#they dont even know how much i had to draw and erase just to create the illusion of Somewhat Smooth Line

[natsmagi]

EXCITING NEWS!!! I GOT A NEW DRAWING TABLET!! my prev one was one i had had for over 7+ yrs and girl omg its like actually so bad. i bought it second-hand too. pens been broken since day 1 and theres a scratch on the screen. baffling. But now im gonna have to enter the learning stage of this new tablet. Which may take me some time. and be difficult. but its ok i got this

and also just so u guys can get an idea of how awful my old tablet was please look at this

like do u see. the hell i had to endure. Does this make sense to u guys. look at the line quality. the pen pressure sensitivity. my old tablet didnt even have a tilt sensitivity function. i cant believe i lived like this for so long

but yes now begins my "getting used to new technology" phase so if u dont see me posting for a couple days this is why. daunting stuff

[rqbossman]

Hello Mr Bossman! (and possibly anyone else who reads this)

Its an honour to be here, I have a few questions. First i appologise for the long paragraph, you may dismiss it for the questions at the bottom. For context, i am here after finishing TMA and being up to date with TMAP, i then went over and listened to RQG, and have just finished listening to Epilogue 3 and might i just say, good sir I am grateful for your podcasts. I am currently just a few months away from my final exams of High School, and as someone who even just 1 year ago was very lost, struggling with school and being just overwhelmed. TMA isnt exactly comforting, but the characters and plot managed to serve as a good form of escapism while sorting myself out. I found my self engaging more in creative things that i had originally put aside in favour of maths and science (which i hated but thought i needed to do). I started drawing again, even if just fanart. and i found things going well. By finding podcasts, story telling and these communities have helped me in my own understanding of what i want in life. I got an ADHD diagnosis earlier this year, and almost directly after started RQG and as my first hyperfixation (that i was aware of as an hyperfixation) gosh dang it hit hard. (in a good way). Ive been able to do so much more creative writing and drawings, and got re-involved with a small dnd group with some friends who i played one game with almost 4 years ago now. So overall, inspirational sounds cringe, but it was. Im doing my best with the upcoming exams, but trying to get in to Medicine is not my only prority, and the fact ive been re-introduced to my first love (Literature and story telling), im planning to go do an Arts degree and i know i wouldnt have been able to confidently make this decision, or even have survived this long in the school system without the work you and your coworkers do. Now the sap is out of the way, Question time! (if you could answer even just one of these questions it would be so cool)(they go in order of RQ relevant to random stuff)(dont feel pressured to answer all/any. i know i wrote alot): 1. what would you say is the best way to draft out a long-form story. (with "Erasing the Line" as an example) Did you start at the end, with the links to the overarching plot.

2. When working with the players (in a form of TTRPG), what did you do to make sure you didnt miss relevant timing of plot points/ avoid creating spoilers while still giving enough detail?

3. What are good places to start with making a job out of storytelling/voice acting/audio etc. In the case of RQ, how is this a job and where do i sign up please! /j (what i mean is, how is best way/how did you find all the people involved and was there a common path that you were all on before getting to where you are now?) 4. Do you have recommendations for Terry Pratchett Books, i may be an literary-leaning student, but it seems i have never actually properly read any of his books. so where is best place to start?/What did you read first?

5. Similar authors or similar inspirations? Did you have a favourite podcast you listen to in your free time that you havnt had a hand in producing/directing/working on. 6. Favourite song/album/artist. And more specifically, what you like listening to in background when doing either writing or (for ttrpg) character research/game planing. 7. Since the olympics are on at the moment, what has been your favourite sport to watch, if you have been watching at all. Thank you for your time :)

Thankyou for all the kind words. Knowing our work is helping people really keeps our engines fired up. Let's see if I can't answer your questions: 1. I "sandbox" which is where I just shove everything I can think of into an unorganised bullet point list. Characters, setting, plot, all of it in one big mess. Then I decide what type of story you want to tell, copy and paste to a new document and then start to organise the thoughts (with the sandbox on standby if new stuff comes in I don't know what to do with). I think of it like scultping, you cut away bits and reshape until something comes out the other end that is story shaped. Only then do I attempt to build the sandcastle and put something coherant together like a synopsis or scratch draft etc.

2. Very tricky. I did a complete review and update of all notes after each recording session and don't forget the audio eas edited. I made lots of gaffs that you never heard as audience.

3. I contacted anyone I could convince to take part and just proved I was serious by overworking. I don't reccomend that route. Unfortunately it really is "who" you know. That doesn't mean chase established professionals as much as it means you need to get out there and associate with other up-and-comers who match your vibe. For me the route was long and windy and not a particularly good example. 4. I normally recommend people do not read his books in publication order. Don't get me wrong, its wonderful watching his craft grow from one title to the next but I would recommend new readers tip their toe into his later works to see if they like where he ended up before committing the time. I often recommend 'Monstrous Regiment' as people's first one. My favourite though is 'Thief of Time.'

5. I don't get much time to listen to podcasts in the last couple of years. I used to listen to a lot of non fiction. 'Stuff you Should Know' and that ilk. I also read a fair amount of classic YA fiction to unwind (Windinsger trilogy, Bartimeous, stuff like that.) 6. Paul Simon's Graceland but when working I assemble a playlist for each seperate project that is tonally appropriate. If I really need to focus I listen to Classical Minimalism. Or the Old School Runescape soundtrack. I'm allowed to be ecclectic. 7. I am actually in an incredibly busy work crunch at the moment so haven't seen any of it!

[ganondoodle]

I just wanna say firstly that i adore your artwork and takes6on Zelda in general! Secondly, much as I wish you never had to deal with the frustrations of creating (especially when you tack on the stress of being on any kind of social platform), I'm glad you talk about your struggle. I've heard people talk about art block every day since I learned what Art was, but nobody ever mentioned "painting oneself into a corner". It's such an apt description that is so infuriatingly relatable that I had to stop eating to thank you for putting it into words. I really appreciate that you're willing to talk about your setbacks in a place like Tumblr, and still share your arts and thoughts. All the best from US of hellscape A, i hope you're doing well.

Thank you!

i used to call it artblock as well, its the most normalized term i guess; i randomly started calling it painting myself into a corner when i got stuck or frustrated on a painting bc welll, it sure feels like it, you painted the walls all around you and dont know how to get out now

it usually happens when i stop having fun and just draw what i want and instead keep subconsciously forcing myself into arbitrary rules; in my case its usually trying to be too perfect, i try to adhere to the sketch, i try to make every block of color have a perfectly clean edge, separate the drawing into way too many layers and am afraid to delete or erase anything, i tense up my whole body as frustration builds bc of impatience as this method of painting does not work for me at all and in the end lose motivation on it all and my nerves are stretched thin (i work best when i think as little as possible, just kinda loosely letting my hand do what it wants on few layers and no specific plan, after losing that its hard to get it back)

having those low moments with your art is normal as your skill grows, but even knowing so, and having gone through it countless times, it never stops making you feel like shit, and its especially frustrating when it happens when you just got enough time to work on stuff or have alot of ideas but you cant get it to work

(and funnily enough it also tends to happen after another work of mine got more attention than i thought .. even worse when it was just a sketch bc now i got the pressure on me to actually finish it and the fear of it doing worse once done looms over the whole thing- which doesnt mean i dont want people to interact with my wips, bc that also has an extremely demotivating factor to it bc it makes me think no one cares or it sucks and doesnt deserve the time i would need to spend on finishing it; also .. alot of my wips stay wips forever, which is fine, but like .. you cant always expect a finished tm version to happen)

i do find it a little funny you praise me for talking openly about it bc i am notoriously unable to shut up ever and only recently got better at NOT talking as much about it when i feel as shitty as this bc it doesnt really help anyone and gets annoying really fast xD (im also notoriously unable to not post absolutely everything bc i got no one to show it to and otherwise it will just collect dust on my harddrive so i might as well throw it out there no matter how much i might hate it, someone else might still enjoy it anyway)

and greetings back from the -not really much less of a hellscape- that is germany o/

[my-castles-crumbling]

hi cas!! okay im just gonna pray to the lord that this wouldnt come out racist. week ago my little sister asked me “ people get upset when they draw black people white, so why dont they get upset when they draw white people black??” i honestly never give that much thoughts before so this question really threw me off guard. bc of that i cant give a proper answer to her and shes been asking the same question since then. i was kind of afraid people will saw it as racism so i was hoping that you would understand it and if its not a bother i hooe you can give me an answer to this

loveed the new chap of clandestine btw!! your jegulus makes me feel single in the best way posiible!! hope you had a good day

Ooo okay so please keep in mind that I'm white, so the things I'm saying are based off of what I've learned from research. Please please if someone sees something that is wrong, correct me!

First, I think it's important to listen to what POC have said on this subject. Here is a link to a youtube video I just watched by a POC creator and artist that does an amazing job of breaking down why this is an issue and how to correct it- even going into techniques for drawing darker skin. At time mark 4:25, he answers your specific question. This is, hands down, the best place to get your answer.

Basically, society has a history of whitewashing. For centuries, POC have been erased- taken out of history, not been given proper/literally any rights or voices, literally killed and hunted down. Both their achievements and the way they have been targeted have been purposely not discussed or reported on, and please be aware that even though people disagree, this is still a constant problem. It's not going away.

Society whitewashes in so many ways it's impossible to count them all- giving white people credit for the work of POC; casting white people for the roles of POC characters; basing healthcare rules on research conducted only on white people; teachers taking points from students if they don't use 'Standard' American English and instead speak using AAVE or HVE terms even if they still get answers completely correct; schools only teaching the history of historically white countries and populations; the list goes on and on and on.

Keep in mind too that for years, diversity in literature and media was close to nonexistent in most places. Why? Because any literature created by POC or about POC is not taught or as widely distributed. Think about the books you were/are given in school. Any books from years ago don't have racially diverse characters, and if they do, they either are a caricature of their race, or are solely written about based on the 'struggle of being their race.' They are not given the 'luxury' of personality traits outside their race. It is only recently, as POC have spoken out about this issue and are being given the chance to publish their own work with characters that reflect them, that main characters can both be black AND solve a murder mystery- amazing! (/sarcasm). So now that we are starting to see more diversity in media, it is vital not to take that away.

So, with that knowledge about the history behind whitewashing and lack of racial diversity in media, you now know the context. So when a person chooses to draw a black character as white, they are taking with them all of that history and context. And in a moment, by drawing that character white, they are bringing back that context, and taking away the diversity that is so needed in literature.

And- why? Why do people insist on drawing canonically black characters as white? There is no good reason. People can say "oh, I think she'd be better as white" but that's just racism, plain and simple. If an artist doesn't know how to draw dark skin, they can look up a video.

In contrast, drawing a canonically white character as a different race doesn't take anything from them. It doesn't bring up a history or context with centuries of racism behind it. The only thing it does is add diversity to a fandom and allow people to see characters that look like themselves in media where they might not have.

I hope this makes sense and I hope I've done the topic justice! Please know that any racist or hateful comments on this ask will be deleted, but if someone has anything to add or any corrections to make, please let me know!

[mbat]

i dont know how to say it in a way that people wouldnt somehow still find an issue with but i think so much about how one of my main OCs currently is a goblin from world of warcraft, and i purposefully gave her features that people would say are offensive, and yeah they are in most contexts, but idk...

like, in the game theyre from, its definitely offensive. the entire goblin species in that game is, as far as ive seen, very one-note. they think only of money, and very much dont care about what it takes to get it, including carelessly killing other people (even other goblins) just for a quick buck. ive only ever seen one goblin who doesnt fit this description, and its no surprise to me that that goblin was only from a recent expansion. as a jewish person, and honestly as a person who thinks antisemitism fucking sucks in general, it doesnt feel great! i clearly like this game, but that doesnt erase the fact that a whole race in it is a walking antisemitic stereotype, and how it makes me cringe every. single. time.

and well, goblins are almost always like that. big nosed, money obsessed, conniving, and occasionally they even still love to eat children (coughs in the direction of the most recent season of doctor who). even the least bad depiction ive seen of goblins so far, being the ones from 'tell me why', theyre described as 'crafty' and are thieves, though theyre based on the main characters so its more of a playful thing, yet it still reminds me of certain things.

these traits are also often pointed out to be antisemitic even in non-goblin characters, which is of course fair, like the villagers and golems in minecraft. the villagers are big-nosed, and they used to be the only creatures with a concept of money, especially considering that money was the green gem in the game. not to mention, golems ARE LITERALLY JEWISH FOLKLORE! golems are from jewish myth! clay soldiers created to protect the jewish people from threat... its not hard to make the connection.

theres thing to say about the non-physical traits, but theyre not necessarily my point.

so... what is my point? and what about my OC? why did i give her these physical traits that i know are portrayed as bad and offensive, even though i know why theyre offensive? i couldve easily gone down the route of trying to give her traits that are as far from those as possible, or even have just not made a goblin OC at all.

well... reclamation. the thing is, these traits on their own, theyre not necessarily a bad thing. a hooked nose, green skin, other things that clearly make the character look less human, and therefore lean into the dehumanization of antisemitic depictions. these things together make a caricature, even though on their own theyre just traits.

i just hate that these things that i think are so fun to draw characters with are a bad thing in the right context, but most of all, i hate that a hooked nose is a bad thing in a lot of contexts. real people, especially jewish people, have hooked noses! or the bump seen higher up the nose bridge that adds to the shape thats often seen/depicted! i mean, i look at my own aunt or my grandparents and they have/had those noses.

it sucks that something thats a real, natural thing that my people have, has been taken and treated as an ugly, evil thing. i could get into the same thing many people have about how physical traits being treated as ugly and evil is already a horrible thing, but my point is specifically about this trait, and how it relates to jewish people and antisemitism.

why does this trait have to only be a bad thing? i mean, you dont exactly see it in the mainstream in any context that isnt a villain, i dont even know if i can think of any [animated/drawn] heroes who have big or hooked noses.

i have a few characters with this trait, but theyre either human-ish (an elf) or a bird-like creature, therefore the nose is meant to resemble a beak, or a furry that literally just has that nose because i wanted to give them that trait. then you have my goblin... a goblin based out of world of warcraft.

when i made her a few years ago, i did it out of spite. id already played the game a little bit on my main character (a draenei) and id seen how goblins acted and looked, and how they sounded (i mean, seriously, a new york accent??). and i was genuinely like. 'fuck you blizzard, im going to take your caricatures and make her a person, a fleshed out person whos more than the traits you gave them, and im going to love her for all of the things i give her, because likely no one else will.'

so i did. i gave her a history, i gave her a personality, a future, relationships, i made her a person. im also glad that when i made her, i made her do the starting zone made for beginners where you start on a shipwrecked beach, and they dont really treat you all that different based on race as far as i remember. i later went and made a new goblin to see what the goblin starting zone is like, and it pissed me off so bad... but thats its own conversation.

i made her a person so that the physical traits i gave her were simply traits that she had. i draw her happy and in love because shes a person to me. shes not money obsessed, shes not conniving. shes respected, she cares about people, she isnt sitting around rubbing her hands together plotting in secret.

i just dont want hooked noses to be a bad thing forever. i dont want every picture of a hooked nose to only make people think of the propaganda of the past drawn to disgust people and make people hate my people.

so yeah. i do draw her with a hooked nose, but i dont encourage anyone else to draw her. i dont even have her up on my artfight even though i have my other main world of warcraft character on there, and ive definitely drawn my girl enough that she could probably fill all 6 picture slots. i draw her for me, and i love her for me.

i draw her to take that power away from the hateful depictions. the punch in the gut when i see caricatures. its like when i say faggot and tranny to take away the power of queerphobes. i mean, i still remember the first time i was called a slur, called a tranny. the shock it sent through my body. its not that different from the pain i feel when i see nazi propaganda.

so i do it to take away that pain. to make it mine, and not theirs. thats why. people could see my character and criticize me for it, and thats fair, but i at least want people to know why i do it.

[pjinthestreets]

artemiy burakh/child abuse discussion kind of?/longer post re dad artemiy emotions

while i do appreciate a ‘soft ending for the guy whos been through it all’ and i obviously share the instinct to imagine/create that (shuffles 45k of trying to get him to eat a big family dinner with the kids which has spiraled wildly out of control) i feel like i havent seen ANY content where artemiy isnt a gentle papa bear lol. which again isnt to say all of yous are Wrong for your Nice Dad Artemiy content but like. he kills people. he kills kids. theres a multitude of artemiys out there walking the haruspex path differently but you just cant make the argument that theres not room in him for full-on child-murder. and yeah its a video game and harvesting 100+ human organs in 12 days is just not even possible but like. especially classic-flavor artemiy (and i think some versions of p2) has a pretty low threshold for violence and having taken human lives is gonna impact how he is at home yk. plus like, even if you play him as tender as possible in p2 he didn’t come home to start a family..

idk what you guys’ experiences are with unanticipated troubled-youth mentorship but its not gonna be easy or intuitive to jump in as a father figure for two. lets say Troubled kids whove raised themselves halfway. and artemiy absolutely has anger issues, grief, and baggage of his own thats not even touching the ‘ive cracked ribcages to cut out warm hearts and i know what punctured intestines smell like’ aspect lol. one way or another i find it rly hard to imagine him as father of the year and i actually find that rly compelling. even the most well-meaning and stable adults whove actively planned their futures around parenthood fuck up badly because in this bitch of a world no one is without fractures and kids are gonna be impacted by that. i think healing is the work of a lifetime and loving-protecting-nurturing a child can absolutely change everything about a person but i kinda find it unfair to artemiy (and sticky and murky)’s characters to tack on a ‘and then it was all fridge drawings and baseball games and sometimes artemiy had nightmares but he’d go kiss his sleeping kids’ heads and feel better’ as the ending.

i wanna say part of that is the extreme taboo around depicting.. anything at all Problematique, ever, lest ye Endorse, and especially an extreme aversion to portraying someone who harms/abuses a child as anything but a vile monster (or occasionally a repressed alcoholic with PTSD, nonetheless a monster but at least a sad pathetic one?). ive been thinking a lot lately about Redemption Narratives and what we expect from them, who’s eligible for them, and what a Redeemed Character looks like. artemiy is a character id like to see heal and grow as much as the next guy and i can see why ‘artemiy harms a a child or literally anyone and its not done thru gritted teeth for the greater good’ is not a thing this fandom in particular is ready for. i can count the number of even ‘artemiy gets violent with an adult who in some way triggers him’ art/fic ive seen.  but for real, many to most of us have some pretty fucked up shit in our family histories, and most of us will do fucked up shit in our lifetimes. genuinely fucked up shit that changes the trajectory of other peoples’ lives! sometimes those people are children at the time too! how can we hold that harm without denying it, without forgiving it or erasing it?

all that is to say, i dont begrudge the wealth of happy-family endings that artemiy and kids get to have. i AM bummed about the dearth of more complex post-game content, because its something that i think bears thinking about.

[zulivaris]

Art Block tips that helped me

 I’ve recently experienced art block after 3 or so months of overcoming my last one. Thankfully this block only lasted a few days thanks to some things I’ve observed and noted down from the previous time. So I’m sharing these few tips in hopes that it might help someone get unstuck :D!

First and foremost if you’re tired, sad or anxious don’t be surprised that you can’t make art, go and take care of yourself by treating yourself with kindness and patience, the sketchbooks and canvases will wait for you :)

The tips are under here:

Separate art studies from the creative time:  When you do art studies you’re there to focus on specific things, learn and understand how things work so you can apply them later in your art. Studies take a lot of energy and focus and are the opposite of the creative "flow” of making your own pieces. If you combine the two the results are either unfocused studies or stiff drawings. When you sit down at your desk ask yourself “Do I want to learn something new or do I want to create something of my own?”

When you have an idea don’t be afraid of being messy: Let’s say you want to make a picture of several cats kolo dancing in the moonlight. How do you go about doing this? Well since you came up with the idea you already have a vague image in your mind, sketch it out with simple shapes, stick figures, circle and spheres etc Don’t worry about cat anatomy, or the dancer’s moves, sketch out the essence of it. This method removes the need to be perfect or accurate. 

Ok after the messy sketch then what? Well now that you have sketched out the essence of your idea (and hopefully had fun doing so) now you go on to look for references! You put the creative process on pause and you can do a few brief studies if you need to: anatomy, color schemes, values, poses. Pick out a few of your favorites but don't obsess over them, they are a guide, a tool.

You know much more than you think. You’ve probably been drawing for a few years now. You’ve probably done some studies and drawn more than one type of subject. Then you have already internalized some of that information. I used to be obsessed with capturing the minute detail of the subject, and not be able to draw ANYTHING without reference. Instead of a useful tool, references became another obstacle to my creativity. That’s perfectionism my friend, and that’s no good. Here is an exercise a good friend of mine offered: Draw a few characters, animals and objects from imagination. Make sure that the subjects have no personal value to you (no ocs for example) so that if you make a mistake you won’t feel bad about it. Make the process relaxed and comfortable, pour a nice cup of joe, listen to your favorite music ... You will notice that you do indeed know how to draw some things without reference, and it’ll help with your confidence. 

The more you do studies the more you understand This seems evident but the more you understand your subject the freer you can be and the easier it’ll be to draw it from imagination in the future. If you really struggle with something to the point of frustration (as in you can’t get it right even with reference) It means you have to study it. Have a study list, for example: hands, perspective, color theory etc. And one of those days you want to study pick something from the list, and look for videos on youtube or useful sites like line of action etc. Only study one thing at the time. You can go from studying hands to studying arms since they’re more immediately connected, but you can’t study hands and then jump to learning perspective right after. Trust me you can learn perfectly fine with the resources online, and I’m sure you’re clever enough to do it :D

Mistakes don’t mean you “suck”  I’ve noticed that the two most common causes for art block are perfectionism and lack of self-confidence.  The two can often go in tandem which is worse :’D But let me remind you of something, you can fix your piece along the whole process. Use erasers, lasso tools, liquify , select, paint it all over etc If something looks off to you then you also know deep inside how to fix it. Useful ways to see what clunks: flip canvas horizontally (helps with placement, proportions), turn the image to grayscale (helps to check values and where your eye tends to look), look at your image in thumbnail size and ask yourself if it’s clear, see the pose’s silhouette and ask yourself if you can tell what the character is doing etc. Don’t fret, everything can always be fixed :)

Perfectionism, sometimes it stops you before you begin Perfectionism causes you to overwork a piece, it makes you draw less, it makes art stressful, it brings insecurity. Let’s remove it with a simple exercise. It can be combined with the “draw things from imagination” once you’ve drawn something you like: dont do line art, don’t shade it, keep it as simple and crude as possible and then...post it. Yes, post it. You’re not at your best? You’re only human, this will help you embrace that very human side of you. You make mistakes. So what? The more mistakes you make the more you know what you need to study and the better at art you become. Mistakes are there to show us what we need to learn. See them as another tool and not a sign of failure.

Make the process as enjoyable as possible: You like art. You love drawing. Never forget this. Otherwise why are you drawing if you don’t enjoy it? It’s easy to fall prey to the mentality of those relatable memes that “art= suffering” or “I can’t even draw the other eye”. No no no my friends, these messages are fueling your insecurities instead of overcoming them. Let me tell you what, art is fun. It is. Art is fun, because I decided to make it fun again. And you should decide on that too. Personally I adore lineart but my hand-eye coordination is lacking to do it digitally, so....I just skipped it. Yes. I skipped it. I do the sketch, I clean it up a bit and then jump onto color which I adore. It allowed me to draw more and more freely. When I draw I listen to music, make strokes with the rhythm, I take breaks often and I drink my favorite iced teas. If you don’t like coloring do it in grayscale, if you love lineart then do that etc It doesn’t mean you won’t learn your weak points in the future with studies and practice, but you won’t let your weaknesses prevent you from drawing at all. No no, you won’t let them. You draw because you want to, despite of them.

Don’t wait for inspiration, provoke it  Inspiration is not a divine and capricious muse. You make inspiration. It’s easy just collect all the things you like, music, artists, objects, characters, animals, patterns, plants etc Make boards on pinterest or similar sites, combine things you like. You like suits? You like birds? You can draw a bird in a suit, or a bird-inspired suit design, there is frankly a lot of ideas that can spring up from little things like these.

When a project stops being enjoyable either pause it for now or move on to the next thing. Pieces aren’t precious. They’re not “the one time I got x right” they are one of many. This advice goes mainly to hobbyists who can afford the luxury of passing to a new project. I have a WIP of a character who is overly complicated (I enjoy a challenge from time to time) sitting for half a month. I sometimes come back to it and add something... but as soon as it starts to create discomfort and insecurity instead of enjoyment I move onto something else. In the meantime I created 3 or 4 new pieces. If I had waited on finishing that piece I would have been severely creatively and physically exhausted. The art comes from you, not inspiration. The more art you make the better you become.

That’s about it :D I know it’s long but I prefer to be thorough and cover all the possibilities. If you have read of this: Thank you so much I hope this helps you at least a bit, if it helps only 1 other person I’d still be very happy. Have a nice one, and kick art block’s butt!

[sweetescapeartist]

MY DBS MANGA CHAPTER 70 REVIEW

We learn in the last chapter that the Cerealian Dragon's name is Toronbo when Granolah speaks Namekian. Toronbo grants Granolah's wish but can't make Granolah stronger than the gods.

Here's the confusion I have... Goku is a mortal beyond GoDs so making Granolah the strongest mortal is making him stronger than gods. If you wanna say Beerus has been training and is now stronger than Goku, there's still a problem. It was said that Goku and Vegeta were stronger than some GoDs right before the ToP (but that might be anime only, so maybe it doesn't apply here). So Granolah is stronger than GoDs no matter what. If the gods that Toronbo is speaking of are the Angels, then that means Granolah is Ultra Instinct level of power since Goku is the lowest in Angel tier. But whatever. Bottom line is Granolah is temporarily stronger than Goku who may or may not be stronger than Beerus.

Granolah gets his wish granted and the cost is shortening his life... cool. Not much to say except let's see how its executed.

(I recently read that in DBXV2, during the Infinite History Saga, Videl is enchanted with Towa's Dark Magic spell by Dabura shaving off her life but granting her greater power. So granting power at the cost of lifespan has been done in DB before. Not in canon but in the games.)

Also, Granolah's life being shortened to 3 yrs got me thinking... Currently it's almost AGE 781 in the DBS manga timeline. Goku leaves to train Uub in AGE 784. We got 3 yrs left. The original manga shows Bulma said she hadn't seen Goku in 5 yrs. How I see DBS is that it is an alternate timeline that just happens to have a similar outcome to the EoZ.

So... why is Vegeta learing from Beerus again if Beerus isn't that strong now? Is Vegeta being like Krillin and continuing his learning from a master weaker than him, but gaining wisdom & knowledge? I-is Vegeta becoming Krillin 2.0?! (More like dollar-store Krillin)

I do think beerus got stronger tho. He seems very confident that Vegeta can get stronger from learning from him. Beerus probably saw Goku get UI then decide to train aftet the ToP

Anyways, Beerus is teaching us about hakai/destruction energy. Its erasing something from existence, not just destroying it (we already knew that). But, Vegeta quickly figures out how to do it anyways. By destroying a tiny pebble...

A tangent again but I personally think Piccolo is capable of easily learning Hakai energy. Think about it. Piccolo can create clothing out of nothing, why could he not do the reverse?

Goku is uninterested in what Beerus & Vegeta are doing. I dont know about you, but it sounds like Goku thinks that he's above Beerus in strength. Beerus & Vegeta aren't considered a challenge to him in any way. Goku sees UI as more important & better than anything Beerus has to teach, and Goku is right. Plus Goku learned Hakai on his own while Vegeta needs Beerus to teach him. It's a waste of Goku's time to learn it again.

(God Comics is funny. I imagine Toribot writes them)

Goku says "Let's see which one of us can be the strongest in the universe!" Really, Goku...? At present time, Goku is the strongest mortal in the universe already. He should know that. Then Vegeta for some reason thinks he will become the strongest in the universe. The last time manga Vegeta was the strongest mortal in the universe was... never. He's always behind Goku or whatever new opponent arises. This scene is meant to be comedic that they're arguing over who will be the greatest but it's not funny to me. And yet Vegeta fans still hold on for hope.

But why is Goku concerned about being the strongest between him & Vegeta? Goku is far above Vegeta. They're not rivals at this point. Also, Goku was the strongest in the universe until just a few moments ago. Goku should be saying "I knew bein' the strongest wouldn't last for too long. Roshi did tell me there will always be somebody stronger out there. Hehe! This is gettin' me excited! I can't wait to meet 'em!" (This would alsp parallel Monaito giving Granolah the same advice Goku already knows.)

Also, I guess Broly isn't that strong after all. Bye Broly, you served your purpose. And to think that Goku had said that he thinks Broly is stronger than Beerus...

Oh yeah. So Vegeta destroys a pebble. Impressive? Goku kinda gives a compliment or he is practically saying "Good job Vegeta! You're doing great following in my footsteps!" Seriously, this would be so much better and cooler if this seperate paths of training began right after the Universe 6 vs Universe 7 tournament. That would be the perfect spot to have them train under Beerus & Whis. [Vegeta using Hakai against Merged Zamasu, Goku able to fight Merged Zamasu temporarily because he is getting better at letting his body move on its own, Toppo & Vegeta using Hakai against each other as Goku & Jiren use power above GoDs. That would work so much better.]

Then Vegeta says he's gonna destroy bigger things soon... is that supposed to be more impressive? Its not. But this it to build up Vegeta even though there is nothing amazing about anything he is doing at the moment. Maybe later tho.

So Cerealians can't grow beards. Also I guess Granolah's race don't age? His hair grew when his lifespan was shortened but he has no wrinkles. It seems that they age more gracefully than Saiyans. If he has some wrinkles he would have looked cooler imo. Or those lines under the eyes at the very least. If the wish shortened his life & made his hair grow, it should have also showed that he aged. (Here's an edit I made of "Grampa Granolah." You're welcome)

And remember Vegeta destroying a pebble? Granolah can suddenly destroy big rocks! Cool right?! No? Its not cool? Showing Granolah destroy a much larger object right afterwards kinda belittles Vegeta's accomplishment.

Oatmil is surprised by a boulder exploding. This means one of 2 things. Oatmil is stupid & never saw an Granolah explode a boulder. Or it's implying that the boulder exploding is some technique Oatmil doesn't know of. Idk how he can tell its any different from just blowing up a rock with ki. I think it's supposed to be destruction energy. If it is then, ok. If getting his wish was so easy, then why can't he suddenly learn destruction as well?

Yay! Monaito! (This really should be a Namekian focused arc)

Granolah reminds me of Zamasu with his attitude a bit. Monaito tells him somebody stronger will definetly appear. Granolah has become like Vegeta and is over confident, so he is destined to get humbled. And think about this. Goku can probably train a bit and surpass Granolah within a week.

Granolah can now sense ki. Meaning he can have the destruction technique or UI, because why not?

Monaito blames himself for Granolah's actions. Its not your fault Monaito! You did nothing wrong! Dont be so hard on yourself.

Whis being a creep and peeping on people lol.

Granolah's hair growing was pointless because he cuts it off soon after. Nothing changed visually. This kinda reminds me of how Moro lost his arm. Goku gave him a senzu, Moro grew it back, & then Moro broke his arm when attacking Goku. Then Moro tore his arm off & reattached his old one. There was no need for Moro to grow his arm back then tear it off. Similarly, there is no need for Granolah to have grown long hair then cut it off.

Maki still brings a smile to my face. She & Gas stand out the most out of the Heeters. Maki's personality is kinda like Zangya combined with a teasing Bulma. Gas reminds me of a Krillin/Piccolo fusion with dreadlocks. I also ship Maki x Gas cause they're short and look cute together. (please don't be siblings so I can draw them together🤞)

Granolah fights Oil & Maki. I'm not impressed. They seem like they could be defeated by Chaoitzu (he's stronger than Raditz and probably Nappa now too). Granolah's movements could be seen as UI. If it is or isn't UI, it doesn't matter. Showing off that kind of power is like Goku using Ultra Instinct during a rematch with Nam or King Chappa. Its not effective storytelling. There had to be a better way of showing Granolah's new strength than making him fight opponents that give him zero challenge.

The art is good as usual and the panel flow is nice. Toyotaro is improving at creating the illusion of motion. The environment being used in the fight was smart and a good visual. Toyo still uses a ton of panels almost every page tho. But he's still a better artist than I am.

Granolah appears to have used Hakai again. Not the explosive variant but the sand variant (yes I think there are 2 ways of using Hakai).

The "Sand Variant" that Beerus & Goku (& maybe Granolah) have used.

The "Explosive Variant" Beerus & Vegeta (& maybe Granolah) have used.

Maki thinks the "Hakai" is magic so that's interesting. I would say I'd like for the next enemy to be a magic user but, we know how Moro turned out... 😓

Maki has "ki claws" & I like the idea but it would be better if she had used it against an enemy she can defeat. It doesn't make her look useful in this fight. Gas seems confident when he is about to fight Granolah, but Elec stops him. Gas would've gotten beaten but it make ya wonder what Gas can do.

Granolah appears to be a person that is easily manipulated and persuaded. He even gave information they weren't even asking for. He'll probably be easily convinced and manipulated by Freeza/the Hedters or quickly have a truce with Goku.

The Heeters plan to go to Planet Cereal to get the Dragon Balls. As I suspected, the Cerealian Dragon Balls were created so that it would be easy for wishes to be granted. Gathering 2 Dragon Balls on a nearby planet instead of gathering 7 on New Namek or Earth. Plus these new Dragon Balls ensures no interaction between Earthlings & Granolah/the Heeters. A perfect way to write Gohan & company out of the story... *sigh* 😔😒

We learn Cerealians live for 2 centuries. How's that compare to other races in Universe 7? Freeza & King Cold apparently can live more than 200 yrs, But that may be because they are mutants. Namekians can live for like 500 yrs & its possible for them to reincarnate themselves too. So in a way, Namekians can live forever. Saiyans stay youthful & live to be in their 80's, but rapidly age when they reach their 60's or 70's. Average Earthlings appear live to be in their 80's or 90's but some are over 100 yrs old (Dr. Briefs, Panchy, & Ox King are in their 90's in GT) and others can increase their lifespan through elixers or the Paradise Herb. Just some thoughts of mine.

Maki says "If he ices Freeza..." Ha, an ice pun. Elec wants to defeat Freeza so he can control his army. Its revealed they wanna kill Granolah & that they worked with Freeza to destroy his planet & race. Well... that more than likely means they're gonna die by Granolah's hand or Freeza's. This info is also an attempt to make the reader more sympathetic for Granolah. Granolah is too bland (pun intended) so I don't feel any more sympathy than I already had for him. Elec plans to make Goku & Vegeta fight Granolah since Granolah hates Saiyans. Smart but we all kinda expected it. Not bad writing tho.

The final panel talks about fate bringing the 3 (Goku, Vegeta, & Granolah) together. Sounds like a repeat of the Broly movie.

We've had 4 chapters in this arc & not 1 panel of Freeza... If Freeza doesnt appear & do something in the next chapter then I will be disappointed in the writing. Showing Freeza here and there would give tension and build up until we get the encounter with him. We also have no idea who Oatmil is. Is he an A.I. or a person? Not that big of a deal yet, but I would like to find out soon. Either show Freeza or tell us more about Oatmil next chapter pleaae

This chapter was like oatmeal (the food not the character) without butter, brown sugar, milk, & honey or raisins. Not bad, but not very good either. 

So here's my thoughts on the things that could or could not happen in this arc.

Goku vs Granolah. I don't care for the fight because the power is at a point that it doesnt make sense for enemies to get to without cheating somehow. The fight will look cool but I have no interest in it.

Vegeta vs Granolah will have Vegeta being stomped as always and Vegeta fans will make excuses & complain how it's not fair. A lot of Vegeta fans often make fun of Yamcha & Krillin for getting beat up even though those 2 bravely fight opponents leagues stronger than they are. Vegeta has gotten stomped by opponents more times than Krillin & Yamcha combined but the fans gotta deflect somehow. I don't care to hear or see the complaining again.

The interaction and dialogue between Granolah & Vegeta is going to be more interesting than their fight. But I worry because Toyo isn't the best at writing dialogue.

I have no reason to care about power growth, certain interactions, or Goku & Vegeta's training.

What I am curious about/want to see?

Monaito's well being. I want him to reunite with other Namekians. But I think he's been set up to die.

Lore about the dragon gods & Namekian lore we probably wont get.

I want Piccolo, Krillin, Gohan, & others will be involved. Piccolo because of the Namekian & wosh granting dragon lore. Gohan because his interaction with Granolah eould be interesting since Gohan is half Saiyan & views himself as an Earthling. Krillin & other Earthlings because they can bring tensions where characters like Goku & Vegeta can't. Those 2 are too strong for there to be any real tension. However Earthlings aren't all powerful so them using wits to survive is more exciting. But I doubt any of their involvement.

How long a Cerealian year is? Is it shorter than a Namekian year? How much time will pass for the Cerealian Dragon Balls to be active? How much stronger than Granolah will Goku get? Hopefully the answers aren't lazy...

Will Beerus finally fight somebody? There are 6 mortals that are near or above his power (Goku, Granolah, Vegeta, Broly, Freeza, Gohan).

Who's the villian of the next arc & what explanation is going to be given for them having power on the level of Angels? Angel tier fights don't sound interesting to me anymore. After those kinds of battles, Goku will have no challengers left.

Will Goku disappear to train or something so the story can TRY to match up with the EoZ?

Will Goten, Trunks, & Marron hit their growth spurts within 3 yrs?

Will we get spin-off manga about other characters? PLEASE!? 🙏

Also DBS moved too quickly when it comes to power. Now we're at the point that Goku & Vegeta need to stop being involved in fights for there to be any actual threat or tension. The Buu saga took place in AGE  774. After training for 4 years of peace, Goku thought SS3 & fusion was his limits as a Saiyan and he was right. Well, kinda... Goku was introduced to god ki near the end of AGE 778. Then in AGE 781, Goku masters Ultra Instinct... He mastered an Angel technique in 2 year or 2.5 yrs. That was waaaay too fast. As a result the storytelling & writing are suffering from this rushed progress. Now we're gonna have an Angel tier opponent? According to the pattern of DBS, Goku's gonna end up surpassing the Angels within 2 or 3 yrs after learning god ki. Thats not impressive for Goku, that's terrible writing. And no, Goku getting this strong so fast is not a benefit to Saiyans either. It just shows us that without god ki, Saiyans ain't all that powerful unless they're the legendary Saiyan like Broly. Saiyans didn't even have a concept of training until Goku was trained by Earthlings. Gohan, Freeza, 17, & I'm pretty sure Piccolo as well have all surpassed SS3 without the help of god ki. God ki makes Saiyans look like they have limits. With god ki, the writing is broken....

I got off topic again... Anyways that's the end of my review.

[the-starset-system]

Do you got any ideas for increasing communication? I really wanna talk to my system but it's so hard :(

I could just give you the common advice but you can find all of that with a quick Google search. Lemme give you some stuff that's personally helped us:

GET OUTTA mY RoOm IM PLAyiNG MINECRAF

Lmao I couldn't resist, but yee, Minecraft has actually helped us communicate more than anything. It gives everyone creative freedom and with mechanics like signs and books it's easy to leave notes within the game. The littles adore it too :D

I actually have a lot to say about playing as a system on Minecraft, so I might make a separate post if any of you want to hear. I'll probably be discussing how it helps and how to set all that stuff up, since figuring out how everything would work with inventory and stuff rattled our brain at first (;ŏ﹏ŏ)

Art!

Creating things is a great way to learn more about your system and maybe uncover trauma details in a more gentle fashion! We personally draw and write, but music, dance, videos, etc. all work!

It doesn't even have to be about your system, it could be feelings or thoughts. Just something to pick your brain, to learn more about yourself since it's easy to fall down a pit when you don't know who you are, let alone your system.

That's one of the most important things in my opinion, having a grounded sense of self before really jumping into everything. When we jumped in not really knowing who we are ourselves it was hard to understand one another and I do believe that carelessness still affects us to this day, so just try to understand your own self as well

Don't laugh, but dress up games

Yeah yeah I know the kinda reputation some of them hold, but when we first discovered we were a system and started trying to work together that was the first thing we done. We knew we didn't identify with this body, but at the same time a majority of us were particularly unsure of what we did look like. Having little avatars to dress up was so helpful cause we would ask ourselves "does this feature have any significance?" or "Why am I attached to this certain feature?". Slowly after sifting through different options we could say "that's me". It was really reassuring and helped us recognize each other. It even helped with figuring out who was fronting because someone would feel unsettled about a certain feature being missing.

We still use little apps sometimes for fun or if someone new split / came out of dormancy :]

Making time

This is gonna sound silly, but think of communicating with your system the same way you would in a relationship. This is something you're likely gonna be dealing with for a good while so it's good to have close bonds with everyone. Bonds are the key to communicating cause I mean, would you wanna talk to someone you dislike?? If you're having trouble with system conflict I'd recommend checking out my other post I made about it.

But where does making time come into this? Aha sorry I actually got off topic but I feel like it's important regardless so I ain't erasing it-

What I mean by making time is well, making time. It's harder to communicate when there's so much going on around you cause you'll get distracted. What we do is set out however much free time we have that day to bundle up in our room and pretend we're sleeping, when in reality the low amount of sensory stimuli makes it easy to focus on talking to everyone. This doesn't always goes as planned, sometimes we just have bad days and can't communicate. If that's the case we'll keep trying for a few minutes before going off to do something else.

That's one thing to always remember, everyone has bad day and that's okay!

So, those are some ideas, but I also wanted to go over some things you should avoid too, kinda like do's and dont's!

Forcing communication

There's often a reason someone in the system avoids communicating, as well as a reason you may not be able to communicate with anyone. At the end of the day you gotta remember this was formed out of survival, needing to not be able to communicate, to forget, in order to properly function.

If things aren't helping then maybe give it some time, you might just not be at a good point in your life right now and your brain knows, saying "hey, we still don't feel too good, I wanna be prepared for any other tough situations we might go through" and that's okay. The mass media loves to portray ppl with DID having flawless communication and that's just not the truth. People understand it's a hard battle and I can assure you many in the community have your back :]

Fake claiming

-One of my worst habits, it's easy to say "no that's not real". Sometimes it might not be but I know from my own mistakes that more than likely it is. It can hurt a lot of system members, making them feel like their voice doesn't matter or even make them go on a spiral if they really are real.

I don't really have much more to say, it's pretty self explanatory. Just keep an open mind

You don't have to be differentiated

Another thing we're all guilty of, we thought we had to all act super different to be valid. Spoiler alert: you're valid no matter what

Once again, I feel like it's pretty self explanatory, but forcing yourself to be different from x, y, and z person sucks cause you never get to be yourself. You don't need to be differentiated, your perfect the way you are, regardless of who may share those same traits

That's all I can think of right now, but knowing me I'll come up with a million more things after I post this

I did come up with a really good explanation of what building communication is like though and I wanted to share:

Think of it as leveling up in a video game. All these tasks may seem useless but slowly your collecting XP and getting closer to your goal. That's why you gotta keep at it!

So, keep going on those seemingly useless quests and fighting that boss monster no matter how many times you get thrown to the ground, cause every last bit is worth it (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

I hope this helps! Sorry if I got a bit off topic! I have a habit of that (• ▽ •;) I was writing on and off so things may be a bit choppy. Aaaa sorryyyy but thank you for the askkkk! And remember, I am not a professional and my words should not replace / overwrite seeking professional help if possible! Regardless, I hope you have a good week! 💫

[freebooter4ever]

i’ve seen the discussion going back and forth on boundaries and sexual objectification, and i don’t have much to add to the conversation other than to say everyone is allowed to determine their OWN ‘lines’ and just because we don’t vocalize them doesn’t make them any less valid. but here’s the limits i set for my blog if anyone feels it is important for them to know (<3):

personally I consider ‘characters’ fair game for anything goes, with ‘public personas’ a little more iffy. ‘RPF’ isn’t new - it just takes on a new more accessible/visible form nowadays. i remember reading my first fic about a ‘real person’ back in my LOTR fandom days - it was a story in first person perspective about the main character meeting orlando bloom on a plane before he was ‘famous’. like a lot of these types of stories, it wasnt so much about the person as it was about the meet cute. the actor was just a convenient placeholder with a handsome face and some personality quirks thrown in to make the romance/dialogue more specific. i personally dont read much xReader fic nowadays, but mostly only cause i’m an old fart who can’t relate to the ‘you’ format. i miss the good old days when people actually created OC’s and then inserted them into things LOL. but also LOL if you think i’ve gone an entire year of quarantine without some imagined personal fantasies of joe mazzello (or steve aoki in the years before)(ramilicious can attest to this. she can also attest to most of these fantasies ending in friendship rather than anything explicit cause that’s just how i roll these days lol). the line i draw is i would never post these types of fics in a place where the subject could accidentally find them - you have to go looking for this stuff on tumblr, most fics are given explicit ratings and under read-mores. with the blacklist tags it’s pretty easy to filter things out. its even easier to add filters to ao3 searches. i am NOT going to do something like message steve aoki and say ‘yeah i watched that movie Ibiza like five times, here is my 1k fic where you’re the dj and i’m the one night stand’. but obviously people still enjoy imagining scenarios like these otherwise movies like Ibiza wouldn’t exist?

for art, i consider anything already on display up for grabs, we all know a certain person’s ass is all over the place...all you have to do is google ‘need for speed’ and rami’s name. HOWEVER, in the case of actors i personally would not draw anything more explicit than what’s already there. i’m not gonna draw full frontal nudity for rami (unless he gifts us with it in a movie, i suppose) or anyone. this is 100% a personal choice for me. 

i was a sophomore or junior in college when i volunteered as a figure drawing monitor where i’d time the nude model’s poses and help them set up the stage and lighting and such. there was this one guy in his mid forties probably, a regular who came every week, and i always thought of him fondly till one day (the day after i ran into my Hot Programming TA during dinner and later sent him an email begging him to go on a date with me because i was desperate for kissing experience)(and Hot Programming TA emailed me back within minutes saying yes) this artist guy who i saw all the time and thought i knew fairly well, decided to draw me instead of the model. which would have been fine except he drew me naked. i was NOT naked at the time, i was wearing a shirt, and a bra, and a full prairie skirt with alternating calico and floral patterns. he drew what he imagined was underneath all that. he came up to me after the figure drawing session and showed me his drawings and told me i had been ‘glowing’ and my response was to laugh it off awkwardly and get the hell out of there as soon as i gave the model their pay check. but inwardly i was thinking a) i was NOT glowing for this creepy man twice my age and b) i did NOT give him consent to sexualize my body under my clothes and then SHOW me that objectification. i never said anything to him or anything else, i continued to be the monitor, and i continued to field off creepy advances from him including multiple job offers, but when i finally realized i could just...stop..and i passed the student volunteer monitor job on to my friend naeem, i also realized that what that older male artist did was NOT ok in my book. and it was probably not something he would do while naeem was monitoring.

nowadays im working in an industry that regularly objectifies female bodies. in the past year alone i have had to deal with requests to make breasts bigger, i have been given character rigs that in addition to the usual elbow, knee, and spine joints also have ‘nipple’ joints but ONLY for the women (to make them jiggle for animation), every time i send out a female pose i get it back with notes that push it further into the sexy type of body language reserved for women (twist the spine more! sway the back more! give it ‘energy!’), i have been told to erase wrinkles and fat and pores but ONLY for the women (men you ADD pores bc realism! and manliness!) and this is all me working for a company that is actually fairly progressive in terms of sexism compared to OTHER studios.

like it or not, sexual objectification is a huge part of specifically women’s lives and how we react to that is our business. for me, turning the tables and putting men on display feels like fair’s fair. i cant stop the men from doing it, so if i want to enjoy sexualizing male bodies, damn it im gonna! like dang it, boy do i want to send steve aoki a thank you note every time he posts a video of himself doing those ice baths during the sunset golden hour bc holy shit gorgeous or working out in his gym wearing VERY little clothes, but i dont because i know what its like when someone imposes their personal fantasies on the subject. or, god, there was that time i had to unfollow nicole’s insta for a while bc i had a very explicit dream about her and realized, shit, i need to take a break and get my emotions under control before i can refollow. and god some of the stuff i see dudes sending her during her live videos on mental illness/meditation is TOTALLY gross and not something they should be confronting her with. and she’s not even ‘famous’ famous. or how some fans send their idols explicit direct messages without consent. THAT feels inappropriate to me.

a part of me feels like i shouldn’t have to defend this. men don’t. they’re even encouraged in mass media to sexualize women. but i also recognize the importance of talking about consent. the importance of recognizing that a celebrity deserves to have their boundaries respected. these are my lines in fandom. other people have different lines they won’t cross, and that’s okay to me. i block or blacklist any blogs or tags i think go over the top.

heck, even in fandom-only spaces i still try to keep my own more sexual fantasies off this blog and only in private messages with my friends and mutuals, and i feel like that might come across as unintentionally prudish or judgmental sometimes. i’m not ‘horny on main’ very often. but like...every time i reblog that particular ‘washing machine’ gif of joe mazzello am i thinking about him naked and thinking about how he’s got very loooooong feet, and ‘gee i wonder if that means /other/ things are Too Big for my tastes’ but also ‘gosh wouldnt that make a pretty picture to draw’???? hell yeah.

i dont know who is gonna actually read this essay but yolo i guess :)

[audarcy]

Friends and i through a very simple and vague google search discovered something like an LGBT wiki with hundreds of pages of labels for every conceivable attitude towards sexuality and romantic leaning. and as much as i understand, on the individual scale, that better understanding urself and validating ur experiences is a positive thing, wiki-style categorization of your community of lived human experiences is fucking bleak man. Especially knowing how language tends to change our outlook, how easy it is for someone to see one of these microlabels and think "that sounds similar to my situation" and then alter their mindset towards their own sexuality to better fit a definition someone made up in a tumblr ask in 2015.

I just think its possible to understand and validate your sexuality without needing to broadcast that to the internet. i think if youve done enough introspection to find a label that resonates with what you know then whats the point of the label anyway? To seek validation and recognition from strangers? To make shorthand of your demographic, to make your personal feelings and struggles and, often, trauma into an easily consumable badge worn on your shirt? To have a flag? There are ways to find and bond with those whove had similar experiences without honogenizing those experiences into a single word and a quick definition

But on the other hand i dont object to personal self-identification. Like we have to look at this from the broader community perspective. But then, what fosters such a community but the people creating and using these terms? But theres no objective point where we can draw a line past which the labels are "too micro" to stay. Even the big ones like those of the LGBT acronym are too restrictive for some--thats why microlabels exist in the first place--and it would make me a hypocrite to tell people to squeeze themselves through those boxes for the sake of community cohesion. Plus, I don't want to do that! And we can't just ban everything but queer.

The individualization of sexuality is a tricky subject because your personal feelings ARE individual. But the creation of shorthand terms and wikis encourages division on a larger scale. Do we ideologically deny these people self-identification in this specific way for the sake of discouraging division? I don't know. I've seen the importance these labels have to people, especially those who use them to figure out that theyre queer at all. Do we hold every queer individual to upholding a strong and unified queer community? Do we disagree with microlabels but not attempt to erase them? Man, i dont know.

The nature of language to homogenize nuanced experiences has been debated since ancient fucking greece. Im just a 20something on the internet for christs sake

[rema-rin]

How do you create such detailed pieces in such a short amount of time?? Like yo, your art is so fucking amazing and when I see how short of a time it takes even the most detailed of pieces to complete I'm just amazed. Whenever I even attempt to do a detailed piece I take days upon days to finish lmao. Love your art friend (づ｡◕‿‿◕｡)づ

Sorry for the delayed response! Thank you very much!! And I think there are multiple factors contributing to faster/slow art processes; One would be, to avoid having to redo work.Here's a quick video explaining the terms "destructive/non-destructive" https://www.ctrlpaint.com/videos/destructive-vs-non-destructive

I apply that logic to the process itself as well, I might start detailing a limb of a character, but later on, I might realize that I need to add a complex pattern on that limb that I already started shading. If I didn't plan for it, and had already merged the character layers to only 1 layer, then I'd potentially have to redo lots of work.

Though getting smart with your layer usage just takes trial and error I'd say,,

But same idea with rushing to certain stages of the process before having a clear picture of what the end-product /should/ look like. You can correct a bad proportion/perspective/anatomy much much faster in the sketch phase, than in the coloring/shading/detailing phase. Basically, you ensure a much smoother ride, if the skeleton of your building is all laid out on your blue-prints, than if you try to build it blindly. (decide on placement, color choices, light setting, composition, posing, area of focus - all in the first 20% of your art process - the other 80% is for rendering out / refining/clean up) ((it's rare for me to be 100% sure about any of the initial planning, but I at least try to be as satisfied with it as possible before moving on to the next stage)) I heard one artist describe that 80% of their concentrated decision-making is spent on the first 20% of the artwork- the rest is just on autopilot. This is getting rambly,, but you'll have to find what fits you best. It's also true that part of my speed comes from developing lots of muscle-memory basically. I'm familiar with a whole set of shapes, details, bits of knowledge that I can sketch out quickly to make the skeleton-blueprints of dogs, dragons, humans, trees, etc and thus being able to spend more time and energy on planning out more intricate stuff like perspective, composition, color combinations instead of investing all the initial effort into getting the anatomy of a dog leg looking right. (So this brings us back to the age-old advice of: studying the basics :'> but alas, just draw the things you enjoy a LOT, and you'll start to naturally get faster as well, that is what's called getting "mileage" in drawing) ALsO know when there's no need for details!!!! You can suggest the existence of texture/details by just adding it in sparse places, instead of covering the whole area with it!!! You can also plan out your image as if it's taken by a camera; underexposed: the lighted areas are the most detailed https://www.artstation.com/artwork/1V5R3 / overexposed: the shaded areas are the most detailed. https://www.artstation.com/artwork/8A6wq (this can be real subtle too, it doesn't even have to be extreme, but it'll help you balance your picture and workload as well,, gives to image room to breathe too!) ((((and dont spend hours doing fine and clean lineart if your image is gonna be really dark in the end (and you dont plan on making the lineart be bright,, ) too often have I spent way too much time doing thin and precise lineart, just for it to disappear in dark shading. A cleaned up sketch works just as fine too!)))) Lastly, I believe you'll speed up your process real quick, by focusing on improving your sketching speed. Being able to sketch out the ideas in your head faster, you'll be able to nail down your image faster, because you can go through different versions quicker and find the most fitting one quicker. You can train yourself by doing traditional sketching in pen instead of pencil (no eraser = more thoughtful lines, less errors) or by doing timed gesture drawing (You can find websites for doing figure drawing with a stopwatch, 3 min -> 2 min -> 1 min -> 30 sec is possible too) Hope this helped! I'm still figuring out how to properly do the detailing phase, because I actually think I tend to rush it too much? I'm fine with character-focused details, but my stamina runs out real quick when it comes to backgrounds.

[maevelin]

what do you think would have happened if you continued sweet nightmares? dont get me wrong i loved reading this fanfic but i hated how caroline was being abused and nothing she did was her choice. i also kinda hated klaus and it was impossible for me to ship them because of what he was doing to her. anyway how do you think caroline would become? i always thought it would backfire on klaus and caroline would end up hating her vampirism instead of embracing it

That story was not meant to have a happy ending. It was meant to have a bittersweet open ending more bitter when it came to Klaus in the end. 

And since that story is in permanent hiatus here was a rough outline of my intentions about that story:

The dreams-nightmares and compulsion would continue until Caroline would realize that she’d have to fight back and would search for her father’s diaries to start teaching herself of how to resist compulsion and any kind of mind invasion without vervain. She’d start teaching herself in secret struggling to keep that progress away from Klaus.

Klaus in the meantime would also set a trap for Tyler using Hayley and he would fall for it basically choosing Hayley over Caroline and Klaus would exile both of them from Mystic Falls only for Tyler to realize it was all staged from the start so Caroline would hate him. 

Basically in would come to a point where Klaus would offer a deal to Tyler in front of Caroline. Either take Caroline and leave Mystic Falls or take Hayley and leave Mystic Falls and Caroline (with him) behind. If Tyler chose Caroline Klaus would kill Hayley which Tyler couldn’t allow this to happen to Hayley that had helped him by then to break the sire bond. So in front of Caroline Tyler would choose to become heroic and save Hayley by taking her out of Mystic Falls just in time to save her from Klaus with the mindset of him and Hayley uniting the wolf packs and waging war against Klaus and eventually saving Caroline too. Only to be revealed that Hayley betrayed Tyler and actually wanted to become a hybrid and had made a deal with Klaus that gave her Elena’s blood and his own blood for her to transition once she’d be out of Mystic Falls. Klaus had agreed to compel Hayley too so once she’d be in transition she’d remember his compulsion and that would be the loophole for her to not be sired for him since he’d basically compel her to not be sired to him and once the sirebond would form upon transition his compulsion would counteract it. Basically the sirebond would act against the sirebond since it would be Klaus’ order through the compulsion Hayley would remember and would be forced to obey due to the sirebond to begin with. So Hayley would be immortal and free and the catch would be to also kill Tyler once they’d get outside Mystic Falls and she’d turn.

In the meantime Klaus and Caroline eventually would come to an agreement of sorts where he wouldn’t enter her mind for as long as she’d stay with him in his house. Klaus would dote on her while she stayed in his mansion and would try to tempt her to come to his side and so on and while she was there she would seduce him and ask him to teach her about invading dreams with having every intention of using his own tricks against him. Which Klaus could tell from the start but from both sides it would be “game on”. Through the dreams they’d travel the world. Klaus would show her different time periods. Different experiences. He’d draw her in the dreams and outside of them and Caroline would start grasping the potential of manipulating one’s mind along with everything her father’s diaries would teach her. 

Klaus and Caroline would create am intricate dream world that would become sort of a maze for both of them and it would bend the lines between reality and dreams forging a bond between them and they’d both see the best and the worst in each other and the more they’d see the more connected they’d become.

Only for Klaus to realize this is not what he wanted at all because it was not real but at this point Caroline would have managed to turn the tables against him and he would not be able to separate reality from illusion easily giving Damon the chance he wanted to desiccate him. 

Or maybe that wasn’t real either? Madness would starting to set in. 

Klaus would start to lose grasp with reality too and would become more and more paranoid but also unable to detach himself from Caroline and their dreamworld that had turned to an addiction.

But...Klaus messing with Caroline’s mind would also have consequences that Esther’s spirit would take advantage at the witching hour of a certain celestial phenomenon. Since basically Klaus opened Caroline’s mind he opened the gates not only for him to enter her consciousness but also his arch nemesis mommy dearest. And Esther would use Caroline in order to kill Klaus and all his bloodline with him.

Bonnie would eventually be the one to see that something was awfully wrong with Caroline.

Caroline would resist Esther’s possession and with Bonnie’s help Klaus and Caroline would defeat Esther but the strain on Caroline’s mind would be too much to take after resisting both Klaus and Esther. 

Caroline’s mind would be totally erased. Nothing of her identity would be left. She’d be like a doll. When Klaus would try to enter it again to help her he��d find...nothingness. Only darkness, a void, and nothing else and he would become trapped inside it unable to bear this only for Elijah to pull him out.

Klaus would try again to reach to Caroline with Bonnie’s help and he would find a sort of last ‘light’ which would be the last remnant of what was left from Caroline’s mind which would be Caroline as a little child trapped in the darkest part of her brain afraid of the monsters under her bed, and being terrified of him even though she’d not recognize him at all, making Klaus realize that this is what he represented for her. He’d then hold on to that moment to reconstruct her brain from scratch making sure to erase every memory of him and what he had done and set her free. 

He’d then leave Mystic Falls and Caroline behind giving her a second chance at life and at vampirism without her having to fear the monster under her bed and into her dreams aka him.

Caroline would have the sense that she was forgetting something...something important... but she’d put that behind her and carry on since she’d have the prom and graduation in front of her...and from there...eternity.

Flash forward... centuries later. 

Klaus is a recluse, alone and tormented by nightmares and memories and wakes from a very peculiar nightmare only to find a card next to him bed like the ones he used to leave a long time ago at Caroline’s nightstand with his gifts and drawings. The card would write “sweet nightmares sweetheart”  with Caroline’s scent lingering in the air and Klaus would frown realizing that something was not just right. Something was off. 

Had he dreamed of this? Was he still dreaming? Or maybe it wasn’t Caroline’s mind that had been erased but his instead because in their game of illusions it was Caroline that had won and he was trapped inside a nightmare. He wouldn’t be able to know. He’d never find out. He was lost.

(Basically something like inception in the end where you don’t know if that’s a dream or not)

He’d stare the card with dread having the feeling that whatever happened in the end Caroline was the one that’d be able to sleep peacefully where’d be the one lost into nightmares not that sweet.

The end.

[wintercosmicskye]

Uhh, sorry that some of these pictures are so blurry, but I tried drawing my headcannon for Vlinny's timeline... thing

I'm gonna explain each drawing under the read more ^v^'

1.) Discarded Space Dust: of course the first one has to be my more weird headcanon TvT. But anyways: basically what I headcanon is that the divine spirit (vinny's old mii) and Vlinny were once... one? But like, when the world was made, the uhh beings that made it (the programmers I suppose?) Wanted to make one mii that could run the show and have powers and shit? Like, he was supposed to rule after he got the hang of his magic... but, they decided to get rid of half, I guess you could say the dark magic parts, leaving the divine spirit with only the light (I say divine spirit but he's not the divine spirit YET. Right now he's a mii. I just haven't decided what to call him yet... Miitopia era is vine, tomo is vineh(sauce)... should I call the divine spirit "vinny"??).  They tossed the dark magic out into space, discarded. But little did they know, the discarded space dust began to form a human shape and sentience. The dust is confused and doesn't know what he is, but is joyful and curious. His curiosity one day brought him To inspect earth closer, and fell onto it by mistake. The sort of magic of the place gave him a mii form, almost identical to "Vinny", as they were two halves of one whole. (Note: when I say light magic I don't necessarily mean good magic, and likewise that I don't mean evil with dark magic) 

2.) Before he removed his face: this, as I said before, is how I headcannon Vlinny looked before he removed his face: like vinny's old mii but with the hair mirrored. He forgot about being a cosmic entity when he became a mii, but he would frequently find himself looking at the night sky with longing. He had a positive attitude at first, and rather extroverted, wanting to make friends... but.. He seemed to lack the necessary social skills. He was too eager, he didn't understand personal space, he would try inserting himself in a group of people, only for them to be driven away as soon as he did. He made too much eye contact. people avoided him. He didn't understand what he was doing wrong, and no one would tell him. When he one day ran into someone who looked just like him, he thought things were looking up. "He looks just like me! Are we like brothers? Hey, can we be friends?" Unfortunately,they were actually a turn for the worse. "Vinny" immediately hated Vlinny for looking just like him. Because of his magic, he was popular, and unique. He felt that Vlinny could ruin everything. So he decided to ruin everything for Vlinny first. "Why do you look like me?? You shouldn't look like me... you know, there's nothing more boring than something unoriginal. Why can't you get your own face?" Vlinny was distraught by "vinny's" reaction to him, and because of "vinny" people would ignore him even more. And when they didn't ignore him, they would laugh at him. Vlinny couldn't understand. He was sad. He was jealous. He decided that his own face was to blame, and so he removed it, and then...

3.) True Form/Dark Curse: he becomes the dark curse! He starts out more humanoid, but as he possessed more people his form degrades to the "poop emoji" shape (but after regaining a human form, his true form reverts to the more humanoid one). He feels nothing but the hate and jealousy he had. Possessing people and trying to make "vinny's" life a living Hell for what he did, he practically caused the apocalypse of what they considered a "utopia" (which I decided is called Lumos, like the new one Vlinny made in miitopia that the strong monsters are in). He was finally stopped for the time being when "Vinny" and some others managed to trap him in a stone necklace carved to look like an eye. "Vinny", as his own sort of punishment, agreed to be put in a jeweled necklace of a closed eye, so that if the dark curse returns he could guide his descendents. However, rather than being passed down his family line like he was supposed to someone else took him and he was passed down their family instead. The dark curse in his necklace was also placed in a locked chest, then shoved deep down in an icy mine. Then several generations later, he gets Mike Love (or Bill Trinen???) To go down into the mine and open the chest, he possessed him, and then Miitopia plot.

4.) Reborn: the dark curse is given a second chance at life when Miitopia's hero and savior Vine gives him a new face. He is Vlinny again, but there's something wrong with his mouth... the Great Sage, Jesus, takes Vlinny with him to atone for what he did. Vlinny feels guilty about what he did, but the feeling of jealousy and hate still lingered at the back of his mind. He wants to be good, but is a little confused as to how. Even with Jesus and the others trying to help. Nonetheless, he really does try to atone for what he did. He also must try to get a hold on his powers, as he has trouble controlling them in his new form. However, just as things seemed like they were going well...

5.) Frozen: the monsters are still around even after saving the dark curse, and it causes a lot of problems. People immediately blame Vlinny for the monsters continued presence. One thing after another, and things escalate ending with Vlinny being pushed off a cliff into the water below. His fear triggers his ice powers, and he accidentally completely freezes himself at the bottom of the ocean. Upon this happening, the monsters disappear, and his skyscraper falls from the sky. He hadn't even known his very presence was keeping the monsters in existence. Several generations pass, and people had abandoned the land of Miitopia as water levels rise and the great land is reduced to a small island.

6.) Test Tube: a team of Jahn scientists are the given the task to replicate the leader of a small island with the intention of the clone take his place. They presume that the task will be easy to complete, but find themselves proven wrong as they have difficulty creating a human clone.Yhey began to panic because if they cant complete their task their superiors will dispose of them. When visiting the island to gather more dna samples, one jahn decides to look for specimens in the ocean and discovers... a man that looks eerily similar the person they are trying to replicate frozen in ice! He takes a chance that even his team questions, and brings the frozen man back to the jahn planet, where they thaw him and place him in a test tube so they can revive him (though he somehow still had a beating heart after being frozen for who knows how long). After stabilizing him, they decide to use a serum to give him amnesia, because they dont want his past life interfering with their new plan for him. After hes out of the test tube, the jahns need to reraise him. They try to teach him how to be Vinehsauce (Vlinny develops some jealousy towards Vinehsauce).Vlinny does not like it on the Jahn planet, disliking their excessive order and no fun. Vlinny has difficulty understanding his own emotions, as most around seem to have none whatsoever. Hes also taught combat by a red army jahn (future fake captian jahn) who decides to use vlinny as a weapon for his own plan, and decides to “befriend” Vlinny. Lumberjahn makes the suit Vlinny wears when he first comes to Vineland, which is like a freezer he could wear (and also arm canon). Hes sent to Vineland ahead of the jahns on a ship made just for him, the “Ice Fractal”.

7.) Tomodachi Life: we know what happened here, but I’ll use this spot for headcanons! My interpretation of Vlinny is chaotic neutral, sometimes tipping more towards the good side and evil side. hes abit morally confused, cuz the jahns had no morals at all. He works with the jahns when they come, helping with their quest for chicken cutlets, though the captain is annoyed that Vlinny had not successfully replaced Vinehsauce, but gives him other tasks. Vlinny becomes more involved when the fake captian overthrows the real captian. Vlinny starts to want out when he realized that the fake captain had lied about them being equals and also sees the damage theyre causing, but the fake captain threatens to hurt Dheerse (oh no), a girl on the island that Vlinny had befriended and started to crush on (awww), forcing Vlinny to continue. During the Jahnpocalyse, Vlinny officially turns on the jahns, breaking the fake captians visor and saves Dheerse, who the fake captain was about to force Vlinny to shoot. The real captain gains back control, and decides its time to abandon the mission. they try to take fake captian into custody, but he escapes in pod and is now who-knows-where. Vlinny almost dies at one point after falling out of the jahn ship. his armor is broken and only the the arm with the arm canon was still functional. he stays on the island with lumberjahn, and wants to make things up to Dheerse. Things really start to look up for him, but then the erasings happen. hes one of the only people who remember, her existence being erased from people’s memories. Vlinny, desperately asking everyone where she went, is seen as having gone crazy. additional notes: the parka he wears actually keeps him cool. this is because he has a cold body temperature, and the parka helps hold in his coldness, like how it would hold in another person’s heat. he used to have red blood, but it was replaced with blue blood when the jahns revived him. the blood comes out as a mist if he gets cut in hotter weather. tears freeze on his face when he cries. even though the jahns got rid of his memory, his past still effects him subconsciencly. he wants to befriend people but its harder when hes stuck in his ice room most of the time. he loves being center stage, but is self conscience about his perma smile v-mouth. he likes to play violin, and tries to write his own songs, but rarely shares them. so far only dheerse has heard some of his music in the form of love songs. some of his music is a little on the edgy side.

8.) how vlinny is in Feathers of Frost, my fanfic, minus the fact that he doesnt have the halo and scythe... yet.

thankyou for reading through all this if you did!! sorry if my headcanons are a little weird heh...

[ketzwrites]

REWATCH 101: “THE MORTAL CUP”

Written by Ed Decter | Directed by McG 

Here are my thoughts on the very first episode of Shadowhunters. I think I might keep this format for the following episodes. 

Also, this rewatch will be random and sporadic. So, there’s that. Enjoy!

GENERAL NOTES

Jace bumps into Clary – not very professional, Jace: you’re invisible, not intangible. More importantly, though, Clary has the sight!

Clary introduces herself to examiners who are almost as unwelcome to her as the audience is. We learn about her drawing skills and that she sees weird symbols and demons around. Again, Clary has the sight!

Oh, yeah. Dot runs an antique shop. Also, hello there, Mortal Cup.

Are Clary and Maureen friends? Or is Maureen friends with Simon, who is friends with Clary? I need to know to evaluate how gratuitous this exposition conversation about Clary’s family history is.

Clary unintentionally draws an angelic rune. Because Clary has the sight! I cannot stress this enough.

Too bad Jace didn’t notice the angelic rune on the van. That could’ve been interesting. But, guys, Jace says it! Clary has the sight!!

Jace has a rather intimate approach to interrogating a Shax Demon. Weird take, but okay, Ed Decter. I guess Alec is… jealous? Mildly bored? Uncomfortable? I’m uncomfortable.

Why does Izzy refer to Alec as “my” brother and not “our” brother, I’ll never know. She refers to Jace as her “brother in every way” in the next episode, so there’s that.

Great scene where Izzy is forcing Alec’s suspicion to be based on jealousy while Alec corrects her and says it’s caution. We know he won the argument because he got the last word.

First “all the legends are true”!! Immediately followed by “we’re shadowhunters”, which is not a legend, but okay. 

we learn she’s been out for two days when Simon calls. This is important because it will be the longest episode timeline wise in this entire show.

Oh, this is the first time I notice the shadow passing behind Simon at 34:46. Cool.

Clary has been drawing runes without knowing about them because, you got it, Clary has the sight!

Is this “choose your path” scene with Jace and Simon pulling Clary to literal opposite directions a lot on the nose? Yes. Do I like it? Kind of. Also, here is the theme of the episode, kids. Clary’s two conflicting halves pulling her apart. She has to choose one or she’ll break.

THE GOOD

That whole teaser is great. A nice and functional introduction to the shadowhunters, the existence of demons, and to the fact that Clary is different than your regular mundane girl. Zero exposition is done by dialogue. Effective and compelling.

Clary and Simon's friendship is the sweetest. 

Luke’s terse response about Jocelyn creates some believability later on when he tells the Circle members he doesn’t care about the Frays. Same thing with Luke’s running out of patience with Jocelyn’s lies to Clary.

The dynamic between Clary and Dot is endearing. I’m buying their affection to one another and Dot being worried about what is waiting for Clary now that Jocelyn finally decided to stop gaslighting her own daughter.

“Mom, we’ve had the Talk. I’m good.” Even in the pilot, Clary is shown to be in charge of her own sexuality. Well done, show.

Good for Magnus for pointing out that erasing Clary’s memories won’t protect her. Also, good for the character of Magnus for going along with it anyway. Let’s hope this exchange between Magnus and Jocelyn gets referenced later on.

The entire re-introduction dynamic between Alec and Izzy, Izzy and Jace, Alec and Jace is absolute gold. It humanizes these three suspicious-looking superpowered people we saw in the teaser. Too bad we don’t get a little reaction from Jace to Alec’s snarky “platinum”. But we do get amazing characterization through their dialogue: Alec doesn’t care for mundanes and is the cynical one, Izzy has something to do with science and is the fun one, Jace doesn’t care about the rules and is the soldier-minded one.

Clary checking out Simon when he’s shirtless is there for a reason and I’ll never stop pointing it out.

Clary is a feminist icon and so she tries to help the “girl’ about to be attacked by the crazy dude with the glowing sword. After that, we get a great fight sequence where we infer that the Lightwoods are expert fighters, Alec and Jace act like Parabatai, Izzy kicks ass, and Clary yells and freaks out like the untrained eighteen-year-old she is.

Valentine mercilessly killing that mouthy Circle Member for insulting Jocelyn both works to establish how dangerous Valentine is and to show that his experiments are crazy.

THE BAD

Clary’ unawareness about Simon’s crush on her would be less annoying if she didn’t use such a flirty tone when praising his intelligence. Same thing with “That’s how I know it’s cool” and “You do not tattoo my neck. That creepy.” Whoever told Kat McNamara to use this pretentious sexy tone of voice was wrong. Clary sounds much better when she’s being sassy instead of flirty.

Honestly, “demonic murders” isn’t subtle at all. But aren’t the demons draining mundane blood artistically inclined? Who’d thought they would leave their dead mundane victims looking like a perfume ad?

No, Maureen. A single mother raising her only daughter by herself isn’t suspicious. It’s 2016, get on with the- Oh, wait. Jocelyn just took out a seraph blade and activated it for no reason at all besides being an act break. This level of needless drama requires a sensible third party. I take it back.

So, why exactly can’t Simon hear Jace? People will hear Clary’s phone ringing in a couple of episodes, so why is Jace’s voice inaudible now?

There is no in-context reason for the Circle Members not to mention Jocelyn’s marriage to Valentine as they try to recruit her back. Other than keeping that information hidden from the viewers, that is. But I guess it’s convenient that they don’t mention that in this private conversation.

Why would Valentine’s base be in Chernobyl? I get that they force warlocks to work for them. But still, why? Because it’s evil?

THE INTERESTING

The focus on the missing biscotti is a little heavy-handed, but it consists mostly in a visual-only plot point, so that’s good. 

It’s curious that Jocelyn introduces the Shadow World to Clary using a stele. That will eventually be Clary’s greatest weapon as a shadowhunter. She even uses it to stab a demon, her greatest move as a shadowhunter.

Simon singing “Forever Young” will always be a good foreshadowing. Also, this is the start of the show’s good use of Alberto’s musical talents.

The Circle Members recognize Jocelyn in Clary. Too bad they didn’t have Kat McNamara playing young-Jocelyn in the flashbacks. Give her some bangs and maybe a different tone of red. Kat can do a very good badass and it would highlight the differences between Clary and her mother at her age.

Clary spills out her MO in the first episode. “I’m not interested in being a part of your supernatural fight club. I just want to find my mom. The rest of it – whatever it is – all that I care about is finding my mother.” The warnings were all there and we missed it.

[squishysvt]

Best Friend! Yuta

Word Count: 3.1k

A/N i havent posted in like 5 years and i have no excuse and this wasnt even requested but there is an extreme lack of yuta content and i decided to make it myself smh ANYWAYS i liked writing this a lot and feedback is encouraged!!! lov u lil squishies muah <33 -Admin Madi

ALSO this was inspired by this post from @xuxi-rolls and this post from @youaremychwingum which are both amazingly cute blogs and people so go check them out!

Backstory first! You two met in the 3rd grade when he was deep in his anime phase and you were obsessed with collecting erasers that were shaped like weird things such as lipstick tubes and paintbrushes

Yuta stole the paintbrush one and started using it like a sword like a character from his fav anime and boy when you saw him do that were you were like “im gonna do it. Im gonna kill him”

You literally stomped your lil sketcher clad feet over to his desk and YANKED that shit from his chubby fingers with zero remorse

And he started crying and you felt bad and were like “well fine you can have it i guess”

And he immediately stops his FAKE crying bc hes a snake and sticks his tongue out at you as he snatches the eraser back

And you went into full Attack Mode and you two got into a small fist fight and the teacher had to break it up it was nasty

Anyways after you two went through the next year having some major beef, yuta apologised bc he’s a gentleman and even bought you a new eraser!

It was shaped like a dinosaur and you loved it so much that you instantly forgave him bc you didnt have an eraser in that shape yet!!

And he was beaming after seeing ur face light up like that and proudly pulled a matching dino eraser from his back pocket and was like “we match!! We can be best friends now!”

And you Loved that idea you were like yes okay first order of business: more erasers

Anyways you two just instantly clicked bc ur sense of humor was v v similar and life became so much more enjoyable with having him there to share the experience with you

Throughout ur many years of friendship, Yuta had always wanted nothing more than for your friendship to be comfortable, honest and loving

You’re the one that he rants to, gushes to and confides to so your friendship to him is so precious

And as you grew older and gained more freedom, both of you started to do more things outside of school like go on late night drives, go to the movies, amusements parks and out to eat every other day

And it became natural and routinely that going days without one another felt weird??

And you and yuta have discussed the idea of maybe you two being soul mates, but in a completely platonic way

Like you were two halves meant to come together

And yuta liked to reinforce this idea bc when it comes to being lovers, you shouldn’t be looking for your other half, but rather looking for the person who already makes you feel whole

And so when y’all graduated from high school you immediately got an apartment together!

It’s definitely not very fancy or anything since you both only had part time jobs here and there during the school years and summers, but it’s better than nothing!

And although yuta and you are similar, your styles are where you really begin to differ

While he wants to have pictures of mountains and gardens hanging on the living room walls, you would rather have mirrors shaped like suns and fairy lights behind the couch

And obviously after some friendly banter, you come to an agreement that a painting of pretty outside scenery at night would look great with some fairy lights to compliment it!!

And so your apartment quickly becomes a mesh of your style with his and it’s oddly nice?? Like who would’ve thought that yuta’s knick knacks from japan would look so cute next to your family photos

It’s a two bedroom apartment but you both end up sleeping on the couch in a heap more often than you’d like to admit

You’re both in uni doing ur own things so when its time to come home and relax, you’ll find yourself curled up next to him on the couch with your laptop open and writing a paper while he’s munching on some snacks and watching a game of soccer he missed bc of classes

And you’ll quickly fall asleep bc papers are boring!! And yuta doesnt want to move bc your laying on him and doesnt want to disturb you so he’ll just quietly cheer to himself when his team scores and eventually falls asleep

But sometimes he has no problem lightly shoving you off and going to his own bed bc the couch isnt really that comfortable and hurts his back after awhile, but he brings your duvet out so its more comfortable for you at least

And although you two are pretty much joint at the hip, your bedrooms are private from one another

Like its nice being with yuta, but its also very important that you have time to yourself and so neither of you are intrusive when the other person is in their room with the door shut

If either of you need anything you’ll just shoot each other a text or quietly knock on the door rather than just barging in which is something that both of you really appreciate

And you obviously have other friends besides yuta that you love dearly! And you make sure that you get to see them often and that yuta goes out with his friends too bc its easy to get sick of each other no matter how much you love one another

And this makes for your friendship to be healthy! Which is like, the most important thing bc being your own person is important and having close relationships/friendships is also important! But its easy to get too attached and end up hurting yourself down the road

And yuta is aware of this as well and so it makes things a lot easier bc he knows when you need your space and when to distance himself if he needs it too

But living with yuta is a lot of fun!

He likes to cook sometimes so you’ll always have a full tummy with yuta around!! And if he's not in the mood for slaving over the stove, he’ll just make some instant noodles and call it a day

He really tries to make as many traditional japanese dishes as he can so he can have a slice of his home whenever he’s feeling down, and he just really enjoys sharing that part of his life with you too

Undoubtedly his favorite part is when he gets to hand feed you with a spoon and witness the look on your face as you chew bc it’s really rewarding for him

Sometimes your schedules kind of clash on days so whenever he’s home and you’re in class, he’ll make food for himself and leave you tupperware containers of food in the fridge for you to heat up when you get back bc he knows you’ll just crash and not eat which is really bad

And yuta cares about ur health!!! He’s attentive as heck!!

But you’ll do the same thing for him, and even if you aren't a world renowned chef, you’ll lay cash on the counter for him to call in a pizza or something quick

If you know he’s been craving something then you’ll leave the number for the place next to the money you leave so it makes ordering a bit easier for him!

Also, yuta is very organized! Sometimes he’ll throw his jacket here and there or have some things where they shouldn’t be, but yuta really likes having a clean and tidy apartment!

He hates doing the dishes, but he’ll literally do anything else

He likes to vacuum for some reason you dont know but you’re like okay have at it! One less thing i gotta do! And he’s really happy once he’s done bc BAM you have clean floors

And you’ll just be sarcastic about it but in a loving way and he laps that shit up bc sarcasm!!! His second language <333

You two have a nightly routine that ensues when neither of you are busy the next day so  you’ll watch a movie on netflix you’ve been eyeing together and crash

Sometimes when yuta gets home on these nights you’ll still be in the shower or getting ready for bed, and yuta will come in and sit on the counter and you’ll talk about your day and just chill while shampooing ur hair (which yuta is obsessed with btw..he loves touching and playing with it)

But he’ll just be there,,listening closely and telling you about his own day while drawing squiggly images on the mirror like hearts and stick figures holding hands (its always you and him, but when you ask, he insists its him and winwin)

And you laugh bc boy does ur bff ever have a massive crush on sicheng!!

But yuta is just cute and likes your platonicness with him

Bc he really does love you! People often ask you two if you’re dating and you can see why people would ask that bc you and yuta are super close, but it’s also kind of an odd thought to both of you bc yeah you love each other but,,,not as lovers

And so you’ll laugh it off and talk about it afterwards bc you really cant see each other in that light because you tried dating in high school and it just felt kind of weird

Yuta loves to tease and joke around with you, sometimes be a little (read; lot) sarcastic with his jokes but he really does care about u and thats how he shows his affection!!

He’ll hold ur hand when ur out at the grocery store or shopping together and likes to pat your head and plays with your ears but thats about it for physical affection!

You’re emotionally bonded more so than physically which is not a bad thing uwu

Yuta finds it kind of hard to openly joke around to the same extent with others as he does to you and knowing this makes you feel really special

Like yeah!! Thats right!!! Im his best friend!!

Yuta also LOVES to dance with you

It doesn’t matter if it’s serious or not, he will not hesitate to pull you up onto ur feet and have you dancing with him

ESP to sistars shake it! Y’all have so much fun when that song comes on

At first this was embarrassing but then yuta would just NOT stop shaking his butt so you were like oh well lets both look cutely dumb i guess

And you’ll get noise complaints a lot bc the walls are thin and you’re moving around, creating a lot of noise and you feel especially bad when this is all happening at like,,,3am

Anyways you live kind of a fast pace life so whenever you gotta be somewhere you kinda fly out the door with ur feet shoved into ur shoes with the backs down and yuta will silently come behind you and remind you to slow down and will bend down and personally make sure they’re on properly so you don’t trip and die

It annoys him sometimes bc you should be taking better care of yourself and he’s not always going to be there to look after you and that worries him!!!

To allow him to sleep a little better at night, he bought you slide on shoes that you can easily shove on and fly out the door so he won’t have a heart attack at the thought of you falling down some stairs due to the hastiness of which you put your sneakers on improperly

And he’s also the one who is like “hey its been a couple of months so i bought you a new toothbrush bc dental hygiene is important” and you’re like “okay nice i just bought some new toothpaste on sale the other day, it’s minty so i think you’ll like it”

And this is how you two co-exist in ur shitty lil apartment

Yuta is also into soccer so you always make sure to go and support him at his games! Even if they’re just practices or whatnot, you’ll always be on the bleachers cheering for him!

Which yuta LOVES because he’ll point you out to his teammates and be like “thats my best friend, ugly, right?” and they’ll just laugh bc of his teasing and they can tell you two really get along

And yuta is uwu x100 at this

Anyways yuta likes to show off and do fancy tricks like sliding on the grass to get the ball and he’s all dirty when you get back to ur apartment together and you wont let him touch anything bc that means more cleaning which neither of u have the energy for

So you’ll basically make him take VERY large and wide steps towards the bathroom so he can shower and leave minimal dirt behind as he does so

And then he’ll come out of the shower with wet hair and clean up the tracks he left with a paper towel but he’ll go in circles for a good 30 seconds wiping up dirt and then water from his wet hair

And you’ll observe him and laugh for a bit before you’ll drape a fluffy towel over his head and he’ll pretend to be scared and ask who turned off the lights

To which you nudge him and call him a dork, but when he takes the towel off and get to look at his face, you tell him he did a great job at the game and his eyes will change from playful teasing to filled with genuine love in .5 seconds and he’ll instantly wrap you in his arms

And you’ll find warmth in his embrace and wonder why he smells so good and then you’ll realize he’s using your shampoo

You’re like okay well, sigh, whatever its okay bc hes cute i guess so we can share

And then yuta will pull away, give your head an affectionate pat and go work on a paper or something due for school

Which you both do a lot of late night paper writing sessions and so when he tells you he’s retreating to his room for the night you’ll go and cut up some fruit and gather some snacks he likes and bring them to him before he becomes too absorbed in schoolwork

And he does the same to you except he brings you a lot of water since its “important to stay hydrated~!” and will cover you in his favorite blanket bc he claims it “helps you write better papers”

And you arent allowed to refuse bc one time you tried to and yuta was like “okay well i guess i’ll be moving out then” and you’re like okay i know you’re joking but its hot in here i dont want to have a blanket on me

And yuta starts to dramatically pick things off of shelves until he’s saying things like “i’ll be out by morning since im not appreciated” and you’re rolling your eyes so hard you think they’ll go to the back of your head but its like okay fine thank you for your magic blanket houdini

Yuta just winks at you and does a theatrical bow before putting everything back and leaving you to write your magical paper

ANYWAYS thats what most nights are like, full of playful banter and fun talks

You also both THRIVE off the dollar store which is literally everything bc you two get so excited going in there!

They have everything so its like?? This place is my Second Home and i Love it Dearly

And yuta likes to buy candy there since its so cheap and one time when you were looking for a new broom, he wanders off and comes back with his hands behind his back and is like “guess what i found!!!”

And this is nothing new because yuta gets excited about the cutest things so you’re like “gum?”

And his smile gets all wide and bright like i KNOW you know the one im talking about, it’s literally kept me alive for the past 18 years

And he’ll bring his hands out and WOW ARE THOSE ERASERS THAT ARE SHAPED AS SMALL ORDINARY OBJECTS??

And you just want to CRY bc thats literally the sole being of your friendship in his HANDS!

Yuta is proud as heck and buys two matching ones for you two and they’re of paintbrushes in honor of the one he snatched in the third grade!

Which makes your heart so happy and content

But thats the effect yuta has on you! Someone who always manages to have you smiling and happy with life

But he does end up buying candy bc its basically your duty as a human to buy some expired candy from the local dollar store

And yuta really loves the flavor blue raspberry, esp if its sour and he finds a bag of sour jolly ranchers and goes nuts

And he picks out and religiously eats only the blue ones, a red one makes the cut here and there, but you’re like?? Yuta?? Can i atleast have ONE? And he rarely ever shares but its like okay whatever enjoy your cavities heathen

And you’ll clown the shit out of him bc his tongue is blue, his teeth are blue and the area around his mouth is blue and you cant just let that pass

And he’ll laugh when you try and come up with palpable things to call him, and when you’re both giggling uncontrollably, he’ll try to kiss your cheek bc he’s all sticky and he knows that would drive you mad

And its the same with his fingers bc theyre all blue and sticky too and he’ll hold your hand so hard that your fingers stick together and youre like yuta!!!! But you really secretly enjoy it

And then you’ll go home with bags full of god knows what and struggle to find places for everything but its okay bc the memories that come with the plastic bags and erasers from your childhood remind you why you love yuta as much as you do

Can you tell i love yuta yet or is this au too vague <3333