#man if you line up my drawings this past years all the styles would be different lmao

[shokushii]

more blahaj doodles 🦈

(because its midnight and i cant sleep lmao)

honestly these look p good! might even polish em and turn them into like, actual stickers (even if theyre just like. for me) if i have time. blahaj my beloved <33

[davidtennantgenderenvy]

My Two Cents On The “ Is David Tennant Queer” Drama

As some of you know, I spent a solid third of the past year working on a movie-length video essay about David Tennant. This video essay features an eight minute section titled “Gender, Vulnerability, and Why David Tennant Is A Queer Icon”, which does not speculate on David’s own sexuality, but discusses the queer coding and subversion of gender norms in plenty of his roles and his importance as an ally to the LGBT community. At the same time, I was also coming to terms with my own identity as nonbinary and bisexual, and it ended up playing a crucial role in me finally working up the courage to come out to my parents. Characters like Crowley and the Doctor, both in terms of how they present themselves and how and who they love, have been absolutely instrumental in me developing my queer identity, and my comments section was full of people who had had similar experiences, who’d realized they were trans, nonbinary, gay, etc thanks to David and his characters. And as a result, I won’t deny that if David himself were to be queer, it would mean a lot to me.

Do I think David is queer? It’s certainly possible. I see a lot of how I express my queerness in how david chooses to express himself, most prominently through his frequent queer coding of characters who don’t necessarily have to be played as such. This can especially be seen through his Shakespeare characters, such as Richard, Hamlet, and some would argue Benedick as well. When I was 15 I played Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet, who I chose to play as a closeted young gay man harboring an unrequited crush on Romeo. I think I saw this role subconsciously as an outlet for my own repressed queerness, both of gender and sexuality, as I had experienced an unrequited crush on my female best friend the previous year which I was still in denial about. I’ve described my gender identity as “a girl with a chaotic tortured gay man inside of her that needs to be let out every once in a while”, which has never been more true than with Mercutio- a character who I might add, I took a great deal of inspiration from David when playing! In terms of using roles as an outlet for one’s queerness, I could absolutelt see this being true with David, especially when it comes to Crowley, who seems to have had an impact on David’s style, behavior, etc in a rather similar way to how he’s impacted me. I don’t want to act like David wearing pink docs means he must be gay, I think people should be allowed to wear whatever they want regardless of sexuality, but taken in conjunction with so many other things about him, it does make one wonder, and the fact that a seemingly straight man has been so many people’s queer awakening is a bit puzzling to say the least. I won’t pretend that these “signs” (if you interpret them that way), haven’t been increasing somewhat in the past year, and if I got to share my own coming out journey with the man who inspired it, I would be absolutely thrilled. I also can’t specifically think of an instance where David has SAID he is straight, as opposed to Taylor swift, who has.

With all of that said, where I personally draw the line is when mere speculation crosses into interfering with the subject’s personal relationships and the sense that one is OWED something. I believe that what matters to David more than anything is being a husband and a father. I believe he adores Georgia and his children and would not do anything in the world that he believes would jeopardize his family. As happy as I would be for David if he were to come out (probably as bi) I realize that that would put so much unwanted attention on his marriage and family and I think that’s the last thing he wants. I don’t think it’s IMPOSSIBLE that he and Michael Sheen are having a passionate love affair behind everyone’s backs, but I absolutely don’t consider it my place to insist that they are, because as much as I may feel like I do, I don’t know these people! And besides, if David were cheating on Georgia, he really would not be the person I thought he was.

So many queer people see themselves in David and his characters, and that is beautiful. And I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with having theories that David might be queer himself. However, it must be acknowledged that these theories are THEORIES, and they should not be used to invalidate people’s real life relationships- after all, it’s totally possible to be bi/pan and also be in a loving and healthy heterosexual relationship like David and Georgia at least seem to be in! If David were in fact “one of us”, I would welcome him with the openest of open arms, but unless and until he himself decides to proclaim himself that way, I will not expect anything of him other than to be the incredible artist and person we know and love.

[mrcleanheichou]

Wolves are (NOT) Scary Chapter 12

Pairing: Werewolf!BTS X Female human reader

Genre: Fluff, smut, angst

Warnings: Starbucks slander and excessive question mark use

Word count: 1,818

Summary: All Y/N wants to do is find her creativity and motivation but she finds 7 werewolves instead.

Author note: Long time no see! I’m such an inconsistent writer it’s not even funny. The bad thing is that I have tons of ideas written down but I can never put them onto the page. Writing is hard T_T

That first scene may or may not be from my actual feelings.

Taglist: @dustyinkpages @thickemadame @moonlitehunter @thedarkwinterrose @momoriki @iistrangers @openup-yourmind @sinceritythatcouldntbedelivered @lovelyseokjinnie @scuzmunkie @bjoriis @maddypool31 @tfkp0p @blubearxy @stealth-liberal @potaetopic @zae007live @totallynoanalien @dvoz-writes @purplelady85 @savagemickey03 @uniquelyabnormallyoriginal @blushyrawrz @skyys-universe @harmonie-writes @gamer-mask

Chapter 11 // Chapter 12 // Chapter 13

~3 years ago~

The only thing keeping your laptop from being thrown at the wall is the fact that it’s expensive and you can’t afford to buy a new one. The feeling of the blinking cursor on the blank word document mocking you is driving you absolutely bonkers. Feeling hopeless you switch to your ideas notebook to see if physically writing would kick start your creativity. That’s a trick people on a writing forum you follow swear by. Unfortunately that ended with the poor defenseless notebook being flung across the room.

Yeji once suggested speaking to a therapist about having anger management issues after walking into your office and having to dodge a flying pen Matrix style. The thing is that writing is the only thing that brings this emotion out of you. No other thing has been this frustrating in your life, especially these past few months. This change of scenery was supposed to help, instead its made it worse since now you’re all alone dealing with the thoughts of self doubt and multiple episodes of laying on the floor like the scene in Lilo and Stitch. Except, unlike Lilo, you have no one here to tell “Leave me alone to die” to.  

You’re beginning to feel like a failure, absolutely no work has been accomplished. What kind of author can’t even write or draw? Maybe giving up the children’s book gig and becoming an erotica novel writer is a good idea. You’ve always thought about the idea of writing spicy romance novels. You’ve heard the building secretaries whispering about the newest “spicy” book they’ve seen on Tiktok. Apparently fantasy books about werewolves are very popular, talking about “mates” and “knots” and other supposedly hot things. Who knew porn about imaginary creatures would be something people would be into.

This cabin was supposed to help you write but right now it’s feeling like a stuffy prison. Checking Naver for any local coffee shops you discovered there’s a Starbucks, should you support local coffee shops instead? Yes. Would you rather have a frappucino than real coffee? Also yes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This Starbucks wasn’t a standalone building. Just like almost every other building in this town it’s connected to other shops almost like a strip mall. There’s a pet supply shop to the right of it and a tteok-bokki restaurant to the left.

Resisting the urge to stop at the restaurant you walk into the Starbucks and find that it looks just like any other one you could find in Seoul. It seems like this location is pretty popular. There’s a moderately long line of people waiting to place their order. All the tables were occupied even the seats right at the bar were taken. Sighing in defeat  you switch your laptop bag from one shoulder to the other.

Heading out the door you heard a pair of voices loudly bickering behind you. Stopping to hold the door open for the men you recognized one of the men as Yoongi from the bakery. You didn’t know the other man though.

“Would you like some coffee with all that sugar?” Yoongi said giving the other man’s drink in his hand a disgusted look.

The taller man scoffed, “Oh I’m sorry that I’m not a coffee snob like you and only drink my coffee black. I happen to love myself and caramel frapuccinos are my comfort food. Self care is important these days!”

Yoongi rolled his eyes before noticing you, “What are you doing here?”

Before you could answer he was smacked on the back of his head and pushed out of the doorway. “Ya! Don’t you have any manners? Sorry about him, I’m Jin and I’m guessing you know Yoongi.””

You nodded while Yoongi turned and glared at the man behind him making a low sound that oddly resembled a dog’s growl. Shivers went down your spine and oddly down to another place that you definitely were not expecting.

“I was trying to get a frappuccino and some cake pops but the line is way too long and I didn’t want to wait.”

“I can make cake pops that are way better than those abominations. C’mon let’s go.”

Sharing a confused look with Yoongi who just shrugged you followed after Jin who was marching like a man on a mission in the direction of the bakery.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Walking into the bakery your nose was overwhelmed with the scent of cinnamon, it almost made you sneeze. Yoongi ushered you to a table near a window and told you to sit tight. Pulling out your phone you decide to browse Instagram while you waited. Leaning back in your chair you could hear muffled arguing coming from what you assumed was the kitchen in the back.

“I’m telling you, you need to play up the bad boy look. You can get more tips If you would at least answer when women ask you about your tattoos.”

“And I’m telling you, they make me uncomfortable. It’s either cranky ajummas who give me dirty looks when they notice or women who have no shame and try to touch them. I’m not a damn petting zoo, hyung.”

“You look like a zoo animal.” Jimin snickered while sitting on one of the counters near the stove. This resulted in a big glob of cream cheese frosting meant for the piping hot cinnamon rolls being launched at him narrowly missing his head and splattering on the wall. He jumped off the counter growling “Listen here you little shit.”

“What the hell do you two think you’re doing in MY kitchen?”

Jin was fuming looking at his younger mates acting like children in his precious safe haven. He knew he shouldn’t have let Yoongi talk him into going on a break.

“He started it!” Jungkook pointed at Jimin who was currently stalking towards him ready to hit him in his stupid pretty boy face.

“Shut up you little snitch!”

“Snitches get stitches” Yoongi added.

“Cut it out all of you” Namjoon called from the office rubbing his temples trying to alleviate the migraine that was forming from staring at excel sheets all day.

“Y/N is out there waiting for a coffee. This is our chance to give her the potion.” Yoongi informed the alpha wolf giving him the iced Americano he bought for him.

“Call Taehung and tell him to get over here. We’re executing the plan today.”

~Present Day~

You didn’t know what to expect but what you were expecting sure as hell wasn’t this. The room you were currently held in looked like a five star hotel room, adorned in hues of red and gold and decorated with paintings of regal wolves hunting deer and hanging around the moon goddess. If you were here under different circumstances maybe you could appreciate how beautiful this room was.

There was no clock in here so it was impossible to know how long you were trapped in this makeshift prison cell. And the lack of a window was also disorienting. Your phone sat useless on a side table, long dead. But it wasn’t needed to know at least a few hours had passed since the guards brought you.

The first hour was filled with frantic pacing and trying to open the locked door. Why were you guys being treated like prisoners? It’s not like you broke any laws. But seeing how serious the guards were you figured some werewolf law was in fact broken.

During your crisis Jungkook was somehow able to fall asleep on the plush king size bed. He was curled up in the fetal position hugging a pillow close to his body. His baby face, even more prominent while relaxed and unconscious, made him look like a young boy and not a man in his twenties even with his facial peircings.

Rage filled every part of your being as you fought the urge to yell at him to wake up and face the reality of the situation. After all this was his fault, right? Why did he take that stupid potion? Why didn’t he listen to Yuna? Why couldn’t he stop being so immature for once in his life?

This was the first emotion other than soul crushing sadness that you felt this during this whole ordeal and it scared you.

Walking away from him and into the bathroom to cool off before doing something you’d regret seemed like the right thing to do. Throwing things Jungkook already knew in his face would be cruel.

The marble of the bathroom counter felt cool against your palms as you stood in front of the sink staring at yourself in the mirror. You look rough, eyes red, face puffy and dried tears adorning your cheeks. You were never a pretty crier like the women in the Kdramas you watched every night with Jin. If said man was here he’d tell you that you looked like you got ran over by a car and that you could never catch him slipping like that.

You snorted at the memory of your overly confident mate. He always had an ugly crying face but you didn’t have the heart to ever tell him that fact. The small smile you were able to conjure up quickly fell when you remembered soon he won’t be your mate anymore.  Feeling the urge to cry once again felt ever present so you rushed to turn on the water faucet.

Cupping your hands you splashed cold water in your face. The freezing liquid was shocking enough that it felt like an emotional reset. It was a little trick you learned from Yoongi who said it always helped to ground himself when he felt a panic attack coming on. ‘You can’t freak out when you’re cold’, he’d say. You seriously contemplated taking a cold shower and just fully shocking your system into submission but that just sounded miserable.

You definitely didn’t need anymore miserable in your life.

Was everything Jungkook’s fault? Yes. Could he have killed Yoongi? Yes. But he didn’t and that should count for something right? Why couldn’t Namjoon realize he was extremely sorry? Wasn’t the mate bond supposed to be strong? Isn’t it like a supernatural marriage pact?

What happened to ‘Through sickness and health’? How could Jungkook be thrown away like trash that easily? The thing that hurt the most was that no one else but you stood up for him. Not even Taehyung who ran with his tail between his legs when he was scared. Why were you the only brave one?

Jungkook was your priority now and you would stick with him for the rest of your life. The others may have been able to be forced into abandoning their love for him but you’re stronger than that. Fuck werewolves and their cowardice.

You’re not a weak human and if you have to prove that to each and every wolf here you would. Especially your alpha.

[timextoxhajima]

Kill Shot: Niki Nishimura

member: enhypen niki

genre: mafia! enhypen

synopsis: you're an fbi agent working for the nishimura cartel as an undercover spy. your cover is blown in the presence of the boss' youngest son.

a/n: it has been a hot minute since i've written something. my writing style has definitely changed, and this fic will not focus on any romance whatsoever. based on the new song by itzy.

w/c: probably like 400

the nishimura cartel is not one for the weak - of course, that's what everybody says about any mafia system or any cartel. but when you're knee-deep in it, involved with their transactions and being a person of importance to their routines, danger becomes a thin line you can cross without even knowing.

japanese mafias and cartels very seldom include the likes of anybody below the age of 16, so when jung dayoon was very carefully sifted into the system, she was very surprised to meet the youngest member - niki nishimura - the middle child of three and the only son of his father.

her focus became keeping an eye on him, as well as his sisters. His older sister is the pride of the family. despite being just one year older than him, her missions and tasks started way before he did. she was 15 when she first held a gun to a man's head, and jung dayoon was there to watch the inherited cold-bloodedness she had.

but it was too much effort to have jung dayoon sifted into the system, so blowing her cover now, at six months, would be too fast. one of the reasons for her reluctance to bust them is that she wouldn't know what would happen to the three children. they may have been in a cartel but nobody could deny that they were living a life most people would've wanted.

they never starved. they always got the newest toys. always sat in expensive cars and always ate the best things. as ironic as it seemed, these children were in a bubble - if the bubble was covered in spikes and poison and killed anybody who touched it.

click.

she clicks the magazine into the gun and sets it down. turning around, she meets eye to eye with niki, who closes the door behind him.

they don't knock here. all the nishimuras never have to knock. dayoon has lost count the number of times she's tried to use her pager and gotten a heart attack.

"i was just looking for you."

dayoon almost feels emotional - the first time she met him, his voice was still that of a boy's. she was also taller than him. now, his voice is low enough to go unnnoticed if he doesn't bother to speak up, and during conversations, she remains a foot away from him to save her neck the ache.

"what is it?" she passes off rubbing the barrel of the sniper with her sleeve to push her pager up her arm.

"you know how my first task's probably coming soon? i just was... just wondering... how did you get in? i mean, if my father trusted you, then you must be good at something."

his words sting. it's been difficult trying to hide the hurt, the sorrow, the anger and every other emotion on the drawing board while working here. dayoon sometimes wonders if she was the right person to be made an undercover agent, but by the time she realised who she was dealing with, it was too late.

she scoffs. "'good at something'? i hope that hasn't been your impression of me the entire time i've been working here."

niki shrugs and shoves his hands into his pockets, finding a chair nearby to sit in. dayoon remains standing. it's necessary that nobody sits in a nishimura's presence.

dayoon notices the lack of response - he's not going to ask again.

"i have never missed a shot in my life. 100% fatality. thought you would've already known," she composes herself and places her hands infront of her abdomen.

niki fiddles with the pistol on the table he's at. then, he pauses and tilts his head to look at her, eyes dark through his blonde hair which he hasn't gotten past ever since he got it bleached.

she remembers that day - he looks like he aged two or three years. sometimes, she thinks about how terrifying he is, that if a child can be capable of doing certain things, then what will he be capable of when he's an adult?

niki is one of those people who gets more intimidating as he grows older, for he's following in his father's footsteps more and more each day. and dayoon knew for a fact that if she slipped up, the chances of niki catching her would be much higher than her father or his sisters. he's not the heir to the cartel for nothing.

"my father can find a sniper anywhere. why you?"

dayoon takes a deep breath. because the police force planted me in a spot where your father will see me as the best of the best in his circumstance.

"i don't know, you tell me," dayoon returns a shrug. she knows better than to speak to him in this tone - but niki is sharp. he is ruthless. he can tell when you're lying, and right now, she's already in danger. it's better for her to disguise it with courage, nonchalance.

niki sighs, lacking patience. he drags a finger down his left temple, then adjusts his arm to reach for the pistol again.

"sometimes, just because you don't see it, doesn't mean it's not there."

his voice is just loud enough for her to hear - but she's having trouble processing his words.

dayoon cocks her head, slightly anxious. "i'm afraid i don't understand."

"i'm telling you... to not be arrogant. arrogance is enough to make a mistake. a fatal one."

she finally frowns, reaching behind her for the gun.

"i'm not here to kill you."

"then why are you telling me all this?"

"because i'd hate to have to blow your guts out tomorrow for my first assignment," niki stands, hand grabbing the pistol and raising it to eye level.

dayoon's heart is in her mouth, and her fingers begin to tremble upon the realisation. there are no thoughts in her head, for she's simply preparing herself for death.

but instead, niki releasing the pistol and lets it swing around his index finger, allowing her to take it.

"your life or the safety of the cartel."

dayoon knows how fast he is with guns, so she doesn't bother taking it out of his hands.

"the cartel is the reason why the city isn't safe."

"and yet half of the cartel have families to feed. you may not see it our way, but why should you ruin those... when i'm letting you go?"

"your father will know."

"my father already knows."

she pauses.

"he was just reserving you. for me. so you can either accept my proposal and keep your mouth shut... or come tomorrow and let me put a bullet through your eyes. your choice."

[hannahssimblr]

Chapter Three

I’ve taken to my sketchbook this summer. I bring it down to the beach every morning, and after my eight o’clock swim I sit on my beach towel and draw for about an hour. Sometimes I draw from my imagination, and sometimes I draw from life. If there’s a person walking along the shore I will challenge myself to capture them in a few rapid strokes of my pencil before they’ve moved too far away for me to continue, or if a house is cast in interesting light that day I’ll try to capture it with a few fluid strokes of paint from my travel watercolour kit and a thick brush. I don’t show my drawings to anybody because I’d be too embarrassed to, but they aren’t for anybody else either. I don’t paint or draw to get approval, it feels like the one area of my life where I can be free of judgement, able to create something without being marked or graded or compared to somebody else. 

I usually work on my sketchbook until my phone alarm buzzes at half past nine. This is the time that I know Kelly and Claire will be getting out of bed and I’m usually starving by then anyway. I meet them back at the mobile home and we walk together into the village cafe to buy a bag of pastries and cups of hot coffee for breakfast. 

“It’s cloudy.” Kelly observes one morning in early July. We amble over the sandy boardwalk towards the beach and settle in together onto a bench outside the local surf shack. 

“Not a day for the beach” Claire agrees, looking up at the sky, a woolly grey shawl wrapped around the cliffs. It had been clear and bright earlier, but a mist had settled in during the last hour and blurred the sea and sky into one . I wonder what we’ll do today if we won’t be hanging out on the beach again. I tell them that the water is still warm, and if they want to go for a swim it might be nice all the same, but they disagree. The clouds furthest away are black and filled with rain, and neither of them wants to get their hair wet. 

The village is so much busier this week now that the primary school children have finished up for the summer. Small children and families mill about, a constant stream going in and out of the surf shack, buying ice cream cones and slotting coins into arcade machines. There’s something very retro about this place, the kind of sun bleached seaside haunt that looks as though it’s sat here in the sand unchanged for fifty years. The Beach Boys are playing over the speakers and a middle aged man with white hair and a Hawaiian style shirt is serving coffees and bags of chips over the counter inside as he sings along. The shelves behind him are stacked with bottles of suncream, cans of fizzy drinks, first aid implements, and T-Shirts that all feature the same cartoonish shark with a wide grin. They truly have everything. 

The Hawaiian shirt man comes out to the front of the shack to add a poster to the community notice board and gives us a grin when Kelly calls out a hello to him. 

“Well girls.” He says and ambles over towards us, moving in that slow, easy way that people who live on the beach year round do. “Lovely weather eh?”

“Yeah sure.” Kelly snorts. “Grand auld day.”

“Nice one for the surf though.” He looks over his shoulder where a line of children in wetsuits are heading towards the shore. It’s true, the waves are bigger now than they have been since the storm last week. “Ye wouldn’t think of signing up for the camp would you?” We laugh, clearly the surf camp is not intended for girls our age. 

“I see that Liam is helping out with it again this year.” Kelly says, gesturing to a young man loading surfboards into a beach buggy behind us. “Good on him. He’s got his work cut out with all these children running around. ”

The boy who is apparently called Liam hears this, and he calls out to us from the surfboard shed. “Havoc, sure they go mad once the boards are brought out, most of the work is to control the crowd.” He has a boyish grin and classic surfer looks. His curly blonde hair is lighter than the tan on his face, and a tiny scar above his eyebrow stands out white against golden brown. He comes over and places a hand on the back of the older man’s neck, shaking him playfully. “Skiving off again are you dad? Out here chatting shite to the women as usual.”

He smiles at us “Good to have you back again Kelly, and you’ve brought some friends?”

“Yes,” She says. “Liam, this is Evie and Claire, Evie and Claire, this is Liam. And his dad Anthony.” Liam shakes our hands, and I feel shy when he looks at me. His eyes are very blue. 

“Will you all be coming to the karaoke night later on?” He points to the flyer that his dad pinned up on the notice board moments earlier. “It’ll be in the pub down on the quay. It’s always great fun, at least I always think so.” 

“I’m not sure about that.” I laugh. The idea of standing up in front of strangers and singing is making my cheeks feel hot already. For me, being observed at all sometimes feels like a horrifying ordeal. Liam smiles “Are you a bit shy, Evie?” Again, I blush. 

“She’ll be grand when she gets there.” Kelly says. “It’ll be a bit of fun. What do you think, Claire?” Claire shrugs and sips her coffee. “Could be good. I can’t sing but I don’t mind karaoke.”

“We’ll see you all there.” Says Liam decisively, and then looks over at the children waiting on the beach. “Better get to work.” He races back over to the beach buggy, hops in and drives it over the boardwalk towards the sea. We say our goodbyes to Anthony too, and we three are alone together again Kelly nudges me sharply in the ribs. “What about him?” I pretend not to know what she’s talking about. “What about him? Seems like a friendly person to me. A very normal boy.” 

She rolls her eyes. “What about him for you? Do you think he’s good looking?”

“Yes I suppose.” I admit “But he’s not really my type.”

“If he’s not your type then who is?”

I feel interrogated. I don’t know how to explain it to her, but the idea of being romantically attached to Liam in any way makes me panicky. There’s nothing wrong with him, it just feels like too much pressure. “I don’t know, I just think he’s more your type and not mine.”

My attempt to flip the focus onto her backfires. “Oh, so he’s not good enough for you, but he’s good enough for me?” I feel like she is deliberately misunderstanding me. 

“No…” I say, trying to keep my voice steady. How do I explain that if I like a boy, I want the connection to happen organically? I don’t want to be set up like some loveless little freak who needs someone to hold her hand through the dating process. I want to meet somebody and feel comfortable enough to get to know them without the pressure of my friends watching me from the sidelines, judging my every move, coaching me in what to say and how to act, and then forcing me through the humiliating debrief period after. I feel like I’m a pitiful project sometimes, a specimen in a lab labelled ‘never had a boyfriend… and is also very weird.’

I don’t say any of this though, and as usual I end up apologising to her. I tell her that I’ll try talking to him at the karaoke night and we leave it at that. 

Prev // Next

[skelleste]

2023 Art Summary

Some of the many things I worked on over the past 365 days. More details below.

Happy New Year!

Just like last year, 2023 was full of even more character art, including a brand spanking new OC. You haven't seen much of the comic yet, because it's not done, but there's been progress on that in the background as well. I also started commissions last March. None are featured in this post so I could focus more on original art, but I wanted to give a special thank-you to all my past commissioners. Not a single one of you were a customer service nightmare, in fact it was quite the opposite. I appreciate everyone who's been kind enough to give me work and treat me well.

The rest of this post is going to be some of my favorite pieces by month, and a little about them. I usually spare my followers from most details in my posts, because there's often not much of interest to the public to say, so this is mostly self indulgent.

January

I decided to revisit Tom and Maudlin, as I hadn't drawn them much since creating them. Whenever I make a new character of importance, I try to go out of my way to put them in varied poses and expressions so that I am able to understand how their bodies work by the time I need them for a real project. It's also a great way to explore their personalities, although I feel that I'll have to push Tom's emotional side more in the future.

February

Props for the comic! It sucks to have to design things on the fly, so it helps to have notable objects designed beforehand. Especially if it's important to the plot. Some of these appear in more panels than others, but it smooths out the comic process nevertheless to have ample references on hand.

March

More character designs to spare me from designing mid-comic production. If they don't have lines in the comic, then I ask random people to assign names to them to make it fun, and because it's easier to keep straight who's who when they're not named Man 1 and Man 2. Left to right, they are Johnifer (you can already see why I name the ones with dialogue myself), Wanda, Jean Vincent, Booker, Charles, Maribelle, and Gertrude.

April

It'd be silly of me to pretend as if 90% of my output isn't shitposts. When you dedicate most of your art time to a project, then you're not going to end up making any other art unless you satisfy primitive monkey brain somehow. In my case, that's usually addressed by drawing funny shit. Early this year is when I discovered how easy it is to crack jokes with Scatterbrain. This goofiness is now embedded into her personality permanently. Expect more of this.

May

April-June is when I do my Art Fight preppin', which usually consists of me making a list of my most neglected OCs and giving them some attention. I also try to get around to eventually making all of them a reference sheet in this style, just so they have something standardized between them. This year, Walla Walla had her turn. She's a shitpost character, so I won't be drawing her much again, but she's a good excuse to draw some J-fashion doodles. My interests outside of cartoon stupidity don't really make it into my art often, so she's a minor outlet for some of it.

June

I've made even more character designs this year than last year, but they were all background characters, making Raoul the only new important one. He's been officially-unofficially written into the story since 2022, but it's very hard for me to make OCs that are written before they are designed. Everyone else was designed first and assigned a role in the plot later, so he got put off for a good while. I finally got around to it though, after I killed some darlings. He is now an all-new species, and I modified the chain design to something less clunky compared to what would be historically accurate.

July

July is, of course, Art Fight month. All other art is put on pause. This year, my favorite attack was a drawing of Enchanted Bones for my friend Bugles. I drew the character independently from the background, which is why the lighting situation is as unfortunate as it is, but we don't talk about that. Thank you to everyone who attacked me and made awesome art, I'll revenge you maybe in a few years. Sorry for the wait, but the backlog is mighty long.

August

Stanson got a slight redesign in the last year, so he can fit with the style of the comic better. He's actually the oldest character out of the bunch. I had no purpose for Scott when I made him and threw them together in the same folder. I had a few one-off designs that I figured I'd keep around in case I ever did an OCT, but these two got yoinked out of it when I started getting story ideas for the them. Stanson is a cowboy (not really), so it became a western setting to make sense of it. I plan on giving him the same sketchpage treatment the other characters have gotten, but I've been putting it off purposely for a while. You'll just have to wait.

September

And there it is, the inevitable page of Raoul getting into various mischief (and subsequently getting his ass beat half of the time). He has a very abrasive personality that gets him into trouble. I don't want the comic to be heavily action-based, but he naturally lands himself in these positions and it lets me draw characters in new situations. His introduction to the story is still a long way off at this point, but I can't wait to pit him against Scott in some slapstick shenanigans.

October

Spooky month is incredibly busy for me in real life, so there isn't as much time for art as I'd like there to be. That's why I dedicated all my time that month to trying to get Halloween art done in time. I've been a fan of Homestar Runner since childhood, and as soon as I thought that Raoul would pull off a Jigen Daisuke look, I knew I wanted to do a full Homestar-esque set of costumes. The other ideas quickly fell into place. My version came out way more detailed than theirs usually are though. The spirit of Halloween possessed me.

November

I started going full gear on the comic around this time (I think 28 hours in one week when I stayed home), so there's an absence of polished personal art here. Scatterbrain eating some spaghetti is my placeholder art for "I worked on a website a bunch instead". It's far from done, but I've made major strides since then.

December

A secret santa gift for my friend, Toby! I continued doing mostly comic work, but I also made room for a secret santa and scheduled a bunch of art trades to complete between December and March. The rest still have to be completed, so you'll see that throughout 2024. Anyway, Toby's OC, Thomas, is based on the state of Michigan. I plastered him on a postcard in front of a highway sign with some Robins because they're the state bird.

There were many more drawings of course, and you can find them scrolling through my Tumblr, or on my DeviantART (I switched to Tumblr as my main site in late August). I hope the new year brings many improvements and happiness for everyone. Last year my goal was simply to start on the comic, which I did, but it was also to get it uploadable, which I didn't. I'm gonna have to aim for the same goal again. Life things were largely fine but still tumultuous enough to throw me off-course, but now my most dangerous family member has moved out and it should be somewhat safer to live here. Not 100% safe though. It never will be. I generally avoid talking about the comic extensively as I won't have a solid release date for some time, so this is the last you'll hear of it for now outside of the rare WIP screenshot. Wish me luck and have a wonderful new year!

[notwhatiam]

OKAY.

So.

I was on a call with my parents today.

We were talking about the Inside Job cancellation, because I’ve been really upset about it and they were actually the ones who got me into the show in the first place. I was saying how weird and unfair it was that it just got pulled out of the blue, when my dad chimed in with something along the lines of, “yeah, but it’s not as though this kind of thing hasn’t happened to the show before. Remember that episode from the end of Part 1 that Netflix ended up taking down?”

And I was immediately like

And my mom and dad were like, “yeah, you don’t remember? That episode at the end of the first part of Season 1. The one with Reagan’s childhood friend that Rand erased from her memory.”

I said, yeah, the part where Reagan goes into her own mind and discovers that she had a friend named Orrin that Rand made her forget. At the end of the episode, she goes back to the present and uses his name as the password to shut down Bear-O and save her friends. That episode is still on Netflix. It didn’t go anywhere.

They were like, “no, but then there’s another episode AFTER that. The one where we find out what actually HAPPENED to Orrin.”

According to them, there was a lost eleventh episode after Inside Reagan. This episode revealed that Rand had trapped Orrin in a cartoon-inspired play land where he had been stuck for the last twenty years. Everyone in the real world thought he had died, and his dad had turned into a broken-down shell of a man over the loss of his son. Reagan and Rand ended up going into the cartoon world to try to save him, and they found out that Orrin had been surviving the whole time by breeding with the cartoon creatures and eating their offspring. They said that they were really confused when they went back to rewatch the first season and the episode wasn’t there, but they could also understand why it had been taken down, because it was honestly one of the most disturbing pieces of television that they had ever seen.

At this point in the conversation, I just assumed that they were messing with me. It’s not like they don’t have a history of pulling twisted shit like this (for context: my dad told me to start watching Inside Job in the first place because he relates to Rand and thought I’d relate to Reagan, and he was 100% right), so I asked them straight-up if they were trying to play some kind of prank. A “ha-ha, you made your own Mandela-effect-style conspiracy” type of prank. They swore up and down that they weren’t lying, and that they both distinctly remembered watching this episode together. They were shocked that I had never seen it, and the entire time over the past year and a half that we’ve been talking about the show, they had thought that this was a part of our shared experience.

So commenced the weirdest Googling spree that I have ever been a part of. I looked for “Inside Job lost episode”, “Inside Job episode 11”, and then a lot of stuff like, “kid gets trapped in cartoon world and mates with creatures to eat their offspring” (which provided a LOT of results, but nothing useful for any purpose except probably for sending the FBI to my house). My parents kept searching for stuff based on details that they could recall from the episode (for example: they remembered a specific moment where Reagan jumped off a cliff and discovered that the ground was bouncy), but they couldn’t find anything on their end. I asked them if they were absolutely sure that this was part of Inside Job, and they weren’t just mixing it up with another show. They were both completely certain that it had been Inside Job, and my parents don’t watch that much animation, so it would have been pretty hard for them to draw on anything else. I went through the Tumblr tag for Orrin Carthwait again, and it was all speculation about what COULD have happened to him, which meant that nobody else had seen this mystery episode, either. Besides, I love this show, and I practically live on Inside Job Tumblr, so if a lost episode existed somewhere, I have a really hard time believing that I wouldn’t have come across it. We’ve been on the phone for an hour at this point. My parents are going through their Netflix history trying to figure out what the fuck they watched. Meanwhile, I’m just lying face-down on the floor having a meltdown because I’m convinced that my parents and I live in different realities. The thing was, it wasn’t a totally impossible scenario? The story did seem to fit together fairly well with the parts of the show that I knew. Also, there’s an episode of Gravity Falls (which was made by a lot of the same people who made Inside Job, and contains a lot of similar themes) where Mabel gets trapped in a cartoonish fantasy land that sounds fairly similar:

So, maybe it was possible that Inside Job contained the more adult version? There’s also the fact that Alex Hirsch did that thing where he basically long-form gaslit the GF fandom back in the day by releasing fake footage of a nonexistent spoiler to throw people off the trail when theories started getting too accurate (I’m too lazy to find a post to link; just look it up if you don’t know about this). Maybe the creators were trying to mess with people by releasing an episode to only a handful of viewers and then yanking it, thus creating a conspiracy about the show in itself? Still, it wouldn’t make sense that EVERY trace of the episode would be wiped from existence. You’d think somebody would be talking about it somewhere. I started wondering if maybe it was possible that I HAD actually seen it, and just didn’t remember it. The thing was, it did actually sound really familiar, and some of the details my parents were describing felt way too clear in my mind. Did I just block it out? Where was it, then? I was absolutely losing my fucking mind at this point, so I started a last-ditch effort to just go through any adult animation shows I could think of and read the synopses of every single episode to see if one matched the description. And finally, FINALLY,

I found the bitch.

It’s Rick and Morty, Season 3, Episode 9: “The ABCs of Beth.”

It’s been a long time since I’ve seen it, so I guess I forgot most of the details. Rewatching it back, though, it’s undoubtedly the same story that my parents were describing. The episode is about Beth discovering that Rick trapped her childhood friend, Tommy, in a fantasy play land of his own design called “Froopyland”. She goes back to try to save him, and discovers that he’s been surviving there the whole time by mating with the Froopyland creatures and then eating their kids. The story is basically about Beth coming to terms with the fact that, while her dad is a really fucked-up person, she isn’t entirely unlike him (for better or worse). Honestly, I can understand why my parents’ minds conflated this episode with the ending of Inside Job. The design of Tommy:

Could conceivably be an adult Orrin:

And a lot of the themes about dysfunctional family and fucked-up childhoods (including missing childhood friends) are actually incredibly similar.

Still, I can’t believe that I was actually briefly led to think that there was a lost episode of my favorite show that I had never seen, which was either purged from the collective consciousness or deleted from my own personal memory. This is the worst thing that my parents have ever done. If I ever go to a therapist, they’ll be hearing about this first.

[thesweetnessofsalt]

Process Blog #2

To the person who left this comment like, two years ago:

You were so on the nose, you didn’t even know. But I knew. I KNEW!!!

Process Blog #2 covers pages 6 through 9 of Chapter 3.

Man, this was the sequence from hell. I’ve been having some computer troubles, and in my attempts to fix the issue, I ended up losing a lot of my files for Chapter 3. It’s fine - I ended up recovering almost everything, and I’m using a cloud service going forward. But the issue still persists and my computer just shuts down at random. Some days it doesn’t happen at all, but on others, it’ll happen continuously.

(You can also file this under ‘reasons why Michelle can’t manage to keep a stream schedule’, btw…sorry.)

Nevertheless, I’ve been looking forward to making these pages for a while, and they are juicy. So let's get into it!!

Historical Inspiration & Stylism

Sha’s memory is kind of hazy - it’s why she, say, rounds to 2,000 years instead of providing an exact date; see also the ‘egg incident’ - and her recounting of her past is similarly lacking in detail. That being said, I do want to imply something about when and where this occurs, and have tried to do so through the visuals. 

The compositions and figures themselves are inspired mostly by red-figure pottery, while the eyes and decorative details are inspired by Minoan frescoes.

Panels are made up of Greek meanders - those decorative borders. I know it's not what the Greeks were going for, but it looks very comic-like to me and I'm here for it.

Aphrodite

Aphrodite’s domain was love, passion, and beauty, but she was also associated with fertility and marriage. I’ve peppered a few of her symbols throughout this sequence - sparrows, myrtle (those leafy branches) - but the main one are shells. 

Aphrodite was often depicted with scallop shells, alluding to her birth by the sea. Oh, hey - we’ve seen shells like this in TSOS before!

Well, have you caught it? Have you figured out that we’re drawing parallels between Sha and Aphrodite? What if we were both girls…and we were both born from the ocean…

The (Ex-) Husband

Divorce was a viable option for couples in Ancient Greece, so his threat isn’t completely out of left field - neither is the implication that he’d hold Sha responsible for their troubles. Infertility was seen as a women’s issue, and was perfectly reasonable grounds for divorce.

Yes, this guy comes off like a complete asshole to us, but to Sha, this would have been normalized (though still awful).

Not much else to say about the dude. He was a fisherman,  though that detail ended up really only coming through here:

Shop Talk

For all the troubles I had with research, stylizing, and tone, the actual making of these pages was pretty quick (thank god…I had to make up that time somewhere!). I really tried not to fuss too much on the execution of these, given that I was working on them in such sporadic sections and lost my original files partway through.

I didn’t really do a sketch pass, instead jumping right into the lineart so it’d look stiffer and less refined than the usual style. I gave the lines a little oomph by adding a duplicating lineart underneath, blurring the heck out of it, and changing it to red. This just gave them some warmth and helped distinguish them better from the screentones.

I chose this screentone for its resemblance to tiny mosaic tiles, with some slight hue shifts for variety and a gaussian blur to soften up those harsh anti aliased dots.

Closing Arguments

Well, now you know the terrible truth: TSOS is not very historically accurate or specific.

Instead of sharing her story through facts and events, I wanted it to be shared in Sha's own words, supported by visuals that could be interpreted freely.

Sha doesn't remember where she lived, or when she died. Even if she did, those things would be counted and named differently today, and those facts wouldn't add anything to her character or the story. What Sha does remember is the loneliness and desperation that got her to where she is now.

It's not the most forthcoming, I know, but hey - neither is Sha!

This flashback continues for another two pages, but they start to break from this ancient style as we fade back to present day, so that's all for now!

As always, if you have any questions about the making of TSOS, leave them in the comments and I’ll answer them in the next!

Process Blog #2 was originally published September 21, 2023 on Ko-fi. Supporters get early access to TSOS pages and process blogs!

[rubykgrant]

Hey, I can put all my pin-up pictures in one post now!

I spent a couple of weeks drawing these, sometimes trying multiple poses until finally they looked right, and then I had to travel to scan the pictures... and the scanner was really wonky. It washed out certain colors, while over-saturating others. It was just really weird. So, the only solution was to try to edit and fix the scanned images on my computer, and since I only have MS Paint with no layers, this was a challenge. I basically had to add the colors, then go over my lines so they would be clear, and finally erase around the edges. It took another few days to fix them all, but I did it!

(some descriptions for each character design below)

Church gave me the most trouble… and why wouldn’t he? This CHURCH, after all. He lives to be difficult. I knew I wanted him to have the “mud-flap babe pose”, but I kept messing up his face, and didn’t realize how bad I messed up until after I inked and colored it in… at one point, I tried to re-draw the face and cut out the one that didn’t work, and paste the two pieces of paper together. It wasn’t worker, so I finally just traced over my own lines, did the face all over again, and he looked half-way decent. SO, I’m done with Church! Look at that smug expression, he knows he’s a jerk. Seriously though, I love how he turned out!

When it comes to his design, I have my whole RVB story-line with a scenario in which Church and Tex get to come back with synthetic human bodies (specifically, when the Epsilon AI was deconstructed, all of the data from his memories WENT somewhere; it was downloaded back into the original AI units, which weren’t “dead” after the EMP, just deactivated. revived by Epsilon’s data, all the AI were able to reactivate, including Alpha! now HE is the one who is carrying on with the memories another part of him left behind… whoops, that’s sad, but don’t worry! he now also has the chance to feel better~). His was based on the DNA of the Director, but he’s not a clone, exactly. There’s a similarity for sure, but they’d probably look more like brothers. Church is considerably shorter, and even when he was “fresh out of the oven”, he’s more chunky too. As time goes on and he’s able to eat REAL FOOD, Church gets nice and chubby. He also wanted to be strong enough to actually pick Tex up, so that was his whole motivation for muscles. He has fairly long hair at first, and later cuts and styles it to this (imagine it feels like a silky-soft hedgehog). He wound up with some face-fuzz, and wasn’t sure of he should keep it or not… he doesn’t want to seem like he intentionally looks like the Director, but also? If he tries to avoid looking like him on purpose, he’s still letting that dude influence his decisions. Church finally asked Carolina (only fair, because she has to look at him), and she said it kinda suits him, especially since he has a squared jaw. So, the face-fuzz stayed~

*

The first rule of face-designs for RVB characters; Tucker is the prettiest. This is law. He definitely is really into the whole romantic-pose thing, so he’s both flirty and totally relaxed. “Yeah, I know, you want me. Don’t worry, plenty of Tucker for everybody!”. I like imagining his features as being a little aquiline, but still soft (he’s one of those people who looks about 10 years younger than he actually is, and even when he’s an old man, he’ll barely look 40).

He is indeed a manlet short king, thank you very much. He wasn’t always so muscular, but after training with Wash, Tucker has some definition going on (glorious calves, after all). I think the main thing with him that I keep in mind, is; yeah, in the beginning, he definitely wasn’t an “ideal fighter”, but he’s proven to not only be capable, but FANTASTIC… and it isn’t just about fighting. It isn’t just flirting, either. Tucker genuinely has so much depth, and a thoughtful side that makes him really care about people. So, even when I draw him looking strong, or confident, I want him to have a gentle touch in there~

*

When I thought about what kinda pose I wanted for Tex, I knew she had to be FLEXING, obviously. For the rest of the body, I used reference for some drawings I did many years ago in a Human Figure class, with models who posed while we sketched. I always liked the way this one sketch I did showed the line in the back follow all the way down the leg, so I elaborated on this for Tex. I really wanted something to show the full body, and standing up so you get the feel for how imposing/intimidating she is. I think she’d approve~

Like Church, I imagined a scenario in which she gets to return in a synthetic human body, hers being based on the DNA of Allison (rather than turning out identical, they simply share similarities). Ironically, Tex looks more like Carolina than Allison did (I like to think Carolina takes after a great-grandmother on her mom’s side, and Tex just kinda wound up inheriting those traits in her new body, too). Tex is very TALL, and once she was able to, she was determined to get BUFF. Tex is a built like a brick house, heck yeah!

*

I wanted to do another full-standing pose for Caboose to really show how tall he is. For a while, I wasn’t sure what to do with his hands... like, him holding them up over his head didn’t seem to work, on his hips didn’t look right... finally, I sketched them clasped behind his back, and it was perfect! Nice and casual, but also really cute. It also show’s off his arms REALLY good~

Like a lot of people, I imagine Caboose as being BIG. It just kinda fits with how strong he is, and since I made Tucker and Church both tiny, Caboose can totally life them both up on his shoulders! Little boy blue? Nah, big boy blue! Sarge is tiny too, so I love the idea of him standing next to Caboose, who is his favorite Blue (Caboose is son-boy). Caboose is also pretty comfortable with himself, so I just wanted him to calm and happy. He deserves it~

*

We never got a good look at Wash back in Project Freelancer, but at some point, somebody came up with blonde-freckle-man, and a lot of us latched onto it. I am no exception… and I really went all-out with his freckles! It was once mentioned that he grew a beard, so I decided to keep that. It is a little more full and fluffy than I usually draw it, but hey- maybe he’s growing it out a bit. That foot ticked me off, but whatever, I’m done with it. Also, yes; I gave him a catboy pose~

I imagine Wash also being tall, and fairly lean. Certainly athletic, but also agile. The dude has also been all over the map in terms of his character arc; Freelancer Dork, Mr Serious Recovery One, Villain Guy, Church Impersonator, and finally- a dork yet again, but now he’s more comfortable to be one! After living with the Reds and Blues, he’s found a way to sort of… not feel awkward about being awkward? It makes sense when you know this group. Also, I’m not sure how much I would elaborate on it in my story-line… but I kinda lean toward trans Wash~

* 

Kai was actually the first one I did (originally, the only one... but then I kept going haha). I had this specific pose in mind for her that I thought was really cute. Somehow, the sketch turned out alright on the first try, and after I added all the ink and color, it was still good! The process I used to draw her was repeated for each picture; pencil sketch, then go over the lines I like with this one almost-dry brown marker (honestly, it looks like drawing with charcoal, but thankfully it WORKS like a felt pen. charcoal is so tricky), erase unneeded pencil lines, add more defined lines with the colors I want to use for the character (for Kai, this one goldenrod pen I have), and continue with the details, mixing different pens and colored pencils for the shading. It was a WHOLE thing.

I love how her pose turned out, she really looks like she has actual form. I wanted to express the fact that she is beautiful, and she’s also chubby with stretch-marks, thank you very much. I also imagine she and her bro have like... very fine body hair that you can barely see (seriously, they have baby hair on their arms and legs). As for the hair on her head, man- I LOVE drawing hair, and hers is so pretty! I like how it almost looks like gold~

*

Sweet Caroline, bah-bah-bah! She’s one of the few characters who shows us her face, so I know what she looks like, but I still wanted to play around with my design of her. I decided short hair works for her (and although I’m just using the aqua-blue here, I imagine that she starts dying it a darker red). She’s usually very tense and tough, so I wanted to let he show a slightly more dainty side with the pose. When I finally figured out how to make legs sort of over-lap in different ways, I started having fun doing poses like this. You can still see her impressive arm muscles, though~

Carolina has definitely taken some battle-damage over the years, with a few scars here and there… also, I think she just doesn’t care about shaving, so enjoy the leg hair! She was arguably the easiest to draw. Thank you for that, Carolina~

*

I struggled with this pose for quite a while… my fault for deciding on something difficult, but come on! I had to go with a push-up. Also, a one-handed push-up at that, because Sarge has to show off. I actually showed my mom all these pictures as I finished them (and she cracked me up, she’d say “That’s a very cute naked person, honey. Now, go color another one” like I’m drawing unicorns or something haha). When she saw Sarge, she said “He looks like a big silver back gorilla”, and she had no idea how ironic and hilarious that actually is.

I imagine Sarge being the shortest of the group, very beefy and very boxy. He’s also got the most body hair of the group. Plenty of scars as well (the ones on his knuckles are from punching so hard while wearing older armor, his hands would get scraped on the inside. newer armor has better padding). I wanted his face to look smug, like he’s saying “Yes, I know you’re looking at me, I can’t blame you”. As you can see, he doesn’t have much of a butt… and what is there is a tight little brick haha~

*

Grif obviously needed to have a very chill pose, so he’s kicked-back, relaxing with his legs crossed, and arms folded behind his head. I’m so happy I’ve gotten better at drawing soft mass, because fat characters are beautiful (and as a chubby person myself, I want to do different body-types justice). Grif is indeed a big guy, and although he’s very calm here, I hope you can kinda tell he’s got some strength in that body too.

Like Simmons’ prosthetics, I wanted Grif’s limbs with the skin-grafts to be clear and easy to see. Over the years, his body has sort of “absorbed” the organic tissue Simmons donated, so Grif has evened-out (though you can kinda tell, his lighter foot doesn’t quite match the one he “grew” himself, but he’s not as lop-sided as when the surgery first happened.) Just like Kai, I loved doing the curls in his wavy hair~

*

Donut was the second one I made after Kai, because he pretty much took over my brain and DEMANDED to be drawn in a pin-up pose. What kind of pose was easy enough to figure out (imagine him spread out on a bead). I totally screwed up on his feet, and didn’t want to re-draw the whole thing… but I also didn’t have white-out, or even white paint. I wound up using this craftwork enamel stuff… which is OK, but really tacky (I don’t mean like it looks bad, but tacky as in it takes forever to dry and stays sticky for too long).

I imagine Donut is what you get if Barbie had a baby with GI Joe; totally adorable, and also impressively buff (especially his arms). His face has the scar from the grenade incident, and after having his hair lop-sided for a while, he started styling with a side-cut and letting the rest grow out. He also has a scar on one of his hands (from when he got hurt from the vehicle). His face naturally makes the cutesy kitty mouth~

*

If you want to imagine these pin-ups as being for like… and actual calendar that exists within the RVB universe, the only way they could get Simmons to be part of it was by intentionally acting like they weren’t going to include him. This would kick his fears of being ignored into high-gear, so he would INSIST on doing it too. He’s still a little uncertain… so, a shy pose for the shy nakey boy~

I wanted to make sure we could clearly see his cybernetics (and I’m so happy with how the foot turned out). Like a lot of people, I imagine red-head Simmons, and I think he probably had short hair most of his life… but around Chorus he didn’t have time to keep trimming it, and after Iris it totally got away from him. One day he pulls it back, to figure out how much needs to cut off, but instead he went “Oh, pony-tail?”. So yeah, long hair Simmons! He used to be a string-bean too, but years of running around and trying not to die helped him put on some weight (he totally doesn’t even realize he has actual muscles~)

*

When I decided to do sort of leaned-over pose with Doc, it was hard to make it work… but finally, I had something that looked decent. I also wanted to show a wink and smirk, because O’Malley is there too! He probably would have rather done some kind of pose in a graveyard to look all creepy, but Doc won with the cute pose.

I like the idea of him having really thick, fluffy, and curly hair. Also, a very defined nose. His legs are really strong (being a former track runner and all), but he not as muscular as some of the others. In fact, Grif is the tallest of the short group, with Doc just a little shorter than him (after that is Church, Tucker, Kai, and Sarge). I’m really happy with how all the shapes of his forms turned out, his tummy, his shoulders, his legs~

*

I really wanted to do an especially cute pose for Locus, because he deserves to feel pretty~ He’s probably about as shy and awkward as Simmons in certain ways (certainly confident when it comes to fighting, but social situations? he’s a dork). So, he’s sort of closed-off here, but hey- popping that leg up, because yes! Locus can have fun, too! His legs turned out really nice too~

We know what he looks like in the show, or at least, what he looked like working with Felix before Chorus. So, I had that to bas his design on. I feel like while Chorus stuff was going on, Locus actually lost a lot of weight, being so stressed-out and not even recognizing how unhappy he was. He’s always been beefy and buff, but now that he has some new friends that actually give a heck, he’s put on some weight, and is just a bit more chubby than he used to be (which is a good thing~)

[m0nst3rgunxz]

Hey can somebody define the self for me pls?/genq

because I'm thinking about it and there are a few approaches that ive thought up as well as disputed. First off he have the notion that comes from a more psychology type stand-point where the self/identity is divided into named categories. Such as the ego states(that typically bind down into one cohesive identity with age) and ID/ego/superego. Which would mean you are the pieces that make you up, hypothetically. This makes me wonder where you should draw those lines(is your self really cut and paste enough to fit into predisposed definitions anyway?), and more importantly when one piece of you faulters (I.e. change in morality [superego]) do you STOP being you? Are you now a new self? Or can the self change.

Well lets move on to my other possible ideas, how about your personality/opinions? Well that would making you your brain in some sense of the word given you form your subjective opinions, on objective reality, WHILEST the reality you personally experience is subjective in nature. Hope i havent lost you, let me explain. The reality you experience through your senses(taste, touch, scent, ect.) is filtered through your brains ability to comprehend it. The colors we have named can be seen differently by other people. Things can feel different and be filtered through the optic nerve or olfactory glands or nervous system differently for others. Now that makes your reality immediately different from objective reality. This makes your opinions/perspectives limited to your experience with reality and your minds ability to perceive reality. If the self is personality then the self is dictated by the limitation of man/personhood. That brings the question of what's the limitation of man(disorder, sickness, the primal urges that occasionally directly contradict the frontal cortex and whatnot) and whats personality?

Moving on once again, i dont see this take often but theres the idea that you are your body. Which I think is quite a funny thing because very often the self and the body directly conflict, and the subject with the body makes alterations to the body to match the self(from hair cuts to surgery). The very way we speak of our bodies contradicts this idea as well. We say "my body" or "my arm" and its worded like its something we own. Like our body is not us but the object we own. And the object we are forced to present in. Off topic slightly but this makes body horror extremely effective because in it you are forced into an object that is grotesque and vile and your body becomes your agonizing prison. (Also if you are your body you can introduce "all your cells are replaced by seven years" and "what if ur body parts are replaced with machinery/consciousness download into the digital" notions and suddenly this idea is crumbling apart in your hands)

My final idea on what the self could possibly be is that you are your memories. Look dont ask me, i dont really get it, but rolling with this idea that would make me(someone with amnesia) lack self almost entirely. And truth be told I do significantly lack many general traits that others have decided comprises identify. And truth be told i am A-OK with being a nonidentity. Perhaps if i really am my memories and I dont have memories and i dont have a self, that means im completely up to viewer interpretation. Quantum physics style if you catch my drift haha(just dont get too attached to your ideas of me tho i suppose, theres always more under the surface or less under the surface than people tent to anticipate and its like this world shattering thing to many when I dont aline with their general consensus of personhood on a fundamental level)

Anyways please get back to me on these ideas, i lack the understandings and experiences required to come to the conclusion on what "identity" is, so it would be a big help :D!!

[andromeda4004]

Chapter 12 sneak peak

Morningstar Abbey

I’m not going to be posting a full chapter today (I haven’t finished writing it yet) but I thought you would like a peak at a new character we will meet when our boys arrive at Morningstar itself.  It’s my (questionable) pleasure to introduce General Lucius Crowley...

The carriage has driven from Bath and is drawing up outside Crowley’s family home:

They slowed to a trot on the drive, where a laden travelling carriage was waiting, a team of four fine horses stamping their feet and huffing in the cold air.

“Damn it,” Crowley muttered.  “He hasn’t left yet.”  He forced a smile.  “Looks as though you’ll have the chance to meet the old man, after all.”

“Oh!  I shall be glad to,” though Aziraphale had heard enough of the General to have formed a most unfavourable impression of him.

“I wouldn’t be sure of that.”

Crowley drew the phaeton to a stop with a final crunch of gravel, and leapt down, handing the reins to a boy who ran out from the shadow of the building.  Adam scorned the offered hand and jumped down himself, but Aziraphale was glad to take it, both for the assistance and the plausible excuse to feel Crowley’s hand in his, if only for a moment.

“Adam!” a voice cried.  Aziraphale dropped Crowley’s hand and whipped around to look at the doorway, where a tall gentleman stood framed by the gothic archway.  Aziraphale recognised him without hesitation.  There could be no mistaking that face, which Madame Tracy had immediately seen in Crowley when first they met.

Adam walked up the steps towards him. “Good afternoon, Father,” he said, extending a hand to shake, and had his hair ruffled for his efforts.

“Glad to have you home, boy!  And you, Anthony!  Still making a fool of yourself with that random-tandem team, I see. And this must be our guest!”

Crowley visibly braced himself and pinned a smile in place as they approached.  “Father!  I should like to introduce-”

“Mr Fell,” said the General, extending a strong hand towards Aziraphale.  “Or is it Reverend Fell?”  His teeth were remarkably white and straight in his wide, welcoming grin.

“Oh, ah, Mr Fell is quite – ah, I only use Reverend when at my work,” Aziraphale managed.  “You must be the General; I am indebted to you for the invitation, truly it is kind of you-”

“Nonsense, Mr Fell, you are most welcome here at Morningstar.  Adam speaks well of you, and that must be enough to recommend you to me.”  The General released his hand and Aziraphale did his best to marshal his thoughts.

Lucius Crowley was remarkably like his second son, in height and build and sense of style, his back unbent and head held proudly despite being evidently well past his sixtieth year. Crowley’s fine lines were deeper wrinkles on his father, and the rich rust of the younger man’s colouring had faded out to a cinnamon-blond dusting in the distinguished white hair.  The General maintained striking military whiskers, the moustache joining the sideburns, but the whole was neatly groomed, not left to run amok.  Aziraphale was glad to see that Crowley had not inherited the General’s eyes, at least; they were a common hazel, and Aziraphale liked knowing that his Crowley had that feature uniquely.

His Crowley?  Dash it, he had to overcome this!

“I – I am very glad to be here,” he said, dragging himself back to the moment.  “Your home is beautiful, General Crowley; I do not recall when I have seen such striking architecture.”

The General ushered him through into the main hall, a tall, wide affair, dominated by the branched staircase leading to the upper galleries, and the double-height arched windows that bespoke the building’s religious history; General Crowley waved it all away with a dismissive hand.  “Ah, yes, we are fortunate in our stonework that the Abbey was built well, but I have completed a great deal of modernisation here since I took it over, and I think you will be most pleased with the results achieved, a modern gentleman such as yourself.  All this gothic grandeur is very well, but hardly fit for this innovative century!” As he spoke, he drew Aziraphale further into the building, through a door on the right of the main hall, and into-

A completely ordinary drawing room, plastered and wallpapered in a nod to the latest mode of Eastern inspiration favoured by the Regent.  Had the room been part of a modern townhouse, Aziraphale would have thought it well-appointed, but in an abbey it was strangely … wrong.

He turned a bright smile back towards the General, who was quite obviously watching him for a reaction.  “Charming!”

___

If you want to read the rest:

[boysplanetrecaps]

Boys Planet, Episode 7 Recap Part 2: Law and Man in Love

Ok! It’s time to recap some more performances from the second mission of Boys Planet! In this recap, I’ll be covering the first two groups from episode 7 -- Law and Man in Love. Let’s do it!

Feel free to skip to 3:25 to get past the recap and teaser and the promise not to cheat. Our first team is…

3:25 LAW by Yoon Mirae and Bibi

The guys come out and say hello. Stylist noonas did ok here, though I don’t like the stuff tied around Zi Hao’s and Hanbin’s waists -- looks uncomfortable to dance in. 

As they’re introducing themselves, the judges talk about how it’s a team full of good dancers, and how Park Hanbin is a really tough leader. 

Just wanted to give Lee Yedam a little love. Look how cute he is!

The host asks Han Yujin what was the toughest thing about rehearsing, and it’s time for a flashback.

Just as a reminder, our team of lawbreakers is: 

Trainee name (rank)   Star Level test Challenge 1 age final star level

Han Yu Jin (4) Kick It /Backdoor - K / 15 ⭐⭐⭐

Park Hanbin (22) The Real /Hot Sauce - K / 20 🌟🌟🌟🌟

Wang Zi Hao (29) Veil /Kill This Love - G /21 🌟🌟🌟🌟

Na Kamden (31) Rush Hour /Backdoor - G / 21 ⭐⭐⭐

Lee Ye Dam (42) Gambler /Love Me Right - K /20 🌟🌟🌟🌟

When we last left them, they were a bit worried about who would handle the rapping, but they were confident that Kamden and Yujin could write the rap, while the other three would make up the choreo. 

Now it’s time for them to rehearse in front of the judges. We find out that Han Yujin couldn’t sleep the night before because he was that worried about which dance judge it would be. 

Look, I know it seems like I’m joking around about how much I hate that dance teacher when I draw horns and goatees and stink lines on him, but seriously, this is upsetting. Han Yujin has obviously been studying dance and performance for years, so he’s used to getting negative critique at least sometimes. But he’s only 15 years old, and this dance teacher has fucking TRAUMATIZED him. Yujin is outright terrified of him. 

When that abusive shitforbrains walks into the room, Yujin says, “my heart almost exploded” from fear. In fact, Yujin is so scared that his heart is pounding so hard that Kamden can feel it even through Yujin’s shirt and ugly windbreaker. (Lee Yedam, on the right, also looks pretty scared -- look at the set of his jaw.) 

This really isn’t cool. Hey dance judge? If you’re out there? Fuck you. Fuck you for traumatizing young adults or really people of any age. And for what? What was the point of it? It’s counter productive. Yujin dances better when he’s confident. Nearly all of these trainees already want to do well, so you’re not motivating them. Because of you, even amazing trainees like Yujin live in fear of being scolded. This is straight up abuse and I don’t know why it’s tolerated.

Ok. Deep breath. 

So the Law team is going to perform for the judges, and Yujin is on the verge of a panic attack, and it’s just his almost supernatural self-control that gets him through it. They perform well, and the judges say they do it really well, but encourage them to change it more to make it their own. The judges ask to see their original choreo, so Yujin has to show the choreo he made up himself. We also see Wang Zi Hao present his choreo, which is obviously very krump-styled and powerful, but we don’t linger over it because only Yujin gets a storyline. The dance teacher compliments them, and gentle happy music plays, like Yujin has triumphed over adversity, but like, he hasn’t. He just has been doing as well as he always has, and this time, the judge didn’t assault him. That’s not a triumph, that’s… absence of assault. 

The staff member asks him whether he’d rather have LipJ or Fuckface at his next training session, and he says the latter. And you might say, oh well if he wants to work with the psycho, he must like him deep down, right? But the thing is, there’s such a thing as a trauma bond. Children are often weirdly loyal to abusive parents, and many partners are loyal to domestic abusers. It’s a thing that happens, and doesn’t mean that abuse doesn’t also exist. 

We cut to the big group trainee self-eval show, and this time, Yujin sort of chokes and the whole team kind of falls like dominos. They get a lot of negative feedback and decide they have to work harder. So next we have a montage of them training like crazy, with the formerly blue-haired Park Hanbin pushing them to do the moves over and over and over. 

I’m trying to think why Hanbin’s methods work so much better than Matthew’s, and I think it’s because first off, because he isn’t following an abstract schedule he made up ahead of time. That’s important. But also, he always presents what they’re doing as something they’re doing because they all want to. It’s not him making them perform - it’s reminding them they they all want to do this, even if right now they’re tired. He also is pushing himself at the same time, and not micromanaging their every breath.  You’ll notice that the other trainees really respect and like him, and it really feels like the respect goes both ways. 

Performance

The original, on street man fighter 

The full cam 

This is a pretty great song -- if I were a dancer I think I’d pick this one.  

My Take

Well, that was great. Loved it. I even watched all five fancams! The flag thing was kind of unnecessary but really, it was great overall.

What’s kind of funny is that watching the full version, I think Lee Yedam stands out the most. He’s great -- he moves so well, with both power and lightness, it’s great. And obviously Wang Zi Hao is fantastic too, so much strength and agility, when the camera actually deigns to show him to us. But when I was watching Yedam’s and Zi Hao’s fan cams, I’d get distracted if Park Hanbin or Na Kamden came into frame. Especially Hanbin, who brings so much life and personality to his performance. I’m not saying that Hanbin is the best dancer in this group, but I’m saying that his fan cam is the most fun to watch of the five, and Kamden isn’t far behind. So yeah, it’s weird -- the full cam edit seems to favor Lee Yedam, but Park Hanbin and Na Kamden are waiting in the margins to steal your attention, like bias wreckers. As for Han Yujin, for me I guess he may have even been the weakest just because this song is powerful and he looks too reedy and young for it, to my eyes. But I still think he also did a great job, and his unexpectedly deep voice in the rap was a nice surprise. 

All five of them did a great job, really and truly. Yedam, Zi Hao, and Yujin brought it with the dance, Kamden did great with the rap, and dance and stage presence, and Hanbin had the facial expressions and leadership to bring it all together. So many talented trainees!! I would have pressed A for all of them. If I was only allowed to vote for one of them, I don’t know what I’d do. Cry, I guess. And then I’d probably vote for Lee Yedam because I think he needs the support the most. 

The Editing

Oh man, this is like, Yujin’s very own music video. Everyone was great, but it’s Yujin who gets most the focus and the instant replays. It’s kind of irritating, honestly. I like Yujin, and I’d like him just as much if MNET wasn’t focusing on him so much. I mean, even during Lee Yedam’s killing part, they focus on Yujin.Later on, when Yujin does that little kick move, with the breaking glass noise, honestly it barely lands in the full cam version, but they play it THREE times and show FOUR different reactions to it in the edited version. WHY? 

There’s also some focus on Hanbin throughout, in a way that also feels heavy handed. They also show this shot of a woman at 16:53 clearly shouting “Park Hanbin!” (You have to read her lips but it’s obvious.) 

They also focus way too long on Yujin’s ending fairy move that he apparently stole from Sung Hanbin. I DON’T CARE. Unpopular opinions: I don’t like ending fairies. I think it’s weird and getting weirder. Like, we’re just codifying Kpop performances so much that all these weird little aspects of them are getting more and more exaggerated. It’s like, Fisherian runaway selection or something, and it’s getting out of hand. But I digress.

The Voting 

So, the boys are waiting in the folding chairs of doom to find out who did the worst. Hanbin expects it to be him, but it’s poor Lee Yedam. He gets 608 votes, which seems to be a high score for the worst on a team, but obviously it’s not what he wanted. You can tell he’s heartbroken, and his team is astonished.

God, Yedam is trying to smile but he’s so devastated. It looks like Hanbin, left, is smiling, but trust me, he’s not happy that Yedam got a bad score. It’s an incredulous smile, not a happy one. Yedam interviews that he wonders if he doesn’t stand out on stage. Aww, Yedam!!   

I’m trying to figure out why audiences don’t really respond to Lee Yedam. Part of it might be that he’s largely been ignored by MNET all along. But I also think it’s because he’s kind of short. He’s 5’4 or 5’5, and that’s fairly short for a guy. It doesn’t bug me at all. I’m pretty short myself, and I’ve learned that it’s a lot easier to be with a shorter guy -- physically, I mean. You can reach each other in the important ways. So, short girls of the world, give short guys a chance! 

But yeah, I am reluctantly coming to terms with the fact that Lee Yedam is probably not going to make it much further in this competition. That’s a shame. The guy is pure, 100% talent. 

So who won? Turns out it was Hanbin, with 757 votes. I mean, I get it. I also loved his performance, and he’s ranked reasonably high --22nd. Also, he did show his abs that time, and that might have moved the dial a bit. 

Everyone is really happy for Park Hanbin, especially Na Kamden, who graciously says he was really happy that Hanbin won since his leadership helped the whole team succeed. And again, the reaction of the other trainees tells you a lot about the kind of person Hanbin is -- it really seems like he's universally liked.

Hanbin, who in the past was a bit blustery about his talent, seems to have calmed down a bit and gotten a lot more humble. I think he was blustery before out of anxiety -- I bet he’s like me, calmer when he has a group of people to lead. He gets the last word: “To be on the stage, all five of us took on separate roles. And everyone played their roles well. I think all five of us did a really great job.”

20:24 MAN IN LOVE by Infinite

Huta calls up the next team and mentions that they’re even performing with a live band. The judges begin singing the song, and Onestar sings it in a particular way to mock Red House Jung Mingyu behind his back, so that’s… nice. 

They come up, and Huta asks Kim Tae Rae 💖what their goal is with the performance, and then this happens:

Backstage, the judges say, “Kim TaeRae used to be a really good singer,” and I’m like, “USED TO BE?”

It might be a translation issue, but I don’t think so. So, doobly doobly, it’s time for a flashback!

I’ll remind you that our men in love are: 

Trainee name (rank)   Star Level test / Challenge 1 /age final star level

Kim Tae Rae💖 (11) The Real /Back Door - K /20 🌟🌟🌟🌟

Jung Min Gyu (27) My House (Red) /Very Nice - K /23 🚫

Lee Dong Yeol (40) Who /Very Nice - K /24 ⭐

Choi Woo Jin (51) Nunu Nana /Hot Sauce - K /18 ⭐

They’ve elected Dongyeol their leader, probably because he’s a member of Up10tion (along with our now free-flying Lee Hwanhee). Their sitch is that Dongyeol is a decent singer but not fantastic; TaeRae is great; Mingyu is LOUD; and Woojin is sort of… lost.  

Flashback to first training session with the judges. Kim TaeRae 💖is so excited to train with Master Lee that he’s standing there smiling like this.

So they sing, and TaeRae 💖sounds fantastic, and Dongyeol sings… he sings fine, I mean he’s mainly a dancer in Up10tion. Mingyu is loud. 

Woojin’s rap is pretty bad -- it makes Anthonny make this face -- 

And it’s all what it is. Right? 

But no. The judges aren’t happy. 

That’s Bobby from Ikon the left, with a stuffed animal wearing a jacket that matches his jacket. Heck yeah, why not. 

If you don’t know, Bobby is great. Bobby’s been on ever reality show, he’s done all the things, he’s Bobby.  Ikon sings “Love Scenario” and “Killing Me” and is pretty great, though it sucks that they lost BI. Bobby is a genuine rapper, and he’s also a YG guy, so he got married and had a son and stuff and his agency didn’t even care. Maybe that’s his little son’s stuffie? Or maybe it’s his. Bobby don’t give a fuck. If you don’t love Bobby, you should, because he’s super talented and super sweet. 

Side note: we catch a glimpse of I-chan among the waiting trainees, with an eyepatch over his right eye. That’s, what, the fourth trainee on this show this season who had to wear an eyepatch? What is happening at MNET? Is the ghostly hand coming out of the cabinets at night to poke them in the eye?

When it’s TaeRae’s turn to hear from the masters, it seems that they’re criticizing the style of his singing, rather than the quality. They say he’s “pulling the sound back” which makes him sound too old, and elongating the sound a lot. I don’t understand what the criticism is about, but it seems that TaeRae understands. But I think he’s disappointed that he didn’t get praised. I’d feel like that too, in his shoes. When it’s the ONE thing you know you’re good at, it’s nice to get praised for it. 

Later, they find this poster in the hall:

The show is pixelating out who wins and loses, and I’m just giving you the direct translation I got online. I think “fodder” is a funny term for last place!

Anyway, we find out that team Man in Love is the “fodder” team and that Choi Woojin is the “fodder” member. (It’s also incidentally revealed the General Park Gunwook is the “first class member”.) The members of Man in Love are understandably a bit worried. But Dongyeol says that at least they had the lesson today to help them understand their problems so that they could work on them, and I think that’s a great way to look at it. Good job, leader Dongyeol! 

We see them rehearsing, and TaeRae 💖is trying to alter his singing style to sound lighter. We also see TaeRae helping Mingyu sing better, and Dongyeol trying really hard to try to help Woojin with his singing and rapping. 

Dongyeol is still helping Woojin later on in the dorms, with TaeRae assisting. 

Also, Dongyeol is still wearing the official pajamas! Cute. 

As we head into the performance, TaeRae’s voice over tells us that they still have a ways to go, but  they helped each and grew as a team, and he hopes they’ll have a good performance. 

The Performance

The original 

Man in Love came out in 2013, same year that gave us Hush by Miss A, Ringa Linga by Taeyang, Rum Pum Pum by f(x), I Got a Boy by SNSD, and Growl by some group called Exo. To me, it sounds more old fashioned than any of those songs do -- that’s not a criticism, just a comment. 

The raps:

Woojin

Every morning (yours), every time I think (my heart), 

you took a step closer (at your step), your scent penetrated before I knew it. 

Mingyu

Why are you so kind when you eat (when you eat), at night (when I sleep), it all starts with you

I froze up. The moment I saw you, I wanted you. Do you want to go to my house? 

Cute, Mingyu! 

My take

Well, you guys know how I feel about TaeRae💖.

It was both delightful and a tiny bit disappointing. Most of the time he sounded wonderful, but his high pitched ad lib sounded a little strained, as we’ve seen in his other performances. (But his falsetto oooh was lovely). I also think he might have been a little nervous because sometimes it sounded a little like he was running out of air, especially in the first few lines he sang. That isn’t to say he didn’t do well here, because he absolutely did. Like I said, a lot of the time he sounded amazing. And um, there’s this.

Even when he’s exhausted and having to hold that stupid ending fairy for ten minutes or whatever they have to do, he still looks like this. I can’t. 

Ok, there were other guys on this team, right? Well, there’s Dongyeol, who held down the fort as lead vocalist and leader. He did exactly what a lead vocalist should do. Red House Mingyu did a lot better than I thought he’d do, and was actually fairly on key, though it didn’t exactly sound good. He gave off a “someone’s uncle came up with the group” vibe. And poor Woojin. When he sang he actually sounded nice, but the rapping was unfortunate. I guess he kind of fell on his sword, because no one else in the group was willing to rap? I think he improved from when he first rehearsed in front of Bobby, but it still was pretty bad. Aww, poor guy. He’s not a bad singer, but oh boy does he NOT have a sense of rhythm.

If I had been voting, I would have pressed A for TaeRae and Dongyeol, but I think I would have had to press B for Mingyu and Woojin. I think that’s my first actual genuine press-B moment of these recaps. And of course if I had to pick a favorite it’d be TaeRae💖. 

The editing

Solji says that TaeRae sounds like Master Lee, and Master Lee kind of nods. 

When Mingyu sings, they show the judges kind of laughing, but in an approving way. Then when he raps “Do you want to go to my house?” of course they have to cut to blue house Bak Doha, and then get reactions from tons of other trainees.

We also see this blonde girl in the audience at least four times -- her sign says Kim TaeRae 김태래.(That thing that looks kind of like an H is an “ae” sound.) 

If a blonde foreigner likes him, shouldn’t YOU??????????????????

Afterward, the judges say that without TaeRae the team would have been in trouble, and repeat that TaeRae sounded like Master Lee. We don’t hear a kind word about Lee Dongyoel, which is a shame because he really did a good job doing the kind of thing he’d do in an idol group -- singing decently but not ostentatiously, looking cute, and being a good teammate.

Dongyeol interview that Woojin and Mingyu did well, and it’s true that they were on key and ok to listen to. Woojin actually sounded nice when he sang. 

The voting 

We cut to the crowded room with the folding chairs of doom. The first place got 740 votes, and of course it’s TaeRae💖.

Not a single person in the room or watching at home is surprised. I do want to know, though: who are the 100+ people who pressed “B” on his performance? Do they not have eyes or ears? Maybe they’re just the kind of people who hate everything, or are there to only vote for their single trainee they like, like maybe Ricky. (No hate to Ricky -- he seems like a sweetheart -- but his fans are a bit nutso.)

Lee Dongyeol interviews that he knew that TaeRae would win from the beginning. I like Dongyeol -- he seems to have his shit together as a person.  Mingyu says that TaeRae played the main role in the song, and thus deserved to win -- I think Mingyu is also a really decent fellow. TaeRae says he’s grateful that his team believed in him, and that he hopes he can join the next performance too. Naturally, we don’t hear from Woojin at all, because MNET hates him. 

And that’s the end of this recap! See you in the next one, when we cover Rush Hour. I’ve gotten the impression that Rush Hour is going to be a mess so… yeah!

Thanks for reading, and if you’re enjoying the recaps, and you want to, feel free to share them wherever you think you might reach people who’d enjoy them too. Or not, it’s fine. I’m glad you’re here. :) 

[iloveabunchofgames]

#JakeReviewsItch

ART SQOOL

by Glanderco

Price (US): $6.99

Included In: Indie Bundle for Palestinian Aid, Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality, Bundle for Ukraine

Genre: None provided by the developer

Pitch: Learn to draw. Draw to learn.

My expectations: Man, I want to like ART SQOOL. It might have been the first game I downloaded after getting the Bundle for Racial Justice and Equality, which would also make it the first disappointment in that bundle. I thought maybe I'd missed something, so I gave it another try about a year later. Will my third attempt be the one that finally makes it click, or was my initial impression right all along?

Review:

Get a prompt. Get a grade. Get another prompt.

ART SQOOL claims grades are determined by artificial intelligence on the criteria of COLOR, COMPOSITION, LINEWORK, and APPROACH, but it sure feels RANDOM. I’d draw a vibrant, detailed image using every tool at my disposal, get an F, and be told to repeat the assignment. I’d scribble a crude smiley face in response and get an A.

For those who didn’t go to art school, I gotta say: Pretty accurate.

Trying to create great art in ART SQOOL is a fool’s errand. The canvas is tiny, without the options that make good digital art tenable, like zooming in or drawing on layers. The undo button is temperamental. There are just 16 brushes and six paints, most of which aren’t available from the start.

There’s a surreal world of sky islands to explore. The character has infinite air-jumps, so getting around is easy; it’s just painfully slow. Since the mouse input is used for drawing, camera control is all on the keyboard, and it is awkward. You’ll need to peek around every corner, though, to find the missing art supplies. Not much of an art tool. Not much of a game.

+ It has style! Lots of blobby pastels. + Drawing based on open-ended prompts can be fun. + A no-pressure time waster. + Saves all your images. It's fun to look back at them months or years later and try to guess what they're meant to be.

– Great art can come from limitations. The drawing tools, however, aren't limited enough to encourage new ways of thinking or expansive enough to compete with other software. I felt like my options were to put a lot of effort into a drawing that would end up looking compromised or little effort into something that's disposable, anyway. So it all feels disposable. – Getting around the world is a chore. – If there's a game that could benefit from online integration, here it is. What's everyone else doing with these prompts? I kept thinking about Jackbox and the Miiverse—bad drawing tools made fun through community. – Random, discouraging grading system.

🧡🧡🤍🤍🤍 Bottom Line: Here's your assignment: Download an old version of Kid Pix and open a random Wikipedia page. Draw the title. Upload your picture to Tumblr, and tag it with #WikPix. You are now having the ideal ART SQOOL experience.

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[ultravioart]

Self reflection with Art

Man, I keep wanting to draw Marvin in WoY style, Dominion Au stuff, Star Wars Ocs, maybe even some Ramattra art, but I get insecure about the quality of it. My whole plan to 'post art at the end of each month' backfired because: 1: Deadlines make my brain procrastinate due to past traumatic experiences with school/work deadlines when I fell extremely ill (yes I met 95% of the deadlines, but it left me with debilitating burnout that took years to recover from. Thanks dysautonomia, spoon debt is REAL). So this January with my new "post at the end of the month" plan, instead of drawing all the time like I usually do with no pressure to post, I procrastinated, and mostly drew within the last 3 days of the month because I felt pressured by my set deadline. This was not helpful lol, I'll try something different going forward. But within that procrastinating, it did allow me to take a long break from my PC set up, and explore different activities more. Like cooking, learning to crochet, self care (meal prep, research into foods, research into how to care for my hair texture), research in general on topics I find interesting, and deeper life discussions face to face with the people in my household. I think I will include more "days off" from my art set up so that I can dedicate full days to other activities going forward. Sometimes you have to take one day at a time with POTS (dysautonomia), and that's okay. Some days you can't draw, and that's okay too, no need to force it because you REALLY want to create art right then and there. 2: looking back on the art I did draw, I didn't post it at the end of the month because I felt it wasn't "quality" enough to post. It was quick sketching with shape use I didn't like enough, or line quality I didn't like. I have to remember that posting is better than not, and it doesn't matter if I think it sucks. So what? There's nothing to be ashamed of. Going through this internal discourse, it did suddenly remind me that I draw VERY fast, and what would take someone underdrawings + line art to look like a nice doodle, I genuinely just doodle something out in less than a minute that looks like a nice doodle. So, there is no need to beat myself up if my less than a minute art isn't perfect lol. Not every day I can physically draw, and that's okay. Those low days I can just create a prep of ref, or scribble stick figures so I at least remember what the comic was so I don't forget the idea.

[forgetsrotation]

6.3 patch thoughts!

aka I don’t talk much about the story and just how bits and pieces fit into the lore I am crafting for Miqo and Kirby. :) But still story spoilers LOL. May or may not make any sense.

As a reminder, all my art is posted at @fourteentheart because I am bad at reblogging and retagging just ff art to here. Tbf 99.9% of my art for the past year has been xiv lol

Anyways, initial thoughts.

GARLY!! Voiced Jullus lines…

I know the coats are the ones Tataru initially gives your character, iirc, but I AM FEELING SOOO SEEN AND VALIDATED SEEING ALL THOSE GARLEAN CIVILIANS IN NORTHSEA COATS!!!! Miqo and Gaius truly are dressed like the people… just guys…

Note to self… draw Miqo and Gaius eating Steppe style steamed buns. Miqo has had some before. Gaius has not had the pleasure! He can eat one while Miqo talks about his time in the Steppe lmao

I very much want to draw Zero and Kirby handing out food together. Kirby can be cute enough, maybe, that the citizens aren’t going to freak out about a non-human voidsent being in their camp…

When Jullus is talking about initially pushing away the people trying to help them I was v much thinking of Gaius coming around to Miqo. I cannot help these GaiusWoL brainworms of mine.

Looooved the Drusilla mention in the dungeon, hehe.

Rubicante is definitely my favorite fiend. Voice, looks, story… when he says “You would know your enemy’s heart?” I WAS LIKE-------!!!!!!!!!! YEAH!!!! YEAH MIQO VERY MUCH WOULD!!!!

I have screenshots I took of Golbez flashbacks where I fully intend to edit Kirby eavesdropping. Golbez could so easily be a Kirby-fied villain, man, you have no idea how much I think about it. Perhaps one day I will make it a reality. :’>

At the very end when they’re all discussing how to get back to the Thirteenth, I imagined Y’shtola turning towards Makoh’to and Kirby. She looks hesitant to say it, but says it anyways… “Perhaps we could study your avatar friend. I understand that he functions like an atomos – of course, if he would be okay with it.”

Or something along that lines. Perhaps wondering if Kirby was capable of ferrying them to the Thirteenth, or if he could reliably place them in the Thirteenth, etc.

At any rate, Kirby understands what’s going on and becomes anxious. He’d bury his little body into Makoh’to’s arms. Makoh’to would gently hold him and shake his head, saying the group will respect Kirby’s wishes and find another way into the Thirteenth.

I have more possible lore thoughts for Kirby’s “true” identity, but I may need more story to happen first… or I may completely canon diverge if future story kills my lore lol. I already have Kirby here, so might as well just go for it!

Imagine Kirby looking up at the Thirteenth's moon...

Other than that, alliance was very fun mech wise! Story wise, I have little to say mostly because I’m just vibing.

I really want to draw Rubicante tho… he reminds me so much of… Jimenez’s soil form from Strange Journey.

Whatever I say I want to draw may or may not happen. I cannot control the output lol

[belovedblabber]

6 and 20 for Adaira, Corin, and Faolán!

Ahhh thank you so much for sending this ask!

Fairly long answer below the cut:

For 6;

Corin dresses like someone's weird uncle if that uncle was like 10 times sluttier. Wandering vagabond chic. Yet somehow also the vibes of a man who owns like, three button ups from target that he's had for a decade plus, and two pairs of pants. He dresses like if you took Aragorn lordoftherings' aesthetic and then ran it through a spin cycle that spit it out gayer and sluttier. In terms of color he wears a lot of browns and grays, and his clothing has been mended and patched a lot. His clothing also has little embroidery details in various spots that have just been added over time by Faolán as an ongoing labor of love. He also has lots of earrings in each ears, all the way up and down, various hoops studs and ear cuffs. Man also often wears a lot of rings (including his wedding ring), and has a distinctive necklace he always wears. He also often wears very beat up fingerless wool gloves

Faolán, unlike his husband, is very neatly and beautifully, if simply, dressed. He takes good care of his clothing, and mends it himself. He also does his own embroidery, and his clothing is covered in traditional embroidery that was passed down to him by his mother. It is very culturally significant, and involves complicated patterns and symbols that speak to various myths and stories. He typically wears dark browns and burgundies and colors in that general vibe. That goes for what he wears under his armor, anyway. Because unlike Corin he is a martial fighter and is often in armor. I have tried designing and redesigning his armor a million times. Fingers crossed one day I'll get it down dfghjk. He has a pair of earrings Corin gave him as a gift many years ago, and he never takes them off. He also has some lovely bracelets. He and Corin also both have wedding bands.

At the start of the story Adaira is orphaned and on her own, and is dressed in beat to hell clothing that is an absolute mess. Once Corin and Faolán take her in they make it a priority to get her a new wardrobe, and Faolán very lovingly decorates a lot of it for her. I have designed out outfits for her a ton, probably more than any of my other ocs, and would love to do so more if I ever get out of my years long art block. Her clothing styles are heavily inspired by Slavic and Armenian folk costumes, and I love drawing them so much.

For 20;

Corin is tall (probably about 6'3-6'5, I keep changing my mind on exact height) and skinny as a rail. A lanky man, an absolute beanpole. He has a long face with sharp cheekbones and a long aquiline nose that's been broken so many times it's kind of forgotten its original shape. He has very very dark brown eyes (or he has gray eyes, I go back and forth. Can you tell I'm indecisive?). He's also just one of those people who has a 'twinkle in his eye,' so to speak, and he smiles easily. Also I am pretty sure he is often rocking some eyeliner. He has lines around his eyes and on his face, and his hair is silver in the present (and salt and pepper in the past) and he wears it about shoulder length, sometimes a bit longer. He also just has perpetual stubble. He's quite pale overall, but has a tan that comes from being out in the elements a lot. He's got a pale scar that starts at the corner of his right eye and then snakes down his cheek to his neck, as well a many other scars all over his chest and arms. His age is very hard to pin. His hands are elegant, with long thin fingers that are tattooed with intricate patterns that sometimes seem to shift around and change places (I am still working on designs) They're not his only tattoos, but they're the only ones I've settled on for sure in terms of location etc. 

Faolán is 5'7, built like a fighter in the way that people who like, do actual strength work are strong (I am not phrasing this remotely right). Point being he's not like showy muscle, he's the kind of muscle that will wreck your shop. He is a swordsman and it shows. He has curly, very dark brown hair that is just now starting to get some gray at the temples, and he typically keeps it about chin length or sometimes a bit longer, with some braids done through it. He has large golden-brown eyes with long dark lashes, and he is very handsome. Just a lovely man. He has a strong jaw and a nose that's been broken many times, and unlike his husband he stays clean shaven. He has medium brown skin with warm undertones, and a multitude of scars in various shapes and sizes that tell the stories of his many adventures, misadventures, and journeys. I want to give him a cool tattoo or tattoos) designs[s], but haven't settled on any yet

Adaira is a c. 11 (indecisive me goes back and forth on if she starts the story at ten or as a new 11), and she has a very distinct face shape that I used to draw a lot but am bad at describing oops. She is also like 11, as I said, and so has a lot of growing to do. She has fairy blood, and her eyes reflect this. They are very large, to a degree that is not quite human, and they are tilted at an angle on her face that is not so startling that it is immediately alarming, but definitely has something uncanny about it that rings of not entirely human. They're also spaced a bit wider than is normal (I am not describing this well, it's something I've drawn a lot but have yet to describe elegantly fghjk). Color-wise her eyes are a beautiful dark brown that catches the light and seems to draw it in and reflect it back (and her eyes are in fact reflective like a cat's at night dfghj). She also has slightly sharp canine teeth. She has brown skin slightly lighter than Faolán's, and freckles everywhere. Her hair is very curly, and she keeps it short, about at chin length. It's a fiery red that seems to have different shades and highlights in it depending on how the light catches it, and it refuses to behave, always a fly-away mess around her face. She is short for her age (idk exactly what that entails), and time spent on her own has left her scrappy and undernourished. She was born missing her left arm from about a bit above the elbow down, and later on in the story will sometimes have an arm made of fire in its place

The story takes place over years so their appearances and clothing will shift throughout, but as Adaira starts the story as a little girl, her changes are the most dramatic as she grows up

Anyway, thank you again for asking me this, it made my night! I'm sure my answers aren't very coherent and have some typos (I fully did not sleep last night). But I had so much fun answering this, so thank youuuuu!