#if its a common issue. or not. idk. if it isnt im sorry im projecting super hard <3 LOL but fr dont let an artist say ur character is uggo

[strawberrybabydog]

Sorry if this question is a bit dumb or anything, but how exactly do you get started with commissioning an artist?

ive wanted to commission you since comms have opened, and same goes for multiple other artists - but inbetween not having the money to spend on them, not knowing how to commission artists, safety tips/things to know to keep both sides safe and comfortable, etc etc im just a bit lost!!

do you have any advice or links or anything to where i could find some info on that kinda stuff? thank u so much in advance!! ^^

honestly i dont really know if there's a "proper" way to do it. here's usually what happens with me:

client: hi i'm messaging you directly somehow. hi. i want to commission you for my Thing me: hi thats epic ! do you know what size you're looking for? do you have any pictures of the Thing? client option A: yes i'm getting [size] and here's a picture of my Thing! me: ok great ! that will probably come up to [total]. i'll give you my paypal towards the end of me finishing and i can get started any time.

client option B: i dont know the size im looking for, but this is my description of what i want. me: ok ! well based on that, [size and total] is my suggestion because i think it will show all of the necessary detail but i can work with any size, we might just have to alter the pose/design slightly to make it work if it's smaller. let me know if this sounds okay to you and i can get started client: hmm that's still a little out of my budget i'll have to think about it me: no problem hmu if you have any questions or updates! <3

the only commissions i dont really like are ones where you have to put on a down payment before the artist has even started and then pay the other half when it's finished. i notice that only the really high-end artists do this and i understand completely, but for me, this just wastes my money by forcing me to pay to convert and send it. also, a lot of clients dont really like paying for something before it's even been started in general, which is reasonable.

that being said if you feel uncomfortable about commissioning someone, let them know upfront! be like "hey ive never commissioned someone before, im kinda nervous [about sending payments/talking/etc]" thats totally fine! decent artists will be more than happy to walk you through everything. hell even if it's not your first time, it's perfectly fine to be honest about being nervous. anything with Money Is Always Nervous !

a more social rule i dont break is changing my client's designs. re-posing a character? totally yes. re-designing the character or suggesting tips to make the character "better"? not really. i once commissioned an artist who told me my monochromatic character was too bland and literally refused to draw it unless i changed the eye colour or added 1 pop of colour. i tried explaining to her This Character Is Purposefully Not Colourful but she refused and basically just shit on my self-insert-sona for 10 minutes lol. minor design changes are completely fine (with approval from the design's owner) but "i think your character's ugly and i wont draw it until you agree to make it more beautiful to me personally" is really shitty. i guess, basically anything where the artist is making you feel weird/ugly/belittled/bad for whatever reason, but especially in the context of artistic design. a good artist isnt going to make you feel bad about what you asked them to draw no matter what it is. it's honestly really fucking weird to nitpick what someone else's personal character/design looks like anyways ..

[thesungod]

their theme is so inconsistent like at the beginning it feels clear, being who you are and accepting each other’s darkness, but the way its done is 😬 and then it switches up to being literally budget toa saying “well everything can change yk??? don’t stay in the darkness” but in a horrible fashion and they’re acting like this is what they’ve been trying to tell me in the past 400 pages when it ISNT dont LIE to ME

i don’t think EITHER of them was reading the book as they write they were just mashing words together bc im watching a book promo for it rn and rick’s saying that will likes nico bc he likes nicos ““darkness”” and how intrigues him and mark’s saying neither of nico or will wants to change that core part of the other. which explains away him in BOO trying to tell nico that nobody disliked him—being that will was projecting his own feelings about nico onto others—and also relates will to apollo even more with their need to reach out to outcasts and love them. but then they didn’t write that they literally wrote that will doesn’t like it and he wants to fix it. thats my STEP SON and they did that to him.

rick did not want to write this book at all, and mark probably projected their nico stanisms onto the other characters without justifying the stanisms. you can really tell when rick has a passion for writing something and when he could not care less. the subtle toa promo in one of the gorgyra scenes and apollo’s updated glossary—he wants you to read toa so bad he could not gaf about this book. and yet apollo is never mentioned positively like give him back to me.

speaking of mark i think this is just a consistent issue they have when writing. i read reviews of one of their books (anger is a gift) and some were very negative about the way the narrative made the protagonist the most righteous person ever and completely revolved around them. ifl that issue bleeds into this book as well.

i saw people (including the writers) say this book is darker than a lot of rick’s other books and i really need them to shut the fuck up; THO literally had kids tied up in crucifixes to be burned at the stake 😭

ok sorry for the ramble i see the letters tsats together and i go on a rampage

you absolutely ate this up!!

also laughing at you calling it “budget toa” because that’s exactly what i said to a friend about this book once. i felt almost offended over the authors trying to fit the “everyone can change!!” narrative last minute and make Nico the symbol of re-invention after five whole books of ToA. i was very “how dare you stand where he stood” about it which is childish but alas.

i’ve also mentioned several times how will and nico’s conflict in the book was not intriguing to read about because it was inconsistent. not to mention that according to the timeline they’ve been together for a year!!! an entire year!!! and the book still has Will acting #shocked that Nico, idk, likes darkness.

the Mary-Suing of Nico literally the worst thing to ever happen to me. i’m usually all for my faves winning, but that’s after they’ve been through the mortifying ordeal of losing, yk. and i get that Nico has been through a lot but the book was basically a 400-pages-long ass kissing and i couldn’t do it.

i couldn’t even feel particularly moved or vindicated by Bob pledging loyalty to him in the end because it wasn’t cathartic at all. i was like we get it dude lol

same with his “friendship” with Piper tbh. not everyone needs to like Nico😭 i would have totally loved it if the book had shown a friendship progress organically through their grief for Jason or common interests (even if just briefly narrated through a recollection!! i’m not saying we needed chapters of flashbacks or Piper as a third main), but Nico does not mention her once ever. they didn’t even like each other in HoO!! then at the end of the book he calls her and he is all like “of course she wouldn’t be angry at me for not calling after Jason died <3 she understands that grief is complicated <3”

my king Piper isn’t angry at you for not calling because she dgaf about you. why would she. who are you to her

another thing I’ll never get over re: Nico and Will’s relationship is how, per the book, Nico encouraged Will to come out and was the first one of the two to do so, when every. single. thing written about them in the Hidden Oracle suggests the opposite.

why the fuck is Nico so reticent and embarrassed about admitting to be Will’s boyfriend in the first book of ToA if it’s Nico who came out first? IN FRONT OF THE WHOLE CAMP might I add?

because i get that coming out to someone doesn’t necessarily mean being comfortable coming out to everyone, but Nico announced his crush IN FRONT OF THE WHOLE CAMP. and asked Will out. and Will wasn’t out at the time. so whyyyy is their dynamic on THO literally the opposite of this? with Will pushing Nico to be more open about their relationship while Nico plays coy? because Apollo is Will’s father? idk, maybe i guess😭

but it’s pretty obvious the change in the dynamic was established later on and that the impression we were supposed to have while reading THO is that Will was the one more comfortable and in tune with his sexuality. like, come on.

[bellafarella]

Hey, so not to be a downer, but I usually agree with your recaps and have been feeling pretty positive about season 11 so I’m surprised I didn’t like this one. Elephant in the room first: couldn’t they have let people keep their headcanons about that monogamy conversation? My feeling when it first came up was that it was out of character for Mickey and Ian to be in favor of an open relationship mostly because they are southside violence prone and canonically possessive. The whole “I don’t wanna be friends with these guys so that means we should bang them” thing wasn’t funny at all. So it happened and I will never speak on it again. That’s whatever.

More importantly, I’m angry at the Carl story. WTF the awful catching feelings for your rapist trope? 11 x06 got it right: it was non con. There are non latex condoms first of all. Plus a condom allergy is not a free pass to hop on someone’s dick after they said they want a condom. You actually have to stop and say “hey I have this allergy so we should probably talk about this before it goes any further.” And then to have Mickey a rape victim himself be the one to say it wasn’t rape after that intense stuff with Terry just happened too was no bueno. It felt almost like the decent writing from 11 x 06 was being retconned. :-/

Noel and Cam were cute and had Ian and Mickey vibing but not enough to save the writing for me this time. 🤷‍♀️

sorry you didnt agree this time but never said you had to, always said these were my opinions only and what i thought about the episode. to me it was great - it was funny and sweet, it showed us how ian and mickey are truly each others best friend.

them occasionally hooking up with other men =/= open relationship

they had clear communication and set boundaries for it. they decided as a couple that if they wanted to hook up with other men that they would do it together. it’s not for you to say if its wrong or right. you dont have to personally like the idea of them hooking up with other men on occasion but you also cant just shit on it because u dont personally like it. this is a common thing within many relationships. just because its not your preference, doesnt mean its not okay for them to do.  

i’m not saying you have to agree or like it, i’m just saying that them hooking up with men is something they agreed to do together or not at all, they communicated, they set boundaries, and they’re ultimately happy and secure and comfortable enough in their marriage to be able to do this.

yes, they have been possessive in the past... they were also teenagers. they are both in their mid-twenties. things change.  people grow. mickey isn’t the scared teen living in the closet in fear he’s gonna die for being gay. he can be who he is 10000%, why can’t that mean getting handjobs from randos with his husband ????

just because mickey didn’t like that ian cheated on him when he was 18 or ian didnt like that mickey cheated on him when he was 18, doesn’t meant that now being 24-26 years old and married and in love and committed to each other, that they can’t have some fun on occasion. 

there’s a huge difference in my opinion when talking about s1-5 ian/mickey and talking about s11 ian/mickey. comparing the two doesn’t do it for me. they are grown ass men now and have grown up and changed a lot and like i said, mickey isn’t this scared teen living in fear. he can be out and proud now for the first time in his life.

and anyway,  the orgy/monogamy stuff isnt even what we should be taking away from this episode. what the point was is that they are best friends who dont need anyone else. they are happy with who they are. they are secure and comfortable in their marriage. and if they decide to occasionally hook up with other men then that is their prerogative.

also, we didn’t see shit. you can imagine literally anything you want but you’re upset about the idea of them maybe fucking other people. they could have just fucked each other. they could have gotten more hand jobs then left. like it’s so vague and up in the air, you could imagine whatever you want ????

i dont know, i just really don’t see the issue whatsoever. i don’t personally like it like i wouldn’t ever in my own relationship, fuck around with other people with my partner but thats my preference. im not gonna project that onto my ship when they are not the same as me at all. 

/

yeah so the carl stuff - i can’t. i can’t stand his sl or his character like idk what they are even doing with him. these writers like to erase male rape, they did it with mickey, and ian, and now they are doing it with carl

sorry if i am coming across rude, its really not my intention. you are valid to feel the way you do. i just - you know i loved the episode, i said it was my favorite and you wanted to vent to me about it so im gonna state my opinion. i’m sorry if you dont agree.