#this is more like a warm up

[fwhipliker]

doodled the life girls feat cleo

little edit note: when i posted this i wasn't aware cleo was nonbinary (only knew ab them using both she/they pronouns) so i apologize for having grouped them under the "girls", i gen didn't know ^^''

[pyrus-salicifolia]

“Normal” test results are not the relief people think they are. When you wake up in pain and continue to be in pain for hours every day and your tests come back normal you don’t stop being in pain.

[inkskinned]

because sometimes there are invisible tests and invisible rules and you're just supposed to ... know the rule. someone you thought of as a friend asks you for book recommendations, so you give her a list of like 30 books, each with a brief blurb and why you like it. later, you find out she screenshotted the list and send it out to a group chat with the note: what an absolute freak can you believe this. you saw the responses: emojis where people are rolling over laughing. too much and obsessive and actually kind of creepy in the comments. you thought you'd been doing the right thing. she'd asked, right? an invisible rule: this is what happens when you get too excited.

you aren't supposed to laugh at your own jokes, so you don't, but then you're too serious. you're not supposed to be too loud, but then people say you're too quiet. you aren't supposed to get passionate about things, but then you're shy, boring. you aren't supposed to talk too much, but then people are mad when you're not good at replying.

you fold yourself into a prettier paper crane. since you never know what is "selfish" and what is "charity," you give yourself over, fully. you'd rather be empty and over-generous - you'd rather eat your own boundaries than have even one person believe that you're mean. since you don't know what the thing is that will make them hate you, you simply scrub yourself clean of any form of roughness. if you are perfect and smiling and funny, they can love you. if you are always there for them and never admit what's happening and never mention your past and never make them uncomfortable - you can make up for it. you can earn it.

don't fuck up. they're all testing you, always. they're tolerating you. whatever secret club happened, over a summer somewhere - during some activity you didn't get to attend - everyone else just... figured it out. like they got some kind of award or examination that allowed them to know how-to-be-normal. how to fit. and for the rest of your life, you've been playing catch-up. you've been trying to prove that - haha! you get it! that the joke they're telling, the people they are, the manual they got- yeah, you've totally read it.

if you can just divide yourself in two - the lovable one, and the one that is you - you can do this. you can walk the line. they can laugh and accept you. if you are always-balanced, never burdensome, a delight to have in class, champagne and glittering and never gawky or florescent or god-forbid cringe: you can get away with it.

you stare at your therapist, whom you can make jokes with, and who laughs at your jokes, because you are so fucking good at people-pleasing. you smile at her, and she asks you how you're doing, and you automatically say i'm good, thanks, how are you? while the answer swims somewhere in your little lizard brain:

how long have you been doing this now? mastering the art of your body and mind like you're piloting a puppet. has it worked? what do you mean that all you feel is... just exhausted. pick yourself up, the tightrope has no net. after all, you're cheating, somehow, but nobody seems to know you actually flunked the test. it's working!

aren't you happy yet?

[hinamie]

I don't want to regret the way I lived

[chloesimaginationthings]

Monty’s FNAF history is all too familiar with Michael,,

[rooniearts]

Permission to maim, sir?

[xxplastic-cubexx]

brain please wake up and draw

bonus :

[cj-the-random-artist]

I let them get friendship married so Narinder can get his tax benefits lol

But legitimately. I mulled this one over repeatedly for literal months. Like. Do I want them to get married in front of the cult? Should they even get married? It would be hilarious if the Goat married them and then cried at the altar the whole time, but also... that doesn't feel right, so maybe I won't do that. And then once I decided it should be a personal friendship-marriage ritual where it's just the pair of them making vows to each other, I wrote four different scripts and hated them all and ended up just pulling this one out of thin air pretty much on the spot and that was that. At one point, I wanted Lambert to basically suggest this idea and then have them get friend-married on the spot, but that didn't feel right (and it was also gonna be unreasonably long) so that's why there's no context going into this one. And the actual friend-marriage ritual is... maybe not the best designed one ever? I wanted it to in some ways be similar to like, the way I imagine a romantic marriage happening in the cult- the parties exchange vows and do rings and stuff...? (If it's not obvious, I haven't been to many weddings...) But I figured they wouldn't want an audience, or to party with the whole cult afterwards, or anything like that. I also had them kiss each other's rings as opposed to like... faces... because one of the fights I had with myself in deciding how I would want this to go was whether it would make sense for them to kiss or not. And I ultimately decided that in this AU at least they just wouldn't want to. They're also wearing the rings on their not ring fingers cuz. Honestly it just felt right that way. Based on vibes. But basically I just wanted them to exchange a vow of eternal partnership in a very casual, chill setting, because I don't picture QPR AU Narilamb doing... anything other than that.

Also this is the rest of Lambert's office, which I actually had a pretty clear vision for after my last doodle but I didn't really bother to draw before starting this comic. Maybe I should've but eh it looks good enough. Interior backgrounds are hard......

Anyways. I think I'm happy with this one? I was enamored by the concept of a chill friendship marriage, so I definitely leaned into it here. As per usual, it's not perfect, I think I could've done a lot of stuff better / differently, but honestly?? If I were to ever get friend-married I would want it to go about like this, it makes my little aroace heart happy, and I spent too long on it to not show it to anybody. Thus. Enjoy, and also happy new year cuz I totally forgot to make a post individually about that...

[egophiliac]

my neverending quest to draw one single Idia that I don't immediately hate

[welcometogrouchland]

[ID in ALT] I've made posts before about Talia/Dick co-parenting Damian moments (will never happen but let me dream) and this came to me in a vision. Took me ages to finish for some reason 😭 and then even longer to post

[koipepo]

That omake of little Kabru not being able to show off his howetown sweets because of Misril gets to me a lot so...

Here's a happier Kabru (and Lairu)

[inkskinned]

it is hard to explain but there is something so unwell about the cultural fear of ugliness. the strange quiet irradiation of any imperfect sight. the pores and the stomachs and the legs displaced into a digital trashbin. somehow this effect spilling over - the removal of a grinning strangers in the back of a picture. of placing more-photogenic clouds into a frame. of cleaning up and arranging breakfast plates so the final image is of a table overflowing with surplus - while nobody eats, and instead mimes food moving towards their mouth like tantalus.

ever-thinner ever-more-muscled ever-prettier. your landlord's sticky white paint sprayed over every surface. girlchildren with get-ready-with-me accounts and skincare routines. beige walls and beige floors and beige toys in toddler hands. AI-generated "imagined prettier" birds and bugs and bees.

pretty! fuckable! impossible! straighten teeth. use facetune and lightroom and four other products. remove the cars along the street from the video remove the spraypaint from the garden wall remove the native plants from their home, welcome grass. welcome pretty. let the lot that walmart-still-owns lay fallow and rotting. don't touch that, it's ugly! close your eyes.

erect anti-homelessness spikes. erect anti-bird spikes. now it looks defensive, which is better than protective. put the ramp at the back of the building, you don't want to ruin the aesthetic of anything.

you are a single person in this world, and in this photo! don't let the lives of other people ruin what would otherwise be a shared moment! erase each person from in front of the tourist trap. erase your comfortable shoes and AI generate platforms. you weren't smiling perfectly, smile again. no matter if you had been genuinely enjoying a moment. you are not in a meadow with friends, you're in a catalogue of your own life! smile again! you know what, forget it.

we will just edit the right face in.

[themortaldraw]

the triumphant returnip

[ruporas]

captain's warm hugs! (id in alt)

[xxplastic-cubexx]

theyre insufferable

[periwinkla]

I was in the mood for some drama-kissing narumitsu I suppose ♡ also this was supposed to be a sketch... ehm......