#dieselsardine

[kajenus]

What things does Michał like? What are his dislikes? Aaaand tell me about Lynka's family :>

OHHH, HERE WE GO!! From this he likes... certainly taking care of flowers!! Back in the day, one of the requirements to live in a house in Giszowiec was to take care of the flowers in the garden (all of them also had roses from what I heard, btw). His mother did it, and so does Michał. But it isn't only something he has to do, he wholeheartedly loves it!! Also helps him de-stress. His biggest hobby. Another thing he's a fan of is hockey!! I don't know, but a lot of people here like hockey XD his favorite team is Naprzód Janów, which comes from here too. He also likes Budka Suflera and Maanam – two bands from the times of Polish People's Republic. Fave songs from these bands are "Lepiej bądź na tak" and "Lipstick on the Glass", respectively. Things he dislikes... WARSAW. DEFINITELY WARSAW. It's just a very Silesian thing to do. Since Poles used Silesians in MAAANY ways, why can't he just hate them? Varsovians are all snooty, and don't understand that Silesians can be different from them. Not to mention the fact they tried to eradicate Silesian language and culture. Theeen Eliasz came into his life and some things changed. He still isn't fond of the capital, but Eliasz took him there once in 1995 – it was actually the first time Michał visited Warsaw. Another one is the government itself. There are many reasons for this, from the fact that as a gay man he has to hide from them, or that they destroyed half of the original buildings in Giszowiec (cough comrade Grudzień cough). And you know, martial law. From more lighthearted things – Ruch Chorzów. They act like monkeys. He doesn't even like soccer, but he dislikes Ruch Chorzów.

Lynka's family!! Lynka comes from the Ambroz household, and was actually born in the suburbs of Katowice/Kattowitz. She was the third child of Alfons and Teresa Ambroz, and she had four younger siblings. She was raised in a typical Silesian household from those times – speaking Polish, keeping Polish traditions, Catholic. She had a close bond with her siblings, especially her sisters. As Lynka always had a really long hair (at one point around tailbone length), her sisters helped her brush it. When Giszowiec was build to house the workers of the coal mine "Giesche" (KWK "Giesche"; later "Wieczorek") and their families, she moved here with hers. Her father and brothers worked as miners, while she along with her mother and sisters took care of the house and made the meals – in general, she was taught how to be a good housewife (not that she was mad at them for that, she never saw herself in a normal job, even after women were given their rights). After she started dating Hanik Dytko, her parents were so happy she found somebody who a) isn't German, b) made her happy. She kept in touch with her family when she got married (Hanik promised her to do it as soon as Silesia becomes Polish again), but after she emigrated to the US in 1939, they lost the contact. Sometimes, she still wondered what happened to them – did they survived the war? Were they safe? And happy?

[emergencypunter]

11, 20, 42

11. Ever broken a bone?

Never!

20. Are you a good swimmer?

Actually, yes! I’m terrified of deep water though so any practical application of my swimming skills would be useless.

42. Do you have a favourite swear word?

‘Fuck’ is very versatile but I guess the word that gets a reaction is ‘cunt’ and people are also very confused when I say ‘see you next tuesday’ lmao

[radioactiveshitstorm]

Yellow (in a friend way), turquoise, black, coral, evil red

excuse me sir it’s illegal to be this nice, that’s not allowed ALL OF THOSE RIGHT BACK AT YOU!!

[ruvviks]

>> oc god quiz

was tagged by @strafethesesinners and @adelaidedrubman to take this test for my ocs, thank you so much!! tagging @awful-roffle, @coffeebucko, @radioactiveshitstorm, @dieselsardine, @coyote-skull, @henbased, @memaidraws, @shellibisshe, @bluemojave, @turbo-virgins, @necro-hamster, @eurodynamic, @reaperkiller, @aartyom, @morvaris, @arklay, @steelport, @ianeiras, @aelyosos, @swordcoasts, @cultistbase, @faarkas and anyone else who wants to do this :D <3

gust god

you were born free! as free as the grass grows! you could go in so many directions right now you might pull yourself apart trying. there are kites to fly and wheat to whip through and birds to knock around and- oh no, you've tornadoed an old woman's garage sale sign away. go pick that up!

force of flood

it's torture. you feel every blade of grass, every kitchen tile, every little set of running feet as you consume the land. you don't mean to! you're so angry! why do they treat you this way!? you were an ocean spirit once, calmly sending waves and rains inland. the people were happy, you were pristine. now every summer they have only built more, dumped more, stole more from you, why couldn't they be happy with the rains and grasses? "i will wash away your roads! i will sooner wipe you from the earth than succumb to your slow poisoning!", you bellow from roiling brown flood plains

god across the pond

you often appear as a small green light, constant as the north star in the eyes of longing souls. there you are across the bay that separates lovers. there you are, a faint green landmark on top of a mountain, inexplicably radiating a great ache for 'home'. many have tried to find your source and all have failed. it saddens you that you must leave before they reach you, but you have yearnings of your own. you are looking for your lover, looking for your home, every night

[silverspleen]

My mans my mans. Squiggly mans. 

Did an art trade over at the Dieselverse server and received not one but TWO (2) pictures of Green to feast my eyes upon. I love seeing how people draw him.

Character (c) ME

Pic one by VincentTheServal (TH/DA)

Pics two by @dieselsardine (sardine TH)

[scrawler-jay]

new digital projects

So it's been almost a year since I've posted anything here. I have been drawing (though not every day, unfortunately), but it's been mostly just doodles or figure studies - nothing particularly involved.

I bought myself an iPad 9 for college and received an Apple Pencil for Christmas, so of course that led to me getting Procreate from the app store and messing with it. After a few hours of doodling, I finally watched some tutorials and started getting serious.

I've been wanting to get into digital art for a while. Don't get me wrong, I love the tactile elements of traditional art, but it's unforgiving towards mistakes and all of the supplies/materials take up more space than you'd expect.

I was fortunate enough to receive a small drawing tablet from a good friend @dieselsardine several years ago, and worked with a free digital painting program called Krita for a while -- as mentioned in this post where I got into drawing mice -- but the tablet pen stopped working after my cat knocked it off my desk and onto a hardwood floor, and I felt uncomfortable spending the money to replace it. I found Krita to be... overwhelming. There were so many things I could do, and none of it felt particularly intuitive. Also, the program crashed OFTEN and I was terrified of working with more than 4 paint layers at a time.

Procreate feels like a breath of fresh air in comparison.

Admittedly, I have gotten used to more "typical" painting programs, so it took me a while to learn how the circle tool and color picker worked, and there's still a bunch I don't know -- I'm sure that, after less than a week, I've barely scratched the surface of what Procreate is capable of.

I was looking for something to draw in Procreate, something complex that would be an actual challenge. I'm terrible at coming up with ideas, so I decided to copy this stock illustration of a steaming teacup wreathed with a blackberry vine.

Now, copying ≠ tracing. (Trust me, if I'd traced, my final product would look a LOT better than it does, and I'd have learned nothing). I just used the stock image as a reference and tried to recreate it as best I could.

In Krita, I would try to use as few layers as possible. I had one layer for a sketch or background, one for lineart + colors, and 2 extra for any miscellaneous details. It wasn't a good system. With this project in Procreate, though, I found myself using more than 7 paint layers at a time and the app didn't so much as stutter under the load. I'm very impressed.

I started with a basic sketch of the whole scene:

(Note: this image has been altered to enhance contrast, since I wasn't sure it was easy enough to see).

I used the circle tool a few times! I wanted this stage to just be a general idea of whether everything goes, as opposed to a refined sketch. Because the original stock image doesn't have a lot of shading/shadows, I didn't feel the need to block in lots of values. (Also, IDK how to do the trick where you paint in grayscale, working exclusively with values, and then can switch the grayscale to color. I want to learn but I need to watch more tutorials).

I worked on the blackberry vine next, since I like botanicals. This part took me... about three days, working for maybe 1-2 hours per day.

I still only have the default brushes. I mostly used the technical pen for the lineart, since I like very opaque, thin lines. Adding color was done primarily with the round brush and the syrup brush, and you can see with the leaves that I was trying a lot of different blending methods -- some more successful than others -- before realizing that the smudge tool existed.

By the time I finished this part I was reaching the 50/50 stage of pride vs. loathing whenever I looked at what I had created. The teacup itself would make or break my feelings about this project.

The cup looks... okay. The circle/ellipse tool is a godsend and saved this entire project. I did some shading, which ended up being the easiest part of this entire picture, then overlaid the layer with the botanical elements, and all that was left were some wisps of steam.

And that's it! The stock illustration uses more subtle shading and adds a bunch of lines to give an impression of depth, but I prefer the more dramatic shading here. (Though tbh I worry that it's a very different style from the blackberry leaves themselves, and that the 2 styles aren't especially harmonious). My pride vs loathing is now at 65-35, in favor of pride. I can tell that there's still a lot I need to learn how to do, but as a first art piece on a new digital art application I think I did pretty well.

[horrorlocke]

( @dieselsardine ) !!!! SHORT ANSWER; half the time he doesn’t and leaves an awful trail of Red Stains wherever he goes.

LONG ANSWER;

Depending on how sober he is he may become self conscious of the bleeding and request gloves or a newspaper to sit or stand on to avoid staining friends furniture. His own though? Blood stained, soaked in vitae, the inside of his rv looks like a crime scene at all times.

He DOES have a homemade solution to this ( which was an idea given to him via a nosferatu friend written by @quillofarcadia because I’m certainly not the genius who came up with this) & that is attaching lil suckers over his stigmatas on his hands and connecting that to plastic tubing hes put into the lining of his coat sleeves. The tubes lead to empty packets that quickly become full, resulting in a leaky ketchup packet of a malkavian wandering the streets.

[solnishkawrites]

Preptober: TTG Update 2

TTG is... progressing, but far too slowly. (Read my introduction to “The Tenth Generation” here, and my previous update here). A friend in my NaNo regional Discord server has made a pact with me -- if I finish my outlining before November 1st, he will draw the main characters of TTG; if he finishes his outline before November 1st, I’ll send him a card/encouraging letter with some goodies every week of NaNoWriMo. Fortunately, my friend doesn’t know I have a tumblr blog, so I can say here that going to send him the card + goodies regardless of whether he finishes outlining in time, because it’s a nice thing to do.

Because I’m doing 2 NaNo projects (25k words for each) I’m going to try and outline 13 chapters of each project, for a total of 26 chapters. Currently I have 12 chapters outlined across both projects (nine for WCtS and three for TTG). That means I need to outline more than 2 chapters per day until November 1st. My average word count per chapter is 3-5k, so I should be able to win NaNo with 13 chapters per project.

God, that’s a lot of math. I hate math.

Anyway, I was really struggling to do a detailed chaptered outline for TTG because it felt kinda... hopeless. I felt like TTG’s over-arching story wasn’t going anywhere; I had some cool scenes in mind, but I didn’t know how to connect them. I watched Katytastic’s 3/9/27 novel outlining video and thought “wow, this is stupid” ...but I could also see my own story loosely fitting that outline. I made a list of all of the 27 events in Katytastic’s outline, then grabbed some markers, a pen, and the highlighters that @dieselsardine​ was kind enough to send me (which I had been aching for an excuse to use) and started writing a 3/9/27 outline by hand.

Every time I made a mistake, I would re-write the entire page.

This sounds tedious, but re-writing gave me a chance to re-think the concepts I was putting down and either make them more concise or add more detail. (But there were definitely some instances where it was just 3am and I wrote the wrong character’s name and then had to re-write the page without thinking about anything except how annoyed I was). 

By 5am I had a coherent general outline with a beginning, a middle, and an end! I’m so happy! I’ve digitalized and refined that outline in Notion, and now I’m going to try and nap for a few hours before getting back to it.

[emergencypunter]

7, 9, 32, 74

7) What is your least favorite personality trait about yourself?

I tend to try and add too many details to my stories/recollections because i don’t want people to be confused but I end up going full circle and confusing myself in the process.

9) If you could visit any place, fictional or real, where would you go?

I really wanna visit Ireland one day lol.

32) What is your favorite childhood memory?

I can’t really pick one but one of my favorite feelings of childhood is going to school in late fall when the book fair is going on and buying a TON of stuff, then having a surprise pizza party because it’s the last day of school before the holiday week break.

74) How many states/countries have you visited?

I’ve been to New York, Connecticut, Nevada, Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, North Carolina, Texas, Washington DC, China, Japan, Canada (Ontario), and Vietnam

[emergencypunter]

🐝❄🕊

🐝- describe your aesthetic in emojis

⭐️💙🧡💜🚗✨🌴🌊

❄️- what is your favorite season?

I really like autumn when it’s chilly and breezy and all the stores smell like pumpkin spice and cinnamon and peppermint. (I guess specifically October to December lol).

🕊️- 3 habits you have?

>I always leave one small bite of food left during dinner.

>I crack my knuckles when I’m nervous.

>I always insist on walking at the back of the group.

[radioactiveshitstorm]

i fucking LIVE for vasya. hearing about him brightens up my day, love the story of someone coming from such a rough place and not letting the bastards grind him down... he's sweet and I love when he gets a steel-reinforced spine (from hanging out with his uncles, amongst other support?) and takes ZERO SHIT. best lad 348732423423/10

maaaate....... i love that you love my boy so much, warmths my gottdamn heart that i can just splurge random bean facts at you on dicsord all the damng time. FUNFACT! you’ve played a HUGE part in his continued development as a character, i s2g you know him almost as well as I do and that shit’s bangin’. He wouldn’t be the embodiment of Radical Aggressive Kindness and Do No Harm But Take No Shit that he is today without your input & influence!! <3

bonus: the most recent picrew bean for ur soul :)

[radioactiveshitstorm]

Nice round fruit, minion, arcade floor vibes

yeah well SAME BUT @ YOU

[radioactiveshitstorm]

10, 12, 22 for vasya, gordan, and ragnvaldr

♥ (10) What is your OC’s favourite big way to show their love?

Vasya - By painting! He loves to pour hours into artworks for the people he loves. A family portrait for his uncles, a watercolour version of a photo from his first date with Dresden and Soyana, and he’s even painted Vanya’s entire gopnik crew before (all six of the very varied bastards).

Gordan - He doesn’t really do big shows of love. Little things, like small random gifts and allowing people to use nicknames for him, are much more his thing.

Ragnvaldr - They’ve got a little hideaway in the forest, protected from prying eyes and accidental discovery by a lot of magic; it’s their secret place to get away from the noise and hectic-ness of 21st century life. The biggest show of love ever was taking their boyfriend Clive there, trusting him with the knowledge and location of this incredibly personal safe place.

♥ (12) What do you love most about your OC?

Vasya - He’s kind! So fuckin kind to everyone, even when they might not deserve it. Kind and soft, but none of it is weakness. He’s me favourite comfort character.

Gordan - Harmlessly weird, cryptid, loves his friends more than anything... No I’m not projecting, how dare you accuse me of such things!

Ragnvaldr - BIG AND STRANGE. Also: the exquisite vibe of a very powerful ancient being falling in love with a relatively ordinary & fragile human... mmm....

♥ (22) How often does your OC read romantic literature?

Vasya - Sometimes? It’s not his favourite genre, he dislikes a lot of the tropes, and he really hates how often love triangles feature in them just to cause problems (“J-just make it poly, you c-cowards!”). If he could find romance stories that he could relate to, maybe he’d read them more?

Gordan - This man reads nothing but the labels on bathbombs and other soapy products, and the occasional newspaper he finds in a bin. Doesn’t have the time or energy for literature really

Ragnvaldr - Good Fucking Grief, they love romantic lit. The sappier the better! They’ve watched with interest as the popular clichés develop over time, but the really sweet wholesome stuff always has & always will get to them. Someone’s gotta introduce them to fluff fanfiction right now, immediately. Also, much as they love the soft shit, they do sometimes delve into the spicier works too...

[radioactiveshitstorm]

Any sovd Sunday for Gordan or Vasyaaaa or both

BOTH OF COURSE

Vasya Do dirty jokes go over their head, or are they the one making the dirty jokes? Man does not understand a single dirty joke, his brain does just not work that way. Even the most obvious jokes! And if, by some rare chance, he does understand, it just makes him uncomfortable.

What food or drink can be given to them to show that their partner really cares? This is a weird one, but he really likes kholodets! Since it’s pretty time-consuming to make, he doesn’t get to have it a lot; a partner putting in the required time & effort on that will make him cry.

Non-sexual thing that always makes the muse melt? Gentle touches! Of any kind! Being treated with kindness like that will always get to him. Squeeze his hand a little and he’ll get this soft sappy smile on his face. Play with his hair and he’ll doze off so fast.

Gordan Do they like being called a nickname? Only by people he trusts! So far only two people have been awarded the nickname privilege; his boyfriend Veljko, and his best friend Somhairle. 

What’s the best way to calm down your muse when they’re angry? If Gordan is angry, something has gone very wrong. Probably someone he cares about has been hurt, so the only way to calm him down is to reassure & prove to him that they’re okay, they’re fine, he doesn’t need to fight anyone. Then distract him with a nice bathbomb, that usually works!

[radioactiveshitstorm]

1, 3, 22, 26

1.  your favourite playlist (made by yourself or someone else)

that’d be my “favourites” playlist i guess lmao, or the Gordan WET BOI and Vasya playlists you made me, mr sardine friend :) oh and my Dresden/Vasya ship playlist bc it’s just positive lovey pleasantness

3.  your favourite “grounding” activity (anything that involves using the hands/doesn’t involve “spacing out” or escapism - something like gardening, knitting, dancing, cooking)

admittedly i dont do a lot of non-spacing out type things... i guess the closest would be drawing my boy Vasya? i doodle him whenever i’m feeling particularly Awful™. bean man does a good job of keeping me level

22.  if you were going to dye your hair any colour of the rainbow, what would you choose?

i wanna go neon turquoise next! altho as a kid i always used to beg mum to let me have ginger hair lol, maybe some day

26.  the film you watched most recently that you could watch again and again

Prince of Egypt; i fucking adore that film, the music, the animation, all of it

[radioactiveshitstorm]

"Did they have an official first date? If so, what was it like?" for vasya + dres + soyana, and "What are their primary love languages?" for gordan and veljko

First date:

The first date with all three of them is a trip to the zoo! They all like animals (and rooting through gift-shops) so it makes perfect sense. And it goes really well! Soyana convinces them to stick around for the seal feeding demonstration (an excellent choice); Dres proves that a tiger’s camouflage works, by being colourblind and not being able to spot the damn thing for ages; and Vasya spends the whole time smiling, taking photos, and trying to hold their hands as much as possible.

Of course, all three of them go a little ham in the gift shop. Matching keyrings? Soft-toy animals? Absolutely!

Love languages:

Gordan’s main one is gift-giving; he loves finding things that people will like, and really gets a kick out of watching someone’s face light up. His gifts do tend to be a little... unusual... Satisfyingly smooth river pebbles, pleasant scented soaps, and occasionally just “look i found a frog for you to hold and appreciate” :]. Veljko loves these sorts of gifts; he’s not a fan of expensive stuff, so simple Just Nice things are perfect. You better believe he’s got an entire shelf dedicated to “neat things Gordan gave me”, and it’s mostly cool rocks.

When given a gift, Gordan will absolutely LOSE HIS MIND. Experiences 15 emotions at once and all of them are tearful delight and AAAHHHHHHH. Doesn’t matter what it is; if it’s from someone he loves, he will adore it.

Veljko’s main one is physical affection; he’s a very tactile person, and loves to touch & be touched. Any kind of contact, from a simple hand on the shoulder, to a full long cuddle-session (or more ;3), makes him feel all warm and loved. When Gordan holds his hand without warning, he just about dies inside from sheer delight. Thankfully, Gordan goes equally crazy for nice physical contact, since his previous relationship was one full of precisely the opposite. He will physically cry over being given a cosy squeezy hug.

TLDR: they’re a pair of hopelessly in-love lads who find any opportunity to give each-other presents and hugs!