#q and a time with phee

[hawberries]

hi I don't know you but I feel like you'd appreciate the context that you came onto my dash in

thank you for this. i DO heart my gay dog :)

[ppeonppeonhan]

Dead Friends Forever Q&A-Style Review

I listen to a movie podcast called The Rewatchables, and they have interesting categories that I want to examine this series through.

Most rewatchable scene: It has to be the last one, because we've been talking about it nonstop since it aired. Plus, it lives in my head, rent-free, like Non is haunting me. Like WE failed him. 😱

But since I'm a BL girlie, who loves a well-crafted sex scene, I also have to include both of Phee and Jin's high-heat moments when Phee's trying to seduce him on the balcony and when they have rough sex in Jin's room. I'm not gonna lie: That was some king shit on Ta's end.

Best quote: "No one could leave this abandoned house — not even one." Come on! It foretold the surreal ending and fulfilled the victim's wishes. Gold.

What aged the best? The way that even the bullies perceived teacher Keng as a groomer, who took advantage of a desperate child — that will most definitely make that subplot still bearable even a decade from now.

What's aged the worst? The unaliving and SA montage in the finale that some have said was insensitive/irresponsible to have included. It was like trigger after trigger after trigger — practically a machine gun of traumatic scenes. The fandom could sincerely organize a class action lawsuit against the writer and director for them to pay for our therapy bills.

Scene-stealing location: The lake. Such a beautiful setting for romance, betrayal, and revenge. 😈

Best shot: Definitely the one of Tan from above when he's successfully drugged all of his victims. Iconic.

Are we sure this person is good at their job? Tee's uncle. The fact that he has so much riding on two teenagers is ridiculous. He didn't just start being a con man / mob boss that week. How does he not have a more stable criminal infrastructure at this point?

Best use of food and drink: Obviously, Tan spiking the beverages, knowing it would be the easiest way to poison everyone.

Was there a better title? Absolutely not. The play on the phrase "Best Friends Forever," an archaic term popularized in the '90s that puts way too much pressure on kids to find their kindred spirit and hold on to them through adolescence and adulthood, was inspired. It truly encompassed the impossibility of it all. There are just so many obstacles ahead of you, like peer pressure, family obligations, love triangles, bullying, ego, insecurity, and cowardice, that it's a lofty promise to make when you've barely finished puberty. Plus, it kind of hints at the ending...

Overacting award: Some could argue Barcode, but part of his performance was meant to be surreal, because it was in the dream state. I, personally, vote Jet (Top). Sometimes I felt like his character was in an entirely different, far more slapstick genre.

The "That Guy" Award: This category is for the actor/famous person you see all the time, but don't know the name of. I noticed a lot of people were excited to see Perth, so I "saw him all the time" on my feed. When I Googled him, that's when I learned that he was on a reality show with other Be On Cloud stars. 

Scene-Stealer (with very few scenes): Honestly, whichever extra/stunt double they had wearing that mask, freaking us out. The most memorable of which was when its creepy hand groped Tee.

Recasting couch:

I think Nanon (Bad Buddy) could've been interesting as the tormented Tan, because we would've bought his innocence longer.

It could've added to the mystery if we had the BL twins, AJ and JJ, confuse the narrative. 

I would watch Neo in almost anything at this point, and he could've played the morally conflicted Tee as he showcased those skills already in Only Friends.

A younger Mark (Last Twilight) would've fit so well into this cast. He plays lost and guilty quite well.

Picking Nits: This category is for pointing out things that just don't add up.

Why didn't Phee's cop dad have more questions about his son's behavior and activities after he saw who his son was involved with?

What teenager is fine going somewhere that has no wifi or reception? Even I wouldn't do that and I've had wifi as long as these characters have been alive.

Why was Non, a teenager, being medicated for mental health issues, but not being monitored by a mental health professional?

If Tee's uncle didn't want to be at a loss if Non died unexpectedly, then why didn't he let him get his wounds treated and get some rest? Unless the plan was always to harvest his organs, which would still have merited rest. Nobody wants shitty organs.

Unanswerable Questions

If Jin and Phee survived, would they have got back together?

If Non were alive, would Phee have ditched Jin?

What did they do with Non's body?

And, of course, after succeeding: Does Tan recover from his grief and move on with his life? Does he successfully escape arrest? Does he leave behind evidence of what the boys did to his family to further persecute them in death? Is his revenge plot really over...?

That was fun! Tag me if you answer the same Qs.

[chiefofsix]

Comparatively, it seems, Bill has found himself blissfully avoiding the worst of the loss and grief that permeates this line of work like oxygen does a cell. He’s lost people - they all have - but it’s different when it someone one cares about; truly cares about. Words have always felt inadequate in moments like this, placating and insincere. How do you talk your way out of a paper bag of grief? “Phee.” It’s not a stern interjection, but there’s enough heft behind it to - he hopes - draw the woman’s attention away from her rapidly spiraling thoughts, “You’re still you. You were you before Q, and you’re still you now.”

He capitulates in his desire to pull the young woman he cares so deeply about into an embrace, the type that’s intentionally tight, almost claustrophobic in its attempt to hold her together. “You’ll feel like you’ve lost pieces of you, but don’t let your head convince you that that somehow makes you broken and incomplete, okay?” For a man who didn’t place much credence in the placation of words, Bill was most certainly doing his damnedest to reassure with them. “Alec? Alec’s... Don’t think about Alec. I don’t think he was the best influence in the first place, but-” he catches himself, “-Come and stay with me for a few weeks; take time off, I’ll make sure M doesn’t say anything. Just... find yourself again, even if it takes time. Grieve. Allow yourself to feel things - no matter how messy it all is - and then pick up the pieces. See what you have to build from.”

@theresastargirl​ sent:  They’re gone. What am I supposed to do now…? Who am I supposed to be? - Tanner ▼ angsty sentence starters

[dontstoptrying]

[ ONE ]  for sender to take a bullet for receiver. @theresastargirl

Eve really needs to have a word about sending untrained personnel into the field. Every now and then it’s unavoidable, but this really isn’t one of those times. It’s an accident waiting to happen - a disaster even. Yes, the missions are usually straight forward when this happens, but things change in a heartbeat in their line of work.

Her concern is proven warranted when all hell breaks loose. She has her gun out quickly but Phee understandable hesitates, fumbles. And for some unknown reason makes the decision to knock Eve out of the way. When Eve regains her footing she sees Phee has made it out of the midst of the action, which she’s relieved by until she also sees the red mark that’s steadily growing on her trousers. Phee’s been shot.

Eve’s as efficient as she can be in taking out their attackers, and is with Phee within a few minutes. “I’m going to have to rip your trousers, okay?” Her tone is entirely professional, steady. An attempt to stop herself from getting worked up about seeing her friend injured as well as an attempt to ignore Q’s worry in her ear. “It doesn’t look like it’s bleeding too heavily but Christ, Phee, what were you thinking?”

[omg-poc-please]

(Just to be clear, q word discourse [for us, at least] is 'is it is a slur,’ and ace/aro discourse is ‘are people who are ace/aro LGBTQ+’.)

I just reread our post, and I think the mix-up is due to the wording of the rule (”No q word or ace/aro discourse”), which I had worded this way to shorten the number of words I was using. However, because of my carelessness, that rule ended up looking like it means “No q word and no ace/aro discourse,” when what we meant was, “No q word discourse AND no ace/aro discourse.” That is, discussing whether queer is a slur or not and discussing whether people who are ace/aro are considered LGBTQ+ are not allowed in the Discord chat channels because these are highly personal matters that can hurt people very deeply, which is the very opposite of what we would like in our network. 

I am so sorry about the confusing wording--I’ve fixed the original post to say “No q word discourse and no ace/aro discourse,” and I will be editing the original post to include a link to this post clarifying what we mean by q word discourse. We are NOT saying that how someone identifies is inherently wrong or a slur; how you read that rule was due to my ambiguous wording, and I hope that you will accept my apology and that the wording is now clear enough. 

Our [the admins’] position is that people have different relationships and histories with the word queer, as well as different reasons for why they feel the way they do. All of their reasons, relationships, and histories with this word are valid. Thus, our priority is making sure those for whom queer is their identity and those who have negative associations with this word all can feel safe/comfortable in this space. 

We do not want to change or force a change in how anyone feels about the word queer because we do not want to invalidate anyone’s experiences--nor do we require anyone to justify, explain, or outline their history or reasons for why they feel a certain way about it; all we want is to find a balance so that no one is triggered or otherwise sent to a bad headspace, whether the individual in question thinks of queer as an identity or a slur, or otherwise has a complicated relationship/association with the word queer (whether it is from, for example, having to misgender themselves with other terms to describe their identity when queer is their identity; being reminded of traumatic experiences of that word being used as a slur against them; etc. etc.).

Thus, we have been trying to think of a way to ensure that everyone feels comfortable in this space. We are still working on how to navigate this issue, but so far our discussion has been fruitful and productive. We have outlined a few things already, such as using the word queer to describe individuals (whether themselves or people they know who identify as queer) and not using queer to describe the LGBTQ+ community (ex., ‘the q community,’ because not everyone who is LGBTQ+ is comfortable with it), but it is still a work in progress. I would also like to thank the network at this time for helping us make this network a safer place for everyone. 

NOTE: Our network rules only apply to the Discord chat channels; network members do not have to follow any of our rules in group DMs.

Once again, I apologize for my careless mistake, and I hope that I have cleared up the confusion. I will also be editing the original post to link to this post as clarification.

-- phee

EDIT: For more clarification, we tend to use ‘q word’ (and not ‘q slur’ or the word in full) in the language of our posts because we hope to strike a balance so that we do not invalidate those for whom this is their identity and so that we do not trigger those for whom this word has been used against them as a slur.

[sapphicdalliances]

are you going to bring back those plant iwaoi bags to your store, by any chance?

hmm i wasn’t intending to since they didn’t sell that well the first time, but i realised i forgot to keep one for myself so i’ll probably stock them again next time artscow has a sale!

[hawberries]

holy shit, could you share some of your ratios/artis because multiple top percents is nuts and I wanna see the stats

HAHA TY! Unfortunately you've activated my yap card, so I'm really sorry about how the rest of this post is going to go. I do want to admit that it actually isn't that impressive because there's ways to sort of "game" the Akasha leaderboard system, usually by sharing high CV pieces between your characters, overbuilding crit rate and ER or finding specific leaderboards that aren't as competitive, but it still is a fun sort of low-stakes, inconsequential PVP mode that I enjoy! This is my Akasha page. As you can see my Emilie and Kinich are not doing well.

One notable way I've "cheated" is the fact that my Chiori's ranking is on the Jade Cutter leaderboard, but that's not a real place, because my Chiori is on a Wolfs-Fang. I'm thinking of going for her sword next time she reruns, actually, so she may lose her ranking soon. The boards only look at your artifacts and then make their own assumptions, so board ranking is a VERY poor reflection of in-game performance. Another example is for any Childe mains who have him on Nymph's Dream: it's not actually that good of a set for him! The boards overestimate the uptime, but in actual gameplay, especially if you look at International speedruns, the uptime is bad and he often performs better with mixed sets. However, the difference is not likely to be felt in a practical scenario outside of speedruns and high-level play, so it's reasonable to keep him there for the valour, since he's still going to be good enough.

the reason my Mualani is so high even though I am not a Mualani main is because 1) she's so new that everyone is still working on her domain and using placeholder pieces and 2) I hit her with the yassify beam (gave her this absolutely stupid Hydro dmg goblet which is by far the best piece on my entire account). It just gets passed around between all my watery guys depending on whose personal damage I'm depending on the most at the time, but since Mualani is a hypercarry and Ayato and Yelan are more supportive, it makes the most sense to leave it on her. I expect her to drop a lot in the rankings once people have a chance to farm the Codex set more.

I'm very chuffed with my Navia's build because I recently crafted a new feather for her with the artifact transmuter. Feathers are not broadly recommended to craft, but Navia's feather was by far the most obvious weak link on my account – in the sense that not only was it so bad that it would be easy to get an upgrade (it had 4 low rolls of crit damage and NO other useful stats, not even lower-value ones like atk% or ER) but the rest Navia's pieces were good enough that I had no reason to still be actively farming her domain. Anyway, I got quite lucky with the crafted feather, though as you can see it's still easily the weakest of all her pieces. This is enough to tide me over until Nighttime Whispers is in the strongbox :D

I've worked really hard on my Xiao's build – I've strongboxed 364 Vermilion pieces to date – but Xiao, being an older character with dedicated mains, has a very competitive board, so I don't expect to ever get much higher than this. Isn't that feather disgusting, though? I farmed Marechaussee domain a lot but never got a build good enough to replace this one, especially considering I'm on Jade and therefore about to overcap on crit rate just by sneezing. He has 97% crit rate WITH A CDMG HAT, I want to point out! I am considering crafting a circlet for him as his current one is relatively weak, but that's a problem for future Phee to think about, since I'll want to rebalance his build anyway once I get Xianyun – he'll need less ER and less crit rate.

What level of nerd am I about combat stats in the video game Jenshin Intact? I do my own damage calculations to see which pieces are best! That's why Xiao is on an attack goblet instead of an Anemo DMG one 😔

Also… see how my Wanderer is top 2%? I still don't have an EM goblet on the Flower of Paradise Lost set. RNG is really so funny sometimes. Anyway, at the moment I've allotted myself 6 weeks of farming time to try and get Emilie at least a good 2pc 2pc, after which I'll probably go back to making my Kinich not suck!

[hawberries]

your navia art makes me want to play genshin just for her alone tbh 🥺

NOOO PLEASE DON'T COME OVER

actually I used to say that but the recent QOL changes have turned it into a game that I'm almost comfortable recommending now 🤔 it's just such a timesink and all gachas are so inherently cursed that I can't in good conscience say anyone should get into it but… if you enjoy slow-paced open world RPGs, tons of exploration/puzzles, and 3d combat…? I mean Navia is SO beautiful is the thing

[hawberries]

would you ever consider updating your artist alley startup guide? it's a really good reference even 4 years on, but i'm wondering if anything's changed or if you have more advice you'd like to share doing cons post pandemic!

tbh i've been thinking about it more every time someone tells me they still reference it because there are definitely aspects that are outdated or which i would like to improve in general! however, i also don't feel like i have as good of a beat on the con scene as i used to as it's really grown a lot even just in australia, and i've traveled much less since panini, so i don't know that my updated advice would actually end up being any good. in particular, the average prices have gotten surprisingly high (most prices that i see now are much higher than mine, for example) and i don't really know what to say about that aspect anymore…

at the moment, i'll say that i am considering it, but cannot give any firm promises that it'll happen or about the quality of the results if it does 🤧

[hawberries]

Hihi you don't have to answer this but I just realized

Is your pfp not Chatot from pokemon? Or was it and it recently changed...?

Just asking because I've been identifying you as "the chatot pfp" and I realized..

you don't have that

Either way, the art of it is really nice! I like it's use of color!

HAHA you're not the first to make this mistake! My icon is a popplio and has always been a popplio since I made it in 2020, but because of the way I drew the eye a lot of people mistake it for chatot at a glance! They think the popplio's ear is the beak

but in fact it is a popplio :) sea lion buppy

[hawberries]

hi just wanted to say i bought ( many of ) your cow stickers and they just came in and they are so lovely !! and the little card made me smile thank you so much :) here is a picture of the card ( i put one of the cows on it ) plus my cow plushie

i've kept this ask in my inbox for a week because i just like looking at it so much ;_; 💕💕

[hawberries]

i recently discovered that the “when is a monster not a monster? oh, when you love it” poem is, in fact, originally about Supernatural i’m not really sure how to react

one side of my brain is saying “transformative works are legitimate pieces of art”

but the other side of my brain is just going “SUPERNATURAL??!?!?” (in the style of the BEYONCÉ?! meme)

i just don’t know how to reconcile this. like i read the poem again after realizing and i was just like. oh you meant Those Parts literally 😶

this feels like finding out the context for “dimples, please” all over again 👀😮‍💨

welcome to my blog, idk what to tell you except "get well soon" so instead i'd like to take this time to talk about one of my favourite love songs of all time

yes the amount of sincere and skilled creative engagement in supernatural fandom is mindblowing. yes the show was bad and the disdain the showrunners had for their queer & female fanbase was almost palpable in the writing. yes destiel is legitimately and unironically one of the best tv romances of all time. i hate having to acknowledge all these facts simultaneously but here we are. it's 2022

[hawberries]

did you get a pot 6 lee?

omg i missed this ask because i was traveling but thank you SO much for asking! I pulled 302 times so I could spark Nian, and in that time I was incredibly lucky enough to get five Lees, two Lings, an off-banner Thorns, an off-banner Passenger, a random unrelated top op tag which dropped Ifrit, and a surprise Dusk at pull 277, so I was able to complete the whole Sui family in one year! I feel extremely rewarded for my loyalty and hard work, it was everything I'd saved since I started playing and it made skipping all those banners actually worth it :D (I get the monthly card so this is not f2p savings, but I'm glad I didn't feel the need to spend anything beyond that!)

Here's how my fish is looking; still working on the M6 and looking forward to getting the specialist tokens out of the CC store in a few weeks so I can max pot him, but I've absolutely adored using him and listening to his voice lines! To all of the 4 arknights fans following me, I hope your wine pulls went decently, and good luck to anyone hunting Goldenglow as well! >:3

[hawberries]

how did you go about practicing anatomy and backgrounds? i want to practice drawing them more effectively instead of just drawing willy nilly and hoping i get better (i am the epitome of characters floating on a white background)

i'm also extremely bad at both of those things on a technical level, so i can only give very general advice! there's zillions of very in-depth resources on youtube, artists' blogs and patreons, and paid resources like skillshare and domestika, made by people who are very invested in helping you learn, so i recommend seeking out more of those. a few youtubers off the top of my head who post technical art tutorials/demos: teoh yi chie, alphonso dunn, sinix, chris hong. i'm not going to be a good educational resource for many reasons, but here are a few quick notes to hopefully get you started.

in general, technical skills can best be improved by studying/copying things – photographs if necessary, but real life subjects if possible. tracing is also a great practice tool for anatomy as it easily forces you to observe details that you might otherwise miss. (just keep them private, or use license-free stock photos.) some resources for anatomy references, again just off the top of my head: line of action, reference angle, adorka stock.

for backgrounds specifically, it's helpful to think of them more as "environments" (i assume this is the kind of background you mean) and treating them almost as another character in the artwork and not as something to just be added on behind the actual character. approaching them this way means you think about the scenery during the compositional phase and your characters + backgrounds will generally look more like they "belong" together. i find that if i sketch a character, then try to add a background behind it, the bg always looks like an afterthought. sometimes that's all you need, but other times you will actually need to focus on the environment itself.

i don't have as many dedicated environment resources bookmarked as that admittedly just isn't my focus, but pexels and pixabay are both great stock photography sites that you can easily search for photos of environments you want to study. also, if it's safe, just go outside! unlike people, buildings and trees will hold still for you to draw them for free, and don't ask you embarrassing questions. i've been getting more into urban sketching lately and that's given me a small boost for environments, perspective etc, but i will need to work more to see real benefits.

remember, if you directly copy a photo and want to post the results, make sure that either a) you credit the source or b) you're using a copyright-free image/something you've paid for. otherwise, just keep it private!

speaking of keeping things private, something i think few people talk about is copying other artists. if you are trying to figure out a way to stylise something, you can study from other artists' work as well (there's a reason master copies are so popular), but if it's one of your contemporaries, i.e. an artist who's currently active in the community/industry, definitely do not post those, and be careful about taking too many cues into your regular practice. a lot of people talk about how style will "just come to you" but in many instances, style is something that's carefully developed by artists, the result of deliberate design choices after many iterations. so you don't want to just yoink someone else's hard work and creative decisions for yourself! but of course it's natural to be influenced – just make sure you're influenced by multiple sources, including reality.

one of my biggest influences for animal anatomy is justine lee hirten, who's currently inactive, but whose work can be seen if you search up their old handle "mangycoyote"; additionally, mackaroon and aspen eyes. for human anatomy and poses, leslie hung, phobs, maren etc etc. still working to follow more environment artists but genice, aliya chen, and loika spring to mind.

again, anatomy and backgrounds are both pretty big topics that i'm myself not an expert in at all, so this is just a few messy notes that i managed to remember off the cuff. hopefully this, or one of the links, will be of some benefit, however!!

[hawberries]

Hi just saying that if you made stickers out of little Jin Guangmice i would buy so many i would wallpaper my room in them i would hold them gently in my hands and cry over how cute they are

thank you for this customer feedback, i will make jin guangmouse stickers immediately. look out for their release next month

[hawberries]

so it's an old old post going around that brought me to your blog, but i really love the laurel and bailey comic, bailey has my whole heart🥺 any plans to bring them back?

awww hello, this is so sweet! it means a lot that even though the comic is quite old now, people still enjoy reading about my SILLY LITTLE LESBIAN OCs……………!!! unfortunately i have spent the last few years becoming less and less satisfied with my writing/storytelling skills and so i'm really feeling hesitant to continue my original comic ideas… it's definitely something i'm trying to get over (how do i expect to improve my writing if i never write? ETC!) but i just don't feel confident saying there are "plans" to bring them back right now, so i am sorry about that! i do still have aspirations for sure, it's something i'd like to do, but there's definitely a lack of concrete ideas or plans. still, knowing that there are people still reading and thinking about these gay idiots is a big motivating factor, so i must thank you for taking the time to send in this ask 😤 i hope you have a good day in the meantime!!