#i had a lot of fun drawing a more detailed scene for once

[thatcakelovingwitch]

"So yeah, we got him"

#loved this episode #it has totally not ruined me #i love charlie #she does slightly scare me #but who doesnt in wbg #i had a lot of fun drawing a more detailed scene for once #charlie wbg #woe begone charlie #marissa ng #marissa ng wbg #woe begone marissa #mike walters #mikey walters #woe.begone #woe begone #w.bg #wbg fanart #wbg spoilers #tw restriction #birds of a feather #little cake drawings

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

why them??

Whenever we visit a new location, there's an in-game reason given for why it's these specific four characters chosen to go! I was eager to see why Vil had Jamil, Azul, and Ace come along with him to an acclaimed film festival... and I was not disappointed 😂

***Tapis Rouge in the Shaftlands spoilers under the cut!!***

So as it turns out, Vil has been invited to the International Film Festival in Fairest City (a significant location for the entertainment and beauty industries). He’s going to promote a movie he’s in that’s releasing next year.

The original plan was for the Film Research Club to accompany Vil and take the chance to learn more about movie productions. However, the club is in the middle of filming for their own project and a change in weather has led to their shoot next week being cancelled. The filming they would have done next week now has to be done this week, so Vil’s club members cannot go on the trip. (Vil himself still has to attend because he is contractually obligated to.)

The other NRC students start to argue over who Vil should take in his club members’ places. The people vying for spots include:

Cater (because the Fairest City is so trendy and always popular on Magicam)

Azul (many famous brands are sold in Fairest City; he has a financial interest in this research)

Lilia (has visited the city before, but never the film festival)

Jade (the city is close to old mines, which he is interested in)

Ace (he loves the idea of going to a fashionable city and “tasting” the celebrity world)

Rook (a lover of movies and dramas; he is curious about the movie studios)

Floyd, Epel, Deuce, Grim (lol it sounds fun to them; Epel also says he has not traveled a lot so he wants to go this time)

Ruggie (FANCY FOOD)

Jamil (wants to take advantage of Vil’s presence to see behind-the-scenes things they don’t normally show; he usually prepares snacks for when Kalim watches movies at one of three at-home theaters but hasn’t had the time to really appreciate the films for what they are himself)

DKJLBHASILYFAYFVQEFIFQEPI; I love the added detail of Jamil telling the others they're inconveniencing their senpai but then Azul cuts in and implies the behavior is a manipulation tactic to show off to Vil how reliable Jamil can be (thus increasing his odds of going while he still maintains his "humility")... Those two just cannot stop getting at each other's throats, I swear 💀 (In part 2, they continue the pettiness when Ace comments that they’re both quick to tease him together, so do they actually get along? Jamil says no but Azul says yes… and the two of them are STILL bullying each other about their personalities once they get their new outfits. Truly not a dull moment with them…)

BUT THIS IS THE REAL STINGER

So since Vil can only pick 5 people to take with him, he says they'll have to prove that they somehow excel over the others. It's then that Azul cooks up a scheme on the spot and recruits Jamil and Ace for it: a lottery! Azul proposes it, has Jamil pitch in, and has Ace prepare the drawings. THIS WORKS ON MULTIPLE LEVELS BECAUSE:

Azul can present the idea as "random" and "fair". This makes him appear like a kind problem solver not wanting to give anyone, not even himself, a leg up.

It would come off as shady if he gets one of the twins (known to be his henchman) to agree with him... so who does Azul get to back him up? Jamil, someone from another dorm, and someone who was passive aggressive with him earlier. This creates a false illusion that others beyond Azul and his dorm believe in the "fairness" of the lottery.

Ace has deft fingers; he a cut a deck of cards--and he can easily rig a lottery since he's in cahoots with Azul, the guy who suggested it to begin with.

This creates a situation where Azul, Jamil, AND Ace get to go to the event. These bitches are mutually benefitting from being collectively sneaky (According to Ace, Yuu and Grim pulled the remaining two slots by coincidence, so they just happen to be "lucky") 🤡 AND THE FUNNIEST PART OF IT ALL IS THAT VIL SUSPECTED THEY WOULD PULL THIS SHIT, BUT HE LET IT HAPPEN ANYWAY SINCE IT'S TECHNICALLY STILL THEM DEMONSTRATING THEIR TALENTS TO HIM...

Truly, bravo... That deserved a standing ovation, gentlemen 👏

#twst #twisted wonderland #Vil Schoenheit #Jamil Viper #Azul Ashengrotto #Ace Trappola #tapis rouge in the shaftlands spoilers #Grim #Yuu #disney twisted wonderland #disney twst #notes from the writing raven #Cater Diamond #Floyd Leech #Jade Leech #Tweels #Octavinelle #Rook Hunt #Epel Felmier #Pomefiore #Deuce Spade #Lilia Vanrouge #Ruggie Bucchi #Kalim Al-Asim #Scarabia

[sanctus-ingenium]

Another one of these since i haven't done it in a while! Sketch -> finished illustration

Thoughts & process below the cut :>

Out of Bounds: i deleted the sketch of this off my ipad because i didn't like it, and for months it only existed as a screenshot on discord. finally in january of this year i was like Wait Actually and decided to keep working on it. I didn't achieve the look I was going for (kind of foggy and vague. It came out too sharp and high contrast) but it was fun to throw the kitchen sink at it for an afternoon and then call it done finally. I don't remember which horse this was originally supposed to be, I think Macha?

I reused the pose, you'll find the same one in my Pascal sketchbook from the section on gait studies. That's the cool thing about doing 30 sketches at once, you can finish them up any time you like for a different drawing

The Fool ft Islin: the original concept for this is from [takes a moment to decipher the american date system on discord] January 2022

It wasn't dynamic enough, but I've had this on the backburner for sooo long. I think I completed like 4 cards in between this sketch and the final version lol. But, for a bit of background, this is from my series of major arcana based in Inver, and in particular the events of the 1860s-era book series, Moth Viper Foal (a demo of the first book, Said The Black Horse, is available for free/pwyw in my shop). This scene is a companion to Said The Black Horse, depicting the aftermath of the traumatic fight that caused Islin to storm off. He had been working at the mill as a semiprofessional back alley surgeon when he received an offer to join the church and work as a trained surgeon in their hospital. But when he brought the good news back to his friends it was met with utter rejection, driving him to basically run away to join the church. while gay and trans. thus the card.

he didn't actually bring a bag with him when he ran out but for the sake of the card i drew him with one

Gryfon and Pantera: This is how 99% of holy beast drawings start out, even the super stylised ones. I struggle a lot to draw them in procreate so they start in sai and then i transfer them over. The story of this is already explained in the caption of the original post so I'll just talk about the process which was... honestly torturous. I actually don't like too much textures and effects on things (wild, I know) and this one and Out of Bounds are ones where I kind of preferred it pre-texturising.

The text on the side is the official in-universe report of the event, detailing the casualties, the valiant actions of Gryfon's knight before he died and so on. There's also spoilers in there :>

My main struggle with this art style is how it always ends up slightly TOO sharp and crisp in a way the just a blur filter never can correct. There's not a lot of immersion to break, to be fair, but I think this still does it a little. I need to get more comfortable doing the lines with larger and softer brushes, and allowing imperfections.

[alkalinefrog]

Hey Alka, I had a quick question for you (whenever you have the time to answer or even if you have the time), I've been taking some storyboard classes and with my illustration background, it's been hard to really find a good shorthand for characters to really get that anatomy/gesture looking right without it being too sketchy and unreadable.

How long did it take you to find your storyboard shorthand, and what exercises would you recommend to try to find it? I'm sure it just takes time and practice, I've been doing a lot more studies and gesture drawings (currently following along all the free Glenn Vilppu videos I can find on youtube) but I wanted to ask you as well because I am in love with how fluid your anatomy is, and how clear your storyboards read. And those hands my god you're a wizard!!!

Thanks a bunch, have a wonderful day!

Heya Secret, great to hear from ya! Well, what you don’t see online is how gross the rough stage of my boards can get LMFAO. Most of the boards I post are actually overly cleaned up because I'm just doing them for fun and can afford the time! I'm not really sure how long it took to develop my shorthand, I've never really enjoyed drawing detail to begin with, so when I decided to go into boarding I kinda just leaned into it!

I’ve covered a bunch of gesture drawing exercises already if you scroll through my advice tag, but ***once you have a good foundation*** here's some stuff you can try!

First you'll want to build up an arsenal of anatomy hacks you can always fallback on, particularly for complex parts of the body. The less time you spend on details, the more time you have to focus on the overall pose and storytelling. Aim to find ways to draw with as FEW lines as possible. If I had to make a list to streamline what to practice:

Head shapes - find the most efficient way to draw the front + 3/4 + side view in as few lines as possible (the challenge is still making them look structured with dimension)

Eyes - are SO important for expressions! Unless your project has characters with dot eyes, you're going to need to find a quick way to do the circle and iris in as few lines as possible. Make sure you can convey where they're looking

Hands - fists (you'll be drawing a lot of people holding poles), open palms at various angles, foreshortened fingers pointing at viewer, fingers making grabby motions----protips: 1) half the time all you need is a vague triangle/rectangle plus thumb sticking up and that's a hand 2) if the hand is relaxed, you probably don't need to draw the knuckles. Save some time!

Feet - just learn how to make sure they look like they're standing on the ground, and do some studies of what they look like when you're running. Otherwise you can usually get away with a vague shoe or boot shape (just add toe lines if they're not wearing any)

----everything else you'll practice as you go!

Jump from SUPER rough straight into clean boards to really force yourself to be economic. I've done each of these methods for work before:

Before you start boarding with a character, sketch them a few times with the intention of simplifying their design while keeping them recognizable:

You'd be surprised how little you need to recognize a character:

Depending on the scene, you can adjust how much detail you want to include:

Stay loose/more generalized with action, especially for the "inbetweens" between key poses. Clean up enough to communicate movement and make the character recognizable.

If the character's small on screen in a wide shot, edit out most details and focus on the silhouette

Save the detail work for character acting, when you really want to be specific with their expressions and gestures.

But outside of all that, be bold and fearless!! Everyone has that stage where their boards look like spaghetti! Boarding is like handwriting; you could have really shitty chicken scratch, but if you're writing beautiful poetry, who cares!

god I love drawing hands you don’t even know thank you so much!! Good luck dude!! You’ve more than got this!!

#my art #advice #ask #secretsivekept #you got this! #sorry this took a while! my mental health was in the pits for a solid couple weeks #getting better now though! #storyboards

[prince-kallisto]

“An amusement park full of free games, rides, and food? I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to take a day off from my strenuous duties to goof off- I mean to supervise you all!”

This is my silly design for Crowley’s “Playful Land” event costume haha \(//∇//)\ Since the full story isn’t out yet, I may have jumped the gun a bit…but since all the students look like puppets, I thought it would be fun for Crowley to have a ringmaster theme. However, the outer accessories were meant to disguise him as a clown with a lot of inspiration drawn from carnival/fair attractions like carousels, shooting games, etc. But underneath it all, he’s still wearing a ringmaster’s outfit, if that makes sense

I talk more about my concept sketches and thought process below!

These two photos above are meant to be the final concept art showcasing my mental image of how his outfit works haha.

This design came to me surprisingly quick since I had a strong mental image of what I wanted him to look like. However, I DO wish I kept exploring with his design. I usually spend a lot of time in the exploration phase, especially when it’s for a nicer drawing. This above concept art was pretty much the “final” design I made before I started drawing him. And as you can tell from the finished art, there were quite a few changes…the amount of changed details alone make it an entirely different outfit haha. It caused me a lot of pain while sketching AND inking…I think I got overexcited with this event and I jumped right into inking. In fact, I had a start from scratch after inking my first art- the proportions and design was all wrong haha. A lesson learned.

From the start, I knew I wanted a ringmaster-disguised-as-a-clown theme, but I think the detachable clown pants really put it all together haha. I like outfits that can “shed” themselves to reveal a hidden theme underneath.

In his initial final design, he had a red feathered coat, meant to resemble the feathers in the students hats. This was one of the many things that changed last minute because I didn’t like how the big cost looks in Crowley’s pose haha. But I like this change better actually- it stands out to his usual headmasters coat, and it resembles Malleus’s masquerade cape. His coat lapels are decorated to look like a piano- I think there was a piano scene in Pinocchio? I actually didn’t check at all…

The carousel hat was the first thing I came up with haha, I thought it was funny. I wonder if it’s functional…that would be a funny animation haha. His bird mask is too iconic to drastically change, so it’s just a different color and shape with some beading to look like clown makeup/tears. I love how the novel describes Crowley as flamboyant yet melancholic…

I’ve only gone to a fair once in my life many years ago, so I had to search up common carnival games. I’ve seen festival games in Japanese media, where a rifle with a wooden cork is used to shoot down plushies/other prizes- and I think it would be a really fun and eccentric cane design haha. Perhaps if someone is really misbehaving, he can aim a cork at them? 🤭

The shape of his tie and thigh harness was another sudden design choice made during official drawing, but I like it! It incorporated the ribbons everyone else has without having Crowley being the one “controlled.” The gold points on his shoes are actually removable- it’s part of his “clown” theme. The white spats were made to match him with Fellow Honest- like a hint that he’s not one of the performers since he matches with the owner of Playful Land. Ahhh I’m still learning how to use gouache, and the background was a mess…but it’s inspired off of this Pinocchio concept art! It’s so gorgeous! I’m sorry Ortho…

And finally, the masks on his waist. They’re wrapped around his waist with rope, and are made to resemble the faces of certain characters. Average Kallisto moment of being the most unsubtle person ever with my theories LMAO. Anyway, I thought it would be the perfect event to include various masks on his costume in a similar placement where the mirrors are in his regular outfit. Since he has a lot of carnival game themes in his outfit, perhaps he can pretend he’s a mask vendor haha.

@marrondrawsalot Haha I’m not sure if you remember, but a long while back I made a Glorious Masquerade Crowley design, and we decided that I could tag you if I made a future event design. It’s been a while! ｡ﾟ(ﾟ´ω`ﾟ)ﾟ｡

#twisted wonderland #twst #my art #twst playful land #dire Crowley #twst Crowley #twst dire Crowley #kallistopost #twst fanart #twst art #sndbxhsj sorry that the photo looks blurry #I had to use some editing to hide to streaky gouache in the background andddd and messed up the resolution #I mean I prefer that over the terrible background but #NSBXHSJS one of the moments I’d prefer to do digital art #because I think half of my issues would’ve been solved LOL #or maybe I should just Get Good at painting… #yeah 👉👈

[palskippah]

Oooh mareach preg ftw!

Ngl Im kind of curious, how did mario and peach handle the birth? 😳

Hi! Yess 😭 Them expecting babies is so cute to me ;-;

They (mostly Mario) handled the labor and birth like champs, although at the beginning both had the downside of panicking, but later on they had the help of people with more experience than them (Luigi or the doctors) or that were less panicky during the situation (like Toad). Mario was scared shitless bc giving birth is intimidating, but once he's with Peach and Luigi he's much calmer.

Btw I don't think I'll set this on stone, bc there's other ways the labor and birth could've gone that I also had thought of and actually written or drawn askdlsa but I'm sharing this one bc I like it c: Like, Toad's singing (like that person at tiktok that dresses up as him and sings shakira's songs?? them) makes him laugh too hard and that makes him break his water and he's like 🧍 bc he doesn't realize at first and all-

Under the cut there's a much more (I mean it 😔) detailed description of how it went! It's pretty long (mostly the labor part) and you'll scroll a lot sorrie, I thought of shortening it, but then left it like it is- the moments are separated by star emojis, so if you wanna skip to the birth, go ahead jiji

Birth isn't explicit but I'll give you a warning about it anyway! Also, it's kinda cartoonish (I think? maybe not) for the fun of it, I'm not a big fan of serious stuff sdlksdks

BTW! here's the bebis :'v

[Nettarina was born like half an hour before Mariella was, so she had more experience with being out in the harsh, cold world out of the womb- so she was peacefully sleeping while her twin was being delivered akjsdkd

Imagine those scenes in TV where there's in the first plane a very peaceful thing going on and at the background there's a ruckus- something like that but with Nettarina wrapped in her warm blanket and sleeping comfortably in her bassinet, and in the background there's Mario grabbing the hell out of Peach's and Luigi's hands while he pushes and grunting in effort and the other two are encouraging him and stuff, she doesn't wake up at all despite the noise.]

Also, there are some drawings that are kinda vague about birth- and also the newborn baby will not look like an actual just newborn baby bc that's too much 🧍

Anyways, enjoy the thingie if you read it!

🌟So! The whole thing is very fast and tiring- like when Mario wakes up, he doesn't even hope he'll go into labor that day, and before the sun even sets, he already had both babies in his arms.

Also, I read that first-time pregnancies are a tiny bit more likely to go past full-term and I was like sure why not, let's put Mario in situations. So, he's overdue by just a few days and honestly the babies are really taking their time with getting there, and that's why he isn't even worried that particular day that he'll go into labor.

Also, the doctor had said they'd have to consider induction if the babies didn't make act of presence in the next week. Bc twins usually are expected to arrive like at the 38th week, where they are already full-term, and over that is considered overdue- so maybe Mario is like 38 weeks-and-something pregnant in this day where he has the babies.

🌟 About the labor-

For when Mario goes into labor, I'm torn between doing it sitcom-like, where Peach for ABC reason is very far away from Mario, and she has to go through frustrating drawbacks to get to him quickly, or go with that it happens when they're together and all comfortable and stuff sdkjskd

But going with the first option, imagine Peach is at a meeting that she definitely didn't want to go to, where the king was adamant about her presence and of other royals to see the matter (which in Peach's opinion, could've been handled via email!), so she couldn't send in Toadsworth to sort it through.

Peach warned the host king that Mario could go into labor at literally any minute, and she wished to stay with him when it happened (Mario was supposed to go into labor a few days ago, she was really anxious about it!), but the other thought she was being overdramatic, surely Super Mario would be fine without the princess for a few hours.

Many royals think that way initially, whenever Peach requested that meetings be held at her castle, or that may Toadsworth go in her behalf, since she doesn't want to leave Mario's side for too long. But, they wholly understand when they see Mario, who definitely looks like he's ready to pop. Others are more understanding, because they have been the pregnant person being fretted over, or the partner that frets, so they indulge the princess on her requests.

And well, she was overly worried the whole meeting, and barely paid any attention. At the beginning Peach texted Mario every few minutes to make sure he was okay and calm her anxiety, but after one too many judging looks from the host king, she apologized and asked one of the servants to take her phone until the meeting was over, knowing she'd keep using it otherwise- she had duties to attend as a princess, despite her worries as a soon-to-be mom.

Meanwhile, back at the Mushroom Kingdom, Mario had woken up not long ago, stretching as much as he could and groaning because he slept like hell. His back hurt a lot, like was usual lately. He briefly wondered when the babies would dignify themselves to show up, so he could have a proper night's sleep finally (as if! with two newborn babies it wouldn't be very likely), because they overstayed long enough, he was supposed to have them in his arms by now, while also he wished Peach was there to just magic his pain away.

Mario resigns himself to hurt and keep being pregnant for a few days more. He throws a look at his side, and then checks his phone, smiling at Peach's (fretting) texts, so he starts answering to each of them, while getting himself more comfortable on their bed.

[Good morning my love! 😚😚😚] Good morning bella mia :33 [Are you awake? 🥰🥰] I am [Maybe not, it took you a lot of time to fall asleep 🤕 just wait until the little rascals are born, I'll give them a harsh lecture right away] Me too bc my back hurts like a beach I wish you were here to make it better :c [I love you] I love you very much too! [Te amo mi amorchito pechocho💓] Ti amo la mia luce 💖 [Mi amore] 🥰 [Wake up mi amore] I did :D pick your phone peachy [King Calami keeps talking about I don't know what hepl] Pay attention and don't pick your phone peachy [Mario 🥺🥺] Peachy <3

Peach appears offline from not long ago; and Mario hoped she actually had put her focus on the meeting. After that, Mario does the extenuating routine of getting off of bed, showering, grooming, dressing on his own -which proves much harder than when Peach just does it for him, especially with the overalls and shoes, but he's in the mood for them, so he tries anyway (and almost falls off the bed trying to reach his feet- but at least no one's there to see him struggle). He does all this while feeling a bit restless the whole way, but it's been a few days of the same feeling, since the babies weren't born when they were supposed to.

Mario has a very late breakfast and then spends a while just nibbling on treats and lazing around (Resting! You're resting - says for the nth time a voice that sounds like Peach's). He made some plans with Toad over text, and soon he met Mario at the lounging room in the castle, ready for a walk around Toad Town.

Mario wasn't very sure if he still wanted to go, still feeling like something (read: labor) was about to happen. Toad offered staying at the castle, if he wasn't sure, and they could eat ice-cream right there too and maybe watch a movie, or just walk through Peach's gardens. The thought of the ice-cream stall at the middle of Toad Plaza makes him salivate and reconsider- oh his damned cravings. Also, to walk and enjoy the sun and bustling streets would do him good, so they go.

The walk to Toad Town is very slow but filled with conversation (mostly from Toad). At certain times Mario felt cramps on his belly, but he has been feeling them from weeks ago, so he doesn't get too worried about them. At the platforms Toad very carefully helps him. And while they walk down the steps, Mario looks at the pipes systems and all the toads going through them, which was a much quicker way of getting anywhere. Not for the first time Mario lamented that traveling through pipes was not safe for him anymore, and it made him too dizzy anyways (and in some of them he didn't even fit any longer- but whatevs).

Through the walk many toads greet both of them as usual, some commenting lightly about the babies not being there yet, which had Mario chuckling politely (bc, of course they're not there yet, Mario is clearly still huge!) and by the time they get to the ice-cream stand Mario's too tired and feeling kinda out of breath, so Toad tells him to sit and wait for him to get the ice-cream, and Mario does so gratefully.

When he's at the bench, the cramps only get worse, and he briefly wonders if maybe they're contractions- He hopes they are, because the babies are overdue and he is tired as hell of carrying them, but also- he wishes it's not the case, he doesn't want them to come out yet because he is still way too nervous of giving birth. Either way, the cramps hurt and are uncomfortable, and after a while they stop, and he realizes he'd have to pay closer attention to them, lest he actually was in labor.

Toad gets back with their stuff and they eat and talk and it's very nice, because the day is sunny and calm, and the babies aren't as energetic as other times (which is always good, because they would beat up Mario's ribs, bladder and whatever was in their way whenever they kicked or stretched).

Suddenly Mario feels a particularly bad cramp, and he has to take a moment to breathe through it, wincing in pain and placing his hand where he's kinda feeling it. It catches Toad's attention, and he gently pats Mario's arm to be of comfort.

Toad then gasps excitedly, "Wait- are you having contractions yet?"

Mario shakes his head, then signs, "I don't think so."

"Aw... I want to meet your babies already, Mario," Toad laments, taking a sad lick from his ice-cream cone. "I want to receive my Uncle Toad title from you too."

Mario smiles at him and shakes his head again, in amusement, the toad had said years back that he was happy to receive the title from Luigi, and now from Mario, as if they were some sort of university of unclehood by simply becoming parents.

At some moment, their conversation takes a turn towards Mario's relationship with Pauline, for some reason. Toad can't believe Mario had sung with the Pauline! And why is he just now finding out about it?!

It leads to Toad begging Mario to sing something for him someday, and Mario saying he can beg all he wants. Toad shakes his head in feigned disappointment and says, "I would never deprive you from my singing skills, Mario!" And Mario does a 'really? prove it' face, so Toad graces him with the most off-key, shrillest and loud cover of Pauline's Jump Up, Super Star!

It had Mario laughing almost hysterically- it probably wasn't even that funny, but he was caught off-guard bc Toad started off strong with the main vocals and from then on, his singing didn't get any better. He was holding his belly while trying not to drop his ice-cream and waving slightly at Toad with it to stop- or he's sure he'll... oh- have an accident.

Mario stops laughing all of a sudden and looks down with a grimace. For a few seconds he thinks not again! because he has two heavy babies resting right over his bladder, he can't help it sometimes! But this time it's much more than usual, and he can't even stop it.

He turns to Toad in panic and embarrassment, because he's sitting in the middle of the crowded plaza and there's no way other toads won't notice! Toad notices his exalted state and stops singing. He tilts his head in confusion and worry.

Mario signs "I peed myself."

"Oh- that's huh..." Mario looks more embarrassed. "That's okay! Don't worry, bestie, I'm going to fix it. You just stay here, Mario!"

Toad shoves the rest of his ice-cream in his mouth and while he munches the waffle cone, he jumps out of the bench and scoots somewhere in the crowded place. Mario huffs in discomfort, throwing nervous glances around him, hoping no one suddenly decided to speak to him. He looks at his cone still in his hand, melting down. He gives it some licks, entirely out of anxiety, because he doesn't have much appetite anymore.

Toad returns soon enough, carrying a folded blanket with himself. Very subtle, especially with the nice weather and Mario in his long overalls. The man kicks himself mentally for being picky about Toad's ideas, when his friend is clearly trying. Toad jumps on the bench and gets closer to whisper to Mario, "I asked some friends to bring you clothes. Don't worry though, I told them to be discreet about it- also got this blanket so we can walk to a bathroom."

Toad sits back down beside Mario on the bench, to wait for the other toads. Mario decides to occupy that brief time by finishing eating his ice-cream, and rubbing his belly while silently scowling at the babies for putting him in situations. When the toads arrive, carrying a little bag, they discreetly leave it on the bench, and walk casually in the other direction, not even looking at Mario or Toad. Mario lets out a relieved sigh, glad that they left them alone. Toad stands on his seat and extends the blanket, leaving it ready to use over the bench, and then jumps back to the floor.

"Let me help you up," he says, extending his little hands to him with a big smile. Mario smiles a bit funnily, knowing that Toad wasn't precisely strong enough to pull him up.

After much effort from both, Mario is on his feet, and he has to suppress a disgusted shiver, because the wetness is very uncomfortable and has gone cold. Toad notices his discomfort and hurries to hand the blanket to Mario, who wraps it around his shoulders. The toad makes sure it covers all the damp spots, and then they get to it, looking for the nearest bathroom either of them can think of.

Toad peaks his head in a restaurant, and quietly asks the receptionist to use the bathroom without being clients, who refuses, being strict about their rules, but Toad says with a knowing smile, 'it's for Mario' and the other toad quickly agrees for them to just come along, anything for the Mushroom Kingdom hero! (But Mario's sure it's because he's very pregnant, it's obvious).

When Mario's inside and Toad's doing guard outside the door, he strips from his wet clothes and rummages through the little bag, pulling out one of his red maternity dresses and underwear. He smiles to himself in relief as he thinks 'perfetto...' because having to ask for help from Toad to put on his overalls would probably be the last drop in the glass for Mario to- to have a breakdown or something.

When he's almost done and letting the dress down his arms, he feels such a strong cramp in his belly that he's just sure it must be a contraction. Mario panics for a few seconds because his arms are stuck in the dress and he's in pain and all he sees is red! He has to double over and support his weight with his hands against the wall the best he can, while he tries to quiet down his pained groans and tightly closes his eyes.

When it passes, he gives himself a bit of time to catch his breath back, and then quickly lowers the dress the rest of the way, to dress himself properly. Mario then holds his belly, looking around the bathroom nervously. He slowly paces on the small space in building panic- he's sure it was a contraction! It was way too strong- and- and the accident? What if that was his water?

He stops waddling and looks down at his belly, placing his hands on it as if silently asking the babies if that was the very important liquid that signaled that he was indeed in labor. Mario notices that he's breathing way too quickly, so he tries to do the breathing exercises that Doctor Toadlina taught him to do- he clenches his fists tightly over his belly while the babies move leisurely as if their mamma wasn't freaking out.

Outside, Toad hums to himself patiently, giving Mario all the time he needs to get comfortable in the changing of clothes. He nods to passing waiters and clients alike, with a big smile.

Back inside, finally Mario's calm enough to think of what he should do now if the babies are coming- he immediately thinks of Peach and that she's far away and literally on another whole kingdom, with no pipe system attached to theirs! Mario scrambles as fast as he can for his phone, feeling his hands and his lower lip trembling in fright.

He calls her and places the phone by his ear, while trying still to breath calmly and failing spectacularly. His fear only spikes up when it sends to voicemail. Mario calls a couple more of times, each without success. He tries to write to her instead, being a bit difficult with his shaking fingers and his blurring gaze due to the tears.

Pech I don't wanna scare you but i think I'm in laborr Pelsa answer Nd come back soon I'm very scared

He holds his phone in his hands for a while, still trying to convince himself that everything will be okay... Mario frowns and looks to the side for a second, those words remind him of something.

Everything will be okay...? Right, Luigi! Mario should call Luigi. He calls him this time and smiles in relief when his twin answers right away.

"Ciao, fratellone!" Luigi says happily.

Mario's smile drops when he realizes just then that he must talk if he called- Oh, fuck! What an idiot! He's bringing more despair for himself on his own!

He opens his mouth and then closes it and shakes his head- why does he never think things through?! He curses himself, now with tears of frustration in his eyes and the thought of just hanging up and texting instead goes through his mind.

"Bro? Mario? Is everyth-" Mario quickly hangs up and goes to text him. He blinks his tears away the best he can and writes down while his phone rings and the notification of Weegee calling... appears just above the chat.

M in labor nd pach isn't here Can you come ?

A few seconds pass when Luigi answers:

On my way Where are you going to be?

Mario sniffles and thinks quickly, should they go to the castle, or maybe just wait for Luigi to get to the restaurant? Mario didn't want to be in that bathroom all alone, he felt too scared and defenseless. But he doesn't think he had the energy to go to the castle quick enough either.

Gret toadcimu restornat Oki I'll be right there bro Pls be calm Everything will be okay I promise Are you with someone? Let them help you Mario To stay cal M Ok

Mario opened Toad's chat this time, feeling at least a tad bit calmer now that he knew his brother was on the way.

Tod Come in pls

A short moment later, a knock sounds at the door, and Mario unlocks it and let his friend in, Toad closes the door and looks at Mario in thinly veiled worry when he notices his tears and panicked expression.

"What's wrong, Mario?"

"I'm in labor," he has difficulty even signing, his hands trembling too much. Toad seems to have difficulty to understand what he signed too, but when he does, he opens his eyes widely and seems absolutely ready to start panicking. Mario braces himself for his shrilly screaming, but the toad shakes his head quickly and sets his face on a determined expression, that Mario would not be surprised if he started speaking in a very deep voice.

"We have to go to the castle, then! I'll tidy this up, you- you just focus on not having the babies yet and calm down. Calm down, Mario!" he says in his regular voice, with a very subtle hint of panic that Mario can easily ignore for his own sake. The toad starts gathering his wet clothes in the little bag, then hurries on folding the blanket while Mario focuses on doing the breath exercises.

Another contraction hits in and Mario has to lean against the wall again, groaning in pain and holding his back. He feels like it lasts even longer and hurts worse than the previous- how is that possible? They were supposed to grow very gradually in intensity and time!

He feels a hand on his back, and he turns to look at Toad, with a pained expression on.

"Do I call the princess?" His friend knows Peach isn't in the Mushroom Kingdom, but Mario shakes his head. She didn't answer him, it'd probably be the same for Toad.

Mario breathes through the contraction the best he can, and when it's over he tells Toad that Luigi's on his way. The toad nods and leads them slowly to the outside of the restaurant, going through the tables occupied by many toads since it was lunch time, saying his thanks to the receptionist (and Mario awkwardly nods at them in thanks too).

Toad looks around quickly, looking for a bench for Mario to sit on, when he spots one, he leads them in its direction.

Just as Toad is helping Mario to take a seat, they hear, "Bro!" and Mario straightens up right away, looking around for his twin, almost losing his balance, and he and Toad and Luigi all panic that he'll fall, but Mario manages to keep standing as he grabs onto Toad's cap and the other hand supports his back, while Luigi runs to his side.

When Mario and Luigi are close to each other, the first thing Mario does is hug his twin, feeling like he wants to cry. And he does, actually, while Luigi gently shushes him and holds him tightly (albeit a bit awkwardly due to Mario's belly in the middle).

"It's-a okay, Mario, I'm here," Luigi says, subtly trying to catch his breath, he surely must have run all the way from the pipe that connected their kingdoms to the Great Toadchimu restaurant. Mario nods and buries his face on Luigi's shoulder, feeling much less scared than he did moments ago. The only thing to truly make him feel complete would be that Peach was there with him too.

Luigi takes care of the situation and instructs Toad to please get him a super mushroom so he could easily carry Mario to the castle. Once he eats it, he goes up the hills on a careful walk to not accidentally drop Mario or jostle him too much, while Toad hurriedly walks beside them, carrying Mario's stuff and calling Peach's father to let the doctor know they were on their way (and so were the babies-).

Back at Peach, the blessed (cursed) meeting that seemed like it lasted hours just ended, and the (damned) King Calami finally let them leave, but of course, he invited all the royals to have lunch first. But Peach is absolutely ready to tail it out of there and return to her own kingdom and to her Mario.

After exchanging quick pleasantries with the rest of royals, and passive-agressive words with King Calami that left no space to argue her reasons and determination to leave, the king kindly instructed a worker to prepare a vehicle for Princess Toadstool, as she's in such a hurry to leave already, and isn't even able to stay for lunch. The servant bows and leaves to do as instructed.

Peach smiles while inside she wishes unpleasant things for the king. She bows her head and walks calmly out of the meeting room, but one of the servants standing at the doors stopped her, "Princess Toadstool, your phone, your highness."

Right! Peach smiles thankfully as she receives it and immediately checks her notifications while walking out of the room. Her smile drops when she sees the three missed calls from Mario. With worry she clicks on the notification that says [New messages from Marito❤️] and her smile comes back in full force again while reading Mario's responses to each of her texts. And finally, her smile fully drops as does her stomach, all the way to her feet, when she reads the five last messages.

Mario's in labor?! Peach anxiously hurries to walk in a direction, then halts and turns around and prepares to walk the other way, then realizes she doesn't even know where she is supposedly going, and she's just panicking. Peach looks at her phone and quickly calls Mario's number, while trying to calm her breathing as she places a hand on her chest. There's no use on her losing her mind, she needs to stay calm.

Peach gets more anxious with each ring, until the line picks up and she jumps into talking.

"Mario, are you okay? Where-?"

"Princess, it's-a me!" She gets interrupted. It's Luigi.

"Luigi! Where is Mario?!" So much for keeping calm, she mentally scolded herself.

"He's-a with me, don't worry, we're-a going to the castle, oki? We'll wait for you there, Toad talked to Toadsworth, so he can notify the royal doctor."

"Hi! Princess, it's me, Toad, Mario's best friend- he's good and he's not talking now!"

Peach lets out a mildly relieved sigh, at least they had the situation under control.

"I hope you are okay, Mario," she says, lacing her words with the most fondness she can, while she smiles. "Please wait for me, I'll be there as soon as I can."

Luigi chuckles after a while, "He says he will, and he loves you, and you're his very beloved light- Hey! Don't-a hit me, I'm-a just adding-!"

Peach giggles to herself, imagining Mario swatting Luigi.

"I love you so much too, mi chaparrito bigotón pechocho," she says, allowing herself to be utterly corny, at least Luigi wouldn't get it.

"Aw please, Peach, that's so cheesy!" said Luigi while laughing and Peach's face burned. Right, he knows some Spanish, Daisy is teaching him only the things that are convenient for him to learn- like Peach's terms of endearment. When she hears Mario's own chuckles, she's glad she said what she said, despite her embarrassment. She smiles brightly, "I'll be there very soon, Mario! Stay strong, I love you!"

"Wait, when you're-a on your way here try ta do a videocall," says Luigi before she can hang up.

"Okie-dokie! Bye!"

Peach allows herself to jump in place for a few seconds, while holding her phone to her chest, closing tightly her eyes and smiling so widely that her cheeks hurt. Mario's in labor! They'll finally meet their babies! How exciting! She must get there as soon as possible.

As if on cue, the servant that King Calami talked to was walking to get closer to her. Peach walked to reach them quicker, expecting for them to tell her that her vehicle was ready.

"Your highness, I'm very sorry-" Oh great. "-but we have a few complications with the long-journey vehicles. But if you're willing to wait, by late afternoon-"

Peach shakes her head worriedly; Mario needed her now! Not by late afternoon- and she'd get to the Mushroom Kingdom by night if that were the case!

The servant patiently waits for the princess to arrange her thoughts, as she seems lost on her own mind.

What could she do? What to do... There wasn't a pipe system between this kingdom and hers, so she couldn't go quickly there, and the journey on any vehicle was longer than two hours, but there were closer, neighboring kingdoms to this one, that had agreed to install the pipes! She could go to them first, and then go to her wished destiny!

Peach is struck with a feeling-like-an-idiot urge to facepalm, because that's literally the way she got into King Calami's kingdom to begin with. She sighs, lamenting that her first-time parent panic is affecting her good reasoning.

"Are there available any vehicles for shorter journeys?" she asks with a falsely calmed smile.

The servant nods, "Yes, your royal highness. The smallest allow for a very fast travelling- but they fit only one member inside, you'd have to leave on your own."

Peach quickly nods, "Yes, I will- It's perfect. I'll, um- arrange for my toads to return the vehicle safely once I no longer use it, yes?" she says, trying to be convincing.

The servant nods and leads Peach to the room where the vehicles are (a royal garage i guess?), while mentioning how they will not notify the who was in charge (whoever that is-) first, if all because the princess looked so antsy that it was making the servant a bit nervous too.

Peach apologized for her clearly anxious state, delightedly (and unsubtly terrified) saying that Mario's in labor and she's in a hurry to leave. The servant looks back at her in surprise, because why didn't she say so before?!

After that, things go very quickly, both the servant and Peach hurry to get to the vehicle, where Peach puts her few belongings in and hops in, ready to drive as quickly (and safely-) as she can to the nearest kingdom with a working pipe system to the Mushroom Kingdom.

As she puts on her seatbelt, the servant, whose name Peach still doesn't know, bows respectfully, "I wish you luck and very healthy babies, your royal highness!" Peach smiles and nods hurriedly saying 'thank you so much!', and she starts her journey towards Mario.

Back with Mario, they are received by Toadsworth already fretting over the whole situation, while Luigi takes him to his bedroom, where Doctor Toadlina and two young toad nurses are already setting everything to attend his birth.

Luigi leaves Mario gingerly on the bed, in a sitting position. On the way up the hills Luigi asked Toad to take the time between each of Mario's contractions. They were way too close to each other if Mario supposedly started labor not long ago, Luigi is sure it must have been much earlier.

The doctor informs what will be done from then on, to pass labor and check his contractions and to check his dilation depending on how the labor progresses and the babies' position and all that (vague labor stuff, y'know 🧍).

Luigi (after asking one of the nurses to pinch him hard to wear off the super mushroom effect-) gently helps Mario into a more comfortable sleepshirt and underwear, while he makes some light conversation to distract him from his worry at Peach's absence. Toad isn't let in, and he asks to at least be updated if anything important happens, like the babies being born or Mario needing something. Doctor Toadlina politely closes the door on his face with a, "Thank you, Toad, we'll let you know!" while the nurses lightly giggle as they arrange water bottles, and very light snacks in their little coffee table, and arrange Mario and Peach's bed for more practical use, tying the bed drapes as tightly as possible to avoid them becoming a burden for any of them.

Mario breathes slowly and tries to keep himself as calm as he can, while closing his eyes as Luigi helps him to lay on the bed for a check up, Doctor Toadlina puts on a glove meanwhile. He feels Luigi's own gloved hand caressing his hair.

"It's-a okay, bro," he says softly, and Mario turns to look at him with a small smile, that turns wobbly after a second. He just wishes Peach was there too.

After the check-up, the doctor muses that he must be very far along in labor, because his dilation is very advanced. She announces that in no time he would be ready for the pushing stage. Mario nods with a very nervous smile, glad and also terrified to hear so.

So, Mario and Luigi do anything for him to dilate further, like walking around the spacey room, or doing different exercises together (the ones Luigi remembers from when he was in labor, and also the ones the toad doctor recommends them).

They are face to face a bit far away from the bed, both with their feet a bit apart and hands on their hips, both moving them in a swaying motion- Mario thinks his twin is doing much better than he is, and briefly wonders if he's doing it wrong himself, but then remembers that Luigi's not even pregnant, and Mario smacks himself mentally for being an idiot again, always realizing things too late. He shakes his head, he's not even sure anymore if it's the pregnancy brain or he's always been like this.

Luigi frowns, "No? But I thought you already settled on tha names-"

Mario blushes a bit, now realizing he and Luigi were supposedly talking. He shakes his head again with a bashful smile, letting Luigi know to just ignore him. His brother smiles comprehensively. "You're-a not even paying attention- Is your mind on tha princess? She hasn't called yet..."

Mario frowns and settles his gaze on the nurses quietly talking among themselves, a bit sad about the matter. He supposes she's still busy getting to their kingdom if she can't call, but still...

Back at Peach, she just exited the outskirts of King Calami's kingdom, now entering the long, deserted road that connected both realms. Now that the risk of running over someone were diminished almost to zero, she pulls out her phone, finally she can videocall Mario! She thumbs around on it, throwing brief glances at the road, and then back. As the phone dials she keeps it in her hand, not about to risk it flying away from the speed she was driving at.

The other end picks up and her big smile falls a bit when it's Toad's face that receives her, she muses that Mario must be a bit busy, then!

"Hello, Toad!"

"Hi, Princess Peach!"

"Where's Mario?"

"Oh, he's inside with the doctors and Luigi, he left his phone with me- when they kicked me out. I'll hand it to him, don't hang!"

The brothers end up going to the balcony for Mario to take some air after he realizes he's again way too nervous (so close to giving birth and Peach's nowhere to be seen!), while Luigi pats his back, and he leans on the railing. Mario looks up to the sky, the day is so nice and sunny, and it feels ironic with the way he feels- all heated up and tired already.

He gets another contraction and his hands clench on the railing while he whimpers and winces. Oh, Peach should get there sooner, she could help him to not feel pain! He tries to breathe through it as he's been doing it since they started, while Luigi rubs his lower back. It almost feels like the same rubs Peach usually did to ease his pain with her magic, only that Luigi's just brought him emotional comfort and nothing more.

They hear some commotion at the door that leads to the hall and both twins turn to look and see (nosey 🤨) what's going on. It's Doctor Toadlina scolding Toad-

"I told you already! You can't come in, Toad, only the queen and the princess can, Mario needs people that can bring him comfort and support-!"

"Yeah, I know, that's why I need to give him his phone, it's the princess!"

Mario gasps, Peachy is calling?!

He turns to Luigi and signals with his head for him to go deal with it. Luigi nods and leaves his side briefly (not before throwing a dirty look at Mario for ordering him around-) to go to the toads and see the situation. Mario doesn't have to wait long for Luigi to come back, talking to his phone with it in front of his face. Mario's heartbeat gets quicker at the idea of finally seeing Peach. When he sees her, he smiles brightly at Peach's face, being hit with a lot of wind and making her hair fly behind her.

"Hi, Mario!"

From then on, Peach and Mario talked as if she were right there with him, while Luigi did as an interpreter - given that the princess couldn't look too long at her phone while she was driving -, and Mario felt much better about the matter, now only longing that she was physically close to him.

He keeps doing exercises and staying hydrated and complaining from the contractions - at which Peach reassures she's going to calm all his pain away once she got there! -, while the doctor checked every now and then the position of the babies and stuff.

At a certain moment the connection halts because Peach had to go through the pipe system- and after that Mario had to resist the urge to laugh at her, because Peach was clearly running as fast as she could while still trying to keep her face on the camera. Mario also felt the excitement that she was very close to getting there. The background behind her changed fast from the outside of the castle to the main floor, and then to the hall where their quarters were, and finally she all but bolted inside the room, making Doctor Toadlina jump in fright and the nurses squeal in surprise.

"Mario!" she says, phone held in her hand. "Where- where are you?" She looks at the room, at the exalted toads, and then at her phone, looking at Mario's happy face.

"We're-a here!" says Luigi while waving his arm from the balcony's entrance.

"Oh!" she all but glides through the room, after saying quick hi's to the medical toads. And when her and Mario are finally face to face, they embrace the other so tightly and tenderly that Luigi quietly leaves to give them some privacy. Mario exhales in utter relief, at finally feeling completely safe. And Peach let her chin rest over his hair.

They walk to the bed and Peach lovingly helps Mario to sit close to the pillows, while the plumber keeps his hands at all times in hers.

Doctor Toadlina suggests Peach changes her royal clothes into something less cumbersome, so Peach obliges- and Mario reasonably knows it's better that way and it wouldn't take her very long, but he looked worried when she started to back away, in direction to their wardrobe- she smiled and said she wouldn't take long. Yet he still held into her hands until she pulled back too much, and they slipped from his.

At Mario's very puppy-kicked eyes, Luigi laughs and says Peach will be back to his side soon! Mario wipes his eyes and lays back on the pillows, smiling a bit ashamed of his reaction. Soon enough, Peach gets back from the bathroom where she changed, with her hair tied up, her crown still on and dressed in a white shirt and pink trousers, without her gloves or her blue brooch.

From there, Peach takes Luigi's place and is the one to help Mario with the exercises and helping him walk around or lay down or help with his contractions. She uses her healing magic several times each hour to numb his pain, and Mario sighs in relief each time she does. Also at certain times they sit at the little coffee table while she feeds him nibbles from the light snacks the nurses left. Luigi is glad to simply sit back as back-up support until the birth, enjoying the lovebirds' interactions, which in his opinion are adorable.

(Y'know those moms that do their make-up all pretty for when they give birth?) Since Mario had been crying and wiping his eyes so much, let's say his eyeliner had kind of wore off almost completely- and, in a moment of relative calmness while they waited for Mario to be able to push, Peach went to their bathroom and came back with his eyeliner. She proceded to apply it while humming to herself, as she has done many other times (this post!), while Mario smiled all relaxedly. He wasn't in pain, the babies were barely moving or bothering him, and both his girlfriend and brother were there with him (as were the doctor and nurses), so he was feeling all safe, although tired.

Mario doesn't feel pain anymore, but he is still so very tired. And the next few hours of labor and contractions became taxing way too soon, feeling the pressure at his pelvis as the babies got ready to be born and all that. As Peach helped him walk around, he finally decided he had enough of that, so he squeezed her arm to let her know, and from then on he kept himself out of his feet.

He looked tiredly at his brother from time to time, looking for additional support, while Luigi said comforting words, because he knew all too well how Mario was feeling. He spent the last moments before pushing mostly supporting his weight on the bed while on his knees, or laying propped up against the pillows, or sitting at the edge, all while still trying to vaguely do the exercises to help dilation and stuff.

🌟 During the whole ordeal Toad is outside and so is Toadsworth, because none of them were let in, for Mario's (and the medical toads) comfort. The old toad is more or less a nervous mess, so Toad takes on distracting the soon-to-be grandpa, while his daughter and son-in-law (never mind that Peach and Mario weren't married, he'd consider him so if he wished!) were going through the whole thing.

Mario at most was grunting or groaning loudly and stuff, not really screaming or anything, so from outside they couldn't hear much- which was more worrying than comforting, bc they couldn't guess what was going on.

Almost a couple of hours later, one of the nurses peaks their head out, excitedly saying that the first baby has been delivered and it was a healthy baby girl. It leads to Toadsworth being all tears while Toad excitedly (and quietly) celebrates.

Maybe he (or maybe even Luigi) had been keeping their friends updated on the matter? They have a big friend group chat or something and he's been writing the few updates he has been getting, like:

First baby's a girl!!!👶🥳🥳

And he receives a bunch of confetti emojis and crying faces and excited replies in the next few minutes, and asking for pictures (which are sent by Luigi a lot later, when Mariella had been born too, and Mario was sleeping and so were the babies).

🌟 During the birth-

The birth of each baby is extremely quick.

Doctor Toadlina gives the ok to Mario that he's free to push, but he's nervous and he quickly turns to look at Luigi, with his eyes teary and clearly very scared. His brother hugs him and is quick to reassure him that it'll all be okay bc he's right there with him (the meaning behind the words is that as long as they're together everything will be okay :''''v cries in brotherly love), and Mario smiles and nods.

Despite that, he is still feeling terribly nervous, but he's determined to do it anyways (because what other option does he have? Not give birth? He has to do it!), so he firmly grabs Peach and Luigi's hands. He takes a deep breath to brace himself- and then he exhales and takes another breath. Then he quickly looks at Peach with a pout. She smiles brightly back, full of encouragement- so he takes one last breath.

And then, he pushes with all the strength he can muster, holding and clenching Peach's and Luigi's hands firmly, not bothering to hold back (so maybe it feels like the man is trying to break their fingers, but Peach and Luigi don't say anything about that, of course-)

(pipipi kinda sad of these drawings, in the sketches they looked better and like he was really putting force into it skdjks whatevs I lost them)

After the first push, the doctor is pleased to notice that he made a lot of progress right away. And Mario's all slumped back on the pillows and trying to catch his breath, but he smiles very slightly bc he's making it despite his tiredness, woo! Peach and Luigi congratulate him quietly on his efforts, while the princess squeezes his shoulder and his brother pads at his sweaty face with his wrist. That helps too in giving him more determination to keep pushing with all he got.

The thing is that (for the sake of funny, remember) Mario is very strong and it takes one more, really strong push and the first baby pops out in the whole sense of the expression. She just shots out and Doctor Toadlina is definitely caught off guard, but she still manages to hold the baby, the thing is that she stumbles back, and she would've fallen if the assisting nurse toads hadn't hurried to help her stay upright, all caught by surprise.

She's like obviously surprised, as are Peach, Mario and Luigi (who actually took a lot of effort to push his own baby out, so he's like 'wowie bro :0'), but she quickly snaps out of it and congratulates the now officially moms for their baby girl, while the baby cries with all her little lungs' strength, looking too big in the doctor's arms.

Then she instructs the nurses to cut the umbilical cord and do all the procedures to check on the baby's health, while Peach cries because "A baby girl! that means we'll have two baby girls! Oh, Mario!" and Mario looks almost heartbroken that they had to take their baby away (he knows it's for her own wellness, but he just wants to see and hold her already), but then smiles widely at Peach's words, and at his bro's excited congratulations and hugs.

Doctor Toadlina offers Peach to hold their first born so she can bring her to Mario, but Peach is kind of scared and feels shaky from excitement, so she hurriedly tells Luigi to hold their baby instead, since he has more experience. And when he does, Luigi first holds her to Mario's face, and after making the baby kiss his cheek, he places her in Mario's arms.

When the baby is placed in his arms, Mario can't help all his tears because she's so cute! (she's actually a bit ugly, like any newborn baby is) and small (not really, she's bigger than average, especially for a twin pregnancy), and she's utterly perfect (that part's true).

Peach and Mario lean their heads together while admiring their baby (and having so many tears running down their cheeks, but they don't care).

"Oh, Mario- she's perfect," Peach barely chokes out, feeling her heart overwhelmingly full. She turns to him and kisses his head a bunch of times, while Mario smiles brightly. "You did great!"

Then Doctor Toadlina tells Mario that, given baby two's position, it'd be a while for them to be born, so he's allowed to rest and maybe take a quick nap if he wishes to. And Mario takes up on the offer right away.

He leans his head back on the pillows and, with his baby still held in his arms, he knocks out immediately. Peach lets out a surprised but amused giggle. And Luigi shakes his head in amusement too, he gently brushes Mario's hair from his forehead, and then pats his head tenderly. Mario's arms go a bit lose around the baby, but Peach and Luigi make sure he still holds her firmly, supporting his arms with their hands. While Mario naps they whisper about the baby, and how cute she is, with her little cheek squished against Mario's chest.

Peach notes all the physical features that she notices, the clearest one being her round Mario™ nose! And her brown hair, and her little dot eyes, so similar to how she knew Mario's were when he was a baby!

(Mario and Peach totally fall in love when they see their oldest baby- and fall in love again with the second- who arrives almost half and hour later.)

🌟 Once both babies are in Mario's arms, Luigi takes 23429 pictures of the three while claiming that each picture is absolutely perfect, because Mario looks happy in them (and the babies look adorably ugly- like newborns usually do), and Peach, while crying her eyes out, says how she's going to put all 23429 of them in their photo album (that so far has many pictures of Mario's pregnancy process-).

Mario's sure he looks terrible, because despite his joy he feels really exhausted, he can barely keep his eyes open enough to look at Luigi's phone while he snaps several pictures, and even though Peach ran her fingers through his hair to fix it up a bit for that moment, he knew it probably was still a mess.

It's just that everything happened so quickly and it was taking its toll on him, but at least he's very glad that both babies (baby girls! They're Mariella and Nettarina!) are in his arms already.

After everything is done, and he knows his babies are going to be well-cared for, Mario just passes out the rest of the night, and nothing wakes him up. When the babies start to get fussy because they feel hungry, Peach and Luigi take care of them, and they keep doing it for the whole rest of the afternoon and night, all while quietly speaking among themselves how cute the baby girls are and how much they look like either Mario or Peach (definitely more like Mario). Peach tears up almost each time she looks down at the babies' little faces, but it's out of her overwhelming happiness, while she whispers to herself: 'stars, they're finally here!'

At some moment, Peach hands Mariella to Luigi's arms so she can drink some water, since the baby seemed adamant about not joining her twin (and mamma) in sleeping.

"I feel very dehydrated-" she says quietly and then serves herself a glass from their coffee table. Peach makes the mistake of looking back to her brother-in-law and the little bundle of light green blankets in his arms, and she has to cover her mouth to sob again, turning to look at her glass. Oh, she was so small! And so real and there already! She hadn't felt this overwhelmingly happy since... maybe ever. And also, Peach is sure the lack of sleep has something to do with her very emotional state.

"I don't blame you, you've-a cried so much, Peach," mutters Luigi distractedly, as if he hadn't been crying a lot too, while very gently rocking one of his newborn nieces as the baby slowly blinked at him.

She had a round nose like all the Marios did (he, his bro and Magma-), and very relaxed little eyebrows, and almost a full head of reddish chestnut hair. And her little mouth was not even pouting, but Luigi couldn't help but think that she (and her sister, since they were identical) reminded him very much of when Magma was a newborn, and just placed in his arms (he also briefly remembered Mario's and Bowser's weeping when they saw her properly, and he huffed a laugh to himself).

-By the end, Peach puts only some (but still many) of the pictures in their family album, several of Mario holding the girls, either smiling or kissing them, others of her holding them, others of both new moms with their babies, and others of Luigi holding his nieces.

🌟 The next morning, Mario wakes up and the first thing he does is stretch as much as he can, realizing that he actually slept pretty well (and he was even laying on his back!). He feels a bit sore and all but less... heavy. He looks down to his body and sees his still round and swollen belly, but much less than it should be if he had two babies inside. He panics for all of a few seconds as he looks around the room, and a huge relief envelops him as he sees the two wooden bassinets that hadn't been there the day before, until the previous afternoon, when one of the nurses brought them in from the nursery to lay the babies.

He looks at the other two sleeping adults in the room, at Peach sitting in one of the armchairs in their room, with her cheek against her fist in what must be an uncomfortable position, with her crown still placed perfectly on top of her head. And to Luigi, sprawled at the foot of the bed, hatless and snoring slightly.

He smiles to himself slightly and slowly gets out of bed, wincing a bit because he still feels kind of tender from the previous day and the toll it had in his body. Mario waddles sluggishly to the bassinets and his soft smile turns bright as he looks at the little babies' faces. They're still as perfect as they were the day before, when he had them in his arms.

He looks at the oldest baby, Nettarina, wrapped in the red-pink blanket, just like he and Peach accorded that the first baby to be born would be, and then to Mariella, who's wrapped in light green. And whose little dot eyes are blinking open. Mario gets closer to her bassinet, and he leans a bit while smiling softly to her.

"Hi, baby," he whispers, holding out a hand to lightly caress her very soft cheek with a finger. Mariella just keeps blinking, with her little closed fists close to her face. She does a big yawn with her eyes tightly closed, and then she keeps looking and blinking in Mario's direction.

She was just born yesterday, and of course her vision was just terrible, but Mario still smiled at her widely as if to show her how happy he was that she was finally there. After a while the baby fell asleep, all while Mario kept looking at her.

He spent some very good minutes on his feet beside his babies, until Peach stirred awake and, upon seeing Mario standing, scrambled to her feet and with a smile asks how he's feeling-

The morning goes all nicely and stuff while both new moms (and uncle!) spend the time caring for the babies and tending to them. When it's the afternoon and Mario's feeling much better, they first let Toadsworth in -who got there early to ask for Mario's and the babies' state- and he's all weepy while looking at his grandbabies!

Maybe a few days later their friends meet their babies, as do their niblings and Daisy and all :''v

#super mario bros #mareach #text #my art #mario mario #princess peach #toad nintendo #luigi mario #mareach fankid #mareach family au #mareach preggy stuff #mpreg #godbless this is so long akjsdkjas #this ask is kinda old like the others I have on inbox but I'm gonna try to use them to answer the questions jiji #I'm not sure if I put everything I wanted in this but akjsdkasjd it's so long already wiwiwi #and I've been writing it for like a week I feel #If I want to add something I might just make another little post #also I was insecure about scheduling it once I deemed it finished- #bc of reasons #i hope you enjoyed it if you read it! #ALSO headcanon that Peach's una latina güerita alskdaslkd (like her voice actor in the movie is?? :0) #in Sarasaland they speak Spanish mainly #and in the MK it's mostly English #and Daisy and Peach's moms are both from sarasaland #ALSO sorry if there are typos or mistakes! I checked it many times but maybe I missed something :'y

[e-vay]

Evay QA Bulk Post 3

Here’s the latest assembly of asks, assorted by topics so you can browse only what interests you. Also, some questions refer to the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure game I made, so to avoid spoilers for those of you who haven't played it, I put those asks all the way at the bottom. If you haven't played my game yet, please go play it!

PERSONAL ASKS

Anon asked: E-vay may i ask which tablet mark do you use for your drawings?

And dreamylumi-art asked: Was wondering what is your favorite brushes In Procreate? Your drawings look so fun and bouncy that I’m interested in your process!

A: I use an iPad and I do all my drawings in Procreate now. I like to experiment with brushes, but the primary brushes I use come standard with Procreate. I use the "Procreate Pencil" for my sketches and the "Technical Pen" for linework :)

Anon asked: How are u and ur family doing? ❤️

A: You are so very sweet for asking ❤️ We're all doing really good right now. My dad's surgery went great and he's cancer free and fully healed. My mom is on medication that's helped her a lot. Things are also looking up for my younger sister (she even got engaged this Christmas!). I'm stressed but for good reasons hahaha I'm very thankful and counting my blessings right now.

twistedchaos101 asked: Hey, what’s your MBTI?

A: I just retook the test and I got "INFJ-T Advocate" for myself :)

karura-senpai asked: Have u ever heard of these new bollywood movies like Animal and Dunki which are popular rn around the world because of instagram reels and tiktok videos...

A: I can't say that I have, I'm sorry! My Tiktok FYP is very niche so I don't see many things about movies on there.

edwinflores428 asked: E-vay, since you're also a Beatles enjoyer, did you hear the new Beatles song 'Now and Then'?

A: I had not known about this before you told me! I just listened to it and I really loved it. It has that beautiful, 60's-Beatles feel to me. Thank you so much for point it out to me!

Anon asked: What's your creative process when going into writing / planning for a comic? Apologies if this has been asked before.

A: I normally start by just jotting down any super rough concepts/quotes in my notes app. If the piece I'm doing involves stuff I don't know by heart (renaissance clothing or certain landscapes or anything like that) I'll work on gathering a TON of resource images. That way I'm not interrupting my drawing process by repeatedly stopping to look up references. I try to do it all up front and have it saved somewhere I can easily access.

Once I have more time, I'll write out the script in a Google Doc. I break up the script by each panel. I won't always have all the elements ready in my head, and sometimes I'll combine panels or separate them more, but I can always adjust:

Once I have a basic script, I can start to rough out the drawings/panels. These are just gestural drawings; I'm not looking to do anything too detailed here. I'm trying to figure out what best captures the emotions/energy of the scene and determine the natural flow of where your eyes will want to read the art and word bubbles:

Then I move on to the "pencils." This is my opportunity to nail down the expressions and flow. Sometimes I'll realize the page is imbalanced so I will redesign the panels so it has more even weight distribution or make it more dynamic/emotional. I always draw the characters in different colors so it can help me make sure I know what lines belong to which character:

Then it's on to all the fun stuff: Lines, coloring, shading and adding text!

I hope this answered your question! It's pretty straight forward :)

Anon asked: have you ever watched the anime fairy tail? if no i think sonamy fits the main couple NaLu (natsu x lucy) really well, like as if they’re similar 🫶🏻

A: I'm sorry, I've never seen it! I don't watch much anime anymore.

Anon asked: Can you make different characters(aka people sonic characters/oc) in your own style

A: When I'm open for commissions, yes! I am not open for commissions at the moment but I plan on doing that this year.

--

MISC SONIC ASKS

chrismantike asked: What’re your thoughts on longclaw (the owl from the sonic movie) does she exist in your AU as Sonic’s mom?

A: I liked the relationship we saw between Longclaw and baby Sonic in the movie, but I consider the movie as something entirely separate from the game/comic canon. I don't include any of the movie elements as part of my AU.

essycogany asked: What do you like most about Prime!Sonic?

A: Hmm, I think my favorite thing about him is how open he is with his emotions. In this show, he's very verbal about how much he cares about his friends and he doesn't hide it when he's sad or upset about something. In other media, Sonic has a habit of masking his emotions. I get that that's part of his personality, but it's nice to see this different side of him. (I also like how he showed more emotions in Frontiers, too!)

juli071023 asked: e-vay, what motivates you a lot about Sonic these years, why do you love it a lot, what motivates you about that character?

A: In the words of Young Neil, 'that's kind of a big question' haha. Simply put, the franchise just fuels me with excitement and joy and love! The character Sonic represents happiness and freedom and living in the moment and loving life to the fullest and I think that's such a great outlook to have. From a meta standpoint, I love how good the Sonic Team is to us fans. They engage with us regularly and put out SO MUCH CONTENT for us, more than any other franchise I'm aware of! I mean there are plenty of other great IPs out there, but you don't get the bombardment of games and shows and comics and social media engagement (etc) that you get with Sonic. I just think that's so cool! The fans love Sonic so much and the creators know that and reward us for our commitment. It's awesome.

Anon asked: So who do you think would win in a fight between Mario and Sonic

A: I gotta go with my boy Sonic! But of course it's better when they team up :D

Anon asked: How do you feel about the Dadow theory/au? As in Shadow being Silvers Dad. I honestly like it a lot.

A: If they're related, I think it makes more sense for Shadow to be Silver's grandpa or great grandparent. I think there are plot holes to say that he's directly his dad but I'm definitely open to them being related. Plus I think people can headcanon/au just about whatever they want, so I'm not against that theory :)

Anon asked: Hi e-vay, I hope you’re having a great day!! My question is: if there were to be a Sonic movie that’s only about Sonic and the guys but they were all being played by human actors, which actors do you think would suit them best?

A: Thank you so much, I hope you are too! Oh man this was so difficult but I put a ton of thought into it. And I'm sure there are still tons of actors I'm not thinking of who would be better, but here's what my gut tells me: Older Sonic: Max Greenfield [x] [x] or Jack Quaid [x] [x]. They're so witty and handsome and are built like runners! Younger Sonic: Jack Dylan Grazer Older Amy: Alison Brie. Even if it wasn't a live action movie, I so desperately wish that Alison Brie could be Amy's voice actor. I'm actually working on an animation where Amy is paired with some Alison Brie lines because I think it's such a perfect fit. She's sweet and funny and strong and sexy. She's on the petite side but she has that confidence that just commands a room. Ugh, Amy and Alison are my dream women 💖 Younger Amy: McKenna Grace Older Tails: Justice Smith or Cole Sprouse Younger Tails: Noah Jupe or Jacob Tremblay. Sorry, I don't know many young actors but I think they're both great! Older Knuckles: Terry Crews or Jason Momoa Younger Knuckles: Tyler James Williams [x] [x] Shadow: Jensen Ackles or Michael B Jordan 💖Swoon💖 Older Rouge: Ana de Armas or Charlize Theron Younger Rouge: Jenna Ortega or Sophie Turner

Anon asked: How old are the sonic boom characters in your opinion?

A: Firstly, I've said this before but I don't think Mobian age works the same as human age. I consider the Sonic Boom characters as all being what we'd consider as late teens or young adults. They all act like me and my friends did when were were college age haha

Anon asked: What do u think tails looked/acted during puberty🙂

A: That's what Tall!Tails is all about! I think he shot up in height and outgrew Sonic immediately. Maybe he got a bit more snarky and might mutter about how annoying it is that Sonic doesn't think things through before acting, but Tails is a sweetheart and I think he'd overall still be nice even while he's in that awkward stage of life.

--

MY OCs/AU ASKS

@redbirduniverse13 asked: Hi i love your art 💖 My question is, are your characters aware that other versions of them exist?

A: Thank you so much! No, they aren't aware of any other versions of them out there. Ruff would probably be most hopeful to meet other versions of himself since he's into comic books and would love the concept of the multiverse.

twistedchaos101 asked: What's your ocs MBTI?

A: I have too many OCs to do all of them lol But I'll do it for Aurora and CC. As Aurora, the results from the test were: "ENFP-T Campaigner" As CC, the results from the test were: "INTJ-A Architect"

Anon asked: Question, how is Aurora able to glow ?

A: Aurora has photokinesis, which gives her the ability to manipulate light. This results in a lot of things she's able to do that involve light, but glowing is the easiest thing for her to do (and is the hardest for her to suppress lol). She was born with these abilities but they didn't manifest until she was about preteen age.

charlieangel345 asked: You know everytime I saw Aurora glow up, her photokinesis power changes color. It made me wonder if she feel happy, angry, or sad, her light power might change colors. I can imagine she can create rainbow light.

A: Absolutely! Her powers are severely influenced by her emotions, so the color of her glow would definitely change based on her feelings. I have her inhibitors glow green naturally, but she could do any color under the light spectrum.

freshcreationgarden asked: I like to think Aurora's favorite fairytale growing up was beauty and the beast. Something about a handsome prince who hides beneath a rough exterior who believes they are not worthy of love who is bound to a "Rose"

A: Oh that is just too sweet! That metaphor is very perfect for what I write for her romantic future ;) I have said in a previous ask that Thumbelina is her favorite fairytale, but I like your headcanon too!

Anon asked: Hi, something randomly popped in my head about like the comics of aurora and I wondered, has aurora ever gotten sick?

A: Of course! She's just a regularly lady so she gets sick like average people do. I see her as the type that doesn't get sick often, but when she does it LAAAASTS. (That's how I am and it sucks!)

Anon asked: I know this might be a weird question, but can it be possible if Aurora can do chaos control with a chaos emerald like Sonic and Shadow.

A: I'll be honest, because we don't know much about Chaos Emeralds, I don't know who is capable of using them or not. But because Sonic is capable of using Chaos Control, I'm going to say yes Aurora should be able to as well. I don't think it's a technique either of them can master like Shadow does. Chaos Control seems second nature to Shadow.

Anon asked: if we go by sonic underground lore imagine Aurora finding out that she's technically a princess/duchess. Like sonic always call her princess because that's what dad's typically call their daughters, but then she finds out and her mind just explodes.

A: Honestly, I'm not a Sonic Underground fan. I know a lot of people love it for the nostalgia, but I didn't watch it growing up so I don't have any ties to it and I am not a fan of the story. I'm okay if people want to headcanon tying it in, but it's not for me.

*The next question is a Shadora Ask. Skip if you don't like Shadora*

Anon said: Hi, so glad you’re back! Just reread Boom!Baby where Rouge mentions how hedgehogs have a lot of babies and I think it’s kinda funny in the future Shadow and Aurora have eight

A: Thank you so much, I'm so happy to be back! Yeah, Rouge really knew what she was talking about 😆 I bet she told Shadow the same thing when they were expecting!

Anon asked: Does aroura ever run into her ex again?

A: Aurora spends most of her life in a small bubble, rarely leaving her home town, so she would have run into him now and then. Again though, they were kids when they were "boyfriend/girlfriend" and you can hardly even call them that (Imagine like in the Barbie movie, how Ken and Barbie don't know what it means to be Girlfriend-Boyfriend) so it's not awkward running into each other. It's more of a "Hey there's that person I used to know"

prophecyhyper asked: When Aurora was born and Amy said "She's more perfect than I imagined" What did she imagine of Aurora looking like?

A: She didn't have an exact image in mind when she said that. It was more like an amorphous concept. You know somehow the baby will look like you and your partner, but there are so many different outcomes. So she would have daydreamed about all the possibilities: the baby looking more like Sonic, the baby looking more like her, maybe the baby having elements of their grandparents.

Anon asked: Will Sage exist in your AU?

A: Yes! I adore Sage!

*The next question is a Shadora Ask. Skip if you don't like Shadora*

Anon asked: Hey Evay, I’ve been thinking about this lately. It’s kind of silly question. If there is a naughty and nice list, which of Shadora Kids is naughty or nice.

A: This was a great question and I'm so sorry I missed it before the holidays! This is all in fun, none of them got punished: Piper: Nice but ONLY after Santa had to give her a lecture on how she needs to not be a smartass and boss around her siblings Zane: Naughty (He did too many stunts indoors!) Nova: Nice Aster: Naughty (He and Blitz plotted to kidnap Santa) Blitz: Naughty (She finds it a point of pride) Diamond: Nice Cinder: Nice (He's scared of Santa) Boon: NICE! (He doesn't know the meaning of the word naughty!)

Anon asked: haven’t seen CC in a while, could we have more CC please

A: There will be more CC, I promise! :)

kbluetoons asked: Say, after reading your spindash lesson comic (which was really cute by the way), what if Aurora showed her kids how to spindash like how Sonic showed her?

A: Aw I'm so happy you liked it! Yes, learning to spin dash is vital to a hedgehog's upbringing ;) She'd teach them very young but then immediately regret it because they'd be spindashing all over the house. Now she knows why Sonic was so hesitant to teach her when she was little!

mod-bubamon asked: I know spooky season is over but how do cc and tails handle horror movies? Does cc Criticize every litter thing the protagonist do? Does tails even get scared after all he's been through? IF CC GETS SCARED DOES SHE HUGS TAILS TAILS FOR COMFORT??? THIS IS IMPORTANT

A: Hahaha I loved this question! First of all, Spooky Season is never over for me! ↜(ˈ╰ •ω•)╯ψ So bring on all your Halloweeny ideas! CC would not be fun to watch horror movies with. She would be overly analytical, not only of the actions that the victims are doing but how unrealistic the injuries/gore/battles are haha. I see Tails as someone who originally was afraid of scary movies, but watching them with CC has actually helped him to be less afraid of them. Now he spots the same flaws she does and they like to roast them together! Just to clarify -- CC does get scared of things, just not horror movies.

Anon asked: Hey, I rediscovered your art recently and almost forgot how much I loved it! I love CC and was wondering if you had any small head cannon kinda things you have for her and Tails you would share that you haven't already?

A: Well welcome back and thank you so very much! This question was not related to the previous question, but the previous question sparked an idea for me so I'm going to expand on it here. When Tails and CC first started watching horror movies together, CC noticed that Tails was super on edge. To help relax him, she'd take his tails into her lap and pet them to calm him down. He's not as scared of movies anymore, but he always has her stroke his tails while they watch shows together now :) Also, CC is still getting used to Mobian mannerisms and nuances. They've made a nightly routine where during dinner, she debriefs Tails on all the new conversations and interactions she's had with people and Tails scores her on how well she's adjusting. She likes the challenge and strives for a better "score" every day!

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SHIPPING ASKS

essycogany asked: How are you feeling about the new Sonamy material from this and last year? Things are really starting to become more obvious as the years go on.

A: It does my shriveled little heart so much good! I don't know that they'll ever cross that line in canon, but I love how much their relationship has evolved compared to years ago. It means the world to me that Sonic considers Amy as one of his best friends and as someone he can depend on (and is even willing to think about dating ((in reference to that cut dialog line from Frontiers)). And I love that Amy has proven that her feelings for Sonic are more than just a fan-crush; she genuinely loves him for who he is and will always be there for him. UGH IT MAKES ME FEEL SO ALIVE!

Anon asked: I just wanted to say that I love love love your sonamy works! :D Absolutely adorable (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧ Also, only if you want to answer ofc, what are your thoughts on the ship Metamy (Metal Sonic and Amy)? Thank you for the lovely food you bring and have a wonderful day!

A: Oh gosh, thank you so much! You just made my day wonderful by this sweet message! I do ship Metamy! After all, I believe in my heart of hearts that Sonic has feelings for Amy and Metal Sonic is supposed to be the same as him... ^_~ I think despite his transgressions, Amy has a special place in her heart for Metal. He's one of the reasons she even met Sonic in the first place! But what I'd prefer most is for Metal Sonic to have a Metal Amy. That way everybody wins 💕

Anon asked: Hi e-vay I love ur dr who art!! Question, do tenrose remind you of sonamy? Or do any characters or couples from the whoverse remind you of any sonic character or couples?

A: Ahhh thank you so much! I always thought my Doctor Who art got lost in the void so I'm so glad you found it! TenRose is my favorite DoctorWho ship, so I think by law I have to relate them to sonamy haha. But honestly I think RoryXAmyPond suits sonamy more if you reverse the roles. Rory's absolute dedication to AmyPond--regardless of death--was the definition of love, and that's how I feel Amy Rose is for Sonic. I can't think of any other ships that are good parallels. River Song reminds me of Rouge just that she's savvy and flirty. Forgive me, I stopped watching after Eleven regenerated so I'm not up to date on anything. If you don't like the Shadora ship then don't click this link, but I have drawn Aurora and Shadow as Ten and Rose before :)

Anon asked: Werehog Sonic and Werehog Amy kiss meme or a mini comic about both kissing in their werehog forms?

A: I kind of already drew that :) It's the 10th drawing in this post.

*The next question is a Shadora Ask. Skip if you don't like Shadora*

penguin-evere asked: hello! this is my first time doing something like this. i've loved your art for a while now (probably since 2017-2018), and i love the new style you have! anyways, i wanted to ask if you've seen the frontiers twitter takeover, and the newfound information about shadow's secret like of some good ol' t. swizzle music, and was curious if aurora would be a fan too, and if they would go to a concert together! i think it'd be really cute.

A: Thank you so much! And I'm so relieved you still like my stuff even after all this time :) Aurora loves pop music and so yeah I could see her being a Taylor fan for sure. Although I don't take Swifty!Shadow as canon (lol) it is still fun to think they could bond over that music together!

*The next question is a Shadora Ask. Skip if you don't like Shadora*

Anon asked: what was the shadora confession like? Cause I like to imagine that it was shadow who confessed and that he did it in the most dramatic way possible, cause he's our drama king.

A: I don't want to reveal too much until I've properly drawn it, but yes for my stories Shadow would confess his love first. He's technically loved her longer since he met her when she traveled back in time to save him so once they've "re-met" I don't think he'd be willing to hide his feelings too long. It's Shadow so of course it has to be so romantic and dreamy~!

--

ASKS RE: MY GAME

Anon asked: How did you make the Trick Or Sweet Halloween Game, can you show me what you used or did to make it? If you can do a step by step that would be helpful or just tell me how you did it that would be helpful:))

A: Oh man... Honestly, it was way too complicated of a project to explain in just one answer. And I won't be able to explain any of the technical/coding side. I watched so many tutorials but I just couldn't grasp it, so my husband had to code it for me and I have no idea how he managed it. From a non-technical standpoint, I had to first write out the script for it. That means writing out all the dialog and also writing out every option possible. Even though my game was fairly linear, this was still complicated to write. What helped me was using icons and colors to help me know which actions would lead to which outcomes:

Then came the longest part, the drawing! I had to draw a variety of sprites and backgrounds and objects. Also, some of the actions you take make certain items go away, so I had to remember to hide them depending on the path you took. Once I had all the elements, I assembled them in a Slides presentation to test it out. If you're not doing anything too complicated, you could probably get away with making your game entirely in Google Slides. Mine was too complicated and I wouldn't be able to publish it to my website but it was good for testing. When it was ready for build, I had to make a comprehensive guide for Ryan showing what clicks lead to where, what sound effects should be played when, when the music tracks should switch, etc:

He programmed it in Adobe Animate. I don't know how he did it, other than he's just a brilliant babe and I thank god for him lol

Anon asked: Just at a curiosity though, whatever happened to everyone (especially Sonic & Amy) AFTER your truth serum wore off from your ‘Trick or Sweet Adventure’? Also how about Shadow & Rouge? Did they get affected as well?

A: They lived happily ever after, of course! If the two just told each other how they felt then they'd be happy (in my opinion) so they just needed a little magical kick in the butt haha. I didn't have any plans for Shadow or Rouge, but if I could cast a spell to make them happy then I would give Rouge a throne of diamonds and Shadow the chance to ease the pain in his heart (Ｔ▽Ｔ)

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Thank you all for the questions!

Evay QA Bulk Post 1

Evay QA Bulk Post 2

#Ask me #evayQA #MasterQA #MasterPost #long post #bulk QA #MasterAsk #headcanons #my au #sonic trash #bulk #bulkQA

[cryptids-and-muses]

Post canon homestuck crew play Dungeons and Dragons

Karkat and terezi

Co dms

Unstoppable when actually working together

Terezi will get sidetracked messing with karkat

Karkat trying to write a deep and well fleshed out campaign that’s thematically resonant vs terezi’s desire for chaos and traps and trying to “trick” her players FIGHT

Terezi believes in karma and will make the world bend to this

Karkat is trying to set up romance arcs and argues about how it adds to the theming

Dave draws them fanart of their characters. Terezi loves it while karkat argues about accuracy before admitting yes he also appreciates it

Calliope also does fanart and karkat praises her skill and accuracy unlike some people

John

Arcane trickster rogue

Forest gnome

Just a goofy little guy!

Mostly just playing to have fun, starts off with a fun but simple character who develops over time

Ends up SUPER invested and taking this so so seriously

Karkat worked a dramatic reveal into the, in his words, “bare ass bones two paragraphs that a fucking wiggler could have written backstory” and John did not see it coming and loved it

Goes head to head with terezi a lot on her various traps she designs for them. She is getting more and more absurd with it. Karkat had to talk to her about breaking the world building with things she’s introducing. He is the only rogue. Send help.

Rose

Drow warlock

Tries to justify picking drow as anything other than she just thought it was cool

Nearly went old ones for patron but settled on archfey for story reasons

Has a 10 page lore document detailing her tragic past and her toxic relationship with her patron

It became 15 pages after going back and forth with karkat for a bit and adding even more

Only her and one other person are taking the romance arcs seriously and they become karkat’s favorite players

Tries playing morally ambiguous but terezi can be annoying about that and claims it’s just “the consequences of her actions”

Her and karkat both get very very into the scenes between her and her patron, the drama! The acting! Dave is uncomfortable and karkat brushes it off, it’s not like him role playing as his sister’s abusive girlfriend is weird. It’s in fact very important to the plot Dave

Has written fanfic of the campaign

Jade

Dragonborn barbarian

Path of the beast

Don’t ask me I just know

Her GLEE when she says “I’m gonna rage :D”

ANIMAL COMPANION! She nearly went ranger just for that but knew she wouldn’t have as much fun. Found a way to get one anyway.

It was harder naming her animal companion than her character

Having fun and likes the problem solving side of things, but likes breaking things with her massive strength just as much

Terezi likes to throw stuff at her, both traps and encounters, and finds it funny if she can just wreck her way through

“See John that’s how you deal with a pressure plate trap”

Takes the rp side of things very seriously

Once argued with Karkat over if her favorite npc would do that and cursed him out

Has read roses fanfic of the campaign

Dave

Plays a teifling with grey skin and orange horns

“What are you talking about karkat this is just my dude, don’t you like him?”

Hellus Jeffus

He’s a valor bard, eventually multiclasses paladin

Starts out just trying to mess with people but like John starts getting into it, though he tries to down play it

Have hellus more of himself than he realized and it’s making him face things about himself

Eventually hellus self sacrifices to save the party in this deeply intense moment. There were tears, Dave was wrecked, they went on a whole quest to revive him. It was touching and karkat is smug

Dave might have worked through some things

Jane

Halfling cleric

Her and John are small buddies!!!

Started out life but wasn’t having a lot of fun with it so with terezi’s permission switched to war or tempest with later s few levels in fighter

Her John and Jade are the biggest front liners, John’s character ends up really close with both of them as it’s easier for the rogue to bond with the person giving them sneak attack

Jade and jane’s character have an in game arm wrestling match

Took a bit to get into the rp side of things but eventually got the hang of it

Roxy

Tabaxi, easily, it’s so obvious

After much deliberation settles on glamour bard (though wizard and rogue were tempting for the joke, she wanted to branch out)

So many horny bard jokes but very little actual follow through, karkat gets frustrated by this as she’s all this talk but isn’t pursuing any of the romance options he’s giving her

She has SECRETS! She is HIDING THINGS!! Her cheery persona is a FASADE!!!

Cue complaining to karkat about how hard it is to wait to tell the others about her secrets and him threatening violence if she tells anyone before the in game reveal

She tells jake

Lots of egging on Dave and helping him with his fucking around

The BOND between her and Dave!!! They are the duo to end all duos. Team rocket type shit. There is nothing stronger than the bond between the bards of the party. My theory is it has to do with trading bardic inspiration.

Dirk

Half elf Druid circle of spores

Wildfire seemed fun to him but wasn’t as good

Wasn’t originally planning on being a Druid but after going over all the classes he liked all the customization and decisions that go into Druid like prepared spells and such

Didn’t really think about his backstory much, just improved something. He keeps improving new additions and it’s getting more and more elaborate and complicated. He has multiple hidden and long lost siblings by this point. Still doesn’t write any of this down. If he messes a detail up he justified it with more improv.

Yes his character has spiked up red hair and sunglasses. Don’t question how the Druid got sunglasses karkat.

Really likes the tactics side of things, he’s even pitched a few things to terezi she updated and later worked in

Sometimes works on plans and strategies out of game or making a million back up characters that play off the others in interesting mechanical ways

Is considering becoming a dm some time

Jake

Needed some help making his character, he just didn’t know where to start

Eventually after much discussion settles on a teifling bladesong wizard

Wanting to get away from his usual adventurer style Roxy helped with the backstory and they came up with this evil scientist raised in a cult who’s good hearted but was never taught right and wrong

He gets very into playing him and his moral struggle but can lean a little too good for his backstory, karkat points this out and Jake swears to get better at it

Dave pitched a lot of names for them and it was eventually settled on “Bernard Gunn” even though he has a sword. Jake just likes how it sounds

“Why is he blue jake?” “…..uhhh” “why is he blue?”

Calliope

SHE LOVES THIS SO MUCH

Teifling Druid with a focus on healing

Circle of shepards

Not a troll color pallet like Dave though, honestly it might get a bit trickster

Beautiful backstory that she coordinated with one of the others to make joint. The most obvious choice is Roxy but I think it was actually jade, Jane or John.

She gets so into it you guys, like so into it

Gives at least one dramatic speech completely on the fly

The other character who takes karkat’s romance arcs seriously and his other favorite player

Has also argued with terezi about world building and consistency. This may put her above rose in karkat’s eyes

Was also allowed to read rose’s fanfiction and offered full on reviews

Also considering going into doing but for the opposite reasons to Dirk

Vriska

Fairy artillerist artificer with a dip in war magic wizard

Min maxxed to hell and back

(Technically there was a better race, but fairy has its own advantages and she couldn’t resist)

An elaborate backstory too with some secrets of her own, I’m thinking full on lost princess

Yes she is That Player, you know the one

Has nearly been kicked multiple times and now won’t leave on principle

Not the best at sticking with the party and not just doing whatever she wants, but suprisingly Dirk has been able to talk her into it with his talk of tactics and playing smart

Second most effective is John who just looks at her like “vriska you’re not making this very fun :(“

Kanaya

Fire genasi ranger

Really tried to get into it but this just isn’t her thing so eventually decided to leave the group

Karkat came up with a fun story reason for her to leave and eventually brought her character back as an Npc

Did help rose make a cosplay of her character, after which John, Calliope, and Roxy wanted to make ones too

Vriska eventually tried to “manipulate” into helping her make one for her character

#homestuck #homestuck headcanon #homestuck funny #dnd #dnd au #homestuck dnd #can’t believe I’m making this in 2023 #based on my dm introducing a blue teifling named Bernard Gunn who looks like John Egbert and it felt like a slap to the face #yes he is blue #dave strider #rose lalonde #john egbert #jade harley #karkat vantas #terezi pyrope #vriska serket #kanaya maryam #jane crocker #roxy lalonde #dirk strider #jake english #calliope #calliope homestuck

[chansaw]

on red and blue symbolism in heathers: an essay

i read one of those buzzfeed listicles the other day that was like “crazy fun facts and secrets about your favorite 80s movies!” and one of the first fun facts was “did you know that in heathers, every character is associated with a color?” that’s not a fun fact. it’s not even a secret. heathers is a lot of things but one thing it’s not is subtle. heathers practically beats the viewer over the head with color symbolism but in this essay, i would particularly like to draw attention to the colors red and blue and their significance in heathers’ narrative.

a short preface: when possible, i cite stills sourced from the movie itself. some images, however, are served better by the gif format, so whenever i post a gif i will also cite the tumblr user who made it. if your gifs are used in this post and you would like me to remove them, please let me know.

okay, with that out of the way, let's start at the beginning (naturally). below is the title card. right away, the cinematographers inundate the viewer with red, informing the viewer that red (and whoever wears it) will be significant to the narrative.

red represents the social order and the natural hierarchy of predators and prey at westerburg. red is omnipresent throughout the production design of the school's campus.

by assuming the color of the school itself, heather chandler assumes control of the school. and when she drags veronica along to the remington party to help boost their reputation, the whole dorm is bathed in red light.

when we first meet veronica, she's wearing gray and black, with only occasional pops of blue (the brooch in the outfit above, her croquet mallet, etc) but as veronica's discomfort and unease begins to grow, something interesting begins to happen!

blue light slowly begins to creep into the frame, and once veronica has finally had enough of brad's bullshit, it becomes even more prominent. just as red represents control of the social hierarchy, blue symbolizes discontent and rejection of the social order.

(gif by @/fireairshadow)

meanwhile, heather chandler isn't having a great time at the party either. this scene is the only time in the film we see heather chandler completely alone, in a moment of vulnerability and self loathing, and she's surrounded by the color blue.

(gif by @/tibby ily tibby)

and then all hell breaks loose. i honestly dont think one image or gif alone can do this scene justice so im linking to tibby's (beautifully colored) gifset of the scene.

note how as veronica declares war ("lick it up, baby!"), red and blue lights flicker across her face. and as heather promises to ruin veronica in turn, the red light casts heather's face in shadow and overpowers the blue.

of course, heather never gets the chance to make good on this promise because veronica and jd kill her. and that may have been a mistake, but the color of their poison is quite deliberate.

(gif by @/nowadayz)

and right before she dies, she takes off her red scrunchie - conceding her control.

of course, heather's death doesn't mean her exit from the narrative. red lingers throughout the rest of the film. but guess what color veronica wears to the funeral?

tumblr is a little bitch and i dont have the time or energy to expound upon the rest of my argument at the moment. it's probably been examined and analyzed in greater detail by people smarter and far more eloquent than me. but i'll conclude with veronica's reclamation of the red scrunchie at the end of the film. you could choose to interpret this as veronica conceding to the hierarchy even after all she's been through, but i choose to interpret it as a bitter compromise.

(gif by @/nowadayz)

and so it ends the way it begins.

anyways all this to say vote for chansaw in the @redandbluebracket tomorrow or i'll kill you.

ETA: a note to anyone who came to my blog from this post - hi! you don’t have to like chansaw romantically/as a ship. im not expecting to proselytize and convert people en masse (although if you HAVE been converted, welcome). even without the shipping element, i believe that veronica and hc’s dynamic as character foils is the backbone of the narrative, which is why i genuinely think they deserve to win the red and blue bracket. vote here. my name is heather chansaw and i approve this message.

#i have a fucking migraine

[thatonegayship]

This probably feels weird to ask

But I love how you draw dipper in general and your art in particular! Is it possible you could do a little tutorial on how your process goes?

If you don’t want to, I understand completely. I felt really hesitant asking this lol. Anyways, love your art!!!

I'm not the *best* at talking technicality, and certainly not about drawing Dipper; I have three distinct styles when dealing with him, that being Billdip Dipper, Canon Dipper, and AU Dipper, all of whom have entirely different purposes both visually and narratively. This results in some pretty inconsistent representations:

That being said! I'm totally cool with going over my process with you! Layout, technique, brainstorming, all that.

Generally speaking, I like to start my digital work on paper. Nothing crazy, just a basic idea that captures the pose, expression, and clothing (these things are destined to change by the end).

Notice the cloud of dirt kicking up at his feet. Look how I position one arm out while the other pulls farther back, and his hair blows from his face. There's a clear emphasis on motion here, both in body language (feet turned against the force) and added attire (Pinetree cloak flowing back, dust cloud at his feet, etc.)

This design is destined to change, but for action scenes like this, it's good to begin with an expressive foundation, so that once we start chipping away at and remolding our concept, we're building off of a design that encapsulates the *scene* we're wanting to convey. That is, no matter how much we shave off, we still have a strong foundation to reference towards and lean into for inspiration.

The next step is transferring our rough sketch into a digital setting.

This is where I tinker with the lasso tool, maybe take reference photos of the exact pose I had in mind. Here, I'm just breaking down my original sketch on a tablet. I readjusted the feet's position, pulled that other arm in to his chest, and straightened his arm out for a more powerful pose.

The next step focuses on pushing the pose and correcting anatomy errors.

Alright, cool! Now he's not just bracing for action, he's *jumping* into it. The back arm's pulled in like a fist, his shoulder bunched up close to his ear. We see how his body's twisted at the torso, chest out, legs stretched, arm extended.

Notice too how I utilize my shapes to empower the pose. Front arm and leg, extended. Lots of straight lines. It *curves* because of muscle and fat, but outside of that, they're pointed in a distinct direction. Contrastly, his right side curves at the hip and follows subtly up to his chest. This helps emphasize his lean into whatever he's attacking, sort of like a bow.

Now we've added details! You'll notice I've changed a lot of my initial design from my rough-sketch to fit more into the style and personality of Dipper in this setting. Since he's, you know, a "Pinetree," I figured his clothing should reflect it. I'm still working in pencil at this point, blocking out the general shapes of what I want, but not really exploring my options.

The cloak follows a slight gust, his hair flows back, the mushrooms on his shoulder lean out from the action, but these are still only guidelines. Keep it loose! Explore things! Have fun with it!

Next step, Inking. Digital art is *very* forgiving, so I'm a lot less concerned about moving forward without a full idea of my vision. This is usually the step I'm most inspired at because it allows me to go back over my loose sketch and add those minute details that excited me so much. I do not recommend moving forward without full confidence in your initial sketch when using traditional art! YOU WILL CRY!

Clothes: changed. Pose: changed. Details: expanded on.

This is where a bit of knowledge in anatomy is really going to serve you well. Bridging the gap between sketch and ink has always been very difficult for me, and it's due in part to those uncertain, not-quite-right bits I have to build off of from my initial sketch.

It's good to keep your rough draft light and fluid so that they capture the emotion and general pose of your character, but it's also important to keep in mind how you'll have to balance *maintaining* that level of expression while incorporating more realistic aspects of their design.

Take for instance Dipper's left foot that went from being tucked up under his butt, to being in a more braced position- like he's about to land, or skirt to a halt. As a loose sketch, it captures the motion very well. However, incorporating muscle and kneecaps and detailed shoes brings out a lot of the visual flaws. Proportion and angle become a serious issue if you aren't entirely sure how a particular body part would flex/squish/shorten in a particular position. The more realistic you go, the more jarring your mistakes.

This is, of course, not me saying you're forbidden from drawing your characters with a leg under their butt with big, meaty thighs. It's *actually* me letting everyone know that I tried working with the pose, building on it looked weird, and I decided to take a different approach. You are 100% allowed to try something else if your initial plan doesn't work out.

This step is where we adapt and improve. Our digital rough sketch didn't really capture the full power of his motion. His cloak kinda billows out like "Yeah, I'm a cloak, I billow gayly." It's flat, hollow, uninspired. Here, you're looking at photo references of Pinetrees, both real and not-real. You're gonna have to make it look like needles and branches, while *also* being a flowy bit of clothing.

For this, keep in mind how *cloth* moves with a more exaggerated, majestic rough sketch to overlay atop our failure of a branch jacket. Die.

See how despite the spikey pine needles, his cloak follows a distinct pattern? Additionally, this coat works in 3-dimensions. There's an outside and an inside, and it curves like a dome around him. It floats behind him, curves in front of him, lifts up, dips down. Really, it's up to you, but always consider your work on the third plain.

ALSO! Very important: Keep an eye on your line weight! Seriously, this took a long time for me to get a firm grasp of. Not *shading* really, but put a bit more emphasis on those bent spaces with darker lines. See that bold line connecting his thigh to his glutes? And the one behind his knee? DEPTH!! IT ADDS DEPTH!!

And *here* is the final product! This is the shading section, arguably my favorite and least-favorite part about my drawing process. Working in black and white, you don't really have to worry about getting every little shadow on your character. Just shade what needs emphasizing; everything with a shadow gets an added layer of depth as well. This is the part that gives your work an additional POP.

Consider too that shading isn't just solid black, even if you're working in black and white. His arm and under his hood are pretty solid black, but the interior of his cloak is far more textured and light. We see where it's darkest at his sides, but leading out, it lightens into distinct markings that (in my opinion) are visually more appealing. Using this tool is ultimately up to you, though.

Okay, the end!

#dipper pines #gravity falls #asks

[snalzhttps]

IM GOING TO. ramble about an uty headcanon/theory? now SPOILERS

SO THIS is a drawing in Kanako’s room of what appears to be Axis, its meant to be Axis right! (theres an obvious drawing of Dalv too so she’s drawing other characters and we are meant to assume she knows them)

BUT something that sticks out to me is that the heart on Axis’ chest is upside down! (and there are other slight differences too - no gear, lightbulb, or ear things?)

I love the sibling dynamic Axis and Kanako headcanons and drawings they are like my favourite thing, but if Kanako had met Axis 014, how would she get these details wrong?

These could just be errors in memory or artistic ability, she seems very young after all, BUT THAT ANSWER IS WAY LESS FUN THAN RANDOM SPECULATION!!!!!!!

SO. My little headcanon theory is that this drawing is a design that Kanako came up with for a guard robot that Chujin asked her to draw, then he modelled Axis (014 at the least) off of. Kanako is a young monster who wouldn’t know humans had upward facing souls, and only ever seen/known about monsters downward facing souls, so would draw a heart shape that way (then Chujin changed this when building Axis, for some reason)

There is no *proof* for this other than the idea that Kanako is “gifted like her father too” (which is most likely supposed to be referring to the fact they are boss monsters considering the trailed off “she’s a” following), but I like to imagine its also about a creating/art talent since the accompanying picture of Kanako has her painting the mask. Implying to me that Chujin and Kanako could have drawn/created things together and one day the idea of designing a robot (since it was on Chujin’s mind from the steamworks employee reports and letters) came up.

And THAT is where Axis’ (kind of clunky and strange compared to a more sleek and smooth looking robot like guardener that was being built and designed at the same time, showing the capabilities of robot designs) design comes from (this also could explain why the other robot parts in Chujin’s office look a good bit different to how Axis 014 looks).

There is Also nothing to my memory that strictly DISPROVES this, HOWEVER consider this fun value pillar, the fun value pillars in the dark ruins tell the story of the day the integrity human attacked Dalv, Kanako was there, and Chujin sent Axis (014 as we know from his geno route confession and giving exp) after them, killing them accidentally, right?

And it was Dalv (also known to draw, and was attacked by integrity, and is now in the dark ruins) who is the one who drew on these pillars right? So that implies that Dalv saw what happened (most unlikely because Axis followed integrity to Waterfall), heard what happened (unknown from who) or figured out/imagined what happened. In any case it implies that he saw Axis at least once, enough to draw him (even abstractly like this).

I’ve seen the assumption that Axis was there in Snowdin with Chujin, Kanako, and Dalv, (which is fun to think about i think AND matches dalv seeing/knowing axis) BUT in the first Chujin tape where he discusses the event he says no one was there to protect Kanako, which you'd think Axis would be doing if he was there in Snowdin with them.

But where Axis actually was is more ambiguous. In the secret secret tape Chujin says he “should’ve stayed” implying to me that he left the scene to go get Axis from the Steamworks/his office lab basement/wherever, meaning that Dalv couldn’t have seen Axis on that occasion. I also feel like if Axis was in Snowdin it would have been mentioned at some point by someone.

So this scenario doesn’t explain how Dalv saw Axis to be able to draw him. While if Axis WAS in Snowdin that doesnt explain how Kanako would get so many details wrong drawing him, especially if they spent a lot of time/more than one time together.

FURTHERMORE the pacifist route shows that Ceroba and Axis have never seen eachother before either (Chujin also didn’t add Ceroba to Axis’ authorised list by default, implying he didn’t think they’d ever come across eachother?) So if Chujin had Axis and Kanako meet this had to somehow be without Ceroba knowing At All.

(HOWEVER since Ceroba watched Chujin’s tapes she is lying in some way during the pacifist Steamworks because she would have heard the name “Axis” and found out how Chujin got the Integrity soul, so should know more than she lets on about his robotics projects.)

This also implies that Ceroba hasn’t been in Kanako’s room in a long time, maybe even before Kanako fell down, or she would have seen the Axis drawing on the floor. It makes sense that she would avoid Kanako’s room though.

FOR MY FINAL “HOWEVER” I will say that this raises the question of Why the Axis drawing is still on the floor with a pencil, this kind of implies that it might have been the last/most recent thing that Kanako drew, or had gotten out to look at/add too. If Axis 014 is based off the drawing it would be a long time between the Initial drawing -> Chujin builds and codes 014 -> The Snowdin event -> Chujin experiments and falls down -> Kanako falls down -> the events of the game

BUT even between the Snowdin event (the latest time Kanako could have seen Axis, since after that i imagine Chujin would have kept him fully confined to the Steamworks since he was “dangerous”) and the events of the game thats still quite a long time for the drawing to be sat there, so maybe that doesn’t mean much.

THE EXPLANATION I THOUGHT OF MADE ME SO SAD but i have to include this thought, that after the Snowdin event, and especially with Chujin getting very absorbed in his work then starting to fall down, Kanako would have stopped drawing and just left all of her work around her room, and had the Axis one out as it reminded her of Chujin.

ANYWAY i would LOVE to hear what other people think about all this, its very very possible im missing something obvious im a bit silly, if so please tell me haha. Also i love both possibilities of if Axis was in Snowdin or not AND the sibling Axis and Kanako headcanons… the LAST thing i want is to discourage those hc’s they are so cute.

In any case i just think the *concept* of a scientist who wants to perfect his (so far failed) guard robot to protect people, asking his daughter (the monster who he undoubtedly would want to protect most in the world) to design that robot, then getting so lost in his grand pursuit to protect monsterkind that he fails in nearly every way (leaving Kanako at the scene to try and get Axis to apprehend integrity, Axis’ programming messing up leading to him violently killing integrity, leading then to Chujin experimenting on himself and falling down, then the daughter he wanted to protect most falling down the same way because of the work he left behind) REALLY breaks my heart.

#undertale yellow spoilers #axis uty #undertale yellow axis #kanako ketsukane #chujin ketsukane #axis 014 #uty headcanon #ceroba ketsukane #dalv uty #long post

[snow-143]

Water Coloured Tears | Jeon Jungkook

six- late night inspo (1.7k words)

'You're late.' I say without looking up at him.

'And you're as blunt as usual I can see.'

Finally, looking up at him, I squint my eyes before replying, 'Don't change the topic. Why are you late?'

'I had something to take care of.'

'Look, if you aren't going to take this project seriously just say that from the get go. At least that way I can prepare to pick up your slack, so I don't fail.' My voice is a little more accusatory than it could be.

'I'm only 15 minutes late. Chill.' He's finally sat down, across from me, levelling us out.

Managing to soften my voice, I return to my previous point, 'You are going to take this seriously, right?' 

'Yes, y/n, I'm taking this seriously. I really just had to deal with something.'

'Okay. Then lets get to work. I was thinking we could both brainstorm on our individual pieces today. I have a couple of ideas, and I'm sure you do to.' I can't help but smile thinking about the art we could make together. We used to always come up with the craziest ideas together, they may not have always come out as we imagined, but we always had fun.

'That sounds good. What do you have in mind?' He's smiling now too.

'Get your sketchbook out, and I'll tell you. That is if you remembered to bring it.' It was meant to come off as harsh, but it came out far to soft, as if I was joking with him like old times.

'Shit...'

'Jungkook, I swear to god if you tell me you've forgotten it again I will shove this eraser down your throat.'

It's silent for a minute before be bursts out laughing, retreating his beaten up book from his bag. 'Not funny.' And with that I fling the rubber off his head, hitting a perfect bullseye.

This does nothing to sober up his laughing, if anything it made it worse. He's now hunched over the bench making a massive scene out of it all. 'God. You're scary when you're angry, you know that?'

'I've been told once or twice.' I let out a little laugh at this.

When he finally straightens up it's my turn to laugh at the others expense. A massive red mark has formed right in the centre of his forehead. 'Damn I have an extraordinary shot, maybe I should've gone with sport. My talent is obviously being wasted here.'

'Very funny.' He rubs the red splotch on his head cursing, 'How bad is it?'

'What? Worried it'll put off the flock of women always surrounding you?'

'Oh, trust me, It'd take a lot more than this to deter them.' He's smirking now, and It's putting an end to my fit of laughter.

'Right, sorry. Forgot you were like some sort of Greek god here.' I scoff.

'You jealous? Because you sound jealous.' He's still smirking, god do I wish I could slap that smirk off of his face.

'Jungkook, I've seen you playing Barbies with your little sister. Trust me, I do not see in you whatever every other girl on this campus sees in you.'

As soon as I'm finished talking it's like his whole demeanour has changed. He's not smirking any more, so I guess I got my wish.

'So about the individual pieces, how exactly do you think we should go about it?' Is all he replies.

Ignoring the lump in my throat I open my sketchbook and show him what I've planned so far. They aren't very detailed, but they show the overall message I'm trying to put forward.

By the end of my little presentation he's smiling again, and I can't help but feeling a little shy. We've spent hours showing each other our art but after all this time I feel like I'm laying my soul out to him.

Art has always been the way I express myself, and I'm always worried that maybe I'm showing too much.

I've only done sketches for 3 pieces. Technically 4. One that I'm planning on making out of stained-glass, it'll be made up of multiple different parts that hang from the ceiling to make an overall image. The second one is a drawing of a man, that may or may not resemble Jungkook, comforting a little girl, who may or may not resemble me as a child- representing someone healing your inner child. Of course, I'll have to find a way to incorporate the photographs, but I'm sure I'll be able to make up some pretentious explanation.

And lastly there's a sketch of 2 sculptures, both resembling me and Jeon. I must say I enjoyed drawing him far too much, and I'm sure I'll enjoy sculpting his face even more. They count as 2 pieces as we will make them separately, but they also fit together. I've drawn them, so they have cloth covering their eyes that can be removed. I'm also planning on having LED lights in their eyes, so we can change the prospective of them. We can arrange them in many different ways; with them facing away with the fabric covering their eyes, them facing each other with different colour settings on the lights to represent emotions, etc.

I've explained all of this while showing him the drawings. Him adding a little hum here and there, never interrupting me.

The sculpture is the only one of his that I've planned as I wanted it to be a joint project and for the rest I don't want to control his creativity.

'I know I've planned ahead a lot, and we still need to incorporate the pictures, but I'm sure we can think of a way to incorporate them. And for the others we can centre it more around the pictures. It's okay if you don't like the sculpture idea it's your project too, but I just thought-'

'This is amazing, y/n.' He cuts off my rambling. Closing the book I look away from his gaze.

'It's just a rough idea. You can put in any input you like.'

'Actually, I have a couple ideas myself.' Looking over at him, hinting at him to elaborate, I notice he's still smiling. It's gentle, admiring almost.

After a moment he breaks from my gaze, focusing on his sketchbook instead. 'There not as detailed as yours but... I just had a burst of inspiration last night and this morning.'

He's rubbing the back of his neck now, a nervous habit of his. I'm the one smiling now, he always did get inspired at random times. He'd go months without even picking up a pencil sometimes and then seemingly at random times he'd get 'inspiration' and then you'd never see him without his face buried in a sketchbook.

'Is that why you were late?' Glancing at me, he gives me a shy smile.

'Sort of.' He says before opening his book.

While he's flicking through his drawing, trying to find the most recent drawings in the unorganized mess I decide to try and get a look at his other drawings. It may be an intrusion, but I'm curious on how his style has changed over time.

'What was that?' I ask after he rushes to turn the page.

'Nothing. It was nothing.' That was definitely not nothing. There is a high chance I have lost my mind because I can't believe what I just saw.

It was a drawing of me. A drawing of a picture I posted on my Instagram over a month ago at least. Except the background was different.

In the actual photo I'm laying on my bed, but in his drawing I'm in a field of flowers. One that looks suspiciously like one next to his childhood home.

And surely that can't be right. It makes a lot more sense that I've finally lost it.

Deciding that I did infant hallucinate it, I focus on the drawing he's stopped on instead.

It's a beautiful drawing. If he hadn't told me that he only started on it last night I'd easily believe that he spent hours on it.

It's a drawing of a girl. Me. This I can accept as the whole project has to revolve around the other person. Except it's not just a regular drawing of me. I'm sat in a dark room with my legs crossed and my arms up in the air, looking more carefree than I truly have felt in months. My smile is bright, blinding.

But the thing that catches my focus the most are the angel wings I've got. They almost look like they're shining in contrast to the dark background. There's a bright light coming off of me lighting up the surrounding space.

'I um, I already have a photo to represent this one.' Looking up at him, we lock eyes.

I don't even know what to say. It's beautiful. I look beautiful. He truly is an amazing artist if he could show someone he clearly has some sort of disdain for in such a positive light.

Before I can even compose myself to ask any questions he's clearing his throat and looking away. Getting one last look at the drawing, I watch as he turns the page.

The next sketch is one where we are hugging. I'm basically a rainbow incarnate, full of colour. Whereas he looks like the storm clouds that hide the prism of colour away from sight. There's a bright light in both of our chests. But where we're connected in the embrace my colour is leaking into him. At first, I think it's a beautiful concept until I realise that where he's gaining colour I'm losing it. He's draining me of it. Leaving those parts of me a dark void whereas he's being filled with my light.

'I also have a picture for this one.' This time I don't look up at him. I don't think I can.

'These are insanely good Jungkook.' Swallowing the lump in my throat, I ask what we should do this Wednesday.

prev | m.list | next

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a/n: first saturday i haven’t been at work in like a year so i figured i’d write last night instead of sleeping :)

#bts non idol au #bts x reader #fanfic #bts fanfic #bts angst #bts college au #jungkook fanfic #bts jungkook #jeon jungkook #jungkook #bts #angst #army #btsarmy #fluff #bts art au #art au #college au #smut #bts fan fiction #bts jungguk #bts fluff #bts smut #bts army #bts ff

[archandshri]

23rd Feb '24 - [arch] OH RISO my beloved!!!!!! ft. cyberpunk hermitcraft soup group

A cliffhanger!!!! And now I have to wait a month for you to upload the second half?? How will I cope :’’0

For real, it’s so awesome to see your process and the sheer amount of inspiration you take! In particular, I thought ‘Sit on Two Chairs’ and ‘This Was Our Pact’ were particularly yummy. 

I think book covers are really hard. You have to sum up a book’s energy in one image, make it stand out and show just enough so people want more. Exploring the narrative through those full pages is really interesting - though this is something you did for fun, it could be a really useful technique for getting to know a narrative. When I’m designing my comic covers, I always do it last - that way I’ve had practice with the visual style and I’m thoroughly familiar with the themes, so I guess spending a bit of time with the characters and narrative in this way helps for standalone book covers too. Of course, it helps if you have the time for that XD

Okay!! Onto what I've been up to!!! [warning this is a beefy post I'm sorry for your poor reading brain]

The past two weeks have been really enjoyable! I’ve been playing a lot with slow world-building, in sketchbooks, google documents, and voice notes to friends. Letting myself really sit with concepts, think about the characters, let them play in my head with no expectations. With this relaxation and lack of pressure, some beautiful narratives and interactions have been developing. I’m starting to need a name for a world/ the story. I’m not quite ready to give them a full introduction to the internet - I know it doesn’t but it feels like there’s some accountability to *produce something* and this slow development is really important for the quality and my skill building. It’s really hard to take on, but we actually don’t have to make the perfect thing now! In fact, it’s impossible. Pressure on ourselves makes it so hard to make something good if we’re always grasping at the final result.  In the meantime, while those characters develop, I have been working hard on my basic skills. I wrote about characterization last post, but this week I focused on setting and colour. I was inspired (once again) by Hermitcraft. I’ve seen some really incredible illustrations of Minecraft builds in the fandom, and it seems like a great exercise.

Bdouble0's Season 10 Base illustrated by @applestruda [source] and The Red Zone, built and illustrated by Bdouble0 [source]

One of the creators on Hermitcraft, ImpulseSV, created this build in a recent episode. It takes inspiration from the last season of Hermitcraft, where he was part of the ‘soup group’ with two other players, and his current base concept - a cyberpunk city.  I also LOVE his new character design, so I wanted to place him in the scene.

Screenshot from Impulse's video and new impulse design by @maxx-doodles

Here are some initial thumbnails I did, trying to figure out the composition. I wasn’t sure of the vibe yet, so I tried some rough thumbnailing, and drawing on an isometric grid and other perspective techniques. I’m going a bit mad for characters at the mo, so I wanted to place some in the scene. I found the angle of the isometric grid steep to place characters comfortably, so decided against that.

Looking back at it, I love the second! But I believe I was struggling with the perspective. I decided on the last one eventually.

Now, I absolutely adore all of the players in the Soup Group, and I am BIG fan of redesigning their notable characteristics to suit different settings. So yes, I decided to put all of the soup group in the image.

PearlescentMoon (left) from my comic and GeminiTay's Hermitcraft Season 10 design [from this thumbnail] (right)

Here's the sketch of the final image. I really enjoyed coming up with cyberpunk versions of them all. I used the impulse design almost exactly, with a few extra interesting details since he's mostly viewed from the back. For PearlescentMoon (middle) I kept her fringe, dark hair and gave her a glowing moon symbol on her top. For GeminiTay, I kept her long ginger hair, antlers (but glowing!) and took inspiration from her new season 10 design - a dark blue jumpsuit to match her dark blue clothes in her new design, and the braids she is often drawn with. I also gave them edgy new hairstyles. And a robot arm. I don't have lore for that.

As usual, I filled each flat colour-to-be with black and lowered the opacity to play with the values. Then I added colours one at a time, aware might be riso printing it. Originally I stuck to trying to make it printable (making the colours out of ones I could make my layering 2-3 colours at different opacities), but as I went on, I decided to drop that and focus on the quality of the image in a digital format alone. I did keep the grayscale version above with all the separate layers in case I needed that if/when I came to riso printing it. Below are the main two digital colour schemes I tried out.

I settled on the one on the left, with the blue tones - the foreground characters really pop. I put a few details in Gem's hair, colour variations etc, and cropped it for Instagram. I actually much prefer the cropped version - it sits better in a rule of thirds.

Now the moment we've all been waiting for :'')

RISO!!!!!!!!!!!

I returned to Cardiff after a couple of months away and was delighted to spend my first day back at The Printhaus, an awesome shared print studio where I have basically made my home. A few of my awesome friends happened to be there, so I spent the day playing around with this image with their help! (please check them out they're very cool - Gavin helped me a lot (we hung out at Thought Bubble, remember? and Rhi gave good crits too!!)

For those who don't know, risograph is basically a shitty photocopier that can only print one colour at a time. However, you can play with gradients and opacities, and layer colours really nicely to combine. I've done a lot of single-colour tonal work with riso but this is my first go really layering.

First, Gavin showed me how to separate the channels in Photoshop, using the flat image uploaded to the 'gram. We copied and pasted these layers in grayscale and added blending modes to each layer to replicate what they might look like when printed.

With blending modes, the digital mockup looked like this!!

This bit goes into technical details for replicating what the print might look like for those who might want it - feel free to skip :)))

I copied and pasted the Cyan, Black and Magenta layers as greyscale (as you can see above)

I made all of the greyscale layers multiply layers since risograph ink is transparent and we wanted to see how it layers. The ink usually comes out a bit lighter than you think, so it's good to bear that in mind. I used a clipping mask over each greyscale layer and a blending mode. WHEN YOU PRINT, PRINT IN GREYSCALE, NOT COLOUR.

Here's how I split the colours from CMYK to the riso colours, their hex codes and the blending mode I used to replicate the colours:

Cyan - Mint [HEX#82D8D5] Screen Magenta - Fluorescent Pink [HEX#FF48B0] Screen Black - Blue [HEX#0078BF] Overlay Yellow - scrapped for colour scheme purposes

Blue, Mint and Florencent Pink layers in greyscale in Procreate.

Riso printed Mint and Florescent Pink layers on separate paper, followed by the two layered together.

We always start with the lighter colour inks first, because sometimes the rollers can pick up the ink and cause extra marks where you don't want them. The first two colours came out great!

The first time we printed the blue, it came out very dark (left, first image). I have had this issue before - my last book, Winter Wellbeing, came out much darker than I wanted. Now I realise that the blue ink is super sensitive. All the 'white space' that is covered by a low-opacity blue on the left is only 2%, and yet it has come out pretty strong. We tried printing it on one of the misaligned images just to see, but it took all of the brightness out of the neon soup sign at the top of the image (second image). So I changed the values and pushed them way lighter, so it just pushed the values of the darker bits slightly, and brightened some of the lineart (right, first image)

And this is the final riso printed version!! I'm so so happy with how this came out. It's so different from the original digital version, and I actually love that.

I didn't create new colours in the way that I intended to - I wanted to play with overlaying purposefully to create specific colours eg. orange for the hair etc. But!!! I'm really happy with how it came out. That will have to be a project for next time.

Also, many copies are slightly misaligned, so in future I think I'd do flat layers for the colours a more blobby style with the linework on one layer only so there's less of a chance for obvious misalignment. design for the riso, rather than riso the design.

Overall though, this feels like a super cool step up and a milestone for me. Super happy with how it came out!! And I'm excited to play with colour some more. Can't wait to see the rest of the Lionheart brothers! Enjoy your weekend :)))

Archie 🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺🕺 <3

#archillustrates #arch is learning #smileyshri #project development #art #art process #art resource #process #artists on tumblr #illustration #comic #picture book #small art blog #art blog #illustration blog #female artists on tumblr #queer artists on tumblr #illustrator #book illustrator #female illustrator #queer illustrator #comic artist #comic art #female artists on instagram #artists on instagram #procreate #digital artwork #digital artist #artist blog #artist on tumblr

[redfish-blu]

An Open Letter to the Danger Days Tumblr Community:

Now that you’ve read that overdramatic title and are wondering who fucked up, I have something to say about the Danger Days Tumblr community: I Love You.

Danger Days was the first fandom I ever posted for on any site. All the way back in middle school (ho-ly shit). And let me tell you what I found out even way back when: this is not an easy fandom to be in.

For one, most people don’t even know it exists. For two, even less know it in the way it’s been cultivated on Tumblr. Almost every single person has such a niche interpretation of every little detail, that it’s impossible to draw a line through any two versions of the story. Which is a fact I personally love, but I also think it scares a lot of people away. You have to work to be in this fandom. Both as a passive and active fan. It requires patience and tolerance for disappointment.

But that’s exactly why I want to encourage everyone who creates and everyone who listens to Keep Doing That. Like I cannot stress this enough, that is what keeps this fandom and IP alive. Danger Days as a universe would be absolutely nothing without fan work (re: the California Comics), especially a decade later. Without fans who care about this story way more than it has warranted us to care, it would be six feet under. And sometimes I really think that’s what it deserves (and maybe the writers think that as well), but for the life of me I just can’t let that happen. I’ve tried to let this fucking thing go, believe me.

And funny enough, that exact feeling is evidenced by the community on this site too. Which has changed faces almost completely from what it was three years ago for better and less better in some cases. And it’s something I still struggle with adjusting to, but I look at the tag daily. I look everyone’s posts and blogs and art and effort. If you have posted even once in the dd tag my eyes have 100% seen it. So even if I still feel a little out of place, like a ghost of fandom’s past, at least I know everybody. And I know people feel the same way: No rest for the wicked.

When I reanimated from my fandom coma I was fully expecting to find that the community had gone extinct. Partially because all the blogs I used to frequent had straight up died in the three years I was gone. But I pulled up to the gates of the Danger Days tag like Rick Grimes outside of Alexandria, fully expecting to be devastated, only to find New People tilling the fucking field. And it didn’t matter that I now had no idea who any of you people were, it was The Most welcoming thing ever.

I’ll be the first to tell you this fandom bares almost no resemblance to the one I left, and I’m not going to lie and say it’s better now, but the foundation didn’t get blown away in the storm. That’s what I find uniquely profound. That everyone here still wants to try. And that makes me really want to try. And I’m sure everyone would agree that there is often little reward for the effort; but that’s precisely my point in saying all this shit. That even despite the not fun aspects, we all still clock in; and there’s a new post, headcanon, drawing, or fic every freaking day. It’s commendable, really.

If you’re lurking, or post sometimes but feel afraid to actually take a leap here because (the fandom is comparatively tiny to the greater MCR fandom) you’ll be way more out there, and the already established figureheads of the fandom will definitely see your stuff: post post post. This is my formal endorsement to Just Post That Shit. And Interact With That Shit. I spent a year gathering the courage to publish the tiniest thing while behind the scenes I literally wrote about 60+ works. You have to respect your own creativity and trust that other people will give it the time of day.

So do not feel crazy or discouraged about your ideas here! Like we literally need them to function, I would not be here if it wasn’t for all the people three years ago who just posted all their thoughts about Danger Days. About everything. Obscure or not. It’s truly a gift that this fandom has attracted people who are willing to work their brains because the original creators let it fall flat. I cannot tell you how much being in this fandom has actually helped me out in my writing and analysis skills.

So yeah. I fucking love this fandom, I love being in it and I love seeing that people are still stoking the flames. I wanted to say all this crap because I knew I’d be able to articulate it for the people who can relate but don’t want to be the first to say it. Which is okay, understandable. As I said earlier this fandom is like yelling your thoughts out into a very echoey room that only has a few people in it. So I’ll shout first and maybe it’ll make other people more comfortable to shout back.

#i tried to make this as easy to read as possible #this is also an open discussion btw. welcome to the fuckin conference room #we’re all on the council #danger days #mcr #ttlotfk #ttlofk #kobra kid #killjoys #the true lives of the fabulous killjoys #party poison #jet star #fun ghoul #danger days: the true lives of the fabulous killjoys #cas types #long post

[laylajeffany]

How do you usually outline your stories? Do you have a general idea of where you want to start and go with a plot, or do you outline what you want to write per chapter...? I've been curious, lol.

What a fun question that is making me consider how I actually do this, haha. Thanks for asking. Essentially, we consult the holy scriptures.

I brain dump (by hand - I am a 90s kid okay we were only allowed to type final drafts of things in the computer lab). I write an extremely generic list of ‘goals’ for what I want to occur in each fic - VERY general things at the start. Then I will start to figure out more specifics, develop any characters that don’t exist in canon as needed with a few specifics so I know about them before I start writing, work on settings and concepts that don’t exist in canon, etc. I will draw maps and blueprints and course schedules. I probably spend a solid week on this handiwork before I move into writing a big fic like Chaos.

Once there, I will write a few scenes (likely not in order) to get a ‘feel’ for the mood/tone of the fic. I only write in third person passive voice, but I need to get to know the ‘voice’ a little bit. I doubt much of this makes it to the final edit but it’s an important part of setting tone and mood. For a fic like Chaos, I then would outline about 3 chapters in advance of where I was writing, specific events and cliffhangers ;) to make sure we got to those points/would be ready to start off from them on the next chapter. I consult the scriptures as I do this, lol. THEN, I go into very specific outline of the events of each chapter because I do not write scenes in order! If there is anything that has action sequences (fencing, fighting, dancing) I write them last because it involves me physically doing them or watching intense YouTube videos to know the correct diction. In a fic like Chaos where I had a few chunks of original poetry to write, those would also be last scenes as well. Tracey gets about 3-4 versions of each chapter, and as she gets them many have placeholder scenes. BLESS HER SWEET ANGEL SOUL for all the work s he does to understand my process (she’s been doing this since like 2010 or so though so she’s used to it haha). 

I somehow also usually know how long each scene is going to be. I’ll send Tracey a text that says something like, “about 5k more of this scene and I’ll send you a chunk tonight.” What does Tracey do for me? Well, for one - she does a big grammar and spelling sweep. I type so fast that Word doesn’t always catch it. And we’re not perfect at the actual editing process either, but we do our best haha. We ALWAYS find something after posting, but it’s REALLY not that serious. More importantly though, Tracey helps me adjust dialogue, take away innocuous sentences (she probably shaves off close to 500-1k each chapter if you can believe that) and helps things to flow better. She’ll also tell me if something REALLY isn’t working. (I don’t always take this news well and she has very Courageous Conversations with me. She’s always right, of course, and sometimes, I am just stubborn.)

I talk things through with Tracey, too - a lot, on the phone and on FaceTime. She’s always helping me get plots in the right direction and helps me come up with a lot of tiny little details that I just hadn’t considered!

#all hail tracey #layla answers fic questions

[erika-xero]

Thinking a lot of how social media affect art, how it is getting increasingly more difficult to earn money with it and honestly it just... makes me so sad?.. Disclaimer: I do not want you to pity me. I just want to share some thoughts. Some fears, maybe. Some regrets.

I know that I might never be able to make a good fortune by drawing illustrations, because it seems that I was entirely wrong with my priorities? I always wanted to do more: bigger pieces, more characters and hidden details. I wanted my art to tell a story, if possible.

Who could possible know that most of the people will move to mobile devices with small vertical screens, on which wide detailed illustrations with cinematic feel will look the worst?

Who could possible know that the algorythms of the social media would want you to draw MORE yet, somehow, draw less? I could go insane doing the same stuff over and over again: small portraits, halfbodies in the same simplistic style because they look best in instagram or on tumblr mobile app and gather more attention? And they are also faster to make, thus you can please the allmightly algorythm posting every day or two?..

I love my work, I adore doing various things, I love it when one week I work on a traditional art fullbody with a golden halo and the other three weeks - on a digital artwork with a dynamic fighting scene. But gods. How tiring is it to know that the piece you've been working on will get barely any attention, because three-weeks gap in my posting schedule will, for sure, upset the allmighty algorithm.

They say that it is always bad to switch style or a theme, because people get upset and unfollow you once they see something they aren't waiting to see. Different character body type? Unfollowing. Different facial feature? Unfollowing. Different aesthetic? Unfollowing.

Slightly different shading and coloring? Unfollowing.

But variety has key importance to me. I wish to draw characters which are drastically different from each other. I want to experiment. I want to explore. I want a drawing to be a puzzle I will be solving for hours, days, weeks, never getting bored. I do not wish my work to become a rutine to serve the algorithm or even the general public.

I see, like, those commercially succesfull artists, who post every day earning more money per week than I will be ever earning per month. It is all the same story over and over again: conventionally attractive characters. Halfbodies. Pleasant facial expressions: faint smiles, slightly raised eyebrows. Simple pose, 3/4, detailed clothing. Always the same stylistic choises. Always the same aesthetic.

Of course, sometimes they do draw stronger, bigger pieces, they experiment, they search for something new - but mostly secretely. In private. During the free time they earn - by their hard work and dedication.

I... can not afford drawing stuff for myself in my free time. Honestly, I don't have free time either than the time I spend on my trips to hometown - the only moments I could spend with my family. Neither can I draw five similar pieces in a row, because my brain starts to melt like a strawberry sundae?.. Because when I get bored, I lose concentration? Because, I made variety the key feature of my art and this turned out to be the worst decision an artist can make?

Am I just... weak? Am I stupid? Am I unworthy? Am I childish for wanting my job to be fun and entertaining and fulfilling to do?

There's this group chat I am in, and today someone, the succesful artist, said that anyone, who has less than 10K followers are, to say so, a no one? All of a sudden I feel so upset. My day is ruined. I never had 10K anywhere but VK (which is absolutely useless to anyone doing commissions). I never even cared about numbers... I never wanted to be big. Be popular. For most of the time, my biggest wish was to feel... fulfilled? To be happy, be proud of what I am doing?

I feel fulfilled. But I also don't want to starve myself to death. And I certainly feel like if I, one day, will want to have family, I wouldn't be able to make enough money to afford having a child.

Was I... entirely wrong? Did I waste my time chasing phantoms? Is it too late for me? Will I be among those, who might not survive the hard times, at least, as an artist?

#rant #i am at my fucking limit #depressing shit #this user has a fucking midlife crisis or something