#I want to start thinking too about how to structure my learning a bit more

[fotibrit]

what's your opinion on steves 'ending' in endgame? i generally feel like it sort of goes against a character arc of his, and a bit conflicting how much he did to not lose bucky and then sorta ditched it all the second he could actually exist with him once more, kinda also feels like a plot hole in some scenarios for his character and the future but i'm probably talking with some form of bias, I'm not too sure!! so I wanted to know another persons perspective on it!!

opinion: Was Bad

credentials: My very first introduction to Marvel was my best friend (hardcore Steve Rogers fan, called me “her Bucky”, was as insane abt Steve as i currently am abt tony) bringing me to see Endgame, and then her talking MAD SHIT about the ending for the next few months. I have heard every criticism. I learned that the ending was character assassination before i even know what character was being assassinated.

So. i don’t think it’s good. Getting into the Meta of the MCU for a sec, the MCY movies are partially paid for by the USA military etc etc so they reflect some political targets of the country. You gotta watch for propoganda in the movies. and in endgame, it was the happy little family. There was the family together in Wakanda, Tony being all domestic with his wife and daughter, Clint finally got to be back with his family. The snap brought back other family members, including don’t remember enough but generally… they were pushing the happy family thing. The US birth rate is down, and i imagine that part of the funding included some sort of push for more family imagery, in order to influence people to settle down together.

And then there’s Steve. Who has always had a found family, he’s out of time, away from his legal family. He doesn’t have any way to be included in this push for a family. My guess for what happened in the writers room is that they assumed everyone would fall for it hook line and sinker. that people would start believing, somehow, that birth family and nuclear family structures are most important.

If you look at it from the framework of their imagined audience, who thinks a nucular familg reunited is the happiest structure of all, Steve got a happy ending! He got to be with a hetero romantic partner!

Where they went wrong, is that nobody fuckin fell for it. Because it wasn’t convincing in the slightest. They spent hours after hours showing how desperately Steve cares for Bucky, and then they betray Steve’s primary motivation (keeping friends safe) in order to fit into their Nuclear Family Initiative.

they accidentally created a character who was the perfect encapsulation of an audience member who would NOT care most about a nuclear family unit. They made a character who cares most about a non-romantic partner. And then, they had to try to convince us that it was the same guy, while actively betraying his core values.

Bad ending. Wrong ending. Betrayed the audience and the character.

And it’s due to propoganda.

(side note: as far as i can tell, they’ve moved from “family unit” to “parenting is important”. Most blatant example i saw of this was in the last GotG, but it’s all over. they’re making everyone parents.)

#marvel mcu #avengers #hot take sorry

[whentherewerebicycles]

made mung bean soup over brown rice and oh man I am FULL. it was very very good but I feel a little sick now—I didn’t eat THAT much but I think the beans have a shitload of fiber and that plus the brown rice might’ve been a little much. mm but I’d definitely eat it again especially on a cold rainy day—super warm & spicy & filling.

the best part is that I modified the original recipe and it turned out sooo much better. I’m at a point in my learning-to-cook journey where I can look at a recipe, imagine what it’s going to taste like, and figure out modifications either ahead of time or during the cooking process as I taste & adjust. the base recipe I used for this one was very easy but seemed super bland so I added a bunch more curry spices, doubled the garlic + ginger, chopped up celery and threw it in for a nice little crunch, squeezed in some tomato paste because a commenter suggested it, and added fresh lemon juice to taste at the end because I thought it needed a little extra zing (and I was right!!). I also feel like I’m getting much better at evaluating the doneness of various ingredients by sight/smell/taste rather than relying on timers and fixed heat settings, which is one of the things samin nosrat talks about in salt fat acid heat. I’m also getting a more intuitive sense for like… oh this ingredient’s denser so I need to add it before these other ones, or this veggie has more water so I want to add it at this point rather than this point, or spicing the onions now will draw out more flavor than waiting till that later step, or whatever, even if my sense of what to do lightly contradicts the recipe… and so far I think it’s producing better results than when I’d follow recipes religiously but produce pretty bland or uneven meals.

idk man! cooking is fun! I started this learn-to-cook project because I wanted to be able to 1) make easy healthy mostly-vegan meals and 2) teach my kids basic cooking skills from a young age, but I guess I wasn’t expecting it to be so much fun as like, an intellectual and creative challenge yknow? like obviously I am a person who loves to learn new subjects but I don’t really learn new skills all that often, and I’m surprised by how engaging it is (and how novel it feels!) to get slowly but steadily better at something where you can really see/evaluate your own progress. I guess writing is one of my favorite Hard Skills to work at but idk it’s just different! writing doesn’t give you the same type of immediate built-in feedback you can get from cooking… and also idk with writing it’ll often be weeks or months or years before you finish the thing you’re working on, whereas with cooking you’ve actually made something within an hour or two and you get to enjoy the product of your work right away or share it with others. anyway!! really enjoying this year of focused exploration & skill-building in cooking.

#I want to start thinking too about how to structure my learning a bit more #like honing in on specific discrete skills and then engaging in structured/deliberate practice to improve #and then there are also areas I’d like to expand my repertoire #like I am amassing tons of great dinner recipes #but I’d like to have a wide repertoire of simple delicious salads & healthy desserts #I’d love to be able to invite people over for dinner and serve courses! not crazy levels of complexity just like #salad or veggie appetizer & then the meal with a side or two & then a little dessert #cooking #unbelievably easy plant based meals

[obey-me-disaster]

A/N: I'm reposting this cause the tags didn't work the first time <3

Demon brothers x gn!MC

Demon brothers x MC that info-dumps about their familiars

Lucifer

Whenever he feels like the two of you haven't spent enough time together due to his work, he invites you into his office to hang out. He enjoys hearing you talk excitedly about your passions while he does paperwork.

He can't say he has too much of an interest in peacocks, but he loves hearing you talk about the things you love, so he'll let you talk until you've had your fill.

"So peacocks apparently peacocks feathers are covered in tiny crystal-like structures that reflect different wavelengths of light depending on how they're spaced."

"Also, since only male peacocks have the large train of feathers, do you think it played a role in them being your familiars? Since you're the avatar of pride and all of that."

"That's quite the theory you've got there, but I'm afraid I don't know how true it actually is."

"Still, I would love to hear more facts that you have, I can see from the expression on your face that you're dying to do so"

"And before you ask, yes, my feathers have the crystal-like structures, you can have a closer look if you would like"

His ego does grow quite a bit every time you go into one or your rants since he can tell you're talking so much about peacock cause they are his familiars.

He will probably buy you something peacock inspired to give you during one of your info-dumps.

God forbid you start gushing about his familiars in front of Diavolo. The prince will see it as a way to talk even more about Lucifer, and the former isn't sure how much he can deal with that.

Mammon

He has a pretty good base knowledge about crows. Out of all of his brothers, he probably works with his familiars the most. It's canon that he literally uses them to spy on people and gather information.

Still, there are a lot of things he might not know. And even if he knew, he would die before telling you to stop talking.

"Your crows are so cute, did you know that they are considered some of the world's smartest birds?"

"Of course they are! They're the Great Mammon's familiars after all"

"They are also known to gossip with their peers and hold grudges"

"I am well aware of that fact, more often than not they tell me the latest gossip in Devildom"

He would let you hang out with his crows in order to learn more about them.

I also have the headcanon that he can talk with them, so he would literally be a translator for you and the crows

"Feel free to ask them anything, I will translate whatever they say!"

Is pretty smug about the fact that you are so interested in his familiars, even so when you interact with them. He might even give you some accessories made out of his familiars' feathers(of course, feathers that have fallen on their own)

Leviathan

Bold of you to assume he doesn't know already everything there is about snakes already, he is literally one!

"Levi, did you know that snakes can smell with their tongues and a good amount of them have shit eyesight?"

"Henry the 1st used to have a bad eyesight!! They also don't really stop growing. This is more obvious with Devildom snakes tho"

He would honestly be really touched by your eagerness to learn and tell him about snakes since he is pretty much one. He sees it as you being interested in him on a whole new level and gets really excited when you info-dump about them.

Leviathan, on the verge of crying internally "They actually care about me!"

NB! Levi would actually really appreciate it tho. His demon form is that of a snake and he also got a pet snake, so any new info is more than welcome. Especially about how to deal with shedding.

"MC, you've got to help me! You know a lot about snakes, so could you tell me why my tail feels so itchy???"

Satan

Your info-dump session about unicorns is pretty much a 'is it true that they actually do that??' kind of thing

He still touched about you wanting to learn more about his familiars so he is always willing to answear any and all of your questions. He might even take you to see some of them.

"Is it true that unicorns can use magic with their horn?"

"Saying they can cast magic is far stretched. They have some abilities specific to their kind that can be used with or without the horn."

Cats on the other hand? Doesn't matter if he already know whatever fact you want to tell him, he is always more than happy to discuss about them.

Hell, he might be the one info-dumping about cats before you get the chance to do so.

"Did you know that cats can have up to 100 different vocalizations? Dogs only have like 10"

"They are also believed to be the only mammal who doesn't taste sweetness, which I find unfortunate. Still, they truly are amazing creatures"

More often than not Solomon is dragged in the conversations too due to the 'Cat' group chat that three of you have. Not like he minds, he loves cats too.

Asmodeus

He lets you info-dump about scorpions while he does your hair/nails/helps you with you skin care.

"Is you info-dumping about my familiars your way of telling me that you love me~"

Your self care sessions are also info-dump sessions, so you kill two birds with one stone.

"Did you know that scorpions are capable of dissolving their pray from the inside out. They also glow under ultraviolet light??"

"It's only natural that my familiars would be able to do this, they are my familiars after all ♡. Maybe I should use some make up the glows in the dark"

Since you've started to info-dump about his familiars to him, his outfits/nails/accessories have started to have a scorpion motif to them quite often

He also tells you one of the facts you've told him before while he shows off his scorpion inspired accesories. It's his way of showing that he listens to your rants.

"Scorpions can do that, can't they? Remember when you told me this last night?"

Beelzebub

He doesn't really know a lot about his familiars but he has an odd fondness about them. He can't really bring himself to kill them, tho flies tend to leave him alone anyway.

He thinks is really sweet that you know so much about those little guys, so he is always happy to sit and listen to you.

If you feel like info-dumping about flies, feel free to do it whenever you like. He is raiding the fridge? You can help him carry some of the food while you tell him more about his familiars. He is working out? He can hear loud and clear. He might not be the most responsive during some of those moments but he is always listening to you.

He is aware that out of all of his brothers, his familiar is not the cutest or the coolest one, so when you start talking about it, he can't help but feel really loved.

"Beel, did you know that flies can taste food using their feet?"

"It would be pretty usefull to know how food would taste just by touching, not like I would care if the food would taste bad, I would still eat it"

"Also, due to their eyes being compound they can also see behind their back. They actually have a 360° field of view"

"I also have that in my demon form, it came in handy a lot of times"

"YOU HAVE WHAT?!"

Belphegor

Lying on the attic bed while facing the ceiling "Shouldn't your familiar be a bull instead of a cow, since you're a guy and all of that?"

"Just shut up and cuddle me.."

While he thinks cows look comfy enough to take a nap, he does not care about them. But he care about you, so he is more than willing to cuddle up with you while you info-dump.

"Cows are actually pretty nice, they can spend about 10 hours a day lying down and they can also sleep while standing...are you even listening to me...?"

Belphegor, looking on the verge of falling asleep "hmm? Yeah I'm listening.."

Despite looking like he is one second from falling asleep or even downright sleeping, he actually listens to you. He can pay attention to things even in his sleep, how do you think he has really high grades at RAD? so he is listening to all of the cow facts you're telling him.

Anytime you doubt that he has been listening, he will tell you a fact that you've told him in the past to show that he was in fact listening.

"Cows can sleep while standing, right? You're the one who told me, so you should know. Now get closer, I want to use your lap as a pillow."

If you dare to do any kind of jokes about him being a cowboy, he will kick out of the bed.

#obey me #obey me shall we date #obey me x mc #obey me x reader #obey me headcanons #obey me lucifer #obey me mammon #obey me leviathan #obey me satan #obey me asmodeus #obey me beelzebub #obey me belphegor #obey me lucifer headcanons #obey me lucifer x mc #obey me mammon headcanons #obey me mammon x reader #obey me leviathan headcanons #obey me leviathan x mc #obey me satan headcanons #obey me satan x reader #obey me asmodeus headcanons #obey me asmodeus x mc #obey me beelzebub headcanons #obey me beelzebub x reader #obey me belphegor headcanons #obey me belphegor x mc

[nyuuronfly]

On Rain World lore and it's implementation within the game.

This is kindof a random ramble I went on in a Discord chat and just feel like sharing elsewhere. (also note this is all primarily in reference to the original game, Survivor's story.)

I honestly think too many miss the forest for the trees a bit with RW, in terms of how important the lore is, if that makes sense. I talked with somebody about first-time experiences with the game and they said they'd watched a number of lore explanation videos on YT before starting, because of some reason along the lines of "I didn't trust the game to deliver its own story properly." To me this is almost saddening to hear because I really feel that misses the point of why the game has it's lore to begin with.

To me, while playing, any tidbits i learned about history or other information contributed to a feeling like the world I was navigating had a very real history that saturated it, yet one that I would be unable to grasp fully. It is an illusory feeling of realness, given how it is experienced. The game is mechanically not designed to incentivize collecting many information pearls, especially when in the original game you can literally just drop them off a cliff and lose them forever. You get the feeling often like you are bound to never be able to get everything, nor would you even probably want to put in the effort, so the illusion actually stays stronger because of that. Your mind wanders speculating about every little detail, whether intention truly existed behind it or not, because it feels like it did. You learned that it might have. Maintaining that illusion while playing I think is the primary reason they were included, not actually the experience of "knowing" the history. Rain World in general seems to have a thematic fixation on the simple idea that individuals have limited perspectives. Joar Jakobsson has said that one of the core ideas behind Rain World was to recreate the life of a "rat in Manhattan." That is to say, a creature that understands how to find food, hide, and live in a complex man-made structure, that cannot understand it's structuring purpose or why it was built. The very core issue of the iterators, is that the solution to the "great problem" intrinsically has to lie with knowledge that could only be obtained from "the other side." They are corporeal beings trying to know something that pertains to something outside corporeal reality. Yet pursuit of knowledge is very important to creatures like ourselves. Collecting any individual pearl is mostly an exercise in doing a lot just for little bits of knowledge. There is a lot of understanding of just how significant wanting to know more is, even something unimportant, when you are left in the dark the way you are in the game. Most information pearls you deliver are literally completely useless to know about, but they feel personally important, especially in how finding them relates to your connection to the iterators. My primary motivation to find pearls in my first play was to spend more time with Moon. On a very real emotional level, Moon felt like my only friend in the world while I played. On a mechanical level, she does literally nothing. But Rain World manages to operate on a very emotional, even instinctual level with how it's designed. I wanted to be in her company and have something to give her. Because I am alone, and lost. So something along those lines is why I felt saddened to hear the sentiment like Rain World somehow "fails" to deliver it's "story." The purpose of the game is not to find pearls and hear about some grand narrative. At it's core, Rain World is a game that's design was inspired by nature, and it's use of history within the world relates to us as a player the way history relates to us as people. It is relayed through people reading from records created by parties with their own perspectives, and connects us abstractly to a sensation that there is more out there than our own lives. That is a feeling you have as a player, and ultimately the true story that Rain World tells is the memories you have playing it. What you did, saw, and felt. The same as how our story is that of our own lives. That is the purpose of the game.

#rain world #just rambling

[ohcorny]

hey corny. so i always see people recommending to outline their story before starting it, but could you talk a little bit more about what that means? what is an outline and how do you structure one? how long are the ones you write, depending on the project? do you focus on plot beats or feelings? how specific do you get? can u recommend any readings for learning more?

up front i don't have any resources for this, only experience. and outlines feel like one of those things where it's like... there are a million ways to do it and the way that works for me might not work for you. i have a friend who writes out all his ideas on index cards and that, for me, is insane. but he's also a better writer than me so who can say what is right or wrong.

anyway an outline is essentially a sketch but for a story. you go through the whole thing, start to finish, and figure out what goes where and what happens when. the idea is that this is the stage where you work out all the big picture stuff and make sure it all fits together, now, and not after you've drawn twenty pages and suddenly go "wait shit that doesn't work" and have to do it over. it is much easier to delete and rewrite a paragraph than to redraw several pages.

doing anything more, ie including dialogue or feelings, depends entirely on how useful that information is to you at that point in the process and whether the purpose of the outline is for your own guidance, or so somebody else can tell what you're trying to achieve.

this got really long with multiple examples

here is an excerpt from the original outline i used to pitch Hunger's Bite to publishers. this one had to be polished to a professional standard, because somebody else was going to read it and decide whether they wanted to give me thousands of dollars to tell this story. (also several of the details are no longer accurate. for instance it now takes place 9 years earlier lmao)

this paragraph represents the first eight pages of the book. the final book is 264 pages long, and the outline was 12 pages of paragraphs as dense as this one.

it establishes where we are, who's there, and what they're doing. i describe their conversation, but i don't commit to the dialogue. i will occasionally include snippets of literal dialogue, but usually only if it's Important Dialogue, or i just don't want to forget a good idea i had while outlining. it's not expected at this step.

an outline written as part of a pitch to a publisher should tell the whole story, with all the important details, and leave nothing ambiguous. they need to know the tone, shape, and the arcs. no secrets! all the spoilers. outlines for yourself should do this too, but outlines for others need to be as clear about your vision as possible. again, an outline like this exists for the purpose of getting you paid thousands of dollars. you should write it like that.

in comparison, here's an excerpt from the outline i wrote for revisions to my WIP prose novel, so i could show it to my agent (who already read the draft) to be like "do these changes sound good?" i'm not selling it to anyone yet, just making a guide so i can have a conversation about it. so it doesn't need to be neat, it just needs to be functional and clear. the first chapter was entirely new stuff. the second bit was just writing down what was already in the chapter that existed.

i have historically been very bad at outlining things when i don't think i "need" to, and only wrote this one after having written like 60k words of the book without any overall plan. i gave what i had to my agent for feedback and then sat down and figured out how i could apply it. it's made the whole revisions process significantly less daunting. now i have a checklist for things i need to do! this one was a paragraph or two for each chapter, with the ones that needed a lot of rewriting given a bit more detail.

lastly, here's a bit of the outline for the first roger crenshaw book. i was the only person who had to see this, and since the story was planned to be very short i didn't have to worry about a whole lot. as long as i knew what was supposed to go where, it would work. honestly it's not a whole lot different from the previous example.

this one was like five paragraphs and it did the job, and this story was like 15k words. you only need as much or as little as will actually help you on the page.

basically if you take nothing else from this, it's that there are multiple ways to write an outline, that it does not need to be perfect if you're doing it for yourself, and that it only needs what you think is important (unless it is for other people. then it should have everything). and also it's a good idea to do it earlier in the project than after you've written 60k words or drawn--jesus christ i got up to 12 chapters in never satisfied? it's amazing i didn't quit sooner

[vintagexherry]

Treasure for three days [1]

Pirate!Miguel x Princess!Reader

// Hostage, threatening, superstions, misogyny (I think), manhandling, implied forced royal marriage, kidnapping, implications of sexual acts, Ooc Miguel, Miguel is mean

---

A/N: Not sure if Im gonna turn this into a series but we'll see

---

This isn't what you meant when you wanted to be taken away from a mundane life.

"If none will provide with what I have requested. The princess will get it." He ended maliciously.

'He' being a man of height and strong structure is as of right now, holding a sharp edged sword at your throat while holding your hands behind your back.

'He' being the famous pirate, notorious for his actions and sharp with his demands.

"Let go of her! or else!-" Your father still in his sleeping clothes demanded the man who held you hostage.

"What? Make your gaurds shoot me? I have cannons standing by and men waiting, and with a simple signal, they can pillage and destroy this kingdom." He threatened as his hands grip his sword tighter, pushing it slightly closer to your throat, making you whimper.

He isn't only notorious for his actions, but his brain. He didn't get his popularity by just blowing up things to bits like any other pirate.

He plans them.

So darn good at it too.

Your brain is still wondering how'd you get into this position.

□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■

"You keep pressing the wrong note. Once again, from the beginning."

You held back your sigh as you started to play a musical piece on the piano all over again.

You've been at this with your mentor for hours and you swear if you don't take a single break, your bones will desintegrate.

Your mentor has known you since you started etiquette training, and so on and so forth.

And as much as you knew her, she's always been nothing but strict with a permanent frown on her face, her hair tied into a tight bun, and you wonder how come she still has hair.

Once you finally pressed the right note, she nodded approvingly.

"Very good now. We'll practice this piece tomorrow again at noon. Now, if you excuse me, I'll inform your father of your progress."

Not waiting for your reply, she stood up from her chair and left you sitting by the piano.

You exhaled a breath of relief and stretched your fingers for a bit, hearing small pops here and there. You look out the large window by the wall, watching life go on the large village. You'll soon rule once your father chooses a suitable husband for you.

Speaking of your father, he entered the room, slightly surprising you with the sound of the heavy doors.

"My dear, your mentor has told me you had difficulty on today's lesson." Your father looked at you with slight disappointment in his eyes.

You sigh, you know your mentor has told me about your progress, not skipping good bits, but it just seems that your bad quality only worth focusing on.

"I know father, it's jus-"

"Then you will do well to practice even more. Remember, you're performing for tomorrow's night annual ball."

You held back a groan.

Of course, he cares about tomorrow's ball.

Nothing but an excuse to let men ask your hand for marriage and letting your father decide if their good or not. At first, you were flattered, and people would ask for your hand, but it gets tiring once you learn it is just for politics sake, nothing but lies, only wanting to feel the crown on their head.

Your father's kingdom was known to be one of the most successful of them all. Trading and economics were bountiful, and the crime rate wasn't high.

"Yes, father." You defeatedly relented while he grunts in acknowledgement and left you without another word. You just wish a humble and kind man will take you away from this mundane life.

It was finally nighttime when you got ready for bed, you got out of your bath and wore your white cotton sleep dress.

You went to one side of the bed to blow off the candle, but before you did, a sharp sword suddenly appeared behind you, The edge of it just inches away from slicing you.

"Don't move."

A deep and gruff voice commanded you, and you froze.

How did he get in? The balcony? through the door? That can't be. There's gaurds around the palace patrolling every second.

"Where is the necklace? And don't lie, or else your pretty little town gets it."

Necklace? What necklace? There's billions of different kinds of necklaces, and that's the best description he can give you?

"I-I don't know what you're t-talking about -" You winced when you felt the sword go closer to your throat.

"Not speaking, huh? Well, I can jus-"

His words were cut off when your room door busted open, revealing gaurds with their guns and your father in his sleepwear.

"So it was you who knocked out those gaurds!" Your father yelled, so that's how he got in.

The man behind you didn't waste time grabbing your hands and holding them behind your back. He took quick yet short steps to your now unlocked balcony, and he stopped by the edge.

□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■

So now you're here, with a pirate at the edge of your balcony.

"You."

His sword left your throat, but instead, he pointed it to your father. In turn, the gaurds raise their guns higher.

"Necklace, or you won't get your little princesa back."

You looked at your father with tears brimming at the edge of your eyes, silently begging him to give what the pirate wants, but he doesn't seem to mind you.

"O' Hara." Your dad stated, starting to collect his bearings.

"That necklace is a national treasure, you can't possibly!-"

"Daily pirate life, I would say."

You paused.

That necklace?

The necklace?

You only remember bits of story of that supposed treasure, where your father had gathered a rare type of gem from a group of natives who are part of the neighbouring lands. Once gathered, the gem was then moulded and sanded to become a necklace.

"So... No necklace, then? That's alright...I'll give you three days, and if not given your kingdom, can disappear on the map."

You loudly yelp when you suddenly turn around and get carried on his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

He didn't waste time sheathing his sword and jumping off the balcony, which made you scream while he grips line of rope.

As O'Hara lands and runs for it, you hear gunshots and your father yelling for you.

You tried beating his back with your hands and waving your feet to at least loosen his grip, but alas, it's useless.

"Let go! Unhand me!" You shouted, but your words were going out on his ear and the other. You kept shouting for help, but you were suddenly cut off by your own yelp when you felt a large hand smack your ass.

"You pirate!" you seethed

He laughed at your reactions. "Tell me something I don't know, princesa."

His feet were moving faster than any man you've seen before, and before you know it, you arrived at the shore of the beach.

"Lift up the anchor and start sailing." He ordered as he climbed up the ship.

As he lands, with your upside down view, you see people pulling up the anchor and unfolding the sails.

"A woman on board, huh? You do know what they say about women being on a ship righ' boss?" A random crewmate noted as he took a closer look at you while your still hoisted on his shoulder.

"Quit talking and more sailing, or you're walking the plank." He threatened and the crewmate didn't waste time going back to business.

As the ship starts sailing and the sounds of gunshots and shouting were becoming more and more distant, O'Hara started walking up to a room.

As he enters, he roughly plops you down on what seems to be a bed and ties your hands and feet together.

"Stay." He simply said as he went to a desk and chair.

You scoff, as if you had a choice.

"Look, if it's the necklace you want I can just tell you where!"

He didn't say anything as he sat down and looked at various maps and papers.

"Please, I ju-"

"Shut up." His rough voice hightened in volume.

You quickly did.

"If you won't stay quiet, I can leave you naked for my men to use. So if you know what's good for you I would recommend you to zip it."

You shivered from his words.

You didn't want to anger him further, so you opted to look around the room.

More maps were scattered, and bottles of what seemed to be rum were placed neatly in shelves. Chest full of gold and jewelry were scattered everywhere. Artefacts and even bones of beasts were displayed like trophies on the wall.

"I must say, for a spoiled mocosa, you obey well." He chuckled.

You wanted to spit something back, but you're afraid that once you do, he'll keep his words.

"If your father doesn't give his precious treasure, get ready to say bye-bye to your little kingdom. So let's hope he's as obedient as you." He chuckled as he sat down, drinking from a bottle of rum.

"But if he does? You'll return me and keep the town safe away from your cannons?" You asked.

Miguel looked at you and lightly laughed.

"We'll see about that, but if he did give it, maybe I will keep your pretty little place safe and you'll be back at your papa's arms."

You don't believe him but do you have any other choice? "You....You promise?"

Miguel glanced at your shivering form, and after a deep thought, he took a quick gulp of his rum and finally spoke.

"I promise your little princess ass."

You gulp, hoping he would keep up with his words.

□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■□■

Morning came by, which marks the first day of your captivity, and you really want to take a bath.

O'Hara or Miguel, which he prefers to be called. Has removed the rope around your wrists while he lets you go around the ship, even outside the captain's cabin, just as long he could keep an eye on you. He was confident enough that you won't really go anywhere.

Not that you can anyway.

With water surrounding you in every direction, you lost hope trying to escape. Maybe until they make land, but who knows.

Right now, you were at the helm of the ship looking at the distance. Miguel, on the other hand, was talking to what seemed to be his navigator.

You really hope that your father would just let go of that necklace when he had the chance. But you hope even further that Miguel will keep his words that you will return safely and the town will he out of harm's way.

"boo"

You flinched hard, hearing a deep voice right next to your ear.

And of course, it's no one other than Miguel.

"Don't think too much or else your head will explode." He chuckled while you scoffed.

You suddenly feel self aware of your state.

It's been several hours, and you're still in your sleep wear. What's worse is that your barefoot with your ankles on display.

Miguel noticed your furrowed expression and chuckled.

"Is the princess not happy with her accommodation on the Arachnid?"

The arachnid is what they call this ship. You can say it's impressive apart from the crew.

"Shower." you demanded

"A wha?-"

"I need a shower." You completed your demand.

The ship suddenly got quiet, and all chatter seemed to stop as they stared at you. The only sounds that can be heard are water crashing against the ship, the wood of floor creaking, and seagulls squaking above.

You froze from the attention, when all of a sudden, the ship was filled with laughter all around even Miguel threw his head back to laugh, and suddenly your face flushed with embarrassment . I mean, should you be embarrassed?

All you want is a shower, you feel disgusting from the dirt you have gathered for today, and a change of clothes would be nice, something or anything that would cover your ankles.

The ship's laughter died down to chuckles.

"Shower you say? The princess wants to shower." His smirk grew in size while he looked at you.

"Well... Yes, I need a shower. If not, then at least give me proper change of clothes. If you're gonna kidnap someone, at least do it right."

Your words made Miguel laughed more.

"Change of clothes, huh? Bothered your little ankles are showing?" He mocked.

"If you're bothered by that, you should see the entertainment district. Trust me, hermosa when I say they show more than their ankles." With his words, laughter grew once again on the ship, and you winced in disgust on his implications

"Speaking of the entertainment district, why don't we give it a visit while princess looks for change of clothes." With that, the crew cheered, and the navigator smirked as he directed the steering wheel to the nearest land which you assumed where the "entertainment district" is located.

You gulp.

How are you gonna survive three days with these men.

#atsv miguel #miguel o'hara #miguel spiderverse #miguel x reader #miguel spiderman #miguel x you #spiderman 2099 #tw bullying #pirate #alternate universe #miggy #misogny #historical #princess

[wellofdean]

OK, I was going to reblog this excellent post by @luckshiptoshore so go read it, because yes. Yes!! YES!!! But then when I got started my post got super long and I felt bad tacking it onto her post and decided to make my own in response to these tags:

#i am actually a bit obsessed by the whole hunting as queerness metaphor#it’s so clearly something everyone involved in the show is thinking about#supernatural

Gurl, me too! Like go back to the start! By the time Supernatural began, the backlash against the Joseph Campbell Monomyth-style mode of storytelling had already begun in the hallowed halls of USC film school, and yo: I was there at the time of Kripke's graduation, and my best friends from college are full scale big giant time filmmakers now, whose names I will not share on main because it's uncool, and I don't want that attention, but... yeah. I am referencing FIRST HAND SOURCES on this.

But, for a real source? The Oxford English Dictionary places the first use of the term "Queer Theory" in 1990, with Queer Studies as an option in the academy by 1992. I know the kids think it's a new-fangled thing, but Kripke graduated USC in 1996 (I graduated in 1995) and it was ALL THE RAGE by then. My friends read queer theory in their Critical Studies courses in the Film School, I read it in the College of Humanities getting my degree in Literature. By that time, you could not get through that school with any degree in any non-STEM subject without knowing about ye olde postmodern lenses, queer and feminist theory, and without knowing how to employ those lenses.

Queer refers to sexuality, yes, but the word's earliest use (again, according to the OED) is in the 1500's, meaning: strange, odd, peculiar, eccentric. Also: of questionable character; suspicious, dubious.

So, ok, in 2005, Enter Supernatural, episode 1:

Presented? Two brothers. One actively seeking credit in the straight world that is not available to him in the bosom of his family: Stanford, law school, hot co-ed girlfriend, the other bound to his fractured, wounded family by duty, yes, but also by love, living on the fringe, alone, fighting monsters, and chasing after his father's approval, and who has long since given up any dream of being 'normal'. Episode 1 presents Sam's call to adventure, which he refuses when it's just familial duty, honor and love calling him, but accepts when the show takes a very straightforward and very telling path by classically fridging his woman. Ok, now he's on board. Like John, whose motivation is another dead woman, his motivation is revenge. So far so straight!

Dean though: he's different. He is already on the adventure and he was not 'called' or given the option of accepting or refusing because he had no agency when his feet were set upon this road. He does not fit the straight world at all, because he is cobbled together out of love, duty, deep guilt, striving, desperation and fear. This is who he is now, in some elemental, incontrovertible way. It was not a choice for him, he was born to it. His mother is dead, and we later learn, she made the choices that brought them all to this fate. Dean remembers her idyllically, but he is not motivated by revenge, more than any other thing, he wants to be worthy. He wants his father's approval, his brother's love.

Enter Supernatural's main theme: fucked up relationships between men enmeshed in patriarchy, which will eventually expand to include fucking GOD HIMSELF.

And like, there are SO MANY CLEAR STEPS ALONG THE ROAD in season one, and I am not even talking about sexuality and gender here, but there is SO MUCH TO SAY about it in season 1. But I am not talking about that -- I am talking at a structural, narrative level, the whole thing is just fucking all the way queered, yo.

The big climax?

At the end of the season, Dean says: "I just want my family back together. You, me, Dad... it's all I have." He is Sam's mother, John's partner! His vulnerability and emotion is feminized and contrasted with Sam and John's more overtly driven by their more masculine/straight heroic revenge quest. John: "Sam and I can get pretty obsessed, but you always take care of this family." Only that's not John talking, it's Azazel, and Dean knows it is because his father would never forgive how soft he is, how he will always choose love and family over revenge. Then, in the end, the show makes a huge point of telegraphing that Sam is finally aligning with Dean by refusing to shoot Azazel because he's possessing John, and Sam just can't do that to Dean.

Sam and Dean are thus bound together and cemented into a marginalised path, living on the road, haunting liminal spaces and cheap motels, confronting the monstrous everyday. Sam is presented as the brains of the operation, he does research, logics his way through things (masculine) while Dean is the heart who acts impulsively and on instinct and intuition (feminine).

It later transpires that Sam has a piece of the monster inside himself, and Dean has to learn to love the monstrous, he has no choice, because Sam is his brother and then Cas... and, and, and!

Like... I could go on and on, citing ENDLESS EXAMPLES. This could be a literal book. Maybe one you need to read with a magnifying glass like my condensed edition of the OED. LIke, the queerness of Supernatural is DIZZYING and MYRIAD.

But basically? FROM THE START, hunting is a queered version of family, and within that, Dean is a queered version of a Campbellian hero. Hunting is a metaphor for otherness and liminality, and that's even before you say a WORD about sex. It starts in deviation from the norms of family, masculinity and expands from there on so many levels both in story and on a meta level. The story is flesh on queer fucking bones.

I'm so sorry, but anyone who thinks queerness was not BAKED INTO Supernatural and more specifically into Dean from DAY 1 has clearly never seen Dean's insane lip gloss in season 1, and vastly underestimates the cultural awareness of people who write shit in Hollywood, and also the other people who put pink lip gloss on pretty boys in Hollywood. Nothing that gets on your screen wasn't a fucking choice made and approved by a LONG LIST of people who know what they are about.

#supernatural #dean winchester #sam winchester #the queerness is baked in from the word go #like...OBVIOUSLY #and transparently

[satansamwriting]

Could u write a mk1 kung lao x gn or male reader where they have a rivalry going on? And one day reader starts flirting with him during a sparring session and kung lao gets all flustered please. Please include kenshi, johnny and raiden watching them spar and then tease kung lao about it. Thank you!

MK1 Kung Lao rivalry with GN!reader

Short one-shots, I hope you enjoy it!

Small details : Raiden and Kung Lao sees each other as brothers

Disclaimer : English ain't my native language. There might be mistakes in this and I apologizes for them

°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

Training at the Wu Shi Academy was tougher than it seemed. At first when Lord Liu Kang had approached them, (Y/n) was weary. However, the god had proven to be quite convincing and so (Y/n) had begrudgingly agreed.

One thing was for sure, those monks knew how to pick their location. The Wu Shi Academy was simply jawbreaking. Whether it was from the cherry blossoms or the traditional Chinese structure, everything around the temple left whoever came gawking.

What the god hadn’t predicted once every potential champion gathered at the academy, was for two of them to get into an rivalry instantly. Since day one, Kung Lao and (Y/n) were at each other’s throats. Most of the time, Lao would be the one to instigate the verbal back and forth. Until one day, (Y/n) got fed up with the snarky comments of the other man and took things physical. Did Kung Lao learn his lesson after this? Of course not. It seemed the man was fueled even more by it.

This went on for weeks, even months. So much so that whenever they would fight, Johnny would roll his eyes announcing to the rest of the group that the “old married couple was bickering again”.

Eventually, Lord Liu Kang decided to intervene.

That’s how (Y/n) found themselves forced into a sparring match against Kung Lao. This time, their kombat would be supervised by the god himself. Of course, Johnny did not want to miss such a thing and forced Kenshi to come along. Raiden was also present if only to try and calm his brother down if such need arose.

Round one was given to (Y/n) after a well thrown uppercut had knocked Kung Lao out for a few seconds.

Round two found Kung Lao as the winner. His quick mastery of his new weapon had offered him the unpredictability.

Down to the last round, both kombatant were bruised and slightly exhausted. Each looking into the other's eyes, determined to show the other who was truly the best.

“I promise not to go too hard on you” Kung Lao said snuggly.

“Oh but I like it hard” Came the smooth response of (Y/n) which made the farmer freeze.

Behind them, Johnny whistled. The tip of Kung Lao’s ears changed to a barely visible shade of red. Glaring at the superstar, Kung Lao readied himself for the last match

Once the countdown had reached zero and the two kombatant were on each other, (Y/n) took advantage of the new found shyness of the other. Flirty remarks flew out of their mouth whenever they could. Surprisingly, Kung Lao would join in the flirting. He wasn’t bad either.

Kung Lao fell to the ground, raising sand as he landed. Although he was quickly back on his feet, they couldn’t help themselves.

“You know, you’d look good underneath me.”

More whistling in the back, but they didn’t pay it any attention. Their eyes were laser focused on Kung Lao, enjoying the way their flirting seemed to affect the other. This went on and on, until Kung Lao misplaced his left leg a tad bit too far apart from the other, giving them the opportunity to make their fatal blow.

“(Y/n)’s win.”

Approaching the sulking Lao, they extended their hand toward the man.

“Better luck next time, handsome.”

Accepting the offered hand, Kung Lao tried to regain his snarky attitude. For the first time since their arrival, (Y/n) gave him a genuine smile.

“ I think we started on the wrong foot, how about we try again?”

Only now realising that he had yet to let go of their hand, Kung Lao squeezed it gently before letting it go.

“Sounds good to me.”

Later, during the night’s diner, Kung Lao would be victim to the teasing of one annoying superstar. Even Raiden joined in as well as Kenshi. Ah the betrayal, Kung Lao swore he would get his revenge on them one day.

#mortal kombat #mortal kombat x reader #mk #mk fandom #mk x gn reader #kung lao x gn reader #kung lao #mk1 #mk1 2023 #mk1 kung lao #mk1 kung lao x gn reader

[inchidentally]

What do you think was the turning point in Lando and Oscar's relationship?

I really want to know what other ppl think about this bc for me personally I don't think that moment has even come yet! I made this post about a landmark landoscar moment but I don't think that's been the big turning point into them going ahhh this is it, this is what our friendship is.

like I've said before in my way too many text posts, Lando has stayed thrown by the fact that Oscar doesn't even remotely fit into the Carlos and Daniel type of teammate he's used to. Lando's shown Oscar his quiet side, his fidgety side, his cocky side, his bratty side, his naughty/flirty side and all of them get the same quiet fond indulgent response from Oscar. guys like Carlos and Daniel have known exactly how to play Lando almost from day one and we get all this great content. but apart from a little bit of sass back sometimes, Oscar stays in that very passive role and the content we get from them is Oscar watching his very famous, very well-established and charismatic teammate that he's used to watching on a phone screen. occasionally we get glimpses of Prema or Alpine Oscar come out but it's very rare.

I feel like he's wanted to just get his head down this season and prove himself the way he's said he feels he needs to. he's clearly taking nothing for granted and I don't think we're going to see him start to fully relax until a good few races into 2024. Lando is F1/McLaren establishment by now and personally I think Oscar puts Lando into the same category of things that he's trying to prove himself to. that was terrible sentence structure but you get what I mean ??

(rest under a cut bc yeah I overdo it and also just my opinion so pls nobody take it seriously)

the general standard for F1 rookies is either to latch onto the personality of their teammate or show up with a persona already in place. in both cases it's because young men have crazy amounts of insecurity but are also desperate to ingratiate themselves into a group as fast as possible. Lando was kind of an exception bc he entered F1 basically as a zygote. he went from being Carlos' baby to Daniel's baby right up until the late 2022 season. but since then we've seen Lando learn how to do the flirty humor and cocky joking that pretty much all drivers use to navigate each other. Lando's not naturally as much of a cabrón as the rest of them but he's found a way to fit in that feels natural and that also tracks with his streamer/youtuber identity.

but literally NONE of that F1 rookie standard behavior fits Oscar. I was talking about this with @landofication and how Oscar's confidence and unbotheredness comes from a such genuinely harmless place - he simply doesn't perform for anyone and he doesn't fib to people even casually. he's incredibly well-raised and respectful and polite but he won't ever say things he doesn't mean. he won't talk for the sake of filling a lull in conversation AND he also won't say something controversial/opinionated if it seems unnecessary or cocky. for example !! Alpine made an absolutely wild assumption about his future without even speaking to him first and he very calmly stood up for himself and later on made a good humored joke about the drama when he signed the extension with McLaren. he's been more mature and calm than men twice and three times his age.

that kind of honesty is why it feels completely authentic when Oscar forgets the cameras are on him and he just tracks Lando's every move and laughs at all of Lando's jokes and forgets he's supposed to play a role. same with how genuinely supportive he always is of Lando even when he himself has had a bad performance. he also doesn't want to make himself being a Lando fanboy into ~hilarious media fodder~ he's just being open about respecting and really liking Lando. kind of like how he can giggle and get bashful about gay innuendo or a guy play-flirting with him (or Lando getting raunchy to make him blush) but I've genuinely never seen him bro-zone someone or play at acting gay for laughs. he can see why the flirting and raunch is funny but he doesn't get why acting gay would be funny.

and I'm not having a go at guys who do that kind of humor or saying that they're doing it offensively! I've said before that a lot of what Americans view as "gay" in non-American male friendships is extremely standard straight dude behavior everywhere else. flirting and being physical with your bros is different from flirting with women to them precisely because they won't date or have sex w their bros. there's no need for nohomo because it was never homo lol the lines are very clear. also a lot of that humor in F1 is a common survival tactic in male pro sports. like a way to have fun and bond while also knowing that cameras are aiming at you every second you're not in your driver's room or hotel room. it's way better to diffuse the tension of being constantly watched by being silly and flirty with your bros rather than trying to hold a real conversation.

but it's just not Oscar personally to initiate that stuff for laughs or to know how to pick up those jokes and play ball. just like how he's not starry-eyed about Lando as a joke! he's just genuinely got this fanboy crush he's dealing with as best he can during a high pressure rookie season. he's not bothering to try and complicate things further or push himself into Lando's existing social life.

BUT poor Lando is definitely still in the process trying to figure Oscar out. the little fixations Lando already has of his own like Oscar's name and Oscar being such a good boy who blushes at sex jokes and Oscar being so mature and patient even when Lando is fed up with filming and having a blood sugar drop are so cute to me because Lando's been slowly picking up on what Oscar genuinely likes about him and where his boundaries are. the photo of Oscar on lando.jpg with the heart caption right underneath it was unbearably vulnerable. such a tiny way to say I really like my new teammate even if I don't understand him yet.

I do however think it's driving Lando iNsAnE that Oscar has no concept of casual PDA. I'm hoping he's seen by now that Oscar isn't even like that with Lily and that it isn't at all personal. but oh my god he's so ready to be able to hug and cuddle Oscar and do everything he does with Carlos and Daniel and his pre-F1 big brothers like Max F, George and Alex. I'm all for respecting people's physical boundaries but hopefully Oscar thinks back to Lando's reaction here and let's Lando latch onto him more often.

aaaaaand that's all to say that I think we're going to have to be patient to see where Lando and Oscar land in terms of what sort of deeper friendship they have. their teammates relationship has already been tested thoroughly in just one season and it seems so solid which has obviously been first priority. but between Lando having such a full social life already and Oscar having gotten used to being by himself or socializing very privately I'm not expecting a carlando or dando type thing where they share friends or hobbies until they've gotten to know each other better individually. which in a way for me is really sweet because the amount that they already sync up and are comfortable together and share their team duties despite not having that immediate jokey rapport is just !!! I really love that. sort of how silly bubbly Lando is my beloved but quieter and more thoughtful Lando is maybe even a little bit more my beloved?

anyway thankfully we've got three more years locked down to keep seeing them feel each other out (huhuahauhsfhh)

#landoscar #mctwinks #it is so dangerous to ask me these things I rly hope you don't mind me being insane #mine #inchreplies

[ratrrriot]

Sonic art tips for a young artist pleasee :)

wow thanks for thinking my advice is worth asking for, i'm flattered! here are some tips that helped me learn how to draw them:

Starting by drawing a structure of basic shapes always helps with proportions,but if you decide to use one,don't let it make your drawing stiff! make sure to draw that structure with loose lines and don't think too hard about it. Movement and dynamism are core aspects of these characters,prioritize that over things like symmetry.

Unless you want the characters to look like they're made of rubber or super soft,avoid working exclusively with round edges. instead try making part of their bodies a litttle more sharp and exaggerate some corners. Try finding the perfect balance between sharp and round lines for each one so they look more natural and dynamic.

Pay attention to the proportions of the characters heads in relation to their hands,the length of their legs,the shape of their tummies and eyes,etc. but more importantly,pay attention to the spaces in-between all of those things. For example,the space between their eyes and the end of their foreheads varies from character to character. Details like where the ears are placed in relation to the eyes or how far their quills reach in relation to their backs are just as key as obvious things like what color they are.

Try to find at least a bit of volume in their muzzles. You don't need to take it as far as me cuz i like to exaggerate it but always remember that they aren't plain and try to visualize them separately from the character’s heads before drawing them.

To understand what makes each character recognizable shape-wise, i suggest using more than one pic of each as reference and seeing if there are any differences between them. then choose what you want to keep in your drawings of them and what not.

Don't feel preassured to always draw these characters in any of the official styles (if not ever), just draw them the way that’s more comfortable and fun for you!

Understanding and studying what you draw is important and incredibly useful, BUT it can become very stressful and frustrating when the results aren't what we wanted, Plus, practice is the most important factor when it comes to getting better at drawing and if you don't enjoy the process you don't practice as much. So if you stop having fun at some point or frustration starts taking over,make sure to take a break from working based on how the drawings is “supposed “ to look and instead think about your work process and see what needs to be changed for it to be enjoyable again (Even if it means ignoring all the tips i just mentioned until now and literally not thinking about what you're doing for a while!!). I certainly know i need a break from using my brain while drawing from time to time so i let myself momentarily forget everything I’ve ever learned about anatomy and structure and just doodle Sonic like a kid who just got new pencils. It's good for the heart and recharges motivation!!

And lastly, if you feel like Sonic & friends are hard to draw,it's not just you: they ARE hard to draw and for most it takes years to be able to draw them with ease. I still struggle with them from time to time even when in'm drawing them in my own style.

Hope these help! idk if these tips will be useful for everyone and i still have a lot to learn, so if you decide not to use any of these, that's cool. Good luck drawing these guys regardless!!

#rat answers #art talk

[corpsepng]

Pls make a list of books you recommend to aspiring writers<3

Ok. Aspiring/burgeoning writer starter kit:

In writing anything you officially become a writer so that’s step one haha, no need to aspire too much. BUT. I’m going to soapbox for a bit using this ask as an excuse love u kissing u etc. So. This will barely be about books, but sort of the recipe of what I (personally and subjectively) think will help anyone who wants to grow their craft. (I know because I've been writing seriously for 14 years)

The act of writing is the best practice you can get but having a well from which to draw on creatively and skill wise in order to DO that practice is the trickier part. And sometimes we can be found lacking because we’re either NOT refilling that well enough, consciously enough, or only with the same sorts of things so it gets stagnant. This is a long one so I’ll shove it under the cut haha.

The recipe:

Study craft

Broaden horizons 

Diversify consumption

Consume with intention

Apply with reference

1) Study craft: this is the easiest to make sense of, right? I want to get good at writing so I read books about writing yada yada. Whatever you’re writing, it’s made up of a lot of moving parts, and you can dedicate time studying EACH PART, but figure out what you have the least experience with, or the most difficulty with, and start there. Also, before I go on to preach about why you shouldn’t solely stake your growth on some dusty old books, here’s some dusty old books I recommend:

The Elements of Style (strunk/white/kalman) (really quick and abbreviated advice, read every bit of this but remember: rules are important to know so you can decide which are worth following and which are in need of breaking for the pursuit of your goals. And nobodies perfect, or editors wouldn’t have a job)

Bird by Bird (Anne Lamott) (excellent work about fostering a process, important for everyone who finds themselves a little lost on how to just. Start)

Wonderbook (Jeff Vandermeer) (I haven’t read this one but knowing Vandermeers work this is on my TBR and I KNOW it’s going to be enlightening)

How to Read Literature like a Professor (Thomas C. Foster) (perfect for those who can see others stories working but unsure how to make their own work, I personally didn’t read much of this one but this will help people to more critically engage with what they’re consuming)

Save the Cat Writes a Novel/Joseph Campbells Hero’s Journey/On Writing and Worldbuilding/etc (all of these are on structure and craft in a concrete sense), I would recommend either choose one OR getting the abbreviated/digestible versions through YouTube because a lot of these can repeat themselves. I’m working on a playlist of writing craft/structure videos that I found helpful, so keep an eye out for that)

So. Studying craft should be a multidisciplinary process. Articles online, videos on niche media, books on craft or copying things from your favorites, looking for yourself in the movies you watch or fiction you read. Punctuation, prose, structure, rhetoric, character, world building, pacing, etc. Unfortunately, no matter how seasoned you become as a writer, you will always be learning new things about the craft itself.

It should be fun and I honestly feel like an enlightened little scientist when I see something that really cracks the open the magic for me (ex: scenes that serve more than one purpose are OF COURSE going to be more engaging that scenes with only one purpose- duh) (of COURSE magic systems should have a cost) (of COURSE the characters cant always win OR always lose)

2) Broaden horizons: consuming fiction and studying it is key to knowing how to reproduce it. We start with the training wheels of imitation before we ride away full speed into truly unique original storytelling. But the most impactful and thought-provoking stories are more than just fiction, so you need to know more than stories. Science, history, art, craft, math, music, cooking, psychology, religion, whatever!

Everyone always parrots “write what you know”, but what you KNOW can expand to influence what you write- so keep learning new things all the time and for fun, because you never know what could help your story. Your knowledge is not limited to experience alone, and research is your best friend. ASOIAF was so loved because George RR Martin loved not only fantasy, but British history. The Folk of the Air series is so loved because Holly Blacks special interest is faeries.

Note: this does not mean the study of OTHER PEOPLES trauma and experiences in an appropriative way, rather, become worldly. Because sure, knowing what a gunshot feels like adds realism, but I don’t care about realism if I don’t care about your characters or world. Science fiction is the best example of this: so many of those stories stick with us generationally because they’re pointing a lens back at humanity, asking big philosophical questions with science, which is something that touches us all.

But it doesn’t even need to be Big and Thematic like that. My dear friend @chaylattes has a project where she’s applied her love of plants to the world building AND plot, and has INVENTED whole plant species that enriched their work with something so exclusively Chay. No one else could write Andromeda Rogue because Chay, with specific interests and knowledge, put that specificity into the story.

3) Diversify consumption: surrounding yourself with more of the same means you’re going to regurgitate the same, derivatively. To be a hater for a moment: I can tell within the first chapter if someone only reads/watches one kind of media (m*rvel, fairy smut, grim dark nonsense, etc), and it’s distracting. When I read that derivative work, I’m not thinking about THEIR story. All I can think of is the people who did it first, and better.

Alternatively, the best work draws on the unexpected. Fantasy work taking notes from horror, science fiction including humanistic romance, romance with elements of mystery. RF Kuangs work feels so smart because she’s literally a PHD candidate who’s reading of academic writing. Cassandra Clares work is so interpersonally messy and hard to look away from because she watches a lot of reality television. 

Genre is less a set of cages to lock yourself inside of and more so the sections of a great big fictional playground- and you need to start playing. Rules, again, are guidelines that can be bent for the sake of your stories. I predominantly write scifi/fantasy/horror but some of my favorite stuff is literary fiction, historical nonfiction, thrillers, and poetry.

And if you can’t bring yourself to read different genres, it takes significantly less effort to WATCH different genres. Television and film are stories too, and can absolutely be learned from. 

4) Consume with intention: this is easier said than done. I, embarrassingly, admit that I did not have any reading comprehension skills until I was at least 19. I was consuming, but I wasn’t thinking a damn critical thought, just spitting it back out in a way that sounded smart.

Critical thinking skills (I say, on the website that historically lacks such a thing) are a muscle that needs to be exercised just as often as your writing muscle. Reading new work, studying craft, learning new shit- none of it matters if you can’t APPLY it all to a story. One can take a clock apart to learn how exactly it ticks, but it won't tell time like a watch until you put it back together.

The key is asking questions, all of the time about everything. That whole “why the curtains were blue” nonsense comes to mind, but if you want to be a good writer, (edit: a writer that cares about whether or not their work is vapid imitation of better work) learning to ask WHY the curtains are blue really does matters.

Ask why in ALL stories you consume, including your own. Why do Ghibli films make me feel calm? (Motifs of undisturbed nature, low stakes plots and quiet scenes of reprieve between action, characters that care about one another and aren’t afraid to show it) Why do I fly through a Gillian Flynn novel but take 8,000 years to read other books? (Concise descriptions, realistic but evocative premise, witty voice, contained and fast paced plot, an abundance of questions driving the mystery leading up to a satisfying crash of answers at the end) Why were the curtains blue, the coffee cup chipped, and the lipstick stain on the rim red instead of purple or pink? And why did the colors matter at all when the scene is about a father at a kitchen table? (You tell me!) Answers may vary.

You can put the work into learning the answer at the source (ie: listening to authors talk about their own work), or through the external interpretations of a critic (proceed with caution here), sure. These are even good when learning HOW to think critically if you don’t even know where to start. But your growth as a writer depends on your ability to answer your OWN questions. 

(Why do I feel tense in this scene? Is it because the character says they’re sweating and struggling to breathe? Is it because I’ve been told the monsters close? Is it because the sentences are getting shorter and the author keeps repeating descriptions of that monsters massive bloody teeth coming closer? Or is it because I know the gun in her hands has no bullets because another character already tried what she’s about to try?)

(Why do I feel sad in this scene? Is it because the characters mom just died? Is it because the character can’t even verbalize that sadness to others? Is it because none of the other characters seem to care enough to ask? Is it because of the wilted flowers in the corner? Or is it because there are daisies in the bouquet, and those were the moms favorite?)

I can nod and smile at 1000 opinions about “why X did Y and the end of Z” or “why X is Y and not Z” but how I felt when I consume something, how I was affected and how it made ME PERSONALLY answer my critical questions, that’s what’s important. That’s how we manufacture gay subtext in everything, because sometimes gay is a feeling as opposed to a fact.

Also, if those subjective answers are inconsistent among readers/viewers, the writer likely had their own intentions a little muddled. So, and I know I’m getting tangential but stay with me: romance. You know how you’re supposed to feel happy or convinced that the people falling in love are like, in love? And want to put yourself in that position or whatever? I CANNOT consume most romance media because it all comes off as categorically terrifying to me. I ask myself why the characters are doing what they do, reacting the way they react, saying way they say, and none of it feels romantic. I want to file a restraining order, and that’s the failing of the author, who did not make enough conscious choices in their work and accidentally created horror while writing their color by numbers trope slop of a “romance” novel. 

5) Apply with reference: is like taking all your ingredients and finally cooking. You want people to notice and respect when you add certain literary devices, descriptions, character choices, but not to the detriment of your work. Shows like stranger things are popular but divisive because their intertextuality and reliance on nostalgia bolster an otherwise unoriginal idea. They weren’t trying to reinvent the wheel, they were writing a love letter to Stephen Spielberg, and are riding that wave into the ground. But the fairy dick renaissance doesn’t feel nearly as palatable as season one of stranger things did because a lot of times they aren’t using the ingredients in their own way, rather, following the recipe to a T and selling it as new. Food really is the perfect metaphor and sorry in advance because I’m really going to run with it here lol. 

When I eat a meal, first of all I know I'm eating food, so don't try and trick me into thinking otherwise or I'll only get annoyed. I want to be able to taste all of what’s in front of me, spice, salt, sweet, bitter, etc and know what what you said you've fed me is really actually truly what I've eaten. One ingredient, or writing choice, shouldn’t overpower another, or surprise me so much I can’t take another bite. I shouldn’t try something you call “sauced and baked yeast patty garnished with fermented milk and smoked meat” and think “this shits pizza” because you didn’t even try to jazz it up more than what the instructions on the digiorno box said. I also shouldn’t bite into something you call a pizza and only taste bread because you really like bread and forgot that a pizza is more than just bread. 

But inversely, avoiding all ingredients gets you weird, nary inedible shit like charred milk reduction with lamb mist or whatever. Show me you have knowledge in your genre by referencing it AND remixing it, show me that you studied craft by foreshadowing properly or pacing well, show me you’re more than an AI writerbot by deepening your work with your unique and human influence, show me you read broadly by adding surprising ingredients, and show me that you mean every word you write because you made the curtains blue instead of yellow, and topped your pizza with pepperoni instead of pineapple.

Congrats on making it all the way through my rambling, hope I made sense and that this helped!

#mail.txt #writeblr #writerblr #writing advice #writing resources #writing tips #writing help #anon

[fipindustries]

not a question but basically any time i remember your art exists im looking it up and down and trying to take inspiration from it. your expression work is always top notch, and the way you depict faces is the perfect balance between cartoony and well defined

oh my god this is such an amazing compliment! thank you so much!

you know, i think this has been a long time coming. im going to take this as a chance to go in depth about how my style works, why i do what i do and how i do it. do keep in mind that none of this is me saying "this is the objectively correct way of doing art" but rather just how my own process works, what I like to see in my own art.

that balance that you speak of comes from a commitment to underlying structures. what im going to call the stylization sandwich

i start with a clear, well defined solid structure, i add whatever wacky cartoony features i want on top of it (none the less strongly tied and guided by the underlying structure) and then i refine by adding as many more realistic, grounding details i want, although you can go too far with it so i gotta be careful or ill end up with those shitty "cartoon character IRL would look scary!" clickbait drawings.

(quick aside, this trend fucking sucks, its obvious the artist went out of their way to make the drawing creepy, this pretension that "actually the character would look scary irl" deliberatly misundertands the principles of stylization, its as creatively bankrupt as jokes about mario eating mushrooms)

getting back on topic, the point is that, as long as the underlying structures are solid you can build whatever you want on top of them and it will make sense

a key tool here is internalizing the way the proportions on the face work. and i say internalize because obviously i dont actually have the golden ratio memorized inside my head nor do i stop and measure and calculate all the proportions in the features. i just read a lot about drawing, i drew a lot, i tried to always keep a critical eye to what im drawing and see if it "feels" disproportionate. once you get an eye for it then you know how far you can push things before they complitely break

let me give you another example of what i feel is a botched execution of this.

if you look closely at the face on the left there are a lot of things that dont make sense. the corners of the eyebrows dip down into the eyes when usually the eyes are enveloped by the eyebrows, the way the beard grows around the nose is just not how facial hair is distributed, the mouth is too big, etc. on the left i used photoshop to reorganize the factions into something that makes a bit more sense to me

(another quick aside, the real big problem at the heart of the original drawing were not so much the proportions but the tangents, when different lines touch each other like this that is usually a big no no but that is a topic for another day)

also a lot of it is just me cheating. yeah i cheat. you ever heard how people say there is no innate talent and its all practisce and hard work. well, yeah, that is mostly true, but is also true that some people are born with inherent advantages. either taller or more predisposed to being thin or with better facial structures or better innate hand-eye coordination. i was born with an uncanny capacity to visualize stuff. i have whatever the opposite of aphantasia is. i can borderline hallucinate things if i want to. and that goes coupled with the visual intuitions i developed through practisce and training.

so first come the learned wisdom, and then comes the innate talent that helps me exploit that learned wisdom to its full potential

on top of that is corporeality, i try to draw in such a way that it conveys depth and weight to the things im drawing, certain kinds of stylizations dont care about that and choose instead to have their drawing look flat, a classic one is the UPA style

is a very fun style! very cute, very dynamic, very expressive in its simplicity. it became very popular in the 60's and 70's. personally i choose to go in a different direction. i draw in such a way that if one were to turn my drawings into 3d models not a lot would get lost in the process.

whereas other artists....

...not so much

but yeah, ultimatly it all goes back to underlying structure. any drawing can work

as long as you have a strong foundation underneath.

PS: if you like my style i cannot reccomend enough the art of @rezuaq i feel they follow a lot of the same principles i talked about here but i could be wrong.

they have been my biggest inspiration as of the last 4 years, i shamelssly stole the design of one of their characters for jennyffer. go to their blog and give them a like

#art

[petricorah]

Thanks for the ask, @strrwbrrryjam ! i'm flattered that you think I do a good job of that, because I'm still learning! (and I also struggle heavily with proportions. I have to resize my heads and arms so, so much...)

I'm afraid I don't have any secrets. I think the answer is to just practice, over and over again. But specifically, this is what I try to focus on as I'm learning:

references

quick practices - 30 second to 5 minute studies that help with getting a full scope of the shape and energy of the body, not meant to be perfect

studies - deep dives into certain anatomical structures (videos linked below)

Below the cut is how I use references go from this to this:

References:

Use a bunch of references! Pictures you take, stock images, from shows--practice real people. Even if your style is heavily stylized, it all starts from an understanding of anatomy.

How I Use a Reference When I Struggle With Proportions:

The first step I take while looking at a reference is to just draw a very loose sketch with a line of action that goes then entire length of the piece, and I try to section it out. I find if I don't think about the body as a whole, and just start drawing a head, the head will be way bigger than the rest of the image. So my first step is just really boxy and basic, just to get all appendages on paper. My first pass could look like this:

Okay, not bad. But the right arm is going way too far down--the forearm is really long. The head is too big for the style I want, and the left arm is at a 90 degree angle, unlike the picture. But, I have the general scope of everything on the page, so it's easier to adjust and look at the full picture!

Then, I try to focus on landmarks. I look at where certain body parts fall in the reference. For instance, Blackbeard's right elbow doesn't reach his belt, so his elbow shouldn't be near his waist. I can tell that his left arm is closer to being straight than at a right angle, and I can see that his head isn't as big on his shoulders as I have. I can also look at the negative space and see that the gaps between his right arm need to be smaller. So my next pass might look like this:

(I don't usually draw on the reference image, and I just "draw" the lines in my mind, but the for sake of things...)

Now it's looking a bit closer!

The next is the harder part. It's making things shapes, and is closer to the lineart stage. I try to follow curves, separate the chest from the torso, get the angle of the shoulders and head, etc. I have some video links at the end that explain this step much more in def.

You may notice that the head angle is a bit different than the image, and the shoulders are a bit lower. Sometimes, following a reference image completely either doesn't fit your style or, in some cases, the more accurate drawing following a reference can actually look "wrong" (anatomically) when drawn. Figure out what works best for you, and for the message you're trying to get across in the piece!

[sliiiight flashing in timelapse]

And here is the final timelapse, with a little refining and polishing of the anatomy. Not everything is completely accurate to the reference image, but I've created a believable image in the likeness.

I hope this helped! This was a quick and dirty post of something I'm still learning. Here are some youtube tutorial artists, resources, and books that I use to learn!

Youtube:

-ModerndayJames has lots of videos on creating shapes and understanding anatomy, and placing people in perspective. He has a lot of free videos, and then some cheap ones on gumroad that go more into it.

-Proko has lots of videos on anatomy!

Practice Resources:

-Pose Maniacs - figures in different poses. You can move the camera around to see different angles.

-QuickPoses has images for figure drawing and quick gesture drawing! You can even have different timers.

Books:

Morpho Series. There used to be the one on "Fat and Skin Folds" that was a free PDF download that was on tumblr for a while, but I don't believe the books are that expensive.

Taco's Books, published by Lezhin. This is heavily anime styled, but talks a lot about anatomy, and is a great resource!

#art tutorial #asks #mytutoirals #myart #proportions #turns out you can't add videos to asks and if you try it makes the post uneditable #so i couldn't answer your ask directly. hope you see it sorry! #anatomy tutorials

[lovetals]

the perks of a vision

synopsis: a vision has multiple uses, it isn’t just a way to boost your fighting skills. so how do these vision-bearers use them with you, the one they love the most?

characters: kazuha, jean, itto, ningguang, ei, childe, yelan, diluc, kaeya, and ganyu

deets: gn! reader, some have established relationships while others don’t, some of them is up for you to decide

notes: me and my bestie were talking about this like months ago and i finally wrote them out! (hc format, but whatevs!) some of them are way shorter than others so, uh, damn 😭 not the most proud of kazuha tbh, i think the scenario i paired with him wasn’t a good match :p but also… teasing kazuha •/////•

i think one of my followers is a ganyu fan so i hope they enjoy her part! (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

kazuha

❀ a sudden strong breeze is a simple and effective way to get you to huddle closer to the man—and he takes advantage of this a lot

❀ kazuha tends to spend his time outside and likes to bring you along with him. a walk through a forest, sitting beneath a tree, tracing shapes in the sand on the beach, it doesn’t matter what the two of you are doing; he just likes to spend time with you

❀ while he is someone that speaks his mind he likes to have his fun, too. why ask you outright for some cuddles when he can be a little cheeky and change up the weather a bit >:3

❀ the two of you will be walking down a narrow dirt path when *gasp*! the wind starts to get too strong! oh, dear :( you two should stick close to each other just to be safe—here, grab his hand!

❀ once you notice the wind suddenly stopped you make a move to release his hand, to only have it kick back up again. well isn’t that such a coincidence?!

❀ even the colder days still play towards kazuha’s favor—it’s actually much better in his opinion. he just needs to do a little work and ta dah! you’re shivering! wait, no, don’t be happy—act concerned, kazu!!

❀ the reason why kazuha favors the cold days more than sunny ones is because he’s able to actually hold you. pretty boy is secretly so ecstatic about this!! sure, holding his hand is nice, but so is wrapping an arm around your shoulder and pulling you into his side 🥰

jean

❀ visions tend to be linked towards the bearer’s emotions and you learned this one day while accidentally startling jean awake. you weren’t the one who needed it, but that sudden burst of wind certainly woke you up

❀ there’s papers littered all over the desk and floor now, but the blonde’s attention is more focused on you, who has messy hair and clothes. oh, dear… please! let the acting grandmaster fix it for you!

❀ it may sound strange, but she gets slightly addicted to fixing you up. running her fingers through your hair, helping you adjust any clothes that got messed up from the surprise gust, she wants to keep doing it again and again so badly, but as direct as jean can get she’s rather shy when it comes to something like this so she resorts to using her vision

❀ she’s usually cooped up in her office so she tends to pretend to get startled by something, usually by you shaking her awake, as an excuse for the sudden wind

❀ outside, she doesn’t need to pretend as much. it’s outside, so obviously there’s bound to be a change in the weather, certainly not something caused by an anemo user, no

itto

❀ this one is gonna be structured differently because i think it’s better conveyed through bullet points 😓 but picture itto running up to you after meeting zhongli, who taught him a new trick

❀ itto: babe! check this out!!

❀ itto: *stomps on the floor* *summons a stone pillar right underneath you, tossing you into the air*

❀ don’t worry, he catches you :)

❀ if you’re cool with it, the two of you try to figure out just how high up the oni can send you

❀ the first time was more of an accident, but after learning that he gets to hold you after he catches you it’s now used as an excuse to do just that

❀ (bonus: he uses this new trick to vandalize the statue of the raiden shogun—y’all know what he’s gonna do >:))

ningguang

❀ the jade screen that she can summon works very well for soundproofing. standing behind one can muffle the noise on the other side so if you were completely surrounded? total silence. sometimes the stress of ningguang’s work can get to her and she just needs a moment of silence alone, but she doesn’t just use it for herself

❀ whenever you’re feeling awful or ningguang thinks you need to relax she’ll summon those screens right away, gently asking if everything’s ok

❀ the screens are rather thin to the point of having easy access to go through and to see on the other side, but with just a bit of tweaking and alterations, ningguang makes the walls surrounding you thick and non-clear to give you privacy

❀ if you wanted to be left alone she makes sure to make some sort of door before leaving so that you can get out once you’re feeling better. make sure to go find her when you’re out, she’s prepared you a nice cup of tea :)

(surprise!: y’all know those scenes/moments/tropes of running away from your crush to only wind up being cornered by them and pinned against a wall? yeah, my brain is becoming mush at the idea of zhongli summoning his pillar and doing that (//▽//))

ei

❀ thunder is a common fear among many; sometimes it’s the loud noise and rumble that make them tremble or the bright, sudden flashes from lightning that strikes fear. let’s say for one example you were part of this group

❀ you mention this to ei at one point and she remembers this detail for, like, ever. how could she not? she’s literally the archon of electro, but she doesn’t take offense to hearing this, she just remembers it easily because she wants to know everything about you

❀ one day you start to excuse yourself from your hangout, saying you should get home before it’s too late and ei, who remembered your fear of thunder, decided to do something just a little mischievous

*bam!*

❀ omg (first name)! are you ok?! just listen to that thunder :(( well you must stay with her and wait for the thunder to pass! and just in case it goes on all night, here; she’ll prepare a bed for you to spend the night in (aka, make more space on her bed and make it more comfy)

❀ of course, not everyone is scared of thunder, but no one is immune to the dangers of it. so if you were someone that wasn’t scared of it ei doesn’t mind, she can still use her ability and pass it off by saying that you should spend the night with her just to be safe

childe

❀ tfw you stole this from kokomi but don’t know jack shit about her so you gotta downgrade to him 🙃 /hj

❀ “the power of water is its ability to take any shape” - the hydro oceanid, i think. i’ve been avoiding her cause god i hate her fight

❀ anyways—getting back on track: with the wise words from the oceanid many hydro wielders use their ability to create something pleasing to look at. for some, they use it in battle, for others, it’s to entertain the crowd, for childe, it’s to give you a little smooch <3

❀ childe likes to make a little fishie to hover around you, swirling around your head before diving in to give you a peck on the face. cheek, nose, forehead, eye—doesn’t matter, if it can reach it, it’ll kiss there

❀ when the contact is made childe makes a little kissy face as if he were actually kissing you (´ε｀ )♡

❀ if he’s feeling a little cheeky, the harbinger makes the fish splash onto your face, spreading water all over it rather than leaving behind a wet spot. don’t worry! he’ll help clean it off!! as long you give him a kiss in return, that is (｡•̀ᴗ-)✧

yelan

❀ do you guys remember that one episode in spongebob where he and patrick would whisper something into a bubble so that when it would pop it’d repeat what was said into it? yeah, yelan does that :)

❀ it happens not too often, but it’s always a pleasure because the woman always has something sweet to say about you. there are some days where you’re chased after the bubbles, hearing whispers from her one after another. there’s just so much she has to tell you! how beautiful your outfit is, how amazing your hair looks today, how pretty your smile is—she can go on and on!

❀ when she can’t settle on what to say first she’ll roll a dice to figure out and say whatever the number lands on

❀ extra: it’s a great way to warn you about something without alerting anyone—if someone was following you yelan would whisper this into the bubble and give instructions on how to get away before dealing with the person herself

diluc

❀ i think it’s a universal agreement that having a pyro vision means you’re naturally warm and diluc’s fucking hot so it’s always a pleasure to stand near him

❀ and isn’t it such a coincidence that wherever you went with him it was always a little chilly?

❀ no, seriously! even beneath the warm sun in the city of mondstadt there’s still a nip in the air that makes you huddle close to the man. and that breeze blowing by was certainly not helping (¬ ¬ ) (haha, what? noooo, it was definitely not venti changing the airflow because diluc offered free drinks if he did it. haha, what are you saying?)

❀ as lovely as it is to spend time with you during the daytime diluc has a bit of a preference for the nighttime (mainly because he doesn’t need to ask a certain bard for help and deal with his teasings the next day) but just like with the vision, the night has multiple perks

❀ for example: enemies are more prone to coming out and attacking any unsuspecting people walking home so diluc can protect you! oh, and, uh make sure to stick by him just to be safe… please? 👉👈

❀ it’s also naturally cold at night so diluc doesn’t have to rely on any tricks to hold you close while walking you home. maybe one day he’ll stop being so shy and be able to ask you outright to hold you

(surprise!: albedo may not be a pyro user, but klee is! i love the idea of klee knowing her brother’s crush on you and trying to play matchmaker soooo… hear me out: klee blowing things up while right next to you so that her brother comes running and starts a conversation with you since you’re right there. hehe, now isn’t she so smart?! wait, shit, that’s jean coming—uh oh! run, klee!!)

kaeya

❀ like his brother, he manipulates the temperature as a way to get you closer without having to ask. unlike his brother, he doesn’t have to ask others to help, he can just do it himself with his cryo vision

❀ the air starts to become cold and gets colder the longer you stay away from the knight so you should hurry over to him before the town freezes over!

❀ this mf teases you for wanting to huddle up next to him as if he had nothing to do with it 🙄

❀ absolutely, 100% does this in bed, but why should you complain? you get to cover up with as many blankets as you want and be held by your boyfriend, who doesn’t want that?!

(surprise!: ayaka does the same thing, but she doesn’t use her vision to tease you like kaeya does. she’s a little more on the shy side and struggles a bit to say that she wants to cuddle with you and finds it easier to just make the air a little chilly before asking if you needed help to warm up. her face is still red regardless of creating an excuse ( ´ ▽ ` ).｡ｏ♡)

ganyu

❀ i like to think that ganyu is a little talented when trying to calm other people down. she may not be the best with herself, but she knows just what to say or do to make others relax. for you, she creates little ice figurines :)

❀ your personal favorite (and hers) is when she creates a little snow globe that holds some sort or ice figure inside. it takes her some practice to be able to master it, but for you, she’s willing to learn anything

❀ it would start off as something small—like a simple flower or a snowflake that twirls around inside the icy walls—then she gradually works her way up to create something bigger and better—something more suited for someone as wonderful as you

❀ spoiler: it’s gonna be an ice sculpture of you and her together heheh

❀ she won’t tell you, but with whatever free time she has available she uses it to learn how to make something new

❀ even if you weren’t in need of some cheering up, ganyu still shows off what she can do. she just likes seeing your smile

#plume writings #fluff #genshin impact #genshin #genshin impact fluff #genshin fluff #genshin impact x reader #genshin x reader #kazuha #jean gunnhildr #itto #arataki itto #ningguang #ei #childe #tartaglia #yelan #diluc #kaeya #ganyu #kazuha x reader #jean gunnhildr x reader #itto x reader #ningguang x reader #ei x reader #childe x reader #yelan x reader #diluc x reader #kaeya x reader #ganyu x reader

[cbedfordart]

Hey! I’ve been following you for a while and I really love your art, it’s absolutely stunning and I love the way you paint and capture anatomy. I know this is a bit of a broad question but I was wondering if you had any tips on getting better at painting digitally and studying anatomy, maybe more specifically blending, colour picking, and structuring anatomy in a way that looks somewhat realistic?

Thanks and I'm glad you enjoy my work long enough to be following me for this long! I definitely love drawing a naked body that's for sure haha. In terms of tips for getting better there's a few things I can mention but it's going to fall broadly in the general answer of "study", because this is the most sure fire way to be able to understand what it is you're trying to emulate in your art. There are different ways to study, and they teach something slightly different. For example, doing studies from life (live drawing classes) help me understand movement in a way studying from a photograph cant, simply because you're seeing the same model in different poses in real time, you can see how the fat and muscle moves around as they shift to different positions. So they're not technically moving the whole time, but you're still seeing some movement there, and understanding what sticks to what while it rotates and bends. Studying from photographs can help give you time to do some real deep dives and investigate where different bones/muscles sit while someone is in a particular position. There's also the opportunity for understanding how shadows may be formed by the body as typically photographers are more conscious of how the subject may be lit than what may be available in a live drawing class. Beware though, as more things are photoshopped than you realise, not all photos represent reality. Especially glam and fashion photos. It doesn't mean its bad to want to have these effects on your work but just be conscious they might not always be anatomy accurate if that's what you're striving for. I sometimes make a conscious decision to go against what is anatomically correct for a certain effect myself. A book I have been recommending for years for anatomy is Dr. Paul RIcher's "Artistic Anatomy". It's great for understanding muscle structure intimately - it's designed specifically for artists, but with the idea of trying to stylise the diagrams as little as possible for the sake of understanding the human form. There's a lot of great info and detail in here, but beware, there is not a lot of variety in body structure (at least not in the edition I have which is missing female anatomy I think already so I'm not sure what else I don't have in here). So you'll be able to understand function a lot from here but you wont be able to learn a lot about fatter body types sadly.

Colour picking is probably the most difficult for me to explain easily, as I have spent a long time winging it, then studying it, then being really experimental with it. I could write a lot a lot about this but to spare making this post any longer I'll refer to another fun book just for getting started on some frequent and common terms called "Color and Light" by James Gurney.

I also love that he uses like, dinosaurs for everything in here lol. It's a great starting point that can give you some go to ideas that you can then experiment from there. It's not very authoritarian (or at least that's what I feel), and doesn't push anything forward as a hard and fast rule, just showing what affects some colour combinations might instil in someone.

As a whole, I've gotten better at painting digitally by studying traditional painting techniques. They theories are basically transferrable one to one with some few exceptions. I tend to blend my colours by simply using a soft round brush in Photoshop with a low opacity. Much the same way I would with a real canvas, with a large round brush and diluted colour. I hope this answers your questions in some way. I tried to be not too specific only because this answer would be at least another 30k words lol because this is something i think a lot about! I love technique! If I ever stream again, feel free to pop in and ask more questions where I might be able to show some stuff in real time! Not sure when that will happen though!

Also the way i do stuff isn't a "correct" way either. I like painting from imagination so this is how I make that work. Some people like to only work with references for every piece, and that is a completely legit way to create stunning art as well. Good luck!

#asks

[sorcerous-caress]

thinking of the “two humans who don’t vibe in the same party” + the “you can’t just have one, you need three or four humans” quote from one of your first human kink posts. trying to not only “tame” your party’s humans for yourself but also trying to socialize them so they can stand each other lmao

Humans are unpredictable. That's the thing. No matter how many guides and books you read to try and understand them, the only lesson you'll end up with is "do not try and put humans in a mould, they never fit."

I had past friends that I shared nothing in common with, some I met by pure chance and stupid coincidences. While the "friends" that were right for me that went to the same school and shared my ideas, never worked out for younger me.

You don't get to choose what you like, otherwise you'll just choose liking everything. Sometimes you just hate a person for no reason and nothing can change that, their whole being annoys you no matter how much you try and understand them. I feel unspeakable rage when I eat mint chocolate whilst others worship it like the sun.

The other races certainly could try to get the humans to get along, it will just annoy both humans. Because when two people hate each other mutually they avoid the other, forcing them to stay in the same place will funnel their wrath at you instead.

Maybe even the two humans will work together to get rid of you since you've became a bigger annoyance. You'd think this would get them to learn how to get along in some reverse psychology bullshit but it doesn't, they still despise the other, they just want you to stop pushing them.

The easiest way to ruin a human harem is to force them to do something they don't want to. Take their free will away away and add expectations and the humans start biting. No other race values their individuality as much as we do.

Like a drow matron who got too cocky and ordered her human consorts to get along. Sure she is worried a bit about their lack of socialising but that's a general statement, some humans prefer being alone or the company of other races. Push too much and you'll end up with a broken arm because nothing is budging them, they're verstile and adaptable to their own terms not yours.

I'd imagine if she kept trying to force them to become friends, they end up leaking her military and defence information to another house just to her off of their back.

Don't get too greedy, don't underestimate humanity and treat it as a docile petting zoo for you to mix and match your future pets from.

Some humans like sharing with others, some humans like being around other humans more. Some refuse anything but absolute devotion to them, others get annoyed by other humans and human cities.

Humans have certain social structures, an invisible layer of social rules and politeness that we get so accustomed to we can't even see anymore. No matter how casual you are with others, if you have a criteria to what would be weird behaviour around you then you follow certain social rules.

Humanity is an endless masquerade. The philosophy of each person wearing three masks. Each mask is part of you, yet not fully you. Each mask is a lie but a truth on its own. Not even you can view the real you.

It's simply too vulnerable and raw. We have to layer and viel our hearts and souls even from our own wandering eyes. We are always the first to dig our nails in our tender balms if we mess up after all.

Other races don't comprehend it and aren't required to play along. If another human touched my hair without permission I'd yell at them and become angered, if a dragonborn or a hafling does it then I'll be less weirded out and more curious.

Because of that lack of social rules, you're not expected to preform either. You can put down the mask, you can be weird without feeling cringe or shame, and that's why certian humans like not mixing with other humans.

It's freeing, not dancing along to the melody of social rules, you get too comfortable. Another human around you breaks that illusion and makes you unconsciously put the chains of expectations back on.

We can't help it, it's nurture and nature to us. We raised our kids that way and we are born with pattern recognition and advanced social comprehension. Our whole frontal lobe is dedicated to purly that.

Humans are insanely complicated, a whole ocean of emotions, deserts of thoughts where every single grain of sand is a single thought we had for a second, a realisation, a memory, a promise, everything that shaped who we are.

But on the surface, we are plain, simple, easy to swallow, and take the shape of anything around us much like water. It gives the false impression that we can be "tamed" or "socialised" akin to the dogs we kept as pets.

Funny how we are the ones who took the wolves and made dogs out of them, and yet they expect to do the same to us without us realising it? We immediately pick up on any hints of manipulation, your gut feeling isn't there for show and other races probably lack it.

#♡human kink #♡worldbuilding #dnd human kink