#i might attempt a redraw on this one at some point

[wasyago]

Dear Wasyago,

Strange, I have always thought it was spelled as Wasayago. But recently I've realized, I can't read very well.

I want to send appreciation today, to you.

You've taught me a lot about art. You've taught me a lot how to draw certain things, and you have opened my eyes to new perspective of art, ever since I started following you. Colours are brighter, I experiment more, I can see a specter of visuals that was previously hidden from me. It's like gaining shrimp colors.

Your art feels like an art classroom. There's sun pouring in from the windows, and there's tree leaves in front of them. Every time you come in you see different art projects. Paints add on to the tables, that will never scrub off again. There's dirty cups with paint water, and brushes, in the sink. It's lunch break, and there's people here. Some are just doing their math homework right before class, some are working on their sculpture, some are picking out paints, some are working on their new piece, on a fresh canvas. And it is so alive.

Your art feels so alive. Like the leaves, the people, the stains. It's really nice to see, every single time you post, how lovingly you bring a character into the world (My favorite so far is that one doodle of Modern au Gillion eating noodles, I have it in my favorites gallery).

I would like to see some unfinished, maybe forever to be so, doodles that you weren't especially proud of. We'll love it all.

Respectfully,

Marcus Bloodsmith

oh, thank you so much, this is so sweet qwq

im happy to know that you feel this way about my art, and im glad i could help you with some advice! it feels a bit weird to show unfinished or scrapped art under such a nice message, but yeah why not. and its funny that you mentioned the gillion eating noodles one, because its also one of the pieces that i really didn't like and didn't want to post hdgsh. i dont have that many unfinished drawings left because i delete or redraw most of them, but i have a couple that might be fun to share... and i guess it's gonna be a long post bc i wanna tell a little about each one or at least name them.

there's this art of chip, the first time i properly tried to figure out a way to draw him back when i just started listening. redrew this piece later, kept the sketch on the left, but the right one i changed completely because i didn't like the vibe this one has.

there's this attempt at redesigning caspian after i found out he was a water genasi, plus the first version of that art of caspian, pretzel and gill. this design didn't feel "caspian" enough, it looked too soft and kind where i wanted him to be more layed back and chill and sarcastic and with a bit of an edge. redrew both pieces later. the underwater drawing also has an unfinished background in this version, i added some fishies later so it didn't feel that empty.

some random sketch of gillion to show off how the lightning scars look on his face and neck. i quite like it, but it didn't really fit in the post with three proper drawings and one sketch so i decided to scrap it.

there's this drawing where i tried to figure out how the capital of the undersea looked like. i really didn't know where i was going with it and didn't have a good idea when i started drawing, so its a mess of things with nothing to really focus on. i tried to add a character on it later to breathe some life into it, but it didn't work out since i didn't focus it on the character from the beginning. plus i don't like how the colors turned out, and the entire concept of the environment feels weak and boring to me. i still want to draw more concepts of the undersea and try a couple other ideas, but probably at a later date...

the first version of whatever try it was to design gill's armor. (fun fact, i have more armor designs scheduled for tomorrow). this one i redrew almost immediately, i really didn't like how it turned out and how the legs were cut off and it looked so messy with no real accent point or personality. plus the smaller copy of the drawing in the corner just didn't look good. im not exactly proud of the redrawn version either (that's why i did another one yesterday lol), but im glad i redrew it anyway, it looks a lot better than this one.

the first sketch of that one gillion drawing. i couldn't figure out the colors for it for so long and wanted to drop the idea entirely. but i left it to sit for a couple hours and eventually got the motivation to come back to it and finish it. for most of the illustration pieces i did for jrwi there were multiple versions, where i just didn't like the first one and redrew the whole thing with a different composition and colors. didn't save any of those drawings tho...

this drawing of jay but with green wings and a slightly different color shirt. it was actually the first version of this drawing, and i changed the colors to blue later. wanted to post both of them side by side but then decided against it. that's why this drawing survived and was properly saved and not just deleted.

more recent attempts at designing the chaingel. i like the concept, and the pose in the second sketch is pretty badass, but the execution is just not there. it doesn't feel right, doesn't have the right kind of vibe that this character gives off. so im sure i will try and draw her later when i figure out what's missing and how to show her personality in the way it feels in my head. but these two sketches were never going to see the light of day, so now they're here.

aand this is it, this is everything that wasn't deleted in the past month for one or another reason. i feel like im more chill with deleting and redrawing things, so a lot of initial sketches and concepts never get saved or seen by anyone. im also on mobile so i can attach only ten files lol. not that it matters, the last two were just random figure drawings for warm up, not much to talk about.

#very sorry to the tagging anon but im not tagging this as jrwi. this is just nothing. #yagotalk

[forfluxsake]

a personal slash solitary blog where i publish my doodles, have hobbies, and do anything typical of the average person

utmv server ad

before i write anything else, i’m promoting my utmv (undertale multiverse) server. JOIN PARTYCHROMA TODAY! FOREVER LINK: https://discord.gg/sATaZ8WZDh

if you aren’t sensitive to bold text, fonts, weird symbols, and eyestrainy gradient rainbow themes, join partychroma. it’s a neverending party for people who’re into undertale or deltarune aus and the like. it’s quiet for the time being, which is why i’m hoping people find this post

we are welcoming of anybody who’s willing to have a good time. the server provides funny roleplay channels, a place to showcase your creations, roles, incredible people, and more. i put effort into it and stuff so that’s great

…a better, less half-hearted advertisement can be found on disboard. hope to see you there!

about me

if you’re wondering who i am, hi

i’m flux.

i am a male and i use he/him/she/her pronouns. that’s all you need to know to respect my existence. if you have any questions direct them to the asks feature i just enabled

what do i like doing? doodling, writing, listening to some funky tunes; learning… i’m not picky about creative activities, but i do tend to procrastinate. my hyperfixations are seasonal and i suffer from being unable to let go of past phases. the list of my interests is infinite. if you care, i enjoy a variety of indie rpgs, object shows, args slash creepypastas, webcomics, and television shows.

cartoon series pique my interest the most.

boundaries

(be my friend)

i’m a minor. this much information is self explanatory as to how you should approach me. obviously don’t interact with me if you are a nsfw age-restricted page, but also don’t attempt to send me weird asks

i don’t talk about politics.

i think being friends with me requires a lot of patience. sure, you may friend me on my discord, o5fo, but understand that i’m terrible at one on one conversation. if you don’t get straight to the point, i will most likely not respond.

preferably keep contact with me through our shared communities or mutual servers and not direct messages.

if i’ve crossed a line, i encourage people to express their discomfort. nothing is gained from radio silence. (it’s not like i’m not anxious as well LOL don’t be shy to contact me [on dis] if it’s important)

what to expect

this blog is sfw, though it’s prone to having violent and dangerous content, mostly because i’ve drawn a fair amount of works with blood or upsetting themes. be wary of who you follow, always, and take steps to protect yourself online. take advantage of the filter tool to block tags that trigger you.

i will occasionally open art requests. but i won’t do too many at a time.

i might touch on some uncomfortable topics while i’m maintaining this nostalgia-seeking blog, especially about past controversies in the communities i was in since i was a child. and depending on the post, i will treat the flaws in said communities seriously or jokingly. please do not take it the wrong way if i redraw those memories.

assume everything i say is light-hearted for the sake of everybody; spare yourself the trouble of thinking i’m trying to invalidate people’s experiences. i never want to come off that way

fanart. expect a handful of art in general. uncolored/whiteboard doodles are abundant. i have ocs- but i’m anything but organized.

that’s a wrap

i wasn’t prepared to end this post

#utmv #undertale #deltarune #sans au #undertale au #undertale multiverse #underverse #filename2 #baldi’s basics #baldis basics #bbieal #multifandom

[wolfcamellias]

how do you picture qpr shadowpeach? your ideas about them fascinate me

@blood-king asked: *cough* So uh, completely unprompted totally didnt see a post or anything; How would QPR shadowpeach work? (Also /gen question cause ur thoughts on them are always interesting lol)

WELL! I’m so glad you asked! Bare with me that I’m working with canon material and even then I have to take into consideration that S4 might erase all of this and produce something different for ShadowPeach  ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ 

[insert “no fear” / “one fear” meme redraw here]

BUT! Anyways! Let’s look deeper into these freaks now shall we 

First let’s dissect everything we got thus far on Sun Wukong and Macaque’s canon dynamic before diving into the QPR aspect of it all 

-------------

Season One 

I want everyone to remember that besides the iconic line of “You are such a gem” has more meaning behind it than we realize. We don’t have much to work with in terms of Season One material and at this base level we can consider the fact that it was.. Just a crackship by this point, they only have one brief interaction and Macaque was never seen again. During that moment we can see that Sun Wukong and Macaque are treated to be “equals” in this instance solely because Macaque was able to absorb Xiaotian’s powers and render him immobile for a while. In this instance we can see that Macaque was copying Sun Wukong’s moves aside from the shadow clone-summonings and the Shadow Puppet creation. 

This implies Macaque was well adept into mimicking Sun Wukong that he was capable of copying all of his moves without pause and heart beat but also managed to “outwit” Sun Wukong by using the fact that he cares about Xiaotian as a stepping stone and tries to get the upper hand constantly on him during the fight. 

“Wukong! How ya doin’ bud? [Scoffs]” “Aren’t you ever going to get sick of living in my shadow?”

“Oh god is Rhy going to psychoanalyz—” yes now sit down. 

Macaque’s tone is mocking all the way during this small exchange, even mocking Wukong’s “bud” that he uses to address Xiaotian, attempting to edge him on and get him to engage with him. Right from the start he’s trying to instigate him, he wants Wukong to react in a way that’ll lead to a fight, that will cause some wreckage, he wants Sun Wukong to see him and think “I want to engage with this person for the rest of my life, I can’t stop thinking about him” when in truth Macaque is the one chasing Wukong’s attention constantly.

Sun Wukong’s tone is something I’ve analyzed once, twice, several times before. Wukong’s tone here is stressed and non-intimidating—he’s more disappointed than you realize. Sun Wukong witnessed Xiaotian’s personality change to someone who snaps back at him, tells him he’s been training with someone who’s actually teaching him when Sun Wukong knows Xiaotian’s mortal and has his limits. Had Xiaotian gotten incredibly hurt, his reaction to Macaque’s mocking would have been worse. Because Wukong does not instigate fights. He doesn’t try to play into the bait that Macaque leaves him, he asks him if he’s tired of repeating this cycle. It’s true, it is a cycle and we see it throughout most of their relationship: Sun Wukong takes a step back and Macaque takes two steps forward. He’s the one keeping Macaque at a distance.

And something that’s very interesting when it comes to Wukong’s word choice: he says, ‘living in my shadow’. Which is interesting! It implies that Sun Wukong does not want Macaque to be in his shadow. He does not want Macaque around let alone being his shadow—he wants him to step out of it. It’s interesting to see that Sun Wukong does not seem to think he was the one who put Macaque in his shadow — it’s interesting to see.

“It’s time to give back what you stole.”

Again, Wukong gets straight to the point: “You hurt my successor, a mortal, and I can tell you’re not going to talk through this so I’ll resort to your level.”

But he also does not engage Macaque immediately. Only does so when Macaque continues and says this:

“You are such a gem. It's going to be so satisfying, killing you with your own powers.”

Did you know that in JTTW Macaque was mirroring all of Sun Wukong’s powers? He was basically an exact replica in that moment and thus it resulted in a stalemate for a long time?

Macaque is A) admitting here that he’s using Sun Wukong’s own strength against him thus making him his equal in that instant, more so with the fact Sun Wukong is canonically holding back at this point, meaning Macaque’s frustration with him later makes sense because he knows Sun Wukong is holding back—he just doesn’t know by how much and B) he’s once again instigating Wukong by calling him a gem, something he only does once throughout the show before he switches to other forms of taunting. 

Sun Wukong is a stone monkey, he was born from a rock. He was treated as more of a piece of coal throughout the entirety of the Journey by both Heaven and his pilgrim brothers and even his master at times (not to say that’s the exact way the Pilgrims and Tripitaka act in the show but I digress) and to call him a gem.. Is purely amusing considering how he then proceeds to say Sun Wukong was gifted with all of his abilities and powers in the following season. He’s not complimenting him—and even if he was, it probably lost its value in the moment, considering the situation they were in.

“Seriously? You fell for that?”

Macaque instigating Sun Wukong and further trying to get him to get angry and stoop down to his level? More likely than you think.

“Come on. Show me the real Sun Wukong. The old you would have leveled this whole mountain range to stop me, but you're scared of hurting some kid? Pathetic.”

Macaque proceeds to try and urge Wukong to go back to being his old self, he wants Wukong to be that reckless, capricious, overpowered guy whom he (for lack of better platonic based term) fell in love with in terms of admiration and, amusingly, it’s also something he clings on to because that’s a recurring theme with Macaque: being stuck in the past.

Sun Wukong is not reacting how he wants him to and that’s what irritates him the most. He wants them to go back to their past and that’s the unhealthy aspect of him: he doesn’t realize people can change for better or worse—or, at the very least, he doesn’t want to acknowledge it with the way he witnesses Sun Wukong protect Xiaotian and worry over him more than he pays attention to Macaque himself. He doesn’t want to believe Sun Wukong’s changed as a person and that he  needs to change before they can make anything work.

------------------

Season Two

Sun Wukong is absent throughout most of this Season due to his quest to find a weapon to fight against LBD and then the subtle timeskip of Heaven’s days and Earth’s years working a little funky. 

Of course then we dip our feet into the very shallow pool that is Macaque’s view of how Sun Wukong’s character works despite not having had a proper conversation with him over the past five hundred years or so. 

“The hero and the warrior were like the Sun and the Moon. Their light, a protective glow, shining upon the world. Together, there was nothing that could stop the two of them. Either in the Celestial Realms or on Earth. As time went on, the hero attained power beyond comprehension. As the hero's light grew, so too did his shadow. And soon, the warrior was cast in that shadow. In the darkness, the warrior was forgotten by the hero.”

Shoutout to Lego Monkie Kid for being able to write biased narratives throughout the show. 

Macaque’s word choices are interesting: he’s glorifying the past (again) and putting the Hero (Wukong) on a high pedestal and repeating he was abandoned and forgotten and cast in the shadows. The interesting point is noting that Macaque is a strongly biased narrator, he views Sun Wukong as lesser than him and wants him to come down to his level of petty words and constant fighting when Sun Wukong does not react nor chase him around. And something to note about Sun Wukong is that he values and cares genuinely and strongly for his friends; to say that Sun Wukong purposefully put Macaque in his shadow is a stretch.

The theory that Sun Wukong told Macaque to stay behind while he went to the war against Heaven (thus fighting with Nezha, Muzha and Erlang) led to Macaque taking it as ‘you are weak and can’t follow me’, twisting Wukong’s words and his perception of him is the most likely theory taking into consideration how LBD was confirmed to have messed with Macaque’s memories and that Macaque later states that Sun Wukong didn’t work hard for his powers.

Unless Lego Monkie Kid rewrote the starting chapters of Journey To The West where Sun Wukong spends years training for his immortality, several more reigning over his kingdom and then the inevitable trauma and imprisonment? Sun Wukong worked very hard for his position, regardless of whether or not he was cocky or gained a high ego over it, and Macaque just turns away from the truth and only sees what he wants to see.

We don’t talk about the fact that he proceeded to project onto Xiaotian and said he did not have abandonment issues and that he forgot about the friends that Macaque himself kidnapped. 

And of course we get the moment where Macaque gets a flashback of Sun Wukong punching him, correlating to the somewhat confirmed theory that Sun Wukong murdered Macaque during a certain point in the JTTW arc of the show.

And then it’s not addressed again until Season Three.

Season Three

(I’ve typed Macaque 37 times and Wukong 48 times and idk how to feel about that)

Sun Wukong is emotionally and mentally and physically drained the moment we see him back at the start of the Season. He’s focused on securing the map and gaining the Samadhi Fire for the chance of defeating Lady Bone Demon and Macaque on the other hand, as we can see in the flashback that occurs later in the season, was leashed and held with a dagger to his neck when moving closer to Wukong.

Macaque and Sun Wukong’s banter is.. a singular moment where he allows himself to fall into Macaque’s cycle. “Always the comedian,” implies Macaque is well aware that Wukong is masking his tone and overall stability to show he’s holding himself together when in truth he very much isn’t. Wukong continues to taunt Macaque because this is what he wanted, he wanted a true reaction out of him — to which I mean, he wants Wukong to react in a negative sense, he wants them to fight, he wants to instigate fights with him because that in itself is a distraction from talking about their past. 

Wukong avoids Macaque and even warns everyone about him, tries to keep Macaque away from Xiaotian and the others as much as possible to the point of making himself bait for the sake of them getting away during the train station scene. 

Genuinely, Sun Wukong saw Macaque as someone dangerous to Xiaotian due to the trauma that Macaque gave him during his introduction episode where he threatened to kill Xiaotian for the sake of getting to Wukong.

And that’s not without discussing the fact that Wukong was able to make Macaque freeze at the change of tone. During the ice scene with Nezha, Wukong tries to instigate a sort of scuffle with Macaque this time, repeating the same tone and mask he used back during the airship fight. Because he wants him to fall back into that little cycle of theirs that Macaque was constantly chasing.

What he didn’t account for was Macaque not following the same path he usually does. The reason behind Wukong’s anger when he reaches to choke Macaque isn’t just because he started the ritual: he didn’t listen to Wukong (again), he tried to shift his blame onto Wukong, he hurt Xiaotian, he threatened Xiaojiao, and pushed Tang into starting the ritual. And, yes, Wukong was watching all of it despite not knowing what it is they were saying, but he is very much aware of Macaque’s actions when he went after them clawing for survival.

It’s also important to remember that it’s heavily implied both Sun Wukong and Macaque must have done something to cause their relationship to become so estranged. Because Macaque is the one who leaves this time, Macaque is the one who tried to get away from this situation, Macaque is the one who tries to escape and that’s what ticks Wukong off further. 

Because Macaque is a coward and that’s something he needs to work on excessively. 

Yes, there is the looking back scene, there is the moment where Macaque and Wukong look at each other in the Samadhi Fire episode but just because they took one step does not mean they’ve finished climbing up the ladder to mending their relationship. 

However.

Sun Wukong was still holding back during his fight with Macaque.

Because despite this intense power imbalance, despite the fact Sun Wukong was possessed, he was still conscious, he was still aware of his actions. Knowing how roughed up he managed to get Macaque it's only safe to assume he was choosing to hold back in an attempt to delay the end result of the fight.

And afterwards we get a cleaner conclusion: they put their differences aside to help Xiaotian and end their last interaction with Macaque falling back into edging Wukong on and ignoring his actions throughout the Season and calling him selfish—as harsh as it may sound, he’s not yet accepting the fact Sun Wukong has changed and thus Sun Wukong will not consider him as someone he can be comfortable around or someone worth having an actual conversation with. 

See: When talking to Xiaotian he drops the masks (slightly) and admits he has never had a proper successor before nor has he ever been a mentor. Even when Xiaotian reveals he plays dumb to lighten the mood, Sun Wukong just laughs and brings him closer rather than pushing him away. He does not do that with Macaque because he doesn’t even consider him someone worth trying for.

---------

“Break Up” Stage

“But how would they work?”

They need to separate first.

Sun Wukong and Macaque require a lengthy break from each other, both without mentioning or seeing the other let alone engaging them because the chances of them actually communicating is slim to none. They need to work on themselves and separate to work on their individual trauma before they can even begin to discuss their own issues.

Sun Wukong is closed off and Macaque is self-centered in the way that, Wukong does not address his trauma and even then plays it off as a joke while Macaque makes his own personal issues seem more important or drastic than others (whether intentionally or not).

Macaque is also heavily focused on Wukong while Wukong can easily look away from Macaque lest the latter mocks or taunts him.  They need to be away from each other for a while before even beginning to take those steps towards friendship.

--------------------

Things they need to work on first

Sun Wukong needs to work on his communication skills, emotional and mental stability, learn how to make healthy coping habits for his trauma and actually talk to someone about his trauma. He bottles everything up and then often uses himself as bait/a shield for everyone (especially Xiaotian) and that’s taking a toll on him. He even openly declares he’s going to sacrifice himself when asked what his plan was about the fire and then immediately joked about it to numb it down. 

He constantly lets others snap at him without defending himself not because he can’t but because of trauma when speaking out towards others if they stick by JTTW lore (when contradicting Tripitaka’s actions, he would be punished with the tightening spell, etc.). He needs to get better at this before even beginning the idea of rekindling a friendship that must have heavily hurt him enough for him to not want to engage with the other party again. 

Macaque needs to work on his emotional and mental stability, learn not to trauma dump onto others, learn to let go and learn that his actions heavily affect others. He berates Wukong for seemingly “making things worse for Xiaotian” and then proceeds to hurt, manipulate and traumatize him and his friends. 

He gets away with it and that’s something that.. should not have happened? His actions throughout the series have consisted of kidnapping and borderline traumatizing a stranger to him who looked up to him and then proceeded to ask if he missed him. He’s mocking him, he’s mocking everyone and Wukong is not exempt from this.

Macaque needs to work on learning how to engage without seeing things through his own bias-tinted lenses and realize there are other people around him who are suffering from his actions and that being traumatized is not an excuse to be a shitty person to others.

Otherwise, the entire relationship could be toxic.

-----------------

Things that could work with them

Sun Wukong opening up to Macaque about why he doesn’t engage with him 

Macaque calling out Wukong on his past actions in a way that isn’t meant to be seen as an attack

Sun Wukong and Macaque (after being separated) finding each other when they’re in healthier environments and talking/discussing their past and how they can move forward together

Macaque apologizing to Wukong first

Macaque realizing Sun Wukong is traumatized from the Journey

Wukong realizing why Macaque chases after him so much and setting aside boundaries so they can engage without it becoming overwhelming

Sun Wukong and Macaque addressing the fact they’ve both hurt each other and realizing it can’t work unless they both put an effort into it

Macaque being Wukong’s shoulder to lean on; Wukong being the one to call Macaque out when he pushes things too far

A normal non-romantic involved QPR or friendship

-------------------

Things to consider

The reason why a QPR works so well with Sun Wukong and Macaque is a bit simple but also complicated: 

Sun Wukong throughout the course of Journey to the West and all its past and future iterations have always had him be uninterested in both men and women. There are multiple instances where he’s capable of courting women and he instead backs away or does not pay it any mind; aside from this he’s heavily implied to only care about familial love and friendships. He does not see his pilgrim brothers as anything more than family and he views Tripitaka as a mentor rather than someone whom he was chained to (coughs). 

Sun Wukong is always been heavily coded to be on the aro or ace spectrum in media and Lego Monkie Kid focuses more on the platonic aspect of relationships and Sun Wukong being in a Queer-Platonic Relationship would be more impacting than a regular romantic one. He does not understand normal human customs being a monkey and all and creating a type of relationship that’s unique to him and Macaque alone would be far more comfortable to him than to have a relationship that follows rules.

Macaque also has shown no signs of romantic attraction towards any of the cast and, considering the idea that they continue this fact, him being on the aro or ace spectrum would also be an incredible move on their part. Not only because he’s meant to represent the other side of Wukong’s metaphorical coin but because it’d be the first canon aro or ace villain character thus far in a kids’ show.

This and the fact that— both Sun Wukong and Macaque are over a thousand years old. Why on earth would they have a normal type of relationship? Giving them a checklist of what passes on as romantic and platonic when to them the line is so blurred it’s barely existent to them is amusing. 

Sun Wukong and Macaque having their own weird relationship where it changes from frustrated best friends to partners to angry middle aged demons to the tired traumatized immortals who sometimes cuddle while marathoning weird stupid comedies or tragedies on netflix is much more appealing than the average type of relationship media often portrays. Having Sun Wukong and Macaque see each other as equals on all known terms is interesting and good.

-----------------

Differences in giving and receiving affection (HC on Macaque’s part)

This one is a tad short considering how little we have on the matter but both monkeys resort to verbal praise — however there is a big difference in this.

Sun Wukong’s love language is acts of service (Journey), verbal reassurance, touch and familiarity with one’s actions and quirks. 

Macaque’s… are genuinely unknown seeing as his verbal praise is just a manipulation tactic but it’s somewhat twistable into something more.. Genuine if you take into account how he could just as easily turn Wukong’s words against himself when he spares Macaque a compliment.

-----------------

Final Message

This took me way longer than it should have.

Buy My Silence.

#Every time I see someone bring up the “oh Wukong!” from Season Three I feel my braincells turn to ashes #ask #shadowpeach #qpr shadowpeach #lego monkie kid #sun wukong #macaque #liu er mihou #monkie kid #oh my god im fucking tired #anyways #rhy analysis #yeap #analysis #qpr #queer platonic relationship #WOOOO #ANYWAYS ANYWAYS ANYWAYS #oofa #im in a stream rn watching swag draw angst of swk and mac and just pointing and going 'HAH losers (affectionate)' #middle aged men who cant fcking communicate my favorite dynamic

[ruelin024]

opinions on graphictale ya silly person

@graphictale-au

erererererer -Yes. o(〃＾▽＾〃)o ✨

Interesting setting in place, since they from a corrupted genocide reset timeline. *Check*

Brotherly Relationship Dynamic complicated. *yusss Check*

Literal graphic, graphic, yes! *check*

They goofy, cute to me. (ahem GW!Sans’s outbursts, precious GW!Papyrus) *Check*

Fragile hurt-looking character next to scary-looking aggressive character. *Check*

Mysteries abound yet to uncover~ *check*

Art makes me laugh and is awesome! *CHECK*

I can incision invision a lot of angst and plot. (Feeding into my many imaginations.)

And for some odd reason, and I don't know how, but I am in the “I can fix him.” ... “I can save him.” ... And the “They can ruin my life but they cute.” Mindset when I see and read about your GW!Sans and GW!Papyrus. But like uhh, hmm, I swear if I dig deep into my head I might overdraw them to the point I simp for them like oh dear I've become the problem I've caused *sweats* 〒▽〒 And the fact you haven't drawn out the rest of the Undertale characters of your AU is gonna make me do somersaults when you ever do release some more character/plot art. (Wait are you gonna draw out other GraphicTale AU characters? Cause if you is, I'm finna draw them hahahah. ψ(｀∇´)ψ)

In summary, I see potential in this AU. (❤´艸｀❤) Though at the moment I don't know what to expect, and to me that's cool, cause I don't know what goes through your ✨wonderful head,✨ meaning I look forward to your posts and those who make the asks.

My grand opinion: I actually love what you doing in this AU and enjoy seeing it grow. Tis gud. 👌✨💕😙

Can't wait for more lore and drawings from you!

And I made this from one of yer asks. (I attempted to make human version of GW!Sans and GW!Papyrus but I sucked at it, so I decided they look better like this. \^o^/)

I love redrawing your asks, you fuel my imagination like bruh. (^///^)

Oh also! Thank you for the ask, hopefully I answered uhh sufficiently? I tried to give you a detailed answer on my opinion on graphictale au, hopefully it was alright. o(*￣︶￣*)o

#graphictale #graphic warning sans #graphic warning papyrus #tw blood #undertale au #cool stuff #very noice #love it #very fun #sans au #papyrus au #answered

[tanadrin]

That is correct, I didn't think the Mosaic law would be a practical way of running a society but that's what my client wanted so that's what I wrore

I don't really get the joke here, so I'm just going to take an opportunity to add another fact I found pretty interesting:

It was common in the Ancient Near East to create codes of law for display purposes (and outside it--cf. the Twelve Tables). This wasn't so much so that the common person could know and understand the law, because literacy rates were pretty low, but served a similar function as monumental architecture, to display the power of the ruler and at least notionally their justice. But in practice, the law as it actually functioned could be pretty different from the law as these monuments proclaimed it.

I think it's interesting to consider the law-as-a-symbol. There was some incidental discourse crossing my dash recently about whether "law" as a general concept protects the weak from the strong, or whether it legitimates the rule of the elites. And I think the answer is that is obviously does neither: that a society has a system of law tells you nothing about how that system functions, and you have to dig into the nitty-gritty details to determine whether the society has "rule of law" (which is good) or "rule by law" (which is bad). The former is, hopefully, a system where the law binds everybody, attempts to be fair, and there is at least some effort to enforce it equally; the latter is where law is a justification for a system power that makes no pretense at that sort of thing.

And I think rule by law is a very common state of affairs, especially pre-French Revolution! I might be generous and say pre-Enlightenment at best. Because before you have an ideological starting point of "ok, everybody should be equal before the law and the law should be impartially enforced," one-off privileges, aristocracies, and random exemptions from various rights and duties are pretty normal, and one of the major functions of law is to codify these inequities to make sure the king or his judiciary respects them. There is a reason one of the big components of revolutionary projects historically has been administrative reform, because in redrawing internal boundaries and revising old law codes, you can do away with these inequities and legally enshrined hierarchies.

And that pattern of inequity, of legally enshrined hierarchy, is of course thoroughly present in Leviticus and Deuteronomy. As Dan McClellan points out, agency in these codes flows downhill and it flattens everything in its path. The agency of men erases that of women: the law treats what happens if a man violates the property rights of another man over the women under his dominion (his daughters or wives), but the agency of the women ("consent" in modern parlance) simply makes no difference to the law. The only place women's sexual agency shows up in the law is in the one situation where a woman is interacting with a creature lesser than her, i.e., if she lies with an animal.

Even in the European Middle Ages I think there were real disjuncts between the worldview of the people using these law codes for devotional purposes and the worldview of their authors. In the modern era, of course, those disjuncts are yawning chasms, and as a result you get some really weak apologetic attempts to try to reconcile modern ethics with (again, impractical, unworkable, entirely theoretical) Iron Age legal theory. But there are lots of places in the Bible--both in the law codes and in the narrative portions--where I think the disjunct is so great that the aftercomers can't really make heads or tails of the worldviews of their predecessors. This is where the apologists (and before them, the commentaries of the Talmud) often have to invent major details out of whole cloth to try to turn the situation into one that makes sense to them. It would be better, and easier to construct a more consistent system of ethics, to just jettison the bits that clearly aren't applicable to the concerns of your community--but then of course once you admit that what parts of your scripture you do and don't accept are contingent on their relevance to your community, it is no longer the timeless and authoritative book from God, and it ceases to be a useful way of structuring power.

And as with codes of law, holy writ is (among other things) about structuring power! Otherwise all religion would approximately resemble Unitarian Universalism, an honest, gentle, thoughtful faith that is approximately irrelevant.

#'mimetic fitness' is so often just a measure #of how enthusiastic your followers are #about kicking the crap out of anybody who disagrees with them #coercion and hierarchy are therefore great for mimetic fitness #even if they are terrible for human flourishing and happiness

[inbetweenhours]

Finished my primary pitch for @pinchhitsfromthevoid​ ‘s first batch of pitchs! If your looking to send prompts run over there the form is still around :]

This pitch was for an anon, so no one else to tag. But basically I combined their want for osmp, royalty, and angst! Though the angst maybe s a bit more hurt/comfort I guarantee this would be angsty in full in fic format aha :] I also played a little with the popular and newly approved hc of  o!Ranboo being a girl just for the fun of it. It impacts nothing in the story and I could just as easily redraw the whole thing with “prince” Ranboo, and she just looks like an oc at this point but she’s fun :] So I hope y’all like her. IDK if I’ll draw her again but it was fun for this au i like her design :]

The panels alone tell a kind of story, so you can read them as you like. However I will be elaborating on what is going on in, and between each panel below the cut ;) enjoy!

Any interaction is appreciated! :] Enjoy!

tw: assassination's attempts, mentioned death

The End Empire and The Kingdom of Origin are in a bit of a feud. Not anything big, but The End has come out of its isolation rather suddenly and has been making demands of overworld countries like Origin. They’re powerful enough King Phil doesn’t want to do anything rash to make them seem hostile, but honestly The Ends behavior is fairly aggressive and it’s coming off as threatening. 

 Thus Phil send his trusted advisor Wilbur to visit The End to try and do negotiations in person. He has also sent his son Tommy as a sign of good faith to have at least one member of the royal family present since he has other matters to attend to. Tommy’s a bit to young to be properly handling the actual politics though so he’s mostly just there for images sake Wilbur’s doing the actual work.

When they arrive and are waiting to be introduced to the End monarchy they come under the sudden realization of why things might have been so hard to handle, and why The End has had a seemingly sudden shift of motivation in the past months.  The End Monarchy is not the two queens that outside nations had been under the impression of ruling. Instead a single tween, Tommy’s age. Princess Ranboo  is maybe 13, looking entirely too small on the throne despite how much space she’s trying to take up.

Wilbur realized quickly that negotiations are gonna be a mess because Ranboo is a literal child and certainly acts like it. She’s spoilt and demanding and is blatantly refusing input from her advisor. Outright refusing any ideas thrown out by her advisor at all out of some kind of  superiority complex or spite, Wilbur isn’t sure. Seemingly just trying to be difficult.  Wilbur has no idea how he is going to resolve this peacefully when arguing with a literal child.

Wilbur is at his wits ends after even just the first meeting. Tommy decides he doesn’t wanna hang around if it’s gonna be this unbearable and also Wilbur is losing his mind. While Tommy enjoys annoying Wilbur that is his job and no one else’s. So he slips away after the meeting to try and find Ranboo. Try and do some diplomacy of his own and se if he can’t connect, tween to tween, and figure something out. See why she’s being a twat.

Tommy doesn’t find Ranboo, but instead her advisor. The advisor is creepy to Tommy, but everyone in the End palace seems kind of off and Wilbur told him not to be rude so he doesn’t say anything.  The advisor basically helps direct Tommy to where Ranboo’s quarters are, even giving him a piece of End candy he can give to Ranboo as a kind of peace offering. When Ranboo opens her door and sees her advisor she scowls, before seeing Tommy and curiously pulling him into her room, slamming the door on the advisor.

Ranboo asks what Tommy’s doing, Tommy tries to offer the candy to which Ranboo makes a face and refuses. Tommy is just like “okay then” and goes to eat it himself because if Ranboo isn’t going to eat it then Tommy at least wants to try some of the foreign candy. Unfortunately for him, Ranboo snatches it as soon as he tries to unwrap it and throws it towards the trash.

Tommy is indignant asking what her problem is, but Ranboo tells him to shut up and be quiet. She asks if he is stupid, to try and eat something so brazenly without having it checked. Tommy asks why and Ranboo gets defensive, demanding that he just listen to her but Tommy squawks that he is also a prince, and Ranboo needs to treat him at least as an equal and stop talking down at him. She hasn’t really ever considered anyone an equal, has never met someone else her age of her status, so she backs down a little if only out of confusion. 

 Tommy pushed, and Ranboo explains that the staff of The End can’t be trusted. Ranboo isn’t completely sure who is and who isn’t in in it but that there is consistent assassination attempts and that Tommy should be more careful or else he’s an idiot. Tommy is both just baffled by the idea and defensive because he doesn’t have to worry about assassination attempts! They aren’t that common in Origin. This confuses Ranboo whose entire life has been upended because of the consistent poisoning attempts in the past half year.

Wilbur, who has lost track of Tommy since the meeting and is worried about him wandering around a foreign country that they know nothing about and ether getting himself into danger, or the both of them in trouble, begins covertly searching the palace halls for his ward. He accidentally overhears a conversation between Ranboo’s advisor, and another Enderian he doesn’t recognize.

He realizes they are discussing something he is not meant to overhear. The organization of an attempt on Ranboo’s life. They seem irritated and impatient, upset at the amount of time it has taken to take out the royal family. The poisons they have used to kill Ranboo’s mother, and bedridden the other (soon to pass, surely) are slow acting so as to come a crossed as terminal illness. Tragedies not traced back to staff interference. But Ranboo has grown too wise, knows not to trust, and is being tricky. With foreign nobility present they feel as though they are running out of time.

With the Origin nobility present though they have a unique opportunity. The advisor and other staff in on the assassination's have plans to continue impersonating the royal family,  even in their death and orchestrating the empire from that cover. They want the End to emerge from isolation, and Origin is getting on their nerves. They could kill two bids with one stone, so to speak, by killing Ranboo the old fashioned with with a knife in the night. Then causing a scandal by implicating the Origin nobility and issuing cause for conflict with the overworld.

This is all very bad news for Wilbur, both as a peaceful ambassador and also as a general bleeding heart. he fears for Tommy, and despite Ranboo’s attitude, he has the care to know she does not deserve this. He slips away unnoticed from his eavesdropping and wanders till he finds Ranboo’s room.

Once allowed inside he is relived to find both children present. He gets to Ranboo’s height, and gently tries to describe the danger she is in. Initially she brushes him off, insistent she knows how to handle herself and of course she knows she's being hunted by her staff, she’s been dodging them for months. Wilbur’s  insistence in a change of tactic is what scares her though.

 She can avoid poison. It’s easy to avoid food that hasn't been tested before her eyes. Easy to recognize smells and tastes, when and how her mothers fell ill. She also knows she is not made for labour of any kind, and she has no way of defending against a blade.

So the façade breaks. Ranboo is a spoilt brat. She was raised rich in an empire spanning the near entire end dimension. That is true. She can be stubborn and greedy and hot headed, she is a child. But she has no real ill will. She does not argue with Wilbur and disrupt the meetings and meals and any form of diplomacy out of a place of malice, but rather an insistence to disagree with her advisor, who she trusts least. She is scared, surrounded by people who hate her and who actively want her to de quietly. So she kicks, and screams and takes up space with demands and stubborn smirks. Enderian life spans are long, and Ranboo is young. There was no reason she need learn to rule when her mothers were well. She has no idea what she is doing on the throne, for people she has rarely seen.

So Wilbur presents her a problem she can’t turn up her nose and roll her eyes at, and she breaks. Because she is a scared child trying to fill up the shadow of something much more mature than she is.

Tommy is the one to offer aid. Says Ranboo stay in their guest room that night. They can have a sleepover! Ranboo has no idea what that means, but as Wilbur irons out the details, it seems the safest option.

They’ll still be in the palace of course, no where else to go yet. But so long as Ranboo can get to their room without being seen leaving her own room, then they can confuse the attacker and hopefully keep Ranboo safe.

The plan seems to work out well, even if nearly everyone ends up awake the whole night. Ranboo stays awake in fear, hiding in a blanket and just about ready to teleport at any little sound. Tommy is nearby, doing his best to distract her. Get to now her better, just generally lighten the mood.  Wilbur keeps watch when the kids eventually end up taking a couple naps through the night, his phantling nature making staying awake much easier. He also drafts some letters while he can. A few to Phil, though they are never sent. Then a couple letters later in the night for the End palace staff.

Its early the next morning  the crew have to make some decisions. With the End palace staff being done with waiting Ranboo no longer feels capable of evading death in their own home. Tommy thinks Ranboo should just come back with them to Origin, and Wilbur agrees after some consideration. He is sure Phil would have no issue taking in Ranboo, especially given the situation. The issue is it may provide more ammunition for the End palace staff, when they inevitably take over coordination of the empire in the last of the capable royal families absence, to initiate a bigger conflict. 

Tommy is insistent though, and Wilbur knows neither he nor Phil would live with him if he left Ranboo behind to fend for herself again. So they ask her to leave with them, pack a bag and they will leave towards the portal within a couple hours. 

Ranboo is hesitant though. She visits her mother, the one who has remained ill, the other already passed. She is barely responsive. But in the early hours Ranboo happens to catch a rare moment of coherency to her rapidly decaying self. She tries to describe what is happening, and asks what she should do. The only person left she would dare to take order from. Her mother, confesses she is fading quickly, and something happened last night. She likely will not last more than a day, or two. Its a miracle she’s lasted this long really. So she encourages Ranboo with a soft caress of her cheek, and a grim smile.

So Ranboo finds Tommy and Wilbur again, hides her glum expression, and evades her staff to pack a small case. She follows carefully as Wilbur and Tommy insist thy much leave at once, and when the coast is clear she rejoins them at the portals edge.

She doesn’t know what awaits her, has never seen majority of her empire, much less outside it. Outside of her realm. Tommy is excited to finally se the sun again, and Wilbur is sure to check in that everyone will b okay. Ranboo, emboldened by her linked arms to each of her new friends, plunges them all into the portal.

The world is bright, brighter than anything Ranboo has ever seen. It burn at h eyes for a moment, and she hears a hiss as Wilbur quickly opens his parasol. The brief shade finally gives Ranboo the time to consider the world around her. The colors, the shapes, the smell of the new world around her. 

Despite having lost her home, and her family, and her status- which she will surely be upset by later- she feels some hope. And she breathes steady knowing she maybe safe yet.

Of course not everything will be settled so easily. The empire may retaliate for her leave, Ranboo has yet to properly process her grief, her losses, and Origin will have to adjust with the change Ranboo’s brings. But there is hope.

#osmp #origin smp #ranboo #tommyinnit #wilbur soot #hourspost #hoursart #fanart #osmp royalty au #its 1am and this hasnt been proofread sorry but gl #dont think ill revisit the au unless people really want it #i hvae some post ranboo in origin ideas but mostly shenanigans lol #pinch hit

[mars-ipan]

let’s be honest it was only a matter of time before i babygirlified an old man

closeups and (many) design notes under the cut :)

ok design notes time (these r mainly for the narrator bc. well. stanley has an actual physical appearance):

- while thinking of how to design the narrator i got the idea that he took one of the models in the audience for the ending where stanley gives a speech and edited it to make his “human” form

- because of this i wanted to include a bunch of little things that he “got wrong” during the process of mimicking a human. most of them get ironed out when stanley points out how weird they are but some of them stay

- to name a couple, his teeth are all flat- no canines or molars. also his little headset + glasses have nothing that actually attach them to his head. they just Are There. not to mention his interesting fashion sense of tie + turtleneck + blazer (he defends this choice no matter how much stanley laughs at him). he’s just weird enough to be slightly uncanny- it’s an imitation, not the real thing

- since i’m indecisive as hell he’s a bit of a shapeshifter. he actually doesn’t use his physical model in-game a lot and tends to just show up in things. shadows, reflective surfaces, screens, etc. even more often than that he’s just his voice

- bc he plays the guitar in the out of bounds ending i am now convinced that he can play many instruments. that little piano in the memory zone before the first review? yeah he’s there playing that in-game he’s just not visible to you

- designing his hair was SO DIFFICULT i literally went searching thru the tag for inspo and i liked so many different things. after a struggle (you can see a slicked-back attempt in the shadow idea doodle) i eventually decided on the style shown in his main drawing. every time i draw it i fight so hard to make it distinct from miles edgeworth. to make this easier the cowlicks aren’t too pronounced and the larger bang is more of a fringe. it still sometimes looks like miles edgeworth whoops

- some of my favorite fanon design things are the Line™ tie the square glasses and the little gay ass highlight so i knew i had to include them. those were my only definite choices going into this

- once again bc i’m indecisive the narrator can scale his model up or down as he pleases. he prefers to be bigger than stanley but stanley complains that it “makes his proportions weird” because he’s “short-coded” so sometimes he goes to a more human size.

- the narrator being stout just makes sense to me it’s correct in my soul (i actually think i drew him too skinny in most of these. i just didn’t wanna redraw shit bc i am tired but if/when i draw him again he will be less skinny)

- i wanted to work with shape language a lot because the narrator’s whole character is a voice- i wanted to make sure i captured the vibe of some stuffy old writer who has an undeniable silly streak. so he is squares and circles (his tie is the only triangle save for maybe the hair)

- for similar reasons stanley is squares and triangles. felt right

- speaking of stanley his soul patch is a goatee now bc i hate soul patches with a boiling passion. so now it’s a goatee

- i also gave him a little beauty mark by his right eye. i don’t know why i just knew in my heart that it was correct

- stanley uses asl and not bsl because i want to learn asl sososososo bad and this just might be the thing to get me to actually do it. he can project his thoughts to the narrator but he doesn’t like it so he almost always signs

#martzipan #the stanley parable #should i tag stannarrator. i probably should #stannarrator #fun fact this file is saved in my art folder as 'old man yaoi.png' #oh also i'm not fully decided on the colors i chose so these r more indicative of value than hue #ANYWAYS. hyperfixation go brrrrrrrrrr #i've drawn so many things for the first time in this. asl. a chin grab (it was so difficult to pose that btw i still wanna fix it). wrinkles #tbh still don't fully know how wrinkles work but i think i got it. #besides it would not be a human narrator design to me if it didn't have wrinkles #anywho. what if you and the narrative doomed... each other? #this was inevitable i am a sucker for mutually assured destruction #i deffo have fav doodles in here btw. those being the tbh the catboys and 'you wanna fuck me so bad it makes you look stupid' #what are they if not silly

[seraphiloqui]

wangxian art compilation

going through arts that i have and haven’t put on twitter and just dumping here, since the chibi dump was received well. some of these are image redraws but i have unfortunately lost the photo references b/c they’re like a year old...oh well. i’m sure they’ll be recognizable lmao

lwj as nerd with big bunny and sexy bunnyboy for a twitter fic thread. i...don’t think i could find the thread this was for at this point, but i do recall putting this on twitter as well.

sobbing laughing i think you can kind of guess what this is from. LMAOOO i don’t know what i was thinking.

femxian and femji as that one meme. below you can see the original plan, which didn’t pan out...you can also tell the cql actor’s faces were used as references here lol.

cql scene with novel/donghua hairstyles. pretty simple.

image redraw compilation: some genderbend/cisswap, some sad, some comedy

context not needed.

lwj in yllz-colored clothes. no deep thought here.

baseball xianxian (i couldn’t draw the glove lmao)

witchxian and witchji, though i think there was a side of succubusxian here; it’s not genderbend or cisswap it’s just fashion.

fem! yllz, tits out...not horny! unless u are femji watching this lmao. very sketchy you can tell there’s no effort in those hands.

rather than femxian, this is actually just an attempt at chubby wwx that came to me in a dream. might have been omegaverse at some point, i don’t recall lmao.

#mdzs #mo dao zu shi #grandmaster of demonic cultivation #wei wuxian #lan wangji #hanguang jun #yiling laozu #wangxian #genderbend #cisswap #femxian #femji #mdzs memes #atla reference #photo redraw #witchxian #witchji #nudity #cql

[fennecfics-the-simp-king]

Most of January and some of February’s art (2024 art dump):

An art dump (in chronological order) along with some info about almost each one.

I gotta warn ya though my art is kinda smushed together and has a lot of little notes (either about the characters or my opinions on the sketch, etc..) so they might be a little overwhelming to look at.

below is the drawings!! Most are traditional.

(Zoom in for more detail / cropped out drawings)

I recently watched the trolls movie, and it woke up my long lost love for Branch as a character- but the trolls fixation wasn’t enough to silence my pizza tower fixation, so I also drew some stuff for a TikTok.

below are so much more!!

More drawings for four(image1) more(image2) shitty(also image2) TikToks(image3 & 4).

This is where both my newfound trolls fixation and pizza tower fixation started fist fighting for territory over my brain, hence the design of Peppino, Noise, Noisette, and Fake Peppino as trolls…and my sona as a troll-

Then I rewatched Khonjin House and a new competitor was thrown into the ring, thirsty for bloodshed. I plan on writing for a Khonjin House x Reader, but I might not fully go through with it since the fandom has been pretty much dead and shriveled up at this point for a while- so… :P

I also did a few digital drawings that I haven’t posted yet. Such as a redraw of my sona with Gino, my attempts of drawing my sona in the Don’t Starve art style, and a stupid clown guy I named Jingle Jangles (I hate him/j)

And lastly, a small sketch I did while I was working on school. I’ve been feeling oddly overwhelmed lately from a lot of things, varying from schoolwork, to the future, to even certain textures like my bare feet touching the floor-

I’ve always been a little worried and a little overwhelmed by all of this for pretty much my whole life, but for some reason it’s been exacerbated lately.

I don’t know how to end this, I’m not doing too great, that’s my drawings, bleh-

Have a day :/

#fennecfics #fanart #oc x canon #pizza tower #peppino spaghetti #pizzahead #oc artwork #my ocs #khonjin house #gino fratelli #gay spaghetti chef #khonjin #pent khonjin house #trolls branch #trolls john dory #trollsona #Don’t Starve art style #kinda vent #Vent art #i guess #art dump

[iceflowerglow]

The Lion King 2 Human AU: Vitani and Nuka sketches

My latest attempt at drawing humanized versions of Vitani and Nuka! This time it's kid Vitani and not one, but four slightly different versions of teen Nuka :)

They are based on closely-referenced screencap redraws, and the main point of these was to keep their proportions as close as possible to their lion versions. Of course, they can't be replicated entirely, but some things can, for example how Nuka's eyes are big and very close-set, how the edges of his nostrils are almost at 1/2 of the eyes, how Vitani's eyes are relatively wide-set and she has rather big ears, etc., you get the idea :)

I'm not sure how old Vitani is supposed to be here, maybe 11-12? For Nuka, I'd say around 17 years old, but his age is always difficult to guess. Although as you can see, I chose the last one as his adult design, and for his teenage version, I'd pick the third design. I might redesign them in the future, though.

#the lion king #the lion king 2 #lion king 2 #nuka reminds me of another disney character because their designs have similar proportions :)

[sonicasura]

Barbara's Unique Family

I figured why not expand on this? There will be five little scenarios where our favorite badass doctor gets herself a kid. Three has Jim being neither species shown in Tales of Arcadia while the other two is a sibling under the same circumstances.

Let's get started?

Thingamajig and the Doctor

Yup! I'm starting with a Rayman flavored Jim as I honestly think it would be more hilarious when he kicks his rogue gallery's ass. A lot of them already underestimated him as a human so why not make the guy even more 'looks harmless but can kill you'?

This Jim will have other traits than the standard Limbless since I tend to make subspecies for a lot of stuff. Pointed ears, horns, thick werewolf style fur, claws, tusk like fangs, the ability to harden his skin alongside hair into thick blue bedrock similar to troll hidden, blue stripes that expand into said bedrock coat when activated, and a spiky crystal ball that follows him around as if attached to an invisible tail.

Now Thingamajigs are a pure magic species related to dreams. So Jim has dream/wish magic to put properly. It's only as strong as his belief, imagination and magic reserves. He can turn himself human but not poof Bular out of existence type range. There's also the normal Thingamajig abilities such as the Haircopter, running on walls, shrinking and not needing air.

Barbara finds Jim when he's two years old. He got himself stuck in the trashcan looking for food and she heard him crying. James is already out of the picture but I will say if he was there then the man will be gone. Either because he left on his own volition or she kicked him out for being heartless to a lost baby.

Jim becomes friends with Toby when they're four as kids tend to wander off and he's no exception. Barbara has him take online classes albeit any video call lessons have the monitor off or other excuses about his inhuman appearance on screen. Jim is around 11 years old when he finally able to hold onto a human disguise for more than twelve hours a day.

He attends public school afterwards which definitely earned him some attention for awhile. Like no one has seen Jim's human face before and assumed his 'big nose' persona is just a computer filter. Also for any Jlaire fans, they kiss with his human disguise or rub noses(kunik or 'Eskimo Kiss') in his true form.

Jim still freaks out a bit when Blinky and AAARRRGGHH break into his house. Although that's because there are two strangers in his home than them being trolls. Jim might use his Limbless nature to be a weird little shit. Back when he was little, Barbara had to check her bags before leaving for work as he tended to slip in there. Whether she got just Jim's head or his whole body is a coin flip at best. He was a clingy baby and later been teased for that with baby pictures.

Barbara's Tiger Son

For this one, Jim is getting a brother in the form of my OC Léi Yún. (Old doodle that I plan to redraw soon. He's based on a species called Azafuse/ Bakaneko(version based name) from a different series called Ushio and Tora.)

Léi Yún is a wanderer who has a habit of stealing an unsuspecting person's food. Albeit he made a bad mistake when he decides Barbara's attempt at egg salad would be a good target. Imagine her reaction when she caught a five year old Jim patting the back of an ill tiger yaoguai hung over the kitchen sink.

Barbara's food made him so sick that he can't exactly fly away or even use magic without feeling queasy for a few days. Enough time to find out Léi Yún is essentially a child and adopt him in seconds. The Azafuse follows Jim to school by turning invisible to those who aren't spiritually attuned. Basically the school doesn't know they have an extra student, at least until the last two episodes. He met Toby by stealing Nana's cookies and Tobes caught him.

Now yaoguai tend to age quite strangely between each individual. Most mature normally like humans, take centuries like trolls but some have certain requirements that need to be done first. Léi Yún is one such yaoguai as he's actually 600 years old despite his child appearance. He needs to haunt someone or a place to properly reach maturity. What better people than the Lakes?

Léi Yún's species can get quite big so in his 10 year stay, he matured into an near adult around AAARRRGGHH's size. Of course he can make himself feel weightless like most spiritual based entities. Thus Léi Yún could do this despite the size difference between him, Jim and Barbara.

Also Barbara is sooo finding out about Jim's Trollhunter role as a certain older brother will tell her. Léi Yún ain't dumb. He knows Jim's new double life gonna drag everyone in the crossfire whether he wants it to or not. Plus its better to have a medic for any lethal injuries. Just because Barbara taught Léi Yún first aid doesn't mean he can handle broken ribs. Also that binding spell is the only thing keeping the Azafuse from zapping Strickler like he did to Bular and Draal(for being a dick to Jim earlier).

Even a Beast Deserves Love

For this one, Jim is gonna be a Lamortmon mainly to fit the Beast motif. (Lamort means death in French. Fitting when this Digimon is known for extreme berserker tendencies with the smallest slight unless calmed down. Jim was taught anger management at an early age.) I'm going for the Digimon Fusion rules so he hatched from an egg and grew up in this form.

Barbara found Jim's egg hidden by a dumpster when out shopping. He hatched at home and she raised him as her own. In a sense, Barbara is his Tamer but a Digivice has yet to form...for now. Her relationship with James doesn't last long when he discovers a one year old Jim and practically runs. House is later renovated to make him more comfortable such as having enough room to move around alongside cooking without issue.

The young Lamortmon does befriend Toby by sneaking into his yard. Unlike the others, Arcadia ends up finding out about Jim when a nasty fire broke out in a store. He was hiding inside Toby's phone while his best friend was looking for snacks. The 10 year old rescues everyone who been trapped inside and became a precious secret hidden from outsiders by the townsfolk.

Barbara had him doing online classes so Jim integrating to public school wasn't difficult. He's usually in a small handheld carried around by Toby except for classes outside or inside the gymnasium. Strickler definitely spat out his coffee and had a WTF moment seeing Jim at school.

Why is this strange creature out in the open??? Is he trying to get everyone's attention? Nevermind the fact a 15 year old Jim is just a mere two feet shorter than Gunmar. He might've gotten a glamour mask by an anonymous source *cough* Strickler *cough* mainly to lower the risk of Bular and the Lamortmon meeting.

Now as for Jim's missing weapons and armor for his species, the Amulet will be providing his twin blades alongside the metal gauntlets than just the Trollhunter armor. He does tell Barbara about the trollhunting business since he rather not have her oblivious to the dangerous responsibility now shoved onto him. Man needs some more hugs.

Loving Shadows

Another OC this time with my undead magical experiment Ling Shēng. (Another doodle I plan to revamp.) He's a runaway failed clone of the Six Eared Macaque, a Celestial Primate whose six ears can hear the past/present/future, made via stolen magic alongside corpse magic. Personality wise, Ling Shēng is a lonely 7 year old who rather play leap frog with an actual frog and be helpful but is scared to interact in fear of being hurt.

Barbara discovers him one day when she notices a 5 year old Jim's shadow is acting strange every night before bed. Almost if someone is standing behind. Quick google search leads to the conclusion of a Diao Xue Gui or "hanging on boots ghost", a mischievous but mostly harmless spirit. Barbara manages to gently coax Ling Shēng out of hiding.

She didn't expect the ghost to actually be a small monkey child and is quick to adopt him. Ling Shēng is the only one who can actually use healing magic but also purification magic. A nice boon when it comes to dealing with a certain evil sorceress and troll warlord with a mind control fetish alongside stone poison issues.

Ling Shēng is introduced to be Toby through Jim as he figures his new brother needs more friends. The undead yaoguai takes online classes but does follow his human family and friend through the shadows. Since he's a clone, it doesn't take long for him to mature into a young adult in those 10 years.

Ling Shēng is still a shy stuttering mess who loves family hugs and sweets despite being a 7'11 tall undead monkey yaoguai built like Bruce Lee with a Día De Los Muertos skull bearing piercing violet eyes for a head. He does tell Barbara during the Win, Lose or Draal incident. Ling Shēng doesn't want these secrets to hurt his family further.

Mother's Wolf

We're going for a werewolf Jim or to put aptly, a Wolfssegner. A type of Wolfskin from Fire Emblem who can switch between a human and beast form. Although Jim will have to cover ears, tail, alongside have an excuse for his more hairy body. Now Wolfskin require a gem called a Beaststone to manage their transformations better. Jim doesn't have one so he has to learn the ropes while he grows up.

Barbara finds him in the woods when he was just a baby. James already dipped as she caught him being unfaithful once coming back home. Jim doesn't shift until he's five. A playdate with Toby goes awry when a mountain lion house breaks into his the Domzalski's backyard.

Jim transforms to protect his best friend, the animal runs off clearly intimidated by grizzly bear sized werewolf. This leads to a lot of camping trips so Barbara can help her son become accustom to his other form. It might've started an urban legend known as the 'Giant Horned Wolf of Arcadia Forest'. (A 15 year old Jim's beast form is nearly the size of a small bus.)

He attends public school but wears a hair brand to make the illusion that his ears and tail are fake. As for his fur patches, Jim has the Werewolf Disease excuse. Basically the only thing that'll blow his mom's thought out cover plan is him transforming. If he needs to use his other form, Barbara gave Jim the idea to shift one or two of his limbs than a full transformation.

He does tell his mother after the Win, Lose or Draal episode. Mainly cause she would easily find their new troll protector in seconds. Jim's puppy brain got him into some nutty shenanigans when he was younger so Barbara will definitely find out if he's hiding something in the house.

And that's it! I probably do one with Strickler later. Draal too as we know Barbara would've adopted him if she could. Until next time folks, I'll see you back in Arcadia.

#sonicasura #tales of arcadia trollhunters #toa trollhunters #trollhunters #toa #tales of arcadia #trollhunters barbara #barbara lake #jim lake junior #jim lake jr #james lake junior #james lake jr #monster jim #monster!jim #ocs #barbara's unique family #mentioned fandoms #rayman #ushio and tora #lego monkie kid #fire emblem #digimon

[k00282830]

Prep for Fota

Aaron Blaise

Stuart Sumida

In preparation for heading to Fota tomorrow, @ysweeneylsad sent us a couple of videos to watch about studying and drawing live animals.

Aaron Blaise

The first one was by Aaron Blaise whos also known as "creature art teacher" online. In this video he explains how he prefers to draw animals in person out in the wild as you get to study them better than you would from photos and a better feel for how they're structured and proportioned. He seems to mostly draw gestures in pen, specifically ball point pens and brush pens. He talks about how sometimes (especially on that trip) he went to a farm/zoo to sketch and got chances to draw a variety of animals; from leopards to wolves and bears. He talks about how good it is to have as many rough sketches for future reference and ideas rather than focusing on a few high quality detailed works.

He really encourages everyone to go out and draw animals from their habitats in this video.

In this next video he talks about "essentials of animal drawing" which consists of stuff such as anatomy and how to draw animals from your head.

He mentions our "visual library" often, this is a term I've heard from people at college so its a familiar word. He talks about how its good to know what animals you will be drawing because that allows you to brush up on your animal anatomy. This is similar to something I have tried to do, especially knowing that I struggle with drawing animals.

You can see in one of my previous posts my attempt at practicing sketching animal shapes and seeing if I could figure out how their body is structured underneath. He talks about how rather than memorizing each animal specifically, he memorizes each of their heads, legs, bodies and such in terms of shapes as you can usually mix and match, for example all four legged animals seem to have similar shapes and I also noticed that I had spotted this in my past animal study.

In his study below he shows how legs on these animals work in similar ways; "scapula to shoulder into elbow to the wrist and rest of the feet."

He mentions how seeing these animals live and drawing them from a live reference, you often see these anatomies/bones in motion and working.

Tonight I plan to do some studies on big cats especially before my trip to Fota because I know I always enjoy watching those move around in any zoo. I might also see if I can work on looking at kangaroo anatomies and comparing those to the anatomy of a wallaby. Im curious if theres much of a difference as I have seen them roaming around fota.

In the next part of this video we see Aaron out at a farm and we see his drawing process of drawing a donkey but he talks us through his thought process no matter the animal.

He talks about how important it is to not start drawing immediately and to just observe the animal for a while, studying their form and how they move. He mentions how basic anatomy knowledge is very helpful for when the animal moves and you have started drawing an animal in a specific pose.

He tells us that observing is better than getting an amazing drawer as its important to get information. I feel like this will be something I will struggle to do as I often am a perfectionist when I can be so tomorrow I plan to try keeping to quick observational drawings rather than focusing on a perfect drawing. I might try to sketch mostly in pen as this has helped me keep a more observational study sketch going instead of constantly erasing and redrawing a particular part.

He talks about how handy it is to have animals that move around for study sketches and that being at a farm is interesting because you get to see a couple different animals come and go.

In one part of the video he completely leaves the sketch as the donkey gets close again and instead starts a detail sketch of the donkeys eye as this isnt something he gets to observe in detail all the time.

These are his finished donkey sketches before he moved onto drawing goats.

He talks about his supplies to help prevent any back pains and allow him to sketch for longer, such as a chair and the board for the sketchbook.

He again reinforces studying animal anatomies before going to draw them when you know what you will draw. This to me shows that he thinks this is a very important tip that has helped him draw and study animals. "its not about getting great drawings, its about gathering information" is something he also kept repeating.

Stuart Sumida

Stuart Sumida is an anatomy consultant and a professor of biology / a paleontologist. This talk was conducted through an online call, this talk was titled "why being a generalist is not a bad thing". He talks about how as a paleontologist he teaches human anatomy to doctors and animal anatomy to vets and so on. His talk is inspired by a book called "range: why generalists triumph in a specialized world" where he talks about how scientists have known this for a while.

I feel like this also stands for artists in a sense of needing to know how to draw a lot of different subjects and themes. This is confirmed by him telling students that they often hear that you often have to work your way up the ladder in the industry and you have to start anywhere you can and then work towards the position you want.

Below you can see 5 rules Stuart Sumida likes to follow in the industry.

He talks about how they broke down the animals in lion king into smaller groups to teach the staff in a more generalized way rather than focusing on each specific animal.

He talks about how animals differ based on what they eat / whether they are carnivores, herbivores or omnivores as seen in this example of a horse (herbivore) vs a cheetah (carnivore) running/galloping.

He talks about how skeletons and muscles are very important for drawing animals and followed it with these sketches of realistic dogs and a cartoon one.

A handy website he shares is DigiMorph.org which has 3d animal skulls and skeletons.

Overall

watching these videos helped me feel more prepared for tomorrows trip to Fota and it made me realize there is so much that I have yet to learn about drawing animals. I plan to use some of the mentioned techniques tomorrow if possible while drawing live animals.

#animation #art study #digital animation #animation and motion design #Youtube

[goddamnwebcomics]

Keeping Up With Thursday

It was an action-adventure, crime-thriller webcomic by Aaron Mocksing (AKA CrazyassBeethoven or Ari-Dynamic). 

Taking place in 1894 in London, we meet Patrick, the infamous Thursday Thief. He’s a mouse who, despite his size, is well-known for his thieving prowess, his womanizing behavior, his rugged yet deceivingly handsome looks, and his general run-ins with the law. There is no creature or human he hasn’t pilfered, scammed, or, if pushed, killed in his long, heist-filled life. Although, even with such an impressive repertoire, his addiction to the constant thrills of his heists and fights in his career has its drawbacks. Some of them are his lack of permanent associates, his ego, and his general unfriendly behavior, which can often be his major downfalls in a declining spiral that will either be his wake-up call or the nail to his coffin. 

Patrick isn’t the only one alone in the escapades, though. Joining in are the soon-to-be ex-partner of the Thursday Thief Vincent ‘Vinnie’ Edenton, the sweet but naïve lady Beverly Junebed, the anarchistic mouse Svenn, the happy-go-lucky chaotic girl Funday, and other colorful cast of characters as they get tangled in with the law as the growing changes in London and the British Empire in general, at the time, start closing in on all of them. Law enforcement is being doubled as politicians like Beauregard Finnigan attempt to snuff out crime in the United Kingdom to boost their own credibility, no matter how underhanded and scummy the method.

KUWT is definitely one of the more interesting and entertaining comics that, unfortunately, have become forgotten over time. As it promotes itself, it uses the styles and looks of both old Disney and Don Bluth movies (think The Great Mouse Detective and An American Tail) to great effect, minus the *rough art* in the beginning. While it’s an entertaining read, as I’ve said, it still has its share of flaws. It tends to try too hard to be gritty, whether it’s some of the older writing and author comments, the use of gore, especially with one poor tasting moment in issue 3, or some of the stuff Patrick tends to say. The middle portion of the comic where it dives into Pat and Vinnie’s backstories will overstay their welcome, most of the cast I didn’t mention by name don’t really live up to their full potential in one way or another, and you might feel a hole was left unfilled in some way once you finish it. They’re all not too bad to ruin your reading experience, but they are sticking points nonetheless. 

*If you end up questioning the jumps in art quality in the early chapters, the artist had some habits to go back to older issues during certain years to redraw them.

This feels genuinely interesting. Like this could actually be good, but not competent enough to be unriffable. I will be giving it a shot in the future for sure.

#furry webcomic #not exactly safe for work #submission

[creatur3creati0ns]

My History with Self Harm and Self Tattooing

I think it goes without saying that this will be discussing both tattooing and self harm, so if that’s something you don’t want to read about, here’s your trigger warning. I won’t be getting into explicit descriptions about self harm but for the sake of the story I will be mentioning the main form of self harm I used to engage in, which is cutting. I myself can not read, hear, or watch any media that shows or describes cutting, and even writing or saying the world evokes a very bad physical reaction in me so trust me when I say I will try to tell this as best I can while attempting not to trigger anyone, especially myself. But I will be talking about it, maybe more than you’re comfortable with, so do be careful if needed. There will also be mentions of suicidal ideation, mental illness, and the struggles that come along with those, as well as brief mentions of childhood abuse and trauma. No specifics, but the acknowledgment of them. I also show a picture where I have mild hives on my skin, in the “My History with Tattooing” section, and I do warn before I show you. I briefly mention sexual themes, as well as BDSM.

My History with Self Harm

I started self harming around 13 years old, after I was in a car accident that gave me a traumatic brain injury and triggered a myriad of mental illnesses including social anxiety, major depressive disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and depersonalization/derealization. Along with this I was dealing with abuse from my parents and pressures around school. Everything accumulated in panic attacks and general feelings of hopelessness and helplessness. That brought on heavy thoughts of suicidal ideation. I did not have any control in my life, especially over what happened to my own body. The way that I regained a bit of control was by self harming. My usual go-to was cutting. This also helped with my dissociation disorder, because it was a very grounding experience that brought me back into reality and my body. I had a whole ritual surrounding it, and it was something that I did very often and was the main coping mechanism I used at the first sign of trouble. It got to the point where I would even do it at school, under my desk or hidden in the office.

When I started getting help for my struggles, one suggestion I found online to help with self harm urges was to draw on myself. This was something that I connected with instantly. Very quickly I found myself spending at least an hour each night drawing on the places I wanted to self harm. I would spend time each morning refreshing the drawings that might have smudged at night, and redrawing them after a shower. My marker of choice was any Sharpie, and I still have a very large collection of them. Black was my usual go to, and I had a black Sharpie on me at all times. Usually two, one with a pointed tip for details and one with a rounded tip for thicker lines or coloring things in. I tried different brands of skin safe markers and I did like them, but they didn’t last as long and they were expensive. At some point I was obsessed with “Mr. Sketch Scented Markers” and I still have two packages of those. I loved experimenting with different markers and I still do, but now it’s mainly for drawing or coloring on paper. I also experimented with different ways to make the drawings last longer, like covering them with baby powder and hairspray. I would draw on myself any chance I would get, and would always spend the car ride to school doing it.

Pictured above was the first photo I have of a drawing I did on myself. I’m using Snapchat screenshot for most of the pictures in this post because it has the date there. These were done with the good ol’ Mr. Sketch, and I specifically remember I would only listen to Emma Chamberlain’s “spring 2018” playlist while doing this in my mother’s bedroom. She has since changed the playlist name and added songs I never listened to, but the first 16 or so songs were the ones I would listen to every night for a few weeks. Why I was in my mother’s bedroom is also a long story, but when I was dealing with my suicidal ideation I was not allowed to sleep in a room by myself for around two years. During this time I had to sleep in her room, in her bed. About an hour before bed I would be able to have the room to myself to draw.

I was never much of an artist before I started doing this, so most of the things I did at the beginning of my skin drawing journey were doodles I thought of or simple designs I saw on Pinterest.

At some point I graduated from drawing only on my inner forearms and outer thighs to my hands and fingers and all over my legs and pretty much anywhere I could reach. I got pretty good at drawing with my non-dominant hand so that my right hand and arm was covered in marker as well. Here I was still doing some Pinterest drawings.

Those triangles on my left knee in the picture above was something I would do a lot. It was the first “design” I ever created myself, and was definitely the easiest to do. You can see X’s on my hand here, which is something I started to do a bit before this picture, like this. Easier to do with my non-dominant hand.

One of my favorite things to doodle were triangles, like the ones seen here.

I started getting a little funky with my triangles.

One of my favorite things to do after a few years was to black out my knuckles with boxes.

In my spare time I would look at other people’s tattoos online and try to imitate them on my own skin.

I started to like blacked out shapes. Try to get as much color on my body as possible.

That turned into blacking out a portion of my arm.

Or even blacking out my whole arm.

I even drew on my neck and face.

Funnily enough, I ended up getting my first piercing there, an eyebrow piercing.

Some extras I like:

Little hint of a blacked out arm there.

My mother wasn’t a fan of any of this at first until I told her it helped with my self harm urges. Of course it didn’t completely stop my self harming, but it definitely lessened how much I did it. She would often gift me markers for holidays, or even just on random days when she was at the store and found something that I might like. That’s what happened with the “Mr. Sketch Scented Markers.” If you read my “The First 20 Years” post, you know I have a lot of complicated feelings about my mother. She was heavily abusive and our relationship suffered because of it . But as every other human being on the planet, she had her good moments and there were things she was good at as a parent. She would stand up for me when others made negative comments about my drawings. My grandmother didn’t like the fact that I had Sharpie all over my hands, but the only time I heard her bring it up to my mother, my mother said that it really helped me and that it was important. The next day my grandmother complimented some of my drawings, and a few months later when a friend of hers was visiting, she pointed it out to her friend and mentioned that she thought I was getting good at it. My grandmother was also very abusive and a decently bad person, but again. People are not only one thing blah blah.

Once I was at a doctor’s appointment and had heavy black drawings all over my hands and a nurse asked if they were tattoos. I was maybe 16 at the time, and I told her no, it was just marker. She went on to say that that was good, because tattoos are bad and unprofessional and will kill your chance at being successful and I should especially not have them so young. I nodded along silently and then left to have a panic attack in the bathroom, and texted my mother telling her what happened because I didn’t know what else to do. It might seem like an extreme reaction, but in general I hated confrontation and any time any adult showed even an ounce of disappointment or anger over something I did or even just who I was, it destroyed me. My mother ended up calling the office to explain the importance of my drawings (this office already knew in depth about my self harm and mental health issues, as it was a small medical practice and my mother loved to talk) and say that what the nurse said was upsetting and inappropriate. A few minutes later the nurse came back into the exam room to apologize very sincerely and give me a hug, which was appreciated but also very awkward considering I thought it looked like I called my mommy to complain about the mean nurse to get her in trouble.

In October of 2020 I started taking drawing a little more seriously, and finally found my style. I was always doodling, literally any chance I could get. Every page in my school notebooks were filled with triangles and lines and dots. There was a drawing on some part of my body at all times. I found this artist, ihategreeneggs on Instagram and wanted to try my own version of something he did. This was his drawing that inspired me.

And this is what I ended up doing. My very first drawings of what would eventually become my style.

Here I drew my mushroom guy (who is my favorite, now) on my arm. A little hard to see but you get the picture. I plan on getting him tattooed on me for real. Probably by someone else, just so it’s as good as it can be.

I realized after a few years that I enjoy having marks on my skin. Whether it was self harm, Sharpies, scars, random scratches, or even hickeys and impact play marks later on in my life, any time I could see something on my skin out of the corner of my eye or in the mirror it would make me happy and present in myself. I’m still not totally sure why, but I think it has something to do with “my skin has changed or looks different than when I was born and that is proof that I am real.” This is still something I feel now, but I have developed healthier ways of getting those marks on my skin.

My History with Tattoos

I was around tattoos at a very young age. My dad has several pretty old tattoos, and two of them were decent sized pieces on both forearms. I can’t remember exactly what they were, but I’m near positive that one was a traditional full body tiger, and the other was a traditional scorpion. He had some other ones on his shoulder and his chest. He has my mother’s name in a red heart. My mother’s only tattoo is a giant rose on her ass that spells my father’s name in the leaves. Yes, they are divorced.

My mother said early on in my life that she did not want me or my sister to get any tattoos or facial piercings. If we did get tattoos, they needed to be very easily hidden. When I was younger, I didn’t really have a desire for tattoos or piercings. I thought they were cool, but not for me. I did want to dye my hair, though, and my mother refused to let us do that either. As I entered middle school, I was exposed to emo culture, as are most young queer kids, and then I did want tattoos and piercings. I knew that as soon as I turned 18, I was gonna spend that day getting piercings and tattoos and dyeing my hair. That’s not what I did during my birthday, but a couple months after turning 18 I got my first facial piercing, and a couple months after that I ordered my first hand poke kit. At least I dyed my hair immediately.

If you’re familiar with tattoos, you know that hand poked tattoos are usually called stick and pokes. I personally say hand poke because of the stigma around “stick n pokes” and the fact that I did mine with an actual tattoo needle and tattoo ink, as opposed to the sewing needle and pen ink that most people think of when you say stick and poke. Nothing wrong with that, I personally am of the opinion that you can do whatever the hell you want with your body as long as you’re still advocating for others to do it as safely as they can. A lot of the tattoo artists I was learning from called it hand poked, or even hand pushed, and it stuck for me. I don’t care what others call it, but I think hand poked sounds cute and is more fitting for my personal process.

I had been learning about the tattooing process for years, but in the months following my 18th birthday I started learning more about the hand poke process as opposed to machine done tattoos. I saw hand poke as more approachable and accessible. I had known for years that some day I wanted to be a tattoo artist. After drawing on myself for years, developing my style, and drawing on anyone who would let me, I wanted to be able to do it permanently. I love the idea of providing people with little friends on their body that go with them everywhere. That’s exactly what I want in life! And I like creating, it’s the best thing for me to do.

I really wanted tattoos and the easiest way was for me to do it myself. I was a few hours away from my parents, in my own room I was paying rent for, with my partner and close friend in the rooms across the hall. I finally felt safe and grounded. I had my own space and I had the freedom to do what I wanted. Now was as good a time as any to try hand poke out.

I had decided that I wanted my first tattoo to be meaningful to me, and I didn’t care if the rest I got were. “Firsts” have always been important for me in my life. In September of 2021, I decided to tattoo “LET GO” on the top right of my right thigh, the words facing me. This, of course, has absolutely no meaning to me now, but at the time I thought this was a good reminder. I think it came out pretty damn good considering it was my first ever tattoo on skin.

My second tattoo was a creature I drew a long while ago, and I did it on the top right of my left shin, right below the knee. This was a horrible and painful decision, especially for my second tattoo ever. I did this tattoo the same day I did my first one, because the first one was so quick to do.

A little over a week later, I did my next tattoos. My third and fourth tattoos were also done the same day. An “X” on my left middle finger knuckle, something I’ve wanted for a while, and a little smiley face on the second knuckle of my left pointer finger.

I don’t know for sure why I did that fourth one, as I was never a huge fan of smiley faces. I just think I wanted another finger tattoo while I had the supplies out. I regretted it pretty quickly, but the very next day my sister came to visit me in the new city I moved to and she was wearing a smiley face ring on the same finger I had my tattoo on. So it was very much worth it for the sweet memory.

A little less than a week after those, I did a pretty ambitious tattoo, my fifth. About a four inch by four inch snail I drew with some of my signature, uh, squiggles? I don’t know what these are but I’ve been doing them forever. The ones I currently do in my drawings are a bit different, but this was an old drawing when I first started out with this style. Either way, it was a lot more than I could handle. I wanted the squiggles colored in and I had only done one pass through the whole thing, but I had already spent hours on it and I didn’t want to overwork my skin, so I decided to stop for the day and do it again after it healed. Long story story I developed chronic hives after this tattoo (not related) so it was left unfinished for a while. “A while” being two years. More about those hives in my “The First 20 Years” post if you’re interested. This is the only pic I have of that tattoo, so if looking at hives freaks you out, keep in mind I have mild hives in this picture.

I did a lot of research before tattooing myself. I bought a kit from a website that wasn’t Amazon, and I practiced on a lot of fake skin. I watched a lot of YouTube and Instagram videos by hand poke tattoo artists and read many articles. Yet when I did the tattoos, I still fucked up. It’s in the nature of the practice, when you’re first starting out. I was happy with what I did, though, and I was safe doing it, so that’s all that mattered. About a year passed by, and they faded pretty badly. The ink the kit came with wasn’t the greatest, and I definitely poked too shallow out of fear. I had a friend who expressed interest in stick and poke, and since I had a lot of supplies, I invited them over to use some and pretty much showed them how to hand poke. I wasn’t the best teacher considering the last time I had done it I barely knew what I was doing, but they knew it wasn’t going to turn out perfect and didn’t mind. I touched up my X on my middle finger while they did a smiley face on their middle finger. I just checked in with them a couple days ago, and about a year later, it still looks pretty good. Still quite dark, so clearly they poked deep enough. This time after my tattoo I actually did aftercare and treated it well. It was a good experience. We watched Adventure Time while doing it, and it’s a great memory for me. I think that’s what tattooing should be all about.

Why I’m Even Writing This

Last week, I was having a hard day. I was deep in relationship problems that I thought was going to end it, and leave me having to move two hours away from the city I call home, to move into my sister’s apartment with her and her boyfriend. That is, of course, better than being unhoused, but there were a number of reasons why this would be my last option. There were also a number of reasons why me being unhoused was a very real worry at the time if my relationship ended. This isn’t about that, though, so I digress.

The night prior, right as the relationship problem started, I had reached out to a friend to come pick me up and take me to their place. I can’t drive and I needed to get out of the apartment for a bit. We weren’t that close, never hung out outside of a group, but they were my only friend who lived near me and had their own place. We ended up talking about what was happening in my relationship, and as five hours passed, we talked about other things as well. Tattoos got brought up, as they inevitably do when I’m talking to, well, pretty much anyone.

This friend had a few tattoos on their arms. They had a stick and poke done with a sewing needle and pen ink that a friend did years and years ago, and a professionally done stick and poke with incredible detail. I say stick and poke because that’s the word they used. This is the first friend I have that has both hand poked tattoos and machine done tattoos, so I was pretty excited to ask about the difference, specifically with the pain. I don’t remember much of what they said because it was a week ago at this point and I had a lot on my mind, but some key things they said was that the hand poked ones hurt a lot less, and the machine done ones ended up feeling numb after a while because of all the buzzing.

I mentioned that eventually I want to be a tattoo artist, and it felt like they lit up. They said that they thought I would be a good one. I honestly think I give off tattoo artist wannabe vibes so it was very nice to hear someone else say it would fit me well. I said that I haven’t tattooed myself in a long time, at least a year at that point. I told them that what they said made me want to start up again, and now was as good a time as any considering I’m unemployed and quite literally have nothing better to do. Not to mention I really needed the distraction at the time. I said that I would spend the next day practicing or maybe even touching up one of my old tattoos that you can barely see now that it’s been two years since I’ve done them.

Without going into too much detail, the next day after talking with my friend, things got unimaginably worse. This was last Friday. I was experiencing thoughts of wanting to self harm, which was something that I hadn’t experienced in at least a month. The emotions I was feeling at the time were overwhelming. They were the kind of feelings that I knew self harm would immediately fix. Put me in control when I thought my whole existence was coming to an end. I thought that I had made my mind up while I was sitting in the bathroom having my second panic attack of the day. I don’t know what stopped me from doing it. Maybe it was because I was thinking about the therapy session I had that morning before everything went to shit. I had told my therapist that I was going to spend the day practicing tattooing while waiting for the inevitable conversation my partner and I would have to have. I didn’t expect the conversation to come so quickly after my session ended, which is one of the reasons I had such an extreme reaction. I guess I decided to go through with what I told her I was going to do, but now the urge had moved to tattooing myself instead of fake skin. Practice is practice, I suppose.

I got out my supplies and set everything up and decided to basically re-poke my second tattoo that was on my shin. I spent a few hours doing it while watching House M.D. and it made everything a lot better. Afterwards, I was writing everything that had happened the previous few days down for my next therapy appointment. I realized I had “urge to self harm” and “tattooed myself” in the same sentence. I was worried that it would come across like I had exchanged the razor for a tattoo needle in a way to cause myself harm. I decided to spend some time thinking about the difference in self tattooing and self harming for me and if they were related.

I looked online to see if people had written about a connection between self harm and tattoos. I wanted to hear others' thoughts, especially people in the mental health field. I, of course, found some people saying that body modifications were an extreme form of self harm or that body modifications were only done by people who were mentally ill. That’s definitely not what I was looking for. I found this article, though, which interested me. I decided to sit down and write through the process and intent of my self harm vs. my tattooing, and what the similarities were, if any.

The Difference Between My Self Harm and My Self Tattooing

I went through the feelings I have before, during, right after, and the following days after I self harm or tattoo.

Before I self harm, I look forward to it. I’m clear headed, sure, and confident. During it, my thoughts start to devolve. I get a little panicky and shaky, and no longer feel clear headed or confident. I try to make it quick. I do it without looking, and as fast and as much as possible. If it’s an especially painful one I pause for a second or so, usually let out a curse and try to calm myself with some quick rocking back and forth, then go back in before I lose my nerve and can’t continue any longer. Right after, I feel a lot of relief, and am nervous but smiley. Not happy, but I smile pretty much immediately. It’s not because I find it funny, either, but it has to do with the immense relief. I feel grounded again. I get rid of everything quickly, never clean myself up, and immediately go do something else. Then comes the shame. I used to be the kind of person to track my “clean” days, so every time I relapsed, there was deep sadness and frustration when it finally sinks in what I had done. The following days after I self harm, I will hit or slap the harmed area quickly when I experience something triggering or upsetting in any way. A hit of pain helps ground me and make me feel more in control, and reminds me of what I did to gain control. After a few days I can finally look at the area I harmed, and I look at it closely, running my fingers over it, and bringing it up to my face so it’s the only thing I can see and focus on. Self harm helps me in the moment, but immediately afterwards I feel so much worse. The days following, it helps me through other triggers, but instead of using my healthly coping mechanisms, I automatically re-injure myself.

Before I tattoo, I’m anxious but excited and prepared. During it, I am slow and careful and will look at the area I’m tattooing closely, taking my time with the piece until I feel like I’m done. I pause for a bit if there’s a lot of pain, and let myself take a rest and come back to it in a while if I need to. Right after, I’m happy and proud. I’m still learning tattooing, so it can be quite a hard and long process, but that just makes me more proud of myself for being able to do it. My focus is then on carefully wrapping up the tattoo and taking care of it, and then slowly putting everything away, being mindful of not hitting my tattoo accidentally. I spend time afterwards looking at it and appreciating my work. The following days after I tattoo myself, I am careful to not touch it, hit it, or scrape it. I leave the second skin on for a while, looking at it every so often, which makes me happy. After the second skin is off, I spend time taking care of it using tattoo ointment, then moisturizing when it’s ready, and am careful to not have any rough contact with it.

I realized that I don’t tattoo for the pain, but for the closeness it brings to my body. Tattooing myself is very grounding. I have to listen to my body and be aware of where my hand is and where I’m tattooing, how I’m stretching the skin, where the needle is going. It’s a ritual of caring for my body, in addition to putting something that makes me happy on my body using my own hand. The pain is just a byproduct of the tattoo, while the pain of self harm is one of the only things that matters.

Using Self Tattooing as a Substitute for Self Harm

The next morning when I had my therapy session, I brought this all up to my therapist. She made some great points that made me feel more secure in how I was feeling. She said that tattooing myself was a substitute for self harm. Pain is just a sensation, and it’s something that’s okay to endure or even seek out. Tattooing myself is a creative and regulated pain that doesn’t put me in harm's way or make me unsafe. Just because there is pain in an activity, doesn’t mean it’s a form of self harm. I have five facial piercings, which all hurt to get, but the purpose of getting them was to have cool metal in my face, which then connects me more to my body. Even people who do things like body suspension do it for reasons other than the pain. And if pain is the main reason why you’re doing something, I don’t necessarily think that’s a bad thing. Speaking as a masochist and a sadist, pain can be enjoyable in many different ways. There’s a difference between self harm and being hurt. Safety has a big part to play in it, as does listening to your body when it tells you to stop.

Because I wanted marks on my skin at all times, I would self harm constantly. With a tattoo, it’s a one and done deal. I do it and then it’s there forever. There’s no need to constantly keep it up, causing more pain and injury each time. The fact that I designed my tattoos myself aids in the grounding and “I am real” feeling that skin drawings have given me in my life. When I tattoo I am clear headed and not overly emotional. When self harming, I am very vulnerable and on edge. Each time I leave a mark it's different than the last, and I couldn’t care less about how deep I’m going. It’s a very dangerous process that I would do very often. I stopped tracking my clean days, but I know it’s been a while since I self harmed. Having tattoos to look at instead makes me a lot happier.

Closing Thoughts

As of writing this, I re-poked my shin tattoo nine days ago.

I redid my thigh tattoo two days ago, using my tattoo machine for the first time. My partner bought me my machine for our one year anniversary in October of 2021, and I’ve practiced with it a few times. I definitely should have done more research considering most of my tattoo knowledge came through hand poke and my previous knowledge of machine tattooing is quite a few years old and I don’t remember some of it. I had to look up a few things. I spent around three hours on it, but mostly because I took 10 minute breaks very frequently. I’m going to be honest, machine tattooing sucked. I felt I had less control and it was so so so much more painful than handpoke. I definitely want to make a different post talking about my experience with hand poke vs machine. I think I’m going to stick with hand poke for the most part. But long story short, I stopped halfway-ish through because I couldn’t handle the pain anymore and I was having trouble with the needle I was using. Fucking magnums. I’m going to let it heal and then handpoke the snail and finish the squiggles with, unfortunately, my tattoo machine.

Art has been incredibly beneficial to me for a large portion of my life. It has helped me through very rough times. Even now, when something has happened and my nervous system is dysregulated, I end up grabbing my iPad and making some vent art. It instantly makes me feel better and provides an outlet for anger, sadness, and any other emotion I might have. It also helps me to process my feelings. Art and body modifications are one of the most important things in my life, and they both have helped me to connect with myself, in general and also in my trans identity. I’m going to be saying this phrase a lot, as you have seen so far, so get ready; this is something that I want to write about more in depth at some point.

I’d say that’s all. This only took, I don’t know, a little less than a week to write. Finding the pictures and placing them here correctly was the hardest part. So far the two things I have written have been very long, a little over 5,000 words. Hopefully soon I can write something a bit more simple. And hopefully soon I can figure out how to end something without outright saying “the end.” Anyway. Thanks for reading!

The End :D

#trans #queer #body mods #body modifications #tattoos #piercings #personal essay #tw: self harm #self harm and tattoos #self harm and body mods #personal writing #queer body mods #queer tattoos

[funnfinnreal]

the second image ive been sitting on since friday

pretty rejecting fearne, imogen, and laudna

can I just say I adore the implication that had Pretty not said that they didn't click he would've just been dating 3 women at once. we love a polyamorous ogre king

#critical role spoilers #critical role c3e10 #i might attempt a redraw on this one at some point #not hc #pretty critical role #pretty the ogre #critical role imogen #fearne #critcal role fearne #laudna #laudna critical role #imogen temult #fresh cut grass critical role #critical role

[ifitsbritishimprobablyafan]

you don’t even have to pay me, Thomas... as long as it makes you happy <3 (also, honestly, I’ll take any excuse to draw Joan cuz what a gift to humanity)

#Thomas Sanders #thatsthat24 #Joan #thejoanglebook #my art #actually not that happy with this one so maybe I'll redraw it later but I wanted to get it out quickly #also i really miss the beanie #my hand slipped #did somebody say draw all of thomas' friends as anime characters #might at some point attempt to do more of them but we'll see #fan art #kind of #I mean Joan is actually a real person