#this is a relatively lighter post but things will get darker next time on

[felinecryptid]

Chasing Pasts in Shadows

part 3 | part 4 | part 5

"Great, fantastic." Will massaged his eyebrows. "We can't do anything more today, anyway. We just execute protocol and leave, because we are already an hour late for debrief."

"And my date after that."

"I don't think your boyfriend minds you being late, Max, he worships the ground you walk on." Mike sniffed.

"Who said I'm talking about Lucas?" Max smirked.

"No, no, Max, you stay away from my sister, or Dad and Jonathan will chase you away with guns. She doesn't need another rebellious influence in her life, Mike is enough as is."

"Will!" Mike protested. Will ignored him.

"You say that like Hop doesn't scream '3 inches!' whenever I come over."

"When did that happen? I thought you were still in the 'silent glare' stage?" Will hefted the heavy bag, handing it to Max, so she didn't have to come in. 

"A few months ago, Byers. Wheeler watch out, he is coming for your title," Max took the bag easily, walking away. 

"What title?" Mike called back.

"'The Most Oblivious'!"

"Fuck off!"

"Can't, we work together!" Mike glared at her till she turned the corner.

"Mike, hold these tripods and these cables." Will handed them, their fingers brushing.

"Thanks."

His own duffle slung over his shoulder, they returned to the place of interest.

Max had assembled some of the components right outside the door, waiting for Will to take them in. He and Mike quickly got to work, Will putting some of the cameras on their stands, connecting with the EVP mics and putting a piece of bread in specific spots, while Mike pointed out areas of high activity to focus on, like the knife block, and the island counter, while Reyes kept watch from a corner, finishing up sometime before evening. 

"-and turn on the system at 11:30 pm by pressing the black button on the camera nearest to the door. That's for today, we'll be back tomorrow to get the footage, and put more up after investigating more rooms," Will explained, putting his layered flannel back on. They stood at the gate, while Mike and Max put the rest of their special equipment back into the trunk. "I hope you understand why. It's just we were short-staffed today-"

"Oh no, no, it's okay, totally my fault," Reyes smiled as he reached for his wallet, pulling out a bill. 

Will's eyes widened as he saw the '100' on it. "Sorry, I don't have enough change-"

"Keep it, boy. You kids have more use for it than I do." Reyes gave a nod and started back in.

Will shuffled back to the car, a hundred dollars in hand. Max and Mike were done with the packing and pulling the car around to leave. Will got in the passenger side, his regular seat when Mike drove.

“Reyes tip you?” Max asked him from the backseat, tapping away at her phone,

“Thirty-three percent.”

“Damn, he was seriously that impressed with our half assed job?”

“I don't know, at least he wasn't a Karen about us upping the pay for the rest of the investigation.”

“Do you think Dustin would know what to do?” Mike asked, pulling onto an asphalt road. Finally the dust road was behind them, Will’s asthma could rest now.  

“I think we all need to come up with a plan now. All of us have never had to be on-field at the same time, so first of all we need to divide tasks, and assign partners.”

“I don't want to hear strategy while returning home,” Max hit the back of Will’s head lightly. “If we have to talk about work, at least read the info Dustin sent about the Reyes so we don't have to hear his rant about being ‘the only one smart and well prepared, about clients, locations and hauntings’, because he will chew us out for leaving the cameras unattended and the battery thing, as if we should be able to tell the future.” 

Will rubbed his head, “Alright, alright. If you interrupt with your stupid quips, I'll push you out of the car.” Will pulled up the google docs Dustin had shared with him, scrolling down to get an idea of how long it was. “What the fuck, why is this thing more links than text?” 

“Just read. I mean, how should I even know? I just don't want to get another rant about ‘not following protocol’.”

“Half of these links are for different profiles on Facebook.” Will muttered, scrolling down. “There’s a floor plan here, now definitely Dustin will be pissed.”

“Is there anything about Emily?” Mike peeked at his screen.

“Keep your eyes on the road, don't look down,” He scolded. “I'll try  to find somethi- Oh here, a page for someone named Emily Grimrose. It says she was 48 and married to Javier Reyes. She was apparently a stay at home wife and made a lot of knitted things to sell. There’s an alarming amount of Etsy stuff here. The usual selfies with weird angles that make her have a triple chin, some family photos with people who look like her extended family, a trip to some exotic place with lots of water, baking charity sales- wait wait wait, here's something weird, she posts stuff with fun, cute captions underneath, but this photo has a link with it. And that link looks like it leads to some weird occult website. Lots of crystals, incense, herbs and the like.”

“What?” Max leant from the back to get a better look at the picture. “She looks like she's in a dentist's office.”

“Is there anyone tagged in the photo?” Mike asked, thankfully not looking down at Will's phone this time.

Will checked. “A doctor named Amanda Maguire.”

“Maybe it’s her dentist’s name?” Max ducked back to flop sideways on the backseat.

“No, no, the dentist’s office belongs to Robbie Matthews, who has posters all over the city. Very popular dentist, no doubt expensive.”

“How did you know?” Mike asked, driving around a slow car. “Keep up with the speed limit, dick!” He said through the window.

“Just reverse image searched it.” Will was confused. “Amanda Maguire is a gynaecologist. I've never heard of her, or seen her. Why would someone who has a lot of money go to a gynaecologist who isn't well known?” Will scrolled further. “Oh shit.”

“Cut the dramatics, Byers, just spit it out.”

“Emily was pregnant when she died,” Will said, holding out the photo where the caption proclaimed “It’s time for the second trimester!” and showed a smiling Emily with another older woman, Dr. Amanda.

___

why do i keep ending at weird reveals? also lmao will really hates facebook for some reason

i have the entire thing planned out but i do not know how many chapters this will be sorry ;-;

aight disclaimer: i dont know shit about the service charge in america for anything, much less ghost hunting, so i tried my best to calculate it by using the minimum wage and product usage and wear and tear, the same way id do it here. if its too less or too high, lemme know

as always, this was betad by free version of grammarly and hemingway editor, so point out any errors you find

i cant seem to post in time but i do post around 1800 ist (i swear im trying to be more regular)

let me know if you like or disliked something :)

[tomiyeee]

how long does it take you to draw and colour? since you post everyday which is great for me :D any tips for colouring cause Im still tryna figure all that out

hmm welllll, i don't exactly time how long it takes to draw but my partner said that sometimes i'll be working on a piece when they go to sleep and i'll still be working on it when they wake up 7 hours later so...my guess is anywhere from 3-8 hours each depending on complexity? at least for the art that i normally post, most of which is relatively simple.

not entirely sure what kind of tips you were looking for, but i'll just throw out some of my thought processes and stuff i try to keep in mind whenever i color. i'm gonna try and keep these relatively to the point so i won't go into much detail on art terms n whatnot, BUT i am also pretty terrible at explaining things so if you need clarification on anything, feel free to ask!

(sorry it's so longggg, i got carried away. i am...very wordy when it comes to art lol)

i like to block in the colors during the sketching stage before i do the lineart, especially for pieces where i know i want to do something funky with the color palette. you can see this in a lot of my process shots. doing colors in the planning stage just gives me a lot more freedom to focus purely on the colors and shading and how they work with the composition, without having to worry about the minute details like making sure the colors are inside the lines.

in order to save time while coloring, i'll usually just select the negative space (after making sure all the lineart is closed) > expand selection by 1 pixel (to make sure the edges are hidden within the liineart) > invert selection > fill bucket, then use clipping layers above that to color individual areas.

layer modes are your friend! i use multiply, overlay, and glow dodge (this one may be specific to mangastudio?) in almost every one of my drawings, but it's definitely worth playing around with all of the modes just to familiarize yourself with them if you haven't already.

color is honestly SO subjective. i'm never a fan of color picking (from source material or my own refs or whatever) bc while it may have its uses when it comes to consistency, imo it's much more fun to make them up as i go. you get a lot more variety from piece to piece while also familiarizing yourself with the character's palette that way. usually i'll start by deciding on the overall mood/palette (cool/warm, de-saturated, neon, pastel, etc), filling in the background color, then picking the characters' colors based on that. like with this venti pic, i started with a purple background and based my colors around that purple so they all fit the specific look i was going for. i could maybe get a similar effect by starting with the normal colors and using filters, shading, layer modes, etc to get the funky colors, but it will be much harder/more work and doesn't get as drastic of an effect imo.

on that note, don't be afraid to use shades/colors that may seem odd! you'd be surprised how many times i've used gray in place of blue, orange, purple..basically any color. in the above example, you can see just how different the colors ended up being from the original. after i decide on my palette + bg color, i'll just throw down the color i think will work and then (bc that first guess is usually wrong and meant only as a ballpark estimate) see if it needs to be warmer or cooler/darker or lighter/more or less saturated/etc and adjust accordingly. it's like mixing paint or tuning an instrument! it takes a little bit of practice, but after a while you start to get the hang of what colors will look like in which color palettes. white is usually the easiest to start with bc it will always just be tinted whatever color your palette is (like how the "white" in the above example is just a light purple).

this and the next point are more about shading but i include it as part of the coloring process: the easiest way i've learned to do shading is to darken the entire image/character/part you want to shade (usually with a solid color multiply layer) then add in the lighting either by erasing parts of the multiply layer or by using a separate layer set to overlay or glow dodge (or a similar lightening layer mode). it works a lot better than drawing the shadows imo because it kind of mimics how light works in real life; things are dark by default until you let light in and it hits what it can while leaving the rest still dark.

if you want to blend shadows, i usually still use the above method, but just blur certain areas of it and when i'm deciding which parts to blur (bc i don't just do so indiscriminately) i'll mentally sort all of the shadows into 2 categories:

shadows created by light being blocked by an object: like putting your hand in front of a flashlight. these shadows will retain their sharp edge, but can transition into the 2nd category if they are far enough from the obstruction, like how your hand's shadow will become blurrier the further you move it from the flashlight. the more distance between a light source and the surface it's projecting onto, the more chances for the light to scatter = softer edges

shadows created by light "rolling" off the surface: like the shadows on a ball or rounded surface. these will get blurred and i usually like to put a little bit of color along the blurred edge (a different and usually brighter/more saturated color than the rest of the shadows) just to add some life to the shadows.

here's an annotated version of this mikey pic with just the shadows so it's a lot easier to see :) sorry im bad at annotating..

aaaand this post has probably gotten way longer than you were hoping for so i'll cut it off here 😭 hope this has been at least somewhat useful, and good luck with your art!

[quibbs126]

I said I’d probably do Autumn next, but screw it, we’re doing these characters instead

So as I’ve stated in some other post somewhere, Ariel and Salt are the parents of Mercury, Venus and Saturn, and Erik here is their uncle, and Ariel’s younger brother

I said I was thinking about changing Ariel and Erik’s names, but honestly I think they both still work for each other, so I decided to keep them, other than changing Erik’s “c” to a “k”

Also, this is my first time ever drawing them. And to be honest, while I like how Ariel turned out, I’m not the biggest fan of how the other two turned out, particularly Salt. Might need to tweak designs more

Honestly it’s probably because I knew what I wanted from Ariel’s design, but not so much Salt’s. And for Erik, I wanted the top bit, but realistically I needed to make his hair longer, and I think that’s what got me

But anyways, let’s get into them

So as you can probably tell, Ariel is an albino. That’s kind of the reason I put Erik in there, to show what traits came from her side

I’m aware that albinos tend to have white hair, but I had already given her white fur, so I thought making it pink would be better, as they aren’t just the same color. Maybe I could have made the pink lighter, but ah well

I think originally, Erik was supposed to be albino too, and they might have been twins, but also I didn’t understand how albinism worked at the time, so I thought that certain albino traits could be passed down. That was why Saturn was originally grey, as his fur was his mother’s white but darker. And for Erik’s daughter, she had white fur and red eyes. But I’ve decided now that those traits are just normal white fur and red eyes from her mother’s side, so Erik doesn’t have to be albino. Also it makes him seem more ordinary, if that makes sense

Also by the way, Salt named the kids, hence why they all have kind of weird names. He’s just got a weird naming scheme and Ariel just went along with it, she didn’t mind

So anyways, as mentioned in their kids’s post, Salt was a blacksmith, and Erik was a doctor. I don’t know what Ariel did though

Ariel was considered kind of a weirdo. I don’t really know how to describe it, she just gave off an odd vibe. I want to say she’s weird in a way like Luna Lovegood, but I haven’t actually consumed any Harry Potter media with Luna in it for probably a decade, so I can’t really say. She also has the weird psychic powers like her children, hers being red and probably more potent than theirs

Salt had metal powers, and I don’t know what to give Erik, since he originally had psychic powers, but I decided to change that. Maybe just give him light or healing powers like his daughter

Anyways, so because of her odd powers, Ariel would tend to just give off a vibe that would make people stay away from her, like they’d just rather not be around her. However, whatever that odd aura was, it had no effect on Salt. People would think she’s weird and warn to stay away from, and he’d just a see a relatively normal lady. Yeah sure, maybe some of the things she talked about were odd, but she didn’t seem like anything people were talking about, just a nice lady

They started out as friends who liked to talk, and eventually fell in love. During this time, people were telling Salt to just stay away from her, but he just thought people misunderstood her

I feel like I’m setting Ariel up to be malicious. She wasn’t, she was just a weirdo. I feel like I’m reusing descriptors too much, but I really don’t know how else to describe her

Ariel would often be fascinated by his metalworking, and would ask plenty of questions about it when they first were starting out, and he’d be happy to answer her questions, as he can appreciate someone who appreciates the more intricate aspects of his craft. And on the flip side, Ariel would talk for hours on end about the things she was interested in. Salt generally didn’t know what she was really talking about (he listened he just know what it was. Like having someone talk to you about a series you just don’t know), but he knew it made her happy, so he’d happily listen to her

As for how the two died, I believe it was due to disease, though I never specified what, nor do I really know what diseases kill

Ariel was the first to go, and it was around her death that Erik came to their town, though it was only temporary at the time to help her and her family. Erik couldn’t save her, and he tried to help Salt and their kids out after this time. Salt tried to pull the weight to support his family, and when he fell ill too, Erik tried to get him to stop overworking himself, as he was just making his affliction worse, but he refused to listen, and he unfortunately passed on too. It was after this point that Erik decided to move his family over to their town, as he felt he couldn’t just leave his niece and nephews all alone. And since then that’s where they’ve stayed

I don’t really know what sort of relationship Ariel and Erik had. Erik didn’t have the same weirdness as Ariel and was a relatively normal person, and he was relatively aware of Ariel’s weird aura. I don’t want to say they were distant but I also don’t want to say they were particularly close, I’m not sure

Anyways yeah, that’s these guys. Hopefully next I’ll do Autumn, but we’ll see. Oh and also, they probably won’t all share a common theme, since there usually isn’t that many who do. Like, for Autumn I’ll probably just put her and the vigilante, but if I put another character (which honestly I don’t think I won’t) it’ll just be someone else from the story

[silence-the-sweetest-sound]

Headcanons/Rules/Info

This is an rp/ask blog made primarily with Transformers Prime Soundwave in mind! I can do generation 1 Soundwave as well. Please specify who you'd prefer (if not I'll default to tfp), and if you have a certain time period in mind for an ask, that would be considered as well. (Default will be on the Nemesis probably) ^^

- I will do scenarios pre-war, during the war, or Post-war in the aligned/prime continuity! (This includes scenarios in the Shadowzone)

-Canon doesn't have to be strictly followed in certain instances. (G1 stuff most likely.)

- Canon Characters (specifically megatron, starscream, knockout, any of the cassettes, Shockwave) are preferred, but ocs are generally welcome as well.

- I am very much on and off and only do this as a hobby, and I get tired easily. Feel free to poke me if I haven't responded to a thing because sometimes I forget or am not notified, but please be respectful if I say I'm not active for a time. ^^

Headcanons (Prime)

- Soundwave is a telepath and empath

- His em field is sensitive and he doesn't tend to like touch because of it unless it is someone he is close with

- His visor is his face and it is very sensitive- there is nothing but more components and wires beneath

- Soundwave isn't inherently cruel, he simply wants to follow Megatron and the decepticon cause

- He is very close to Megatron, and can be seen as his Amica Endura in some instances (I am fine shipping them as I am fine making their relationship more complicated, or simply having them be friends, or even a darker relationship minus any nsfw stuff)

- Soundwave and Starscream can get along relatively fine. Starscream addresses Laserbeak as a sentient being and Soundwave appreciates that.

-Laserbeak is sentient. She is one of the only cassettes still alive and Soundwave caees deeply about her.

- Ravage, Rumble, Frenzy, Buzzsaw, and Ratbat were all either lost on Cybertron or killed in battle.

- Soundwave is a Carrier and is spark-bonded to all of the cassettes (symbiotes if you prefer the term) and they used to make up his armor, hence his lighter frame towards the end of the war. (After many of the cassettes/symbiotes were killed.)

- Being spark-bonded to his cassettes left him in immense pain when the bonds were lost, and he treasures Laserbeak deeply as his last remaining symbiote. He misses them dearly.

- Ravage is the oldest, next is Laserbeak, the twins, Buzzsaw, and Ratbat as the baby of the family. (Ratbat is unrelated to Senator Ratbat)

- Soundwave was a gladiator and became friends with Megatronus in the Pits of Kaon

Headcanons (G1)

- He is a telapath and an empath

- All of his cassettes are alive

-He is a Carrier and Spark-bonded to all of them, meaning he cares deeply about all of them and is connected to them.

- He is basically holding the decepticons together

- On Cybertron he used to be a slave under a senator, and has a few traumatic memories revolving around that

- His telepathy is sensitive and as a youngling he had little to no control over it, leaving him with migraines and everyone else's thoughts/emotions jumbled into his own

- He is friends with megatron, though likely isn't as close with him in this verse. He is loyal, though in the end his best interest is for his cassettes and their safety/comfort.

[not-xpr-art]

Art Advice #3 - Drawing tips!

Hi everyone!

As you may know, every week or so I’m writing blog posts with art advice hints and tips for artists of any skill level in the hopes of helping some people out a bit! The tag is here so feel free to check out some of my other posts!

This week’s post is going to be some drawing tips I’ve picked up over the years that could hopefully be useful for beginner artists! 

(this is about 1800 words altogether btw)

Drawings tips!

I’m going to split this post up into little sections which will hopefully make it easier for you to scroll to find certain advice you’re particularly interested in!

Part 1 - How to get started?

I’m a firm believer that anyone can be an artist, regardless of what materials or equipment they have. So when it comes to my advice on what kind of materials I recommend for beginner artists, I’d mainly say ‘whatever you have’. 

But if that’s a bit vague, I’d essentially recommend you have a set of pencils which you can usually get relatively inexpensive online or in craft/art shops which range from 6B all the way to 6H (’B’ being for softer, darker pencils, often good for shading, and ‘H’ for the harder pencil leads which are best for much lighter shading or if you want a really faint sketch. Something important to note about ‘H’ pencils is not to press too hard with them since they’re a lot more likely to leave indents in the paper than ‘B’ pencils! For general sketching I personally use 2B or 3B pencils since they have the perfect balance of soft & hardness in my opinion!) 

Of course, you can just draw with whatever pens or pencils you already have, so definitely don’t feel you have to go out of your way to buy something new or expensive just because your favourite artists use a particular brand of pencil or pen... Of course, often higher quality pens or pencils (especially colouring pencils) will have better pigment payoff than the cheaper alternatives, but as someone who’s been using the same WHSmith pencils they got when they were a child, I definitely think that as long as you have something to draw with, you’re all set to produce masterpieces of your own!

A lot of my art education got us using charcoal for a lot of our drawing practise. It’s not a medium I’m particularly fond of personally, but it is a great way to practise being a lot quicker and expressive with drawing, so definitely if you’re up for the challenge you can try some charcoal stuff! Only piece of advice is that I wouldn’t really recommend those ‘charcoal pencils’ you can buy in some shops, since they mostly just break apart every time you try and sharpen them... Regular charcoal is messy, though, and smudges very easily, so if you are interested in using it I’d say to do a little bit of research before hand! 

(Or feel free to send me an ask if you want any further advice on using it!)

If you’re wanting to get into digital art, I’m planning on making a post discussing my tips for beginners to digital so... keep an eye out for that in the near future lol!

~

Part 2 - Getting over ‘Drawing Anxiety’

Drawing can be a daunting thing, particularly when artists who are already pretty good at it can seemingly produce a perfectly proportioned face out of thin air. But these artists weren’t magically born with this skill, of course, so with practise and some perseverance, I can assure you that you’ll be at that stage one day!

So my first piece of advice here is to be patient with yourself. Don’t expect yourself to be perfect straight away. 

Second piece of advice is to sketch constantly!! I notice a lot of people who haven’t been drawing long are really careful about how they draw, almost like they’re afraid to be rough with the pencil. So I’d really recommend just starting to sketch a lot: be rough, be messy, draw things you can see and things from your imagination! 

Observational drawing is another thing I think is crucial in improving your drawing skills (and I’ll go into more detail with this in a bit), but honestly just sketching things you like is such a great way to help you grow as an artist! And yes this includes drawing anime fanart or drawings of your original characters! 

Below is some comparisons of my attempts at drawing Freema Agyeman from 2013 to 2019... Is the latest version of this perfect? Of course not. But I just want to show what constant practise can achieve!

~

Part 3 - Observational drawing

I honestly think that observational drawing was one of the most important things I learnt in my years of art education. 

Observational drawing can take on many meanings. Perhaps it’s drawing a still life of a fruit bowl, or a life drawing class with a naked dude in front of you, or even drawing from a photo. The point of observational drawing is to improve how you translate the world around you onto a 2D surface, essentially. 

And you don’t need anything fancy to do observational drawing either! Just placing an array of things in front of you and trying to sketch them (try and focus on a mix of textures and surfaces for the objects. So, for example, including a cup along side a woolly hat will help you get a handle on how to create texture with your drawing, and drawing anything with a reflective surface like cutlery is both challenging and interesting to do! Basically just use what you have around you!)

If you’re lucky (or unlucky, depending on how fond you are of seeing naked people lol) enough to have the chance to do life drawing, I would honestly recommend it! Often the final results aren’t great, but it’s a really good way of practising your observational skills! And even if you don’t have the opportunity, just trying to sketch a friend or family member from across a room, for example, is something that can really help you improve! 

Top tip: a teacher once told me that when you’re drawing something like a face, for example, a way to improve how you draw is to see the face not as a ‘face’, but instead as a collections of shapes. Because our brains have a preconceived idea of what a face looks like that we end up drawing what we think we can see rather than what we can actually see! 

There’s a lot of art snobs who believe that drawing from reference images is ‘cheating’ in comparison to life drawing, Of course, this is bs, and I’d say I’ve learnt just as much from using reference photos for the basis of my art as I have from drawing from ‘real life’. For more information about my thoughts on references and how to use them, see This post!

~

Part 4 - Drawing from references: Tracing, Grids and Freehand (which is best?)

Tracing in the world of art is a ... Contentious subject to say the least. And I’m not really interested in getting into the ‘moral’ implications of whether it is ‘cheating’ or not.

Instead I want to focus on the pros of using something like tracing when you’re starting out. I think particularly if you’re trying to improve how you shade things, colour things or how to get better at blending, then I do think that tracing can be a useful tool! Even I used tracing in the very start of my delve into digital art, but soon found that tracing wasn’t really something that was helping me in the long run so moved onto freehand stuff. 

Overall, I think tracing is good as a starting point when you’re still learning about art, and also if you’re not too comfortable with your freehand drawing skills yet. I’d also recommend you mention if you have traced a piece if you share art to social media. Of course, no one is obligated to do this though! 

This is an example of an artwork that I traced (it’s from 2013, hence why it looks... like That lol)

But if you’re someone who perhaps has used tracing in the past and found it doesn’t really work for you, or if you don’t want to start with tracing at all, then a good ‘next step’ I’ve seen other artists get into is using grids. 

Now I have to admit, I’m not the best person to talk about grids since I’ve actually never used them lol... But I know a lot of artists who do, particularly people who do a lot of traditional work, since it makes it a lot easier to translate the reference image to your piece of paper or canvas. 

And in a way I would recommend grids more for people starting out in drawing than tracing, and this is mainly due to the fact grids force you to use a lot more observational drawing skills than tracing! If you’re interested in getting into using grids I’d recommend doing a bit of research yourself! 

The final technique of drawing from references I want to talk about is freehand! Now this is the one I’ve been doing for the majority of my art ‘career’ and honestly is probably the most ‘difficult’ to do of the three techniques. 

But I find freehand drawing particularly rewarding with the ways it can make you reimagine an artwork in ways you never intended! Like what I mentioned in my Reference advice post, I have found that making ‘mistakes’ in freehand drawing can actually lead to more interesting and unique works of art than tracing or grid work could ever do! 

I also think that freehand allows you to create your own characters or concepts in a much more free way. For example, my Spirit of Somerset piece was something I created from a variety of references (I seem to remember I used Isak from SKAM’s mouth as a basis for the girls’ mouth?) and the dragon was based on a real mishmash of references, which is something that I I feel I couldn’t have done if I’d have been using grids or tracing!

With this I’m not trying to say that freehand is the ‘best’ way of drawing, it is just the one that I personally have found to fit me the best, which is the entire point of this post! All of my advice is just pointers I think could be useful for new artists, it is up to you to find which ‘path’ in art suits you best!

And of course, I’ve phrased these techniques as separate purely for the sake of explaining them easier, but the fact of the matter is that you can use a combination of these in your art if you wish! 

If you struggle with drawing the outlines of hands, perhaps use tracing as a way to get a handle of the shape and then maybe use freehand to fill in the colour of them! Use a grid to draw a tree but freehand the leaves and bench below it! 

Remember that your art is your art, and no one can tell you how to draw things! 

~

I think I’ll leave this here for now! But I may do a part two at some point in the future! & my ask box is always open for anyone who wants any specific advice!

I really hope you found this at least moderately helpful, and a massive thank you to everyone for the constant support of these posts and my art!

[slippinmickeys]

The Earl (11/13)

BONUS CHAPTER I thought it might be fun to post the last chapter tomorrow morning for those holding out until it’s posted, so... I’m... filing Chapter 11. Chapter 12 will go up late afternoon/evening. To read on AO3, go here. 

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Scully had fallen into a dreamless sleep, warm and feeling impossibly safe. Birdsong had started with the dawn, and as she sat up groggily on the small mattress on the dusty floor, she smiled to herself. She would see Mulder soon. Her nightmare was at an end.

She rose from the pallet and tried dusting off the dried mud and dirt from the hem of her frock, but it was useless. This particular dress was likely ruined. Not that she would be sad to see it go. It could burn for all she cared.

She pulled out all the hairpins from what remained of her coiffure, running her hands through her hair as best she could. The long auburn locks which, when unbound, flowed lushly halfway down her back (one of Mulder’s favorite things, or so he had said to her in the heat of passion), had some luster to it and still smelled faintly of lavender. On a whim, he had bought her aluminum hair pins at a shop in the village of Ashford when the guests from the estate had alighted there one rainy day last week. She remembered him kissing her hair softly and telling her he was sparing no expense. She smiled to herself and tried to tame her locks into something resembling presentable respectability, plaiting and then pinning it up. The Countess wanted to look as best she could for her Earl.

The fire had burned itself out in the hearth, but the hut was still warm, and getting warmer by the minute as the sun streamed in through the tiny window pane on the far wall. While she waited, she closed her eyes and named to herself various chemical compounds and their respective weights -- something she used to do to pass time while doing needlework or attempting to (badly) play the pianoforte.

In 1801 Joseph Proust announced that every chemical compound has a fixed and definite composition; that when substances unite chemically they do so in definite ratios by weight -- then came John Dalton four years later, with the second great law of combination, which had come to be called the law of multiple proportions. Dalton introduced atomic theory into chemistry, and now the great problem was to determine the relative weights of the atoms. The most eminent scientific minds (men, naturally ) gave their attention to the determination of the atomic weights and of the arrangement of the atoms in compounds. She had read everything she could on the subject, fascinated by the idea of everything in the universe existing on such a small, basic scale. Protons. Neutrons. In the end, everything came down to attraction.

Even she and her husband, she thought. Especially she and her husband. When she tired of chemistry, perhaps next she would study biology. Though, she thought with a flush, they did a near nightly biological case study. Man. Woman. Attraction. Sex.

She was roused from her thoughts by the sound of approaching hoofbeats and moments later, she heard Alex’s voice approaching the hut’s small door.

“She’s in here,” she heard him say, and then the door opened and he strode through it, looking a bit different than he had last night in the light of the single candle.

“Alex,” she said warmly, but when he turned to her, he did so with a sneer, hair curling over his forehead in a rakish way, his eyes cold and almost obsidian in color.

“She’s awake,” he said without feeling to some unknown person just outside the door, the figure looming in the doorway, blocking out the sun. Mulder?

She heard the strike of a match and then saw the cold creep of tobacco smoke purl in the air through the small space, hitting her nose in one acrid punch.

“No,” she whispered, gritting her teeth with fury.

XxX

She came to consciousness in the back of Spender’s carriage once again, the sense memory sinking through her veins like lead. Her head pounded, and when she brought her bound hands to her temple on instinct, she found an enormous goose egg and the crusted, sticky remains of dried blood. She groaned.

The carriage leaned ever so slightly to the right, its wheels making a fairly sharp turn onto a bumpy road. She finally glanced up to look at the man sitting across from her.

There was rage pouring from his eyes and his nostrils were flared. The leather of the gloves he wore creaked in the air between them as he squeezed his wolf’s head walking stick. He raised it and pointed it at her.

“There will be no new opportunities for escape,” he barked, looking at her intently. He opened his mouth to speak further when the carriage lurched to a stop. He didn’t wait for Alex, who’d been acting as coachman, to open the door, but flung it open himself, then leaned back in to grab Scully by her bound hands, pulling her bodily out of the conveyance so quickly that she stumbled when her feet hit the ground.

She barely had time to look around before he was pulling her along behind him toward a small, ancient cottage that was tucked back amongst some trees. She had just gotten a glimpse of the sand-colored manor house she’d been kept in previously before she was tugged through the doorway of the cottage in the woods. The manor house was not far away, down a long, winding path littered with weeds and wildflowers that didn’t look like it got much use. Spender pulled her inside and slammed the door behind them.

She braced herself when he grabbed his walking stick with both hands, but instead of striking her, he pulled at the silver wolf’s head and withdrew a long blade, triangular and sinister, its blade darker than any metal ought to be.

She took a step away from him.

He smiled at her, an evil-looking grin, and Scully was reminded of the skeleton presiding over Hell in Jan Van Eyck’s The Last Judgement . She thought of demons. Of serpents and bats. “Hold out your bindings,” he said to her.

Tentatively, she held out her hands. He grabbed them roughly and used the wolf’s head dagger to cut the knots from her wrists. When the cloth fell away, she took a relieved breath, only to be startled into a gasp when he struck, quick as a viper, and grabbed her by the hair.

“Our games are at an end, Lady Wexford,” he hissed, his mouth mere inches from her own. She grabbed at his hands, but he twisted them harder, and she could hear the hairpins falling from her head and tinkling merrily onto the slate floor. “Your husband will pay.”

With that, he began cutting at her hair with the dagger, sawing and hacking at it until the whole thick plait came off in his hand. Her scalp felt as though it were on fire.

She raised her hands up to feel the unevenly shorn hair that now ended at her chin, and the cottage’s door slammed shut with a loud, metallic chink. He was gone.

XxXxXxXxXxX

Alex and Queen had returned from the coaching inn after several days with no news.

“I fear the proprietor knows nothing,” the footman had told Mulder, sadly, “and there have been no guests matching the description of your Mr. Spender.”

Mulder had given him his thanks and told the man to get some rest.

Later that day, a scream wret the air from the entrance of the house. Mulder catapulted down the stairs to find a maid with a hand to her chest sitting on the floor in shock, another maid holding her other hand, trying to calm her. The Butler, Mr. Headly, was hovering over them both and Mulder noticed a large box with the lid half-off sitting just inside the manse’s door.

Byers, Frohike and Langly all came skidding onto the scene only moments behind him.

“The… the Countess,” the prone maid said, shakily pointing to the box.

Mulder moved forward, awash with dread. When he pushed aside the lid, there, sitting inside of it like a coiled snake ready to strike, sat the long, thick plait of Scully’s titian hair.

He recoiled, falling back momentarily, then moved forward again, lifting it up and out. The end of the hair that had been cut had not been trimmed gently or with finesse, but rather hacked at, likely with a sharp, short blade. It must have been painful for her.

“Who delivered this?” Mulder asked. “Who?!”

The maid to whom he’d spoken leaned back in fear, and he took a breath in order to calm himself.

“Mary,” Byers said calmly, and the young woman looked to her employer.

“There was no delivery, sir,” she finally said, “I was going about my duties and there it was, sitting inside the front door.”

Everyone looked to Mr. Headly.

“She is quite right,” he said calmly, “there have been no deliveries today. Nor yet any post.”

Mulder brought himself to his full height and addressed no one, staring straight ahead. “He’ll die for this,” he said with controlled wrath. He then stalked off, leaving the smell of lavender in his wake.

XxXxXxXxXxX

Scully stared at the back of the door, running her hands through her now-short locks. It felt so odd, but it was also a bit freeing, she thought, and her head felt pounds lighter. She bent down and collected pins that had escaped onto the floor, setting them in a pile on a nearby table, and placing a few in the fringe near her forehead to keep it out of her face.

She took a turn about the room. She tried the door, just in case. Locked and secured from the outside.

The cottage was old, made of thick stone, the windows tiny and set far back in the walls -- she’d have no hope of climbing through one. There were three rooms -- the one she was in near the door that seemed to serve as great room and main living space. A small bedroom just off that, supplied with a small, rough hewn bed and straw-filled mattress, covered with a single woolen blanket. The third room was a kitchen, with a large fireplace and old monstrous table that bowed in the middle from year’s worth of scrubbing. There were bottles and crockery that lined two large shelves, and a small scullery. The scullery seemed fairly well stocked, as was the kitchen, where on the table sat two fresh loaves of bread and several hunks of cheese, a small bowl of apples, three lemons and a large bowl of eggs. An extra circuit around the kitchen and she found three pails full of water that she moved onto the main table -- she covered each with a large plate to keep out dust and debris. It was looking like she would not be fed, but would have to feed herself with what was left here. Very well, she thought. There was enough food and water for a week. Perhaps more.

She wondered what Spender’s plan for her was. Was it only ransom he was after? If so, Mulder would surely pay it.

She snooped through the scullery, taking inventory. There she found a decent quantity of concentrated lye, five candles, two small bottles of kerosene (but no lamps), a bar of Pears soap, a large glass bottle with a heavy cork stopper that smelled as if it had once contained either wine or vinegar, several empty crockery bottles of various sizes, two bottles of whisky, matches, chalk, salt, and a small bottle that appeared to be turpentine, but that she couldn’t get open.

In the main room there was a single shelf on which sat several books, all in either French or Latin. So she would not go completely mad with boredom.

There was no wardrobe and so no other changes of clothes, though she could probably launder what she had in the large pot in the kitchen fireplace (which was well stocked with wood, she was pleased to see). She was suddenly thankful that Duane Barry had walked her through the process.

He was a sad sort of man and easy to manipulate and she could see how he’d been an easy mark for Spender. He was shy and unworldly, had trouble even meeting her eye. Why, all it had taken was for her to mention her courses and he was practically blithering, and had seen her outside without so much as-

She stopped short. Her courses. She had been in captivity for several days now, and had been at Byers’ estate for more than a week… She did the arithmetic in her head and then did it again. She was late. Alarmingly so.

She took a breath and brought a hand low over her stomach. Her heart began to pound. Oh, Mulder . Perhaps she was not alone in this cottage after all.

XxXxXxXxXxX

Mulder thought back to the last time he had seen Scully -- had he known then it would be the last time, he never would have left.  

He had his hand on her breast, and was thrusting into her gently from behind. In the many weeks since their marriage, her body had learned to accommodate his, and he met little resistance as he slid into her with a hiss of satisfaction. This was lazy lovemaking, both of them half asleep in the dim light of morning.

“I do not need to hunt today,” he finally spoke, nuzzling his nose into the delicate skin behind her ear, “for I have found Artemis, and she is here in this bed with me.”

Scully gave a little moan and then pressed back into him, a signal he was beginning to learn meant that she wanted more.

“I-” she stopped to take a breath “I don’t believe the Goddess of the Hunt is anywhere near here, Mulder,” she said breathily, “for she is also the goddess of wild animals and vegetation and ah-” Mulder had thrust into her with more force and he could feel her muscles clench around him, “and… chastity.”

“Chastity?” Thrust. “Perhaps you are right.” Thrust. “Here before me is Aphrodite, and her sea-foam eyes.”

It was then that Scully reached her peak, and he ascended with her, grabbing onto her hips tightly and burying his face into the silky mane of her hair.

She rolled away from him onto her stomach moments later and turned to assess him with half-lidded eyes. She licked her lips, her movements slow.

“Aphrodite may have been born from the foam of the sea,” she said lazily, “but I rather did always like Artemis best. I pictured her similar to Boudica, with a sword in one hand and a bow in the other.”

“A sword in one hand, eh?” Mulder asked, nudging her with a finger.

“They say she is the strongest of them all, for she not only oversees chastity but also childbirth.”

“Chastity and childbirth? A confusing combination.”

Scully laughed, a delicious peal through the air of the room.

Mulder rolled out of the bed and pulled the bell to summon Danny to help him dress.

“Perhaps she’ll be with me today,” he said, “and I shall bring back our dinner, the fattest of the lot for my goddess.”

Scully smiled at him and rolled over to go back to sleep, her hair like a cape of spun gold fanning the pillows behind her.

XxXxXxXxXxX

Scully looked at her reflection in one of the pails of water. It was not… altogether atrocious. Her hair looked rather like a farmboy bob, and she was certain that someone with cleverer hands than she could do something with it, even for more formal events… perhaps pin it with pearls and feathers. But. That was a problem for a different time. For now, her only concern was keeping it out of her eyes while she worked.

She had spent the whole of the night alternately thinking of the babe that perhaps was even now growing in her belly, and the problem of how she was to save them both. She had determined as she lay looking at an unfamiliar ceiling that she would not let CGB Spender control her or her fate.

Firstly, she needed to put an end to her imprisonment. And then… Well, then she needed to put an end to Spender and his evil machinations. Duane Barry might yet help her again, but Scully suspected that Barry had been relieved of his prisoner oversight duties, or worse. What with the supplies of food and water that had been left in the cottage, and Spender’s warning: “There will be no new opportunities for escape,” the likelihood that there might be anyone she could overtake or convince to help her were not good. It was up to her to save her own skin.

And perhaps also that of her child.

XxXxXxXxXxX

After the Countess's hair had been discovered, the mood around Ashford Park was... penultimate, thought Frohike. Though the day was clear, it felt as though something was brewing. And when the storm broke, well, there was no telling what damage would be wrought.

Mulder had begun ranging further and further afield, riding his horse to every farm, every tenant, every public house and hen house in search of his wife. He was a man possessed.

Frohike was exiting the library, which happened to be nearest the back staircase that came up from below stairs, when he saw a maid coming up the stairway and rushing off into the house. The look on her face was excited intrigue, which was enough to incite the same feeling in himself. On a whim, he turned toward the stairway that led below stairs and followed them down.

The hallways were narrow and labyrinthine, and there were members of Byers' household staff huddled together in gossiping circles, paying no attention to the erstwhile gentleman who walked among them.

"Go and get Mr. Headly. This very minute!" he heard from around a corner. A scullery maid went running past him and when he rounded the corner he came upon the Cook patting a man's hand and pressing a cup of tea into it.

"Now, Duane, where have you been?" she asked kindly.

Frohike's eyes widened.

"Duane?" he said, "This is the groom, Duane Barry?" he asked excitedly.

Cook nodded at him. "He's..." she started, "he's not himself. He says he'll speak only to the Earl. Not even Sir Byers, his own master!" She sounded scandalized.

Frohike turned and ran from the kitchens, launching himself through the scullery and on out the door to the back of the estate, running toward the stables for all he was worth. He skidded inside.

"The Earl,” Frohike was breathless from running. Several grooms stood around looking at him in alarm and confusion.

“Sir?” one of them asked.

"Where is the Earl?" Frohike gasped.

"He rode west, sir."

"Find him, now. Which of you is the best rider? Tell him that Duane Barry has returned."

One of the groom's eyes flashed wide and he nodded, and not a minute later, as Frohike was walking quickly back toward the house, was galloping out of the stable yards and toward the western fields.

Frohike trotted up the stairs of the manse and let himself in the door, waiting not for the butler or even a footman. When he rounded the corner that led to the drawing room, he heard his friend's voice, raised in anger, verging on hysteria:

"Did you hurt her?!"

"No!"

Frohike walked through the doorway and found Byers and Langly standing close to the former groom Duane Barry, who sat in one of the chairs, his face a frightened mask.

Langley grabbed the man’s hand and raised it. He pointed to blood on the man's cuff. "What is this?!"

"I'm sorry," Barry said. "I had to take her. I hope he's not hurting her. I'm sorry."

"Where is she?!" Byers shouted.

"I... I'll tell the Earl. Bring me the Earl, and I'll tell him."

Langly threw up his arms in frustration and Byers, looking as steely and angry as Frohike had ever seen him, brushed past Frohike in the doorway of the room, Langly on his heels. He turned to the handful of servants that had appeared in the hallway, mainly maids, and Wexford's footman, Alex.

"Nobody goes in or out of that room," Byers said. The footman nodded at him and took station at the closed door, standing tall.

Mr. Headly appeared as Byers was walking with purpose toward the main stairway.

"Where is the Earl?" Byers asked his man.

"I don't know, sir-"

"Find him!" Byers barked.

Langly drifted to Frohike's side.

"I have never seen him like this," his business partner said, "I am impressed."

Frohike couldn't help but agree. Not ten minutes later, Mulder burst through the door of the manse out of breath and smelling of horse. He grabbed Frohike by the shoulders.

“Barry?” he said, “Barry has returned?”

Frohike nodded encouragingly. “And has word of the Countess’s location, apparently. He’ll tell only you.” Frohike gestured to the door of the drawing room where the footman Alex had been standing guard. He was no longer there, and the door to the room was ajar.

Mulder stumbled through it with Frohike hot on his heels. Both men pulled up short.

Barry was on the ground, and Alex was leaning over him.

"What happened?!" Mulder asked, taking several halting steps into the room.  

"He was gagging," Alex said, leaning back on his heels. “I tried to help.”

The man was lying upon the ground, gasping for air. Mulder ran to him. “Duane!” Mulder said, kneeling beside him. Frohike skidded to the man’s other side.

Barry, his eyes wide and still gasping for air, looked once at Mulder beseechingly. Then he took one almighty breath, his entire body spasming once, and exhaled, slumping to the floor. Frohike could tell just by looking at him -- the man was dead.

“Duane!” Mulder said one more time and then stood in a daze. His eyes cast about the room. “Alex, what hap-” he paused, mid-sentence.

The footman was gone.

[allscalliepsds]

RP GUIDE: TIPS FOR WRITING ITALIANS CHARACTERS!

So, from one Italian roleplayer, check this list for creating credible Italians fictional characters. I don’t know if you’re ever gonna read this post, but let’s try. Aaaand, if it works maybe one day I’ll do a list of italian faceclaims, or italian names and surnames. (Obviously, I’m not used to writing in english. Ignore my mistakes, lol)

• We have very different features. We’re not all tanned, with brown eyes and brown hair. My best friend is pale as hell and blonde like a freaking scandinavian. So we have lighter skin, darker skin, we’re tall, very short, redheads. And we have different cultures here! You can use asian faceclaims, black faceclaims, tunisian faceclaims... your character can have any kind of origin and still have the italian citienzship.

• Food is important. And by saying this I do not only mean that things like pineapple pizza or carbonara with pancetta are unacceptable! I mean that we EAT together. Most of Italians families have lunch together daily, same happens for dinner. Eating means spending time with family and friends. On sundays a lot of families reunite and have lunch with other relatives like grandparents or uncles, without even being on holiday time. We do not need Christmas or Easter to have lunch with relatives. Talking more about food: every place has its own speciliaties, so look for them when creating a character.

• Talking about food, WE DO NOT SHARE PIZZAAAA! Okay, maybe we do, sometimes, but it’s different. I’ve seen a lot of American tv shows or movies where they order just one pizza for four family members. Like, what?? Here in Italy most of the times we have one pizza per person. Because Italian pizza is obviously better and lighter, so you don’t get your belly full just by eating two slices unless you’re 5 y/o.

• We might be spending a lot of time complaining about our country and what doesn’t work, but in reality we are very proud and sometimes a lot patriotic. You know what really gets me super mad? Scrolling tik tok and seeing Americans that call themselves ITALIANS just because their grandma’s uncle was from Salento. No the hell no, that’s not how it works. You’re not Italian you cunt. 

• We’re a little bit a cliché, I gotta give you that. Sometimes more than a little bit. When quarantine/lockdown started here in Italy it was sooo hard finding flour and baking powder at the supermarket. And it’s not just a Super Mario thing: we do actually say mamma mia! But we’re not all the same. Please do not consider always the same kind of relatives: conservative religious parents with that grandma that always cooks a lot of stuff and blablabla. Think out of the box!

• Talking about grandmas: if you wanna follow that cliché of the Italian grandma that cooks and makes you eat until you pass out, it’s fine. You can do this. One of my grandma is like this and even though we have lunch in like four people she’s still gonna cook for an entire army. But if you don’t wanna do that, then don’t. My other grandma does not know how to cook and so she doesn’t that much. It’s fine, no one’s gonna revoke your character’s Italian citizenship if you don’t stick to those basic clichés we’re tired of.

• Please, look for a map. Not every Italian lives by the sea, it isn’t always sunny and hot and you don’t always feel in the right mood for a gelato. The northern part of Italy is colder and there aren’t as much bathing areas. Even if your characters lives or is from Sicily ( which is where I’m from ), it isn’t sure that he’s gonna have the beach next to his house. I’m a lucky person, in jenuary from my balcony I can see the sea on my right and the vulcano Etna covered by snow on my left. But it depends, so choose a city and look for it.

• We have dialects. So, let me try to be clear. Italy is a country divided into 20 regions, okay? Sicily is a region of Italy, Lazio ( where Rome is, to be clear ) is another Italian region. The official language is obviously Italian. So since I’m from Sicily, with a girl from Lazio/Rome I’m gonna speak Italian. But, inside the regions, there are dialects. Since I’m sicilian my dialect is called siciliano, and it’s influenced from all the past invasions. Sicily was conquered by arabs, and arabs also conquered Spain which is why some words in siciliano are similar to spanish words. Even though we have dialects we can understand each other pretty well. Southern dialects are all pretty similar, for example. But I gotta be honest, I don’t understand a single words in northern dialects. If you wanna stick to that grandma cliché I mentioned before, then add the dialect to it. Grandparents speak dialects. Generally speaking, old people speak dialects way more than the younger ones. Unfortunately it’s a culture that is starting to disappear.

• Please, dress properly. You’re never gonna see a true Italian walk out of his own house in his pajamas and with slippers, that only happens in nightmares. We’re classy. And by saying this I do not mean that we dress Dolce&Gabbana and Gucci. We don’t. I mean, rich people do, they’re lucky enough. So you do not need to mention important and expensive brands. We’re not all rich. Or at least I’m not as I wish. Last thing: it’s VersacE, not Versaci.

• Italy is (unfortunately) a pretty religious country. You know, we have the Vatican here. The most common religion here is Christianity. Not everyone practise it, and not everyone goes at the Church every sunday. 

• ROME AND MILAN AREN’T THE ONLY TWO ITALIAN CITIEESSS! I know, they’re the most known, Rome is beautiful and in Milan there’s the fashion week, I get that. But Italy is full of beautiful places. Maybe you don’t wanna choose unknown little towns with less then 3.000 habitants, but be original.

• There isn’t a large representation of Italy outside our country, so you might know very few of how we live here and what our habits are. Let me do just a small list of things:

- At 18 years old you are old enough to take your driving license, your car, and to drink. Obviously do not do everything together, lol. But you can buy alcool at 18 and go to the clubs.

- We kiss. If you’re my friend I’m gonna give you two kisses on the cheeks to say hi and to say goodbye. Even if you’re not my friend but you are with my friends, I’ll do that to be polite. And sometimes It can be pretty boring, but If I’m leaving a room with 12 people I (more or less) know I’m gonna kiss all of those 12 people.

- We have school from monday to saturday, mostly from 8 am to 13 pm. So we do not spend the afternoons at school like Americans do, and we do not have all those extracurricular activities and sports.

- We do not use snapchat anymore, while I know that it’s still a thing somewhere else. And for texting we mostly use Whatsapp and Telegram. Not iMessage because not everyone has an iPhone (they cost a little bit more, here), and neither we use Messanger that much.

- We do study a lot of art, history and literature. They’re not optional subjects. And we really praise our artistic patrimony. You can’t live here and study in Italy and then don’t know how to recognize a piece of art of DaVinci, Michelangelo, Botticelli or Caravaggio. If you’re Italian you know who Dante is and that he wrote The Divine Comedy.

- I don’t know how it is in the rest of the world, but when we go out (like, at night??) we have this thing of going downtown. So you can go to a restaurant with your friends for dinner or you can go out after dinner and just meet your friends at a square, grab a beer at the nearest bar and sit on a bench or on the stairs of something that faces that square and even stay there all night. It might sound strange, but that’s how it works and in towns where there are a lot of young people or university students those squares and those bars next to them are always full of people. Here’s an example.

[mottephobia-imagines]

BNHA as Hetalia Characters (Axis + Allies only)

Hahahahaaaa.. I’m still Hetalia trash 😇

—

Mirio Togata as America

I first put Denki as America but then I saw a post and now I can’t stop thinking about BTT SeroKiriKami so yeah-

Mirio and America have more things in common other than being blond, blue-eyed precious beans that need to be protected

First of- s t r o n g. They’re both canonically some of the strongest characters in their respective series despite their relatively young ages (Mirio being above some pro-hero levels despite still being in high school and America being well America lmao)

Additionally, they both have drive; they have a determination to become as strong as they possibly could, and stop at nothing to get there

Also, they love helping people! Mirio wants to save a million smiles, and America is a self-proclaimed hero (who admittedly isn’t the best but he’s trying okay)

Both of them kinda also have a hidden intelligence? Like, as in one would never think of them to be highly intelligent people because they’re so goofy and energetic

Since it’s implied that both Tamaki and Mirio game in their free time, him and America are also avid gamers (imagine them playing smash together lmao I feel like they’d break all the controllers)

Both v v competitive too (not as much as the next duo tho)- they’ll never back down from a challenge and face it head on with all their might!

Also, they’re basically the blond boy of the month but it’s every month lmao

(In my eyes they’re both cute little golden retrievers shshsjdjskal)

In conclusion, they’re sunshines who deserve the world and more

Katsuki Bakugo as England

Okay fr hear me the fuck out-

I know it’s an unlikely pair

But they have their similarities just bear with me here

Yes, I was initially going to put in Romano for Bakugo (anger issues gang)

But then the more I thought about it, the more I realized that unlike Romano, he wouldn’t back away from a challenge or run at the slightest scare- Bakugo would take that shit and smother it into the ground

And while England may sometimes be portrayed as a prude gentleman type, we can’t forget his history- this man is probably one of, if not the most, ballsy countries to exist (at least back in his prime)

England is smart, calculated and cunning- how could you not be when you’ve conquered nearly the whole damn world?

He’s proud and maybe a bit too egotistical, and while lacking the anger issues and probably dead vocal cords of Bakugo, he sure as hell matches him in the pride and power aspect

Bakugo, on the other hand, is literally top of his class; boy is a nerd and has a perfect record

So he’s by no means any less smart than England, maybe a little more reckless, but he’s 16- you can’t exactly compare his mindset to a country’s

Even so he does act quickly on the battlefield, much like England assessed situations very precariously (most of the time)

Both of them would probably look an opponent dead in the eye and tell them to do it, bet you won’t pussy ass

On a lighter note tho, they’re two blond, spiky-haired tsunderes who are way to proud and smart for their own good

They also both listen to rock/punk so there’s that too

foreverfurrowedbrowclubTM

Aoyama Yuuga as France

I know I just said SeroKamiKiri is the BTT but once again hear me out

I couldn’t not put Aoyama in as France

It’s literally a match made in Heaven guys cmon

They’re both sparkling, flamboyant and fabulous blondies

Although sometimes their attitude can be interpreted as holier-than-thou, really they just know that they’re amazing and don’t care what people think (we stan confident kings 😤)

They also know that they deserve the best luxuries in life, and definitely won’t settle for anything else

In terms of courage, they’re pretty much on the same level; they get scared easily and will more than likely either back out of the challenge or give up the moment they feel tired

The difference is, France will never regain whatever bravery he had before the French Revolution, but Aoyama is slowly building his courage up in his journey to become a hero

They also take things in stride, willingly or unwillingly (whether it be an ugly outfit or a defeat, they won’t be a sore loser lmao)

While not necessarily flirty like France, Aoyama can still charm people with his whims. Also, their relationship towards people that they can’t charm kind of mirrors one another? (Might be reaching here lmao)

I do think though sometimes that Aoyama shows some similarities with Poland/2P!Romano, but he has the most similarities with France so 🤷🏻‍♀️

Toga Himiko as Russia

You may say she’s more like Belarus but nay nay I say

Belarus is the more kind of ‘stoic’ cruel in my mind; she doesn’t show much emotion besides annoyance and getting angry

Russia however

He’s ‘childishly’ cruel- looks innocent but is capable of some horrible, monstrous things.

Even though his face says otherwise, he does take some glee in torturing harming others (like, a lot)

Toga also does this, but in a much more obvious way lmao. She’s a villain, who drinks blood, there’s no doubt she hasn’t killed anyone. She also takes a lot more pleasure from hurting people than Russia does

They not that close with people, but the ones they are close to they are immensely protective of (Toga and the LOV, Russia and his sisters)

They also are capable of being highly intelligent, knowing more than what people think they know (Toga helping Twice our, and I high key headcanon Russia as a manipulative and cunning bastard who’s done many horrible things to people to get his way)

(I still love you Ivan)

I think this goes without saying but they’re really really violent

Russia just likes using his magic metal pipe of pain, and Toga likes her knives

They also have some really shitty pasts that have lead them to be who they are today

They may look cute on the outside, but they are oh so very cruel on the inside

Shota Aizawa as China

Haha, old man syndrome-

These two have more in common than you’d think

First off, they have that wisdom that comes with age, and are trying to get the younger ones to learn it (Aizawa does this better lmao)

I can totally see them complaining about ‘kids these days’ even tho they’ve done the same shit back then-

Along with wisdom comes cunning and craft. I headcanon China as a low key genius, so he’s probably on par with Aizawa, if not better (in terms of battle strategy and such)

Even though they come off as strict, all they really want is the best for their students/siblings

They’re both physically strong (China was probably once hella jacked, and Aizawa speaks for himself)

They do tire out quite easily tho so there’s that

Both have a penchant for cute animals like cats (Hello Kitty’s a cat don’t @ me)

On a darker note, they’ve both suffered losses of close friends. While China has definitely lost a lot more, Shirakumo’s ‘death’ still took a huge toll on him. Likewise, China has lost all his ancient friends over the years, making him the last one left (except turkey and Mongolia they don’t matter rn)

Tenya Iida as Germany

You cannot tell me this isn’t also a match made in heaven

They’re literally, at their very core, almost the exact same person

Iida is a stickler for rules- he follows every single one of them. Any and every. Pretty organized too, if I do say so myself

Likewise, Germany is also very strict with rules and regimens. He’s also canonically OCD so mans cannot stand messes (people or things)

It may make them seem like pains in the neck but really it’s the only way they know how to interact

Also have some angsty connections with their brothers

Although not as easily provoked as Germany, Iida can still be just as terrifying (mans tried to kill Stain I mean come on-)

As with nearly all of these characters, they’re both strong as hecc

Also, I feel like both of them are somewhat pressured by what their other family members have accomplished and want to achieve the same thing (Iida coming from a family of superheroes, and Germany really looking up to his father and brother and wanting to be like them but less yknow)

They don’t really know how to communicate well?? Like, of course they can talk and hold conversation but they have difficulty with most social interactions (it’s adorable)

More often than not the louder voice of reason within their friend group (Everyone in the Dekusquad besides Deku himself is the voice of reason lmao, and Germany is a no-nonsense kind of guy)

Smart bois (In Gakuen Hetalia, Germany is said to be one of the smartest students and tutors Italy, and Iida tries his best)

All in all very awkward and loud losers beans that need to learn how to not be so stiff lmao

Shoto Todoroki as Japan

Y’all already know I had to pair the introverts together

Calm, collected and reserved- these two mind their own business like it’s a sports championship lmao

Even though they may come off as intimidating sometimes, in reality they’re just shy and don’t really know the basics of social interaction (more than Germany and Iida lmao)

They’re both fairly strong, too (Todoroki with his icy hot quirk makes him one of the most OP characters in MHA imo, and Japan definitely doesn’t carry around a katana just for show)

Very very convoluted and not so great childhood (Think the sengoku period was Japan’s childhood so he was basically torn up as a kid while Todoroki had to deal with Endebitch)

Also both pretty smart??? Like, high key they’re both very intelligent and skilled

Both their friends are slowly helping them get out of that super duper introverted mindset, but the poor bbs are still trying to learn how to be a lot less stiffe

They’re also really into architecture esp traditional Japanese architecture (canon in both)

I honestly think they’d get along pretty well if they met, tbh

(Japan would get him into anime and manga and the bookworm in Todoroki can’t resist)

The strange circumstance of Italy

Honestly, I could not find anyone in MHA that was remotely similar to Italy

I was very close to putting in Mina or Nejire, since those two come to mind whenever I think of bright and bubbly (Maybe Kirishima too, but it just doesn’t fit)

So while those two are pretty much the most fitting I feel, they don’t completely encompass his character enough yonow?

Like, I genuinely cannot find anyone who is similar enough to compare him to

So for now, until I can find a suitable pick, Italy won’t have a MHA character to be paired up with 😔 sorry guys

—

What do you guys think? Do you agree or do you think different characters should be put in place?

If this gets enough notes, I might make a part 2 including female nations and the others (or whatever characters you guys request)

Requests are still open! You can ask for edits or character imagines/headcanons!

[le-poofe]

Idk if this has been asked already, but how long does it take you to create a comic/art piece? And what is the order of the steps you go through? (Btw I love your art)

That’s a good question! I’m gonna use the most recent page as the example. I’ve talked a little bit about how long it takes, but I haven’t really explained my process. Heads up, this is pretty long! I could have just put in one panel’s process, but it’s more fun to show the whole page

1. The Sketch ~ 1-2 Hours

This can take a while for a number of reasons. A few factors could be business, tiredness, a lack of inspiration, creating too many options for myself, etc. But generally this part goes at a decent pace. I have a script that I follow loosely, where I’ve written dialogue and actions that seem good for what’s going on. I will spend more time on panels that I have a specific image in my head for. Those last two panels are much cleaner/more fleshed out than the previous four because I had a much better idea for how I wanted them to look.

2. The Lineart ~ 2-4 Hours

The lineart takes the longest, hands down. It’s the clean up, final changes/additions, and just making everything look all nice for the rest of the piece. This is where I spend like 5 minutes comparing facial expressions to see which one I like better, drawing another one, and then choosing the first one I drew. 

3. The Background ~ 30 minutes

The coloring is so much faster than the lineart. I will usually go slower here on purpose because I enjoy it, and it’s a relaxing break from the lineart. I just color right underneath the lineart, I don’t worry about anything looking messy under the character linearts because I know they’ll just be covered up. Typically, if I start the lineart in the afternoon, I’ll get to this point and stop for the evening.  

4. Flat Colors ~ 5 Minutes

This goes relatively fast as well. I take my time for the most part. It’s just tedious to select the lineart. I kind of color them differently. Sans gets his darkest colors first, and then I add light layers on top. With Grillby, I put on the lightest color for his shirt and the middle color for his flames (I use 3-4 colors for them). Doing that kinda helps me establish that Grillby is a light source and Sans is not.The color schemes are almost direct complements, and I do eventually add yellow to Grillby’s flames. It makes them contrast with each other, and is generally satisfying to look at imo. It also makes Sans’ colors somewhat analygous to his surroundings, because of the deep blues and reds. The purple does stand out, but not nearly as much as the bright orange. 

5. Finishing Grillby ~ 45 Minutes - 1 Hour

I have a general routine for adding Grillby’s details, which is why it goes quick. ((There will be a separate post on that process later)) It only takes that long because I have to do it for multiple panels per page. I’m sure this page was even shorter because it mostly featured incomplete shots of him. To finish his flames, I use an airbrush to add the reds, then I do the same with the yellows. I take the brightest yellow on the palette and use that for his freckles, eyes, and mouth ((if it’s open)). The last thing I do is color his lineart a dark red. His eyes are lined with a darker red to compensate for the glow I put over them, which makes the lines look faint and hard to see. For his shirt, I shade it with the lighter pink color, and then airbrush the darker pink on the areas that are further away from his flames.

6. Finishing Sans ~ 1 hour 

Sans definitely has a more drastic change than Grillby. Almost none of the original purple survives the overlay layers. I have two or three light layers on top of the flat colors. I use one of the colors that is from grillby’s color palette, it’s a slightly altered version of his flat orange. First I do hard lights, that don’t have their edges blurred. The top of his skull and those half circle shapes under his eye sockets are some of the most noticeable examples. Then I go over that layer with another overlay, but this time with an airbrush. I put it in the same areas, but it makes everything look softer. There’s one more overlay, which uses the dark purple of Sans’ shirt. It helps me to not make everything too light. On top of all three of those is a a Luminosity + Shade layer in the orange color to make the brightest spots pop.

7. Finishing Background Details ~ 15-20 Minutes

This is basically doing the same thing I did to Sans on the background. I use the same orange from Grillby’s color scheme and add light where it needs to go. I can be more lenient on details because it’s not the main focus of the page.

8. Adding the Glow ~ 5-10 Minutes

This is just me taking the orange light color and airbrushing it just above the background on a Lum + Shade layer. This goes under the layers that Sans and Grillby are lined and colored on. The next layer is the same as the last and goes over both figures. It acts as a final highlight to the lightest points of the two. Usually it’s the top of Sans’ skull, the tips of Grillby’s fingers, and the area around his mouth. Then I airbrush Sans and Grillby’s eyes in blue and orange respectively on a Lum + Shade Layer.

9. Text and Final Details ~ 20 - 30 Minutes

This is where I figure out where I want to place the dialogue, and add in anything I might have missed. In this case, I forgot to fully draw and shade Sans’ tears at the beginning. I slap my signature on and boom! All done!

I hope this was helpful! And sorry it’s super long 0v0;; If you need clarification on anything, feel free to ask!

[cornyregans]

A Monty Marriage

Intro Word Count: 222 words Essay Word Count: 1,828 words Thank You Word Count: 62 words Total Word Count: 2,112 words

We are gathered here today for two reasons: to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of TS2′s release, as well as to add another entry into the Veronaville Vault. 

It’s been a few months since I last put anything up here, and I’m sorry about that. My life has been a bit hectic, mostly because of mental health things and family emergencies, but also because I’ve been busy playing Fire Emblem: Three Houses (I’m on my second playthrough). Also, I am currently taking some classes, so odds are things will be a bit calm in the coming months. That said, I do plan on posting and checking in from time to time.

That’s not to say that I haven’t been working on more entries for the Veronaville Vault. Even though I haven't been active on here for a few months, I have been working on several outlines and creating more headcanons and going further into world-building. As such, I’ve come up with some new ideas that I am looking forward to sharing with all of you in the future.

But enough about that, there’s a wedding to analyze! 

Should you be interested in having a visual reference going forward, you can find one here. If you’re not familiar with the image itself, I would highly recommend looking at it to follow along.

The Couple

Anyone familiar with the modern-day premades will likely be able to identify the couple under the arch as Claudio and Olivia Monty. That said, there are some additional elements I want to point out. First of all, the plumbob above his head shows that Claudio meant to be the active sim. While this might not seem like much, the presence of our little green friend could be alluding to two things in particular.

Anyone who has played TS2 likely knows how weddings work in the game. Much like most interactions, weddings must be initiated by one half of the couple before one can occur. Also, the sim who initiates the action is the one who keeps their last name. With this in mind, the plumbob could very well be indicating that Claudio, as the active sim, was the one to initiate the marriage between the two. As such, both Claudio and Olivia would take the Monty name as opposed to the Dottore name (which is reflected in the game itself).

As I mentioned when talking about the last name mechanic above, a wedding occurs in-game after the player has one sim initiate the action. This means that the other sim could be uncontrollable on that particular lot and the wedding would still go off without a hitch. As a result, this could also indicate that Claudio and Olivia did not live together before getting married.

Outside of Mr. Plumbob, the thought-bubble above Olivia's head shows a sim with dark hair and a medium skin tone. Given the hair and complexion of the individual that she is marrying, the sim in the thought bubble is most likely Claudio.

The Room Layout

Now that we’ve looked at the couple, it is now time to look at the venue. When it comes to the location, the windows in the room, combined with the fact that this is a Monty wedding, would place the event as occurring on Veronaville’s west side. That said, since there is no such location to be found in Veronaville, odds are that the developers created it as a one-time thing and either bulldozed or deleted it afterward.  

The wedding guests are all seated on 1x2 benches, which could easily be seen as makeshift pews if the developers intended for the venue to be a church. From what we are shown, there are five benches in this particular storytelling image, three on the left and two on the right. Though, given the angle of the shot, there could very well be an additional bench on the right side that is invisible to us.

The Guests

Most weddings today (at least where I’m from) seem to have many guests. While the number can vary, there are quite a few individuals in a bride or groom’s life that will more likely be included on the guestlist than others.

Known Guests

Let’s start with the guests we are already familiar with. Patrizio and Isabella, Claudio’s parents, are seated on the front left bench. This is pretty easy to figure out since the old lady has the same hairstyle as Isabella; whereas the old man has the same bald spot as Patrizio. 

Claudio’s siblings, Bianca and Antonio are seated behind their parents. Like with Patrizio and Isabella, Bianca and Antonio can be easily identified by their hair. 

On the bench next to Bianca and Antonio, there is a dark-skinned man with red hair in either the closecrop or peak style, a description that does not match any Monty or Dottore. However, given the residents of Veronaville, this man could very well be Oberon Summerdream. If this man is, in fact, Oberon, then it is likely that the small piece of dress to his right belongs to Titania.

Marriage and Memories

Outside of these sims, there aren’t any other familiar faces to be found. While this might sound like an unnecessary statement, it carries more weight when taking Patrizio and Isabella’s memories into account since Patrizio and Isabella cannot agree on which of their sons was the first to tie the knot. Patrizio claims that Antonio got married before Claudio, whereas Isabella claims that Claudio got married before Antonio. By looking at this picture, it would be safe to say that Isabella’s memories are most likely correct due to Hero Monty’s absence at the event.

Unknown Guests

While the Montys and Oberon (and Titania) are pretty easy to identify, four other sims are strangers to us.

The Man and Woman in the Back Left Seat

Given the suit and dress the two are wearing, both sims are most likely adults. The man has blond hair in the messy style. Given the way the picture is angled, it is impossible to determine his skin tone. The woman has brown hair in a ponytail. Unlike the man to her left, it is easy to determine that she has a dark skin tone.

Since these descriptions do not match any modern-day Veronaville premade, perhaps these sims are townies instead. When it comes the male in the suit, Edward Mellon and Adrian Lewis both have the same hair color; however, their hairstyles are different. As for the woman, Carmen Patch is the only adult Veronaville townie who has dark skin and brown hair. That said, similar to Adrian and Edward, her hairstyle differs from the woman’s in the picture.

Since none of the townies are an exact match, it's possible that these two sims were deleted at some point during development. While this might sound farfetched at first, a look in SimPE will show that many Veronaville premades have relationships with unknown sims. As such, it’s not outside the realm of possibility that these two were among that group.

The Man and Woman in the Front Right Seat

The other pair who cannot be easily identified are the couple on the other side of Patrizio and Isabella. When it comes to determining their age, their grey hair practically tells us that they are elders. The man has darker skin than the woman, and his hair looks to be closecrop style. The woman has lighter skin than the man (see her legs for proof), and her hair is in the longsimple style.

I find these two to be far more interesting than the adult couple in the back row. First of all, the fact that they are sitting opposite Patrizio and Isabella shows that they are likely important to either Claudio and/or Olivia. That said, there isn’t any clear-cut answer regarding their identities; however, there are some possibilities we can consider.

Who are these old fogies?

The first possibility is that these two are supposed to be Claudio’s paternal grandparents, Valentine and Silvia Monty. When it comes to anything that might support these claims, Patrizio remembers Silvia dying after Claudio got married. Another element that might offer credence to this theory is that the hairstyle of the old woman is the same as Silvia’s.

That being said, there are some problems. First of all, Patrizio remembers Valentine dying before Claudio got married. A look at the Monty family tree shows that both Valentine and Silvia are shown to have died as adults. Given that Patrizio was an elder when Claudio and Olivia got married, it is highly unlikely that these two would still be alive for their grandson’s wedding. Finally, while there are images of Valentine and Silvia as elders, Silvia’s hairstyle in her elder headshot differs from the one in her adult headshot.

The other possibility is that these two are supposed to be Claudio’s maternal grandparents, Vincentio and Francisca Pantalone. Like with the couple in the picture, Francisca had a lighter skin tone than her husband. Besides, Isabella’s memories state that Vincentio died after Claudio’s wedding. Also, the hairstyle of the man in the picture looks similar to Vincentio’s.

However, like Valentine and Silvia, both Vincentio and Francisca are shown to have died as adults (though there are images of them as elders in SimPE). Given that Isabella was already an elder when this picture was taken, it is highly unlikely they would still be alive for their grandson’s wedding.

Now that we’ve exhausted the only real possibilities on Claudio’s side of the family, perhaps we should take a look at Olivia’s relatives. Since this couple is situated on the bench opposite Claudio’s parents, the most logical conclusion is that these two are supposed to be Olivia’s parents, Holofernes and Judith Dottore. When it comes to anything that might support this theory, the man in the picture seems to have the same hairstyle as Holofernes.

While Judith’s hairstyle is different, her hair would likely look like the old woman’s if she let it down. That said, like with the parents of her in-laws, Olivia’s family tree shows that her parents died when they were adults. Unlike the old couple in the picture, Holofernes and Judith have the same skin tone. While images do exist of Holofernes and Judith as elders, Holofernes’ hairstyle in his elder headshot is different from the hairstyle in his adult headshot.

The fourth possibility I can think of is that these two were meant to be Olivia’s paternal grandparents, Dull and Jaquenetta Dottore. Much like the man and woman in the picture, Jaquenetta’s skin tone is lighter than Dull’s. The woman in this picture also has the same hairstyle that Jaquenetta has in her headshot.

However, given Olivia’s age in this picture, it is unlikely that they would still be alive when this picture was taken. Finally, while the hairstyle of the man in this picture is hard to determine from the angle we are given, it does not match Dull’s shortgel hairstyle.

The final possibility I can think of is that, like the man and woman in the back left of the room, these two could also be among the pool of unknown sims. As such, it wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility to think that perhaps they were meant to be Olivia’s parents earlier in development, only to be replaced with Holofernes and Judith after the picture was taken.

Final Thoughts

While I have mentioned the storytelling images in previous Veronaville Vault entries, this is the first one I’ve written that is completely dedicated to a single picture. Unlike many of the other images, Claudio and Olivia’s wedding picture is full of mysterious sims. Almost all of the sims present in other storytelling images are easily identifiable provided the player is somewhat familiar with the neighborhood lore. This picture, on the other hand, contains sims whose appearances don’t match up with any premades, at least not those who could logically be alive when the game begins.

With all this in mind, I thought it would be interesting to talk about this topic here. Of course, odds are that I’m completely off-base about many things here, but I think some of the possibilities listed here could mean something.

Thank you so much for reading this. I honestly didn’t know if I’d get this up on time for TS2’s fifteenth anniversary since I lost my tablet pen. Luckily I managed to find it, so I was able to post this today. My writing’s probably a little rusty, so I apologize for that, but other than that, I hope you enjoyed.

[plasticbattleaxe]

A BASIC GUIDE TO DIGITAL ART ON PROCREATE

okay so i joined the digital art scene about a year or so ago and it has been a total whirl! there’s so much stuff that’s so confusing and hard to understand at first. And that’s okay! A stupid amount of what constitutes as “good” or “complex” art is to do with layers, patience and experience. 

and because literally every tutorial on here is for Paint Tool Sai i thought it might be useful for those of us using Procreate! because i don’t have sai and i have a relatively shit laptop by comparison to my Ipad.

so without further ado - here is how to make a KICKASS piece of art on procreate 

1.  REFERENCE + SKETCH

the first thing you're gonna wanna do is collect any references you need for thing youre tryna make. you can collect references by finding stock images, using other artists work (i use these mostly for colour refs cause i SUCK at finding good colours). however when i make art nowdays i usually just snap a selfie and use that. for this work i did the last option (see below)

after grabbing my reference i decide on the style i wanna use. for beginer artists what i suggest doing is just pasting the image onto your canvas, opening layers and adjust the opacity to around 20% by clicking on the little N on your layer with the photo. then once thats done add a new layer by clicking the + and work over that

for more experienced artists experimenting with style just stick that bad bitch reference in the corner, then open a new layer and sketch in your own style.

when it comes to sketching i usually do little flicky lines. i do this with a mid grey (like 50% white 50% black) i recommend the “Narinder pencil” which you can find by clicking the little brush at the top, selecting sketching and then selecting that bad boy. you can adjust size and opacity using the sliders to the side of the screen.

when sketching you just wanna get a rough idea of where you’re gonna do your eventual lines - don’t worry about it being smooth or anything just get down where everything goes 

once you’re done you might have something like this:

this brings us too...

2. LINE ART 

for beginners - lineart is just a sexy word that means a clean drawing with hard lines so you can colour it easier and it looks prettier. you want to do this on a new layer so you can delete the sketch one later.

your goal with lineart is to make it three things:  1) its gotta be seamless so you can select the insides, don’t leave little gaps between lines 2) its gotta be smooth! jagged lineart isn’t NEARLY as sexy as smooth curvy lines 3) this one is more of a tip - but lineart generally looks better if you do thinner lines inside your shape with a slightly thicker border line. again this isn’t essential but i find it looks cuter 

the way i get my lineart all cute is by using the monoline brush (found in calligraphy). sometimes i use my own modified version of the Technical Pen (found in Inking) but mostly monoline is pretty neat. You can use whatever brush you want but mostly you just wanna ensure that its nice and smoooooth. you can do this by selecting the brush and then clicking it again. this will bring up a popup menu like this:

most of these brush settings are complicated and stupid and i’ll do a big post about it later. the only one that really matters here is streamline. if you wanna use a different brush for lineart just wack that slider up between 80-100% and you’re set.

once your lineart is finished on a seperate layer go to your layer menu and unselect the little tick on your sketch layer. you should be left with something like this. 

3. ADDITIONAL DETAIL LINEART + MONOCHROME BASES.

once your focus lineart is done you can add detailed lineart by repeating the same process with sketching and lineart i described above. i like to do details separate because if i dont like it i can just delete the whole layer without destroying my focus. 

what i find important in these now is using my favourite fuckin tool in this whole program. you can find it here:

Only start using this once youre 100% done with your lineart. once thats done - make sure youre on the lineart layer and click that weird little s at the top of the screen. go to the bottom and click automatic. then select somewhere INSIDE your lineart. it should do something like this:

don’t freak out! what that blue stuff means is that you've just selected the inside bit of your lineart. continue selecting until your subject is 100% coloured in. 

MAKE SURE THE BACKGROUND/STUFF OUTSIDE YOUR LINEART ISN’T SELECTED. ALSO MAKE SURE YOU’VE SELECTED THE LINES THEMSELVES. THEY WILL TURN WHITE ONCE THEYRE SELECTED. if u fuck up and select something by accident that’s all g, theres a little undo button on the bottom. if you click on the paint brush or another tool and you cant add stuff to your selection you can reload the mask by holding down on the weird s and the selection will reload. If there are certain bits of your work that you’re struggling to select with automatic selection that’s also not an issue. just click the “freehand” setting next to the automatic setting on the bottom and you can now use your stylus to draw around what you want to select.

once you’ve selected your foreground in its entirety - THEN click the layer button. insert a new layer underneath your lineart layer. Using literally any brush (works best if you get one from the painting section) colour EVERYTHING white. just get round brush and colour all of it. you wanna keep your line art layer separate over the top.

once all of it is coloured hold down on the weird s tool until it reloads the selection. then look along the bottom of the screen and click the little button that looks like 2 arrows pointing at each other. THIS INVERTS YOUR SELECTION. Open a new layer and make this entire thing a grey. THIS IS WHOLE STEP IS OPTIONAL BUT ITS SUPER USEFUL AND THE SELECTION TOOL IS SUPER HELPFUL FOR GOOD ART. DOING THIS WILL BE SUPER USEFUL WHEN YOU COLOUR STUFF LATER.

once you’re done it should look something like this:

4. BASE COLOURS

okay so this is where shit starts to get real. The goal of putting down base colours is to make is easier to add eventual shading to your piece and decide your colour scheme. This is where the white layer you just used is gonna become your BITCH.

you wanna start by duplicating your white layer you just made. You do that by opening your layer menu and swiping that thot to the left. this is what should happen:

click duplicate. Select the top duplicate you just made and select our favourite weird s tool. click inside your shape and the whole white shape should go blue (become selected). next, open a new layer on top of the white layer. colour in your base colours and now none of it can go outside the lines. you didn’t even have to do a billion selections. you just select inside the white blob on the layer we made the step before, opened a new layer and started colouring. fucking superb. so much time saved. DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH I USED TO SUFFER BEFORE I THOUGHT OF THIS. HOW LONG I SPENT SELECTING AND RESELECTING I CANNOT

A TIP FOR PEEPS NEW TO THIS PROGRAM - if you use your finger and hold down on a colour you’ve just used it acts like an eyedropper tool so you can pick up any colour you want. like this:

once you got your base colours done you can either: 1) go to your grey layer you made in the last step and select the tick next to it. once you’ve done that scroll to the bottom of your layers and select background. it will open a colour wheel. pick your background colour. 2) you can use my second favourite tool from this program! go to your grey layer you made in the previous step. click on it, then click on it again. (not the little n just click the whole layer) this menu should pop up:

oh MAN okay so. “alpha lock” pretty much means that it locks whatever is on the layer. when you get another brush and go over a layer with alpha lock turned on you can only paint over what you have previously put on the layer before turning on alpha lock. Its like automatically selecting everything on the layer. its fucking brilliant. anyway. scribble over your grey layer (once alpha lock is on) and boom you have a base for your background.

NOW YOU KNOW ABOUT ALPHA LOCK YOU GO BACK TO YOUR LINEART LAYER. SELECT ALPHA LOCK. COLOUR IN YOUR LINES ROUGHLY 2 OR SO ISH SHADES DEEPER THEN YOUR BASE COLOURS 

(minus eyes i like to keep the lines around them black.)  this will make your art like 100000000 times nicer (majority of the time)

once you’re done you should get something like this:

this brings up to...

5. SHADING!!!!!!! this is my favourite step tbh.

what you wanna do is chuck on a new layer over the top of your base colours. and go into your brushes. pick up your basic bitch “round brush.” this is (in my opinion) the best painting brush in the program. Its the thing you can do the most with. so what you wanna do it get a slightly deeper colour from your colour wheel by yeeting your colour selection slightly more saturated and slightly more dark. dont just make it blacker move your colour selector on a diagonal to get a nicer colour. (i’ll eventually do a colour theory ref but today is NOT that day.)

i like to do colouring in short, light strokes. DON’T PRESS TOO HARD. you wanna get that cute little gradient.

A THING FOR BABY ARTISTS: on every art program i have ever used, the blending tool SUCKS. it makes paintings UGLY AF. (wow another tutorial i have to do at some point. i HATE the blending tool. SO HERE IS HOW I COLOUR MY ART TO MAKE IT LOOK, YKNOW, GOOD:

Unless you’re drawing something SUPER freaking smooth like a bubble or some shit. when you wanna blend colours what you gotta do is: 1) put in your darker colour. 2) use your finger to bring up the eyedropper tool to select a mid colour of the colours your blending together - a mix between your lighter and darker colour. (remember that tool? it looks like this)

3) Paint the colour you just made in the middle of your lighter and darker shades. REPEAT THIS PROCESS ON EITHER SIDE OF THE COLOUR YOU JUST PUT DOWN TILL IT LOOKS GOOD. The result is an WAY sexier piece of art.

once you’ve put in all your shadows repeat the same process with highlights.

FUN TIP: if you decide you dislike a colour or want to change the colour you already did all the shading for you can change the colour without any major drama. You can do this by select ing the colour on your colour wheel you would like to change your already shaded work too. (make sure you’re on the right layer.) then hold down on the colour dot on the top bar (next to your layer settings) and drag it to whatever you want recoloured. let go of the dot and it should recolour your work (including all the shading you’ve done granted that its on the same layer) like this:

once you’ve got all your shading done it should look something like this:

6. background and pretty bits

so! youve got this kickass work but nothing surrounding it. lets fix that.

In procreate there is SO MUCH you can use to spice up a work. a SCARY amount even. this is when layer settings are gonna start to come in handy.

ill do a masterpost on procreate brushes for backgrounds later, but for this piece what im gonna do it head over to the Luminescence section and pick up a “nebula brush”. this makes a complex galaxy kinda design in a randomised stamping pattern that is frankly SEXY AS ALL HELL. Select a layer below your base colours but above your background colour. IMPORTANT NOTE: this brush’s blend mode is autimatically set to “add” (ILL DO ANOTHER POST ON THAT LATER)which means if you go over the same spot heaps of times it will eventually go a bright white. This can be nice, but its not really what i want cause its kinda intense. to make this thing go glowy but not ~too~ glowy im gonna lower the brush opacity (the bottom slider) to around half way. i set my colour to a light yellow and a darkish pink and put in some nebulas!!!! once that was done I wantd to add some more colour variation so i popped open a new layer - selected the lightleak tool and lowered the brush opacity using the slider to around 20% just to spice some shit up

you can kinda do whatever you want for your background. sometimes its nicer just to go into artistic, select a random brush and draw a square underneath what you were doing. backgrounds can be super detailed or super easy it doesn’t really matter to be 100% honest.

THE PART 2 OF THIS STEP WILL ADD HEAPS OF DIMENSION TO YOUR WORK AND MAKE IT SUPER PRETTY: adding light effects over the TOP of your main subject often creates a more realistic sense of depth. In simple terms it just makes the thing look more 3D and nice. to do this, get a random brush with a nice (preferably light) colour. i picked up a “bokeh brush” from the Luminescence section. make this pretty big. sprinkle your brush across the page on a NEW LAYER above all of your work so far, including line art! Then open your layer menu and click that little n in the corner again. Remember this one:

click the little n. then go down to the bottom and select a layer setting from either of the 2 groups circled (i normally like overlay for this type of thing) you can mess around with layer settings and opacity till you find something that looks super nice. My piece now looks like this:

pretty cool right. now we’re gonna make it EVEN COOLER.

7. LIGHT FILTERS

this is something i picked up from artists like softmushie and cryptidw00rm. (not gonna @ them here cause they probs dont wanna get tagged in my shitty tutorial thing but yeah i owe so much to those two especially)

for those unsure of what im talking about: light filters are layers you add over work to make the lighting on it seem more natural and pretty. you do this by colouring over your natural highlights and shadows with different colours and then messing with the layer settings to make it seem like its being hit by sunlight. these layers go BELOW your foreground stuff (the bokeh lights from step 6) but ABOVE your lineart.

start by opening a new layer. select a colour similar to where the green outlines are here:

now on this layer paint over anywhere where the sun or other light source would be normally hitting (like cheekbones hair etc.) this can be kind of like shading. dont worry if it looks shit at first we’re gonna change it.

open a new layer beneath the one you just made. Using a colour similar to one circled in purple above colour over all the shadows in a piece. it should now look like this:

now open your layer settings on the purple/darker  layer by selecting the N like we did with the foreground layer before. you can play around from here by setting the layer mode to anything from the “darken” or “contrast” menu. For this work i chose overlay. I then lowered the opacity until it looked nice.

Repeat the step above with the lighter highlight layer. when adjusting this one make sure you set the layer mode to anything from the “lighten” or “contrast” menu. For this work i did hard light.

your peice should now look kind of like this:

AND YOU’RE DONE!!!!!!!!

look at that sexy thing you just did. Congrats on creating an awesome peice of art!!!!!!

if you guys are interested in more tutorials like these or have any reqs for similar stuff send me a question or a dm to my blog @plasticbattleaxe

if you create anything by following  tutorial that you want me to see don’t hesitate to tag me or submit it to my blog!!! i love seeing y’all make art

also - i know it’s annoying - but reblogs > likes. thanks for your support

i hope someone finds this useful!!!!!

[pokemaniacal]

Something that’s been on my mind for a bit that your professional word may be able to help with. Would you happen to know how ethnically diverse the Greek and Roman empires were?

very

next question please

…

…what, you want more?  Oh, fine, but for the record this is not the sort of thing people just “happen to know.”

Okay so I’m assuming by “Greek empire” (remember, kids: there was never a politically autonomous and unified state called “Greece” or “Hellas” until 1822) you mean Alexander’s empire (320s BC) and the Hellenistic successor kingdoms (323 BC – 31 BC), and by “Roman empire” you mean Rome starting from the time it becomes a major interregional power (say, following the second Punic War, which ended in 201 BC) rather than just Rome in the time of the Emperors.  You could spend like most of a book on each of these just corralling the data that might let us answer this question, but whatevs.

Lesson one: the ancient Greeks and Romans did not think about ethnicity in the same way as we do.  In particular, they were not super hung up on the colour of people’s skin – skin colour in ancient art is more often a signifier of gender than race, because women are expected to spend less time outside and therefore have lighter skin (which is another whole thing that we shouldn’t even get into because this is an aristocratic ideal of female beauty and of course lots of Greek and Roman women would have worked outside).  Arguably the most important signifier of ethnicity to the Greeks and Romans was actually language, with everyone who didn’t speak Greek or Latin being a “barbarian” (traditionally this word is supposed to come from the Greeks thinking that all foreign languages sounded like “bar bar bar,” although I’ve also heard a convincing argument that it comes from the Old Persian word for taxpayer, barabara, and originally signified all subjects of the Persian king).

In the modern world we have designations of ethnicity that are super broad and grow in large part out of early and long-since-debunked anthropological theory that divided humanity into three biologically distinct races, Caucasoid, Mongoloid and Negroid, and don’t really reflect a lot of important components of ethnicity.  The thing is, as the internet will happily tell you ad nauseam, race is a social construct.  Like, yes, designations of race describe real physical characteristics that arise from variation within human genetics, but the way we choose to bundle those characteristics is arbitrary, and where we choose to draw the lines is arbitrary (like, for a long time in the US, Greeks and Italians weren’t considered “white,” but today they definitely are, even though nothing changed about their genetics).  If we today were brought face to face with a bunch of ancient Greeks and Romans, we would probably be pretty comfortable with assigning a majority of them to the big pan-European tent of modern “whiteness,” but if you had asked them about it, they certainly would not have felt any kinship with the pale-skinned people of northern and western Europe from whom most English-speaking white people today are descended.  Those people were every bit as barbarian (and every bit as fair game for enslavement, for that matter) as the darker-skinned folk of the Middle East and North Africa.  Ancient Greeks and Italians also had loads of internal ethnic divisions – like, the Latins (the central Italian ethnic group to which the Romans belonged) were a different thing from the Umbrians to their east, the Etruscans to the north and the Oscans to the south.  In Greece, you had Dorians in the Peloponnese, Ionians in Attica and Asia Minor, Boeotians and Thessalians in central Greece, Epirotes in western Greece, and DON’T EVEN ASK about the Macedonians, because boyyyyyyyyy HOWDY you are NOT ready for that $#!tstorm.  The point is, race and ethnicity can be basically anything that you think makes you different from the people in another community.

So yeah, Alexander’s empire.  Alexander the Great conquered Persia, which was already the largest empire the world had ever seen at the time and incorporated dozens of ethnically distinct peoples (including many Greeks of Asia Minor, some of whom willingly fought against Alexander) through a philosophy of loose regional governance and broad religious tolerance.  Now, here’s the thing: Alexander had no idea how to run an empire of that scale.  No Greek did.  No one alive in the world did – except for the Persians.  Alexander didn’t have anything to replace the Persian systems of governance or bureaucracy, so… he didn’t.  Individual Persian governors were usually given the opportunity to swear loyalty to him and keep their posts; vacant posts were filled with Macedonians, but the hierarchy was basically untouched.  Alexander himself married a princess from Bactria (approximately what is now Afghanistan), Roxana, and had a kid with her, and encouraged other Macedonian nobles to take Persian wives as well, to help unify the empire.  Unfortunately Alexander, of course, had to go and bloody die less than two years after he’d finished conquering everything, and tradition holds that on his deathbed he told his friends that the empire should go “to the strongest,” which was an incredibly dumb thing to say and caused literally decades of war, which we are not even going to talk about because it is the most Game of Thrones bull$#!t in the history of history.  All you need to know is that when the dust settled there were basically three major Greco-Macedonian dynastic powers: the Antigonids in Greece, the Ptolemies in Egypt, and the Seleucids in Persia.

In terms of ethnic makeup the Antigonid kingdom is in principle the most straightforward because they’re basically still running the same Greece that Alexander’s father had conquered.  Even then, you should bear in mind that a) most Greek cities had legal provisions for allowing foreigners to live there under certain conditions (“foreigners” often meant Greeks from other cities, but in principle could be anyone), and b) the Greeks had a lot of slaves (many of whom were, again, Greeks from other cities, because that’s fine in ancient Greek morality, but a lot of them would have come from all over the place), and even though the Greeks didn’t count slaves as “people” or consider them a real part of a city’s ethnic composition, WE SHOULD.  The Ptolemaic kingdom in Egypt seems to have had a relatively small Greco-Macedonian upper class ruling over a native Egyptian, Libyan and Nubian peasant majority.  Members of that ruling class seem to have been kind of snobbish about any mixing between the two – only the very last Ptolemaic ruler, Cleopatra VII (yes, that Cleopatra), even bothered to learn the Egyptian language.  However, the Ptolemaic rulers did make some important cultural gestures of goodwill towards the Egyptians.  They took the native title of Pharaoh, which previous foreign rulers of Egypt hadn’t, and adopted a lot of traditional Pharaonic iconography like the double crown.  They also worshipped some of the most important Egyptian gods, most notably Isis, and may have kind of… deliberately created a new Greco-Egyptian god, Serapis, by blending together Osiris and Dionysus (Serapis actually becomes super important in the Roman period and is widely worshipped even outside Egypt).  And then there’s the Seleucids, an empire that did nothing but slowly collapse from the moment it was established.  They have a rough time of it because they have the largest land area to cover and dozens of distinct ethnic groups to bring together, and it doesn’t help that they kinda keep doing the Game of Thrones thing for about two hundred fµ¢&ing years.  They often get a bad rap in history and have a reputation for oppressing the non-Greek populations of their empire, but that’s probably at least partly because some of our most important sources for the Seleucids are Jewish, and the Seleucid kings’ relationship with the Jews broke down in a fairly spectacular fashion during the reign of Antiochus IV Epiphanes (r. 175-164 BC).  It’s not clear whether that’s representative of the Seleucids’ normal relationship with their subject peoples, or a worst case scenario.  Also, the Seleucids tend to get painted as villains in the historical record by both the other Greek powers and the Romans, and never really get much of a chance to defend themselves because we don’t have Seleucid histories.  What is clear is that they inherited all the ethnic and religious diversity of the Persian Empire, and most of their rulers were half-Persian because they followed Alexander’s example by marrying into the Persian nobility.  After an initial period of conflict they also seem to have maintained cordial relations with the Mauryan Empire of India, their neighbour to the east, for several decades, and contemporary Indian sources talk about sending Buddhist missionaries into Seleucid lands, so… like, there might have been a bunch of Greek Buddhists running around the empire; that’s a thing.

Whew.  Okay, so that is a criminally brief answer to-

OH CHRIST YOU ASKED ABOUT THE ROMANS AS WELL

WHAT DO YOU PEOPLE WANT FROM ME

Right.  Romans.  One of the major schools of thought on how the Romans were able to create such an enormous and long-lasting empire in the first place is that their openness to accepting foreigners into their community gave them an enormous manpower advantage over every other ancient Mediterranean state.  Greek politics generally operates on the level of cities; even in the age of Alexander, individual cities have quite a lot of legislative autonomy.  Citizenship is also something that works on the level of cities: you aren’t a citizen of, say, the Seleucid Empire; you’re a citizen of Antioch, or Tyre, or Babylon, or whatever.  But then the Romans happen.  The Romans are weird, because they will sometimes just declare that all the people of an allied city are now also citizens of Rome.  In the early period of Rome’s expansion in the central Mediterranean, this meant (or so the theory goes) that they could draw upon larger citizen armies and sustain more casualties than their rivals.  This is how they beat Pyrrhus, the Greek king of Epirus (r. 297-272 BC), when he invaded Italy in response to disputes between Rome and the Greek colony of Tarentum; this is how they beat Hannibal, the legendary Carthaginian general, even after he annihilated the largest army the Romans had ever fielded at Cannae during the second Punic War (218-201 BC).  Now, at this point they are basically still just bringing in Italians, which we might consider ethnically homogenous even if they didn’t, but there’s more.

Once they really start to get going, the Romans enfranchise entire provinces at a time, like when the emperor Claudius (r. AD 41-54) decided to make everyone in Gaul (modern France, more or less) a Roman citizen.  The really interesting thing about this particular decision is that we actually have a copy of the speech he made to the Senate in Rome at the time, so we can examine his rationale.  Claudius’ argument is basically that being inclusive has always been what has made Rome stronger than its rivals, going right back to their mythological past, when Romulus populated his city with disenfranchised criminals from other communities (and, uh… women that they kidnapped from the next town over).  The Romans believed that everything great about their civilisation had originally been learned or borrowed from someone else – metalworking and irrigation from the Etruscans, infantry combat from the Greeks, shipbuilding from the Carthaginians, etc – so it wasn’t a huge stretch for them to believe that all these people should eventually become part of Rome as citizens (well… the ones who weren’t killed or enslaved in the conquest, anyway – no one ever said the Romans were saints).

The reason Claudius feels he needs to justify all this to the Senate is that citizenship (rather than any of the forms of semi-citizen rights that Romans would sometimes grant to their allies) will make rich Gauls eligible to become Senators themselves, and occupy other high-level posts like provincial governorships.  The decision affects the ethnic composition of the Senate, so even though he doesn’t actually need their permission to do it, he asks as a courtesy (the emperors’ relationship with the Senate is a weird and complicated thing).  Even without being a citizen, you could actually do a great deal in the Roman government in Claudius’ time.  Many of the most important jobs in the empire were ones that had existed during the age of the Republic, when Rome was theoretically a democracy, and all of those were restricted to citizens even after they stopped being elected positions – but there was also an imperial bureaucracy that answered directly to the emperor and his aides, and he was free to choose literally anyone to fill those positions.  As a result, a lot of emperors deliberately picked slaves and former slaves for loads of senior positions, specifically because their lack of citizen rights meant that they could never be political rivals, and because they were a useful counterbalance to the power of the blue-blooded Roman aristocracy.  And, again, slaves can be from basically anywhere.  A lot of these administrative slaves were Greeks, because Greek education provided useful skills for running the imperial bureaucracy that the Romans themselves often didn’t have, but emperors could and did commission literally anyone for these positions.

Eventually the emperor Caracalla (r. AD 211-217) just decided it wasn’t worth keeping track anymore and declared that every freeborn person in the entire empire, which by that point stretched from northern England to Morocco to Romania to Jordan, was now a Roman citizen.  All of these people are now “Romans,” regardless of their language or culture or religion; the only criterion is that they not be slaves or former slaves (and even if they’re former slaves, their children will be Roman citizens).  And these people can move, in ways that were never possible before the Empire existed, because Rome is the first – and so far the last – political entity ever to unite the entire Mediterranean region, which allows them to wipe out piracy almost completely and jump-start trade and travel in ways that would never happen again for over a thousand years.  My own research on Roman glass has led me to encounter glassblowers with Syrian or Jewish names working in northern Italy – people who were probably integral to spreading the technology of glassblowing to western Europe.  The Roman army also moves people around – like, a lot.  You might enlist in your home town in Syria, then serve on Hadrian’s wall and retire in northern England – in fact, we know that this happened because we’ve found stuff like inscriptions in the Aramaic language in Roman Britain.

Also Rome had, like… a whole dynasty of African emperors one time.  Septimius Severus (r. AD 193-211) and his successors were part Italian, part Punic (of Carthaginian descent – ultimately Middle Eastern, since the Carthaginians were originally a Phoenician colony) and part Berber (native North African), and Severus grew up in what is now Tunisia.  And that wasn’t really a big deal for the Romans, 1) because Severus’ Italian ancestry made him a Roman citizen, which trumps all other signifiers of ethnicity, and 2) Rome had already had a couple of emperors of Iberian (= Spanish) descent by this point who were considered some of the best ever, and the Iberians are just as “barbarian” as the Berbers as far as Rome is concerned.  Other Roman emperors of varied ethnicities include Philip (Arabian), Diocletian (Illyrian), the three Gordians (probably Cappadocian), and Elagabalus (Syrian, and incidentally the gayest Roman of all time; like, normally I would warn you to be super cautious about using modern labels like “straight” and “gay” for Romans because they just didn’t think about sexual orientation in those terms, but I make an exception here because Elagabalus was super gay).

Oh, and just because someone will definitely bring it up if I don’t, there was a big fuss in the news a few years back because someone discovered the skeletons of what they claimed were Chinese people living in, of all places, Roman Britain.  And to me, one Chinese family in Britain in the first century AD is not particularly a dramatic stretch of plausibility (a handful of people could easily slip through the historical record and just never be mentioned), but the evidence in this particular case falls some way short of “proof.”  There’s chemical data that suggests these individuals grew up somewhere far away from Britain, which is well and good, but the thing that points specifically to China is not the isotopic analysis but a study of bone morphology, and trying to determine someone’s ethnicity on the basis of what their bones look like, on the universal scale of things that are sketchy, ranks “sketchy as all fµ¢&.”  Again, I’m happy to believe that they exist, because China (Seres in Latin) and Rome (Dà-Qín in Chinese) definitely knew about each other, and we occasionally find Roman artefacts and coins in eastern Asia, or Chinese artefacts in the eastern Roman Empire, but the specific evidence for these individuals isn’t there, in my opinion.

…that was a brief answer.  Let it stand as a warning to others.

[over-roaming-waves]

Turn Turn Turn

Rating: SFW

Charaters: Yuma Tsukumo, Yugi Mouto, Atem, Yusei Fudo, Jaden Yuki, Carly Nagisa, Jack Atlas, Yami Bakura, Ryou Bakura, Malik Ishtar, Isis ishtar, Mai Valentine, Jounouchi Katsuya Mentioned: Seto Kaiba, Mokuba Kaiba

Pairings: Puzzleship, Visionship, Theifship (slowburn), Scoopship, More to be added.

                                                  January

“O.K., you can do this Yuma. Just go in there and say you want to join. Right then, it’s not like they’re going to kick you out because you’re just start, or you’re too young, or anything like that. And it’s definitely not likely that they will call my sister and tell her everything. O.K., O.K. …Kattobingu! “

He opened the door.

“Hey there, I’m Tsukumo Yuma and I’m here to-“

“Join the gaming club, but don’t tell your sister because she doesn’t know.”

Yuma look where the answer came from and saw a man with platinum blond hair and skin that was several shades darker than his own. He was reading a guide book for a game called Monster World.

“How did you-“

“Please, you were stand in front of the building for 30 minutes. Most everyone heard some part of your inner monologue when they came in.”

“Malik, please don’t be so rude. It was not long ago that you were in his position,” a woman with the same shade of skin and the distinct air of an older sister around her came in. She bowed, which made her black hair flow over her shoulder, “Welcome, I am Isis Ishtar and this is my younger brother, Malik. If you’d like, I’ll take you to the next room and we’ll see about getting you some more information, as well as creating your character for our role-playing game.”

Yuma was escorted inside, thou he saw Malik mimicking his sister behind her back.

He was brought into a big room, with a table near a kitchen area. The table was occupied a figure hunched over an RPG… thingy that kept them hidden from view, only allowing a view of the person’s arms.  In a chair on the left side farthest from the cover, there was a man with two different shades pf brown in his hair, the top part being lighter than the bottom part. He seems occupied by his phone. On the brunet’s opposing side, he spotted two blonds, a man and a woman, with a chair between them. On the man’s left, there was a black-haired woman. She and the man were holding hands.

Deep breath and…

“Hello, I’m Tsukumo Yuma and I wish to join your Game Club. I am going into my third year of middle school and want to be more honest with who I am. Please take care of me!”

He bowed so far down, he felt like one of those wooden birds that go up and down, mimicking a drinking bird. He doesn’t hear anything from the other members but he could feel their stare as they look at him and his outfit that he bought behind his sister’s back. He’s sure that grandma knows already but…he’s scared that Akari would hate him if he told her. He’s still starting out and… this was really the first place that he went to as a man. That poster on the pole felt like a sign that he should be himself. That there were people would accept him as Yuma.

He felt like maybe this was a mistake. Maybe he’s too young. Maybe he needs to do more to be able to join. Maybe-

He smells a chocolatey scent. Someone was walking, put something down (cups maybe?), and walking again. He felt someone guide him up, where he saw bright blue eyes stare down at him.

“It’s O.K., you’re doing fine.”

The blue-eyed masterpiece escorted him to an empty chair, where he gave Yuma a hot chocolate. (Was that what he put on the table?)  he then started talking again in his velvety voice.

“We’d be glad to have you as a member. Isis is just getting some paper work for you to make it all official. Unfortunately, several members including the founder are not here at the moment but you can be introduced to the members that are here. I am Fudo Yusei, and I am like you in body.”

“wow, that pretty good up until that last part. Hey there, I’m Jaden Yuki. Oh, right, I meant Yuki Jaden. Well, what I mean is my personal name is Jaden. I was born and raised in the USA, so I’ll warn ya right now that I will mess up on social niceties. And like Yusei so weirdly said it, I’m a Trans Man. I’ll get your character sheet, ‘kay?” shouted the two-toned brunet, who had put his phone down to look at him with his soft brown eyes. He left his chair to get the sheet.

“Right”, the blond woman said, “You can call me Mai Valentine and I was assigned male at birth. As you can see, I disagreed with that decision. The idiot next to me is Jake Atlas, who is Cis and is dating the only other Trans woman in the place, Carly. The silent Dungeon Master who is rudely ignoring our guest is Bakura. (he heard a grunt by the covered man) You probably have already met Isis and Malik, so that would be a bit redundant and the others can introduce themselves when they come in.”

Then Mai started to explain the rules of the game, how to set up his character, how to roll for the stats, and other such thing while he was filling out the papers Isis gave him … until he heard Jaden yell.

”HOLY SHIT! GUYS, ATEM IS PREGNANT!!”

____________________

“So, you’re preggers, hon?”

“… I wanted to tell you AFTER I told our close family and friends. I already expressed my displeasure in my IDIOTIC, BUBBLE-HEADED, TRATOROUS SISTER telling everyone with an internet connection my current status about something I told her in private!”

“While I’m sure got that by how quickly the post got deleted. I’ll put the congratulatory gifts given to you away for a better time. Call me Curious George but when would you have told your more… distant relatives?”

“ …. When everyone else would know. By the way, how would you think the members of our gaming club would feel about being part of a ceremony that my family is putting together?”

“Pay for the outfits and you’ve got ‘em, Sweetheart.”

____________________

The Kame Game Shop was always slow at 2 in the afternoon. Jaden liked it that was. It gave him time to work on his secret job. Only three people on the planet know that Haou, the author of the hit series Gates of Eterniea, was a trans man living in Japan. He loved taking people to new world with amazing adventures.  He also liked his privacy. Honestly, Jaden probably needed his job at Kame more for his mental heath more then anything.

It keeps him from going into that place he can’t go. where bad things lurk. Wher-

*DING*

“Yug’ why didn’t ya tell me sooner”, shouted the blond that just came in. The blond was none other than Yugi’s best friend from high school, Katsuya Jonouchi, who goes by Jou.

“About…”

“da baby!”

“Well, that’s why I called you. And sent an email. And texted you.”

“… Ya know da Kaiba takes things when we’re testin’, buddy.”

“Really? Well, maybe Seto-kun should revise his policies then. I’ll talk about it with Mokuba when he comes to the next meeting.”

“… Sorry, I fucked up, Yug’”

“By the way, do you have a suit?”

“…why ’da ask about ‘dat?”

“Well, Mama, Ji-chan, and Atem’s parents want to have a wedding.”

“But ya already married ta ‘im!”

“Yeah, but they probably wanted to have a ‘proper’ ceremony. Plus, it could be a fun anniversary gift.”

“Tch, Rich Folks.”

“By the way, can you please tell Anzu, Hiroto, and the others about the Ceremony?”

Jou leaves, no doubt to tell Yugi’s other friends about the party that’s going to happen.

“Jaden?”

“Yeah, boss?”

“Let us tell the others about the ceremony, O.K.?”

“’Kay.”

Now then, how do the Band of the Pejuleum get through the Cave of Despair….

____________________

At the second ever time that he came into the Domino City Gaming Club, he saw two people with spikey black hair that had a rim of red at the edges. Thou they had the same hair, they had vastly different styles, one in head to toe black clothes with a tattoo on his right arm, the other in a grey business suit. He was too far away to hear the words so he jogged over to the two.

“Hi there, I’m Tsukumo Yuma.  I’m a new member of the Domino City Gaming Club. I hope we can be good friends,” Yuma exclaimed as he bowed to his seniors of the club.

The two turned and… whoa, they both looked so weird. The tattooed one had blond bangs that frames his purple eyes, who looked at him kindly. The other, who somehow had darker skin than Yuma’s own, looked so excited at him(?) with his red (?!?) eyes. The red-eye guy, who had blond streaks in his hair to go with his blond bangs, went into a speech that he said with such enthusiasm that it felt like he was trying to sell him on an epic game that he just played that he wanted to share with everyone.

“Welcome once again to the Domino City Gaming Club! I am the founder and fanatical backer of the club, Atem La Lune. The handsome man next to me in my Husband, Yugi. I’m sure you’ve met the secretary of the DCGC, a little nickname I gave our illustrious club, Isis Ishtar, as well as one of our greeters. The brunet giant setting up the duel disks is Seto Kaiba, and the child with the wild black mane is Mokuba. Mokuba is genderfluid, and they indicate what gender they are by wearing a bow in their hair if they wish to be referred to as female, and leaving their hair down if they want to be man at that time. If I’ve read the notes from last time correctly, you were already introduced to Mai, Jaden, Yusei, Jack, Carly, Malik, and Bakura. I apologize for anything that the latter two would have done t-“

“Oy, don’t try that shit with me, you short-ass brat. You were telling your blond Bunny that you got knocked up last time. The least you could due is not act like some fucking saint.”

Yuma saw the white-haired Bakura (he saw him fully when he knocked out the cardboard-thingy after Jaden say that Atem was going to be a papa) charge at Atem. Atem looked ready to fight the white-head when Yugi stopped it in its tracks before proclaimed the weirdest announcement.

“O.k. just want everyone here to know that Atem and I and having a Wedding ceremony, courtesy of the matriarch of the La Lune clan, and all DCGC members are invited and are allowed to bring a guest. This is a formal affair so Atem will pay for any clothes that you would need. I expect to see most of you there.”

“You’re already married,” Shouted Jake.

“Mother insisted on it as an anniversary gift. But if you don’t want to go…”

“Hell yeah I’m going!”

“Woo!”

Yuma stared on as each person there offered their congratulations, their condolences, and their RSVP.

“Things tend to hectic here,” Yuma turned to see another white-haired guy looking on, “But I think that it just gives this group a unique character, don’t you think so?” The snowy haired guy looked at him in fondness. “Bakura Ryou, my brother’s looking for the right personal name, so he’s been going by the familial name for now.”

Yuma smiled, “Yeah, I think it’s good.”

He just knows that this will be a good year.

[wayhaughterthanyou]

1-120, dare you

3 Fears- That my computer will crash at question 119, spiders, and planes

3 things I love- Wynonna Earp, writing, and video games

2 turns on- Hmm when someone runs their hands through my hair or shows me any kind of affection at all

2 turns off- Flat-earthers and people who refuse to interact with anything other than my genitals during sex

My best friend- My brother

Sexual orientation- Queer trans man

How tall am I- 5′7″

What do I miss right now- Sleep

Favourite color- PURPLE

Do I have a crush- I do..kind of

Favourite place- My bedroom

What am I listening to right now- My brother play fortnite- but the last song I was listening to was I wanna get better by Bleachers

Shoe size- 9

Eye color- Brown

Hair color- Brown

Meaning behind my URL- I think it’s pretty obvious

Favourite song- Morning in America- Jon Bellion

Favourite band- I really really don’t have one, I listen to such a wide range of music that it’s obnoxious and really hard to pick one

How I feel right now- Tired as fuck

Someone I love- MY CAT

My current relationship status- Single as can be my dude

My relationship with my parents- Stressful

Favourite season- Winter

Tattoos and piercing i have- I have a quill pen tattoo down my left forearm and a septum peircing

Tattoos and piercing i want- So so many tattoos, too many to list on this already long ask. As for piercings idk. I’m good for now but I might drill more holes into my body someday

The reasons I joined Tumblr- I was really into the disney memes

Do I ever get “good morning” or “good night ” texts? Lucky to say that I do

Have I ever kissed the last person you texted?- It was my dad so…technically yes, yes I have

How long does it take me to get ready in the morning?- It takes 3 seconds to get dressed and an hour and a half to be prepared to see another human being

Have you shaved your legs in the past three days? Nope

Where am I right now? I’m at home

Do I like my music loud or at a reasonable level? I’m surprised I can still hear

Do I live with my Mom and Dad? I do

Am I excited for anything? NYC PRIDE 2018!!!

Do I have someone of the opposite sex I can tell everything to? Yup

How often do I wear a fake smile? Honey I worked in food service for 5 years, fake is the only smile I know

If I could meet anyone on this earth, who would it be? Melanie Scrofano

What do I think about most? Wearp

Do I prefer to be behind the camera or in front of it? Behind for sure, but I’m working on it!

What was the last lie I told? I told my dad I ate lunch

Do I perfer talking on the phone or video chatting online? Video chat. Phone calls frighten me

Do I believe in ghosts? How about aliens? Yes and yes.

Do I believe in magic? IN A YOUNG GIRLS HEART HOW THE MUSIC CAN FREE HER WHENEVER IT STARTS

Do I believe in luck? Yes I have tons of bad luck so there has to be some good luck making someone else happy out there somewhere

What’s the weather like right now? It was pouring and freezing earlier and now it’s super hot I hate spring

What was the last book I’ve read? I recently reread To Kill A Mockingbird

Do I have any nicknames? Seattle

Do I spend money or save it? I try to save it and then I pay rent and then I pay bills and then I don’t have moneys and then I’m sad

Can I touch my nose with a tounge? I literally can’t even reach my septum ring lmao

Favourite animal? Orcas

What was I doing last night at 12 AM? I knocked the fuck out at like 10

What’s a song that always makes me happy when I hear it? Wildwood by Fleurie

What is my favorite word? Sacapuntas

My top 5 blogs on tumblr? @a-maelstrom @weirdofreakish @wayhaughtship @oliviajoytaylor @earpdearp

If the whole world were listening to me right now, what would I say? Have you tried taking Bikini Bottom and pushing it over there?

Do I have any relatives in jail? I had a cousin in for check fraud a couple years ago but I didn’t know her so all I used it for was threatening my bullies

What is my current desktop picture?- It’s a wearp season 2 cast photo

Had sex? I’ve done the sex

Bought condoms? Hell no you can get those for free I’m a baller on a budget 

Gotten pregnant? Nope

Have I ever kissed somebody in the rain? Yeah I don’t mean to brag but she was hella wet

Had job? Several

Smoked weed? I’m high rn so

Smoked cigarettes? I used to when I was in middle school and then I had a crush on this girl who didn’t like them so I stopped and I should really thank her

Drank alcohol? Yup, illegally though because i live in a country where you can go to war before you can drink

Am I a vegetarian/vegan? I’ve tried but I have bad enough eating habits already and it made me eat oatmeal all day cause I’m too lazy to do anything right

Been overweight? I was overweight by a lot about 6 months ago

Been underweight? I’m currently underweight

Gotten my heart broken? Yes

Been to prom? Hell yeah! I took my manager from work and we slow danced to Beautiful by James Blunt

Been in airplane? UNfortunately

Learned another language? I took AP spanish for 7 years

Wore make up? Yup

Dyed my hair? So many times

Had a surgery? Tonsils only

Met someone famous? I’ve met a bunch of bands over the years at Warped Tour

Stalked someone on a social network? Of course

Been fishing? Yup! It’s a right of passage when you grow up on an island

Been rejected by a crush? Of course

What do I want for birthday? I want to give myself this present and I want to have at least posted my first video to my youtube channel

Do I like my handwriting? I love it

Where do I want to live when older? Canada

Have I ever got caught sneaking out or doing anything bad? No my parents are dumb

What I’m really bad at? Playing instruments

What my greatest achievments are- I finally looked at my tumblr theme after like 4 years of not knowing what it looks like and its actually not that bad

The meanest thing somebody has ever said to me- Lmao I can’t think of anything that could be on that level right now but the other day my mother looked me in the eyes and goes “You know your life sucks right?”

What I’d do if I won in a lottery: Damn I’d but a new computer immediately and then move across the world

What do I like about myself- My jawline

My closest Tumblr friend- @a-maelstrom

Any question you’d like? My favorite school house rock song is the Preamble song

Are you outgoing or shy? I’m not shy I just generally don’t like talking to other humans

What kind of people are you attracted to? Kind ones

Do you think you’ll be in a relationship two months from now? Maybe? If I’ve learned anything from life it’s that you really never know but I DAMN HOPE

Does talking about sex make you uncomfortable? It depends on who it’s with but most of the time no

Who was the last person you had a deep conversation with? My friend Shaf

What does the most recent text that you sent say? “No, we’re good.”

What are your 5 favorite songs right now? Icon- Jaden Smith, Bottom of the deep blue sea- Missio, Let you go- Machine gun kelly, little sister- trixie mattel, and In the middle- dodie

Do you like it when people play with your hair? 10/10 would die for that shit

Do you think there is life on other planets? Definitely

Do you like bubble baths? I do but I’m too large for my tub and it’s very sad

Do you like your neighbors? I don’t think I have ever said a single word to a single one of them

Where would you like to travel? San Fransisco

Favorite part of your daily routine? Playing video games

What part of your body are you most uncomfortable with? Every single one of my bits

What do you do when you wake up? Wish I was back asleep

Do you wish your skin was lighter or darker? Darker, I’m pale as fuck

Do you ever want to get married? If I find the right person

If your hair long enough for a pony tail? A tiny one on top of my head

Would you rather live without TV or music? I’d rather die thanks

Have you ever liked someone and never told them? Of course

What are your favorite stores to shop in? Amazon

Do you believe everyone deserves a second chance? I guess it depends but mostly yeah

Do you smile at strangers? HA HAHA HAHAHAHAHAHA

Have you done anything recently that you hope nobody finds out about? I mispelled my name on twitter and was too lazy to change it but today a guy called me out so I changed it and acted like I didn’t because I’ll do what I want sir

Ever wished you were someone else? I used to a lot

Favourite makeup brand? I know nothing about make up

Last thing you ate? Mac and cheese

Ever won a competition? For what? Soccer

Ever been in love? Yes

Facebook or Twitter? Twitter and if you’d like to follow me my name is AmongSeattle

Okay that took a lot longer than I had anticipated but I had a lot of fun. Thank you so much for taking the time to test how much my computer can take before it gives in. Join me next time when I’ll probably be answering 500 questions and encoding my social security into the text :*

[idonthaveanaccent]

Humans are Weird - Part 1

~My last one did pretty good, so I thought I’d write a sort of prequel to the last Humans Are Weird thing I did. It has a few ideas from other posts I have seen. Sorry that I don’t recall who the original poster is, otherwise I’d tag them~

Xylion had never felt more nervous in his long life than at this moment. He was waiting with Captain Zellnor as they awaited the new arrivals.

“What do you think these creatures will be like, sir?” Xylion asked, smoothing down the outfit he was required to wear for his position on the ship.

Captain Zellnor was silent for a bit before he responded. “From what I’ve heard about humans, they are very loyal, curious, smart, yet the exact opposite of all of those at the same time. They can be extremely idiotic, yet they are revered for their vast knowledge. Many times through the small pieces of history they have provided the Universal Space Legion, mass amounts of betrayal are portrayed and shown. And their curiosity can also be subdued. It all depends on what they want to do, not what we want them to do. Not only that, but some things that would normally wound one of any numerous species out there won’t have any effect on them. Like caffeine, for example. Where it would kill me in a heartbeat, they’d get over-energetic.”

Xylion felt a shiver run through his spines. “Are you sure about recruiting them then, sir?” He questioned, looking up to his superior.

While he trusted everything his captain said, he was wary of this new species. If they were everything his captain said they were, then why would anyone want them?

“Well, Xylion, while they do seem like odd choices, they will be beneficial to us.”

“How so?”

“The bond humans form with other species outside and within their own is extraordinary. Some of the different spies sent to observe them over the years have said that they often cry over a loss, even when what passed is outside it’s own species. They could be extremely good in any combat situation as well. See, from what humans call ‘scientists’ have told us, the thing they call a brain shuts off their strength so they don’t end up hurting themselves or others around them. However, from what we have seen in life or death situations, this seems to turn off. They are terrifying at that point.” Captain Zellnor said, his scales turning to a shade of black. He was scared.

Xylion looked out the large glass window at the cement world around the ship. The humans, while a relatively young species, had managed to tame their world. He was surprised their ship had made it onto the surface. Something began to fall from the sky, and light streaks would light up the sky and the sound of explosions sounded soon after they went on by. However, the human communication center reassured them they were fine. Their ship was not metallic. Xylion didn’t know what that had to do with it, but he was thankful nonetheless. “So the humans are...monsters?” He questioned, focusing back on the conversation he was having.

“From what I’ve heard, they do seem it. However, the human leaders reassured the Universal Space Legion that they were not at all dangerous to those they trusted. So long as we don’t betray their trust, we should be fine.” He said, his body returning to it’s neutral white. 

Xylion looked up as he watched strange boxes coming towards the ship. Wheels were turning as they seemed to propel them forward. Xylion heard Captain Zellnor straighten his badge next to him. “Looks like they have arrived, Xylion. Are you ready to meet your fellow crew members?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be, sir.”

Xylion stood at the front of the ship with the rest of the crew around him. They were relatively small, with only ten of them including the Captain. Now, four more would be joining them.

He looked towards one human as it walked towards them. They were dress in black and had some strange red material protruding from their neck. Unlike many Alien species, this human had no fur or scales, and instead had what looked like the underbelly to a Grangle, an alien covered in fur. Their stomach’s did not have fur, and instead had a soft material. It was their weak spot.

The human looked at Zellnor and put his appendage that looked somewhat like an arm up with his forehead, the small, second appendage sticking straight forward. Captain Zellnor nodded his head, his snout almost touching his chest.

The human touched some sort of flesh sticking out the side of it’s head and touched the strange black piece inside of it. His mouth moved, and Xylion caught the words. “Everything seems all well and good, bring them out.”

Xylion watched as a door opened on the strange wheeled boxes. He watched as four more humans walked out. Xylion frowned as he looked at them.

The tallest of them had large arms and looked like he had a few marks over his flesh. They were lighter, so he thought perhaps they were a color deficiency. Over all, however, his flesh was darker, the darkest out of everyone there. His hair, as human’s called it, though it just looked like long fur, was almost nonexistent. From what Xylion could see of it, it was lack and grew close to his head.

The second tallest was also a man. His hair was a light color, almost yellow. His flesh, however, unlike the taller one, was on the opposite side of the color spectrum. While it did have some sort of tone to it, it was practically white. The human had strange goggles over his eyes, and he didn’t seem the least bit bothered by them! Xylion knew goggles always annoyed him, so he wondered how this human was withstanding them.

The third human was odd. He assumed it was either an oddly shaped man, or perhaps one of the females. They had red hair and strange dots splattered all across their round face. From their eyes, their nose, and even their mouth, everything was round! It was almost like looking at a circle! Xylion frowned at the strange bulges on their chest and the oddly busty thing on their behind. Clearly they were not the same as the men. They had to be female then, right?

The last human was quite short, a tiny bit taller than the female. Their hair was dark as well and fell all over their face. However, Xylion could see the dark pools of their eyes and brown colored skin they had. He was somewhat shocked to see so many different colors of humans, actually. His species consisted of three colors: green, blue, and red. He was lucky enough to have a calm shade of green, rather than the vibrant red.

Xylion watched as Zellnor walked over to them and introduced himself. He towered over the tallest human, his long neck and face adding most of his height.

“Is that a giraffe?” The shorter male whispered to the questionable female.

The questionable female put a finger to her mouth and made some weird noise. Xylion hadn’t heard it before.

“I’m Zellnor, and who might you all be?”

The tallest one barred his mouth, revealing rows of white bones. “Mason. Mason Powers.”

The light one held his appendage out to Zellnor, as if expecting something. “Fredrick Matthews. A pleasure to meet you.”

The questionable one also barred her white bones. “Jennifer Adams, but please, call me Jenny!”

The last one gave them another one of those freaky teeth showings, and threw his appendages up in the air. “Isaac! Isaac Browne!”

Captain Zellnor nodded. “Are you ready to join our crew, humans?”

“Sure!” Human Jennifer said, clasping their hands together.

Captain Zellnor motioned for them to come aboard. 

Part 2 will come out in a bit. For now, enjoy this part. 

[thoughtfulpaperback]

Skin and beauty standards.

Yall I want to discuss this because I feel like have been seeing this discussion a lot lately and actually had a pretty sad and eye opening discussion with my sister and friend.

So I want to start off saying that I am a light skinned Latina. My sister and friend are morena. Dark, very dark. Not black. But deep tan and caramel colored. And I have always told them I thought they were beautiful and that it sucks that cultural and broader societal beauty standards make them feel uncomfortable about thier color.

But my friend when I said this recently, sort of called me out (she has been having a hard time) and said that while it's nice that I say that it seems sort of hypocritical when I, who am already light skinned, do what I can to make my self lighter.

At first I was like super confused like ...."I dont try to make myself look lighter."

But then as we discussed it I realized "whole crap I didnt realize I was doing these things"

Examples

I use foundation one two two shades lighter than what either I have been matched or people say I match to (within reason I am not trying to look like a ghost) And say things like "do I look orange, or like too dark?" And in my mind I think I do look orange or unnaturally dark (not "attractive" latina tan but like obviously not this skin tone) even when people say it seems like a perfect match.

I have really dark brown hair, pretty much black, but when I can i prefer to dye my hair pitch black. I always liked it But everyone said it paled me out, but I liked it and have been wanting to do it again.

Now I argued with my friend and later sister as I discussed this discussion, that I mean I just like the way I look when I do these things and it didnt have anything to do with disliking darker skin tones.

But they pointed out, and I get it now, that the point isnt that it is a preference, but why it is and the fact I have the skin tone to get away with it.

As my sister said, "if I tried a foundation that was slightly lighter it would be obvious and most of the time I dont really have options. I have to really work for a shade that matches and you get to pick from all these shades and they more or less dont look bad or obvious unless we see you all the time."

My friend said "like I know you dont think dark skin is bad looking and you are supportive but like when you worry about looking too dark when you are like a light tan it kinda makes me feel a bit crappy"

Obviously. I mean I dont think there is anything wrong with my skin tone. But I didnt ever think about why I prefer some things or how my preference may be interpreted. I dont see my make up preferences or hair color preferences changing but I am definitely gonna pay more attention to what I say.

Not a gran epiphany I mean I recognize I have certain privileges like the variety of foundation shades and the relative ease of shade finding, and not having to hear people say things relatively negative about my color. But am for sure gonna be more aware of my own actions and words too.

EDIT:

Just want to elaborate because someone messaged me about this (probably a troll and personally I dont know how trolls find things that arent tagged or why a troll would follow me. I assume that must be the reason they say it).

I dont white face. That's not a thing.I am not saying that I do not like the color of my skin. Or that I am a dark skinned person. I would call myself white if my white friends and family didnt get uppity about it. I would never call myself dark because my very dark indigenous looking friends and family are dark and I wouldnt dare compare.

Just to further explain. I was born very white

This is baby me. No I am not a boy. They made me the devil because they thought it would be funny to make the dog the angel. But the dog destroyed its wings and they werent gonna buy either of us new costumes so the dog got a wraped in left over material

Anyways that white baby gradually turned into a very orangey looking kid. I was really self conscious about that. Not the looking less white part, but the orange part. My siblings and darker looking side of the family arent orangy. Although they say I am not, I look at the photos and see orange.

Eventually because of puberty I went from an oompa lompa kid to a just lightly orange tinted high school kid (I am not wearing foundation in the photo below also this wasnt a high school pick but college but my skin has stayed the same since then)

The next photos are of me when I wear foundation. Yes I drag foundation down to my chest...dont judge.

There isnt that much of a difference. The point of this post isnt that I dont like dark skin or I prefer lighter skin or that I pale myself out completely to look lighter. The point is about vocabulary. the terms lighter and dark white and dark arent accurate here but I use them. When I am matched to foundations I am matched to peachy undertones for medium skin. What I usually end up preferring are shades in the light to mediums with neutral undertones.

In the first picture (I was in college) the shade is tarte amazonian clay 29H for light to medium skin with peachy undertones. When I was in high school I was matched with 35N for medium/neutral skin, but I thought it was too dark for me (like actually dark not orangey). Just so you know this was a little before matching with the computer machine thingy was around, when I first was matched that meant the ladies sat me down and just slatheredy face with different swatches the foundation until they saw one that they thought looked good. Freshman or sophomore year of college I was matched to that shade (35n) with the new fangled match technology but told the ladies I didnt like that shade and found it too dark so they told me to go a step down that foundation ladder- which makes me wonder if the sephora people actually knew what they were doing- which is how I ended up wearing the 29H. I didnt like the 29H so I went with the 27n i believe which is the second photo. The third is fenty beauty shade 260 for medium skin/neutral undertones and the fourth (my favorite and most recent foundation) is fenty beauty 230 for light to medium skin/neutral undertones.

But again the point being that when comparing the difference isnt extremely different. I havent changed race or been attempting to. The issue is that my vocab and the way I can easily just explore and play with shades and undertones are things that trigger my darker friends and family. I don't complain about my skin tone (although I did so in this post), but when I use the term dark instead of orange it makes them uncomfortable and I never noticed. I never thought about how they must feel when we go into sephora and ulta and I spend a while trying to decide which shade I PREFER while they struggle to find a shade that actually matches. I knew that they struggled but not how my experience may actually add to that anxiety.

This isnt a #whitepeople problems this is a #holy crap I didnt realize that the things I do might be hurting someone

When I og wrote above the edit that I dont plan on changing my foundation or hair preferences that wasnt me saying, "I dont care if it makes you uncomfortable I'm gonna do what i want!" I do plan on watching and changing the words I use. I will try to avoid saying things like "is this too dark?" Or "I don't like that foundation shade because it makes me look dark or too dark." I'll try to be accurate, " I think the shade undertone is off with this one." Or "I prefer neutral undertones rather than peachy or warm undertones.

Also if this doesnt make you realize the privilege of being light complexed WTF is wrong with you? I am able to wear numerous shades in one brand and there are people who cant even find one that matches well when looking at multiple brands.

Also as mentioned in a different post, I am light and rarely see people who look like me in novelas (as non help or poor characters ) so if that doesnt scream something to you about the extreme colorism or preference for more european looking features in latin america ya must be not hearing well.