#but now I have cosplayed her I have the plush of her and I've drawn her

[flamebloom]

I am the latest colors, I sing the newest songs I read all the lyrics so I can sing along I am the latest colors, I hate the newest songs I can't stand the lyrics, I'd never sing along.

[postapocalypticcatbrat]

art journeys are so strange. the fuckers in my head don't make it any less strange. I've been drawing since i was a kid, just never stopped and now that's what I'm in college for. I'm cleaning my room. I found all my old sketchbooks, i don't remember half any of it nor the order they go in. only some pages have dates. my headmate could ID some late highschool stuff, mainly because that's when we got into a game that genuinely improved our life. our mom (genuinely a shit mom) banned us from fanart back in middle school i think.

but then there's fanart of beloved characters that i still hold dear, yet there's some downright primal fear around those drawings. and it makes me wonder how much did our mom fuck up our art journey. i wonder who remembers how our mom reacted to the fanart of two guys holding hands, the drawing of a demon guy in a dress. there's no more fashion drawings after that.

i graduated highschool the same year i found my favorite video game, a game my mom never knew i adored, i also got into zelda at that time, but my mom knew of that. i was also in ap 2d art at that time. my art teacher said to hide my art style, it was "too anime" in her words. my art looks so stagnant until i started sketching my favorite game's antagonist.

my childhood friend entered my life again after graduating highschool. they got to be the first one to hear about my favorite game and the first to see the first fanart i did of it.

college started and i was in art appreciation, the teacher encumbered me to go into the art department. I'm glad i listened to her.

but before that i had winter break. some traumatic shit happened during it so I'll spare the details, but i used my favorite game as a coping mechanism and drew it to stay calm. even with the bad memories connected to the drawings from then, i still actually like them.

school started back and i entered drawing 1, the teacher is a kind lady, she's from Ukraine, she also teaches printmaking. entering her class was a weird time. my mom got sick, no longer fully controlling me, i just discovered my system (or well, the words for it), the main fucker who deals with school now showed up (I'll call them 'C', they are here alot), and an abusive friendship ended. it was alot.

my time in drawing class had me draw a portrait of soneone by memory, i had chosen that childhood friend. it was the first time in our memories that there was a sense of pride in a portrait. god it was awful looking, but it was them, C was proud of it. i don't they ever showed our friend, oh well.

drawing class was amazing. the teacher still is amazing, we're taking printmaking 2 next semester with her. she encouraged trying new things, framed as "seeing new horizons" rather than "leaving your comfort zone" but she also wanted everyone to do things they liked. we did character illustration, C designed a group of characters for one class and decided to use those characters in our drawing final, a large 3 piece series.

those drawings look almost 3d, the characters were cut out and taped onto a drawn background, layered to have deep shadows. it doesn't look that good, but it's interesting, it even had the teacher encourage us to try making pop ups. C indeed tried that suggestion. and they liked it, the mix of art and engineering made C find it enjoyable.

i wonder why no other teacher before was as encouraging as her. why was it always to hide, not embrace.

now i sew. cosplay was something we've loved for years, but now we see how much our mom controlled us with it. i finally sewn a part of a cosplay from scratch. why was i not allowed to do that before is something C and I wonder now. C wore that costume to a convention, it was of the antagonist for our favorite game. it's weird, it feels like we're reclaiming what was stolen from us by an abusive peice of shit mother.

we've sewn a plush, it actually was the critter that went to C's costume. it's in an artshow now. something most people think to submit master studies, still lifes, and sculpture or abstract art to. now a pokemon from a fangame is in it, I'm told it's always the artwork you're not proud of that gets into shows, but now the plushy C is so proud of is on display. it's weird.

i know if our mom was alive, she's tell us what to submit, i doubt it would have been the plushy, she probably wouldn't have let us make it.

it's still weird. sometimes i wonder how our art would look if our mom just let us do our thing. or if we never got into that game. i know our art would be very different (or more consistent lol) if we weren't a system, but that one i can answer, the others will be mysteries as long as we're on our art journey

idk, moral of the story, it gets better even if it's weird as fuck. i went from not being allowed to do anything to making a giant staff out of wood at school (with the teacher's help because my disability said no saws for me) for a cosplay. I went from not knowing anything going on and being scared to jokingly arguing with my headmates about zelda lore while doing art homework. it's weird, it's unwell, but it's better than it was and it'll keep getting better

[raeloganthesonic06fangirl]

Okay,So What's Your Thoughts about Zamii070 Situation? IDK If You're Fan of Steven Universe or Not But Anyway I'm just Saying That Happen Back in 2015 Where They Literally Bully Her and Drove Her Suicide(Yeah,Suicide is Seriously Tragic) But I'm Glad That She's Safe (I Probably Know That Steven Universe Fandom Had Back to Normal After 2015 Incident)

Ah, I've heard of this.

Yeah, I'm a bit of a Steven Universe fan, by which I mean that I've seen all the episodes of both series and the movie a few times, have a few of the comic book compilations, a handful of collectibles ((particularly a Garnet Funko Pocket Pop, a handful of blind bag figurines, and a plush doll of kid Steven)), and the Minecraft Mash-up Pack. I even went to a meet-and-greet at a local convention where Steven's VA was attending, so I think it's safe to say I'm somewhat a fan of the series.

I remember hearing about the time the fanbase bullied a girl to the near tragic results just because they didn't like that she didn't draw Rose Quartz skinny enough in a relatively cute piece of fanart where Steven is being embraced by both of his parents. Like, I get that the series has a fantastic wide range of shapes and sizes for characters, and that's awesome, but attacking someone for not being 100% on model is just ridiculous. She didn't draw Rose like that just to mess with people, like, I'm pretty sure the art piece was made before we really knew that much about Rose, and she just wanted to give Steven both his parents in this drawing.

I do not condone bullying of any sort, whatsoever. I was bullied a lot in my youth for being "weird" and "different" ((before everyone knew I was Autistic, then it was just for that)), and it still affects me well over 25+ years later, like, that stuff sticks with you after you grow up. You still feel that criticism and panic.

I wasn't in the era where the internet was as bad as it is now, so my bullying was at school and things like my drawings on paper would be vandalized or crumpled or stolen and thrown back at me wadded up, sometimes with spit on it or something gross added to it. I can't imagine getting bombarded with literal death threats anonymously, just because people don't like your art style that's probably still developing. Learning to master different body shapes takes a while, too.

People are so critical of art these days. I know that people do exist that are intentionally trying to draw pre-established characters with canon designs as wrong as possible just to get a rise out people, but a lot of the time, it's just a new or underdeveloped artist who's still trying to get the hang of how to adapt to thier current abilities. Sometimes, it's people adapting a favorite character as a sort of drawn-cosplay for themselves when they don't look a lot like them at all. Sometimes it's just someone wanting to share thier interpretation of a character based on how they perceived it in their POV.

Like, yeah, if someone is purposely going out of thier way to draw a character as wrong as possible and repeatedly blows off any criticism or tips, and continues to do so just to spite people, then yeah, that's pretty messed up too, but just let people make thier art how they want if it's not actively hurting anyone.

Especially if you're in a fanbase for a series that constantly sings praises of diversity and loving people as they are and encourages to solve conflicts peacefully.

How very Un-Steven of y'all involved to drive a kid to nearly offing themselves over a drawing.

[tomyo]

The 10 year change of JK and Anime style

My latest watch in my quarantine marathon has been KyouSougigi, a 2011 anime that's bombastic and quirky. The world was so hyperactive, I thought it was a gainax (the trigger part) project.

But as the main character Koto had pulled out her weapon decorated with two big plush mascot straps, I was suddenly catapulted into a hyperstate of nostalgia. I never thought a phone strap would be nostalgic.

I'd like to pause a minute just to show off my beloved phone that I used at that time:

Granted, I didn't use these accessories yet. I desperately wanted anime phone straps since 2005 but bizarrely I didn't get one until 2011 when my pucho included a small dragonfruit character who didn't make it very long. However, in 2012, I was a new city living college student with no limitations and I. Went. Ham. Fake food, squishy bread, and stuffed plush, I had it all. My phone was now properly twice it's weight in charms. I was living to the then dream of every JK Gal wannabe.

The world changes so unexpectedly in only 7 or 8 years.

Life does, that's not a boomer complaint. But the 180 in Japanase High Schoolers is something I don't think an 18 year old me would have considered. The image I had grown alongside was that of was short skirts, bleached hair, tons of accessories, bright colors, cardigans, long statement nails and as previously talked about, excessively decorated (flip) phones. Excessive is a good word for it. Even though the looming influence of smartphones phased away the strap loop, bags were still prime keychain holders and decoden phone cases where a trending style. Things did change with tech changes but this had been a general look for nearly 15 years. And yet, here we are now.

First of all I'd like to point out there's very few High School centric anime out right now. Especially not many in the last 3 years (albeit I refreshed myself by skimming Crunchyroll). This isn't so much that anime doesn't use high school age protagonists going into high school, but that school has little in effect of the story. The only notable example of HS anime in 2020 have been Fruits Basket, A Certain Scientific Railgun, Kaguya-Sama, and Eikouken, the first two happen to also be visually cemented in previous eras. So let's look at the other two as well as BNHA since it technically is also a school anime. Character design isn't uniform but it's pretty subdued. In all three of these, nearly every character wears their uniform to dress code standard. Out of the whole BHN cast, Bakugo is the only one to wear his uniform differently, aside from that I'd only consider Denki and Kirashina to have flashy hair. Now this isn't to say that characters don't personalize themselves but rarely is it in focal ways. Style seems to has been delagated to exclusively footwear, backpacks, and sometimes headwear. Again, no one really does a flashy design for hair. There isn't a lot of curling or dyed hair (even if it's colorful, it may still be their natural hair color) and styling is kept to simple ponytails. Every so often a character my wear an alternative pair of shoes or tights instead of knee highs but the only really expression is their backpacks. In some ways that's funny because it was previously one of the uniform elements. The school standard duffle seems to have been replaced by stylish bags, something that could be overlooked depending on how often they're worn (not that often).

If I had to describe how high school life is portrayed now, it's mature. Minimalism is, well, a big thing. When I see JK life, it tends to have a clean look, class president like almost, the appeal seems to be a contrast in the white of the blouse against a dark blue or black. Shows don't seem to want to break a jewelish natural pallette. Also track, track seems really big right now in high school stories, don't ask me why. I think another part of this is that the shoujo norm of light hearted stories focused on fashion and boyfriends seems to now be more about bittersweet dramas. The full blown pastel romantic comedy has a lot of niche focus, wotakei for example. Where naming all the 'I'm a high school girl with one major quirk and this is my wild romance with my boyfriend with wacky hijinks and extreme reactions' shows would be hard to do during the era I was in high school, it's hard to think of many now.

In a similar way, I feel the atmosphere of animation has evolved. Let me start by saying anime is gorgeous now. Backgrounds are paintings, sakuga is everywhere and it's been so long since wispy hair detail meant garrish lines. That being said, my one boomer comment is maybe that it's too good. The statement that "Anime looks amazing but also seems to always be in the same style." could be applied to both ends of the 2010s. Kyoto animation had been the studio, popularizing school girls doing cute things, their style of moe character design, and a style of referential that had to be seen (this also was something brought to further focus by makoto shinkai). Anime almost seemed to suddenly elevate with more carefully drawn backgrounds and honed use of lighting effects. After effects in the digital of anime used to go absolutely unused or where extremely forefront. You can really feel the differences in series like Toradora, Gurren Laggan, Anohana. They were just so polished. Unfortunately, we kept trying to polish. Every major series sans shonen has gone deep into polish but it's removed a lot of the edges in the process. Fruits Basket had a distinctive style that was kept through to it's first anime but is completely gone in the remake for something that's more generic.

I'm applying some tunnel vision to this but anime has veered more mature and graceful. Like the inverse of the JK girl from the flashy gal look to the mature and uniform, anime has flipped from bombastic and expressive to gorgeous but retrained. It wasn't just the plush straps that was so nostalgic in Kyousougiga (remember when this was the whole point?) But the cartoonish designs and secure personality of the characters. It's hard to fully put my finger fully on what it is but that loud personality doesn't seem to be around much anymore. The spectrum seems stuck to very distinct flavours of Deep Introspection or Comedic Dumbassery in terms of personality. The majority of the former can almost be stressful, the character is almost always troubled by the state of their situation. The early 2010s almost felt unburdened in their burdens. For instance, Koto is trapped in a magical world, all she wants is to get home and the world is kinda hostile to her. Even still, she is smiling, goofing, and even has a friendly relationship with her foes. It's a 'This sucks!' not as much as 'This isn't good..'. Studio Trigger, the part of Gainax that popularized that rouge-ish goofy cast has been somewhat of the only one to keep that up. Even then they lost that energy a little bit with Kiznaiver and Darling in the Franxx. Of course, this is also all processed through my experience now as an adult who has a lot more concerns. The taste of nostalgia is so sweet, I can almost feel youth flow back into me at the sight of a feature phone. Even as I try to finish this long detour from my anime watch, the urge to recapture that feeling of being 17 is a powerful drug. Its a mixture of a lot of senses, the feeling of wearing my mock school uniform and using a big purse like a school duffle, learning pixiv, becoming a little more stylish but still keeping an eye on Japanese fashion, becoming a little more independent and active in my interests, and the untroubled comfort of my desires. It's funny that 17, a defining year in my life, happens to be the same year this came out. All in that year, I took piano classes, learned how to use a DSLR camera, started to cosplay, and began to learn Japanese. It was the year I stopped being an outcast without trying to be someone, the year I saw my first concert, the year I learned about Boba and BB cream, the year I was really infatuated with this guy but probably also my female friend, the year I became to determined to get dual citizenship (goodbye to that chance), the year I started on tumblr, it was just a year that I knew who I wanted to be. I've actually come near around to that feeling again recently so I won't let the nostalgia haunt me too much. But man, I'm really for late 00s fashion to come back. I want the cute accessories back, the cheesy photos you'd take and share for fun, and for thrown together looks.