#the colors ARE all fucked because i colored them with my screen filter on but you will accept it

[bonestrouslingbones]

actually before i go to bed i need to show yall The True Edge that i always base the picrews on when i'm making him lol

back from when i tried to make him into an oc until i realized how entangled atbb is with undertale that making it an original story just doesnt work. bro never even got a real name </3 but he stayed pretty!!!!

[campbell-rose]

Alastor Redesign

Omg there’s like over 70 people following me – guys I'm o///O flattered and flabbergasted. 

Anyway, onto today’s main event, Alastor. I hate Alastor’s og design, I hate his twig waist and his shoulder pads and the way you can’t see his antlers next to his ears, and his bow tie ugh viv please and his HAIR what even is that??? Not even mentioning that nothing about his design is really like a focal point. There’s no one thing that’s particularly interesting. At least before this he had that cathedral window looking cross on his undershirt that I found interesting. Nothing about his says he’s from the 1930’s other than dialogue. 

I wanted him to be in greyscale because that’s the coolest aesthetic, and colored photos weren’t a thing until way after the 30s. Recently I saw jjk, and Jogo’s teeth threw me because at some points I thought he was just straight up toothless. But then when I started this design, that colored tooth look spoke to me. Initially his teeth were yellow to look gross like he never brushes them, but then I was like ‘ayo wait, he’s literally a cannibal’, thus his vibrant red teeth to really pop against his greyscale. Initially his undershirt was white, but I feel like that was too much contrast and white is typically innocence, so by instead having a deep red it shows he’s just straight up bloodthirsty underneath his formal appearance. I also considered it being black, but then he looked like a pastor, and I wasn’t too much of a fan of it. The idea of the red on his design is that it leads your eye down his design to take it all in, with his face being the focus. I gave him glasses because I like the way it obscures his eyes a bit and I imagine they do the anime thing where they glow and hide his eyes. I liked Viv’s idea of sinners having marks where they died, and I slicked his hair back to show it off very prominently. His antlers are larger, I gave him cute lil deer ears. Also, under his suit he is lowkey buff. I feel like a serial killer should at least look physically capable of taking someone down not whatever the fuck viv’s nasty twig men can do. Like, in that comic with the cute sheep girl, when Alastor goes demon mode his body looks so snappable I just wanna like grab his waist in my hands and break it like a twig. I also tried to keep his design simple as if this were for animation, I know pinstripes are complicated and so are antlers but other than that I tried to keep his design basic. 

If I were to rewrite him based solely on the pilot, I honestly wouldn’t change a thing. Alastor is a decent character, his voice actor gives him life, the radio filter is cool, and nothing he did made me want to break my screen (ANGELDUST). The only thing I'd change would be his position in hell. Like, viv’s hell is so wack and I hate it, she’s got the princes, then the goetia and the overlords and then sinners and blah blah, it’s a lot to keep track of, not even mentioning the rings and circles thing. I think Alastor should have had dealings with hell as a human, maybe he routinely did sacrifices or something, and he made a deal with the archdemon Alastor and when he died like... uuhhhhhhh. Maybe through connections he’s gained more power? Idk, I just know I hate the idea of his dying and then having like the bestest most powerful demon powers despite not being hellborn. It’s got this mary sue stench. I’ll figure it out, maybe, who knows. 

I’m not gonna start rewriting since there’s nothing to go off of and alter yet, so that’s gonna have to wait until the show actually drops before anything concrete happens lol. 

Also the sheep girl is a sinner that reoccurs in the show now so sorry I don’t make the rules, you can’t give me a cute sheep girl and try to take her away, I’m gonna redesign her and shove her into the plot as someone looking for redemption at the hotel

[saphushia]

do you have any more head cannons for Phantom Etho? I just am enamored with your ethos stuff-

hmmm i can probably think of a few-

he's not that good at flying. his wings disappear whenever he gets too far from someone sleep deprived, so to practice someone has to keep up with him on elytra. he's had enough practice to be a passable flyer, but even so it tires him out and he really only does it on occasion when he's bothering someone for not sleeping and swooping at them for fun. the rest of the time he uses elytra and rockets like normal

i originally drew his wings with inspiration from albatross- long slender wings that are best for soaring great lengths with very little energy use, but after some thought i think i'm gonna start drawing them more in the shape of an osprey's- the way it swoops for fish is far more reminiscent to phantoms to me than the albatross is.

i'm still tossing the idea back and forth, but i'm thinking etho hasn't always been a phantom hybrid. the phantom hasn't always existed, after all, and etho has existed in the universe quite a long time. quite longer than phantoms have. it's normal when worlds change, when a world is updated, that things in the world act in ways they never would have had the update either been there from the start, or never happened at all (who hasn't had a world break a little by loading it into a new version? more so if that world has seen many changes before it). it makes sense then, that when the universe changes, being given new rules, new qualities, new code, that players may sometimes change similar to how worlds do. that something in them becomes something it didn't used to be.

in reference to the previous, phantoms were added in 1.13, which released in 2018, one day before the start of hc s6. however, etho wasn't there for s6, and thus likely discovered his change while on his singleplayer world. or, well, he would have, except. there's no one other than him there, and he changes in reaction to other people. now, it's possible that he can constantly see himself in his phantom form. it makes sense, even! it's simply that he appears normal to well-rested onlookers. however, the MUCH funnier option, is that that's not true and he looks normal, so he just didn't fucking notice. as best i can tell from some cursory searching, the first time he's with other people after the 1.13 update is playing diversity 3 with the rest of team canada (which is 1.14, nearly a YEAR after phantoms are added). meaning he probably realized then, likely scaring all 3 of them to death because, while it's not unheard of for players to change during updates when new mobs appear, it is surprising to call up your buddy to go on a new adventure and then realize partway through that he's been a whole ass creature for a YEAR and he didn't notice. beef and pause laugh at him for a while over that

(for future reference, i'd appreciate if you didn't use colored text to send me asks. i understand it's likely a signature thing, but it's hard to read on dark theme with the screen filters i use, and while it's not the end of the world because i can read it, i'd prefer to not have to highlight or copy it somewhere else just to read a message in my inbox)

[wanderlust-in-my-soul]

Favorite shows to gif

All of them 😅 I love the shows I gif. If I don't like the show, I don't gif it (most of the times, sometimes I just don't have time for all the shows). You have to take your time and sometimes watch at scenes and faces and special moments multiple times over and over again. It is a good hint that I lose interest in a show when I stop giffing it 🙈

But of course I have my favorites. Without any particular rating here are my first top five shows to gif this year (there is another ask, so I can use that one to have a top ten in the end hehehe).

Starting the list, we have one of the best series of this year... well, I guess I could say that about most of them. It was one of those series that felt really mature and @bengiyo calls it a gay family drama, which I love and it is so fitting:

Moonlight Chicken

Giffing this show was really challenging. Either it was dark, the colors very really intense or it had an orange/brown filter on it... finding the right coloring was very difficult from time to time. But it felt so good whenever I found a coloring I liked. And giffing EarthMix is always a pleasure, so... yeah I really liked to make sets of this show.

And off we go to number two, a show some liked, some disliked and some of us loved and we can't stop talking about it:

Wedding Plan

I loved the moments Lom and Namnuea shared on screen. Those two had a really great presence and chemistry and it was fun to catch those sweet and sometimes horny moments. And perhaps I just needed an excuse to look at Lom for a totally healthy amount of times.

Number three brings us to another show I think is one of the best ones this year:

Last Twilight

Yeah, it could also be on this list because I have a huge crush on Mhok. But all jokes aside, this series came really unexpected for me. The trailer was okayish and I liked Vice Versa, but I didn't have any expectations for Last Twilight. The first episode was good and I loved the Little Prince reference, so I was kinda hooked and then Mhok started to look at Day as if he was his whole universe and I was gone. I was just in love with him falling in love with Day and now I love him being in love with Day and overall I just love him. I love giffing this man looking at this most precious person. It makes me just so fucking happy! Gosh I could look at those gifs for hours...

Okay, but let's move on.

The next show might not be a good show and definitely not one of my favorite watches, plotwise, this year. The cinematography however was something else:

Chains Of Heart

The coloring of this show was insane and it loved it greens and reds. I enjoyed watching this series, even though the plot was not good. It was one of the shows I giffed no particular scene (except one) and instead made sets of my favorite moments of each episode. And it was so much fun to highlight the colors. Really, really good coloring and really really bad plot...

Last, but not least we have a show some people didn't watch because they thought it wasn't bl but a strong bromance. But the series taught us all wrong with some kisses on the cheek and lube and really obvious hints and unleashed leads.

Stay With Me

It is one of my favorite shows this year, yes. And those two were in love and living together like a married couple, doing things a married couple would do. They were unhinged and I had so much fun with it. Even though most of the times they lived a simple and poor life, this house was so warm and colorful and cosy and I loved making gifs from it. I hope there is a second season because this time I need closure!

Ask me Top 5 BL Anything from 2023

[latibvles]

❛ if you called just to get off on my voice, i’m hanging up. ❜ for viv x bucky

STUDY BREAK.

... more frat boys au who is surprised. no one? good. they're so deeply unserious here. takes place sometime after the au within an au that is the ocean city trip. John Egan with his tits out on FaceTime will bring about world peace.

—

The roar of her laptop’s fans are doing a fairly apt job of impersonating Viv’s overfried brain. Multiple tabs are open, and she’s half wondering if Inez would lend her those blue-light filter glasses she had. The clock in the corner of the screen displays an offensive-looking 11:45pm. If she could go back in time and stop eighteen-year-old Vivian from being so insistent in majoring in fucking physics, she probably would.

Or maybe that’s just her frustration talking. She doesn’t care enough to make the distinction.

She groans, rubbing her temples. 

If Viv had any less pride she’d curl up under her covers and have a long frustrated cry about it, but she’d learnt at nine that crying about it just would end with a swat to the mouth. Not that she imagined anyone would come into her room to do that now, but she’s pretty sure that Brady’s in Willie’s room and they probably don’t want to hear her whipping her pencil case at their shared wall in a math-induced temper tantrum.

She takes a small breath, eyes squeezing shut and them snapping back open.

The PowerPoint still glares at her: cold, ruthless, and unforgiving — just like the ancient professor who’d alluded to another brutal pop quiz tomorrow. Viv curses her as she clicks the next slide, trying to make sense of it with her array of highlighters and color-coded gel pens.

She’s got maybe five ways to stage that woman’s death like an accident when her phone starts buzzing with a FaceTime call. Viv fixes it with a long, hard look, before sighing in resignation.

Bucky’s the last person she wants to subject to her anger-induced isolationism, since temper tantrums are out of the cards. She answers and snorts as she watches him blink blearily at his screen before reaching over for the lamplight and flicking it on.

“You’re a real sight.” She teases.

“I may or may not have woken up from a nap.”

“Yeah, I can tell. Nice cowlicks,” she chooses to omit that really it’s mostly from his voice — gruff and gravelly as he clears his throat, sitting up and running a hand over the planes of his chest where the camera cuts off. She elects to ignore the warmth blooming in the pit of her belly from the way he grins.

“Keep talking like that n’ someone might think you like me.”

“Don’t know what gave you that idea.” Viv’s smiling as he lets out a small whine, stretching out sleep-stiff muscles and propping himself up on pillows to look at her. Somehow without being in the room, he sends a shiver up her spine, staring at her with such blatant attraction. “So you’re getting no sleep tonight, huh?” He chuckles and shrugs.

“Small price to pay. Feels pretty worth it right about now.” He keeps making small noises as he shifts, getting comfortable in his plaid sheets but not enough to doze off again. Sometimes, she wants to tape his mouth shut.

“Y’know, if you called just to get off on my voice, I’m hanging up.” She warns.

“That the kinda guy you take me for?” She fixes him with a pointed look when he asks that question. Of course, Bucky’s never hit her with some stupid ‘U up?’ text, or any variety of eye-roll-worthy messages on social media. But acting like FaceTime wasn’t their preferred method when they’d inevitably been in Wisconsin and Michigan respectively was just dumb. She likes to think she knows her boyfriend.

“John.” Viv says, because it’s all she needs to say.

“Vivian.” He counters, in a half-mocking tone. And she kind of can’t stand the fact that he’s the only one who could make her name sound so intimate. Or maybe it’s just the last of her brain cells being killed off by the slideshow.

“I’m just saying I wouldn’t put it past you.” He laughs at that, low and rumbling and— goddammit, John Egan.

“Yeah, sweetheart, you talking about Sir Isaac Newton just really gets me going,” he drawls, but the hint of sarcasm in his voice falls a little flat in consideration to the fact that yes, it does. As do most things. Because he’s both flatteringly and amusingly easy to rile up. That makes her laugh, rolling her eyes as she returns her attention to her prior focus. She can feel his eyes on her as she prompts her phone up by her lamp. “S’that my hoodie?” She glances down at the dark blue Ocean City hoodie from this past summer.

“You left it in my car.” He’s grinning, she can hear it in his voice on the next thing he says.

“Looks good. Guess I should leave clothes behind more often.”

“If you don’t plan on getting anything back, then sure.” She shrugs. Bucky hums, a low sound, keeping his gaze fixed on her as they lapse into a comfortable silence. Or rather, something like it, because with every momentary glance up to him he’s looking at her intently.

Eyes darting across her neck and collarbones, as he eases into being properly awake. He cracks a joke every now and again when she grunts or huffs or makes any noise of frustration, goes about the business of putting a shirt on. Selfishly, she wishes that he’d kept it off even as she wills herself into not being distracted by him. Easy, brief praises falling from his lips as he mills about his own room; really just a handful of blocks away. She knows that room and all of its baseball decals and overloved laminated newspaper clippings. He rises at some point and she gets a flash of familiar plaid pajama pants hanging off his hips.

Dammit Bucky.

He’s just existing, really and all she can think about is how she’d much rather be pressing kisses to that broad chest of his as opposed to cramming for a pop quiz that may or may not happen.

“Viv?”

“Hm?”

“You look like you’re about to snap that pen in half,” he remarks sagely and - huh - she is white-knuckling it. She sets the pen down with a less-than-subtle thud and looks up at him.

“You should come over,” she puts plainly. He grins a little bit, and she tacks on at the end a very blunt “I miss you.”

“Am I bringing anything or just myself?” he asks, which is sweet enough to make her smile, but she shakes her head.

“Just yourself,” and then, fixing a gaze on the shirt he’s got on: a plain black t-shirt, she quickly adds “Actually, an extra shirt. I’m keeping the one on you.”

“Already undressing me? Geez, Viv, thought I was the impatient one.” Even as he teases her he’s moving out of frame to presumably grab his slides and rummage through his dresser. Viv rolls her eyes, setting aside her stuff to watch him, leaning forward to rest her chin on her hand.

“Blame physics.”

“I think I’ll be thanking it this time, actually.” Viv narrows her eyes at his wicked grin.

“You’ve got twenty minutes before I start reading from textbooks for you instead of anything else.” The last look she gets before she goes to hang up the phone is something disbelieving, amused, and smoldering that makes her laugh and feel warm all at the same time.

She gave him twenty minutes to get to their house. He’s at the front door in fifteen.

[miyrumiyru]

☼ Hello! I love ART and Nature so much!!! ❤️ (Miyru / them)

🌟 20s, Aquarius ♒ and Snake 🐍

#my photography - photographs taken by me (daily upload!)

#my artwork - artworks created by me

#butterfly - butterflies my beloved ❤️‍🔥

[ ʚїɞ I believe butterfly (나비) supremacy ʚїɞ ]

💡📒✏️🎶 Short animation series & Animated GIFs + Illustrations

📸🐛🦋🪲 Nature photography & Observation (South Korea)

⛓️Links (You could find me by searching @miyrumiyru) 📎GIPHY and Tenor (Animated GIFs!!!) 📎Bluesky (Their favicon is butterfly!!!) 📎iNaturalist (Check my iNat for entire observations!) ⚠️WARNING : DEAD & INJURED ANIMALS INCLUDED

© Miyrumiyru

☮ I support PEACE! There is no good war, ever!!! Stop the freaking war, stop the terrible genocide and ecocide!!! I hope all of war criminals WILL DIE IN A FIRE. #freepalestine #standwithukraine

🛇 I don't want and support generative AI. They are viruses that polluting the internet and world. If you use and support unethical generative ai junk, kindly get the fuck out of my blog.

Sorry, I can't donate for someone for now because I'm really really broke!

Below is literally my thoughts and random blah blah things!

Read them if you have enough time & want to know about me :>

◓ I can't always able to back some likes, reblogs and follows but I definitely and absolutely appreciate to all who reblogged, liked and comments my posts. Thank you!

Drawing tablet : Wacom PTH-660 (7 years old)

DSLR camera : Canon EOS 800D (4 years old)

They're old but I love them so much... /_ \

+++ Taxon of my observations on tumblr could be corrected after published! (or just check my iNat would be more accurate :>)

I don't adjust photos that much, like color filter or low saturation or "aesthetic" adjustment… etc, because nature itself is already beautiful :)

*I research the internet to spend many time for provide the right IDs of precious insects, but It can be wrong when their families are so simillar! if you find that IDs are wrong, please let me know ^_____^

🚫SCAMS AND STEALING NOT ALLOWED!!!🚫

My favorite quote "Learn from the past, look to the future, but live in the present." - Petra Němcová "I take my time but I always win" - 🐢 Stay away from stupid people, because stupidity is contagious and turn us into a blind :[

Don't seek validation about anything from others when you make a decision and choices! because all of us are free（*＾-＾*） Never dwell on past. Learn from the mistakes and failure, so we can live our lives and reach the dream!

Would you join the cult of butterfly? (✿◕へ◕✿)

I hope my wildlife observation posts are reveal the true beauty of nature and its live (not just because they're "pretty"), so everyone can be able to preserve the precious nature 💚

(Taxon of my old posts could be inaccurate or outdated because lack of knowledge!Please visit my iNaturalist for accurate taxon)

Again! I don't want and support generative AI. It causing so many unethical problems (misuse, copyright infringement and huge energy waste… etc). They are viruses that polluting the internet and world.

And of course, generative AI is not an art at all.

Please don't ever support the selfishest "sport", golf, If you thinking about nature and future of all lives in this planet. It's enemy of the nature and lives including human (If you don't know that mass destruction golf is bring, you should search it right now. There is no environmental safety unless it's VR screen golf) because human couldn't live without nature. I say that it's one of most greediest and selfish things humans can commit.

If you play the golf or generate image, video and text with generative ai and don't feel any remorse, remember that your selfish actions are causing the endless surfer to other lives.

[brothim]

Thoughts after watching "Uglies"

I haven't read the book, so I can't compare it to the movie like many others do. However, I think I do get the point it's trying to transport, so I'll just share my thoughts on how that was achieved.

My first thought when I saw most of the cast in one of the first scenes together, when they're sitting in the auditorium: wow, most of them are really fucking beautiful. Now, sure, I get that the message is supposed to be that people are already fine and special the way they look naturally, but come on, most of them were conventionally attractive and the actress who plays Shay is outright gorgeous. I guess that can be justified because her flaw is supposed to be her skinny figure, and they do give her an hourglass shape in the end.

The thing about Peris that may be considered a flaw and doesn't fit in our beauty standards was his nose. So I was kind of disappointed to see that his yassified version wasn't given a tiny button nose. Because that's what you'd observe in our world right now. Especially if they can express preferences, and he's been bullied for his nose his entire life.

That's what just bothered me in general. They slapped a skin filter and colorful eyes on the pretties and called it a day, when the unrealistic and unattainable beauty standards are right there. Just open Instagram. In my opinion, it should look more uniform, like the phenomenon we can observe right now: all the influencers and celebrities are starting to look alike.

Tally after surgery? Same thing. Skin filter and golden eyes. Like, that's the ✨️life-altering surgery✨️ everyone is so obsessed about in this society? Google the actress and it's literally just her with red carpet makeup. I'd just imagine surgery is supposed to be more... substantial? Like two pictures of Kylie Jenner at 17 and 27 years old. Again, those beauty standards are supposed to be so unattainable for the uglies that they're society's outcasts. Tally's 'flaw' were supposed to be her eyes, so why not enlarge them just a tiny bit too much? Make it a little uncanny? Come on guys, you've got the CGI for that.

I did enjoy watching the movie. I liked the chemistry between Shay and Tally. It's just playing it a bit safe. Because God forbid the viewers see the same botoxed, injected face with large lips and rhinoplasty that stares at them from their screens daily and start thinking, hey, maybe all those people are not getting so much work done because they ✨️chose to✨️ and it makes them ✨️happy✨️

[x0401x]

Hi there! I wanted to ask, what were your impressions/thoughts of Tsurune season 2 episode 1 so far? And the colors symbolism in the opening song with the ribbons? Just curious about your thoughts, thanks and have a great day!! :D

BRUH. I LOVED IT??? FUCK YEAH, THAT WAS AMAZING.

I really wonder how all those annoying Anons who filled my inbox with garbage back in 2019 are feeling right now, because just in this one episode, KyoAni has fixed literally every defect that I had pointed out in S1. The amount of improvement is just surreal.

First of all, the storytelling this season. The freaking storytelling. You can tell the difference between works that a studio actually places their bets on and the ones they don’t by the amount of effort that the animation team puts into the flow of each episode. S1 was an ungodly mix of slow pace that suddenly went too fast at punctual moments without any warning, bad humor, boring tone, missing information, inconsistencies and shit that the animators pulled out of their asses to cover up plot holes. This one, though? Smooth as a feather. Full of well-thought details. Scenes and events connecting properly with one another. Flashbacks very nicely timed. It was entirely an anime-original episode, 90% non-canon content, yet there’s canon info at every single second. I love the little things, such as the way that we’re led to think that the MVP of the sports event is going to be Rika and the show makes use of every possible hint that it’s going to be her, until the very last second, where it turns out that it’s Ryouhei. Awesome screenplay right there. This episode was meticulously planned and it shows.

The changes in visual. The upgrade in the artstyle is the most easily noticeable thing about the animation of this season, but the quality is a million times better too. The characters also have a lot more facial expression now. I once talked about Morimoto Chinatsu’s incredible talent for character design and the way that she goes as far as giving not just different hair and eyes, but also different eyelashes, eyebrows, ears, noses, mouths, chins, jawlines and even fucking wrists to every single character that she drew for the novel. And seeing S1 doing the opposite and giving every character a base face was just... no. So now that there’s been a turnaround and the characters externally show what they’re feeling and thinking, following their journey is a whole new experience. That moment when the team stares at Minato after he answers Masaki’s question is pure character study right there. And it’s probably the most blatant example of this season’s improvement, given that we never had this in the previous one. I also love how the expressions are not just there, they’re on-point. On par with what the novel tells us about them. My biggest peeve with S1 was that I’d look at these kids and a voice at the back of my head would go “who the fuck are you people”. Those weren’t the characters I knew. They didn’t look like them and didn’t act like them. But now I recognize them. These are the kids I read about. They finally feel like themselves.

The symbolism of the series. By God, so many treats in this episode in that regard. The yesterday-today-tomorrow blossom splashed with watercolor in the team’s theme colors. The intimist approach of the shots. The way that Minato and Shuu’s positions oppose each other on-screen. The lighting, the colors, the smear filter… literally everything is more vivid and lively. One of the things I recall commenting about S1 is that it didn’t feel like a KyoAni anime because KyoAni’s works are very immersion-based. You can feel yourself being inside that world, together with the characters. But I couldn’t feel that from Tsurune’s first season at all. With this one, I was able to dive head-first into it. It was absolutely magical. I also love that the leaves that fly out of the targets whenever the characters hit now don’t look so obviously like CGI.

Personality traits. They’re fucking everywhere. Like I said, this was entirely an anime-original episode, yet there’s canon info at every single second. Even better: information that clearly contradicts S1 but that matches the novel. Seiya being a smartass little shit full of wit instead of a Minato-obsessed yandere. Kaito being a team-driven hardworker instead of an obnoxious asshole who wants nothing but victory. Ryouhei actually acting upon his lack of experience in archery to catch up to everyone. Nanao being charismatic and having screen-time of his own instead of being pushed to the background while all his personality and lines are used on Seiya. Minato expressing his thoughts and feelings instead of just being an emotionless doormat who never really does anything. We learned more about the characters in just these 20 minutes than the entirety of the first season. It feels like KyoAni has finally taken a step back to look at the material they had in their hands and truly took in what the novel was about and what each character had going on for them. Even the girls’ team was fleshed out in this one, which was honestly a great surprise. I think we’ve gotten from this episode all the little things we didn’t get from S1, such as the way Noa and Yuuna are fangirls of Rika. The way Nanao shines better as support than as main even though he’s so conspicuous. The fact that Kaito is good at soccer and Seiya loves soccer tactics. The way Ryouhei, who doesn’t know much about archery, is used as the eyes of the viewers, and how unpretentiously the lessons he is taught are presented to us as something that we should also keep in mind (for example, that the target is the archer and the archer is the target, and when you’re at the stage of the draw, you’re aiming at your very own self). And the way that Minato is something in this season. We finally see the inner machinations of his mind here aside from his struggles with target panic.

Lastly (and what I consider to be most important) is that the roles of each character and their relationships with one another seem to be in tune with the novel now. Well, okay, almost. Seiya is still being weird around Masaki, but I guess that’s because it’d be too sudden if Seiya started acting the way he acts in canon (y’know, like a normal fucking person). However, the difference is that the narrative is clearly pushing towards Masaki instead of Seiya now, as it should be. Kaito, Nanao and Ryouhei, who used to be just in the background most of the time in S1 are now set perfectly into their own functions and you can tell that they do exist for reasons other than just fill up the team positions. Nanao also seems to be his own person now instead of living through Kaito. Seiya is being shown looking after the whole club, as the competent club president that he is, instead of just Minato. Minato now has proper reactions to everything and doesn’t just completely ignore when Seiya is being a little shit. Masaki is now acting like a true mentor and already in the first episode we have him giving more advice to the boys than the entirety of the first season. But more than anything else, what caught my attention was Shuu. S1 did him really dirty by giving him scary jealous rival vibes and not expanding at all on his relationship with Minato. As I said before, they’re not your usual sports anime rival duo. They really respect and admire each other, are jealous of each other to some extent, but they’re friends first and foremost. They’re also opposites of one another in every way. We didn’t get any of this in S1, and now we’re getting literally all of it at once. What a fucking blessing.

Honestly, the only things I’m concerned about in this season are 1) Kaito and Seiya’s relationship. It’s probably too late to mend it now and make it the way it is in canon, and it also seems the animators are just not interested in doing that, which kinda hurts, but I guess we can’t have it all. And 2) Minato and Masaki’s relationship. I’m pretty sure that we’re not gonna get the same amount of content for them as there is in the novel, and in the off-chance that we do, it’s just not gonna have the same approach or the same quality. Minato and Masaki are mirrors of each other but the anime vehemently refuses to acknowledge this for some reason. They try to treat Masaki as a completely separate entity that has absolutely nothing in common with Minato despite all of the mystic, supernatural and fate-oriented themes that their connection is centered around and the fact that they’ve gone through very similar experiences and hardships in doing archery. But I’d rather believe that it’s a little too early to make a judgement and wait. Truth remains that the characters and their relationships in the anime will never be nearly as good as they are in the original work no matter how hard they try, so I’m just gonna take what I can get.

Anyway, these are my thoughts on this episode. It was one of the very rare instances where I completely approve of anime-original content in an adaptation.

[thewizardprincessau]

hey. dont cry. dissection of the passerine animatic + the accompanying character study ok? ok.

tldr: my son chun tao she is so fucking ill

Honestly Passerine is THE Chun Tao song. To me. bc it fits really well with his religious guilt, but i also like to recontextualize the chorus to instead be him talking about eri. they were the one really pulling the weight during the early days of their friendship, and chun tao feels a lot of guilt for that

but first! the animatic! it centers around chun tao's guilt for eri being so sweet to him despite him being a stoic ass cold bitch. i actually color-picked the palette from the album cover of eurus (that passerine is from) and slapped on a noise filter to achieve that same grainy effect. it looks nice 2 me.

eri is represented in a distinguishing yellow, someone bright and unique to chun tao, while he himself is colored in the same white as all the other details in the background. While making him the same color as the lyrics helped establish they were His thoughts, him blending in w everything else while eri has their own unique color is his way of putting eri on a pedestal, viewing them as more important than he'll ever be. they're the monarch and he's just their prince consort. that's how he always thought of it.

i dont have much to say about these frames in particular but here are their corresponding parts in the study! theyre just meant to establish their relationship w one another before leading up to the next part, where he sees eri as this blinding light, but just cant let go of that one sign of weakness they had shown him during their wedding. a small glimpse of a them he didnt quite understand yet, and never made the effort to.

at some point, chun tao Snaps and berates eri for trying to get so close to him. at first i wasnt sure if his mindset made.. sense? but connecting the dots from earlier, it DOES make sense if you see it through the point of view that he sees eri as someone above him. chun tao isnt someone who deals with people and he's used to impersonal business relationships and he thought this would be another one of those which is why he's so shocked, caught off-guard, even offended at eri threatening his status quo. brother hates vulnerability, and it terrified him that someone was trying to get through his walls, so all he could do was lash out.

im not absolving eri of blame either though.. i think they still had some wrong in not immediately recognizing chun tao's boundaries. they were so eager to be her friend, they dont realize they might come across as overbearing. and they were, in a sense, but chun tao does also realize its unfair to them to take their innocent gestures of friendliness with so much malice. they just have conflicting ideas on the world, and it clashed, and no one's totally wrong but no one's totally right, they were just coming from their own places.

In here chun tao watches as eri reels back and apologizes for all the things she had shouted at them at. but it's also the same moment chun tao realizes that she does Not know much of anything about eri at all. it's very faint, but there's the outline of a sobbing younger eri staring straight at the screen, supposedly at chun tao, like a reminder of the eri she never got to meet herself. one that was hurting just like her. and that younger eri still resides in the one standing before her crying too, she just never got to see that side to them because she never bothered to figure that side to them out. (AND the "your" is intentionally written twice, like its referring to both eri in the present and eri in the past. by failing to understand them, chun tao feels like he's failing both eris.)

as mentioned earlier, chun tao gets mad at eri for having a "perfect life" and thinks theyd never understand her. but. the thing is. chun tao isnt LETTING them understand her. she keeps pushing them away. and she realizes it was presumptuous to assume they would understand her, because well. she.. doesnt even know what eri's Been through atp. she just assumed eri's life's been perfect because theyre so composed and chipper, but she didnt know who they were a couple years ago at all. she thinks that bc eri's secret relationship is lovey-dovey that their love is perfect, but chun tao didn't see their toxic yuri of a start and that they face a lot of problems as a couple too. chun tao thinks that bc eri is so well-loved by the public that thats that, but she remembers that people gossiped AND gossip hard about them bc of their status as a non-sorcerer. they were dehumanized and alienated by the public too, just like her. and this realization hits her HARD.

he then tries to make an effort to be more involved in eri's life after this point, reconciling with them and becoming their best friend. okay tbh the scene described in the character study is NOT the same as the one pictured in the animatic but i HAD to get a hug in there somewhere.

the last two scenes are a BIG flashforward to ursa's creation, where chun tao is panicking hard about eri literally dying to create their homunculus baby. also ursa is drawn in white but has eri's yellow present too, showing how he's a combination of them, their little kid :D

the whole lyric bit of "but i cant shake this feeling that i was only pushing the spear into your side, again and again and again" is supposed to represent chun tao feeling like a thorn on eri's side causing them pain. he scolded them for being nice to him, and they went on to sacrifice their life in a dangerous ritual to create their son and uphold tradition, but he just feels so so guilty for all of that. he cant shake the feeling that he's a source of their pain and suffering, and it eats him up alive.

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

ok ANYWAY moving on to the CHARACTER STUDY NOW!!!!!!!!!! just parallels and stuff w the writing

guys im a fucking feature writer of course im going to start and end with the same phrase ("chun tao is not a people peson, and his family knows this very well"). chun tao refers to two different families in the opening and closing segments: in the first he refers to his biological family, and in the second its about the family he found and made in quiro. both his families knows he struggles with social interactions, and his bio family (his cousins) make fun of him for it, so he goes on to detail how he views social interactions as a system, a formula he understands. his family in quiro instead tries to HELP him get better at it, and he instead recognizes that social interactions are something personal that require heart and genuine investment (shown in how he notes that ursa cares about him deeply), even moving past his frozen style of speech with the mention of jokes. tldr he's fucking cringefail at socializing and his bio family called him cringe but his chosen family said he's cringe but free. what

Perfect life/love/reputation. At first he hates eri for having these "perfect" things and thinks theyre sooo happy because of it, but later on realizes that their life isnt perfect and neither is his, but he finds joy in what he has anyway :)

the repeated mention of chun tao saying he'd never fall in love with eri bc he's so stuck in his rigid view of romance, but later comes to love eri as his best friend AND love his found family too :'3

chun tao wondering earlier if she should try to emulate eri's pleasantries, and ends up doing so later down the line! both lines have the same structure with the "quick greeting + smile despite being tired"

"Ahia" is Chinese for the eldest brother and it's also used to refer to children to know their birth order. Chun Tao calling Ursa this is an acknowledgement of him going to be a big brother soon! tbh in my head thats what the meeting eri called for is about but its just my headcanon (<== SAID THE ONE WRITING THE STORY)

ALSO i dont have screenshots to show but eri is only intentionally mentioned by name in the flashforward, to show how back then chun tao only saw them as THE princess/monarch but eventually comes to recognize them as eri, his bestie :3

oh my god i. think thats it? good god. might add onto this if i remember more but. thank you for entertaining my insanity why is this 1400+ words I NEED TO EAT BRUNCH

[highlynerdy]

okay but how are you doing these screen caps with no tencent logo ? are you watching somewhere else? they look so much better color than what im watching. tell me your secrets !!

Lol. This ask cracked me up because you must be deep in the JoL watch, too, Anon. RIP to you for asking me about photo editing since it's one of my favorite things to go on and on about!

So. First of all, I am indeed watching on tencent/Wetv. Even though their new episodes are AI translated for a day-ish, the fact that I'm able to screen grab and screen record them, unlike Viki, is the main reason I'm watching there. I do so very much hate that their logo is so obnoxious on the screen, but luckily I'm able to photoshop it out with relative ease.

Secondly, the colors look like hot garbage before I edit them. It's not you. I'm a photographer irl, and I'm fortunate enough to use lightroom/photoshop/other random things to help me take the blah to lovely. There are plenty of mobile apps to help with photo editing without just slapping a filter on it. Though, if that's something you're into, go for it. This day in age, there are apps for everything out there so you don't even need to use pro shit.

Some of them need a little work and some of them need A LOT. Right from the screen though, the colors are so, so flat and bland. My professional editing style is bright, clear colors with strong contrast and deep shadows. So that's how I tend to grade fandom things as well. But your style is yours to develop. Some people love the faded and grainy look. Or love the cross processed coloring. It's all personal.

it's easiest to remove the logo/writing when it's over a solid background. It's not impossible to do if it's over something more intricate, though, it just takes a little more work.

This one required a fair amount of adjusting. The shadows on Gao Da's face were a lot and he just sort of melted into the background. So I lightened up his face and brightened up all the colors.

But I went even further with this one and not only adjusted the colors and the lighting, but I also futzed with the focal point and the aperture to blur everything except their hands a little more. Nothing that makes it look fake but...yeah. It's About The Hands™️.

And then there's this fucking one. The logo was over a tree -1 pt to my sanity. He was in motion in every shot I wanted of this face so no matter how many times I tried to grab it, it was always blurry -5 pts to my sanity. It took a lot of work to get this one stupid photo to be clear but I needed/wanted it for a set. So. We do the work. 🫠

Editing takes something okay/good and makes it great. Every single professional photographer does post processing on their work. And if they say they don't?? They're full of shit. My own work sometimes takes quite a bit of tweaking depending on the lighting/atmosphere.

HhhhOOOokay wow, yeah, that's enough for now. Go forth and grab some screenshots and make edits to share with us all and - if you're brave enough to listen to me ramble on - feel free to chat about editing/photography/color grading anytime, Anon. 💛

[bonestrouslingbones]

chat what do we think.......................

patch notes + side-by-side with the old version:

fixed proportions to be less fucked up and also give him bigass hands. i honestly didnt even realize the original had fucked up proportions until i put them side by side and had to shrink it or else the head looked Enormous

used a couple values from that one color test i did a bit ago & winged the rest. did all of this with a screen filter on so if it looks like ass it's not my fault

made all of his clothes more obviously baggy, his jacket specifically was inspired by something i saw while looking for more sims mods like a week ago that i guess i imprinted in my brain

made the jeans have a more defined & tapered shape & replaced the rips with patches because that's less stupid

changed the ugly ass boots to doc martins because He Would

untucked his shirt because He Wouldn't (also made the shirt wrinkles look more like it's clinging to his ribs to make him look thinner, no damn clue if it actually worked it is 2am)

fuckin forgot about the spike bracelets which makes sense because they wouldn't work with the baggier jacket at all BUT i am very very sad to see them go to be completely honest

made his gloves lower contrast bc while i love the lil broken heart detail it ain't that important lmao

[inspector-constable]

My thoughts on Barbenheimer, since these movies are now inextricably linked in my mind forever and I liked both of them more than I thought I would:

Barbie

I had a lot of thoughts on feminism, patriarchy, capitalism, and all that jazz after watching this one, but smarter people have already dissected that better than I could.

What I will say is I was hysterically laughing at almost every moment to the point where my face and abs hurt. Every time Will Farrell's gaggle of incompetent suited executive officers were on screen I just couldn't hold the giggles in. Helen Mirren's narration reminded me SO MUCH of God in Good Omens in a way that really got to me. There were parts where nobody else in the theater was laughing, but my partner and I were fighting to keep our guffaws down because the humor was just so, so on point for us. "SUBLIME."

My partner is a cis white male, and after reading the opinions of others of his kind, I am reminded once again how fucking lucky I am that he turned out to be a good one. He liked the movie even more than I did and it really resonated with him.

I wished the movie had delved a tiny bit more into how the patriarchy fucks men up too, and not just queer or neurodivergent or different men like Allan, ALL men are shoved into a box and punished for stepping out of line under the patriarchy. And I wish Allan had more screentime.

Generally I felt the movie was a bit heavy handed with its morals. Of course I completely agree with what it had to say and I don't mean to tone police. But because of my background and religious trauma I am just acutely and unfortunately aware of the kind of visceral reaction certain people will have to the way Barbie presents its themes. This was a movie that speaks to people who already agree with its central ideas. But if the writers/producers actually wanted to make anti-feminists think critically about their position, I think the message was a bit too hamfisted or condescending to accomplish that.

However I'm aware that even my thinking about this point is largely because of my anxiety and religious trauma and I am really tired of running films through a filter of "What would my dad say if he watched this movie?" I'll stop there before this becomes an entire therapy sesh

All that being said, I laughed, I cried, I spilled water on myself, I loved seeing all the pink clothes. Every actor was hysterical and beautiful. I love that movies can be bright and colorful and whimsical again. I gave the movie a 9/10.

Oppenheimer

What a shock to move on to this movie. To be honest, I am not a fan of war movies in general and I didn't know why people were so excited about this one. We probably wouldn't have gone if our friends didn't want to do the double feature.

At first, I was irritated. After coming from Barbie, having a movie totally populated by old cis white men felt annoying. There were almost no important female characters at the beginning. I noticed how Florence Pugh's character was basically just a sex object - yes she had interesting opinions, but it seemed like she was naked and riding a dick for half her scenes. Why was she naked but Cillian Murphy was fully clothed for their first sex scene? The whole movie seemed focused on a male gaze and a male perspective, par for the course for a war movie.

When Emily Blunt's character said "Can you explain quantum physics to me? It seems awfully complex." All I could think was "Can you play guitar at me?" Dead.

BUT.

As the movie went on I started to realize how well it fit with the themes Barbie focused on, but from another side. This movie is full of old cis white men, yes. They are the patriarchy, the literal men in power.

Oppenheimer actually did an incredible job examining exactly what I was left contemplating after I left Barbie - how the patriarchy destroys everyone, even the men who it benefits the most.

What a perfect example of how the competitive, egotistical, compassion-less, violent nature of toxic masculinity hurts everyone who participates in it while claiming innocent victims. The patriarchy built a weapon of mass destruction, refused to listen to calls for discretion, and murdered hundreds of thousands of civilians. And then the men, just like the Kens, began to feel their egos being threatened and they fought and backstabbed each other into obliteration.

So in the end it ended up being a marvelous commentary on similar social and political issues just like Barbie, while also being a strong anti-war movie (as Steven Spielberg would say every war movie is.) It was beautifully shot and the performances were incredible. The use of color and sound was perfect and the Trinity bomb scene (and the gym scene after) was one of the most impactful things I have ever seen. I felt like my brain was buzzing and my jaw was open for most of the movie.

However, I don't think Oppenheimer passed the Bechdel test and I was pretty bummed at the lack of female characters although Kitty's questioning scene was the most badass part of the whole movie. It was too long, too many names to remember, the timelines were confusing, and everything after the bomb test seemed to be boring political dialogue that I barely stayed awake for.

I gave it an 8/10.

[xyl4-4444]

Do you have any art advice?

Sorry for the VERY belated reply but..

Yes of course I have some (general) advice, that have helped me as an artist.

Buckle up, because it's going to be a long post.

Start a Sketchbook. If it's your first ever try at dipping your fingers into these, you can turn an average notebook into one to overcome your fear of ruining a 30zł costing sketchbook in the future. If you're afraid of ruining your first page of your sketchbook, then just draw what the year is. Trust me when I say this, this has been my go-to when filling up the first page EVER SINCE I STARTED IT BACK IN 2019. Once you'll have 10+ sketchbooks finished, you can look back at your first and current sketchbook and see how your skills have changed over time.

Sign up to Pinterest and start making boards for thing like: Art inspo, references,etc. I created mine back in mid-2020 and I've gotta say, this has been one of my sources of inspo ever since. Of course, Pinterest is not just an art inspo-exclusive site, as there are things like cooking tutorials, room decor ideas, Hell.. even MEMES are here..

Don't be afraid to try out other blending modes other than Multiply, Add or Overlay. These three aforementioned blending modes are surely neat and all, but there are more blending modes out there (thought the full amount of those depends on the art program you're using, I use FireAlpaca btw). There are such layer modes like: Difference, Hard Light, Darken, Screen, Exclusion, Luminosity to name a few. So go out, experiment with them in your art, mix-and-match then and see what you'll get.

Use references. Look, I know that the "JuSt PrAcTiCe" advice is NOT ENOUGH to help an artist, and I get that (That's why I've listed my first tip as "Go grab a sketchbook"), however there's a little catch... Let's say... you wanna draw something for example... Hands - the most tedious part of the human body that a lot of artists are struggling to draw correctly. You try to draw it on paper.. and suddenly - You've just realized, that the hand you drew, didn't come out as you expected. So what do you do in this situation? Well you go search up 'hand references' of course. You can do that with other things like: backgrounds, computers, skateboards, weird deep-sea animals like Giant Isopods etc... ...or you just want to try out a different art style References are a good tool, if you don't know how some things work in an artistic sense, that's all I'm saying.

Use you art program's features to AN ADVANTAGE. Especially the filters tab. I use FireAlpaca to make art. It's a free art program, so I don't have to pay over 100zł montly, unlike Photoshop or.. Clip Studio Paint. However it doesn't have that many features or filters like Photoshop does, and that's okay. Because despite this, you can make great art with it. Wanna make a picture you've just pasted from the web to have some nice halftones? Well you can covert the layer into an 8-bit one, enable halftones and adjust to your liking. Wanna have some interesting colors in your art? Use Gradiation map or Tone Curve and fuck around. Want your art to have a softer look? Use a 'Soft Light' mode, go to 'Gaussian Blur' and later go to 'Levels' and adjust the to your liking. Wanna make a drawing have a pixel-ish look? you can use the 'Mosaic' filter for that. The list goes on.

Last but not least... Have Fun. Art has no rules. You can make fanarts of your favourite series 24/7, make numerous paintings of landscapes on canvas, draw your OCs, doodle on Ms Paint of all things.. or just scribble things in your sketchbook. In the end you're making art, and what matters the most is that you're having fun with it. So go out while you're drawing (as long as you're not harming anybody)

Yeah, that's all

[desertleviathan]

Thoughts on Emet-Selch. Spoilers for FFXIV Stormblood, Shadowbringers and Endwalker abound. And grumpy, aggressively negative opinions about a character other players mostly adore, and the lead writer for the game also seems to adore. If you don't want to read that shit and you poke your nose in here anyway, I'm gonna post the Dead Dove gif at you.

Sometimes the FFXIV community is a very strange place for me to interact with as apparently the one player who saw the "Your character seems like they may be a reincarnation of Azem" ambiguity and took that opening without hesitation to declare it all just a wild coincidence.

A bunch of NPCs think one of my WoL's prior incarnations was good friends and colleagues with the cabal who became the inner circle of the Ascians? Nah. Actually no. 100% false. You are mistaken. Sometimes a person's Aura can just have a similar color to another person's Aura or whatever.

I'm absolutely not casting moral judgments on anyone who has strong positive feelings towards these characters. They're fictional and their crimes are fictional and the most "real" thing about them is that many of them are very attractive and charming. I get that. I think a number of them are very nice to look at and/or listen to as well.

But I'm the kind of player who mostly perceives the game through the filter of the life experiences I've invented for my character. When Emet-Selch sashays onto the screen, my WoL, an Ala Mhigan expatriate, doesn't think: Oh there's my old friend from the Convocation. He was misguided for a long time but we have made amends and I'm glad to see his ghost showing up to support me!

What my character thinks is: So. Emperor Solus zos Galvus of Garlemald. The man who forged the empire into an engine of conquest. The man who lead the invasion where my parents died, among countless others of my countrymen. The man who enslaved my people, outlawed our religion, sent our young and strong and healthy as conscripts to other lands to repeat all of these crimes against strangers, left our weak and sick and elderly behind to fend for themselves under backbreaking tax burdens, and pillaged every available physical resource of our homeland such that by the time we liberated it, there wasn't a whole lot of it left that was worth returning to. The man who did the same or worse to countless other nations, and placed this entire half of the Star under threat of brutal war. The man who oversaw the bizarre experiments on his own offspring that unleashed motherfuckin' Zenos on the world, which may genuinely be the worst thing of all. At least within the actions of that alias.

Because that man was secretly the Immortal Genocide Wraith Emet-Selch. Makes sense.

And that man also personally orchestrated the complete eradication of at least seven full inhabited worlds such that not even an archaeological record remains, not even a barren husk to serve as a monument. That man came a whisper away from scrubbing two further worlds out of memory as well, one of which is still trapped in a state of all inhabitants having been warped into undying-but-eternally-hungry monsters, and the other of which has been narrowed to a tiny circle of surviving territory surrounded by a wasteland of uniformly sun-scorched dust. That man, after all that shit had, the fucking gall, the repulsive, monstrous, obscene arrogance, to demand that I 'remember us, remember that we existed.'

Fuck that guy. I killed that sick son of a bitch, and he deserved it. I would do it again without a single heartbeat of hesitation or regret.

But he still seems to exist, and tales of any number of Hells and the judgments of Nald'thal aside, he does not seem to be experiencing any particular retaliatory torment in his afterlife.

Not only is he not chained up in a pit full of smoldering coals getting jabbed in the beanbag with a pitchfork or whatever, he's showing up here at the End of All Things, when I really need to keep my mind focused, to act like he's on my team and has my fuckin' back now?? Just palling around with his dead boyfriend (who is admittedly lovely, no quarrel whatsoever with Hythlodeus, pleasure to see you again buddy), having a grand old time???

I don't care what memories death may have restored to him, he did what he did in full possession of free will and an allegedly superior capacity for rational analysis. Dude went out of his way every time we talked to brag about how much better his his Bigass Aether-Dense Aumoratine Brain was, and he still decided to do all this heinous shit, acting deliberately and meticulously every step of the murderin' way.

Are there depths of evil so awful that redemption becomes impossible, and forgiveness can't be earned? Man, I don't know. I'm not a saint. I'm not a philosopher. I kill monsters. And that man is Star-wide Existential Threat. And one that has not been fully neutralized, given how his moldy soul keeps bubbling to the surface. (And for the record? What redemption? He hasn't even apologized. His janky ass tried to recruit me, tried to kill me when I refused his offer, got killed by me in self-defense, and now he just keeps... showing up, acting like we're all cool.)

So.

Next time I climb down the Aitascope it's gonna be with a backpack FULL of White Auracite.

Anyway. Just had to get that mess out of my skull. Here's hoping the story post-Endwalker doesn't find too many excuses to go back to the Ascians and Aumarot well. I feel like we've devoted enough of this game's lifespan to exploring those particular stories, and I personally don't need any more unless they figure out a very different direction to take the next Surprise Ascian appearance.

[bitegore]

this is just a half-finished post or some shit i was planning on wrapping into an actual tutorial with like video and image steps to post to itch.io for a pay what you want type booklet. it's about using layers and tricks to make your art look cooler once it's already done and you cannot be fucking bothered to keep drawing shit but you want it to look more interesting than it does currently, ie, probably how everyone feels at the end of every drawing ever

How to take a mediocre drawing and make it Really Pop: the Bitegore Ooze And Goo Red Dragon Art guide to easily adding effects to your art without changing anything else!

Before anything else, let’s go over: what catches attention?

Strong composition. In this guide we will not do anything to strenghthen your composition. That requires you to draw different, which isn’t lazy and easy. Besides, we love not putting hard work in here. Let’s move on.

Interesting subjects. You get to work that one out, I’m sure you know what interests you more than I do.

High contrast. This is the BIG one we’re going to zero in on.

Bright colors, even if they’re not necessarily high contrast. This is another we can focus on, though, like… less.

The purpose of this is not to tell you how to draw different to make your art better. There’s ways I can tell you to do that, but fuck it, we love easy solutions. Don’t change your art style. Don’t change your process at all! This is all “after the fact” advice.

Before we get into the actual stuff, let’s cover layer settings very quickly. If you want to know how these work in more detail, just play with them or google them because I’m not here to #Learn You A Thing TM about layer settings, just run through them super fast in terms of how they work.

Lighteners:

Screen: makes things lighter. Black is invisible, white is white, everything in between just gets lighter on top by math. Who gives a shit how it works? Not me. The important thing to know is that everything gets desaturated when it gets lighter with screen layers.

Glow Dodge/Color Dodge: makes things lighter again. This time they get more saturated. 100% saturation generally doesn’t change from its most intense color value, and black underneath the lightening layers generally doesn’t get hidden by color or glow dodge layers. These will emphasize any reds, blues and yellows in the image somewhat aggressively, even if your lightening layer is in grayscale.

Add: makes it lighter again! Black is invisible, white is white, everything in between gets lighter on top by math. Different from screen because it makes things brighter faster. This one also desaturates your colors.

Add Glow: This might be a clip studio exclusive, I have no idea. Anyway it’s like Add but it saturates your image pretty intensely, which means I think it’s the best. I use this one in everything for my shading and often for filters as well.

Lighten: Compares this layer to the layers underneath and uses only the colors that make the image lighter. Sometimes adds values together to create an interesting look.

Lighter Color: Compares this layer to the layers underneath and only uses the colors that make the image lighter. There is no blending on this one; it’s essentially a “visible or invisible” logic gate. Tends to look crunchier than lighten layers but preserves colors better.

Darkeners:

Multiply: makes things darker. White is invisible, black is black, everything in between just gets darker because of math. This will saturate things if you use a saturated color and doesn’t desaturate them when you use grays.

Darken: Compares this layer to the layers underneath and uses only the colors that make the image darker. Sometimes adds values together to create an interesting look.

Darker Color: Compares this layer to the layers underneath and only uses the colors that make the image darker. There is no blending on this one either; it’s essentially a “visible or invisible” logic gate. Tends to look crunchier than darken layers but preserves colors better.

Linear Burn and Color Burn: the glow/color dodge of darkening layers. White is invisible, the darker colors will saturate reds, yellows and blues regardless of shading layer color, and the biggest difference is just that linear burn is slightly less saturate-y than color burn.

Other effects:

Overlay: White is white, black is black, everything else gets emphasized. I consider it sort of a blend of color burn and color dodge; that’s basically how it works. It’s excellent for boosting contrast.

Hard Light/Soft Light: Overlay with tweaks. Usually hard light looks darker and more saturated and soft light looks lighter and less saturated.

Difference, Subtract, Divide, Exclusion: four different methods of comparing one layer to the layer below it to create an inverted image along some method or another. The calculations are different, but all of them sort of do the same thing. Play around with them if you want to see what to do with them. Can create some really cool effects when used well. When you put the same image over itself on these settings, Subtract and Difference turns black, Exclusion turns gray, and Divide turns white.

Pin Light: this one is definitely a clip studio ex exclusive, but I love it. If you have csp ex you should play around with it. Mid gray is invisible, white is white, black is black, and saturated colors become that color range. Pin light is weird because it pulls the colors underneath it into a close-to-color range on the color wheel, and the more saturated the color, the more effective it does at this. It never desaturates colors to gray unless it’s completely hiding them. It can mimic an “old polaroid” warm-black effect when the color is lighter than 50% black, and it brings highlight colors down when the color is darker than 50% black. It looks best in middle-saturated middle-brightness values, but you can mess around with it.

Color Correction:

Hue: Changes your colors’ hue, ie, just the part of the color wheel it’s on. Doesn’t tweak saturation at all. Gray will remain gray, 100% saturation will remain that saturated. Good for small color corrections and on-top filters.

Color: Changes your colors’ hue and saturation. Regardless of whatever saturation the image below is, the color you’re using up top is will change every color into that hue and that level of saturation as well as that hue. Useful for coloring on top of grayscale images; usually way too strong for post effects though.

Saturation: Changes your values’ saturation to be whatever this layer’s saturation value is. Doesn’t change the actual hue or anything though. Good for popping some colors up and correcting overly-saturated areas from using stuff like color dodge layers.

Brightness: Changes your values’ brightness to be whatever brightness is up top. Useful for fixing things that your other color effects have broken, such as blown-out areas of shadow from overusing overlay layers.

Presumably your art is finished and you like it. Great! Maybe it’s finished and you don’t like it very much. Still great! Doesn’t matter much really. What’s important is that it’s like, colored or shaded or whatever, there’s some kind of stuff going on in there, and you have no further intention of adjusting the “base” elements. If you do, this will start looking weird, but feel free to mess with it anyway; rules are fake and you can do what you like. More importantly, you can make a “flat” version of it to start adding effects to.

[quinntamsin]

She held the helmet under her arm as the droid behind her rolled along without even paying attention to the destruction around it. A loud whistling sound informed the Mandalorian what she was waiting for. "Are you sure H21?" she asked, only to receive a longseries of droid language whistles. After listening and discerning theirmeaning the Mandalorian sighed. "Fine, I will speak to the Duchess once this job is over."

Greetings everyone, it's been a long hiatus, but I am hopefully going to be getting back soon. Depression got real bad lately and even cannabis only can do so much. I've been able write a bit more on my next OC riddled fanfic Poisoned Heart. Anyway let's do Andor! Andor S1E1 "Kassa", the opening to Andor is a black screen seemingly zooming into to reveal the title. A stylized version of the Rebellion's symbol, the Starbird, is above it. Dark rain files into view as we watch Cassian walk a dark industrial walkway back to the city where he's living. Morlana One, a massive corp zone on the planet is where he's hiding. This place s reams blade runner and I like how they embedded a bunch of random weird ads. I like seeing this alien city and hearing the various languages in the background. The music here is very synth and I love the dancing twi'lek holo. I wonder what species the fucking bartender is. Almost utapaun, something with an elongated head and more. The proprieteress of the club pops up and we hear Cassian call the place a company town. Pretty damn accurate, Morlana's Corp Zone represents the worst of the Empire. She getting suspicious before Cassian mentions he's looking for his sister. The darkness punctuated by the blue light really sells a seediness to the place with it being broken by random gold lights. It makes me think we're in a strange almost iPhone owned industrial complex. A guard confronts, well a pair of idiot guards, Both using heavy Corscanti accents. Diego's voice has a short of desperate measure to it that sells his spy infused violence. I wonder if he watched some John Wick with how he carries his head as he kills the two me. That sort of tired, bedraggled expression of "here we go again." One guard dies and the other can sense his time to end., and gets his face blasted out. This is not your clean Star Wars, this is the Rebellion and one where you cannot afford loose ends. Yeah, if you want clear cut good and evil, do not watch this series. It's a james bond or mission impossible series with a grittier take. The filters on the vfx remind me heavily of Altered Carbon. WE come to Ferrix, a dust covered dirty city in the early morning. A droid is our main focus, one that easily heads out into a massive junk and scrap pile outside. I like his four little traction points for transportation. We switch to Cassian on Kenari his home where his sister wakes him up. B2EMO his droid has a pretty interesting stutter, which makes me wonder why it occurs. Maybe a damage to his voice processor? "That's two lies." The droid has to put a lot of energy into lying and just seems to want to spend time with "Kassa". Seems Ferrix is another mining or industrial town of sorts. I'm seeing a lot of bright yellow colors in the pallet along with drab oranges and reds. The usage of stone for a lot of the exterior definitely makes me think of some sort of mineral-based processing. Not to mention a lot of the clothes have padded bits insert into them making me thinking defense. Also more people are wearing ear plugs, definitely a job requiring large machinery. This is a great scene, it tells so much just in its costuming and colors. THe way that Cassina's friend has a cleanish face. WE switch back to the Pre-Mor where an investigator is talking about the seats of the guards. I like how he updated his "uniform" because he wants to act the proper Imperial. The man in charge decides to cover it up since the men in question would all make them look back. The DI just wants to ignore it, the Preox-Moralana company wants shit to look good which means less Imperial Oversight. Heh, love it. We switch back to Ferrix where Cassian has come to visit a friend who does repairs. I wonder is this part of his quest to find his sister? Bix is his connection and he pushes more. She asks Cassian what he did and she stole a fucking Starpath unity. He apparently stole it from his friend's bids. Damn, not the best decision. This episode has already established that Cassian is out for Cassian. He has some connections but they aren't exactly "friends". Flashing back to Kenari, we see that the camp is alive with curiosity. The various colonists have strung together a village mixing technology and various stuff near their home. We see them placing on some sort of paint for something the lines have a meaning for the older kids. I notice a distinct lack of adults in their camp. Back to the DI we see him in the security HQ where he berates a man for ignoring a obvious shi launch. Cassian continues his walk around the story as Nurchi, a loan shark, who wrangles another acquaintance into a discussion. I like vetch, big kind of dinosauroid dude with a cockney accent. Bix leaves work and her love interest follows her. What a fool, the man is going to get himself in a lot of trouble. The music hear continues to give us a sort of casual, but thriller quiet. All of the actions of many here are in the underworld. So my guess is she has to maintain a lot of secrets to keep herself solvent in credits. The Imperial Security folks have a nice level of chatter to make themselves appear like normal employees dealing with their uptight boss. Pegla who is a yardbull watching the various ships warns Cassian, and yet again, Cassian has burned another bridge. In the past we see the Kenari older kids head off somewhere. Strange, are they after that ship that crashed? Moving onto Andor S1E2 "That Would Be Me" we continue our take on the opening triad of Andor series. With quick reminder of what happened at the Industrial Site and the death of the two guards. We get the subtle simple opening of Andor with its string theme, which slowly fades into the jungles of Kenar.  The Kenari are heading off to investigate the crash our band of children are decked out in various weapons as they pass what seems to be an abandoned colony site. Overgrown pieces of machinery come to view as we then see a massive open face mine. The kids seem to be descendants of maybe colonial miners that once dwelt on the planet. Changing scenes we see a man entering a tower to adjust his ear plugs. He drums away on the chime which appears to be a large industrial way of alerting the workers of the town. In the shipyard Pegla is turning down the lights and everyone is heading back to put away their equipment. Another day working in the town has come as everyone cools down for the night. Meanwhile, Kassa is seemingly skulking about as Ferrix falls asleep. We see Bix friend reading her console and the Arabesh is translated as he sees the message for a Kenari male wanted. As he enters who appears to be an adoptive mother of sorts. THey discuss the fact that the Pre-Mor Sec know about him being Kenari. Our friendly droid tells him that Bix wants to meet. She asks what he did and he relays a simplified version of him murdering two shitty Sec Guards. The Sec Commander is intent on hunting down and as Bix goes to have some fun we switch to Syril Karn. The Seargent he brings in is pretty hardcore in ow he sees the Order of the Empire. The talk about how they need have a stronger hand to deal with the "Formenting" as he says. This man is what appears to be a failed or wannabe stormtrooper. His eyes got all beetle-like as he talked about dealing with the "Formenting" Back to the Andor Household we see Maarva (yes I had to look up a list of names because I'm reviewing so many shows) is holding something tight. Cassian meanwhile is in his crash ship room. Going through whatever is on his mind. This makes me think the flashbacks to Kenari are about the trauma of losing his sister I mean that is an obvious point, but there is definitely more to the story. The kids zone in on the crashed ship and we see the oldest heading in to investigate alone. The sizzling of electricity fills the air as she uses a tongue click to summon the kids. As the music intensifies we switch to a ship flying over a planet, this appears to be Ferrix again. Whoever this guy is he's definitely a tad sketch. LIkely a Rebel with how the droid tells him about "Safe Places" to land. And as he heads into the city our drummer dude opens the day to waken everyone. Bix wakes up with Perrin watching her from a seat. Bix and Perrin have a somewhat awkward short conversation over a cup of Caf. In his ship Cassian and B2EMO who seems to be somewhat depressed droid. Maarva pops into what I think is Cassian's room to see an old Kenari fighting staff covered in bits and bobs. Was she the one who the kids ran into? We are again in Kenari, the leader of the group is drawing closer as Cassian notices the bodies of the pilots. They are definitely humanoid, but have yellowish skin as one of them gets up and shoots the Kenari leader. The children take him out with their blow guns (how the hell did I not notice they were blow guns). The kids realize their leader is dead, killed by the invaders. THey pick her up, leaving her blow gun as they watch for more invaders. Cassian watches the dropped ship with an intense hatred as we once again switch to Ferrix. He runs into someone and we learn that yes, the mining venture on the actual planet fell apart. SO yeah, my theory was right, the kids were the survivors of a mining disaster. He pays for what seems to be a ticket somewhere. And as Pre-Mor people are coming in their strange blue and orange Imperial inspired uniforms (including those silly little hats). Mosk who is acting like a rent-a-cop wanting to be an Imperial Stormtrooper speaks to his people. Reminding them that the folk of Ferrix can go complain about Pre-Mor at the Territorial Forum. Karn meanwhile seems a bit unsure what to say as he gives a haphazard speech. I wanna say, their ship is clunking as fuck and I love it. Really shows how these guys mostly work as Industrial SEcurity. Why have a flashy ship when a company carrier does the same? So Skarsgard, is Luthen, our old seeming rebel, is on a sort of floating anti-grav bus. He ends up dealing with a man who just can't stop talking and moves to insert himself into a conversation Luthen doesn't want. The carrier draws closer to the primary town in Ferrix as the dump below shows us Cassian on a Mission. It's interesting how unlike the rest of the cast he's always in dark browns and reds. Everyone else is either in blue, orange, green or yellow.

Episode 3 "Reckoning" opens with the children slowly making their way into the downed ship on Kenari. The kid is Cassian, and we see more of the strangely yellow-skinned figures inside wearing suits with the Imperial Emblem on it. The ship itself appears pretty industrial with a central command bridge filled with various oscillating monitors. A central bank of consoles surrounded by clean mirror-like black surface. We switch back to the dusty mining yards after young Kassa bashes the side of the console. He's waiting for someone. So, quickly I looked it up, the people with the yellowed skin are Republic soldiers which makes their death all the more strange. The man from early, Luthen exists from his transport and meets up with Bix. This is interesting, as we switch to the Pre-Mor fucks coming in out of hyperspace. We switch to Maarva and CLem Andor preparing to salvage the frigate. The kid they find is Kassa, and as we switch back to the weird LAAT like ships coming into the space above the town on Ferrix. This scene as the Pre-Mor Sec goons start looking switches places with Clem and Maarva. She's able to sedate the kid as the Republic Frigate is close to appearing. The Security goons appear at Maarva's place of residence and push after announcing they have a warrant. Bix pops back up at work where her friend Timm stalks off a bit sus. Mosk is going off the deep in with his bully-boys. They detect where Cassian is hiding just as Luthen arrives in the warehouse. The pretty orange and teal blue outfits of the Pre-Mor sec teams stands outa gainst the duller browns and yellows of the people of Ferrix. The darker browns and reds of the buildings also makes them stand out more than a sore thumb. A friend of Bix alerts her that the Corpos are there for Cassian as the rat reveals himself. Kerabast, Timm, you damn fool. Luthen asks cassian where he got his gadget, and Kassa being the foolish impatient bastard just pushes for more money. He wants to know how Cassian got the box, he's either a fucking spy or he's too good for his own good.  Cassian scoffs at how easy it is to fool the damn Imperials. Luthen points out that his life isn't going to stay the same and he mentions how Clem was hanged. Again, Kerabast. Luthen invites Cassian to join his little OPA, I MEAN REBEL cell, and suddenly we are in the town center. Several citizens begin to bang on things to warn rest of the town that the Corpos are there. Mosk calls it intimidation, but the fool likely knows its a warning. If they can get to the bell ringer to sound out a warning everyone on Ferrix including the rebels will know. Corpos have them surrounded as Bix runs ahead of them to find Cassian and is stopped by a Corpo officer. In the old factory Luthe is working out an exit plan as he explodes some slap charges. This start a minor chain reaction with corpo team going down as the team enters with what's left and starts firing. Parts keep falling as Cassian hyperfixates on the box. Dodging bits of metal as men are being harmed and killed. Another corpo goes down as the last one shoots from above. The scene itself is well acted and timed. The falling debris adds a great level of tension as the entire factory comes down around them. They escape out of the factory as the last of the team is likely dead. Luthe and Cassian make their getaway as the younger man asks why they don't go for the box. Timm heads in to free Bix and one of the corpos shoots him. As the shooter is set away by the CO Bix is left with Timm's corpse on the steps. You can really see how Mosk is just a damn weekend milita-goer with his actions. Meanwhile, Karn pops into a room and scares off its inhabitants as we switch back and forth between all of the team. Maarva warns the corpo about what the banging actually means. "When its stops." All of the clanging ends, as all of the town goes quiet. The Sec corpos rush around taking up positions as you cans ee they aren't use to actual combat. Syril finds Cassian with a blaster pointed at his behind him. Luthen calls for Karn's life and Cassian grabs him as soon as he's able to make a call. The corpo who shot Timm is killed when he tries to launch the od and finds it weighed down. The Clanging was a way for the locals to work together to end the corpos. One comes upon Karn whose been tied up, as one of the speeders has been rigged with explosives. An old Ford-looking piece acting as a decoy and drawing the fire of the Pre-Mor Sec. They surround it after it crashes, with Mosk laughing and three of the men getting caught in another blast. Cass and Luthe speed off on a swoopbike leaving the corpos realizing their actions were all foolish and gungho. Switching back to t memories of Maarva we see her crying as she thinks of how she found Kassa and rescued him from Kenari. He himself just trying to find his sister. Bix meanwhile saved from being handcuffed and reaches for Timm only to be dragged off. We see the people of Ferrix in pain and the swoop darts off into the sunset. Karn stares into nothing realizing his foolish actions at listening to Mosk got his loyal men killed. That his actions while maybe correct were just the actions of a mall cop at playing tin soldier. We enter Luthe's snhip as starts to lift off and see the old ANdor ship doing the same. Cassian awakes on it to see the last visage of his planet. We get a swell of the music as Maarva watches them and suddenly we are back in the present and Cassian watches as they leave Ferrix. Hottakes:

The Twi'lek dancer holo in the pleasure house is a good example of how the galaxy sexualizes them.

I like  the style of the blue light and strange usage of triangular walk ways.

The fact this story seems to hinge on him finding his sister is a good lead into his reasons for being a Rebellion Spy.

The two men who followed him were the same kind of fools to start this story.

Bix is a nice addition to SW's growing scrappy technician cast.

I do like that they are translating the Arabesh for us.

Cassian is definitely a desperate motherfucker.

Damn the security fucks are definitely a bit too MAGA for my tastes.

Luthen has a definitely interesting vibe to him.

The Pre-Mor guys are all definitely similar to fucking Imperials with their corporate outfits and armor being straight out of Imperial Naval uniform design.

Their ship and shuttles even mimic the old LAAT gunships from the CLone Wars.

Timm's death was so fucking bittersweet, he ratted out Cassian and was shot for doing the right thing.

Watching the guy who killed Timm crash was cathartic.