#sketch and attempt at a detailes picture under the cut

[kittytheartist]

AVENTURINEEE HIS BANNER IS HEREEEEE YAYYYAYAYYA

[kaisumisucreations]

characters belong to Quince and Vultureistic

go watch the speedpaint!

anyway here is my attempt at emulating the RW art style, extra rambling under the cut

i looked over the official artwork on the RW wiki for reference, and it included a few in-progress pictures of said art, namely i took note of the ones that started out with a black and white palette in the sketch phase.

i was aware of the painting method where you first draw in grayscale and then add color afterwards, but i'd never actually tried it myself.

so i decided that maybe using the same grayscale as a base would help with the high contrast seen in most of those drawings, whilst giving me much greater freedom to select the palette afterwards.

it did work quite well, and working in greyscale was definitely a fun change of pace, but i still didn't quite achieve the same level of pop and fun textures most of the landscape drawings did. im still quite happy with the result though!

grayscale base:

flat color on individual layers with clipping group enabled to avoid overspill:

extra detail, highlights/glow and more color depth added on exported single layer of flat colors:

[rainbow-glittersprinkes]

We have the original Blueprints for the Chairman!

We've had this information since the 26th ARG, but I haven't seen anyone talk about this. Ramblings and pictures under the cut

I was reading through the MMO Central Forums when the ARG was running, and came across a thread by user Sir Kids Nickelton

In the thread, they were sharing theories, clues, and solved cyphers for the ARG, and pointed this out:

Now i was viewing on mobile, which meant the picture didn't load for me, so i found the picture myself and

Holy. vveh.

Now if anyone knows anything about me, I am obsessed with any loree surrounding the Chairman. So I rounded up the six Blueprints, constructed them like the Pieces of Exodia, and recreated the sketch to the best of my ability. Here are the Blueprints and my thoughts:

The glove-like hands from the installer cutscene are still there, and he was originally built with a smile. Almost confirming he was built with some level of Tooniness. Given how he acts now, its implied that The Chairman either repressed this, or removed the Silliness from himself entirely

Also carrying over from the installer video is the Chairman's sheer height. He takes up SIX SHEETS of paper for goofiness's sake. Scrooge came up to the bottom of The Chairman's knee, and thanks to the Carl Banks comic For Old Dime's Sake, we know Scrooge is about three feet/One meter tall. If this sketch is to be believed, the Chairman stands at approximately twelve feet/four meters tall.

Deviating from the video, This Chairman appears to only have a singular antenna, with what looks like a satellite dish at the end. Considering the video depicts The Chairman apparently "talking" through his antennae, maybe this is implying that he talks to the rest of the Cogs through this dish.

Most interestingly, there appears to be a massive cavity in The Chairman's chest where a heart should be. This is the only Major design detail unique to Toontown Rewritten, and is very likely intrinsic to the story the team wants to tell.

All in All, this is a fascinating find that I'm surprised more people haven't been talking about. Ive included the Raw blueprints without my restoration attempt to see if anyone else notices something that I didn't. In the meantime, I'm tempted to go back to the forums to see if there's anything else we've missed or forgot...

[jortschronicles]

Coronet V: Sheep and Bears

Armiger Runa Bjarki fought for me at Vindheim's fifth coronet tournament, after fighting for me for the first time at Vindheim's fourth coronet tournament.

This will be a bit more of a costuming diary than anything, detailing my process from design, to drafting, to learning new arts, to the finished project, and what I learned along the way.

Our arrangement began prior to Vindheim's 4th coronet tournament, arranged by my wife and Runa's teacher much in the style of an arranged marriage. Runa would fight for me in exchange for me making our coronet garb, giving me an excuse to step up my garb game and enjoy some pomp and circumstance and giving Runa a growing closet of fancier garb. Our arrangement stipulated that I get to make Runa wear Pink, sometimes at least.

Our first outfits were pink and orange with black accents, which is TECHNICALLY Vindheim colors (dark Or, light gules, and sable :P) and includes the pink and orange which I have become associated with in the kingdom. These outfits would not have been possible without Dvorianka Anastasiia and Boiarynia Koia, who loaned me veils and undergowns, gave me instructions on drafting and assembly, and zhuzhed me incessantly day of to make sure the Rus impression was both up to their standards of accuracy and made me feel pretty.

A fun fact about this procession, we were the first ostensibly f/f entrant couple in a Vindheim coronet tournament, we were dressed as lesbian flags, and our procession was riddled with pride flags. Overall, a good day.

I created the following patterns for Runa's and my outfits, respectively:

Our arms:

Time passed, the second coronet tournament was fast approaching, and per our agreement, the next set of outfits would be Vindheim/ Free Company / Runa's own colors. Rather than struggling with pens and sketching over and over and over, this time I simply made "dress up dolls" in GIMP to present design ideas to my fighter, which included the following:

I cannot recommend this process enough. I just sketch outlines of my design on paper, upload into GIMP, adjust levels and brightness, then set the alpha channel to white. Under the lines layer, I make a series of layers in neon colors of each of the "sections" of color I might want to adjust, which allows me to bucket fill to make different designs.

After selecting a design, I obtained stamp carving supplies and sent them to Runa for her to carve my fleece and her bear, the animate charges in our arms, to be applied to the final product.

I commissioned trim by trade from a local to me, Lady Kenda, to accent the borders of the red facings. I only asked for 6 yards. This would prove to be a mistake, although the trim itself was LOVELY

My first attempts to use the stamps were...fraught. Many inappropriate jokes were made about the sheep, in particular. Koia and Anastasiia troubleshooted the problem remotely and provided better paint, respectively, resulting in the superior stamping on the right.

Not a single picture I've taken captures the depth and warmth of the brown in the bears, unfortunately. In natural light, they're clear, vibrant, and a warm coffee brown. In every photo i've taken, they're barely there. With stamping conquered, so began the cutting, serging, and assembly.

I used the crimson and the black linen from OKC fabric market, which are both soft, mid-weight linens with an apparently short staple, but are plenty affordable for my needs. After cutting and labeling all t he pieces with chalk, I ran them through the serger to keep the pieces from fraying while I work. This also let's me be lazy and not do any seam finishing at the end of the proecess, when I may be very pressed for time.

I prefer to attach the two body pieces at the shoulders and apply the neck facing ASAP, as it's easier to cut and turn before the entire tunic is assembled. I also attached the facing to the cuffs before attaching the cuffs. I lay everything flat, attaching gores to the sides of the gown and tunic, then I run one seam each up from the hem to the cuff. The exception to this is the side on which I include my pocket, since I like to have my phone, emergency meds, eye drops, and lip balm on me at events. Runa's tunic does not have this pocket, but her pants have both the cell phone pocket and the Jameson pocket. I should make a post about these pants at some point ;)

I didn't bother turning in the edges on much of the facings of my gown, anticipating applying trim over the top. Then I looked at how much trim I had left, and quickly decided to trim both of our sleeves, the bottom of my skirt, and the neck facing on Runa's tunic.

To the places I did not actually add trim, I embroidered the edge with a tacked herringbone stitch to add visual interest. Luckily, it turns out this particular design delights my fighter, is fairly strong, and has a very pleasant texture to the little hamsters in the brain.

Overall, I'm incredibly satisfied with this result and look forward to wearing so much Rus in the future. I finally feel comfortable enough with the construction of both of these tunics to offer them on commission locally.

Some more glamor shots:

Endless thanks to Dvorianka Anastasiia Dmitrieva Sokolova and Boiarynia Koia Karasova, my Rus Mamas and tolerators of many midnight questions about stamping and styling.

So what am I on to next? Med Fair cotehardies. I'm currently handsewing the supportive underdress for my own impression. Fingers crossed I maintain my sanity!!

[sasukimimochi]

So WIP's of my MXY, part 2 hello! I decided "Sleep? What is that" tonight, and i wrote out the entire backstory for MXY in my fic "Ghost of Mine" for the past idk how many hours instead, i have absolutely lost all sense of time tonight LMAO anyway i hope u guys like my progress, i'm leaving out the details on his backstory bc i plan on his backstory going somewhere in the fic. However if something changes and i can't add it or make a small fic on the side i'll post the details about him later. To clarify though 27 is the age mxy sacrifices i believe so that last drawing is his final look before wwx comes into the picture. I continued sketching in Drawpile cuz i'm enjoying the brush again lol

I put the other wip under the cut just in case people assume my wip of mxy/wwx are nude and lwj gets flagged as nudity lmao

i'm much happier with the pose now and the sizing! and i changed some of the body/hair details for mxy/wwx to match what i'm trying to attempt for the mxy design. He has shorter hair when he starts out in this fic and grows it out over time. he also sports a very "untamed" look bc i wanted him to have a "non-wwx look" [aka it needed to look different than his youth/yiling look cuz he wants to look less sus, even though he already looks quite different bc he's in another body and all]

and bonus attempt at my wen ning but i'm not super happy with it, regardless, here anywho. His design is leaning heavily towards the manhua version of him physically but i wanna do some alterations and touch ups later on. This was my first drawing of the night so its the roughest of the lot anyway.

See other GOM/MDZS content here on my masterpost. ❤

[torchsart]

★ COMMISSION INFO ★

Almost everything is detailed below! Also available in carrd format or on Ko-fi!

I only have 5 slots at a time so make sure to check my carrd or bio to see when comms are open/closed. Also listed on my Trello queue! I have certain discounts available on my carrd & I may occasionally run sales so keep an eye out!

Below the cut is a summary of my ToS & an order form. For the extended ToS, click here!

Order Form: Optional as long as you provide all the info listed!

Username: Commission type: Payment method: (PayPal, Ko-fi) Character references (links are fine!): Pose/expression: Preferred background colors/patterns/etc: Can I post it online? If so, would you prefer to be named or anonymous? Would you like a timelapse of your commission? (May need to be sent via email) Other details:

Terms Of Service: By commissioning me, you state that you've read & agree to these terms!

I reserve the right to decline or cancel a commission for any reason. Rude or inappropriate behavior, or otherwise breaking the ToS is cause for cancellation, likely without refund.

I prefer to work with clear, visual references. The more, the better! I am willing to try working from description for people I know.

My turnaround time tends to be fairly quick but the estimates given are best-case scenario. I ask for at least 2 weeks or so for your commission to be completed, accounting for things like days off & breaks. I'll occasionally be taking the weekends off which may add to the wait time.

I will send a rough, colored sketch for approval before moving on to other stages. This is the only stage where I'll do major changes! After that, I'll ask about last-minute changes but those are limited.

Ko-fi commissions are paid 100% upfront so they get priority! If you'd rather use a 50/50 method, either through PayPal or Ko-fi tips, DM me!

If you'd like a commission but don't have PayPal, I may accept alternate forms of payment, listed here.

Usage Rights & Ownership:

All art is strictly personal use only & may not, under any circumstances, be used for monetary gain.

My art may not be used for N/F/Ts or A/I in any capacity.

You may repost your commissioned works with credit! Either to my Ko-fi or Toyhouse (Torchiiko) or my Tumblr (TorchsArt, Torchiiko).

Barring commissions requested to be kept private, I may share the work as I please with credit to the commissioner. If requested to be anonymous, the commissioner will not be named.

With credit, you may:

Use commissioned art freely, including as a profile picture or header, or just posting it online

Make minor edits such as profile picture borders

Print or otherwise obtain a physical copy to keep for yourself or share with friends, as long as you're not profiting from it

Add the value of the art to your character, even if you may sell them in the future

Even with credit, you may not:

Edit the art in a way that hides or removes my watermark

Involve my art with AI in any way

Heavily reference, copy, or trace my art

Attempt to profit from it, including but not limited to: Using it as an asset in videos/streams/games Uploading it to sites like Redbubble or otherwise producing items for sale Minting it as an NFT or trading it for cryptocurrency

Please feel free to DM me with any questions! I'm most easily contacted through Tumblr, but Discord is also an option!

[nitunio]

7, 10, and 15!

THAJNKK YOU !!! FOR THE ! ASK ! INTERESTING STUFF..

its gonna b a bit long so i put it under a cut hohoho :)

7- Show us at least one picture you drew or sketched recently that you did not put on a public site.

I either don't remember if i posted or didn't post because it;s cringe or art study/warmup. like for example this is a warmup

and this ones cringe because i used the colour palette in a way that is no longer appealing to me and i keep chewing on wires over how bad it came out

10- What do you like most about your art?

I LOVE MY LINEART. I've been building my art foundation on the idea of lineart > anything else, and the structure, the texture, the variety and the flow are my bread and butter

Sometimes I get upset when I can't get a thing right after my first attempt or require many lines when I sketch because it goes against my whole notion of "less is more" . Because to me my overly messy unreadable sketches are the indecisive, directionless things I made that amount to no beauty

I also love my lineart that is very tiny, and my lineart that is large, because when I lineart I can express and I can show people where to look, where to linger, where I messed up, where I clearly spent more time than average.

15- What do you like drawing the least?

Process-wise I hate colouring but I think this question is about themes/subjects/etc??? So,

I hate tiny details on outfits. Sure they're fun to lineart but the begrudging realisation that after the lineart I'll have to spend at least 2-3 hours eyedropping and colouring it in I start dying inside a little bit. It pays off because it looks absolutely amazing but also. fuck!!! It's rotten work I'll do it but christ alive

I also dislike foliage and nature in general because of how easy it is to mess it up. One wrong stroke and you're done - it's not a bush it's a pile of green slime

and that;s about it!!! Sometimes I don't like drawing many other things but these two are up there ^__^

Thaaaanks for letting me ramble!!!!

[twinvenus]

2022 SUMMARY OF ART!!!!

JAN/FEB

it was a really slow start this year... in january i didnt actually finish anything, all i have to show for that period is a single flight rising drawing -- i had another one, but it's now Lost Media (sadly) from when i got my new PC.

(more recounting under da cut! i've included a lot of unposted/unfinished sketches down here!)

MARCH

march was a lot of desperate attempts to get back into drawing by sketching out little character designs i never posted, mostly wizards. that wizard right there is my favourite of the bunch. Fantastic energy from this creature.

APRIL

april is when i started getting into working on Gnome Lore that i have on my site, gnomes.neocities.org! gnomes are my special interest so the enthusiasm of learning about gnome mythology/history, and my own ideas for gnomes, actually got me COLOURING PIECES. incredible feeling.

this was the back end of my flight rising fixation, and included a few humanised sketches of my dragons Mirth and Gerana, pictured above. i was also getting really into WoW again at this time, so there were plenty of little wow-inspired sketches. + a bonus Jurgen from sam and max in the bottom left!

MAY

the gnoments (gnome moments) carried on into the month of may as i designed other known mythological creatures. i also rehashed a beloved old DnD gnome OC called April and included her in that lore. love that lil gal.

during this month i got really into working on my neocities page, and so a lot of art i did was assets for that. you can see a majority of my May drawings over there on the lore page. :-)

JUNE

june was a month of OC swag for me. i was totally inspired in the month leading up to ArtFight and put my heart into character design! from this beautiful month i got one of my new favourite pieces, shown there, of my ocs ZAP! APPLE and STEP KID. they're inspired by the band The Avalanches, specifically the album Wildflower. during this month i also created some of my newest and favourite OCs such as RANBOLIN, Beanie Boy, and Professor PJ!

during this i also did some new art for characters like irene, nadia, and D.A. Private Eye. i think a vast majority of this can be found in my "ocs" tag...

JULY

and here it comes.... my traditional Best Month for art. i was popping off HARD this month even though i didn't do as much as last time. i am SO happy with everythign that came out of this year's artfight, deeply. here are some of my favourite pieces from that period:

i was really into one-layer drawings this year. these were all done on two layers MAX, with the binary brush on sai. it really pushed me to be creative with my colours and detailing, and it's become one of my favourite ways to draw.

YOU MAY HAVE NOTICED. that the art for july features a certain Recurring Character. this is because in the month or so prior i had begun rewatching Naruto with my brothers. although the full-force naruto hyperfixation didn't settle in until months later this was the beginning of it. Rotating gaara in my mind always.

AUGUST

hmm... august got quite slow again. i might have been burnt out from going so hard in the other couple months. i have a few odd doodles from that month aside from the birthday gift to @l0gitex you see there, including THESE:

i also started developing a naruto OC when some brainrot started to settle in. their name is kodama, after the tree spirits. i wanted them to be from konoha, you know, to match -- originally i wanted them to have that wood type stuff, but recently i've been thinking that something to do with funghi and mycelium networks might be really interesting, especially due to their connection with trees, and how kodama live inside trees. these were some outfit concepts but i think i'll change their colour palette to match konoha more. more blues and browns i think.

SEPTEMBER

the dawn of my BRIEF SPLATOON ERA! i haven't played since that month LMAOOOOO! anyways, i drew a few splatoon-related pictures in that time.

birth of Blupi. as well as this September is the beautiful month in which i began to learn using Blender. here's a little ref drawing for the gaara model! (why do i keep doing stuff with gaara?????):

i was so proud of how that model came out. i had some other models of OCs like tomato cloun and one of ranbolin i never finished rigging (i hate weight painting so much oh my god-)

OCTOBER

man i wish halloween was like, anything here. during this month i started working again on my gnomes page so there were some more little designs done, visible on the lore page! specifically, the boggart and warren gnome were from October, as well as Awesome Rando.

NOVEMBER

november was kind of an epic month for my OCs, actually! alongside my interest in naruto REALLY starting to fire up again i was redrawing and bringing back older OCs as well as bringing in beloved Clary! here are Ranbolin and Dee as well. <3 let's go girls

beyond this the naruto brainrot had really settled in. so i began drawing my favourite characters: you know who. happy birthday Rock Lee!

DECEMBER

OHHHHHHHH HERE WE GOOOOOOOOO!!!! DEPTHS OF HYPERFIXATION STRIKE!! i know i've posted a lot of art lately, and i'm so excited that i have -- i didn't know if i'd ever get this stoked again since earlier in the summer but i am so INTO IT RN!!!!!

check out this hinata wip:

awesome thing about being fixated is i tend to finish a lot more of my drawings, it really carries my enthusiasm. so i'm hoping to have this picture finished soon! if not, many more will be finished in its place.

man if you read all of this ur a real one, thank you so much. i'm so excited to see what comes in art for 2023!!!!! MY wicked hands will concoct such bountiful imagery. I can feel it

[mizukagami-takamagahara]

Final page of Es Works, Featuring acknowledgements from the crew.

I will be attempting to translate this page under the cut. Do note that I am relying VERY heavily on machine translation software for this page, as I am a beginner in the field of translating Japanese, and the sheer amount of text here makes my usual method of checking every character in a dictionary a very daunting task.

As such, it is entirely possible that my translations here are flawed, or make some silly mistakes. If you notice any, please do let me know so that I may learn.

"Hello, this is Mori from Arc System Works. By the way, I am the original author of BlazBlue. XBlaze is a derivative work of BlazBlue, but Es really stands out among the cast. I think this is thanks to Higuchi's design and Masuzawa's skill, so let me say it again here. Thank you so much! Thank you so much!!" Producer Toshimichi Mori

"Since Es is a character originating from XBlaze, I decided to write a comment as well. It would be an honor if I could make an XBlaze book someday!" Director Hiroaki Masuzawa

"Thank you for buying this book. What do you think of it? I'm overwhelmed with emotion that I was able to create a book like this. I'm attached to all the pictures, so please enjoy them!" Character designer Konomi Higuchi

"I was involved in everything from planning to design supervision. The content in this book has been carefully selected with a focus unpublished images and rough sketches, so we hope you will appreciate every detail." Designer Hiromi Kageyama

[nyxicnymph]

My 2022 art in review!

Y'know, at first I don't really see much of an improvement, but I think if I compared my first and last pieces I definitely see a difference. It's funny bc I've spent far more time trying to get the hang of my art program and drawing digitally so a bunch of my pieces were me just screwing around.

anyway, enough blabber.

Brwakdown/explanations/musings under the cut!

My January piece was done just under two weeks after I got my tablet for my birthday, and was meant to be my "persona" at the time. February was a commission from a friend of an anime I've not seen. March was a vent piece, but I played around with a few different things in it. April was another commission, this time from a game I've not played before. May was the beggining of my Genshin Impact art spree, and ofc I had to start with my favorite ship. The beginning of June brought my Oc Luna into being with one of my favorite pieces this year, and July followed that with an attempt at splash art. August, I found inspiration to try something new art wise, and while I'm fond of it, I don't know if I want to try it again. September didn't have any digital works, so I scrounged around and found a traditional Xiaother sketch that I may turn digital at some point. October was when I started working with my Xiao/Traveler lovechild OC, and I'm very proud of her picture. November, I drew Yanfei because as my main she deserves to look as badass as she is. And early this month I drew a matching Ganyu piece, which I feel I could have done a little better on.

Looking back, I do think i see improvements. My grasp on anatomy has improved, a very big part due to many many anatomy sketches I did over the year. I've learned a lot about adding details and making things look interesting but not cluttered. I've been slowly playing with colors and shading, trying to figure out what works best with what. While most of my pieces shown here are portraits or just one character shown, I've done a lot of two character pieces, and I feel I've been improving on showing more than one character in a go. I still have a long ways to go in detailing + coloring and even in anatomy and posing, but I think I've come a long way this year and I hope I go a long way next year too!

[zapphattack]

Abandoned: Dogs See Dogs - Modern AU [Clara-centric, gen]

the title may give you preconceived notions but i assure you this is not anything you'd expect from me. this is from a defunct modern au of gorkhon that i used to sketch stuff for during class, not much to say for myself given how i don't think of it much anymore

Clara was in trouble. Nothing she couldn't settle, of course, she was adept at solving issues, it was the sole reason she was still alive. Probably. She honestly couldn't recall clearly most details of her life leading up to this moment. Either way, she needed cash, because she was almost certain she'd be turning 18 in a few months and she knew what happened to kids in shelters who became legal adults. She had to leave her foster parents at some point in the near future, the Saburovs didn't need her brand of trouble on top of their already notable pile of responsibilities managing the hellscape that was the school year-round. 

The campus was quiet as she lurked, dawn threatening to break in the next hour or so. Gorkhon University, funded by Olgimsky Enterprises and built by the Stamatin Brothers and Co with direction from the Kain Institute of Science and Education, headed by the Saburov Group of directorial principals. A private school with unorthodox practices like open program learning and an overpriced list of extracurricular coursework, public access libraries and laboratories alongside private collections of anything ranging from artwork and literature to patented chemical formulas for pharmaceutical drugs, student housing going from absurdly cheap studio aps to bizarrely expensive lofts, and sporting a passable high school campus as well as a very well-rounded college education program. 

It was conceptually utopic and functionally a mess of bureaucracy all the way up and down the chain of endless systems keeping it all from crumbling under its own weight. At least the three pillars kept each other in check, and consequently themselves busy enough to make loitering the grounds a minor offense overlooked at most times. 

The architects that made the place opted for the baffling design choice of having as many alleyways and pavilions between buildings as there were open streets and elevated walkways connecting everything, like a freaky attempt at an architectural nervous system. Worst of all, it worked like a charm to maneuver places easily without crowding the main pathways between building sectors. Clara thought that the librarian, or whatever position Lyuricheva held officially, deserved more credit for being the glue to the Stamatins' barely cohesive vision for the buildings. planning all the roads seemed like a nightmare when taking into account the creative decisions Peter Stamatin adamantly defended and Andrey Stamatin made a reality.

As it were, Clara was glad for the elevated footpath she took, because it led her to the most fateful piece of glossy A4 paper she encountered up to this juncture of her life. It was in a graphic artstyle with neon colors highlighting the text “Diamond Dogfight: Battle of the Bands!” at the top of a rather crowded poster. Below there were cut-out pictures of people singing into microphones or playing what one could presume to be sick guitar riffs. Alongside the images were a few blocks of text reading “Participate in the newest talent scouting efforts of the Ace of Diamonds Theater and Circus Troupe! Sign up today with at least two other bandmates and compete in a tournament-style round-robin elimination competition. Impress our panel of judges to win a grand prize of 100,000 rubles!!” and she spotted a QR code at the bottom corner alongside an email address and phone number labeled “Ace of Diamonds contact info”.

 She barely registered her phone in her hand, mind running wild thinking about how neat and tidy this solved all her problems as she scanned the code, which led to a sleek website sporting a huge block of logos at the top she could imagine was a list of sponsors. In that list was the clock of the Kain Institute, the bull of the Olgimsky Industries, the bold S of the Saburov Group, as well as some smaller icons depicting the Steppen symbol of the Khatanghe Initiative Fund, the geometric logo of Polyhedron Project and the blazon of the Town Hall. Clara was almost amused by how the three big logos competed for attention, the two at the sides raised a bit above the one in the center, clearly a design choice settled on after a long argument by the families as to how to make them equal in the layout.

She skimmed over the introduction page below that had the same text as the poster before tapping on a tab labeled “Rules and Sign-Up”. A much less cluttered page listed numbered rules about band size (3-10 with two categories for smaller and larger bands), song lengths (3-6 minutes barring extraneous circumstances), set decoration and costumes (irrelevant for scoring), the validity of cover songs (valid, but evaluated on different grounds compared to originals), going for about 20 bullet points. The interesting part was the List of Clauses, an additive ruleset about optional gimmicks in the competition. 

Clara’s attention honed into a topic called the “Dog Eat Dog Clause”, which stated the following: “a band may only add members during the competition if they are from another group the band defeated previously, but a member can only be added if they were the last group defeated by the stated band; only one member may be gained each round, and this clause is only valid if all parties agree to the partnership and the resulting band does not exceed the member limit of their given category. The Board of Judges will not be mediating disputes between bands, and any deals involving splitting the prize or other such topics are not to be brought up to the organizers.”

Now, Clara knew she wasn't exactly the epitome of popularity, so this rule opened some doorways for her to advance in the competition without having the strongest starting lineup of players. If she could just get two halfway decent musicians to join her for the first set, even if one left in the middle of the tournament she could still convince her rivals to lend her a member. 

She scrolled until she reached the sign-up form, skimming it halfheartedly until something caught her eye. In small print at the bottom of the form was printed the phrase “Only participants of the student body or junior faculty members are eligible for the cash prize. This includes Gorkhon High and Gorkhon University students and faculty. Outside competitors are eligible for a scholarship negotiated with the Gorkhon Board of Directors if chosen as winners.” She vaguely heard the sound of metaphorical doors closing at that moment

--

Having a teenage girl wander around the university campus was never an overly common sight, but it wasn't bizarre enough to warrant comments, so Clara trudged the halls on what she had decided to call a scouting operation. She wanted the prize, she really did, but there were a few issues with that. Specifically the fact that she was never officially enrolled in either the High School or the University division of Gorkhon. 

She was morally the foster child of the Saburovs, but she had no documents proving her legal existence, so she couldn't enroll in school very easily, and she was only taken in recently, so it'd be weird to ask to enroll at this point, especially since she had no recollection of prior school experience necessary for an entry test. The Saburovs let her have total freedom outside of the house, and she could leave whenever she wanted, so it never came up and they were rather neglectful in regards to such things, in truth. Sure, they fed and housed her, but after she was deemed independent they let her do whatever she wanted. 

But back to the issue at hand. She could try to forge a student ID with the level of access her foster parents had. She almost did that, but she had looked at the panel of judges on the website of the competition and immediately shot down the idea. Student Body President of Gorkhon High, Victoria “Capella” Olgimskaya Jr was one of the main judges, and she'd get caught in an instant if she were to pretend to attend, and it's in the middle of semester, so not even the transfer student excuse would work. Therefore, she would attempt the boldest, most unexpected maneuver of all: convince Gorkhon U students or junior faculty that she was totally a student of some obscure college and they should very much trust her and join her band.

She'd been wandering for about an hour, and there were some noteworthy candidates, but she needed to be subtle in her choices. Her bandmates needed to be quick-thinking or skilled enough to pick up an instrument and play it alongside her, but gullible enough to take part in her scheme. Potential business partners needed to have motivation to win but not demand too much compensation, so either someone meek but skilled or an arrogant talent that could be easily swindled.

It was 7 am by the time she strolled around a dark corner outside the science lab building, where she spotted a figure hunched over in what she could see as a biology or medical sciences lab littered with papers, books and various sundry chemicals. Whoever it was had been there for a long time, and their shoulders were hunched shallowly over a microscope, left hand scribbling furiously on a notepad without raising their eyes from the tool. She decided to do some recon. 

--

Daniil Dankovsky had spent all night trying fruitlessly to make some kind of breakthrough in his research into human vitality and death. That's what she could gather from observing him from outside after she came back from her extended reconnaissance. At this point he seemed to just be analyzing chemical components of random solutions he found in the lab, noting cell behavior and whatnot for the hell of it. 

Med school alumnus, pathophysiology consultant and researcher endorsed by the Kains, he had the run of the lab until morning classes started without supervision, which was somewhat remarkable in itself. Apparently he was also dead tired, as his writing was decreasing in quality from “cursive doctor handwriting” to “not picking up the pen from the paper and gliding every word together like lopsided fairy lights”. 

Clara poked her head into the lab from her position on the window, which was brightly lit by the morning sun. The thin curtains drawn over the windows fluttered in the breeze and ruffled the man's hair as he muttered unintelligible things under his breath. She knocked on the glass, watching as he stopped his ministrations to push his dark bangs away from his pale face. He looked objectively terrible, and the girl cleared her throat to no avail in a futile attempt at being acknowledged. Nothing. She slid over the windowsill and dropped soundlessly into the room, smelling the sharp tang of chemicals and coffee from the bench where the Bachelor of Medicine worked. 

Clara had been elaborating a game plan for the past two hours, debating what kind of people she should recruit to get what she wanted. She had settled on students from an area not directly involved with the arts, as to not be overthrown by her bandmates. Alongside that, anyone in the field of psychology or sociology might be curious about herself and her supposed major, and that was dangerous if she wanted to keep up her ruse of being a student, as well as the more sociable students of such fields possibly not accept her as a classmate if they don't recognize her. Her final choice was a field of research technical and precise enough to have decent musicians but eccentric and busy enough not to question her presence in the school. Med students. 

She hopped onto the table where the man worked, decided on who to try to recruit. Clara probably wouldn't get very far with this one, but a test run of her script wouldn't hurt. She had seen him working since she started scouting, and when asked about him the staff and assorted students around the block informed her of his habits and name, and she brought up as many files as she could access about him from the directorial database. He was a maniac. 

“Muttering gibberish, are you? Perhaps you should vacate the lab soon, your time's almost up anyway, Dr Dankovsky. Get some rest.”

The man startled next to her, and he jerked his head towards her in a manner befitting a spooked lizard. Or perhaps a snake. He looked her up and down before speaking “It's not gibberish, it's latin. And I don't have a doctorate.” His eyes narrowed at her. “Which you would know if you knew my name. Who are you, little girl? Why are you here?”

Interesting that he'd seem offended by her using a title above his station with him. Most men that entrenched in their own work would preen at being overestimated. Still, she had to answer. “I heard you were hoarding the lab, thought I might come in and burst your science bubble to let you know. A favor, you could say.” At his suspicious look she added “I'm Clara.”

“Daniil Dankovsky, Bachelor of Medicine and founder of Thanatica.” Thanatica. She'd seen that somewhere before. “Although you already knew my name. How did you get in here? The door is locked, I don't like being disturbed.” he added, almost as an afterthought. She looked back at the window, then at him. He gaped for a moment before schooling his expression into a look of disbelief. “We’re on the second floor.”

“I didn't say anything!” she quipped, smile in place. This was turning out to be more fun than anticipated. “Anyway, regardless, you might need to vacate the premises in a few minutes. I was hoping to take up a little of your precious time to make a proposition.” Dankovsky looked dubiously over her before she added “business proposition, that is.” which didn't really make a dent in his expression. She stifled a giggle as he shrugged, a gesture that seemed uncharacteristic of somebody who put so much effort into seeming competent and intellectual, but he was fresh off an all nighter, so it's to be expected. 

The Bachelor picked up his things, shoving a comical amount of hardcover books into his bag alongside three separate notebooks filled with sticky notes and tabs. She busied herself with the microscope, fiddling with the dials and cataloguing every fidget she could draw out of Dankovsky with her callous handling of delicate equipment. As he closed his, frankly, extremely unwieldy oversized handbag, he snapped at her “Stop messing with that! You'll break something and I'm the one who'll pay for it.”

Clara was a little taken aback by the silence as they trudged out after Dankovsky locked the lab back up. She curiously followed in his steps, wondering when he would finally ask what she wanted, but wanting to see where his steps would lead. They were going the scenic route to some place, she could tell that much, as he followed brick pathways through patios and wove his way through elevated walkways in the vague direction of either the joint campus cafeteria or the Gorkhon Library. She periodically stepped on the backs of his leather shoes, successfully removing one entirely on her third try. He tripped but managed not to fall on his face, turning towards her with a murderous glare. Clara smiled crookedly and brought her hands up in surrender. 

“You're a little pest, girl, and you're successfully lowering my willingness to listen to your proposition with every passing moment.”

[mirukimary]

My Art Summary for 2022!

(Under the cut I'll go into more details for each month, for memory's sake. Warning: It's LONG.)

Come one, come all for your opportunity to see all of the drawings I should have posted but never did! The ones that make me work harder every december to remember when tf i drew what! The ones that, in missing, make it seem like i only draw once a year--! (going through my twitter media tab is depressing LMAO)

JANUARY

[Pictured: Iola in Prenda clothing. There was a Twitter Post going around asking you to draw your WoL in your country's traditional clothes. Ofc I didn't skip the opportunity to do it! And drew my BF's WoL too for good measure. Still my fav drawing of the year!]

Also worked on a VTuber model for a friend (i drew it as a bust january last year; then this year was asked to expand it to full body). It was very challenging, but also fun!

For the rest, I designed some backstory NPCs for Asera (Daimyorus childhood friend, his goddess and a mage that helped us multiple times); and drew some twitch emotes for a client. Was a fresh, fun start. I remember having a lot of fun and finding that month quite relaxing.

(Goddess Rondra, Mage Rupin & elf-friend Pedro (RIP))

FEBRUARY

[Pictured: My friend's bunny boi~]

Further work was done on the VTuber model, a lot of parts that weren't quite working before were redrawn. He was taking form!! Now that most of the work was done, also did a ref sheet to go with it. I couldn't wait to see him moving!

That's when I started preparing to open commissions for realz, trying to think of prices and set up examples. I drew some BGs and the Complexity Guide, and set most of the boring things up. I plan to open comms either Jan 2023 or February 2023, so let's hope all the work paid off~

MARCH

[Pictured: 'Smile at the Blue Skies', or "Fuq i need a bust sketch ref for my commission examples page". Sounds a bit less dreamy now, huh? LMAO]

But yeah, most of the month was dedicated to the VTuber model, working to fix it as the rigger found issues. Ref Sheet was finished this month. I'll stop mentioning the model, but the back and forth lasted till june or so?? Had to fix all of his toggles; and redraw his entire hair to allow for a better 3D effect when moving (it went from 3~6 layers to over 20). This was my first time working on vtuber models, so there was A LOT to learn. It surprising how many pitfalls there is in vtuber making. I'm very proud of how it turned out, and eternally grateful to the rigger (and to my friend) for being so patient with me. I was sent a small demo of what he looks like, and seeing your drawing move so beautifully like that feels magical!! There's still much to design and draw before he can debut, but hope you can support him then!

Oh yeah, there was this attempt too:

APRIL

[Pictured: 'With Friends' the commission I worked on through March and April. Extra special because that's my friend & his pets there!]

Also sketched some ideas for illustrations of our RP characters (hi Irene), but never really completed them:

It feels so long since I made these... Double checked like 3 times to make sure it wasn't April 2021 LMAO

I REALLY want to revisit some of these now.

MAY

[Pictured: #XIVARTBASH drawing, featuring Nero.]

Also drew the catgirl from Love2DrawManga. Didn't do much this month (...or did but forgot). I believe I worked on some BGs I can't show, but these are still very much stuck at WIP :(

JUNE

[Pictured: Nia's WoL, Mat. Just a smol gift for someone that brings a lot of joy to FFXIV Twitter.]

So... I completelly forgot I was drawing my OCs outfits [facepalm]:

(Don't mind the two in the corner, I don't want my essay to get hit with Tumblr hammer LMAO They're nowhere near done). But yeah, these are my OCs from 'Elder''. I've had them since childhood, and still love them, even if I gave up on the book idea. Will make an actual post once all is done and I can go back to their character illusts uwu

JULY

[Pictured: Cade from 'Still Shining'. Working on this was an amazing experience~ Won't go on detail bc I already did, but still glad for the experience!]

Instead I'll talk about... Art Fight month!!!

SO.MUCH.FUN

I'm 100% going back next year! This event just proved how much I love drawing people's OCs. I really want to be a commission artist so I can do that for a living. Sadly I didn't get to draw everyone I wanted, plus I wasted a lot of time trying to look through OCs while the website was dying LMAO Next year I'll come prepared!

Also I drew that Spring picture to use as a reference in her profile there. I missed drawing her!

AUGUST

[Pictured: Commission for 'Under Maintenance'.]

Mostly worked on commemorative stuff. Anniversary chibi for Brie; that Under Maintenance pic; Thank You for DL message for 'Loving You Fully' and 'Still Shining'. Also designed some outfits (and painted some sprites) for Mythic Meetup: Midnight Mystery (not released yet!).

Started a bday gift for my boyfriend, but something kept looking 'off' about it so I didn't finish in time. Turns out it was overblended... And will require a redraw. Sorry boyfriend TT But my wife (tm) needs to look perfect!!

Also made the design for our new RP characters:

(mine is the not-cat girl, obviously)

...And I belive this is when I made that cursed Yshtola feeding Zero picture? Yeah.

SEPTEMBER

[Pictured: Witch Torunn]

Made the YCH bases, as well as 3 examples. I have no memories of this month, but Windows says this sketch is from september:

OCTOBER

[Pictured: Old OC redraw, for my Commission Guide. Decided to do it after a client asked for clarification if an old drawing was halfbody or fullbody (august last year, Torunn sitting down).]

They're really old OCs of mine. Ever RP-ed in Deviantart groups? I did!!

Cecilia (<-) is pretty much a Iola prototype: salve maker and potion seller who lives with her dad (who taught her the craft). One day he collapses during work, and Cecilia ends up overworking herself to afford his medicine and other living expenses. In desperation, she joins The Guild as a novice magician for money, and gets herself involved on a war she never intended to join.

Celticca (->) is a archer and aspiring musician who wants to make the most beautiful song (tm) for her family. She's very sweet, but naïve and scatterbrained. I didn't have much planned for her, but had a lot of fun seeing her constantly get involved with Evil/Neutral alligned characters w/o noticing LOL

....Now that I think about it, she's literally a FFXIV bard, before I knew anything about XIV.

The rest of October was focused on Magni's Birthday Project and my YCH Halloween Commissions.

...And THIS:

Halloween pictures of our current RP characters \O/ To go with our halloween session~ Also drew these two for our halloween one-shot:

Ellie (<-) and Hadrianus (->). Ellie is a yandere witch I made as a joke and fell in love with. Hadrianus is my BF's wizard. Yes, he looks like Dr. Strange. Yes, that's the joke. The 3rd character was Rosemary, but I didn't ask to draw her so she's missing :( I do want to draw all of them at some point. We accidentally made "Spy x Family, but it's horror and Loid wants to run away" LOOOL I love this trio!!

Made 2 adoptables, but since they went unsold I decided to remove them and redraw for next year:

(The neutral pose doesn't help them stand out ^^;; Sorry bbys)

Also sketched Julio from Atelier Sophie~

(Hoping to finish it early next year. He's not the only idea I had while playing, but other stuff took priority"")

October was so much fun!! Sadly it let me completely drained by the end of it. I got hit with such a HUGE art block it was like my hands just... Forgot how to draw. Everything came out weird. Sadly, that resulted on me having to drop a drawing I was making for Brie :/ Hoping I can pick it back up soon... (better late than never right?)

It's around that time I decided to work on an AI redraw. Used Crayon (old Dall-e Mini) to create some monstrosity for me and tried to turn it into an actual drawing.

The monstrosity:

The Work In Porgress:

This drawing is a bit painful to look at, because of all the self doubt and bad feelings attached to it. But I want to finish it someday. My prompt was something stupid like 'cute anime girl having fun'. I want to remain true to the prompt and make her meeting with lil ladybug feel warm and fun!

...Like of the feelings I was missing back then, and am just now starting to get back.

TL;DR: Take breaks or you'll break.

NOVEMBER

[Pictured: Chibi Adra for Kyou.]

Managing burnout through most of it. Eventually just decided to stop fighting and played games instead. Even with the frame drops, Atelier Ryza is pretty fun~ Hoping to go bk to it soon.

At some point my boyfriend said I should just draw things to have fun for a bit. I followed his advice...

DECEMBER

[Pictured: Art Party (DracoLunari's WoL)]

...By drawing Iola as a sheep herder. It was much more fun than it sounds. I didn't care for polish at all, just seeing Iola in a cute outfit LMAO It's... A mess of a drawing. But it's MY mess of a drawing. I feel this thought calmed my mind a lot.

Also went for my first ever Art Party. It was fun, tho brain did get in the way after a bit, as expected ^^;;; Still want to go to these more often!! It's fun to draw & chat with others.

For random drawings, all I have is a(n embarrassing) fanart of Elf from Isekai Ojisan. I'll post eventually..... (that anime is hilarious)

For now I have a commission and a collab to take care of, and a certain Moon Goddess to draw as soon as possible~ Will be doing my best these next few days, and hope Iola can be my sheperd and guide me to the path of 'having lots of fun drawing again'.

ONWARDS TO 2023...

May my year be filled with bad drawings that I love;

And good drawings I'm proud of.

May your year give you the same

And everything else you wish for!

Thanks @/Taxkha on twitter for the Template!

[kerra-and-company]

Have you done secrets for Rel and Nisha yet?

I have not! Twin secrets coming right up! :D Some answers are under the cut just so this post doesn't get Too long xD

Rel

1: open secret

Rel is and has always been kinda...I can't think of the right word for this. Maybe "unattached"? In a specific way, at least. He was officially part of the Pact--was eventually one of the head medics, even--but he was never part of any order. He's attached to people and to his goals, but not to places or jobs, and it's loyalty to the cause and to his friends, not the organization, that kept him there. He's far from unique in that sense of where his loyalty lies, but add on the fact that he had more than ample opportunity to join an order and never did, and it's just a quiet sort of mark of "ah, that's different, okay". This is less relevant after he leaves the Pact, but it's still important for him as a character.

2: secret the people close to your character know

How much he's struggled with thinking about his life in terms that are right for him. When he was younger, back in Maguuma, he was just happy with being able to make people happy, more or less. When he and Nisha left Maguuma, they both went through a period of "my sibling is now specifically *my* responsibility", and he stayed at the Priory for as long as he did because of Nisha. Him leaving the Priory was the first step towards him saying "I live the life I want, for me, not for anyone else". During the time period of LWS1, in which he spent a lot of time with the Pact, he was struggling with deciding if he wanted to be there or not, if it was good for him, if he was happy or if he was just trying to make other people happy or if it was both...he overthought things a decent amount, haha. (Overthinking is something he has in common with Nisha, actually. And with me xD)

3: secret that your character wouldn't really care about getting out

Who he's based songs on, as long as they were comfortable with that! In all fairness, this is kinda an open secret too, for the most part.

4: secret exactly one person knows anything about

Oh, gosh. A lot of random facts about the first couple years of his life in Maguuma fall under this heading--things that Nisha knows, but no one else, at least not anymore. Like his collection of pebbles, or his first attempt at crafting a glider, or how proud he was to perform the first song he wrote to their mother. Rel just...doesn't ever talk about a lot of that. Even though a lot of those things were good ones, that time period carries too many uncomfortable memories in hindsight for him to say much about it.

5: secret no one knows about but they sort of want to come out/to tell someone

Rel is not, nor has ever been, an artist in the sense of drawings or paintings. However, in the early days of being at the Priory, he drew a very messy sketch of his and Nisha's mother, and he's kept it with him since then. He doesn't even really look at it; he just has it. It's not something he needs to talk about, but he sort of wants to tell someone he has the picture. He's starting to think that if he does, he'll feel okay putting it down on a table rather than in a pocket.

6: secret no one knows and they desperately don't want anyone to know about

A lot of the details of what he struggled with while alone in Maguuma during early HoT. Mordremoth was...not fun.

Nisha

1: open secret

At this point? How much xe cares--about people, doing a good job, a whole host of things. It's not just an open fact because xe's still seen as an authority figure, and xe's outwardly often pretty closed off to strangers. But most people know.

2: secret the people close to your character know

How bad xyr anxiety can get. Going to leave it at that.

3: secret that your character wouldn't really care about getting out

That xe never exactly wanted the Marshal job, even though xe held it from a bit after the end of HoT through early PoF. It was good for xem in a lot of ways, and xe enjoyed aspects of it, but it wasn't a job xe would have sought out without the precise series of events that put xem there.

4: secret exactly one person knows anything about

This might be stretching this question a bit, because Nisha's talked about this some to xyr partners before too, but--precisely how isolated Nisha was from everyone else during xyr and Rel's years in Maguuma. The twins' mother meant well, but she was afraid for Nisha in particular being hurt by the world because of xyr anxiety and because of the way xe tended to feel things deeply. And Nisha responded to that by doing xyr absolute utmost to be strong, and unaffected by fear--at least outwardly. It wasn't a good thing for xem, and it pushed xem away from everyone, including Rel (who's the only one who really, fully knows what the situation was, because he was there to see it happen).

5: secret no one knows about but they sort of want to come out/to tell someone

Xe's a writer, and xe's been working on writing down the details of xyr own story for xyr kids. Xe still has a hard time talking about a lot of it, but someday xe knows that they'll want to know, and this is also something for them to keep as a physical record. Xe's been doing this quietly and mostly in note form so far, but when xe's far enough along, xe's most likely going to ask for proofreading help and input from xyr family.

6: secret no one knows and they desperately don't want anyone to know about

That xe still feels guilty for accidentally keeping the secret of the sylvari's origin from xyr Pale-Tree-born friends. It was not on purpose by any means--Rel and Nisha's mother had told them about their "grandfather", so xe assumed that the Pale Tree had done the same for her children. And nothing proved xyr assumption wrong literally right up until the Caithe events following the Shadow of the Dragon attacking the summit in the Grove. Xe feels guilty and stupid for missing the signs that the Pale Tree sylvari didn't know, and for not saying anything sooner, even though xe knows that the events of HoT and the Pact fleet crash were not xyr fault. To be extra clear here, though--it's not the fact that xe knew that's the answer to this question, it's the fact that xe still feels guilty about the whole surrounding situation. Xe feels like xe should have moved past this by now.

[creatur3creati0ns]

My History with Self Harm and Self Tattooing

I think it goes without saying that this will be discussing both tattooing and self harm, so if that’s something you don’t want to read about, here’s your trigger warning. I won’t be getting into explicit descriptions about self harm but for the sake of the story I will be mentioning the main form of self harm I used to engage in, which is cutting. I myself can not read, hear, or watch any media that shows or describes cutting, and even writing or saying the world evokes a very bad physical reaction in me so trust me when I say I will try to tell this as best I can while attempting not to trigger anyone, especially myself. But I will be talking about it, maybe more than you’re comfortable with, so do be careful if needed. There will also be mentions of suicidal ideation, mental illness, and the struggles that come along with those, as well as brief mentions of childhood abuse and trauma. No specifics, but the acknowledgment of them. I also show a picture where I have mild hives on my skin, in the “My History with Tattooing” section, and I do warn before I show you. I briefly mention sexual themes, as well as BDSM.

My History with Self Harm

I started self harming around 13 years old, after I was in a car accident that gave me a traumatic brain injury and triggered a myriad of mental illnesses including social anxiety, major depressive disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and depersonalization/derealization. Along with this I was dealing with abuse from my parents and pressures around school. Everything accumulated in panic attacks and general feelings of hopelessness and helplessness. That brought on heavy thoughts of suicidal ideation. I did not have any control in my life, especially over what happened to my own body. The way that I regained a bit of control was by self harming. My usual go-to was cutting. This also helped with my dissociation disorder, because it was a very grounding experience that brought me back into reality and my body. I had a whole ritual surrounding it, and it was something that I did very often and was the main coping mechanism I used at the first sign of trouble. It got to the point where I would even do it at school, under my desk or hidden in the office.

When I started getting help for my struggles, one suggestion I found online to help with self harm urges was to draw on myself. This was something that I connected with instantly. Very quickly I found myself spending at least an hour each night drawing on the places I wanted to self harm. I would spend time each morning refreshing the drawings that might have smudged at night, and redrawing them after a shower. My marker of choice was any Sharpie, and I still have a very large collection of them. Black was my usual go to, and I had a black Sharpie on me at all times. Usually two, one with a pointed tip for details and one with a rounded tip for thicker lines or coloring things in. I tried different brands of skin safe markers and I did like them, but they didn’t last as long and they were expensive. At some point I was obsessed with “Mr. Sketch Scented Markers” and I still have two packages of those. I loved experimenting with different markers and I still do, but now it’s mainly for drawing or coloring on paper. I also experimented with different ways to make the drawings last longer, like covering them with baby powder and hairspray. I would draw on myself any chance I would get, and would always spend the car ride to school doing it.

Pictured above was the first photo I have of a drawing I did on myself. I’m using Snapchat screenshot for most of the pictures in this post because it has the date there. These were done with the good ol’ Mr. Sketch, and I specifically remember I would only listen to Emma Chamberlain’s “spring 2018” playlist while doing this in my mother’s bedroom. She has since changed the playlist name and added songs I never listened to, but the first 16 or so songs were the ones I would listen to every night for a few weeks. Why I was in my mother’s bedroom is also a long story, but when I was dealing with my suicidal ideation I was not allowed to sleep in a room by myself for around two years. During this time I had to sleep in her room, in her bed. About an hour before bed I would be able to have the room to myself to draw.

I was never much of an artist before I started doing this, so most of the things I did at the beginning of my skin drawing journey were doodles I thought of or simple designs I saw on Pinterest.

At some point I graduated from drawing only on my inner forearms and outer thighs to my hands and fingers and all over my legs and pretty much anywhere I could reach. I got pretty good at drawing with my non-dominant hand so that my right hand and arm was covered in marker as well. Here I was still doing some Pinterest drawings.

Those triangles on my left knee in the picture above was something I would do a lot. It was the first “design” I ever created myself, and was definitely the easiest to do. You can see X’s on my hand here, which is something I started to do a bit before this picture, like this. Easier to do with my non-dominant hand.

One of my favorite things to doodle were triangles, like the ones seen here.

I started getting a little funky with my triangles.

One of my favorite things to do after a few years was to black out my knuckles with boxes.

In my spare time I would look at other people’s tattoos online and try to imitate them on my own skin.

I started to like blacked out shapes. Try to get as much color on my body as possible.

That turned into blacking out a portion of my arm.

Or even blacking out my whole arm.

I even drew on my neck and face.

Funnily enough, I ended up getting my first piercing there, an eyebrow piercing.

Some extras I like:

Little hint of a blacked out arm there.

My mother wasn’t a fan of any of this at first until I told her it helped with my self harm urges. Of course it didn’t completely stop my self harming, but it definitely lessened how much I did it. She would often gift me markers for holidays, or even just on random days when she was at the store and found something that I might like. That’s what happened with the “Mr. Sketch Scented Markers.” If you read my “The First 20 Years” post, you know I have a lot of complicated feelings about my mother. She was heavily abusive and our relationship suffered because of it . But as every other human being on the planet, she had her good moments and there were things she was good at as a parent. She would stand up for me when others made negative comments about my drawings. My grandmother didn’t like the fact that I had Sharpie all over my hands, but the only time I heard her bring it up to my mother, my mother said that it really helped me and that it was important. The next day my grandmother complimented some of my drawings, and a few months later when a friend of hers was visiting, she pointed it out to her friend and mentioned that she thought I was getting good at it. My grandmother was also very abusive and a decently bad person, but again. People are not only one thing blah blah.

Once I was at a doctor’s appointment and had heavy black drawings all over my hands and a nurse asked if they were tattoos. I was maybe 16 at the time, and I told her no, it was just marker. She went on to say that that was good, because tattoos are bad and unprofessional and will kill your chance at being successful and I should especially not have them so young. I nodded along silently and then left to have a panic attack in the bathroom, and texted my mother telling her what happened because I didn’t know what else to do. It might seem like an extreme reaction, but in general I hated confrontation and any time any adult showed even an ounce of disappointment or anger over something I did or even just who I was, it destroyed me. My mother ended up calling the office to explain the importance of my drawings (this office already knew in depth about my self harm and mental health issues, as it was a small medical practice and my mother loved to talk) and say that what the nurse said was upsetting and inappropriate. A few minutes later the nurse came back into the exam room to apologize very sincerely and give me a hug, which was appreciated but also very awkward considering I thought it looked like I called my mommy to complain about the mean nurse to get her in trouble.

In October of 2020 I started taking drawing a little more seriously, and finally found my style. I was always doodling, literally any chance I could get. Every page in my school notebooks were filled with triangles and lines and dots. There was a drawing on some part of my body at all times. I found this artist, ihategreeneggs on Instagram and wanted to try my own version of something he did. This was his drawing that inspired me.

And this is what I ended up doing. My very first drawings of what would eventually become my style.

Here I drew my mushroom guy (who is my favorite, now) on my arm. A little hard to see but you get the picture. I plan on getting him tattooed on me for real. Probably by someone else, just so it’s as good as it can be.

I realized after a few years that I enjoy having marks on my skin. Whether it was self harm, Sharpies, scars, random scratches, or even hickeys and impact play marks later on in my life, any time I could see something on my skin out of the corner of my eye or in the mirror it would make me happy and present in myself. I’m still not totally sure why, but I think it has something to do with “my skin has changed or looks different than when I was born and that is proof that I am real.” This is still something I feel now, but I have developed healthier ways of getting those marks on my skin.

My History with Tattoos

I was around tattoos at a very young age. My dad has several pretty old tattoos, and two of them were decent sized pieces on both forearms. I can’t remember exactly what they were, but I’m near positive that one was a traditional full body tiger, and the other was a traditional scorpion. He had some other ones on his shoulder and his chest. He has my mother’s name in a red heart. My mother’s only tattoo is a giant rose on her ass that spells my father’s name in the leaves. Yes, they are divorced.

My mother said early on in my life that she did not want me or my sister to get any tattoos or facial piercings. If we did get tattoos, they needed to be very easily hidden. When I was younger, I didn’t really have a desire for tattoos or piercings. I thought they were cool, but not for me. I did want to dye my hair, though, and my mother refused to let us do that either. As I entered middle school, I was exposed to emo culture, as are most young queer kids, and then I did want tattoos and piercings. I knew that as soon as I turned 18, I was gonna spend that day getting piercings and tattoos and dyeing my hair. That’s not what I did during my birthday, but a couple months after turning 18 I got my first facial piercing, and a couple months after that I ordered my first hand poke kit. At least I dyed my hair immediately.

If you’re familiar with tattoos, you know that hand poked tattoos are usually called stick and pokes. I personally say hand poke because of the stigma around “stick n pokes” and the fact that I did mine with an actual tattoo needle and tattoo ink, as opposed to the sewing needle and pen ink that most people think of when you say stick and poke. Nothing wrong with that, I personally am of the opinion that you can do whatever the hell you want with your body as long as you’re still advocating for others to do it as safely as they can. A lot of the tattoo artists I was learning from called it hand poked, or even hand pushed, and it stuck for me. I don’t care what others call it, but I think hand poked sounds cute and is more fitting for my personal process.

I had been learning about the tattooing process for years, but in the months following my 18th birthday I started learning more about the hand poke process as opposed to machine done tattoos. I saw hand poke as more approachable and accessible. I had known for years that some day I wanted to be a tattoo artist. After drawing on myself for years, developing my style, and drawing on anyone who would let me, I wanted to be able to do it permanently. I love the idea of providing people with little friends on their body that go with them everywhere. That’s exactly what I want in life! And I like creating, it’s the best thing for me to do.

I really wanted tattoos and the easiest way was for me to do it myself. I was a few hours away from my parents, in my own room I was paying rent for, with my partner and close friend in the rooms across the hall. I finally felt safe and grounded. I had my own space and I had the freedom to do what I wanted. Now was as good a time as any to try hand poke out.

I had decided that I wanted my first tattoo to be meaningful to me, and I didn’t care if the rest I got were. “Firsts” have always been important for me in my life. In September of 2021, I decided to tattoo “LET GO” on the top right of my right thigh, the words facing me. This, of course, has absolutely no meaning to me now, but at the time I thought this was a good reminder. I think it came out pretty damn good considering it was my first ever tattoo on skin.

My second tattoo was a creature I drew a long while ago, and I did it on the top right of my left shin, right below the knee. This was a horrible and painful decision, especially for my second tattoo ever. I did this tattoo the same day I did my first one, because the first one was so quick to do.

A little over a week later, I did my next tattoos. My third and fourth tattoos were also done the same day. An “X” on my left middle finger knuckle, something I’ve wanted for a while, and a little smiley face on the second knuckle of my left pointer finger.

I don’t know for sure why I did that fourth one, as I was never a huge fan of smiley faces. I just think I wanted another finger tattoo while I had the supplies out. I regretted it pretty quickly, but the very next day my sister came to visit me in the new city I moved to and she was wearing a smiley face ring on the same finger I had my tattoo on. So it was very much worth it for the sweet memory.

A little less than a week after those, I did a pretty ambitious tattoo, my fifth. About a four inch by four inch snail I drew with some of my signature, uh, squiggles? I don’t know what these are but I’ve been doing them forever. The ones I currently do in my drawings are a bit different, but this was an old drawing when I first started out with this style. Either way, it was a lot more than I could handle. I wanted the squiggles colored in and I had only done one pass through the whole thing, but I had already spent hours on it and I didn’t want to overwork my skin, so I decided to stop for the day and do it again after it healed. Long story story I developed chronic hives after this tattoo (not related) so it was left unfinished for a while. “A while” being two years. More about those hives in my “The First 20 Years” post if you’re interested. This is the only pic I have of that tattoo, so if looking at hives freaks you out, keep in mind I have mild hives in this picture.

I did a lot of research before tattooing myself. I bought a kit from a website that wasn’t Amazon, and I practiced on a lot of fake skin. I watched a lot of YouTube and Instagram videos by hand poke tattoo artists and read many articles. Yet when I did the tattoos, I still fucked up. It’s in the nature of the practice, when you’re first starting out. I was happy with what I did, though, and I was safe doing it, so that’s all that mattered. About a year passed by, and they faded pretty badly. The ink the kit came with wasn’t the greatest, and I definitely poked too shallow out of fear. I had a friend who expressed interest in stick and poke, and since I had a lot of supplies, I invited them over to use some and pretty much showed them how to hand poke. I wasn’t the best teacher considering the last time I had done it I barely knew what I was doing, but they knew it wasn’t going to turn out perfect and didn’t mind. I touched up my X on my middle finger while they did a smiley face on their middle finger. I just checked in with them a couple days ago, and about a year later, it still looks pretty good. Still quite dark, so clearly they poked deep enough. This time after my tattoo I actually did aftercare and treated it well. It was a good experience. We watched Adventure Time while doing it, and it’s a great memory for me. I think that’s what tattooing should be all about.

Why I’m Even Writing This

Last week, I was having a hard day. I was deep in relationship problems that I thought was going to end it, and leave me having to move two hours away from the city I call home, to move into my sister’s apartment with her and her boyfriend. That is, of course, better than being unhoused, but there were a number of reasons why this would be my last option. There were also a number of reasons why me being unhoused was a very real worry at the time if my relationship ended. This isn’t about that, though, so I digress.

The night prior, right as the relationship problem started, I had reached out to a friend to come pick me up and take me to their place. I can’t drive and I needed to get out of the apartment for a bit. We weren’t that close, never hung out outside of a group, but they were my only friend who lived near me and had their own place. We ended up talking about what was happening in my relationship, and as five hours passed, we talked about other things as well. Tattoos got brought up, as they inevitably do when I’m talking to, well, pretty much anyone.

This friend had a few tattoos on their arms. They had a stick and poke done with a sewing needle and pen ink that a friend did years and years ago, and a professionally done stick and poke with incredible detail. I say stick and poke because that’s the word they used. This is the first friend I have that has both hand poked tattoos and machine done tattoos, so I was pretty excited to ask about the difference, specifically with the pain. I don’t remember much of what they said because it was a week ago at this point and I had a lot on my mind, but some key things they said was that the hand poked ones hurt a lot less, and the machine done ones ended up feeling numb after a while because of all the buzzing.

I mentioned that eventually I want to be a tattoo artist, and it felt like they lit up. They said that they thought I would be a good one. I honestly think I give off tattoo artist wannabe vibes so it was very nice to hear someone else say it would fit me well. I said that I haven’t tattooed myself in a long time, at least a year at that point. I told them that what they said made me want to start up again, and now was as good a time as any considering I’m unemployed and quite literally have nothing better to do. Not to mention I really needed the distraction at the time. I said that I would spend the next day practicing or maybe even touching up one of my old tattoos that you can barely see now that it’s been two years since I’ve done them.

Without going into too much detail, the next day after talking with my friend, things got unimaginably worse. This was last Friday. I was experiencing thoughts of wanting to self harm, which was something that I hadn’t experienced in at least a month. The emotions I was feeling at the time were overwhelming. They were the kind of feelings that I knew self harm would immediately fix. Put me in control when I thought my whole existence was coming to an end. I thought that I had made my mind up while I was sitting in the bathroom having my second panic attack of the day. I don’t know what stopped me from doing it. Maybe it was because I was thinking about the therapy session I had that morning before everything went to shit. I had told my therapist that I was going to spend the day practicing tattooing while waiting for the inevitable conversation my partner and I would have to have. I didn’t expect the conversation to come so quickly after my session ended, which is one of the reasons I had such an extreme reaction. I guess I decided to go through with what I told her I was going to do, but now the urge had moved to tattooing myself instead of fake skin. Practice is practice, I suppose.

I got out my supplies and set everything up and decided to basically re-poke my second tattoo that was on my shin. I spent a few hours doing it while watching House M.D. and it made everything a lot better. Afterwards, I was writing everything that had happened the previous few days down for my next therapy appointment. I realized I had “urge to self harm” and “tattooed myself” in the same sentence. I was worried that it would come across like I had exchanged the razor for a tattoo needle in a way to cause myself harm. I decided to spend some time thinking about the difference in self tattooing and self harming for me and if they were related.

I looked online to see if people had written about a connection between self harm and tattoos. I wanted to hear others' thoughts, especially people in the mental health field. I, of course, found some people saying that body modifications were an extreme form of self harm or that body modifications were only done by people who were mentally ill. That’s definitely not what I was looking for. I found this article, though, which interested me. I decided to sit down and write through the process and intent of my self harm vs. my tattooing, and what the similarities were, if any.

The Difference Between My Self Harm and My Self Tattooing

I went through the feelings I have before, during, right after, and the following days after I self harm or tattoo.

Before I self harm, I look forward to it. I’m clear headed, sure, and confident. During it, my thoughts start to devolve. I get a little panicky and shaky, and no longer feel clear headed or confident. I try to make it quick. I do it without looking, and as fast and as much as possible. If it’s an especially painful one I pause for a second or so, usually let out a curse and try to calm myself with some quick rocking back and forth, then go back in before I lose my nerve and can’t continue any longer. Right after, I feel a lot of relief, and am nervous but smiley. Not happy, but I smile pretty much immediately. It’s not because I find it funny, either, but it has to do with the immense relief. I feel grounded again. I get rid of everything quickly, never clean myself up, and immediately go do something else. Then comes the shame. I used to be the kind of person to track my “clean” days, so every time I relapsed, there was deep sadness and frustration when it finally sinks in what I had done. The following days after I self harm, I will hit or slap the harmed area quickly when I experience something triggering or upsetting in any way. A hit of pain helps ground me and make me feel more in control, and reminds me of what I did to gain control. After a few days I can finally look at the area I harmed, and I look at it closely, running my fingers over it, and bringing it up to my face so it’s the only thing I can see and focus on. Self harm helps me in the moment, but immediately afterwards I feel so much worse. The days following, it helps me through other triggers, but instead of using my healthly coping mechanisms, I automatically re-injure myself.

Before I tattoo, I’m anxious but excited and prepared. During it, I am slow and careful and will look at the area I’m tattooing closely, taking my time with the piece until I feel like I’m done. I pause for a bit if there’s a lot of pain, and let myself take a rest and come back to it in a while if I need to. Right after, I’m happy and proud. I’m still learning tattooing, so it can be quite a hard and long process, but that just makes me more proud of myself for being able to do it. My focus is then on carefully wrapping up the tattoo and taking care of it, and then slowly putting everything away, being mindful of not hitting my tattoo accidentally. I spend time afterwards looking at it and appreciating my work. The following days after I tattoo myself, I am careful to not touch it, hit it, or scrape it. I leave the second skin on for a while, looking at it every so often, which makes me happy. After the second skin is off, I spend time taking care of it using tattoo ointment, then moisturizing when it’s ready, and am careful to not have any rough contact with it.

I realized that I don’t tattoo for the pain, but for the closeness it brings to my body. Tattooing myself is very grounding. I have to listen to my body and be aware of where my hand is and where I’m tattooing, how I’m stretching the skin, where the needle is going. It’s a ritual of caring for my body, in addition to putting something that makes me happy on my body using my own hand. The pain is just a byproduct of the tattoo, while the pain of self harm is one of the only things that matters.

Using Self Tattooing as a Substitute for Self Harm

The next morning when I had my therapy session, I brought this all up to my therapist. She made some great points that made me feel more secure in how I was feeling. She said that tattooing myself was a substitute for self harm. Pain is just a sensation, and it’s something that’s okay to endure or even seek out. Tattooing myself is a creative and regulated pain that doesn’t put me in harm's way or make me unsafe. Just because there is pain in an activity, doesn’t mean it’s a form of self harm. I have five facial piercings, which all hurt to get, but the purpose of getting them was to have cool metal in my face, which then connects me more to my body. Even people who do things like body suspension do it for reasons other than the pain. And if pain is the main reason why you’re doing something, I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing. Speaking as a masochist and a sadist, pain can be enjoyable in many different ways. There’s a difference between self harm and being hurt. Safety has a big part to play in it, as does listening to your body when it tells you to stop.

Because I wanted marks on my skin at all times, I would self harm constantly. With a tattoo, it’s a one and done deal. I do it and then it’s there forever. There’s no need to constantly keep it up, causing more pain and injury each time. The fact that I designed my tattoos myself aids in the grounding and “I am real” feeling that skin drawings have given me in my life. When I tattoo I am clear headed and not overly emotional. When self harming, I am very vulnerable and on edge. Each time I leave a mark it's different than the last, and I couldn’t care less about how deep I’m going. It’s a very dangerous process that I would do very often. I stopped tracking my clean days, but I know it’s been a while since I self harmed. Having tattoos to look at instead makes me a lot happier.

Closing Thoughts

As of writing this, I re-poked my shin tattoo nine days ago.

I redid my thigh tattoo two days ago, using my tattoo machine for the first time. My partner bought me my machine for our one year anniversary in October of 2021, and I’ve practiced with it a few times. I definitely should have done more research considering most of my tattoo knowledge came through hand poke and my previous knowledge of machine tattooing is quite a few years old and I don’t remember some of it. I had to look up a few things. I spent around three hours on it, but mostly because I took 10 minute breaks very frequently. I’m going to be honest, machine tattooing sucked. I felt I had less control and it was so so so much more painful than handpoke. I definitely want to make a different post talking about my experience with hand poke vs machine. I think I’m going to stick with hand poke for the most part. But long story short, I stopped halfway-ish through because I couldn’t handle the pain anymore and I was having trouble with the needle I was using. Fucking magnums. I’m going to let it heal and then handpoke the snail and finish the squiggles with, unfortunately, my tattoo machine.

Art has been incredibly beneficial to me for a large portion of my life. It has helped me through very rough times. Even now, when something has happened and my nervous system is dysregulated, I end up grabbing my iPad and making some vent art. It instantly makes me feel better and provides an outlet for anger, sadness, and any other emotion I might have. It also helps me to process my feelings. Art and body modifications are one of the most important things in my life, and they both have helped me to connect with myself, in general and also in my trans identity. I’m going to be saying this phrase a lot, as you have seen so far, so get ready; this is something that I want to write about more in depth at some point.

I’d say that’s all. This only took, I don’t know, a little less than a week to write. Finding the pictures and placing them here correctly was the hardest part. So far the two things I have written have been very long, a little over 5,000 words. Hopefully soon I can write something a bit more simple. And hopefully soon I can figure out how to end something without outright saying “the end.” Anyway. Thanks for reading!

The End :D

[creweemmaeec11]

The Gift of Panic Pt#2

First part

--------------------------------------

After a moment of silence, the villain finially spoke.

"The last birthday present I got..." they started in a quiet, almost whispered tone, "was a bomb..."

"What!?" the hero replied in shock.

"Someone I cared about... though it would be funny to open my present before me as a joke..." they took a deep breath, "they didn't..."

Their voice cracked before they trailed off, and the quickly wiped at their face, abruptly standing up, keeping their back to the hero.

"I don't even know..." the hero replied, trailing off as well. They didnt know what to say, how to respond, what to do. What could they?

"Its fine I just," the villain started, before taking a deep, recomposing breath, "Sorry, I've never told anyone about it,"

"No no, it's okay. God, I can't even imagine..."

"Its alright, I got my revenge in the end," the villain replied, turning back toward the hero.

"Really? How?"

The villain looked at them with a confused expression, before it shifted into an amused smirk, "For legal reasons, and because I don't want to prolong my time in here, I probably shouldn't tell you,"

The hero laughed, "fair point. For what it's worth, I'm glad you got justice, even if it probably isn't the kind of justice I'd agree with,"

"Really? You think I deserve justice?"

"Of course, I think everyone does," the hero said in confusion, as if that was obvious.

The villain huffed a half laugh, giving a small smile, "I need to remember who I'm talking to,"

Both their gazes fell back to the long discarded present on the floor.

"I can take it, if you'd like, but-"

"No no, it's okay, I... I cant believe the words 'I trust you' are coming out of my mouth but I at least trust you didnt gift me a bomb,"

"I don't know if I'm hurt or flattered,"

The villain laughed again, walking over to hesitantly pick up the gift. They turned back to face the hero, holding the box with both hands as they just stared at it.

"The question still remains..." they drawled, before looking up at the hero that was still sat on the bed, "Why would you get me a birthday present?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why would you get me a gift? Why would you do something like that? For me? I dont think I'm very... deserving of a gift. Especially from you. Unless whatever is in here is some form of mockery- I mean- I guess I shouldn't assume..."

Their eyes dimmed slightly, as if they realized the only thing that could be in the box was something mocking, a heros form of bragging that they had won.

"Okay now I'm definitely hurt,"

The villain looked back up at them.

"Your my friend, I realized your birthday was coming up, so I thought back on our previous conversations, and tried to get something I thought youd like," the hero replied, moving to sit it a more casual position, "There wasnt any more thought put into it then that,"

The villain was now staring at them with wide eyes.

They blinked, seemingly trying to process what they'd just heard.

"I... have questions..."

The hero smirked, tilting their head as a prompt to continue, amused at the normally silver tounged villain being thrown so off their game by something so simple.

"Friend?" The villain responded almost instantly.

"Oh I'm sorry, what would you call this? Marriage?"

"I'd call this me tolerating your visits, whenever you decide to drop by because you've nothing better to do,"

"Maybe at first, but I've seen the way you recently light up whenever I come in,"

"Then you've *recently* begun going blind. I'd suggest seeing an optometrist,"

The hero laughed, "also, for your information, I make time for these visits, I dont just swing by cuz 'I'm bored',"

The villain squinted at that, "You... make time... for me?"

"Yes, that's what friends do,"

"I am not your friend," the villain replied stubbornly.

"Oh yeah? When was the last time you let someone hug you? I have to have passed the friend mark by now,"

The villain blushed, realizing they *had* allowed the hero to hug them, and they couldnt remeber the last time anyone else had even tried, nevermind been *allowed*.

"this is a dysfunctional work relationship at best"

The hero snorted another laugh at that.

The villain glanced down at the box once more.

Finially they knelt down onto the floor, placing the box infront of them. The stared at it for a few seconds, hands shaking slightly as they hovered over it, before taking a deep breath and tearing the wrapping off.

It was a simple brown box with a lid.

The villain chuckled under their breath slightly at that.

"What?" The hero questioned, not seeing anything funny.

"No, sorry I just-, had a thought,"

The hero raised an eyebrow at them.

"I just thought how funny it would be if after all this it turned out to be empty, but that would be cruel, even for-"

Their sentence came to a halt as the lid came off and they saw what was inside.

Now their wasnt anything incredible inside, it wasnt like they had gotten a new iphone, but there was *many* things inside.

They looked up at the hero, mouth open slightly, not even attempting to hide their shock.

The hero just smiled.

Slowly, the villain began taking things out of the box. A book of puzzles, like crosswords and word searches, a small sketch book and a pack of markers to go with them. A small puzzle, showing the picture of a fox, which was the villains favourite animal. There was also a rubix cube that was already messed up, and a set of other small puzzles. At the bottom, there were two more boxes, one much bigger then the other.

The bigger box contained the Harry Potter book series. The second, contained a small device that looked like an airpod, along with earbuds.

It was fascinating for the hero to watch the villain open their gift. One would expect a villain to be clumsy, rushed, or aggressive, ripping into their present, but they were the opposite. They removed every item slowly, delicately, like it was a peice of glass that could break, examining it with the same gentleness before laying it down carefully beside them.

When they had opened the last item, they looked back up at the hero, completely flabbergasted, jaw on the floor and eyes wide.

The hero laughed quietly, "do you like it?"

"I..." the villain sat back onto their heels from where they were kneeling, looking over the items like they were unsure what to do now, "what..."

They blinked, gathering their thoughts, "how did you...? I mean what-"

They picked up the puzzle as they spoke.

"That's your favourite animal right? A fox? Now I wasnt sure what kind of fox but-"

"How?" The villain asked, almost breathlessly, looking back at the hero.

"How did I know that? You mentioned it, once. I was talking about being a cat or dog person, and you said youd always been a fox person, something about them being 'sly and underestimated, yet smart enough to know when to strike'" they recited, making quotations in the air.

The villains jaw hit the floor again.

"That was actually one of the first things you ever told me about yourself,"

"You bothered... to remeber that...?" they muttered under their breath.

"Yep. The rubix cube is because you bragged to me once you were good at puzzles and could do one, and I didn't believe you," the hero smirked, "still don't,"

The villain huffed a small laugh, before glancing over at the books.

"the puzzle book and sketch book are just something to do, I know markers arnt ideal, but obviously I wasnt allowed to give you any pencils or pens,"

The villain nodded in understanding.

"the books are because I was talking about game of thrones one day, and you said youd always preferred Harry Potter,"

The villain smiled, and shook their head at that, chuckling, "I've never actually read them, I just wanted to disagree with you," they joked.

They both laughed.

"What's this?" The villain asked, picking up the small device with the ear buds.

"Its a little mini portable radio. I didnt know what songs you liked, and obviously, I'm not allowed to give you anything with acsess to the internet, but at least now you can choose what station you want,"

The villain sat back again, looking over everything with the same stunned, almost lost expression.

"You... remebered all those little details... and here I thought I was doing a good job at not letting anything about myself slip..."

"Oh you have been, trying to figure out what to get you was near impossible, but I managed to remeber a couple little things youd mentioned,"

They picked up the rubix cube, playing with it aimlessly, "I... don't even know what to say..."

"Well, most people would say thankyou,"

The villain shook their head, "that dosent seem like enough. I... I cant even remeber the last time someone gave me a gift, nevermind one without strings attached, and esspecially nevermind one with actual thought put into it,"

"I get the feeling you need better friends," the hero joked, trying to keep the mood light.

"Yeah well, I guess I'm on the right track, I've already got one," they replied, but couldnt bring themselves to look at the hero while they did.

The hero in question was lit up like a christmas tree, heart swelling happily in their chest.

"I hate to cut this short, but don't have long today, I'm going to have to get going, I just wanted to make sure I got to swing by today," the hero said, looking at their watch.

"Oh! Yeah, of course, you -"

"Do not have 'more important' things to do, I simply have *other* things I need to do," the hero interrupted sternly, giving the villain, who blushed, a pointed look.

"yeah, that."

The villain stood up, standing awkwardly in the middle of all their gifts, watching the hero leave through the finger print locked cell door. They approached the switch to turn on the force field, when the villain stopped them.

"Oh, hey, wait!"

"What's up?" The hero asked.

Suddenly the villain tossed something through the bars with effortless perfect aim. The hero caught it, and this time it was their jaw that hit the floor.

It was a completed rubix cube.

They looked back at the villain in shock, who laughed, giving them a real, large, and although greatly amused, no less genuine smile. The first real, true smile they'd ever seen on the villain. They couldnt help but stare in awe for a moment.

"What..?" The villain asked after a moment.

The hero shook their head to snap them out of it, "sorry! It's just, that's the first time I think I've ever seen you actually smile,"

Instantly the smile vanished as the villain steeled their features, crossing their arms and shrugging, trying to ignore the blush on their face, "yeah well, that's cuz it dosent happen often, so,"

"I'm honored,"

"Shut up,"

The hero laughed, before looking at the cube in their hand again,"this is like, actually really impressive though, that was so fast!"

The villain shrugged again, "the 3 by 3 ones are easy, the 4 by 4 or 5 ones arnt that much more difficult, the 6 and 7 ones take me a while though, 8 is an actual challenge, and I dont think I've ever done above that before,"

The hero was still staring at them wide eyed.

The villain just chuckled and shrugged at them again, "I was an outcast kid, had alot of time on my hands. Anyway, get going,"

"Yeah, right," the hero replied, tossing the cube back before flicking on the force field. They began walking toward the door, before the villain spoke out to them one last time,

"By the way... thank you... really..."

The hero smiled, "your welcome," they replied, before disappearing out the door.

The next time they visited, they would make sure to bring a 9 by 9 rubix cube, and a fox calendar.

Third part

[kmclaude]

Forgive me Father, I have no awful headcanons for you, only a general question on comic making. How do you do it, writing-wise/how do you decide what points go where, how do you plot it out (or do you have any resources on the writing aspect that you find useful?) Not to get too bogged down in details, but I attended a writer’s workshop and the author in residence suggested I transfer my wordy sci-fi WIP into graphic novel script, as it might work better. (I do draw, but I don’t know if I have it in me to draw a whole comic—characters in motion? Doing things? With backgrounds? How dare, why can’t everyone just stand around looking pretty)

I was interested but it quickly turned into a lot of internal screaming as I tried to figure out how to compress the hell out of it, since novels are free to do a lot more internal monologuing and such compared to a comic format (to say nothing of trying to write a script without seeing how the panels lay out—just for my own sake, I might have to do both concurrently.)

As an aside, to get a feel for graphic novels I was rereading 99RM and was reminded of how great it was—tightly plotted, intriguing, and anything to do with Ashmedai was just beautifully drawn. I need more Monsignor Tiefer and something something there are parallels between Jehan and Daniel in my head and I don’t know if they make sense but it works for me. (As an aside, I liked the emphasis on atonement being more than just the word sorry, but acknowledgment you did wrong and an attempt to remedy it—I don’t know why that spoke to me the way that it did.)

I thought Tumblr had a word count limit for asks but so far it has offered zero resistance, oh well. I don’t have much else to say but on the topic of 99RM, Adam getting under Monsignor’s skin is amazing, 10/10 (about the Pride picture earlier)

wow tumblr got rid of the markdown editor! or at least in asks which means the new editor probably has no markdown....god i hate this site! anyway...

Totally! So first, giant thank you for the compliments! Second, I have a few questions in turn for you before I dive into a sort of answer, since I can give some advice to your questions in general but it also sounds like you have a specific conundrum on your hands.

My questions to your specific situation are:

did the author give any reason for recommending a, in your words, "wordy" story be turned into a graphic novel?

is the story you're writing more, like you said, "internal monologuing"? action packed? where do the visuals come from?

do you WANT it to be a comic? furthermore, do you want it to be a comic you then must turn around and draw? or would you be interested in writing for comics as a comic writer to have your words turned into art?

With those questions in mind, let me jump into the questions you posed me!

Let me start with a confession...

I've said this before but let me say it again: Ninety-Nine Righteous Men was not originally a comic — it was a feature-length screenplay! And furthermore, it was written for a class so it got workshopped again and again to tighten the plot by a classroom of other nerds — so as kind as your compliments are, I'm giving credit where credit is due as that was not just a solo ship sailing on the sea. On top of that, it got adapted (by me) into a comic for my thesis, so my advisor also helped me make it translate or "read" well given I was director, actor, set designer, writer, editor, SFX guy, etc. all in one. And it was a huge help to have someone say "there is no way you can go blow by blow from script to comic: you need to make edits!" For instance, two scenes got compressed to simple dialogue overlaid on the splashpage of Ashmedai raping Caleb (with an insert panel of Adam and Daniel talking the next day.) What had been probably at least 5 pages became 1.

Additionally, I don't consider myself a strong plotter. That said, I found learning to write for film made the plotting process finally make some damn sense since the old plot diagram we all got taught in grammar school English never made sense as a reader and definitely made 0 sense as a writer — for me, for some reason, the breakdown of 25-50-25 (approx. 25 pages for act 1, 50 for act 2 split into 2 parts of 25 each, 25 pages for act 3) and the breaking down of the beats (the act turning points, the mid points, the low point) helped give me a structure that just "draw a mountain, rising action, climax is there, figure it out" never did. Maybe the plot diagram is visually too linear when stories have ebb and flow? I don't know. But it never clicked until screenwriting. So that's where I am coming from. YMMV.

I should also state that there's Official Ways To Write Comic Scripts to Be Drawn By An Artist (Especially If You Work For A Real Publisher As a Writer) and there's What Works For You/Your Team. I don't give a rat's ass about the former (and as an artist, I kind of hate panel by panel breakdowns like you see there) so I'm pretty much entirely writing on the latter here. I don't give a good god damn about official ways of doing anything: what works for you to get it done is what matters.

What Goes Where?

Like I said, 99RM was a screenplay so it follows, beat-wise, the 3-act screenplay structure (hell, it's probably more accurate to say it follows the act 1/act 2A/act 2B/act 3 structure.) So there was the story idea or concept that then got applied to those story beats associated with the structure, and from there came the Scene-by-scene Breakdown (or Expanded Scene Breakdown) which basically is an outline of beats broken down into individual scenes in short prose form so you get an overview of what happens, can see pacing, etc. In the resources at the end I put some links that give information on the whole story beat thing.

(As an aside: for all my short comics, I don't bother with all that, frankly. I usually have an image or a concept or a bit of writing — usually dialogue or monologue, sometimes a concrete scene — that I pick at and pick at in a little sketchbook, going back and forth between writing and thumbnail sketches of the page. Or I just go by the seat of my pants and bullshit my way through. Either or. Those in many ways are a bit more like poems, in my mind: they are images, they are snapshots, they are feelings that I'm capturing in a few panels. Think doing mental math rather than writing out geometric proofs, yanno?)

Personally, I tend to lean on dialogue as it comes easier for me (it's probably why I'm so drawn to screenwriting!) so for me, if I were to do another longform GN, I'd probably take my general "uhhhhhh I have an idea and some beats maybe so I guess this should happen this way?" outline and start breaking it down scene by scene (I tend to write down scenes or scene sketches in that "uhhhh?" outline anyway LOL) and then figure out basic dialogue and action beats — in short, I'd kind of do the work of writing a screenplay without necessarily going full screenplay format (though I did find the format gave me an idea of timing/pacing, as 1 page of formatted script is about equal to 1 minute of screentime, and gave me room to sketch thumbnails or make edits on the large margins!) If you're not a monologue/soliloque/dialogue/speech person and more an image and description person, you may lean more into visuals and scenes that cut to each other.

Either way this of course introduces the elephant in the panel: art! How do you choose what to draw?

The answer is, well, it depends! The freedom of comics is if you can imagine it, you can make it happen. You have the freedoms (and audio limitations) of a truly silent film with none of the physical limitations. Your words can move in real time with the images or they can be a narrative related to the scene or they could be nonsequitors entirely! The better question is how do you think? Do you need all the words and action written first before you break down the visuals? Do you need a panel by panel breakdown to be happy, or can you freewheel and translate from word and general outlines to thumbnails? What suits you? I really cannot answer this because I think when it comes to what goes where with regard to art, it's a bit of "how do you process visuals" and also a bit of "who's drawing this?" — effectively, who is the interpreter for the exact thing you are writing? Is it you or someone else? If it's you, would you benefit from a barebones script alongside thumbnailed paneling? Would you be served by a barebones script, then thumbnails, then a new script that includes panel and page breakdowns? What frees you up to do what you need to do to tell your story?

If I'm being honest, I don't necessarily worry about panels or what something will look like necessarily until I'm done writing. I may have an image that I clearly state needs to happen. I may even have a sequence of panels that I want to see and I do indeed sketch that out and make note of it in my script. But exactly how things will be laid out, paneled, situated? That could change up until I've sketched my final pencils in CSP (but I am writer and artist so admittedly I get that luxury.)

How do I compress from novel to comic?

Honest answer? You don't. Not really. You adapt from one to another. It's more a translation. Something that would take forever to write may take 1 page in a comic or may take a whole issue.

I'm going to pick on Victor Hugo. Victor Hugo spent a whole-ass book in Notre-Dame de Paris talking about a bird's eye view of Paris and other medieval architecture boring stuff, with I guess some foreshadowing with Montfaucon. Who cares. Not me. I like story. Anyway. When we translate that book to a movie any of the billion times someone's done that, we don't spend a billion years talking at length about medieval Paris. There's no great monologuing about the gibbet or whatever: you get to have some establishing shots, maybe a musical number, and then you move tf on. Because it's a movie, right? Your visuals are right there. We can see medieval Paris. We can see the cathedral. We can see the gibbet. We don't need a whole book: it's visually right there. Same with a comic: you may need many paragraphs to describe, say, a space station off of Sirius and one panel to show it.

On the flip side, you may take one line, maybe two, to say a character keyed in the special code to activate the holodeck; depending on the visual pacing, that could be a whole page of panels (are we trying to stretch time? slow it down? what are we emphasizing?) A character gives a sigh of relief — one line of text, yeah? That could be a frozen panel while a conversation continues on or that could be two (or more!) panels, similar to the direction [a beat] in screenwriting.

Sorry there's not a super easy answer there to the question of compression: it's a lot more of a tug, a push-pull, that depends on what you're conveying.

So Do I Have It In Me to Write & Draw a GN?

The only way you'll know is by doing. Scary, right? The thing is, you don't necessarily need to be an animation king or God's gift to background artists to draw a comic.

Hell, I hate backgrounds. I still remember sitting across from my friend who said "Claude you really need to draw an establishing exterior of the church at some point" and me being like "why do you hate me specifically" because drawing architecture? Again? I already drew the interior of the church altar ONCE, that should be enough, right? But I did draw an exterior of the church. Sorta. More like the top steeple. Enough to suggest what I needed to suggest to give the audience a better sense of place without me absolutely losing my gourd trying to render something out of my wheelhouse at the time.

And that's kinda the ticket, I think. Not everyone's a master draftsman. Not everyone has all the skills in every area. And regardless, from page one to page one hundred, your skills will improve. That's all part of it — and in the meantime, you should lean into your strengths and cheat where you can.

Do you need to lovingly render a background every single panel? Christ no! Does every little detail need to be drawn out? Sure if you want your hand to fall off. Cheat! Use Sketchup to build models! Use Blender to sculpt forms to paint over! Use CSP Assets for prebuilt models and brushes if you use CSP! Take photographs and manip them! Cheat! Do what you need to do to convey what you need to convey!

For instance, a tip/axiom/"rule" I've seen is one establishing shot per scene minimum and a corollary to that has been include a background once per page minimum as grounding (no we cannot all have eternal floating heads and characters in the void. Unless your comic is set in the void. In which case, you do you.) People ain't out here drawing hyper detailed backgrounds per each tiny panel. The people who DO do that are insane. Or stupid. Or both. Or have no deadline? Either way, someone's gonna have a repetitive stress injury... Save yourself the pain and the headache. Take shortcuts. Save your punches for the big K.O. moments.

Start small. Make an 8-page zine. Tell a beginning, a middle, an end in comic form. Bring a scene to life in a few pages. See what you're comfortable drawing and where you struggle. See where you can lean heavily into your comfort zones. Learn how to lean out of your comfort zone. Learn when it's worth it to do the latter.

Or start large. Technically my first finished comic (that wasn't "a dumb pencil thing I drew in elementary school" or "that 13 volume manga I outlined and only penciled, what, 7 pages of in sixth grade" or "random one page things I draw about my characters on throw up on the interwebz") was 99RM so what do I know. I'm just some guy on the internet.

(That's not self-deprecating, I literally am some guy on the internet talking about my path. A lot of this is gonna come down to you and what vibes with you.)

Resources on writing

Some of these are things that help me and some are things that I crowd-sourced from others. Some of these are going to be screenwriting based, some will be comic based.

Making Comics by Scott McCloud: I think everyone recommends this but I think it is a useful book if you're like "ahh!!! christ!! where do I start!!!???" It very much breaks down the elements of comics and the world they exist in and the principles involved, with the caveat that there are no rules! In fact, I need to re-read it.

Comic Book Design: I picked this up at B&N on a whim and in terms of just getting a bird's eye view of varied ways to tackle layout and paneling? It's such a great resource and reference! I personally recommend it as a way to really get a feel for what can be done.

the screenwriter's bible: this is a book that was used in my class. we also used another book that's escaping me but to be honest, I never read anything in school and that's why I'm so stupid. anyway, I'd say check it out if you want, especially if you start googling screenwriting stuff and it's like 20 billion pieces of advice that make 0 sense -- get the core advice from one place and then go from there.

Drawing Words & Writing Pictures: many people I know recommended this. I think I have it? It may be in storage. So frankly, I'd already read a bunch of books on comics before grabbing this that it kind of felt like a rehash. Which isn't shade on the authors — I personally was just a sort of "girl, I don't need comics 101!!!"

Invisible Ink: A Practical Guide to Building Stories that Resonate: this has been recommended so many times to me. I cannot personally speak on it but I can say I do trust those who rec'd it to me so I am passing it along

the story circle: this is pretty much the hero's journey. a useful way to think of journeys! a homie pretty much swears by it

a primer on beats: quick google search got me this that outlines storybeats

save the cat!: what the above refers to, this gives a more genre-specific breakdown. also wants to sell you on the software but you don't need that.

I hope this helps and please feel free to touch base with more info about your specific situation and hopefully I'll have more applicable answers.