#between shades of grey

[escapeintothepages]

“Whether love of friend, love of country, love of God, or even love of enemy - love reveals to us the truly miraculous nature of the human spirit.”

Between Shades of Gray, Ruta Sepetys

[bravebookfan]

list of tragic books that reached past my heart and into my soul pt. 1 1. we were liars 2. the book thief 3. between shades of grey 4. it’s kind of a funny story

[inlovewithquotes]

Sometimes there is such beauty in awkwardness.

-Between Shades Of Grey

[addictedtowords16]

Unfortunately, progress isn't always permanent. But if we look to the past, we discover that history holds our most valuable teachings. Please research the time period. Share the story with someone. Although history contains sadness and pain, it also shines light on hope, courage, and resilience. Through that lens, the history of three small nations teaches us that love is the most powerful army. Whether love of friend, love of country, love of God, or even love of enemy, love reveals the miraculous nature of the human spirit. Through love--and remembrance--all things are possible.

Ruta Sepetys

[davekopka]

PSA: Comics are difficult but they’re amazing and for everyone!!

Was doing some tidying up in the studio and came across the proofs for the Between Shades of Gray graphic novel that I was a part of. The video’s sped up and doesn’t show the last fifth of the book to not spoil anything 😉, so sorry for the whiplash. Twenty seconds showing a year and a half’s worth of drawing (not shown here: the visual research and reading to support the look, feel, and design of everything seen in the story. As well as all the wild selfies taken for expression and pose reference). Don’t think I’ve ever worked as intensely nor pushed as hard on anything before this project, but honestly, I would jump in and do it again, especially with such a great creative team:

Story: Ruta Sepetys, Script: Andrew Donkin, Lettering: Chris Dickey, Colors: Brann Livesay, Drawing: me. Extra incredible help on the art to help it cross the finish line came from the wonderful artistic talents of Anthony Miller Jr, Haley Potter, Antonio Scricco, Matthew Hernandez, Christina Rycz, and Tarynn Ortiz. Seriously, go check out their work and hire them!!!

[coldarena]

uniform studies + kit lists

[mercurialmalcontent]

One of the things that exhausts me about parts of the BG3 fandom is how they talk about 'good' and 'evil' runs, as if you're either playing a saint or a genocidal megalomanical idiot with nothing inbetween.

There's almost zero acknowledgement that you can play a complete bastard and end up with good outcomes and tons of personal power. Apparently the ends justify the means, good outcomes = good person, and being 'actually' evil just means you get less content and that's unfair.

We have endless examples from real life and history of people who achieved things widely regarded as good who were completely rotten people, their paths to victory paved with the bodies of those they trampled on their way there, even when they would have achieved even better outcomes had they not. Great evils have been caused in the name of ostensible good.

And you can do that in this game! Your character can achieve great good while leaving a trail of innocent bodies in their wake. They can restore peace while destroying lives and encouraging their nearest and dearest to be their worst selves. They can cheat, lie, manipulate, and even brainwash people to do what they want. They can do it with cruel calculation or thoughtless disregard.

But, since it doesn't cause the incredible widescale devestation of an evil playthrough, it's just 'good'.

[thebad-lydrawn-sanses]

Creator: Mm, art block. What to do...?

Creator: What do you think, wackus bonkus?

"Wackus Bonkus" (Hand): make angst

Creator: ohh, you naughty wackus bonkus

[rainybraindays]

Okay, apparently shutting the fuck up was never an option but the way no one likes to look at the marina situation and go "wow what the fuck is wrong with portia"? Crazy.

Like she immediately didn't like her, not because of anything she'd done, but because she took attention from her daughters no matter how bright she dressed them.

It didn’t matter that the main reason is that, honestly all 3 of her daughters are painfully awkward, and in ones case literally 17. It didn’t matter that Marina was only there at her fathers instance, or that theoretically through having someone thats clearly popular in her home she could have used it as a jump off mark to match her daughters, she was seen as her big hurdle to marrying them off. Marinas immediately othered, to the point that when shes being dressed the maids helping put on her shoes is enough to piss Portia off. She immediately puts Marina in the same ring as her daughters, fight for my attention and maybe maybe it'll be positive. But Marina doesn't do that because she doesn't want to even be there.

And then they find out she's pregnant and shes othered even more. She immediately tries to send her back, and when she's not allowed to do that shes locked away and the other girls aren't even allowed to talk to her. She literally tries to freeze her out, like Marina has any say in being there in the first place, before lying to her about her being abandoned by George.

She makes no attempt to find out if George has family, she doesn't care enough to try even though that would have been a way to get rid of her "problem". She tries to push Marina onto a man old enough to be her grandfather and slaps her across the fucking face when she tries to stand up for herself.

Theres no concern for her safety, for the babys safety, just getting her out of her house as fast as fucking possible, and I'm meant to be surprised that when Colin saves Marina from her elderly suitor she turns her attention to him?

Like the nicest guy, who everyone likes, who's attractive, who isn't multiple decades older than her and most importantly not going to literally assault her? Yeah not a big shocker. Should she have lied to him? No, but she wouldn't have had to or felt the need to if she wasn't in the most hostile fucking house. Even Penelope, who she likes, why does everyone forget that she fucking likes Penelope and viewed her as a friend, becomes aggressive towards her. Shes cornered, shes scared, and all of this could have been avoided if Portia was a slightly better person and said "hey soilder boys not written back, you're gonna have this kid, does he have any family?" instead of setting this entire mess in motion.

[demon-of-the-ancient-world]

"Paul isn't the hero so he must be the villain-" I need you to stop right there and accept the fact that not every story requires or intends to have A Singular Hero and A Singular Villain and if a protagonist isn't one then they *must* be the other, and that the majority of complex stories actually do not have many characters who perfectly fit the role of "the hero" or "the villain"

[transingthoseformers]

Various idw villains in sg, in my opinion:

Tarn: mixed tones of red and orange, some white, i just realized those are commonly considered medic colors in baseline and i am KEEPING IT. Blue optics. A simplified version of the mask, but still a mask. Hides his insecurity under a false confidence (and his mask) and an intense focus on the Decepticon code, may i gift him "i can fix this"–itus? Still obsessed with Megs, but unlike baseline it's more benign.

Sunder: navy blue and richer teal. Orange optics. His vibes are insanely off but he's secretly a himbo who means well, which isn't viewed upon so nicely in the sg autobots. Torn between replacing mnemosurgery with some other flavor of doctor, or having him reluctantly be a mnemosurgeon who tries to use his job for good like baseline Chromedome (angst time???)

Froid: black and gold with deep blue highlights. Mist blue optics. He's just a little guy™️ who's got a "I'm not paid enough for this shit" attitude, but he means his best for his patients. I like to think his theories are different in sg, but I'm unsure how to strike a balance between still keeping influences from Freud and it being less evil than what Froid's theories are in baseline.

Getaway: primarily black and deeper red/vivid green. Amber orange optics. Still an escapeologist, pretty amiable and sees good in everyone (despite being surrounded by assholes in the sg autobots). Would be immensely funny if, instead of being good at pretending to be a good guy, he's bad at pretending to be a bad guy.

Pharma: I'm squinting at my reference for him which is Not My Fave but I'm thinking of him maybe being charcoal gray, grape juice stain purple, and green or white highlights? Red optics. As far as his personality he used to be more confident but now he's a skittery thing, he downplays his several accomplishments and always puts others first (even if it means he's in a shit sandwich like SG Delphi). After Delphi he works with Tyrest for a while, which isn't ideal, and i feel like his behavior at this stage is like baseline but without the murder. He will get help.

Tyrest: maybe primarily a wine purple and tropical blue with a light brown-gray? Light lavender or white optics. i admit i haven't thought much about sg Tyrest as his personality is stickety to Shatter, but i feel like it's similar to baseline but minus the murder. He's haunted by his actions and up the shit crick without a paddle, but he'll get better i swear.

Atomizer: tropical green and sea blue with silver highlights? Blue or purple visor. sg Getaway's ride or die. Wow there's like nothing on tfwiki in his summary, so I'm going to make shit up and suggest in SG he's the skeptical type. I can see him having Opinions on some of getaway's plans but generally still helping

Scorponok: whoo boy why is he so many colors. Mostly yellow and red, replace the bright blue with bright red and keep the black? Definitely a blue visor. if i Shatter him, would he be a more benevolent scientist who cares for his creations type?

Trepan: i am absolutely lost on his personality because on one hand since he's so entwined with functionism and medical warcrimes i want to Make Him Worse, but on the other hand i want to see what it'd take to twist him away from that in Shattering his personality. Oh and color palette wise so far in tinkering he looks best with his brown swapped for a nice blue and yellow optics swapped for magenta/pink

Overlord: this sort of peach color with blue optics. Absolute sweetheart gentle giant in SG, probably.

[mitchell-nihil]

sometimes I feel shitty about not being great at comics but I've literally never done this before and learning to create, write and format comics is an entirely different beast from knowing how to draw them

[eclipsecrowned]

i have such. controversial tyri0n opinions i want to discuss. so badly.

[inlovewithquotes]

Have you ever wondered what a human life is worth? That morning, my brother's was worth a pocket watch.

-Between Shades Of Grey

[clumsy-words-again]

How do you even explain the concept of colour to someone who’s completely colourblind this is bothering me so much

[deeps-repus]

Nobody else on earth cares about this but i cannot understand why artists draw phoenix wright with brown/blue heterochromia and it mildly annoys me when i see it