#dont have any more examples... but yknow

[boffeeceans]

"Billy is a cat" "Eddie is a dog" they're both birds.

Exempla one:

[wolvebonez]

style experimentation!!! for a story ive been pondering on:) It's very important to me that, if i ever commit to making a comic with this story, that it has a realistic-leaning style. It needs to feel very grounded, but also being simplified into a way that allows distinguishable character designs and is feasibly simple enough for a comic/graphic novel or comic-adjacent format.

I'm more happy with the first, even if the second is a bit more realistic leaning! the first defiantly is cleaner and more distinguishable i think, and has more "personality"(?) than the second, even if the second is in an more dynamic pose. But thats just my thoughts on it so far- if anyone has feedback I'd love to hear it!!!

[muchmossymess]

Every day I urge closer to finding every single cave in botw and then comparing them in totk

[snekdood]

welp id say the only new thing i actually learned on tumblr university in this span of time where ppl are patronizing me acting like I need to relearn feminism- is more about the history of antisemitism, which i desperately needed to learn (and yall do too but refuse to and assume you already do know), otherwise everything else ppl think they're teaching me is shit I already know.

[arolesbianism]

I was looking at some lob corp reviews earlier and the biggest thing that kept catching me off guard was how many ppl talked abt the game running poorly. Maybe I just have low standards but I always was impressed by how well it ran on my laptop that runs most games at like 5 frames per second, like it took quite a bit for the frame rate to notably dip, and Ive never had the game crash on me even when I actively pushed it's limits. I know there's some memory leak issues but I guess I always assumed any performance stuff was minor and just caused by keeping the game open for super long periods of time, I would have never thought of that as a particularly noticable part of lob corps jank

[glass-clown]

[FIRST ID: A screenshot of a Facebook post by Jane Friedman that says, "As of today, there are about half a dozen books being sold on Amazon, with my name on them, that I did not write or publish. Some huckster generated them using AI, hoping to make a quick buck from people who don't realize I'm not the author. Unforuntately, these scam books were also added to my official Goodreads profile. I don't think the larger public understands that author don't directly control what books appear on their profile. They are automatically added via Amazon and/or submitted by users. To get them removed is not an easy process. [in all caps] A brief update [end caps]: After going back and forth a few times with Amazon on this issue, I was notified these junk books would not be removed based on the information I provided. Since I do not own copyright in these AI works and since my name is not trademarked, I'm not sure what can be done." Attached is an image of a rusty dumpster with fire and smoke coming out of it. Above the screenshot is a Tweet by Gabe Hudson @ gabehudson.bsky.social that says, "Dear god what fresh hell is this for writers?" /END OF FIRST ID]

[SECOND ID: A screenshot of a message conversation between @jenovacomplete and an Amazon customer service member whose name has been blocked out. The first message is by jenovacomplete, set at 10:49 pm, that says, "Ah, I haven't ordered from them. I just wanted to see if there was any way to report their fraudulent reproduction. If there isn't, that's fine! Thank you for your time!" At 10:54 pm the customer service member replies, "Okay. Thank you for been on online, The product from Amazon are genuine and correct . You can order from Amazon. No worries from shopping amazon." /END OF ALL IDS]

-

I found an interesting excerpt in an article about this case:

""All this time, public outcry over the case from other authors and observers mounted on Twitter. Finally, on Tuesday morning, Amazon reversed its decision and removed the titles from its platform. A company spokesperson sent Gizmodo a statement explaining its decision.

"We have clear content guidelines governing which books can be listed for sale and promptly investigate any book when a concern is raised," Amazon spokesperson Ashley Vanicek told Gizmodo. "We welcome author feedback and work directly with authors to address any issues they raise and where we have made an error, we correct it. We invest heavily to provide a trustworthy shopping experience and protect customers and authors from misuse of our service."

Amazon declined to comment further when asked to elaborate on what particular rule or policy was violated that led to the AI-generated content being removed. Friedman said she's confident the growing backlash on social media contributed to the ecommerce's reversal. That's good news for her, but will come as little solace to other, smaller writers who lack her same level of prominence.

"I do think it was the public outcry," the author said. "Obviously you shouldn’t have to raise a shitstorm in order to get them to do the right thing."" — "Amazon Removes AI-Generated Books That Spoofed an Author's Byline" by Mark DeGeurin on Gizmodo

[bucksbeagle]

here to ask about the camera panning to eddie. give me the freak answer pls

when i saw that shit airing i yelled and spilled wine on my carpet.

like. i feel like this is common sense but i dont know if people realize how intentional each second of a show/movie is. like whether the show is a silly sitcom or a serious drama everything is so intentional and purposeful. of course theres always continuity errors and mistakes that happen when you’re creating a show of that size thats been running for so long but for the most part everything has its intentions. its why you see certain themes come back again and again. im not gonna get into outfit meta or anything like that because its not really my wheelhouse but i did learn a lot about camera techniques and im a writer so. yeah.

shots are one of the most important aspects of a movie or a tv show. they set the mood. close up shots convey intensity and emotion while more wide shots establish a scene etc. they gave us a lot of close up shots of eddie’s face in the kim and eddie scene at the end of 7x09 because it was an intense moment for eddie as a character for example. you have to get the shot right to convey what you want your audience to see yknow.

so. you have the medal ceremony. they couldve done the announcements for these people in literally any order because they fucking wrote the script. they didnt do it alphabetically or anything normal they literally had the trio of triangulated desire standing in the back with buck in the middle AGAIN while chim and hen were being normal and serving cunt up front. and when they were sitting they had buck in the middle again because reasons. then once they got their medals itd pan to their families and significant others clapping. ofc for tommy they pan to buck because thats the person there supporting him. for BUCK they had so many options. they had bobby, his captain that he verbally said was his father figure the next episode, they had maddie, his fucking SISTER AND THE WOMAN WHO RAISED HIM, and they had tommy, the dude he’s dating. instead they pan to eddie.

literally that is the absolute LOUDEST fucking thing the show has done so far in my opinion. they panned to buck for tommy!!! they couldve panned back to buck or done it in a different order if they didnt wanna repeat so they could pan to them for each other!!! but they panned to eddie and the director of photography was even emphasizing that choice on twitter.

the entire bi arc had eddie written all over it. they had so many opportunities to shove their relationship to the side and double down on their friendship but they didnt. instead we had buck tweaking at the gym where we have no idea who eddie was even talking to on that phone, eddie constantly mentioned by buck in a kiss scene with someone else, the line of all time ‘MY attention?’, eddie interrupting the date next episode, buck not even giving a FUCK about the date because he lied to eddie, the shit maddie said that episode about being confused about his feelings, eddie saying nothing is gonna change between them (which. thats a chekov’s gun if ive ever seen one), and all the entire shit with the bachelor party. not even mentioning the implications of the song choice for the karaoke scene that paralleled madney because we didnt get it in the episode. they couldve completely avoided all of that but they didnt and then when buck is dating someone else they dont pan to HIM being happy and supportive for buck, they pan to EDDIE. it feels as if its supposed to remind us what’s actually going on or another attempt to clue us in

also like right after they had the two who were dating acting as acquaintances. and had that guy also kinda put buck’s excitement down at said ceremony. and later in that episode had buck ditch plans with the guy he was dating to make sure eddie was okay. for reasons i guess. so buddie canon or theyre doing a real bad job at getting me to care about bucks actual man

[pumpkinsy0]

PaperCut hcs yayyyyyy

•curly can smell when its about to rain, hes saved pony a lot of uncomfortable moments bc either pony forgets or it just happens mid day randomly and they share curlys jacket as an umbrella

•pony singing kinda sounds like chet baker, curly will walk in on pony mumble singing my funny valentine cause he thinks hes alone and curly will ACTUALLY b quiet bc he likes ponys voice VERY much w the small amount he can pick up. but its curly still, hes gonna tell pony he heard him and forever bother pony and when hes ever gonna sing for him

•curly constantly thinks about if he had a motorcycle. he would drive pony any and everywhere AND have ponys hands around him, its one of his biggest fantasies. pony wouldnt b on board at all, hes like, one foot on the board, the other half on actual ground about it. he thinks he would look silly on one, plus its curly driving. w a motorcycle if u even go above a PEBBLE bad at the speed ur goin, its just over for u, but he’ll indulge in the idea w curly here n there, putting it into motion however??? ehhhhh

•if pony and curly agreed to leave for nyc and avoided the whole argument that eventually led to their 2 or 3 year break up, pony wouldve been motivated by that to get him through hs!! curly wouldve took school maybe like a LITTLE less seriously, hes not doing a 180 tho over it, its a good 90

•curlys pretty jealous over pony being buffer than him, he doesnt think thats fair at all no matter what he does he cant gain muscle like that. pony purposely flexes on him when he can, curly will squeeze ponys muscles, theyre that kind of couple

•neither of em could 100% feel safe in the others house, curlys house is just the shepards house pony doesnt have to explain himself here, and the curtis’ never lock their damn door, literally just open to the public, they both argue which situation is worse to b in

•pony only finds piercings actually attractive on curly, beyond curly its not somethin hes deeply into at all. this isnt a piercing but this is the same w silver tooth/teeth, pony thinks hes a weirdo for liking that on him so he keeps that bit to himself

•hickies r a weird thing for them, pony didnt (still doesnt) know how to leave hickies, he thinks its so awkward everytime he tries its one big FAT hickey and curly thinks its so funny hes not mad about it at all. and once pony was just sucking on his skin cause his mind blanked ended up giving himself a hickie. u combine that w how curly will feel ponys muscles and yea ppl thought curly sucked on his arm like a freakster, curly can try denying it all he wants but pony wont admit that it was him who did it so curlys stuck w that stupid rumor for life

•curlys flirting can rlly help pony embrace parts of himself that hes insecure about. wait maybe not insecure, i dont think ponys insecure about himself physically THAT much, more like shy to flat out show off certain parts of himself. for example, pony doesnt like his track uniform bc it shows off most of his legs, w curlys flirting, he feels a bit better about it

•they dont take the whole “sharing a drink w two straws” thing as super romantic bc they already share drinks all the time w one straw. they can try to do it but it wont have that same hmph, yknow

[voidzphere]

first off i love your art :D ive been trying to understand canon killer more and as a system myself its nice to see someone talk about killer in terms of plurality! id love to hear more of your thoughts if you wanna share :)

THANK YOU AND YES I WOULD LOVE TO. ive been preparing for this day

this MIGHT be a little long so hold onto ur seatz

killer has been canonically implied to be a system, or have alterz/headmatez at least. they are described as his “stagez”, where different alterz take front dependin on the stage he'z in. for example, when he'z in his most stable stage—stage 1—sans is fronting. yknow when his eyelight is summoned in one eye socket ? yeah, that.

killer has three or more alterz, but the two that are shown to be most active in his system are stage 1 / sans, or stage 3-4 (shown below)

some more stuff of me yappin abt it to one of my mootz

rahafwabas drawz him in a slightly pink-ish red when he'z in his third/fourth stagez (the color of his soul). unfortunately, i dont ever see the fandom draw him like this which YOU GUYZ FUCKING SHOULD. ITZ SO COOL

in this stage, he barely has any control and the 3-4th stage is mostly in front and controlling. he'z basically a murder machine in this stage, and emotionless. he will kill anyone in his path.

in his first and most stable stage, where sans peekz out slightly and his eyelight is summoned, he'z drawn like this. he'z much more calmer and collected in this stage, but much more emotional, too.

in media and fan content of killer, he is usually drawn like this to display the immense amount of emotion he is feeling. which is technically correct, he is feeling a lot of emotion in this stage, but sans is also there fronting with him or without him entirely.

stage 2 is where he'z mostly depicted in canon and fanon media. itz where he'z in between both stagez, though his alterz could still be co-fronting during this time. his soul isnt stable nor unstable in this stage. he isnt emotionless nor too emotional. he will still kill, but have more control over his body and his determination (black goop comin outta his eyez and mouth) doeznt drip as much as it doez in either stagez mentioned earlier.

thatz all i can think of for his stagez/alterz in general rn :3 hope that helpz !

killer sans + all the art provided belongz to rahafwabas

[transmutationisms]

Feel free not to answer this ask so you dont have to step into this particular hornet's nest but do you have any thoughts about people sharing inaccurate science about COVID in order to push for more COVID regulations? I agree that COVID is being neglected and we need better policies but I'm also a biochemist so it pisses me off to see people cite research in a way that makes exaggerated and terrifying claims. Two years ago, I was warning my colleagues against this condescending "just trust the science" approach but now the same crowd pushing that has shifted to pushing "don't trust any of the positive science, only my catastrophic interpretations of it". Can't we mask without also trying to convince each other that COVID is a guaranteed one way ticket to death and permanent disability?

you must be new here haha i swing bats at this hornet's nest like once a month. yeah i think the current state of covid communication sucks a lot. i mean the truth is that "follow the science" is always a disingenuous sentiment; Science doesn't speak, and scientists disagree with one another. and it's naïve to pretend majority consensus is a reliable mechanism to identify truth—anyone who has followed the covid aerosolisation about-face will recall that although linsey marr was not the first researcher to challenge medical orthodoxy on airborne disease transmission, even well into the covid pandemic the idea of aerosol transmission was marginalised by global health authorities because it was politically inconvenient, out of favour with powerful established academics, and reminiscent to some of pre-pasteurian miasma theories of disease. those who would "follow the science" were not presented with a convenient dichotomy between reasonable evidence-backed expert consensus and fringe peddlers of heterodoxy; to evaluate these positions required actually, yknow, reading and evaluating the arguments and evidence from multiple competing positions, and deciding which had the greater explanatory power. which is good epistemological advice only insofar as it's so obvious as to be trite.

fundamentally a huge driving force of this situation is the social, political, and institutional forces that make expert knowledge (a generally good thing) all too often synonymous with inaccessible knowledge. i don't mean inaccessibility caused by knowledge being specialised; obviously this is inevitable to some extent simply as a result of the fact that no one person will grasp the entirety of human knowledge. but the fact that knowledge is specialised, specific, highly technical, and so forth doesn't automatically mean, for example, that it has to be monetarily gatekept from all but a select few with the resources to persevere through a highly punishing, nepotistic, hegemonic university system; this is a political problem, and one that additionally has the effect of enabling and sheltering low-quality work (see: replication crisis) behind the opaque walls of university bureaucracy and the imprimateur of the credentials it grants. in lieu of an ability to actually engage with, read, or challenge much of the academic research being generated on any given topic, the lay public is supposed to rely on signs of reliability like possession of a degree, or institutional reputation. what we in fact see again and again, and with particularly high stakes in the case of something like a pandemic, is that these measures are instruments of class stratification and professional jockeying that don't inherently ensure quality information: MDs can and do peddle anti-vaxx lies and covid / long-covid denialism; the CDC and WHO can and do perpetrate bad and outdated scientific advice, like that masks are unnecessary and isolation periods can be shortened for convenience. many of these are just blatant cases of kowtowing to political pressure, which arises from the capitalist logic that counterposes disease prevention to economic growth.

this all leaves us in a position where it is, in fact, smart and correct to evaluate the information coming from 'official' and credentialled sources with scepticism. the problem is that in its place, we get information coming out of the same capitalist state-sponsored scientific institutions, and the same colonialist universities; the idea that some chucklefuck on twitter is telling you the secret truth just because they correctly identified that the government sucks is plainly absurd. where covid specifically is concerned, the liberalism of academic and scientific institutions is on display in numerous ways, including the idealist assumption, which many 'covid communicators' make, that public health policy is primarily a matter of swaying public opinion, and therefore that it is always morally imperative to form and propagate the most alarmist possible interpretation of any study or empirical observation. this is not an attitude that encourages thoughtful or measured evaluation of The Science (eg, study methodology), nor is it one that actually produces the kind of political change that would be required to protect the populace writ large from what is, indeed, a dangerous and still rampant virus. instead, this form of communication mostly winds up generating social media Engagement and screenshots of headlines of summaries of studies.

meanwhile, actual public health policy (which is by and large determined at the mercy of capitalist state interests, and which by and large shapes public opinion of what mitigation measures are 'reasonable', despite the CDC repeatedly pretending this works the other way round), remains on its trajectory toward lax, open exposure of anyone and everyone to each new strain of covid, perpetuating a society that is profoundly hostile to disabled people and careless with everyone's life and health. this fucking sucks. it sucked that we have treated the flu like this for years, and it sucks that we are now doing it with a virus that we are still relatively immunologically naïve to, and that produces, statistically, even more death and disability than the flu. and it sucks that the predominating explanations of this state of affairs from the 'cautious' emphasise not the structural forces that shape knowledge production under capitalism, but instead invoke a psychological narrative whereby individuals simply need to be sufficiently terrified into producing mass action.

[cyberdragoninfinity]

ms dana cyberdragoninfinity do you have any yugioh spinoff merch hunting tips 👉👈🥺

YESSSS WHIRLS AROUND IN MY BIG SPINNING CHAIR. i Love merch hunting and giving merch hunting tips, there's a whole beautiful world of often remarkably inexpensive yugioh merch out there and once you learn how to track it down a new chapter of your life can truly begin. I bestow onto you some of my advice gleaned from about two and a half years of Searching For Merch Like a Tuffle-Sniffing Hog:

(note: while im specifically focusing on ygo spinoff merch here, you can use this advice to find all kinds of cool japan-exclusive merch!! im constantly getting japanese pokemon merch via tips like these, for example.)

Anyway, MERCH HUNTING TIP NUMBER ONE:

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD DONT BUT JAPANESE EXCLUSIVE MERCH ON EBAY. DONT. SAVE YOUR MONEY.

HEAVY SIGH. ebay can be such a useful site but not for this. good god not for this. You might luck out with a stray deal here or there but stuff like japanese exclusive yugioh merch on ebay tends to more often than not be sold for OUTRAGEOUSLY high prices and maybe it's not technically a scam but well your wallet aint gonna be happy about it. Stuff like tiny Cospa keychains get sold for $30, $40, 80 FUCKING US AMERICAN DOLLARS. AND SHIPPING. LOOK AT THIS SHIT

ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY FIVE DOLLARS??!??! NIGHTMARE. NIGHTMARE. do not buy spinoff merch from ebay!! INSTEAD....

TIP TWO: come with me. to proxy buying service ❤❤❤❤

I love proxy services SO much. Basically theyre sites that will buy stuff from Japanese shopping sites on your behalf, then hold the goodies in their warehouse until you're ready to ship them over to you! They RULE. THEY ARE LIFECHANGING, FOR THE HUMBLE MERCH HUNTER. And they're all pretty intuitive to learn how to use, theyve got pretty solid FAQs and they'll walk you through how to request items, and theyll often let you search for merch ON their website, making the buying process even easier!

(There's a whole bunch of 'em, though and they all have different fees and amounts of time they'll hold your stuff for free, so you have to do some poking around and figure out which one you like using the most! My favorite go-to is Neokyo, personally; they have some great discount sales, they hold your stuff for free for 45 days, and their item request fees are all really reasonable!! I LOVE THEM. BEEN USING EM FOR YEARS NOW <3)

Anyway the point here, re: proxy sites, not only do they give you easy access to japanese resale sites and all the merch being sold on 'em, it also gives you access to tWay, Way, Waaaaayyy Lower Prices for trinkets and goodies. Like. look at this listing from Mercari JPN (viewed on Neokyo's site,) of the $125 Jack Atlas Phone Charm from my first tip

yeah that is, um. the same charm. AND two other adorable charms. FOR 13 AMERICAN DOLLARS. THIRTEEN. THAT IS. LITERALLY LIKE 90% CHEAPER THAN THAT EBAY LISTING. AND YOURE GETTING MORE STUFF. there is SO much yugioh (and other anime) merch being sold on jpn shopping sites for like. $4-$10. it is ridiculous. and then when proxy sites have discount deals you can get stuff for even CHEAPER sometimes. (theres also, of course, expensive merch lots too, just like with anything, theres just. also listings for stuff sold for less than a fancy dinner for two yknow HHDFGS)

it basically opens a whole new avenue of sites to find goodies on... I like using proxy buyers especially for listings on more general ebay-type sites like JPN Mercari (there is so much good and sometimes really rare stuff on there) and Surugaya (lots of doujins on there if that's your thing,) but also for buying from the main sites New ygo merch drops happen on (Cospa, eeo store, and the official KaibaCorp store in particular are some of the best.)

Ok, so, ya got your proxy service of choice. How do you find the goodies you're looking for?

TIP THREE: GOTTA KNOW THE BEST KEYWORDS!!!

this isnt really a rocket science tip, but, still: search for stuff not just in japanese but use the kanji!! Sometimes i'll just c/p the base characters of a yugioh guy's japanese name off their yugipedia page and then pop that into the mercari search just to see what sorta treats are floating around with them on it. But if going and constantly copy/pasting kanji into the proxy service search is a pain in the neck a lot 'em will auto translate your English searches too! again, theyre all really user friendly, which is great

(the one thing i will say you SHOULD search in english, though, is spinoff names, actually--you pop GX, ZEXAL, ARC-V, etc. into the proxy search and youll get all sorts of stuff for whatever series it is)

OK ONE MORE TIP FOR YA. TIP FOUR: DO WHAT YOU CAN TO GET THE MOST OF SHIPPING COSTS

ok so that is. the one pain, with merch hunting on proxy buying sites: shipping will probably be Expensive. (unless you go for the cheapest seamail options and then get your box maybe 4-6 months from now 🥴 but hey, it's an option! it's there!) I usually end up paying around $30-$50 for my boxes from Neokyo.

BUT you can at least make that shipping cost feel more reasonable if youre shipping A BUNCH OF STUFF. Shipping one (1) little $4 GX character can badge for $30 REALLY sucks, avoid this if you can--with proxies holding your stuff in their warehouse, you can get a bunch of little cheap goodies and just hold 'em until youre ready to get 'em packed and shipped. Then, whenever youre ready/have the money for the shipping cost, get all the stuff youve bought packed into one box, pay for the shipping, and (usually within two weeks--the one tradeoff of the high shipping price is you get that shit FAST) then get your stuff! It's like FUCKIN CHRISTMAS getting a box of proxy-obtained stuff including things from like two months ago i totally forgot i bought. Makes the $40 shipping sting a little less--like, hey, at least i got like 12 damn things in here and i didnt pay $125 for any of them!!!!

ok i think that's all i got. hopefully this is somewhat useful!! folks are always welcome to ask me stuff about merch hunting, like i said i really like helping people get a hold of stuff :3 it's really a lot easier than it seems at first!

[lunarle-old]

Okay wait, your view on the Saious is nice, i very luch agree and even some points are very similar to my views, and you wrote it well so I must hear your view about Saihara's bisexual boyfailing-ness

So we can all agree Shuichi is to some degree bisexual right??

my phone doesnt have enough battery to look for any more examples but these felt kinda gay to me. idk

In that last post I was kind of more referring to,, how Shuichi interacts with romance? It's really hard to explain and goes mostly based off of my own hcs and interpretations. but youve read my fics you've probably caught on by now. autistic shuichi, adhd kokichi, theyre in my head get them out please let me be free

Anyways I'll try to keep this as clear as i can,, Shuichi has never expressed interest in somebody who didnt express interest in him first. He clung to Kaede since she was the first one he met there, he literally had to ASK FOR HER HELP to talk to Miu. and when she died, it was Kaito who approached him first, encouraging him to come out of his shell. Between Kaito and Kaede's wish, he started building more social confidence, hence our access to the FTEs and his trial growth

So I think that Shuichi struggles to differentiate romantic and platonic feelings. He found someone who liked him as a person, willingly spent time with him and enjoyed it, supported him and treated him kindly and as an equal (which we all know he struggles with his self worth). He finally got a friend for the first time, and mistook really liking somebody to actually being in love with them. dont worry it took me a while to figure it out too @_@;

A lot of the stuff thats harder to explain kinda goes into my fics. I'd like to think im getting better at writing romance ^.^ so I hope it's a little more obvious there. He's very slow to realize the difference between being in love with someone and what he thought he was experiencing. And when he does realize it, hes a little more hesitant to express it, because... hes never done that before, yknow?

and uh 10 minutes later i realized i had this post and forgot what i was talking about . Post cancelled everyone go home

[vivipokedex]

Your animal anatomy foundation 100% feels very solid, do you have any books or online sources to recommend to budding artists?

thank youuuu :)))

im gonna be honest... i never really specifically sat down to study drawing animals, or followed any art-oriented books or guides about that or anything. tutorials tend to not be very helpful to me because they rarely deal with gesture and focus more on getting the proportions right, which by itself is only a small part of it. and live drawing classes rarely involve animals...

i think it helps to have an existing, like, sense and confidence when it comes to observation and capturing volume and gesture in general. at the end of the day pretty much everything can be broken down into basic shapes, planes, blobs. actually A Blob is a good starting point to draw pretty much any animal... draw a blob and then put a head and limbs and appendages on it. yknow?

another thing is to just be curious and have an interest in the diversity and minutiae of the animal kingdom. i know it sounds very basic but I Love Animals. there are some real crazy creatures out there. obviously i recommend looking up as many reference pics as you can, not necessarily to copy stuff, but to have a handy guide of where stuff goes. but just looking at pictures honestly isnt quite enough in my opinion... read up on the animal. get a sense of what makes this particular species unique among ones similar to it, how it lives and functions in its habitat... watch a nature docco. watch some footage of weird little shrimp. learn how to tell different species of aeshnidae apart.

also, yeah, youre gonna have to look at and draw some animal skeletons at some point. i dont think you have to like, study the skeleton of every vertebrate you wanna draw, but yknow, its good to have a general knowledge. it really does teach you a lot to draw a horse skeleton and the individual parts in it. ideally of course you would be sitting in front of either the real thing or a 3d model, but sometimes photos and illustrations have to suffice... it's just important that you pay attention to what you're doing.

as for books... well, a relevant point here is that photos arent everything. obviously theyll give you a faithful picture of the living breathing animal, but thats the thing, they wont always let you see the exact shape, all the distinctive details, and so on. so this is where i recommend getting into some old timey illustrated books. yeah youre gonna have to do some treasure hunting... but listen. ive got this awesome book from 1979 for example, which lists pretty much every species of bird that lives in my little corner of the world, along with amazing detailed illustrations. it's so inspiring and informative. it is the kind of stuff i really wanna urge everyone to get into.

[kingarmorking]

Do you think it's necessary to give everyone in windbreaker mini arc about their backstories? I feel tsuge and the other knights aren't that important to explore... I feel the backstories are repetitive in wbk... The author focus on everyone's backstory arc except the protagonist for whatever reason!.

i dunno if youre the same person i kept seeing a while ago but either way my guy... if you thought i was gonna agree with you im not sorry to burst your bubble here

do i think its necessary? well if the alternative is having bland, one-note side characters thats just there to fill out a classroom then yes! its very necessary! esp with the cast of characters we have, the vast majority of the fandom loves learning about them!

id be more than happy to get backstories on every single character in windbre, hell id love to just get names for some of the bg characters (specifically class 1-1, that hexad of kids in awe of Kaji's volume i dream for the day we get names for them)

while i will agree that i dont know if Tsuge will have as in depth of a backstory as everyone else i will also say its cause we dont know jackshit about him! (and unlike Suo its not cause hes hiding anything hes more just kind of whats on the tin yknow) compare Tsuge to Suo or Kiryuu for example, we dont have anything about him being famous from other schools (iirc i might be wrong) just that hes strong, which is also fine imo! i think we should get one tbh considering its pretty easy to see when Sakura takes top spot his kings will be Sugi, Suo, Kiryuu and Tsuge (with Nirei being his advisor) it'd be odd to not get anything him. it doesnt have to be smth very in depth it could be smth like Nirei's lil backstory when Sakura first met him!

speaking of the Kings, same deal for Momose and Mizuki! we dont know anything about them!! we know Momose likes to paint and Mizuki likes the military and im pretty sure thats literally it. its easy to say "they arent important" when we dont spend any time with them to begin with. genuinely curious did you think the same thing when Tsubaki got their backstory?

also... the backstories being repetitive... my guy... my dude... you are talking about a shonen story about delinquents with hearts of gold whove been hurt in some way shape or form in the past, Sakura is learning from everyone... because he can relate to them like. idk what you want here, do you want him to grow and heal from his trauma? or do you want him to suddenly wake up one day and suddenly be a different person?

"The author focus on everyone's backstory arc except the protagonist for whatever reason" are we... reading the same story? youre acting like we havent gotten any of Sakura's backstory when its being revealed through the others. do you want everything to be right in your face and spelled out? wheres the fun in that?

i think its very ic for Sakura frankly to have his backstory revealed in this way. Sakura was so hurt and put through god knows what growing up that... why tf would he come right out and tell anyone (or show even us) what he went through. his walls may be coming down but he, in his own words, "has one or two secrets that he doesn't wanna talk about"

like his classmates we learn about Sakura as they learn about him (we of course have the advantage of being beyond the 4th wall and can see into his head) but clearly hes keeping what he through under very tight lock and key, hes not ready to reveal that part of himself in its entirety to us or his friends

i dont understand this argument, hell its not even an argument, its just complaining about how Nii-sensei is writing his own story. Sakura's backstory will be revealed to us in time and itll probably be revealed when WindBre is nearing its end

this is so annoying stop reading WindBre if youre this unhappy about it instead of coming into my inbox to complain about a story i really fuckin love

[dreamsy990]

my condolences for your robot Dreamsy. That sucks really bad that people are like that. Make sure you take care of yourself

shrug im not as upset about murderbot being in the polls as everyone else. there just was a lot of aphobia going around in the notes. so im using this ask as a place to ramble because self care to me is being a hater <3 /SILLY but i am gonna be sounding so pissed probably so be aware anon none of this is directed at you and you seem quite lovely so ty <333

the amount of allos in the notes saying things like "its not invalidating to think an asexual is sexy" just kind of bothers me. allos dont get to make the decision of whats okay to say about aces. i understand that its a fictional character, of course, but what people say DOES affect real people. when people are objectifying and invalidating towards an aroace character they normalize that for real people.

fandom en masse ignores asexual (and aromantic but the poll drama WAS about sexuality so ill keep the aro part quiet, but most of this applies to aros too) identities and brushes off criticism from actual aces so they can have their fun. and its like, if the character was anything else we would consider that disgusting. if, for example, you said even half the invalidating things that people say about ace characters about a character who was trans instead? people would hate you. but its alright when its aces.

when it comes to aphobia, i think a lot of allos tend not to realize what theyre saying is fucked up. to them asexuality isnt its own experience, its the lack of one. asexuality doesnt hold any value to them and so its not something worth caring about the representation of. so why are asexuals getting so mad over how they treat ace characters? theyre just having fun?

you can see a lot of that sentiment in the notes of that poll after aces came out being more genuinely upset. plenty of allos were acting like we were making too big of a deal about it. "free murderbot was a joke" one said. and yknow what, as one of the first people saying that, ill say it was a joke! at first. i wasnt that upset about it, because at first it was just a silly poll and murderbot fans relatively universally were laughing about it and chanting "free murderbot!". but then the polls went on, murderbot won via voter fraud, and then on the next poll people were far more blatantly saying invalidating and sexualizing things. thats when it started being genuine.

and of course what im saying isnt a blanket statement about how everyone involved in the free murderbot campaign felt or even how asexuals feel about sexualizing ace characters. some aces wont care about ace characters being treated poorly, some aces are fine with being sexualized, some just dont give a shit about any of this at all. but when it comes to sexualizing a character who is violently sex repulsed, and saying things like "haha i want to fuck the robot!" and "im voting for it out of spite because it would hate to be seen that way" (<- real things i saw in the notes), i can only see those and think that they probably wouldnt care all that much if it wasnt just a character.

nothing against the pollrunner, of course. the guy running it handled the issue well, apologized for murderbots involvement, and redid the poll because of the voter fraud. they probably didnt even know murderbot was asexual, considering that they dont even know its pronouns (used they/them in their apology). ive got no malice towards them or basically anyone else involved in the poll, unless they were being blatantly aphobic.

im doing alright though, thanks :> this isnt that big of a deal to me its just emblematic of a larger issue in fandom

[hayatheauthor]

Do you have any advice on writing about setting or environments. I’m writing a scene for my book but I have no idea how to start it. It starts with a man walking through a cityscape ( think like cyber punk and futuristic but also like cassette punk). That’s what I’m kinda aiming for. Used to be very good at this but I guess I’ve just gotten rusty 💀

Hi! So what I usually do is think of why the environment is important to be mentioned in the scene. If your scene is a more 'active' scene then dont start by environmental description, rather you could start with inner dialogue/monologue that ties to it.

It's like 7 in the morning so excuse the poor writing but here's an example:

A had become a laughing stock. [sentences that emphasis how/why]. Even the city seemed to mock him for his stupidity; the screech of the electric train sounding too similar to fanatic cackling for his liking.

(Obviously yknow be more detailed than the above sentences). Then a sentence that connects it to your actual scene, continuing the above example it could be like:

Or maybe that was just B. She had been silently trailing after him ever since their narrow escape from the warehouse, but the slight curve of her lips spoke volumes. They stretched wider as he stumbled over a stray pebble; too lost in thought to notice it. [she says something].

But if your scene is more like he's walking through it with the intent of getting somewhere usually only mention what's either relevant to the plot (foreshadowing wise) or to a character. Or something like 'he's so late but this swarm of robot technicians talking loudly about xyz are walking really slowly in front of him'. Something that 1. makes his emotions/situation clear while 2. still being 'in the moment'.

You could also start with an active scene (like him talking to someone) then use that as an excuse for scene-building. An easy way to do it is use something he sees/hears/smells and connect it to a character or scene.

Like for example A is walking through [lane], gets to his destination, then maybe he notices B has a red flower in her hair just like the ones the street hawker was selling at [lane]. You could also use this for character development without info-dumping, something like 'of course someone like B would buy from the poor man who A spared but a glance to'.

I've rambled quite a bit, but I hope this helped! If you want I'd be happy to review an actual snippet and give feedback (honestly I've been meaning to get back into beta reading since a while).