mia-fou

[mia-fou]

September 1st thoughts

[mia-fou]

Harry staying up late to learn and read more of the mysterious half blood prince.

[mia-fou]

The Christmas sweater

Molly Weasley starts the Christmas Sweater knitting at Halloween because her family has grown so big. There's Harry, Hermione, Fleur, Luna, Angelina, Teddy... not all of them will be able to come over for Christmas, of course. She has already packed some presents to send: A very big one for Charlie who is planning on releasing a Swedish Short-Snout bank into the wild in January and it's gonna be freezing cold up there. Another package for Bill and Fleur who take turns in family visits every year and will be spending this Christmas in France.

She is so lost in the clattering from the knitting needles and the crackling from the fireplace that she only notices her mistake when the sweater is almost finished: It has an F on it. But Fleurs violet sweater is already finished and wrapped up. What was she doing?

When Ginny and Harry return from their evening Quidditch game in the garden, covered in mud and sweat, they enter the living room laughing and joking. But they go silent in a moment as they discover Molly crying and sobbing heavily into a crumpled blue sweater.

Ginny rushes to her mother immediately and kneels down before her.

"Mom, what's wrong? What happened?"

Harry stands in the doorway and awkwardly lowers his look while Ginny gently pulls down Mollys hands to reveal her tearful eyes. He can't remember the last time he had seen Mrs Weasley cry, if ever.

Ginny takes the sweater from her lap. "Oh... Oh Mum... it's Fred, isn't it?"

[mia-fou]

Dear young artists

Here are things I wish that someone told me when I started posting/doing art:

1: I know it sucks but you won’t get your art noticed right away. So be patient and enjoy sharing your art even if it seems no one is looking.

2: Do not take request that you know will take you more than 30 minutes. If it takes longer, that’s what commissions are for. Often people will abuse that you are an artist taking request and will give very elaborate requests.

3: Speaking of commissions, do not price ANYTHING under $5. Please value your art. I promise you the people that will complain the “it’s over priced” are cheap. If they actually want your art, they would pay for it as is.

4: SAVE SAVE SAVE. If you do digital art, save it at least every 15 minutes. Save every piece of art, don’t throw it away or delete it.

5: DATE YOUR ART. At the end of last year is when I actually started dating my art within the file name. Example: “6-13-Girl” and have a folder for each year. This would save time when you’re trying to remember when you did an old piece of art or are creating a portfolio.

6: For the love of god, you don’t have to finish everything. Do practice sketches without them turning into elaborate hours of work.

7: Continuing from 6, YOUR SKETCHBOOK IS A SKETCHBOOK FOR A REASON. That’s where you practice. Don’t worry about a drawing not being perfect, the book is for practicing.

8: You don’t have to show someone your sketchbook if you don’t want to. Just say, “I’d rather you not, it’s very personal” and leave it at that.

9: Post your practices and ask for feedback. P.S. take “you need to work on ______ but good color choice!” as feedback and “your art sucks” as someone being an ass.

10: Don’t trace references or others artwork. It will literally not help you in the long run. A good example of how to use a ref is sketch the basic shape and add details as you go.

11: Don’t tighten you hand when you draw or aka don’t carve into the paper. Keep your strokes light when doing the basic shapes then add to darken the lines when you like them. This will save frustration of it not being able to erase.

12: WATCH SPEEDPAINTS. Slow them down if needed and learn from other artists and take the techniques you like from it. This especially works for visual learners.

13: Try tutorials even if you don’t like the style. You won’t know you like doing something unless you try it, that’s how people improve their art as well.

14: If you look through my blog, you can see that I do A LOT of redraws. I find them important to do sometimes to see your progress and show you what you need to work on.

15: Most importantly: Remember that your favorite artists, no matter their age, have been working on their drawing skills for years. It’s taken me 6 years to get my art where I like it and I’m still improving like everyone else.

Any other artists that would like to add or correct, feel free!

[mia-fou]

my other platforms

If tumblr really goes through with this, I think I’ll be leaving too, as sad as it is. You can always find my art and thoughts here:

Instagram: @mia.fou Twitter: @mia_fou Youtube: Mia malt

(My Twitter is mostly German, my Youtube as well but with some nice speed drawings you can surely enjoy nonetheless. I keep my Instagram mostly English)

Hope to see you there!

[mia-fou]

THIS!

Why ‘female-presenting nipples’ matter

When I was 10, my mom made me wear a bra and it felt like a punishment for being different.

When I was 10, I took the bra off when changing for gymnastics and accidentally dropped it in the school hallway. A teacher picked it up and said, “Oh, this must belong to you” and handed it back to me in front of everyone. I quit gymnastics.

When I was 11, I thought maybe the boobs would be okay so long as they didn’t get any bigger than would fit in my hand, so I kept measuring it, but they did.

When I was 12, I started wearing two or three sports bras to smush them down, until one day a classmate said, “Are you wearing two bras?!” while laughing.

When I was 13, a boy told me he wanted to squeeze my boobs “until they popped.”

When I was 14, I got cast in a play as an older character and a classmate told me I got the role because I had boobs.

When I was 17, my mom told me to return a swimsuit because it would be too distracting for my boyfriend’s father.

When I was 21, I got properly fitted for a bra and everyone felt the need to tell me how much better my boobs looked.

When I was 26, I got pregnant and my immediate fear was that my boobs would get bigger.

When I was 28, I got shamed for trying to feed my screaming baby in public without a cover.

When I was 28, people asked me “why are you bothering to use a breastfeeding cover?”

When I was 30, people gave me weird looks that I wasn’t yelling at my kid for putting their hand on my boob.

When I was 31, I avoided going to the beach or pool because I didn’t want to have to deal with boobs in a swimsuit.

When I was 32, I got asked, again, “why don’t you get a breast reduction?”

When I was 33, I watched a 5yo girl get shamed for running around in sweltering heat without a shirt on and had to reprimand a bunch of tween boys who thought it was okay to shame her for doing something they do all the time.

When I was 34, my kid kept patting my breast and saying “Mommy’s squishy breast!!” They will never see me express any shame about tits, because I want them to have a different mindset than I had. Yes, boobs are nice! They’re squishy! They’re fun! That’s the end of that.

I’m 35 and no longer give a fuck. I don’t care anymore. As a teenager my tits were covered in stretch marks. They’ve been engorged with milk. My nipple changed shape with pregnancy. Give it another couple decades and my breasts will probably be all wrinkly. It’s sexual when I’m using it sexually. I don’t fucking care, and I won’t be ashamed anymore. 

Every time a policy or cultural hangup treats people with breasts differently, it fucks us over. 

Tumblr’s new policy makes an active choice to participate in this culture of shame. By classifying “female-presenting nipples” as explicit material, Tumblr has taken a stance that any chest or breast that differs from a male default is worthy of shame and unavoidably sexual. The idea that breasts are shameful and unavoidably sexual is exactly what fucked me up for so much of my life.

Stop shaming people for having bodies. 

[mia-fou]

Minerva McGonagall really can do anything. Including being a Hogwarts’ teacher in the times she wasn’t even born yet.

[mia-fou]

I've seen Fantastic Beasts Crimes of Grindelwald yesterday and couldn't help but draw a fanart immediately. This is young Nagini struggling with her condition alone in front of the mirror.

In this movie I felt like she didn't really have a purpose other than being Credences randomly introduced emotional support. But since the story builds on more movies to come I hope this was just her introduction and there will be more character development later on, especially an explanation to why she will bond with Voldemort.

[mia-fou]

While I’m all abroad with divorcing JKR, I have to disagree with some of those reasons.

I think especially the FB series has great potential in adding more to the lore and is planning so as shown in the trailers. We will get more backstory about WWI which didn’t get much time in HP, Dumbledores and Grindelwalds relationship, maybe even an explanation to how Grindelwald lost despite the elder wand.

I agree with that. CC is a horrible mistake and can not be canon.

It’s more prejudice to project any HIV methapher strictly on homosexuals. HIV is not restricted to homosexuals, that’s just a backward view.

Agreed, see above.

Are those her words or personal interpretation from the pottermore article? Because the article clearly states that wandless magic is indeed more difficult, so the reason why Europeans introduced Native Americans to their wand discovery is exactly because it’s way easier to channel the magic through the wand. It’s never claimed that the NA had to learn it because it was more difficult. I don’t get why it should be a bad thing to introduce someone to an easier method of doing something.

Dumbledore being gay is readable between the lines about his youth relationship with Grindelwald. I actually approve of his sexual orientation not pushed into my face without reason. As JKR said, it didn’t matter to Harrys story, so why include it? For the pure sake of forcing more diversity without driving the story forward? Now, in FB we might get a closer look at this because it might actually matter to the story considering him avoiding Grindelwald. If you want to read stories for the sake of diversity and not for the sake of the story itself, HP just might not be the right thing.

How do you imagine giving credits? Should JKR have added footnotes to a novel? Include an authors note thanking whole cultures? It’s a very common thing to use elements and inspiration from other artists, worlds, cultures. As long as it’s not plain copying the stories without own input, I don’t see a problem. Also since when do cultural myths/creatures/habits have copyright? About including characters: Native Americans are not very common in Europe. It might have felt forced to include one for the sake of diversity (see above). About the inidan culture, I’m pretty sure the Patil twins are Indian or at least from that grand region, implied by their names. JKR included several black characters, an asian woman who is Harrys crush, whole schools from other countries with other cultures. And many names bustle around about whose characters we don’t know much. Is it right to assume they’re all european white just because their names don’t sound extremely exotic? Well, that’s racist.

Read the books again. It’s hinted several times that Nagini has a strong sensation of awareness about what’s happening around her and the importance of events. She has a strong bond with Voldemort, closer than any human is to him. He almost treats her like a partner at eye level. He also made her a horcrux. For every other horcrux he spend a lot of time and effort to find the most worthy, valuable, meaningful objects. Would he really hide a part of his soul in a normal, mortal snake?

I find it very quick to judge so much from only the trailer of the 2nd FB. Let’s first see how the story develops, what happens to Nagini and what makes her form motives and allegiance.

Don’t know about that. Book ≠ author. This has nothing to do with “past DH”.

A list of reasons I’m divorcing J.K. Rowling and no longer acknowledging anything Past Deathly Hallows

None of it makes sense or really adds anything to the story except ‘ooh! A twist!’

She took the The Boy Who Lived To Idolize His Parents, and made him into a terrible father, who told his son he wishes he wasn’t born.

Made lycanthropy an allegory for HIV/AIDS, AFTER Lupin was turned as a child, by an adult. Not only does this tick the box for pedophilia, but painting homosexuals as predatory by nature.

Delphi. Everything about her. Including that she exists.

During the actual series, wandless magic was incredibly difficult to do, and only harnessed by very dedicated, powerful witches and wizards. Then, when writing about it in reference to Native American witches and wizards, suddenly, they needed Europeans to come along and teach them how to use wands.

Dumbledore being gay, whilst having none of his romantic relationships touched on in the series, even when his adolescence is delved into.

Taking from other cultures (Indian and Native American, for example) to add things to the series, with no credit due to those cultures, and no mention of even a character from those cultures.

Nagini somehow being a human originally, when it was previously never even alluded to, despite J.K. apparently ‘sitting on this for the last 20 years’.

Nagini, the literal PET of a white supremacist, was a woman of color.

Outside of the series, JK Rowling is a known TERF.

None of these things she attempts to shoehorn in feel even remotely natural to the story, and it’s painfully fucking obvious they’re last-minute ‘gotcha!’ twists ripped off ff.net or ao3. She’s destroying the series by trying to keep it relevant, when it could maintain relevancy all on it’s own by being passed down through families and the fandom all on it’s own.

[mia-fou]

Classic Hermione putting her education above sleep.

Who do you think is trying to get her to bed?

[mia-fou]

Rewatching POA - a disaster

My local cinema is currently running the Harry Potter movies again (oh my gosh blushing fangirl-gasp) and today I went to see Prisoner of Azkaban. It was such a mix of feelings because it was wonderful to see it on big screen again but with the audience in my back it also showed me how much is wrong with this movie

1. Good stuff first: The scene where Harry leaves the Dusleys house after he had blown up aunt Marge is the saddest and funniest at the same time. There’s this poor child wandering down an empty, rainy, dark road, carrying in his trunk everything that he owns and having nowhere to go. But then a tiny black dot in the sky is floating past the moon, screaming – it’s Marge. She’s still up there. I completely forgot that and I was crying and laughing so hard at the same time.

2. Now for the bad stuff: That scene in the Shrieking Shack where Hermione steps in front of Harry and tells the assumed mass murderer that she would die for her friend. That was Rons line in the book! Ron, standing pale and sweaty on his broken leg, stepped in front of Harry while Hermione was pissing her pants. Stupid me expected the cinema to be full of loyal Harry Potter nerds and was so prepared to let out an outraged gasp about that, but no one said a word! Not even the girl right behind me who was explaining every scene to her friend who apparently somehow had never seen Harry Potter. Not even she whispered: “You know in the book Ron said that”.

3. Snape snarls at Hermione for answering a question that he had just freaking asked and calls her the iconic “insufferable know-it-all”. It’s furiating enough that in the movie Ron leans to Harry and fucking endorses the bullying, while in the book he stands up for Hermione. But you know what really hit me in the guts: The whole cinema was LAUGHING at this poor character-raping joke! They didn’t even laught at Moon-Marge or Stans “Whatcha fell over for?” but they laugh at this twisted crap?!

4. Why did they not show Harry casting a formal patronus? I mean they did, when we witness the scene the first time, when Harry thinks it’s his father casting the patronus. But later, when we witness the same scene a second time, they did not bother to show the same fucking rendering model they had already created and used, but instead just showed us a giant white shield that doesn’t even actively fight off the dementors. Also the whole point of the stag is that his father was a stag and had a stag patronus and Harrys patronus being also a stag symbolises how similar they are. His father was not a fucking round shield!

5. Lupin being forced to resign. He told Harry that “someone let slip” that he was a werewolf. It was freaking Snape! He is NOT the hero jumping in front of the children to protect them from the werewolf at full moon. (He did not do that in the book.) Someone who never read the book will probably not even think twice about this “someone” but they will remember how Snape spreads his arms in front of the trio like an overprotective mother bird takes their hatchlings under her wings.

6. Speaking of someone who never read the book: They had time to add that protective Snape, they had time to let Ron endorse the bullying on Hermione, they even had time to for that weird frog choir, but they couldn’t eclude a sentence about WHO made that map?! We meet every living one of the Marauders in person and talk a good lot about the dead one and we’re not allowed to learn that they made this amazing thing? Not even as an explanation to why Lupin knows how it works, even though this is what saves Harrys ass that night. By the way, the girl sitting behind me took the first half of the end credits telling her friend every character for every actor’s name on the screen, and the second half she tried to explain to her friend exactly what the Marauders Map is and why it is so important. I wonder how that uninformed friend must have felt, how betrayed she was by the movie that withheld her this important detail.

7. To end it on a positive note (and on the most magical number): The Quidditch scene was brilliant. Especially in comparison to the first movie where the Greenscreen really hurt the eye, this was just mindblowing. I loved how they introduced the visual of dementors through the black umbrella. I actually had goosebumps and shivers while Harry fought against the raging, freezing cold storm and the rest of the cinema was on the edge of their seats as well.

All in all the movie was incredibly wonderful even after the fifth time watching it. Especially in this one the camera work is amazing, the colours meet perfectly in the middle with the right amount of warm and cold for each scene, the CGI is really good and believable (Quidditch, Buckbeak, Werewolf, Dementors). There are some more great scenes I really enjoyed like the boys having fun in their dormitory, Harry messing with Draco under his invisibility cloak, Hermione discovering Harry crying under the cloak, the suspense of the very first dementor encounter at the train, every single time the camera played with windowglass and the great clock... I completely understand that sometimes subplots have to suffer when a book is made into the movie. I understand that it’s a different medium with less time and a different arc of suspense. But all the things I criticized above, all the things that I have now witnessed having a strong impact on the audience and convey twisted or even plain wrong information, all those things could have been changed so, so easily (or to phrase it better, could have been left the way they were in the books and not changed at all).

2. Just let Ron say the line that was his to begin with! It doesn’t affect the plot at all, it just changes characters that don’t need to be changed. Except you know turning Hermione from a realistic, relatable strong woman to an unreachable, unrealistic warrior goddess while stressing out how useless Ron is (he’s fucking not).

3. The movie is not even buying time by cutting Rons response completely. They explicitly take the time to turn the camera on him and let him say a line. It’s just not the brave and loyal line from the book but a mean joke.

4. They already did the rendering model! Why don’t you just drop the exact model at the exact same place again? It’s not that much of an extra effort.

5. Again a single line could have made it clear and no time would be wasted. How about “Your dear potions teacher let slip something about my condition” or even sublter “I’m sure you can guess after the incident in the shrieking shack, that some staff member let slip about my condition”.

6. Here’s a suggestion. I get that it might take too much time for such a long movie to explain the marauders but how about we buy that time by cutting out the freaking protective Snape moment that wasn’t even in the freaking books at all and only adds to the false view that so many have on this teacher. The teacher who – I can’t stress this enough – didn’t keep his mouth shut about the severe and painful condition of another staff member while knowing exactly that he will be forced to resign, won’t find another position and will return to his life in solitude and poverty that he has lived in for so many years before. He also did keep his mouth shut about Sirius being innocent even though he knew the truth and also knew that Sirius would be facing the dementors kiss, so basically he signed his death. But they don’t approach that either in the movie...

Well anyway, sorry for the very long rant post. Did anyone even read so far? I just want to make clear that overall I really enjoyed seeing the movie again and it was a great experience but it will always be greater to read the books again because even though they are just black letters on white paper and not 3D 4K surround sound, they are the truest we will ever have and the movies are just doing way too much movie and too little book adaptation. (Except for the first one, the first one is precious.)

[mia-fou]

Centaur doodles. I tried to link human and animal traits and I suggested a horse breed for every look but it's more a loose orientation since centaurs are living wild and possibly not pure bred. (I do not like to think of them as racist in their own kind unlike humans).

[mia-fou]

I do think that Ron and Hermione will someday get to that point in their marriage where it all crumbles and is on the rocks and they’re both thinking of divorce but don’t really dare because they’re both afraid to be alone. But then they will have some Pina Colada Moment and relive the intense feeling of falling in love and that gives them enough energy to get themselves together. And they will live happily ever after as that stereotypical elderly couple that is constantly fighting and teasing, but still can’t live without each other.

[mia-fou]

It only gets better the longer you look at it.

[mia-fou]

What if Hagrid got another chance at Hogwarts?

Inspired by this post.

Click here for the speed painting and me talking about my thoughts during the process.

[mia-fou]

Wow it starts so serious and aggressive and then what has this thread become :D

hermione is deffinitely white because at the end of the books her children are describes with red hair and green eyes so it's biologially impossible hermione to be black. so jk rowlling saying the skin was never statedis bullcrap. she said it because sjw would call her racist foe making hermione white. also jk rowlling said that dambledor is gay in one interviev only lmao attention whore.

phew i’m so lucky a real life certified biologist found their way to my inbox to tell me what black people are and aren’t capable of bei–

…………………….🤔 on second thought, i’m going to have to take another look at those biology credentials of yours because I’m starting to suspect that you might actually be talking completely out of your ignorant ass

Some fun additional reading:Documenting Gingers of Color

The Boy with the Sapphire Eyes

(those links aren’t so much for you, anon, as they are for my followers that aren’t completely illiterate)

Your impotent attempts at haranguing me into accepting your interpretation that Hermione can only be white are completely pointless, to say the least, because I don’t actually give a single flying fuck what JKR says Hermione’s race is??? I’m not looking for canon justification to draw Hermione as black; I draw her that way for the plain and simple reason of that’s how I want to draw her.

But even if that weren’t the case, I dunno how you’re getting skin color from the descriptors “red hair and blue* eyes” (*fixed that for u btw), unless you’re drawing upon your own personal life experience:

in which case, I’m so sorry for your genetic condition. 😢  You’ve been so strong and so brave through it all, anon, even managing to earn that bachelor of science in biology from what I presume to be trump university, all while enduring your butthole actually being an eyeball  😢😢😢

stay strong anon 😢😢😢😢😢😢

p.s. dambledor

[mia-fou]

Draco: Madam Pomfrey! I have abdominal pain and nausea, I think I'm getting my period!

Pomfrey: Forget it, Malfoy. Only girls get that.

Draco: But equality!

Pomfrey: That's also only for girls.