#More art ideas for my brain to come up with! Yay! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

eryanlainfa · 6 months

Note

important thought i just had. how do you imagine hugo’s gender nonconformity like how does he identify with any label in particular or is he just Like that. and more importantly do you think he’s already figured it out by the time he meets the gang or do you think the egg breaks later. BC SEE i’ve always imagined up until the trials shes never had the time to think about herself at ALL, like she obviously knows shes kinda *flicks wrist* yk but otherwise she’s never really actually come to any real conclusions about herself. so i think as soon as they move in with varian and once they’ve finally settled and they have SO much free time and so many things going on in their head, they’re trying new hobbies and finding all sorts of things to tinker with and most importantly they finally have the opportunity to care about their appearance and suddenly the gender crisis hits them like a fucking FREIGHT TRAIN

all this is to say because. I was thinking about that again today and then i remembered aiden and it was like my third eye opened bc i realized the sheer potential in that scenario with airigo. like i feel like aiden would’ve seen that shit coming a MILE AWAY and i think that’d be so cute and also so fucking funny and. I need to hear your thoughts ok

[Hi. Future Ery talking. I started rambling and I have no clue if what I said is actually coherent or even answers your question at all- But the idea was there! Also I personally headcanon everything and anything, I love switching labels of one character and making a whole new au for it. But covering EVERYTHING would be too long so I answered regarding Aiden's main timeline only- but if you want me to talk about transfem Hugo in particular I'd love to!!]

Sobbing and crying this is so cute and funny your brain is wonderful mwah mwah. I think all you said could 100% work and I can see a version where it would make sense for Hugo to not had the time to discover themself properly. And Aiden just clocking her right away is so funny 😭

Saddly it wouldn't work in Aiden's original timeline simply because, in this case, Hugo wouldn't be Hugo if he hadn't transition already.

I've never really openly delved into my headcanons for the whole gang, because I like people being able to interpret my art however they want (and also because I can change my mind whenever and no one would know-). But in Aiden's universe, Hugo isn't amab.

But to go back on how I imagine Hugo's gender noncomformity!

Firstly, in universe, I'm not sure neither Hugo nor Aiden really identify with a gender label. They don't really have a word for it so they're just how they are. But I personally label him as bigender transmasc. And I do still label them as gay. Cuz. Queer homosexuals representation. Yay.

Secondly- Hugo actually transitioned before figuring out his gender. Being an orphan is already harsh, being poor is terrible and he figured being female generally made things more difficult. So she didn't want to be one. When he got recruited by Don for the first time he was already dead set on not wanting to be a girl and didn't have a name anymore so Donella is the one who named him Hugo. I think Don was "supportive" as in she really didn't care, and if helping Hugo transition meant he would be more useful then that worked for her just fine. So Hugo got to transition but it wasn't really because he didn't feel like he wasn't a girl, she just didn't think it would be advantageous for him to be one.

Sorry I got sidetracked- cough- Back on topic.

One thing I wanted regarding Hugo's relationship to gender is the fact that he is comfortable being fem BECAUSE he got to transition.

For work they would play whichever role worked best no matter the gender. At first, looking like a guy needed more work, which bothered him because it was his goal, so for a while he had a clear preference for appearing masculine. But years later, after having transitioned to a comfortable point, she figured she really didn't mind being either gender. And it made playing different roles even more fun and easy for them. Not necessarily in a fluid way, he's just everything at once most of the time.

So he already got herself figured out quite well when 7k starts. Actually, Hugo being openly queer is another reason why she caught Aiden's interest so fast. And I wanted them to mirror each others in a way, with Hugo being comfortable because he transitioned and Aiden being more comfy doing the absolute bare minimum-. Also I had this one joke that sometimes Nuru and Hugo would have girls nights during the journey. So I needed she/her Hugo for all of this to work lol. But I do believe Hugo still gets to affirm and discover himself even more after he settles, it's just mostly about other things.

BUT YOU KNOW WHO'S EGG GOT TO CRACK DURING THE TRIALS IN MY MIND-??? Varian. He's agender. My whole gang is trans and the joke was that Varian is the token cis guy of the group (because I thought it was funny). But he isn't. He just doesn't know because he's always too busy thinking of literally anything else and he never really registered that was an option. He still uses he/him tho. Because I enjoy gender fuckery.

In summary :

○ Bigender ○ agender ○ genderfluid ○

Also, since I decided to finally talk about my headcanons, I think too many people assumed Aiden is the one pregnant -in that one comic-. They aren't.

#I am generally scared to share my headcanons for characters hiiii-#but I genuinely JUST wrote their labels for the airigo ask blog I'm making. so I can talk about it now #eryanswers #eryanwrites #pansy-picnics #posting it before I overthink too much about how I might get shot on sight -3-

21 notes · View notes

the-ninja-legacy-whip · 1 month

Note

me personally, I THINK we should know more about samantha

like,, how did she and sunni meet? what’s her deal with jesse? what roles will she play in the story? ect ect

i just love your ocs :D

SAMANTHA ASK!!!!! AND YAY THANK YOU!!

...but, there's not too much to say about her just yet jhfdgfd. Still, let's come up with some basics!

I haven't drawn her yet, cuz my art brain hasn't been working lately, but she's got long blonde hair, heavier-set, green sweater, blue jeans, and currently pure black eyes unless I decide to make her a Descendant when I finally do draw her, but I dooon't think I will—

She's actually based on the blonde minifigure girl with the Green Ninja sweater from the Ninjago City Gardens set, but I guess that minifig is named Christina and not Samantha, sooo....Christina is now Samantha's older sister hgfdhgfd

She's a vocal Lloyd Garmadon hater at first (and she keeps forgetting about Zane's warnings about it, rip), even when Sunni tries to convince her to give him the benefit of the doubt—it's also highly ironic considering she's also a Green Ninja super fan, so. She's gonna have some thoughts to process down the line hjgfdsagfd

She and Sunni have been friends since they were young children, with both of their somewhat wealthy families running in similar circles (and their older sisters being friends as well). Sunni was always the 'smart' one while Samantha was more of the 'social' one.

She keeps warning Sunni about why it might be a good idea to move on from any thoughts of grandeur about Jay, but Sunni assures that it's just a casual, fleeting crush and nothing is probably going to go anywhere with it..............

...Not that Samantha is any better when it comes to Jesse shgfdghfd

She only started noticing him after the Talent Show (despite the fact that Jesse points out that he's been sitting next to her in Student Council for months before then and nothing happened then), so he's convinced that her following flirting and whatnot is purely superficial and will fade eventually.

But she's seen Jesse at his finest and now can't get him out of her head, even if she too knows she probably doesn't really have a chance. Also mostly unlike Sunni, him dating Cole doesn't stop her lmao

But there is a lil scene during the school dance shenanigans where Jesse and Jay do (ONE) dance with the girls and their nights are made <3

Anywaaaay, Samantha's real point for existence is to give a 'face' for the Non-Cabinet Student Council members (cuz I got tired of them all being nameless soundboards, but I didn't want to make a ton more characters, and I didn't want every/any already prominent character to be on the council when it wouldn't make sense, sooo...Samantha!)

She's also a part of the newspaper club with Antonia (that'll become more relevant Post-S4 when we get Nelson), she'll join the volleyball team (if I go through with my volleyball!harumi plans because it's funny, and she also apparently reads Harumi's fanfics hjgfgfd), and she's essentially Sunni's 'voice of normality' when Sunni starts getting tangled deeper in Ninja shenanigans, buuuut I don't really have plans for Samantha to be a major player in any way herself (...I said that about Sunni too though, and look what happened :V)

#ninjago oc #ninjago ocs #oc: samantha fitzpatrick #info tag #legacyverse

8 notes · View notes

growup-thatbeautiful · 2 years

Note

hellooo, hi, im not sick anymore (more or less) and in surprisingly great spirits! i was thinking, if you wanted to write more Zeffirelli and absolutely and i mean ABSOLUTELY no pressure maybe we could have some sort of university themed kinda fic? not an AU just kind of widening the lens of The French dispatch to see Zeffirelli as a students not just his after school activities. im thinking like a philosophy student poet boyfriend x art and film theory painter reader kinda situation. studying and going to interesting lectures and to cinema in the evenings..idk it would be lovely to have some nice uni vibes to motivate me. also if you don't feel Zeffirelli now Timothee himself would be very much okay too i feel like. it is all up to you. sending you great energy, love you, message me if you want to brainstorm this story or want to talk literally about anything xx

omg hiiii!!! it’s fall now!! zeffirelli would be living his best life. i was really missing zeffirelli and timmy. timothee always renters my brain this time of year so be prepared. it’s movie szn brainrot time, my friends.

coincidentally enough, this happens to be my 700th follower celebration as well! yay!

uhhh so usually i write the translations at the bottom but i didn’t keep up this time i’m so sorry 😭😭

zeffirelli masterlist

ensoleillement (sunshine)

“You’re late,” you say, looking at the clock in the corner of your living room.

“I brought compensation.” Zeffirelli holds up a brown paper bag from the pastry shop down the street as an apology. “There's a pain au chocolat in there for you. I also got you a coffee.”

“I hope it’s not in the bag,” you respond drily, but take the bag nonetheless and rifle around for your breakfast. “Where’s the coffee?”

“Here,” he says absently, placing it on the kitchen counter.

“Dieu merci,” you sigh, taking a sip and shouldering your bag. The leather strap digs into your shoulder through the fabric of your coat.

“Thank me, not God,” Zeffirelli complains, ushering you out the door.

“You’re still the reason I’m late.” There’s a warning in your voice, but you can’t put any real venom behind your words. You never can, with him.

“Oui, but you’re not going to any important classes right now.”

“I’m going to math,” you protest. He reaches across you and takes your coffee, sipping it and grimacing. You slap his hand away and retake the coffee. “No matter how much you try, you aren’t going to like the way I have my coffee.”

“That’s because you have terrible taste,” he complains. “Why are still taking those bullshit classes? There are so many better classes to take.” It’s a conversation you’ve had many times, mostly out of jest, but there is some seriousness behind it.

“You mean math?”

Zeffirelli hums. “That’s the one. Why would you waste your time with math when you could be going to philosophy at noon?”

“Because I’m not some poet revolutionary, Zef,” you laugh, bumping your shoulder with his. “Not everyone is as successful as you.”

“Nonsense. You just haven’t shared any of your ideas with other people. Come on, amor, let me know what’s going on in that head of yours.”

“Right now there are a few things, but I don’t think you want to hear them,” you deadpan, gathering your books in your arms.

“Don’t get shy on me now, ensoleillement.” The endearment falls easily from his lips, his favorite term for you, meaning, quite literally, sunshine.

Ironically, you got the nickname on a rainy day when you had been giving him a hard time about his tendency to walk in the rain.

“I have nothing to say to you,” you reply, knocking your shoulder against his as you both try to go out the same door to the street below your apartment.

“All that math is filling your brain with nonsense,” he complains, his shoes scraping against the worn hardwoods. “I can’t have a good philosophical conversation with a mathematician.”

“Just because I’m taking the class doesn’t make me good at it,” you correct absentmindedly. He huffs and steps into pace beside you, his hand brushing against yours. The autumn leaves crunch under your feet, warm red and orange bleeding past as you make your way to class, the air crisp and the sun slinking behind the clouds. You really should be trying to make it to class on time, but you know you’ll regret it if you leave Zeffirelli out here alone with that rosy color on his cheeks from the cool air. Fall suits him well, and he wears the chill running through your fingers well.

It’s better to be here, your hands skimming against his, knuckles red and electric when he touches them than it is to be sitting in a class. Especially because he isn’t in the class.

The walk to your school isn’t much further. Just through the town sits a two-storied brick building where you’ve devoted hours to studying, crying, and trying to get Zeffirelli to take breaks unsuccessfully.

The cobblestones underneath your feet are consistently unsteady, and you find yourself, as usual, looking in awe at the quaint town that wakes up as you walk through.

There’s the flower shop on the corner with the green and white striped awning that gives out free roses on holidays. Next to it, stands a stationary store where you go more days than not to get a hand-pressed piece of paper to write home on. Across the street is a cafè where you and Zeffirelli have spent countless sleepless nights discussing movies and poetry when you should be studying,

This isn’t your hometown, and it isn’t his either, but you both know it more than you ever could know any other place on Earth. Zeffirelli’s American rouge, prophetic attitude couldn’t come from a town this small, but that doesn’t stop it from thriving. Here, nothing can stop him. Not living with his parents, which he does on purpose, or not knowing how to start a manifesto. Those things are trivial and unimportant because this place reveres every waking and sleeping moment it has with him. You and

You, well, you can’t claim this place as your home, but you’ve fallen in love with its poetically simple lifestyle. The two years you’ve been here as an exchange student has been the best you can remember, and you aren’t sure how much of that is related to the boy next to you.

A gut instinct tells you that he might have something to do with it, but you would be drawn into the charm of this town anyway, probably. He’s just an added bonus.

Zeffirelli takes the cup of coffee out of your hand and tosses it into the trashcan before you enter the towering, gray stone building that is your school.

“I’ll see you at lunch?” he asks, walking backward down the opposite hall that you’re traveling. “My mom packed cookies.”

A laugh bubbles from your throat and you can tell you’re grinning like a fool. You genuinely don’t know if he’s joking or not, but you don’t doubt the truth of his words. “I can’t even make fun of you because your mom’s cookies are so good.”

“That’s the sweet spot.” His arms are outstretched wildly as he turns back to go to his class. “I’ll see you later, amor. Don’t have too much fun in math without me.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, Zef.” There’s still a grin on your face when you walk into class, and you take your seat next to your’s and Zeffirelli’s friend, Mitch Mitch.

Mitch is radically passionate like Zeffirelli, but, as obvious by his presence in a math class, he’s less utterly devoted to the revolution. Which is to say that he’s still deeply invested.

“Did l'auteur make you late again?” Mitch reaches over you and slides today’s work to you. “I swear, you need to stop waiting for him in the mornings.”

“He did indeed.” You lean back in your chair and try to listen to the lecture, and you think you retain about half of the information.

The teacher at the front of the room drones on for half an hour about something you don’t understand, not that you care enough to pay attention. Despite the nature of his ideas, Zefrilli is correct about the fact that math isn’t your thing, nor is it going to help you at all. Especially not when you don’t have a clue what’s going on. Based on the look on Mitch’s face, he understands even less than you do, which is comforting and terrifying at the same time.

“Why did you convince me to take this class?” Mitch groans, flopping onto the desk and banging his head on the wood. “I’m too pretty for math.”

“I don’t think that has anything to do with it.” You pat him on the shoulder consolingly and gather your things together.

“Peut être pas, but it makes me feel better about myself.” You walk side-by-side to the next class. You have film studies with Zefirelli and Mitch has some economic class.

Zefirelli is waiting by the door for you, and, when he sees you, he pushes himself off the frame and asks, “How was the waste of time?”

“It was a waste of time,” Mitch confirms, bumping shoulders with Zefirelli, who looks at you for confirmation, which you readily give.

“Let’s do something worthwhile then, mon chéri.” Zefirelli holds out his arm for you, and you take it easily. “To the magical world of film we go.”

“Onwards we go.”

Lunch doesn’t come soon enough, but, slowly, it comes. Mitch, Zefirelli, and you usually eat together, but today Mitch is going to the cafe down the street with a girl in your class named Layla. She’s sweet, and you hope she’s enough for Mitch.

You and Zefirelli find your normal spot in the corner of a courtyard hidden away in the twisted cobblestone streets. It’s nothing special, just a park bench pretty much, but you wouldn’t eat anywhere else. Not when Zefirelli is sitting close to you.

“What are you writing about?” he asks, leaning over your shoulder to try and read the words in your journal.

“How much I hate math,” you deflect, shutting the small spiral and stuffing it into your backpack.

“That’s not what looks like when you write about something as trivial as math. I’ve seen your math face, and it is much more détestable.”

“You’re telling me that you don’t write enthusiastically about math?” you joke, hoping to deflect the attention.

“Only about my manifesto.”

“Yeah, well you have your manifesto, and I have my movie.” It slips out easily like things usually do around him. You’re so used to telling him everything, so it comes as no school that you’re unable to keep this from him.

The thing is, he isn’t supposed to know about the movie you’re writing. Not because he wouldn't support it, which you’re sure he would, but because there’s no doubt in your mind that he wouldn’t let you hear the end of it. You try to backtrack. “I mean, I have the movie that I’m studying for class-“

“-You’re writing a movie?” he interrupts, his hand frozen where it’s reaching for his food. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because I’m not writing a movie,” you attempt. “It was a slip of the tongue. Fourchement de langue.”

“No it wasn’t,” he denies easily. “You’re writing a movie.” This time he doesn’t ask, but he does return to his previous action, splitting the pink-colored cookie in half. He offers one half to you and you take it. You decide not to respond and focus on the cookie instead.

“So, what is this secretive movie about? Hopefully something dashingly bohemian and revolutionary.” You know he’s tuning down his excitement for you, which is nice. At least he’s trying. Hopefully, he knows that you would never keep something like this from him if you weren’t embarrassed.

“Those are your interests, not mine,” you sigh, despite the deception behind your words. Truly, you do care about those things, maybe only because he cares so much about them.

“Yeah? Then why do you work with me on my manifesto so much?” he prods, a grin on his face. Everything about him screams “got you” and you have no choice but to accept his meaning.

“Maybe I like being around you, connasse.”

“That could not possibly be it,” he dismisses easily. His cookie gets placed on the floor beside him and he leans into you, his head coming to rest on your shoulder. “You’re much too talented to be hanging around me all the time.”

“You can’t be serious,” you chastise, your hand running through his hair. “Zef, you’re the most talented person I know. Not only are you some sort of chess wizard, but you also have such a passion for life that I don’t see anyone else. I’m lucky to be around you as much as I am, honestly.”

“You’re just saying that,” he sighs, but there’s a blush rising to his cheeks that fits him so beautifully.

“We’re poets, Zefirell, we only say things that we mean.” He leans heavier into your side and you relax against him, taking his weight happily. The rest of the world passes by, and time passes by, but you don’t care. This is where you want to be, by his side.

You would lift the sky for him, but right now all he needs is a shoulder to lean on. It’s something you’re ready and willing to give.

“You know,” Zefirelli starts, “there are stories about people like us. You know, people that want to change the world. Usually, they have someone by their side, a second-in-command. Napoleon had Josephine, Pierre Curry had Marrie, Sintra had Garder.”

“I think it be more reasonable to say that Marrie had Pierre, given that she was the one who did most of the research. And you’re forgetting that Sinatra and Gardner broke up after 12 years.”

“But she was the only woman he ever loved. Come on, amore, you know that. Anyway, what I was trying to say-” he looks up at you, smiling softly- “before I was so rudely interrupted, is that most people have someone beside them when they start their journey sur le chemin de la révolution. The road to revolution can be lonely.”

“Everything must start in love,” you agree. “Nothing comes out of nothing.”

“Précisément. Would- would you like to be my second-in-command? We have a long way ahead of us, and I think it would be easier if we stuck together.”

“How am I supposed to say no to that?” you breathe, laying your head on top of his and reaching for his hand. “Promise you won’t leave me for someone more antagonistic?”

“You’re enough of an antagonist for me,” he responds in an overly-sweet voice. “Not sure I could handle much more.”

“Good. I prefer you waking me up in the middle of the night rather than anyone else.” You also prefer his head on your shoulder, his hand in your hand, and his figure in your bed, but those are things you keep to yourself for now.

You’ve already got enough of a win for today.

A banging on your door is an unfortunately common event to wake you up. Without checking, you know who’s on the other side of the door. That messy black hair and those piercing eyes are waiting impatiently for you to make your way across your cramped apartment, you’re positive of it.

The floor is cold underneath your socked feet as you make your way over the piles of books, papers, and clothes strewn everywhere across your room. While the trek is short, to your sleep-addled brain it feels like it lasts forever, with you in a dreamlike state of confusion and agitation. You can hear the sound of rain pounding against your apartment roof, a steady rhythm in time with your slow breathing.

With a deep breath, you open your door and you’re met with the familiar, tall form of Zeffirelli. “I have an idea for the revolution,” he says, out of breath, soaked from the rain. “And I need your cinematic expertise.”

“So that’s why you’re at my apartment at three in the morning?” you ask, rubbing the sleep from your eyes.

“Yes. And it’s only two,” he says as he brushes past you and goes straight to your tiny kitchen. Absentmindedly, he rifles through your counters and grabs the first food he finds; some untrustworthy brown biscuits. You don’t take any when he offers. “I needed to talk to you. Son affaire sérieuse.”

“Right, I’m sure it is. Tell me, what exactly do you need my help with? I’m not sure I can be of much help.” You shuffle into the kitchen and put a kettle on the stove, accepting the fact that you’re probably not going to get any sleep tonight.

“Absurdité. Who else is going to shut down my best ideas ruthlessly?”

“I would do that in daylight too,” you accuse. He fits beside you at your counter and reaches across you for the sugar bowl, taking a sugar cube and putting it in your cup. Two more are added to the cup that he’s claimed as his own from your array of delicately painted teacups.

“But you admit to having shut down good ideas?” A twinkle in his eyes tells you to give up now and accept your defeat.

“Sure.” It’s worth it to see the victory smile break across his face, his tongue peeking out of the corner of his mouth. “I am obviously the bane of your existence. Je suis ta couverture mouillée.”

“Don’t be too hard on yourself.” His consolidation is quick and filled with a teasing lightness that you’ve long since accepted as his trademark. A lot of people would look past him for it, and call it arrogance, but you know it comes from a loving place.

“Don’t make me send you to Mitch Mitch’s apartment instead,” you warn, waving a spoon in his direction. “I would do it in a heartbeat.” It’s not true, you would much rather he be here with you, instead of at Mitch’s. Despite the entertainment that comes with Zefirelli and Mitch’s back and forth, you’re feeling selfish tonight.

“Empty threats.” he tisks. The kettle whistles from its spot on the stove and you both reach for it at the same time, your fingers brushing against his. It’s terrifyingly electric, but you push past the feeling. Zefirelli withdraws his hand hesitantly and you busy yourself with pouring the tea.

He’s come over in the middle of the night enough for you to know how he takes his tea by heart. Two heaping spoonfuls of sugar, no more, no less. He claims that you make it better than he does, which you choke up to him being unable to boil water without making a mess.

Clearing your throat, you ask, “So, what’s this big idea? Care to fill me in on why I’m awake at this time of the night.”

“What’s your movie about?” he fires back immediately, settling into your beaten blue couch.

“Did you come here to pester me about my future?” you ask, eyes narrowed. “Because I will kick you to the curb.”

“No, no,” he laughs, “you wouldn’t do that to me. You have no resistance to my pretty face.”

“Ah, yes, you’ve figured out my one weakness. It seems as though you’ll be taking advantage of it forever.”

“Of course, ensoleillement. What would I do if I didn’t have you to manipulate?” He sits across from you on the couch and grabs one of the blankets you have thrown around. It goes over his shoulders and he huddles into its warmth.

“So what did you come here to talk about?” you ask, taking a sip from your tea and placing it on the side table.

“Oh, right!” His eyes light up as he sits up straighter, splashing tea all over himself. Luckily, he doesn’t seem to care very much. “I thought that I would have my mother’s friend, some writer, is coming into town soon. I was thinking that I should ask her to help me. At the least, she can write about us, no? What do you think?”

“I think it’s a great idea. What does she write for?”

“The French Dispatch. You know, the one with all the stories they put out once a month or so. I hear that she’s looking for something out here in our petite ville.”

The conversation shifts and he talks about his big ideas and how he’s going to get them done. You could listen to him talk for hours, and, by the time he’s finished, you have, not that you have anything better to do. Not even dreams of him are this real. You could never make up in your mind the way his eyes sparkle and his hands flutter with excitement, or the way his hair falls in front of his face when he’s moving too fast.

Eventually, sleep takes him over, comically mid-sentence. He’s propped up against the side of the couch in a very uncomfortable looking way, but he doesn’t seem to mind. You’ve known him to fall asleep in worse situations,

When his breathing stills and his eyes close, you allow yourself to look at him as he is without fluttering hands and excited eyes. He’s calm and motionless, except for the gentle rise and fall of his chest. Everything about him is usually coiled for action, an easy tension running through his hands and his eyes, but now, now he’s undistributed and serene, laying with his hair splayed like a dark halo around his head.

Before you close your eyes, you tuck yourself close to him, fitting against his warmth like you’ve done so many times in the past, just like this, on deep-silence-ridden nights.

“You’re my movie,” you whisper into the dark, towards his sleeping figure. “You’re the one I write about.”

But of course, he doesn’t hear.

“Medre,” Zeffirelli swears, hopping around and trying to get his shoes on. “I have a test today.”

“You should have thought of that before you came over that early,” you admonish, watching him with amusement. “Why you didn’t think you would oversleep, I have no clue.”

“We’re in this class together, ensoleillement. You’re going to burn with me,” he warns, rushing a hand through his hair carelessly. It sticks up widely in every direction, but you know better than to try to fix it. Nothing can convince his hair to do anything except chaos.

“Yeah, but it’s so much more fun not to think about that.” Begrudgingly, you start to get ready as well. The floors creak under your feet as you shuffle to your bedroom, where a clean outfit is nowhere to be found.

For a moment, you let yourself think of the wild-haired, cigarette-smoking, arrogant person in the room next to you. His infuriating charm and charismatic persuasion captured you years ago, and you haven’t been able to get out of his orbit since then.

You may be his sunshine, but he’s your gravity, keeping you centered but tipping you over and surprising you at times.

“Dépêchez-vous,” Zeffirelli calls, rapping his knuckles against the wall. “Hurry up.” You know he doesn’t really care about making it to class on time, despite the panic, but you also know that he understands you well enough to know that you want to make it on time.

The film class you have this morning is one of your favorites, and you try and avoid missing it as much as you can. While your film studies class is more focused on the aspects of film, this class advises it’s students on the writing and cinematography that you need to make something truly special.

To make something worthy of a manifesto.

“Mon chéri, we have to go,” Zefirelli warns one last time before giving up and aimlessly wondering around your room.

“Don’t touch that,” you sigh, not having to look at Zeffirelli to know that he’s touching something he shouldn’t be touching. When you do look over, you see him flipping through your journal.

“I wasn’t doing anything,” Zeffirelli defends, hiding something behind his back. You send a glare in his direction and lean back in the chair by your mirror. The wood creaks underneath you and you stretch out your back, satisfying pops cascading up your spine.

“You have some deep dark secrets written in here?” His tone is joking, and he waves the journal in the air, taunting you.

“Grocery lists and middle-of-the-night thoughts,” you dismiss. “If you want to know when I forgot to pay the electricity bill, look on the fifth page.” You hope with everything you have that he’s going to let it go, but you have no such luck. He’s nothing if not absurdly relentless.

“I know for a fact that you don’t write anything like that down, it’s not worth the time. You just forget things like the rest of us.”

“Peut être. Still, put it down.” He doesn’t. Instead, he keeps reading with a grin on his face that slowly falls as he makes his way through the rest of the book.

“Is this- is this written about me?” he asks, disbelief written on his face. “Is this your movie?”

“I asked you to stop reading,” you defend miserably, hiding your head in your hands. “I know it’s strange, and I know I shouldn’t be writing about you like that. You don’t want to be heroic or some great leader, above everyone else, but I cannot help it if that’s who you are. Please understand, I only wrote what I saw.”

“I’m your movie? I’m what you have been furiously scribbling away at, working on late at night?”

“You’re my everything,” you admit honestly, softly, “How could you not be the plot of my movie too?” Zeffirelli walks slowly towards you and drops the journal on the floor. “I’m sorry, Zeffirelli.”

“Why?” he asks breathlessly, standing in between your legs and settling his hands on your shoulders. “What have you to be sorry for? You have immortalized be forever with your words. How can I be anything but grateful. If- if I ever gave you the idea that I do not burn for you- that I do not turn towards you in every room like you are the sun and I am a flower, then I can do nothing but apologize profusely. There is more than one reason that you are my ensoleillement. You are grumpy and rude and you give me shit for everything I do, but you also light up my days and nights. You are warmth and home. You are everything.” Zeffirelli’s voice is breathless and rushed, his hands coming up to cup your face. They’re shaky and the calluses on his fingertips are rough against your cheekbones, but you lean into them anyway.

“Zef,” you whisper, like it’s the only word you know. Just as soft as his words, his lips come down to yours, hesitantly at first, but more sure as you don’t protest.

He truly is your everything. That’s the only thing running through your mind as he kisses you with everything he has.

“We’re going to be late to your favorite class,” he gasps in between frantic kisses. “Don’t be angry at me when you have extra homework.”

“I make no promises,” you laugh, pulling him back into you. “But I’ll try my best.” For him, you’ll do anything.

He’s your ensoleillement, your sunshine, just as you’re his.

92 notes · View notes

windydrawallday · 9 months

Text

Deba-Table

Hey there! Just here to announce a few changes that will happen here for at least the next two months:

First and more striking: I won't post any new (finished) art until I get enough buffering to do it here and in my other socials. (Not that I have nothing new to post but I want to prioritize quality over quantity this year).

I'll start to self-reblog my art now and then each week/every two weeks in parallel to keep cleaning up my queue (because my art deserves a second chance YAY).

If I post something, it will probably be a reply to an ask/request (hype about ideas is easy draw-fuel for me) or promoting teasers for fanzines I'm participating in this year.

I will ONLY break these rules if I decide to participate in an Art Challenge/Week (prompts never fail to move my brain juices).

All of this results from currently falling into creative burnout :') (that started early the past year but reached its peak after stressful events during Nov-Dec) and because I really need a good rest from the freneticism of social media... I will focus on my OC projects in the meantime, which means reserving that energy when I work on their concepts and such.

I admit I want to challenge myself to be more mindful of how I spend my energies online: I lost track of certain activities irl, and it will do good for me to resume books and series I left half there x'D

And that's all! I will keep lurking and poking here now and then, and of course, supporting my people! But for now, this flying squirrel will go back to her cave and put some order to it before Spring comes x)

#windy squawks #and the doodle that accompanies it is from the past year to emphatize i dont have nothing new really #I MEAN I HAVE if you follow my socials but many are OC or personal project centered #and at least here i find those not have as much reach as in other places so #i prefer to reserve this place just for my fanwork and shenanigans of that nature #thanks for the patience orz #PS the critters depicted there are my creaturifications of Dinobot-Starscream-Lockdown n Rodimus #and technically at this rate ALL need to be as tired-looking as Lockdown lmao

7 notes · View notes

alllinesarebeautiful · 23 days

Text

Day 425 Art meditation, August 29, 2024,

”Vote BluePaper Dress of the Tree Ring Art Heart Art Brand Bundle”

Dear You,

Posting my “Vote Blue” paper dress for my ‘Tree Ring’ Heart Art Brand Bundle! YAY !!!

It’s 45 days late, but I had some deep, deep stuff to go through. Lots of terrifying honesty and heavy conversations have been happening … Lots of journaling of themes I want to flesh out into book chapters …

It’s a new day. 🙏

The center art piece (much like a logo) of the Vote art is still the abstract tree ring image, but art moves and grows if I stop trying to control it so much. I try to make my idea without over-thinking and see what happens in the stage of it. I am intentionally trying NOT to be perfect.

Even as I made this dress, I criticized my way through it. Stupid stupid stupid. The final photos, taken by my in-house photographer G, and who forces me to laugh in the “photoshoot” with his brilliant sense of humor, came out much better than I thought it would.

The main ideas that I want to convey is what happens to our heart-spaces WHEN we make any kind of art,

or when we speak up for ourselves,

or when we vote towards love,

or when we vote with our Hearts, not our Egos,

or and when we have the courage to stand up for BLUE truth and justice -

is that our very fragile inner heart space becomes STRONGER, and new ideas come in.

Love and art creates beautiful things our minds could never have imagined!

The whole point of the Blue Wave right now is to make LOVE bigger.

And for everything else, let God handle it. And if you don’t believe in God, then all I know is that there will come a moment in your life when you have to face yourself. Honesty has a way of catching up with us…

Two days ago I felt PURE JOY for about 2 minutes. TWO. Although, I will add, last night I made an entire 3 jokes in one night, in part thanks to the big glass of wine, but the fact that I made G laugh so hard, is proof they were good jokes. He only laughs when something is seriously funny. My usual joke rate is once a month, so was this a surge of healing??

This surge of joy made me ponder, I don’t think we know how MUCH we normalize being SUBDUED and JOYLESS.

I want the paper dress to remind us all that there is more joy, love and beauty. No hoarding is necessary. It just isn’t.

If all the men in the world who are creating war-separation-divide, would INSTEAD pick up a glue stick and colorful paper and a scissors, what a different world we would live in.

This should be a requirement if you want to get into politics. Art has a way of leveling the playing field. Art has a way of reducing your ego, especially since it is one arena where there really are no rules. If you set out to be GREAT, art has a way of having its own will and taking you down a notch.

For example, I remember when I took my only (blissful) oil painting class at Goshen College as an elective, in a dreamy art department which was a big sunny loft. My final project was to paint “like” an artist I admired. I picked Henri Matisse, and wanted to paint something like his Blue Nude.

What came out was so hideous. I remember being shocked, because some of Matisee’s art looks so easy to recreate / copy, I thought I would easily be able to recreate the joy Matisse creates in my heart. I still got a 90% grade, but I thought that was generous. It took a serious notch out of my ego. I wish I still had it and could show you.

The point, which I get now, and I could not understand 35 years ago, is that we ARE as unique as the art and heart-ideas that come with each of us. So, again, no stealing, or dominating, or hoarding is necessary.

My father loved the hideous stuff I made for that art class, plus the 2 art classes I took in high school. A few years ago I threw it all away, which is a shame, I realize now, but that’s my critical brain at work!

Now that this first paper dress is done, I can feel a kind of contentment, which I always try to remember this feeling and not let my sticky mind go backwards. Heart-space expansion!

Sending oodles of love,

Anne ◎

2 notes · View notes

manicali · 2 months

Text

Wanna do a lore dump but I need to rename Twisted and also find a name first this new thing so enjoy (or despise, i dont care) a doodle I did for the protagonist of Envy’s Angel

His name is Envy, obviously. That is a guy, and yes, I am aware of how stupidly long his legs are. It wasn’t intentional but I’m keeping it because I can. Okay i now see just how long they are I’ll fix it later.

I won’t be able to write the actual comic for some time, because I need to stop by the library for some books on demons and angels, learn digital art and also figure out how to write romantic comedy. (The last one entails even MORE reading so lets hope they unbanned my card) Basically I have no clue what I’m doing, as usual.

I will be drawing a cover for this and also like…the angel, which I’m naming Hazel, because all angel names seem to end in el. But a proper introduction to the comic is coming eventually.

But yeah, lots of lore will be added to Twisted, and my new cartoon idea now because my brain is kinda starting to work again YAY!

Does anyone know how to come up with a name for a story?

#and also a little rant #manicali’s envy’s angel

2 notes · View notes

blinkilite · 1 year

Text

I’m so deep in this fandom rabbit hole. It’s been months now. I guess I need to accept this is just my new normal. Good Omens S2 was so powerful and brought up so many emotions. I feel like the fandom came together and helped each other get through that ending. (Group therapy yay!) Now that I’ve gotten through that, I am so thankful for this story. There is so much love and creativity for these characters with fan art and fanfic. It’s fun and hilarious and supportive. The actors (and Neil) are so lovable and inspiring too.

But on a personal level, it’s helped me come out of my stagnant slump of doing nothing for years from the Covid times. I’ve been more active online. I’ve been enjoying all the fandom posts and theories. I’ve even read some of the fan fiction - which I haven’t done in a long time. I am drawn to these characters and I need to keep seeing them and revisiting them. (And I NEED a season 3 happy ending dammit). I have so many ideas and things I want to let out and draw or write or who knows. But my brain is itching to create something. I haven’t had any creative inspiration in SO LONG!

I’m a giant ball of anxiety right now because I am going to Japan in 3 weeks 😬 and I have so much to do for that. But I’m keeping notes and ideas and I will create something. Maybe many things when I get back.

So anyway. Thanks Neil. Thanks Michael & David. Thanks fandom. You’re all wonderful. 😊❤️

#good omens #good omens 2 #neil gaiman #aziraphale #crowley #good omens fandom #brain dump #creative inspiration #i love them

9 notes · View notes

nocek · 2 years

Note

Hello, do you have a guide to drawing faces? I'm going through an artstyle revision to be more soft around the edges and less sharp and I've always struggled with faces...

oh my... that's a very broad question to ask and hard to give any usefull answer without actually seeing your work. But it's good that you have concrete goals and can pinpoint what exactly you want to change about your work. It's a very professional attitude.

Which is why I may be a bad choice of person to be asked for advice. Because I'm not a professional and I want very much for drawing to stay just my hobby to keep me sane. I never consciously thought about my artstyle beyond maybe making it less manga (but residue it's still there, art teachers were right lol XD). It's about having fun in the process for me.

That's why I can only give you some fun things to try out. Maybe one or two will work for you.

If you want to soften your faces in generally paintery way best way I tried is to gradually unblurr your picture. Like take the most basic round brush with soft edges and make it very big. Turn down the opacity a bit and try to sculpt basic shapes of the face using the main limited pallette colors of your reference. Then use slightly smaller big brush to add bit more details. Then gradually make the brush smaller and smaller. And gradually add new details and colors if necessary.

This actually does wonders because helps you stop being precious about some sketch details because there is no sketch. It helps you stop seeing face as face so you don't draw what you know but what you actually see.

Actually speaking of that. Another great trick is to put your reference upside down. Our brains are lazy and just extrapolate the information and our brains are great at face shapes so it's actually harder to draw them. But if you put them upside down you actually need to focus on proportions of this new unknown shape. It actually does wonders!

When it comes to lineart (because after all this rambling I figured that's most likely why you've written to me, sorry) i have 2 suggestions.

Try to figure out if you draw with only your wrist. It doesn't decide if you draw more in straight or in curved lines (I guess in that department we have opposite problems :D) but it's good idea to try consciously draw using more of your elbow. It works well with bigger canvases and actually taught me to draw really long straight lines (yay architecture, it was useful for that and learning how to do really tough boxes XD) but actually it's about stability which is crucial in doing curved lines too.

On smaller scale try using different media or have fun with new pens. It will help you get out of your used path and is an excuse to raid nearby cheap art store.

I guess many people would recommend doing lineart with brushes. The varying thickness will encourage you to use more round lines and so on buuuuut.... actually I think brushes are very discouraging when you don't have the muscle memory to control them properly. My advice here would be to use felt tip pens actually. They are more springy thus more forgiving. Try the ones that are soft and more spongy than actually felt. Idk how to describe them. If that's something you think may be interesting let me know and I'll try to dig up the ones I used.

Generally let me know if you want more details in certain direction because all above is kind of rambly stream of consciousness answer and idk how usefull it actually is but I prefer to post it that way otherwise I'll get stuck in perfecting the reply limbo >.<

#text post #ask #long post #art tips #idk if usefull and if usefull but hey #i can hope it helps

21 notes · View notes

oneslimybastard · 2 years

Text

The Nunpire AU Masterpost

Aka, that one AU I fucked with a little bit that got me some attention on twitter, where Piers pokémon was a nun... but also a vampire! Yay!

From 2020 baby. I'm just really tickled by the idea of this Very Obvious Impostor with no one really questioning why they're there. Oh, the one walking around in a sexy Halloween costume? That's just Sister Piers, he never comes out during the day, he probably just gets sunburnt because he's so pale so we don't worry about it. Yeah no he's a guy, why? He's gay and devoted to our lord, amen, so the sisterhood sees no issue with having him be part of it.

I also made it part of the lore that his particular method of hunting was to play a ditzy innocent nun who'd gotten lost, then he'd get down on his knees and just suck 'em dry like a packet of coolaid ripe for M I L K I N G.

For the lord of course, amen, ave maria.

The increasing amount of corpses with Suspect Bitemarks on their wieners was what initially sent off alarm bells in town that there might be a vampire lurking around, so the ~Demon Hunting Agency~ just sent out ya boi Raihan out to deal with it, because I was way into kbnz at the time so Why Not Shippify It (still am for the record, the fixation has just died down)

Raihan was a weredragon you see, because why keep things simple when you can follow your heart? I never drew him more than once in his dragon form though which is kind of a disgrace because I still kinda fuck with it. It's very Todd Lockwood but in these gaudy colors of bright orange and dark blue, it's a fun color scheme, and I like the proportions I came up with for it. Also I got some compliments on his Hat, which agreed, the Hat is pretty Neat.

I didn't really consider the world building that intensely beyond what would make my ape brain go Unga Bunga, so he kiiinda had sealing magic or something but could also puke? Fire? He could do what he needed to for Piers' silly little vampire ass to end up in Magic Holy Bondage, that was the point, that was the ends to the means.

Similarly, I made it a Thing that if dragons like Raihan started to munch on demon hearts they'd get more powerful — but also addicted. Because if you can't tell already, I have a little thing for blood and violence and liked the idea of this dragon man trying really hard to not eat his way into Piers' ribcage to just gobble that heart up.

Piers for the record was kind of into it, and they made a deal that when it was time for Piers to just peace out for good, Raihan would get to eat his heart: because vampires are demons, their souls are tied to hell, but if you get eaten by a dragon your soul will get entrapped within them instead, which was a bit more appealing than eternal punishment for the crime of just kinda being born.

The last related thing I drew for the Au (as far as I can remember at least lmao, might be some other doodles scrambling about that I've forgotten about) was mainly inspired by VtM brainworms, where I just played with the idea of Piers having access to Blood Sorcery, because that term is fucking metal.

I did doodle some more stuff but for other ships in the same universe (mainly huntershipping) but only like. Three things. And I never really posted them anywhere nor do I intend to do so ,':)

Cus my fixation just kinda fizzled out like it usually does so I stopped drawing for it, and now I'm just kinda sitting here on a phat pile of Lore my brain spawned in because I can't help myself. Things got real cursed real fast once my Ghetsis-enjoying burst out into full bloom and I began to ponder what he'd be up to in there 8) spoiler alert: no fun very bad time for Natural Harmonia Gropius, 0/10 do not recommend.

But that's the Nunpireverse! I still like it, and might flesh it out with more art one day, right now it's mostly just a testament to what my brain looks like on self-indulgence run amok. Cross-dressing nun-vampires with dragon-shifter men and also blood kink shenanigans out the ass.

Cultured and refined tastes, you see.

#cw: blood #blood kink #vampire au #nun kink #raihan #piers pokemon #kbnz #fanart #snail's snaily art #let's fetishize that Catholicism babes #nunpire au #long post #snail's thirsty ass

42 notes · View notes

sevicia · 1 year

Text

I relly wanna draw more detailed things but I just don't come up with stuff like that. art in my brain is like YAAAAY candy YAAAAY fruits yay girls yay colors yaaayayayayyay🎉🎉🎉 & I love drawing frills & other such things but I can NEVER think up any frilly designs for my ocs. In fact it's super hard to think of any clothes for them at all U have no idea the brainpower it took me to design alt outfits for some of them...... IDK I wish I could like. Come up with more interesting stuff ahhhh let me die forever.....

10 notes · View notes

gubbles-owo · 10 months

Note

Looking forward to Super Manticore Ball coming from the marble experiment. "Hold still to become invisible" would even work well as an integral mechanic!

keeping the marble still... in a marble maze game.... the ultimate test of skill, on god..., Y'know, I haven't really thought about the context of marble game much yet. Right now it's just a wooden board with a metal marble (the reflective metal is just an excuse to get away with a single billboarded sprite :3c), but it'd be cool to switch up the context... maybe it's an intricate key to unlocking a device, or perhaps you're just rolling a pillbug around in a shoebox. Typically I'll go into something with a pretty solid idea of how I want to present it, but since the aim largely amounts to a vague "get a Thing working on the N64", I haven't really given the presentation much thought. The only question in my mind as of late is "how in the h*ck do i handle collision" (there's no "game engine" here so I get to figure out how to program that from scratch, yay yippee!!) Similarly I also haven't thought much about the end goal of the Manticore model... again it's primarily an exercise to learn how to model a character that looks halfway decent. I've got OCs, sure, but no visual reference for them (at least I can't draw much myself nor afford commissions of em atm). And god the visual reference helps soooo so much when it comes to working out the shape of a thing in 3D space. So the ongoing hyperfixation brainrot of a particular Arknights character-- one that has both official reference art and a bunch of fanart-- seemed like a natural choice of subject xD

But if I can be brutally real about it... I don't think the model is gonna suit itself to *actually* run well on the N64. It's still fairly dense in terms of tri count, especially in the head/face area, like augh look how much is going on here. And for the love of all that is unholy I do not know how to model low poly hair. It's either an awkward clump of too much geometry-- something more reminiscent of 6th gen than 5th-- or it looks real flat and lifeless, with that perfect middle ground always escaping my grasp. Maybe someday I'll crack that code, but I have the sneaking suspicion that the character has to be designed with these limitations in mind from the outset. or maybe that's just an excuse for not knowing much lol I could potentially slap her in marble game if I can manage to think up a context that works... I'll have to let my brain sit on the whole presentation thing while I whittle away at optimizations and physics nonsense. Mark my words, whatever I wind up doing with the Manticore model... it's gonna be yuri.

#ough that sure is a wall of text alright #uuhhhuhh how does tagging work again #ask #gubdev #uhhhhhhh #instead of brain there is manticore and matrix math

6 notes · View notes

c-is-for-circinate · 3 years

Text

For a long, large part of my life, being queer in a media landscape--finding queerness in a media landscape--has meant theft.

I'm a Fandom Old, somehow, these days, older than most and younger than some, in that way that's grown associated with grumpy crotchetyness and shotguns on porches and back in my day, we had to wade through our Yahoo Groups mailing lists uphill both ways, boring and irrelevant anecdotes from Back In Those Days when homophobia clearly worked differently than it does now, probably because we weren't trying hard enough. I've seen a lot of stories through the years. I've read a lot of fanfic. (More days than not, for the past twenty years. I've read a lot of fanfic.)

When people my age start groaning and sighing at conversations about representation and queerbaiting, when we roll our eyes and drag all the old war stories out again in the face of AO3 is terrible and Not Good Enough, so often what we say is: you Young Folks Today have no idea how hard, how scary, how limiting it was to be queer anywhere Back In Those Days. Including online, maybe especially online, including in a media landscape that hated us so much more than any one you've ever known. And that is true. Always and everywhere, again and again, it's true, we remember, it's true.

We don't talk so much about the joy of it.

Online fan spaces were my very first queer communities, ever. I was thirteen, I was fourteen, I was fifteen--I was a lonely, over-precocious "gifted kid" two years too young for my grade level in an all-girls' Catholic school in the suburbs--I lived in a world where gay people were a rumor and an insult and a news story about murder. I was straight, of course, obviously, because real people were straight and anyway I was weird enough already--I couldn't be two things strange, couldn't be gay too, but--well, I could read the stories. I could feel things about that. I would have those stories to help me, a few years later, when I knew I couldn't call myself straight any more.

And those stories were theft. There was never any doubt about that. We wrote disclaimers at the top of every fic, with the specter of Anne Rice's lawyers around every corner. We hid in back-corners of the internet, places you could only find through a link from a link from a link on somebody else's recs page, being grateful for the tiny single-fandom archives when you found them, grateful for the webrings where they existed. It was theft, all of it, the stories about characters we did not own, the videotaped episodes on your best friend's VHS player, one single episode pulled off of Limewire over the course of three days.

It was theft, we knew, to even try and find ourselves in these stories to begin with. How many fics did I read in those days about two men who'd always been straight, except for each other, in this one case, when love was stronger than sexual orientation? We stole our characters away from the heterosexual lives they were destined to have. We stole them away from writers and producers and TV networks who work overtime to shower them in Babes of the Week, to pretend that queerness was never even an option. This wasn't given to us. This wasn't meant for us. This wasn't ours to have, ever, ever in the first place. But we took it anyway.

And oh, my friends, it was glorious.

We took it. We stole. And again and again, for years and years and years, we turned that theft into an art. We looked for every opening, every crack in every sidewalk where a little sprout of queerness might grow, and we claimed it for our own and we grew whole gardens. We grew so sly and so skilled with it, learning to spot the hints of oh, this could be slashy in every new show and movie to come our way. Do you see how they left these character dynamics here, unattended on the table? How ripe they are for the pocketing. Here, I'll help you carry them. We'll make off with these so-called straight boys, and we only have to look back if somebody sets out another scene we want for our own.

We were thieves, all of us, and that was fine and that was fair, because to exist as queer in the world was theft to begin with. Stolen time, stolen moments--grand larceny of the institution of marriage, breaking and entering to rob my mother's hopes for grandchildren. Every shoplifted glance at the wrong person in the locker room (and it didn't matter if we never peeked, never dared, they called us out on it anyway). Every character in every fic whose queerness became a crime against this ex-wife, that new love interest. Every time we dared steal ourselves away from the good straight partners we didn't want to date.

And: we built ourselves a den, we thieves, wallpapered in stolen images and filled to the brim with all the words we'd written ourselves. We built ourselves a home, and we filled it with joy. Every vid and art and fic, every ship, every squee. Over and over, every straight boy protagonist who abandoned all womankind for just this one exception with his straight boy protagonist partner found gay orgasms and true love at the end.

Over and over, we said: this isn't ours, this isn't meant to be ours, you did not give this to us--but we are taking it anyway. We will burglarize you for building blocks and build ourselves a palace. These stories and this place in the world is not for us, but we exist, and you can't stop us. It's ours now, full of color and noise, a thousand peoples' ideas mosaic'ed together in celebration. We made this, and it will never be just yours again. You won't ever truly get it back, no matter how many lawyers you send, not completely. We keep what we steal.

Things shifted over time, of course. That's good. That's to be celebrated. Nobody should have to steal to survive. It should not be a crime, should not feel like a crime, to find yourself and your space in the world.

There were always content creators who could slip a little wink in when they laid out their wares, oh what's this over here, silly me leaving this unattended where anybody could grab it, of course there might be more over by the side door if you come around the alleyway (but if anybody asks, you didn't get this from ME). We all watched Xena marry Gabrielle, in body language and between the lines. We sat around and traded theories and rumors about whether the people writing Due South knew what they were doing when they sent their buddy cops off into the frozen north alone together at the end of the show, if they'd done it on purpose, if they knew. But over the years, slowly, thankfully, the winks became less sly.

A teenage boy put his hand on another teenage boy's hand and said, you move me, and they kissed on network TV, in a prime-time show, on FOX, and the world didn't burn down. Here and there, where they wanted to, where they could without getting caught by their bosses and managers, content creators stopped subtly nudging people around the back door and started saying, "Here. This is on offer here too, on purpose. You get to have this, too."

And of course, of course that came with a whole host of problems too. Slide around to the back door but you didn't get this from me turned into it's an item on our special menu, totally legit, you've just got to ask because the boss throws a fit if we put it out front. Shopkeepers and content creators started advertising on the sly, come buy your fix here!, hiding the fine print that says you still have to take what you've purchased home and rebuild it with your semi-legal IKEA hacks. Maybe they'll consider listing that Destiel or Sterek as a full-service menu item next year. Is that Crowley/Aziraphale the real thing or is it lite?

And those problems are real and the conversations are worth having, and it's absolutely fair to be frustrated that you can't find the ship you want on sale in anything like your color and size in a vast media landscape packed full of discount hetships and fast-fashion m/f. It's fair to be angry. It's fair to be frustrated. Queerbait is a word that exists for a reason.

There's a part of me that hurts, though, every time the topic comes up. It's a confusing, bad-mannered part of me, but it's still very real. And it's not because I'm fawning for crumbs, trying to be the Good, Non-Threatening Gay. It's not that I'm scared and traumatized by the thought of what might happen if we dare raise our voices and ask for attention. (Well. Not mostly. I'll always remember being quiet and scared and fifteen, but it's been a long two decades since then. I know how to ask for a hell of a lot more now.)

It's because I remember that cozy, plush-wallpapered den of joyful thieves. I remember you keep what you steal.

Every single time--every time--when a story I love sets a couple of characters out on a low, unguarded table, perfectly placed to be pilfered on the sly and taken home and smushed together like a couple of dolls, my very first thought is always, always joy. Always, that instinct says, yay! Says, this is ours now. As soon as I go home and crawl into that pillow-fort den, my instincts say, I will surely find people already at work combing through spoils and finding new ways to combine them, new ways to make them our own. I know there's fic for that. I've already seen fic for that, and I wasn't really interested last time, but the new store display's got my brain churning, and I can't wait to see what the crew back at the hideout does with this.

Every time, that's where my brain goes. And oh, when I realize the display's put out on purpose, that somebody snuck in a legitimate special menu item, when the proprietor gives me the nod and wink and says, you don't have to come around the side, I know it's not much but here--there is so much joy and relief and hope in me from that! Oh, what we can make with these beautiful building blocks. Oh what a story we can craft from the pieces. Oh, the things we can cobble together. Look at that, this one's a little skimpy on parts but we can supplement it, this one's got a whole outline we can fill in however we want. This one technically comes semi-preassembled, and that's boring as shit and a pain to take back apart, but that's fine, we'll manage. We're artists and thieves. I bet someone's pulling out the AU saw to cut it to pieces already.

And then I get back to our den, which has moved addresses a dozen times over the years and mostly hangs out on Tumblr now (and the roof leaks and the landlord's sketchy as fuck but at least they don't charge rent, and we've made worse places our own). And I show up, ready for joy--ready for a dozen other people who saw that low-hanging fruit on that unguarded table, who got the nod and wink about the special menu item, who're ready to get so excited about this newest haul. Did you see what we picked up? The theft was so easy, practically begging to be stolen. The last owner was an idiot with no idea what to do with it. The last owner knew exactly what it could become, bless their heart, under a craftsman with more time on their hands, so they looked away on purpose at just the right time to let me take it home. I show up every time ready for our space, the place that fed me on joy and self-confidence when I was fifteen and starving. The place that taught me, yes, we are thieves, because it is RIGHT to take what we need, and the beautiful things we create are their own justification. We are thieves, and that's wonderful, because nothing is handed to us and that means we get to build our own palaces. We get to keep everything we steal.

I go home, and even knowing the world is different, my instincts and heart are waiting for that. And I walk in the door, and I look at my dash, and I glance over at twitter, and--

And people are angry, again. Angry at the slim pickings from the hidden special menu. So, so tired and angry, at once again having to steal.

And they're right to be! Sometimes (often, maybe) I think they're angry at the wrong people--more angry with the shopkeeper who offers the bite-sized sampler platter of side characters or sneaks their queer content in on the special menu than the ones who don't include it at all. But it's not wrong to be mad that Disney's once again advertising their First Gay Character only to find out it's a tiny sprinkle of a one-line extra on an otherwise straight sundae. It's not wrong to be furious at the world because you've spent your whole life needing to be a thief to survive. It's far from wrong. I'm angry about it too.

But this was my den of thieves, my chop shop, my makerspace. Growing up in fandom, I learned to pick the locks on stories and crack the safes of subtext at the very same time I learned to create. They were the same thing, the same art. We are thieves, my heart says, we are thieves, and that's what makes us better than the people we steal from. We deconstruct every time we create. We build better things out of the pieces.

And people are angry that the pre-fab materials are too hard to find, the pickings too slim, the items on sale too limited? Yes, of course they are, of course they should be--but my heart. Oh, my heart. Every single time, just a little bit, it breaks.

Of course the stories are terrible (they have always been terrible). Of course they are, but we are thieves. We steal the best parts and cobble them back together and what we make is better than it was before. The craftsman's eye that cases a story for weak points, for blank spaces, for anywhere we can fit a crowbar and pry apart this casing--that's skill and art and joy. Of course we shouldn't have to, of course we shouldn't have to, but I still love it. I still want it, crave it. I still thrill every time I see it, a story with hairline cracks that we can work open with clever hands to let the queer in.

That used to be cause for celebration, around here. I ask him to go back to the ruins of Aeor with me, two men together alone on an expedition in the frozen north, it feels like a gift. And I understand why some people take it as an insult. I understand not good enough. I understand how something can feel like a few drops of water to someone dying of thirst, like a slap in the face. If it was so easy to sneak it hidden onto the special menu, to place it on the unguarded side table for someone else to run off to, why not let it sit out front and center in the first place? I know it's frustrating. It should be. We should fight. We should always fight. I know why.

But my heart, oh, my heart. My heart only knows what it's been taught. My heart sees, this thing right here, the proprietor left it there for you with a nod and a wink because they Get It. It's not put together yet, but it's better that way anyway. It's so full of pieces to pull apart and reassemble. I bet they've got a whole mosaic wall going up at home already. We can bring it home and make it OURS, more than it was ever theirs, forget half of what it came from and grow a new garden in what remains.

And I go home to find anger, and my heart breaks instead.

#I don't actually know how to tag this #representation #maybe?#C needs help feeding the dinosaurs #because this is very much about being a fandom old #probably also #driveby meta attack #because that's where I keep my impromptu rambles #CR spoilers #technically I guess?#there's one line that references the finale #fandom history

6K notes · View notes

jukeboxindie · 2 years

Photo

Nil headshot studies for fun! I’m trying to find a good way to draw him in my style without losing his likeness. This style turned out kind of comic book-y lol.

I know this is an art blog but while drawing this, my brain kept analyzing his character and his relationship with Aloy and now I want to info dump this on my friends but it’s so niche they won’t care or know what I’m talking about lmao so I’m just going to do it here under the cut.

I don’t do this often. This is a very casual write-up. (edit: This is so embarrassingly long and unhinged i might actually delete this later haha i’m sorry????)

TL;DR: i have a conversation with myself about overanalyzing a side quest character in a video game. why? no idea. i can’t explain myself. my brain do be like that sometimes.

AKA: nil hot, but the murder thing is a little weird: an essay

Preface: this is my interpretation of the characters. If you interpret them differently that’s valid! Keep doing what you do and have fun with your headcanons. I’m just writing this for fun, you don’t have to agree with me! (i’m also kind of nervous because i never write stuff like this and share but i’m so fixated on this side quest character i just need an outlet ahahaha sorry tumblr followers who read this, you’ve been warned).

RIGHT OFF THE BAT: I read Aloy as aroace, I’ll be happy for her whether she ends up having feelings for someone in the third game or not. I’m pretty indifferent when it comes to shipping but I like how practically everyone she meets falls in love with her. I read Nil as also on the aroace spectrum, probably due to circumstance because all he knows is war and has never experienced love or affection as far as the player knows. And he seems to only get turned on by violence.. at least in the first game. On that note, I absolutely love that he’s in love with Aloy haha. She doesn’t have to return his feelings, I like their relationship as it is already.

Before we get more into how Aloy changes Nil, let’s talk about the kind of character Nil is first: I like my fair share of angsty characters and he has every right to be full on angsty considering his background and how he still calls himself a soldier even though the war times are long over; but he isn’t angsty. It’s a different take on this type character and it makes him stand out to me which is probably where my fascination with him comes from.

Nil is unapologetically himself which is what I love about him. He is honest and maybe a bit too blunt but he’s a man of his word. He’s so honest that he voluntarily admits to his war crimes, does the time for it, goes through rehabilitation and is buddies with prison warden, they don’t even have anything *that* negative to say about him lmao. Incredible. He’s just so weird and takes everything in stride. He’s kind of a subversion to a character whose normal reaction is probably reaching a breaking point which leads to heroism or villainy. But he’s neutral. Not a hero or villain, perhaps an anti-hero or a vigilante type. Fascinating. I love the way he is written. Why is he left to be a side quest character he is so interesting please give him more to do in the next game PLEASE GUERILLA I AM BEGGING.

He has an honor code, knows that he has an “issue” (bloodlust, a need to murder, “The Call”) and copes with it by “doing the right thing for the wrong reasons” so.. killing bad people, bandits, thieves, etc... for sport!! He admits this so nonchalantly in front of Aloy like it is totally normal BLESS HIS LIL HEART. He might come off as creepy because The Call compels him, which yeah, isn’t normal or healthy but at least he follows the laws of the lands so... yay?

Aloy: I don’t keep count. (Nil, it isn’t normal to keep a body count...)

Nil: Don’t keep count? Sometimes I just don’t get you. Are you like us, or a little different. (You kill. I kill. Are we really that different?)

Aloy: Hopefully a little different. (YES.)

Nil: Hm.. that’s what you’re going to tell yourself. ( ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ )

He experiences some emotion, perhaps not the full range of an average person, due to his background he probably doesn’t completely understand how to feel emotions properly. But he TRIES SO HARD with Aloy. Nil thinks she is similar to him because she is a capable fighter/killer, but she’s also on a different path than him, a path of leadership and empathy. He doesn’t understand leadership, he is just a soldier who follows orders. Also he has a warped sense of empathy, twisted by war. He likes her for all of her qualities even if he doesn’t understand the full scope of them. She loves life, but he only knows death. At first the attraction comes from the killing they do together, but then the other feelings he eventually feels for her (love?) comes from the empathy she shows him and the partnership they form.

Nil even had a partner before Aloy, whom he didn’t seem too torn up about them dying. But when he first meets Aloy, he already appears cares about her from the beginning. He states that he likes her and looks forward to hunting with her. He also has a line that if Aloy dies, he'd kill the rest of the bandits before her body gets cold or something weird like that. But the more bandit camps you raid, the more he falls in love. Like.. I doubt he’d let serious harm come to her at that point. They’re more than just bandit-killing buddies, they’re partners, real partners. When there are no more bandits to kill, he sees their time coming to an end. How does he cope? FIGHT TO THE DEAAAATH. (Killing won’t be fun without her anymore, I don’t know where to go from here, oh wait GENIUS idea, die by her hands because it’ll be really fucking hot and romantic.) He confesses his feelings to her in the end in the dumbest way possible. He thinks he only feels through violence, so violence is the answer. If she agrees, he asks consent to confirm that she is okay with this and that he doesn’t want to pressure her (he is surprisingly polite). If she refuses, he’s heartbroken but he respects her choice (she breaks up with him, they part amicably).

OK BUT THEN Nil realizes that death and violence are not the best feelings you can feel. You can experience something better: life and love [audience awes]. So he shows up to help in the final battle. Because he still loves her... and because violence. Two in one, let’s gooooooooooooo

Aloy and Nil are both outcasts and haven’t had much normal interactions or conversation with regular people so when you put those two together they have HILARIOUS dialogue and reactions. They are both super awkward, the only difference is Aloy feels and acts awkward because she has a grasp of what “normal” conversations sound like, while Nil thinks he’s ABSOLUTELY NAILING this “having a normal human conversation with another normal human” thing every time they talk to each other. Which he isn’t. Everything he says is incredibly odd but he doesn’t seem to know or care. Aloy attempts a couple times to let him know what he’s saying is creepy but the man will not be deterred. He thinks he’s being charming.

Aloy: okgoodBYENIL. (best line delivery)

Okay.. okay... but.. The funniest and best part is that Aloy gives up on trying to tell Nil that’s he’s being weird and creepy because she realizes that he’s not doing it intentionally he just talks like that. So... then she just decides to accept it and befriend him instead!!! She attempts to relate to him, think like him, speak like him and it fails EVERY TIME BECAUSE THE DUMBASS MURDER MAN IS SO DENSE. Like one of my favorite moments is Aloy, knowing that he likes to kill, tells the murder boi that he can deal with the Eclipse as an outlet but then he’s like nah, i don’t get involved in politics. LMAO WHY IS THIS SO FUNNY TO ME. HE’S RIDICULOUS. Another moment she tries to relate to him on a friendly level:

Aloy: Your bow has a name? (He’s a weirdo.)

Nil: Yours doesn’t? (It’s normal, she’s weird.)

---------------

Aloy: So... what’s you knife called? (this weirdo named his bow, let me try to break the ice with a follow-up)

Nil: Why would someone name a knife? (????? (DENSE. SO DENSE.))

I know people like to say Nil is horny because of his sexually charged dialogue full of innuendos and that is totally valid! But I interpret it as a form of masking and/or his attempt at flirting by saying what he thinks someone in that situation would say. My funny little headcanon is that he doesn’t realize how horny he sounds. To Nil, this is a totally normal way to let someone you know you like them/look forward to seeing them again. You know, by saying things like:

“I can wait, I know you’ll be worth it.” (Translation: take your time, racing is better when you’re here)

“Here to unleash your demons? It always makes for quite a sight.” (Translation: girl pretty when she let’s herself have fun)

“Waiting will make the ride all the sweeter.” (Translation: I don’t mind waiting for you, I enjoy our time together)

This is getting way too long and I’m just rambling? idk what direction i’m taking this tbh? I guess I just really like Nil because of his character development. His arc starts with him knowing no other purpose than to kill. It was what he was trained to do. He grew up in war, he doesn’t know a life besides war. Which is why after the war, he had a hard time adjusting and thought he had to continue killing to have a purpose in life. Everything else felt so empty.

Until he met Aloy.

Stupid sexy Nil wanted to die towards the end of his questline in HZD because he didn’t see a point in living, as dramatic as that sounds. His purpose was fulfilled, there were no more bandits to kill! And even if there were more bandits to kill, it wouldn’t be as fun if Aloy wasn’t around. So as far as he knows, he’s peaked in life. Which is why he requests to fight to the death on the plateau.

And in game canon, Aloy is like... No!! dumbass, I’m not killing you! We’re friends, I guess. Why don’t you be my ally in this world ending battle.

Aloy, before final battle: Nil, you’re making it difficult to be glad to see you. (She is glad to see him but Nil says something that’s very... Nil, as usual)

So Nil becomes her ally in battle. Then he survives. Now.. he wants to live. He wants to try to experience life like Aloy does. And probably realizes that Aloy sorta maybe just a little disapproves him killing for sport................ So he takes up the less violent hobby of street racing with a bunch of rebel kids who didn’t want to fight in war. He knows what war does to people, he is a product of war. He keeps these kids on a better track in life (get it????? because racetrack they race on the right track of life now, get it eh? get-).

Nil: A reunion with an old partner deserves more than a handshake, don’t you think? (running you off the track (violence) is our thing! a secret handshake! an inside joke that normies have, right?! winky face emoji)

Aloy: We killed bandits together, Nil. For different reasons. I’m not sure we were partners. (serious)

Nil: I am. Now more than ever. Especially since we’ve moved on to something more entertaining. (ok but you were intrigued by my disguise and kept coming back to race me... so you like me. also, you changed me! i enjoy life now, too.)

Anyways it’s cute and if they bring him back next game I hope he develops more and becomes a more prominent ally to Aloy. Also it would be hilarious if he adapts a new alias and changes his look again.. but this time as his ~*:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧ truest self *:･ﾟ✧*:･ﾟ✧~

ok bye

if you made it to the end well.. i don’t know what to tell you. i hope it was entertaining? um.. here you go:

#this funky murder man lives in my head rent free #how did we go from drawing simple headshots to THIS?!#it's after midnight here so this is a certified late night shitpost #nil #hfw spoilers #hzd #hfw

77 notes · View notes