to get in line for the Vatican. I wanted to be there by 7am, Molly was like “it doesn’t even open until 9!” and we compromised at 8 and it was STILL an enormous line so i was like “see? this is why i wanted to get here early”

Oh, but before we went to the Vatican, i took a shower. IN. THE. DARK. BECAUSE ALL OF ITALY EXCEPT FOR PISA DECIDED THAT I DIDN’T DESERVE TO HAVE A SHOWER WHERE I DIDN’T HAVE TO FUMBLE AROUND BLINDLY LIKE AN ASSHOLE

ALSO on the way to the Vatican, I asked if the two of them had their passports. Ally said yes. Molly said yes, why?

And I had to then explain to Molly, a 20 year old RELIGIOUS STUDIES MAJOR, who was RAISED CATHOLIC and who had FAMILY IN THE CLERGY, that the Vatican, THE CENTER OF THE CATHOLIC CHURCH, is it’s own country. 

she, again, did not believe me until i pulled it up on google for her

turned out that we didn’t need our passports stamped to enter the Vatican but still! still!!!!!

so it turned out that whatever day we were there on, the Sistine Chapel isn’t open that day, so we just walked through the cathedral and then headed out to the Colosseum and the ruins of the Senate behind it, both of which were very cool

Day 7 - Rome to Milan to London

we got up even EARLIER on our last day, I took another shower in the dark, and we rushed over to the Vatican, speedwalked through most of the museum, and finally got into the Sistine Chapel, which was absolutely breathtaking. Then we hauled ass back to the train station to catch our train back to Milan.

At this point in the trip, I was so fucking done with the two of them, but especially Molly. Ally was sweet and naive, but she was also willing to listen to new information. Molly was just a stubborn ass with a mean streak a mile wide and I was COMPLETELY done associating with her.

Luckily, since I had booked my flights separately, while we had flown into Milan on the same plane, I had a completely different flight back to London - to a different airport, even. They were going back to London City, but I was heading to London Gatwick. Both planes were set to depart around the same time, from two gates that were next to each other though, so i couldn’t really escape them until - uh oh! My flight was delayed. 

Molly and Ally were fretting about it but i was like “it’s fine. it’s fine. I’ve been flying since i was literally 3 months old and I s o m e h o w know more Italian AND Spanish than the two of you combined, even though I would never say that I speak EITHER of those languages. Just go.”

The flight ended up being delayed like 5 hours due to mechanical issues. They finally just got another plane for us, and we finally took off from Milan. When we went over Paris, the captain, obviously feeling bad about the delay, made sure to tilt the plane in both directions so that everyone could see the Eiffel Tower lit up, it was really neat.

We finally got back to London at literally like 230 in the morning. The busses and some of the trains weren’t even running at that point - certainly not all the way out to the fancy little liberal arts college I was going to. I went up to some security guard at the airport and said “just tell me how close I can get to the University of Roehampton on the trains” and he told me to take the train to Black Friars so I got out there and there was a bus, but it was like 40 minutes out. It’s now pass 3am, I am exhausted after a long, weird week in Italy, I texted my dad and he said “just get an Uber i’ll pay for it”

The Uber driver was very nice and as soon as I got in he said “you look really cold! do you want the heat on?” i could have fucking kissed him. he was super nice. actually made sure that I was still texting my dad (i had mentioned it when I got in because I almost dropped my bag while trying to text and maneuver at the same time) every few minutes. offered to let me take and send a picture of him to my dad. otherwise didn’t really speak and just let the music play. I tipped him literally whatever was in my pocket at that time, i don’t remember how much it was, but it was at least 20% and probably more. Really great guy. 

Random London Uber driver from 2017, you remain the best Uber driver and I love you

i finally crawled into my shitty little dorm bed at about 4am, exhausted and utterly bewildered by the past week

honestly??? I’m still bewildered by my week in Italy.

wtf even happened in all that mess.