#WE'RE OFFICIALLY DOING IT

[leenfiend]

[verflares]

meteorologists report sky just a little bluer today, and it's because skyloft residents link and zelda are in love :)

[hrokkall]

ULTRATOBER DAY 30 /// ██████

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[mokadevs]

day 15: haunting

[holy--milk]

it feels kinda crazy when you forcibly hold yourself back from talking about mxtx too much to the only other mxtx fan you know irl because you don't want to come across as too intense and cringe, and then she pulls out volume 4 of the english edition of svsss that she spent a fuckton of money on for the sake of the qijiu extra and 1 (one) pic of shen jiu.

and you're like "oh. she's just as obsessed as i am <3"

[saltpepperbeard]

a little tiny and somewhat silly additional point for all my disheartened darlings:

i feel like time is so stretched and so warped right now, and i think that's sort of furthering feelings of disappointment. i think it's in part due to it being uh, january (derogatory), but also just because so much has been happening in such a short time that it sort of just throws any sense of perception into a blender and chaotically whirls it all around.

because i was sitting here last night a little on the gloomier side--not hopeless, just gloomy--because i was like ":( man david really made that suspicious post and then we've just been stuck in radio silence huh"

...only to realize that david had made said suspicious post only two. days. prior.

wednesday.

so i sat back, cackled at myself, and really accepted how chaotic the timelines are right now. i think we're all just running at like mach 5 speed and subsequently expecting 10 billion things to happen every single day as they have been, so a quieter period is almost startling.

but besties. dear besties. these things take a while. these things aren't instantaneous. and we're in the GRAVY BASKET, MAN; TIME IS FAKE HSDKLJS

[genshin-impact-updates]

Happy Birthday, Yun Jin!

[me-sploh-rada-imas]

lublana 🥰🥰

[high-noon-raccoon]

Beginning my long, long quest to draw our entire Lancer team with their mechs at LL3! Yes even the Gorgon *laughs cries chews glass* Here's the team's mechanic, stuntman, and youtuber-turned-Lancer, JW, who HA gifted this shiny new Tokugawa with zero special interest whatsoever. :)

[jakeperalta]

so in crazy life news.. as of today I own a house 🫨

[bonebabbles]

God the new ultimate guide sucks

It's not JUST the awful art, either. The art's just worth mentioning because even if the book's info had been terrible or contained nothing new, really cute art can make it still worth having.

But, no, it's even full of recycled lines we've been hearing for years like "Bramblestar Can Match Squirrelflight's Fire Not Contain It," and that's when it DOES get everything right. These entries leave out major, important details (making them bad summaries) and are sometimes even straight-up incorrect.

SUMMARY THOUGHTS

Leafpool is said to have watched Brambleclaw kill Hawkfrost to save Firestar-- but for one, no, she was not there because Ashfur was still leading her and Squilf towards the scene. For two, no, Brambleclaw did not kill Hawkfrost just to save Firestar, it was self-defense. Hawkfrost had him pinned and was going to kill him.

They're REAL cute about Leafpool's death, too, neglecting to mention WHY the Sisters needed to be saved at all and just saying Leafpool's "generosity" lead to her death in that cave-in.

I'm not even going to get into everything on Bramble's entry jesus christ.

Sagewhisker's entry is ESPECIALLY fucken' dandy, framing Yellowfang's Secret like she was simply waiting patiently for Yellow to realize her 'destiny' and not actively shoving it on her at every opportunity.

Leopardstar's entry states that romantic interest in Tigerstar was part of her motivation. "Perhaps she'd hoped he would be her mate" please speak to a woman irl for once in your life.

Gray Wing's entry forgot that the reason he "blamed himself" for Bright Stream's death is because he was literally staring at his big strong brother too much and tripped on a root in front of him. It IS his fault she died.

Clear Sky/Skystar's entry is just obscene. "He regretted abandoning his son and after a fire, he encouraged him to live with him" instead of "saw his teenage child was useful now and bullied and belittled the kid and his uncle into letting Thunder come with him." "Retaining his fierceness towards his cats and outsiders which caused his son to leave" instead of "murdering, brutalizing, and abusing everyone around him caused Thunder to leave." I'll just say this tho; "Fierce" is an interesting way to spell "Cruel."

It's interesting that they don't point out that a major part of Jagged Peak's arc was proving he was "Just As Good" as every other cat in spite of his disability, thanks to his introduced-and-pregnant-in-the-same-book wife becoming his life coach, only earning Clear Sky's respect after being allowed to physically lead a patrol in Blazing Star. Instead they frame him finding his place through taking care of kits, which... was something he seemed to resent in the actual series, considering how the books suddenly treat Gray Wing's protective treatment of him as a terrible thing in Blazing Star because he "didn't give him a chance". But at the same time I actually strongly dislike Jagged Peak and his messy, frustrating character arc so I'm not really UPSET with it. Just... noting it. I suppose this is the official direction they're taking away from it?

Shadowstar's entry is barely even 3 paragraphs yikes.

SHORT STORY THOUGHTS

And if you're wondering if the 4 brand new stories they smooshed into the end in a desperate attempt to make the rush job worth buying are good? No. Of course not. They're all slop.

Story 1: Firestar and Graystripe

First one's a marginally cute story about Graystripe and Firestar which is setting up the framing device linking the mini-tales together. They both remember this situation where Firestar fell into a ditch wrong. The punchline is that Thunderstar remembers it perfectly and they're both like, "WOW! Too bad Thunderstar's memory sucks!"

It's not terrible, but it does feel a bit pointless. But, hey, if you want more Firestar and Graystripe in the series that tosses them fanservice at every turn, who am I to judge?

Story 2: Dovewing and Ivypool

The next one is the Dovewing/Ivypool reconciliation passage everyone's talking about. It's... fine, but immensely dissatisfying to me.

Dovewing is apparently having problems adjusting to her Clan, grapples a little bit with the fact she has no friends but is going to be finding meaning in helping tigerHeartstar "bring the new ShadowClan into existence." She ultimately decides that she needs to talk to her sister, and begs for reassurance that Ivypool believes in her, feeling that her support can help her get through this difficult time in her life.

I think its biggest problem is that Dovewing was not the right choice for the POV here.

Dove was never the one responsible for the rift in their relationship. Ivypool is. Ivypool is the one who was jealous, willing to sabotage anything that would put Dovewing closer to Tigerheart, and continues to be generally aggressive towards her. So when Dovewing is reaching out to Ivypool in hopes of them reconciling, it feels wrong because Ivypool is the one that should be reaching out to Dovewing. SHE is the one who has some things to apologize for, and to show how much she loves and misses her.

It's even kind of frustrating, because Dovewing can never catch a break. She has to have these problems to force her to reach out, Ivypool even ends up suggesting that she leave and come home and take her kids with her, but in the end even a LITTLE bit of assurance from her aggressive sister helps.

I feel super bad for Dovewing, man. She deserves better than this cheap writing. What was the point of such an unsatisfying, rushed reconciliation, shoved into a crummy field guide, when we KNOW from the newest book that they're just going to use tension between them as part of the drama anyway?

shouldn't have even been written, imo. Even ends off with, "They'll always have each other :)" which is so... cliche. It's TIRED. Are any of you really happy with just getting a retconned platitude in a good-for-nothing field guide, instead of seeing complicated, INTERESTING feelings in a main book?

Story 3: Alderheart and Twigbranch

A tale of Cherryfall getting sick during TBC and Alderheart sneaks back into the territory to treat her. Also Crowfeather has a scene where he yells at him. Charming.

Twigbranch comes up with a diversion while Alderheart does his work, which is cute. It's a fine story.

Story 4: Clear Sky

Trash. Three dogs spawn in the middle of a gathering so that Skystar can have an uwu big boy sendoff saving his grandkit. Then he goes to StarClan and throws a fit because they can't give him ANOTHER life, becoming so upset that he attacks the nearest woman. Naturally, Shadowstar brushes it off because it's not the first time Clear Sky has pummeled her in the midst of an adult tantrum and this book series thinks violence is fine if their favorite sadboy does it.

Then Gray Wing brings him to the magic mirror pool where you can see the living, to confirm that Star Flower is ok and that makes him feel better.

Then it launches into Firestar saying "ouuuugh yum I LOVE the taste of his butthole. Clear Sky is so misunderstood, He Just Loved Too Much."

to which Graystripe responds, "Yes, he was a good and amazing person and his farts smells SO good, and can you believe that some people think StarClan punished his Clan for his arrogance? As if he ever did anything wrong, ever?"

Firestar, indignant, refutes it with, "Ugh!! StarClan would NEVER be interesting, we don't punish living cats we just float around and make vague, frustrating prophecies that do nothing but pad the word count. Why cant ppl understand that, gosh."

who wrote this? Gray Wing??

[juricore]

joke by @saionjisturn

[mixelation]

How do the other countries react to the Iwa massacre? Does anyone even know about it or do they try to hide the fact that they lost 50% of their ninja force? Does the Akatsuki step in to grant some fun help in exchange for more political clout :)))

LMAO i literally didn't think that far ahead because it's not "canon" to reborn au; it was just me exploring a scenario. but given how i've been characterizing them, iwa would attempt to hide it. but they've lost a shit load on manpower in one go, so people will notice the sudden reduction in missions and them abruptly pulling field agents and stuff like that, and eventually they're going to connect it to the konoha team, especially given tori just straight up told the kiri team what happened to kushina. so i think the rumor mill is INSANE. everyone's reputation goes bananas

i think if tori hadn't told kiri that iwa made a move on kushina, the other nations would freak out because it would kind of look like konoha did something insane to another village for no reason. but i think the rumor mill concluding it was in retaliation to iwa doing something dumb AF would make the other villages feels safer lmao. not safe enough that konoha doesn't get blacklisted from a chunin exams for a few years, but.... meh. what are their clients going to do, NOT hire the village capable of infiltrating and knocking iwa off the map?

there might be a risk of another nation trying to overthrown iwa once it's clear they've been weakened, so ame is paying close attention because they've dubbed themselves the ninja cops. so yes iwa might suddenly find themselves asking for some favors :)

[backpackingspace]

I think it's funny that jun wu just had no idea who hua cheng was to xie lian. You know the entire series was him just screaming why??? Wont you??? Fuck off???

[squishdraws]

cool pose turned stupid meme not clickbait

[original quality below]

[greypetrel]

Art Summary 2023

Now that it's 2024.

This year has been probably one of the most in terms of growth ever since I was in university and attended art school in the evenings. It's been a difficult year, and horribly unproductive for my original projects, BUT! New friends, new things and look, I can colour now in a way that doesn't make me scrunch my nose. These are few of my favourite works in terms of quality and in how much fun I had when doing them.

Plus nasty face reveal don't mind the "deer in frontlights" expression I'm not comfortable on that side of the camera, but I'm actually threee seagulls in a trenchcoat and they aren't that good at impersonating a human.

Thank you to everyone who's here, old and new, it's been a pleasure and I hope it's been nice having me around for you too. . <3