#and that post isnt including all of the art i did before i had the ability to make digital art

[huckleberryblossom]

hey can i ask for a tutorial or guide on how to draw a cat body? i've been struggling for days

just to get it out of the way since anyone you ask is going to say this, references are your best friend and will make this a lot easier

a friend of mine shared this site which has lots of good references, not just for cats but lots of things. if im looking for something specific, i usually google something like "cat curled up" and just scroll for a while or use multiple references to get what i want.

but as for how I draw a cat body, i use references but honestly a lot of what i do is a result of just having spent so long studying references (and how other artists drew them! sometimes studying what artists are doing can help you translate realism into whatever style you're going for) that i kind of just know where certain bones go/how the muscles would stretch or contract

this is how i tend to visualize the body at its most basic. the parts i highlighted are the pieces i use to ground the anatomy: the shoulder, the haunch, the elbow, the ankle, the paws, and the skull. their shape tends to change very little from pose to pose, which is why i exaggerate/define them so strongly. they're usually what i sketch first and use to get the pose the way i want it. everything else is stretchy and fluid to "connect" these pieces of the body.

here's an example of the parts using a photo from that site i linked

and the way it looks without the ref, vers what i drew by looking at the ref!

these are pretty standard walking/standing poses, but the idea works for more complex poses.

i havent really said much about it, because most of what i draw are refs, and they dont really have dramatic poses or difficult perspective, but its up to you to decide how much anatomy you're willing to sacrifice to get a more fluid motion, or a dramatic shot. i think this is where those guiding "pieces" of the body is helpful for me, because i can lay down those pieces and then do what i need to to connect them, so i may lose a little bit of exaggeration but the body doesn't look broken.

you can see that in action here, with this anniversary piece i did. my first sketch was only meant to get down expression, pose, and movement (i changed raven's completely, lmfao) and unfortunately i dont have anything for the steps inbetween because i think i refined on one layer. but i kept the vibe the same even after cleaning up the sketch and fixing the anatomy issues.

fur is one of the last things i draw when i draw cats. i like to get the body shape and movement down first, and then cover it with fur if i have to. i think this ref is a pretty good example of that

on the left is how i start most of my drawings, getting the pose down and everything where i want it. i make edits to this until i like the body shape (notice how the belly is much larger, and all of the limbs are thicker + the paws are big) then i use that sketch as guiding lines for all of the fur placement. the fur here ends up covering nearly all of the body, but it still looks fine because the anatomy was there to start with

i hope this helps anon skjfdhfkgjh ive never made a tutorial like this before. there's definitely better ones out there by other wc artists, but i dont have links to those posts on hand, maybe some of my followers can link them? good luck to you!! ill leave you with one last piece of advice you'll also hear a lot: just keep drawing! we all improve with time and practice, and are always learning and trying new things.

[epiicaricacy-arts]

oh we’re still so young, desperate for attention

this was super experimental so i will talk about my process (+ clearer version) under the cut

i’ve been looking at a lot of “messier” or more textured painting styles recently and an artist that stuck out to me is clariondeluna ! they posted a self-portrait recently that i really liked and i was super interested in the brushwork seen in their work. i love all the textures and how the shapes feel so loose yet everything is so detailed.

that’s not a method for me at all!!!! i cannot paint like that at all and the stuff i like to paint is very different to theirs. which is okay!!!! i had no intention to copy this artists style so closely like with what i tried to do in my raiden painting, i just wanted to try this style out :^)

it’s been a goal of mine to avoid over-rendering like i tend to do a lot, and i think i’ve been doing good with that recently! the mindset i’ve got going on right now is that if i find myself staring at it too hard for too long, i have to leave it and move on. if there’s still something wrong with it, i can fix it later once ive got a fresh view!

i’ve been trying a lot of things with my art this year. i always try to challenge myself with each piece, and to end the year off i wanted to be as uncomfortable as i possibly could be with this painting. i let myself draw whatever i wanted because i still wanted to enjoy it, but everything i did in this process was new, including parts of the subject matter.

i’ve never drawn a head at an angle like this, and i struggle with drawing mouths open. i don’t do bold lighting like this, and if i do, it’s not fire. i’ve never drawn fire! i also rarely work with warm colours and i hate using green, so i combined those to be my colour palette. i like working cleanly so instead of having a dozen different layers for one section, each section only had 1-2 layers for rendering. instead of clipping masks i would simply paint over things loosely and clean it up later. i never like having limbs cut off in a drawing so i had his other arm go GOD knows where. i don’t like weird patterned backgrounds so i made myself figure out how to like it!

IS THIS MY FAVOURITE PIECE OF ALL TIME. no. absolutely not. but i’m very proud of how this came out with all the challenges i put on myself. i WANTED to get better at these things and be more broad with my art, both in terms of the styles and subjects i portray.

okay let’s talk about wtf this drawing is

for those who don’t know, the design in this painting is my fatui/“Father” lyney fan design (read the design post here). the concept isnt super complicated and i don’t really have much explanation for it, but i wanted to combine the story of how lyney wanted a delusion before getting his vision, fire eating circus acts and how olympic medalists will bite their medal to prove it’s real??? don’t quote me on that i’m like 75% sure that’s a thing that happens. i don’t watch sports though so im just believing someone i heard on the internet ages ago.

anyways. i think fire eating acts are cool. and i think the fact that lyney wanted a delusion is very interesting to me. scratches my brain in the right places. and yk as a magician lyneys character revolves a lot around fooling people and creating illusions so i guess what im saying here is that lyney is trying to prove to himself that this power he’s been bestowed is real. bc his whole life his only constant has been lynette so he is trying to see if he can trust this new power. cause i guess this is an alternate universe where lyney does eventually become “Father” but he never got his vision ??? idk im not making lore for this i just wanted to dress up this funny little guy.

ok i’m done

thanks for reading

here’s my dog

[febuwhump]

febuwhump 2024 survey results

has it been six months since febuwhump? yes. yes it has. nevertheless, here's the cold hard data (analysis) of the survey from febuwhump 2024: feb five.

firstly, this year was our most popular yet! with 1417 works in the official collection across 329 fandoms, we made (and shared) 103 fics more than 2023, and 770 more than my first year running febuwhump in 2021! this isnt even including all the art and fics posted to tumblr, or wasn't shared during the event, which would put our total so much higher!

the prompt list had 4000+ notes and i received 115 responses to the survey.

there were 62 people in the hall of fame, up from 51 in 2023.

the blog hit 2,683 followers, up from 1,946 at the end of the 2023 event.

across two independant check, based on the average word count of 2,000 words per fic in the 2024 collection, and aware of the multi-chapter fics (some of which were finished after the event), it is estimated that 2.8 million words were written for febuwhump 2024. which is just. fucking insane.

now, onto the survey results!

firstly: in what way did you participate in Febuwhump this year?

with extra write-ins not pictured, fanfiction was the overwhelming winner with 92 responses (82.6%), followed by original fiction (22.6%) and artwork (11.3%). interesting to me personally is the 4 responses who wrote poetry and the not-pictured 1 response who created web-weaving! which is very cool and i would like to see it.

fandoms

according to the survey:

the most popular fandoms written for were the star wars universe and legend of zelda universe (8/115 responses)

21 responses included original fiction

the majority of responses also referenced more than one fandom, meaning less people stuck to a single fandom or topic the entire time.

according to the collection:

21 anime/manga fandoms were represented

51 books/literature fandoms were represented, 12 being specific star wars subseries

24 RPF fandoms were represented, including bands and minecraft servers

the most popular fandoms written about in the collection were:

star wars (all media types) - 253 works

star wars: the bad batch - 80 works

torchwood - 66 works

original work - 56 works

my hero academia - 54 works

why and how

next, there were a lot of really lovely responses about why participants took part in febuwhump, a few favourite and repeated responses being that it seemed fun, they'd done it before and so wanted to do it again, and they liked to write about their favourite characters suffering. also, multiple people have been doing it for three of the four years i've been running it (of five total), and several were encouraged by friends!

the majority of participants discovered febuwhump through tumblr, the admin's tumblr, ao3 fics and discord servers. a handful said there's apparently a google doc floating around that houses a whump event calendar. i would be interested in seeing that if anyone's got it.

did you participate in Febuwhump 2020, 21, 22 or 23?

the majorty of respondants were new comers to febuwhump at 66.1% "no" to 33.9% "yes". the majority of comparisons to previous years referenced a noticably bigger community, more interaction on the blog, and the admin being more "confident" (oh, you guys), however several noted that the prompts felt more repetitive or samey this year than they did previously.

are you a Febuwhump completionist or participant?

a fairly even split, 51.3% of participants didn't finish compared to the 48.7% who did. however, only 88.1% of those completionists submitted to the hall of fame.

for those who didn't complete, the most common amount of prompts completed was 2 (13.6%), 3 (11.9%) and 12 or 6 (6.8%).

the most common place to share prompt fills was tumblr (74.8%), ao3 (72.2%), or choosing not to share at all (7%). several write-in responses said that they were planning to share in the future but hadn't yet. and while 76.4% of people submitted to the ao3 collection, those who didn't claimed it to be because the fics weren't ready to be shared on time, they weren't following the rules so didn't add to the collection, an inability to find the collection on ao3 (i swear i'm working on it) or shyness/fear.

what went well/even better if:

the only actual criticsm of the event received was that the blog was posting in a "spam"-like way, to the point that the participant almost unfollowed (and another suggested a reblog tag so it could be ignored easier if people didn't want to see the works throughout the month).

several comments asked for a later deadline for submission to the collection/hall of fame, which is going under advisement, but the current position is that by doing so, it makes the event a different event. there are no stakes to actually create once a day if, at the end of it, you actually get 2 weeks of extra time.

another couple mentioned there being too many dialogue prompts and vague prompts. this will be considered during the next voting period and prompt collation - potentially, if i allowed less dialogue prompts into the final 100 vote, less would make it through to the official 28, however the voting itself is out of my hands (unless voter fraud occurs once again).

the main suggestion for improvement (8 times out of 44 suggestions) was for an additional mod to help with reblogging more. (which imo flies in the face of the "spamming" from earlier, but there is surely a middle ground). this is likely to not happen, because i like running the event alone, despite the major burnout i receive every single year without fail. but thanks for your concern lol.

on discord:

31.3% of participants were in the discord server (which, this year, ignored the first year's 100 user cap and had 172 total users).

43.6% of people who didn't join the server did so because they hadn't heard of it, while the majority didn't join because they were either shy (the minorty) or don't use/like discord (the vast majority). i don't know if tumblr still does groupchats and if that would be a viable alternative, or if there is another forum/chat location that would work better (or to have in tandem), but i am open to suggestions.

of the people who were in the channel, most (33.3%) used it "rarely", followed by "most days" (25%) and "for half the month" (22.2%)

febuwhump 2025

the majority of responses wanted next year's colour scheme to either be red or green, but shout out to everyone who wanted orange, the person who said "children's hospital" and the other person who gave me this specific hex code: #4BEC13

which is vile, but also another vote for green.

finally, here are my favourite suggestions for febuwhump 2025's colloquial name. previously, we have endured febuwhump 2: electric boogaloo, febuwhump 3: tokyo drift, fourbuwhump and feb five.

febuwhump 6 suggestions:

fe6uwhump (which, i'll be honest, is a real contender)

"I don't know"

febuwhump 666

febuwhump: revenge of the sixth

"I don't know, sorry"

"febuwhump sex and make all the prompts kinky"

"??? i have been thinking about this for 10 mins"

febuwhump 6(9)

feBEEwhump

"i am bad at this"

"could not care less"

febuwhump feb five 2: electric boogaloo

apparently, i accidently made this a mandatory question and that made some of you mad :(

and that's the wrap up survey, six months late! any questions/queries/want to see some of that cold hard data? send me an ask. i'll actually respond to it i swear! (probably!)

[softness-and-shattering]

Ok the latest episode of dungeon meshi is gory as fuck.

Major episode 11 SPOILERS

Given that the episode is dragon part one, I assumed they would fight the dragon, mostly fail, cliffhanger, and the next episode would be defeating it.

I did NOT expect them to kill it, root around its insides, and find Falins fucking bones!!

The foot comes down on Senshi and he immediately vomits blood? Chilchuk knocked out by bricks to the head, Laios loses his leg?! (Nitpick but. If the leg was disconnected what was keeping him from falling out the dragons mouth? Anime rule of cool physics?)

And then. Chilchuk and Senshi is heaps of pain and Laios' leg is just itchy? Its a good joke, but I think there's more. Those heals were too easy after that amount of unprecedented violent gore.

Laios had a btw-line about of the dragon and is mating and then dismissed the thought with no given reason. So I think next episode theres gonna be a second Red dragon. ( Its possible part 2 will be next season, but following more common episode title namings, red dragon 1 and 2 will be the season finale. )

And theres the unanswered question of the whole season, why is the dragon more active, why is the ecosystem of the dungeon off-balance. I think next episode will be our big clue.

Re Falin, its no coinicidence we were introduced to the racist rich guy who assures us that souls dont leave bodies in the dungeon. That was confusing up till the last episode because the characters sure act like death is possible, and we've seen dead people and heard about body-retrieval. Then Namari goes to revivals to ask about Falin and there are bodies stored behind the desk guy. Which puts the pieces together, bodies that can be retrieved are retrieved, and the people can be revived. If someone cares to, and presumably pays for it. Someones gotta pay for retrievals.

Its also no accident that our warm-fuzzy sibling scene before finding Falins skull is about a ghost who is trapped with his body, and Falins intuition/ability with ghost magic. Can she be revived, will she stick around as a ghost, remains to be seen. (Remains.)

As someone who hasnt yet read the manga, Im also curious about long term story. Ive gotten the impression that theres significant story to go, possibly probably they reach the end of the dungeon? But Ive not seen Falin present in any of the art, and for the story to continue they need motivation to keep going.

So Im guessing that Falin ends up as a ghost, or unreviveable, and they have to get to the bottom to find the mad mage, work out what stops people from crossing over post-death (does that include monsters, orcs, humanoid mermaids or fish-oid[???]mermen), and only then can they bring Falin back to life.

That or they revive her and theres some other plot hook, but my guess is what I just described.

(Another silly nitpick, the fire is blocked by the adamantium but the heat isnt a problem until after the fire is done? "WE HAVE TO MAKE SURE TO EXHAUST ALL ITS FUEL" THAT WOULDVE LEFT FALIN BEYOND ALL HOPE!!!!!!)

And its funny re Senshi's knife, ooh its mithril it can cut through anything, well of course! he's used it to cut every single monster theyve eaten! And we never wondered how! Foreshadowing by cookware, its ridiculous and I love it.

Last point is it just me or are...is it Kaka and Kiki? Theyre discount Vex and Vax, right?

[unlimitedtrees]

making character sprites as a one-person indie game developer

(huh. turns out this post on cohost didnt have a “read me” section”. o well. i will put the read me section Here,  before any of da actual text. click it if u dare !!)

so, i've been meaning on making a Big post talkin all about how i actually Make my games and my processes n such ,but also ive been procrastinating on making it for so long that i thought i might as well just make One part of that post now .. and its about making the Character Sprites for my games .

So. these images are the (mostly) full sprite sheets of the three characters from my game UNITRES Dreams, taken directly from the big giant 'charactersprites.png' image that i used for nearly every sprite for Most of the game's development. some quick things to make note of: First off, Trees (the first one) was one of the earliest things i made for the game, and had their sprite sheet redone Twice since then.. this first picture doesnt contain the latest sprite sheet as the new sprites were done on aesprite and im too lazy to make a sprite sheet out of them right now.

Secondly, the Second character (the pink one), had two different designs, being completely redesigned as i didnt like their first design all too much. their redesign's animations was done in aesprite, but i made a sprite sheet out of em before so i was able to just put them here. Lastly, the Third character (the blue one with the big silly hat) remained mostly unchanged as their original sprites and design were pretty good, but they needed to be cleaned up and given better colors so i ended up polishing all of their sprites.

Anyways. it's going to be hard for me to explain my actual process, as i am Bad With Words, but i will try my best.. So. for Most of my time as a game dev, I've used Paint.NET for Everything. This includes backgrounds, tilesets, and every animation ever in all of my games. For my character sprites specifically, i usually start with making the color palette (which is a whole different process where i mess around with the RGB values until i get a specific color that i think looks pretty ... its hard to describe). When making a new character, i usaully start with an Idle animation, just so i have a good base to make all the other sprites on. I just make a sketch of the character, then i do the flat colors (as my games dont have line art), and once i have the colors i start doing the rendering , where i try to pull off a sort of Sonic CD-esque , celshaded style while Also including a bit of anti-aliasing and other modern pixel art techniques to give the sprites more Depth and make them look Sharp. Idk. it's hard to describe my process in words ... i Did make a video Years ago showing off my process, but its old and my editing in that video isnt the Greatest.

So., that's my process Lol . the only thing thats really changed is that Now i use Aesprite for making the Actual Animations , as making animations with Paint.NET is Really Difficult and Annoying , as i have No Idea how the animation will Look until it actually appears ingame .. which results in the early versions of each character's animations looking a little weird (such as Trees' first two versions, the first version of the Pink character, and the Blue character's animations.. .though the blue character isnt as bad as the other two and i kept their animations mostly the same in the final game LOL).

Something that people have kind of criticized about UNITRES Dreams' animations is that some of em dont exactly ... Look Good. a lot of animations are pretty Inconsistent , with characters like Trees having inconsistent sizes in some animations and the movement in animations such as the Pink character's walking animation and various other animations (Especially the ones made in Paint.NET) looking Unnatural.

And Well .. here's the thing about making animations and sprites for something like this. When you're the Main person making an indie game, you have Tons of different parts of the game that need to be worked on while having Very little time to work on others. On Top of making every single animation for UNITRES , i had to make every single Tileset and background for every single level, On Top of making the Level Layouts , Programming , and even making sprites for things like the UI. And you have to constantly Test the game to make sure everything works and things Look good.

So. i had very little time to work on the sprites, and i Knew this. Something you have to consider is that, not only are you making the animations for the main character , you Also have to make Tons of animations and sprites for Literally Every Other Aspect of The Game . this includes Enemies , Level Gimmicks , NPCs, And the UI .. so you end up having to work on Thousands of sprites by yourself in such a short time.

I ain't the best animator , nor the best sprite artist . But , for this game I chose an art style which is Kinda simple and comfortable for me, which made making things like tilesets and backgrounds so much easier for me. The character sprites specificially only use a few amount of colors ,but also i tried my best to give them as much depth and make them as Colorful looking as i could. Also , something you might notice is that all of the playable characters dont actually have a whole lot of animations .. each of the characters only have the Exact amount of frames and animations necessary for them to Look Good moving around the levels. Aside from a few Gimmick Specific animations that arent in the sprite sheets i posted , there arent many Extra animations or animations with Tons of Frames that i wish i could have added .. and it Kind Of Sucks . Having to split my time across Three Different Characters , i had no time to make any animations Too Crazy or Too Smooth , and i couldnt include any extra animations that could add a bit of personality to the characters ... In Fact ,the Idle "animation" isnt an animation , its just a still frame. I didnt have time to even make a simple waiting animation !!

It Is What It Is. For what its worth , Ithink Im pretty proud of the animations i did for UNITRES Dreams. while i think ive become a much better artist and animator since then, i still think some animations and some of the frames look really good ..just looking at some of the still frames is really nice .. so i think i did a good job, especially for a game that was made in 2 years and is Free. And Hey, while the animations in UNITRES Dreams may not be the best or have the most smooth animations , i Did get to experiment with making more smooth animations for TREES' ADVENTURE. while ,now, i think some stuff could use some work, i am Really Proud of how some of the animations look .. ididnt get to make Too Many extra animations (there still isnt even an Idle animation), i Did get to make some cool extra animations , such as individual animations for your Jump that are based on how fast you're moving . (the original post on cohost had a buncha gifs of da animations but im Too Fuckin Tired 2 post em here LOL !!!)

So Yea . the moral of the story: making video games is kind of hard and time consuming , Especially when you're like , the Only one working on them. just make sure to plan ahead and try not to overwork urself .. make what you can and do it when you can. Thats what i think , anyways.

[tara-the-star]

woahhhh tara-the-star making an oc??

anyways there's some possibly triggering stuff under the cut so proceed with caution

zahra ismail

-she/her

- aspec + bi

-24 yrs old

- intj (read: obsessive)

- defensive dealer

- roommates with @jeanmoreauss' emiko while she was at eau!!

- made it to the us court two years after she graduated (mostly because her pro team held her back to get therapy before joining the national team)

- she was unable to let go of the raven schedule for quite a while after leaving the Nest. her pro teammates always found her on court (i would add 'at ungodly hours' but that implies there were hours when she wasnt on court) needless to say her pro coach confiscated her keys

- she developed an eating disorder, mostly bc she didnt have anyone to guide her diet anymore so she just chose not eat if it meant eating anything "not nutritious" (which included just about everything she didnt make and she couldnt really make much since yk she never learnt how to cook)

- there were no other raven alumni on her team so no one could really grasp what all went down in the Nest (they DID try to talk to her but their efforts were met with scornful remarks about how their performance wouldn't cut it in eau + they dont understand what it means to be a part of the "best" team), which meant that zahra didnt have anyone to confide in. so she had a LOT of time alone w/ her thoughts which was obviously uncomfortable for her, which is why she distracted herself with exy ((theres a lot more to her mental state but that is probably for another post))

- she eventually gets into art  (ink and pencil only cause she's allergic to colour) and it works pretty well to help her get stuff out of her system + she gets back in touch with her parents (whom she hasnt talked to since she became a raven bc yk) she isnt perfect but she's getting better :)

[listen-to-the-inner-walrus]

okay so as suggested by @fromkenari (big thank btw), ive decided to make a post about one of my idols who happens to be a part of queer history i dont hear people talk about much.

and said icon is james whale.

he was an english director working in early hollywood, as well directing theatre and acting. his most well known films are probably the invisible man (1933), frankenstein (1931) and bride of frankenstein (1935).

(you might also know him from the road back (1937) if films about ww1 are your thing)

and while part of why i idolise him is those films and making horror art, i bring up the dates specifically because james whale was openly queer throughout his entire hollywood career.

said career began in the 1920s and continued up to 1950. he was pressured to step into the closet but he never did, and its likely a big factor as to why his career ended.

a lot of his films are packed with queer subtext, particularly bride of frankenstein. that film has so much camp packed into it and pretorius is so damn queer coded. theres a lot of queer readings of it you can explore, its fucking incredible.

and mind you, the hays code went into effect in 1934.

the hays code also happened to massively effect frankenstein in retrospect due to scene-cuts in re-releases, and bear with me on this one:

see the original cut had a scene where the monster meets a young girl named maria who asks him to play a game with her. in the game, they sit together and throw flowers onto a lake where they float. when the monster runs out of flowers, he throws his new friend, maria, in, assuming that she would float like the flowers. she doesnt; rather she drowns.

and this scene was specifically created by james whale in reaction to a then moral panic in america basically about the creepy man in the shadows who lures your child away and molests them. this deviant shadowy figure was essentially synonymised with gay men, who were falsely arrested on sodomy charges or died at the hands of mob "justice".

the flower scene challenges that idea because the monster isnt, well, a monster. in 1931, the monster was almost unilaterally perceived as this perverted evil thing that would steal your children; he was practically the same as these "predatory gay men", and then the monster wasnt a monster.

he was misjudged, he wasnt inherently evil, and he was unjustly punished. and if that applies to the monster, surely it applies to whale and all the other openly queer men.

as a scene in 1930s hollywood , it was so divisive because it portrayed the "villain" in a more morally grey area, and essentially said "hey, maybe this queer witch hunt is misguided"

unsurprisingly, producers at universal wanted to end the scene before the drowning. ending the scene there would leave it to the imagination as to what the monster did to maria, and given the sex offender moral panic sweeping the nation, the implication would be that he raped her.

but james whale fought for the scene to be kept and he won. specific states still forced the studios to censor parts of the film, but his film was intact.

BUT when this film was re-released in 1938, they entirely cut out this scene. and this fundamentally changed the character of the monster and the film itself.

by some fucking miracle, the scene was found in the british national film atchive in the 1980s, and modern cuts of the film now include. unfortunately, whale himself would not live to see that as he committed suicide in 1957.

what james whale did with frankenstein in 1931 was revolutionary in the same way that tod brownings freaks (1932) was. both men created films that portrayed the people society called monsters as real, complex beings who are not pure evil, and both faced censorship hell for it.

(go watch freaks btw, its so good)

and, you know, i get emotional talking about james whale. both because i have so much admiration for him as a queer person who refused to lock his queerness away, and because his name is never one i hear in discussions of queer history, and also because hes from the same area as me.

(im yet to find any clips of him speaking so i dont know if he has our accent or not. i like to think he did. he was the sixth out of a seven child working class family and first worked as a cobbler so its as likely as it could be.)

i would like for more queer folks to know about him because i think he deserves more of a legacy.

ian mckellen plays him in gods and monster (1998), and if youre ever in england with spare time, he does have a memorial sculpture. its in dudley which is where he was born, and if you know it, its right at castlegate.

but yeah no, this is my ramble post about a lesser known queer icon. originally i wrote an abridged version in the tags of a different post but @fromkenari was right, it deserves its own post.

[bucketspammer4life]

☆ the boxers at a escape room ☆

did this because i felt bad about not posting, will post a weekly update during the weekend + some art hopefully, ive had this on my shoulders for a while, this is so cringe fail

Build-Up

Okay so i made up lore for this escape room:

It's an abandoned hotel, decorated all fancy, theres old couches, fake rotary phones and a bunch of weird symbols used later in the puzzles.

It's really colorful but the theres barely any lightning because the vibes need to be settled, theres a lot of puzzles, including: puns, math and the weird symbols mentioned

The lore starts as a hotel shutting down after a serial killer takes over & goes on a massacre, theres a time limit of 2 hours, when the time is over the game is done & a dude with a really bad voice effect says "the killer has got you" Before the doors open

When theres only a few minutes left, a buzzing sound effect plays

Theres a lot of "fake" spiderwebs with cryptid texts too so enjoy that

Glass Joe

- struggling with the puzzles, his brain is melting

- "we have to turn on the TV for clues i think"

- "or a baking show"

- "either way im watching"

- hes not taking this seriously, at all

- keeps using a prop phone like its real & talking on it, ended up getting into a argument with the air

- laying down on the decorative couches "draw me like one of your french girls.." style when hes tired

- "we're gonna die, is the killer hot at least?"

Von Kaiser

- complete opposite with Joe, hes taking this seriously, too serious

- "I WILL NOT LET THEY EVIL HOTEL MAN KILL US ALL. NO!"

- acting like the evil hotel man will actually get him

- doing really good with the math puzzles, hes a natural

- dialing 911 on the fake rotary phone

- runmaging through everything, no chair left un-thrown, no couch left un-turned, no drawer left closed

- when the 10 minutes notice ringed in he screamed like a goat

Disco Kid

- Just bored, he got dragged along and doesnt feel like doing anything

- "does the TV have anything interesting on it"

- "Disco we are being chased by a evil serial killer i dont think you should be so calm"

- escape rooms dont have enough charm for him like haunted houses

- doing cartwheels across the room, accidentally knocked over a bookshelf and revealed a clue

- hes already done with this shit, let him out

King Hippo

- doesnt have any idea whats going on, hes just confused

- doesnt know whether to help kaiser or laugh with Joe

- thinks the argument between Joe and the air is real

- hes so lost

- "mom i frew up" pose while watching everyone do the puzzles

Piston Hondo

- calmly trying to do the puzzles

- trying to help kaiser calm down

- laughed at disco toppling over the bookshelf for a solid 20 minutes

- hes SLAYİNG the puzzles

- "Joe did you take your meds?? You're arguing with the air"

- "wait i got too caught up"

- He isnt taking this seriously but isnt fucking around like Joe either, hes doing his best to have fun, not too much fun

Great Tiger

- also messing around with Joe, both of them are hysterically laughing at everything knowing damn well they dont know whats going on + cant solve a puzzle to save their lives

- "whens the baking show coming on??"

- reading the books on the bookshelf disco kid rko'd

- He could be helpful but he refuses to because seeing everyone go batshit is hilarious

- keeps tripping over the carpets

Bear Hugger

- him & hondo are peacefully doing puzzles while everyone else is going apeshit, hes having fun

- re-organized the bookshelf disco kid slammed down on, he knows damn well they dont get paid enough for this bs

- cheering Joe on his fight with the atoms

- cleaning up behind everyone because hes a decent person

Don Flamenco

- very confused, he thinks theyre all stuck in a silly room for nothing, cannot do puzzles & cannot be silly at all

- Just wandering around & looking for clues

- hes concerned, not only for the boxers but the employees

- thinks the decorations look great, taking notes for his room

Aran Ryan

- doing his evil gremlin thing, chucking stuff, sneaking around, rolling on the floor, hes simply thriving

- scaring people for fun

- hysterically laughing at everything because the lightning is shitty & that makes everything funnier for him

- saying the dumbest shit

- got inspired by disco kid wrecking the bookshelf and decided to throw a couch across the room

- laughing at the wall

Soda Popinski

- Really confused along with King hippo

- hes just following everyone around like a sick puppy

- sad that he cant bring his soda but understands because he has spilled soda multiple times on his stuff and suffered the consequences

- awkward shrugging anytime someone asks him whats going on

Bald Bull

- also hysterically laughing with aran, bad lightning with cheap horror music fits too well for him

- him & aran are cackling at kaiser knowing damn well they both need therapy

- Just having fun

- He doesnt give a shit about anything right now, this is one of the only times he can maniacally laugh at thin air and not get stared at

- was the one to convince disco kid to do a cartwheel

Super Macho Man

- pretending to understand whats going on, Just as confused as soda

- Really bored

- not much to say, hes just.. neutral

Mr Sandman

- Really calm & carrying the entire team

- concerned for aran & bull since he was the only one to notice them maniacally cackle at thin air

- suprisingly not ready to punch someone out into orbit

- extremely worried for disco's bones because no one throws a entire bookshelf onto themselves and walks away fine

- brought a camera to get some real gems

- keeps coughing like hes on life support because of the ridiculous amount of dust

Extra

They made it out suprisingly thanks to hondo & sandman (barely)

Don realized he has some problems with his lungs after that trip because holy shit he was fighting for his life

Sandman convinced aran & bull to go to therapist (somehow)

Joe enjoyed taking out his anger out on a cheap fake rotary phone

Disco needed to go to the hospital after the bookshelf incident, no one is letting the fact that he broke his back thanks to a bookshelf go

Piston Hondo & bear hugger do sudoku together now since they realized they both enjoy math puzzles

Great Tiger still laughs about the bookshelf incident at night when trying to sleep

[mrdragonageherself]

...

So my sister posted a super sarcastic comment for attention out of the blue in the group chat for the family and my husband messaged asking was it sarcasm because if it wasn't it was fine but it seemed bitter and angry

And my sister went ooofffffff in the group chat and I had a feeling it was because of me because I had ignored 3 messages from her but yeah my husband was like hey maybe just communicate and don't make comments like this and then she tri3d to back track saying she didn't mean it to be angry she was just overwhelmed and he was like ok maybe communicate better.

So he left it at that but then she started messaging him and went ooffffff on him about how she didn't mean it badly she just felt like I'm mad at her and she was having a hard time and she wanted to know and he was like I don't speak for my wife speak to her if you think she has an issue don't make passive aggressive attention seeking comments and theeennnnnn she did what she always does which is say she's suicidal actually and that she's been pushing it all down to support me because I'm going through so much (all of this is bullshit she hasn't helped me or spoken to me about my problems because she always smothers me, makes everything about her, uses any weakness I show against me the second I d9nt give her what I want and when I put up a boundary, claim she's suicidal) and she's really not doing well.

When my husband was like sorry to hear thst in that case seek professional help but don't make passive aggressive comments and then even though she confirmed it was sarcasm she claimed it wasn't and everything is hard over text because you can take things wrong, and when he was like but yoy literally confirmed it was sarcasm you just don't like the consequences she got mad and said he was treating her like a child. She sent over 40 messages including novel like paragraphs and every time my husband kept bringing it back to the point she kept claiming she is just suicidal and needs help and it's because I'm not talking to her enough and she's supporting me so hard. My husband sent like 7 messages. She deleted 6 messages before he could read them, probably because she was finally mad he wasn't letting her off without apologising and taking the suicide bait and finally stopped replying.

I'm so stressed for the fall out, somehow it was all because of me even though I didn't say or do anything, my little sister even said why don't you tell her you just need space and I said she would do exactly this if I did and she still did it anyway just to my husband and it was so weird because it was clear she meant the messages for me (my husband kept having to remind her, he isnt me and isnt speaking for me) and was expecting my empathy and placating, which my husband was not giving.

I'm just sick of her always claiming to be supporting me through everything when she never does, and is often my biggest bully. she's really emotionally incestuous with me and blows up if I put up boundaries and then claims she's suicidal and doesn't take any accountability and when you finally calmed her down she won't ever acknowledge her own behaviour was inappropriate. I just hate that she is always dragging others into it as well, this is her first time doing it with my husband but normally it's because I beg him not to engage but he was too mad this time because of how distressed it makes me and my little siblings don't get it because they don't know how bad her temper and viciousness can be because of all the work my mom and I have put in to get her to stop (shes a lot older than them and they werent alive/dont have working memory from then). She used to tell my other older sister with cancer she was glad her friends from the cancer ward died and she hoped my sister would die too and laugh at her when she was in pain from bone marrow transplants and steal all my pocket money and break and steal my stuff, destroy art projects I was really proud of and mock me to my friends and she would do or say anything to hurt you as deeply as possible just because you slightly annoyed her and she always repaints herself as the victim from back then simply because our dad was abusive but she was always abusive to everyone too and it didn't stop because he was forced to leave she just needed the help from me and my mom and we wouldn't put up with it or let her treat my nephew that way so she's learned to seem sweeter but I can't set any boundaries with her without her telling me she's going to kill herself and its my fault and actually what she said or did wasnt bad becasue shes just misunderstood and im taking her wrong. Ugh.

She's 35 by the way.

[spikeinthepunch]

Penrose: Dawning- the dev blog

Okay well my game has been up for a few days now, and the Jam is over so yeah, why not give a massive blog about it and the development and characters and feelings etc.

again this was quite a feat for me, so to say. as small as the game is. ive been struggling a ton for years and years, so the process and experience has stuck with me for the last month.

The personal

If you have followed and read some of my posts from the last month youd probably seen me talking about having seen a neurophysiologist-- my appointments for that were happening for quite a while before this month but this month was the end of it. Aside from it clearly being a huge stressor in general, it was also a huge eye opener to my problems. Which yeah, include my ability to Make Things. Not art- but everything else. The listening & reading comprehension, math and memory I tested on being really really bad. And it was great to understand that now! but having decided to take on the Jam was a lot and well, even though on one hand i felt good that I knew my issues.... it didn't mean i solved my issues. Now i was just way more away of them.

So, I tried my hardest I think because I knew I'd always give up on this stuff. And well, my mood meds were still kinda helping. I think there was a different kind of determination despite the upset that some of those tests caused me. Still, I faced a lot of anxiety, frusteration, and upsetting feelings in the process because of how hard it was for me to learn even the smallest things. I won't go super hard on that-- I just want to appreciate the small community of Narrat for being able to help and clarify my confusion even if I'd often say to myself "ugh, that was such a simple thing! i shouldnt need to get it clarified two times over!" etc etc.

still despite the variety of emotions i faced i came out of this really thinking 'wow i actually made something' because literally all these years i have never realized a larger project due to my issues. so for that i can be happy.

The development

the process of making this game was interesting because obvious i had never put my assumptions about the best way to develop to the test. i could think all the while "ill do this first, this second etc" but until you start making it you may realize you gotta do something else!

the fact this was only a month long didnt really give me much time to figure out better ways to develop, it i was already a ways into it. so i came out realizing what i could do diffferent. one thing for sure is i know i couldnt start with art. its just not possible in general to predict the art i would need clearly, because even if i were to write a lot, i felt that making dialog branches was much easier while i was coding because i never knew how far i would want them to go.

but also, in terms of writing- i already write a lot and i kinda have my mental process. getting that to work with the game was tough, and while i liked how i wrote for this game, i feel like it faltered in the sense that writing so many bits of it entirely away from each other had my struggling to make sure i felt connected. like, writing on one huge document allows me to easily refer back and having it all together makes it flow well in my head. but having them scattered around code was hard for me to track and i was never sure if it all felt like it connected up well. i also think in general if i wrote most of the important chunks- stuff not incredibly reliant on branches/choices- that i probably would have written waaaay more too. its just a format of writing that is natural.

there isnt too much as i did in the game coding wise so i dont have too many comments on development process. but i know i would like to make games in narrat that use the typical features found in games like DE (as the engine was inspired by), like stats/skills and maybe inventory depending on the thing.

The story & design

i dont plan to explain the story in detail here (a lot of secret context it on my discord) and i have talked loads about trying to write the themes its tackled.

the main thing about it is just that i have never properly realized Penrose and well. I was facing a creative block this last month which caused more struggles. But it was harder with art- mostly design. coming up with a design is harder in a block than reading a thing that says "draw a series of houses". thinking up something new is not easy. and my head also gets very stuck up in "if you design this and draw it, you can never change it".

Eden was pulled from my old unused RP character, Eden Creature, and so i was able to base her off something already. even so making anything at all was hard- even for Mick who already existed. I really didnt want her and Eden to revert back into my old style because its just no me anymore but at the same time i do want to get something unique for this story. Dawning does not reflect what I want exactly. I like what i managed to do esp in working with my time constraints. but, its not something i want to keep doing going forward.

the story was WAY more condensed than i thought it would be and its because i didnt really realize how quickly approaching the deadline was compared to my work. but at the same time i am glad it was? i was quite ambitious with how big i wanted this "proof of concept" to be, to where i definitely probably would have gotten farther in the plot and realized i had no clue exactly what I wanted.

because i do have a general idea of this story but not like. enough. and so shortening the story hugely for this demo was actually a good thing because i would have had to write a lot more and also probably wouldnt have been able to explain lore well enough because of how little i understood my own world. and when youre creative blocked its incredibly hard trying to development of that world too.

conclusion

i mentioned it breifly in a blog post but tbh the most scary part is having it hit that i am nervous has to how people will take my characters. not in a criticism kinda way but just the idea that people just wont really 'get' them. and even just the idea that my OCs have been "presented to the world" in some sense. i do stuff in my own little space all the time and never think about what it would really be like to put a game on itch.io or even like publish a proper animation on youtube or publish a book or something. its different and its weird because i have always thought to myself that i want people to see my OCs! but then i put it up in a place where it likely will be seen and I am afraid of that.

its probably for it being a first time. and also i need to learn confidence in this kind of work i was so into thinking i could never truly make because of my issues. this was still like, very very hard to do mentally etc and i feel very exhausted. but i really dont want this to be the first and last time i try and make something.

[spinaroos-47]

How do you design the outfits for people (like your GG ocs and young Darius/Eberwold and stuff) They're all so pretty!!

Thank you! I was actually thinking of one day making a post about how i make up witchy outfits! This ask isnt going to be that but Im glad to answer my process!

In short, its a lot of observation, references and extrapolating from there

And here's the long version:

For younger Darius and Eber i mostly did small changes to these outfits i did when they were even younger, around 17, with some changes + adding some flare of their current outfits as well

And in turn, for Darius' outfit i took inspiration from the photo in reaching out where he's booing Alador + the boots he used in TTBK.

Eber was mostly improvised, kept the main aspects of his current outfit (and the hollow mind one too), the raggedy bits, shorts/skirts, no sleeves, little boots, wrist things, and implemented them in different ways

And also on these i started adding details they have now, like the wrist bands on Eber and a cape + white gloves for Darius

(plus i had been sketching some ideas for casual outfits for current Darius and those have been inspired by the outfits I have for a non toh oc of mine because they kinda fit Darius' vibe and he also has a bit of diamond shape motif like Darius. That's where the sash thing comes from)

(titty window was a suggestion from a friend)

Another important thing i keep doing on a lot of characters is that a common shape for the neck of the shirts is V that Hunter, Lilith and many other characters have. Its all over the place when you stop to look for it. And other really common thing is that theres a lot of long shirts that have a belt or waitsband, extremely common

I did answer a bit of how I designed Cain and Salem's outfits here but in short, it was a lot of referencing both Hunter's outfits, concept art for coven scouts/Hunter (i actually found more concept art for coven scouts but haven't took the time to really absorb them) and also the hollow mind portraits.

Something I haven't shown a lot here yet is that Ive designed casual outfits for all my main four GGs (sorry Alexander and William, you're too hard for me to design stuff for now :'3) which was really helpful on figuring out on what feels like Boiling Isles' fashion. Might do a post about my process on that + the uniforms of my other GGs and their physical appearances

(fun fact, Cain has a lot of stuff that I drew on older versions of Hunter, including the scar across the eye)

So yeah, lots of observation, references and a healthy dose of extrapolation and improvising. And taking vibes from other places helps too. I think even some stuff from my old Hunter aus have seeped into some of these designs too, like the Hunter Whispers outfit, looks pretty similar to the 17 year old Darius outfit i did so it was probably an unconscious reference (which also, remembering again, i did also base on the shape of his hollow mind shirt. See, i keep remembering things that are or could have been inspirations for these things fjsndnd)

But its also a thing you have to get some practice going on before it feels right and turns into something easy to do

I myself have struggled a lot with Darius' outfit on his early 20s, this is actually the fourth attempt or so. Here's the previous attempt, from before i decided to make him younger than Cain + his outfit at 17 because i also found it while looking for the other photo and i don't think i posted that drawing before

His hair was a challenge to decide. But im happy with the final result!

Here you go, a bit of the process i go through!

[hasarjunadoneanythingwrong]

Iunno, it’s still static sprites that go on a pre-rigged skeleton. It isn’t that much more work. Source: I’ve literally worked on mobile game that uses similar techniques. That said the characters I worked on aren’t nearly as dynamic as they’re only seen from the waist up, but looking at limbo’s animations they need just a couple alternate arms and hands for the most part. Plus there are three variants it feels like they intended a full separate summer servant and then went with costume instead.

i debated answering this bc if i have to see more posts about this subject ill scream but im tired and petty atm and honestly feel like we're not even asking them to make MORE servants just like

instead of making it so its 7 female summer alts and 3 male costumes just make 6 female alts and one summer male alt as a test drive or something. like its frustrating to see people making posts about how the devs couldnt make more costumes for the men bc of crunch time the extra female costumes are more simple etc etc etc like that isnt really the point? the point is that constantly giving ppl 7 of one kind and 3 lesser versions of the other is unfair and people ARE allowed to wish theyd put a little less effort into one side and more into the other, even if the posts DO get annoying. like the valkyrie welfare has six alts- and yes, yes theyre all very similar with basically only the hairstyle changed but have we EVER had a male welfare with a similar amount of attention given to them? are we now not allowed to be annoyed that they couldnt...idk give tai sui his grown up form as a costume as well (which DOES have a sprite, it shows up in his np, even if theyd have to animate some more movement) without someone coming in chiding us for not being appropriately considerate of how hard the devs work?

i KNOW game development is hard and there's a lot of work that goes into it especially with how detailed and intricate fgo sprites are, but theyve persistently been given feedback that people want this and have done nothing to acknowledge it except doing in-game actions which, to the people who are asking for it, can read a lot like taunting or mockery. yeah, it's nice that they included the extra art hasendow did, but doing it for a wildly popular guy after a tidal wave of people begging for more male alts last year reads a LOT differently than the outfit for shuten douji, who has a welfare alt as well as her 'other self' in the event in a swimsuit. do you understand what im saying? ibuki and douman were released at the same time, and one was VASTLY more popular and profitable, but only one got a multi-ascension alt with a bonus costume and i think it isnt actually unreasonable for his fans to feel put out by that.

like, idk, i just think people are more upset than usual this year bc after all the fallout last year with how bad it was it had felt like fgo was actually getting more equal with how it treated it's cast-and with the announcement that there was going to be three ssrs, i legitimately thought that they WERE going to do a male summer alt, but were worried about the reception so weren't messing with the number of female summer ssrs-and i think other people thought that as well! but instead they continued with the same pattern they've always done, EXCEPT that they made 3 of the summer female alts ssrs instead of 2- which shows they're willing to buck tradition but not in the way people are asking for. the male summer alt thing isnt a new problem, they've had ample time to know that people have really really wanted it, they just dont want to do it, and its really annoying that when you complain about it you get a rush of people coming to defend the devs in various ways-they can't do summer alts of the men NOW bc what about the previous men who already got costumes, they cant do summer alts of the men NOW bc they just changed companies, they can't do summer alts of the men NOW bc they never did before, etc etc etc its just annoying like ok. i get it. you dont want to hear people complain! but if working on all these alts is so hard they can also cut down on the number of female alts...

like does this make sense? i know this is incoherent and probably whiny im just tired of whenever people are like 'hey can we actually change this annoying aspect of the game' people rush in to explain why it's impossible for it to change. they also said that about pity and quick casters and a whole bunch of other stuff that they then changed more recently, people were allowed to get their hopes up even if it was 'premature of them'

[vminvisiblestring]

WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT BLACK NOIR

WARNING:  MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE BOYS COMICS

SERIOUSLY, HUGE FUCKIN SPOILERS

NOT LIFE ALTERING SPOILERS, BUT LIKE “WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS SHIT” SPOILERS, YOU KNOW?

LIKE “WOW HOW CAN I LOOK AT ALL OF THIS THE SAME WAY” SPOILERS

ANYWAY, LAST STOP TO SPOILER TOWN

okay, if youre still here... welcome! lets get started.

tw  //  blood  ,  gunfire  ,  graphic details  ,  murder  ,  rape  ,  violence  

i held off talking about black noir in our countdown until almost the very end because of his incredible significance to both the comics and the show.

very little is known about black noir... if by very little i mean literally jack shit. yall watched season one, he was just, there. apart from his fight with female of the species (kimiko) he did shit-all but go to fundraisers and promotional engagements. in the comics hes barely used as well. he doesnt go on missions and he doesnt contribute to very much. hes just always there.

heres the thing: the reason hes hardly used at all? and seriously if you skipped over the spoiler warning, this is another one just in case. this isnt revealed until literally the end of the comics:

black noir is a clone of homelander.

so how and or why is this? lets look at black noirs origins: i mentioned in a previous post about how homelander is a clone of stormfront (that rat nazi bastard from a few posts ago who was gender-swapped for the show). however, black noir was created as a contingency to homelander. see, when homelander was "born", he killed everyone in the room with his signature laser eyes. so vought, scared homelander would be hard to control as he grew older and into adulthood, created black noir in the event homelander had to be killed. but... that never happened; black noir’s entire reason for being created was to stop homelander, but there was nothing to stop. so, black noir went insane and began orchestrating a plan.

so what does this have to do with anything and how do we get this reveal? its revealed that black noir, and not homelander, was the one who raped and killed rebecca, billy's wife. black noir would commit crimes as homelander and send the real homelander pictures of the crimes; homelander came to believe the boys had taken the pictures and were blackmailing him.

backing up a bit to before the big reveal: eventually homelander, believing himself to have gone insane and had a double personality (because he couldnt remember doing any of the things in the pictures) decides to stage a coup and kills the president to take over the US. billy and black noir go to the white house to kill homelander, only then does black noir reveal he was behind everything, including the rape of billy's wife. and, since homelander is now a threat, black noir can finally do the one thing he was created for. he, along with gunfire from billy and the government kill homelander and then billy kills black noir by ripping his brain out.

super quick: the supes descending on the white house? hands down favorite comic art piece of the the boys comics, gives me chills just looking at it. i mean look at it! its just so... wow.

anyways! i talked about the huge difference rebecca and her baby made by being alive at the end of the boys season one in my billy the butcher post in that because of this huge difference no one has any idea whats going to happen in season two or the remainder of the series run for that matter. and if the writers arent going to follow the comics (in which her death is the catalyst for billys actions and the ultimate confrontation with homelander at the end of the comics), the show can really take any direction it wants. but if their endgame is still to have black noir be the mastermind behind homelanders downfall? that road just got a little more bumpy.

although... actually, yeah, now that i think about it, if they keep billys hatred for supers a constant even with the revelation that rebecca's alive and they dont give the boys powers from the compound v like in the comics, this endgame could actually still be accomplished. it wouldnt be predictable because of the plot twist from season one, but it could still be an endgame if they take us on a roller coaster story that ends in the same place.

despite all this though, the not knowing of it all is kind of exciting (a lot of anxiety because i don't know what's going to happen and i hate surprises) but still exciting.

the boys season two in 2 days!!!

[rickriordanfandam]

opinions on riordanverse ; my edition

a lot of people have been doing this so i decided why not right. probably gna lose some followers or smth but anyways. pls respect my opinions! if u disagree, thats fine, but please be polite. unless any of my opinions strikes u as morally wrong then pls point it out to me respectfully. thanks!

- i actually liked drew. im so sorry to everyone who hates her but full offence, why. think about it this way ok, first of all drew became hc because silena died. silena was the traitor, the one who betrayed chb, yet after she died campers celebrated her as a hero? and then drew suddenly has to replace her and live up to idk that legacy she left behind,, when all of a sudden this girl named piper swoops in and takes her place. idk abt u but i wld be salty abt that too. not only that, but as an asian, the chances of drew having faced racism/bullying as a child is pretty high (she studies at brooklyn academy). which means that when she finds out shes a demigod, and arrives at chb where most of the campers are white (this is an assumption btw), she’d obviously be scared of being bullied for her skin color right?? so the first thing she wld do before the campers get to bully her is to bully them before they can do so. (sentence structure here is wack i apologize) ofc this might not even have happened, drew could have had a perfect childhood && was a b1tch for no reason, BUT EVEN THEN HER ROLE AS A BULLY WAS PRETTY VITAL BECAUSE THAT FURTHER SHOWED THE CONTRAST BETWEEN HER AND PIPER,, HIGHLIGHTING PIPER AS A HERO//GOOD CHARACTER,, AND THEREFORE MAKING READERS LIKE PIPER MORE. anyway stop hating on drew please. ALSO WHY IS THIS SO LONGA SDFJHG

- jason isnt bland, the fandom just kinda erased his backstory (thanks to @pjohoo-memes for the phrasing lol)

- reynabeth wouldnt have lasted/would have broken up several times. idk i just see them as two extremely powerful characters who have firm opinions and will definitely clash at some point. in a platonic relationship,, i can see them as really good friends but as lovers? idk i just think theyll break up

- PIPABETH

- i dont really like jercy,, i see them as better friends than lovers. also idt jason and percy were that close..?

- the dam and not my type jokes are srsly cringey and were never funny. ik that seems hypocritical since my username literally makes use of the dam joke but honestly i dont actually like the joke. its not funny to me and has never been funny

- the seven were not best friends. they definitely argued,, and honestly probably werent as close as the fandom makes them seem. like ure dumped with 6 other people, out of which u only know a few. my introverted ass would have jumped off the argo 2 quicker than leo valdez could bomb camp jupiter up. also leo was a dick to frank. so what if frank is bigger sized?? thats not a valid reason to tease him

- the fandom needs to stop hating on octavian while worshipping luke. if u hate luke and u say u hate octavian too, then okay. but if u tell me ure a luke stan but u despise octavian?? imma disagree w u. luke was worse than octavian im sorry. first of all, octavian being a dick was kinda justified. hes been after the praetor position for so long, and everyone keeps saying to “wait for jason” when suddenly this dude, whos a son of NEPTUNE (neptune wasnt liked much by romans), and the camp decides to make him praetor?? dude i would be pissed off big time. and then afterwards, he finds out that greek demigods are real and the dude they made praetor is greek. AND THEN GREEK DEMIGODS COME TO CJ AND ONE OF THEM BOMB IT UP?? octavian has been told all his life that greeks are scum and this dude called leo valdez attacks cj. sure it was an accident, but did octavian know that? no. so it was honestly justified that he was such a salty prick im just saying. also some of yall be hating on octavian for cutting a teddy bear open and thats the funniest shit ive ever heard i swear 

- luke didnt go to elysium

- travis and connor stoll r way too underrated. the two have been head counselors of the hermes cabin since luke was revealed as a traitor, can u imagine the stress? luke, the person they probably looked up to as a brother, betrayed them. and they didnt even have time to process this when they were  thrown the roles of being hcs. that would have been so stressful and i would probably have broken down if i were them. the stoll brothers taking turns to wake up at ungodly hours because a new camper is crying and homesick and terrified, the stoll brothers having to comfort and take care of new campers, having to deal with the amount of people in that cramped space because not enough campers are being claimed fast enough. having to resolve issues between campers in the hermes cabin all the time. the stolls arent just comedic relief, and we need to stop treating them as such

- tratie shldve been canon idc idc

- demigods of the demeter cabin arent talked about enough and i love the fact that meg was demeters kid. like she isnt the child of one of the big three yet shes so powerful.

- we need to hype clarisse up more her character arc was phucking amazing 

- rachel is overhated. sis found out greek gods exist and regularly come down to earth to fuck around and went “ok cool”. queen shit behavior methinks

- the floor 19 crew of mcga is srsly underrated. like do u even remember halfborn gunderson, mallory keen, tj, etc??? bc i feel like we only remember samirah, magnus, alex, and sometimes blitz and hearthstone

- sadie (tkc) was kinda annoying at first. i like her more now tho but i rmb not liking her for a phat while

- tkc and mcga need more love

- carter kane and jason grace arent boring. theyre just really sweet boys who are too good for this world and yes yes yes 

- hazel and frank (especially frank) need to be hyped up more. i hardly ever see anything about them. also yall seem to forget that frank was literally made praetor and that even hecate admired hazel and was willing to fight beside her because of how powerful she was

- frazels age gap is kinda sketch but i still think theyre really cute

- nico definitely had trauma from going to tartarus on his own

- GROVER IS PERCYS BEST FRIEND

- annabeth isnt smarter than leo but neither is leo smarter than annabeth. ive seen a lot of discussions about who is smarter and heres my hot take on it: neither. theyre equally smart, just in different ways. leos a genius mathematically speaking. he has no issues solving math problems meant for people much, much older than him. annabeth on the otherhand, is great at strategies etc. she can make an army of 1000 more powerful than the enemy, even if theyre outnumbered. so in my opinion, both are equally as smart//u cant compare their intelligence, because their talents lie in two different areas.

- while i do agree rick riordan isnt a god and that hes bound to make mistakes,, AND that hes given us a lot of representation,, if the representation offends the people its sposed to represent, then theres a problem. im talking about piper as a poc and wearing feathers in her hair. im not a poc, so i cant speak for them on whether or not its wrong, because i dont know either. HOWEVER, i have seen multiple posts BY pocs talking about how they didnt really like rick’s representation of piper, and thats an issue. pocs have been and are still oppressed and discriminated against by many. as a white cis man, we cant really blame him for not knowing (tho he could have done a research,, asked some pocs,, idk), but by representing pocs in that manner, hes influencing impressionable kids/teens into thinking “oh pocs wear feathers in their hair all the time” etc, which isnt true. the pjo/hoo series is extremely successful, and kids who read the books will probably start forming inaccurate opinions on pocs. the amount of fan art that depicts piper with feathers in her hair dont help either. “but rick said so in the books, so its canon” yeah well rick isnt a god and he can get some things wrong at times. im not saying we should cancel him, im saying we should start educating ourselves and not spread false info like pocs wearing feathers in their hair all the time. also that snake song shit where she sang Summertime was just- yeah. bc heres the thing you can be racist, and still include minorities, but portray them in a racist way. And even then, ignorance isn't a thing to admire. Getting those facts wrong still has a major impact. It continues to perpetuate racist stereotypes.

“ With the feather thing, I looked it up myself; it takes less than five minutes to figure out that Cherokees don't braid feathers into their hair. I didn't grow up in the country where my parents are from. I have many other first/second generation American friends who have also been through that, with a bit of a disconnect from their culture. But something that most of us have in common is that when we didn't know something, and when our parents weren't that big of a help, we looked it up. We sought out resources online and through other people from our culture to be able to connect more with where we came from. Some of that took a Google search. So I find it hard to believe that Piper, a girl who Rick's trying to portray as someone who is attempting to connect with her culture and is totally against racist stereotypes, wouldn't know that eagle feathers aren't supposed to be braided into your hair casually. She may be disconnected from her culture, but she's also shown to want to connect back to it. Piper wouldn't be casually braiding feathers into her hair while also telling off people for being racist. It makes no sense.” - reddit thread (down below) 

for those of yall who wanna know more please please read this, it has a lot of things i wanna add in here : https://www.reddit.com/r/camphalfblood/comments/gy3gl2/piper_mcleans_portrayal_is_innacurate/ 

as well as https://finding-my-culture.tumblr.com/post/189422373260/maxie-ratties-and-cattie-finding-my-culture 

i will be posting screenshots of these in future posts so if ure viewing this on ig and u dont have tumblr,, dont worry 

- the fact that most of the strong female characters in the series refuse to be “girly”, and ngl i dont really like that. just because ure girly doesnt mean u cant be strong. 

- piper would have been a great way for him to start making the strong characters act girlier, but instead he went with the “I’m not like other girls” trope which is quite obnoxious to hear constantly, and I don’t think it’s necessarily great for younger girls to read that idea growing up.  the closest we've ever had to a strong female character who was also into "girly" things was Silena. when I was younger I admired Piper's "I'm not like other girls" thing, but then I got older and realized that the whole mentality of "not like other girls" is super obnoxious, and a little bit toxic

i have a heck load more that i cant rmb rn but yeah feel free to add more 

[indig0g0]

If you are so against theft, why you friends with gabriel tho? There has been HOW MUCH evidence against him? I don't know, Newt. Seems Pretty Sus To Me. SEEMS LIKE YOU ARE TRYING TO TAKE THE HEAT OFF THE CURRENT SHIT AGAINST GABE I'M JUST SAYING-

Hi kids, first of all! His name is GABRIEL! Calling him not his name, when he doesn’t like it! Is just like misgendering! Anyway! Lets sit down for this! I was waiting for you (or maybe it was someone else!) to come back for this!

Did you know that its possible, as an adult human being, to disagree with everyone in a situation? Did you also know.... That there’s a difference.... Between using the same concepts? And OUTRIGHT TRACING SOMEONE’S ART? Did you know...... That there was more to the story... than bo’s callout post made it out to be? Did you know there was a third whole design in the mix?

Also before we get started I want to state that as a 25 year old man, who has been in multiple different art communities. You cannot steal a concept. You cannot steal a concept. YOU CANNOT STEAL A CONCEPT. There are 800 trolls with white porcelain masks! There are 800 trans masc jadeblood trolls! These are all concepts! Iridescence as a concept! Is a CONCEPT.

Opalescence is a concept that is similar but different to iridescence.

ANYWAY!!!

LETS SIT DOWN FOR THE WHOLE STORY BECAUSE BOY HAVE I HAD ENOUGH OF BEING ASKED WHERE I STAND ON THIS!

Okay! So! Here’s the thing (the thing! Which I got from someone who WASN’T either Bo or Gabriel! Surprise! There’s AN OUTSIDE PARTY!)

Bo made an iridescent adopt! Gabriel wanted the adopt! But Liam bought the adopt first! Whatever! That’s the end of it of whatever that is! Bo and Gabriel stopped being friends in this time, i think, but that’s not my fucking business because i’m 25 years old and other people’s interpersonal problems aren’t my fucking business!!

Its reasonable here, then, to like the concept behind a design right? And you you probably think “oh this is where gabriel ripped off cosmit, right?” and you’d be wrong!

We’re going to cut to my favorite third party, a loving friend and wonderful person... Echo! Who makes adopts! As a source of income!

Who was like! Hey party people! Suggest themes for me to use in my next batch! of adopts! and now you think... oh... here comes opal.. WRONG AGAIN!

So what happened was... gabriel had been like “i saw this cool iridescent design, and the concept was really cool! maybe you should do an opalescent design!” and echo was like oh fuck yeah i’d love to do that! and so.... they did. Now i’m sure you’re thinking..... Oh it’s Opal!

Except. Actually it wasn’t.

The opalescent (NOT iridescent, they aren’t the same if you were wondering!) troll Echo original made? One of the ones that bo linked in their call out? Isnt opal.

It’s the original opalescent design that echo made! Which they.. Kept! That’s their Magiro!

This is magiro on the end! This is the original design!

this image? the girl on the bottom? THATS FUCKING MAGIRO. THAT IS ART. FROM ECHO’S BLOG. OF ECHO’S CHARACTER.

which looks..... NOTHING like...

this absurdly small screenshot i also pilfered from bo’s callout post! Of cosmit!

Who’s sprites I will not post out of respect for Liam because I have not asked him if I can use it! But the original is necessary so it’s here anyway. (I have permission from Echo to post the originals here! FYI!)

Now because they ended up keeping Magiro! They said! I’ll make you one for free with the same general concept! And lo!

Opal was born! This was the design that Echo did for gabriel! This is opal! As you can see... She looks nothing like cosmit! Except for the fact that she has

dark skin is meant to be black coded and has a similar theme. she even has a nose rings You can see it under her glasses!

and so these are the sprites Gabriel made based off the design ECHO made him

‘

Now! Here’s where it gets hinky!

Here’s where I don’t agree with either party!

Bo and Liam were upset that Gabriel (and Gabriel alone) apparently ripped off Opal! I don’t see it, and I don’t think you can steal a concept either! But whatever theyre adults they can make their own conclusions!

Now where I don’t agree with Gabriel is... Gabriel started making posts (after being told he was accused the first time, idk by who) about Opal being the BEST opalescent troll in the community! Which is fucked up! It’s immature and I was upset with him for it! And then it spiralled a little!

Gabriel got a call out blog made about him for reasons OTHER than opal! The callout blog tried to bring up opal! Liam made a public statement that he and gabriel were handling it privately! And I thought that was going to be that on that!

or was it!

So in private, and bo’s “call out” will confirm this, the whole party eventually agreed that Gabriel would be making edits to opal to make her theme different instead of white opalescent blah blah, this all is NOT my business and frankly I don’t fucking care.

My problem comes in when it become not enough for bo that Gabriel to make changes to or stop using Opal altogether and started... Boxing gabriel into a new solution? Because Gabriel apparently wasn’t bending over backwards enough? I don’t fucking know! It’s not my fucking business! DURING a time of crisis. DURING. BO DID THIS WHEN GABRIEL WAS ALREADY IN A POSITION TO HAVE A HARD TIME SAYING NO. THIS IS FUCKED UP NO? But! I don’t know how you can post screenshots of you saying “You’re having a bad time because of this tropical storm about to rock your shit and I hate you and want you to go away Take this Hilariously Low sum of money for a character with tons of art and effort” and then think you’re like. In the right here? Bo admits they were stupid angry and that they cancelled the deal on a whim IN Their call out post! And then turned around, in their anger, and started threatening gabriel ! That’s literally blackmailing him! Because he wasn’t doing what they wanted! it’s all literally in the post! I read the whole thing! Gabriel came back with a counter, which was getting rid of Opal altogether including making the replacement in the story NOT black coded, NOT a woman (explicitly stated to be transmasc for the new concept), No piercings etc.

Bo then, later AGAIN during a time of Financial and real life crisis (their confrontation was sent within HOURS of the announcement of another hurricane about to rock houston) decided to turn around and verbally berate Gabriel about how he failed to deliver his apology, turned around, and tried to post a largely evidence-less call out about him.

The reason for Bo doing this?

Gabriel reblogged female-coded aesthetic into the tag. And that was all the proof Bo needed that GABRIEL IS A LIAR BLAH BLAH

heres the thing.

gabriel and i are in a different artist’s server together.

Gabriel has posted the wip of the new design into the server. I’ve seen it. with my own two fucking eyes.

in fact. the new design. BARELY EVEN LOOKS LIKE A FUCKING TROLL AT ALL

IT LOOKS NOTHING LIKE COSMIT

IT DOESNT EVEN FUCKING LOOK LIKE OPAL

BO WENT OFF THE RAILS

FOR LITERALLY NO FUCKING REASON

AND NOW A BUNCH OF 17 YEAR OLDS ON TUMBLR

ARE TRYING TO RUIN NOT ONLY HIS LIVELIHOODS, BUT ALSO EVERYONE AROUND HIM

OVER A DESIGN THAT WAS 3 CONCEPTS REMOVED FROM THE ORIGINAL

ANYWAY TLDR: they both handled this extremely poorly! I do NOT agree with Gabriel’s handling of Bo’s and Liam’s initial concerns! But I SUPER don’t agree with “i own blackcoded opalescent characters as a concept bc i said so” and but mostly?

I really disagree with bo’s attempts to use the crisis of a TROPICAL STORM to solicit the response THEY ALONE wanted.

THIS is why I have bo blocked. I could give a shit LESS about all the other bullshit. Do I like it? No. It is my business? no.

But the sheer fucking LACK OF EMPATHY displayed here is FUCKING ASTOUNDING.

Theres actually OTHER reasons I don’t like bo, which are all 100% unrelated to all this fucking horse shit! But that’s my fucking business!! anyway!! fuck off!!

[ankhisms]

the always wonderful shelley @shanheling tagged me to do this thank u so much!! i think that everyone i wanted to tag has already been tagged to do this but if you feel like doing this feel free to consider urself tagged by me!! im putting this under a readmore bc its long and i ramble a lot

the piece i was tagged to explain my process on is this oc piece! unfortunately i have a habit of deleting my original clip studio file once ive finished my art and saved it as a new png file, so i dont have the file to show the sketch and different stages of this piece. but I still can go through my general process and talk about how i did that piece!

1. planning

honestly i think about the art that i want to do a lot, and in this last year or so ive thought about the art i want to do more than ive been able to actually create and finish that art that i want to do. for my planning i tend to do a lot of different thumbnail sketches for the art im thinking of

these are some examples of thumbnails, a lot of times ill do thumbnails just on pencil and paper and with some of these theyre done quickly with my fingers on my phone note function on a day where i was feeling too bad to get up and draw on paper but still wanted to get the thumbnail ideas down. two of these are for the same songxiao piece that i still havent finished and i have more thumbnails digitally on clip studio for the same piece, i do a lot more thumbnails when a piece isnt working the way i want it to and theres times where ill completely scratch a thumbnail or a sketch and start over in order to do more thumbnails because i dont feel happy with some aspect of it.

two of these are small gouche painting thumbnails for two pieces i did maybe a month or so ago, i did the thumbnails and then tried to expand on them digitally and im wanting to do more thumbnail paintings like this in the future because it was fun

for the piece of my oc trio it was based off a series of ask prompts i got for a few different outfit prompt memes i had reblogged, so i based their outfits on the ones in the meme. when im drawing figures i tend to try and get the movement down in the poses when im sketching, i do several rough sketches of the pose before beginning to start setting down lines (if im doing lineart at all because sometimes i dont like doing lineart and do a more lineless painting kind of style). i really try to get my art to convey some kind of emotion, in the oc piece i wanted it to feel fun and like youre seeing three best friends while theyre out on the town having a fun night

2. creating

this is the only real example i have of a piece in the middle of being filled in and created, this piece is one that im really not very happy with & have had lying around for a while and ill probably scrap it and try to come at it from a different perspective at some point. but anyway it still shows what i do, i lay down a kind of neutral gray color underneath my final sketch/lineart if im doing lineart in that piece and then i start picking out the colors that i want for the piece and kind of setting out a pallette for myself. i dont do this color pallette thing 100% of the time but i do it really often, especially if im working on a commission or a larger piece where i know theres going to be a lot of colors or if its a piece where im not sure exactly what color scheme i want so laying out the colors together helps me kind of decide what kind of scheme i want. i am sooooo picky about my colors in my art i am genuinely obsessed with colors in art and there are times where i really have to stop myself from working on something forever just constantly adding more colors or putting little tiny changes and gradients in the colors.

after ive got the colors i want down i tend to try and block out parts of the piece with the base color for that section, and then i start to paint with the colors that i want to go on top of that base color from there.

once im satisfied with the colors/shading/rendering and everything ill go back and look over things and will fix things that look off or sometimes completely redo segments if they dont look right to me. when i was younger and mainly doing digital art using my phone and my fingers i would use a lot of filters and overlays on top of my art once i was done, and honestly im glad to not be doing that anymore because i dont think it made my art look any better. i do color adjustments and sometimes will put on a color overlay or a layer to emphasize the shadows and the light in the piece, but i try to keep those layers to a minimum and like i said before i have a tendency to obsess over the colors and ill spend a good amount of time in the color adjustment tool of clip studio and then ill just decide "actually it looks fine as it is" so yeah!

3. posting

i feel like i dont have a lot to say here gbfm i mean i honestly have a lot of thoughts about the relationship between artists and social media and how social media changes our views on art including our own art and how we can feel like we constantly need to be posting new art and just become content machines churning out new stuff. but ill save that rant for another time. i used to be really concerned about how many notes my art would get when i was younger, and i dont at all blame anyone who still is very concerned about that bc it sucks when u work hard on something youve created and then you dont get a lot of recognition for it, but honestly within the last two years or so i feel like ive begun to have a lot healthier relationship with posting my art. i really just post my art on my art blog, reblog it to my main blog, and then thats that yknow! i do really appreciate any and all support people give me, it means the world to me, but for me having the mentality where i dont need to post all the art i make and i dont need to be posting every day or every week or every month even has been a lot healthier for me because then im not constantly asking myself why didnt this get notes is my art awful??? and yeah i just kind of post it and my brain goes okay were done with that art we gotta make more

ive honestly been struggling a lot with art thru the pandemic and if youre reading this and have been struggling with creating in any way recently or even before the pandemic, please know theres no shame in having trouble creating and it doesnt make you bad at whatever it is u create!

thank you for reading this, feel free to consider urself tagged by me again if u want to do this!! love u all