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felassan · 4 years ago

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Some DA trivia and dev commentary from Twitter

There’s a lot of different tweets, so I’m just pasting and linking to the source rather than screencapping them all or making several different posts or something. Post under cut for length.

User: Was dragon age 2 your favourite in the franchise?

David Gaider: DA2 was the project where my writing team was firing on all cylinders, and they wrote like the wind- because they had to! Second draft? Pfft. Plot reviews? Pfft. I was so proud of what we all accomplished in such a brief time. I didn't think it was possible. [source] DA2 is, however, also where the goal posts kept moving. Things kept getting cut, even while we worked. I had to write that dialogue where Orsino turned even if you sided with him, because his boss battle had been cut and there was no time to fix the plot. A real WTF moment. >:( [source]

Mike Rousseau: I remember bugging that! And then being told it wasn't a bug, and being so confused. Doing QA for DA2 was an experience. Trial by fire. [source]

DG: So I think it's safe to say DA2 is my favorite entry in the DA franchise and also the sort of thing I never want to live through ever again. Mixed feelings galore. [source]

User: (I personally blame whoever it was for ruining most romance arcs in other games for me; they don't live up to Fenris's romance storyline)

DG: I wrote Fenris, so uh - me, I guess? Or maybe his cinematic designer, who put in the puppy dog eyes. [source]

User: If DA2 had just been an expansion, do you think it would have been better received? There was a lot of great stuff in there, and I think my initial dislike of it was because of the zone reuse. If it hadn't needed to be a full game, would that issue not have arisen?

DG: Hard to say. It was either going to be an over-scoped expansion or an under-scoped sequel. If it had stayed an expansion, it might never have received the resources/push it DID get. [source]

User: I'd love to visit the universe where you had an extra year or so to work on it. You did a very good job as it stands, but it definitely had rough edges. Not just the writing team either. The whole game had hit and miss moments, that just a little more dev time could have fixed.

DG: On one hand, DA2 existed to fill a hole in the release schedule. More time was never in the cards. DA2 was originally planned as an expansion! On the other, if we had more time, would we have started doing that thing where we second guess/iterate ourselves into mediocrity? [shrug emoji] [source]

Jennifer Hepler: This is what I love about DA2. Personally, I greatly prefer something that's rough and raw and sincere to something that's had all the soul polished out of it. Extra time would have helped for art and levels, but it would have lost something too. [source]

DG: Right? I think we could have used some time for peer reviews (and fewer cuts), but I think the rawness of the writing lent a certain spark that we usually polished out. [source]

JH: Definitely. I think the structure (more character-driven) and the tightness of the timeframe let each individual writer's voice really come through. Polish can be very homogenizing. [source]

DG: I should add I'm not, by any means, against iteration. Some iteration is good and necessary. The problem that BioWare often had is that we never knew when to stop. Like a goldfish, we would fill the space given to us by constantly re-iterating on things that were "good enough". [source]

Patrick Weekes: I appreciate your incredibly diplomatic use of the past tense on "had". :D [source]

User: DA2 was my gateway into the series and I’m so happy it is. I love the game the way that it is. It’s one of my favorites of all time. But I am also aware of everything that was said here. If it were remastered, do you think it would change?

DG: I'd be surprised if it was ever remastered. If it was, do you really think they'd change things? Do remasters do that? No idea. [source]

User: Both sides got undercut as I recall. Didn't that whole sequence also end with the mage leader embracing blood magic? It was very much "a plague on both your houses" moment, at least for me.

DG: Yep. Orsino was supposed to have his own version of Meredith's end battle, which only happened if you sided with the templars. That got cut, but the team still wanted to use the model we'd made for him. So... that happened. [source]

DG: I would personally say that DA2 is a fantastic game hidden under a mountain of compromises, cut corners, and tight deadlines. If you can see past all that, you'll see a fantastic game. I don't doubt, however, that it's very difficult for most to do that. [source]

PW: I love DAI with all my selfish "I worked on this" heart, but DA2's follower arcs and relationships are probably my favorite in the series. [source]

User: As I've expressed many times, I love the game, especially it's writing and characters but, for me, the most impressive aspect of it, in consideration of it's lack of time for drafts and revisions, is the 2nd act with Arishok. What amazingly complex character and fantastic duel

User: Just played it again and I have to agree. Though he is bound by the harsher tenants of the Qun, he makes valid points about free marcher society. Though it is obvious that he and Hawke will come to blows eventually, the tension builds gradually and understandably

DG: Luke did such a fantastic job with the Arishok I found myself sometimes wishing the Qunari plot had just been THE plot. [source]

User: What do you think would have changed, story wise, if you had more time for DA2?

DG: I would have taken out that thing where Meredith gets the idol. It was forced on me because she needed to be "super-powered" with red lyrium for her final battle. Being "crazy", however, robbed her side of the mage/templar argument of any legitimacy. I hated hated hated that. [source]

User: I deeply lament that there wasn't/couldn't be some sort of DA2 equivalent of Throne of Bhaal's Ascension mod.

DG: I'd have done it, if DA2 had allowed for anything but the most rudimentary of modding. ;) [source]

User: I mean, and I think I understand where you were trying, but how much legitimacy did the Templars and her as top Templar have after they're keeping the mages locked up against their will in the old slave quarters? Feel free to not reply.

DG: I think it's the kind of discussion which requires nuance, and which discussions on the Internet are not prone to. [source]

User: Was a compromise that the quest lines don’t branch? It felt like it was supposed to be that way but then you end up in the same place later regardless of what you pick. Like I hoodwinked the templars so good to help the apostates escape but in Act II they were caught anyway.

DG: I remember us having a lot more branching in the initial planning yes. Most of this got trimmed out in the first or second wave of cuts, in an effort to not cut the plots altogether. [source]

DG: "If you could Zack Snyder DA2, what would you change?" Wow. I'm willing to bet Mark or Mike (or anyone else on the team) would give very different answers than me, but it's enough to give a sober man pause, because that was THE Project of Multiple Regrets. [source] I mean, it's the most hypothetical of hypotheticals. It's never gonna happen. I wouldn't be surprised if EA considered DA2 its embarrassing red-headed stepchild. We'd also need to ignore that in many ways DA2 was as good as it was bad BECAUSE of how it was made. But that aside? [source] First, either restore the progressive changes to Kirkwall we'd planned over the passing of in-game years or reduce the time between acts to months instead of years... which, in hindsight, probably should have been done as soon as the progressive stuff was cut. [source] I'm sure you're like "get rid of repeated levels!" ...but I don't care about that. All I wanted was for Kirkwall to feel like a bigger city. Way more crowded. More alive! Fewer blood mages. [source] I'd want to restore the plot where a mage Hawke came THIS close to becoming an abomination. An entire story spent trapped in one's own head while trapped on the edge of possession. Why? Because Hawke is the only mage who apparently never struggles with this. It was a hard cut. [source]

User: I would LOVE to hear more details about this! I don’t suppose there’s any chance of a short story?

DG: I don't even remember the details of the story, sorry. There was a fight, and you caught the bad guy and then realized none of it was real and woke up idk [source]

DG: I'd want to restore all those alternate lines we cut, meaning people forget they'd met you. Or that they knew you were a mage. Or, oh god, that maybe they'd romanced you in DAO. So much carnage. [source] I'd want to restore the Act 3 plots we cut only because they were worked on too late, but which would have made the buildup to the mage/templar clash less sudden. Though I don't remember what they were, now. Some never got beyond being index cards posted on the wall. [grimace emoji] [source] As I mentioned elsewhere, I'd want to restore Orsino's end battle so he wouldn't need to turn on you even if you sided with him. And I'd want an end fight with the templars that didn't require Meredith to have red lyrium and go full Tetsuo. [source] Heck, maybe an end decision where you sided with neither the mages nor the templars. Because it certainly ended up feeling like you could brand both sides as batshit pretty legitimately, no? That was never planned, tho. No idea how to make that feel like an actual path atm. [source] Maybe an option to go "umm, Anders... what are you DOING?" 👀 [source] And, of course, a Varric romance, because Mary took that "slimy car salesman" character we'd planned and did the impossible with him. I can feel Mary glaring at me for even suggesting this, tho. [source] Lastly, the original expanded opening to the game which allowed you to spend time with Bethany and Carver BEFORE the darkspawn attacked. And, um, that's about it off the top of my head. Zack Snyder, WHAT PANDORA'S BOX HAVE YOU OPENED. [source] Shit, I remembered two more things: 1) Restore the "Varric exaggerates the heck out of the story" at the beginning of every Act, until Cassandra calls him on it. Yes, that was a thing. 2) Make DA: Exodus. Yes, I am still bitter. [source] God damn it, I meant "Make DA: Exalted March". The DA2 expansion, NOT Exodus since that was DA2's original name and makes no sense. Because the expansion ended with Varric dying, and that will always be on my "things left undone" list. [source]

User: Whaaaat?

DG: Well, you know that scene in Wrath of Khan where Spock goes into the dilithium chamber because he's a Vulcan? Well, imagine that but with Varric and red lyrium and because he's a dwarf. ;) [source]

John Epler: I distinctly remember referencing the bit from MGS4 where you crawl through the microwave corridor in the split screen, while cinematic battle rages on the other half. [source]

DG: It would have been glorious, John. Glorious. [source]

JE: I don't think I've ever been so certain what a shot should look like as I did Hawke coming in and finding Varric in the broken throne, just like when he was telling Cassandra his story. [source]

DG: It would have come full circle! Auggghh, it still kills me. [source]

User: Lord, you folks are a little too good at this.

JE: The true secret behind videogame narrative is knowing how to make yourself seem a lot more clever than you actually are. [source] 'Oh, we TOTALLY planned that.' [source]

User: Ok, this thread [the DA2 regrets thread, which is the big chunks above] but Inquisition.

DG: My regrets about Inquisition are, more or less, the normal kind. Nothing so dramatic, I'm afraid. [source]

User: You can keep your Varric romance, I want a Flemeth romance goddamnit!

DG: I would allow for one flirt option, and then a recording of Kate Mulgrew laughing for three minutes straight. [source]

User: I had a hypothesis about the repetitive caves in DA2. They're repetitive because it's Varric telling the story and he didn't consider them important. They're like sets in a play. (Okay, I really suspect it was a time/money/resources thing but I like my fake explanation better.)

DG: Hang a lampshade on it, maybe? Cassandra: "But that's the exact cave you were in last time?" Varric: "Whatever. They all look the same, I'm not THAT kind of dwarf. Can we move on?" [source]

User: that makes sense, hypothetically to make Varric romanceable and keep his arc—that had to happen for the main plot—I imagine you would have to make double the content (or more)? which would've been a tall order given the time/budget constraints the game was under

DG: Right. When it comes to "romance arc" vs. "follower story arc", we generally only had time to do one or the other. Never both. Romancing Varric would have meant not getting the story of his that you did. [source]

Mary Kirby: The one exaggeration I really, REALLY wanted, that we never got to do was Varric narrating his own death scene with Hawke weeping over him, then cutting to Cassandra's pissed off glaring at him. [source]

DG: Haha! The one I wanted was Varric's plot where he takes on the baddies single-handedly, sliding across the floor like Jet Lee, action movie-style, until finally Cassandra gets irritated and he has to admit Hawke & the rest of the party showed up to help. [source]

MK: We did that one! (He didn't do any Jet Lee moves, though.) Jepler gave him letterboxing to get The Good, the Bad, & the Ugly showdown vibes while he shot a ton of mooks single-handed. [source]

DG: Wow. Shows how much I remember. [source]

JE: I found it! I remember seeing this sequence as my treat for doing a bunch of much more challenging work. It was fun to see how far I could push our limited library of animations. [link] [source]

DG: Heh awesome. I could have sworn it was cut, honestly. I think I was even in that meeting. [source]

User: no disrespect but that’s surprising and rich of Mary “Hard in Hightown” Kirby to think DA2 shouldn’t have had a Varric romance when she wrote an entire book of Varric’s self-insert character pining over his Hawke insert character… HIH is the reason we had VHawke Summer 2018

DG: I can't *really* speak for Mary, or how she feels about it now compared to back then. I only know how she felt about it back then, and I'm not sure it was as much the concept of the romance but that Varric's entire story would be bent to "romance arc" ...a very different thing. [source]

JH: I remember pushing to have the first DLC start with Hawke having an option to ask Varric, "Did you tell Cassandra about us?" and if you picked it, Varric would answer, "Of course not, baby. I told her you were sleeping with X..." and then proceed as if you had had a full romance. [source]

DG: I still wonder how that would have gone over. x) [source]

JE: Okay, one more DA2 thing. Putting together the cinematics for this scene was a blast. [link] [source]

MK: These lines are my greatest legacy. I want "Make sure the world knows I died... at Chateau Haine!" inscribed on my tombstone. [source]

JE: I was so glad no one said 'no' to the crane shot. [source]

MK: It needs that crane shot. It's the perfect icing on that cake made from solid cheese. [source]

DG: The designers were all "we need more combat" and I think we were all "I think you underestimate just HOW interesting we can make this dinner party". [source]

JE: And finally. I think @SherylChee wrote the one-liner. I think we had a collection of like, 20. [link] [source]

Sheryl Chee: Yeah! Something like that! I remember submitted a whole bunch and Frank said you only needed one. Wish I'd kept the other fifteen. [source]

JE: A random chooser where, each time through the scene, you get a different one-liner. [source]

JE: DA2 is the project I'm the proudest of. I also absolutely get that it didn't land for a lot of people. But I don't think it's inaccurate to say that, in a lot of ways, DA2 defined my career. [source] Everyone spent a year working at their maximum ability. I was a fresh cinematic designer and was given all of Varric's content, as well as the Act 1 Finale mission. It was a lot for someone who had been doing the Cinematics thing for literally 6 months. [source] There's some stuff in there I can't look at without wincing. And there's some stuff I'm genuinely proud of. Not to mention, it was my introduction to most of the writing team. Several of whom I'm still working with today! Albeit in a different capacity [source] Also, weirdly, one of my most enduring memories of Dragon Age 2 is how much Bad Company 2 we'd play at lunch. It was a LOT. [source] Every game I've worked on has a game I played attached to it. ME2 is Borderlands. DA2 is Bad Company 2. DAI is DayZ. I, hmm. There's a progression there. I don't know how I feel about it. [source]

User: Is DA4 going to be tarkov then?

JE: I've kind of churned out of Tarkov for now. Probably Hunt Showdown, at least right now. [source]

User: I think people also don't take nuance into consideration -- like I FULLY acknowledge the flaws in my favorite games and will openly criticize them, but that doesn't mean they're not my favorite games anymore??? You can like and thing and still be critical of it.

JE: A lot of my favourite shit is deeply flawed! I acknowledge it and I think it's interesting to dissect the flaws. [source]

User: I still wish Justice was an actual character in DA2 rather than a plot point.

DG: There was a moment during DAI where we *almost* put in you running into Justice with the Grey Wardens, and he's all "Kirkwall? I never went to Kirkwall" [source]

User: Does that imply that Justice was shoehorned in to DA2?

DG: Nah, it was an in-joke where we thought it'd be fun to suggest that "Justice" was simply some demon that tricked Anders in DA2. Wooo those tricky demons! We didn't do it, though. [source]

User: [about templars] except, I don't think it had very much legitimacy to begin with. keep in mind, we interact with other characters with the same argument. The one that comes to mind is Cullen, a sane templar in power. The templar's side of the argument is inherently flawed.

DG: I don't doubt that many people agree with you, and yet people can and do argue on behalf of the templars as well. My place isn't to pick a side, but to provide evidence that players can interpret for themselves [source]

User: Can you shed some light for us on how DA was able to do multiple same-sex romance options for different genders but the Mass Effect team treated them like the plague? What process existed for your team that just wasn't their for the other tentpole franchise?

DG: Different people making the decisions, almost different cultures. I don't know what it's like now, but for many years the Mass Effect team and the Dragon Age team were almost like two different studios working within the same building. [source]

User: It truly boggles the mind. Kudos for doing demonstrably better on consistent queer representation than the ME teams. Y'all never needed us to make petitions to try to get the studio's attention and ask them to do better by us. That's the fight we're once again embroiled in now.

DG: Honestly, I don't feel like tut-tutting the Mass Effect team. They did their part, and if they were a bit later to the show than the DA team they certainly did more than almost every other game out there -- and willingly. [source]

Updates begin here

User: So what was the reason for naming Dragon age 2 "Dragon age II" and not using a subtitle?

DG: As I recall, that was purely a publisher decision. I think they wanted to avoid the impression it was an expansion. [source]

User: Is there no chance of ever remaking DA2 under better circumstances? -Somehow remove the repetitiveness of gameplay by making changes and updating the tech and adding much more to the storyline. It could almost be a new very exciting game.

DG: I'd say there's zero chance of that. Let's keep our hopes up for the next DA title instead. [source]

User: I am a little confused here, help me out here please! How exactly was the cut boss battle with Orsino supposed to work out? How it would've kept him from turning against the player?

DG: It means that, if you sided with the templars, the entire boss bottle at the end would have been against Orsino and the mages. No fight against Meredith. The end decision would have been more divergent. [source]

User: I do remember that one of the reasons going around for that, was that resources were going to the transition to Frostbite. I'm still not fully sold on that having been a good choice. I felt that more time should have been given for that transition considering it was made for FPSs

DG: We didn't transition to Frostbite until DAI. Given our time frame for DA2, I don't think we *could* have transitioned to a new engine. [source]

User: Since your talking about the what could have been for DA2. Could you say what your script was for Anthem? Cause I remember reading that you wrote the plot on that game.

DG: I created a setting for Anthem and scripted out a plot - but, as I understand it, almost none of that ended up being used. So it's a bit pointless to talk about what I'd planned, as that'd be for some completely different type of game. [source]

User: [in reference to the exchange above where DG said “Being "crazy", however, robbed her side of the mage/templar argument of any legitimacy. I hated hated hated that.” re: Meredith] except, I don't think it had very much legitimacy to begin with. keep in mind, we interact with other characters with the same argument. The one that comes to mind is Cullen, a sane templar in power. The templar's side of the argument is inherently flawed.

If I missed a tweet, got the wrong source link or included a tweet twice, feel free to let me know and I’ll correct.

Edit / Update: Post update 22nd April

#dragon age #bioware #video games #fenris #the Fenaissance #long post #longpost #cassandra pentaghast #my lady paladin #dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #da4 #mass effect

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lesbianakaashi · 4 years ago

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The Forgotten Shounen: Katekyo Hitman Reborn

This is not a “Why you should watch/read khr” or anything like that. This is just me going into the deep dive and throwing my findings at you. I’m making this because khr used to be my favourite series when I was 15 (I had plushees, posters, tradingcards, the art book etc) and now as an adult I constantly find myself baffled at how unknow it seems to be.

1. Okay first what is khr?

Katekyo Hitman Reborn! or just Reborn! is a series by Akira Amano which was published in Weekly Shounen Jump from 2004 to 2012 (with 42 volumes) and got an anime adaption which run from 2006 to 2010 on Tv Tokyo (with 202 episodes and one OVA).

2. What’s it about?

Khr is a parody of the italian mafia and plays in a world where the mafia is heavily influencial. The protagonist is the japanese middle schooler Sawada Tsunayoshi who is known as “No good Tsuna” because of his failing grades, general weak and cowardly personality and weak physics.

He becomes aware of the mafia world when a 2 year old baby called Reborn arrives at his house claiming to be the greatest hitman and declaring himself his home tutor. Reborn was send by the 9th head of the Vongola famiglia who is ready to retire and looking for a new heir. Which of course, is supposed to be Tsuna and now it's Reborns job to shape him into a worthy sucessor.

Tsuna rejects the violence of the mafia world and refuses the position as the 10th. Thanks to Reborn and his general craziness Tsuna meets different people and starts to make real friendships. Reborn wants 6 of those friends to be Tsuna's future guardians, basically a group of people which will be closest to him in the vongola famiglia. Tsuna might have no interest in those positions but the friendships he builds with them become really precious to him.

Reborns arrivial also brings in the enemies of the Vongola family which leads to Tsuna being forced to engage in battles. Generally Tsuna openly avoids fights and prefers to run away but will put himself in danger for his friends' sake or because of something Reborn did.

Through out the series Tsuna matures and gains strenght but he never becomes a power fantasy. He's just a guy with many flaws who grows through the human connections he makes.

Personally I think the relationship between Reborn and Tsuna is one of the best student teacher reltaionships in all of manga only topped by Mob and Reigen from Mob Psycho 100. Especially the last arc really underlines their unique relationship to me.

Furthermore, khr offers a new and unique battle system: The flames. I'm not gonna go into to too much detail but the general idea is that one fights with their dying will flame which basically turns off your the savety switch so you can fight with everything you have. The flames are seperated into different categories such as: sky, storm, mist, rain, sun, lightning and cloud and have different attributes asigned to each one. Tsuna's use of the sky flame and his transformation when using it is still one of my favourite shounen transformations to this day.

3. What happened?

The series did really well and then not so well over the course of its serialisation. After the manga got an anime adaption it increased in populairty and video games, light novels, and other products such as CDs were created based on the series. Reborn is one of the best selling series of Weekly Shōnen Jump and has sold around 30 Million volumes overall. It was and still is very popular in Japan but rather unknown in the west.

According to the article "The Rise and Fall of Weekly Shonen Jump: A Look at the Circulation of Weekly Jump" khr was the 10th bestselling series in Weekly Shōnen Jump, with a total of 7 million copies sold in 2007.

This number increasing to 15 milion in 2008. Which placed khr into the 4th best selling series of 2008 in Japan.

Between 2008 and 2010 those sales declined but still kept strong with khr as the 6th top selling manga in 2009, 8th best selling in 2010 and then 24th best selling in 2012.

In November 2014, readers of the Da Vinci magazine voted khr number 17 on a list of Weekly Shōnen Jump's greatest manga series of all time.

After the anime came to an apprupt stop in 2010 for unknown reasons the manga sells took a visible hit. (Apparently the studio wanted to put the anime on halt because they were busy with other projects and give Akira Amano time to develop her story but I couldn't find any source for this claim) Furthermore, the rushed last chapters of the manga in 2012 declined the popularity of the series even more. There's no offical statement as to why the manga was ended in such a way but it's reasonable to assume that Jump either cut it considering the decreasing sales or Akira Amano choose to end it for personal reasons.

Nontheless, Tsuna not being included in Jump Force (a fighting game where you can play as different characters from Jump) in 2019 even tho he made it in earlier Jump Stars games also underlines the decreased interest in the series.

Rumors on a reboot or anime adaption of the last two arcs surface from time to time but are genereally unlikely. Artland the studio which made khr has gone bankrupt around 2015-2016. It might be taken on by another studio but rather uncommen especially with such an old series.

4. Art style

The khr anime ended over 10 years ago and the old art style might not be appealing to newer audiences.

Especailly because the anime adaption follows Akira Amanos old art style which heavily developed within the years. Here a picture comparing characters in the new art style:

A modern anime adaption in the new art style would be aesthetically pleasing. It would probably look similiar to Psycho Pass since Akira Amano did the concept art for this series.

(My personal art student hot take is that both art styles are unique and fun. Up to this day Akira Amano still has my favourite art style and even if the amount folds in the characters clothing is a little extreme I love it dearly.)

5. Criticism

The show is not without flaws and even if I greatly enjoy it it wouldn't be right not to adress them.

Daily Life Arc:

A lot of people view the first 20 to 25 episodes as fillers and quickly lose intererst in the series. This is due to the fact that Akira Amano inteded the series to be a gag manga and focuses the first chapters on world building, character introduction and comical narratives. It's rumored that the decision to develop the story into a battle shounen was made because the sales weren't doing well enough at first. So the first chapters/episodes may seem titidious but are necessary for the story and the development of the characters. The tonal shift from a more gintama like gag manga to a darker battle focused story can also be offputting to some viewers.

Either way a lot of people blame this arc when discussing why khr never got an english dub or didn't end up on Toonami. I've also read that the manga never finished serializing in the north america. However, it finished in other western languages like german and spanish.

Censoring:

The anime censors A LOT. From Gokudera's smoking habit, Yamamoto's whole character arc which deals with heavy themes such as depression and suicidal thoughts. The general bloodiness of the manga was censored and sometimes whole chapters and characters were left out even if those were important to the devolopment of others.

Filler episodes:

Out of the 202 episodes the anime has around 29 filler episodes which makes roughly 14 %.

Sexism:

Even if Reborn was written by a woman most female characters are rather flat and their storylines often tied to a male character in one way or another.

Genereal things:

Khr, like many other long running series, is sometimes criticised for a lack of world building or unpopular narrative choices.

6. Hope?

Khr isn't exactly dead. As stated before the series is still very popular in Japan and still gets new merch pretty regulary. There are also petitions floating around for a reboot or a new anime season but those never get a lot of traction. Furthermore #Reborn2期アニメ化 (#Reborn2ndAnimation) used to get some traction on twitter not too long ago. Last year the Anime News Network did a poll on which anime the readers would like to see a rebooot of and khr placed second.

Either way here's a collection of recent khr things I could find.

- In 2018 a new bluray set was released in north america

- The khr stage play reached yet another new season

- A mobile game was released last year

- Currently ongoing anime cafe event called "Concerto di Vongola"

- Last month there was an event with the former VAs and stage play actors where they discussed their favourite khr episodes.

- There has been an increase in blind reacts to the openings on youtube which might bring in a new fan base. The biggest one I could find had around 90k views and was made in 2019. On this note check out the soundtrack. The first openeing Drawing Days by SPLAY still makes me go insane (but I'm biased of course)

There also renewed hope for a new season/reboot because Shaman King, Inuyasha and Bleach got anounced for new seasons after a long hiatus. It's important to keep in mind that the circumstances for those series are differnt tho. For example bleachs new anime is often tied to the immense success of the gatcha game.

7. Conclusion

Khr is a series which used to be a flagship for Weekly Shounen Jump and is deeply beloved by it's fans, especially in Japan. It influenced other shounen series like bnha. It would be nice to see it gaining a bigger fanbase in the west :)

#khr #khr meta #anime analysis #shounen jump #katekyo hitman reborn #mirytalks #long post #manga

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thedenofravenpuff · 3 years ago

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dA Nuked from Orbit

Over a week I’ve been non-stop art dumping on my FurAffinity account.

Been moving old art and character refs from my DeviantART account, because I was finally quitting on the site. Eclipse was bad enough change, but with every new update and betas forced upon its audience, the site just kept getting worse to me.

Further dA ranting below

My gallery’s folder system looks hideous, the message center continuously chopped up into smaller pieces to make it as inconvenient as possible, even using the search bar was getting effy because things don’t make obvious sense when looked at.

Not to mention the new setup was a killer on bandweight and seemed to be actively trying to destroy my browser, if I was on the site for more than ten minutes at a time. No other sites gave me this much trouble.

I’ve been a loyal user of DeviantART for years, almost two decades. I had paid subscriptions to support the site all those years, until Eclipse made me stop wanting to pay them ANYTHING. Only to learn is not an option to remove my banking info from their profile on me. AFTER they renewed my subscription without permission. I got my money back once I called the bank.

The last week while I saved old traditional art for transfer, the latest beta for the ruined message center glitched out so badly, I could no longer reply to people’s comments or notes. Nor look at other people’s posts, I couldn’t even look up my own journal posts put up to announce my plans for departure.

To the very end, dA made it clear I was better off leaving. I only waited this long until I found someone to take over an old Group I didn’t had the heart to leave behind without supervision.

Finally Friday, I deactivated my account. Whatever not saved to be put up on FurAffinity as my new main art archive, will now be gone. Of course, deactivating, doesn’t mean is gone, just means people can’t access your account anymore. After SEVERAL emails and clicking buttons to affirm YES KILLSWITCH THIS SHT you can still log onto dA. Pointlessly.

So I had to use the option of doing an PII sweep and use the law giving me the right to have them delete ALL and EVERYTHING of my data, which should finally kill my account off for good (within 30 days). At least they’ll no longer have access to my bank account at last

dA was my archive for so many years, where I kept everything one place. It was were I made my longest lasting friendships, and first made a name for myself. Though to prove a point to myself, whenever I made an account on a different site, I never announced it on existing accounts for the first while, only to see I can still get a following. I don’t need what I had on dA to stay relevant.

If you enjoy dA Eclipse and swear to it.. good for you. But it broke my heart and destroyed everything I loved about it, for changes I never wanted. And as I tried to stick around, tried to give it time to grow on me.. it only got worse and showed no signs of improving.

Heck, thanks to dA being such a mess, it made me decide to stick around on tumblr for a bit longer. I had in the past played the idea to leave tumblr, as a lot of artists I loved had run or got purged, during the great Tumblr Purge. But know what? Compared to dA, tumblr is an absolute delight and I was reminded what community and friends I still have here.

Tumblr is broken, but not as badly as compared to dA. Tumblr is still decent. And I still find friends and content to enjoy here.

If you read through all that ranting and whining, thank you. Was just to announce my dA is now deadm and my FurAffinity account is my new home base for my organized art archive.

I can also still be stalked on twitter for daily doodles and general updates

#PuffBlog #Update #DeviantART #dA #DeviantArt Eclipse #dA Eclipse #Eclipse #FA #FurAffinity #Move #Deactivated #Vent #Venting #Rant #Ranting

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pachimation · 4 years ago

Note

hiya, I really love your art, and how you make your latest stuff look really vintage and aged, it’s really super cool and I was wondering if you’d be willing to share your process for that?? thank you so much and I hope you have a wonderful day!!! :D

aww thanks so much! and of course i can share my process, no prob!! ^^

i’ll be using this piece as an example, and uh, for the context of it u might have to look on twitter lol. but whatever

it’ll be a bit long so everything is under the cut

(this is just based on my process, and i know its weird and csp specific.

feel free to pick and choose pieces from my process!)

and also the programs i used were procreate and csp and i have a mac. u could probably do this with other set ups, but this tutorial might not be super helpful near the end

i usually make my lineart in procreate and import it into csp as a .psd file

for this, in procreate, select the file you want to export and click PSD and then I airdrop it to my mac.

i think the only thing about the lineart i have tips on is to keep it toothy/gritty if that makes sense?

i use the 6B pencil in procreate with a bunch of tweaks to the pressure sensitivity and opacity/size change.

but anything with a good size jitter should do the job!

in csp i shade and color the piece.

picking out the colors is a whole other mess

feel free to ask about it but ill skip for now ;v;

flat colors

csp has a lot of nice halftone options!

group up ur lineart and everything thats black rn in a folder and above them set a clipping layer to add

fill it with a color lighter than black; the less pure blacks and white u have on a piece the better

feel free to go to town w the grunge or noise texture of ur choosing! the grittier the better bc during this step i try to get the feel of worn off ink. just make sure the linearts still visible, though. u went through all the trouble to make it after all! ^^

(i have specific brushes but again thats something else u can ask me about)

above all the layers, make a multiply layer and do something similar.

same advice as above

this is ur “paper” texture, tho, so try to keep it more even in tone so things don’t get too messy

(but if it works for u, feel free to do it! find what works is my advice!)

ok time for some super csp-specific steps (sorry to non-csp users)

the csp asset store/website(?) has a lot of nice textures and brushes available.

look through it if u haven't

it will make ur life so much easier

theres a really nice tileable watercolor texture set there

(this one specifically)

(it also had some really good paper texture bc whoever made this is a godsend)

i slap that over the color layer, set it to clipping, and mess with the blending modes

its usually a tossup between soft light, overlay, multiply, and the overlay texture effect tho

theres another optional step of using the overlay texture effect on a paper texture

i didn’t do it on this example sorry :’(

i think i used another watercolor texture set to soft light on this piece?

after that, if u want, i like setting a noise texture at a v low opacity over everything for extra jitter

(i use this one. u can just make it in csp and probably any other drawing software but im lazy lmao)

save it as a png/jpg/etc.

and ur done!

i do some extra stuff to the final image like scale everything down and add a bit of a 3D effect for a bit of extra kick

(but again thats a bit complex and specific so feel free to ask but ill keep it short

for your sanity’s sake)

(and once again, the final image! ta-da!)

some tips to keep in mind i guess

jitter, grit and noise textures are very good things when u want something to look rough

avoid pure blacks and whites; most paper isn’t printed pure black or white and it only gets more faded and colored with time

if ur super lost, look at reference!! theres a lot of good artists and media out there to get inspiration from, and looking at scans of actual old comics is a nice way to see if ur work looks aged

(also u don’t have to use old comics as reference; i like looking at old vcr footage for reference bc of the texture!! :D)

that’s all i have for my general process

uhh for specifics feel free to ask

i can make more tutorials but this one is a general overview, i just didn’t to take up too much of ur time….

but i really hope it helped! and im very sorry if it didn’t

i’ve never made a tutorial so im sorry if it didn’t answer ur question and also im sorry if this one’s not very useful

thank you for reading!!!

and thank you to whoever asked! :D

#tutorial #art tutorial #hades fanart #i mean technically #i haven't posted it here yet

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little-red-toyota · 4 years ago

Text

Final good bye to the fandom

TW//Trauma, triggers, nsfw, sexual themes, rape, domestic abuse e.g.

This is gonna be a long ass post…

It has taken me a while to get emotionally strong enough to do this, as I will have to think back at some traumatic events from my past to address some of these things. That's why I waited until I got home from vacation with my family, as it will seriously affect my mood and mental health, and I want to be near my doctor and therapist, just in case.

And also, I know that the majority of those reading this will invalidate me and tell me I am making things up to clear my name. So, I literally have to torment myself to write a blog post people will just brush off as bogus anyway. But I will do it now that I am in safe surroundings. Then it will be off my chest, and I can finally move on. If people will continue stirring up the past, it will be their problem, not mine.

I think I should write one last blog post where I address everything. I have left the TTTE-fandom, but I will write that one as my final goodbye to the fandom. I just have to find out everything I've been accused of so I can properly address them all in order. I might leave out details of my life that is too hard for me to open up about. I know most of you will just invalidate me anyway.

1. The Stepney fic and glorifying rape.

2. My mafia-AU.

3. The Darin incident.

4. Being a pedophile. (Where do they get this from anyway??)

5. Running the NSFW-blog.

6. Drawing penises/boobs on trains. Drawing age-regression art.

Is there more?

Ah... yes! Faking my own suicide, of course!

7. "Faking" being suicidal.

8. Having the audacity to survive and go on living.

9. "Making up" my past trauma to justify writing fics to cope with it.

10. Being a nazi for being interested in WW2 history and for being Norwegian and having so-called nazi-letters in my last name (actual letters of the Norwegian alphabet).

11. Putting a white-supremacist flag (the actual flag of Norway) on my porch on family birthdays and our national day.

12. Being a danger to my daughter.

Anything else that needs to be addressed? What else am I being accused of? Send me a dm and I will add it to the post.

Okay, I will bump the Stepney fic down a bit as it is the most traumatic thing for me to address, I will save that one for last.

2 and 3. The dark au/mafia au where I gave some TTTE characters some rather dark and unpleasant character traits, and the whole incident with Darin and the pedo-Salty was addressed in this blog post written by my husband last year, so I am not opening that can of worms again: https://little-red-toyota.tumblr.com/post/623743183795470336/in-light-of-recent-events

Even the thing about Toby cheating on Henrietta is addressed there.

As for the au, I never fully explored it as I started losing interest in TTTE around the same time. I found other things to enjoy and TTTE faded into the background and the au was dropped before I even wrote any stories, apart from the one about Toby and Henrietta.

Some people claim, like this lovely individual, that most of the characters were rapists and pedos. No, not most. Only one of each. And I did not write more than one story about rape and suicide. Where does this person even get that from? Someone who told someone who had heard from someone who might have heard….?

Don't spread rumors unless you are sure that they are true.

Anyway, it's all addressed in that blog post in that link. I don't see how this mafia au is any worse than other dark post-apocalyptic or violent aus. It mostly was about the diesel mafia and their illegal businesses, not about sex, even if it did occur now and then. I find the substance abuse in it to be more problematic tbh…

4. Being a pedophile.

I don't even know how to defend myself against this one, as I don't even know why people think I am pedophile. They only throw the accusation out with no backing evidence, so I have no idea where it comes from or what it is that makes people think I am one.

Apart from one claim that I had faved "porn" alongside "strangers'" baby photos on DA. I addressed that earlier though. As DeviantArt doesn't sort what you click "like" on, it all ends up in the same folder unless you actively go through it and sort it into categories, which I don't bother most of the time. It also doesn't say WHEN it was added to your faves. So, I can have faved an artistic nude on Saturday, and then faved my friend's family photo on Thursday. It's not like I actively search for porn, get all steamed up and then look at pictures of children. WTF.

The few children I have faved are not from complete strangers, but long-term friends of mine. Yes, it is possible to have friends on the same website. I have actually met a lot of my RL friends through DeviantArt. I posted photos of my daughter when she was a baby, they would fave it and congratulate me. So, I did the same when they had a baby. As simple as that. Nothing weird or perverted about it. Due to people doxxing me last year however, I deleted the photos of me, my husband and my daughter from DeviantArt, so it's no longer there.

Porn isn't allowed on DeviantArt anyway. The nudes there are so-called artistic nudes, and for the most part I use them as pose-references when I draw as it is easier to draw a pose using a nude base and then dress them up once you got the pose right.

"The very naked" centaurs I have faved. Well, I like the mythological creature Centaur. And as far as I know… they do not wear clothes, so how are they NOT nude? Look it up, it's a horse body with a human torso instead of horse head. I don't see them as sexual, but what do I know? Maybe YOU do?

I have no sexual interest in children whatsoever.

5. Running the NSFW-blog on Tumblr and Twitter.

Yes. I was one of six people modding that blog. ONE of six, so I refuse to take the full blame here.

MerciResolution has openly admitted to being the founder, and she recruited me and some others to modify as the confession load became too heavy for one person to handle alone.

The original blog on Tumblr worked as follows: People would anonymously send a confession to our askbox, we would add a picture (sometimes photoshopped) to the text and post it on the blog. Always tagged as NSFW and with proper trigger warnings if necessary! The blog itself was also marked as explicit, so it didn't appear in searches and such.

For us, this blog was nothing but a joke. We did it for shits and giggles. If anyone took it seriously and thought we got off to the stuff that was posted, we apologize for that, but to us it was just for laughs. And we DID laugh a lot, you guys should have seen the weird shit people sent us sometimes!

We had fun and we never thought anyone would take it seriously, so we never thought of writing "joke" in the description or anything. It never occurred to us that it could be anything but a joke.

We also made a Twitter account for it, also locked for minors. But it was quickly hacked, and someone changed the password so we could no longer access it. We made another account and forgot about the old one…

After a while, the original mods started losing interest and the blog (both on Tumblr and Twitter) became less active. That's when a person I had known for years, and wrongfully trusted, came forward and wanted to take over ownership. So, the ownership was handed over to Russalita/Charlie.

That turned out to be huge mistake!

Me and the other mods had more or less forgotten that the blogs existed, when suddenly someone started bashing me and getting up in my arms over it. I got seriously confused as I hadn't been active on it in almost a year. But as it turned out, Russalita had removed the mature filters and made the accounts open for all the see. Even minors.

And as people knew I was one of the mods, they fired their guns at me. I can see why though, so I'm not pointing any fingers here.

I tried contacting her by phone, asking her to lock the accounts again, but she gave me a less than polite response, hung up and then blocked my number…

So, I decided to try to shut the blogs down on my own, trying the old passwords. It worked on the Tumblr-account, and I managed to password protect it, for some reason it couldn't be fully deleted. But the Twitter account had gotten its password changed by Russalita. I was however able to get a new password by logging into the e-mail we had used to create it. I deleted the Twitter blog fully. It can't be re-activated even if we wanted to. It's gone.

But it turns out the old, hacked one is still up and now open for everyone. And this one poses a huge problem as we have no way of getting into it to delete it. Only thing we have been able to do so far is reporting it and hope it will be removed by Twitter. So I only have one thing to say about it: report it.

I am no longer running any NSFW TTTE blog anywhere, nor do I have interest in doing so. So, if you come across one, claiming to be me or any of the other mods, it is false.

6. Drawing penises/boobs on trains. Drawing age-regression art.

People seem to believe I have drawn genitals on trains. I have never done such. Any art on the NSFW-blog with genitalia on the trains were sent in by confessors and was not drawn by me. Most of them seems to have been drawn by someone who goes by the name "The Lance".

I HAVE drawn things for the NSFW blog, but there were no genitalia in those drawings. I drew Frank of Arlesdale looking grossed out by (I don't know what the part is named in English, but it is connected to the brakes of the engine) that stick-like thing on his bufferbeam being wet from whatever the confessor did to him. I drew an over-exaggerated comical pic of a horrified Peter Sam getting his face licked by his driver, who had an enormous tongue. I also did a couple of manips. Mostly maniping engine faces on humans, like the one where Gordon's face is on a less than fit guy flailing his shirt around, and the Arlesdale smallies' faces on a movie poster from Magic Mike. One with Mr.Conductor in a giant bun while Pinchy is applying ketchup on him, for a confession about eating him, I think? I've done some more, but I forgot what it was, I only know I loved making them comical rather than erotic, as I saw the blog as a joke overall.

I HAVE also drawn aheago faces on engines because it looks hilarious. Though I have only drawn them on my OCs and the NRS engines, not TTTE characters.

Point is I have never drawn genitalia on trains. Ever. And I likely never will. It's not THAT much fun drawing NSFW stuff.

I see from this screenshot that a certain MK-Instrumentalist claim that all my personal art is age-regression art and infantilism…

Whose art have you been looking at? Because it's definitely not mine. I have drawn a couple of baby/chibi diesels… But claiming that all of my 700 or so artworks are depicting infantilism and age-regression stuff? I suggest people go have a look for themselves. I haven't drawn that. That MK-guy has been desperately trying to cancel me for ages for reasons only himself know. I don't even know the guy, and he doesn't know me, yet he wants to see me beheaded. Go figure.

I was for a long time bothered by some age-regressor on Tumblr who just wouldn't leave me alone with their weird asks, who tried to force themselves on me and some other artists here. They claim age-regression isn't a fetish, but the shit they sent to my askbox certainly looked like a fetish to me.

I don't want anything to do with that stuff. It weirds me out.

And no. I have never drawn pedophilia or rape art either. This guy can't even make up his mind on which one to accuse me of.

7 and 8. Faking suicide and having the audacity to survive and go on living.

As many know, after the intense shitstorm against me last summer, thanks to Darin, I attempted suicide. I didn't succeed as my husband came home early. I was gone for a few days but returned when a young boy reached out to me for help as he was being groomed and didn't know who else to turn to.

Recently I saw a screenshot where someone claimed me to have faked suicide, and that I just came back after a few days when everything had died down.

Wow.

I am truly sorry I survived.

I don't remember much from those days to be honest, but as the load became too heavy and the bullying too intense, piling up on 30 years of old trauma… I decided to end it. I must warn you guys who might get triggered now; there are detailed descriptions of a suicide attempt. Proceed with caution. People told me I was a bad mother among other things, having had those same thoughts myself (according to my husband, I am a good mom) and people just confirming them, I thought that my daughter would be better off growing up without me. I could have chosen a more effective suicide method, but I was afraid my daughter would be the first to find me, so I wanted it to be clean and look like I was just sleeping. That way it could be explained as natural causes.

So, I decided to overdose on pills. I downed all pills I could find in the house that had a warning triangle on it (strong pain meds etc.) and then went to my computer to delete my online existence, especially the personal data.

As a former paramedic, I should have known better. Because after half an hour, my body started reacting. But not the way I had hoped and wanted. I started retching and almost vomiting. That's when my husband came home from work and found me. He immediately saw the empty packages and knowing my past suicidal tendencies, he reacted instinctively. He put his fingers down my throat and had me puke everything up, then he called an ambulance and had me admitted to the hospital.

I don't remember anything from the days I spent there. But I have been told they emptied my stomach and gave me lots of fluids. I was then assigned a psychiatrist which I am still seeing today.

I was gone for those days because I was in hospital, not because I was pulling some kind of trick and pretending to have ended myself.

So… I am sorry I "faked" my suicide.

I'm sorry my husband saved me. I am sorry the medics and doctors succeeded in saving my life.

I am sorry I survived and proceeded to live on. If I ever make another attempt, I promise to do better.

Why are you guys so persistent in trying to push people to suicide anyway? Do you get a kick out of it? Why do people have to be pushed to that point before you care?

What did we tell our daughter? Simply that I got sick and had to go to the hospital. She took that well.

I've seen a lot of people wonder why I am still around. Why shouldn't I? Does my daughter deserve to lose her mother over some online crap she doesn't even know about? I owe her to live and watch her grow up, to help her with her homework and whatever else a parent needs to do. I also owe my husband to stay by his side, like I promised him the day we got married. Even if I do not wish to live.

I'm sorry I survived, guys. Really, I am.

9. "Making up" my past trauma to justify writing fics to cope with it. And 1. The Stepney fic and glorifying rape.

First… why would anyone make up trauma? It's not like it's a competition to have the worst life, is it?

Sadly, I don't have to make up anything. My life HAS been rocky up until the birth of my daughter. I have been through so much trauma I couldn't even fathom it myself before my therapist listed it all up to me. Until then, I had just been casually talking to her about it, like I would talk about the weather. I didn't cry or get in touch with my emotions even once while telling everything, because I was taught from an early age to never complain, to suck it up and go on. So, no matter what people did to me, I would just smile and go on, even if it killed me inside. I did not want to show any sign of weakness, because then they would attack me. A habit I developed through years of being bullied in school. Never show feelings, just pretend nothing could hurt you, then they would eventually grow tired of it and stop.

Except they never did. They kept going through all my years at school. To such an extent, my boyfriend didn't dare to show himself hanging out with me out of fear of being bullied himself… And as we grew older, he would start cheating on me too. And I kept smiling…

My next boyfriend was a bit older than me, and while that didn't bother me, as we were both well over legal age, it bothered him. We only lasted one year before he bailed out and ditched me out of the blue via an sms.

The next guy… was the one who scarred me for life. Both physically and mentally. A charmer at first of course, until I was trapped. He was unemployed, so he moved in with me, and I paid for everything from food to phone bills. All while he was dating several women behind my back, calling various pay-phone services and in general acted like a manwhore. As I worked as an electrician (also being subject to massive bullying and sexual harassment at work), he would be jealous of all my co-workers and if I ever came home late or worked overtime, he accused me of cheating and was extremely violent about it. He would also isolate me from my friends and family, making me think I couldn't get any other than him. If any of my male friends (almost all my friends are male…) came over, he would give me such hell afterwards, it was easier just to tell them it was a bad time to visit. And after a while, they stopped asking. This guy also demanded sex. Every single day. If I refused, he would punish me, mostly by flogging me with lampcords, belts or whatever else he had at hand. My back is a criss cross map of old, faded scars even now nearly 20 years later. I would have shown you a photo, but I am so self-concious about my body after all the bullying, I hardly even show my face in photos. Maybe one day… but I certainly need more therapy before being able to show naked skin to strangers, even if it's just my back. So I had non-consensual sex with him more often than consensual. It has taken me hours in therapy to even take the word in my mouth and call it by its proper name: rape. I was raped, almost every single day for little over a year, before I found the strength to break out of the relationship and finally throw him out of my house. It all ended when I found some revealing texts on his cellphone, which he was extremely protective of… Texts that revealed that he had engaged in a relationship with a 12 year old girl, and it had been going on for a while. Not only was he cheating on me, but he was a pedophile too. Needless to say, I didn't even let him pack his stuff before I fetched my shotgun and chased him out of the house. I don't know where I got the courage and strength from… but I was furious.

I thought I had gotten rid of him, but no. He started stalking me in public. Hiding behind shelves when I was shopping, his car following mine everywhere I went. I received weird letters in the mail with cut-out letters from newspapers, glued together. On top of all, his creepy, old uncle called me with some rather disgusting suggestions and tried to come on to me really hard. I had to change my phone number, and after coming home to my house and finding out someone had entered my home using a key, only to empty the drawer of my night table, I also had to change the locks of my doors as he had clearly copied the key.

He didn't stop until I got the police involved.

So, when I finally met the guy who would become my husband (or rather, we found out we were made for each other, we had known each other since we were 11 years old), I had major trust issues towards men especially and it took him endless patience and love to break me out of that shell.

But the trauma doesn't stop… or start there.

In the year 2000, on January 4th, I would experience something that made me unable to even look at a train for over 10 years. The Åsta accident (google it). I was a volunteer in the Norwegian Red Cross then, and a paramedic in training. Back then, you were allowed to start training the year you would turn 16. So, I was still 15 when I witnessed the most traumatic event of my life. The day started out calm, we were stocking up the ambulance after delivering a patient to the hospital when we got a call with the code "500", which means "catastrophe". Normally when we get that code it is a rehearsal… so we drove towards the coordinates with the thoughts that this was just an exercise, nothing real… we didn't prepare ourselves mentally… And we ended up in the closest thing to hell I have ever been… The sight of the burning trains, the smells, the sounds, the screaming… I still wake up by nightmares to this day. Though the moment that haunts me the most is when the screaming stopped… because we all knew why… I don't want to go into details, but 19 people died that day. But we also saved 67 people. I try to hold on to that thought. The age limit for starting paramedic training was raised after this, as I wasn't the only one who was too young for an accident of that scale. Today it is 18. A memorial stone has been placed on the site, but I still haven't been able to bring myself to visit it, even if we drive past the site every year on our way to visit family further north in the country. I needed hours of therapy to even be able to ride a train after this. To have gotten to the point where I now volunteer at a heritage railway and is in training to become a driver, is a HUGE step for me. My next goal is to visit the site of the accident.

On to next trauma… A previous employer, a rather large electric company in Norway, whom I worked for 8 years. The first five years were great, we were a close-knit bunch of electricians, and we had a great relationship with the bosses and higher-ups. Our labor union was strong.

It all started changing in 2009 when we got new leaders… and those decided to get rid of everyone who were a member of the union. One by one, they started harassing workers in various ways, trying to get them to quit. In Norway, they need a legal reason to fire you, it's not enough to not like someone. There has to be a good reason to fire someone e.g. theft, neglecting work… Since they didn't have any reasons to fire us, they started making our work lives gradually harder and harder until we would break and find another job. Sadly, one of my co-workers couldn't stand the pressure… He bid us all farewell as normal one Friday and hung himself the following day.. But as I was a girl in a male-dominated profession, I had been taught at an early stage to ignore anything that would hurt me emotionally, just arch my neck and plow through. I kept doing that, despite starting to feel more and more mental and physical pains… even my co-workers pointed out how I was being mistreated before I acknowledged it myself. I tried to tell my boss, but he reacted by treating me worse. So, I went to his boss… and that's when things went to hell. Instead of doing his job and listen, he started harassing me too. He deemed my over-weight a problem, and he started demanding I gave him detailed lists of what I ate and how much I worked out… Completely illegal of course, but by this point I was broken down to the point I thought I was useless and couldn't get another job… so I accepted. He started accusing me of lying about my exercise, so I started training at the gym in the basement at work instead. One day, while I was there, he locked the doors and turned the lights off. There were no windows, no cellphone reception and hardly anyone walking by in that part of the building… I sat there in the pitch dark for 3 hours before I was let back out. I still get badly triggered by narrow, dark rooms and rooms with no windows. To such an extent, I jumped out of a small window on the second floor of a gym when I was in boot camp. I was allowed to train downstairs in the bigger gym with windows on all walls after that incident…

The harassment at work went on for years until I finally snapped, ended up at the hospital and got into therapy for the first time. I don't want to go into depth about what more happened, I just can't… I can't bring myself to write it all. Luckily, I had gotten more education while working, so when I graduated, another company called and gave me an offer I just couldn't refuse. So, I quit my job and never looked back, even if the traumas I suffered there still haunts me to this day.

Sadly, even after switching jobs, now getting a safe job with sane leaders… I started to relax, and that's when all my past trauma came washing over me. And one day, on while driving to work, I had my first serious panic attack. It started as this feeling I used to have at the old company; getting sick to my stomach and having the sense of someone being out to get me… then it developed to breathing problems… and I had to pull the car over. I broke into tears, struggling to breathe, stumbling out of the car to read the logo on its side just to reassure my body and brain that I worked for a different company now and there was no reason for panic. I called my boss and let him know, because he also was a "refugee" from that other company, so he knew what me and several others had gone through. He managed to talk me down enough for me to come to the office to talk to him. That helped.

I got back into therapy. A better therapist this time. But sadly, it got apparent that I could no longer work as an electrician as there was too many triggers. I was diagnosed with PTSD, severe depression, and social anxiety. I'm still working on these and get better slowly.

I have been in therapy for a long time now, and it was my therapist that suggested I wrote fics to cope and "write it out". I tried to make up my own characters for this, but never felt any connection. I was by this time in the TTTE fandom and had met people with similar trauma and pasts like myself, and I started roleplaying with some of them. Me and a girl from UK then agreed to try to rp/co-write a fic to cope with our trauma. We both found it easier to write about pre-established characters we had a connection to, even if it was an au that made it barely recognizable from the original source material. Only the names and some minor things were similar.

That fic was Stepney's Virginity Gets Lost.

Do we regret writing it? No. It helped us write out our traumas and helped us overcome some mental obstacles in out therapy process. Our therapists cheering us on, because we finally managed to break through the hard shell surrounding us. We both cried for the first time in years while writing it, some of it through roleplay, because some parts were extremely graphic and brutal and very mentally exhausting. We had to take long breaks between each writing session, so the fic wasn't written in just a weekend. But we got a lot of darkness out of our minds by writing all this. And we were definitely NOT aroused by it, like this pervert here claims.

It's when you dare to touch and feel the difficult and dark emotions, you can finally move along in the grieving process.

Should it have been posted online?

In retrospect, no. But at the time, we thought it might help other trauma victims, as we also found reading about other people's experiences and fictions touching painful subjects helpful to ourselves. So, we posted it, never expecting it to cause such a controversy 3 years later. In fact, we had more or less forgotten about it until it came back to bit us in the ass. Or rather, bite ME in the ass, as I am getting the full blame alone.

Also, despite what people claim, it was not posted openly for children to read. It was tagged properly and hidden behind mature content walls. If a minor chooses to break that wall, that's not the author's fault. It's the same as watching a movie with an age restriction way above your age, not the filmmaker's fault.

I think MerciResolution puts it nicely here:

"If your problem lies with you KNOWINGLY entering adult spaces when you’re a minor, ignoring all mature warnings that are literally SCREAMING at you “hey, this is what you’re getting into. Are you sure you want to proceed?”

That’s ENTIRELY on you. YOU are the fucking problem.

We’re marking mature things as best as we properly can. If you decide to ignore them, that’s your own damn fault. We’re not your fucking babysitters."

Also, I never posted the story on Wattpad, so if anyone has done that, it's not me. I posted the story on Fanfiction.net, DeviantArt and AO3, that's all. If it's posted anywhere else, it's not done by me.

I had honestly moved on from it when people pulled me back into it.

Other people who have done questionable shit in that fandom are easily forgiven because "they have moved on" or "changed". Yet, nobody believes I can move on or change…?

I had moved on; my interests had changed. But people won't let me, so here I am… Having to defend some crap I did years ago. A fic I no longer have any interest in.

I'm not even interested in TTTE anymore. I have moved on with my own book project now and I would like to focus on that.

So, deleting my TTTE content, whether it was the SFW or NSFW stuff, didn't cost me a penny. It actually felt like a relief. The only downside with it is that people now can't read it and make up their own opinion about it, but will solely believe in what others say, and those things are often seriously bent out of shape and blown out of proportions to such an extent it's barely recognizable.

If people claim that Arry and Bert rape Stepney in the fic, they have never seen it or read it. That's not what happens. That's just an assumption made by looking at the title and knowing there is a rape/torture scene in it. But I'm not gonna tell who the victim is or who performed it, because this is the only way I am able to tell who has actually read the fic or not, who is just trying to spread bullshit and who is actually telling the truth. The person in that screenshot, has no idea what he's talking about.

Does SVGL romanticize rape and abuse?

No, not in the least. It's described as the horrible, heinous acts it is and is in no way meant to be cute or romantic and definitely NOT something anyone should get off to. If anyone finds it sexy, that's their problem, not the authors'. If anything, SVGL might romanticize suicide, because one of the characters isn't able to cope with his trauma and chooses to end their life. Which is something I considered doing myself when I was in the darkest pit of depression. So, I apologize for maybe romanticizing suicide. The following chapters describe how friends and family handle the loss and grief.

It also describes a toxic relationship, where one of the parts struggles to get out of it. They eventually manage to break free, but it is not easy. This can easily be translated to my previously mentioned relationship, as it was my way of writing out my experience about how hard it is to break out of a relation when your partner has broken you down to the point where you no longer believe in yourself and your self-worth.

The last chapters start to gradually become brighter, as both our lives started getting better too. But we never really wrote the end because we both lost interest in writing TTTE content by that time and just left it hanging.

I'm not the only one who has written NSFW TTTE fanfics out there. But it seems like violence and murder is more acceptable than sexual things? I do wonder how brutally mutilating children's show characters are more tolerable than sexually abusing them. Neither should be okay.

Some content creators hide behind "it was a joke". I have been told that such topics that SVGL touches upon shouldn't be joked about… so I didn't do that, and yet it was wrong? So how should such topics be treated? Be hidden like it's a shame, like in the old days when rape victims were told to suck things up and keep it to themselves? When those subject to abuse didn't dare to speak up because people would judge them?

I think it is important to talk about these subjects and why they are so problematic. Victims shouldn't have to hide their trauma; they should be allowed to talk openly about it without fearing judgement.

Some of you claim that writing isn't a good way to cope… You're trying to dictate how trauma victims deal with their trauma, and that's a dangerous path to walk down. Nobody handles trauma the same way. You might have your thoughts on how you would react, but you'll never know until trauma hits you… and you might not react the way you had expected or planned. Trauma messes with your head and you won't be able to think clearly. It makes you do thinks you normally wouldn't have done and can make you act out of character. So, do not judge people without having been in the same situation yourself. Ever.

Someone wrote that I have "more problems that just a rape".

Read that again.

Just a rape.

This person does not know how damaging a rape can be. And if you made it this far in this post, you know I didn't only go through one, but several. Not just by my ex, but also being ambushed while I was walking home from a party, and later; a co-worker forcing himself onto me at a building site. I can't go into depth about them all, I just can't.

Just a rape…

"Just" the feeling of not being in control of your own body and your own decisions. "Just" being robbed off your dignity and self-worth. "Just" having someone intrude into your private zone, tear your clothes off and claim your body against your will. "Just" feeling how your life force leave you as you realize that fighting against it won't help you, and you silently give up and just lay down waiting for it all to be over. "Just" spending hours in the shower, scrubbing your skin until you bleed because you can't wash the filth away and you keep feeling dirty no matter how much you clean yourself. "Just" waking up at night, after having relived the scene again in a nightmare. "Just" looking over your shoulder wherever you walk because you heard something or thought you saw something or simply because someone is walking behind you. "Just" the fact that you'll never feel comfortable walking alone at night again or have someone walk behind you. "Just" never being able to relax because your body constantly think you're in grave danger. "Just" a rape…

That's such a neck-beard thing to say. Someone who clearly think of other people's bodies as property or things. Not taking into consideration that we are living, breathing individuals with feelings. And that having another person violate us isn't something we like or that we'll easily get over. We want to choose who we give ourselves to, nobody should be forced. We didn't ask to be raped. We didn't want it. We didn't like it.

Rape is trauma.

Yes, we should have chosen other characters for the story, but we did what we did, and it cannot be undone now. So, if the only thing I will be remembered for in the fandom is that ONE fic, instead of all my other content, that's what it will be. That's what people chose to. I'm moving on.

10. Being a nazi for being interested in WW2 history and for being Norwegian and having so-called nazi-letters in my last name (actual letters of the Norwegian alphabet).

*sigh*

This is something that could only happen in America, isn't it?

Some people don't bother educating themselves. The "nazi-letters" you guys are talking about is actually part of the Norwegian alphabet and has nothing to do with Nazism or white-supremacy to do at all. The Norwegian alphabet has 29 letters, the three extra is æ,ø,å or in capital letters: Æ,Ø,Å.

We can't help it if some morons over in the US abuse these letters as symbol of their twisted mindset.

Yes, my name contains one of those letters. It is my name… and I didn't choose it. It is a common Norwegian name.

As for me being a Nazi?

Those who knows me knows that I am as far from a Nazi as one can get. I despise Nazism with all my heart.

But the reason some people choose to believe so… was that some guy who has no hobbies or life went through every single fave I've made on DeviantArt since I joined the site in 2006, which is well over 20000 faves. And he found a few Nazi-characters from a web series I was following about ten years ago. I am very interested in history and especially WW2-history, so I found that particular web-series interesting and faved some artwork related to it. What this guy failed to notice is that I also faved the Allied characters… That's ALL there is to that story.

I has also faved a pic someone made of Joseph Goebbels (I think it was?) as a Pixar Car. That's not because I have any nazi-sympathies, but I simply found the concept of turning historical persons, both good and bad, into Cars as an interesting project. I would have faved any other historical Carsified person as well.

As for me being a Norwegian and have a natural pale complexion, that's not something I can help. That's nothing I choose. And it doesn't make me racist or Nazi. Period.

11. Putting a white-supremacist flag (the actual flag of Norway) on my porch on family birthdays and our national day.

Again. Get educated.

This flag… is the actual flag of my country. The Kingdom of Norway.

There is nothing Nazi about it. It is not a symbol of white-supremacy. IT IS THE FLAG OF NORWAY.

During WW2 it was even illegal, so people would paint it everywhere in a protest against the Nazi-occpation and the SS. We even decorated our Christmas trees with it, and that is a tradition that has followed us into the modern day.

Again, if some idiots in the US choose to use it as a symbol for their disgusting logic, it is not Norway or the Norwegians' fault.

12. Being a danger to my daughter.

I need people to elaborate here.

What exactly do you think I do to my daughter? What is the cause of your concern here?

The fact that I have made NSFW content? How is that harmful to her as long as I keep it away from her? You DO realize that even authors, pornstars and moviemakers have children and that they can be good parents, right?

Do you think I read pornographic content for her as bedtime stories? Or show her porn instead of kids TV? How sick are you guys, really…?

Some people even wanted CPS to take my child away from me… Have a look at these screenshots…

You want a happy, healthy, innocent child to be taken away from a stable, safe home with loving parents just because you don't like the content the mother made? You want her to be placed in foster care, where there is no guarantee that she will have a happy upbringing rather than have her stay with her parents who love her and care for her, for reasons she'll never understand and wasn't even aware of?

"Think of the children!" a lot of you say when it comes to my content. May I ask why this doesn't apply to my daughter?

Why do some of you go as far as to wishing her dead or wanting her to be removed from the home she feels safe and loved in? How is that thinking of the children?

As for the douchebag in that screenshot. You claim that if your mother did something like that you would want nothing to do with her… I have a question: Do you know EVERYTHING your mother do? Does she include you in each aspect of her life? Even her sexual life? No?

How do you know she doesn't do thing you don't approve of when you're not around? She could be a rabid pornmag reader for all you know. But stuff like that is something adults hide from their kids. So, you wouldn't know, unless you go snooping around in her business.

Everyone is entitled to privacy. What I and my husband do when our kid is not around is our business, not hers, and certainly not yours.

Porn and parenting are to be kept separate from each other. Period.

And we do.

There is absolutely no reason to be worried about my daughter. She is a happy, healthy child in a safe, stable home with family that loves her and cares for her. Not just me and my husband, but also grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.

If you want to remove her from that over a stupid fanfic behind a mature content wall, you're the deranged person, not me.

This is all I have to say about all this and my time in the TTTE fandom. I have left by my own, free will. Yes, I am aware that many people don't want me there. That's fine. I don't want to be there.

I am a bit disappointed in those people who just blindly unfollowed me and unfriended me without any questions asked, just followed the leader. Big users tend to dictate who and what is worth following in that fandom. They will even protect real predators, but I'm not going to open that can of worms now. I'm done with the fandom.

Some of those people, I have been talking to regularly, even supported when they faced hardships in the fandom themselves. But when I got in trouble, they ditched me without a word…

If anything, this whole ordeal showed me who to trust and not, and who were true to their word when it came to how deep our friendship was. True friends at least give you the chance to explain before they drop you. I hold no ill feelings to those who did, at least they asked me before judging.

And those who still stayed with me, are the ones who truly know me and who I really am.

Some of the worst libels posted about me might be reported to the police, but I haven't made up my mind yet. I am not mentally strong at the moment, so I don't know if I have the strength to legally follow it all up. I will ask the cops at work for advice on the matter.

All I ask for now is some peace.

You don't have to like me. You don't have to follow me. You don't have to like my content. Feel free to invalidate me, I know a lot of you will.

But please, stop bullying me and my family.

Please stop sending me horrid messages and death threats.

Please stop doxxing me and calling me.

Please leave my family alone. If you don't care about me, at least care about them.

Please just ignore me. I have already left the fandom, there is no reason to keep hunting me.

I just want to move on and go on with my life and the content I am currently working on. After years in therapy, my life has gotten better, and I want to move on.

Please let me.

#good bye to ttte #tw//suicide #tw//rape #tw// bullying #tw//depression #tw//ptsd #tw//ttte #tw//sex #tw//abuse #tw//domestic abuse #I'm done

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curioushistorian · 4 years ago

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Contemporary art reflective blog

My name is Helen, I am a mature first year undergraduate History of Art and Museum Studies student. For the contemporary art module, we have been asked to create a blog on how we understand and connect to contemporary art. This is where I have to confess that out of all the modules that we have studied this is the one that I feel I connected to the least.

I am hoping by the end of this blog and through my own research to have deepened my understanding and gained a better insight into contemporary art.

I have grown up in and around Renaissance art having spent a quite a bit of time in Florence with the family I have there, the time spent in art galleries like The Uffizi, The Accademia and the Pitti Palace deepened my love of all things ‘old’ so the modern contemporary art I just do not feel like I understand quite so well.

Medusa with the Head of Perseus

'Medusa with the Head of Perseus', by artist Luciano Garbati. COURTESY OF MWTH PROJECT AND THE ARTIST

Luciano Garbati is an Argentine-Italian artist who grew up in a little village just outside Florence. In the Piazza della Signoria sits the famous Cellini sculpture for all to see. In this sculpture Perseus stands naked atop of Medusa’s corpse, holding her head aloft in victory over the crowds that gather in the square, every child in Florence knows the story.

As Garbati told Quartz’s Annaliese Griffin in 2018, seeing the work as a child led him to imagine a reversal of its dynamic.

“There are lots of depictions of Medusa, and they are always describing the myth at its worst,” the artist said. “… What would it look like, her victory, not his? How should that sculpture look?”

Medusa was a handmaiden of Athena’s sacred temple and one day Poseidon tried to seduce her, she rebuffed his advances as it would jeopardise her position in the temple, not taking no for an answer Poseidon raped Medusa. When Athena found out she, in a fit of rage for defiling her temple, turned Medusa into a Gorgon with deadly snakes for hair and a gaze that would turn anyone she looked at into stone, she banished Medusa from the temple.

A number of years later Perseus was sent on a seemingly imposible task to kill Medusa and cut off her head as a gift. Not being able to look directly at Medusa Perseus used the reflection in his shield to complete the job and take her head.

In Garbati’s sculpture things are a little different, Medusa’s lithe body is naked, she still has the snakes for hair and she is still a beautiful maiden, but in one hand she clutches a sword and in the other the severed head of Perseus (modelled on the artist) but its her gaze that catches the attention of the viewer, head tilted slightly downward, there isn’t a glee to her victory just a quiet resolution that she got the job done and woe betide anyone else who tries to take her life from her, inviting the narrative that she as a rape survivor, she will rise and that victim shaming is both wrong and immoral. This has been highly publicised recently in the media with the #metoo movement.

Photograph Jeenah Moon for the New York Times

Although Garbati created Medusa with the Head of Perseus in 2008 the sculpture was chosen to be erected in 2019 directly opposite the New York County Criminal Court, where Harvey Weinstein stood trial prompting a mixed reaction from the #metoo movement. Medusa has been reinterpreted as being symbolic of the victim-blaming suffered by rape survivors. “How can a triumph be possible if you are defeating a victim,” Garbati said in a statement.

On his Instagram page, Garbati wrote, “The place chosen is not accidental, since there they judge cases for crimes related to violence against women. We are already in the final stage working on the last details of this sculpture that became a symbol of justice for many women.”

Photograph Jeenah Moon for the New York Times

Some women were outraged that a male artist was chosen to represent their voice saying that Medusa’s body was too perfect and Poseidon’s or Athena’s head ought to be at Medusa’s side, not Perseus’s as they were the initial perpetrators.

Regarding Medusa’s model-esque figure, Mr. Garbati suggests that critics consider the literature from a recent exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art that chronicles how artistic depictions of Medusa morphed from beastly to beautiful starting in the fifth century B.C. You can find that information here https://issuu.com/metmuseum/docs/dangerous_beauty_winter_2018_bullet

The feminist activist Wagatwe Wanjuki, who has written extensively on violence against women, wrote on Twitter, “#Metoo was started by a Black woman, but a sculpture of a European character by a dude is the commentary that gets centered? Sigh.”

But what if we have the story wrong, what if it’s been interpreted incorrectly all this time? What if Athena was in a fit of rage because her maiden had been raped? What if she was so angry that she turned the beautiful Medusa into a Gorgon to protect her from being a powerless victim? What if she sent her away to safe place where no one would find her? What if, what if, what if….

You can find Luciano Garbati’s web page here https://www.lucianogarbati.com/

Faith Ringgold

I first came across Faith Ringgolds work in a lecture we had about the Harlem Renaissance and the impact of the Windrush generation on art at that time, how black artists were using art, music, dance and other mediums to comment on the political status of the era and the black community’s social standing.

What first caught my eye was the riot of beautiful colour Ringgold uses, also that she uses the traditionally ‘gentle’ medium of quilting to depict such abject horrors such as racism, segregation, riots and street violence.

This led me to find out more about her life as an artist and civil rights activist, she is a mesmerising character and I watched many interviews with her, this one was particularly interesting as she was accompanied by her black feminist author and cultural critic daughter Michelle Faith Wallace. Watch it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GK6G-S33V6w

Faith Ringgold was born in Harlem New York in 1930 at the tail end of the Harlem Renaissance.

Harlem welcomed thousands of African Americans from the southern states of America, they moved to escape the prejudice and persecution that was going on at this time. Many famous people settled in Harlem such as Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald also authors, artists, musicians and athletes flocked to this area. It was an exciting time in Harlem and the Harlem Renaissance was born.

Faith Ringgold attended City Collage New York where she studied art from the European Masters such as Da Vici, Van Goch and Titian. Although she learned from them, she thought “I am black, I am a woman and I am of African descent” so she started to look at African art that was brought to Harlem by her relatives, she started to make quilts with her own twist on the designs, this led her to making her quilt stories, a series of quilts depicting the plight of African Americans in Harlem at this time, dedicating her career to activism, fighting gender and racial equality and highlighting the horrors of the race riots.

Echoes of Harlem 1980 is the first quilt of the series. This was a collaboration with her mother (who she called Willy) and was made the year before Willy died, this was the only one they collaborated on together. It features all the faces of her neighbours and friends in Harlem and takes the traditional tanka for inspiration. The fabric was quilted on to wadding and then the images were painted directly on to the fabric. This meant she could roll them up and easily transport them to various galleries as she found her paintings too heavy to lift and did not want to wait for her husband to arrive home from work to help her lift her canvases.

Echoes of Harlem 1980 photo Artsynet

Street Story 1985 This a quilt that features her house in Harlem, 222 West 146th Street. It also shows the burned-out houses of her neighbours after the civil rights rioting took place.

Street Story 1985, photo metmuseum.org

Sonny’s Quilt 1986 This quilt depicts her legendary neighbour saxophonist Sonny Rollins who would practice playing his tenor saxophone on the Brooklyn bridge to get away from complaining residents.

Sonny’s Quilt 1986, photo Artsynet

Tar Beach 1988 This quilt depicts the hot summers of Faith Ringgold’s childhood, no one had air conditioning and the families of Harlem could not afford holidays so instead they would use the roofs of the apartment blocks to get away from the stifling heat of the city. This was as a place to spend recreational time. They called it Tar Beach. Families would gather with friends and neighbour’s, children would fall asleep under the stars as the adults played card games, listened to music and told stories passed down for generations. This quilt captures the magic she felt on the roof top, the George Washington bridge in the background, the stars above their heads.

Tar beach1988, photo Artsynet

When Faith was a child, she was sick much of the time with asthma so consequently spent a great deal of her time absent from school, the roof top was where her fashion designer mother Willy taught her to sew. On the days that she was well enough her mother would take her to the theatre to watch Jazz performances, these are portrayed in later story quilts.

Harlem reflects heavily in Ringgold’s work, from the connection and love she felt with friends and family to the outpouring of rage, despair and inequality felt by the Black community at the time. She used her work to depict the political tensions on the streets of New York.

To find out more about Faith Ringgold’s extraordinary life and works of art including paintings, books, and many more quilts please start by taking a look here www.faithringgold.com

Tracey Emin, Everyone I Have Ever Slept With 1963–1995

Photograph Wordpress

Tracey Emin is a British artist most associated with the art movement of the late 1980’s early 1990’s in London called the Young British Artists or YBA’s, with most of the artists graduating from Goldsmiths or the Royal Collage of Art.

Emin hand stitched and appliqued over 100 names of everyone she had ever slept with up until this point on a tent. The tent filled her small living room floor for six months whilst she worked on it, having to put her television inside it to fit it in the room.

I find this piece fascinating for a number of reasons, firstly the way the media reacted to it. The Tent as it is sometimes known, got such bad press as I think it was just too much information about Emin’s sexuality and private life for most of the general public, jumping to the hasty conclusion that all the names in and on the tent were sexual partners when in fact the literal meaning of the word ‘slept’ in the title was including all the people she had ever fallen asleep in the same place as, names included her Grandmother who she used to fall asleep besides listening to the radio, her teddy bear, two unnamed aborted foetuses and school friends. Of course, Emin had the names of past and present lovers and one-night stands in there also, but the deliberately provocative title of the piece meant that people jumped to their own conclusions without considering that there may be names of people in there with innocent connotations.

Photograph Wordpress

The second reason I like this installation is because it reminds me of Duchamp’s ‘Readymades’. Emin has taken a mass-produced boring plain two-man tent and added something to make it extraordinary, and thought provoking. So, I find myself thinking would it be as striking and controversial if it wasn’t for Tracey Emins brash, eccentric, feisty and at times unpredictable personality? After all it is just a tent with some names sewn on.

The Tent was first shown at Minky Manky at the South London Gallery and the brainchild of Carl Freedman (who Emin was in a relationship with at the time) He was a friend and collaborator of Damien Hirst who also exhibited in the gallery along with YBA’s such as Sarah Lucas and Gilbert and George. This gave Emins work a much-needed boost as she was not as well-known at this point.

Emin tells Widewalls ‘At that time Sarah (Lucas) was quite famous, but I wasn't at all. Carl said to me that I should make some big work as he thought the small-scale stuff I was doing at the time wouldn't stand up well. I was furious. Making that work was my way at getting back at him. One review was really funny, the journalist had written something like 'She's slept with everyone – even the curator'!

Charles Saatchi the well-known art collector, Gallery owner and wealthy patron of Hirst and many of the YBA’s wanted to buy The Tent but Emin wouldn’t sell it to him due to his advertising work for Thatcher administration. Saatchi eventually bought it on the secondary market from another dealer and put it into his storage facility at the East London Momart warehouse where it was destroyed by fire along with many other valuable pieces of art.

In 2008 during her Edinburgh retrospective show, Emin claimed that she was offered £1 million by the Saatchi Gallery to rebuilt The Tent, but that she cannot do it since it was very personally despite the fact she recreated few smaller pieces for that show. (Widewalls 2020)

To find more about Tracey Emin’s tent watch this short clip https://www.widewalls.ch/magazine/tracey-emin-everyone-i-have-ever-slept-with

Eve Provost Chartrand

In mid-February we had a guest lecture by the Canadian artist Eve Chartrand, I found her work quite disturbing to look at at first, her organic matter looking creations that incorporate teeth, wax, fabric and living fungi can look like something out of a horror film. But then listening to what motivated her to produce her works really resonated with me.

Chartrand has been observing in her art how ‘she experienced first-hand how disabled and “disgraceful” bodies trigger unease, contempt, and/or indifference, even violence. Living in a culture that equates old age with disease and decline (Calasanti 2005) compelled me to find ways to resist and transgress such discriminative gazes’.

As a woman of 44 I can tell you that I am treated differently now to how I was treated in my 20’s. It is like you become invisible or perhaps treated as a slight inconvenience, like your opinion does not count as you are not young. How the adverts on television are reminding you that you must not age, to stay thin and retain the appearance of a perpetual twenty something with long thick lustrous pigmented hair, wrinkle free and with the perfect figure. And the cruel reality is as you start to feel the most comfortable with yourself that’s when your body starts to age and diminish the youthful lustre it once held. When did it become the norm for the media to tell us that the aging process is not acceptable, beautiful or inevitable? Is the media the new male gaze?

Chartrand’s work challenges the viewer to see beauty in ageing, unconventional bodies, frailty and diversity.

Chartrand’s work entitled ‘Is there anybody home?’ was inspired by losing elderly relatives, witnessing the aging process and using childhood memories to create sculptures that conveyed the smells, tastes, vibrations of previous experiences. This body of work particularly stuck a chord with me as I have elderly parents and recently lost a most beloved Aunt, Chartrands work made me think about what I hold dear and after my loved ones have gone what would I have to remember them by.

Is There Any Body Home? Specimen #5: A Hair Brush. 2018 Eve Provost Chartrand

Chartrand explained in her lecture that she made this after rummaging through a box of mementos and keepsakes of her Grandmother who she was afraid of when she was a child. The poetry is typed on velum to mimic the fragility of aging skin mirroring it with a slightly translucent quality.

The bacteria grown in the petri dish was taken from a swab of Chartrand’s Grandmothers 80 year old hair brush. The idea that you can resurrect a living organism (all be it bacteria) from a relative or loved one’s belongings I find fascinating and macabre at the same time. The thought is comforting to me that even when someone is long gone a part of that person still remain and can bloom into life once more.

Is There Any Body Home? Specimen #2: Dentures. 2018 Eve Provost Chartrand

Find more of Chartrands work here https://www.eveprovostchartrand.com/

Andy Goldsworthy

Andy Goldsworthy is a site-specific artist who works outdoors with natural found materials such as leaves, twigs, rocks, ice and water. He uses these materials to compliment the landscape and documents the breakdown or decay of the installations by photographing them at different stages. His work is none permanent and open to elements which give them a fleeting beauty.

“It's not about art,” It's just about life and the need to understand that a lot of things in life do not last.” He told the Guardian

Photograph by Artsynet

Instead of using canvas, paints, clay, tools and other traditional artist materials Goldsworthy instead opts for what nature provides him. Choosing not to paint landscapes but rather paint on them, in them or around them, incorporating the seasons, the weather and the tides. Nothing he creates is permanent and every component as natural, even down to the thorns he uses to fix leaves in place.

Photograph Artsynet

I think Goldsworthy’s art is particularly poignant at this current time. The global pandemic rendering travel out of the question so people have been able to explore the countryside around them, many of them for the first time. Busy lives, jobs, and schooling have us all on the giant treadmill of life, it has taken a catastrophic advent for all to slow down and enjoy walking in the countryside, local parks, gardens and shorelines of Britain, watching seasons come and go, watching nature in her great cycle realising that to take care of our earth provides a wonder for us all and our future generations.

Goldsworthy states in his book Passage ‘An artist makes things that become a focus for feelings and emotions - some personal, some public, some intended, some not. At best a work of art releases energy that is a shock to both the artist and the viewer – I do not mean shock in the conventional sense but an emotional tremor that articulates a feeling that has been in search of form’ (page 69)

The transience of Goldsworthy’s art can also be likened to the way that contemporary art is fleeting, what is considered to be contemporary at this present moment in time will undoubtedly be not what we would consider it to be in 10, 20 or 50-years’ time. Art that is created today is considered contemporary but all art was created ‘today’ that day and then we will have to find another name to call it, another category to fit it in to.

I have learned in the duration of completing this blog that I very much enjoy some contemporary art, I may need to do some research into the piece that I am looking at to understand the artists meaning behind their work, or that I may have to understand the actual artist and their background before I can fully appreciate what they are communicating, I know now that I will be slowing down in the contemporary art room in the Walker Art Gallery the next time I visit instead of rushing through, I will take time to read the information the galleries provide and continue to learn, who knows, maybe I will find a new passion I did not think possible.

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danger-honey · 4 years ago

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Hhhh

School, pandemic, isolation.. man do they fuck up my productivity so much. It’s like ever since last year my brain’s ability to finish things just completely went out of the window. Except for homework, screw me. The only thing I can complete in my life nowdays is always school work, I’m almost tempted to just quit putting effort on them..

I tried to limit my internet usage in hopes of getting me focused on doing things that i actually want to do. Quit some social medias, left discord servers, resist my temptation to just post things in general, it barely worked. If anything, it just made me feel lonelier. And I did that for a year, why did I think this was a good idea lol.

So now here I am. Old discord dms i havent responded to (so sorry), inactive accounts, a whole lot of art wips, a dusty violin, and an unstable sleep schedule. I’m almost graduating high school what did i even learn.

Art takes so much more time. I still find solace in them, but now it takes me more than an hour to do a simple sketch. Normally i’d dismiss this as just a phase of an art block, but its been a year.

Tekken!! Its still fun! I’m still maining Steve, but now there’s Kunimitsu. Most importantly, my Tekken buddy on discord allowed me to borrow his arcade stick! I’m so grateful, knowing how pricey these are, its such a cool thing

K/DA. Man, that was one of the few things that really made me look forward to tomorrow. I followed its campaign on Twitter, it was such a fun and chaotic time (Akali deserves a solo,,). I remember seeing so many cool people who are fans too along the way, really wanted to interact with them, but i was restraining myself and all that. Really do regret that now.. i could use some friends. Now that the campaign’s over, hope theyre doing well. I’d start posting my kda sketches there but.. Twitter feels so open, everyone there can see, just feel like im not ready for that platform yet. But yeah, thank you kda.

Gonna cut off this rambling real quick. I’m tired and slow, i don’t know how to get myself to start doing things again. It feels like i’m still stuck stuck at day 1 of the pandemic laying in bed staring up at the ceiling, while everyone seems to have found their footing at this point.

#abt #ramblings

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penebui · 5 years ago

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Lgbt manga pt. 2

My last lgbt manga post mostly consisted of gender representation, so with this post I’ll try to incorporate more gay/lesbian/same sex representation! Just for clarification I have read all of them!!

For obvious mangas that I have not recommended on this list, itll stay like that. Either because they are already well known and popular, or its because despite being popular, it has some very problematic themes that arent portrayed in a negative spotlight, ultimately idolizing the problems (cough cough) or are the ‘kill your gays’ trope and have tragic endings which defeats the purpose of this list.

1. My Son is Probably Gay by Okura

This is such a sweet manga. The story follows a mom who slowly sees that her son might be gay because he’s very upfront with his feelings and isn’t very good at lying. However instead of assuming and forcing him to come out, she lets him be and quietly supports him from behind the scenes. His brother also seems to have taken the hint as well and is showing support in his own way. I guess this is what the “I’m proud that you had the courage to tell me, and I’ve already had a hunch anyways” parents see before we come out to them.

2. Dasadanan by Herb Mandu

The reason why I’ve been refraining from posting about same sex couples is because some of them are put in the genres where they sexualize lgbt couples. However I can safely guarantee you that Dasadanan is very lgbt friendly! Seyeon receives a confession from his childhood friend Kang Chan and he doesn’t know how to respond. Seyeon’s other friend whos a girl gets into a fight with Kang Chan cause she also loves Seyeon. However the girl gets into a lesbian relationship at the end, and there are some other gay couples in it too!! It is very fluffy and lovey dovey, and there isnt a lot of angst stuff in it so if you want to read something comfy this one is your go to!!

3. Raion Gotoki no Kuni kara by Hakase

Although it is labelled as yaoi, it is actually surprisingly wholesome??? Makoto’s family is registered as a host family and an exchange student moves into their family!! However the exchange student is a masaai warrior (or in better terms from a masaai tribe). Overnight Makoto researches on the subject to learn more about the student they will be housing and tries to come up with a greeting in their native language to welcome them. The exchange student Nairobi shows up at his house, completely fluent in english (or japanese depending on if we’re talking about the original manga) but when he finds out that Makoto wrote down a greeting in his language it warms his heart. The art depicting the masai people are actually very nice!!! Nairobi even has dreads. Even though there is only one chapter out right now, I can’t wait for more!!

4. Hero-san and Former General-san by Sometime

There are an alien race disguised amongst humans named Antinoids! Honey Trap, an antinoid, fights the human hero in a mecha bunny suit named Rapid Rabbit. When the mask comes off, it turns out Rapid Rabbit is a girl! Honey Trap quickly falls for her, and is therefor unable to kill her. Confronted with this by her boss, she is fired. Honey Trap suddenly jobless and homeless, runs into Rapid Rabbit and starts living with her. She then starts teaming up with her to fight against her old business! It is very sweet and humorous, I loved it since I first read it.

5. Gay Fuuzoku no Mochigi-san: Sexuality wa Jinsei da. by Mochigi

An autobiography of Mochigi, a gay former-sex worker who lives out in the countryside! This autobiography describes the sex industry in japan also. If you’d like to support and follow the author, here is his twitter, and here is his amazon to buy his works!

6. Boys Run the Riot by Gaku Keito

The protagonist, Ryou is a trans guy. He suffers from dysphoria and tries his best to go past the school’s rules to wear anything but a girls uniform. He even binds his chest (with ace bandages, even though thats unsafe and potentially hazardous). He has a crush on his friend, Chika. In his second year of highschool, a new student arrives by the name of Satou Jin. Although everyone is terrified of him because of his looks (looks like a gangster) and his mannerisms, he’s actually a bright and cool guy. When trying to start a brand together, Jin’s old friends point out Ryou and ask if he’s a girl. In an arguement, Jin convinces Ryou to tell him his true feelings, and so he comes out tohim. Jin instantly accepts him for who he is. Although there are only two chapters translated into english atm, there are about 20+ raw chapters untranslated (fairly recent too, at the time of posting the last chapter was released 22 hours ago). I hope that a scanlation team picks this manga up to translate the rest because I absolutely love it!!

7. Half & Half by Nanami Mao

Hina reminisces about her first love named Itsuki, even though she has a boyfriend. One night, she has a dream about him. The next morning a tall, beautiful girl shows up at her doorstep, its actually Itsuki! She herself is a trans woman, and is now living how she wants to live. Hina slowly falls back in love with her first love, even if she is a girl now. She also defends Itsuki and becomes an ally for her, and even supports her. This shit is cute and I love it

8. Kyou Kara Yonshimai by Satou Nanki

Three sisters suddenly receive an email from their supposed brother, Kashiwa who left for college 2 years ago and is suddenly coming back home to live with them! When Kashiwa arrives however, he had actually transitioned to a woman! The three try to get adjusted to the new change, and live with a fourth sister. This is labelled as romance because of the main protagonist, Sakura, having a love subplot. Kashiwa also has a girlfriend as well.

9. 19 Days by Old Xian

If this artstyle looks familiar, you’d be right! Old Xian has a manhua that is a collab with Tan Jiu, the one who wrote Tamen de Gushi, a very popular manhua about two girls in a relationship and their misadventures. 19 Days is exactly like it, about two childhood friends (who fall in love) and their misadventures. It slowly evolves into a plot-driven story, which introduces two other characters.

Unfortunately, this is where my list ends because its very hard to find lgbt manga!! However I’ll continue searching for more! I’ll add them on when I find them!

#lgbt #lgbt manga #manga #lgbtq #lgbtq manga

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iamanartichoke · 6 years ago

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This is neither eloquent nor organized. I’m very frustrated and I just need to get things off my chest.

Please do not reblog this post.

Cut for anti-Ragnarok discourse, pro-Ragnarok discourse, the Ragnarok discourse war, mention of Thorki, and general venting.

I’m not using tags bc I don’t want this post to show up in them. Very sorry and if any of these things is one of your blacklists, please keep scrolling.

Yesterday, I read a fic.

I was wandering through some of the Thorki content on twitter, and followed a link to one of the big bang fics, bc it was a human AU and das my jam.

I didn’t recognize the author’s name. The fic was extremely well-written, though: lots of feels, beautiful narration, a sweet ending balanced with a lot of sadness. It was one of those fics that gave me a lump in my throat.

I was only going to leave kudos, but then I figured I’d take the extra five seconds and leave a comment, bc we all know how much authors like comments. I mean, I’d rather someone leave a comment than kudos, especially if the fic really affected them.I get it and I gotchu, fam.

Anyway, so I left a comment and proceeded to click on the author’s profile to see what else they’ve written. As you do.

I recognized their AO3 icon, even though I didn’t recognize the name. I’d seen them around on some Ragnarok wank on tumblr. I went to double-check, and it was the same user, and also they’d blocked me.

I do not know this person. I have never spoken to this person. Yet they’ve gone out of their way to block me, most likely bc I associate with the anti-Ragnarok crowd. This happens to me a lot. I’ve even had a couple of former mutuals unfollow and block me (without saying anything to me) and those felt like punches to the gut.

I understand not wanting to see content that you don’t like or that upsets you. Everyone has the right to block whomever they wish. But I can’t deny that getting blocked like that – by someone I don’t know, let alone interact with – fucking hurts. I know it’s not that deep but I can admit it. It’s a shitty feeling and it’s hard not to take it personally.

It’s not really about this particular person at all, although it’s a shame bc they’re a good writer I probably would have followed otherwise. But this entire anti/pro Ragnarok war has gone so far and it’s exhausting. I stayed pretty neutral for as long as I could.

And here’s the thing. My observations, both from being neutral and also being someone who, despite often being quietly blocked, tends to fly under the radar are this:

The majority of the negativity comes from the pro side.

Look, I side with and agree with the anti side on this one. I can admit, however, that sometimes it gets tiresome to see posts get turned into Ragnarok criticism or tiresome to see more posts on my dash about this that or another thing that sucks about Ragnarok and why. It, like anything, can be tiring.

But I also see that the anti side largely does its best to keep to itself. The pro side complained about the Ragnarok tags, so the anti side made an anti tag, and the pros still come into it to complain. The anti side will post their discussions and criticisms and they largely just circulate within the same group of people. The discussions are almost always criticisms on the source material (ie, the film) and not about anyone who enjoys it.

Now, maybe I don’t see everything. Though I don’t think I’m biased just bc I agree with the anti side – in fact, it was these attributes that made me take a closer look at what they were saying bc maybe they had a point after all. I don’t follow every anti Ragnarok user, but I do follow a lot. I can’t say personal attacks and whatever never happen - but, I hardly ever see them.

That’s not the case with the pro side. I don’t think I follow many from that side, but I see so much negativity from them. It’s like this kind of underhanded negativity that I’m not quite sure how to explain. It’s tonal negativity.

I mean, sometimes it’s blatant. Name-calling (Loki stans, lackeys, pathetic, delusional, and racist come to mind) is an example. But more than that, there’s this collective tone among the pro side that smacks of condescension and I can’t stand it.

They make fun of the “dissertations” that have been written.

They always include an “lol” or laugh emoji or something to express that they’re not the ones taking this seriously.

They fall back on saying they don’t care about a two-year-old movie.

They’re laughing and making fun and at the same time acting like they’re so above it all.

They want us to just shut up already.

What it comes down to is this: it’s not just a matter of being able to agree to disagree because the pro side actively acts offended that the antis are even having these critical discussions, even if the antis have gone out of their way to not involve the rest of the fandom at all.

(Again, this is not every pro person, but the majority. Tone does matter online, and the overall tone of the pro side is not positive. I say this from a mostly neutral place.)

And here’s a thing about “oh my god, it came out two years ago, get over it!” Yeah, it came out two years ago. So fucking what? You guys are still engaging with it, via fics and headcanons and art. How old the movie is doesn’t matter when you’re having fun with it, but when someone wants to engage with it in a (valid) critical way that you don’t like? No. That’s unacceptable. That’s pathetic. That’s being a lackey. Get over it.

Even writing this, I know that things are much worse for others than they are for me. I get stealth blocked; others are called out by name in public posts, receive anon hate, and are actively targeted.

It’s just, this shit is so fucking toxic to this fandom and it honestly needs to stop. Both sides need to not only stop engaging one another, but also stop acknowledging one another. We get it: you either like the movie or you don’t.

Let people do their own thing. Don’t be fucking obnoxious. If you disagree and genuinely want to talk about it, then try to remember there’s a person on the other side of the screen and be civil. If you disagree and don’t want to talk about it, then just fucking don’t.

If you see a post you disagree with, scroll past. And, yes, block the person if you need to (and sometimes it might be me that needs blocking and I recognize my hurt feelings are my own personal problem, not whoever else’s).

There are a lot of movies in the MCU that are not perfect. (Btw, it baffles me a little to get hated on for my stance on Ragnarok, when I am so much more vocal [and emotionally invested] in hating the Russos and IW/Endgame – but, whatever.) There are a lot of interpretations of characters that are different. There are a lot of people who project their own identity or issues or whatever onto any particular character that resonates (and that’s okay!) and there are a lot of people who don’t project but still identify with a particular character (and that’s okay, too).

Stop judging whether someone is a “real” fan of a character/franchise or not. Just because someone isn’t engaging with the source material in the way you are, and just because they don’t see it in the same way that you do, does not make them wrong. (Yes, this applies to the pro side, too. None of them are wrong or less valid for enjoying and even stanning the movie.) It doesn’t make anyone better than anyone else here.

Acting otherwise is honestly going to kill this fandom. Because it bleeds over. Fics will have less readers, bc they don’t want to interact with something posted by someone they dislike (or who blocked them). There’s less sharing of things like art and headcanons and content. People unfollow and block each other, people are having to watch what they say, people are losing friends (and potential friends) bc they may be a great person but they don’t agree with you about fucking Ragnarok.

I came to tumblr bc it was the only place where not only could I find other people who loved Loki as much as I did, but it was the only place where I could express that. Express it in fic, in headcanons, in meta. Being creative and starting dialogues and just interacting. I wish we could get that vibe back.

I wish none of this bothered me so much.

#again #please do not reblog this #i wanted to get this off my chest #i don't want this post to start any fucking wank #please excuse my lack of tags #i am sorry #heed the trigger warning at the top

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dotzines · 5 years ago

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Artist Spotlights!

🎤 Archergirl101 🥁 Artzom-b 🎷 Aura

🎺 Ben 🎸 BenWx 🎻 Bloof

Interview below the cut!

Introduce yourself

🎤 Hi! I’m Rabiah and I draw a variety of things every now and then. I’m only tumblr, Twitter, Insta and DA by the same name (Archergirl101) ! 🥁 Hey! I'm Artzom-b or Art for short! I'm a digital artist mostly focused on character design and storytelling. Most of my art is found on my IG here! https://www.instagram.com/artzombz/ 🎷 I'm a transmasc artist based in the Philippines! I enjoy watching animated shows and designing cute original characters! I am mainly a digital artist. For now you can find my art on https://twitter.com/pranseesko! 🎺 Hi! I'm Ben, I'm working hard to become a comic creator, and I love Kingdom Hearts and Yakuza! I'm a huge advocate and I like to put representation in all of my work. 🎸 I’m a digital artist from Arizona, and my twitter and instagram are @benwxart! I’m super into video games and movies, especially horror. 🎻 I'm a mixed media artist, I work in many mediums such as music, digital art, animation and 3D. I'm interested in the weird, the psychedelic and surreal, I help facilitate that by practicing hypnosis and also educating people on hypnosis as well as just poking fun at the community. I can be found here: https://bloofbloofbloof.tumblr.com/ and Here: https://twitter.com/Bloof07024049

Do you do commissions post? Where can we find the info?

🥁 https://www.instagram.com/p/B3cVyz2Daws/ 🎸 https://twitter.com/benwxart/status/1151325185422704641 🎻 https://twitter.com/Bloof07024049/status/1198648100090531842

Do you listen to music (or tv shows/films/anything else) when drawing?

🎤 I tend to listen to any kind of music or watch YouTube videos whilst drawing, sometimes I rewatch old cartoon too! 🎷 true crime podcasts and netflix shows! :> 🎺 I usually listen to music, or put YouTube videos on in the background! 🎸 I love listening to music when I draw, if not a podcast. I also occasionally go through my Youtube subscriptions when drawing, so as to clear them faster. 🎻 Yeah sometimes, sometimes videos. I also sometimes just write my own music and use that for inspiration as well.

What’s your favorite music artist/band? If you could ask your favorite band/music artist one question, what would it be?

🎤 This is legit an impossible question.... but right now it would have to be the Hamilton sound track + cast! My one question would be: how to do y’all rap so fast AND run around the stage?? 🥁 Mostly ghostly, Daltondoodles and scumbyyy (I have alot more but dont want to list them all) 🎷 i really enjoy hozier and quinn xcii's music! i would probably ask how they are. simple stuff! 🎸 I would probably list my favorite band as Brockhampton, and if I could ask them one question, I would ask them about the last things they wanted to have written about them as a collective. Sort of, their closing statement as a band. 🎻 Aphex Twin

Do you play an instrument? If not would you like to play one? Which one?

🎤 I don’t play one, but I’d love to learn the violin properly bc it sounds so pretty :3! 🥁 I use to play Keyboard but I havent played it in a while. 🎷 no, but i would love to learn the piano or the kalimba! 🎺 I play piano, guitar, and ukulele, and I'm teaching myself how to play the ocarina! 🎸 I used to sing and play piano, I should really get back into practice... 🎻 Does using digital music program count? If not if I could play one maybe the piano because its the most useful lol

Which song(s) are you going to draw?

🎤 Kiss The Boy - Keiynan Lonsdale 🥁 Half Alive - Still Alive 🎷 kenshi yonezu's cover of uchiage hanabi! 🎺 Amusement Park (Quiet - Vocals) - Nier: Automata OST 🎸 A BOY IS A GUN* - Tyler, The Creator, and Holy Terrain - FKA Twigs 🎻 Sevish - Droplet

What do you expect from this zine?

🎤 I’m expecting to have an awesome and see so many beautiful pieces of art! (And probably finding some new favourite songs!) 🥁 Just a fun experience! I've always wanted to be part of one so I took this opportunity! 🎷 lots of fun and cool songs to discover! 🎺 Lots of interesting and unique art, and everyone having fun! 🎸 I expect that this zine will be the first of many I’ll be part of. 🎻 I want to have a fun time interacting with the community and producing work with it and enjoying what others make

#Archergirl101 #Artzom-b #Aura #Ben #BenWx #artist spotlight #loop #loop artists #Bloof

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veryimportantsparkles · 6 years ago

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Alright I’ve kept meaning to do sort of an infodump on my projects because I’ve been really slipping lately. I dunno how obvious it is? Probably kind of obvious. I’ve also been really bad about checking messages and responding to people. So I figure I can write up a status report and then point to it when I’ve been inadequate about communication.

My IRL job has been wiping me out. I’ve been getting short, labor-intensive shifts in the evenings, and then random surprise morning shifts shortly after, which has been really hard to manage my time around. My sleep schedule has been extremely broken and it’s affected my productivity a LOT. Leadership in my department is about to shuffle around and I’ve been interviewed for the manager position. If I get it I’ll be working an entirely different schedule, which could potentially be good for my sleepy brain but will definitely leave me with less art time overall. I’ve also been enduring some back/shoulder issues over the past few months. Nothing urgent, but it’s limiting how much I can draw each day. I think replacing my desk chair is going to be a big factor but it’s not the only factor. I just need to be a smart human and take care of my joints and not hunch over so much. Working on it.

Here’s the current status of my various art projects:

Laserwing

I ended chapter 5 in June and said I would finish up some other side projects before I start concept work for chapter 6. One of the projects I needed to finish was the Popkas Yugioh season 4 special, which I finished. The other big one was my Neonmob card set, which is most of what I’ve been posting lately. Once that’s out of the way (see below) I need to do concept art. Chapter 6 will put all the Laserwing characters in new outfits which will need reference sheets. I’ll need background sketches and layout diagrams so I don’t have furniture shuffle randomly around between scenes. I also need to sketch out the chapter 6 draft page by page. I’ve made Laserwing in GIMP up until this point and am going to try switching to Krita for chapter 6. I might need to do a test page to make sure my process transfers over well into a slightly different system. Once I’m ready to make real pages, those take a while. Chapter 5 pages were going up maybe every 2-3 weeks. I don’t know how many pages are going to be in chapter 6, nor can I say for sure how many chapters are in Laserwing. An old outline had maybe 40 chapters. It’s a story with a defined end point, I can say that for certain, but it’s intended to be long.

Popkas

I’ve had issues with Popkas for a while. I keep picking new themes for dailies, thinking they’re going to be quick and easy, but then end up making them hard for myself. It’s been to my benefit, I’ve forced myself into learning new art programs and techniques through Popkas. But it’s hard to keep up the daily schedule. Currently I’m doing the Paper Mario: TTYD bestiary, which has 124 enemies. At a rate of one per day, by the time I’ve finished them, Pokemon Sword and Shield should be released and we’ll have all the info about the new Pokemon. Those will be drawn in ‘Popka classic’ style (scribbly shitposts). After those are finished, unless my IRL work situation dramatically changes, I’m considering putting Popkas on pause. In order to do any other monster dexes I’d have to do a lot more research (for example, people have suggested Yokai Watch but I’ve never played one) in order to have anything meaningful to post. Same deal with Popka Specials (the anime writeup things), those take prep time and anime-watching time that I might not have. I don’t ever want to end Popkas, but a hiatus might be necessary.

Angelfire Hime

Did anyone even know about Angelfire Hime? Well I want to post more but that involves finding, scanning, retouching, and transcribing my old high school scribble comics. It takes as long as any other project but is also low priority because it’s all old content. Nobody is waiting for the latest update because nobody but me actually knows what that content is, and possibly nobody but me can even read it. It’s more a personal journey of self-reflection than anything. I want to return to it but not at the expense of better work.

MeganFantastic dot com

I had a domain name linked to a tumblr that was supposed to be my news blog/front page and I barely use it. Also, I let the domain registration drop. Also, I had let a typo in my banner graphic go unnoticed for YEARS and still haven’t fixed it. Even now, I’m writing this big post to my personal blog instead of the one for news. The idea was to eventually buy some real hosting and make MeganFantastic a whole site of its own, but that’s a lot of work. I’ve got a generally good idea of HOW I’d do it (probably wordpress) but I’m not a coder, it would take a lot of trial and error. This would be a huge undertaking and eventually Laserwing, Popkas, and all my other junk would be contained on one big non-tumblr website. But it’s uhhhhh not happening yet.

Hundera Youtube

My contribution to our LP channel is to show up, talk about video games, and then draw title cards. All recording, editing, and channel management is maintained by Josh, and I can’t speak on his behalf about our update schedule. I will say there are a lot of half-finished games we want to return to. I will also say that when the new Pokemon comes out Josh is dead set on recording it. I don’t know if he intends that to be a stream or a regular LP. In the meantime he streams Minecraft with his friends every Sunday and we fit in our own streams and recordings when we can.

Commissions/Patron Art/etc

I’ve not been very good about this lately and I’m truly sorry! I have a few things I’m working on, a few things I’ve promised to start working on, and a few things I’ve told people I can do once my workload lightens up, which hasn’t been happening yet. I really don’t have an answer. I almost never delete anything so if I’ve been sent a message in any form I should still have it, and I’ll be sure not to forget anyone. And if I do forget someone feel free to throw rocks at me!

Rane Story 2

What the heck is Rane Story 2? Well I guess I have to explain Neonmob. Imagine if ChickenSmoothie and DeviantART had a baby. It’s a virtual trading card site, which is fun and cute, and I’m drawing out a card series to release on there. I’ve been using it as practice for painting backgrounds and to fill out some backstory for some 4th-string Laserwing support characters. Before Mistaire came to Earth, she went to space high school, and that’s where Rane Story takes place. You can preview the series, and when it’s finished I’ll post about it. I’ll also repost all the art to DA. If you scroll through the last several pages of this blog you’ll see some of the art. I’ve put a lot of my brain energy into getting this done in spite of my work/sleep issues because I don’t want to resume Laserwing until I’ve finished it. This is what’s stolen my life, guys. Right now I have 6 more cards to make, and then I have to write and finalize all the text. I should be done SOON.

Pokemon Nonsense

When my back and shoulder get too hurty and I have to take a break from drawing, one of the easy things to do is whip out a DS and play Pokemon. I’ve done a lot of twitter shitposting about it lately. I’ve also drawn up a bunch of gijinkas for my Pokemon. I’m talking about it now because I also intend to draw up gijinkas for Pokemon to trade away. I’ve already done a few. However, I don’t know for sure how I’m going to distribute them. The idea is people can trade actual Pokemon with me (in either X or Let’s Go Eevee) and the Pokemon they get will come with a character design for you to keep. I was thinking I might do a discord server for organizing trades and such, but I haven’t yet. Mostly because it’s low priority and I have SO many other things going on. But actually playing Pokemon can happen when I’m too fatigued for real work, so the horde keeps growing. Hopefully my posts and scribbles about it are entertaining.

I feel like there’s other projects on hold that I wanted to discuss, but right now I’m too braintired to remember, and some of my ‘projects’ never actually got talked about online so nobody’s waiting for an update. My greatest problem seems to be that I try to juggle too many pointless side projects and then drop them all over the place. Sometimes I’ll shitpost about an idea and even I won’t be sure if I was serious or not. How do I end this post? I don’t know.

tl;dr Megan is SLEEPY and dropped her spaghetti everywhere but somehow still has time to play POKEMON and WON’T STOP TALKING ABOUT IT

#long post #what do i even tag this as

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