rainbowunihog

[rainbowunihog]

we were one word off and it changes everything

ok oh my god so exhibit a: Mercy says "and if we ever somehow get out of this place // then we'll go // it's all new // the light at the end of this tunnel's got nothin on you"

but exhibit b: Swan says "and if we ever somehow get out of this place // then you'll go // find somethin new // Mercy the light at the end of this tunnel's got nothin on you"

it sounds at first like they're finally agreeing, that they wanna get away together and their big someday hopes for each other will fuel the small hopes through the night, right? like i'm always going to see hope where i can see you, right? but only Mercy's saying that.

Swan's really saying (using almost the exact same words!) if we survive, you'll go, you'll get bored and leave me. Swan's saying cause Mercy you're bigger and brighter than any hope i can see at the end of the problems i've pulled you into.

and still. on that line they harmonize so richly. if you asked Swan the character why, she wouldn't yet have an answer, she thinks there's nothing she can offer Mercy.

it takes until Same Train Home for Swan to find out she's wrong.

[rainbowunihog]

The way amber gray sings “no see I’m a problem child” send post

[rainbowunihog]

honkin yappin

[rainbowunihog]

I think having a baby niece is great cause my brother will send me just a constant stream of messages that sound indistinguishable from how someone at Jurassic park would text if they were being hunted by the raptor

[rainbowunihog]

[rainbowunihog]

Okay, another little lesson for fic writers since I see it come up sometimes in fics: wine in restaurants.

When you buy a bottle of wine in a (nicer) restaurant, generally (please note my emphasis there, this is a generalization for most restaurants, but not all restaurants, especially non-US ones) you may see a waiter do a few things when they bring you the bottle.

The waiter presents the bottle to the person who ordered it

The waiter uncorks the bottle in order to serve it

The waiter hands the cork to the person who ordered the bottle

The waiter pours a small portion of the wine (barely a splash) and waits for the person who ordered it to taste it

The waiter then pours glasses for everyone else at the table, and then returns to fill up the initial taster's glass

Now, you might be thinking -- that's all pretty obvious, right? They're bringing you what you ordered, making sure you liked it, and then pouring it for the group. Wrong. It's actually a little bit more complicated than that.

The waiter presents the bottle to the person who ordered it so that they can inspect the label and vintage and make sure it's the bottle they actually ordered off the menu

The waiter uncorks the bottle so that the table can see it was unopened before this moment (i.e., not another wine they poured into an empty bottle) and well-sealed

The waiter hands the cork to the person who ordered the bottle so that they can inspect the label on the cork and determine if it matches up; they can also smell/feel the cork to see if there is any dergradation or mold that might impact the wine itself

The waiter pours a small portion for the person who ordered to taste NOT to see if they liked it -- that's a common misconception. Yes, sometimes when house wine is served by the glass, waiters will pour a portion for people to taste and agree to. But when you order a bottle, the taste isn't for approval -- you've already bought the bottle at this point! You don't get to refuse it if you don't like it. Rather, the tasting is to determine if the wine is "corked", a term that refers to when a wine is contaminated by TCA, a chemical compound that causes a specific taste/flavor. TCA can be caused by mold in corks, and is one of the only reasons you can (generally) refuse a bottle of wine you have already purchased. Most people can taste or smell TCA if they are trained for it; other people might drink the wine for a few minutes before noticing a damp, basement-like smell on the aftertaste. Once you've tasted it, you'll remember it. That first sip is your opportunity to take one for the table and save them from a possibly corked bottle of wine, which is absolutely no fun.

If you've sipped the wine (I generally smell it, I've found it's easier to smell than taste) and determined that it is safe, you then nod to your waiter. The waiter will then pour glasses for everyone else at the table. If the wine is corked, you would refuse the bottle and ask the waiter for a new bottle. If there is no new bottle, you'll either get a refund or they'll ask you to choose another option on their wine list. A good restaurant will understand that corked bottles happen randomly, and will leap at the opportunity to replace it; a bad restaurant or a restaurant with poor training will sometimes try to argue with you about whether or not it's corked. Again, it can be a subtle, subjective taste, so proceed carefully.

In restaurants, this process can happen very quickly! It's elegant and practiced. The waiter will generally uncork the bottle without setting the bottle down or bracing it against themselves. They will remove the cork without breaking it, and they will pour the wine without dripping it down the label or on the table.

[rainbowunihog]

[rainbowunihog]

I heart being an unrepentant transsexual freak :3c !

[Bluesky] [Check out my comms!]

[rainbowunihog]

Growing an audience takes time and getting people to care about your characters can often take more time. I've done a bunch of OCs in the past but none of them really got traction until my IDWTBAMG OCs. I steadily grew my social media following for well over a decade. A lot of checking socialblade, looking at analytics and generally drawing/posting everyday. I have a whole doc available about this type of stuff.

There's no particular shortcut other than happening to go viral or getting really lucky. But I will say "branding" or carving out a niche for yourself over time helps. Although I've been in a number of different fandoms over the past 15 years I've been on the internet, the kind of art I do has been pretty consistent. Lots of shorter, light hearted comics or vignettes highlighting relationships (be them romantic, platonic or familial) and people started enjoying my work for my writing style more so than just what fandom I was creating for.

Finding your community, creating stuff that aligns with those communities and engaging with others is huge. A lot of my work prior to IDWTBAMG centered queer people (specifically sapphics), Black and Asian folks and stylistically is very anime/modern western cartoon inspired. It's what became known for in fandom spaces and what people were following me for. So when I finally did make IDWTBAMG, a concept with anime influences, in a western cartoon style, with two Black, sapphic leads, it just fit right into what I was already doing. Like if you grew your following from doing cute, slice of life stuff, then suddenly dropped a psychological horror comic, chances are it's not gonna grab a large part of your audience. Might bring some new folks in, but you're ultimately kinda starting over and pivoting (that's why rebrands are hard to pull off). This may not be the best example but hopefully you get what I mean. Appeal to the communities you've fostered!

I hate using corporate speak for art but if you ARE trying sell your ideas to people and get your work out there, you do kinda have to learn how to market yourself and your art to some extent. Get in the head of a marketing agent or a brand manager. What's popular right now? How can I use that to my advantage? What times should I be posting my artwork to get the most eyes on this? Who is my target audience and how do I effectively appeal to them while staying true to my own work? Stuff like that. Genuinely, studying how social media managers operate as well as just observing how businesses market their products helped me a lot. "Okay I'm making this animatic, but it won't come out for the next four months. How do I keep people interested and hyped for that amount of time leading up to the pilot's release? I'll keep doing comics here and there so people connect with the characters by the time the pilot comes out. Once I get he VAs recorded, I'll make posts to get people hyped for the casting. I'll upload snippets and behind the scenes stuff to give people a taste of what's to come. I'll release during Black History Month since this is a Black led project with Black characters. I'll have a specific upload time at peak hours to get a good amount of people watching for the premiere and to give the pilot a good running start." This was all stuff I was taking into consideration and planning for.

Then generally, I think people connect to characters more than anything. You can have a cool concept and fun world building ideas but if your execution is bad and your characters aren't compelling, what's the point, y'know? IDWTBAMG isn't a particularly novel concept imo, but I think its strengths lie in the characters and how they interact. The concept is just a tool to give the character dynamics and relationships legs to stand on. So few of the comics I've done with these guys have to do with their lore, it's just small interactions of the girls in class, at a convenience store or just talking to each other in a void. Even though it's simple, that's often the kind of thing people connect with.

Then there's just the technical aspect of having appealing drawing! Getting better at your craft, if nothing else, is good for catching eyes and helping with your execution of your project. While it's not always necessary, I think it helps a lot. I know there's a lot of people who follow me just because they personally like my art style and character design.

Not sure how helpful this actually is LOL. It really does just kinda take time. We all have to start somewhere. I was a "small artist" too at one point. It was years of trial and error, mental breakdowns, finding my own artistic voice and posting artwork almost daily for like 5 years straight. I do think that's why IDWTBAMG ended up being so special to me. It really does feel like a culmination of everything I've learned and all that hard work up to this point and people can kinda feel that.

[rainbowunihog]

Goodluck Pikachu

[rainbowunihog]

I miss when I would get Tumblr asks that actually said things and weren't just digital panhandling scams.

[rainbowunihog]

Im gonna be so real can yall actually talk about ways we can support trans women in the UK instead of giving all the attention to fucking JKR. I already know that Harry Poter sucks, I wanna know how to actually HELP people. Something something you have to love the oppressed more than you hate the oppressor

[rainbowunihog]

thinking about that one time that my cis het roommate in college came back to our dorm room, crawled into bed with me in a spoon position, then turned around and told me i have horse balls

[rainbowunihog]

the pistachio food trend is soooo interesting because it's like. i've been following the californian pistachio water politics for years, as a californian with personal connections to agricultural workers but! basically there's been a big push in california agriculture over the last decade to pressure farmers to produce pistachios, because iran has dominated the global market in pistachios for decades, and the US government has been trying to weaken iran economically, so they want to make california pistachios a competitor. which is ridiculous, because california's agricultural infrastructure is suffering under a drought, and pistachios take insane amounts of water. so a ton of water is being redirected from the people in order to engage in a trade war with iran over fucking. pistachios.

anyway now that the US (i.e. california) is producing more pistachios than iran, the next step is to drive consumption of pistachios, so that the farmers who are producing these pistachios can continue to make money on them. ergo all the fancy pistachio coffees at starbucks and similar shit like suddenly being able to find pistachio butter in grocery stores when five years ago it was exclusively available at specialty stores and online, and the huge boom in pistachios foods in instagram and tiktok recipe content. like i watch a lot of instagram foodie reels (cooking/baking is one of my hobbies) and these get thrown onto everyone's feeds, to promote the purchasing of pistachios, so that the US can stick it to iran. it's. kind of incredible to watch this happen in real time, because it sounds like deranged conspiracy thought, but like. i've been watching this trend for the past decade and it's fucking real.

anyway one of the vegan recipe accounts i follow just posted like five pistachio-based recipes in a row and it makes me feel some kind of fucking way

[rainbowunihog]

in defense of hoshi

voice by Christine Marie Cabanos (who also voices madoka kaname)!

[rainbowunihog]

slow down for your disabled friends. thats like a bare minimum kindness that we shouldnt have to ask for. i love that youre so quirky and walking fast is a cool personality trait to you and all that but i bet you can count your physically disabled friends on less than one hand

[rainbowunihog]

Sacrifice