#don't underestimate the creators of life bitch!!!!!!!!!!!

[reallyunluckyrunaway]

WE LIVE IN THE HANDMAID'S TALE. GET MAD OR GET IMPRISONED IN YOUR OWN HOMES.

[defenestratin]

Ok 4 for the artist ask and a personal question of my own lol - how can I get good at drawing? Obviously practice practice practice but like do you have any tips that helped you not give up?

4. Fav character/subject that's a bitch to draw

My GOD okay I love drawing spicies. Like A LOT but it's not so much that it's frustrating to draw as much as it is difficult to come up with ideas and compositions in my head for them. It's really funny that nsfw content is the stuff that I feel least confident in even though I want to get better at it, draw more, and post more of it! I just have to power through with OC brainrot >:3

As for your other question!

I used to say practice-practice-practice but it's something that goes without saying now I think, and often times it's tough to hear even though it's partly true.

I could go on about how practicing intentionally is key (like intentionally doing studies, life drawing etc) but I think the main drive to improve, at least for myself who is constantly learning, is to find something you're interested in and just... go ham!

I think artists have a tendency to overthink and be impatient about an image in their head that they want to immediately commit to paper, at least I was like that HAHA so the frustration stemmed from the strength of the idea in my head vs my current skill level. It's just something you have to be patient and self-forgiving about. Oftentimes artists also underestimate their own skill because as the creator they see all the mistakes-- other people don't see that process and only see what you put out.

What I learned only recently was switching my mentality from "God, there's so much I don't know know and that sucks" to "There's so much to learn and that's awesome!" has been incredibly helpful.

A lot of people including myself are always joking about "the best way to improve is to get really attached to a blorbo" but it holds very true for me. I recently went down a nostalgia trip through my tumblr, which has posts from literally over 10 years ago and it's wild seeing my (somewhat cringe but incredibly free) journey from highschool art to after university.

I drew a LOT of fanart and a lot of fandom OCs as well as took part in a bunch of RP groups at the time. Looking back, there's a lot I wouldn't have learned if it weren't my obsession about them! My drive to make art that I felt was representative of my love for them pushed me to try new things every day :D

Nowadays it's constant search within myself to try rediscovering my love for creating that I had at 14 that I feel has been buried over the years, but it's there for sure! So I try to summon that part of me whenever I draw my OCs or work especially.

This ended up kinda long and rambley, but I hope it helps!

[masschase]

15 and 16 for Casey for the Saints Row Boss ask meme thing 💙

Ooh thank you I'm excited to get these again!

Boss ask meme

15. Are there any small things about them in the canon that you've really run with in your headcanon?

This is a question I recall really wanting someone to ask me when I made this meme and it's taken so long I've forgotten half of what I wanted to say 🤣

I'm going to go with what I still remember though I'm sure there's way more. Everyone knows I'm canon's bitch by this point. When I started my fanfic I wasn't thinking Matt x OC, I was thinking Matt and The Boss.

So I spent hours on wiki reading about The Boss, combined with what I remembered from actually playing, working in elements of a fitting backstory where I could, and that somehow made Casey. I kind of didn't realise she was an OC until tumblr 😅

Anyway, here are some of the results of that memory/research:

Likes Jane Austen, and the Brontës(male Boss mentions reading Jane Eyre a load of times). That somehow became her quoting it when she's drunk and with a lot of research bc that's really not my thing, drawing parallels between Emma and Mr. Knightley and Casey and Matt(but there's the odd Mr. Darcy joke too). God the fact I bought the Jane Austen collection and the Prose Edda (where the story of Ragnarok is from) to ship these two is not normal of me.

Doesn't like talking about life before the Saints/daddy issues.

I've used the whole 'Playa was originally called Mikey/Mickey" thing by making her middle name Michaiła and therefore Mikki bring one of her pseudonyms.

Somewhat interested in Nyte Blayde after Matt's mission(she's actually the one who appears on his couch at the time she knows he watches one time).

The idea that she rambles when she's emotional, particularly in the romantic sense, and that all of her partners will at some point have to shut her up with a kiss because of it, comes directly from the GatBoss romance scene. In fact the idea that she's not always the best at initiating physical contact even though she really wants/needs it kind of grew from that, too.

The whole going to a massage parlor way too young thing; there's a whole scene with a time-travelling Matt and Johnny seeing her come out of there.

Being bad with tech bc there are a few mentions in different games about that.

Liking robots when she was 6 is something that comes up a few times. I also ran with the fact that she and Matt are the only ones who call it "the robot".

Her voice mentions a therapist at times. I used that for at least one of the reasons she mellows out over time, especially between 2&3.

Surreal jokes such as "Asha, that light had a family."

I saw on the wiki that Boss is supposedly 6'2"; I made her 5'9" with 5 inch heels.

The fact the Boss uses the heavy pistol a lot in cutscenes is why her gold .45 Fletcher became her signature weapon.

As I say, there's probably way more! I don't want to make this so long that no-one reads it!

16. Is there anything from the games you've drastically avoided or downplayed in your headcanon?

This one I did actually answer before, but to summarise:

She's cis and even with the whole "she looked like a boy" claims, I've never made her in SR1's character creator (I do love some of the in game outfits for her though), plus I pretty much hc her always having her SR3/4 voice, just a little higher/more timid in 1.

She never went to college (referencing voice lines) because she dropped out of HS, though she did do some online study when she had time.

At the time I also said I didn't fill out her sr1-3 life much, but I have started to do that bit by bit. One I didn't mention for some reason:

SR3/4 Boss seems kind of stupid at times. Casey's pretty sharp tbh. She spends years hating that people underestimate her intelligence, but eventually kind of comes to terms with the fact that she's smart and that makes her kind of downplay it instead.

Recently, there's been more I've wanted to downplay for example:

I don't really like that I wrote in the Cyrus Temple thing. I like to think that's way downplayed, if she did have surgery for that it was minor, although that remains the time she decoded to stop getting plastic surgery for every scar and injury.

While GOOH kind of had to happen for a lot of my hc, I don't think it was quite like that(I can tell you for a fact Dex was not there for a start!). OK that's moving more from Casey to general universe but still 😅

I feel like there's more for both answers, but I guess I can always reblog with them later 😊