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jamespotterismydaddy · 4 months

Text

Capture the Flag

luke castellan x reader

pt 2

A/N: now that i'm writing for other fandoms, feel free to let me know if you only want to be on a hotd taglist. But now, please enjoy the strongest swordsman in camp halfblood

TW: MAJOR SMUT, slight bondage, rough smut, violence, lowkey dark(ish)!luke

word count: 1,699 words

You want Luke Castellan’s head speared on your sword.

It’s like you spend every minute preparing for capture the flag because of him. He spends every last minute of each game cutting down your teammates and stealing your flag, so now it’s time to change the tactic. You ditch your father’s usual battle advice of going for the kill and hope that defence is the best offence for once. You also pray that he will guide your sword anyhow. So there you stand, guarding your flag with two of your most vicious teammates. You dodge the blue team’s first attack that was supposed to draw you off. You may have a short temper but you aren’t stupid. And you’re more than pleased to see the look of surprise on Luke’s face as he approaches.

“Fucking Ares kids.” He grumbles, sword drawn.

“Were you not expecting me, Castellan?” You ask with a vengeful smirk.

He goes right for you. You’re the biggest threat there but he likes to think you’re not even close to his skill level. You would believe that the man plans to cut you down and then your teammates. He always aims for the glory of it all.

“How’s your team gonna get our flag if you’re here?” He asks as he makes the first swing. It’s much better to start off on offence and he’s the one coming at you.

“Who cares. When you’re done, so is your team.” You block him, hating to be on defence but he’s too quick.

“Gods, you didn’t plan ahead of that? There really isn’t anything in that pretty little head of yours, is there? Other than rage of course.”

You’re a hothead. He knows it. You know it and it doesn’t take much to rile you up. When you’re riled up, you get sloppy. At this point, you don’t care if he guts you, you go for the little fucker’s ankles. You’re actually surprised when he stumbles from blocking your attack. It’s a stupid mistake, especially for him. Though, you aren’t going to let a chance like this slip by. You keep pushing him back, trying to leave him no chance to think in between swings. He trips over a log behind him, the sword falling from his hand. He has no chance now, not on the ground and you won’t be letting him get up.

“Who’s the idiot now?”

He looks at you as you approach slowly, taunting him. He then grabs his sword and makes a break for it. You’re too shocked to even keep him down.

What the fuck.

You don’t think you’ve ever seen Luke Castellan run from a fight. Not in your 4 years at camp. So you chase after him.

He’s fast, faster than you but you push yourself. He trails away… and away. Then you lose him.

“Godsdamnit!” You scream into the woods as you jog around where you last saw him.

You know you can’t stray for long if you’re not fighting Luke so you turn to make your way back to the flag. That’s when he jumps out at you with his sword swinging. You barely have time to block and it puts you off your balance. He swings at you again and again. You fall as you continue to block the merciless strikes. You’re practically holding your sword in the air and hoping for the best. The best doesn’t come as the weapon flies from your hand. He descends on you, straddling your waist as he holds the blade to your throat. He’s smirking.

“You don’t try nearly hard enough.” He says to you. “I know you’re not very clever but hades, my teammates probably already have the flag over the barrier.”

That’s when you realize how easily you were deceived. Luke didn’t run from you because you bested him; he ran to draw you off. It was a pathetically simple plan and it worked. The heat rises to your cheeks from humiliation. He grabs your two hands and pins them above your head, his grip gentle but also firm.

“I’ll put you in your grave.” You spit out at him.

“Will you now? While I have you essentially restrained?” He’s clearly amused.

You struggle beneath him with all your force but all you manage to do is roll your hips against him, earning a groan from the man. You feel it too, the burning ache between your thighs. You want him. Worse yet, he wants you.

“Let me up.”

“No. I think you quite like how I have you pinned to the ground.” He smirks.

“You’re delusional.”

“You’re wet.”

He slips a knee between your thighs and rubs it against your clothed pussy. It takes everything in you not to whimper.

“S-Stop.” You stutter out.

“Make me.” He murmurs, continuing to make you grind down on his knee as he leans down and forces you into a hot kiss. You hate how you kiss back, so hungry for him. Your mind is clouded with lust for a moment before you realize the advantage he is giving you. You never technically conceded.

As swiftly as you can, you wrap your free leg around his waist and use your whole strength to throw him off you, startling him enough to free your hands.

“You bitch.” He groans as you jab him in the stomach to try and give yourself enough time to grab your sword but it doesn’t work. He grabs you by the ankle and yanks hard. You slam to the ground right on your stomach. He moves to restrain you by sitting on your thighs so you can’t move your legs and holds your hands behind your back. You clearly didn’t consider how inevitably stronger he is than you.

“Shit.” You whine. His hold isn’t nearly as gentle this time.

“That was a cheap fucking shot.” He says cruelly. He’s pissed now.

“Fuck you. Castellan!” Gods it goes straight to his dick when you call him by his last name. He grips your hair with his free hand and pulls back hard so you have to look at him. You whine again at the sharp pain.

“You just can’t play fair, can you, princess? Maybe I won’t either then.”

He drops your head and you hear him rustling with something. You realize it’s his belt when you feel the leather against your wrists. He’s binding you.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Your voice is full of rage but to him, you just sound petulant.

“What you need.” Is his simple answer.

He shifts down so he sits, or rather kneels, with your legs between his. He’s amused by your renewed writhing as an attempt to escape. It is pitiful really. Oh well, he’ll have you writhing for a different reason soon enough.

His fingertips glide across your waist, to your hips and then to your thighs, causing your back to arch upwards slightly, your stomach dipping. He brings his lips down to your ear, his voice is deep and lustful as he says, “Your body seems to know what it wants.”

“I’ll kill you.” You promise.

“Oh, i’m sure you will. But right now, you fucking belong to me.” He yanks on your hair again so you have to look at him and your eyes water from the pain. “I think you like me hurting you.” His other hand slips between your thighs to rub your clit and you let out a strangled moan. “For a girl who is so controlling, it’s interesting how badly you enjoy me manhandling you.”

He yanks your pants down and slips your helmet under your hips so your ass stays high in the air with your chest to the ground.

“This is fucked up.” You say.

“You love it. Your panties are soaked.” And he’s completely right. You’ve never been so turned on before but not a lot of men are as strong and good-looking as Luke Castellan.

He pulls your panties down and groans at the sight of your dripping pussy. He begins to palm himself through his pants and unzips them. “You have about three seconds to tell me if you don’t actually want this.”

You are silent and he chuckles. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

Before you can even prepare yourself or form a thought, his fat cock is shoved inside of you, splitting you open.

“Ah, Luke!” You moan at the pain and pleasure.

“Gods, this is the tightest little pussy i’ve had.” He begins to fuck in and out of you relentlessly, giving you no time to adjust. “Yeah, you’re good for me now, baby. Such a good little cocksleeve.” He punctuates his last words with hard thrusts, the head of his cock bullying into you each time.

All you can do is repeat his name like a mantra as you get pounded on the forest floor by the strongest swordsman in camp. It’s even worse as he begins to rub your clit again, sending you so close to the edge.

“Never gonna have enough of you after this.” Luke murmurs as he feels you squeezing around him. “My good girl.”

That’s what sends you tumbling over the edge, bringing Luke with you as you do. He never could’ve kept going, not with the way your walls were squeezing around him. He pulls out almost instantly so he can watch his cum spill out of you. He doesn’t wipe it. He just pulls your panties back on and fixes the both of you up. You’re thoroughly spent, he can tell by the way you pant as he releases your wrists.

“You okay?” He asks as he helps you sit up. He grabs your hands so he can kiss the marks on your wrists. After all you’ve done, that’s the act that makes you blush furiously.

“Um, yeah.” You breathe out.

“I’ll be nicer next time, I promise. Somebody just had to put you in your place first.” He grins wolfishly.

“Next time?”

That’s when you hear the horn. The blue team has won again.

He pecks a kiss to your cheek. “Time to claim my kleos.” He says cockily before jogging off to meet his team.

taglist (comment to be added):General: @valeskafics @urmomsgirlfriend1 @girlwith-thepearlearring @darylandbethfanforever9 @lovellies @juhdoche @papichulo120627 @watercolorskyy @ophelialaufey @aerangi

#luke castellan #luke castellan x reader #pjo #pjo x reader #luke castellan smut #percy jackson #percy jackon and the olympians

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oldshrewsburyian · 6 months

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Any thoughts on *why* so many people are subliterate now? Is the educational system really that much worse than it was even 15-20 years ago? Or is the tsunami of information we all live with too much to deal with? Or is there something else going on?

...I do have Thoughts on this, actually! Quite a few of them! And I suspect that the answer to your slate of options might be: D, all of the above. I will address your points out of order (sorry.)

B: As for the information tsunami/superhighway, I don't think it's to blame in itself. As the president of an academic organization said at the biennial conference in 2016, "Nous lisons de plus en plus, mais nous lisons autrement" (we read more and more, but we read differently.) It says something about what he meant and about that particular historical moment that I was live-tweeting. And obviously I'm not saying that reading the internet is bad (I read the internet all the time.) But I do think that it facilitates habits of minimal, shallow, or superficial reading, and I do think that's a problem. I once had a student say--in class!--that the historical essays I assigned were challenging for him because he's more used to reading tweets. I stared at him for several long seconds before saying "Then this is good practice for you." I also had a very sweet student in a first-year college seminar who just had no clue how sentence mechanics worked, so I had to find a gentle way of asking, in office hours, "Do you... read at all? for fun?" "Oh, I read all the time," said this sweet student confidently, and my own reading habits enabled me to counter: "Fanfic or published works?" And yep, that's your problem right there. Obviously I read and write fanfic myself. But reading principally fanfic is a great way not to learn how grammar works.

A: in the US? ...yeah, it kind of is, actually, which is horrifying. Like a lot of the rest of my demographic (educator, xennial, NPR devotee,) I listened to the APM podcast Sold A Story. In going to find you the link, I found bonus episodes which I also highly recommend, in part because they include criticisms of the podcast and notes on policy. But what this podcast describes also tracks with my experiences in two very grim years when I tutored reading at the elementary/middle school level, and also found reading comprehension to be a weak link in ACT/SAT prep.

C: this brings us to "something else going on?" And I don't know what that is. But even my college students who can read at a basic 6th-grade level (sob) seem to have really stunted capabilities for inference. I ask them to make inferences and they look at me with the heartbreaking expressions of confused dogs. Or they'll see something blindingly obvious and say things like "Could this... possibly be...?" and I say brightly: "Yes! that's absolutely what it is! good job!" instead of saying: "What the **** else would it be?" Sometimes an entire class of students will read something without comprehension and subsequently thank me for "explaining" a text when all I have done is paraphrase it. And we're not talking academic articles here; we're talking 2-4 page excerpts of primary sources selected with TLC for a target audience of beginning college students. So far I have not snapped and screamed, "I didn't explain shit!" But I do find myself having to, well, explain that explanation would mean digging deeper into the text. I also find myself puzzled and alarmed by the fact that they don't seem able to identify or describe what they find challenging. If I had a nickel for every time I've heard "Just the entire thing was confusing"...! I've modified entire courses to try to get students more of the reading practice and additional skills they need. I'm not sure how much it's helping.

I really wish I had more answers. What I do have is a lot of despair.

#asks and answers #adventures in academia #reading #subliteracy

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zoeythebee · 4 months

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This is THE single largest milestone in my entire 7 year game programming career.

I don't think I've ever gone over my history with moving platforms before, but basically. Back in my sophomore year of highschool I had a programming class! I hadn't chosen to take it, but the class I wanted got cut so I got this instead. And I already knew how to program, and the teacher was chill so I was like "can I like just work on whatever?" and she said sure. The rest of the class was doing an online html+css class.

Anyway I was like "yo I have an entire class period to program! I am gonna make a game!" That game was the first version of ThreeEye, and it's scope was very small. My plan was some like 8 levels, and the only mechanics were movement, spikes, and moving platforms. Spikes were extremely easy.

But there are no words for the difficulties I faced trying to impliment moving platforms.

I spent... Every. Single. Class period.

For. A. Semester.

Trying get them working.

I tried making the game in Gamemaker and Godot.

In Gamemaker I had a strange issue with the player sorta hovering above the platform, instead of cleanly moving on top of it. And also sinking a pixel inside of the platform when moving up. I never fixed it.

I then tried Godot, and I continued to struggle.

Oh I struggled, I struggled and struggled and struggled.

And was it worth it? No.

I found the bug, and it was caused by my refusal to actually read documentation and instead follow tutorials. The tutorial I was reading had the arguments for a 'move_and_slide_with_snap` function out of order.

So I fixed the bug.

And immediately found another bug that was even more dramatic and hard to debug.

And I quit.

I quit game dev for 2 years, and never looked back. At that point almost all I had done was watch tutorials and ineffectively debug. And I was so hyper focused on fixing this ONE issue that I never grew. I burnt out and I declared that programming wasn't for me.

2 years later I discovered a video of someone making a game without a game engine, but in C. And I thought it looked fun. So I decided that I would try programming again, but I wouldn't focus on trying to FINISH something. I would program as a hobby, and try to enjoy the act itself.

And I got that spark back, and now, 2 and a half years later. I solved moving platforms with the following 2 lines of code.

And it's not these lines specifically, my skills as a programmer and EVERYTHING surrounding these two lines is what brought me here. My code structure was good enough, such that actually implementing the moving platforms took 5 minutes. I copy and pasted some code, cut some stuff out, and added the above lines.

I know I am technically a better programmer than when I first faced this challenge, but after having actually beat it. I feel like I have made it further than I ever had before.

Also that means this game is also further along in progress then anything else I've made before.

Yippie!

#codeblr #programming #gamedev #indiedev #studyblr #game development #progblr

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presdestigatto · 5 months

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I doubt Charles and Max ever could be friends. Both are too competitive and I feel like Max would stop being too nice to Charles once things doesn’t go his way. I know everyone believes it’s Charles who would hate Max again if they start to fight for Championship again but for me it’s Max, he already showed annoyance toward Charles in those moments.

Hey anon! Thanks for sending something in, but damn, prickly topic. I have some time on my hands now so I’m going to go extra in depth with my thoughts on this

It’s quite difficult to speculate on the future state of their relationship, because we’re dealing with a lot of hypotheticals and we quite literally only know what they decide to show us, publicly. For all we know, they could secretly be besties who text every night. Though, I do agree with you (or what you implied) that they aren’t friends on a personal level right now. Honestly, I think they don’t have much in common beyond racing, if you look at their friends and their passions outside of motorsport. But then again, racing is and has always been a huge part of who they are, it is pretty much the core of who they are right now, and as drivers, Max&Charles are very similar. So outside of racing I don’t think they interact much, but within racing I see their relationship as two people who vibrate on the same wavelength. And that produces, yk, the Maxsplaining and Leclerifying.

As for whether there will be hatred between them if they have a tense title fight, I tend towards not at all, or not to a level that destroys their relationship as friendly colleagues. First, the stakes going into 2024 are simply not equal. If this were Charles and Max fighting for their first title, and only one of them could get it, I would place my bets on a Lestappen downfall. I do agree with you that both of them are crazily competitive, but Max has already won… trice. I’m not saying that this means he doesn’t want to win anymore, but he quite literally doesn’t have much to prove left. He’s just had the most dominant season in the history of the sport, the next step up would be like a complete win whitewash and I’d actually quit watching f1 forever if that happens. I don’t feel that Max is the sort of driver who’s aiming to break records for WDCs held, and I’m basing this off his comments about retirement and being bored at the front this season. From what I’ve seen, Max is a racing nerd. To him, the thrills are just as important as the accolades and that’s significant because he’s already collected a bucketload of accolades. And so I don’t think a 3 time WDC Max would resent Charles for giving him a close title fight. I also feel that from his comments in interviews about acknowledging that “everyone can be stopped”, his ego isn’t as large as some people make it out to be. But I also can’t really think of any recent instances of Max showing irritation towards Charles apart from on the radio in Vegas 23, and the overall race proved that Max does enjoy Charles taking the challenge to him. It’s probably because I don’t follow Max too closely, so feel free to update me haha.

As for whether Max would U-turn on his love-peace-Charles agenda if Charles presented a real title fight to him, ignoring my somewhat shallow Max knowledge, I’d point to Bahrain 2022 as an example that Max isn’t that insecure. It was the first race of the season, the Red Bulls DNFed, Charles won, but they were still all smiles and Max even took the initiative to come up to Charles to chat (on live tv). This ties back to the point above, that the stakes for Max aren’t as high anymore so we see less Mad Max. I’d also add that Max has been very consistent in showing that he sincerely admires Charles’ skill as a driver, I’d go as far as to say that Max respects Charles the most in the current grid. I’m pretty sure you can pick any year from 2018-2023 and Max has done at least one interview in which he praises Charles’ talent. And this brings me to what Max said in 2018 predicting that he and Charles will be “like Hamilton and Vettel, fighting for titles in the future”, which aptly illustrates how Max&Charles are, in my opinion, the most prepared to have a tense title fight without developing personal grudges. People like calling them the reverse Brocedes, I can certainly see it. Circling back to the very first point about them not being friends, they have always been rivals first. They’ve had over a decade of experience going into races and championships and seeing the other as “Max/Charles, who I have to beat”. They’re competitors with a healthy amount of hard-earned respect for each other, and I do believe them when they say that they’ve matured beyond petty rivalries. That is basically the tl;dr of this very long thing.

I don’t see why Charles, who is going into 2024 with the awareness that he’ll have to beat Max to win the WDC, would become resentful of Max in the process. Likewise, I don’t think Max, who has already proven himself, would be mad that his childhood rival who he rates very highly, beat him to a title. I think it’s important that they aren’t friends, as you said, because then there are no expectations or trust to betray and their professional relationship can be maintained.

The only scenarios I see happening where they fall out because of the title fight are if 1) either one of them decides to drive dirty and the FIA turns a blind eye (haha.) 2) they magically regress into their 15 year old selves and Charles shoves Max into the marina in Abu Dhabi in Val D’Argenton 2.0

#lestappen #…i wrote a lot. if you read everything thanks!!#all in all we literally don’t know what will happen we’re all just speculating for fun #we don’t know them and are just analysing what they’ve given us 🤷🏻‍♀️#we will only know for certain when ferrari gets their shit together and becomes a competent team #either way my enjoyment of lestappen is secondary to my charles leclerc wdc agenda #asks

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bryce-bucher · 1 year

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Midwest Lost Post #5

Stepfather:

For the past month I've been pretty busy, so I've mainly just been focusing on working on Midwest Lost whenever I have a chance. In this time I finally got the character model for the stepfather mostly complete and in the game. In this fight he is "unwinding" after work so he's ditched his pants and put on a bathrobe, but he was too dejected to change out of his work shirt. He's an abusive guy with a messy life, and he often takes his anger out on whoever he thinks he can have power over. Unlucky for the protagonist, this often means he's the target of his rage. Luckily for the protagonist, he has a big ass sword.

The Face:

For a while now I've been pretty concerned on how I am going to handle face textures in this game. I need the characters to be expressive for the various cinematics and for certain emotional beats to hit properly, but creating proper detailed faces is a bit of a wild west territory for me. Because of this, I decided to try an experiment. Recently I've been trying to learn how to paint properly using a VR painting tool called Vermillion, It's proven to be a really powerful and relaxing way to paint, so I was wondering if it would be feasible for me to paint character textures in it. At my current skill level I honestly thought it wouldn't work out at all, but surprisingly it did!

As you can see here, I spent a good 4-5 hours painting this face texture in VR. It looked pretty horrible until like the last 40 minutes of the process or so. I guess that's how its supposed to go, but it really surprised me that it came together at all.

After I got that base texture completed, I exported it and touched it up a bit to better fit the model. I then added a pair of eyes and eyebrows on top of the texture in Affinity Photo. They are a lot more cartoony / simplistic than the base texture so that I can change them out and create new expressions easily. I was honestly unsure if that would clash too hard with the painted face, but I think it looks pretty good. This was a really fun process, and It's got me excited for the amount of opportunities it has afforded me. Character creation is my favorite, but until now I really never thought I'd be able to paint the more detailed organic aspects of certain characters / animals. Oh yeah I also painted his knees in the same way lol, but I think going into detail about that would be redundant.

Heavy Attacks:

The last major thing I did recently was finally implement some heavy attacks. Rather than have separate inputs for light and heavy attacks, the attack button causes a light or heavy attack to occur based on whether or not you are currently holding the stance/strafe button. The heavy attacks I decided on are meant to be able to close in a considerable gap between you and the enemy, so that you can get in there more easily after slowly strafing around. Alternatively, you can just use heavy attacks whenever as long as you just press the strafe and attack buttons at the same time, so really they are for whenever you feel as though you can afford the wind up and cooldown of the animations. But yeah, as you can see in the gif above, the heavy attacks currently take the form of a two swing combo where you can lunge forward with the sword pointing outwards and then follow it up by swinging it back over your head and slamming it down. I think they are pretty satisfying to use as of now, but I might consider extending the combo in the future.

Conclusion:

That is all 4 today. I really want to get more work done on all of these games. I'm really tired of being stuck in the same debug scene in all of them. Hopefully this year I can dedicate more time to all this, and maybe I can make a second scene for one of them lol. Next time I post one of these it will probably be midwest lost again, but if not I'll be working on J(a)SON next. A big part of me being busy this month is that I'm actually attending GDC alongside Quinn K. If any of u mutuals out there want to meetup at GDC lmk.

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raytorosaurus · 1 year

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I have seen maybe half a season of TUA and didn’t read the comics so let me tell you seeing those panels where Vanya is yelling “We belong on that stage” (and in reference to herself and her taller blonde bass-playing brother) drawn in profile with literally Gerard’s haircut and outfit was a big shock to the system. I never even considered that he’d inserted elements of himself and his bandmates into TUA except for a bunch of weird edits people made comparing how much Aiden Gallagher looks like Frank but now I feel like I really need to read it.

im really looking forward to rereading all of the comics after this semester's over because i haven't done that since volume 3's run ended and i'll definitely make more coherent posts about it then but like. it's really really interesting to compare to all of gerard's other art because he is just...so distinctively him, even across different mediums and genres. tua and mcr and hesitant alien and kjna and his visual art etc etc etc like his artistic fingerprint is stamped so boldly and unapologetically all over them and that's something i really love about him. like his art, love it or hate it, is sooooo genuine always. even when he's purposely imitating other artists, he's very consciously doing it in his own voice, putting his own spin on it.

when i say tua and mcr are completely separate projects i mean it - i don't think one should only ever be discussed in relation to/in the context of the other - and, above all, tua is certainly not like...autobiographical, or a direct representation of real people/events. it's led by gerard but it has a different creative team than mcr does and that really shows as well - i definitely wanna talk ant this when i have more time but part of the reason im not sold on conweap as an album is because it's too umbrella academy - it's really evident that gerard was working on both of them at the same time, and letting one influence the other too directly. mcr's a band, not a Gerard Project, and umbrella academy is largely a duo (w gabriel bá), so they can't just be transplanted onto each other yk.

anyway I'm rambling but all this to say - tua isn't meant to be "about" mcr any more than bullets is "about" 9/11. but gerard's life was changed and shaped by his experiences in the music scene throughout his life, by dropping everything and living as a penniless artist, by becoming suddenly (in)famous, and that really shines through in tua. he says he drew inspiration from touring band life to write a dysfunctional family, and the dehumanising effects of fame and attention, and of being categorised and scrutinised on a private or public level, are huge themes - as is addiction, mental health, complicated grief.

like...i actually got into mcr through the tua comics lmaooo. i read volume 1 because of wonderful @blackmoldmp3 talking about it and immediately said oh. i need more from this dude's brain right now. and i was soooo not disappointed haha. i really am obsessed with quite a lot of the things gerard is also obsessed with as an artist. the particular themes and imagery and scenarios he's fixated on are really very consistent throughout everything he does - only the way they're discussed or portrayed does change over time. i don't rly subscribe to the idea of gleaning specifics abt artists' personal lives from their works because, beside all else, it just does them a huge disservice (that's my number one gripe with the popular talking pounts around hes alien and frank's solo work in particular; however "confessional" you wanna read art as, it's still art that was created with skill and intent.)

anyway that's way off topic dkfnfj. what i do love about this kind of thing is looking at distinct creations in the context of the rest of an artist's body of work. like...yeah, gerard's said there's a lot of mikey in klaus. has dressed similarly to vanya and the kraken and the seance at times etc etc. has compared himself to the rumor, because she's the one he relates to most. puts a lot of his familiar ideology surrounding music and performance into vanya. puts angry teenage vanya in a shitty punk band with her disillusioned teenage brother on bass, and puts a classical music prodigy in a punk band as an excellent guitarist, writing songs about killing the president etc etc. i could go on! because these things are just scattered everywhere through the comic, just like all of gerard thematic and aesthetic and ideologic fingerprints.

so what's reallyyy interesting to me is looking at umbrella academy as something gerard wrote on the road with mcr across multiple years. volume one was released while the tbp world tour was ongoing, and volume two only a few months after. the progression of parade -> tua -> conweap -> danger days is SOOOO fascinating to me, especially because one of the things that really works about danger days imo is the way it kind of shakes off some of the tua-style gritty cynicism and returns to mcr's defiant, extravagant theatricality. if you go through tua with a fine-tooth comb you'll definitely find the most direct comparisons to conweap, in terms of mcr. the way dd approaches the themes it has in common with tua is just.....so different, and so so mcr. and then you can see the at times self-referential development on those things in hesitant alien - AND THEN VOLUME 3 COMES AROUND AND LIKE. AUUUGGGGHHHHH the change and growth there is SO apparent. btw i don't mean "growth" "progression" etc in this post to mean "improving" - i just mean change and development in a neutral sense, bc it's so interesting to see it laid out there in an artist's body of work. but like. man it makes me crazeeee actually the way gerard picked tua back up....almost certainly around the same time mcr started discussing a potential reunion. and the way that foundations revisits and reconceptualises mcr's existing catalogue is paralleled in the way vol 3 of tua is, like...........like there's so much life lived there, between those things. gerard's even said he's changed his plan for the ending (if we ever see it 🥲) because he has more compassion for his own characters now and doesn't want to see them broken down for good. he says he's gotten better at listening to other people - for starters, he's a lot more conscious of his own subconscious racism/whiteness that came through at times in the original run and has expressed regret for that (namely, the entire main cast being white, with a couple of side characters being uncomfortably stereotyped).

but just like. augh. im not gonna lie man i have no idea what i've just typed im sorry it's probably so rambly bc I'm so dizzy rn and definitely am not gonna proofread it or whatever skdjfj but. I LOVE ART! I LOVE ARTISTS! I LOVE DIVING DEEP INTO AN ARTIST'S BODY OF WORK AND WATCHING THEM REINVENT THEMSELF AND/OR DOUBLE DOWN ON THEMSELF (SOMETIMES FOR BETTER, SOMETIMES FOR WORSE). obvs this fandom genuinely does have a big issue with invasive/un-self-aware parasocial behaviour but there's a difference between that and like. getting obsessed with a particular artist. that's so normal and in fact necessary to life imo. i think every artist literally has to have ppl like that i can't imagine any other way to live it's just a specific type of human connection at a distance baby. don't get me wrong tho i also wanna chew on his thigh. anyway.

my god. how did i get here what even was your question. tua. yes it's crazy. it's not for everyone for sure but it has enough of the shit that makes me crazzzzyyyyy that it got me into mcr which made me crazierrrr so. yes i can recommend. especially if ur like me and lovvvve stories that are a little bit fractured by design. that dance around big parts of the story, where there's as much significance in an absence or in a tiny background detail than there is in any dialogue or action scene. most of the criticism i see of tua is about the pacing but like. to my tastes it's a really great use of the comic medium yk? lmk if you want content warnings or something there are plenty skdjfj.

#how was i completely braindead today and then too dizzy to read text. and then somehow type this shit on my phone with my eyes half-closed.#am i literally just lazy or is a hyperfixation strong enough to kvercome any illness lolz #sorry if this went in a billion circles but the room im in is also spinning a little so. skfndkfndjdjfjdj #umbrella academy #tua #mcr talk #*#answered

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carpsoup · 21 days

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Have you ever wanted to draw something but you fought due to your skill level at the time you decide not to do it

Ohh yeah all the time when i was younger, but Im doing my best at getting out of the habit in recent years. Doing it bad is better than not doing it at all, and if I really wanna I can redraw it later, using the first version as a guideline. So I generally try to at least get the idea down as a sketch. Though that one might be a more elaborate way of not doing it haha

One of the faster ways of improving in the exact artistic skills you need for That One Thing is by doing That One Thing in my experience. Aside from that, even if you dont improve, it still has value and you can feel accomplished having done something just for the sake of creating something! Art shouldn't need to fit certain standards to have value! Fuck it we ball forever and always!! Fear of inadequacy is the killer of enjoyment!!!

Now, the way I get better at art is mostly by looking at something that is WAYY above my skill level and going "lol I wonder/I bet I could do something like that" and then trying to do it. The finished result rarely actually matches whatever I got inspired by in skill level. BUT I almost always improve during it and its also fun. So I do actually get results I like by overestimating myself. And doing the exact opposite of giving up because my art "isnt good enough yet"

I think it helps that I find the drawing/animating/whatever else part of the process also fun, so even if I dont get results I am very satisfied with I have that to lean back on.

I do have a bunch of large projects I just dont work on but thats more because I am very lazy and less because I feel like I cant do the image in my head justice

#hey i got one of these asks too now. I feel like a bug being studied #ask #carpsounds #huge ramble jumpscare #this is all somehow relevant i promise

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recurring-polynya · 1 month

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Writing/Art Update 3.19.2024

In case you missed it, the Big Fanfic is complete. You can read the first chapter on ao3.

I spent most of my free time last week working on a drawing requested by my daughter that was, shall we say, pretty far above my skill level. I finished it yesterday, aside from part that she wanted to do. I have to ask her if she minds if I post it here--if not, it was still good practice.

So what's next? Well, unfortunately, the actual thing that's next is my taxes-- those are going to be my biggest priority until they're done.

I do want to pick up a little in love again this year, and hopefully finish it, but I'm not sure I'm ready to jump into that just yet. I may, in fact, save it for my Big Fall Project, which is the time of year I am most productive. I always fall down in the summertime, but it might be nice to have a medium-sized project to tool around with--I have a few ideas/WIPs that would fit the bill.

In the very near term, though, I'd like to maybe relax and do a few short things. I have a WIP that I dug out of the Abandoned pile not too long ago, and I think I can finish it up and post it. It's not too long and would be very appropriate for Kira's birthday, which is coming up. I would also really really really like to do something for ChadIshi week, but so far my brain has been very empty. I really thought we would be doing another Bleach Returns event about now, but at this point, I'm guessing we're looking at the summer for that. I am toying with the idea of doing a Very Small Requests event, just because it's been ages and ages since I've done one, but I haven't really decided yet. I think I want to see how the other stuff goes first.

#writing update #art update

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realcatalina · 5 months

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Troubling portrait of Maria of Aragon

Not everything is that well with this portrait and I am not going to pretend otherwise. I marked it for you what is wrong:

(Pink-suspicious, orange-original outlines, red-altered, dark red-physically impossible for those layers to exist simultanously!)

This is crazy! What the hell is going on?! ...Let's find out.

I hope this will fit single post(tumblr has limits regarding amount of pictures you can post.)

Now, about the painting.The amount of alterations I can spot, is disturbing.

The headwear is mixture of netherlandish subtype of french hood, and english gable hood, as if somebody put them together:

(my photoshoping skills are not good enough to make them 100% accurate, but you get the idea...)

Yes, in France and I think also in Netherlands you can find some examples of frontlets on french hood-in cca 1480s and early 1490s. Afterwards...nope. And this one...has the bejewelled part surounding face typical for english gable hood ...and I've never seen it in historical examples of these combining.

And in closeup it's obvious the layers cannot even physically fit together...Literally impossible.

Because these frontlets have black base upon which decorative part sits...and it's obvious the fronlet is supposed to go ABOVE the veil french hood..., so french hood should go UNDER it...but the pattern on french hood goes ABOVE the base of frontlet. It's literally impossible for that to happen simultanously.

One or both have to be altered. But which? Idk!

Futhermore there is dark shadow behind the current edge of veil, which indicates the outer edge of veil was moved, making it more narrow.

But if it was wider it'd be consistent with both netherlandish subtype of french hood and english gable hood:

Neither was that flat at the back. And neither would be worn by Maria. Furthermore, the netherlandish headwear is of style of copies based upon her sister Joanna's headwear. It's not historically accurate style. The gable hood...well, in form which we see now, it is also not historically accurate. Yet at same timethere is bigger level of realism than I'd expect if it was completely made up.

Hence I started to suspect that actual portrait was inspiration for this peace.

If we look at the portrait further we can tell that outer edge of dress was also moved, making shoulders more narrow and more femine, and one shoulder has no ermine, hence likely ermine area was extended.

Imo the high of neckline is also altered, I am highly suspicious of it...because even in England and Netherlands it was not worn so high, in Iberia absolutely not! This neckline would only make sense in very cold countries. In Scandinavia, Moscowy etc.

But there are more things I am suspicious about.

Little detail on veil of french hood(occasionally hapens, but not much in 16th century)...anyway it is probably just minor decorative add-on. But this part of cloth of gold looks photoshopped:

These bits, the way pattern is similiar...nearly identical, looks photoshopped:

In program which I use(photopea)...there is tool which allows you to copy the pattern and move it around ...and then you can create things like this. You'd need to just play with it bit afterwards, to blend it in...and in one spot it's not even done.

This is very disturbing for me. Especially given what wikipedia says about the painting.

Date of creation is XXI meaning 21. Like 21st century? Is it just modern creation made in computer?

... I created one such fake for April fools post... and I too deliberately played with shadows to make it look like it was altered...

I cannot rule this possibility, but it could also be case of bad photo, or bad printing. Because the wikipedia also says that source of image is a book called Infantas de Espanha, Rainhas em Portugal:

So could it be that there was so problem in printing process? Or something went wrong with photo?

Or...that the portrait itself is real...but it had some ugly paint loss and they decided to fix it in photoshopp to make it more pleasing to look at the book?

All of these are possible.

Additoonally, the arm on right(from our POV) seems to be moved in such position as if away from the painting...which could indicate it was originally larger.

And while the ribbon being held is not that impossible, fact that it goes over the ledge suggest it is not an accurate detai, but alteration.

More details I am suspicious about are all in same area around the 2nd hand.

These decorative round things...if they are supposed to be pearls...they look nothing like the one on headwear, yet if we mark their positions, they look as if trying to copy that pattern:

Furthermore the shadows are bit off in this area. There are parts which are lighter in colour...which could be if originally there was ermine edge to the dress...which was overpainted. Unfortunately I can't tell from these what shape exactly it'd have...

So after seeing all of this...what is my opinion on this?

I cannot confirm the portrait is real. But...I don't think anybody would be able to create this in photoshop without having something real to work with. I think there is portrait like this...and the level of alterations...the oddities...suggest it has been altered a while ago.

I cannot rule out photoshopped was used in part of it, but I think rest exist in real.

Does it mean it is accurate or that it is Maria? ...No, and given the level of alterations, it's not likely the head was spared...

On occasion though it happens. For example portrait of Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia, Archduchess of Austria(b.1566)

who is supposed to wear the Franciscan habit of a Poor Clare(like on left), but in portrait (on right) somebody added lady Margaret Beaufort's headwear(probably) and changed some other details too.

Could it be the case of Maria's portrait too?

Well...in theory yes. Somebody could add english and netherlandish headwear to her portrait.

Could altered possibly heck out of the dress too, thus removing Iberian fashion from Iberian portrait.

Could photoshop it(possibly.)

... Or perhaps somebody created new portrait based upon Maria's portrait and Joanna's and Elizabeth of York's? (Puzzle of 3.)

Or some other option.

The face, the coat of arm, text and M on book could have been added to make it clearer that it is Maria...or could have been used to make it Maria. WE SIMPLY DO NOT KNOW!

...BUT we cannot play ostrich...and pretend that everything is fine with this portrait. Because it is not.

And if we remove all things which are weird, what is left of this portrait? A hand?!

(I didn't know how far ermine extended, so i left it like this)

...Hold on...

You've got to be kidding me. I recognize it. I recognize the hand!

...Well, not this hand but the style of the hand...the way the fingers are drawn/painted.

No way...no it can't be...Let me check.

...Maybe it could be. I have speculated there was one...and it'd make perfect sense. Wide shoulders, hand across chest, cloth of gold with ermine...the reddish girdle...

the ledge...the round top. ...I should have seen it front first glance!

The only real problem is that is facing the wrong way! It's flipped from the normal position.

But if you flip it back it's obvious. It's same outfit as in Whitehall Mural:

Even the reddish/pinkish girtle!

The the other hand is of Henry VII, in drawing which I speculated could have been by Wewyck's workshop(although it is not confirmed):

And I have also said it's likely there was once Elizabeth's portrait which matched his. With one hand across chest and the other extended downwards bit to the side!

This could be altered portrait of Elizabeth of York...with yes, some major alterations...but it's not the most common image of hers...it looks to be based upon rare image of her, of which we have no copies or no good copies of...

Yes it is facing wrong way...but it's not 100% rule.

Which could mean...that we're looking at altered original.

Which tbh if we consider it could be Elizabeth, wouldn't need to be even altered that much(and I didn't need to remove that much), and majority of the changes would be done to hide her thicker neck and wider shoulders.

...You know I have been suspecting certain spanish artworks to be based upon English royal portraits...but I thought...how would they get hands on it...well maybe Henry VII and catholic monarchs were exchanging portraits of their family members...

And if so...there might be more english portraits waiting to rediscovered on iberian peninsula...

But I could of course be wrong...but none of this points really to Iberian peninsula. It's too toward N-W fashion.

What do you think? Am I correct or am I chasing shadows?

#historical portraits #maria of aragon #mistaken identity #misidentification #elizabeth of york

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crazed-flower · 6 months

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Special Training

Pairing Task force 141 x reader (platonic)

Based on this thought

WARNING: Indonesian manners and etiquette that i know of lol, platonic but slight romantic ish?, FLUFF, my writing skill is shit, cringe probably.

A/n: Hi hehe-

This is very very much is my first ever fic in Tumblr, i do have a fic in wattpad but it has NOTHING to do with TF 141 and it's in Indonesian. I think my fic there is kind off cringe ngl.

People say it doesn't but my eyes think it is so, i will not give the link. This thing... I got confused on where to start it but i just fuck it and went along with it.

This short fic is actually just some shit i thought of randomly when i watch some videos about indonesian military training, there's some people that says it's crazy and this idea just popped in my head. AND I GOTTA LET IT OUT SOMEHOW!! But really thought, ENJOY!

Reader is younger and is a female

Dividers by @cafekitsune

Right now all of them are in their lounge room. Ghost, Soap and Gaz were making random conversations together. Well, mostly Gaz and Soap, Ghost just add something here and there while waiting for Price and (Name) to come back with their dinner.

"Hey, sorry for the wait. Food's here!" Not long after, the door opens and out comes Price and (Name). Both of their hands full of foods.

A plate full of fried chicken, another plate full of green leaves and cuted cucumbers, the other with some unknown fried dish, a bowl full of rice stack like a mountain, and bowls of bowls full of... Chili sauce?

As the plates are being put down on the table, Soap, Gaz, and Ghost stared at the bowls of chili sauce. All of them has one thought, Why is there so many of them? And they all look the same?

"Today is a perfect day to eat ayam penyet with sambal and lalapan! I know all of you can't eat much chilies, so! I have lessened the spiciness on the sambal so that you can enjoy them to"

All of them just nod along, thinking that it won't be that bad. But no, 5 second after they take a bite of the chicken, rice and sambal, their face are red.

Soap is running around the room like a headless chicken trying to find a glass of cold water. Gaz is trying to calm himself down with breathing regularly. Price tries to level out the spicy taste by eating lots of cucumber. While Ghost... he looked depressed as fuck, a few drops of tears are running down his eyes behind his mask. Actually... You can see the wet spot on his mask below his eyes.

They never touch the sambal ever again until the end. Meanwhile (Name) over there at the side eating half a bowl of the sambal with not even a sweat on her forehead. They're dumbfounded, they truly did, like what the fuck?

Now that the meal is done, it's time for a few chats. As they talk about their day and their experience, suddenly the center of attention is (Name).

"So, (Name), what's it like training as a special agent in Indonesia?" Gaz ask

"Well it's almost the same as here, but the only difference is you're not shot with bullets on mud" She take another kerupuk without even minding their faces.

"I'm sorry hold on, shot with bullets? On mud? I don't understand"

(Name) shrugged, uncaring

"Yea, in Indonesia, there's this one training where the soldiers are to crawl on mud while rain of bullets is shot from above. I got to experience that one"

"The fuck? Won't that cause great harm to the soldiers?"

"Not really, Ghost. So far there's only one death, and even then it's because there's a snake in the mud"

You know what? They won't even say anything anymore. What's with Indonesian and extremes.

Tag list: @axerrri @kkaaaagt @aldis-nuts @yjhariani

#john price #john price x reader #john soap mactavish #john soap mactavish x reader #kyle gaz garrick #kyle gaz garrick x reader #simon ghost riley #simon ghost riley x reader #task force 141

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bestbonnist · 1 year

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Chapter 170.2

I am obsessed with Tonari's pants. Look at them.

The whole outfit is so kick ass. It's not so flashy it's distracting, but it's distinctive and stylish. It's different from her clothing in the previous and present eras, but it still has the finger-less gloves and popped collar that she likes. And the material looks stretchy so it's probably easy to move in.

This is the first we've seen of this, but it seems that the bounty hunters are heroes to the greater population, for trying to gain Kaibara's favor. People want them to succeed, because if this underdog group of low-star bounty hunters can do it, maybe they can too.

Hell, even though they didn't actually hand Kai and Eko over to Kaibara, they still got a bunch of good points from the people watching.

It's kind of interesting to me, the dichotomy of how these people are perceived as admirable when we've seen them threaten to torture/kill people just a few chapters ago. The way this society functions, people are idolized for successfully gaining power by taking it from other people. Good points are rewarded to people who are good, hence the name, but society's standards of morality have shifted so that "good" can also mean being cruel.

The above point was also made with the little kid and skeleton guy the doll talked to, who fucked with someone who they viewed as sub-human to feel better about themselves. I think it's really fucking crazy that this era is criticizing capitalism without ever directly referencing it. Not so much because it's innovative and new (although I do think it's very well done so far, the world-building is a good mix of exposition and visual storytelling) but because usually this kind of commentary goes straight over my head. Very exciting that I can pick up on what's being put down.

This situation, with their fight being broadcast, kind of reminds me of the tournament in Jananda. It really shows the difference between Tonari's motivations, her skill level, and her self-confidence between then and now.

The fanboy looks like the kid from Chapter 166.1. The one with heterochromia.

Same hair style and clothing.

I kind of hope Fushi travels with the group for a little while, because they're all dressed up and everything. I don't want them to waste a good disguise. They're a shitty liar, but they're also a compulsive liar, so any interactions with the bounty hunters would be interesting.

#fumetsu no anata e #to your eternity #to you the immortal #fnae #tye #fnae manga #fnae spoilers #fnae anime spoilers #fnae manga spoilers #wish era #chapter 170.2 #tonari #tonari dalton #original post #meta

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chicken-fifi · 8 months

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BTOB Reaction | When They Like the Same Girl

Pairing: BTOB (OT6) Members x Reader

Requested by anon: Hi, I’ve been a long time reader. Can I request a btob reaction when they have a crush on the same girl. Thank you!

A/n: good morning long time reader! the chicken says hello (it's late at the time i'm writing this)! anyways, i can always come back and add Ilhoon, i just decided to do the members i've done for reactions since the day i added them to my masterlist.

Eunkwang:

Literally sings sad ballads as he hurts over the fact that his members also like you

That being said, when Eunkwang does get a moment alone with you he doesn't even know what to do

He panics so bad

His system stop working (windows shut down sound)

It's his charm though

It's painfully obvious that he likes you and he tries to stand out even if he doesn't know how

"...Oh! Am I supposed to answer that?"

Minhyuk:

Minhyuk is quite the romantic

Therefore he tries his best to standout from his members with his romance skills

Flowers just because? Here you go

Random compliments about the small changed to your hair everyday? You hear them constantly

He also tries to use his athleticism to his advantage

Not saying he just takes off his shirt for no reason

But he takes off his shirt for now reason

"I remembered you said you like snapdragons the other day."

Changsub:

Those of us that have seen I Live Alone or Home Alone (Korean Variety Show), know how much of an introvert Changsub actually is

So there are plenty of time where he just sits there in silence and ponders over his feelings for you and how to stand out from everyone else

Naturally he ends up resorting to humor

He wants to make you laugh to break that wall of awkwardness

He is a but of a romantic, but with Minhyuk going above and beyond in that department, he needs to try a different route

And humor ends up being it

He's so glad that you genuinely find his jokes funny and can see past that jokester facade

"The toilet's smoking!"

Hyunsik:

Convince me that Hyunsik won't just appeal to you by playing the guitar

You can't!

He learns the cords to your favorite song and just plays it one day

Or he writes one for you and wants your thoughts without telling you you're the muse

He's also quite the gentleman (they all are let's be real)

But he makes a bit point of extenuating that

He also always has that eyes smile when you enter a room

"What do you think about the song?"

Peniel:

Peniel is a rather shy/introverted person too

A part of me can't help but think that he wouldn't necessarily feed into his crush on you because he feels as though you may over look him for his other members

Eunkwang can sing, Min's atheletic, Changsub is funny, and Sungjae is a great actor

And he's just Peniel

But what he doesn't know is that his being his natural self

Even if he does stray away from you is intriguing on it's own

Especially when you hear his thoughts and explanations on the podcast he's on

"Yeah, I, uh, I think I could get you on it if you want."

Sungjae:

Sungjae's pretty confident in himself

He does things and fails for the sake of impressing you

But you would never know he actually failed based off of his level of confidence

He does do a bit of teasing, but nothing over the top

He's also very sweet in a very indirect way

It's because he gets shy when you recognize that he goes out of his way to do certain things for you

And then he becomes the one being teased by everyone

"I didn't buy the pot because the other one broke...I just wanted to buy a pot."

#kpop reactions #btob #btob masterlist #btob reactions #eunkwang #minhyuk #changsub #hyunsik #peniel #sungjae

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ghostofsnails · 18 days

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rambling about art "Perfectionism" (+ my experience)

Lately I've been looking for advice about curbing perfectionism but couldn't find anything that worked for me. I feel that so much of the advice out there is just too surface level. It wants to target what I consider the symptoms (perfectionism itself / fear of messing up) and not the real source of the problem, or the "why", which is something that will look a little different for everybody. If you really want to curb perfectionism, the serious answer, in my opinion, is to start by looking inward. If you've done that and found that you're anything like me, with problems that feel like compulsive fixing, uncontrollable hyperfocus, and/or paranoid thoughts that your art career is doomed and everyone is secretly making fun of you because the angle of your oc's mouth is off by 2 degrees, hearing the advice that looks like "Here's a fun little drawing exercise to do every day!" over and over again is probably starting to feel more demoralizing than anything. So instead, here are some tricks/reframing devices that I use in place of some of the really general ones.

The first piece of advice I see everywhere is to "make bad art on purpose" to get over the fear of making mistakes. As a literal exercise, this just doesn't work great for my specific problem. Sure, I can draw some crappy sketch in 5 seconds if I want or waste all my spoons on making something I hate, but it offers no real support in terms of my "compulsive fixing" issue, which is where everything really goes wrong in my process. If it was as easy as saying "I'm just going to Not Have Compulsions!" I wouldn't be here writing this. But I have learned to relieve a small amount of the paranoia and anxiety that my compulsions stem from with the following exercise!

Essentially, I look through some of my favorite artists' work and find some stuff I really enjoy. While I do that, I look for mistakes, confusing choices, and inconsistencies in the work. I then ask myself: Why do I think this art piece still works so well despite all these errors? Does seeing these errors change my feelings about the piece or about the person who made them for the worse? (Spoiler alert, the answer to the second question is always no.)

I will then literally repeat the answers to those questions over and over and over again to myself while I draw. Does this completely or even mostly fix the problem? Definitely not. But if you're like me and at the point of desperation, this is something that's had a small yet significant impact on my workflow and my mindset as I approach making art in general. If my favorite artist can make a weird mistake on something and I love the piece anyways, then maybe it's okay for me to also make and leave in a weird mistake or two. The other good news is that I've noticed the effect of this has increased over time! In the past few months, and for the first couple of times in my life, I've been able to actually ignore a small handful of my compulsions to fix things while drawing. Which is actually so insane and probably my proudest moment of "invisible" progress I've ever made.

It's definitely worth noting, however, that this exercise is not going to work if you don't or can't approach it in good faith. You cannot give up immediately with "I'll never be this good, this artist's work is perfect." Nobody's work is perfect. If you look for ages and genuinely can't see any mistakes, that probably means you're looking at an artist way outside your skill level, and believe me, I've been there, it's super demoralizing. That's why most of the artists I look up to now are those whose work is just a few levels above or next to mine, because being able to spot errors not only makes their work feel more authentic and easily relatable, but functionally speaking, it keeps me inspired without getting locked into self-pity mode.

I'm obviously not going to put any artists I love on the spot here, but I'm going to list a few errors that I myself see very frequently in my specific corner of the art world: Inconsistent or straight up weird limb lengths, floating facial features, broken lines, color spill, and awkward tangents. Often times, the "errors" I notice aren't even true errors, just results of stylization that I get paranoid about in my own work. And this is super important too -- seeing those kinds of "errors" in art that I unabashedly love helps to soothe the paranoia that I'm doing something "wrong" or that everybody secretly hates me because I drew the eye 2 pixels too far to the right.

Other times, what you notice doesn't have to be an "error" at all. Maybe you just see untapped potential or find something that you would have done differently. For example, maybe you think a different light source or perspective could have improved the atmosphere of a piece. I often feel that many of my favorite artists' work suffers from a lack of contrast.

But the point of this entire exercise is that even when I apply a mock version of my compulsive behavior with art that I love and pick it apart as much as I possibly can, I realize that I STILL LOVE the artwork I'm looking at just as much if not more despite all the "mistakes". Rarely do the errors take anything away from the piece that they don't replace with a sense of life and authenticity. And as a bonus, now I'm ten times as excited to go draw and try out some new things!

And for the record -- this isn't the sort of thing I dedicate "15 minutes a day!" to doing, but something that comes pretty naturally to me whenever I come across art I really love. And speaking of TIME, one other piece of advice I see everywhere is to set a timer and give yourself just a few minutes to draw such and such. This is a piece of advice that logically I know SHOULD work, and despite the fact that it DOESN'T for me I would STILL recommend it heartily. My only problem with this piece of advice is that my brain just does not work this way. Time is just way too arbitrary and setting a "fake deadline" doesn't do anything to fix the issues that are making me take forever in the first place. So instead, in order to try and improve my speed in my digital art, I've started to stay more zoomed out of my canvas as I draw. This better mimics the experience of sketching on paper, something that's always been easier for me since fixing mistakes is so much less convenient than it is on a digital program.

Don't get me wrong though, if you're like me and used to drawing while so zoomed in you can count the pixels, this is going to be even harder than it sounds. I avoided this piece of advice for years because it was so viscerally uncomfortable to let go of the feeling of "control" I had over my pen strokes while zoomed in. But I gave in a few weeks ago when I was having such a hard time getting a pose down after days of attempts that I was willing to try anything. And honestly, the results were a MUCH needed morale boost. I saw improved speed, dynamism, and stylization pretty much instantly. I've been pushing myself to do this with all my subsequent art pieces and while I forget to do it every 15 minutes it's still made a surprisingly large and positive impact on my workflow.

Yes, I still feel the compulsion to "fix everything" in the refinement stage. But if I pair this with the advice above, the amount of compulsive fixes I makes goes way, way down. Especially if I remain relatively zoomed out during the refinement stage!

In conclusion, I'm not saying that the og art advice was dumb or bad or never works. This post is extremely specific to my situation. As far as I know I might be the only person in the world who spends extra nightmarish hours on every piece adding and deleting and readding unnoticeable layer effects, color adjustments, and details and "fixing" and unfixing and "fixing" every conceivable possible detail whilst sitting there begging myself to just stop so I can go eat or move on with my life or do literally anything else. And the fact that on top of that I go into hyperfocus every time I so much as LOOK at my Ipad makes any "take a break" solution near impossible if I don't have a seriously involved outside support system to take my mind off of art, which I don't.

Thanks to all of this plus typical life stuff, I've been drawing less and less in the past few years. It's hard to start anything knowing that once I do, I'm pretty much not going to have a life again until it's finished.

And drawing less also means that when I do draw, I'm drawing much slower, which draws out the length of time I have to deal with these problems and therefore makes them unignorable. I used to be able to finish up a full piece in 5-8 hours, basically a school night, and because it was finished I could focus on my responsibilities the next day until I started to draw again. But now I'm spending anywhere from 8-16 hours on simple bust up character drawings. That's crazy! Honestly reading all this back, I guess it's no wonder I'm so burnt out and exhausted all the time!

I'm never going to completely stop drawing. Even if I wanted to, I don't think I physically could. But I would really love to get to a point where art feels fun and freeing again, and where sitting down to sketch on paper for 10 minutes doesn't mean throwing the entire day away.

So if anyone else out there has got advice for me I would absolutely love to hear it. And I'd also love to hear from anyone who can relate to any of this, because as much as I was joking earlier about being the only one in the world, I haven't actually been able to meet anyone else who gets what I'm going through. And wow it is so difficult to put into words, too. I rewrote this post a million times. But that's all for now! Thanks for reading.

#the dead speak!#rambling #vent

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asjjohnson · 1 year

Text

Part 5 of my poll adventure fic. Links: the beginning, part 2, part 3, part 4.

POV shift this time. Switching the protagonist. Shifting the story. It's a consequence of voting for Vlad to be a nice guy. (...the last poll was an extra I'd thrown in and it didn't have any bearing on this post, so... But this poll will effect the next part.)

---

Vlad shouted as pieces of the ceiling fell toward him. He managed to turn intangible just in time. Then waited for the ruin to settle.

"Mayor Masters!" The voice was shrill with panic. "Mayor Masters?!"

He found a large enough space within the debris and returned to tangibly. "Over here, Valerie," he calmly shouted back.

He pushed against the rafters tented above him, crumbling pieces of drywall falling from the pile, their pinging impacts echoing.

He soon heard the sound of Valerie's engines. "Don't worry, I gotcha! I'll get you out," she called to him.

Valerie made good progress in picking up and tossing pieces of debris to the side, managing to pull Vlad out and set him to his feet within minutes.

Of course, it was a few minutes longer than he would have been free without her help, but that was neither here nor there.

He waved away her concerned hands and worked at brushing the white dust from his suit. "Ah, thank you, my dear. I don't know what I would have done without you. Now... could you see if you can find my cat?"

"Oh! Of course, Mayor Masters!"

Vlad's thoughts turned to the grown, more-ghostly version of Daniel that he'd set free on Amity Park.

He didn't know much. Just that the being was some sort of weapon of mass destruction, capable of leveling entire cities—in the human realm or the ghost zone. And that Danny had managed to contain it—no, him—once before. Probably due to the element of surprise and happenstance rather than any actual skill. And also that he was so dangerous, Clockwork had personality taken charge of his containment.

Well.

It looked like the young Daniel was going to have his hands full for a little while.

...Or, that's what he would usually think.

Vlad frowned in thought.

The future version of Daniel was right. He did push unexpected responsibilities off on others too often. Probably a consequence of how easy it had been during the past twenty years to get out of anything... uncomfortable... with a little overshadowing. He had grown so used to such ease.

He tapped his lips in thought—and sputtered as he got the taste of drywall chalk in his mouth—how should he deal with this situation?

---

"Alert me when there's an update" list:

@charlietheepic7, @chrysanthemum9484, @mymadmedleyw, @dp-marvel94, @aikoiya, @whydouwantmyname, @cinturon-cadena, @freakofyournature, @satanicrutialspecialist (why does tumblr say some users don't exist?!)

(if you want on the list, specifically ask to be alerted for updates in a tag or comment)

#danny phantom #dan phantom #vlad plasmius #poll adventure #choose your own adventure #asj post #asj writing #Dan will be back later. ...I mean unless you guys completely change the plot again. I don't know.#But the current plan is to have some stuff from Vlad's pov and then go back to Dan's pov.

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welcometololaland · 8 months

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Hellooooooo friend 👋🏽

For the fan-related ask game: F, G, N, and Z? Please and thank you. 😁

(P.S. I am one of your biggest fans. You da best!! 💕)

SONIA! (As you know) I am a huge fan of yours too. So, I guess we are even! Thank you for the ask :)

F - What is the longest you've been in a fandom?

Look, I've actually never published anything for Veronica Mars but I think I've been in that fandom since I was like fourteen or something! I've never truly left in the sense that I stopped consuming the media (as I have done in other fandoms), in fact, I was watching season 1 last night, and I do read the odd fic! So, I think I'd say Veronica Mars for the past *counts on fingers* SEVENTEEN YEARS (minus the two or so years after s 4 where I had to wallow in sadness).

G - Who was your first OTP?

I think it would have to be Logan and Veronica from Veronica Mars. The first OTP i was REALLY REALLY obsessed with enough to drag me into an entirely new fandom was definitely Alex and Henry from RWRB.

N - Three things I wish I saw more of in fandom?

I don't think I need to explain this, but more diverse voices in fandom. As a writer and as a person, I think I could learn a lot from others especially when it comes to life experience, culture, religious practices etc., and it's a gift when someone in fandom is willing to share those things.

More interaction in DMs and asks in a way which allows readers to know creators AND creators to know readers! I was explaining to someone last night that my extroverted personality really manifests in wanting to know other people beyond the surface level. I get that not everyone wants to reveal everything about themselves online (which is SO valid), but I'd like to have more meaningful conversations with people and interact with more people. I love WIP Wednesday and Seven Sentence Sunday and all that, but I also love talking to other people about THEIR writing or their passions or their lives. I don't want to just talk about my writing all the time lol. This is an open invite for anyone to chat to me about LITERALLY anything. I promise I'm very friendly!

Appreciation for the people who make writers as good as they can be - sensitivity readers, beta readers, the readers who leave really lovely long comments or any kind of comment that is funny or thoughtful or kind. I love writers in fandom, but from my personal writing experience at least, it takes a fucking village, and I want those people to have their virtual flowers!!! I don't think I've nailed this yet, but I'd really like to develop that skill.

Z - Ramble about something

In light of paragraph (N)(3) above, I would like to make a personal shout out to YOU, @rmd-writes @athousandrooms and @celeritas2997 who have lived in many of my documents and put in SO MANY HOURS of work over the past (almost) 2 years. I really think my writing has transformed so much in that time. I can see such a marked difference in sentence structure, grammar, CHARACTERISATION and plot if I compare my writing from 2021 to now. It's actually very humbling to see how far I've come and I have to thank you all so much for helping me improve! Also, @dustratcentral for being such an iconic cheerleader. love your work.

(Send me an ask based on the alphabet)

#fandom alphabet game #appreciation post #veronica mars #logan x veronica #LoVe #RWRB #firstprince #beta readers #sensitivity readers #readers

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