#and it’s probably one of the best pieces of art I’ve made that old thing

[shepscapades]

Decided on a whim to redraw a frame from the Pokémon XY animatic i did 4 years ago about Lysandre! The new game announcement has me thinking about them again, and i couldn't resist a cheeky redraw :]

[outalongtheedges]

Goose On Film

Part 2

“Oh so that’s where that picture went”, Maverick mumbled more to himself than to anyone in particular.

Not that the others would’ve cared much about what he had to say about an old picture on a corkboard in the Bradshaw’s study.

“Interesting. I thought I had lost that one”, Slider’s wife suddenly said beside him. “Should’ve known Goose took it back.”

Maverick nodded before reaching up to take the picture of him and Ice off the board. He’s had it inside of his wallet for the better part of 10 years before he had ‘lost it’.

“What do you think you’re doing there, Maverick?!”, Goose slapped his wrist before he could reach the picture. “It’s mine!”

Okay so to be fair Goose did take the picture and he also paid for them to be printed out but it still was a picture of Ice and Mav. So it made sense for Maverick to have it, right? Slider’s wife seemed to have been thinking the same thing judging by the way she eyed the photo of her husband.

“I know what you’re thinking, Pete Mitchell! Don’t even try it. It’s an important piece in my ‘Goose on Film’ series.”, Goose continued to argue with his best friend. “You got more than enough pictures of you and that blond bastard, don’t you think?”

Maverick rolled his eyes. He could never have enough pictures of him and Tom. Not in a million years could he have collected enough of them. And that picture in particular had been taken on Carole’s birthday in ‘92, and if you know anything about Carole’s birthday parties then you’d understand the significance of that photo. That Goose even managed to take a decent one of them was astounding.

Yeah okay Mav was looking down, reading god knows what and it was a little blurry, but Ice managed to look into the camera as if he’d never done anything else but model in his entire life.

“And you!”, Goose suddenly turned over to Mrs Kerner that had her fingers on one of the thumbtacks holding up her husbands picture, “Don’t even think about it! I’ve been to your house, the walls are full of pictures of Slider and his ugly mug!”

“But not this one. Look at how cute he looks…”, she looked the photo dreamily.

“I don’t know about Slider and cute.”, Goose and Mav said at the same time, questioning looks on their faces.

“Oh come on! You guys know what I mean!”

They did know, Goose and Mav could stare at their respective partners for hours and call them every term of endearment under the sun and wouldn’t get tired.

„Come on Goose!“, Maverick whined pointing at the picture. „Let me have it back. It doesn’t look nice enough for your photo books anymore anyways.“

„What exactly did you do with yours, Pete?“, Mrs Kerner asked with a raised brow, looking sceptical as ever. „Looks like you crumpled it up.“

„I had it in my wallet? And then on my plane.“

„You know what you’re right. They’re both in horrible condition.“, Goose sighed exasperatedly, „I still have the negatives. Take them and treat them horribly! No respect for my art!“

Slider’s wife took the picture down triumphantly and folded it up the way it probably had been for years. So did Mav, staring lovingly at the photo he had stared at every time he went up in his plane.

„You two are paying for the new prints I have to make!“

„Of course Nick, honey. I’ll pay for it“, Mrs Kerner chuckled and Maverick nodded along.

All of them knew they wouldn’t pay for the prints, not that Goose would care.

———

Masterlist Part 2

Another silly little manip and this time with a story?? I’m treating you and myself (mostly myself) with this one aren’t I?

Let me know what you lovely people think ✨🎈💕

Remember be nice and respectful, have a nice day and a good nights sleep.

[squipedmew]

well, since the Dream SMP has officially come to a close, I thought I’d share what I’ve been up to for the past 2 years - making character designs for every single one of the characters!

 I really wanted every character to look distinct, with really distinct color pallets, unique weapons for each and every character - basically like each one of them could be the protagonist of a wildly different story from one another. Feel free to steal them (with credit) if you want!

I kinda dropped off working on it in late 2022, so I think I missed a few characters, as well as going back and re-doing some of the oldest ones (that’s why some of them are more detailed - those are the 2023 versions)

As strange as it is for me to say this, DSMP had such a big impact on me, especially over COVID. I haven’t had a piece of media fill me with such a passion to create art and improve probably since Undertale all the way back in 2015, if you can believe it. I owe a lot of my art improvement to this silly little Minecraft series, and though I may have lost touch with it near the end, it will always hold a special place in my heart. 

o7 you crazy, wacky, depressing, stupid, unsatisfying, joyful, hilarious, and amazing series. I wish everyone involved in it the best!

(A few extra designs under the cut!)

This is a 2020 Pogtopia Wilbur I made, and if I were to draw it now, I probably wouldn’t change a thing. This design fucking slaps imo, I’m still super proud of it. 

Exile Era Tommy. Wilbur’s old Pogtopia coat has been passed around so many times between so many different interpretations of characters, so I thought it made more sense for Tommy to take the L’Manberg era coat from Wilbur, since that was the version of him he idolized (This is an old version of Wilbur’s coat btw)

Post Dream-Getting-Sent-To-Prison Tommy! I wanted to emphasize how Tommy was trying to move past his trauma, so he shaved off the grey streak he got from the Withers in the L’Manberg explosions (I gave him the grey streaks before Revival canonized it - don’t ask me why)

Las Nevadas Quackity. It’s basically a 1 to 1 for his skin, save for the really ugly blue patches and hoodie I gave him. If I were to do it again, I would def change that. 

Snowchester Tubbo. Also still holds up, though I’m not 100% on the pants. This was kinda before goat Tubbo got super canonized, so I just decided to have the eyes. The scars are from the execution. 

Revivbur. He looks pretty good for a dead bitch - though I messed up the L’Manberg flag colors on the bandanna on his ankle. Guess he’s french now. 

Team Rocket era Niki! She took custody of Wilbur’s Pogtopia coat, albiet cutting off the parts that were covered in blood and soot (which was most of it) I also made her a fire-born like Sapnap, though you can’t see from his design - her hair is on fire when she feels strong emotions, and she’s basically going through it 24/7 during this part. 

Syndicate Niki! She’s calmed down and is no longer on fire, but her hair is still pink from all those weeks of constant rage and sadness. Also dressed more appropriately for the snow. 

Dream Post Prison. Mask no longer has invisibility enchantments, so he doesn’t bother hiding his face. Gotta wonder how it’s staying on though. Get this man some moisturizer. 

[nataliadrawing]

2023 has been another tough year and some really devastating things happened in my personal life but there were also exceptionally great moments. So with this review I decided to focus mainly on the good things.

It was my first full year back at my parents’ house and I finally had a reason to redecorate my old bedroom. Giving up my apartment was tough but it really helped with my financial situation. I also got to travel abroad for the fist time in almost 10 years. We always planned to visit Paris and London as a family and I’m excited that we finally did! Plus, we had our first real life meet up with the entire friend group that formed during the pandemic. We constantly hang out online, so it was very special to finally bring everyone together in real life. Since we met up in Belgium, we also got to visit beautiful Bruges. Art-wise I’ve made some very satisfying progress, mainly thanks to online classes. Actually, those classes helped me cope during my worst moments this year as they kept my mind occupied and gave me a sense of purpose. Finally, I very randomly got back into reading manga. I picked up Dragon Ball rather by accident and all the nostalgia pulled me right back in. Then, after watching the One Piece live action, I’ve decided to reread the manga which will probably keep me busy for a long time. I’m very grateful for all the positive experiences this year and all the memories I’ve made. As for the negative stuff, I hope next year will be kinder to me while I’m doing my best to keep going.

[swords-of-a-soilder]

Bless you for compiling what’s going on with that ex-bird app. It’s been genuinely insightful for me to understand the thoughts of the kinds of people behind those accounts.

That person trying to cancel creators for associating with Forever (and probably advocating for his lore to be excised from the server) saying “but I can’t possibly give up guapoduo, it’s My Hyperfixation” is very telling. Hypocrisy specifically in the context of “separating the art from the artist” isn’t something I’ve seen before, shockingly, so I guess I get to add that to my Social Media Discourse Bingo. (I had an online friend in 2016 who I was terrified to talk about my interests with because I didn’t know what angry punk teenagers on tumblr had deemed “evil and disgusting”, and even SHE stopped listening to some of her favorite metal bands when she learned they were homophobic, and had absolute turmoil when she learned that David Bowie might have allegedly slept with an underage groupie in the 70s. Her constant, unpredictable rage at seemingly random pieces of media was awful for my mental health, but at least she wasn’t a genuine hypocrite.)

Also that tone of “I’ve had good memories here… but I just can’t handle it anymore.” It sounds like someone whose meaningful but soul-crushing work has finally broken them, almost sounding like someone I knew at the frontline worker job I had mid-pandemic who missed her own birthday three years in a row, got repetitive stress injuries, and then got passed over for a promotion that was given to someone who did a fraction of the work. But the “God willing, I’ll never come back” was followed by “I’m 13” …damn, I got whiplash so hard that I astral projected into a universe where things made sense for a second. Because of course kids don’t have a complex view of other countries’ political systems or cultural pressures. Or the nuances of personal change and redemption. Or that sometimes people are just not online for a few days. And of course a 13-year-old doesn’t understand how dumb and petty they look by trying to ruin other peoples’ careers in the name of Activism (tm) while having a fandom portmanteau username.

“I didn’t want it to come to this but… I’m going to delete twitter!” I hope so, but more for their own sake, honestly. I actually have less anger towards most of them now. Many are kids with a false sense of grandiosity that makes them believe they are the ultimate moral authority, but have very little understanding of how messy people or societies can be. I just hope they can learn one day, and look back on who they are now and cringe. (And then many years after that, have the grace to forgive themselves.)

Oof, sorry for the wall of text.

I’m still not over the whole situation with Forever. I miss his energy, and his accent, and his silly bits with Richas that always dragged on too long, and N.I.N.H.O. (and everything it represented), and how different he and Cellbit are but how they understood each other WAY too well, and how he tried to make people who didn’t log onto the server as often still feel welcome and wanted, and how happy he got when anyone non-Brazilian even tried to speak a little bit of Portuguese. (I was learning, but I’ve barely touched it since.) I won’t lie, it’s affected me far more than I thought it would.

I miss Forever. Thank you for your blog being a little space where that’s okay.

I'm honestly a little worried for the kid (s), not in a "oh I just want the best for" fake bs way just a little concerned tbh. I still don't like them but I don't hate them either, they're a kid.

But at the same time I'm worried for their well being, they have like 5,000 follower on their main Twitter and 28 on curious cat (which is apprantly high for that app )

That's 5000 people (teens or not) waiting for you to tell them how to feel that can't be good for their mental state, not for a 13 yr old kid.

Most of their life was spent learning about the world and their still learning, these are the ages where you're worried about the sun blowing up.

You haven't seen how awful the world can be yet, You haven't seen how much worst it could get you haven't learned calculus yet!

To you the world is only these 13 years and you think if you don't act now everything will be over.

I get it, I had that fear too, most people grown into it and realize just how shitty it can get an settle in choosing their own battles and not letting It consume them, because no one had time for that anymore.

You want to experience the most out of live while you can and the older you get the easier it is to balance.

To me it looks like one of those situation where you'll look back and think "I wish I enojyed my childhood."

Because 5000 people waiting for you to tell them who to bash, 28 people prasing your while admitting they use to hate you.

It can't be good. And if they were to read this they'd probably say "oh you don't actually care you just want to shit on me."

And like, yeah I don't care, but am I saying all this because I want to shit on them? no I'm just pointing out concerns.

Apart from that I fully agree with anon.

[rainyraisin]

2023 YEAR IN REVIEW!!!

My artstyle changed a lot this year, especially after my shift from ibis paint to procreate after getting my iPad (drawing on an iPad is the BEST btw 100% recommend I love it way more than a phone and it didn’t die after a month like my old wacom 💀💀). I’m relatively happy with where my art is atm and I hope to continue to improve in 2024!

Explanation of all the silly art down below! (Mostly so I can tell y’all who the fanart is for but also cause I like rambling)

January: A drawing of my Rise Leo human design I did to test out a pixel brush I found for Ibis Paint. He’s very fun to draw hehe I need to draw him more-

February: I wanted to learn how to draw the future designs of Leo and Mikey along with CJ so I planned to draw them all together! I struggled with Leo though so I just got rid of him. Sorry Peepaw 😞😞💔💔💔

March: Fanart for @beannary ‘s TLP au! I love it so much so I had to draw smth for it hehe 😈😈💥💥💥 which reminds me I need to draw more at some point- might redraw it at some point cause I’m not super happy with how it turned out but I do like the idea a lot

April: The month I created Reticent! April’s Fools was the first episode I came up with so I drew a chapter poster! It ended up being very different to the chapter cover I drew a couple months later but it’s still cool :D Leo is being weirdly affectionate to Mikey though what the heck that isn’t like him smh. Although I guess it was meant to be purposefully exaggerated sooooo 🥰

May: Reticent Casey!!! I don’t have much to say it’s just Reticent Casey HDKSGXKSHD this wasnt a very good art month

June: Krangified Donnie is literally my favourite concept ever thats it that’s all I have to say dbskdbwkh I adore Krangified Donnie and if the Rise brainrot takes over the Reticent brainrot for a while then I will probably be drawing Krangified Donnie during that time sorry not sorry

July: Reticent Chapter 3’s cover yippee!!! Still my favourite Reticent cover although Chapter 8’s is a close second (I can’t wait to post it once it’s been betaread yippee!!!). The scribble over Leo’s eyes is literally just because I was struggling to draw his eyes and i was getting annoyed dbskdbskdb it’s actually a very common issue with him (common Ret!Leo L). Also Mikey being reflected in the mirror is a reference to Mirror Man by Jack Stauber which I’ve basically considered his theme song since @aaronymous999 introduced it to me ebwjcbkwhd thank you Mr. Aaronymous! Also somebody said he was in the barbie box and I still need to draw that to this day because Mikey would’ve killed to go see Barbie.

August: RET DONNIE WOOOOO he’s being bullied again!!! I drew that piece for a colour palette challenge request and realised I got the prompt wrong so I just made it into its own thing 💥💥💥 it’s usually a flickering light gif but I chose to just use the version with the light on for this post. The photos in the background were really fun to draw hehe either April’s or Mikey’s is my favourite.

September: MY 500 FOLLOWER DTIYS YIPPEE (/my 150 follower DTIYS for tumblr). This one took me. Forever to draw and I love it to pieces hehe it was really fun to design Mikey’s room and figure out outfits for the sillies and idk the concept of a sleepover just seemed really fun to me dbskbdkdb- and all the entries I got were so so awesome I loved them all to pieces!!! I still look at them all the time hehe

October: FANART OF @endlesslogo ‘S HUMAN RISE LEO DESIGN WOOOOOO!!! This was the piece I started rendering on hehe it was so much fun to draw!!!! Although I did have a fight with rendering the hair for over an hour svsjegksbdk HOW DO PEOPLE DO IT FR!!!

November: Me and my friends were working on a crossover between our TMNT iterations so I drew all of our Karai’s together!!! Confluence Karai is on the left, created by Salem and Marine, New Stars Karai is in the middle created by Starla, and Reticent Karai is on the right created by me! All our Karais have such cool designs AHHHHH literally dead over them constantly/pos

December: Most of December I spent drawing Christmas presents so this was my present for Salem!!! Confluence!Jonatello my beloved….

[violetvelourr]

How long I have been doing art

People occasionally ask me how long I’ve been drawing and that question gets me utterly confused 😅 um, probably since I remember myself?.. 😅

First of all, big reveal. I’m old. Much older than you probably ever guessed. Because I’ve been doing digital art since 2003, and I was not exactly a toddler at that point, he-he. Don’t ask me my age though – I’m still a lady and I consider it impolite 🤭 but that might actually answer the questions of many teenagers why I don’t particularly interact much 🙈

So anyways, now we have settled my “art career” span. But saying “I began doing digital art in 2003” – well… I don’t want to do that, because people will be like, “whoa, 20 years”?! And will freak out at such a prospect – 20 years to get to my level, which is, frankly speaking, far from professional. Not to mention that before digital art I also drew traditionally quite a bit.

But the main reason is because “doing digital art since 2003” does not equal “for 20 years”.

How about we revisit these years and look closer at my digital art journey? I can’t promise that I will recall everything 100% accurately, but I’ll do my best.

So around 2003-2004 I tried drawing in Photoshop for the first time. It was an image of a lion, and to be honest, to this day I’m hella proud of myself.

Yes, first attempt. Yes, I drew with a freaking mouse!

My second piece from the same year span is the “Dancer”. oh yes, the remakable hepatitis skin tone 🙈

To be honest, I don’t recall having a drawing tablet that long ago, I'm quite sure I got it only in 2008, but looking at it, despite its flaws, I can hardly believe I drew that using a mouse… I’m not sure, it’s a mystery. The Lion was definitely a mouse artwork.

From thereon I abandoned digital art for a while due to studying, then work, and finally online RPGs…

In 2008 I posted my first digital WIP after a 5 year break.

Oh my gosh... Remind me to never try realism again, clearly not my thing 🙈

I think I was trying to draw an avatar for myself, which doesn’t exactly justify drawing a woman aged probably around 40 🙈 I was not that old!! As far as I can see from my journal, that artwork crashed and only this snippet of it was what I had left. I think it’s for the good. I ended up commissioning the avatar from a proper artist, ha-ha…

Over the span of 2 months I posted 5 more digital art pieces, none of them ever completed actually 🙈 And yes, behold how ugly they are...

My ambitions were growing faster than my skills were improving. The piece with the couple with that naked girl is my special pain because I even attended a digital art course by an amazing artist I was really looking up to back then – Anry – to try and finish this piece, but I failed miserably. I was the only person in that course (5 day 12hr/day intense course) out of 15 people who came “just for fun” – the rest were pursuing a professional digital illustrator career.

This is what I left off with after that course.

In this collage you see on the left what I came with, the middle – what the teacher did after I explained my concept, and on the right – my attempt to take the piece to its final form. But I could never accept that the base was made for me and not by me...

It still grips my heart when I look at it because it was one of my greatest fails. I think that to die peacefully, I need to finish this artwork 😆 If anyone is curious about the story behind this artwork, I’ll post it separately.

Anyway, as I said, I didn’t reach my goal, was hugely disappointed in myself and dropped digital art in April 2008.

However, I came back 1.5 years later, in November 2009, when I got into anime 😂

I think that’s also when I first tried Paint Tool SAI. Up until March 2012, I uploaded roughly 20+/- digital artworks/WIPs. The quality was a bit inconsistent, but I was beginning to get the hang of it a bit, finally. Here are some of them (yeah, the span of the mood is extraordinary):

So, in 2.5 years – merely 20 artworks. Just to compare, in 2022 alone I made 75+ artworks, which doesn’t even include animations and stuff I considered to not be proper artworks.

So, my last artwork from that period was in March 2012 (the one with the winged dude blocking the way for the girl), after which I abandoned digital art again, for good this time. I actually thought - forever, to be honest.

I’m not sure what happened then. I guess I just lost my motivation, got over my fictional crushes, was depressed and not happy with myself…

Problem is that in reality, I don’t have any imagination at all. Part of the reason why I always suspected that despite being quite decent in drawing, I would never succeed as an artist, so I could only say that my dream was to draw for Disney. But I knew I never would. And I knew I can’t do original art. Fan arts – yes, subject to being highly inspired, a feeling similar to a crush. I was too dependent on the mood. But even so… my artworks never were particularly fancy or original, I admit it.

Part of the reason why I’m also so sensitive about AI now. I see people actually living my dream, and I'm so happy for them. Working as illustrators, having an income from what they create... And that is being stolen from them now. That’s why I will probably never accept AI.

Ugh, turned off the subject…

Anyway, as I said, I abandoned art in 2012 and only picked it back up in October 2021 because of Kakashi. 😆

If my math is correct, that’s a 9.5 year break. I have been going non-stop since October 2021, so I would say that my ongoing artistic journey lasts for almost 2 years now. The previous 2-year period with 20 artworks – I’m not really sure about the value of that. The previous 7 digital artworks – even more so.

If I had to sum up my entire digital art journey, – I would say it is around 5–6 years, but in reality probably won’t add up even to 3 years, because the 3 years adding up from a bit of 2003, a bit of 2008 and bits of 2009-2012 had me produce only around 30 artworks, a majority of which were never even completed.

My main progress happened between 2021 and now, so in the last 2 years. And to be honest, I understand that if I am to continue - this is only the beginning...

[bettsfic]

Congratulations on finishing your novel!! Is there anything you can tell us about it at this point, or is it too early for that to be shared? No worries if that's the case. I hope we all get the chance to read it one day :)

i haven't talked about it a lot so i don't have a solid pitch or anything, but the main character is henry, an autistic underwriter with a deeply fucked up past. and he's in love with his coworker layla but trying very hard not to be.

he's also a recovering sex addict who uses bdsm for self-harm, and he has a daddy dom named thrash whose main kink is giving him everything he wants.

layla seems very sweet and normal, but she's even more obsessed with henry than he is with her. i wanted to make a character who believes they're a sociopath but who is actually not at all a sociopath.

but her older sister lacey is definitely a sociopath.

when layla finds out the horrific things that happened to henry in childhood, she plots to murder henry's father.

and she teams up with thrash to get it done.

henry's POV: hopeful coming of age story about a 30 year old whose growth was stymied by trauma but who comes to realize his life's purpose is art. layla's POV: true crime novel.

excerpt under the cut!

thrash's intro, cw for suicidal ideation, drug use, and questionable bdsm practices.

On his porch there are prayer flags and paper lanterns. Adirondack chairs flanking a glass table with a bronze ashtray, so clean it looks as though it has never been used. Mariachi music floods out from behind the door. I can walk away. I should walk away.

I knock. The music volume lowers and a moment later, he is opening the door, wearing a pair of board shorts and a Hawaiian shirt covered in Birds of Paradise, even though there is snow on the ground. 

He grins and opens his arms wide and welcoming. “King!” 

He gives the best hugs. Too long, too tight, but it’s a single moment during which you cannot fall apart, because Thrash is holding you together.

He pulls away, holds me by the shoulders, looks me up and down. “How long has it been? A year?”

“Nine months.”

He knocks my chin lightly with a knuckle. “Really, man. I’m glad to see you. I missed you.” 

I follow him inside. The house is enormous, intended to be one of those rich-people hideous stock houses, identical to all those around it and everything in shades of beige, but he has made it his own, art hung all over in a never-ending rotation as he buys new pieces. Ugliest shit anyone’s ever seen. Once, high, I told him he had bad taste. He laughed and said, “You don’t know fuck about art, man. Good art to you is probably the shit you’d hang in a dentist’s office.”

Maybe if he hadn’t said that, the tattoos wouldn’t be a thing. Maybe I only wanted to be beautiful for him. Something worth hanging.

The pieces have all rotated out since I’ve been here last, aside from the six-by-six abstract piece across from the front door, the first sight when you walk in. He’s always happy to talk about every piece he owns—where he got it and for how much, what he knows about the artist—but he never talks about that one. 

Over the past eight years I’ve known Thrash, I’ve spent a long time looking at it, no title or signature, an enormous canvas flecked with pastel oil paint, all thirty-six square feet of it, so covered you couldn’t see the canvas beneath. Pale pink, robin’s egg blue, butter yellow, mint green—colors that remind us of infants, of safety and smallness. Yet it's enormous, overwhelming, bigger than me.

Thrash is a generous man. He buys lavish gifts, throws insane parties, donates probably over six figures a year to arts organizations and scholarships. He once mentioned a wing of a university library dedicated to him. He never charges me for drugs. When I ask him for things, he says, “Your wish is my command.”

There is an allure, I think, in having the power to grant anyone their wildest, darkest wish.

He is cooking something and the house smells very good. I have not eaten since the Bavarian sandwich with spicy mustard and no cheese, sweet potato fries, and brownie sundae with no whipped cream (Layla ate two bites and I demolished the rest). I have also not had anything to drink since Layla shoved a Glacier Cherry Gatorade in my hand and told me to chug. 

In the kitchen, he stirs a huge pot of something on the stove and says, “I hope you’re hungry. I don’t want to have to freeze these leftovers.” He opens the fridge. “What’re you drinking? IPA? Lager? Wait, right, you’re a pilsner guy.”

He pulls out a bottle of pilsner and pops it open with the churchkey welded to his counter top. When he hands it over, he asks, “You feeling okay?” 

“Rough day.”

He slaps my shoulder. “Let me take all your troubles away, huh?”

*

I eat arroz con pollo on Thrash’s couch. He tells me about his trip to Mexico. When his bowl is empty, he sets it aside and takes two bumps of coke off the back of his hand, one for each nostril. I prefer him a little coked up. He is too nice to me when he’s not.

Thrash is fifty-three. His hair is still dark brown which makes me think he gets it dyed. Usually he has only a mustache but to fit with what seems to be his whole post-vacation vibe, his chin is covered in stubble. He is very tan.

I am attracted to him not just because he’s good at what he does, but because he’s totally free. Untethered from anything or anyone.

“Alright,” he says, lounging back on the couch, feet propped on the coffee table. “What are you looking for tonight?”

“The usual.”

“You haven’t been here in nine months. There’s no more usual.” 

“I want to go back to what we did in the beginning.”

His shapely eyebrows rise up his forehead. “Getting into dangerous territory, baby boy.”

When he calls me “baby boy,” I know I have said something he likes.

He reaches over and takes me by the chin, forces me to look at him. “I don’t want to hurt you. I mean I do but I don’t, you feel me?”

“You barely knew me back then.”

“I know, babe. But I’m older, I’m wiser, and I don’t have a liability form.”

“I trust you.”

Something flickers across his face, and for a moment he is not Thrash, but whoever he is on the outside, the actor of our ongoing scene. Then it fades and he grins, once more my personal Dionysus.

*

In the basement, I undress. I fold my clothes neatly and place them on the lid of a vinyl record player. Thrash is taking off his ridiculous shirt. He is really very tan.

“You been working out, man?” he asks. “You look good.”

“Thanks,” I say, wishing he would gag me already. Small talk is hard enough in real life; I don’t want to have to attempt it in a sex dungeon. I climb onto my favorite spanking bench, the one that is not too comfortable that I start to feel good, but not so uncomfortable it distracts me. I am irritated that Thrash has made me choose between being gagged or restrained—one, I can safeword but not move; the other, I can tap out but not speak. I fear he is conforming to the tyrannical writ of Safe, Sane, and Consensual, over my much-preferred Risk-Aware Consensual Kink.

I have opted for gagging. 

“How about this one?” he asks, grinning stupidly and holding up a leather paddle that says SLUT on it, backwards.

“No.”

“Yeesh. Such a traditionalist.” He paws through the drawer. “Come on, babe, help me narrow it down.”

I make a frustrated sound through my teeth. Around Thrash, I do not have to worry about my rotely memorized conversational schemas or the intricate performance of social mores. Under the mask, I am irritable, cruel, inconsiderate. I insult thoughtlessly. I express plainly my disinterest. My honesty is brutal. I am a mean person.

“Flogger it is, then. Old reliable.” Thrash points the handle of the flogger at me. “You’re lucky I accommodate your aversion to decision-making. You find a worse guy than me, you’ll be in real trouble.”

“Is there anyone worse than you?”

He whistles through his teeth and says, “So bratty today. But I love it when you flirt with me.” 

He circles the bench, assessing whatever it is he assesses. His hand is on my lower back. “You’re feeling some kind of way right now, huh?”

I close my eyes. The leather warms beneath my cheek. “You could say that.”

“I’ll be real hard on you, okay? Get you out of your head for a while.”

“Thank you.”

His hand is soft, the hand of a man who has never had to do manual labor besides hurting people for fun. He slides it up to my shoulder. I wish he would scratch it, but if he starts, I won’t want him to stop. “You get new ink? This looks fresh.”

“Yesterday. Don’t tell me what it is.”

“You don’t know what it is?”

“I never know. I just let the artist do her thing.”

“You’re saying—hold on. You’re telling me you didn’t choose a single one of these eight hundred tattoos you got?”

“Right.”

“You know I love you, baby boy, but you’re a real freak.” He takes the ball gag and says, “Alright, open up.”

*

When I first met Thrash, he didn’t know the meaning of aftercare. He did his thing, fucked me, and said, “See you next time.” Now it is non-negotiable. I get the full treatment: massage, praise, a glass of water and a snack. Nowadays I think Thrash likes aftercare more than the scene itself. It sickens me. He didn’t go as hard on me as I had hoped, didn’t fuck me or get me off, and as he guides me upstairs, heavy hand on the back of my neck, I can’t help but sense his concern at conflict with his distance. I hate when people step carefully around me. 

I am drunk on pain. I am swimming through an abyss. I am an animal, a body wandering.

He puts together a bunch of leftovers in an environmentally friendly Whole Foods tote bag. He has included coupons to a Mexican restaurant he insists is authentic, and a twenty-five dollar gas card he just had lying around. He is talking the whole time, but I can’t hear what he’s saying.

The blunt force cold upon stepping outside snaps me out of it. Thrash has followed me out in only his gaudy shirt and board shorts. He folds into a chair. Tugs a pack of Marlboro Golds out of his shirt pocket. Slips one out, lights it. 

I stop on the top step of his porch and turn back to him. The paper lanterns are lit up, along with white fairy lights around the trim. 

“If I asked you to, would you kill me?”

He leans back and exhales a cloud of both smoke and condensation. I am grateful he has neither laughed at me nor dismissed it as outlandish. Now that I think about it, he has never laughed at me.

“Depends.”

“On what?”

“Why you want to die.”

“Because I’m too hard to love.”

He gives me a long look while he takes a long drag. “Be hard to love, baby,” he says, tapping ash into the immaculate tray. “Make them fight for it.”

[thetwilightroadtonightfall]

my personal good things of 2023 list

woooohooo let’s go!!

POKEMON SCARLET POKEMON SCARLET!!!!! I clocked so many hours into this game, it was such a delight to play at the beginning of the year

I had my blog’s 10th anniversary!! Thank you to everyone who’s been with me on this journey! It’s been awesome getting to hang out with a bunch of people like me

survived catching covid 😫 it was so painful and miserable but I got through it y’all

I binged RWBY after putting it off for so many years and it was incredible!! I love it so much, and the songs pretty much took over my brain and playlists for the rest of the year

In April, I went on a trip to the Philippines to visit family. I also took a side trip to South Korea! I had a lot of fun and learned a lot of new things. I even flew home by myself for the first time ever

I cut my hair short while I was away and it was probably the best and most Gender haircut I’ve ever gotten

After that, I binged The Good Place with my dad and it’s now one of my fav shows ever…it’s such a fun concept that they really did a good job of playing with

I also caught up on the One Piece manga finally??? Who am I

Speaking of One Piece, the live action was actually really cool!! I love how heartfelt it was, as a love letter to the original

July 18th was khx’s 10th anniversary holy shiiiiit…the game that started it all. The one I hold near and dear to my heart forever and ever

I’m so proud of the improvement I’ve made with my art. I left my comfort zone and tried new things, and I could really see the results. I had a good time making a lot of pieces and I can’t wait to make more stuff next year :)

Speaking of stuff, I finished so many creative projects this year!! I wrote my Ephemera essay, returned to a handful of old ideas and sketches to complete them, finished 2 fics and currently in the process of writing another, made an insane amount of OCs in the Ephemera bloodline project, made KHUXDR told in disney songs, and even made my first ever animatic. I even made memes that ended up being hits and sold some stuff from my ko-fi shop. I’m proud of it all ❤️

Missing Link news at last YIPPEEE!!!! No joke, the trailer and beta inspired me so much. My heart goes crazy thinking about how amazing this game is gonna be and I can’t wait for it to come out (hopefully in April or May maybe?)

I read the most amount of books I’ve ever read in one year. I’ve been watching Jack Edwards’ youtube videos and they’ve motivated me to pick up lots of really great books, but also just read more in general. I used to read a lot as a kid, and for my undergrad. Now it just feels good to read for my own enjoyment, at my own pace

I think I cooked and baked more in general too. I like having the time to make my own elaborate meals, it’s pretty therapeutic

My friend who works at a shoe museum invited me to a Halloween party and it was so fun, the vibes were immaculate

I got a new phone hooray!!!! Now my battery doesn’t die a quarter through the day and I’m ready for ML

Made some great progress on my Christmas village. I got my hands on several new additions that are so cute! I’ll be giving them makeovers for next year

As mentioned earlier, I’ve been working on my new fic Overmorrow…I think it’s my fav fic now ☺️

Plus a whole lot more I inevitably forgot to mention…✨

Overall, this year was full of trying new things and leaving my comfort zone. I wanna do more next year and keep growing and thriving with the people I love!! Cheers to a happy 2024! 🥂

[the-one-where-casey-watches-tv]

Queer Eye episode 1.05 "Camp Rules"

When I first got into TV, I was pretty aggressively against anything considered reality TV. I wanted TV shows to ‘elevate the medium’ and be ‘a different kind of art that people put in their living rooms’. I still want that, as obnoxious as it sounds, but I’ve expanded my horizons and learned that reality TV isn’t necessarily the antithesis to those things. As I rewatch The Newsroom, I’m realizing Aaron Sorkin probably got in my head about that, but I bet he hasn’t seen Queer Eye.

I’m still working my way through this show- the 7 season Netflix series that’s currently available, not the OG Queer Eye for the Straight Guy- but so far, every single episode has gotten me choked up, if not fully crying. There’s no other way to put it, it’s just a really wonderful thing that they’re doing. The genuine love, care, and empathy these five gay guys bring to all these rural southern homes is, as they say, “more than a makeover”.

Jonathan Van Ness and Bobby Camp in "Camp Rules". Image courtesy of IMDb.

In the kinds of reality TV that made me write off reality TV, the heavy-handed manufacturing by producers and editors is blatant, but the Fab 5 (Antoni, Karamo, Jonathan, Tan, and Bobby) have rang genuine and true in every episode. I really see how what they do for these people can have a huge impact. In other messy-life home makeover shows like Hoarders and Clean House, the frustratingly obvious missing piece is what will keep these people from returning to their old ways the second the camera crew packs up and leaves.

Queer Eye meets people where they’re at, and their mission is to give people the tools to be their best selves for themselves. It’s not about looking hot; it’s about putting effort into yourself. It’s not about having a clean house; it’s about having a functional and peaceful space for yourself and your family. And ultimately, it’s about doing the soul searching into why you haven’t been doing that all along.

As a gay girl from the south, it is really just a warm spoonful of honey to watch these guys strut all around Georgia and Missouri and beyond, leaving people better than they found them, spreading love and being loved back. The show doesn’t water down the undeniable conflicting politics between who they are and where they are; it transcends them. There’s an episode where Bobby initially refuses to step into a church, and throughout the show we learn a lot about the religious trauma he experienced- going to church every day until being kicked out of his adoptive parents’ house as a teen. By the end of that episode, Bobby will have worked his magic and transformed the church community center into a beautiful local hub. Later, the Fab 5 help a young Black lesbian in very similar circumstances learn to trust her found family and thrive as who she is.

Those episodes are so important because this is simply the reality for so many minorities in the south. But just as important as thoroughly acknowledging this is moving forward, learning that what you’ve experienced isn’t all you will experience and the way you’ve been treated isn’t how you will always be treated. If you’re a regular reader, you know I love to talk about religion on TV, and the structure of Queer Eye makes it pretty unavoidable. One of my favorite episodes that I’ve seen so far is one that brings that topic out in the open with nothing but love and acceptance.

In “Camp Rules”, the Fab 5 visit Bobby Camp, a father of six working two jobs with less than two hours unaccounted for in his average 24-hour day. He and his wife are madly in love, but he dropped the ball on their wedding, and their home life hasn’t reached a peaceful place since starting their marriage on the wrong foot. The Fab 5 aren’t afraid to make executive decisions, immediately raiding the closet, bathroom, and kitchen, assessing the situation and throwing things away- but they do it with love, in the best interest of that specific person. When someone needs a kick in the ass, they’ll give them one, but what Camp needs is a break and a fresh start (since we’ve also got Bobby Berk of the Fab 5, I’ll call him Camp).

Tan France and Bobby Camp in "Camp Rules". Image courtesy of The Hot Corn.

The house is a trainwreck- it’s tiny and 8 people live there- but Bobby quickly recognizes a lack of discipline in the children as the culprit. With this in mind, Bobby designs a top to bottom renovation focused on organization, peacefulness, and functionality. He puts floor-to-ceiling shelves in the living room, with lower shelves dedicated to the kids, and the rest being used as adult space. He creates a chore board, with a section for each kid and magnets with chores that can be assigned and moved around when completed. Jonathan chips into the bathroom transformation, building toiletry kits for all six kids that are meant to live in the kids’ rooms, so Camp and his wife can get the most out of the shared space.

Meanwhile, Tan, Jonathan, and Antoni take Camp and his little girls to Target. This is the only time I’ve seen them go to Target so far on the show, another indicator of the way they tailor their experience to who they’re with. While it’s appropriate in other circumstances, it would have been tone deaf here to suggest that Camp ‘treat himself’ and ‘just spend time on himself’ when he doesn’t have the time or money to do so. They buy clothes, hair products, and groceries all in the same place and the Camps learn how they can maintain this new lifestyle in a way that’s affordable and quick.

Karamo, the culture specialist of the group, sits down with Camp and learns about the missteps at his wedding- among other things, their photographer flaked, and they have no pictures from the day. The episode always ends with some kind of event where people can show off their new selves; in this case, Karamo hears how much Camp wants to do something for his wife and organizes a fresh start wedding reception where Camp can surprise his wife and celebrate their love with everyone that they want to share it with.

All of that is so sweet (his wife loves it), but the thing I love most about this episode is a conversation Camp has with Bobby. Camp mentions that he’s not concerned about losing anything in the house except for his dining room table, which is made from the pews of the church he grew up in. Bobby has already begun respectfully honoring this request before he gets the chance to talk to him about it, but when he has some alone time with Camp, he asks him what his thoughts on homosexuality are.

Bobby Berk and Bobby Camp in "Camp Rules". Image courtesy of The Hot Corn.

Camp gives a great answer. He says religion is a personal thing because he got to a point with the church where he “only saw the rules, and none of the love”. He tells Bobby that he has nothing but acceptance for the gays and he’s so grateful for what the Fab 5 are doing for him. Before the crew leaves Camp to his wedding reception, he tells the Fab 5 that he wishes they didn’t have to go, that they are absolutely loved and welcome in his home. They all say they love him too and he cries, they cry, I cry, it’s a very nice moment.

I honestly think what this show is doing is huge. Seeing these people shake hands, truly embrace each other, and then go back into their communities talking about the amazing people they just met has so much power. I really believe that accepting people who are different from you, learning from them, teaching them, and becoming a community in the process, is the way we move forward with love in this world.

[oksullen]

I SAW U ON MY NOTIFS OMG ITS BEEN SO LONG HOW ARE YOU??

I don’t know why I just saw this omg!! I’ve been good :) I’ve been working a lot and busy with classes and just everything else life has to offer 😂

Willow is almost 2 years old now!! and she’s gotten so big and she’s been much more well behaved too!!

I’ve been on and off Tumblr and usually just go on to read some stuff on my favorite fandoms which surprisingly there isn’t a lot of the things im looking for!! I’ve really taking a liking to My Hero Academia but specifically 3 characters- Best Jeanist, Edgeshot, and Stain which there is like NO new content on them!! I haven’t finished the anime yet since im more of a manga reader than an anime watcher 😔

but more on Best Jeanist- I have become addicted to his character 😭 I’ve rebranded some of my usernames to him and I have a collection of merchandise of him on my shelf!! It started as a joke but it’s not a joke anymore!! same with Stain and Edgeshot, but most of my money has gone to Best Jeanist. I’m so sad there’s not much content on him, I say I’ll just write my own but that isn’t true- LOL but that’s ok, I can just use my free time to think of silly little scenarios of him in my head!!

Here’s a picture of my current anime collection, it’s slightly outdated but you get the idea:

Not pictured is a couple One Piece things since I’ve really started to like One Piece again and a couple plushies including a plushie of Shinsuke Kita from Haikyuu because he will always be my favorite (and Tsukishima too!! remember when my user was kaleshima!!)

I’ve always been taking a liking to making an OC and just my oc overall!! She’s mainly a MHA oc with a freaky blood/guts/gore manipulation power (it’s kind dark but I think it’s cool) and omg she’s taken up so much of my time and brain space, I feel like I’ve done more in depth creation of her than of myself 😂 I’ve also been buying a lot of art commissions of her!! I’ll attach a few images below, but I like talking about her so much that if I end up coming back here I might do some writing for her since I’d love someone or some place to talk about her :) all credits to the locket artists, I don’t think any of them have Tumblr though-: (the first image is her with Best Jeanist and the last is her with Stain!!)

I also have gotten into JJK but im still new to it, only watching the first couple episodes and reading the leaks 😭 which is a GREAT way to start omg

Also, don’t you love it when old hyper fixations come back??!??! yeah, that’s me right now with Mortal Kombat!! I’ve been a fan for almost 10 years now and the new game is so good!! and the characters omg… they made them so good 😍 thankfully Tumblr has a lot on them!!

but other than some things coming and going there hasn’t been a lot of new stuff in my life but compared to last year my mood and health has been so much better which is a win in my eyes, plus im starting to like a new guy which is good because I got my heart absolutely shattered little over a year ago and I swear I thought I was never going to recover, but recovery is possible and I give myself a lot of credit for the things I’ve done despite life seemingly staying the same.

I hope to move out of my parents house soon and continue my education further and my social life and all that but ik that won’t happen until a few years which seems like forever but seeing how 2023 has gone by so fast, I have a feeling it’s going to come quicker than it seems

I always say I want to come back to writing on this app and honestly I am in need of a new hobby because yeah listening to music is great but it doesn’t get you far!! which by the way, also a hyper fixation, bands and music and all that- I am really big into Nirvana right now and plan on dressing up as the lead singer Kurt Cobain for Halloween- which is funny I am dressing up because for the first time I have no plans for Halloween!! I’ll probably just bake some goodies and watch scary movies. How is Halloween celebrated where you are, if at all? American culture is so funny- and it’s funny because America doesn’t have much culture, it’s just one big melting pot which makes it unique

Speaking of music, my favorite artists are probably Nirvana (which is a band) and so is Radiohead, Weezer, The Smiths, Ghost, and Korn (which are rock/metal bands, I really recommend them if you’re into that!!) but I also really like Melanie Martinez, Lana Del Rey, Mitski, Alex G, and a couple other solo artists (fun fact, I went to many concerts over the summer including Melanie and Weezer- they were so good!!) what kind of music do you listen to? any you recommend?!

Half way typing this too, I thought of the idea of coming back to Tumblr to write not just drabbles on my current hyper fixations but maybe some life advice and psychology stuff, I have a way with words and advice and all that even though I am considered “to young to know all this” but I see it as both good and bad having an old soul at a young age- and not to say I am a little child either, but I haven’t even been on this earth for 20 years yet, soon enough though

That all being said, I feel like a huge chapter of my life is coming to a wrap up soon and I am excited to start the new one!! I’ve been on this app forever even though I technically shouldn’t have had Tumblr as a pre-teen but hey, we all start somewhere!!

How have you been? Anything new and exciting? Or maybe something you’ve learned? I’ve been trying to learn new hobbies and I’ve started to really dig into what I want to do as a career since I have to really decided soon (I am doing community college right now which is a free 2-3 year schooling opportunity to earn credits before you go off and study a minor or major- not sure if you have that where you live and if you do it’s still probably different)

Anyways I want to study business and business management since I have taken a liking to running/leading an organization/group and coming up with marketing ideas for various groups I spend my time in- including theatre!! I have a local theatre group I work in backstage and I am the stage manager this year which is great since I want to going into management

It’s “late” where I am- actually it’s just 9:30 but I go to bed early especially when I have things to do the next day 😔 I’ll probably just use the excuse I am tired to run to Starbucks and spend my money like I always do. I really have become addicted to Starbucks and it’s only going to worsen as “Capitalism Christmas” comes next

Holidays are so silly to me too, I don’t really enjoy them because they’ve always seemed to cheesy and not like they “advertise” but I hope to make the best of it this year, even if it just ends up being me working that day and then coming home to my dog. What Holidays do you enjoy? Any certain traditions or events you’re looking forward to?

I’ve written down most of my thoughts and this has been the most I’ve written in ages!! Maybe I should answer more asks from now on to get myself into the writing kick!! 😂

I hope you’ve been well and I hope we can talk more soon!! I totally just remembered we have each other on discord too!! I changed my user to @bestkaleist (Best Jeanist reference) so if you’re confused as to who that is, it’s me!!

wishing you all the well!! 🥬

[charlieslowartsies]

For the writers block/burnout thing, I have a few tips that I personally use, so I hope they help!

1) Caffeine. I usually have an energy drink when I know I’m going to be doing lots of work or writing, and that usually gets me in a writing mood for a couple of hours. Tea or coffee, while good sources of “clean” caffeine, make me feel a bit too cozy/homely and it makes it harder for me to do writing specifically. The energy drink (I prefer rockstars or monster, but watch those mg’s cuz they’re not the best for you) usually keeps me productive and on-task, and if it doesn’t? I switch to another task. In your case, it could just be a wip you have, or even some entirely new little blurb that doesn’t necessarily have to be posted.

2) Music, the kind that I’m into right now, something older, or even music that’s new to me/that I’ve never heard before. It’s good for the soul and good for the brain for inspiration. Relating to the last bit of #1, it can inspire you to write parts of a wip or a little oneshot or even a scene that you were inspired to write. Any writing is good writing, and if that little drabble gets the brain juices flowing, so be it!

3) Environment change! See, I have this fun little habit of sitting in my car post-class and chugging the rest of an a energy drink with a little snack while writing in a doc for a couple of hours. I typically don’t even realize how much time has passed, and I’ve written upwards of 3k words in one sitting over the span of like two hours. It’s a change of scenery of what I used to do when I write stuff, and it’s made me more productive! If you normally write on your phone in your room, try a different device in a different room! For example, use a laptop in the living room, a tablet on the kitchen floor, an old iPod touch in the bathroom, literally any combo that you can think of is worth trying! Sometimes your brain just needs that little bit of freshness to get the creativity flowing.

4) Other sources of inspiration! I mentioned music earlier, but reading other things (be it fanfiction, published books, or your own writing) can be a way to get your brain working again! Comping up with what-ifs can be useful, because if you get bored of that, then you can redirect the energy into writing something else! You can also look at art, like old museum type stuff, and make up a little story about the piece, then you can try and fit and mould that into something relevant to a current wip! Will it work in a planned story? Probably not, but it got you thinking and that’s what matters! Movies can also be good for this too.

5) Skipping scenes can be really helpful when writing in a lengthy wip that has a preplanned outline. You can always jump around in the story and write segments of dialogue that won’t be used yet, create some description for a future scene that might not be perfect or even good right now, but it’ll get you thinking about the wip. Me personally, if I have a chapter that I think needs more scenes or a scene rewritten, I make a whole new doc for it and just start spewing ideas and actual writing into it; that includes sentence changes in wording or structure, alternate scenes, bonus characters, dialogue thag I KNOW I’ll never use but it’s good except side anyway, etc. I can always go back to it, but it gives me some peace of mind. I also have docs separated by fandoms that’re filled with dialogue blurbs, mini-schemes, random descriptions, and the like. They might not lead to much in the separate doc, but when the time comes when you need inspo or to pull some content from it, you’ll have it on hand!

6) Math. Do some math. I’m dead serious. Some easy algebra or calc equations will either get your brain thinking or frustrated, and either way you can turn that around and put the energy into a wip. Been there, done that (usually when procrastinating lol), but it helps me redirect!

That’s about all I’ve got! I especially want to emphasize the caffeine, music, and environment change part of the list. A combo of that stuff has really helped me productivity, and I hope it can help you too! Remember that no matter how much or how little you write, it’s enough and YOU are enough. Hope your day is well!

I appreciate all this advice. The math might be something I try, at the very least I might try doing a Nancy Drew game on Master mode bc those typically help my creative side relax and my logical side get the reins.

[sugarplanet]

"Did I Draw That?" Critiquing Your Old Art and Tracking Your Growth

You’ve probably had that feeling before where nothing you’re drawing is quite up to snuff or you can’t seem to make anything you’re particularly proud of. Art blocks and creative ruts are a plague to most artists and sometimes it feels like you’ll be sick with them forever. As someone who can find it hard to draw or post when I’ve lost any sense of motivation because “my art isn’t good enough, I don’t have any followers,” I’ve made myself work harder on redirecting towards more productive means of self-critique and analysis to keep me from self-destructing over my craft. One way I go about self-analysis or finding inspiration again is by comparing myself to myself instead of to artists that are years ahead or behind me so I can see how I’ve been taking to the efforts I’ve made to improve while, where I want to improve more, and get reacquainted with my art in a more personal sense instead of looking at numbers of likes or views on post next to other people’s art.

I found an exercise I did back in 2021 where I was practicing some lighting and paint stoke techniques free hand, really experimenting with the most innocuous thing I could think of at the time; a lady holding a cat. I did the first piece on a whim, making things a little flat, and then actively revisited the piece a couple months later with some sharper brushes, a more expressive subject, and greater contrast in color and value. I even added a simple background to make things a little more interesting. I did like some things in both pieces (the color palate and understated texture I got in the first piece and the greater energy in the later piece) but I know there was plenty of room for improvement (mainly the anatomy and the blobbiness of the cats). Looking at the pieces, I tried to find the mindset I had when I worked on them and think about my approach; as flawed as they were, I liked them a little still and wanted to try one more time to see if I could make something out of it.

This piece feels more disciplined than the others with a background and stronger anatomy but does employ some of the spirit of the first two in the painterly approach.

It’s nice being able to look fondly back on your own art, but it can be a little worrying at times liking your old art while also combating feelings of dissatisfaction with your current output. There’s a belief that one mark of improvement is being able to look back on your own work and reflexively gag over how wonky the quality is. With that logic, you liking your old work at all must mean that you either haven’t improved at all or you can’t see how you’ve improved. To counteract that kind of downward spiral-inducing line of thought, understand that part of becoming a better (and happier) artist is being able to see your skill and improvement while also being able to spot your shortcomings and improving them without fixating them. I wasn’t always able to look at my own art objectively and redo an older concept or update a piece so easily but understanding the value in all of your work, even the super dated and wonky stuff, does a service to your craft (not to mention your self-esteem.)

If you feel like your work isn’t up to snuff or if the dredges of stagnation are biting at your toes, try sifting through your portfolio or sketches or psd files of over stuffed canvases with hundreds of layers (I’m not the only one that does that, right?) and see what you’ve found since before you first discovered that new brush set or around a time when you were last energetic in your work or even something from this time last year. It’s best to see if you have any files separate from social media like twitter or instagrams so you aren’t judging your work based on arbitrary popularity or clickability; look at it without bias and be fair to yourself. Is there something you found that you liked or really don’t like at all anymore? Could you see how to improve on it if you’re sure you can do better? I’d suggest a character design or portrait that you like in a way but can instantly think up a few ideas on how to make it a lot better. All the progress you’ve made is going to shine through each new detail and correction; you’ll take good care to treat something so important well!

[yourfavoritecascade]

Cascade’s (TEMPORARY PROBABLY) Pinned Post! 

Well I’ve been here for a little while, figured one of these was in order! 

I’m Cascade(Cass for short if ya want ig), I’m new to rw, also new to most art in general tbh :,) But I have been improving so far and this blog is mostly to track my progress and maybe make some friends along the way! 

Status an such:

General Mood(gonna change pretty frequently: Generally vibing at the moment :)

Asks: Open! Type away! (Feel free to put in requests as well btw)

DMs: Open, I’m willing to talk :) (keep in mind I’m a minor, pls be reasonable)

Art Trades: Sure, but I might be a lil slow :/ I'll try my best tho!

Some other semi-important things below the cut:

Some frequent tags I use: 

Cascade’s art: Things I’ve drawn, often full pieces

Sketches and such: Little doodles or wips, things like that

Frens: My mutuals! Doesn’t matter if ur my mutual & we’ve never talked, if I’m rbing or talking abut smth made by a mutual, the tag will stand :) 

The Water Talks: My rambles and speeches, occasionally accompanied by doodles or smth, mainly just spewing my thoughts out onto my posts

Rw Robotic Mythology: My rw au! I’ve slowly been cranking out random stuff related to it, feel free to send in asks abt it as well. The tag for the rlly important stuff is ‘Da big lore’ I just put it on a post as a joke once and it stuck lmao 

I also do my best to put the appropriate trigger warnings for certain things, keep in mind I’m not sensitive to most of it and I may not notice it, feel free to PM me if you need smth trigger tagged 

Some random base facts abt me:

-Canadian(More specifically I hail from the flat lands((the prairies))) 

-Very keen on botany & plants in general, if you enjoy these things we will be great friends :) 

-I have a doggie named Rocky and will endlessly spam pictures of him to those who asked and those who didn’t >:)

-I’m a proud follower of the ‘use any light(s) but the big light’ rule 

-I have a kinda old and kinda cringe WP acc w/ an original story of mine w/ occasional updates planned soon. Go check it out if ur willing ig (I'm also more than willing to answer questions abt said story, it's been in the making for a while :) )

Might add or update other things later, for now, enjoy the blog darlings! <3

[vvatchword]

Something that’s been bothering me for some time is the idea that you can make a piece of media and include bad themes and not even fucking know. This realization was kicked off by mulling over BioShock Infinite, which I have been doing a lot of lately. Most of BioShock Infinite was good, and I’ll be eternally grateful for the catharsis that I’m pretty sure only 1% of the world’s population could ever fucking have (exactly how many queer atheist exvangelicals from the American South long to come to terms with the individual and societal ills they caused?), but the bad parts were OHHH so bad. Like fundamentally broken bad. And although it’s been a hot minute since I’ve dug into Ken Levine interviews, I didn’t realize anyone could be as fucking tone deaf as the “violence from the oppressed is as bad as the oppressor’s” and “barely-explored black woman dies so white woman can have character growth”. I’m going to look into his background. I desperately want to know if he’s a trust fund baby or something because that’s some rich centrist white boy bullshit.

How, man. How do you put that media out in 2013. Like even back in 2013, when I was fresh out of Christianity, I’d rolled through enough Tumblr spats and Atlantic thinkpieces to get a feel for the unfortunate ways that isms pop out in media, and Daisy Fitzroy is Exhibit A. We’re talking about a theme that goes way back, too--slavery-era plus some: the black person who exists as a sort of tool or Macguffin or learning experience but has no identity beyond revolving around the white character. I will never forget Robinson Crusoe, when some guy runs up to Robin and is like, bro I want to be your slave plz :) and even I, a sheltered fundamentalist 11-year-old, was like: excuse me what

I think I fell into that common trap of thinking that because someone’s art could empathize with ME they could empathize with other causes I treasure as well. How could Levine, an urban Jewish man perhaps ten years my senior, somehow tack into evangelical nationalism in such a way that I felt like I had beaten my own face into a washbasin for ten hours? How the hell could he not with a black character? What does he think a black player is going to see? What do black players see all the fucking time? What do you think that feels like?

One of my greatest fears since childhood is that I’ll fuck up and hurt somebody. The problem is, of course, that I am a perfectionist and a people-pleaser, and the minute I sniff out a Thing That Might Be Bad, I’m like: HOW CAN I MAKE SURE I AM NOT DOING THE BAD THING SO I AM NOT EJECTED FORCIBLY FROM SOCIETY. Probably because a) I struggle desperately with social cues and b) there was such a big stretch of my life where I was hurting people and believed things that were just profoundly wrong--even though I actively, deeply didn’t want to be that person. I didn’t want to be that person, but I was. I was actively making the world a worse place. I hurt people. I made people cry. I know this for a fucking fact. 

I finally got a bit of perspective as I was watching user txttletale (I refuse to @ that person rofl). See, every time I find someone on Tumblr who has a perspective utterly alien to my own in such a way that I feel like I’m being wrenched around by the shoulders, I watch them. txttletale is a Leninist from a third-world country in South America and oh holy god. I have found brand new ways to feel guilt.

I have to come to terms with the fact that I’m going to hurt people even though I don’t want to. I am going to believe things that aren’t right and they may be subtle or strange or even completely invisible unless introduced to specific contexts. There will be future comprehensions for which my current ones are unforgivable. It’s impossible not to have a perspective that has unforeseen consequences.

This is both a relief and a responsibility.

All you can do is your best. All you can do is try and treat people with respect and change your actions once you realize you’re fucking up. I can definitely do that.

[rainyraisin]

23 23 23

OKAY

Jeez this’ll be a long one

Honestly, what I hope people notice when looking at my art is the small details. But the thing is, unless you’re actively looking for them, you probably won’t notice some of them, which leads to you being like the only person who realises dhjsbfkd- I love your silly little analysises sm though so idm that much‼️‼️‼️💖💖💖🫶🫶🫶

There’s even more small details than these (keeping it to these because of the mobile photo limit) but I don’t do them as often as I’d like to, honestly I might ramp it up a bit at this point because I had a lot of fun with them in one of my latest pieces. Btw there are small details that I like more than these but some of them are reticent spoilers so I’m gonna keep from talking about those for now.

(Putting this all as a read more as this post will be LONG.)

Starting with one of the most obvious small details but one I just like a lot, the staff magical girl Ret!Don holds is shaped as a flower made out of octagons (which is the main shape I try to go for when it comes to Dee’s patterns but sometimes they turn out as hexagons dgehbfjd I mix them up a little bit)

Edit: forgot to mention, I picked a flower specifically cause silly guy loves botany hehe 💖💖💖

This one appears in a LOT of my drawings of tot Ret!Don, this is the way I like to convey a character not having their glasses on. Since he doesn’t get his glasses till he’s 7-8 years old (doing a timeline rn so we’ll see exactly when at some point dhdjhfjf), the majority of drawings of younger Dee will have this feature, especially as I tend to start drawing them with full eyes rather than line eyes at 9 years old (the pupils still look like this but the eyes as a whole are different)

Another silly tot thing (this is just smth I’m working on btw I haven’t posted any of it yet, dw about it tho :)))) ). I gave Leo this silly shirt to convey that this is the year that Splinter appoints him leader after stripping the role from Raph. Guy is already exhausted from his new role but he’s powering through it, look at him go!!! (That’s not gonna last long)

This is one I’ve already pointed out but it was a while back so I figured I’d include it here too. On Donnie and Karai’s refs (from April 13th and April 17th respectively), they both have a pattern of three dots in a sort of arch shape above their right eyes, Donnie’s showing whilst his mask is off and Karai’s showing whilst her mask is on. This particular pattern only shows for each character when they’re involved in a certain clan :) It also illustrates their connection later on in the show, far prior to the arc even occurring (still got a while to go!)

Two out of three of the images on these next two examples are from a piece I’ll prolly be posting later today! Basically in that piece I have included a couple of polaroids in characters decorating the room as I like to do that a lot for characters who I think would have these kinds of photos (Leo doesn’t have as many, only keeping two in his room but Don and Mikey display them on the walls whilst Raph has a small collection hidden away). This first one is in Donnie’s room and depicts the day Donnie got his glasses with April’s help!! The guy was ecstatic fr‼️‼️💪💪💪 April isn’t much of a hugger but she decided it was fine this time.

These next two images are from Leo’s and Donnie’s room respectively. I figured it would be nice to have a picture that all four brothers own, even if it’s bittersweet given later context. This was taken pre-leader Leo, so whilst Raph isn’t having the best time (the poor guy :( ), this was probably the best the other’s lives were for ages.

Okay, now we’re getting into stupidly small details. In the Top Of My School animatic, Mikey is drawing a picture of ice cream kitty during the second lyric “Some people never learnt how to be driven, some people don’t even try”. Other small details in this animatic include Leo’s trophies and blue ribbon which he scavenged from the dump, the Hamato Clan box which was retrieved in episode 1, along with the picture of Leo Mikey drew when he was younger, which (other than the hamato box) all first appeared in a drawing of Ret!Mikey and FA!Mikey spray-painting Ret!Leo’s room and were later mentioned in Chapter 3 of Reticent, “Consequences”. Another small detail is in one of the final scenes of the animatic whilst Leo is staring at himself in a mirror, realising some… not so nice stuff about his self worth, he replicates Splinter’s words and actions from earlier in the animatic.

I think the ice cream kitty detail is smaller but i wanted to keep these last two together (and also I talked about more than one small detail in that section). The first one is Mikey’s little stickers on his nunchucks in Season 2 Part 2!!! Just a little guy :) some are random, some are references to other characters, some are references to other iterations of Mikey (wonder which sticker that one is CHXJHDJF)

Now, this one is STUPID SMALL, to the point I don’t even think you can see it without zooming in on the original via Procreate (might prove myself wrong later though dbsjfbdj idk). During Season 2 Part 1, Casey’s purple detail are him changing his studs to be purple. I later considered changing it to something bigger (although I had NO clue what that would be, his sneakers maybe?) but then I thought about it more and honestly, I think Leo would be kinda peed off with him if he wore anything bigger/more noticeable cause honestly I bet he didn’t even notice the change the entire time Casey had these in-

Basically, the entire point of this post is, I like small details and I might have hints to past or future events in reticent in pieces via those small details, so be on the lookout!!! Thank you Aaron for asking a question, especially this one, it was very fun rambling, and THANK U FOR ALL UR ANALYSISES SO FAR‼️‼️💖💖💖🫶🫶 (I know it’s difficult to do them since ur co-creator so like u have to try avoid spoilers but I appreciate them all the same :D)