#this is actually one of the entries that I submitted at work for the Artist Month

[chimpukampu]

An artist needs a break, you know

[agentc0rn]

So... Pokémon has officially revealed the Top 300 quarter-finalists for the TCG illustration contest. I myself have participated, but unfortunately, did not make it. There were many awesome artworks!!

However... there has been a suspected case of an individual who entered with multiple identities (similar initials) through AI generated entries - V.K shows up in 6 entries. The weird and unnatural proportions, position, angle (look at vaporeon for instance) all give away indications of AI too.

The rules have clearly outlined multiple identities to lead to disqualification, yet the judges failed to take account into the suspicious number of similar styles appearing more than three times (surprassing the maximum number of 3 entries) with the initials.

"The rules in the contest affirmed that: submissions must be submitted by the Entrant. Any attempt, successful or otherwise, by any Entrant to obtain more than the permitted number of Submissions by using multiple and/or different identities, forms, registrations, addresses, or any other method will void all of that Entrant's Submissions and that Entrant may be disqualified at Sponsors' reasonable discretion."

This is very disappointing, Pokemon TCG. Not even just disappointing, this is very shameful and distasteful to artists who did not make it.

Edit: There also seems to be 2 more entries that are ai prompts but under a different name (pikachu sleeping with a background night landscape and another one sleeping on a tree root)

Here is a really good educational thread that explains the errors in the ai work (on Twitter)

UPDATE: on Twitter pokemon tcg actually addressed the issue, has disqualified the person with multiple identities and will be selecting more entries from other artists!!

[maniculum]

Perlesvaus (Evans translation)

So I'm taking another stab at reading the Sebastian Evans translation of Perlesvaus, for... reasons. Or the High History of the Holy Graal, as he titles it -- funnily enough, the people who put out this reprint apparently looked at the title, said "we're not doing that", and spelt it Grail on the cover.

Despite the bizarre choices in diction, it's still pretty fun, and I want to share some particularly entertaining bits of this text with y'all. (For those of you who aren't up on the two different translations of Perlesvaus and don't know what I mean by "bizarre choices", the Evans translation is from 1898 but pretending to be from, like, 1498.)

N.B.: Marginal notes in red are from the last time I tried this -- they stop showing up roughly a quarter of the way through the book, because that's when I decided to buy the Bryant translation instead.

I just find this funny because "who cares?" strikes me as such a modern thing to say. To me it is a phrase that seems most natural coming from a teenage character in late-20th-century media. But nope. "Who careth?"

This is here just for the bizarre scene. We have three women coming into the throne room (riding mules directly into the building, by the way). One is carrying a severed head decorated with silver and gold. Another has "a pack trussed behind her with a brachet thereupon" -- you can see from the notes that I had to look up "brachet", found out it was an old word meaning roughly "female scent-hound", and then had the mental image of this woman carrying around a beagle in a baby-bjorn.

Again something I find funny. Gawain just leaping through the air to interpose himself between the horses and this hermit, like he's trying to take a bullet for them. This is entirely because he is 100% certain the hermit will handle the saddles incorrectly, and when the hermit assures him he actually does know how this stuff works, Gawain calms down & lets him do it.

This is, for my money, one of the funniest things in all of Perlesvaus, which is saying something because it is a bonkers text. This lady rolls up and provides that description, and the hermit recognizes who she's talking about. Like, "oh yes I did see a knight with a heart of steel and the navel of a virgin". I want to give this description to a sketch artist. (I kind of want to throw it at an AI just to see what it comes up with, but you know. I don't want to encourage the machines.)

This time I'm nit-picking the translation, because that strikes me as a misplaced modifier. Obviously it's meant that Gawain is unaware of events, but the sentence is constructed to make it sound like it's referring to the building itself, which is of course unaware because it's a building and isn't aware of anything. (Also, side note, I like the phrase "as methinketh!")

One more, and I'm leaving this for now...

Here is a case where I was going to complain, but on further examination, I must hand it to Evans. I assumed that he was just randomly archaizing, but I looked it up after uploading this photo, and according to the OED, this was a valid alternate spelling of sovereign from the 17th to the 19th century. (Interestingly, the latest attested example on the OED is from 11 years before this translation was published, meaning this is evidence it was in use slightly longer than the OED entry would suggest -- does anyone know if there's still a way to submit instances of a word to the OED?)

[vetted-gaza-funds]

Info (WIP)

Complete master list of all campaigns on this blog here!

This blog is run by @palms-upturned. I am a white USAmerican, and I do not vet fundraisers. Unfortunately, I cannot help with the vetting process in any way. This blog is meant to be a place to broadcast fundraisers that have already been vetted by Palestinian bloggers and organizations, mostly by users el-shab-hussein, nabulsi, 90-ghost, and ibtisams. None of us will ever be able to thank these users enough for the life-saving work that they have done and continue to do. If you cite this blog, please do not say “verified/vetted by vetted-gaza-funds”. Instead, please consider copy/pasting the sources that I link in my posts, or at the very least link directly to my post about the fundraiser in question where the sources can be found and say “featured on” rather that “vetted by.”

This blog is also going to be used more as a directory/master list than an actual blog. The aim is for people to be able to search usernames of people in Gaza and find links to verifications from multiple sources, as well as things like raffles or giveaways promoting certain campaigns, in one convenient place. For reblogs/signal boosting, please go to my main blog, @palms-upturned. If you are a user in Gaza promoting a fundraiser, I am more than happy to promote it for you, but I will only post about it on this blog once, and all other promotions will be on my other blog. I promise I am not ignoring you.

Here is a post with a list/directory of organizational tags on this blog. (WIP)

Sources where you can find vetted fundraisers:

el-shab-hussein and nabulsi's spreadsheet

gazafunds.com

Operation Olive Branch’s spreadsheet

Strawberry Seed Collective’s master list

Operation Poppy Flower

Project Watermelon master list

GoFund(water)Me(lons) master list

Ottawa4Palestine

Pali Pals on instagram

If someone in Gaza reaches out to you asking for help promoting their campaign, here's some things that you can do:

Do not report someone unless they are a known scammer. This platform has been targeting Palestinian users in Gaza for bans and terminations consistently, forcing them to remake their accounts several times, so a blog that appears new is not necessarily a red flag and may even already be vetted. Some users also take longer to get verified than others, especially those who struggle the most with staying connected to the internet. If someone reaches out to you and you can't find verification, please, just wait.

Along with sharing their posts, make your own original post linking to their campaign, even if it's just the link and a few words saying that you donated to them.

Link to a verification source in your posts about fundraisers. People are trying to avoid circulating unvetted fundraisers, so they'll be more likely to engage with your post if they can see proof that the campaign is legitimate. It will also help people who come across your post while doing a quick tumblr search of someone's username or fundraiser to check if someone has been vetted.

Posts with artwork/graphics typically gain more traction. User aces-and-angels, with the help of volunteer artists and designers, has been compiling a master post of donated artwork that is free to use to help boost fundraisers for people in Gaza, so check it out here and consider using these images in your posts! Please consider submitting artwork of your own as well for the cause.

Please considering sponsoring a campaign! There are many ways to do this. Some users have put together raffles where proof of a donation of a certain amount earns one entry into the raffle. Some users have offered charity commissions in exchange for donations to a campaign. Some users offer to match donations up to a certain amount, or promise to do/make something if a fundraiser reaches a certain milestone. I plan on eventually making a tag for campaigns with no sponsors so that people can look through it and hopefully pick one to sponsor. If you let me know about your efforts, I will add links/information about it to the post about the campaign you’re sponsoring!

Please spare a few minutes to look through this post about some recently terminated GoFundMe campaigns and how you can help pressure the platform into hopefully giving the funds back to the organizers.

Icon source | Banner design source

[mythicalviper-fr]

hi! Thank you for making your guide, it’s been so helpful as a new skin artist. I’m still confused about how to make good festival submissions (?) I thought my submission for Rockbreaker’s Ceremony fit all the conditions you talked about but no one seemed interested in my skin. Do you have any advice on how newer artists can make a good entry?

I'm happy the guide's helped! It is less of a checklist and more on how I personally approach the contest. There are a lot of things I don’t think I described well technique-wise, so I’ve considered making step-by-step tutorials to approach each contest that would better encapsulate the win conditions I described. But for now, here’s one way you can approach a contest, particularly if you’re a new artist.

1. Pick Your Breed (and Battles)

Breed variety, as I stated in the guide, is the Number One reason I win any contest. This is where I think I should’ve gone more into why I favored the Ridgeback F base - it’s important to pick a canvas that will not impede your ability to create and more importantly, a canvas that makes you comfortable as an artist. Ridgeback F has a big wingspace that serves as a good canvas and the anatomy is easy (for me) to design on, which is why this is the canvas I default to.

Here are some of the best “starter” canvases for new artists, in my personal opinion:

Wildclaw M and F: these bases, particularly the F pose, don’t get many submissions (look at their submission rate in the Gala!) They have a standard dino anatomy that’s easy to understand and work around.

Fae M: Fae rarely get entries. The big wingspace is a great canvas, and more importantly, the M Fae canvas is pretty small compared to the others, so it’s less daunting. The shrimp posture can be a bit hard to grasp, but you can honestly just do a wingcent.

Coatl M and F: Coatl is a great base for new artists if shadows and lines are disrupting your creative process, because they don’t have as much of those. (You can also turn shadows/lines off while you’re drawing. I usually have shadows off and lineart at 30% opacity. Just remember to turn them back on when you submit!)

2. Theme Your Skin: Canonical Elements

August goes into this better in his guide, but you generally want to stick closer to canon. Think of skin contests like an art contest for a fandom. If you were submitting to, say, a Percy Jackson art contest, you’ll probably draw inspiration from Greek and Roman mythology, not Aztec or Chinese mythology. Flight Rising is the same. So, here are canonical places you can draw inspiration from:

Past festival familiars and apparel

Existing vistas, scenes, and World Map locations

Artistic interpretations of the canonical lore

If you do want to go outside of canon, my suggestion is to pick a neutral element. This means something that doesn’t have any religious/otherwise connotations, and is still related to the flight. I.e.: icy mountains for the ice flight, different types of minerals for the earth flight, different types of plants for nature. You are making an official item for the site, so work with that in mind.

3. Skin Composition: Balance

Composition is how the elements in an art piece work together. I struggle a lot with it, so I am not the best person to speak on this. What I’ve found that works for me is focusing the canvas on one big thing and putting small elements around it. That big item is usually wings, which is a great neutral component that can take on attributes of different elements. If you look at my skins, they usually follow the equation of skin = 1 big element (wings, bones, crystals) + 2 small elements (gradients, sparkles, butterflies, leaves, flowers).

[RBC 2023 = bones + crystals + rocks] [TC 2022 = wings + gradient + wispy shadow things]

4. Skin Execution: Actually Drawing the Thing

The best part of festival contests is the skill bar is quite low. I am going to contradict myself slightly by saying you do need a basic understanding of how to draw, but aside from that, contests are forgiving if you aren’t an experienced artist. I had six months of experience when I won my first contest and more recently, I was drawing with zero wrist mobility. These are some of my recent skins that were created when I could not render the way I usually do or use line weight.

[TCC 2023 & ROR 2023] 

In comparison, here are skins when I could render and line weight.

[WS 2023 & GG 2023]

Importantly, all of these skins won. So that’s why, from my perspective, whether you’re an experienced artist or not, whether you know how to render or not, is not the point.

I don’t want to imply that you don’t need any skill to win a contest… it is a contest, after all. I think what I’m trying to say is: to make the best entry you can, you need to know the skills that complement YOUR art style. It isn’t necessarily the skill difference between artists that determines who wins, it’s how you use the skills you have to bring out the most in your piece. 

There is no one way to making good art. And the hardest obstacle as a new artist is finding out what enhances your art style. You may not even have an art style yet, and that’s okay. That’s why it’s vital you continue exploring - which contests are great for.

Again, everything in this post is only what I have personally observed. This approach will not work for everyone, since everyone’s creative process is going to be different. But I hope this is a good bare-bones, structured, guide as to what I personally focus on – and I hope that it’s good for reference, even if the specific steps aren’t helpful for you ^^

[rockmiyabideusexmachina]

2024 Megaman Summer Fanart Contest *CLOSED*

Happy Rockman Day! Time for this year's Megaman Summer Fanart Contest rules thread! Two categories, in which you are allowed to submit one entry for each category, if you would like. If you place in one category, you will be automatically disqualified from the other, for reasons of fairness, and to give other people a chance to win a prize. CATEGORY 1 (Talent): Pallette Pastiche

Ms. Museum Curator is back, looking for new pieces of art to display in the Kattleox Art Museum! A couple years ago for Valentine's Day, she needed your creations to display for an exhibit that featured a little bit of red and showed a little bit of love. This summer, her new exhibit is all about pastiche on your palette. What is pastiche? It's an artsy term that essentially means to imitate another work/artist/period. Or to just simplify it, we're talking a parody. So, for this theme, I would like you to parody any work of art, be it a famous painting, sculpture, etc.,…or maybe a piece that isn't as popular…only with Megaman characters involved in it.

As a visual example, way back in the CapcomUnity days, for Mega Man 10's release, there were fanart contests for each new Robot Master. When Solar Man came up, I decided to do an homage of this cognac poster art by Leonetto Cappiello:

Your possibilities are endless, depending on how ambitious you want to be! Alien Dr. Wily in Munch's 'The Scream,' Botticelli's 'Birth of Shield Sheldon,' Higsby carving the 'Venus de Mariko,' Da Vinci's 'Mona Laika,' or even 'The Last Cross Fusion Supper,' featuring the immortal Barrel and his 12 CF disciples. Just to throw out a few ideas. Content Requirements: * Megaman character(s) of your choice in a parody of a real art piece * please also send me a pic of the actual art piece with your entry, just so we can all see what you were referencing CATEGORY 2 (Humor): Pirates of the Alohahabean

Y'arr, ahoy me hearties! As voted by you on Twitter, the humor theme this year will be pirate-themed. Pirates have plenty of rep in the franchise, from Classic's Pirate Man, Marty and her band of pirates in Iwamoto's X manga, the Bonne family sky pirates, unused Tribe forms in Star Force, or, well…Ashe huntin' for booty.

For this theme, you can take any of those aforementioned pirate-y characters, or use any others of your choosing dressed up or acting like pirates, in the hunt for treasure. It could be a chest full of zenny, jewels, The Mother Lode, or whatever other booty you can imagine. The only problem is, this pirate treasure hunt is disturbing other characters who are just trying to enjoy a summer day on the beachy sands or the high seas. Your job is to draw the most hilarious scene in which this quest for a glorious bounty goes awry. Savvy?

Content Requirements: * Mega Man character(s) of your choice who are pirates or dressed/act as pirates hunting for treasure * A comical scene where these pirates interrupt a nice day on the beach/in the water for other characters PRIZES: The winners for each category will receive the following: 1st Place: $175 USD 2nd Place: $100 USD 3rd Place: $75 USD SUBMISSION GUIDELINES: When you submit, I would prefer you to include the following information in this format, along with your entry: • (Your name/preferred alias) – As much as I usually know who you are, there’s always someone new or somebody who has a different preference from what their email name says. • (Category this entry is for) – You can either say 1/2, or talent/humor Only submit your own work, as usual. Any character, major or minor, from any series is allowed. OCs are allowed, as long as your art contains at least one canon Megaman character. As always, participants are allowed to submit from all over the world. Paypal is still the preferred method for cash prize payouts. Please have a valid account to receive your winnings. Kids, get your parents permission before entering. Entries do not need to be colored, but it is preferred. The more effort put into things as always, the better chance you have! Entries can either be e-mailed to me at rock2125[at]hotmail[dot]com, or you can just PM/note me a link to your pic. DO NOT post your pics in this journal, your dA galleries, Twitter, tumblr blogs, other sites, etc. until the contest is over. This is the fairest way for competitive reasons. I prefer to keep them all secret until the deadline has passed. I'll edit a confirmed entry list in this thread when I receive them. So you won't be in the dark about whether or not I've received your entry. DEADLINE: The deadline for this contest will be Sunday, August 25th, 2024 by 11:59PM, global end of day. This gives you over 2 months to finish your entry! MISCELLANEOUS INFO: As usual, If you don't plan to enter, but would like to help me judge, please let me know through DM or mention so here. Never hurts to have extra opinions on all the entries. Bug me with questions if you have any. Please join in, and good luck to everyone who enters! Confirmed Entries: Cat 1. - @aw-colorcat, @digitallyfanged, JazzmanZ, Ryan Vogler, @dwn-059, @puyonlilah, Ivo, @purplerubyred, @nightopianfoxgirl, Tori Campan, ArtisIan, @sylviidaee, Cat. 2 - @pstart, @dwn-059, Kamicciolo, @duskblogsthings, AbilityField, ArtisIan, @megagundamman, V-Campan,

[tspud-whiteboard]

[Full Previews, Final Files and Extras can be found on GoogleDrive!] !!! THE DEADLINE HAS ARRIVED !!! (End of June it was) I am currently working on putting together the final files, but as this might take a while, YOU CAN STILL KEEP SENDING ME YOUR FELLAS! Once I’ve prepared the actual, finished, fullsize versions, this pinned post will unpin itself and I’ll put a different one here, with the final previews, the download links and some information what the future may hold... maybe I’ll do a Season Two if the interest is there. But we’ll have to see about that. For now, [SUBMIT MORE] like the wind while you still can! Hello, hello! Welcome to The Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe Whiteboard Collaboration (a just-for-fun fan project)! I’m assuming that you found your way here because you’re well aware what The Stanley Parable is, and that you are curious to know what a Whiteboard Collaboration might be about!

Let me cut straight to the case then. It all started in 2023 - the 27th of April, to be precise - which just so happened to be the One Year Anniversary for the release of The Stanley Parable Ultra Deluxe on Steam and consoles, along with the historically very important and internationally renowned - or at the very least grudgingly accepted - 4/27: STANLEY DAY!

To celebrate the occasion, and only one day too late on the 28th, an idea came forth to put together a Whiteboard, containing all those Stanleys by all the fan artists out there (all credited, of course!), a worthy tribute to the Man of the Hour! And as you can see... we’ve already got quite a few collected!

But why stop there? Since plenty of people also came up with their own Narrator designs, and there’s a good few Timekeeper-Settings-432s and Curators, and plenty of other characters (defining the term loosely here), we might as well give them all their own little space to look absolutely dashing next to each other! Imagine, all those different designs, united in one glorious collection!

My point being... I’d love to see yours in there as well.

So... how can you join in?

The gist can be found up there in the first image, but let me also put it into text form down here, with some extra information:

[Submit] your Stanley, Narrator, 432 or Curator mugshot (or all of them at the same time!). You have [some other canon TSP favorite]? Go ahead, submit ‘em, too! We’ll find a spot. The format of the picture needs to be 300px (width) x 400px (height) to fit with the others. I can resize and cut them into shape if needed, but it’ll be easier on all of us if I don’t have to do that. All pictures will have a small white frame added by me afterwards, to give them that authentic printout flair.

Should the [Submit] button not work for you (I triple-checked and it works for me, but then who knows what this thing does while I’m not looking), sending your artworks through PM or tell me where you posted them is fine as well!

AUs and all art styles are fine! Please only submit one picture per character (if you have more than one design, maybe pick your favorite, or elegantly squeeze them into one picture. If you absolutely cannot decide, sending two pictures per character is okay, but I’d like to cap it there to give everyone equal amounts of space.

Must be Safe For Work!

This is also very important: Tell me how to credit you! Your name will go under your artwork, I do have to put something there. I’ll likely default to your username if I have nothing else to go by, but it’s best if you directly tell me, right there in your submission.

I will publish your submission(s) on here as soon as I’ve added it to the queue, so you’ll know it went through okay, and so you can show it around to others if you wish! (I can’t do that with PMs, of course.)

THE DEADLINE: Please try to submit your artworks before the End of June! Yes, 2023. This month. In this year. There’s a chance I’ll change this if a sudden influx of new entries rolls in, but as of now it looks like it’s a good time to start wrapping this up. I want my life back and all. ...But prove me wrong, why don’tcha? Why not tell your favorite TSP artists that they NEED TO BE ON THIS THING? NEED TO! WE CRAVE THEM, PRECIOUS. ...Sorry, got carried away there.

I give updates regularily. Previews of the latest Whiteboard statuses, questions that need answering, sometimes I might just add some nonsense rambles, all inclusive, for free.

The FINAL files, whenever they’re ready, will be 8000x4000px in size each and are mostly a much bigger version of the previews, with maybe a few small changes for the aesthetics.That’s quite massive. Humongous. It’s really impressive to browse all those artworks next to each other at that size. Here’s the [Google Drive] link, for all to download from and share around. So far, you can always find the latest Previews and a bunch of random Extras there, along with the first fullsize Stanley board as a test. Please do make suggestions if there’s better options, or if you can’t drive the Google.

I also post on Twitter and the Crows Crows Crows Discord server (fanart channel). If either of those are more comfortable options for you, or if you know someone on there who might also be interested in joining this collaboration, maybe poke me so I can give you directions. Or you might be able to find it yourself, I’m not actively hiding them away. Not even passively.

I think that’s all for now! If you have questions, suggestions, reservations, my Asks should be open. Looking forward to hopefully a lot more additions to the Whiteboards, there’s quite a few of you guys I’d loooove to see on there!

[krowfaced]

Small story time!

So back in 2013, I studied game art at this vocational education. One of my personal projects for the education's portfolio courses, I was making a model of Zlatomir #mandatory3Dblorbo and I went through the entire workflow a typical artist would do in the industry; Concept art, sculpt, low poly, rig and skinning. One of the educators there had recently gotten into 3D printing and he was having a lot of fun just testing a bunch of prints. Then he got the idea to have a little contest; show off a print-friendly sculpt you had made, get votes, winner gets a 3D printed sculpture. So I made my edits and submitted. I didn't win, but it was really fun to see the entries and the actual print of the winner in the end! - Years goes by, I work as a game artist for a while, realize I don't like working with it, get my existential crisis, and decide to enroll to the same vocational education but specialize myself to a technical artist. This educator with the 3D printer was still working there (and now directly as my own educator). One day he announced that he set up a table at the school's kitchen with various 3D prints he made over the years, telling people to pick anything they fancy because he would throw them out otherwise. Some were abstract geometrical shapes, some were duplicates (or misprints haha) of that winner's entry, and some where just of a various different sculpts from other students. It was neat to examine them, but I didn't end up taking any of the offerings. Then I go to my desk, and I was met with a small surprise; There was a 3D printed Zlatomir bust next to my keyboard. There was a post-it underneath it, that just said something in the lines of "Didn't you make the sculpt for this one?" It was so wholesome and unexpected. Not only is there a blorbo print on my desk I never expected to ever see, not only did my educator actually remember it belonged to me even though at the time he was not my educator, not only that he randomly decided he wanted to use my sculpt as a little guinea-pig outside of the contest, but also that he set it aside from the rest of the prints he was giving out to make sure I had dibs for my blorbo. So many levels of wholesomeness

[odiolisk]

CAZSTAR SECRET SANTA - SIGNUPS OPEN

Welcome to this inaugural event post!

If you are reading this and would like to join, welcome! Even if you aren’t participating, I’d be very grateful if you could signal boost by re-blogging!  I’ll also be cross-posting to my Twitter *here* so RTs much appreciated if you’re on there ~

What’s a Secret Santa?

For those who have never done a Secret Santa before, the way it works is you submit a gift request, which goes into a pool which is then randomised. The randomised requests are then handed out to the participants.

So basically, its Mystery Gift! Everyone draws/writes a gift for someone. You won’t know who it’s for, and you won’t know who is doing yours! Then at the exchange, the completed gifts are handed out anonymously to whomever they belong, via email.

Sounds good, where do I sign?

Send your email applications right here!   ->  bg3secretsanta@gmail.com

What do I write in my  application email?

1. Your name / tumblr tag / most used social media - a link to your blog would also be helpful so I know who you are and can contact you if emails are not working or something. A link to examples of your work (art tag, etc) is also appreciated!

2. Preferred gift rating.  Feel free to be as truly unhinged as you want with NSFW requests considering this pairing LOL however please also provide a SFW alternative request alongside. If you don’t mind receiving NSFW but would prefer not to submit it, please tell me and vice versa.

3. Your actual request!  If you have specific Do Not Wants or triggers, please specify these in your application email. There's no specific request format, feel free to submit a one sentence prompt or something more detailed, however please try to word your request so that it can be filled by either an artist or writer, as your gift-giver is randomly assigned!

4. Whether you would be able to pinch-hit (fill an extra gift if needed).

5. Whether you would like to remain anonymous to your gift recipient and/or on the master-post of entries (which I will aim to post up on Tumblr a few days after gift exchange, or we can have an AO3 event collection - tbc.)

———-   DEADLINES   ————–

Applications Close:  29th October 2024, 00:00 GMT

Prompts Sent Out to Participants: by 1st November 2024, 00:00 GMT

Gift submission: 20th December 2024, 22:00 GMT

(Please submit your completed gifts to bg3secretsanta@gmail.com)

Gift Exchange: 22nd - 24th December 2024 (TBC)

———-      RULES/GUIDELINES     ————.

Open to both artists and writers!

Please submit completed works only. Your gift should be fully coloured if it’s art (unless you are specifically doing a monochrome / inked piece), and properly formatted, spell-checked and at least 1,000 words if it’s a written piece.

For written pieces, google doc links/word documents are fine for the email exchange, but if you want me to include your fic in the tumblr master-post please bear in mind you need to post it somewhere link-able such as AO3.

If you are submitting NSFW art, AO3 hosts art too and can be a good alternative to tumblr/twitter restrictions.

Please don’t post any completed gifts on your blog before the gift exchange date!

If the deadline is approaching and you know you won’t be able to submit your piece in time, please tell me as soon as possible so I can arrange for someone else to fill your assigned prompt.

If you’d like to remain anonymous, please tell me (there will be master-posts of all the submissions a couple of days after exchange)

I’ll be tracking the tumblr tag ‘cazstar secret santa 2024’.

There’s also a Discord group - please let me know if you’d like an invite!

[libraford]

I found an art show/exhibit I can submit my art to as an unknown artist. I'm terrified to do it due to rejection sensitivity syndrome but I'm going to do it anyway. Worst that would happen is that I lose $30. Best thing that could happen is they actually like my work.

I've been in a handful of shows because every once in awhile I get the 'fuck it, I'm feeling brave' impulse to be like 'what's the worst that could happen?'

And as it turns out the worst thing that can happen is literally just you're out the entry fee, if there even is one. Though, once a gallery attendant did drop one of my pieces and I had to find a new frame in a jiffy.

[dbh-bb]

Q&A

The mod team have been getting a lot of question, and we thought we'd use this opportunity to share the answers, and allay some fears. Whatever you're concerned about, you are not alone!

1. What if (as an artist) our story idea is terrible and nobody wants it?

A. The mods have a collection of ways to ensure everybody gets a good match. Unless your idea is (a) actually offensive, (b) a bad faith take for a public event (say, a meme done poorly, a crack prompt that's too specific, or a private joke taken too far), or (c) something so extremely detailed and specific that you should consider commissioning rather than participating in a public event, at least one person is going to be interested in creating for you.

Even for ideas that aren't popular / main pairings / concepts, even for ideas that are a bit off the wall -- there are always going to be creators who like a bit of a challenge. Who look at things and go, HUH. NEVER THOUGHT OF THAT ONE. and proceed to YOINK it up.

2. If I have an idea that I've written in part and shared in other discord servers, or have published incomplete somewhere, and find an artwork that fits with that, can I use that pre-existing idea to write for that artwork?

A. We have a rule about anonymity in order to make it as fair as possible when we open claims, so for the writers, it's less important that their ideas be brand new. However, in the spirit of the Bang, we do consider it important that the artist you're working with feels they are getting a fresh piece of work from you, and you do need to produce 10,000 words of new, previously unshared fic. If that happens to fit in with an idea you've already been writing, that's fine, so long as your artist is happy with that.

3. Is it okay if I sign up and then have to drop if, for example, none of the prompts interest me, or as an artist I realise I can't commit the time?

A. We would ask that people signing up do so with full intent to commit and not abandon their entry, whether they are entering as an artist or a writer. We do understand that commitments can be made and then circumstances prevent someone coming through as they intended, but if you're aware now that there is a serious possibility you won't be able to provide what you're signing up for, you may be better positioned to be a back up, a beta, or a cheerleader.

In the case of a Reverse Big Bang, with the art coming first, and the ideas coming from the artists, it is extra important that participants offering art not overcommit themselves, as the artists are the first link in the chain. This said, there is also no rush to sign up right now, as sign ups for artists don't close until the 30th of this month, so you have time to try and review your workload and schedule.

For writers, if the scope of what you are prepared to write is so narrow that you think there is a real risk that you won't find anything you will be able to write for, we would ask you to consider if a public event such as this is for you.

4. How many pieces of art can I do for the idea that I submit? Can I submit more ideas?

A. You can do as many pieces of art for any one idea as you like. Presently, we are keeping the number of ideas we will allow artists to submit to two until we know how the ratios are going to stack up. The mod team will be making regular updates both on the discord and here on tumblr to let participants know how that is faring at the time of posting. If the ratios are in favour, we may allow artists to submit third ideas.

5. Can I sign up as a pinch hitter?

A. At this time, we do not have a sign up process for pinch hitters, whether they be artists or writers. However, you do not need to be a Bang participant in order to pinch hit. Right now, people who join the discord are able to assign themselves roles such as pinch hitter, beta, and cheerleader, and will receive discord pings to that role as and if those become required. This is why we encourage people to join the discord even if they're not participating in the Bang directly, as there are still ways to support and help your fellows in the fandom.

Should the need arise for pinch hitters, the mod team will also be putting the message out on this tumblr, and reaching out to anyone that signed up and said they may be prepared to pinch hit. If you are contacted there is no requirement that you agree, we would just ask you to review the ideas on offer.

6. Do I need to join the discord in order to participate?

A. No. All the information and updates that are on the discord are also shared on tumblr, it's just that on tumblr we schedule posts to hit major time zones, and on discord they're put up immediately.

7. Will you be sharing the information artists put in their applications about what they're thinking of working on, and writers put in about what they would like to see somewhere that we can see it?

A. Yes! There will be weekly updates with this in an anonymous format shared on this tumblr. We also intend to share how many writers and artists have signed up so far so that you can have an idea of how ratios are currently stacking up. Please bear in mind, however, when we share this, that none of those numbers are final, and that we are only displaying the number of confirmed works on offer, and that a number of people are provisionally offering more.

8. Where do I find all the information about the Bang, such as rules and schedules, and an up to date discord link?

A. The pinned post on this tumblr contains all of that information. We also update the discord link on there any time we are made aware that it has expired, again. The mod team have been setting this to never expire, but discord is apparently not our friend, so if you find the link has expired, notify us either via asks, a message on the bottom of the post, or a tumblr IM, and we will update it (again).

[naamah-beherit]

On fanzines and the mess their current state is

Or: musings from a writer's biased perspective.

This post has been a long time coming, but always something else caught my attention and months passed as such. Finally, the time has come.

There was a zine wank recently. The mods proved to be quite ignorant how art works, kicked the artist, the artist went public with receipts, the mods insisted it wasn't like that, and the whole affair kept derailing with possibly another explanation for the kicking until at last the mods cancelled the zine. And it's just the latest wank of many. A zine here took money and never delivered the product, another zine there has a mod who hasn't read the book but only heard about it from their friends who, coincidentally, are the other mods. And so on, and so forth. Everywhere you look, there's a fanzine. Multiple fanzines in fact, sometimes at the same time. Which is understandable, given how old a concept of a zine is and how solid their foundations in fandoms.

Or, well, technically, because when I think about the zines of today, I can't help but realise they're gradually losing the connection to their roots.

(yes, this might be another post of the "old person yells at clouds" type. I'm fully aware of that)

I won't summarise a history of zines, because that's not the point here and also Fanlore has done a much better job in this article. It does serve as a good starting point, though, if you've never ventured past "zines are a thing that exist". The most important thing to keep in mind is: the zines used to be about much more than just art. And here lies some of my beef with them.

Nowadays, most if not all zines are art books. Worse than that: art books that refuse to acknowledge the fact, own it, and market themselves accordingly. I actually own an art book that was announced and sold as such (Ages of Arda Anthology), which to this day in all my fandoms¹ remains the only publication of that kind. And if the zines of today would have acknowledged their main focus is mostly if not only art, I wouldn't be writing this.

Alas, here we are. I participated in four zines. Additionally, I was one of the editors in one of those. It was the first English Hualian zine, actually, back in 2019 - unless another one somehow slipped my mind, but I don't think so. My 2019 was bad, but TGCF is the only thing I remember well from that time. I've also been traditionally published (three times so far), which is also relevant to the rant. I admit I don't remember how many check-ins we had for that one zine I was in the staff of. We had a word/size limit for the entries. As fas as I recall, that was the entry criteria. I might be missing details, though; I was hella depressed at the time. Like I said, bad year, few memories and 99% of them is TGCF.

But anyway, the other three zines I wrote for. I applied, was accepted, went through the process, saw it to the end. You know, the "usual" zine process. The one I've got Opinions™ about.

Let's start with submissions. x samples of works of y quality. Okay, sure, we all think without stopping to realise it's a tad weird to submit a selected portfolio of works for a hobby event as if it were a job application. It gets weirder the longer you think about it, because, as I once wrote, fandom is for fun. It's a hobby. Maybe I'm old and jaded, or an idealist, or an old jaded idealist, but I believe everyone has a place in something as deeply tied to the fandom as a fanzine.

Then comes what I've got a personal vendetta against: check-ins and deadlines. Sure, I know people create projects with specific time frames in mind, but dear gods, again, it's not a job. Nothing bad will happen if dates shift around a bit when there's no money involved. Maybe it's just me being bitter about putting fun, fannish activity into strict professional frames. again, I'm old and jaded. And dear gods, check-ins. Here's when my trad pub history comes into play, because in neither case I had to let the editorial staff know I was actually working. True, it might be a case for a story that isn't done yet, doubly so if there's a deadline looming over both an author and their editor, but when you submit something finished and aren't asked to revise&resubmit, you go over the editorial input, make the changes (or not if you're feeling brave, lol), send it back, go over the proof copy, submit possible adjustments, and that's it. Or at least that's how it worked for me for two magazines and a short story anthology.

What does it matter if someone writes a story the day before the zine submissions are due? If it works for them, then it shouldn't be an issue. Again, it might be just me, but standardising and project-managising a hobby activity doesn't really sit well with me. From my very biased perspective, I don't see fun in chasing deadlines and writing on the clock, but that's just me.

Zine being a project rather than fun activity also ties to it becoming a product. That means a zine has to sell to at least cover the production cost, and with the quality the organisers and the audience expect, the labour cost is basically non-existent. That at least remained from a fun hobby activity - people working for free, lol. It also enables situations when the same few highly popular artists partake in most or all zines in a fandom (often upon invitations, whose very existence makes my blood boil), leading to a reality where zines become an endless cycle of repetition. And don't even get me started on invitations that add to the marketing strategy of selling the zines. "Here are our wonderful, carefully selected artists, and here's everyone else". That's how I see it. Where has "we're all fans of the same thing" gone? Where's "share our mutual love for the same thing"? Instead, we get invited people and those who have to submit a CV-like application for a senior position.

You ruined a perfectly good fan activity, is what you did. Look at it, it's got capitalism.

And last but not least, art books that refuse to acknowledge what they are and the subsequent treatment of writers.

The longer I look at zines, the lower the artists:writers ratio is becoming. Sure, people like to look at art, because it's quite often easier and always quicker than reading. Sure, ain't nobody got time for reading these days. BUT. The growing disparity between respect and reception of works of artists vs writers is, well, growing, and by not giving writers an equal treatment and exposure in something as important to fandoms as fanzines doesn't help to improve the situation. Again, my opinion, but when seeing zine promos that have got approximately 20-30+ artists and 5-10 writers at most is not cool. This is why I say most of the zines these days are art books that refuse the name. And there's nothing wrong with that name, or with including only artists in something that's only about visual art. But when it's mixed for art and writing, then the least zine organisers could do is make the numbers equal. Again, we're all fans of the same thing, and no fan activity is better than the other when its outlet is meant to be varied. Also, where are cosplayers? Where are meta writers? Both of those have got a place in a fanzine as well and should be given a treatment equal to other expression of fannish love.

Am I trying to turn back a river with a stick? Probably. But I'm fed up with zines that fail because someone embezzles funds, zines that prioritise the same group of people over and over again over a more diverse crowd, or claim they're welcoming to all forms of expressions but obviously prefer to include only fanart. I'm fed up with manufacturing zine after zine after zine just because they sell. I'm fed up with fandom becoming more and more of a structured professional endeavour instead of a hobby. I'm fed up with audience that constantly demands a faster and faster stream of, well, content. Neither of those is what fandom and fanzines should be like.

.

PS. not proofread. Sorry, I'm too dead to do that, so mistakes may get fixed within the next few days, 'cause they sure as hell are many.

__

¹ - I don't know anything about other fandoms, though. Like I said: it's all opinions from a very personal angle.

[shards-of-silver]

Thrawn RarePairs Challenge 2024: FAQ

While I'm online, I decided to post the answers to some questions I received in DM. I doubt the askers are the only ones wondering.

Who can participate in the challenge?

Anyone who wants to! Be they fanfic writers, fan artists, pod fic producers... Anyone who wants to increase the variety of ships in the Thrawn fandom or has a rarepair they want to shed light on is invited. I would have made a private event if the goal was to be selective about who can join.

With that in mind, anyone who wants to participate but has reservations CAN SUBMIT ANONYMOUSLY. They can post their work on Ao3 anonymously, request it be added to the collection, and I will upload it just the same (so long as it follows the rules of the challenge). If you don't have an Ao3 account, DM me. We will work out an appropriate arrangement.

How are OCs/Reader fics treated by this challenge?

They are allowed, with one caveat: all OCs count as a single character. Reader is a singular character of its own. OFC, OMC, and OGNC are all treated the same here. The point of the challenge is to increase the variety of ships in the Thrawn fandom. There are well over 100 Thrawn/OC fics. Thrawn/OC is not a rarepair. Similarly, there are already over 100 Thrawn/Reader fics. If you want to write, say Ar'alani/OC or Eli/Reader, however, that is allowed.

How will you treat incest/noncon/age gap/(insert other controversial ship type)?

Tag and rate your work appropriately. If you do that, you are allowed to join the challenge with any rarepair ship you want. My personal opinion about a ship does not determine whether it qualifies for rarepair status. I simply ask that all participants follow the "don't like, don't read/click" philosophy when it comes to perusing other people's entries.

That said, hate fics/troll fics/entries designed to bash a ship are not allowed. If someone wrote a (using this example for illustrative purposes only) Thranto fic about how toxic and awful they think the ship is and anyone who writes for it is stupid, one would be unlikely to consider that a true Thranto fic. Apply this logic to any ship you may be inclined to make works for. Don't create out of hate for this, please.

What if a ship gets over a 100 works over the course of the challenge? Can I still submit work for it?

Yes! The rarepair designation requires a ship have less than 100 fanworks on Ao3 as of the first day of the challenge. Some ships are very close, with over 90. If we are fortunate enough to have a lot of people participate and take some ships out of that category before the challenge is over, you can still submit works for that ship.

Are romantic ships and friendships treated differently for the purpose of this challenge?

Yes! Make sure to use the "&" instead of the "/" for platonic ships. So if a ship already has 100 romantic works and you want to write a friendship/family work (and the "&" pairing is under 100), go for it! This allows gen fics (my JAM) to be part of the challenge.

How will you treat threesomes/3+ character ships?

They are their own ship. For example: Thrawn/Eli/Faro is not the same ship as Thranto or Thraro. However, make sure you actually are writing/making a threesome and not a story about two people being together and hooking up with a third for a single paragraph. Honest tagging is important.

___

If you have any other questions, my messages/asks are open! Thank you for all the interest this event has already received. Dates will be announced after the poll closes.

[classiclitbracket]

Welcome to The Classic Literature Bracket!

Moderated by @sorrel-scribbles [she/her, minor] and inspired by @ultimatehistorical, @riordanversecharactertournament, @baldguy-fight, @spnepisodebracket, @classic-lit-couples-showdown, @ultimate-poll-tournament and so many more!

***VOTING HAS STARTED, SEE PINNED POST***

Important Info:

Submissions will be open one week (March 15-22), but will stay open if I have less than fifteen submissions or close early if I receive more than one hundred.

The current plan is a 32 entry bracket, but I will consider doing a 64 entry one if I get enough interest/submissions.

There will probably be a couple of preliminary rounds before the actual polls come out, because there are a couple of authors whose work I expect to see multiple submissions for.

Propaganda is welcome, but please wait to submit it at least until the first preliminaries come out (this can be done by using the ask box or making your own post and @ing me)

If you have questions feel free to submit them to the ask box!

Friendly competition is fine, but I will block you if you can’t be civil with one another!

Voting/Submitting Guidelines:

The goal here is to determine which is the most classic piece of literature. You can vote based on your personal favorite, what you think had the most cultural impact, what is the most popular or timely today etc. 

I DO NOT want to see any moral complaints. Many of these authors/works were racist, sexist, etc. and I fully condemn that, but we can separate the art from the artist and still understand the importance of/enjoy the work despite its flaws.You’re free to not like/not vote for a book due to offensive material, but I don’t want to see tags/comments/asks saying “you shouldn’t have included x because it’s racist” or “nobody vote for y it’s misogynistic.” This isn’t “which classic lit book is the most morally correct”.

Submission Criteria:

The book must have been published between 1600-1970 CE

It must be written by a European (Russia/the Ural mountains to Ireland, not including Turkey/The Ottoman Empire), Canadian, or United States American*

The book must be fictional and considered a novel (no short stories, plays, poetry etc.)

You can’t submit a book already on the auto-inclusion list

You can’t submit for an author already on the auto-inclusion list as I’m only allowing one book per author

You can submit a series together (ex: Sherlock Holmes) or an individual book from the series (ex: A Study in Scarlet), just make sure to specify in the form

Up to five submissions per person, but you can only submit each book once

You have to make your submission through the google form (below). Submissions in comments, asks, etc. will not count (sorry, but I need to be able to keep track).

*on the Eurocentrism of this criteria: There is so much amazing Islamic, African, S./E. Asian, Pacific, and South American literature out there, but I feel it really merits its own bracket by someone who understands the material more and that it wouldn’t really get the fair chance it deserves in this bracket anyway as I expect it to be American and Brit Lit heavy as is and more people will come out to support those books so I might as well just limit the criteria off the bat.

Auto-Entries:

The Great Gatsby-F. Scott Fitzgerald

Pride and Prejudice-Jane Austen

The Metamorphosis-Franz Kafka

Wuthering Heights-Emily Bronte

Little Women-Louisa May Alcott

1984-George Orwell

Frankenstein-Mary Shelly

Les Miserables-Victor Hugo

Sherlock Holmes-Arthur Conan Doyle

Crime and Punishment-Fyodor Dostoyevsty

Submissions Here ⇊

[letsdrawvideogames]

I thought I'd briefly pull the proverbial dusty tarp off this defunct tumblr briefly to address some of the incoming traffic that I expect to see this week now that NCHProductions has publicly credited me for my artwork that their video is based on. I'd like to preface this by saying that we reached an agreement in private and I have accepted NCHProductions' apology, and that I do not condone or tolerate any harassment of NCHProductions on my behalf. This post is not meant to relitigate things or stir up drama. But with what happened, I thought this would be a good opportunity to open the floor to discussion on how the internet treats ownership of fanart and derivative work. I'm just one artist and my opinions are my own, but I've been at it a long time and it's not the first time someone else has used my fanart as a basis for something else. Here are three examples:

In 2018, Jonathan Nesbitt made a coding project as an entry for an informal contest run by the website Standard Code. His entry (properly viewable here) was based on a Metroid piece I had made in 2014 and he credited me in his entry. Although he never reached out to me to my knowledge, I thought this was fine given the time contraints and the fact that no money changed hands (the grand prize was an Amazon Echo someone had lying around). I think Jonathan's piece is very cute and I'm happy to have inspired someone this way. I might not have considered the artistic value of a simple HTML page otherwise.

In 2016, tumblr user @cyriusli messaged me about getting a Bulbasaur I drew in 2015 as a tattoo. He reached out to me directly and asked for permission before doing so and credited me as the artist when he shared a photo of the finished tattoo. Even though an artist in another medium was paid money to recreate my work in this case, I considered this to be entirely above board, and I'm sure the artist who actually inked it was happy to know that their client had explicit permission to use my piece. Knowing that someone has to look at my Bulbasaur every day until they die might be the height of flattery for me. This isn't the only tattoo of my work that's been done, and I'm always happy to see it so long as you ask permission.

Lastly, just a few weeks ago, I had to submit a takedown request on Displate against graphic designer SS Art, who was selling a poster that used a slightly edited version of a Shadow of the Colossus piece I drew in 2013. This is probably the most offended I've ever been as an artist. I doubt this seller made much money off of it and to their credit, Displate took it down very quickly, but it bothers me that it was allowed to go up in the first place. The ease with which merchandising platforms allow their users to publish anything without verifying its origin has made it ironically difficult to support the artists that I love: I've been looking for a new case for my Kindle on Etsy lately and found it extremely difficult to verify whether a seller's art was original or stolen. In one case, I found a seller selling a case with a Keith Haring print on it. I consider Haring's Unfinished Painting to be one of the most moving artworks of the last century, and here was his work being sold by some random Etsy store as "abstract cartoon funny dance pattern." I find this a deeply saddening, troubling phenomenon.

As the internet continues to shrink down to a handful of social platforms, it's been fascinating to see how the concept of fandom has shaped and been shaped by those same platforms. Fanart, memes, remixes, mashups, and other new forms of art that make copyright lawyers heads' ache have emerged as we all pile onto each other online. Overall I don't think this is necessarily a bad thing. When I was first online twenty years ago, it's likely that I never would have seen art from many overseas artists on the English-speaking web, but it's been very heartening to see how the explosion of fanart surrounding interpretations like ErinArtista's distinctly Brazilian take on Hatsune Miku or Ayyk92's Bowsette character can bring an audience to artists that many of us wouldn't have known about otherwise. I think there is room for such a thing as fanart of fanart, I just urge artists of all stripes to think critically about how we use other people's ideas. I am not a lawyer, and I cannot tell you where the line is or isn't drawn in regards to work based on copyrighted material, or what your rights as an artist are if you make fanart and aren't the copyright holder. I've definitely made some decisions in the past that I now regret about monetizing derivative work, but I wouldn't feel right about enforcing any standards I might adopt onto others. The internet has, in a way, become one giant game of telephone, and I don't like how difficult it can be to be certain of the origin of something. For now, going forward, I think it would be nice to see more normalization of hunting down sources to the best of a person's ability coupled with acting in good faith when new information comes to light. This tumblr is dead, and I likely won't be responding to any comments directly, but I'm very interested in hearing what you all have to say.

And just for absolute transparency, I ran this by my friend Ixo and borrowed some of his phrasing in the conclusion. He can be found at https://ixo.neocities.org/

[emeritus-fuckers]

Ooooh a match-up event! I've never submitted for something like this, so im very excited...

1. Hey, I'm Jay! I am a 28 y/o Transmasc Non-binary, He/Him/They. Im Achillian Biromantic AceFlux (I'm Bi, with a heavy preference towards men. I love my men twinky and sassy and my women strong. Also my sexuality I joke is [Under Construction]-) and I am a bottom leaning switch.

2. Papas and Ghouls!

3. I am 5'10" (average to tall height depending on who you ask), I am heavy, with long lashes and brown eyes and short curly brunette/blonde hair (It looks brown most of the time but I've been old its technically blonde?) My hair is short around the back and sides and fades into being longer and fluffy on top. My preference for dressing ranges from Soft Boi to Victorian.

4. I consider myself a Soft Boi (tm). Im a fun mix of opinionated and full of anxiety. If I trust you, I'll talk your ear off, otherwise I assume you do not want to hear me- I'm the type of person who matches energies for the most part. If you're excited, I'm excited! If your chilling, I'm chilling. I am always ready and wanting to lend a helping hand and show my love through physical touch and acts of service. My friends also say I am a humanized Golden Retriever.

5. I love to draw, I actually have a degree in illustration! I hope to one day be able to work as a full time freelance artist! I also love to roleplay, and I love Dungeon's and Dragons. I also love video games, Books (queer romance is my favorite genre, which is expanded 10 fold for space or fantasy pieces). My music taste is hard to pin down, but I usually go to Musical Theatre/Show tunes and then like pop punk / pop rock (My 3 top bands are Ghost, Mariana's Trench, and 3 Days Grace if that helps).

6. Other Trivia. I am AuDHD. Im messy but organized. My favorite animals are Dogs (Golden Retrievers especially) and Foxes. I am a maximalist who holds onto everything, very sentimental in that regard. I work as an Admin (Fancy Secretary).

Thank you in advanced!

This post is part of the 1000 followers match up event. Entries for the event are now closed.

Your match is...Phantom

Phantom is so sweet, you can't help but trust him. Xey saw you and just kinda ran over to you. It was practically jumping up and down on the spot he was so excited to meet you properly and talk to you.

They are very chatty and then you started opening up and talking more. You just kinda chat away happily all day.

Swiss fondly says you are both like puppies, golden retriever puppies. He'll often say this while patting Phantom on the head and then grinning at you.

You both show your love through physical touch. Phantom is very affectionate. Xey'll crawl onto your lap on an evening and just kinda stay there. Cuddling you and kissing you.

It'll nuzzle into you and want to stay like that all night. If you try and get up he'll give you puppy dog eyes and kiss you some more. You have to point out to them that you just want to go and lie down in bed with him. It practically sprints past you and jumps into bed before holding you close to xem.

He will also kiss you a lot, at any point any time. If it sees you they will run over and kiss you.

If xey see you drawing he'll kiss your neck and face as encouragement then try and leave you be for a bit. It thinks your art is amazing and they want to support you in anyway he can.

~

Written by Nyx edited by Jez