#the thing about getting started w digital art is i can do shit like this now

[art-o-gant]

[harrylights]

.

[jordiemeow]

also it's crazy the way everyone tries to act like patrick is solely a dom!top! when this is lit patrick

like yeah he's switchy but this is a brat. to me.

retweet. do i think he can dom and rail the shit out of you?? yes. is he the biggest brat to ever walk the earth?? ALSO YES

like the way he literally drags her fingers into his mouth... fuck !!!

slapping spitting choking. all of it. wants you to yank his hair and force him to make eye contact as you sink down onto him. hands obediently curled into fists by his sides bc you said he couldn't touch you until you got off first. "c'mon, harder. you're slapping like a girl. can barely even feel it" when you hit him. 'accidentally loses count' of how many just to prolong the entire thing. completely shameless about wearing the red brand on his cheek afterwards

or him acting up just to get a rise out of you. like you're in the middle of studying n just letting him toy with your fingers to shut him up for once. except he just ends up sliding them into his warm mouth, coating them in saliva and biting down on your knuckles. gives an innocent smile as he starts to pump them in and out, tongue circling keenly around your digits. he takes them all the way down to the second knuckle without so much as a gag. he's bored and just wants to get fucked!! n he knows the sight of drool spilling down his chin and your fingers curled in his mouth will get him what he wants.

definitely antagonises the shit out of you while he's getting pegged. "that all you got?" "i can feel you getting tired. y'giving up that easily?" his idea of a good time is you smothering his face in your pillows to shut him up, ass in the air and legs trembling under your spitefully rough thrusts. or the way he hooks his legs around art to pull him closer in the gif?? like ugh strong thighs urging him deeper, heels pressed into his ass to force him to bottom out. trying to sound smug but he's whining like a little bitch. he might be bottoming but he certainly doesn't act like it !!!

idk i think he just likes the game of "fighting for power." he knows it'll end w you riding him until he's begging to cum but he wouldn't be patrick if he wasn't difficult first. it's hotter to watch you get all pissed at him. put that little slut in his place

also he was Not joking ab the racket fucking thing. he'd let her do it. in fact he'd beg her to

[your-unfriendlyghost]

Hiiii i just saw your Outsiders/Christine art and HOLY SHIT. When i say my jaw was on the floor it was on the floor. I’m a huge Stephen King fan (I’ve only read his books bc to me his books are good enough. I’m not a huge horror movie watcher girlie but i can do thriller/horror books. I have like 8 of his books, including Christine, on my bookshelf) and once again: HOLY SHIT. I can lowkey see the Outsiders trio as the Christine trio. Now whenever i go to reread the book, i can’t view it the same anymore haha. Another Outsiders/Stepehen King art idea for Halloween: 11/22/63. It’s one of my absolute favorite Stephen King novels. And if you haven’t read it, highly recommend it. It’s so intense and entertaining and i do get lost in that book. Anyways, HOLY SHIT. But i was also wondering if you have any tips for beginner digital artists? Like on layers, line art especially, shading etc.? I really want to get into more digital art but my tradional sketches lowkey look better than my digital ones haha. Whenever i see your stevepop or Outsiders art it just gives me a boost of inspiration. And i love them your honor.

Woah, thanks!! I’ll have to check it out- so far I’ve only read Christine and The Body (because my dad’s obsessed w/ Stand By Me), but I really dug both so I’m looking forward to it!

And as for digital art tips, I guess I’d say to keep things loose! I like to use a modified version of the Shale Brush on procreate for my sketches and lineart because it resembles a pencil, and the rough messiness makes it a whole lot easier for me to just relax and draw the way I do on paper. I don’t shy away from messiness especially in digital art- it makes things flow better in a medium that can get really stiff sometimes.

I like to do my sketches in bright colors, and I tend to assign every subject a certain color so I can tell them apart easily (idk how helpful it is, but it works for me!) Then I lower the opacity and draw on a layer on top like this:

Then I turn off the sketch layer and either fill everything in with base colors, or color it in grayscale w/ this Copic marker brush and varying levels of opacity for my comics.

As for shading, I do a combination of cell shading and painterly shading (picture for the uninitiated lol). Both have their merits, and shadows in real life usually include a bit of both.

For more simple stuff, I take a shade of either purple or sometimes magenta and cell shade everything with this pencil brush on a multiply layer, usually set to 30-ish% opacity depending on the drawing. Then I’ll blend it out a bit to soften some edges, which is what makes it look painterly. Also if you don’t know, “clipping mask” layers are really helpful for shading! You just put the shading layer over the colors and it stops you from going outside of the colors, it can be super helpful. This method is the one I usually use, and the one I’ve been using since I first started about five years ago now.

For the Christine poster specifically though I mostly just kept everything to one layer and color dropped from the reference, altering the colors as I saw fit- and just sort of guessed for Evie because she’s way tanner than Leigh and needed her own colors. The only times I used different layers were for each individual character so that they didn’t mess each other up, and also for the sketches, which I put on top of the colors but lightened the opacity on. Idk that I’d recommend this for a beginner tho, it’s taken me years to get comfortable working like this!

Sketch is set to a multiply layer here too. You can’t see it super well here tbh, because of how dark everything is, but oh well. Here’s a study I did last year with the same method tho! (Also she’s got some similarities to Evie huh?? I guess I have a type lol oops)

Anyhow, that’s probably enough for now lol- but lmk if there’s anything else you wanna know! And obviously this is just how I do things, there’s no hard and fast rules for any of this- I’m making it up as I go along, and you should too!!

[wildcatfourteen]

how do you come up with such interesting composition? your pieces are always so captivating 💗

thank youuuuuuuuuu <33 and the truth is. idk. i am kinda just winging it and making a lot of adjustments as i go.... im not very orderly about it and have my thoughts kinda all over the place. heres some examples under the cut w what process pics i could find

direction process goes >>>

first did a pencil sketch for big shapes. was just placing stuff down. i wanted to make ref sheets for an art trade but didnt want to make a traditional type bc i hate drawing ppl standing full body (bc im bad at it 👍) also i did not have specific outfits in mind and was going more for a reference of the general vibe of the characters, so i just wanted a full body pose + face close up. to avoid having to show specific details. bc i was cheating. was originally going to have multiple text bubbles around for the character facts

did like two sketches digitally. messed around a LOT with placement. the little emote heads came out of me feeling like it was empty and boring on its own and they are fun to draw so why not include them. the multiple text bubbles seemed like a bad idea now so i took them out and just did one text wall.

i actually dont like the text wall now and think breaking it up wouldve been more fun visually but that would've required effort i didnt wanna put in LOL

^ i lost the pencil sketch for this one (i always do a pencil sketch) but it was actually just the two half body drawings at first with none of that shit at the bottom or the close ups until i was like fuckkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk i gotta add smth around to make this look like theres stuff happening..... the idea was to draw the two main characters of the labb novel in some kinda comic format w panels around and i then. kept adding things until it seemed like i was getting somewhere. thats kind of my process for everything TT i think it helps to stay in a workshopping stage for longer if needed to get somewhere but i often get impatient LOL

im putting a stupid note abt this here bc im still annoyed at myself but in this novel, there was a bit about a crossword puzzle related to a murder case and i only thought of it afterwards that it would be kinda cool to put the sugar cubes in like a crossword puzzle formation....... why didnt i do that......

^ and heres some of the process for this one, but i lost a LOT of the steps for this. the beginning was totally different. the character wasnt as pathetic and scared looking at first but then i was like uhhhhh lets draw him that way :)

the first pencil draft was from a different perspective and it was gonna have a mirror composition to it kinda? but i wasn't able to make that look appealing so i deleted it. it still had the curtains tho but then i also included stuff with framed mirrors + other frames around

i decided to instead make the curtains be the focus of the whole piece to not make it so cluttered. character's pose was so different at first it was so bad i dont even wanna remember it. i took out the frames entirely bc i didnt think they added much to the piece in terms of the atmosphere. since like. the more i worked on it w the character's + the goat's expressions the more it gave a 'being hunted' feeling to it and portrait frames dont fit that vibe. which feels funny bc u look at it and thats all u can think abt but i wasnt even gunning for that when starting out. BE FLEXIBLE. TRUST THE PROCESS.

[cloangi]

Get to know me 🔥

**Post may be updated every so often to change wording, to add/delete things, etc

--------------------

Ima keep this short enough so you can actually read it

General things about me:

16 years old

Only do art as a hobby (so no money taking or commissions people...though, maybe in the future)

Art consists of my fandom fixations

You can refer to me as Baaz or Keegan/Keegs. Either one works, I don't care 🤷‍♂️

Blog is mainly SFW but I'll keep the 13 - 14+ age rating there due to the occasional freaky reblog I be doing

I am fine with people sending me DM's‼️ Just don't make it weird (you already know what I mean by that 💀)

You guys can send me asks (pls send some cause I don't ever get any 😔🙏)! But not for things such as donations or weird suff, things like that will be deleted.

In terms of rules and behavior on here, I'm pretty sure you can use your head to figure out human decency and manners. So please have some respect for me and others on here.

---

Social stuff:

Instagram Art account - (Obviously not my main account lololol, speically made this account where I'm gonna be posting all of the speed paints of my digital art, maybe even hop on some trends on there 🤷‍♂️.)

Quora Account - (Place where I've spent most of my time online, around 4-5 years or so. I post random things of me yapping of all topics or things I've found/seen)

--------------------

Fixations (under the cut)⤵️

The list below is color coded based on the fandoms I'm fixated on, or I just like

Red = Fixated

Orange = Semi-fixated

Green = Like

Call of Duty - Certain campaigns in it, mostly COD Ghosts though (Yes, I have played the OG versions of some of the campaigns on the old ps3 we have, and I do play MP Cod Ghosts).

1917 - Schofield and Blake are my WW1 pookies fr 🙏🙏

All Quiet on The Western Front - This movie made me sad at the end, dude. Poor Baümer 😔, you fought well man...

Monster x Mediator - It's a pretty interesting game due to the characters (Sir Knight...🤤🤤)

Ready or Not - The storytelling is PHENOMENAL. I can't get over as to how much detail the devs have put into this game to add onto the atmosphere AND the lore itself. W game, W snap back to reality type shit. I love it.

Black Ops - I'm fairly new to this campaign. Finally starting to get a teeny tiny bit into it due to Bell, yes the character you literally as 💀

Fallout: New Vegas - Fixated more on JOSHUA GRAHAM 🤤🤤. But yeah, story is fire, and the characters are fire. Very well written, still gotta check out the DLC's though.

Battlefield 4 - This fandom is so male dominated (or there's no artists in it or sum...) that there's like, 0 genuine fanart of it, and I'm sad because of that 😔 (PAC MY POOKIE, M-MY LOVE 😩😩)

Rainbow 6 Siege - Don't have the console to play the actual game so I watch it instead.

Mouthwashing - The entire story is just...wow. So sorry that had to Happen to you, Anya. Also, fuck Jimmy. Everyone else is cool.

Fallout (The show version) - Really liked the way they made everything with the characters and stuff. For new fans, such as me, I really enjoyed it 🗣

Hell Divers 2 - Like R6S, I don't have the actual console itself to play it but it's on my wishlist and I really like the concept of the game, plus the community seems pretty fire.

Eddsworld - Used to have a HUGE fixation on this fandom, prob for up to 1-2 years (shit had a strong grip on me)

Silent Hill 2 - That's like the only game I know lore about in the Silent Hill series (Pyramid head...).

My Little Pony - I'm surprised this fandom is absolutely booming now. Watched the entire show (forgot everything though 💀). Love the art the fandom makes though, including the AU's.

Saiki K - Legit forgot the entire storyline, but I know I like it

The Amazing Digital Circus - Caught up on all episodes

Demon Slayer - Watched all seasons

The Amazing World of Gumball - Havent really watched it much, but I really like it including the fan base

Into the Spiderverse - Have never read the comics, but movie-wise I like it

South Park - Funny, sad, cringe, and crazy show. I've only watched a couple episodes but the community can be so fucking funny sometimes

Undertale - Younger me was crazy for this game, dude 💀. Grew up with this shii fr

...Damn, you still reading? I mean if you're interested go ahead and drop a follow to this thing (you're likely gonna forget this account anyways, so free follow for me mwhahaha).

[tamaruaart]

Hi :)

₊✩‧₊˚౨ৎ˚₊✩‧₊

Questions:

About me ★ :

I mostly go by Tam or Rua but I also go by a LOT of other nicknames! (Tamarua, Tamari, Tama, Tamachi, Ruma, Tammy, Tamithy, etc... I'm on par with Mr Jalapeño fr 😼) I'm a digital & traditional artist and I mostly draw my OCs or characters I like!

Currently obsessing over the classical era, medieval and renaissance ‼️(I really like this emoji don't come for me)

I'm in A LOT of fandoms (LMK, JTTW, The Great Comet, Blood Meridian, Greek Myth, EPIC, Hamilton...). This blog respects and supports the LGBT+ community (WHERE ALL MY ACE BUDDIES AT??)

Preferred pronouns are She/Her but I also go by They/Them. I'd say I don't usually get mad, and my humor is very... Uh, what's the word? Questionable? Yea, very questionable- I speak English and Croatian (🇭🇷)!

What art program do I use? ⁠★ :

I use Clip Studio Paint and Ibis Paint (If you want to know what brushes I use feel free to ask!)

Socials ⁠★ :

-Twitter: (@TamaRuaArt)

-Pixiv: (@Tamachi)

-Reddit: (@TamaRuaArt "Tam & Rua✩")

-tiktok: (@/tamaruaart "Tam✩")

-Bluesky: (@Tamtarua "Tam ‼️")

-Unvale: (@/Tamtamtam "Tam ‼️")

-Strawpage:

Rules? ⁠★ :

-No offensive comments on certain groups

-No NSFW in my asks or replies

-No politics nor my opinion on topics like abortion, sex work and generally those types of things. That is not for you to know!!

-Keep your comments relative to the post

-No heavy-religion based topics (Unless that's what the post is about)

-No racism nor racist jokes (this is supposed to be a safe space for ALL RACES)

-No sexism/misogyny/misandry (This is not a safe space for radical feminists who hate on men)

-No rebloging or replying to my posts with random shit, I don't find that funny

-No homophobia or transphobia (nor hate to any other sexuality), this is a safe space for LGBT!!

If you don't follow these I'm just going to block you :D

What is this blog mostly about? ⁠★ :

OCs!! Well, I mostly use it to talk about my JTTW/LMK OC Zhaoyan (or just Zhao).

Zhao is a Celestial Witch who was brought along to the journey (against her will) as a healer for Tripitaka. Basically, she has the power to heal any wound, illness, disease etc. And general sorcery.

Besides that it's just whatever this stupif mind of mine is currently hyperfixating on

Notes on your OC's story? ⁠★ :

For now my tumblr blog is the only place where you can find out about her.

I do 100% plan to write an AO3 fanfic regards her one day (because she honestly has so much lore that isn't even jttw/lmk related). But not any time soon, I'm very busy with school and I still have to work her whole character out before I start writing. When I do publish the story I'll announce it here :D

Is this blog R18?⁠ ★ :

Not really, I'd say more 13-14+

Suggestions/requests? ⁠★ :

Sometimes? But only for close moots

Do I do coms? ⁠★ :

no

wewooweoweewowweee

yes

My Playlists:

Zhaoyan but as a ⁠★ Playlist ★ :

Quanshuǐ but as a ⁠★ Playlist★ :

Concept Cabin:

The Vengeance AU ⁠★ :

Fandoms:

-Greek Mythology (Hades/Hades II, The Odyssey and The Iliad, Paris: The Musical, EPIC: The Musical. I dislike Madeline Miller and her Circe a lot though lmao)

-Lego Monkie Kid

-The Prince of Egypt

-Wolfwalkers

-Hamilton

-The Great Comet of 1812

-Blood Meridian (I'm adopting kid idc)

-Cookie Run Kingdom

-Dante's Inferno

-General Opera fan lol

-Shakespeare (Don't really watch the plays but I LOVE this man. Especially in Something Rotten. Like hello sailor)

-The Three Musketeers (In love w Aramis)

-Breza by Slavko Kolar (THIS STORY FUCKING RUINED ME. JANICA/YANITSA AND MARCO DESRVED BETTER)

-The Little Prince

If any of these things sound right up your alley, feel free to stay! :D

I mostly post about Greek Mythology, Blood Meridian and LMK on here though-

OC related things:

-OC introduction (Outdated, currently working on a new one!)★ :

-OC chibies ★ :

-OC (Zhao's) family tree ★ :

-OC ages ★ :

Free chibi OC commissions (closed):

TAGS:

OCs ⁠★ :

#lmk oc; Zhao- Any posts about Zhao

#lmk oc; Yueliang- Posts about Yue

#lmk oc; Quanshuǐ- Quanshuǐ posts

#lmk oc; Yuǎn'ān- Yuǎn'ān posts

Miscellaneous ★ :

#tam rambles- Pretty self-explanatory. Just me rambling

#tam answers- Answering asks

#my art- Art made by me! :D

#Polly & Olivia- Posts about my cats!

ALT account: @tam-and-her-bullcraps (beware for it's a mess there-)

Fundraisers, please do NOT come into my asks demanding money. I can't donate

And that's basically all you need to know about me

buh-bYEEEEE 👋

[uselessmicrowave]

HII i was the anon asking for a matchup hehe (both bots and cons, literally anyone) im just so interested and excited abt the matchup since its my first time doing one :DDD

Im quite short, around (5'6), i have a darker shade of green eyes (w long lashes) and long black hair with pink highlights that end around my mid back, (it's quite curly too); im very pale, and i mean "the first time they see me they tell me im a vampire" kind of pale, i have plump lips that are pink, kinda like a blushy pink! I have an ear piercing, and some snakebites, tho it's not pierced, its those ones where you can hook them on, ive also got a thing for silver rings (one is vine like and the other is a silver snake that goes up halfway on my pointer finger [i love snakes]; on my right hand tho is a single gold ring)

On how i dress, i usually do not give any fucks- literally, i just throw anything on (my usual fit is a black shirt, and some soft pants)

I'm an INTP (for some reference since i really suck at describing things) Me as i describe myself, am a very quiet person, quiet as in "my friends forgot i was in the backseat" kind of quiet, im usually a homebody, literally, another reason why i get called a vampire is that i hate sunlight, alot, i dont like going out as much as my friends do, since i hate loud and public places tho i would really be down to hangout with them whenever. I always keep to myself and refrain from ever speaking out, always observing, and just listening; but when i get closer to someone and get to know them more i usually get loud and very talkative. Even tho im always patient doesn't mean i wouldn't punch someone if they mess w me or my friends, as i could really have a high temper; on a side note, im very patient! Really im not even kidding i literally put up with someone's shit for 3 years and still going.

Hobbies or things i generally like/ like to do is art!! Mostly digital art, you'll always see me with my tablet everywhere i go, and i rarely share them as i have absolutely zero confidence, i also love to read! (Fav being tolkien books, both LoTR and TH) i also write my own stories and could be so into world building, its taking me 3 years to actually build my world properly. I love music like its not even funny; aside from seeing me w my tablet, i guarantee you'll always see me wearing earphones and jamming, im a sucker for roadtrips while i gaze outside just daydreaming and forgetting about reality (im a hardcore daydreamer). I really dont have a certain music taste since i just play whatever sounds good!!

Hello anon! I’ll match you up with TFA Prowl!

Prowl is fascinated by your piercings. How do you get one? Does it cause daily issues? How do you take care of them? What are the other kinds (He'll keep these questions to himself though, but he will encourage you if you start rambling about it or want to talk about it)?

He's also very quiet compared to the other bots, and he'd prefer to have a 'home date' or just hang out with you somewhere outside in a quiet and shady area.

Prowl is glad you get talkative when you two are alone, because he really won't speak up about anything unless it's dire or bothering him an insane amount.

He is very interested in your digital art process, he'd love to watch you draw if you'd let him.

You'll have to introduce you to your favorite authors and books if you want him to understand a specific reference/joke.

He's amazed that you had taken three years to... make a world? He doesn't completely understand but, tell him about it, please, he'd love to hear about it.

If he sees you wearing headphones/earbuds, he'll ask what song or what artist you're listening to, especially if you look like you're enjoying it.

[starified-lizzy]

I figured I should redo my intro to my blog-

ELLO >:DDDD

(Edit/Update:) First of all, because my friend and I just had to deal with an art tracer;

YOU CANNOT TRACE, REPOST, CLAIM MY ART AS YOUR OWN OR *WHATEVER*. MY ART IS *MY ART*. MAKE YOUR OWN. ITS NOT THAT HARD AND EVERYONE STARTS SOMEWHERE.

Reblogs and comments are appreciated tho :3

Also- if you wish to use my art as a profile picture, you MUST give me credit as the first thing in your Bio/About me.

(Back to the original post)

Name’s Lizzy! Or Star! I really don’t give a fuck which you use!

Here’s my pronouns card! https://en.pronouns.page/@starified_lizzy

I draw shit for FANDOMS

I write shit for FANDOMS

I got OCS whom I LOVE and ADORE.

“Can I draw fanart of your fics?” My sibling in Christ, we are married. /pos

“Can I draw fanart of your fanart(like DTIYS)?” My sibling in Christ. /pos

“Can I draw fanart of your OCs?” CHRIST. /pos

RAHHHHHH (it’s really fucking early I shouldn’t be doing this now ;-;)

Here’s a list of my socials, it is very limited because I hate the “standard” socials like Twitter and Insta and stuff like that. So it’s more like- fanfic sites, and any other blogs I own for you guys to check out >.>

My AO3

My Art Fight

My YouTube

My TikTok (basically dead at this point, I only ever like/favorite things on it, but I might start up again with my FNF au instead)

My Pinterest

My Spotify because sure

My FNF au blog

My demonpocalypse blog ([possibly] forever retired due to a severe issue in the community it was for)

Blog for food/recipes I want to try because MMMMMMMMMMM FOOOOD

Wow that’s actually not limited like I thought- hot damn I need to touch some grass.

HERES A LIST OF FANDOMS IM EITHER CURRENTLY IN, OR HAVE RETIRED FROM (Also CCs):

Retired-

DSMP (and MCYT as a whole for the most part), dude our community is in *shambles*. I’m so glad I left when I did, but at the same time O W.

ATLA. Technically I’m still in this fandom, but I only really get back into it/brainrot about it if I get a reminder, otherwise I kinda forget about it

FNAF. Same with ATLA, still technically in it, but I gotta be reminded it exists sometimes.

BATIM. Ditto

Wings of Fire. Ditto

Undertale. Ditto. Lizzy, my main persona, was actually an OC created from Undertale, who just ended up becoming her own person, and then ended up being associated with mine and my friend’s Minecraft au instead.

Onto CCs I no longer watch:

Any of the DSMP ppl, with very few exceptions

Jacksepticeye. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll still watch a video of his if it pops up and spikes my interest, but I don’t actively seek his content out anymore.

Any of the old Minecrafters. Like DanTDM, Stampy, Tiny Turtle & Little Lizard. Hell, I don’t even think any of the ones I listed even do YT at all anymore. I’ll still watch their old videos tho.

Current-

FNF. I really could give less of a fuck if y’all think it’s “bad” or “for kids (it’s not, I promise you)”. The music slaps, and quite a few mods are really well made, so eat my ass.

Day of Dragons. The dragons are cool. I don’t care about any drama in the community. I’m here for the cool fucking dragons.

The Isle. Once again, I don’t care about any drama in the community. I’m here for the cool ass dinosaurs because you can customize your own skins and they just look and sound cool (Dilo, Herarra, and Ptera are my faves)

Lethal Company. Do it for the Company.

RainWorld. Scugs and Scups. Need I say more?

Hollow Knight. Sorta falling out of this one, but until I beat the entire game (P5) I am not finished.

Minecraft. Technically in “the fandom”, but not really attached to a specific YTer or anything like that anymore. I just like the game.

CCs I still watch:

Astral Spiff. Sprog is a good gamer.

Smii7y and his friends like Grizzy, Droid, Puffer, Blarg, etc.

Jack Manifold. I only watch his You Laugh You Loose and Ghost Sighting Compilation videos. I don’t even know if he still does Minecraft anymore.

8-BitRyan. While he doesn’t swear in his videos, it’s kinda a breath of fresh air. Plus his edits are quite funny.

Markiplier. Yes. Just… yes…

IGP. His content is just interesting. The way he freaks out over shit is funny as hell. Does he do content with IcyCaress anymore? Their banter was funny, but idk if something happened, cuz I just don’t see much stuff with Icy in it anymore.

As of right now, that’s all I can think of. It’s nice to meet you!

[lonely-shine]

Alnair 🌂🧠 Atlas 🍎🎯 Shell 🎓🍀 Ebis ✨🥊🎯 Marcus 🌂

Thanks for all the questions!! :D Let's see...

*Alnair

🌂 - What genre do they belong in? Fantasy! She's an Arcana game OC, so fantasy all the way in.

🧠 - What do you like most about the OC? They're the perfect mashup of self-insert to project into and character of its own to explore paths I myself would personally not walk through. I also love how she lets me rewrite canon events however I want xD

*Atlas

🍎 - What is the OC’s relationship w/their parents like? In short, pretty good! Atlas has two moms, Naith (they/them) and Irdred (she/her) (and the auntcle/biological father, Laith (she/he/they)) and loves them very much. Atlas picked many interests from them (art, gardening, etc), specially from Naith. And athough he travels far and often (he picked that from Laith), he still keeps in touch regularly and visits home once in a while.

...wow, me giving a character a perfectly healthy background/family. This is rare to happen. Quick, make a wish!

🎯 -What do they do best? All things plants. In magic? That means potions, charms, etc. In daily life? You got him gardening, cooking, brewing tea... If it involves working with plants one way or another, he has you covered.

*Shell

🎓 - How long have you had the OC? I wanna say May 2021? *goes check* Yeah, I posted about her in June 2021 for the first time, so maybe I had her for like. maybe a month before that. Which means I had her for almost three years already? And she's still so little developed? Gods. In my defence I don't choose what my brain fixates on and also my life went to shit in late 2021 and kept like that for two years, so yeah. I want to take better care of my OCs and stories now tho ^^

🍀 - What originally inspired the OC? At first I just needed someone to comfortably play Asra's and Julian's routes with because it didn't quite work with either Alnair nor Atlas. Then I started wondering if it was possible to have one character that fitted all six Arcana routes. So I gave her an angsty backstory by which her identity was stripped and to be reshaped by the route she takes, gave her the name 'Shell' solely so I could have the play on words "Shell is your name and that's what you shall become" as part of her 'curse', and ta-daa! Yet another OC for the collection was born xD

*Ebis

✨- How did you come up with the OC’s name? Okay, bear with me. Ebis is a Submachine OC, loosely based on the Player. And I say 'loosely' because there isn't really any information about Player to base Ebis on. Anyway, in one of the games you get out a padded room and there's the patient number 2183. Which, in digital clock numbers, if mirrored, kinda read like 'Ebis' if you squint hard enough. That's the logic Ebis follows to choose her name, since she wakes up without memories and it's easier to think of herself as 'Ebis' than a 4 digit number anyway.

Maybe it's a dumb way to decide for a name but if it works it works.

🥊 -What do they love to do? What do they hate to do? She loves tinkering away with computer software, which is good for her because she makes a job out of it post-canon (I have not written about that, but it exists in my head), and also numeric games for when she wants to scratch that brain itch without dealing with the inevitable bugs. She also loves gardening and not only that but needs to get her hands into the dirt and feel the sun on her face regularly for optimal mental stability. As for hating... I can only think of anything that would involve her going underground? Trauma related thing, after Submachine she's had enough underground for the rest of her life. Otherwise I don't know, I haven't given much thought to it. Oh! But she's incapable of sitting still and doing nothing, if that counts.

🎯 -What do they do best? She's very good at computers and programming... and the less socially accepted side of it as well (by which I mean she knows how to hack stuff, but she doesn't do that post-canon, and in-canon she does by necessity).

*Marcus

🌂 - What genre do they belong in? As the other Submachine OC I guess sci-fi/fantasy? Adventure? There's some post-apocalypse vibes to much of the game as well. Post-canon this would turn to the fluffy slice-of-life this poor tired man (and Ebis as well) deserves.

And that's all!! I believe I have talked enough for the day, thank you so much for the questions, they made my day :D

[glitchphotography]

If u think losing a gig to an AI is hard, try losing gigs because your bosses are racist or xenophobic or homophobic or sexist, or try not getting gigs at all because bosses dont think your work is as legitimate as the dude who can draw 100 identical spidermans.

There are serious structural issues with pay-to-play AI services like Dalle2 and it’s centered on how these companies data laundered copyrighted works using fair use laws and research institutions to privatize a tech that should be considered public infrastructure for everyone.

But AI Art itself isn’t evil, its a tool that has been used by new media artists for at least a decade. There’s obviously ethical ways to create AI art: train your own models, create outputs based out of your own works, attribute the artists you use in your prompts, etc.

But suddenly caring about copyright like you are now team disney and team nintendo is weak. And seriously, most of your artstation works aren’t original either. Yall living off of borrowed aesthetics from 100 years of comic books and cartoons and illustrations.

AIs can’t plagiarize the way humans do. You are seeing a calculated average of images. The reason shit looks like your favorite illustrators is because a lot of these illustrators make similar art, and most people writing AI prompts have similar basic tastes. Making great AI Art from prompts takes time and patience and a keen sense of poetics.

But seriously, y’all don’t hate new tech, you hate capitalism and the corpos and bosses who are out to expropriate you.

AI Art, if anything, is the new folk art. Same repeated motifs made by anyone with a clue. This is a wonderful mingling of collective creative energies. Embrace it!

Addendum for all the reactionary responses out there:

~~~~~~~~ Artists should be getting royalties from OpenAI, Midjourney, et al. And they should be able to opt in or out of having their work included in training models. This is a given and I would never argue against compensating artists!  ~~~~~~~~

This isn’t about defending these corpos either, but machine learning tech has been around before these companies started their thing and experimental artists from around the world have been using machine learning to make great art.

Another thing: the moment you post your digital art to a platform, you sign away much of your consent w/r/t how your art is used. Thats what those really long TOS are about. ArtStation and istock were scraped for data under the pretext of Fair Use, which allows or mass scraping internet data for research purposes. Fair Use is like the one law that for the most part, protects artists from the disneys and nintendos of the world. I wouldn’t be able to glitch video games without it. Emulated videogames wouldnt exist with out it either So the question is, why are corporations allowed to use Fair Use as a cover for developing privatized pay-to-play services? People who know a thing, will point out that Stable Diffusion is open source, and that’s great, but why are privatized services allowed to be built on open source infrastructure? Especially when this tech hasn’t been properly vetted for racial biases, pr0nography, etc

Yes its shitty, but these arent arguments against AI tech but against juridical structures under capitalist regimes.

[iraprince]

i've been wanting to get into digital art for a while, and I'm thinking of getting myself a tablet for this christmas. Any product recommendations?

i would say, particularly for a first tablet, i don't recommend a wacom, even though it's what i use currently (and what i'll probably get again if/when i eventually upgrade to a screen tablet). this is because, while the quality is great, they're very pricey in a way that isn't proportionate compared to other brands. it was one thing a decade ago when wacoms were often much better than other options, but now other brands have caught up and there's no reason to shell out that much extra unless there's a reason u need a wacom specifically. (i.e. i got my current wacom tablet as a gift years ago, but i would spring for wacom as a screen tablet bc i've done a lot of research on cintiqs vs other options and i think for my job i do need the extra oomph in terms of stuff like screen resolution/latency/parallax — not because a more expensive tablet/better performance will make me "draw better" but bc i spend so many hours drawing per week that better performance will reduce friction and make my job easier. if you're not concerned about "this device is about to be a massive part of my life so it had BETTER be the best machinery i can afford," i don't think the extra expense is worth it.)

also, specifically, the wacom intuos 4 pro is a piece of steaming fucking garbage from hell and its cord port WILL eventually die for no reason, and wacom support will not help you because how do you prove it died for no reason even though dozens of other ppl online have clearly experienced the exact same hardware failure, and then you will have to buy an external universal camera battery charger and remove the fucking tablet battery and charge it once every other day at an outlet BECAUSE YOU CAN'T CHARGE IT WITH THE CORD ANYMORE and only use the thing wirelessly. not that i know anything about that

so!!! with that said. my very first tablet was a tiny wacom bamboo (idk if they even make those anymore?), and after that when i had to replace it i got a monoprice. that was a long time ago so i can't vouch for current quality — pls look up recent reviews and do research on anything u pick — but my exp w monoprice was that it was crazy cheap and perfectly good quality. setting up the drivers was a complete nightmare, but once it was working it ran like a dream without any problems and i don't remember ever having to fuss repeatedly with driver resets, reinstalling shit, losing pen pressure, etc (all problems i have had with wacoms, and still do occasionally). that thing took me through several years of art school and then several more years after without an issue and only gave out when the actual hardware was starting to go from wear and tear, i.e. wires were getting loose and it had been dropped a few times.

those are the only ones i have personal experience with, but i've heard very good things about huion tablets, and they seem like a good middle ground of higher quality than monoprice vs cheaper than wacom.

general tips: get the biggest one you can afford, you'll be using it for a long time anyway and the very small ones are hell on your wrist. consider getting one with shortcut buttons; if you end up liking them you'll use them all the time, but if you don't (i never personally got into using mine!) they don't get in the way, so it's no harm. and when you get your tablet, find the pressure settings (there will almost definitely be a menu that comes w your tablet software, but also check your drawing program as well) and adjust the pressure sensitivity so you don't have to press down super hard!! this will save ur wrist.

[hornime]

watch and learn | iwaizumi hajime x f!reader x team japan

there were two things they all had in common: the growing bulges in their pants that they were urgently trying to distract themselves from, and the fact that their full attention was on you.

warnings: 18+, timeskip!everyone, BIG MANGA SPOILERS BASICALLY, exhibitionism, voyeurism, orgasm denial

w/c: 3.1k

a/n: now i don’t know if iwaizumi hajime (27) athletic trainer learned about female orgasms when he was studying sports science at irvine BUT he def knows how to show a girl a good time which is reason enough for me to write this. also, i read this article to prep for this piece and it was super enlightening, so i do recommend giving it a read if you’re interested!

in the middle of his morning run, iwaizumi slowed momentarily to check the repetitive buzzing of this phone, curious as to who was messaging him this early. when he’d left the apartment, you were sleeping, and you had the tendency to still be sleeping by the time he returned, so who else could it be?

he unlocked his phone, quickly finding the source of the notifications: the team japan group chat.

[06:43 AM] miya: hey @iwaizumi—you know stuff abt the human body right?

[06:43 AM] miya: cus like you studied it in college and shit??

iwaizumi rolled his eyes. i spent four years in america to earn my degree, came back home to support my country’s olympic team, and dealt with the biggest idiots of volleyball, only to get treated like this?

[06:44 AM] iwaizumi: yes, miya. i took many courses on the human body. in fact that’s the purpose of my job. to know the human body. because i am a fucking athletic trainer.

[06:44 AM] miya: okay okay i get it. dumb question

[06:44 AM] iwaizumi: why? is something up? you need help or anything?

[06:44 AM] miya: uhhh kinda

[06:44 AM] miya: @hinata i’m not fucking asking this

[06:44 AM] bokuto: bro just do it

[06:44 AM] miya: @hinata @hinata @hinata 

iwaizumi cocked an eyebrow. what the hell are they going on about?

[06:45 AM] iwaizumi: so am i needed or...

[06:45 AM] hinata: YES

[06:45 AM] hinata: we had a question

[06:46 AM] sakusa: by “we” he means him, miya, and bokuto

[06:46 AM] suna: yeah don’t bring us into this

[06:46 AM] hinata: don’t listen to them! both suna and sakusa wanna know too

[06:46 AM] iwaizumi: okay. what’s up

[06:47 AM] hinata: we wanted to know how to make a girl cum

he chuckled in disbelief.

[06:47 AM] iwaizumi: you’re telling me that you guys are in your mid-20s, literal olympic athletes, and you don’t know how to make a girl cum

[06:47 AM] iwaizumi: have you never done it before??

[06:47 AM] miya: NO

[06:47 AM] miya: FOR THE RECORD IVE MADE MANY GIRLS CUM

[06:48 AM] bokuto: ME TOO

[06:48 AM] bokuto: i think

he laughed out loud, briefly startling another runner on the sidewalk.

[06:48 AM] iwaizumi: you guys are unbelievable

[06:48 AM] hinata: i mean she says she finished but idk what i did to make that happen

[06:48 AM] bokuto: ^^

[06:48 AM] hinata: so like i wanna know how to actually do it

[06:48 AM] suna: actually im kinda interested in this too

[06:48 AM] aran: i pray for your future girlfriends. this is painful to see. im out

[06:48 AM] kageyama: i’m with aran on this one. you guys are dumb

[06:48 AM] hinata: shut up. you suck.

[06:48 AM] miya: cmon iwaizumi, help a guy out

[06:48 AM] sakusa: it wouldnt hurt for you to give us some pointers at least

iwaizumi sighed.

[06:49 AM] iwaizumi: @miya @hinata @bokuto @suna @sakusa meet in the locker room after practice. ill give you guys a lesson in the art of pleasing a woman

to teach effectively, he needed a volunteer, though he was sure you wouldn’t need much convincing. you’d always loved the attention, and the biceps, of the pro athletes. he spun on his heel and jogged home.

you woke up to the sound of your apartment door opening, your boyfriend creeping inside, forehead damp with sweat.

“hey,” you said quietly, making your way towards him.

“hey, baby. sorry for waking you up, i was trying to be quiet.”

you giggled sleepily. “s’okay, haji. you spoil me too much anyway, always letting me sleep in for hours while you’re off doing god knows what.”

at that, his eyes crinkled in amusement, and as you tried to step into a hug, he shuffled back. “woah there, baby. i gotta shower, ‘m all gross from my run. and then,” he gave you a peculiar look that you couldn’t quite place, “i got a proposition for you.”

after his shower, he waltzed out of the bathroom, steam wafting out from behind the door. his tanned body made you feel things you definitely shouldn’t be barely an hour after the sun’s risen, and you reached out to massage the tension in his shoulders. “so, what’s your proposition?”

“well,” he hesitated. “it’s a bit... unconventional. the team asked me to show them how to make a girl cum,” he took in your intrigued expression. “and it’d be a lot easier to explain if i had someone to do a live demonstration with. so,” his eyes flicked up to you. “that’s where you’d come in.”

“a... live demonstration? like you’re gonna make me cum in front of them?”

“yeah, essentially.” he gave you a devilish grin. “you want that, baby? wanna show those boys how a real man treats a gorgeous woman like you?”

you rubbed your thighs at his words. “yeah,” you purred. “i do. wanna show them how good you are to me.”

and that’s how you found yourself nestled between iwaizumi’s muscled thighs, back pressed against his chest, completely naked, with five of japan’s best volleyball players staring at your body in awe.

practically an expert in his field, iwaizumi knew the human body inside and out. this had many benefits; of course it allowed him to catapult up the ranks and work with the country’s best athletes to keep them at the top of their game, but it also had a unique side effect: an overwhelming vault of knowledge on how to make a woman feel good anywhere. 

you’d seen the proof firsthand; he knew exactly where to push, prod, stroke, and tease to have you cumming in seconds, over and over, as many times as you wanted. he was amazing, and you were well-aware just how lucky you were to have such a talented man in the sheets.

“oi,” iwaizumi snapped his fingers, drawing each of the players’ eyes away from your glistening cunt. “pay attention. i know more than anybody that she’s hot as fuck, but you gotta listen to what i’m saying or else there’s no point to this.”

he lightly pressed his lips against your collarbone, slowly tracing them against your jaw, the contact making you squirm. “if you wanna make a girl cum, first thing you gotta do is make her comfortable. if she’s worried about how she looks or sounds or smells she’s gonna be too stressed to let go.” he moved his hands to grope your tits, his calloused fingers brushing over your hardening nipples. “so reassure her, tell her how irresistible she is, how pretty her moans are, how tasty her pussy is. shit like that. the sexier she feels the better it’ll be.”

he leaned into you, whispering into your ear. “feeling good, baby? we can stop whenever.”

you nodded weakly, afraid to open your mouth, barely holding in your whines as his palms worked wonders on your chest and stomach, sending shocks of heat wherever they touched. 

you craned your neck up to observe the men before you. atsumu was flushed red, wringing his hands as if he was worried they’d do something embarrassing if he didn’t keep them occupied. hinata was bouncing his leg up and down, wiping his palms on his shorts as he took in the plushness of your thighs. bokuto was basically drooling, greedily tracing your soft curves with his eyes. suna maintained his indifferent expression, but the reddening tips of his ears showed that he was a lot more hot and bothered than he let on. sakusa stood quietly to the side, leaning against the wall, mask tucked under his chin as if he’d just realized how much the temperature had gone up in the room.

there were two things they all had in common: the growing bulges in their pants that they were urgently trying to distract themselves from, and the fact that their full attention was on you.

"make sure to try different things; there’s multiple ways to make a woman cum. only like a quarter of women experience orgasms just from penetration,” someone made a sound of shock. “yes, the number is that small, bokuto.” 

his fingertip slowly trailed past your belly button, dipping into the mess between your thighs, causing you to slightly arch your back into the solid chest supporting you. “foreplay with the clit is your best bet; even stupid fucks like you probably wouldn’t screw it up too bad.”

hinata opened his mouth to speak, but iwaizumi anticipated his question and continued.

“i know you’re wondering where the clit is. it’s around here, under this hood of skin,” he slid his digit between your labia. “s’not gonna come with a label so you gotta explore a little bit. i know where hers is like the back of my hand, but for you guys, with your girls, you’re gonna have to move your fingers around. slowly. and pay attention to her expressions.” he began to rub in a circular motion around your clit, causing you to make small whimpers of pleasure and shift your hips to meet his movements. 

“if she clenches up or twitches when you feel a certain spot, like this,” your legs flexed as he increased the pressure, “that’s the clit. be kind, it’s not a volleyball. be gentle n’ make small circles, whether it’s with your fingers or your tongue.” 

he thought for a second. “speaking of which, oral’s important. very important. most women cum when they’ve been eaten out, so use your mouths for something more useful than just dirty talk. suck on the clit, maybe tongue-fuck her a ‘lil, but your main focus should always be the clit.”

he removed his hands from your sopping pussy, and you made a pathetic noise of frustration. “’m sorry, baby,” he muttered seductively in your ear. “don’t wanna have you finishing too early. lesson’s barely started.”

he turned his attention back to your audience, his lustful tone being replaced by a more instructional one. “there’s other places that’ll help a woman orgasm, too: her nipples, her neck, her ears—”

“her ears?” sakusa questioned. he blushed profusely as everyone turned to look at him, surprised that he’d opened his mouth. “what? we were all thinking it.”

“s’a valid question,” iwaizumi said. “yeah, you can lick ‘em if they’re sensitive. hers are.” as if to prove his statement, he licked a stripe on the shell of you ear, making you wiggle helplessly at the stimulation. “‘n leave kisses everywhere else. feels good for them just like it does for us.” he wrapped an arm around your waist, pulling you closer to him and forcing your movements to stop as he traced patterns with his tongue all around your neck.

“something you should know about an orgasm is that it’s something called a positive feedback loop.” he looked up and was met with five blank stares. shouldn’t have expected anything from these dumb jocks, he lamented. “basically that means that, once you start releasing sexual tension, things will feel better and better until you climax.”

“oh!” atsumu chirped. “like how my sets get better and better throughout a game.”

“no, not really,” he quipped. “your sets suck throughout.” atsumu frowned at that.

iwaizumi exhaled exasperatedly. “the general idea is that the body gets more and more sensitive, muscle contractions become more and more frequent, and touches feel more and more stimulating until you cum. all right?”

they all made noises of understanding except for bokuto and hinata, whose eyes had glazed over at the first mention of an academic term. whatever, iwaizumi thought. they’ll get it through example.

"don’t worry about it too much if you don’t get it, that’s just an orgasm on paper. in practice, though, this is the crucial step: listen to her. she knows what feels good. never forget that you’re just an idiot with a cock.” he took a breath, gathering his thoughts before proceeding with his lecture.

“if she tells you to slow down, you slow down. if she tells you to go harder, you go harder. if she tells you to keep doing what you’re doing, you...”

“keep doing what you’re doing”, they all chimed in at staggered times.

“that’s right. don’t go faster or else you’ll mess up the rhythm and she won’t cum. and you wanna make her cum, don’t you?”

they nodded simultaneously.

“so if you keep up the tempo and force that feels good to her, you’ll be fine. questions?”

suna spoke up. “what about,” he choked on the word. “penetration?”

hinata hummed in agreement and bokuto jumped in. “yeah, what if i wanna make her cum on my cock?”

iwaizumi made a weird face. “that’s some pretty advanced stuff, but i guess i can go over it. when you try it, though, you have to be patient. with both of your bodies. s’not rocket science but s’not always easy. also it depends on the woman but sometimes she physically won’t be able to finish from penetration alone. just make sure you’re communicating.”

his swirled two fingers over your hole before shoving them in, your wetness making it easy for him to thrust in and out as your entrance stretched to accommodate him. “f—fuck!” your eyes flew open at the intrusion and you body lurched forward, but you were held back by his strong forearm. “ohmygod, oh my g—ah! feels s’good haji, s’good!”

“i know, baby, i know. you’re taking it so well.” he turned his attention back to the men, each of who were gulping heavily. if that didn’t signal to you that they were evidently affected by your moans, the way they shifted in their workout shorts did.

“boys, focus.” he curled his fingertips, brushing at the spongy spot at the top of your walls, ripping a pleasured wail from your throat and causing tears to prick at your eyelashes. “when you’re fingering her, you’ll feel an area inside that’s a bit soft and squishy. that’s the g-spot.”

you trembled in his arms as he mercilessly struck the same place over and over again with his fingers. “when you’re fucking her, try to keep the pressure building there, but it’ll be harder to make her finish since you can’t see what you’re doing.”

your breath hitched as iwaizumi’s incessant movements brought your body tantalizingly close to your release. he suddenly stopped and you almost sobbed in disappointment, until he plunged his fingers impossibly deeper.

a guttural scream of ecstasy came from within you, and your eyes rolled back as he began playing with another part of you, your body putty in his hands. “hngh, haji, ah! so good, s’good...” you threw your hands back around his neck, nails digging into the skin as you desperately tried to keep yourself grounded. your soft moans filled the air.

“stop clenching,” he hissed. “can barely move my hand.” you tried to relax but failed miserably as the tips of his fingers grazed your cervix. 

“holy fuck,” suna muttered. “you’re a god.”

“she sounds so pretty,” atsumu said in amazement.

“i wanna make a girl feel good like that, too!” bokuto sulked.

“you can do it, bokuto!” hinata hit him on the arm. “just listen to iwaizumi. clearly he knows what he’s talking about.” 

their eyes refocused on your figure, writhing in pleasure, prompting white hot waves of arousal to pool in their stomachs. 

“yeah,” sakusa said. “clearly.”

“stop talking,” iwaizumi ordered. “and listen. beyond the g-spot is the cervix, which is basically the end of the vagina. if you’re long enough,” he briefly scanned each of their faces, “which i’m sure you are, you’ll be able to reach it if you bottom out.”

“haji—hajime, please.” the stimulation was coming absolutely unbearable, and you could tell he was sadistically holding you at the edge, refusing to give you the satisfaction of finishing. “lemme cum, please. please lemme cum, please, please, i can’t—i can’t take it ‘nymore!”

“what was that? you can’t take it anymore? gonna cum?” you helplessly bobbed your head up and down, hoping that he’d give you permission. “well,” he growled, “we can’t have that happening, can we?”

he abruptly halted his thrusts, pulling his fingers out of you with an embarrassing squelch and popping them into his mouth. pearly tears rolled down your cheeks as you grieved the loss of contact and relief.

your viewers looked on in horror, feeling immense sympathy for you; you just looked so dejected from being denied yet another orgasm.

“why didn’t you—why didn’t you let her cum?” bokuto asked.

“why do you think?” iwaizumi snapped. “don’t want you guys to see her when she does. that’s for me, and only me.”

“oh, okay,” he responded, disgruntlement clear in his voice.

iwaizumi’s glare could cut glass, it was so sharp. the possessiveness that had enveloped his mind made him hyperfocus on just one thought: being alone with you. “so, any other questions? if not, we’re done here.”

you pouted at that, not wanting the demonstration to be over. “but haji,” you mumbled into his collarbone. “i di’nt get to cum. and i wanna.” you looked up at him, eyes wide with want. “please make me cum.”

iwaizumi sent a harsh glance to the players that nonverbally communicated his message loud and clear: get out. they shuffled awkwardly out of the locker room due to the hardness between their legs that they would most definitely need to deal with soon.

your boyfriend turned his attention back to you. “’m sorry, i know i had to deny you a bunch of times. i just really hated the idea of anyone but me seeing the cute way you look when you cum.”

you made a small noise of acknowledgement and a little whisper of it’s okay, haji. he looked down, sensing the way your poor, desperate cunt was pulsing around nothing, the erotic sight injecting him with the pure need to ravage you.

he shifted his head to kiss you passionately. “why don’t i make it up to you?” he breathed between your parted lips before picking you up by the backs of your thighs, forcing you to lock your ankles around his waist. 

he delicately situated you onto one of the recovery beds at the back of the room, before murmuring something that made your pussy throb in anticipation: “i’ll make you cum whichever way you want, however many times you want, all right? all you gotta do is lay back and take it.”

© property of hornime 2021. do not plagiarize any of my writing and do not repost/copy my writing onto any other sites.

[fbfh]

dave strider crushing on you hcs

So I shifted to homestuck recently and scared the shit out of everyone by cliff diving, their reactions were hilarious. Also dave kabedon-ed me and it was the best thing ever.

Anyway

This is the song I was listening to and it fits rlly well lol

Let's get into it

Dave with a crush is… something else

We already know

In spite of how much he tries to hide it

How smart and dedicated and creative he is

Due to his

Unique

Sense of humor

A lot of this is displayed through shitposts and crackheadery

The thing is once he realizes he likes you unironically???

All bets are off baby

The most obvious sign is that he stares at you pretty much all the time

He’ll just

Not in like, a creepy way or anything

But he’ll watch you while you’re hanging out

You could be staring at a wall and he’d find you interesting

I feel like his music is on a spectrum between 100gecs and atlas

Most of his music is on the former end of the spectrum

But once and a while he’ll drop a song that’s actually really sweet

His followers love to see his softer songs and always hype him up even though they’re very few and far between

He drops like four songs back to back and they’re like

Oh shit bro

You got it bad

And he does

He’s got it very bad

His bro gave him some sage wisdom

Which is “if you write a song for a babe you’re falling for, don’t show them till you’ve got your head straight cause it probably won’t be as good as you think. Except for my beats, which are all fire, always, no exceptions.”

The harder he falls for you, the harder it is to follow that advice

He likes being around you, too

If either of you leave for any reason he’ll either volunteer to go with you or offer you to come with him

Beverage runs, side quests, walking Jade’s dog for gods sake

Any excuse to be near you is one he’ll take

He’ll also just kinda stand or sit near you too

Being close to you physically is more intense than looking at you, so he does that a little less

Just because it’s a lot, yk

Oh god don’t get me started on the showing off and clowning for your attention

Even John is like wow bro you’re kind of doing a lot right now even for you are you good

The answer is no

Because he has not made you laugh enough yet

In spite of what he posts on sweet bro and hella jeff he’s actually a pretty good artist

Mostly digital because he favors intense color pallets

But he usually does make the drawings and edits for the covers of his songs and eps from scratch

He’ll notice some cute trait of yours

Or several

And they start getting incorporated into his album art on soundcloud

He’s fallen so hard his followers start to call him out on it

“Is this the same angel from the last song”

“Bro you gotta talk to them”

“SIMP”

Yeah he’s got it really bad

He keeps hoping that John or someone will casually mention his soundcloud so you’ll listen to all the sappy jams inspired by you

If you really can’t tell how bad he has it for you at this point

He playfully has you wear his sunglasses

Like how some people will jokingly steal their crushes baseball cap or beanie or w/e

He does the opposite

Everyone is painfully aware of how into you he is

Probably everyone but you at this point

He’s liked you from the moment he saw you so you probably think he’s just like this

When it gets to the point that his bro catches him slumped over his turntables, beet red from thinking about you, staring into space because he’s so flustered that he can’t even put his feels into bars anymore

That’s how he knows it’s for real

Bro probably gives him some pointers on how to confess

And it’s only then that he realizes that he can confess to you

And that you might even reciprocate these feels

It’s like a pleasant slap to the face

He’s so consumed by this crush that he hadn’t even thought it could go further

Or that shooting his shot was a possibility

And now that’s all he’s thinking about

How to confess to you

And he realizes instantly

Make you a mixtape

He goes through his soundcloud and picks out his favorite songs he wrote about you

And writes some more to fill it out

He writes “for angel” in red sharpie on the front

He wants to give it to you immediately but it also takes him like, two days to work up the nerve

And now he has to get through the most agonizing part

He has to wait

And see what you think

And he likes you so much he feels like he’s about to combust

But that’s normal for a crush, right??

[wufflesvetinari]

IA copyright lawsuit, or “The Wayback Machine is Under Attack”

So, the Internet Archive copyright lawsuit thing is more complicated than it appears. This is a good rundown of the legal questions involved, while this NPR piece describes the reaction to “National Emergency Library” that pushed things to the brink.

TL;DR, the IA provides crucial archiving services (including the Wayback Machine), but they’ve recently started a large-scale illegal lending model that put their other services at risk. This is really disappointing to me and I’m going to write a long, dry post about it.

Essentially, the Internet Archive has historically only allowed books to be “lent out” digitally to as many people as the IA has physical copies stored. So if they have 2 copies of Mary Sue’s new book, only 2 people can be reading their PDF scans at a time. This was enough for many publishers and authors to look the other way (although groups like the Science Fiction Writers of America has been decrying the practice for years, since in many cases they were “lending” books they didn’t have licensing for.)

Because, while this is similar to the system used by libraries, libraries pay for each lending copy of their book (ensuring that the authors, artists, publicists, editors, etc are getting paid). the IA, from many accounts, did not pay for all of these books in the first place. but again, small-scale enough that nobody went after them for it.

Due to the pandemic, they removed the waiting list for these books, arguing it was in the national public interest to have access to knowledge. Great! I respect this ideology. Except that rather than paying ~$0 for two digital copies w/o author permission, they’re now paying ~$0 for unlimited copies w/o author permission. Writers who put years of labor into these books began kicking up a fuss (including Chuck Wendig, who’s receiving death threats because I guess he’s the most recognizable name involved?) and publishers sued.

So nobody’s goal is to get the Archive taken down entirely. Instead, the argument is that the damages claimed in the lawsuit could absolutely be large enough to cripple them. The IA ended the emergency lending program earlier than planned, so we’ll see if the suit goes through after all.

So, why is this complicated?

On the one hand, copyright law sucks right now and many are understandably infuriated at the idea of huge publishing companies suing a free library. 

On the other hand, they were not operating as a library, and creators were failing to be paid for their work. with the new lending model, Mary Sue Author (who, as an average author, receives wages below the poverty line) is worried that this change is actively preventing her from making a living. If she’s a new author, an impact to her numbers is enough to ensure that the publisher doesn’t buy her next book. 

If Mary Sue is a marginalized author, she’s especially at risk of economic insecurity. If Mary Sue and authors like her cannot afford to write books, writing remains a domain of privilege. 

(Also, there’s some legal argument that if Mary Sue fails to actively protect her copyright, she could lose it. I’m not an expert and won’t weigh in on this.)

But wait! (Common Counterarguments swirling on the Twitters):

“Writing should be a hobby anyway. If you care about making money for your art, you’re not a real artist.” Hopefully we are all familiar by now with how shit this argument is; we see it a lot around here flung at visual artists. Pay people for their work! Also, again: this is how you get a bunch of WASP authors and nobody else.

“It’s actually the publishers screwing the authors, so this is a punishment for the publishers.” Except it is...not. It is not. The people most likely to suffer would be the writers, not the publishers. 

“Libraries are closed, so what are we supposed to do about it?” This one is tricky right now, but I’d first check to see if your library participates in an e-lending service (many do). check out OverDrive or Audible, which do pay authors. Project Gutenberg has free classics in the public domain. Amazon has its own problems, but Kindle Unlimited allows access to many, many free books where the author is actually seeing payment. 

“Okay, but why should the digital library of Alexandria go down because some authors are mad?” I honestly really want to ask this question to whoever was making these lending decisions at the IA, because I also am very pissed about it. I don’t know why they thought publishers would ignore this very blatantly illegal thing (not even “grey area”--just under current copyright law, completely illegal). Regardless of whether copyright law currently sucks ass, it was a weird move! And now bad things are happening.

“Fuck off, everybody mad about this writes YA and science fiction, not real literature. Who cares if those guys get paid?” Seriously. This is a very common rebuttal on Twitter right now. Burn Twitter.

“Honestly you’re right but I just want free shit.” is it weird that this is the response I most respect

In case you skimmed all that, my point isn’t “copyright law is good, actually.” It’s that the issue is more complex than donation drive posts have portrayed it as. 

[nevermindirah]

I've been drafting and redrafting this meta post for weeks now. It's about to be 5781 and my country that was founded on settler colonial genocide and slavery and a deeply flawed but fierce attachment to democracy might go full dictatorship in about 6 weeks and it's time for me to post this thing.

All our immortals are warriors, all have been traumatized by war. But only three of them died their first deaths as soldiers in imperial armies. This fandom has already produced gallons of meta on Nicky dealing with his shit, because Joe would not fuck with an unapologetic Crusader. But there's very rich stuff in Booker and Nile's experiences and the parallels and distinctions between them.

Nile was 11 when her dad was killed in action - that was 2005, meaning she and her dad both died in the same war that George W Bush started in very tenuous response to 9/11. Sure, Nile's dad could have died in either Iraq or Afghanistan, or in a training accident or in an off-the-books mission we won't know about for a hundred more years, but he died in the War on Terror all the same. I had to look it up to be sure because Obama "drew down" the Afghanistan war in his second term, but nope, we're still in this fucking thing that never should've happened in the first place. The US war in Afghanistan just turned 19 years old. A lot of real-life Americans have experiences like the Freemans, parents and children both dying in the same war we shouldn't be in.

I know a lot of people like Nile who join the US military not just because it's the only realistic way for them to pay for college or afford decent healthcare, but also because they have a family history of military service that's a genuine source of pride. Military service has been a way for Americans of color to be accepted by white Americans as "true Americans" - from today's Dreamers who Obama promised would earn protection from deportation by enlisting, to Filipino veterans of WW2 earning US citizenship that Congress then denied them for several decades, to slaves "earning" their freedom through service in the Union Army and in the Continental Army before it. As if freedom is a thing one should have to earn. Lots of Black Americans have the last name Freeman for lots of different escaping-slavery reasons, but it's possible that this specific reason is how Nile got her last name.

Dying in a war you know your country chose to instigate unnecessarily and that maybe you believe it shouldn't be waging is a very particular kind of trauma. It is a much deeper trauma when your military service, and your father's, and maybe generations of your ancestors', is a source of pride and access to resources for you but your sacrifice is nearly meaningless to the white supremacist system that deploys you. That kind of cognitive dissonance encourages a person to ignore their own feelings just so they can function. How do you wake up in the morning, how do you risk your life every day, how do you *kill other people* in a war that shouldn't be happening and that you shouldn't have to serve in just so that your country sees you as human?

We see Nile do her best to be a kind and well-mannered invader. Depending on your experience with US imperialism, Nile giving candy to kids and reminding her squad to be respectful is either heartwarming or very disturbing propaganda. We also see Nile clutching her cross necklace and praying. From the second Christianity arrived on this land it's been a tool of white supremacist assimilation and control, but like military service, it's a fucked-up but genuine source of pride and access to resources for many Americans whose pre-Columbian ancestors were not Christian, and it's a powerful source of comfort and resilience. This Jew who's had a lot of Spanish Inquisition nightmares would like to say for the record that it's not Jesus's fault that his big name fans are such shitty people.

Nile is a good person trying to do her best in a fucked-up world. "Her best" just radically changed. Her access to information on just how fucked up the world is has also just radically changed, because everything's so fucked up a person needs a lot of time to learn about it all and not only does she have centuries but she won't have to spend that time worrying about rent and healthcare and taxes, and because she now has Joe and Nicky and Andy's stories, and because she now has Copley's inside scoop on just what the fuck the CIA has been up to. Like, I want a fic where Copley tells Nile what was really behind the brass's decisions that led to her experiences on the ground in Afghanistan, that led to her father's death, but also I Do Not Want That.

Nile was 19 when Alicia Garza posted on Facebook that Black Lives Matter. She grew up in Chicago well before white people on Twitter were saying maybe police violence against Black people is a problem. She knows this is a deeply fucked up country, and she put on her Marine uniform and deployed with her team of mostly fellow women of color, and maybe she and Dizzy and Jay marched in the streets between deployments, maybe they texted each other when a white manarchist at a protest sneered at one of them for being a Marine. Nile's been busy surviving, and she knows some shit and she's seen some shit but she hasn't had much time to think about what it all means. Now she's got time. And Joe, Nicky, and Andy are willing to listen. (Is Copley willing to listen? I could see that going either way.)

Booker might also be willing to listen. The brilliant idea of cleaning up the rat Frenchman so that Nile can have millennia of emotional support and orgasms sent me down a Wikipedia rabbit hole, and holy shit do Booker and Nile have a lot of shared life experience as pawns of imperial wars. Obviously Booker is white and a man and that makes a very big difference. (Though G-d help me, Booker could be Jewish and France was knocking its Jews around like ping-pong balls in the 18th-19th centuries. Jewish Booker wouldn't make him any less white but it does add a shit ton of depth of common experience: military service as a way for your country to see you as a full member of society who matters, because who you are means that's not guaranteed.)

Booker was hanged for desertion from the army Napoleon sent to invade Russia as part of his quest to control all of Europe. We learn in the comics / this YouTube video that Booker was on his way to prison for forgery when he was offered military service instead of jail time. While we don't know how he felt about the choice beyond that he did choose soldier over inmate, it's unlikely he thought invading Russia was a great idea, given he tried to desert because Napoleon like a true imperialist dumbass didn't plan for how he was going to feed his army or keep them from freezing to death in fucking Russian winter.

I find it very interesting that the French Empire was at its largest right before invading Russia and fell apart completely within a few years. My country has been falling the fuck apart for a while now - see aforementioned War on Terror, growing extremes of economic stratification in the richest country in the world, abject refusal to meaningfully deal with climate change that US-based corporations hold the lion's share of blame for - but between Trump's abject refusal to meaningfully deal with the coronavirus and strong likelihood that he'll refuse to leave office even if a certain pathetic moderate I will hold my nose and vote for does manage to earn a majority of votes, ~y~i~k~e~s.

Our only immortals who have never known a world before modernity and nationalism happen to have been born of wars that were the beginning of the end for the imperialist democracies that raised them, and I think in the centuries to come that's going to give them some very interesting shit to talk about.

Nile's a Young Millennial, a digital native born in the United States after the collapse of the USSR left her country as the world's only superpower. She's used to a pace of technological change that human brains are not evolved to handle.

Napoleon trying to make all of Europe into the French Empire was a leading cause of the growth of European nationalism and the establishment of liberal democracies both in Europe and in many places that Europeans had colonized. Booker's first war produced the only geopolitical world order Nile has ever known and I just have so many feelings ok. Nile the art history nerd is probably not aware of this, and why would she be? This humble meta author is, like Nile, a product of US public schools, and all they taught me about world history was Ancient Greece/Rome/Egypt/Mesopotamia and then World War 2. Being raised in The World's Only Superpower is WEIRD.

Nile the Young Millennial is used to the devastating volume of bad news the internet makes possible. But she has absolutely no concept of a world where the United States of America is not The World's Only Superpower. In order to get up in the morning and put on her gear and point guns at civilians in Afghanistan, she can only let herself think so much about whether that American exceptionalism thing is a good idea.

She's about to spend many, many years where the only people who she can truly trust are people who are older than not only her country but the IDEA of countries.

She's got time, and she's got a lot of new information at her disposal. But there comes a point where my obsession with her friendship and eventual very hot sex life with Booker just isn't about sex at all. Nile needs someone to talk to about the United States who Gets It. Booker the rat Frenchman coerced into Napoleon's army, and Copley the Black dual citizen of the US and UK who's retired from a CIA career that he half understands as deeply problematic but half still believes in hence his mind-bogglingly stupid partnership with Merrick, are the only people on the planet Nile can talk to honestly about, and really be understood in, all the thoughts and feelings and fears and hopes of her experience as a US Marine.

And one more thing before I go get ready for Rosh Hashanah: Orientalism was a defining element of the Crusades and that legacy is painfully clear in current US-led Western military activity in Afghanistan, Syria, Israel/Palestine, you name it. Turns out memoirs by French veterans of the Napoleonic Wars are full of Orientalist language about Russia as well. I am maybe/definitely writing a fic where Booker spends his exile reading critical race theory and decolonial feminism and trauma studies monographs because he can't be honest with a therapist but maybe he can heal this way and become the team therapist his own damn self. I just really need him to read Edward Said and Gloria Anzaldúa and then go down on Nile, ok?