twotangledsisters

[twotangledsisters]

So what's on the schedule for Wednesday and Thursday now? TTT yet?

Well, this week I'm actually super busy so I'm very grateful to have nothing on the schedule! It's been a busy summer, will continue to be a bit busy.

But my plans for fics that'll eventually settle into those spaces are the 'Andrew fic' (still needs a title but it's only two chapters away from completion), and The Three Thieves (which I believe is what TTT is? But I'm not entirely sure, sorry if I'm being dumb and it's something else obvious XD)

But as I always say, my writing schedule is very much based on whatever inspires me or calls to me at any given moment.

I might however move the schedule around a bit so that there's not two days in a row without upload.

[twotangledsisters]

When I first got into digital art 13 years ago, most artists only had galleries of their new/better work, there was this one who had never deleted anything and 12 year old me would scroll back and see their beginner art looking just like mine and it was a HUGE inspiration... so yeah. I think about that sometimes.

Begging writers not to delete their old work because yes I understand it feels cringy and embarrassing but I cannot tell you how good it is to reread something you wrote a long time ago, and be able to see just how much you've improved. Even if you still have a long way to go, you're always improving and nothings more motivating that having direct proof of your efforts

[twotangledsisters]

saw that anon saying your art isn't good and you saying your art isn't good: that isn't true! your art has a lot of really solid foundations to it and has an appealing flow and style! tbch over the years I've been doing art I still fondly look back at the days where I was "worse" because I had a lot of zest and activity to my art. your composition, fluidity, and colors are very appealing to look at, at least to me :)

art is all subjective, and some people are unfortunately assholes who have a limited view on what art they think is "good" over what is actually fun and passionate. I love you bye

Hi, thanks! This got me to smile.

I don't usually say my art is 'bad', I'm usually more of 'having a bad art day' or 'piece didn't come out as hoped' but I was in a bit of a depressive mood when that message arrived and definitely wasn't the nicest to myself in my choice of words.

And yeah, you're completely right! The number of times I've fought with random assholes on the internet for hating on some of my fave artists with unique styles is...... probably more than I should have engaged with. It's always so obvious they're just being mean from the outside looking in.

So yeah, thanks for reminding me of that cause it definitely made me feel better today.

[twotangledsisters]

Hmm... it's been a really long time since Amaris has shown her face in the fic.... wonder what she's up to.

Amaris NEW Ref Sheet!!

The old one for comparison:

Has my art gotten better??? I think so.

My style's changed so it's hard to say but I am really happy with my 2025 ref sheet even if it's not too different :D

I am so hyped for ArtFight this year! I've got this new art style and I am ready to test it out on a variety of characters!!

[twotangledsisters]

Omg, the way Cass' hand is reaching for the moonstone? Her hair? The light of the moonstone reflecting of her armour and in her eyes??? This piece is so stunning. Omg. Love seeing art of Cass in her S2 armour.

Not a very good art with Cass. I drew it to try the angle and lighting, as I said, a little unsuccessfully. To be honest, I'm not a big fan of Cassandra as a character (for me she's just okay). But I really love her design, so drawing her is a pleasure!

[twotangledsisters]

ooooh, this looks really spooky and cool, love the compositions and the colours here soooo much

and the hair.... the way the hair is drawn especially the part of it that's on the floor is really really neat to me.

Arts and crafts

[twotangledsisters]

Oh my god, Gothel looks sooo cool in this!

The lighting and her expression??? It's sooo awesome!

I hope i'll finish this one day

[twotangledsisters]

The joy I get when seeing paper-craft- art is inexplicable.

Something about it just speaks to my soul.

And the holographic rainbows, the stars, the way you drew her face??? Like this is sooooo soooooooo coool!

Like, if this art makes me want to bury myself in my craft room and try to make stuff... and if my craft weren't currently an oven from the heatwave I probably would (like this piece is so beautiful and inspiring)

also, @frozenwolftemplar if you haven't already seen this... this might be my fave kpdh fanart I've seen thus far so I feel I should share

Papercraft Rumi!! I busted out the holographic rainbow mirror paper for her patterns, glitter and shimmery silver stars for her hair, glitter pens for her makeup, and sequins for the background sparkles. This girl shines!

I may have pulled up a little late to the KPop Demon Hunters party but the party is INDEED as delightful as everybody said!!! The soundtrack has been playing on repeat in my head and in my headphones for the past week. :D

[twotangledsisters]

This is really cool! And, yes, love to see it! I am honestly loving every piece of Celine and Rumi, Celine, Celine and the girls art I see, they are just so tragic.

(also, I love you saying 'I know you're trying to not get too deep' on every Kpdh post you tag me in XD I don't know why that makes me laugh!)

this has probably been done before, but i also wanted to get this idea out of my head.

I believe Rumi never got a hug from Celine, and Mira and Zoey were the first to show her physical affection and I will die on that hill.

[twotangledsisters]

The kid one's a cute angle but him getting them out that early lacks the emotional depth you built up in just how deep they got in. That's why the years-later angle sounded so interesting.

Oh, yeah, it's definitely an interesting angle!

I just don't know if I could see Captain being successful. He's so... ignorant to the depth of the issue. And the teenagers are so against him, they are not about to trust him or confide in him this late.

So unless he stumbled upon the truth some other way, it's very difficult for him to actually help.

[twotangledsisters]

For Three Thieves; at one point in the story you had the Captain try to find Eugene at 17 as one last ditch effort became of age and faced hanging. Will you ever explore if he had? Like how the story would have went?

I believe I already answered this in Ao3 comments (if you're not the same person, this is a hilarious coincidence XD)

But basically, the idea is interesting, and I would love to explore it one day... maybe? But I just have a lot of other things to work on first!

Such as actually finishing Three Thieves for example!

I will say, if I had to give a quick guess at how the story would have gone:

-Eugene would have probably been brought before the king and queen just as Cassandra was when she sacrificed herself so Eugene could escape.

-Unlike Cassandra, Eugene is just another teenager, he's not the daughter of the woman who kidnapped the princess. So with Captain's good word I don't reckon he'd face exile or anything quite so dramatic. He'd probably go to prison with a few years sentence and Captain would try to help him from there (help as in encourage to study something, tell him criminal activity isn't the way... fail to realise Eugene has been roped into debt with a criminal organization since he was an actual child)

-The same way Caine struck a deal with Stalyan to break Cassandra out, I could see Cassandra trying to do something similar, except this time she chooses this fate herself.

-From there, there are two options really: Cassandra succeeds in breaking Eugene out and we're back to the main story! Nothing really changed too much. Option number 2 is that Eugene sabotages the escape attempt, realising that Cassandra would almost be in a better position behind bars than once more at the Baron's mercy. In which case Captain might actually stand a chance at being told what's going on and from there he could tell the queen and maybe do some repairs early on.

Either way, Captain's plan, while well intended isn't the best. He isn't aware that there's a criminal organization praying on kids and forcing criminal records on them before they're old enough to comprehend the gravity of that. So he's treating this as a 'teenager' problem when it's far more complex than that.

That's why the one AU where Captain is able to fix things is the one where Cassandra TELLS HIM what the actual problem is.

[twotangledsisters]

My fave type of review is when someone just writes a mini fanfiction of my fanfiction.

It's a surprisingly common occurrence and the best feeling ever.

(I'm not talking a line of funny dialogue btw, I am talking often times several reviews one after the other cause they reached the character limit type of mini fics)

when you’re reading fanfiction and you get so involved in the story you start imagining different scenarios in that same universe and then it’s fanfiction fanfiction

[twotangledsisters]

Excuse me but Coding is not a talent just anyone can learn. You may be able to learn the syntax and follow books on how to code a program but it still requires a fair bit of problem solving and breaking that down into logic. If I told you how break down how you would make paper, rock, scissors into coding would you know the exact types of logic to use to get what you want? If you can't think like that, you can't code.

I stand corrected.

There are people in this world who think coding is not learnable.

If you think this about coding you must also think this about maths, finance, everything logic based?

Except we do all learn maths in school. You even learn maths in most creative fields! It's called technical drawing and is the vein of most artists' existence, but they learn it. It can definitely take a lot longer and require a much higher effort for some people but it's learnable.

There are a million creatives out there who have no talent when it comes to logic-based thinking, who struggle with it greatly, but they will learn to code-slowly and surely- because they want to make a silly little game with their art. (motivation, effort and time! will do in place of talent)

There are very few skills in the world that aren't learnable.

Every skill will be easier with talent. But saying it's impossible is just... sad. That's the word I'm going with.

It's okay for people to say, 'I have no talent, and the work isn't worth the result for me'. That is 100% valid.

But it is do-able if one day you decide you desperately want to learn to do something.

[twotangledsisters]

Yes! Yes! Yes!

I feel like Java and this example exemplifies exactly what I was trying to say!

Cause coding is such an obviously learnable skill, I don't think anybody would argue you can't learn it without talent (the way people would argue for the arts which is something I disagree with, you might not be passionate enough to put the work in and not being passionate might be related to lacking talent but in the end of the day, it IS learnable).

But the difference talent will make is.... insane.

I remember doing Java in High School at a time where none of us had computers at home so you could very clearly see who understood the logic behind the code and who was just learning the skill. (I loved that class)

And the thing with coding specifically is you will absolutely see two types of people doing that:

1.- people who love coding for coding (usually talented, they understand it, they ENJOY it)

2.- people who have a project and are willing to put in the time to learn the skill for that reason

And both of these are soooo valid.

And it's important that group 2 understands, they are exiting their comfort zone, which is really cool and respectable and they shouldn't feel bad if it takes them a lot longer to accomplish a lot less.

Pursuing a skill is so hard.

And I just think it's so important to recognise that everybody is going to struggle a different amount. And pretending that's not the case isn't beneficial. Recognising the individual struggle and supporting and cheering people on? That's useful!

Art Talent - AI - And the insane amount of super talented 14 year olds

A popular saying in today's art community is that art doesn't require talent, it's a skill that you need to work on to improve.

And this is a saying I've never agreed with.

But a saying I for the most part have backed regardless.

Especially now with the rise of generative AI and the amount of people claiming it's an 'accessibility tool' for the untalented. (if you're one of those people, fuck you)

But the other things that is on the rise other than AI is insanely talented children on the internet. Every day I come across at least 10 or 20 artists who can draw better than I can in my wildest of dreams and the descriptions says something along the lines of 'support a 15 old artist uwu'

And the feeling that brings me is... if art is a skill that one can learn, and I have access to all the same resources as the random 14 year olds, and I've done hundreds of studies, I've done full courses on anatomy and character design and values.... and yet my art cannot compare... then I must be an idiot.

And I just... have feelings.

I wonder if the discussion around talent and art needs to be a bit wider than just talent vs skill.

Cause like........ have you ever done finance? Like, as a subject at school where you calculate the most beneficial investment? That's a skill, right? You learn the equations, you practice, you improve. I was super talented at finance. I would do homework for equations we hadn't yet study and I would figure out these new equations from the ones we already had. My teacher was stunned and told me that nobody had ever done that before.

There was a day where I forgot to my homework and my teacher noticed so she asked me the answer and I came up with it on the spot, calculator in hand, quick glance at the text.

She then asked me the answer of the next one, and the one after, and the one after... and in about 3 minutes I had answered every question correctly.

Other people in the class had spent hours on this same homework.

I feel like........ talent is everywhere.

In every single thing.

Including art.

I still think everybody can learn art.

I am technically... legally blind. I have complete aphantasia. My wrists constantly hurt and I struggle to draw a straight line some days.

But I still make art.

You can make art without talent.

But I also think pretending talent doesn't exist in the art space is harmful. Because it makes people who have to work harder to accomplish the same level feel like they're broken. They're stupid. They didn't actually work as hard as they think they did.

When the reality is every single person is different and that's okay. Art can be both a talent and a skill.

[twotangledsisters]

Male Muscle Study (with Eugene)

The art is bad, I know... I'm trying to re-learn procreate but it's very awkward going from one tool to another. Plus there's still some lag on my ipad XD (drawing with lag is terrible)

But I thought some of ya'll would enjoy this study even if it's not my best work.

(I love turning studies into fanarts cause it's like a little treat for the hard part)

[twotangledsisters]

Cass sketch

was trying to do her hair shorter so it'd be like 'Search for the Celestials' length but it's pretty close to her usual length.

[twotangledsisters]

Mermaid Cass Sketch (ugly af)

Having one of those art days where I'm loving the energy. The idea, the vibe: good!

But skill??? ZERO.

What are those arms those fingers those eyes? This look like the art I made when I was fucking twelve and I had one of those 'how to draw manga books' that had terrible advice, and I was drawing with my mouse in paint tool sai.

In defence of myself.... at 12 this was the best I could do.

Now this is what I'm doing while mindlessly sketching to avoid facing my anxiety because the world is on fire (literally, it's so hot here and the firemen keeping rushing past cause there's fires starting everywhere around me).