#that were just like do NOT DRAW LIKE THIS!!!! and the thumbnail was someones art. like i dont even know if they asked for permission most of

[sea-buns]

i need a drawfee archive that's got every stupid funny moment documented in chronological, alphabetized order for when i spontaneously remember a really obscure bit that i need to find or else i'll explode. i need to be able to type an extremely vague description in a search bar and have it understand me completely.

[ubashaaa-archived]

does anybody remember that period of time where “art critique” channels just started popping up everywhere. and would like. go on DeviantArt and just poke at art, most of the time being art by kids. what the hell was up with that

[monster-noises]

I am experiencing... frustration.

[alicenpai]

"Lament! Terror! Despair! I shall kindly teach them all to you! And in your final moment, I... shall kill you by my own hand!!"

pandora hearts print for anime north this weekend 🥀🖤🤍

I also put this up on my inprnt! there's a sitewide sale for 40% off right now 🌟

For this drawing, I really wanted to emphasize the gothic and chaotic, convoluted nature of the series. Pandora Hearts has become a lot of things to me, as someone who's read it since I was like, 14 years old. but I eventually found the perfect words to sum up the series - a cross between a Shakespearean tragedy and a Grimm fairy tale.

The ink brush + watercolour brushes I used turned out so well together!! I wanted the style to be kind of a nod to like the manga cover art you'd see from the late 90s to 2000s, kind of like Mochizuki's early approach to traditional art.

A lighter approach to both the lineart + coloring also helped me not strain my arm too much - besides work, I stopped doing full illustrations due to the amount of work being heavy on my arm/shoulder T__T. my last full illustrations were the TGAA/DGS zine + WHA zine pieces back in Dec-Jan, but my heart really lies in illustrations more than anything and I definitely want to get back into it!! (as long as my physical health allows it!!)

anyways, above is the thumbnail/inspiration board for this drawing! I also did some quick chickenscratch studies of others' drawings to help me get a sense of their composition. I started on the top left and then made a sort of meandering curve through... definitely went through a lot of ideas for this one. If I explained the intended symbolism.. I would be here.. all day..............

the candles were definitely first inspired by an animation of a lighter I did during art skool... and then I did this AA Dahlia animated illust... and then this OC charm (below) I did in 2022...? maybe I should draw fire more often. it's like, the way that fire looks in animated keyframes that I really like drawing out, and I guess I kinda really enjoyed translating that into a non moving visual medium??

This drawing simultaneously took SO long but I also sped through it?? I had to like... not dwell too long on certain parts... like for example I think some individual character compositions really could be a lot stronger... because I knew this would be a beast of a drawing, I didn't want to spend an unnecessary amount of time focusing on details when I should be looking at the big picture. and I know that's a bad habit of mine!! I'm trying to unlearn my perfectionism!!

thanks for reading if you got this far, hope ya enjoy it!! and I hope I'll keep drawing Pandora Hearts in the future (clearly I haven't stopped since high school omg) and I hope to draw some more Vanitas someday beyond just chibis!

[spooky-pop]

Hi there! You said in a previous reply that you were coached in art by someone from WDAS, and that's amazing! If you don't mind sharing- What are some of the most helpful tips that your mentor gave you that aided in honing your fantastimazing drawing skills?

I learned so much but there's a couple tips I carry with me and apply to myself on a daily basis tbh.

First one is to not be afraid of making "bad" art! Not everything has to be polished and cleaned up, sometimes drawing a big ol batch of "chicken scratch" sketches can help you loosen up and get comfortable drawing. And I have a whole sketchbook that exists just for me to thumbnail out my ideas, or very roughly sketch the concept so I know what I'm getting into with all my pieces. Here's an example of what my starter sketches are like. I find this makes a hugeeee difference with drawing BECAUSE you can just quickly put what's in your brain down on paper, and expand on that.

This also leads to my next tip, which seems basic but a lot of artists I find are not confident about this. USE!! YOUR!!! REFERENCES!!!!

A great way to improve is by studying real life references but also, studying the techniques of the artists you like. Everyone's styles are technically influenced by something or someone, and it's ok to incorporate bits and pieces of what you like into your own art. As long as you aren't directly stealing someone's work, there's no harm in practicing the same techniques. You can learn a lot that way! How many of us started out drawing by copying Disney styles, or anime even? Heck I even learned to draw trolls by sketching off screenshots. These kinds of drawings can be studies you can do on your own just to train yourself :) There is no shame in being influenced by the artists you look up to! These are the stepping stones that can lead you into finding your own style and voice as an artist.

I'll say it one more time lol. USE your references. And practice gestures and figure drawing!! It'll take you a long way!

I'm probably blanking on the rest but this is def the advice I'd pass on for now

[anonimityblog4000]

I actually hate having to post this, but

I feel like I have to post this in response to some recent drama stirring. I will cop to making an alt blog to post this because the hate around this has been virulent.

Recently this post has been shared regarding another artist creating locked tomb fan art

In this post which you should read they make the claim that the creator of these pieces 100% for certain created them with AI image generation software generating quite a lot of attention. The problem is that their supposed supporting evidence is INCREDIBLY flawed to the point of contradiction and nonsense. For example both of these cropped images

are given as evidence of AI generation, claiming that the smudge is the result of AI failure and that the hand is CLEARLY ai generated…except that even a cursory examination and familiarity of what AI image generation ends up looking like would make it obvious that these aren’t AI hands and are just…normal hand drawn hands. As for the smudge we could easily explain that as the artist not noticing a mistake in one of their layers before posting, but we don’t know that. Except we do.

Because if you were to look at the artists blog now you might notice they have made some corrections and small edits to the original piece and lo and behold…no smudge. Now here is where things get properly silly, instead of drawing the obvious conclusion from this that the artist being able to go in and fix the layers of their work means that they actually drew it THEY CLAIM THAT THE ABILITY TO DRAW AND EDIT IN THE EXACT STYLE OF THE PIECE IS FURTHER EVIDENCE OF AI.

WHAT.

I don’t think I need to point out to most people that AI image generation tools do not work that way and they certainly don’t allow you to make subtle targeted fixes and edits.

There is also a claim that the artist admitted to using AI to produce the piece which is a gross distortion of what they explained, the artist openly stated that they have tried using image gen tools to assist with their thumbnailing process. Let us be clear that thumbnailing is NOT producing any sort of final piece but is simply the process of brainstorming ideas and concepts. It’s seriously gross to flat out lie and claim the artist said anything different. Thankfully someone else screenshotted this so there’s actual evidence that accusations are being made that are straight up lies.

It is also at this point we should take a look at some of the artists other publicly available work.

I chose this selection because another accusation in the post that is hard evidence of AI is that because the posted pieces are “too different” in style from other earlier work posted on their blog, it should be fairly obvious how silly this is with even a small sample of what they have produced. This is an artist who obviously has the ability to work in a wide range of artistic styles and mediums but instead this is being used to claim they…can’t art? It’s also worth pointing the obvious that there are plenty of works in that artist’s portfolio in the exact same mucha style, including ones that are literally hand drawn on paper. Works that literally predate the availability of image generation software going back years. It is a complete farce to suggest this person CANT DRAW HANDS.

Frankly it is incredibly disappointing that the community is barraging this artist with insults and hate because of one persons incredibly flawed accusations. A person that I might add has deleted comments on their post that disagreed with them while at the same time castigating the artist for blocking them and deleting their post as evidence of their guilt.

While this isn’t conclusive in and of itself I’ll end with this.

It’s more effort than the accuser went to before rallying a witch hunt against someone else.

[dangans-ur-ronpas]

Chapter 24

why did this chapter kick my ass?? damn!!!

SEE HERE FOR GENERAL WARNINGS AND FIC SUMMARY

Some pre-chapter notes:

soz for the unexpected delay i was moving + starting a new job + lost my grip on byakuya's slippery psyche

playing with my own headcanons for hiro and his backstory actually. bc. well. the original just is not very good at all now is it

tyyy @digitaldollsworld as always!!

Content warning tags: blood, mention of razor (not in intentional self-harm context), minor injury, nausea, panic attack, toxic obsessive stalker Toko, insecurity, mentions of self-starving

< previous - from start - next >

Byakuya drops his straight razor, and it splashes into the basin of his sink. Followed by a few droplets, hot and ruby-bright as it tracks down his jaw, vanishing almost instantly upon contact with the water.

For a moment, he doesn’t move, frozen, one hand still half-raised to his face, still curved in that loose grip. Then he braces his hands against the porcelain edge, knuckles tensing as he tries to keep them from shaking. The cut on his jaw stings, still slowly welling blood; his razor, silver and distorted, warbles in and out of sight with the water’s ripples, his eyes struggling to track its shape. He makes no move to fish it out of the water.

This was his second attempt at shaving. The evidence of his first attempt still throbs on the opposite cheek, near his ear. Despite moving glacially slow, other hand pulling the skin as taut and still as he could manage, the hard edge of the sink digging into his hip as he leaned as close to the mirror as he could, it was still proving to be a fruitless effort. The elegant blade that his mother’s family had gifted him, that he had been using since he became heir, was now simply too large and awkward for him to use. A task that should have been easy after all of Pennyworth’s guidance was now fraught with pointless danger.

…Maybe it’s not worth the trouble, he thinks, numbly. But the hollow, shattered defeatism that comes with the thought is so unfamiliar that it makes him grit his teeth, and then reach slowly into the tepid water to pull the razor out. His stubble was patchy already, especially near his jawline, and any more delay would almost certainly warrant someone commenting on it - maybe Hagakure, who couldn’t seem to keep anything to himself, or Celeste, who would delight in pointing it out while masking it as polite concern - but, at the rate he was going, he was going to draw more attention with a bloodied face.

His fingers scrape the basin, searching at a glacial pace until the edge of his thumbnail taps against the handle. He draws it out gingerly, shakes off the stray droplets, then wipes the blade with a silk cloth. Drying it carefully, meticulously - as Pennyworth had taught him, ‘it’s as good as useless if it rusts’ - before folding it and replacing it in the cupboard behind his mirror. He dries his face with the towel hanging around his neck, ignoring the way the Turkish cotton scraped against raw skin.

I could always just try again later, he reasoned with himself. Not so much as a surrender as it was a tactical retreat; and the results were bound to be better when he was calmer, more composed. He could still do it - he just needed some time.

And as for anyone who might notice it…

…Well. It wasn’t like he was spending much time around anyone else these days anyways.

—

Even if he wasn’t trying to seek out anyone else’s company, he couldn’t help but take note of their own routines, how they settled into their lives after feeling the world shake around them. 

It doesn’t surprise him that Celeste and Yamada have continued on as if nothing had happened at all. Celeste still maintains her airy simulacrum of a mysterious princess, occasionally inviting Byakuya to tea or dinner or a game of Othello, which he declines each time. Yamada, when he wasn’t offering himself up to be bullied and ordered around by her, would be in the newly-opened art room, and Byakuya could occasionally pass by to hear sounds of shuffling paper and the scrape of pens, and the harrowed, heavy breathing of a man possessed.

Ogami and Asahina are similar, returning to their athletic routine, though clearly more affected by the deaths of their classmates. They were attached at the hip before, but now Byakuya never saw one without the other, always in each other’s company, often holding hands - if Ishimaru were here, he might have decried it, ‘No PDA in the hallways!’ in that annoyingly shrill, school-bell voice - once, Byakuya had even overheard the two of them occupying the bathhouse together, when he had passed by with the intention of checking on Alter Ego’s laptop.

(He’d left quickly when he realized what they were doing, leaving the locker unchecked, his face hot and uncomfortable. It was all well and fine for them to cope how they pleased, but couldn’t they have some more decorum about occupying a public space? He was almost beginning to miss Ishimaru.)

…Speaking of Ishimaru. Even Mondo had found something to occupy his time with, these days.

It seemed that after that night with Alter Ego, something had shaken loose inside him, and he was an entirely new person. In some ways, he was even more troublesome than when he was depressed and languishing; loud, piercing, and always appearing when he was least expected, or at least it felt that way to Byakuya. Somehow materializing nearby, demanding to know what you were doing, why you weren’t adhering to some vague, obscure rule that he might’ve made up on the spot. An overgrown hall monitor that acted like every little infraction could mean life or death.

(It was all in the name of protecting the AI, but it was also getting on everyone’s nerves, and it almost made Byakuya regret ever involving himself in the biker’s business in the first place.)

Makoto and Kirigiri were doing whatever it was they were doing. Byakuya rarely saw them, and when he did, he never made any attempt to speak to either of them. It didn’t make much of a difference from his previous dynamic with Kirigiri, but with Makoto, it was almost like a repeat of what had happened just after the first trial. But this time, Makoto never made any attempt to approach him.

Which was perfectly fine by him. Regardless of Makoto’s intentions, his betrayal was unforgivable. There was no reason to associate with him any longer.

And lastly, there was Hagakure.

It’s not clear if the self-proclaimed clairvoyant had given up on Mondo, given the overnight change in personality (at the very least, there was no more need for a suicide watch anytime soon), but he seems to have latched on to Byakuya, for no clear reason. Frequently calling out to him whenever they crossed paths, dogging in his steps like a very determined stray. Chattering incessantly, even when Byakuya refused to deign any of his ridiculous stories with a response, often trying to herd him into the cafeteria so they could “lunch together, bond, maybe share a cup of joe? Even rich guys like joe, right?”

“...Did you mean ‘coffee’,” Byakuya replies in a flat, deadpan tone that was more resigned than irritated, during what must be the dozenth time that Hagakure had intercepted him, and maybe the third time he conceded to the other man’s insistence; if only because Hagakure had been particularly persistent recently, and would probably end up following him and broadcasting to Fukawa or Monokuma or anyone else exactly where Byakuya was seeking refuge, when not in his room.

(Not to mention that he was a little hungry himself, though he could only imagine the kind of common swill someone like Hagakure might consider coffee.)

“Hey man, to-MAY-toes, po-TAY-toes, right?” Hagakure just shrugs, and half-guides, half-pushes Byakuya by the shoulders into the cafeteria.

It’s midday. The place is empty, with even Celeste missing from her favored spot at her table. Hagakure shuffles him into the kitchen, tells him to wash his hands, and then-

-shoves two things at him. One, round, pale brown and still damp, with a slight papery texture beneath the moisture. The other, a piece of smooth, green plastic shaped like a ‘T’, with something silvery running parallel to the top. He skates his thumb lightly over it, and finds the edge of it sharp; a tiny blade.

“Whoa, careful! Don’t hurt yourself!” Hagakure tugs the tool back out of his hand, inspecting his fingers. “Like, come on. I even gave you the vegetable peeler, this is easy mode.”

“...What?”

Hagakure doesn’t explain right away, instead occupied with rolling up his sleeves, tying the brambled mass of his hair back with a strip of white. Arranged on the kitchen counter is a selection of tools, a colorful assortment of vegetables, and a hunk of something dark and pink, occupying the cutting board. There’s already a pot on the stove, and Byakuya watches Hagakure’s hand fiddle with some dark, invisible button across the top of the oven, and a telltale blue flame clicks to life. “We’re making gumbo! And you’re my assistant for the day.” He announces, with the same cadence of a cooking show host. He’s beaming, as if he hadn’t just said something utterly, completely insane.

“...What.”

It’s hard to make out, but he swears Hagakure rolls his eyes at him. Which would be infuriating enough to comment on, if he wasn’t also holding out the aforementioned vegetable peeler out, handle first, towards him. “Gumbo. It’s kinda like, curry I guess? But it’s a lot more soupy.” Apparently not put off by Byakuya’s unresponsiveness, he pushes the peeler into his slack hand. “I mean, I guess I’m not surprised you haven’t tried it. It’s not Japanese, or like…fancy, rich guy food.”

That snaps him out of it. “What,” He repeats, emphatically, with feeling. “Do you think you’re doing?”

“Um, like I said, making gumbo-”

“No, I mean-” Byakuya waves the objects in his hands, and feels only a little ridiculous in doing so. “I’m not- using these.”

Hagakure winces at that. “...No offense, Toga, but, uh…” He hesitates. “It’s…not exactly a good idea to give you a knife right now, you feel me?”

Byakuya can imagine his eyes tracing down his face, to the still-pink line on his jaw from this morning, and feels his face grow even warmer, with nothing to do with the open-flame stove not a meter away from him. “That. Is. Not. The. Point.” He hisses, emphasizing each word. “And - don’t call me that - you said we were here to get coffee.”

He spits these words like they’re poisonous, and Hagakure is still for a moment. He thinks that he’s managed to get his point across, but:

“Aww, Togster…you really did wanna get coffee with me?” Hagakure sounds genuinely touched, one hand pressed to his chest. Byakuya was about two seconds from throwing the stupid root vegetable in his hand against Hagakure’s equally stupid head. “We can have coffee after we make food. Besides, aren’t you sick of the meals we’ve been doing recently? Like I’m not a picky guy, but ramen and bread every day for the past few days is getting kinda…bleh, y’know?”

The worst part of this was that Byakuya agreed with him on that front. Even with his newfound habit of only eating when there was no one else around, or when Alter Ego threatened to stop reading for him until he took a meal, the selection was paltry to begin with and had only grown more unappealing with time.

“Your job is easy,” Hagakure continues, and grabs something hanging off the handle of a nearby oven, and drops it over his face, obscuring his vision for a moment. He jerks backwards in alarm as it settles to hang around his neck, only to realize that it’s an apron - a pale, mint-green thing that’s one size too small, with some still-visible stains splattered across it, and Hagakure had somehow gotten behind him and tied the thing in place already  - “You just gotta peel the potatoes, and I just gotta cut everything up. The roux’s already done, so all we gotta do is dump the ingredients in and let it do its thing.”

Byakuya is still reeling a little from being forced (though, there wasn’t much he could’ve done in protest, with both his hands occupied) into an apron. The things in his hands are so unfamiliar to him that they may as well be OOPart pieces in the making.

Besides him, Hagakure was whistling away, chopping meat with the silver blur of a large kitchen knife. Completely oblivious to anything around him; and Byakuya realized, he could leave right now if he wanted, and it wasn’t like the fortune-teller, of all people, could stop him.

He’s about to do just that when the other man looks up, knife stilling. “Something wrong?” He asks, with a tilt of his head. And before Byakuya could explain that, yes, there was something very wrong with this entire situation: “D’you need help?”

“No.” He says automatically, and immediately kicks himself for it.

“Oh, then-?”

“I don’t-” Byakuya says at the same time, and frowns sharply at the interruption. “I. Don’t do this sort of…thing.” It comes out a lot less assertive than he would like, and sounds a lot more pathetic than he means it to be.

“Oh. Well, yeah, I figured.” Hagakure shrugs, as he scoops up the mess of pink on the cutting board with the edge of his knife and drops it into a metal bowl. It lands with a loud, wet slap, and the bowl rings as it shakes against the counter. “No time to learn like the present though, right?”

Byakuya feels his eye twitch. In some ways, talking to Hagakure was more frustrating than negotiating with most white-collar businessmen, and more akin to arguing against a very enthusiastic wall. “I’m not supposed to do this kind of thing,” He tries again. “I’ve never had to prepare my own food in my life.”

It echoes what he told Makoto, that night he dragged Byakuya to the kitchen to prepare him a meal. But this time, it feels much less like a boast, and more like an admission. Like he couldn’t even do this much.

If Hagakure noticed the grimace passing over his face, he made no comment. Instead, he plucks the items out of Byakuya’s hands. “No time to learn like the present, my man.” He twirls the peeler between his fingers, and it spins, a foggy green circle. “It’s like a pattern, you pull the peeler down, turn it again, and repeat.” He demonstrates, hands moving quickly, with practiced ease. “Don’t worry if you miss anything. We don’t need it to be super clean, we just need most of the skin off.”

And he offers the peeler back to Byakuya, a gleam of white teeth on his face. Deceptively kind, poisonously pleasant. “Think you can handle that?”

Byakuya shoves his hand away, his patience thinning to a thread. “Take the hint,” He snaps, reaching behind himself to try and undo the knot. “I’m not doing this.”

“What? But it’s easy!”

“I don’t care,” He yanks at the ties, feels them come no closer to being loosened, and feels his face reddening with frustration, humiliation. He needs to leave, now. “I’m leaving.”

“Aw, Toga, come on-”

Byakuya reaches for the knife, left abandoned on the cutting board, and there’s a clatter as Hagakure backs himself against the ovens. “O-okay, okay, sure! Sure, jesus, okay!”

Byakuya rolls his eyes at the overreaction, already tuning him out, then starts awkwardly maneuvering the knife to try and cut the apron off. Arms twisting awkwardly to catch the bladed edge against the side of the knot. It’s not easy - he could swear, the blade seemed sharp enough when Hagakure was using it to dice meat, but now it slides clumsily against the twisted cotton, dull as a stone -

“Jesus,” Hagakure says again, but less panicked now that it was clear his life was under no immediate threat. “Okay, you’re gonna hurt yourself.”

“I am not-”

“You totally are, man. Just - don’t slash me, please, and hold still -”

Hagakure gives him a wide, cautious berth, as if still worried he would suddenly turn into some violent, knife-swinging killer, edging until he’s out of Byakuya’s peripheral and standing behind him. A slight tug around his midsection later, and the apron is flapping loosely against his stomach.

To show his thanks, Byakuya sets the knife down before he pulls off the apron, not so much as handing it over as simply dropping it in the other boy’s direction.

He makes to leave, but Hagakure stops him - or tries to, throwing one hand out while scrambling to catch the apron with the other - “Wait, wait,” He still sounds jovial, but there’s a thin edge of nervousness to it now, residual after the earlier scare. “Listen, you don’t hafta help if you don’t want to, but like…can you just hang out? Here?”

“...You want me to stay. In the kitchen.” Where it was overly warm with a pot of water building into a steady boil, heavy with the smell of various condiments and spices, and pervaded by a general stickiness on the tile. “Why?”

“U-um, well…”

Byakuya sighs. He’s wasted too much time already. The coffee he was promised earlier was looking like a lost cause, and frankly, he wasn’t interested in eating anything anymore either. It would feel too much like accepting undue pity, somehow.

Apparently sensing his impatience, Hagakure finally blurts out: “Because-! I’m, um, scared! To be alone! So…”

Byakuya only stares. Even with his hair tied back, the shape of Hagakure’s head is still a round, dark splotch, albeit smaller than usual. And it bobs up and down like a dandelion as he ducks his head, hands clasped in an exaggerated plea. “Please, man, I literally can’t ask anyone else,” He begs. “Mondo’s all psyched-out and freaky serious now, Hifumi and Celeste were weirdos to begin with, and I’m sick of third-wheeling for Hina-chi and Saka-chi! And there’s no way I’m hanging out with Toko!”

He doesn’t mention Makoto or Kirigiri. Which, Byakuya assumes, makes sense, so he doesn’t bother to ask about it. “How do I know you aren’t trying to kill me,” He says instead, deadpan. 

Hagakure snorts. “Have you seen me?” And then immediately winces. “I mean - shit, sorry - but seriously, I’m pissing my pants every time Monokuma shows up. And at every crime scene, and every trial. You really think I could get over myself to off someone?”

“None of Monokuma’s motives struck a chord with you?”

“Well - I’d be lying if the first one didn’t make me nervous,” He nods. “But I divined how my parents were doing a bunch of times, and they were always alright, so that didn’t worry me too much. And the thing about secrets; well, mine is that I’m actually on the run from this yakuza boss I accidentally pissed off. I owe him a debt of eight million yen.”

Byakuya is certain he doesn’t miss the way Hagakure glances at him then, based on the way his ponytail twitches as his head turns imperceptibly. He decides to ignore the obvious bait, and moves on: “Fine, then. Then what’s your reasoning that I won’t try to kill you?”

“Oh.” Hagakure pauses. “...I didn’t, uh…think about that.”

Right. Byakuya can’t find it in him to be surprised about that either, though some bruised-up part of his pride does rail against the implication that he wasn’t dangerous. Like being blind meant he was harmless, helpless, defanged - he struggles against the implication, but only sickens himself more with the truth of it.

“I mean…do you want to kill me?”

Byakuya snorts. “I want to leave,” He leans back against the counter, feeling the hard, smooth edge of the marble dig against his back. “Obviously, I’m not crazy enough to spend the rest of my life here, waiting to kill or be killed.” He pauses. “And…I’ve been looking into possible causes for my…circumstance, and it’s looking more and more like it would require the work of a trained doctor, using specific equipment to resolve. Which this place,” He gestures around him. “Isn’t exactly equipped to handle.”

The other boy scratches his head. “Um, yeah. I mean I know that much. We all wanna get out and all, but like…do you want to kill someone to make that happen?”

Not in the slightest. He probably held responsibility for the deaths of multiple people at this point, but he had never had to kill them himself, nor witness the moment of their end. Dirtying his hands with someone else’s blood never appealed to him, and it was far more sophisticated to orchestrate someone else handling the messy work.

But his answer must show on his face, because Hagakure nods, satisfied. “Well, there you go! Also, I ran a divination on whether one of us would die today, and it’s not in the cards or the stars or divine intention, so we’re good!” He claps his hands. “Anyways. If you don’t wanna help, that’s all totally cool. All you gotta do is stick around.”

“You can’t be serious.” He scoffs. But he was getting sick of the earlier conversation - sick of talking about himself, sick of thinking about himself - so he stays where he is, crossing his arms as Hagakure busies himself with the ingredients. “How do your divinations even work, anyways?”

“What, you interested?” Hagakure flashes another white smile, and even through the haze Byakuya gets the impression that it’s a salesman grin. He could practically hear the cartoonish chime of a register. “My current going rate’s ten-million yen a reading, but for you I’ll throw in a buddy’s discount of twenty-percent!”

Byakuya gives him the most unimpressed look he can manage. “I’m not interested in wasting money on frivolities.”

“It’s not frivol-anything, man. They’re a hundred-percent legit! …Thirty-three-percent of the time,” He amends, sheepishly, at Byakuya’s withering stare. “But when they’re real, they’re real! With a hundred-percent accuracy!”

As he talks, his hands blur, moving with practiced ease. The small pile of potatoes changing from brown to pale yellow, to small, misshapen chunks, the green stalks of celery disintegrating under a knife, sharp-smelling and darkening the wood beneath it with its moisture. There’s a steady, fluid grace to it, and Byakuya watches on, feeling a sense of deja vu - faintly envious, partly entranced - the last he felt this way, he recalls, was being a child and watching his mother work in her studio, hewing faces out of stone.

He hasn’t thought about that memory in years, and he clicks his tongue sharply, irritated. Hagakure jumps at the sound. “M-maybe it’s more like a ninety-eight percent accuracy?” The fortune-teller tries, hurriedly. “Uh, it depends on how clearly I can convey it, I mean. Like how good the client is with understanding me…dialect differences and all that, though my English is pretty solid-”

“Why fortune-telling, anyways?” He cuts off Hagakure’s rambling. “I can’t imagine it’s an inherited position. You don’t seem the type to be taking up someone else’s legacy.”

“Oh! Well…” He turns to the pot, scrapes a bowl of brown slurry into its bubbling contents. “It was my dad who got me into it - not that he was a fortune teller or anything - but he knew stories about fortune tellers and priestesses and stuff, from where he grew up. It was pretty interesting, and I guess that’s what got me started.” He stirs, sniffs, tosses a handful of green shapes into the mix. “He actually bought me my first crystal ball, though it was just a cheap souvenir thing. I couldn’t’ve been older than, like, six or something.” He laughs. “Wow, I haven’t thought about this stuff in forever.”

“Am I dredging up bad memories?” Byakuya drawls, and Hagakure shakes his head.

“Nah, just old ones. But I got super into it; started begging my Ma to read me divination textbooks for bedtime, she thought I was going crazy. Dad just said it was normal for little kids to be a little crazy about something they like, though.” He shrugs. Another sniff, a sprinkle of red seasoning. “He was the first person I did an accurate divination for, actually. Like a real divination, not just for pretend.”

He goes quiet for a moment, wooden spoon scraping against the inside of the pot. Byakuya frowns. “And what did you ‘see’?” He asks, though only about half as sarcastic as he intended.

“Saw him in the hospital. And then leaving.” He replies simply. He turns, and scoops up the chopped ingredients in his hands, tossing them in with a hiss. “It was clear as day in that little glass ball, like I was watching a TV screen, except also kinda…I don’t know, wiggly? Like a dream. But I got shook up so bad I dropped it and broke the damn thing, and the next day my Dad went to the doctor for a check-up, and they shipped him to the hospital right after. Some genetic, hereditary thing, they wouldn’t even tell me what it was. I think Ma thought it’d freak me out if I knew, but I was just more freaked out not knowing.”

He reaches blindly behind him, searching hand patting at the counter, the cutting board. Byakuya hesitates, then grabs the bowl of chopped meat and passes it over. Its contents splash into the pot. “Thanks. Anyways, the weirdest thing was that I wasn’t, like, scared he was gonna die, or anything. For some reason I knew he was gonna make it, but I was more worried that he was gonna…hurt? Get even worse?” He pauses. “I kept on doing divinations afterwards with a tarot card set, just to see how he was doing, and each time it told me he was gonna be fine.”

His voice sounds a little thick, indistinct. Byakuya was beginning to regret bringing up this topic; he would hate it if he was suddenly expected to have to comfort a grown man. But instead of bursting into tears, Hagakure leans to the side, tucks his face into his elbow, and sneezes, gunshot loud. “Phew! Jeez, the paprika.” He sniffs, and Byakuya’s unease turns back into a comfortable sort of annoyance. “Anyways. Where was I…?”

“...Your father.” He hesitates for a moment. “When he passed away.”

“When he-?” Hagakure turns fully away from the pot to stare at him, mouth open, before breaking into a laugh. Doubling over so and wheezing like he just got punched. “Dude! No way, are you- did you really think that?!”

“What? Am I wrong?” Byakuya feels his face heating red again, with nothing to do with the steam. “Shut up. The way you were talking about it, you were acting like he kicked the bucket,” He snaps, and Hagakure stifles another laugh. “It’s the logical progression of things. You saw him get sick and die, and then-”

“No, no, dude, I said I saw him in the hospital, and then leave - oh, yeah, I guess I can see how you’d think that now.” He stands up straight again, swiping a hand across his face. “Oh man. No, I meant ‘leave’ as in literally leaving, like at an airport? He got better and swung back around, but got a job offer overseas right after, so he never really came back to settle permanently in Japan.” He turns back to the pot, turning the heat down low. “He sends postcards for me all the time, and he and Ma vacation together every year around the holidays.”

So that was it. Byakuya feels an irrational surge of exasperation, as if all his previous pity had just been wasted. “What does he even do? Your father?”

“He teaches quantum mechanics.” At Byakuya’s stunned expression, he snorts. “What, I’m not kidding! He test-runs all his lectures and speeches and stuff to me, and now I know way more about that stuff than I think most people ever need to!”

‘Prove it’ is on the tip of Byakuya’s tongue, but he holds back. He probably would never recover if Hagakure did somehow manage it and make him look like a fool. Hagakure stirs the pot in silence for a moment longer, before asking: “What about you?”

“What?”

“Your parents.” A shot of cold immediately runs down his spine. “Like, I know your dad’s a big rich unmarried bachelor hotshot, but what about your mom? Ah- ” Hagakure presses hand to his mouth. “She…is she, like…?”

“She’s not dead, if that’s what you’re trying to ask.” He replies, stiffly. “We’re estranged.”

“O-oh. Um. I’m sorry?”

“It’s fine.” He pauses, looks down at the tile floor. It was a mutual disavowment, around the time he made the decision to try for Togami heir. She was relieved to be rid of him, he was sure, and he was glad to be out of her house full of stone statues and hollow eyes. “I haven’t been in contact with her for several years. We’re as good as strangers.”

He really should just leave it at that. There’s no reason to elaborate any further, nor does he want to; he glares down at his feet, trying to count the tiles, and watches as the dark lines dividing them squiggle and disappear the moment he loses focus. And finds his mouth moving against his will. “My mother is Genevieve Delasol.”

“Cool.” A pause. “Wait, what!?”

Byakuya scowls and looks away as Hagakure turns back to him. “Like, the Delasol?! World-famous artist lady? With the sculptures? Miss Modern Michelangelo?!”

“Don’t call her that.” She had always hated that stupid nickname that the press forced on her, and so did he, though not for her benefit. It was a tasteless, and frankly disrespectful moniker. “But yes. Her.”

“Dude…” There’s awe in his voice, as if it were something impressive. “That’s crazy.”

“It’s not. She birthed me like any other human.”

“Still! Like, they talked about her in my elementary school art class. Her stuff is so-” He splays his fingers near his head, puffs his cheeks to mimic the sound of an explosion. “Like, I remember seeing pictures of her stuff for the first time, and it freaked me out. One of the older kids in the neighborhood told me she was freezing people into rock, that’s how real her stuff looks.”

“She’s a good artist, but she was an awful mother.” Byakuya says flatly, immediately draining the rest of Hagakure’s enthusiasm. “We’re not continuing his conversation.”

“Right, right. Um. Sorry.” He taps his fingers against the spoon, ladles some of it into a little dish to taste. “Okay, um. Could you pass me some dishes? From that cabinet in front of you - to the left - yeah, thanks.”

The concoction he scoops into the shallow dishes Byakuya hands him is…unappealing. At least visually - a muddy brown sludge that glops thickly off of his ladle - but it smells good, spicy and warm. One of the bowls is passed back, and there’s a conflict of sensation as Byakuya tries to decide if he’s hungry enough to risk it, something that he couldn’t even clearly oversee the process of making.

“You’re surprisingly well-versed in the kitchen.”

“Yeah, well. I get into hot water a lot when my fortunes don’t work out, especially with my, uh…higher class clients, so I had to get used to taking care of myself. Didn’t wanna bother my parents with it, ya know?” He flicks off the stove, covers the pot, and reaches to the right for the rice cooker. Opens it with a sharp smack to the lid. “Like, I don’t think I’ve seen my dad face-to-face in…it feels like two years. Maybe longer.”

He holds out his hand. Byakuya passes over his bowl, and he plops some rice into the center of it, before handing it back.

“I can’t finish this much.”

“Sure you can, you’re a growing guy.” There’s the roll of a drawer being pulled open, then a clatter before a spoon is being dropped into his bowl as well. “You better eat all of it, by the way. Every grain of rice has seven gods, so you gotta eat them all so you don’t get cursed.”

“...What kind of saying is that?”

“Dunno, but my Ma used to say it all the time. Come on, let’s go into the caf-”

He halts suddenly, halfway to the door. Byakuya nearly runs into his back, and just barely keeps from spilling his bowl. “What-”

“Um. Hold on.” The previous casualness of his voice is gone, and there’s a hard thread of unease running through it again. “Uh…wait out here for a moment, okay?”

“Why-”

“Dude, please. Just for a moment.” He sets his bowl down on the counter. “I’ll be right back.”

And then he’s out the door before Byakuya can make any protest, leaving him alone in the kitchen, now uncomfortably quiet without the soft hiss of the stove. He stands there, stunned, feeling a little bit stung - no, irked - at the sudden dismissal.

He wasn’t about to take orders from Hagakure, regardless of whatever weird pseudo-symbiotic-relationship the other boy thought they had going on. He walks towards the door, moving to elbow it open-

“I’m telling you, just leave him alone.”

He freezes, ducking his head down. Hagakure’s voice is high and scratchy with nervousness, but firm despite that. “For the last time-”

“I-I-I-” Someone else stutters. The voice is familiar, and Byakuya feels his gut drop in recognition. The last he heard it, it was seething with malice, spit like venom at his feet. “I j-just wanna l-look at him…”

Hagakure lets out a long-suffering sigh, indicating that this wasn’t the first time he’s had to deal with this. “Seven hells, Toko, I really don’t get you,” He grumbles. “You said you hated him, right? I mean, you said so at the trial, and you did…all that.” He coughs. “He wasn’t interested to begin with, and there’s really no way to turn it around after that.”

“I-It was t-to prove that we’re th-the same!” Fukawa shrieks, trigger-sudden and indignant. There’s a sharp thump as she stomps her foot, hard enough to rattle some nearby furniture. “If I d-didn’t do that, he w-would’ve never a-accepted what h-happened to him!”

Byakuya frowns at that, and sets the bowl aside in favor of sinking into a half-crouch, ear pressing up against the door, beneath the tiny window. What was she talking about? Not accepting my own condition? Don’t I know myself better than anyone else?

“That’s not up to you to decide,” Hagakure starts.

“I-It’s not up t-to you to p-protect him either!” She spits back. “Y-you’ve been keeping him a-away from me recently, wh-what’s with you? D-did you have some k-kind of awakening, or something?!”

“Hey, I’ll have you know that my type is none of your business - and anyways, ain’t it logical to wanna keep away from you?” He grumbles, then yelps. “C-calm down-! I just mean - you know, you…you don’t exactly give off warm and fuzzy feelings about hanging out with people!”

Toko barks a laugh, shrill and mirthless. “Wh-which makes him perfect for me,” And Byakuya feels disgust roll down his back. “I-I know I’m m-miserable, a-and unfriendly and unloveable,”

“Hey,” Hagakure says, a little more gently than before.

“B-but s-so is he! H-he’s just b-better at hiding it, p-pretending to be a, a perfect, white-horse prince,” She spits the words vehemently. “I-if he was p-perfect, th-then maybe, I c-could just be s-satisfied with - with being n-near him, with b-being used…”

She trails off. Byakuya fights the urge to physically cringe at the mere suggestion, instead gritting his teeth, nails scratching lightly against the door’s tacky surface. “B-but, he’s not perfect. S-so, that means I c-can reach him - i-it’s possible for someone l-like m-me to actually be with him,” She giggles, and the sound is far too childishly delighted to suit her mouth, and far too chilling to have innocent intentions behind it. “I-I dragged him off his p-pedestal, s-so now I can actually touch him.”

It’s vile, listening to her. The sound feels like a filth that clings to him, sliding into his ears, contaminating him from the inside out. Poisoning him, paralyzing him.

He’s only vaguely aware of his body sliding down lower, unable to maintain the awkward pose, curled over and unable to brace himself properly against the swinging door. He sinks into a squat, ears straining.

“...Um, ew.” Hagakure mutters succinctly. “Okay, first of all, no you can’t. Pretty sure Monokuma would have some problems about that, he’s all gung-ho about decency and stuff. Second, Toga’s still not gonna be into you. You blew that chance when you, uh…”

“When I w-what? S-strung up Chihiro?” She snorts. “H-he would’ve done the s-same if h-he was a-actually as perfect as h-he said.”

The contamination sinks deeper, claws curling cruelly into his chest. I would have never, He thinks through the tinny, lightheaded hum in his skull, but there’s a sickening sense of dread that twists in his stomach as he realizes he can’t even be sure of that. He might have. He would’ve had no use for Chihiro if he wasn’t blind, he would have barely even hesitated if the opportunity was there - to defile someone else’s corpse for nothing more than his own self-righteousness.

He’s probably had this realization already, but it’s revolting to hear it come from Fukawa. He should go out there, tell her to shut up, to leave him be-

“-a-and anyways, y-you still didn’t t-tell me why y-you’re so obsessed with p-protecting him.” She’s still saying, distantly, and it feels as if the door is suddenly several times thicker than it was previously, muffling the sound dramatically. “Y-you don’t have a-anything in c-common, I don’t s-see why you’d want t-to be near him, u-unless…y-you’re doing it for someone else, aren’t y-you?”

Hagakure doesn’t respond. Makes no sound to confirm or deny it. Byakuya waits, ringing intensifying, disease festering into his lungs. It was getting hard to breathe. His pulse thrums in his ears, too loud to think, not nearly loud enough to drown their voices out.

“I s-saw you with Makoto,” She continues, and the confirmation of Byakuya’s suspicion does nothing to make him feel better. “He- he asked you t-to do this, right? To protect him, h-how nice,” She snarls, disgusted. “L-looking out for his p-precious boyfriend, when he won’t d-do it himself-”

“That’s…that’s not it,” Hagakure protests, but he doesn’t sound convincing, voice so hesitant and soft that Byakuya barely catches it. “Mako-chi’s just…busy, right now-”

“Y-yeah, too busy trying to g-get out of here so Byakuya c-can get fixed, so he can s-stop f-feeling guilty - h-he doesn’t want to have to look at him, b-but he can’t help s-sticking his nose in anyways, he’s s-so sweet it makes me sick.” Byakuya legs shake, cramping, but he forces himself still, keeps his ear flattened to the door despite the nausea building in his gut, the light-headedness in his temples - “B-but it’s too much work t-to comfort him or drag him a-around, s-so he has to get s-someone to do it, right?”

He wouldn’t, is Byakuya’s immediate thought, but it’s weak, even in his own head. Makoto hasn’t sought him out all since that night in the bathhouse because Byakuya had requested it; had demanded that he leave him alone with as much vitriol and firmness as he could muster, and as with so many other things, Makoto had obeyed. But while Fukawa’s words are acerbic and biting, they’re also painfully, terribly logical.

He wonders now, how he must have looked to the others. Slowly falling apart, barely eating, rarely showing his face. So utterly different from how he tried to portray himself at first, an ill-fitted facsimile of how he used to be, how he should be; it’s no wonder Makoto would go behind his back to take care of him. Between disobeying him again and trying to keep him alive, the choice must have been easy.

The fact that that choice had to be made at all, however, made Byakuya want to…

There’s a thud as his legs finally give out, his knees smashing against the tile, but he hardly notices. Not while the sickness spreads, a physical decay in his torso eating away at him, swift and insatiable. He’s not hungry anymore, but he feels emptier than he’s ever been. 

The door swings open suddenly, bumping against his shoulder, and he sways, unsteady. Hands reach out, catching him before he can fall over.

“Whoa, hey,” Hagakure sounds muffled, underwater. He hooks his hands beneath Byakuya’s arms, trying to pull him upright, and only then does Byakuya realize that he’s not really breathing. Probably hasn’t been for the past few minutes. “Toga- I mean- you okay?” 

Of course not, he wants to snap, but talking would mean opening his mouth, and that would mean breaking down into tears like a petulant infant, so he clamps his mouth shut and tries to get as much oxygen as he can through his nose. Slow, stuttered, wheezing breaths, teeth sinking into raw, just-healing skin and breaking it bloody all over again. He leans away from Hagakure’s grip as much as possible and tries to brace himself against the wall, shaky hands against the cool bumps of the tile. Trying to count them, one by one.

“I,” He manages to grit out when he was marginally more calm, ignoring Hagakure’s worried clucking. His voice quavers, and he swallows hard around the shrapnel lodged in his throat. “I’m going to go.”

“Dude, come on-”

He lurches forward, clumsily dodging Hagakure’s attempts to support him, and walks as steadily as he can out of the kitchen. The moment he crosses the open space of the cafeteria and into the hallway, he breaks into a sprint for his room. As far away from prying eyes as he can manage.

__

(When he opens his door later that night, he finds a plastic container and a spoon sitting by the threshold, its contents long cold.)

(He eats it anyways and scrapes it clean, and leaves it sitting empty outside of his door again.)

< previous - from start - next >

[ppenguinpperson]

cardiomyocytes and connective tissue @nopanamaman

I’ve wanted to do a fic like this for some time now, a ‘thank you’ letter to PAFL and its community of sorts. I’m happy I finally got around to writing it:) 

I wasn’t sure whether I should do this or not, but, hey! It might make someone feel a bit better!! Or, reading the fic will. That’s enough reason, I think, and you don’t have to read this, of course, no matter who you are.

First of all, I want to talk about PAFL a bit.

The first PAFL song I listened to was PiP. I saw its thumbnail when listening to some other music youtube, and so, I listened to it. Oh boy am I glad I did:) I remember thinking how cool it is that someone's making songs for their OCs and that people are interested in them. I could see so much love for the characters in it. I was so happy when I discovered there were more songs like that!! This was around when Comfort Zone had first come out, a week or two after at most. That was two years ago. I’ve been obsessed ever since.

I love PAFL. I genuinely love that songs haven’t been coming out much lately. Like, there’s media that comes out weekly and sucks shit. I’m glad Ferry is taking their time with this!!! Even if all we get each year is one song, that’s cool, because the community is wonderful and we also get doodles and art and now patreon stuff.. yippee yay… !!! And even if we didn’t. who the fuck caressss!!!!! I love coming up with AUs and OCs and theorizing with my friends!!! the time between songs gives us time to do all that:)

The characters are so charming. Every member of the cast has been a fave of mine at some point or another. They’re all so, real! I love them! I love how they fuck up and I love how they get fucked over and I love how they get exploded and killed and shot and hugged and saved and helped!!! They’re human… might not make sense, but i rlly do like them…

It’s so neat looking back at older songs and seeing how stuff’s changed. The art style, the music, it’s all so nice to look back on. Even if I wasn’t there for it.

And don’t even get me started on the worldbuilding..  Everyone say thank you to Boris Strugackij and Arkadij Strugackij for making roadside picnic and inspiring Ferry to make this… so lovely and neat. wonderful. I have not read it myself, but I might, just to be able to make my own pafl OCs more swagger..

So. This fic.

I can’t mention two years ago without at least mentioning my depression.

I can’t remember most of last year, speaking truthfully. Parts of 2021 are also fuzzy. Depression and anxiety are terrible, would not recommend. This feels cheesy to say, but it does get better!!! Slowly, unsteadily, it gets better!!! I don’t mean for this part of the post to be a ‘feel bad for me’ thing at all. Do not. I am safe and healthy now and I couldn’t be happier to be here right now.

Is life good now?? Sorta, but what matters to me right now is, I’m happy!!! It feels so surreal. I never thought I’d be like this. A part of me wants to be angry, to get depressed again about how I could have been happy all this time. But I won’t!!! Because then I’d spiral and forget another year, and, I don’t want that!

Which is so cool!!! I can like, fucking, do stuff now!! I can throw away the bad thoughts, embrace the good ones, encourage myself!!! I do things!!! I go outside and goddd dude that’s so good!! I go outside!!!

I’m doing stuff! I’m drawing, writing, cleaning my room, taking care of myself!!! If I didn’t stay alive to enjoy these small joys, what am I even here for?? 

And I’m alive!!! I’m here!!! I made it, I’m here, writing this on 10th november, 2023, and I’m ALIVE!!!! How cool is that??? 

And yea, the world is shitty, it sucks ass, but, my friends don’t!!!:3 and that’s more than enough for me… SHOUT OUT TO MY FRIENDS!!! I LOVE YOU DUDES!!!

Moving on:

It doesn’t feel right to say that I’m here now only to PAFL. But, what I can say is that it’s been a wonderful crutch for me!! It’s been something to focus on, something silly, but also something I can relate to, and something that inspires me to make my own stuff! I’d most likely still be here, were it not for these silly songs.. but, not sure I’d be as alive as I am now! Unsure if my heart would feel right in my chest! And I wouldn’t have met my amazing friends!!!! Everyone here is so nice.

Dima may be a bit OOC in this fic, and that's because! This fic is based on my own experiences, which, i don’t think is bad…

I could talk here forever about how it gets better. Butttt to be quite honest I don’t wanna lol. I just wanna say, Thank you! to Parties are for Losers, for being cool. 

(Though I also wanna say, don’t put Ferry on a pedestal, they’re human, we all make mistakes, all that stuff.)

Ok time to go back to my manly Sergei ways and never talk about emotions ever again. or as anya would say: FUCK IT WE BALL!!!!!

[brother-emperors]

hiii so. i really really admire you because of the depth of research you put into your art (even as someone who tends to fall down deep research holes i'm in Awe) but also because of the art itself - and i wanted to ask if you had any recommendations for someone who wants to get better at drawing? (books to read, things to do?) especially for figure drawing as you have (to my untrained eye) one of the best balances of style realism and naturalness and in general just overall make some of the best art i've ever seen methinks

this is really high praise, thank you so much!

as for art advice and recommendations for getting better at drawing, I 100% believe in carrying around a sketchbook wherever you go. if the pressure of having nice pages is something that bothers you, get a stack of sticky notes because you can cover up mistakes and re draw over it immediately, and squares of color will add some fun to a page later when you flip through everything.

ideally, I think there's a balance to skill building and having a good time, and I tend to split my own sketchbooks between life drawing (frequently I'll draw windows I think look neat or my morning coffee) and doodling shit for fun. I try out a lot of different styles and draw a lot of nonsense just because it felt like a good time. I do a lot of edward gorey type stuff because the line work process is comfy.

one way to go about doing this is to pick a direction (so to speak) that seems interesting, and build along side it! when I first decided I wanted to take art more seriously, I started looking up pictures of renaissance statues and drawing those. trying to draw those. it took a long time to get my art to look anything like a bernini statue, but I had a lot of fun learning that I really enjoyed drawing hands! comics are another good one, naoki urasawa's work is fucking genius level to me, I regularly revisit monster and do studies off of literally everything he does.

(I also keep a separate sketchbook for figure studies. this is mostly because I really enjoy drawing the human figure, this is very relaxing for me personally: I rotate between doing gesture drawings, contour drawings, and longer anatomy studies)

finally, I have found reading books on art history to be critical in my own process. so much about art history will tell you how to convey a million words into a singular composition. idk how much of that will be of interest or help to you, but I personally found it helpful, especially in understanding how to read things visually, which in turn helped me figure out how I wanted to tackle drawing something

and! two books I've found invaluable for anatomy were george bridgman's constructive anatomy and michael d. mattesi's force: drawing human anatomy, although I might recommend morpho's books above them now, like oh my god morpho is so good.

OH the other thing. this is something I picked up from when I was taking an animation class in art school, but sometimes I'll put on a movie or show I really like and do thumbnail studies of the frames while I watch. there's a lot to learn in a frame! shapes are important. god I love shapes.

[comicaurora]

As someone who’s thinking about creating a webcomic (largely for myself but may potentially make it public), can you provide advice on outlining and panelling? Those are the things I think I’d need some of the most help with other than backgrounds which… I can figure that out myself. Probably.

Good question! I've answered a similar one about paneling in depth here.

Outlining/storyboarding is a different animal, and depends strongly on your personal writing style and how your brain works.

There are a few ways you're "supposed" to write/outline comics, but pretty much all of them start as a script, similar to a screenplay. You note down character dialogue, the panel it takes place in, what the character is doing at the time.

You describe the panel like a shot in a movie - establishing shot, long shot, close up - and contain within that panel the script for what you'll put in the word bubbles. You might also include a thumbnail for what the page layout you're envisioning would look like.

This is because most comics are made by teams of more than one person, and the person who writes the plot/dialogue is not the person who does the layout and sketches - and usually that's not the same person who does the inking, the coloring or the lettering. So each stage of the process needs to be clearly laid out.

This is not how things work for comics made by a single person, and this is also not how my brain works in specific. If I try to write a script first, the characters inevitably end up being incredibly wordy and go off on philosophical tangents, and the dialogue doesn't fit right on the panels. And once I start drawing the actions I've choreographed, half the time I'll only get a few panels in before a character wants to do something unexpected but much more interesting that completely derails all my best-laid plans. None of my scripts ever survived contact with the page.

Fortunately, because I make art digitally, I can do things like "write all the dialogue straight onto the blank page" and then move/edit the text however I want. So the process I've developed that works for me specifically involves me storyboarding out the dialogue and paneling straight on the page rather than starting with a screenplay or script.

That's not to say it goes straight from my brain onto the page. If I'm stuck on a scene I'll usually crack open a little notes file and write out things like "what just happened, what is this character feeling, what do they want to do next" or just spitball possible dialogue options or write out a little mini-timeline of events in linear order. This gives me a guideline to reference when I sit down to storyboard, and it can help me work through a little knot of writer's block. Even then, the dialogue I hash out there isn't going to be as well-paced or as good as what I end up putting on the final page. It's a first draft of a scene - translating it onto the page, it'll play out differently.

This works well for my storytelling approach, which is flexible and character-driven. I like to give myself a lot of options - a toolbox to play with - and that means my outlines are often very loose, and can change a lot before I put them on the page. But this is a strategy I developed for myself through trial and error - it's not going to work for everybody.

I recommend you start off by reading a wide array of comics with an eye for how they were laid out and scripted, and test a few methods for yourself to see what works best for you. And also read Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics, it's an incredibly valuable crash course!

[bleaksqueak]

This is going to seem like a dumb question lol but you are just such an incredible artist. The fact that you do this comic on your own blows my mind. But I was wondering, do you ever still struggle with your art? In terms of self confidence or skill? Or do you ever still need reference for things? You just seem so experienced and established lol

Thank you so much! The good news is I don't do it entirely on my own all the time, the pages I've been working on lately were thumbnailed for me by @elanorpam , who also made some of the frequently used 3d assets (aether vials, a couple of locis, etc.!) Ofc I'd still kill for full assistant style work for some things (flats, lettering, applying the final touch details from my asset sheets lol), but for now I do those. anywho, I think every single person will struggle from time to time, even someone who looks like an art god. If they say they never struggle, they're lying lol. There's always going to be bad art days, things you don't know how to draw yet, or a difficult angle you're having trouble composing. The good news is that when you accept that as the truth, you stop caring beyond a healthy stride for improvement, and you carry on knowing this is simply a fact of art. I'm confident in the sense of knowing I draw and paint because I both have to and because I want to. As long as I make something I either had fun doing, was proud of, or taught me something, then I'm pleased and the next comic page or illustration is taken on with a goal of repeating that or bettering it. With comics especially there's always going to be some mistakes and wonk since there's not time to obsess over correcting it. Due to this I only ever bother correcting major mistakes or mistakes that don't convey the point (expression is way off, body language way off, important detail missing. That kind of things.) Accepting those things and having fun with the act of doing it and the goal of improving leaves me confident in my work. It isn't perfect, but things don't have to be perfect to feel confidence in yourself. Flaws and strengths make us who we are, and it definitely applies to art. I've been posting my artwork on the internet since the late 90s, though, so I've had a while to build up a healthy mindset around it. That's not a requirement though, so just go have fun with your art! and thank you again.

[south-park-dimensions]

(This blog is long overdue for a new pinned post soo-)

Hello to all the new people we got recently!!

This is a South Park AU blog for a comic called South Park Dimensions!

You can start reading from the prologue here and the comic updates every Saturday @ 7am EST!

And all current pages/thumbnails are available to our beta readers over on Patreon!

(As for info on the au and other things such as our commissions, discord, and redbubble those will all be bellow the cut. :D )

RedBubble | Commissions | AO3 | SPD Discord Server

(As for about the comic itself- Here’s some questions we’ve gotten a few times :D )

What is the comic about?

(As a result of time travel bs in the games and just South Park in general- Reality has gone a bit unstable. Portals are shuffling people off to where they shouldn’t be and others are looking to take advantage of it all)

(That’s the basic idea! As for the dimensions/ timelines involved here’s the current list. Originally this au was inspired by SP Phone Destroyer, but some things have been changed for plot stuffs.)

Main Timeline (Where the comic starts. Based mostly on SOT and TFBW)

Post Covid (Adult Timeline)

Superheroes

Fantasy

Sci-Fi

Mystical/Monsters

Adventure 

(^^ We’re slowly chipping away at designs for everyone! But! If you’re curious about someone in particular feel free to shoot us an ask)

Where can I read the comic?

(It’s just on this blog and Patreon atm! Here’s the link to the prologue again!)

(We also have been fleshing out other timelines on the comic’s AO3! But that isn’t necessary to understand the comic. Just extras :D )

How old are the sp kids?

(We were thinking this would fall between high school and college (So like 19-21 or something). So, they escaped one hell just to start dealing with another gsrksro)

Can I draw your designs?

(PLEASE DO- We get beyond excited seeing all the art people have made. Feel free to tag us too! We’d love to see it all)

(Anywho! We’ll be fleshing this out more soon hopefully! (Ask Box is always open for other comic questions or whatever. Have a great day and thanks for visiting our funky corner of the internet)

Anywho! Thank you for reading! Have a wonderful day y'all :)

[sleepy-pigeonn]

A Look Into My Hades Fan Animatic

I don't know to call this other than a collection of resources and reflections about the process of making the animatic. Hopefully it's interesting or helpful for someone. But feel free to ask questions if you'd like clarification/more info!

___

Inspiration (A non-exhaustive list)

It's possible that I've seen/read fan works that may have inspired me unconsciously, so there's no way I can possibly include references to them all. However, the ones I listed here are ones I recall looking back at repeatedly.

The fancomics "First Flight" and "Bonehead Boon" by Liana Sposto

Robbie Elliot Art's animation "Take Tonight"

Toastyglow's animation "Glitter & Gold" and PMV "This Year"

Storyboards posted by Paige Caldwell (@/papernewt) on Instagram

Zag admiring some of these beautiful fanworks.

The following sections are below the cut: References, Songs, Script and Thumbnails, Studies, Drawing, Editing, Random Facts

___

References

These were very helpful to creating the animatic!!

In-game references

Hades Wiki

3D Model of Zagreus by @/chunyou_ on Twitter

I also used screenshots I took while playing

General references

"How To Direct A Fight Scene" by Howard Wimshurst

Poses from the photo libraries of The Pose Archives and AdorkaStock

3D Model of Male and Female Heads by William Nguyen

I also just looked stuff up online or took videos of myself acting out some of the movements.

___

Songs

I thought of basing my animatic on any of the following songs:

"Icarus" by Bastille

"Dirty" by grandson

"Underworld" by CYPRSS *

"I'm Still Here (Jim's Theme)" by John Rzeznik

"I'm Gonna Win" by Rob Cantor **

"Could Have Been Me" by the Struts

They all have a varied degree of "Zagreus vibes" but I wanted a song that could be used to show as much of the game as possible. "Could Have Been Me" was the song that I could imagine more things for, so it is the one I ended up using.

* Look at this awesome Zagreus fan art based on this song

** Some of the lyrics for this song are so fitting for Zag but others are pretty ooc.

___

Script and Thumbnails

I've seen other artists annotate the lyrics to the song they are working with and attempted that here. But that process is a little confusing for me, so I kept these descriptions vague. It was helpful in keeping track of ideas, since some of them are faster to write down than draw. Especially for fight sequences.

I used Storyboarder for the thumbnails. I opted for this program because (1) it lets you add an audio file and (2) it has very basic tools. It can be used in a more nuanced way than I did. However, with 3 and a half minutes of frames to work out I needed something that helps me draft down ideas efficiently and without overwhelming me. And this was pretty good program for that.

The script and thumbnails happened in tandem a lot of the time. Think of it as brainstorming, both in vague writing and loose drawings. At this point I am trying to see if these ideas flow with the song, if they are readable, if they achieve what I had in mind.

___

Studies

Okay. So I am happy with my ideas. Now. How do I make sure the drawings are identifiable as taking place in the game?

This is where those in-game references came in handy. I looked back at my thumbnails and made a list of everything I would need. From characters to locations. Once I had these down, I made folders to make sure everything would be nice and organized.

I tend to avoid backgrounds like the plague. However, for some of these shots to work I need to give the viewer a sense of where the action is taking place. I know that I struggle imagining three-dimensional spaces while drawing digitally. So, using my thumbnails and the references I gathered, I did studies of all the locations I thought would be important using good old paper and ink. This also served to fine-tune shot compositions.

___

Drawing

The animatic itself was drawn using Krita. Usually, I worked on all the backgrounds using the studies as a base and then added the characters. My drawings started very rough for a couple of reasons. The main one was that with ~200 frames ahead of me I was afraid of letting my inner perfectionist get me stuck. I kept reminding myself that, being an animatic, the drawings could be rough as long as they are still readable. As I got more comfortable using Krita, I was able to create cleaner backgrounds.

Even so, I hit an art block around the two minute mark where I Could Not Draw. This is where I heavily relied on those References I Keep Talking About. They were my savior and are the main cause for the more "finished" look towards the end of the animatic. I think the best example of this was the shot featuring Thanatos. I was deep in the art block territory by the time I needed to go from thumbnail (top left) to final frame. No matter how much I redrew them, I didn't like how they turned out (top right). To work this out, I found references from The Pose Archives and used them as a guide (bottom left) to get a sketch that I liked (bottom right). I felt this look was more sketchy than I've would like so I ended up cleaning it. I followed a similar process for most of the frames following this one. As a result, the final frames of the video turned out cleaner.

___

Editing

Once I had all my frames ready to go, I imported them into HitFilm Express and made a composite shot where I basically just matched the timing of the frames to the music. Frames that have camera movements (like the very first frame) were made in their own composite shots. I ended up having to delete some frames so some sections didn't feel rushed. In the end, there's like 5 versions of the animatic because I kept making little changes. The biggest was adding Zag's dialogue at the beginning since I felt the video started up too quiet. I don't have any images for this stage. Please have this comparison instead.

___

Random Facts ✨

Adding color was a last minute decision, it was mainly because I thought a colorful sunset would be prettier. My original plan was to shift the gray tones of the background into more yellowish tones once Zagreus reaches the surface, but keeping everything monochromatic.

If you pause quickly on the very last frame you'll see I accidentally made Zag's leggings black instead of red. I was on auto pilot at this point. Adding color was worth it overall but so time consuming. My respects to people who do fully colored animatics.

I wish I made Meg a pinker (or blue) hue rather than purple. In my mind I saved purple for characters related to Nyx (hence why Hypnos, Than, Chaos, and Charon have shades of purple). But I guess it is a sweet detail because of how Meg confides in Nyx in the game.

I kept a log of all my progress. Apparently getting the thumbnails done took about five months (August 2023 - January 2024)?? Anyways I leave you with these entries.

___

Thank you for reading! I hope it goes without saying but I really appreciate all the support this animatic has received. All the hearts and comments and tags, they mean a lot.

[luvhhannie]

“yn!” your underclassman, easel neighbor, hyunjin, whisper yelled at you. you averted your gaze from your phone to his figure as you turn off your phone.

“what is it, hyunjin?” you ask him. he shook his head in disappointment and pointed towards the brainstorm board that the art teacher has made for the class. it was mostly scribbled phrases about concepts and art intentions, as well as color theory and color intention. you raised an eyebrow.

“are you telling me that i’m stupid oorr?” you trailed off. hyunjin sighed.

“no, dumbass, but ms. dawn just told us that one of our pieces should be inspired or a recreation of an existing piece. i know damn well you weren’t listening.” he lectured as you made an O expression. you hummed and grabbed your sketchbook, making thumbnail sketches. he looked over and stared at your moving hands.

“for someone who doesn’t listen in class, i can’t deny the fact that you’re an amazing artist.” hyunjin complimented. the door suddenly opened and you heard murmurs around the room, but you disregarded it, as hyunjin’s compliment was taking over your brain.

“hell yeah i am,” you giggled “but thank you.”

“anyways, what piece are you recreating? what even is your theme?” he asks you. the easel beside you creaked as you thought of an answer.

“hmm…beauty of death and life…i need to do a research on it though.” you said, still making sketches on your sketchbook. hyunjin then began brainstorming on his sketchbook as well, when suddenly you heard voices on your other side.

“myungho-ah! how was paris~? i bet it was beautiful there.” a high pitched voice asked. hyunjin scoffed as your eyes softened. there was a program at your university where a selected few were given the opportunity to visit the louvre in paris. these people are considered artistic and inspirational, and you knew hyunjin deserved one of the spots, yet he never gotten the call.

“it was alright.” the voice simply said. you were too focused sketching on your sketchbook and going back to your phone researching romeo and juliet pieces to feel the other boy’s gaze at you. however, hyunjin noticed it. he suddenly nudged you, making you draw a line across one of your thumbnail sketches. your pursed your lips.

“what was that for?” you whisper yelled at hyunjin. he blinked at you and moved closer.

“myungho is looking at your sketchbook.” he whispered as you move your head towards the other male next to you. you and myungho held eye contact for a second when he went back to his own sketchbook. you shrugged your shoulders and went back to sketching.

“he probably wanted to see what i was doing? i don’t know man.” you said to hyunjin. hyunjin sighed snd continued doing his own thing. after an hour of brainstorming and researching, you finally settled on recreating millais’ ophelia. the beautiful death of ophelia and the liveliness of the flowers made you think that the piece would be perfect for your exhibition. you then got up from your station and walked over to the supply table, where your other station buddy was also at. he watched you as you wondered if you should use a flat canvas or a stretched canvas. you awkwardly stand beside him when suddenly he broke the silence.

“what medium are you going to use?” he asked you. you finally looked at myungho and smiled awkwardly.

“oh, uhm, i was thinking of using oils for my piece…” you said in a meek tone as he hummed. he then pointed to the stretched canvas you were holding.

“then i think you should use the stretched canvas. it’s perfect for oil painting.” he stated. you knew he was right, but you also knew that using a stretched canvas means that you have to readjust the canvas again. in three words, too much work, well, for you. you sighed.

“yeah, i think so too, but it’s just too much work, you know?” you complained to myungho as he chuckled. he grabbed the canvas off your hands and also grabbed another canvas, most likely for his piece.

“i’ll restretch it for you.” he said. you look up at him with wide eyes.

“really? i owe you my life man! thank you!” you said to him as you follow him to the mat table. he readjusted his canvas first as you watch him. you knew how to adjust and stretch canvases, it was just the amount of effort in it that makes you lose interest. he then proceded on to your canvas. he removed the staples from the wooden frame and removed the canvas fabric. he adjusted the fabric on the frame and hold on to it tightly. you were watching intently, not noticing that he raised his head to look at you.

“yn.” he called out your name. you looked back at myungho and just stared at him in confusion. he bit his lower lip and motioned his gaze to the canvas.

“can you let me know if this is good? i don’t know how stretched you want the canvas to be.” he said. you nodded your head, blushing from embarrassment, as you helped him. adjusting the frame and canvas fabric, he finally finished. he held your canvas to you as he smiled softly.

“here you go.” he said. you smiled at myungho.

“thank you, myungho! i really appreciate it a lot.” you said as myungho just walked back to his station and started sketching his piece on to his canvas. you also went back to your station and started sketching. during the whole class, you were able to finish half way blocking in the color on to your piece. during dismissal, hyunjin went up to you.

“you staying here at the studio, or back to the dorms?” he asked you. you mixed the colors on your glass palette as you replied to him.

“i’m staying here, i need to finish blocking in these shapes so it would be easier for me to add the deets during next class.” you said to him. hyunjin hummed and grabbed his canvas.

“okay, just let me know if you need anything. see you around.” he bid farewell as he walks out of the room. at this hour, there would still be a couple of students doing their pieces. right now, only you, myungho and a couple of students are in the room. you noticed myungho beside you organizing his station. he grabbed his canvas and bag and walked out of the room.

“huh, must be nice to be a good artist, not even worrying about the time.” you sighed to yourself as you continue with your art. as you were focused on your piece, you didn’t notice the talk frame behind you.

“woah! that looks so cool!” the person behind you said as you flinched in surprise. you looked behind you and sighed in relief.

“oh, it’s just you, mingyu.” you smiled at the tall male, who was holding two cups of coffee.

“i did tell you earlier i’m gonna visit you. anyways, how are you doing?” he asked as he placed one of the coffee cups on the table next to your easel. you thanked him for it and faced him.

“grab the stool over there and sit next to me, and i’m doing alright…uni is stressing me out.” you chuckled as he sits beside you. he looked at you with concern.

“oh, i get you. just don’t push yourself too hard, okay? i’ll always be here if you need help.” he said with a smile. you smiled at him as you take a sip of the coffee he gave you. sweet, you’ve always liked your coffee a little bit bitter though.

“thank you, gyu. you’re such a sweetheart.” you smiled as you two stare into each other’s eyes. he smiled back.

“oh, you flatter me, but i’ll always have your back.”

yes or no I x. minghao x reader - ophelia

𓇢𓆸 synopsis: where jaehyun is forced to be yn's wingman for mingyu, but unbeknownst to him, mingyu is also getting some help from his friend.

previous <- -> next | masterlist

𓇢𓆸 taglist (open!): @writingbarnes @90s-belladonna @leewonkyeom @to-mi-yo

[pochqmqri]

When I saw this video drop in my recommended, I knew it was going to disappoint me as someone who has done personal nuzlocke runs before, used to be an active member of the forums, and even still is friends with people from there. And I was right. Look under the read more for my gripes.

To start off, he makes a rather big mistake by stating that the original Ruby Hard Mode run ended in a win, when it definitely did not, and was the basis for the Ruby character going to Kanto to start the FireRed Hard Mode run. That one isn’t one I think is too bad compared to the others, but it’s still something you could easily research on your own. 

He’s also a little wrong about ShiroInu being the earliest person to post a nuzlocke comic on the forums, but I can also forgive him for that. In general, he spends only a small portion of the video on the Nuzlocke Forums before branching out to videos, and I feel that was a misstep. For one, he completely glossed over screenshot runs, which were just as important as comics and written logs in the formation of Nuzlocking’s early years. A lot of people at the time couldn’t afford recording set ups for let’s plays, and screenshotting on VBA was as easy as pie, making Nuzlockes accessible to most people especially those that didn’t want to draw.

I also think it’s a bit peculiar that Kynim wasn’t mentioned at all, when he discussed Nuzlocke comics. Myths of Unova is probably the most popular Nuzlocke comic outside of the original, especially so for one with actual effort put into the art and narrative. We can go on all day and week about other popular comics too like Petty Nuzlocke Challenge, It’s A Hard Life, FireRed Kick-Ass Mode, Double Nuzlocke Series, etc. That not much time is dedicated to the narrative aspect of Nuzlocking in favor of the more technical and challenge-oriented ones is such a shame especially since a lot of history was made on the now-defunct Smackjeeves website. Like, in the video, fucking Emerald Kaizo got its own section while the forums, comics, etc. don’t even get that much respect. Towards the end of that video it was basically summarizing specific Nuzlocke runs from popular YouTubers/streamers, rather than an overall look. 

Moving onto recorded Nuzlockes, it’s really baffling that Marriland wasn’t given an explicit shout out. While he wasn’t one of the first to do a recorded Nuzlocke on YouTube (October 27, 2012), he was one of the first people to upload Let’s Play content on YouTube period, and he was also one of the important figures in Nuzlocking since he invented the Wedlocke challenge. Granted, the Wedlocke was mentioned briefly in a list of variants and his videos were shown in a screenshot of Google, but that’s not enough respect I feel.

Also, I think it’s funny that PokemonChallenges is attributed as the founder of the Hardcore Nuzlocke, that is, a Nuzlocke with the added rules of “no item use in battle” and “no overlevelling against important trainers’ strongest Pokemon.” The video claims Jan invented that in 2016 for his streams, when in fact, people have been using those extra rules well before he did. I also want to note that I don’t really blame Wolfey for this misinformation, since he said in the video that the research was primarily done by pChal and some guy named Drew, which, yeah, makes sense with how biased it is. 

No disrespect to Jaiden, even if I don’t find her content entertaining, but I feel she got a lot of undeserved credit in this video too. Like, obviously the thumbnail having her in the “Then” portion is just clickbait, but to go on in the video and say that “the way that [original Nuzlocke comic creator] and Jaiden share their nuzlockes might be what caused Nuzlocking to take off” is plain wrong in the case of the latter. Like, yes, Jaiden’s 87mil+ video definitely brought it out of the general Pokemon fandom, so that people like Alpharad and Ludwig started doing them, but Nuzlocking took off well before she made the video. In fact, Griffin McElroy made a rather popular Nuzlocke video back in 2016 on Polygon’s YouTube channel.

The video also misattributes certain tricks and strategies to that Drew guy’s Renegade Platinum run, saying that it would “define the meta.” Stuff like the repel trick to manipulate encounters, which is not true at all, since the repel trick has been documented on Bulbapedia since 2010, well before that ROM hack.

Overall, I don’t want to gatekeep the Nuzlocke from anyone, but it’s just sad how it has primarily evolved to just adding on challenge after challenge and treating your Pokemon as pawns (i.e. sending them out to die), as well as optimizing the gameplay to reduce the amount of failure such as by hacking in rare candies to save time grinding (when that basically cheeses the periods between important fights and removes the possibility of something bad happening during grinding), and manipulating encounters (esp. in newer games without grass) to your biggest benefit. If you want to play it that way, that’s fine. The storytelling part of Nuzlocking was such a huge boon in how the challenge got popularized, also the concepts of using Pokemon and strategies you’d have never thought to have try before, so it’s disappointing that it gets overlooked especially in a retrospective like this.

[youredreamingofroo]

Okay just to preface, if you're from butters discord, i'm gonna be repeating a lot of what I said in the server, possibly more or less refined, we'll see how my brain goes

I really cannot believe plagiarizers, like you REALLY said "Don't flatter yourself,"... Don't flatter YOURSELF HELLO? You had the AUDACITY to copy someone and claim it as your own, not only that but you did a shoddy job at copying, the thumbnails weren't good, the titles weren't good and were too lengthy, like come on. (only applicable to this person in this situation, if you think your titles [or thumbnails] are too long or are bad they ARENT its perfectly fine the way it is and i love it :))

Additionally, what's so wrong with credit? What's so wrong with saying you were inspired?? Why have some people just devolved to assume that it's bad to credit and talk about/mention the people you're inspired by??? Oh I know why, because those people are short of an imagination, short of creativity, and they want an original idea! So of COURSE the only possible and excusable way to get an original idea is to COPY! Ah yes! Sounds about right, haha. 😐 (all sarcasm) Do people not realize just how lifeless copying is? It's literally just taking someones work and ripping out the guts of that work, the beauty, the effort, the PASSION!! If you copy someone's work, you are just as bad as AI "artists".

Not to namedrop (i mean atp most ppl know who was involved), but Oshin (@/Oshinsims on youtube) has SO much passion for her story and her storytelling and such, and it SHOWS!! IT DOES!!!! And you can tell she loves what shes doing, there's so much feeling, and emotion. But to take her work, and copy that word. for. word, it will not be the same, no matter what you do, it will NOT sound the same. Everyone is different, and we all have our artistic styles, and of course, Oshin's method of expressing and writing story will NOT be the same for everyone, you can draw inspiration, but you still have to put in your own work for it to sound like you and once something sounds like you, it sounds beautiful, it will look beautiful and you'll feel the passion. If I were to take Deja (@/dejasenti99) and then swap their storytelling with Bree (@/stellarfalls), Deja would not tell Bree's story and express Bree's story as good as Bree does, and vice versa, this is not a matter of storytelling, reading/writing skills or anything (because both of them are incredible people, and phenomenal creators and storytellers, do check them both out), it's a matter of style, and those two in particular have two very different styles, both styles can be good, but both styles will not give off the same feeling. Give two people the same outfit and they'll wear it differently. Give two people the same script and they'll tell two different stories.

Make your own work! Do your own stuff! Write your own stories! It's an effort and it takes time. But it PAYS. OFF. No amount of stealing and posting plagiarized work will help you improve and crediting/mentioning inspiration from others WILL NOT KILL YOU, do you understand? There's so many of my mutuals and my peers who would (and probably do) literally cry from happiness at hearing someone is inspired by them and their work. And also, plagiarizing is NOT EXCUSABLE! STOP PUTTING DOWN HOW BAD PLAGIARIZING IS, AND DONT TELL SOMEONE THEYRE BEING DRAMATIC FOR RESPONDING TO A PLAGIARIZER

I will note (make sure to read ALL. OF. THIS. PLEASE); It's okay to practice and use/copy other peoples' work as practice, but DO NOT SHARE WHAT YOU DID, this is PRACTICE/COPIED WORK and SHOULD NOT be portrayed as original work. By copying other peoples' work, you can get a gist of what you want to do and how you want to do things. In the art community, it is often encouraged for beginner artists to trace other peoples' work (specifically people who they draw inspiration from), but in doing so, they are told to NOT SHARE that copied work, this is practice and meant to assist the beginner artist in finding their own style. Take this as being a baby bird, you start out with assistance from your parent bird (other peoples' work) but eventually you'll get to a point where you're ready to fly out the nest and start flying by yourself (making your own work with an inspired style) You can copy other simmers' work [as practice], but don't share it because this is meant to be practice, and you need to work on applying what you've practiced onto your OWN. WORK. (renders/gameplay screenshots/story screenshots/storytelling/writing/character creating/sim style/ETC!) ^ If I worded ANY of this shoddily, please correct me/inform me and sorry for the repetition, but some of you need this drained into your brain lol ^