#idk how I keep commissioning art and then getting the finished pieces around the time I should be having a breakdown | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

liyuesbian · 3 years

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✧ pygmalion!au [ningguang]

notes: btw idk how commissions from museums work i just made the process up LMAO and this one's kinda angsty? i mean, it is the pygmalion greek myth so iykyk. also, i describe this figurine of ningguang here but w/o the colour... i've linked it in case any1 needs the reference. (btw, this is not set in ancient greece specifically)

only yesterday had you been commissioned by an art gallery in the capital to create a piece for their up-and-coming collection titled desire, love and identity. yet here you are, slaving away to make the perfect image you had in your head come into fruition. your vision is exquisite once sketched on paper—you can't find any faults in it so you take the risk.

as soon as your chisel meets the marble, a feeling so invigorating dominates your body. no further references are necessary as you place your trust entirely on your hands, coarse from the labour. you find such mindless toil addicting and you work day and night, only stopping for a half-baked meal and the odd collapse into bed.

for months, love streams out of the tips of your fingers and through your sculpting tools to arrive at the stone figure. you sincerely hope the intimate emotion has been reached.

when you finish, you wipe the bead of sweat running down your forehead, rest the other palm on your hip and take slow steps backwards all while maintaining eye contact with the statue. a wave of sweet relief hits you and you fall to the floor, uncontrollably sobbing into tired hands that still grip the hammer and chisel.

it's beautiful.

you stagger, struggling to get up with your bruised knees while clumsily wiping the tears off your stained cheeks. setting the instruments aside, you lift your head to admire your handiwork up close. a woman made of stone sits elegantly atop an oriental chair, crossing her smooth, white legs over each other. her left elbow is propped on the arm of the chair while on the other side, a long smoking pipe is balanced between gloved fingers. around her lies an assortment of objects: a vase containing scrolls, a floor lamp, and a charmingly decorated folding screen.

you see, you had already thought it all out. you'd imagined ningguang's preferences for a life of luxury, her affinity for constructing and sprucing up interiors. she would be a master of the trades and a woman who likes to keep an air of mystery around her. and like how you increasingly project her to be more of a person than she ever will be, there is a creeping concern in the corner of your mind that you will lose your rationality just as quickly.

the sculpture's body is clad in a qipao with a slit that reveals alabaster skin below the waist. the dress—embellished with patterns and neat linings—hugs her figure and shows off a lean build. the extensive train and sleeves of the fabric are shaped curvaceously to mirror the flow of a waterfall. and her face. the section you strived so hard to refine. she stares at you with an imperious expression and a hint of a smirk. her gaze, so piercing, makes you avert your eyes in shyness but you find yourself gravitating back to her profile.

you muster up the courage to draw closer to your creation and unconsciously stroke her cheek with your thumb, captivated. if she were an empress, you'd be a common peasant—undeserving of setting your sights on such a goddess. you can feel your soul being sucked into eyes devoid of emotion—of anything, actually. after all, the woman sitting before you is not a person but an inanimate object.

the weeks following the completion of ningguang—which is the name you've picked up the habit of calling her—are spent in said lady's company. every minute of every day, you surround yourself with her presence as if she is your closest friend. you eat with her, tell her your troubles, even going so far as to decorate her with various types of jewellery and bringing her gifts you think she'd like.

"thank you," you whisper. "for always listening to me." in truth, you're always so immersed in your work that you forgot what conversations could feel like. though, you fear your art would never be on par with something so transcendent ever again.

you become curious, wondering what she would be like if the nymph in front of you were not just a figment of your imagination.

you perch yourself on top of ningguang's stone-cold lap and trace the contours of her visage. you inspect each crease on her lips and the minuscule crinkles in her eyes, applauding yourself for the well-crafted details. you don't know what possesses you but you close your eyes and press your lips against hers, hoping that once you open them, a living being would erupt from underneath the marble. but, of course, as soon as the light hits your retinas, ningguang is as unmoving as ever.

realising what you've just done, you drop off of her thighs and laugh anxiously. however, you could've sworn that you had felt warmth in the lips of your beloved muse.

"i've finally gone mad!" you cry aloud.

hell, you say to yourself, is it even possible to fall in love with such an... an artefact? you dismiss your glaringly obvious infatuation.

"nonsense," you mutter under your breath, sensing your heart breaking slightly. how can something so painfully humanlike also not be human at the same time? you must've caused a tremendous atrocity in your past life to have made the gods harbour a grudge against you. of all things, you'd never have guessed that a lifeless piece of art would be the object of your desire.

you can't bear to look at the handcrafted lady any longer and with an anguished face, cover her with a large cotton cloth. the plan was to wait until you could hand the statue over to the curators and try to ignore its existence until then.

for a few days, you act according to the plan, going about your daily routine but eventually, your stoic demeanour crumbles. you lock yourself in your room refusing to eat or believe that your affection would never be returned.

during the hours of sunlight, you weep under your sheets, drowning in self-inflicted sorrow. and at night, you do the same, lamenting over the loss of what could've been your true love. she would've been so perfect in your eyes, your other half, and the only one who could calm this growing turmoil!

the reality pains you. hence, you do the only thing you can do: you pray. you pray to the gods for a miracle, that the light of your life would stride into your room and pull you from the depths of despair... but she never does.

your last day "cohabitating" with the sculpture has arrived and for the first time in—what felt like—an eternity, you open the doors to your workshop. taking a deep breath, you unveil the stationary maiden.

it's still as beautiful as you remember.

you give it a sad smile, wanting to get its departure over and done with. you manoeuvre about the room to prepare the things for the movers who're due to come in a couple of hours. while you go down your little list of errands to be done, you cough and bat away the smoke—wait, the smoke? frantic, you spin around, eyes darting everywhere in search of its origin until they land on the smoking pipe you so intricately moulded for the commissioned piece.

it's strange, you don't recall colouring the statue. and how on earth is smoke coming out of the pipe? suspicious, you approach the motionless entity and almost stumble when you spot its chest rising.

oh lord! — i really must be descending into madness! you clutch your head, clawing at your hair in hysteria.

"stop, please don't hurt yourself." the sound of a low, worried voice penetrates your ears. you shut your eyes tight.

"no, the gods have cursed me! i mustn't listen to your poisonous words!" you exclaim. your state of agitation is alleviated when the woman caresses your tensed arm.

"what has happened to you? i haven't seen you lately either." the tone is more soft and more tender than you had imagined. you release your grip.

"is it really you, ningguang?" your voice cracks at the end, and the woman you sought after witnesses your features twist into an expression of longing and hope.

"yes, my darling. i dare not go anywhere else."

helplessly, you rush to cup her face to check for heat, for the blood traversing under her skin—anything that would prove that your sweetheart is truly alive and breathing. and when you do get the confirmation, you beam, trying to withhold tears born from elation.

you bend down to kiss ningguang, who is still seated on the chair, once, twice, and three times to rid your scepticism. oh, deities! she's real.

"i love you," you declare.

"i know." you watch as the same creases you'd etched on the corners of her eyes spread into a loving half-moon shape and you kiss her again.

you reach a conclusion: you couldn't give away your lover—let alone a live person—to be displayed as part of a museum exhibition so when the workers arrive, you hide your muse away in another room. you apologise profusely and spin a lie, rambling on about how you had nothing to relinquish for the piece you had prepared had been oh-so-viciously stolen by a mob of trespassers!

the movers share with you their sympathies and ask what the work of art looks like and maybe they could sort something out with the authorities. nodding, you recount—so ardently—the details of your divine maiden. you feel heat rush to your face, chuckling when you realise that you'd run your mouth for too long.

in response to this, the two labourers exchange dubious looks as they peer at the static sculpture standing in the middle of the studio—its appearance unmistakably matching your elaborate description.

#ningguang #ningguang au #ningguang angst #ningguang x reader #ningguang headcanons #genshin #genshin impact #genshin x reader #genshin angst #genshin headcanons #genshin au #pygmalion au #ningguang imagines #genshin imagines

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cayenne-twilight · 3 years

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Professor Layton Iceberg Explanation

As I said in the tags of the original, the iceberg I made was a meme consisting of both real theories and satire/parodies/fandom memes. If anyone is interested, I can work on an unironic version that only has real theories.

Buckle in because this post is LONG and heavily saturated with lore and information.

Actual theories

Parallel universe 1960s where the world wars didn’t happen. There’s an unused file in Curious Village that shows the year as 1960 and the time machine from UF is set to 1973, ten years into the future. The series canonically takes place in an undefined time period (hence the technological inaccuracies and fantasy elements), but it’s based off the 60s. There’s more evidence but we don’t have time to go over every little thing. I linked my “no wars” theory below but TL;DR the outdated airplanes and underdeveloped medicine in the Layton series imply that the world wars may never have happened. https://cayenne-twilight.tumblr.com/post/632205992162099200/outofcontextdiscord-timegearremix-zonosils-war

The real meaning behind the statue in Future London. In UF, the purpose of the statue is to spark Layton and Luke’s conversation about their friendship. Luke is stressing out about moving overseas and sees himself and the professor in the story behind the statue, but in the bigger picture, Clive must have been the one to commission it. Some theorize that the little boy is Clive and the man is either his father or the professor. One idea I’ve seen is that Clive wishes he could be Luke for real, while another is that he wishes he died ten years ago, and another is that he’s literally terminally ill explaining why he doesn’t care about consequence. Personally, I think “the boy succumbed to his illness” refers to his mental illness seeing as he wanted the professor to save him from his madness as he saved him all those years ago.

True location of Monte D’Or. there are no deserts on the British isles to my knowledge, so it makes the most sense for Monte D’Or to be in Southwest USA where English is the default language, they have a desert, and there exists a city famous for flashy hotels, casinos, and entertainment. What makes it odd is that nobody ever mentions overseas travel, and all the major characters are from England.

Loosha’s origins are not explicitly explained if I remember correctly, but the implication was that her prehistoric (supposedly) species was sealed away along with the garden, allowing them to survive all the way to the time of LS until Loosha was the only one left. The garden provided a good habitat and protection from predators, and it’s logical that they’d slowly die out anyways, but there’s no explanation of any specific factors that led to Loosha being the last.

Beasley is not a bee I wrote a post about this one as well, but TL;DR Beasly lacks several defining bee traits whilst having several human ones. He is not human, yet, by definition, not a bee. It’s possible that he is the result of Dimitri’s testing, but whatever his untold story is, he remains an enigma of nature. https://cayenne-twilight.tumblr.com/post/632381715250282496/theory-beasly-isnt-a-bee

Subject 2’s identity is currently unknown. There is a subject one (parrot) and subject 3 (rabbit) so there has to be a second. For a long time, people suspected Beasly to be him seeing as he’s a bit of an amalgamation and definitely not a regular bee (see above). After the release of LMJ, though, people began to suspect Sherl, the intelligent hound who could speak to certain people but not others. That being said, it’s possible for one to be subject 4. Sherl’s memory of a bright flash matches up with subject 3’s memory of being electrocuted. They never explain why the animals were being experimented on, but it was probably Dimitri making sure the conditions of his machine were safe for humans before reliving the incident from ten years ago.

Lady Violet died from the plague from DB. There’s no evidence for this or anything, it’s just an idea. People say she died from the flu but I don’t remember them saying that in the game, at least the US version. Extending off my “no war” theory: it’s theorized that the Spanish Flu was spread by the travlelling soldiers, so if that’s true, it’s possible for the epidemic to have been averted for some decades. Maybe the Spanish Flu reached England later than in real life. The hole in this is that DB’s plague must’ve been close in time to 1918 while Violet’s death was much later, so it would’ve had to stick around.

Bill Hawks is working with Targent and Arthur Cantabella. There was a force in the shadows buying the time machine technology from Bill. Someone with a ton of money who helped him cover up a freak accident and get away with it completely, a feat that involved shady means like violence by hired thugs. Some theorize that it was Targent, seeking power over time in exchange for a little mafia magic. The Labarynthia project was sponsored by the UK government, so as the PM, Bill must’ve known about it. He probably supported dubiously ethical, high stakes (witch pun) psychological experiments like Cantabella’s and helped him stay in the shadows.

All the NPCs in St. Mystere and Folsense are dead. I make fun of this type of theory later, but they’re admittedly captivating. I’m pretty sure the canon in CV is that the villagers are Bruno and Augustus’s OCs that they made robots of and built a town around, but it’s more interesting to think that the village was there before, and the townspeople died of a plague and were replaced like Lady Violet. In Folsense, there really was a plague and they never explain the NPCs there. They’re either real people who appear way younger than they are due to hallucinations (even the ones who already look old ?), or they don’t exist at all, which is pretty spooky. This part of the story is a gaping plot hole. In a similar vein to CV, the edgy yet plausible theory is that they used to live in Folsense but died of the plague and now live on as hallucinations.

Hershel seeing everything as a puzzle is a coping mechanism for all his trauma. This was a joke but I thought about it for more than five seconds and it makes way too much sense.

Plot holes and unexplained questions that we like to overthink because it’s fun

The downfall of the Azran was vaguely explained in canon by people being so greedy that it lead to the civilization collapsing. It’s not a stretch to imagine that happening, but it would’ve been more interesting with a little more detail.

Layton and Luke are programmed to routinely forget how to walk. I didn’t know whether to list this in the joke section or not, but it’s odd that the characters actively participate in the walking tutorial (as opposed to showing a little memo to the player) as if they didn’t know how to before, especially when they go through this several times a year.

The truth behind Pavel. He’s simply a joke character who teleports, is a polyglot (sort of, at least he wants us to think he is) and is mega confused all the time. He’s a fun character to make crack theories about because of his cryptic nature that even he doesn’t seem to understand.

Miracle Mask deleted scenes. The first trailer for MM featured animations that were not in the final game. One was the Randall falling scene, except in a slightly different style than the one we know. Others were completely foreign, like Layton and Luke pacing across a theatre stage as if Layton’s about to expose someone with a dramatic point. Cut content and “could’ve beens” are always curious to think about.

Evan Barde: secret mastermind. Arianna and Tony’s dad is a mysterious character who died under mysterious circumstances. I think the canon is that his death was a genuine accident, but concept art of him making a creepy evil face suggests that maybe he originally had a larger role in the first drafts of LS than the finished game.

The secret to how Paul and Des pull off their disguises is unclear and will remain unclear. There is no plausible explanation for their shape shifting. Unless Paul is just a little dude wearing a human suit like that one Wizard of Oz species and Des is the best quick-changer ever and hides his naturally feminine legs under his cloak.

Alfendi’s mom. When LBMR came out people scrambled to piece together who Hershel had a kid with, but there’s no way alfendi is his biological son. This happened with Kat as well and her biological parents turned out to be brand new characters, so I’m sure Al will get an adoption backstory if his arc continues, be his parents old major characters or nameless, faceless NPCs.

Granny Riddleton and Stachenscarfen are omnipotent deities. Idk which section this fits best under, but these two characters have some serious power. At first introduction, they’re implied to be robots, but they appear everywhere in later games. They follow the Professor wherever he goes and assist him on his adventures, GR collecting puzzles and housing them by some odd magic, and Stachen teaches you how to walk. They both introduce and supervise the gameplay. By extension, I guess this idea could apply to Albus as well in the prequels. GR and Stachen even had the power to appear in LMJ, something no major character could do. I consider them akin to the velvet room attendants from the Persona games.

Clive’s kill count is a vague subject in the game for the sake of keeping it PG. I don’t know if anyone’s ever mathematically estimated the damage he caused, and I sure don’t want to try, but the game appears to push the idea that he didn’t kill anyone at all, saying they stopped him in the nick of time and things like that, even though we watch him raze the city. If they ever want to bring him back post-time skip, I can see them twisting it so that the mobile fortress cutscene wasn’t a linear sequence of events, but instead a compilation of scenes over the course of hours so that London neighborhoods around him could be evacuated and have it make sense. Knowing Level-5, it’s more likely that they wouldn’t think this deep and do something more lazy, though.

Memes and references

Post-time skip Flora is real references the famous L is real theory from Super Mario 64. Like Luigi in SM64, Flora was also a highly anticipated character who didn’t appear in a new game, in this case LMJ or LMDA. In the end, Luigi did become real in the DS port so hopefully Flora is real will be realized as well.

Hershel can’t read is a veteran fandom meme referring to how in the first few games, especially Curious Village, Layton asks Luke to read every document out loud for him. Perhaps this was an exercise to improve Luke’s reading skills and independent thinking, or perhaps he was just too lazy or preoccupied to do it himself, but this grew into the joke that our genius Professor was actually illiterate this whole time.

Layton’s smash invitation is hidden in PLvsAA. It’s no secret that the fandom would kill a man to get the Professor into the smash brothers franchise. In PLvsAA one of the puzzle artworks features a goat eating a familiar white envelope with a red stamp, sparking the joke that either Layton or Wright got the invitation their respective fans desired, but it got lost along the way.

The science board is the mysteriously vague organization Don Paolo got kicked out of for the crime of being evil. It’s the epitome of liberal arts majors and art school graduates trying to bs their way around not knowing any science and failing miserably. “He was very good at all the sciences, but then the CEO of science told him to stop because he was using the power of science for evil science”. They do this again when “Dr. Stahngun” describes his time machine what with the soolha coils and whatnot.

Hoogland is death cult initiation is a parody of “Mario 64 is Freemason initiation” which is ridiculous, just like the creepy human sacrifice subplot of AL.

You can see the reflection of someone watching you in Aurora’s eye references the famous, creepy Talking Angela theory. In retrospect it would’ve been funnier if I said Angela instead of Aurora.

Every copy of Professor Layton is personalized references the famous “every copy of Super Mario 64 is personalized”

Clive’s fat ass in HD is a meme that originated from the announcement of UFHD, saying that half of the excited fans wanted to cry again while the other half were simply attracted to Clive. If we want to enter real bottom-section-of-the-iceberg-chart territory then let’s say Clive’s character has some sort of psychological siren properties that draw people to him like a magnet and/or Harry Styles.

Things I pulled out of my ass for shits and giggles

Infinite hint coin hack: I’m sure a tech savvy cheater could hack the game for infinite hint coins, but there’s no easy or interesting way. I don’t know why someone would do that though, considering a lot of the hints suck and there are puzzle guides on the internet.

Cringy, unused Randall villain monologue. This joke is derived from the actual scrapped MM content as well as deleted content being a popular element of iceberg charts, but it’s sadly not real. Would’ve been hilarious, though.

Last Specter Puzzle 031: Light Height tracks and records children’s intelligence level. It doesn’t, but it’s always fun to make fun of arguably THE most ridiculously difficult puzzle in the franchise. (Seriously, do they expect 7+ year olds to know trigonometry???)

Hershel struggles with tea addiction. Hershel from the games drinks tea in moderation, but the manga begs to differ. He has a tea set in the Laytonmobile, and an attempt at teatime while driving causes him to crash.

Folsense is a metaphor for Alzheimer’s. This is inspired by those edgy kids’ show theories where everyone’s in hell or something, but nobody has ever said this.

London Life is reality and the plot of the games is all in Luke’s head. That’s one way to fill every plot hole. How funny would it be if Luke made up crazy characters and stories based off his fellow townspeople Sharkboy and Lavagirl style. “This dude who lives in a castle and asks people to give him all their money for nothing in return is a vampire from 50 years ago involved in a tragic love story”.

Secret ending encoded into Tago’s Head Gymnastics. It’d be crazy if there was, and Dimitri would hound Tago for the secret to time travel. If you didn’t know, the Layton games started as an adaption of Akira Tago’s puzzle series, except they decided to add a story to make it more interesting and marketable.

Daily puzzles datamine your DS. I’m bad with technology but is it even possible to datamine a DS??? Idk, but I think my DS lite from 2008 is safe.

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wcamino-confessions · 2 years

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oh boy ive got stuff to say about that paige person too. im not sure how to add screenshots, since i made a tumblr account just for this, but pm me on wa if you want proof, my user is etherealx (no fonts) we met on a commissions post i made, back when she was 17. after i sent her the finished piece, she started to talk to me more, just casually n stuff. some time later, around christmas break, i open commissions again, this time for 65 points. she buys one, but she sends 1,000 points instead (purposefully)! we werent even that close at this point, and she also tells me that she “simps for my art” and “wants to make me happy”? i was flattered and kinda unnerved, but i didnt say anything since i didnt want to be mean. looking back at it, i wish i just sent the points back, since i still feel really guilty for keeping it. around her bday, a month later, she tells me that her (presumably amino) friends are leaving her because they’re uncomfortable with having an 18 year old as a friend, and is like “pinky promise you wont ever leave me???” i promised because she seemed like she was going through a hard time, i didnt want to make her more upset. so a few weeks ago, she admits to me that she has a crush on me?? i say “oh, ive never thought of you that way, im sorry” and she responds with something like “oh, another rejection *sigh* let me know if you ever start getting feelings for me because i never loose my feelings for someone even if they reject me ❤️” im a minor, but i dont have my age listed anywhere, but its still incredibly weird considering its just a cat app. im not sure if they’re actually a bad person or just clingy but idk. we still talk daily, but honestly hearing what other people are saying about her makes me just want to block her and move on with it. should i give back the 1k pts?

#submission #grooming tw

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jaeminlore · 3 years

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To Live and Let Go | Renjun

summary: if there’s something left to be learned, then my time is running. why would i waste it all, wasted on you?

words: 2.3k+

category: librarian!renjun x tutor!reader, fem!presenting!reader, adventure au, a bit meta, what’s going on idk ur guess is as good as mine, some sections are written better than others, reader is a tutor for prince jaemin, this sucks so bad i’m so sorry.

note: this was a commission for @yrb-reads who donated to a charity of their choice. thank you :) i’m terribly sorry it took so long and it's definitely not up to par the way it should be. if you want something else written to make up for it let me know. there was depression, full time job, and a death in the family i would like to blame, but i should’ve prioritized this story more for you, and for that i’m sorry. thank you so much for donating, and i hope this serves as a holiday gift for you. again, sorry about the short length

To Renjun, libraries feel like home. Especially the castle’s library, located just west of the kitchen; a hidden gem unknown to most people. Really, only known to Prince Jaemin and Renjun, if he really thought about it. Perhaps a few tutors and scholars as well.

But these factors don’t make it home. Instead, it is the wooden walls of thick cedar trunks, built long before the castle walls were put up; when the builders didn’t have the heart to tear such a piece of architecture down. It’s the way it smells like a forest at all times, and how the inside walls are chipped and falling onto the bare floor. It is the large shelves, made just decades ago, crammed up against each other and overflowing with the royal family’s books. Each piece of literature is practically an heirloom, save the small shelf in the corner where the prince hides his new romance novels he gets delivered straight from the village of Rubin.

The library feels like a bridge between the kingdom and the village. Inside these four walls, wooden and chipped, Rubin feels like one entity, undivided by classes or rank.

It also happens to be the one place Renjun is allowed to hang his paintings.

Ever since he was younger, it has been Renjun’s dream to be a portrait artist. To be able to place his thumbprint in Rubin’s history by painting the royal family or a few important nobles, is all he has ever wanted. But the King and Queen prefer a man of nobility to do the work, so Renjun was shot down. Since he sold everything he had to come and shoot for his dream, the royal family had offered him a pity job.

Correction: Prince Jaemin had begged his parents not to turn Renjun away empty-handed and convinced them to let him earn his pay here in the castle.

Prince Jaemin does a lot for Renjun. He had introduced him to his friend and closest servant, Donghyuck, who has a sharp tongue but no real malice to back up anything he ever said. Renjun had moved in with him, and used his side of the house as his painting room. Donghyuck barely even complains about the scent of oil paint anymore.

Prince Jaemin also got him his current job as a bookbinder. Which, in itself, is a very lonely and tedious job. Perfect for a boy like Renjun who only wants to work with no outside distractions. Aside from his friends in the castle, that is. Or the prince’s tutor, who comes in for study material.

Most importantly, Prince Jaemin lets Renjun hang up his portraits in the library. He had said that they deserved to be hung up, even if it couldn’t be hung up in the royal hall. Renjun had nearly burst into tears in front of the hyperactive prince.

They had met during a touchy time in the prince’s life. He had just returned to the castle after a trip to the village. There, he was hiding from potential assassins, but for some reason, the prince seemed more upset about coming back.

It was in the quiet of that library that Jaemin let Renjun, a complete stranger at the time, in on the secret that he was in love with a girl from the village. For the young artist, it wasn’t hard to imagine. Prince Jaemin was known for his free spirit and hyperactive personality. There was no way he could become attached to a noble raised under discipline.

Of course the prince was raised under the highest of discipline, but he somehow found a way to rebel against it all and stay true to himself, even if it meant hiding the portraits he liked the best in a forgotten library, or befriending the healer and servant of the castle instead of the lords.

He was wonderful, and Renjun couldn’t wait for him to be king.

The library was home because Prince Jaemin made it home. He had crafted a place between the castle and the village — a place of seclusion — just for Renjun and his thoughts.

“I just want them to listen to me,” Jaemin moans, dropping his chin onto his open romance book. “I’ve been asking them for almost a year and a half to let me go back to the village, but they refuse to listen to me.”

Renjun hums non-committedly. “Chin up, please. I’m not finished.”

Jaemin glares at Renjun through his eyelashes but obliges, a pout still evident on his face. He returns to his casual pose of leaning his cheek against his fist and turning the pages of his book. “Anyway, I really want to go back to the village.”

“I know,” Renjun sighs and dips the tip of his paintbrush into the copper-colored paint he had mixed. “Right now, you have to obey them. You may be the prince but obviously they’re the king and queen.”

“I’m about to be nineteen,” Jaemin mumbles angrily.

“And when your coronation arrives, you’ll have more freedom to do things like visit the village.”

“Her grandmother died, you know,” Jaemin says, morose. “I could’ve been there for the funeral, at least.”

Renjun grabs a slimmer paintbrush and begins to note the details of Jaemin’s face. “I know, Your Highness. But if she’s anything like you’ve told me, then I’m sure she understands.”

Jaemin bites his lip and looks at the book sadly. “I just miss her.”

“It’s your duty to stay here. I’m sure she realizes that.”

Jaemin rolls his eyes, albeit sadly, and goes back to posing.

“Your Highness! I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” Renjun’s brush shakes slightly as his mind registers the new voice. It is Jaemin’s tutor. You, a servant the same age as the prince, seem to be the only one he will actually listen to. Perhaps because you entertain his many ideas. Perhaps because Renjun had begged him to keep you around.

Because you not only entertained Jaemin’s ideas, you also praised Renjun’s art. You are a no-nonsense tutor, but as a friend, you have had neverending praise and encouragement to the two boys.

Renjun longs to be around you as much as Jaemin is. In fact, you are the only real reason Renjun finds himself being jealous of the prince. He often wonders how Jaemin could even think about a villager he only knew for a week, when you are right there beside him, every day.

Just the blossom of your smile could make Renjun’s mind freeze in all it’s concerns. Suddenly, the portrait in front of him means little to nothing, and all he could really think about was how many different shades of pink and brown he’d have to mix before he matched the color of your lips. “Hello, Y/n.”

“Good day,” you greet, bowing slightly. “What are you painting today?”

Renjun almost forgets to breathe when you walk toward him and lean your head over his shoulder to inspect his art. He can smell the amber musk on your collarbones and feel your soft hair tickle his cheek. “J-Jaemin.”

“You always paint him,” you murmur, almost in boredom. “Say, do you do favors?”

“Come again?”

“Like, if I paid you, would you draw a portrait of me? I think my mother would really like it— she’s always asking me to get a portrait done.”

Renjun feels his tongue rest heavy in his mouth. Before he can speak, Jaemin grabs your arm. “He can do it! Now let’s get to my lessons!”

And that was that on that.

The stream trickles loudly, leaping down and over the rock formations and falling into the pool with grace. This is where Renjun comes to find inspiration. It’s also where he comes to practice his art.

It’d be nice to do it into the library, but Renjun knows that he would abandon all his actual duties — the ones that he gets paid to do.

He eyes his oil paints, color coordinated from lightest to darkest shade. He dips his brush in pure white, to lay a foundation coat atop his canvas.

Truth be told, he could paint you from memory. But if he told you that, he’d have to admit to his crush on you, and that’s far too embarrassing. No, thank you.

Renjun takes off his sandals and plants his feet on the soft grass. The blades tickle his toes, so he tries to relax his muscles. He has the canvas stretched out on his knees, which is a bit unconventional, but it works. He looks up at the afternoon sun; his straw hat scrapes the trunk of the tree he’s leaning against.

“Sorry I’m late. Jaemin needed help with Latin...” You wander in and trail off, looking at the pool in wonder. “This is beautiful.”

You’re dressed in silver shades — Renjun wonders if you intentionally made yourself look extra beautiful, or if that’s you, in the reflection of the water. He clears his mind and his throat. “I figured It’d be a nice background for a portrait.”

“How do you want me posed?” Your lips are upturned, soft, and Renjun starts a mental list on how to keep you smiling.

“Whatever you’re comfortable with,” Renjun hurries. “We’ll be here for an hour or so each session until it’s finished.”

You sit in the grass, atop your knees, and smooth out any wrinkles in your garments. “My Mother is going to be so thrilled, Renjun. Thank you so much for doing this.”

His tongue feels heavy at the compliment, so he settles for a simple nod. The foundation coat is still drying, so Renjun pulls his sketchbook and a pencil out of his bag. “Do you mind if I start with a few sketches?”

“Of course not,” you say. Your eyes clip to his, bright and clear, and Renjun thinks this is going to be a lot harder than he initially thought.

(The next session, Renjun is so focused on getting the outline of your back right that he doesn’t even notice you moving towards him.

“You’ve got paint on your brow,” you say.

Renjun reflexively wipes at his face, feeling himself blush at your observation. “Is it gone?”

You grin — looking straight at him — and reach up. Gently, you use the pad of your thumb to scrub off the paint. “Now it is.”

Renjun thinks he’d rather melt into the floor than finish the rest of this session.)

Renjun threads the spine of his latest project: scribe records from the recent knighting tournament and ceremony. Even as he pulls the last thread tight, his finger raw and screaming, he’s thankful that he wasn’t the one editing these records.

Jaemin hasn’t been to the library in awhile. His current betrothement has him in a frenzied mindset, and Renjun is sure he has more important things to do than hang out with his friends.

Still, he misses the company.

He sets the glue along the spine and aligns the pages with the leather backing. He’s so busy focusing on making sure the lines are straight that he doesn’t notice someone walk into the library. “Hello, Renjun.”

Renjun jumps, and the spine of the book misaligns. He leaves it on his table, and when he turns around, you’re there smiling at him. “Hey, Y/n. I didn’t know you tutored Jaemin today.”

”I don’t,” you admit. A bashful look overtakes your face and you focus on one of the books in Renjun’s return pile. “I wanted to thank you for the portrait. My mother loved it.”

“I’m glad!” Renjun says, brightening up. He notices that you still look rather distant. “Is something wrong?”

”it’s just...” you bite your lip. “Do, um, do I really look like that?”

Renjun wants to ask what you mean. But he sort of knows. “Your portrait? Is it not to your likeness?”

You furrow your brows. “I just... You made me look very beautiful.”

“You are very beautiful,” Renjun replies, voice low and steady. “Surely, you know that.”

Embarrassment paints your face and you shrug. “I dunno...”

“I know,” Renjun says, surety building in his voice. “Whether you believe it or not, it’s a fact that you are very beautiful. I hope my painting portrayed even an inch of your beauty.”

You look aghast at his words, mouth open in shock. “Are you… Are you serious?”

Renjun stares at the way your lips look, pursed in confusion. “Why on earth would I lie to you?”

“I don’t mean to insult your integrity,” you say, eyes wide. “It’s just that no one has ever been so upfront with me.”

This is it, Renjun thinks. This is my chance to confess. He takes a deep breath, steps closer to you. Toe to toe, so that your chest is brushing against his. And the outside air lessens it’s chill, so that Renjun is sure he’s sweating, nervous and hot and wanting.

His luck hasn’t run out yet. “Can I be upfront again?”

Your breath hitches, leaving Renjun’s own words isolated, suspended in the air between you. “Yes,” you finally say, honeyed lips nearly brushing his own.

“I’m in love with you,” Renjun allows himself to say. “And I want to kiss you. Selfishly.”

“Then do so.”

Your lips are honeyed; candied peonies against his own cruel briars and thorns. Renjun wonders if he’s good enough for you. If book binding and tutoring go hand in hand. If he’ll be stuck forever in the royal library, giving you books to read to the prince. He wonders if this is the life of a peasant, always one step behind the nobles.

Two people in service to a prince can never truly serve each other.

But Renjun doesn’t hold on to that thought. Instead, he surges forward, holds your body like it’s falling, kissing your mouth and your chin and your neck and your skin and—

“Hey,” you cup his face in his hands. “This isn’t the last time you’ll have me. There’s no need to be urgent.”

So he slows down. Gentle touches and warm gazes. Tastes you as much as touches you. All lips and no teeth. Memorized the palm of your hand against his jaw.

You’ll still be here, you said so.

Renjun decides to let go.

#the last paragraph is good but the rest sucks srry #renjun fluff #renjun angst #adventure au #nct dream fluff #nct dream angst #nct dream au #renjun au #destwrites

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thatblondeperson · 3 years

Note

Hi! I'm the girl who recommended "All I've Ever Known" from Hadestown from your most recent chapter, which, by the way, completely blew me away.

I wish I could send some of my own TimSteph thoughts/writing towards you, though I haven't done much. You are an excellent writer and I love your interpretations of both characters. They're so perfect together.

1. Do you have any fanfics concerning them coming after this one?

2. You have no idea how much it kills me that I have to wait 7 days to read another chapter. This fic should be CANON and no, I'm not joking.

3. Also, I recommend listening to Mr. Blue. It reminded me of Chapter 9 (was it?) when Steph said she was worried about Tim's mental health.

4. You said in Chapter 11 that you had a soft spot for Steph playing piano (that happened) and there would be more of "fun" Tim. Is it coming soon?

5. Have you seen Marcus To's art of TimSteph? They're so cute.

Again, so sorry for the long questions/responses. I just love TimSteph, which is weird, considering I'm not THAT big of a shipper and I'm more of a book fan than a comic book fan. I actually preferred DickKory when I got into the Batfam comics, and I still have them ranked high, but over time, these two grew on me. It was like, "Ooh, these guys are great BFFs! They can't get any better--"

Then I realized that they were dating, and the more and more I thought about it, THE MORE AND MORE IT MADE SENSE. I COULD WRITE A 10-PAGED PAPER ON WHY THEY WORK SOOOO WELL.

But IncoherentBabblings beat me to it with her incredible post on "Why TimSteph is Nice," and it's one of my favorite posts ever.

Hey hey!! Sorry, busy couple days at work!

I am so happy that you've been enjoying the fic!! I listened to the song and it's so so sweet!! I totally get the TimSteph vibes from it, where it's just the two of them clinging to each other in the face of everything else.

If you ever post anything lmk! I'm always happy to see more TimSteph content! You are too kind about my writing! I am just happy that I'm finishing my first multichapter fic like this. Never finished a big project before, honestly never thought it would happen.

1. I have a whole to-do list of little projects, god knows when anyone will see those. I'm drafting little things now that I'm winding down from FMWBTY. I am gonna be doing a collab project with @incoherentbabblings but we are just in the planning stages so far.

As far as with this fic, I would love to do a sequel to write the relationship more on this timeline, but we'll see! There's a lot more I'd like to cover, idk if it would be as long of a project. I do want to utilize Cass and Damian though, I want to bring them in since Cass is such an important person to Steph, and I'd love to see some forced bonding hilarity between Tim and Damian with Tim playing nice out of respect for Steph lol

2. lololol yeah I though a week would be a good amount of time in between chapters. It's better than waiting for me to write the chapters, I promise. I made my first draft of this thing in 2019!

3. I will listen to that too! It's on the list!

4. I use "fun" in an odd way. I'm trying to have Tim relax around Steph and act like himself again. He's kinda been battered by a lot of shit over the years, so he's kinda receded in on himself. I will drag him out a bit, but that's where a sequel would also be fun. Let him be a jokey, lovey dovey boyfriend for Steph.

5. Love Marcus! Hope to be able to commission a TimSteph piece from him someday. I do wish that she was drawn with more wavy, kind of untamed hair, since I just like the idea that Steph has this super thick hair. But his art is literally always stunning, such clean line work and I like that he doesn't draw the men too bulky, and that the women aren't oversexualized.

Long questions are fine! I think a lot of us started with DickKory in the form of RobStar in the Teen Titans TV show, that was definitely one of my first major ships, and it was a painfully wonderful slowburn. Wonder where I latched onto that trope? 🤣🤣🤣

Idk when I hopped onto TimSteph. I think I just latched on after I started reading Tim because their dynamic was so fun and sweet. And then fandom, cuz when I joined there weren't so many antis and Steph haters. Truly sad to see now.

Thank you thank you THANK YOU for all your support!! I definitely plan to keep writing TimSteph while I still have ideas! ❤💜

#personal #ask tbp #timsteph

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aiviloti · 3 years

Photo

my 2020 fic writer wrap-up!!

this is going to be incredibly long (a total of 1.1k lmao) so imma put a cut here, but basically thank you for being here all throughout my 2020! i appreciate you all very much <3

fav kind of fic to write:

i love writing about mutual pining slow burn process of getting together but i have NEVER WRITTEN ONE IN MY LIFE so i hope to change that in 2021

in 2020 i discovered??? humour??? so i enjoy writing about that and when people tell me i’ve succeeded in making them laugh it’s all 😳😳😳 for me

hardest fic to write but also most proud of:

to write you a song was a fic i struggled with from all of april to june which is very long?? to me??? considering i usually sit down and write things in one seating. fully fleshed ideas don’t usually take me thaaaaaat long to crunch out, but for some reason i struggled bad with this bc I really didn’t know where i was going w it lol

LA LA LAND gets an honorary mention of it’s own simply because it was 44k, and it took me all of july-september, but it’s something i still am proud of! to show how difficult it was to write/plot here’s the spreadsheet i had to use to keep track of the scenes and the chapters djkgfsjdfkjhgd

Shout out to kiroiimye , sweet , sirius and krypt for keeping my sanity intact

easiest fic to write:

this genshin impact fic: The Land Favoured by the Wind but its because ive been thinking about this idea for more than a month lol so the actual writing and editing took me less than 3 hours

there were several others too, bc ideas then to hook themselves to me then refuse to let go fjshlfgdfsg

fav fic to write:

Most definitely this sakuatsu monstrosity here by the name of Miya Atsumu's unwavering love for Sakusa Kiyoomi and an unholy amount of terrible food analogies that should not have the right to Exist lol, I only came up with the idea of Atsumu asking Osamu how to make friends bc I was friendship pining for someone at the time and then proceeded to write the entirety of it in a feverish daze! It’s as of rn my top hit / kudoed / bookmarked fic on ao3 and man, thanks for liking this as much as i did :’D

writing sequence:

i have to write from start to finish lmao i cant move on if the fic isnt chronological? the only exception was la la land bc it was too long and i had help from the spreadsheet so i alr knew where i was going i just had to write it down dfhdsfksfksdfhjg

deleting works:

the only fics i remember deleting are both first chapters of a multichap, bc i dont like having unfinished pieces on ao3, and far less if im not sure if ill finish them/if i dont know where im going w it!

if it’s dark history of shit 15 year old me wrote imma keep it there! it is an archive after all. go on, judge my fics from 5 years ago ahahahaha

best writing advice:

not a general thing and might just apply tome, but i tend to write in very convoluted ways and squish a lot in my sentences, or add to many unnecessary commas, so i received advice recently about being more mindful of the pacing and it’s helped me a lot!

worst writing advice:

none at the top of my head djgfkdsjfh if it’s bs to me i just forget it entirelyyyy

collab:

@actuallyasweetpotato (also aforementioned sweet) and i did a thing for bokuaka week!!!! you can find it here: under my breath and into your scarf

wips:

9 unfinished zine pieces, 3 commissions, 1 exchange piece, about 10 or so other things

fav story of another writer:

favourite things

manly man falls for manliest man krbk fic!!!

gently, like a winter wind iwaoi birthday fic

sunchaser krbk fic

JUNO atsuhina fic

best review:

dude i cried

and shoutout to tien , sirius for fan art, fan comics, fan animatics of fics ive written, and shoutout to akemiiiii for this song they wrote i am eternaally grateful

worst review:

no negativity today!

prequel/sequel to other people’s fics:

none at the top of my head hm, but if anything probably any of kiro skk stuff

do i reread my stuff:

yes, but only if they’re old enough for me to go “it’s okay even if i dont like it bc this is old”

published:

hopefully! even though i do take part in zines and i guess they already have been published in a broad sense

fav/least fav chara to write:

no one at the top of my head! it’s instinctive for me to go ahead and think about character motives whenever i come across them, so if i ever write about someone, i usually just put my spin/interpretation of a character in a way that i can comprehend. the pros of this is i can write about many people, and the downside is that these characterisations can come off as out of character to anyone who doesn’t agree w me hehe

deadlines or goals:

if it’s a oneshot that’s under 3k i usually aim to have it done within 24 hours of beginning the fic. even tho i rarely succeed, having that as a goal usually pushes me to get it done faster than i would have if i had no goal altogether! if it’s anything long i aim for 1k a day, tho rn all my deadlines are zine deadlines and on top of that there’s uni, so to say im not stressing about writing would be a lie LOL

fav writers: (am too shy to tag but i swear these people are literal gods)

chonideno (mag): tumblr | twitter | ao3

batman (teesta): twitter | ao3

maplefudge (raei): tumblr | twitter | ao3

trope never written, would like to try:

aforementioned SLOWBURN MUTUAL PINING ANGST W A HAPPY ENDING GETTING TOGETHER!!!

but also royalty au

trope you will never write:

haha loads

how long have you been a writer:

began writing around may of 2014!! it was a horrible piece but im glad i started somewhere

influences:

chonideno/mag is one! maggie stiefvater who wrote the raven boys is also one, among many others

hardest part of writing:

writing action? writing things that are happening right now, describing people talking, eating

easiest part of writing:

descriptions of people, places, feelings. internal monologues, the like

best part of writing:

sharing how i perceive the world w other people, and discovering other people agree

wip sneak peek:

cw: hanahaki, falling out of love

this was written in a friend’s dms lmao this is why i sound like this

something unique i bring to all my stories

i had a revelation the other day after talking to all my friends and realised i have really pretentious titles

IF YOU’RE HERE

did you know the wc of this thing is 1k words? idk why you stuck through all of that but thank you. i’ll keep writing in 2021, and all the years after that, and i hope i’ll find you doing things you love too :)

#liv rambles #sorry i am incapable of shutting the fuck up :relieved:#i will continue to not shut the fuck up in 2021 see yall there

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franeridart · 4 years

Text

Anon said: How are those doodles?? Your "doodles" are a million times better than any of my finished drawings (i love them btw they are so f*cking cute!!!!)

AHHHH THANK YOU!!!! They really are doodles though haha

Anon said: What are your OCs' names?? They are so cool I'm in love with them ♡♡

If you’re talking about the four in the latest original art post I made, then they’re Chris (with the undercut), Josh (with the long hair), Max (with the scarf) and Leo (with the eyepatch)!! I’m so so happy you like them, they’re old enough to be part of me by now so seeing them liked is always such a warm feeling!!

Anon said: Do you take prompts/suggestions? Sorry I don’t know your policy but would you consider drawing Bokuro ft jealous!Bo? I’ve always headcanoned that Kuroo is really popular with both boys and girls because of his confidence and effortless charm; whether he’s oblivious to this attention despite his intelligence or aware of it yet ignoring it is anyone’s guess~ I always look forward to your art and recently got into Haikyuu!! And damn, I do ship Kuroken too but you have me addicted to Bokuro now *_* || Aah finally got the FAQ open (blame mobile tumblr for being a bitch), and yup my last ask is def a suggestion and I hope you’ll consider using it~ Somewhat unrelated, do you regularly add stuff to your red bubble? I love your Kiribaku art but I’m a huge fan of Momo (&Todomomo) and Kuroo (&Bokuro), is there any chance you have something in the works with them up for sale soon? Thanks

GOSH thank you so much for liking my old hq stuff enough to ask for more!! I’m not sure if I’ll get back to drawing bokuro soon, honestly? So I can’t promise that if I’ll go through with the suggestion it’ll be soon, but I’ll definitely keep it in mind for when the mood strikes!! And about the shop, I add to it whenever I feel there’s enough stuff piled up to? Though I plan to start adding more often than that from now on - I don’t really have anything for momo and kuroo to add on rb that isn’t already there, but as soon as I’ll have more of either of them I’ll remember to put them up! Thank you so so much for the interest in buying from me!!

Anon said: Ok but that Kirishima art was absolutely amazing

THANK YOU!!!!!

Anon said: Hi! First I really really love your art and I make this little muffed scream every time I see your stuff pop up on me feed. You’re amazing!! Second, can I ask how you do shadows? I can never make them look right or lay across my character correctly. Yours always look so amazing

Thank you!!!!!! I actually used to have that same problem with shadows? However much I kept track of where the lightsource was and the shapes I was working with it always looked wrong, somehow - the way I fixed it was by adding more shadows, actually. If you’ll pick any of my colored pieces you’ll see I don’t really put down lights all that often, which means the base color ends up being my light color too, and everything else is just shadows getting darker the further I go from where the light hits the object I’m shading - generally, I use a soft tool like a brush or a marker to very roughly put down where I want the shadows to go, and then using the same tool I smudge and darken it till it looks right to me. I can’t really explain it any better than this? But I have a small tutorial for how I do this in my art tips tag, if you wanna give it a look!

Anon said: I come back to look at your art almost every day, especially when I’m feeling down; so I’d just like to thank you for posting your beautiful art for all of us to experience. On behalf of all of your followers, Thank you! :,)))

Anon you’re gonna make me cryyyyy!!!!!! ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; thank you so so much, both for this ask and for liking my stuff to begin with! <3

Anon said: Your anatomy is so so so so good! And don’t even get me started on your colours! Perfection

GOSH I still have a long long way to go, but thank you so much for thinking so!!! It makes all the effort feel worth it! ( TT^TT)<3

Anon said: I love everything about ur art! from the sketches to the full colored pieces, it's the highlight of my week whenever you post! I was actually wondering where you get the ideas for clothes! I always see the variety and was wondering if you came up with them or are they from somewhere ^v^ keep up the amazing work!!

It’s a mixture of both, actually! I like to look at clothing, both irl (on people I see, or stuff in the shops I visit, or even pics and movies and tv shows!) and drawn too - in anime and illustrations and manga and cartoons! I look at them and try to remember how they’re made, and then when I draw I think about it all and come up with my own by mixing stuff I liked from all those things - unless I see a piece of clothing that’d work just right as it is on a character, in which case I just draw it either as best as I can from memory or, if I have it, using a ref! It’s one of the things I find the most fun when drawing, I’m glad to hear you like what I come up with!! Thank you so much!!!

Anon said: Thoughts on KiriTodo? Because I. Am. Hooked.

I like it!! I don’t actively ship it, since my only actual ship for Kirishima is kiribaku, but I like the look of him with todo, aesthetically, and their friendship is highly entertaining to me, which means their potential relationship in a romantic setting is too - and, as we’ve seen with my very random dip into the non-existent kirijiro fandom, that’s more than enough for me to decide maybe I’ll wanna go and draw for them, one of these days haha

Anon said: Haven't seen KiriSero or KamiSero Fusions yet! Got some ideas for those? (Filling out the Bakusquad pentagon XD)

I really never got around to drawing those, did I! That’s actually surprising, hadn’t you pointed that out I’d have never realized - I’m not doing fusions anymore right now, but maybe I could make an exception for these two............ if the inspiration strikes, why not!

Anon said: Did you see the newer bnha episodes?! Miritama made it feel like a shoujo... (In a good way)

THIS IS SO OLD OH GOD sorry I didn’t get around to answering this sooner!!! The miritama relationship is really wonderful, isn’t it? They make me cry so much, soft warm boys, so in love............. TT’’’TT <3<3<3

Anon said: This whole year has been a trainwreck for me and your blog was one of the few things that stayed constant, so thank you for being my favorite spot on the internet. Hope you keep drawing and I love your art so much!

AH, THANK YOU! I really really hope I’ll keep on drawing too!!! I’ll do my best 💪💪

Anon said: Some days I’ll just sit in bed at 2 am and be like “I need a hug” and then I read ur blog and it’s like a safe mental hug. So thanks for that.

That’s!!!!!!!!!! so sweet oh my god!!!!!!!!! ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; I’m so glad my stuff can make you feel warm like that, anon!! <3<3

Anon said: So it says you don't do requests in your faq does that include commissions as well

Not right now!! Maybe sometime at the beginning of next month, ✨Stay Tuned✨

Anon said: Hellooo hope you are having a good day. It's always so fun to scroll through your blogs and enjoy your art 💕💕 Idk if it's a little weird to ask but I also love your old aokaga art and I was wondering if you had any interest left in that fandom or would ever consider drawing for it again? xx

Gods, I really don’t know? It’s been so long since I’ve last engaged with anything related to knb........ I still do love the ship though, so, maybe? I really have no clue, I might though!! Thank you so much for liking even such old things from me!!!!

#fran answers #................i'm deeply ashamed of how long it took me to answer some of these #in my defense i was taking an unplanned break #but also it shouldn't have been unplanned so #i'm very sorry about leaving you all hanging so long orz #let's try to not have that happen again any time soon

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froppy-butterflyfan2000 · 5 years

Photo

Hello, and thank you for joining the 2018 Christmas Truce! Before getting into your assignment, let me first go over a few bits of information regarding gift submission and deadlines.

PLEASE DO NOT POST THIS. THIS IS FOR YOUR REFERENCE ONLY.

Gifts are ideally dueI on Christmas Day, Tuesday the 25th. As the holidays can get hectic I urge you to start your gift early and plan on finishing before the final week. You are being given twenty-four days or more to work on one piece, so please use your time responsibly! The final day to submit your gift is January 1st. If by that point you haven’t made contact or submitted a piece, your assignment will be reassigned and you will be unable to participate in future events. When Christmas rolls around you have any number of methods to submit your gift. If your assignment has submissions open on their blog, you may simply submit the piece to their blog directly. You can also post it on your own blog and @ your assignment in the description. If you are using this method, please also send the post directly to them to ensure they don’t miss it. Remember to tag your posts as both #Danny Phantom and #Christmas Truce 2018.

If you need to contact your assignment, you may do so anonymously or by sending your questions to me at thickerthanectoplasm to be relayed to them. If at any time you feel as if you cannot continue participating in the Truce, please inform me immediately. The sooner I’m informed, the sooner I can find a backup to cover your assignment and ensure no one’s gift goes unfulfilled. Failure to deliver gift and communicate with me about it will result in a ban from further events, so please keep me updated.

And now let’s get to your assignment!

sarasanddollar asked for “1. My BSD x DP crossover! Here’s some stuff for it:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1iRNco-CH-iL4qeWeaqppcOzKgJA0rE5Saug2VpKB6_4/edit?usp=sharing

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mmqAb_TI9pnDpd_-aBSxR6__1Y-7OqGXs7fT3bWhR7U/edit?usp=sharing

http://dazaaaai.tumblr.com/post/160553872665/sandy-sketches-dannymay-2017-day-eleven-gray

http://dazaaaai.tumblr.com/post/166358527190/hes-gotta-catch-em-all-cuz-hes-see-my-other

http://dazaaaai.tumblr.com/post/173835208720/phanniemay-2018-day-ten-crossover-and-sometimes

2. My ghostsona!! Interacting in a cute way with Danny is great but I don’t mind solo either :>

https://sandy-sketches.tumblr.com/post/155394303390/few-folks-on-the-phandom-slack-chat-convinced-me

https://sandy-sketches.tumblr.com/post/164779971460/a-birthday-gift-to-danny-phantastic-with-our

https://sandy-sketches.tumblr.com/post/160730678610/dannymay-2017-day-fourteen-dragon-castle

https://sandy-sketches.tumblr.com/post/174062357810/phanniemay-2018-day-seventeen-royalty-lets

https://sandy-sketches.tumblr.com/post/177269395255/solocup-lomein-its-us-hap-birf-commissions

3. Danny interacting with my ripoff of him, Teddy Shadow? He’s got a tag on my art blog https://sandy-sketches.tumblr.com/tagged/teddy but idk how organized or easy to understand the info snippets about him are SO if you need anything feel free to send me an anon baby!!!

4. Mer!Danny :D

5. Prince!Danny is great, but not Ghost King AU ok

6. NICKTOONS UNITE!!! Something cutesy Christmas themed

7. Detentionaire crossover. No specifics, knock yourself out!

8. If you’re a Slacker… Then something related to stuff we did there is ok hand emoji you know what I like

Whatever you choose, NO ANGST! Fluff or silly stuff only ^^ and no ships (unless you’re shipping Danny with me askljf I’m so sorry I haven’t grown out of that yet, will try again next year… If you don’t mind that kind of thing then you can find stuff for that at https://sandy-sketches.tumblr.com/tagged/pink+ghost)”

If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to message me. Thank you, and Happy Holidays!

Merry Christmas @sarasanddollar, here is your DP Christmas Truce 2018 gift.

I made a BSD X Dententionare X Nicktoon Unite crossover with Teddy Shadow. Plus Danny is the Prince of Christmas Holiday spirits!

#Danny Phantom #Christmas Truce 2018 #submission

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pawnshopsouls · 6 years

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//Wow I’m feeling really down in the mouth today/tonight. Like really down in the mouth. So um, I’m going to put down some thoughts that have been really bothering me so that maybe I can lift some of this melancholy and get some decent sleep.

//Ok, so um, first are some things which are a bit more personal.

//So on the advice of a friend, I’m going to give you guys a heads up on what’s going on with me and why I haven’t completed any of of the commissions still in my commissions folder, done anything much outside of pencil doodles, and been generally inactive except for MAYBE some rp stuff on @pawnshopsouls if I’m having a good day.

//Basically, pain, finances, stress, and what’s been feeling like crippling depression.

//I have each one of my commissions in my commissions folder but have been unable to focus on them due to:

being in quarantine bc of bedbugs the last couple months (which is like, 90% isolation with the other 10% being trips to the store or parks with the kids bc we can’t interact with friends in our church ward without a house-hold inspection to make sure we don’t spread bedbugs),

having to share 1 graphics tablet with 2 sisters (bc the other two broke) thus limiting my access to my usual digital art mediums,

dealing with a resurgence of my RSI,

trying to convince myself that no, what I do and have done on this blog ISN’T a waste of time, that my work IS worth paying for, that I’m NOT cheating people just because it takes me longer to finish pieces due to said circumstances above, and that I am worth something even though I’m not as fast or as skilled as many others around me,

and dealing with the loss of our internet due to how expensive it was getting and are now using our phone data to make hotspots which means gappy wifi & digital isolation on top of rl isolation.

//With this in mind, I’m pretty sure I’m actually in a load of emotional distress that I’ve been suppressing or disregarding in favor of attempted productivity. I think right now it’s to the point where I often don’t recognize or take heed of this distress until it’s extreme enough that I can’t physically function because it’s so paralyzingly powerful. ( I often try to nap it off, which usually works but only for a few hours).

//This is also probably why I’ve been so hyper focused on Salem and Bonely - specifically drawing those two since doing so is comfort for me. I also feel guilt at feeling not-so-good even though I’m not in as bad a situation as many others.

//Suffice it to say, I’m in a lot of pain (physical due to my aggravated RSI + mental/emotional due to everything else) and am still trying to figure a way to fix it that doesn’t include more personal isolation.

//Now to the less personal issues - I’m not sure what to do with/how to handle the toon bros and how to interact with other toon characters. Despite asks and prompts being key to developing character relations, I’ve never been good at sending random asks that weren’t part of an ask/rp prompt (god bless those things). Anything I come up with end up like small-talk and honestly, anything small-talk related is a STEEP shortcoming of mine. I can’t small-talk and I struggle with talking to others unless I have something I think is significant or somehow relevant to a post, rp or previous conversation.

//Because of this, I’m not sure now how to approach other toon ocs rn - especially with the Cuphead hype dying down & toon ocs becoming their own things, thus removing the common relevant factor between our characters: Cuphead’s Inkwell Isle. The biggest reason this is a problem for me is that unlike Canon!bros who can end up anywhere any time thanks to Bonly’s Jumper’s Gyro, the Toon!bros don’t have that luxury and their setting isn’t static.

//So I guess it’s a matter of, “Do I keep them in Inkwell? Or do I move them back to Limbo Town in Soulstice? or will it matter since those settings won’t mesh anyways with the ocs I want to reach out to?” Idk guys, i’m really struggling here. Though the option of making Sal’s cemetery (bc he’s still a grave digger guys. It’s the base for his whole character design here) and Bonely’s loan office locations nebulous/unstated is very tempting since it would mean the office could legit be anywhere and available to anyone.

//I’m still debating on what I should do so if any of you have any thoughts on that, I’d appreciate them.

//anyway, thanks for reading this far and sorry if I got you down with this.

#¢::Passin'Gossip::¢#ooc #¢::OutOfSpooks::¢#//feeling down in the mouth #personal #//vent I guess? Just some stuff #//but yeh this is why I'm so spotty

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dejinyucu · 6 years

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2017 summary!

Hi, I’ve been busy :’) Here’s the 2017 compilation with my fav personal art I did each month :) ...which is mostly just a bunch of Tales of Zestiria and NieR:Automata stuff xD I’m happy I managed to have personal stuff each month this year! 2016 was mostly work and more work until I said screw it and ... stopped working “Orz. I’m tempted to do my fav work or project piece of every month, but I already spent enough time on this one x’D

Art goals for 2018:

FINISH MY PROJECTS, DAMMIT. Do more traditional art on my free time. >> 2016 compilation <<

Month-to-month insight and personal life musings about the year under the cut. Warning: It’s long, and everything is pretty much a bummer, so if you’re feeling bummed yourself, it’s be a better idea to go watch puppy videos than to read this xD

I did count the number of files from procrastidoodles, finished pieces, project stuff and paid work/commissions I had for each month saved on my computer and excluded the duplicates. They painted a pretty good picture of my mood and my mental state along the year, I think. I drew 240+ procrastidoodles this year! (again mostly Zesty and NieR lol) Most of them were done while burned out, during months after I tried to get a lot of work done :’) I spam most of them on my twitter nowadays. I keep forgetting to upload stuff over here and for that I apologize “Orz. January was a very productive month for me in general, while February was a burned out month (lots of procrastidoodling, very little of anything else... including work.) I was still obsessed with Zesty during Jan/Feb.The anime iirc was still airing back then and I was still trying to be sociable in the fandom. March started my descent into NieR:Automata hell xD It was also another “try to get a ton of shit done!” month, because NaNoRenO; I had a death wish and decided I could handle paid work and THREE personal projects at the same time. Ha. Hahahaha. =_= (spoiler: that didn’t work.)

April was the heavy burnout month after that. Actually I didn’t do that much procrastidoodling this month and I was in general pretty dead... idk how I managed to get 2 finished pieces done at all O_o; Maybe my procrastidoodling energy was channeled into them somehow...? May was when I threw the towel, decided to take a full break from work and projects, opened commissions and just did whatever I wanted. The Soremiku piece I picked for May was a collab with @alassetasartir, she did the lines and I did the coloring ^^ June was apparently watercolor month! Also very procrastidoodling-intensive. July and August where... bad. I did pretty much nothing and barely got out of bed to exist (I did 7 things in August. 7. In total. Across all my categories. “Orz). I did work on the Amusement park piece in July-August and that’s my favorite thing I did in 2017, though! And by the end of August, I moved to a new apartment! Where I FINALLY GOT A 2ND ROOM AND COULD HAVE A DESK ALL FOR MYSELF AND MY STUFF WITHOUT HAVING TO SHARE IT WITH THE BF!! ;O; I wanted that for 5 years, 5 YEARS!!! *wipes a happy tear*

September and October were “catching up with the work I’ve neglected this year” months. I didn’t get much done in terms of personal things, though, because... work.

November was WORK OR DIE. I did *a lot* of stuff. A lot. I churned out stuff for projects and work like woah. And personal stuff was close to 0. I have only 4 doodles saved from November on my folders, though I may have a couple more on twitter? I tend to screenshot my doodles, post them and not save them ^^; And December has been a summer-hot, slow, short mess of a month; I suspect burnout, bc I can barely draw shit right now... or do anything else, for that matter “Orz. I seriously need to buy an industrial fan for that awfully hot computer room or I won’t survive January =_=; (in case you don;t know, I live on the southern hemisphere, it’s summer here and it’s awful) As for art, I feel like I improved this year. I’m happy with with what I’ve been able to do and with what I’m able to do when I work hard! I managed to do personal stuff each month, even if it was mostly procrastidoodling, but still! :D I even did finished pieces almost once a month :) And I keep repeating it, but I’m extremely proud of my amusement park piece <3 <3 <3 ...But I’m also upset with how inconsistent I’ve been and still am when it comes to balancing all the shit I have to do and want to do ): Being productive, then burned out, then productive then burned out again has been my jam this year and it hasn’t been healthy at all “Orz.

As for life, it was... bleh. While 2016 was like a rollercoaster, with a lot of high-highs and crashing down lows, 2017 was just a looooong low ride. I went from the social online person I had become in previous years to slowly being a hermit again because I managed to screw things up with some people while I was also, once again, pretty overwhelmed with everything I had on my plate. The depression and debt I was dragging from 2016 plus the burnout cycle kept doing their thing on my mental health, and losing friends and getting dumped didn’t really help; yay bad timing :/ (I deserved being dumped, though; I was neglectful af and bad at communicating, so even if it was understandable bc my mental health was pretty crappy during late 2016-early 2017, it’s not an excuse.) I ended up with a lot of “what’s the point of getting out of bed today” days by the middle of the year. Moving to a new apartment with the BF helped improve a lot of things, though, and for that I’m very grateful! Also having a dog helps a lot, I may feel like a waste of space that can barely exist, but my dog needs to go outside for potty at least twice a day :’D Since then, I’ve been working towards a more balanced life, with more successes than failures, but still not quite there yet. I still have a few days peppered here and there where I feel heavy and sad and unable to get out of bed and I barely eat... but I try to not dwell on them for too long (speaking of which, I should shower and attempt to exist today... “Orz). When I look back and think of the highlights of this year, it’s all stuff that happened to other people around me. I just... kept struggling with my bad choices and poor mental health to pay the bills, pay my debts and don’t disappoint ppl. But such is life for a lot of folks, isn’t it? So let’s say... the positive highlights of this year were the new apartment and NieR:Automata xD Also @yunalescasakura , she’s been a sweetheart this year to me and I don’t deserve her. I believe everything will be better once I manage to finish my project stuff (450+ unpaid hours to go... :’DDD) and I can’t wait for the day that I’m finally free from that to start a new chapter. By this time next year I should be done with projects and will be able to get a better balance!! I JUST HAVE TO ENDURE ONE MORE YEAR!! >_</ What I’m looking forward in 2018, besides finishing all my shit, is to buy a pen display! I’ve been saving slowly for one! I can’t afford a Cintiq, but I’m eyeing an xp-pen 15.6 *v* I also want to try to do traditional art once a week, probably during the weekend... I seriously need a break from drawing on the computer all day, and watercolors and colored pencils relax me so much... I want to buy a good webcam eventually to livestream/record speedpaint videos of it, because I love watching videos of people doing traditional art, haha ^^; Hopefully, in 2018 there will be a couple of Visual Novels released with my art, not counting my own stuff. I’ll also be resuming work on CDC: SideB as a hired artist this time around, since I can’t find the time at all to work on it otherwise. I sincerely hope I’ll be able to find mental space to be sociable in 2018 again, I hate being a hermit “Orz. That’s my goal for 2018: Find balance, kill the burnout cycle and be sociable again!

If you managed to read all of this, thank you. Thanks for being around, thanks for the nice messages that some of you somehow still send me even when I’m barely around anymore. I hope in 2018 I can give back to you all a lot more than I was able to this year. May the new year in ahead of us be full of nice things for everyone!

#2017 summary of art #october 2017 #shut up deji #deji improves #my art #Deji draws stuff

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shadowsong26fic · 7 years

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Coming Attractions!

No, I did not forget to do this! ...exactly...

I am super late again this month—buuuut I wanted to wait until I’d posted the delayed Precipice chapter, so.

Fanfic:

Precipice:

Sorry, sorry, sorry for all the delays in the last couple of updates—the last two weekends were super-busy, and then last week ended up being slammed at work and my brain just went pfft. Anyway, there will be another update this week/weekend (probably Rex and Leia), and I’ll hopefully meander back on schedule after that.

And I finally finished Commander! \o/ It was a fun arc. I’m very fond of that arc. But…yeah, it’s a long one, particularly given that very little in-story time passes. (Seventeen chapters to cover one very eventful week…)

So, yeah. Lessons is going to be a much quieter arc, something along the lines of Homecoming in terms of content/pacing. Resetting ourselves, establishing our new patterns, etc. Leia starts getting trained, Luke starts helping Mamma at work more, and bonding with Lavinia/actively being the human ray of sunshine he is. Probably Winter will turn up, too. I’m going to try and focus more on the Coruscant/Imperial Center thread this arc, particularly since Commander was so heavily about our Jedi friends…anyway, I’m guessing this will be a relatively short arc (8 or 9 chapters), and not much Drama/not very Plot-heavy. Other than Infernalis introducing himself. (He’s a lot of fun—there’s a bit I have half written where he’s all “yeah, I know Sidious is using me, but a) that’s what sentients do; we use each other and b) I’m using him too and c) I get to do ALL THIS AWESOME SHIT. So I kinda feel like it’s worth it.” Like…I don’t write unapologetic/Always Chaotic Evil/for the LULZ villains very often, but Infernalis is in that mold.)

Also! As of this Thursday, I will have officially been posting this behemoth for a whole entire year. I’m going to do a bonus fic (I’ll probably put up a prompt call post later tonight or tomorrow), and I’m hoping to commission art as well, either a full cover or one or more arc covers (for completed arc(s)). [Eventually, I probably will want ALL of the covers (i.e., main title/all planned arcs); but that’s a long range project because lol budget.]

ANYWAY if you have any specific requests for bonus fic and/or are interested in getting paid to draw pretty things/know someone who does this kind of thing and is open for commissions (since I do not know how to draw pretty things), let me know!

Distaff:

I FINALLY CONQUERED THE OPERA HOUSE \o/ ::throws confetti::

...heh.

Anyway, yeah. So, that’s moving again! Next chapter should not take nearly five months to come out, as it’s a lot less…mmmm…I’m trying to figure out how to word it. The Opera House was hard, because—look, it’s kind of dumb; Anakin is being really really dumb, we make fun of that scene for a reason, but it’s also one of if not the most important scenes in this entire arc? In terms of what Palpatine’s trying to do, I would argue that it’s even more of a key moment than the final revelation in his office some indeterminate time later, after Grievous is killed. Or, at least, it’s a bigger risk—once he gets Anakin past this point, the next one will come much easier.

Plus, you know, having to figure out an alternative Sith Legend™ to throw at her, since Plagueis doesn’t really apply. And Palps’s hand, so to speak, isn’t quite as strong as it is in canon (but, I mean, we’re talking if canon was, like, a straight flush, in Distaff he’s playing four of a kind or a full house; so still almost certainly a win). So there’s all of those factors to consider, too. (Also, it was his POV, which is…a fun headspace to get in, let me tell you, internet. Although whining about that at my ever-patient roommates did lead to me nicknaming him Skeev Palpatine which honestly I’m surprised I hadn’t thought of sooner.)

Buuuuuuut anyway. I make no promises for exactly when the next chapter will be out, but it definitely won’t take quite so long. Should be sometime this month. Fingers crossed, anyhow.

Masks:

…blaaaaaaaaaaaah. I don’t want it to die. I really don’t. On the other hand, I’ve got a whole lot of other projects ongoing, plus RL and all, plus I’m still having trouble getting into ANH!Vader’s head, so…ehhh, IDK. Essentially, I’ve decided that this is really super back-burner for the time being. Possibly I’ll do it in AU Outline form at some point, if I don’t manage a proper update, but for now, it’s on a vaguely-defined “if my brain cooperates” hiatus. I am (probably) locking canon for it as of TFA (meaning it won’t be as much of an In Spite of a Nail AU past that; and more just an…AU AU, if that makes sense?), though, because I like the plot I have. Though I reserve the right to change my mind on that after TLJ. Anyway, I’ll probably stop talking about this one (unless I use one of the spinoff versions of it as an AU Outline or something) until I actually write/post more.

Auxiliaries:

Update will be up very soon! Not a direct continuation of the last bit I posted, because I’m still working on that, but still something! (Ahsoka is involved because I love her.)

AU Outline:

…yeah, I dropped the ball on this one again. It was going to be the Mask of Zorro/California Gold Rush AU No One One Person Asked For, but I need to sit down and watch Zorro again to put that together, and I haven’t gotten around to that. Also, Ventress and her Tiny Time-Travelling Conscience were speaking to me. …well, less them and another thread of that same AU, plus a couple unrelated AUs... Anyway, I’m going to try and put something up sometime in the next couple days. It’ll probably be the continuation of the Ventress and Luke one but we shall see.

Original fic:

…yeah, I didn’t actually write any this month, lol. I’ll do better in October.

Miscellaneous Other Things:

[In a generic list format because why not]

- Epic Crossover RP OF DOOM! I’ll keep posting snippets from time to time, because it entertains me. And my RP partner and I think we’re funny/clever.

- NaNo is coming up next month! I’m probably going to do the same thing I did last year—set myself an ambitious Total Word Count goal for the month, rather than focusing on a single project. Possibly give myself a list of projects to choose from; probably set a minimum amount that must be on original work/not fanfic. More on that when we actually get close, probably.

- I’ll probably do another Open Question Night sometime halfway through the month, because those are always fun.

- …should I do something Special for Halloween? (Like I did holiday bonus fics for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day?) If I did, what would y’all want to see?

Goal Lists:

September Recap:

1. Keep up with Precipice updates.--not so much

2. Opera House.--FINALLY \o/

3. Another Auxiliaries snippet--missed

4. Work on Masks--missed

5. Another crack outline--missed

6. Update Lux and Farglass Cycle archives--someday I will actually do this

7. At least 5k on projects that are not Precipice--not quite, but I think between half-finished snippets and 3k worth of Distaff text I churned out, I got to like 4k or so?

8. At least 15k total on any/all projects--Not quite, no.

9. At least two pieces to Rainbowfic.--Nope.

10. Put some text down on something publishable.--Nope.

October Goals:

1. Keep up with Precipice updates.

2. Update Distaff.

3. Update <i>Auxiliaries.</i>

4. AU Outline--Mask of Zorro fusion and/or continuation of the Ventress one unless something New and Exciting comes up.

5. At least two pieces to RF.

6. Update the Lux and Feredar archives.

8. Write at least 15k total, at least 5k must not be Precipice

9. Write at least 10k on Precipice (bonus fic counts, meta/answered asks do not)

10. Put some text down on something publishable

#coming attractions #miscellania #shadowsong writes star wars #shadowsong writes crossovers #shadowsong cowrites stuff #shadowsong writes original fic #shadowsong26fic

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icantw84it · 5 years

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Acquired Savant or TBI leading to Talents

Who is icantw84it and how did he come about…….

Hello, My name is Scott Mele. I was in a wreck 3.5 years ago. I was hit at 70mph from behind which split my head open and gave me a concussion that went untreated. No scans were made at the hospital I was sent home after 5 hours of waiting in the ER to get 11 staples. Best part, prior to the wreck I couldn’t Draw or Paint but after I could paint Portraits and even Spray paint murals.

Before all of that, I met the woman of my dreams. Unlike anything I ever felt for anyone, instantly I was taken by her, and she felt the same. TBH she was actually on her way to get the last of her things and move back to WV, when we met. We were together for about a month…she need to go back home to get somethings from West Virginia. Where her mom and friends lived. She had so much anxiety from trying to leave she couldn’t make herself leave. She called me on the day of my wreck, prior to…. to let me know she wasn’t coming back…..Trust me no one ever says they want to live in WV. Jk I am sure its beautiful.

It was pouring down rain and I shouldn’t have left. I was driving slow like everyone else, but it was coming down so hard. My car instantly turned side ways, and just like that, I was facing the wall. Now, I had been driving rear wheel vehicles my whole life. This had never happened, not instantly! I gained control of the vehicle but it stalled out. Everyone stopped. I looked to make sure behind me. I didn’t hit anyone Thank god! I put it in gear and hit the start button. Bang!

About a mile back at the exact same time, a guy swerved 4 lanes of traffic at 70 mph and saw the last lane was stopped swerved back lost control and like a missile shot into my car.

Brooke, that’s her name, she drove 5 hours to come take care of me. She spent 2 weeks with me and then had to leave to go back to work. At this point I had not really noticed anything. Two weeks later she was coming back to be with me for a few days, then head back to WV to get the rest of her things. She came back stayed for one night and left for WV. That’s right, she did it again. I was devastated.

I am not sure if it was this moment or the wreck or both. But from here I can feel myself splitting in two. I woke up one day and it was like I didn’t associate with anything in my life……. “Why am I staying in this luxury apartment.” “Why are my bills ridiculous?” ” I don’t want to work with these people or even be associated.” I was a car sales manager and a very successful one. I didn’t want this life. I felt trapt and alone. I didn’t know who I was or what I wanted anymore. Which made me feel even more trapt and alone. Everyday I would disassociate myself with another part of my life. I use to work out twice a day. I LOVED IT! I remember saying I don’t want to waste my time with that. I was a douchebag. Maybe part of me still is mostly in part from the intense feeling of not wanting to be alone and doing what I had to, to feel someone next to me. I wasn’t ugly and I was a great salesman. A very avid Online Dater and was always keen on finding niches and solutions to problems. So I milked an online website for as many dates as I could until I got tired of one night stands. But I digress….

I had so much anxiety from being in my life that I had to find a way to express myself. One day while in Marshalls(Popular Home crafts store) with my kids, I bought $400 worth of art supplies. That Night I started Painting. Granted, before this I couldn’t draw or paint. My dad painted Bob Ross style when i was a kid but I hated it. I would run when the show came on. I did take 4 years of art when I was in HS but everyone did. I hated everything I drew. I think I even have a drawing book from back then which I am embarrassed over. I doodled in Highschool because I had ADD and that’s what I did. It helped me pass because I believe it kept my brain active while I digested part of what was being taught.

Anyways, When I finished my first painting that night…..It was the first time in 4 months where I felt like I recognized a part of me. Something clicked for the first time. I became hooked, and started painting everynight from 9pm-4am in the morning and going back to work at 9am in the morning. I did this for 9 months.So not only was I splitting in two feeling depressed, alone, confused as to who I was, Anxiety from being trapt in my life, heart broken, angry , Disassociated, and drew away from being with people, I also added lack of proper sleep to the list.

So, I wasn’t painting like someone who just started painting. I was painting bodys and forms expressing emotions. However, I needed a challenge and I started painting Portraits. About 6 months in, I got bored of pumping paintings out every night start to finish. . My small canvas was 48in by 24in. Which is larger than scale. Not only could I paint portraits I could draw them. Where as before I couldn’t draw something that looked appealing by any means. When I did my first Portrait with flesh tones I nailed it. Something happened during the wreck its like I took on an artists life. I don’t even know what I am doing when i am doing it. I just do it and if I mess up I bounce off it instinctively like I had always done it.

The painting was the only thing keeping me somewhat functional. I needed it like it was a drug. I eventually found a way to leave my job and do art full time. Which was beyond dumb, but I couldn’t keep my focus in the dealership while I was there and I was losing positions like soccer player in the world cup who cant stop fighting. I wanted out. So I found a way out.

I was surviving on my art alone for a good 6 months…Until I got into another wreck. Same hit from behind at 20mph faster than what I was going. My body locked up and I stopped working out so I was 15lbs lighter. I through one of my hips out of whack by 3/4 inch. My muscles were inflamed all around it and were hard as rocks 24 hours a day. I was passing out every 4 hours. I had no insurance and no money. I couldn’t work a regular job. I became even more depressed. I couldn’t keep my apartment that was feeding me all my commissions. I had to leave Raleigh NC, my hot spot. This is where it gets real dark. I remember feeling so lost and calculating the amount of time I had left and what I could do to stay. Before this I never worried about money. I was alone without help. No one really knew what was going on with me. I didn’t go to a doctor for my brain injury. I still haven’t. I was afraid I would lose my ability to paint. IDK So no one really took my accident seriously because I never talked about it. The only people who knew were my fans on instagram. I lost the one thing that was keeping me sane. My ability to do art whenever I wanted. I moved to a smaller town and attempted to make it there. At this point my credit was garbage, i had to leave my apartment so I couldn’t get a place of my own. I found a house with two bedrooms and I converted one of the rooms into a paint room. But without constant conversations about my art it didn’t matter.I was behind on my child support. I was even told that I needed to come up with $800 by next month or I was going to jail. Even though I was passing out every 4 hours. I lost everything and I could barely keep myself fed.

I started making calls to break Timeshare contracts over the phone. This saved me financially while the leads were good. Then I went on the road to do it in person in different cities. The hours were easy and predictable so I could work around them.

I finally got help from a pain specialist. She looked at me and knew exactly whats wrong with me. She fixed about 90% of me. I still have some lingering issues like fatigue and exhaustion after extreme exertion in short bursts. All things I can hopefully fix. So back to painting…..

So great i can paint portraits who cares. Two years after the wreck during the time I was breaking Timeshares, I got bored with portraits and needed a challenge again. I picked up a spray can, mind you I never liked graffiti or even cared for it. I thought murals were pretty but never even really noticed. I never even drew a graffiti piece. I picked up a can and did a graffiti piece on the side of a building that said for lease. 4 colors blended with a bubble and not bad at all using cheap spray paints from walmart. Then a 8 ft tall crushed coke can. nailed it. Then a guy drove by and asked me to do something for him in his gym. I sprayed a 10ft by 30ft Graffiti piece that said The Dungeon, for his gym where he had 40 people work out in front of on the daily. Huge for someone just starting out. but nailed it. By this time I had been spraying for a total of 10 days. I told the building owner that I was ready to paint my mural. He asked, ” have you ever done one before?” No, but I got this!

In 10 days I spray painted a 50ft by 50 ft tall mural on the side of a building.This was the first time I painted about Brooke and the wreck….Honestly I picked some photos of random things built up a story in my head and painted it. When I was done I realized it was Brooke and I painted about where I met her and overcoming adversity by using Koi fish. Which before I researched it I had no clue that’s what it meant.

Subconsciously, I was telling myself to get over it I guess. It felt like a huge weight was lifted off my shoulders and I felt like a big piece of me was healed. For the first time I was able to think about Brooke without feeling extreme emotions… I felt I was going to be able to paint murals for my living but realized that my location, bills, timing, were all working against me. I had to make a choice to support myself and make myself not feel like I was going to be homeless everyday, or continue fighting for something that I wasn’t sure I could do for very long without any support. After almost being homeless 3 times during this period I decided to go back to car sales.

Today I sit in a car dealership and I bite my tongue about the leads and the traffic and opportunities and remain grateful I have a job. After a year of not painting I finally picked a model on instagram to paint and have been painting her on a 89in by 72 in Canvas. I can only give 2 hours at a time to it. And I haven’t lost any of my ability to paint. I can’t commit to it like I did because that would mean going back down that rabbit hole

I fought so hard to get out of. But I give what I can to it and then try to appease the other side of me by sustaining my lame but stable Car salesman position in a small dealership. I say this because of my other sides I have ruined my opportunities in other dealerships by wanting more power, control, leads because of my previous experience and knowing I can do more and make more if I had those things.

To the best of my knowledge its like having a revolving glass door of personality strengths, and depending on the situation and what I am doing that side is more prominent and in control or acting and making decisions:

One side of me is a salesman, a damn good salesman that thrives on Power and Control and financial gain.

Another side of me is the Artist that is Content with just being alone and Creative. Getting lost in my work and not being social. Still desiring the need to see people but not really wanting to be a part of a group.

The last side is the side of me that wants to do nothing but loathe on my self pity and depression, play video games to distract myself and not accomplish anything. He can’t remember to do things. Constantly distracted worthless in almost every way to the other two sides of me. I think collectively we all hate him even he hates him. Which I have identified and am trying to change.

No, I don’t black out when one side takes over. So maybe its not Multiple Personalities. Yes, I remember everything. All I know is that its confusing when I try to decide who I am and what I want to do for the rest of my life because its a constant tug of war. When I am selling I want to be with people and spend money, find girls I want to succeed and have control. When I am painting I want to be alone and lost in my art for ever not caring about anything else. When I am not doing either of those and not on adderall, I want to play video games and be left alone dwelling on my life and what I lost.

By writing that I understand that I haven’t made much progress. But to be honest and for you to see the full spectrum of things I had to say it. I take adderall because I hate being him. I had been taking adderall before the wreck so those two personality conflicts were preexisting. I remember calling him the other guy. Or I would mention that the Other guy would leave adderall lying around the apartment in different places each time. And while I am working on a painting and get stumped or frustrated with my thought process I would sigh and as I am exhaling I would be in plain view of an adderall that the other guy left for me. Genius! lol

Anyways. This is a detailed snippet of my last three years after my wreck. Outside of hating myself the only other thing all three of me share, is the desire to want to find someone that understands me and to be with.

I think we all want to get my story out now, and find a way to make it known. Its inspiring for some reason. I don’t know why, but I do love when people feel inspired to do something they have been afraid to do. Or to take another shot at life.

Has my experience been for the better. I don’t know it depends on who you ask of the three. I did gain the ability to paint and pick up styles of art I haven’t been exposed to over night.

Why did I write this…..I figured it would help someone in their research, maybe it will lead to shedding some light on my situation, help me in some way. IDK, but I find that every time I tell my story it helps with my anxiety.

Thank you for reading.

Sorry if it was all over the place. My grammar is horrible and I haven’t really had a chance to sit down and proof this, so again…. I apologize.

-icantw84it

This is a link to my art.

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in-the-midst-of-everything · 6 years

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I haven't journalled in awhile, I've rambled a lot but haven't tagged any for journals since like january...so here's a catchup post.

Ummm money's gotten better, between commissions and Sharon agreeing to send a bit more pay for march, I've been doing alright. Also next to no spending, which has become almost 2nd nature so I'm gonna make sure to carry the habit into spring and summer. Cuz the way I figure I'll have plenty for bills n rent, enough to stash in savings every month plus what I make on landscaping side jobs and art commissions, AND anything I make from the garden walk. So I have no excuse to not save up.

Art has been getting better for me, I finally finished Dianes drawings and she absolutely loved them and shared them on Facebook to an enthusiastic crowd. Chris commissioned me a $90 piece with an actual due date, so I NEED to plan my time better and finish that in the next couple weeks, as well as finish up Carlys pic of Quincey. Which I'm actually making good progress on, in fact I plan on having it done before or during this weekend.

I'm actually behind on a few things this week, considering I meticulously planned every day to the max. Sharon pushed back the start date for me from April 4 to the 17th, which is a small hit on my money situation but gives me more time to catch up on things. Cuz again, I'm behind, on the drawings, on spring cleaning week, and on cleaning the fish tanks. All cuz of a 2 day winter storm starting yesterday! 12 inches in 48 hours! God i was pissed. Like yeah, it's some more extra money, but it threw everything outta place cuz I spent all day yesterday after donating plasma shoveling wet, heavy snow. I'm still so fucking sore today, and I had to go back to all of them cuz it was snowing overnight. Hope helped me out at least, so I didn't actually kill myself by overexertion, but damn i lost a lot of time. I was fucking exhausted last night and couldn't keep my eyes open past 10:30. Today I at lest got a good chunk of Quincey's pic done in an hour, plus got the rough sketch for Chris's dogs almost done. I'm giving myself the 15th as .you deadline, and I'm gonna keep to it and exercise my time management with these 2 pieces.

Oh what else.

Um. Easter was ok. Aunt Tam has been fucking unbearable lately (i.e. the past 2 years) and she caused a scene at gramma's. But food was great and the rest of the family was pretty ok. Holidays seem to be getting easier.

Oh the fucking "friends" I yelled about a couple weeks ago kinda...drifted? Idk what I left off on when I botched about them last, but we had a rocky apology convo and I asserted that I need my space and she begged for a 2nd chance and promised not to be clingy. Which I guess she took to the extreme and literally never messaged except an occasional "Hey" to initiate boring bland small talk. And when I tried talking first I barely got any response, they talked about how they're moving up to wausau and wanted to see me before they left but never actually...planned anything...? Like I even said I'm off work that whole time, we'll have to figure a day. She said yeah. Nothing else. Then I got the message "tomorrow's the big day, wish we coulda seen you" and I'm like yeah? Me too?? And that was it. Nothing else. So I'm done. I don't even care enough anymore to try cuz it's exhausting either way. Whatever.

And, the last thing I forgot to mention, mom's taking Morgan and Carly and I up to Minneapolis this weekend for nine and Morgan's birthday, so I'm pretty stoked for that. I'm honestly excited to spend time with both my sisters and mom and I have been getting along pretty well as of late. I don't have the energy to be mad about past stuff or even the stamina to try to bring it up, so I guess I'm just making the best of our relationship right now. She obviously cares about me and wants me around so I'm not gonna fight it. And this'll be a good getaway and a refreshing time.

I think...that's it. Yeah. I should head to bed now after this long winded post. Gnight.

#journal #april 2018 #april 4 #ramblings

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sweet-popplio · 7 years

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It feels weird y’know? Growing up all your life being the artist in a small town. I’ve always been a negative person, seeing the glass as half full, the pessimist, heck, even family members and friends would point it out.

It’s a wonder that same pessimism spills into my art now. It didn’t always, but now I feel it in every stroke. Like I've lost the love for it and it feels almost robotic to put color or a line on a page. And I can tell my art has not life in it right now. Every time I look at what I’ve made lately it just feels fake. It’s forced and lifeless. Every line looks stiff, every character seems to lack any kind of life.

And I just lay in bed wishing it could be like when i was in middle school or high school. When I drew and it made me happy. It helped with my boredom and I got to make stories and characters! No matter how shitty people would be, I could turn to art to make me feel better.

But now that joy is gone. I can’t seem to draw my own characters anymore without feeling guilty that I should be doing something else. I feel like I’m only allowed to draw fan art anymore because it’s the only thing that seems to get me noticed. And while I do love shows and movie characters, it becomes monotonous after a while. Rather than drawing it because I love the show and the characters, I feel like I have to draw them in order to get any kind of notice or recognition. Especially at conventions where fan art is what sells. I’ve made original pieces to sell at conventions before but I’m lucky if I even sell one of them at a show.

I wish this feeling of guilt would leave. Any time I take away to try and draw something for myself or read a book... I find I can no longer concentrate on them. I get the intense feeling that if it doesn’t make me money in some way, then why am I wasting my time? I feel guilty after playing video games too. So I end up just laying in bed not having the motivation to work on fan art for conventions and feeling too guilty about doing something fun for myself. I can’t seem to enjoy myself which I think is why I no longer feel satisfaction with whatever I’m doing. Finishing a print no longer gives me the feeling of accomplishment.

And this has been what I’ve been struggling with since I graduated from art school. Art is no longer something I can derive joy from, it can only be work that makes me money.

With putting up commissions, starting up a patreon and putting all the artwork into those to make them look nice... only to have no one interested... it feels like shit. And I don’t WANT to make some kind of post begging for money. I don’t want people to pity commission me. I want people to commission me because they like my art and feel the price is worth it. Because I do work hard on them! And I priced them at minimum wage according to how long it took me to make the examples.

People reblogging and liking the post is... nice. But when I get no interest whatsoever it really kills me. And I’m trying to think of it as everyone is in a tight spot money wise. I shouldn’t expect everyone to be in the market to buy commissions. But everyday when I see a notification in my inbox and hoping that it is a commission order... and instead it’s junkmail? I die a little inside.

It’s like my whole life is a disappointment and I’m the biggest disappointment of them all. After I got fired back in January I thought I’d give art another try. I wanted to try making it my living. And I started out strong and surprisingly optimistic! I tried to make something everyday and I put together my patreon! But as weeks went by and it felt like no one cared, I suddenly just... stopped.

I just keep crying thinking about it. I lay awake just WISHING that I could love drawing again, but it’s hard when I have no income and it feels like everything I make has to make me money. I grew up wanting to make art my job, because I thought it meant I could draw what I wanted and then ended up severely disappointed when that wasn’t the case.

And even my therapist asked me “has there ever been anything else you wanted to do job wise?” and other than be an astronaut for a grand total of a year in elementary school... I haven’t. Because art made me happy, and I saw it as my calling in life. Everything else seemed boring in comparison.

So now I feel like I’m stuck in a grey area, fighting to keep out of the dark but never making it to the light. Just TRYING to stay relatively functional. Every now and then I will experience a brief moment of happiness, but then it’s like as soon as it is gone I’m just left in my own self loathing. Any moment I’m not with a friend... I feel utterly alone in every sense of the word. It feels almost crushing sometimes.

And I’ll start wishing I had someone but then my brain will remind me that I’m unlovable. I’m too negative, fat, either clingy or distant, I’m not all that pretty either. I never understood what the 3 people who asked me out saw in me. It just didn’t make sense. What would ANYONE see in me other than a facade? Because they really didn’t know me, I feel like if they did they would have changed their minds. And the first guy that I agreed to go out with? I didn’t even like him. I only dated him because I thought I would never have anyone interested in me ever again. And the entire time I dated him I felt like a fraud. I felt like I had somehow fooled him into liking me. Because I don’t even like me.

My therapist is trying to have me see myself as my own friend. Every time I say something negative about myself she wants me to imagine I’m saying it to a friend. But it doesn’t work because I can’t imagine it. I would never say any of the things i think about myself to my friends. But imagining myself as my own friend and saying it to myself is impossible. And trying to control a negative train of thought like that, that I’ve had since middle school? Elementary school? How do I even do that? I’ve been trying to go easier on myself but it feels like everyone around me expects me to turn into some kind of positive flower hippie over night.

And I know I’m supposed to reach out to people and ask if they want to hang out. But I feel guilty asking if they don’t initiate it first. Like me asking them feels like I’m guilting them into hanging out with me. So I’ve gotten into the habit of not asking. I feel like if they wanted to hang out they would ask me first. And if they don’t ask then I know that I’m not wanted. Everyone else has jobs and important things going on in their lives and I just lay in bed staring at the wall or sleeping all day.

I mean who would want to hang out with someone who is quiet and even when they aren’t quiet they are talking about negative things? I feel like a piece of shit anytime I message someone and it ends up being nothing but negative stuff spewing out my mouth. Like as soon as they ask how my day is and I say “okay” and then proceed it with depressing shit I’ve been feeling.

And now that the cold weather has passed and it’s warming up outside, I can no longer wear my hoodie without sweating like a pig. So I have to wear my t-shirts and I become very self conscious of my arms. Because they are chubby and covered in stretch marks. I would love to lose weight but it feels like every time I finally do lose a few pounds, I gain it back as soon as I feel extremely sad again. It makes me insanely jealous to see skinny friends getting to wear clothes they love because I know I can’t. You wanna know what hurts the most though? When fucking facebook does those “this photo was taken so and so years ago today” and lately it has been bringing up my photos from high school when I was on weight watchers. And even photos of when I first went to art school. I wasn’t exactly skinny but I was the skinniest I had ever been, I felt good about my appearance more often because I could actually wear a small or medium shirt that I loved and feel comfortable in my own skin. And seeing those photos makes me hate myself even more. Seeing myself 7 years younger and slimmer... then looking in the mirror and seeing all the weight I have gained... It makes me feel like shit. I went from 165 pounds to 245. And despite trying low calorie diets and “fat burning” diets... nothing seemed to work because I was too depressed to keep it up for long. And it’s hard to exercise when you are tired all the time and you can feel arthritis in your knees and fingers. Being out in public is hard when I can’t wear a hoodie or jacket, as if it can somehow hide the fat. At least people wouldn’t see the stretchmarks and cellulite in my arms, and I almost feel angry when I see friends getting to enjoy themselves and not feel like they are being judged for wearing a sleevless shirt. I envy that.

And I know this is a long post and there is no way in hell anyone else would read this, but god this has been on my mind a lot and it hurts a lot. All of it does. I’ve mentioned all of this to my therapist at one point or another but it’s all kind of the same. That I need to learn to be happy with myself. But how the fuck do you do that?

How can I feel good about myself when I would cut my hair in the past and people would say that it looks bad short because I no longer have the hair to “frame my face” by which they mean hide the fat in my face. How can I feel good about myself when I work hard for something like art only to feel no kind of positive reinforcement? No interest from anyone else? I know she has told me not to base my happiness on others but all I want is someone to care... and I mean really care. It’s nice when a friend reblogs my art, but when a stranger does? And leaves a comment? Like god it feels like even for a moment I have earned my right to live on earth.

I feel like in order for me to justify being alive I have to have the praise of others. If no one likes me or my art then what am I here for? Why do I deserve to exist if I am only tolerated? idk man....

I’m just blubbering and crying and wishing somehow everything could feel good again. Like even if I could just feel happy with my art again I feel like it would be okay to live.

#long post #personal

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