#technically a reference to a comic i drew and never posted

[mbat]

!! these were made using bases !! the bases will be linked below the cut!!

the cut is so the post isnt too long to scroll past, but also i will be talking about the au in it!!

decided to draw my own take on adult flurry heart, mostly so i could draw my own take on opaline in the au where opaline is like a nightmare moon of flurry heart. if youre wondering who the third pony is, its chrysalis' disguise for the au, named gentle heart.

flurry hearts base:

opalines bases (one for the body, the other was only for one of the wings):

gentle heart/chrysalis' base:

i had to use bases because ive been in such a weird art block lately, i just couldnt draw bodies right, but i was having this idea and i just had to get it out of me lol. i drew everything else just fine, idk why i couldnt draw bodies. shout out to elementbases on deviantart for having a lot of good mlp bases! and organized into categories no less!

btw for reference for adult flurry heart i mainly used images of her only adult appearance which was in some mobile game ?? i never played it but its real and its the only time we see her as an adult, though i dont think we get any details about her aside from how she looks. i just wanted to say that cause idk how many people know about it.

also yes her cutie mark is different between versions of her

so this is an au ive been tossing around for a while, especially since it started out as a half-theory i had about g5 before it truly did set in that they were just fucking up the entire thing (no hate to g5 or anyone who likes it but im personally just. disappointed), namely when they were like 'oh yeah opaline is just some alicorn that celestia and luna knew as kids and when they didnt want to play with her she held onto that for thousands of years and became evil over it'

also apparently the reason equestria is separated is because she just. idk whispered mean things in everyones ears? idk man i dont read the mlp comics, i plan to read g4s comics but not g5s. i didnt even know g5 had comics until i looked up why the pony kinds were separate.

anyway the idea was a theory because before all that we had no idea who opaline was, why there was some random alicorn, i mean, weve seen so few throughout g4! she was so mysterious for that, and i feel like the most popular idea was that she was flurry heart, since that was one of the few alicorns we knew of, and flurry is such a blank slate, especially since we dont technically ever see her adult form (with one exception)

i still personally think they shouldve gone that route but i know now that they wouldnt have, they probably wouldnt have wanted to give one of their previous characters, especially one like flurry, any bad traits or make her a villain, even though it would be such a cool idea. not to mention, they couldve redeemed her? idk man. worse villains have been redeemed lol

on to my au though. i wanted to keep it feeling like it couldve been canon but also stretching it just a little bit to make maybe more sense and also be more my creation, yknow?

we see at the end of g4 that chrysalis is trapped in stone alongside the other two villains she was working with, but we also know that these stone prisons can still be escaped, as we saw in discords introduction. my idea is that the stone is kept locked up, but unattended to, and she escapes, though her fellow villains dont. the specific details will be saved for if i go more in depth on all of this somewhere else lol

she develops a plan, that being to disguise herself as a normal pony, and to become staff at the crystal empire castle. that disguise is gentle heart, a name she literally made up because she was mocking the 'stupid' (from her perspective) names that ponies have, and she just kept it. while she works at the castle, she gets close to a young flurry heart.

she acts very extremely sickeningly nice and sweet in this disguise, but theres an uncanniness to it, a disingenuine undertone that is only noticeable when youre looking for it, really. flurry heart comes to love and trust her as a friend, and gentle heart isnt seen as suspicious to really anyone in the castle. people still think chrysalis is trapped in stone, after all.

her next step in the plan, however, is that when no one else is around, she shapeshifts herself into cadence or shining armor, and acts like a horrible parent to flurry heart. this creates a deep disconnect for flurry, as one moment her parents are the best ever, and the next they arent. if flurry tries to bring this up to them, they have no idea what shes talking about.

flurry begins to confide in gentle heart about this, and gentle heart begins to plant the idea in flurrys head that she should run away, and that gentle could run away with her. after a while of this, flurry finally decides to do this.

they run far, far away together, flurry being a child/young teenager, and they hide where no one else really goes, far from towns and pretty much any ponies. (this location hasnt been chosen yet but its not the mooost relevant? the basic point is that theyre hidden away) and they set up a home here.

soon in, gentle heart makes a decision. she shows her true form to flurry heart, a flurry heart who was never taught about how changelings used to be before their reformation, as her parents thought it was a conversation for when she was older. they didnt want her to feel paranoid, or scared. the changelings she knows are bright, and covered in generally round shapes. theyre not like the jagged and dark chrysalis.

gentle heart tells flurry that she was cursed. that her pony form is her true form, but she was cursed by the princesses to be in this form. being in her pony form drains her of energy, her changeling form recharges that energy. really, its just her excuse to not need to be in that pony form anymore. she tells flurry that she was cursed falsely, accused of a crime she did not commit. that she was made to work at the crystal castle so an eye could be kept on her. she asks to be called chrysalis, as being called gentle heart in this form feels wrong.

chrysalis right now is the only person in the world that flurry heart trusts, so she accepts this as truth.

as flurry heart grows up, chrysalis begins to plant ideas in her head that the other ponies are awful and horrible, just like her parents seemingly were. that flurry heart is better than all of them because shes not horrible, and on top of that, shes a natural alicorn. there hasnt been a natural born alicorn in thousands of years before her. flurry heart begins to believe all of this too. she doesnt have anyone or anything else to tell or show her otherwise.

these dark beliefs warp her appearance overtime, making her go from her parents daughter, into what we know as opaline, akin to princess luna turning into nightmare moon. she becomes annoyed with, averse to her cutesy name she was given by her family, and adopts the name opaline, both because of her crystal cutie mark, and because part of her still thinks of the crystal empire as her home, though now more like its hers to own someday.

speaking of, into her adulthood, opaline and chrysalis form a plan. a plan to take over equestria. the idea of being the ruler of all of pony kind was a natural conclusion that chrysalis wanted opaline to make, and so she did. their first step was to invade the crystal castle and take it over.

chrysalis tells her that cadence was never a fighter, so she shouldnt be an issue, but shining armor would be. if both chrysalis and opaline combined their power, they would easily overpower him and anyone else daring to fight them. the thing is... this works.

for a few reasons, actually. people were shocked at the return of chrysalis, and on top of that, despite her warped appearance, opaline was recognized as flurry heart. there isnt exactly many alicorns, and especially none that look similar to her. there was a fight put up, but not at full power. no one wanted to hurt the lost princess.

she takes over the empire, trapping any who oppose her, especially her parents. she doesnt even give them the option to talk to her. she plunges the empire back in dark days, not in the way that sombra did entirely, but still. shes strict on her subjects, and begins to make them like a military, planning to use them to invade canterlot. anyone who would dare come to attack the empire would be held off.

after she knows her subjects are loyal (terrified), and properly molded into an army, she storms canterlot, chrysalis by her side. its a hard fight, but they do it. they trap the other princesses, and they take over.

opalines first rule of business is to make the crystal empire the new capital, the new seat of power. for a while, this is the most drastic thing she does, otherwise going slow with her horrid ideas and changes.

the worse comes when shes already caused distrust and discomfort among ponykind, pitting ponies against eachother. she begins to decree that ponykind must be separated by type, designating towns to each, forcing ponies apart by law. she made sure it was enforced. she didnt need ponies coming together to rise against her, so she forced them apart. the damage is done.

this of course doesnt last forever. twilight is free and gathers the elements, and they take opaline by surprise, ending her reign. they empty the empire and trap her alone in her castle. thing is, she also trapped them in a limbo-like state, along with the other princesses (and her father), as they had also tried to join the fight. and a final blow to her, chrysalis got caught in crossfire, and was seemingly killed. no one intended it, but it happened. opaline is devastated.

and now, shes stuck. trapped alone in a castle in the middle of a city. she has the whole city alone to herself, and all she has now is the items left behind by her people, and mostly books. she only ever sees them as fiction or propaganda though, refusing to take them to heart and accept them as truth. alongside reading and re-reading the books around the city, she schemes of a way out. she is not very successful in this for a long time.

the closest she gets to getting out is when she opens the barrier just long enough to see, and kidnap, a young unicorn. a one misty brightdawn. she forces misty to be her only companion in a long time, and raises her like a daughter, but not lovingly.

some stuff continues on similar to canon, like misty befriending the mane 5 and leaving opaline behind, but i wont say more because i can keep some secrets for myself :] i do have an ending to her story planned though!

also pls ignore timeline and other canon contradictions pls pls pls pls pls lol

#my post #mlp #my little pony #flurry heart #opaline arcana #queen chrysalis #my art #in which i talk waaaaay too much LOL no one needs to read that i was just having a time ok <3

[chiocchi]

Chiocchi!

Big fan of your artistry. I love your art so much! And those graphic novels you have on ao3??? Heaven sent! I use them as an imagery reference if I read any similar trope haha!

I asked the same question to leafiloaf since I love them too, but I'll be very interested to know your artistic journey if you don't mind sharing. How did you start with your art?

Tysm for being in this fandom ❤️

youknowmevj! omg thank you so much! You're too kind 😭🥺❤️❤️❤️ And yess lots of love to leafiloaf

Thanks for the ask! I've never told anyone about it and I'm so excited I'll give you so much unnecessary context. Oops long post.

My artistic journey

I've enjoyed drawing since I was little, but mostly I just drew doodles in my notebook. Anime was a big inspiration for my style and I wanted to create digital illustrations too. When I was a teenager, I tried using a mouse and a PC, and my finger and some app on my phone, but the results were always terrible. I told myself it was because I didn't have a drawing tablet, so "of course my drawings will look ugly" and stopped trying.

However, I promised a discord friend that I would do a drawing for her in December 2020. So, I downloaded this app called "Ibis Paint" on my phone and, with all my effort despite my lack of ability, I drew Harry using the app and my finger jskldhfsa

I was so hesitant and nervous about showing it to her. I could tell it wasn't pretty, just "weird and awkward", and I felt embarrassed. But she told me it was good (LIES) and somehow convinced me to share it with others on the server. Despite feeling shy, I shared it anyway. To my surprise, three people told me it was pretty! I appreciated their kindness.

It wasn't until March 2021 that I returned to drawing digitally and on a more consistent basis. I was mainly doing fanart for a game that I liked.

In May or June (I can't remember exactly), I stumbled upon an artist who created incredible art using Ibis Paint. And I realized that I didn't need a drawing tablet, just more practice and skill, because if they could do it, then I could do it too! That was the moment I began taking art more seriously (still as a hobby, though!).

Due to the pandemic, I had a lot of free time, which I used to watch a lot of tutorials, practice gesture and follow the advice of artists I liked. With every drawing I made, I could see an improvement, which motivated me even more to keep on working hard (drawing became a source of comfort during those depressing times. It was just really fun).

In late 2021, I mentioned to a childhood friend that I wanted to buy a drawing tablet, and he asked me if I wanted his old one, which I excitedly accepted. Finally, I had the tool that would make my art incredible… or so I thought! I was terrible with it. For the first few months, I preferred Ibis paint and my finger. But I eventually got the hang of it! What I love the most are the multiple brushes and pressure settings. I'm such a hoarder, even if I don't use all of them ksklajdl.

In 2022, I participated in several bigbangs and zines, but what I'm most excited to talk about is the tomarry comic that I started.

My tomarrymort art

I've read tomarrymort fics since 2017, but I wasn't active on the fandom. In 2020, I joined a writer's server (all love to Amanda) and met the friend I mentioned earlier. So technically, you could say my love for tomarrymort lead me here kek

Even though my main inspiration was a game, here is some fic fanart I made.

This is my first tomarry art (July 27th, 2021). It's a scene from Genius by the Numbers. I think it looks weird kjdshk

I also made art for A Mating of Convenience, what started in beautiful rooms, Dripping Fingers and for Ale, beloved. (I think I've never posted these before.)

Then two things happened: I saw comic on ao3 (If I'll Ever See You by festivewind) and I was like "WOW! THAT'S SO COOL" and "omg we can upload comics!"

The second thing was me being rejected as a webtoon background artist (naturally, as I wasn't good enough for the specifics) and the spite made me want to do my own so I could improve my weakness (the grind never stops 💪🔥).

I read some of my old notes for story ideas (I'm not good at writing but I still had some snippets of stories). And boom! Love triangle but the 3 of them are idiots (affectionate). Fun fact: the original version had a murder, someone in Azkaban and someone hating the other forever :D

Don't pretend started as an anonymous work because some of my friends knew my AO3 username and I was afraid of screwing up the format (I don't know html) and looking like a fool DKJALKSJL I was also afraid of possible backlash (I'm an over-thinker).

None of that happened (comments were very kind and nice!) But idk, it was nice being anon. I'm awkward and shy and I usually don't know what to say to compliments (Sometimes a "thank you" doesn't feel enough but that's all my brain can offer 😭)

Then I made some tomarry christmas art and shared it on TRoR discord server and someone asked me if I had Tumblr and I said no but that gave me the idea of making one.

Since I planned Don't pretend as being a long story, I realized it'd take me a long time to finish it and I wanted to contribute to the complete tomarrymort works! That's the reason I took a pause and made A Soulmate Like You.

Anyway, I made this tumblr on January 2023, and the plan was to fill it with art so, eventually, when I found the courage to make my works non-anon, I could link to this page. Except that I posted one drawing, and that was enough for isalisewrites to know it was me HJKASDJLA. So I stopped the anonymous thing.

I'm still not used to being "perceived" 👁️👁️ but I've learned it's not bad. People have been really kind and I think I'm less shy now! I'm very happy to be part of this fandom with lots of kind and supportive people and incredible fics and fanart <3

#my art #art journey #art summary #asks #💕 #youknowmevj #personal

[milkovski]

hello can I ask how you got into drawing? it's something that i want to do for a long time but I don't know where to start 😔

hello!!!! this answer is going to get nerdy as hell look away. this is also going to be a lot of long, boring story time bc I like reminiscing abt this and i like talking and im painting a story of my journey!!!! but I will also try to give like semi-useful information at the end?? It's long so under the cut:

Thinking way way back to when i was a little kid doodling, the thing that got me most into it was manga/anime (i think this is evident in my style?). I think i was prob vaguely into drawing cuz of like, Sailor Moon, but I definitely remember the moment I REALLY got into drawing was when someone introduced me to Inuyasha (*fondly thinking of grade 2 elementary school*). I got obsessed with the manga, trying to redraw my fav scenes, eventually drawing the characters (well, just Kagome for the curious heehee) from memory. I did this for years. I got into other manga/anime and eventually started emulating those styles. I think the thing that must've really spurred me on, though, was finally being online and seeing what other people were drawing and being like, I want to be able to do that.

Reading a lot of manga is a lot easier online for obvious reasons; I consumed a lot. Meanwhile I continued looking at other artists' art. I got a tablet and drew. I really got into Smackjeeves (shout-out to anyone who remembers this site) and was super impressed that people were drawing their own characters and comics. I created my own characters (with the intention of drawing a comic someday. this will never happen but to this day I still draw and think/write about ocs I created like a decade ago!)!!! Eventually I found my own style. But obviously incorporated bits and pieces of what I liked/learned from other artists into my own art (i like the way this artist draws mouths, i like the way that artists renders eyes, let me try that. etc.). I really got into various pieces of media (which I won't name gasdfgd) and was really inspired to draw a lot of fanart, and post it to tumblr.

For various reasons I won't go into because they sound annoyingly self-deprecating, I never really had a lot of artist friends. But I joined twitter and finally made a few, and it was a lot easier to talk to people and be talked to on twitter (tags are so awesome I love reading every single one!! but it's much easier to reply to comments on twitter). they had cool ocs and cool art and like, for the first time ever people were commenting on my original art (which is a great feeling) and I spent a lot of time and effort developing ocs. Continued to get into various media and draw fanart.

Over the years, inevitably there have been times when I drew almost nothing at all (school kept me busy, or I just didn't feel like it) and stagnated or got worse. And there were times that I just like improved super quickly because I was drawing so much. And I was drawing so much because I was really inspired because I was so obsessed with whatever I was into at the time (whether that be a piece of media or my own ocs) and having fun.

So I hope the thread throughout this answer is at least somewhat clear. If your question is how to start drawing it's as simple as seeing something you like, picking up a pencil and trying to draw it. if your question is what's the fastest way to improve, draw as much as you can - it helps to find something you really, really like! You'll naturally want to draw a lot, and draw the subjects in all kinds of situations, and convey your ideas. Look at other peoples' art of the subjects. If you can, maybe find a few like-minded people. I can't give good advice about to how to get really technically good (I still can’t draw bgs, or very varied features, etc. Other people have said a million better things about it: do studies, etc. etc.) but like, being into something will essentially force you to search up references and get good at drawing various things. I used to be one of those people who drew characters with hands behind their back because I couldn't draw them. Then I became determined to draw them - looked at my own hands, practiced, looked at how other people drew hands. Now they're like my favourite thing to draw! I used to only draw individual characters facing 3/4 left lol - now I draw couples, etc. from different angles (or at least, I try to) because I wanted to draw my own ocs interacting, or characters I liked interacting. I got into various pieces of live action media, which forced me to try to translate real people features into my own style so the characters would be at least slightly recognizable.

There’s that one tweet that’s like “the best way to get better at drawing is to become some kind of pervert” <- so true.

I don’t know how useful this answer will be and sorry if it’s preachy! Reiterating: just like, find something you like. Draw it. Keep finding things you like and which inspire you, and draw those too. Definitely look at other art (different forms too! you’ll notice different things you like from paintings, or movies, or digital vs traditional, or comics) and learn and be inspired. Even when you’re not actively drawing, you can be improving just by observing things. (And remember that sometimes improvement won’t be immediately evident - maybe it’s just that it’s a bit easier for you to draw something; maybe you’ve gotten faster at something; the angle of the jaws you draw is just slightly more realistic; the colours you choose are more interesting. Also note that since you’ll be seeing your own art all the time you won’t really notice even the bigger differences unless you’re looking at the most recent art vs. art from like months ago.) The other thing, which I am super guilty of not doing, is think while you draw. I’m really bad about this and then look back at something and am like damn why’d I do that (for example, I’m really bad about remembering that the thing I’m drawing is 3D, and thinking about how things act in 3D while I draw). So then the next advice is look at your own art a bit after you make it and notice the things you like and what you’d do differently for your next piece. Learn from your own art. Try your best!!! Not everything you draw will be good. Sometimes you’ll try to draw and everything will suck - whatever! like, truly, no skin off your back. try again tomorrow

#hopefully theres something interesting or useful in that wall of text #!! #sorry i talked abt myself sm!!! #I'm like #a hobby artist #I've been drawing a super long time clearly but like always the same stuff and not very consistently for the reasons stated above #and I don't challenge myself a lot #so I've naturally stagnated #ive gotten worse in a lot of ways #gotten better in some #not to be super self deprecating about it all #but like I'm okay with it I think #I'm having fun #sometimes I can convey my ideas #that makes me happy #and if I stop being happy about it then like above #I'll look up references #look at how other people draw something I want to draw #and try my best #spongebob meme it's not much but it's honest work

[ufoparty]

How did you get into art and what's the best way for people to get into it?

being bad at video games

GENUINELY i got the kingdom hearts manga because i couldn't get very far in the game and as i looked at the art i thought "i want to make stuff that looks like this." so i began with copying and then started drawing freely with obvious references to KH art (eyes mainly lol). pretty much every skill leap i've experienced since then has also happened once i discovered an art style i wanted to borrow something from. plus series with very engaging characters+plot makes me want to explore it more (i.e. i get hyperfixated) so i've ended up practicing a TON with little frustration because it's usually catharsis/Jokes™ that are the driving force rather than making something that looks good.

(not to say i don't ever doubt myself, because there are pieces in my head i wanted to make years ago but didn't because i lacked the technical skill)

i can only really give advice about getting into character art, because i've never been very interested in making abstract or photorealistic art or whatever. they definitely have their place but that's just my preference. that being said:

being super invested in something whether it's your own story ideas or someone else's is a great gateway to art. if you ever have the thought "haha it would be funny/cool if this happened" and the imagery/expressions stick with you moreso than like, Phrasing (personally different ideas i've had have struck me as being more suited to written work vs. drawn, or vice versa), just go ahead and draw it. and do it every time you think of something else. you don't have to show anybody. i drew fruits basket comics in 6th grade and never showed a soul. those drawings are for You

looking at other people's work.. novels, manga, cartoons, paintings, design, typography.. even if the work as a whole is something you're not that into, if there are stylistic choices you appreciate then take them. you can just straight up redraw someone else's art if you want to get a feel for how it all fits together, as long as you don't post it/claim it as your own (my rule is: no posting copies of a peer's art without permission, but yes to a famous/dead artist as long as credit is given). when you mash influences together it becomes something unique to you very quickly because no one else is going to be drawn to the exact same things as you

a major DON'T is second-guessing yourself. it's super easy to compare yourself to others especially as you get older, because if you start making art at like. 45 you may think you need to be at the same skill level as another 45-year-old who's been doing it for 30 years. it can be hard not to think this way especially if you're looking at other people's art like i suggested lol but get in the habit of hyping up your own ideas to yourself. "this such a good idea." "wow i'm so funny." "this is silly but no one has done it before so it's my job to make it."

there are people who could say all of this more eloquently and succinctly, and who follow their own advice more often--i haven't followed the third bullet in a while :o) but when i think of the most productive periods in my life these are the things that stand out the most. so i hope even just like one sentence is useful. also having adhd or autism can make this easier so try that too 👍

#jokes. #asks

[tareyoabrumado]

ive been a lot happier making art since i stopped doing character art.

i was focused on making interesting ocs and their stories and drawing them to keep up with what everyone else was doing. i had one oc i focused on most strongly, and everyone else within the story was an afterthought to fill out the backstory. i still really love the character, dont get it wrong, but i realized over the development process that my favorite parts werent designing and drawing the character; it was the worldbuilding behind it:

speculative biology for nonhuman sentient organisms

language with no basis in existing languages (i developed my first conlang solely for this one character!)

environmental influences on a society's culture

linguistic and cultural barriers upon migration to a new world

practicality and structure of clothing and tools (i feel it reasonable to believe that all the clothes i designed would be easily sewn in real life) (also hair!! many of the hairstyles i designed could theoretically be done irl, provided the wearer had horns)

music and instruments and the arts culture within a society

it got to the point where i would look at the character and there would be so much going on, and yet very little in terms of a present-day storyline. ive since realised this character was just a vessel for all my other interests: linguistics, anthropology, biology, music, and physical crafts.

and i didnt even realize those were things i was that interested in! i knew i liked music, and i was on my way to a second language, but the technical linguistics really came out of nowhere (the biology was a huge surprise, given my apathy when learning it in school).

i havent touched the character in a long time. but im happy leaving their story where its at. they live out their life until they get bored, and then move on to something else, and so on. life goes on.

i got a little bit off-topic with this post. anyway. when i joined the art side of the internet, much of it was dedicated to character design and story. everyone was making intricate universes with overarching stories and detailed characters and relationships and developments; and rather than write books, they shared concept art in the form of comics, scene drawings, and character reference pages. i very rarely saw more traditional art: paintings of just. people and things. nothing exists past the piece. its nobody specific. because of this environment, somewhere in my head it was established that this is what art is these days, and to be an artist online youre expected to do character-based pieces.

so i forced myself into it. its what all my friends were doing, after all. social psychology says that you are your friends. they were all making fanart and of course, character-based pieces with extensive stories behind them. and i just couldnt figure it out. i thought there was some kind of social disconnect--wouldnt be the first time, as i seem to be the only one in my group who really doesnt enjoy playing any videogames aside from minecraft. i tried my best, and really enjoyed the process of building up my character and their backstory and homeland and culture and anatomy and dear god ive strayed away from the character themself. it never was about the character. it was about the messages i was trying to convey. everything that overshadowed the character was everything that was more important. i dont care if the design is too busy--look at all the ways a person could wear chains as jewelry!

i see the details in everything, and especially people. human bodies. nonhuman bodies. clothes and jewelry and hair and everything else. this made drawing very difficult. i wanted to detail every part of it. it became a too-realistic cartoon. i drew the seams in the clothes and the twists in the locs. i had to stop myself from drawing lines in the face. there are lines everywhere and once you notice them its impossible to ignore them. the one time i included lines and creases in the face (not nearly as many as i wanted to, but the minimum required to convey the expression and emotion), my friends said it looked weird. unfortunately cartoons and anime and character illustration have simplified designs, and every character is either young and smooth and beautiful or theyre old and wizened and wrinkled and never beautiful and often played for laughs or when the protagonist needs a mentor figure. for a person grappling with their own identity and physical existence, seeing these sentiments expressed so prominently is. difficult. people have a lot to them and its busy and not traditionally beautiful and complex and thats what makes them interesting beings.

character art is almost always digital in its final form. so that was my medium. i got by with the lineart-colorblock-shading-background setup that much of that kind of art shares. i began using a crayon-style brush for my lineart. i was always searching for a way to do a realistic oil paint style with my coloring and shading. i never found the perfect brush, so my art never turned out exactly how i was dreaming.

i thought i hated art classes. i thought i hated art classes. i thought i hated art classes. i was so trapped in the character-art funnel that nothing was to my standards and every project was shit.

i took two art classes this year to fill credits, one focusing on 2d art and the other on ceramics. neither was digital. neither was about characters.

in my pieces, i want to explore abstract ideas. i could just make a candle lantern with a cool design carved into it; or i could explore themes of what it means to be human. there is not a single character aside from vague representations of human beings. im in love.

for my 2d class, we're expected to keep a sketchbook. any art, so long as it's art. too many times ive filled a page with a drawing of a person. nothing exists past the piece. its nobody specific. and their faces are covered in lines. everywhere. eye bags, crow's feet, lines around the mouth and nose and chin, forehead wrinkles. necks.

they are people aging and they are beautiful. they are young people with decades under their belts and they are beautiful. they are people of every age and every life and they have existed physically enough for their bodies to recognize their physical habits. a testament to their living.

they are not smiling. but they have the crow's feet and the lines around the mouth and nose and chin and you know they have laughed many times before. they have lines between their brows and you know theyve felt worried about maybe one too many things. they have wrinkles on their foreheads and you know theyve felt surprise. everything is surprising. and interesting. and awe-inspiring. and beautiful.

we age and we change. this is a story everyone knows. people are often afraid, but then years later, theyre happier than theyve ever been. and they know it will only get better with time.

november 15, 2022

#hoy. abrumado

[ficklefandom]

and this is the story behind neo’s rabies vaccine

#technically a reference to a comic i drew and never posted #someone needs to keep her on a leash..... #rwby #neopolitan #neopolitan (rwby) #fanart #shitpost #dragons art #dragons hoard

[jerryb2]

A couple months ago now, I picked up this book at a local Half-Price Books. As you can of course see, it’s the Star Wars art portfolio of Dave Dorman. As I (then, erroneously) made reference to in a recent post, Dorman was a prolific watercolor artist for Star Wars media back in the 1990′s. 

This book, published in 1996, showcases his art up to that point in his career. Some of his most well-known art can be found in the Dark Empire comic:

This book is really interesting, not least because it shows some of Dorman’s rough sketches & layouts, but also a few of the body models that he employed. 

Look at this guy: 🤭

Dorman also did a number of the single-issue covers for the Tales of the Jedi comic series by Tom Veitch & Kevin J. Anderson. Though unfortunately, if you happen to own the trade paperbacks of Tales, you really don’t see very much of it, save for a brief cover gallery at the end. However, the most easily recognizable piece of art from this series is undoubtedly this painting of Ulic Qel-Droma: 

And just a side note here; this art also went on to be featured as the cover of the Tales of the Jedi Companion in the old Star Wars RPG from West End Games:

Weirdly, the same day that I found this book showcasing Dorman’s art, I found these at another HPB: full cast audio dramas of both Dark Empire & Tales of the Jedi on cassette tapes, all of them featuring this exact cover art. 😵 

Now, the more eagle-eyed among you have probably picked up on the fact that there are several things missing here. For one, there’s no Empire’s End. That’s not due to HPB not having that one on the shelf or me not being able to find it, that’s just because it doesn’t exist*. 😐 The same goes for the rest of Tales of the Jedi, though it’s a bit more forgivable there, since these were released back in 1995 and the story didn’t, for reals, conclude until 1999.

*Okay, technically the audio drama of Empire’s End does exist, but it’s only available in the CD special edition re-release of the audio drama - are you kidding me? 😑 

And to boot, in classic Star Wars in the 90′s fashion, both of these stories have been abridged to absolute shit. 😩  But I digress....

When I found these, they were all still factory sealed, so I had the distinct pleasure of popping them open for the first time in 26 years. That was really wonderful. 🙂 Look, I’ll probably never listen to these, and probably not for the reason you think. Believe it or not, I do have a working cassette player, but I just can’t say that I care all that much. They’re an oddity, and a really neat piece of Star Wars history, but for now, I think they’ll just live on my bookshelf.

Since finding this artbook, I’ve really gained a ton of respect and admiration for Dave Dorman as an artist, and as a Star Wars fan. And this is just scratching the surface; he did the covers for the Rogue Squadron comic series by Michael A. Stackpole, as well as the Dark Forces: Jedi Knight game tie-in (which isn’t mentioned in this book, since it only came out 1998!) and the covers for all of the Young Jedi Knights books. 

The man is a true legend, and his art has served to take readers to that galaxy far, far away for decades now. ❤

Next up in the art-appreciation posts: Drew Struzan 😉

#star wars #art #collection #dave dorman #dark empire #tales of the jedi #rogue squadron #dark forces #young jedi knights

[ghosthan]

hello!! i saw that you made a lot of stuff for 1872 and i was wondering if 1872 tony is similar to regular comics tony?? i know mcu and comics tony are different and i want to get into 616, but if 1872 comics are more easy to read i might try those first! 😅

Hello, hello! 

Thank you for asking, and sorry it took me so long to get back to you! I wanted to think about it and put together a thoughtful response because I am desperately trying to convert MCU fans to 1872. Or comics fans who just haven’t gotten into 1872.

This post will contain some 1872 spoilers, but not the Big Spoiler that you probably already know about anyways. 

Anyways, let’s get into it. Yeehaw.

What is 1872? It’s Steve/Tony in the wild west.

1872 comics are very easy to read, very short, and you need absolutely no prior knowledge to get into them; I highly recommend these as a start point for MCU fans who are curious about dipping their toes into some of the other Steve/Tony universes. And 1872 is, indeed, a Steve/Tony universe. It’s really gay, (and dramatic.) Uh. So gay, in fact, that one of the comic artists who drew pages even occasionally shares Steve/Tony shipping memes. So.

Marvel 1872 is a four issue series released as a part of the Secret Wars event; you really do not need to know anything about this to enjoy 1872, because it is a self-contained alternate universe in a “pocket dimension”, meaning it’s totally separate from the 616 cannon but technically exists in the expanse of the multiverse!

Here’s the summary:

In the Battleworld zone of 1872, Sheriff Steve Rogers faces corruption and fear in the boom town of Timely. Can Anthony Stark pull Rogers' fat from the fire? Probably not, since the only thing he seems capable of pulling is a cork from a bottle. Things in Timely are bad, and getting worse — and when a stranger arrives in town, Timely will be changed forever.

Now, to compare “regular comics Tony”, or 616 Tony, with 1872 Tony.

The main difference? 616 Tony wears this sexy little under suit (or nothing) under his armor, like this:

And 1872 Tony wears dirty, stinky one-piece pajamas under his armor (not sexy):

He’s so gross, he’s a mess. I love him. You’ll love him, too. 

No, okay. Being serious.

 616!Tony’s backstory is a lot more complicated just due to how long the character has existed, and the decades of cannon (much of it self-contradictory at points.) Like MCU Tony, 616 Tony used to manufacture weapons, experiences something life-changing, and becomes who he is as a result of this as a catalyst. 616 Tony’s backstory has been rebooted a few times, and I’m definitely not the definitive source on Iron Man lore compared to people who have read all of his comics, but I’ll try to touch on the basics.

Originally, 616 Tony Stark is shaped by his experience in the Vietnam War. This is later rebooted and changed to war in the middle East (we see this in the MCU when Tony is held captive in Afghanistan.) In both circumstances, he is taken captive after being in the air for war technology, and then he creates the suit to save his own life (losing a beloved mentor in the process, the guilt of which stays with him after.)

Tales of Suspense #39

In 1872, Tony’s formative event is the Civil War in some ways, but in other ways, this is only half of it, because this is not the event which causes him to build armor or set him onto his “become a better person” trajectory, like in the other comics. Mainly, the Civil War functions to cause Tony to stop weapons manufacturing and throw his life away down a bottle.

We get a flashback of Tony in the year 1862 with his female companion, picnicking and about to watch a battle, (rich people from the North did this in real life. If you’re interested, read more here!) We don’t get much of his past, but we discover that he is a rifle manufacturer and that he has created something called the ‘Stark Repeating Rifle’, and it seems that he has done so with the hope of encouraging a cease-fire, more than a slaughter.

Well. We don’t always get what we ask for.

Tony vows to actually never touch a weapon ever again, and this personal oath means so much to him that he gets creative at times during 1872 when he’s being chased by baddies:

Witnessing the extreme bloodshed of the Civil War, and feeling responsible for a huge amount of deaths, Tony turns to drinking, (and presumably moves to the west to escape the Pain of his Past, but this is not shown explicitly on panel; I have assumed, though, that Tony’s weapons manufacturing company was in the East, probably Boston or New York, since he comes from family money and because the American West was still “young” at this point in time so it would be unlikely that an established business would be supplying a war from lawless territory with little infrastructure.)

In 616, it’s worth noting that Tony builds the armor to save himself from danger in a war scenario; this is not the case in 1872, things unfold a bit differently. The Civil War certainly sets in motion the chain of events that eventually lead to the creation of Tony’s armor, but he’s not in physical danger or physically traumatized by the war in this verse as he is in other verses, and 616 Tony seems to have a stronger sense of duty than 1872 Tony, but this might be a complication of the depression/apathy related to the alcoholism.

What I mean by this is that both iterations of Tony struggle with alcoholism, but differently. Mainly, while 616 Tony has several alcohol themed arcs, and hits rock bottom with his alcoholism to cope with his trauma, he is sober more than he is drunk in the comics. His drinking almost kills him, and he almost loses everything because of the drink. It’s a source of enormous shame for him.

In fact, during this time in 616, I think Tony at his lowest reminds me a lot of 1872 Tony; 616 Tony is not an apathetic person and he holds himself accountable for an obscene amount of responsibility, but during what is referred to in fandom as The Second Drinking Arc, Tony basically gives up. This is the most “like” 1872 Tony, at least at the start of his arc. Rhodey takes over the mantle of Iron Man, and 616 Tony spirals, not caring whether he lives or dies, not hero-ing certainly.

We see both versions of Tony express similar sentiments, a certain cavalier attitude about their lives (and outright suicidality at other points) with nothing left but the drink.

Iron Man Vol. 1 #182

Compare with:

And you can certainly see a resemblance between this set of panels from IM v.1 #176 and in 1872:

Iron Man Vol. 1 #176 and Marvel 1872 #1

It’s a little different in 1872, where his drinking really is purely a result of his existing despair, and it doesn’t cause enormous problems for him, (minor problems, sure. He spends a lot of time drunkenly singing to Sheriff Rogers, or bothering him from the inside of a jail cell.) But this Tony lives at rock bottom, whereas 616 Tony only stays at rock bottom long enough to get his life back together (as many times as it takes.)

This Tony really doesn’t show any outward shame about his drinking; presumably, the people he knows in Timely have only ever known Tony as a drunk, and none of the people from his old life are here to see him like this. 

This is a Tony who has essentially given up on himself and has moved out West to hide from his shame and his past; this is not a Tony who is scared of letting down his friends by drinking, or scared of shirking his “duty”, because this Tony has moved away from all of his friends and has given himself no duties. He’s a bit more apathetic, but I would argue that this is not because he inherently is a less moral version of Tony, but because in this verse, he was drinking for a very long time and circumstances unfolded differently so it took him a longer time to find that sense of purpose and responsibility (beyond just shutting down manufacturing guns,) which is awakened in him by Steve Rogers. 

616 Tony’s sobriety is a major part of his character, and a conscious choice that he makes, even during some lowest points:

Civil War: The Confession

He takes some amount of pride in his sobriety, and when he does fall off the wagon at times (or magic makes everyone think he did,) it absolutely tears him up because 616 Tony cares very, very much about his sobriety and does not like who he is when he’s drinking. We do not know if 1872 Tony’s father had been a drunk or not, but we know 616 Tony’s father was, and that the drink lead to him treating Tony abusively.

Iron Man Vol. 1 #285 

Avengers Disassembled #1 (This was when ~magic~ made Tony drunk and it wrecked him breaking sobriety without ever having actually drank. Oof.)

616 Tony’s long struggle with alcoholism is a major part of his character and he has had relapses over the years and throughout the reboots, but in general, he does not drink.

1872 Tony starts drinking in 1862 and doesn’t stop until the last pages of the story, so in terms of the cannon we have for him, he is a current drunk, rather than a former drunk. This isn’t to say he doesn’t stop; but since it’s in the last page or so, it sets the reader up to imagine his sober future, rather than exploring his sobriety as 616 does. (Calling all fanfic writers!)

Anyways, both Tony’s are excellent. Both are damaged and traumatized, both are Iron Man in their own ways, both (eventually) find sobriety, both have some cute, quippy dialogue (though 616 Tony tends to be more reserved/polite for sure, in general). 

The last thing I’ll point out, is that both Tonys’ narratives are intertwined with and influenced by their respective Steve Rogers. I’m not saying soulmates but I’m saying soulmates.

Anyways. Sorry this post got super long, and I apologize if any of it is confusing or redundant, I am not functioning at my highest capacity currently. Please read 1872. Let it rock your world. Create & consume the fanworks, I would love to see a boom of 1872 content (more than the fics and art I keep making!) And my ask-box is always open!

#Anonymous #anon #ask #1872 #1872 stony #stevetony #stony #616 stony #616 #han reads comics #my post #idk how to tag this my brain is fried sorry if this post is all over the place #tw suicide mention #suicide mention #tw alcohol #alcohol #tw abuse #abuse #long post #comic panels #han speaks

[tendermiasma]

i’m not even into overwatch anymore but i just wanted to say I ADORE your art style and hope to develop my own into a similar semi-realism leaning...have you made a post about your art journey? I’m assuming I just need to buckle down and do anatomy studies but any tips are very welcome!! Ty for your time <3

Oh man thank you! I’ve never made a comprehensive post about how I got to *gestures* whatever this point in my art this is, and I definitely sat here wondering what “art journey” means for me since I always feel like I’m stumbling around so I’ll answer as completely as I can. But a great way to develop a realism-minded eye is to draw from photos and life. Everyone in the world has said it over and over but it really gets it done, it’s not any more complicated than that. It’s how I started when I was little and it’s not something I planned, but the Legolas posters were right there so how could I not? Your own non-realism “stylistic” touch will bubble up whether you want it to or not and that’s a beautiful thing. It’s not something you need to look for because it happens on its own, whether it’s you seeing something another artist is doing that you like and assimilating it into your work, or it’s your own unique way that you absorb information from the world and use it to solve problems in the drawing in front of you. Some new artists also still have the idea that using references is cheating-- I’m not blaming them, sometimes this weird thing is circulated by more established people as well-- but this is a very small minority. Please use references. I’d be lost without them. The Castlevania team has a giant collection of references for faces of every character from every angle, props, etc. and I always have a second screen up with 10 different sheets of whoever I’m drawing. Feeding yourself info is essential to getting better. Look at how other artists handle something you’re having a problem with too. If they’re doing a similar pose or something, study their drawing and ask yourself what specifically, extremely technically about that drawing is convincing-- what marks are where, and what is the quality or direction of the strokes? Try it out on your own drawing. If you’re stuck, become aware of if you’re holding on too tightly to what you think something should look like. I have to remind myself this as well. Really try to let go of the idea you have in your head about how something works and simply try instead to draw what you see, even if it feels weird. The results are often pleasantly surprising. 

I have a funny relationship with studies. You seem to be looking at them like a chore and I feel the same way. It’s impossible for me to sit down and just draw something over and over, disconnected from emotion or a larger narrative. I think a wonderful way to “study” is to incorporate those studies into a project that you wanted to do anyway. I’ve used my minicomics to get better at background painting or specific figure poses that I needed for the story but wasn’t sure how to do. I’m a very “oops I need it now better learn TODAY” kind of artist, if that suits you better than buckling down and doing anatomy studies for hours. Both are great ways to improve, but you have options for how to get there. 

In terms of how much time I spend drawing.. well lol it’s a lot. I almost typed “but I don’t do it every day” but yes, my jobs have made sure that I do (I tend to separate personal drawing and job drawing). But the truth is, to get better, a lot of very focused drawing time is important; how much of it is up to you and your schedule. You can sit down for 6 hours and doodle or you can sit down for 3 with an extremely critical eye. It’s about the volume of time as well as focus and I don’t have a clear answer for it, but I can point to one specific year in my life where I made artistic progress like I’ve never seen from myself since. I drew a comic with regular updates during that time and, looking back, the art was not good. But the point was, I was drawing for 7 hours a day after work, at least 5 days a week, and actively looking to draw things that I hadn’t done before or knew that I wasn’t good at, and the result was that every single update was almost like it was drawn by a different person-- readers noticed and commented on the progress as well. It was very much an art bootcamp and I wouldn’t have the skills I do at this point if I hadn’t done it. It’s important that you’re loving what you do if you do it for yourself! That’s how you get through big projects and continue to be excited with where you are. Love is one of the most important motivators and discipline-keepers in art, in my experience. Draw what sets your brain on fire and attack it wholeheartedly even if it’s really weird or niche, not what you think you should be drawing, and you’ll improve a million times faster.

Art journey in terms of what I’ve done with my life (if this is what you meant from the beginning I’M SORRY I’m just trying everything you might have meant) uhhh I haven’t been to art school. I have no idea what my relationship with art would be like now if I’d had any formal training and I don’t really dwell on it. I could either be a testament to being able to get by without it or an example of someone who has no idea what she’s doing at all and lacks many basic foundational art skills. I have an architecture degree. I love architecture, I love the language of space we build for ourselves, and I’m truly, deeply glad for that eye-opening and often grueling experience, but I think my current field is a much better fit. Before animation I worked as a graphic designer mainly drawing storyboards for commercials and internal-industry stuff-- lots and lots of quick colored sketches (one of our main clients was a big glass company and my god I never thought I’d draw so much glass in my life). I was able to do that job due to the skills I developed through personal work. Maybe I’d be a hundred times more powerful if I went to art school! Maybe I’d be completely burned out and bitter and not drawing anymore at all! I just don’t know. I have friends who have had both experiences. Whether you choose art school or not it’s best to keep tabs on if the art you’re currently making brings you joy. Joy and struggle aren’t mutually exclusive. Oftentimes I’m drawing something I care deeply about but it’s VERY FUCKING HARD and I’m frustrated but it’s worth it.

I also do everything while being very scared of the thing. I have a lot of deep-seated anxiety that I’m constantly trying to root out and my brain compulsively twists things around into why I can’t do something, why people secretly know I’m below-par and are just too nice to tell me, how I’m “tricking” people into thinking I’m better than I am, etc. It’s so bad that my first thought when I was initially offered the art test for my current job was to say no; not because I didn’t want it so badly it hurt, but because I thought I’d be too much of a disappointment.  After completing the test I spent an hour figuring out the most gracious way to apologize for not being enough. It’s common, but not something to accept and we’re all working on it. I just thought it was important to mention because art is also a mental journey and forces you to do all this navel-gazey shit in order to advance, and feeling like you are Not Enough is rife in the creative community. The work feels entangled with my value as a person because art is a massive part of my life. Something I’m learning is that I don’t have to be confident or sure of myself all the time. This ensures that the process is usually painful and frightening. Often there’s no way to make it less painful or frightening, and I just have to hold my breath and do it. An oddly comforting thing to me the past couple years is to remind myself that the scary thing I’m about to do won’t be the scariest thing I’ll ever do. I implies both that this isn’t the pinnacle of my progress and also that I will inevitably get over it. If you continue with art you’re going to run into things like this and I guess if it was me it would’ve been helpful to know I’m not alone in it.

I hope that maybe answered some of your questions, maybe? If you have some specific questions feel free and I’ll try my best. Hope you have a good day/night!

#anon #asks

[kiisaes]

I wanted to ask about Kimberly the OC: is she from a specific story you wrote / drew? Do you have other info about her? What about a backstory or universe to fit her into?

ah thank u for asking!!! I've never really been asked about my ocs before ;v;

Kimberly is my oldest oc and she's a part of a story I'm writing, though I haven't posted it anywhere because I keep finding problems with it so I keep going back to change it LOL. I keep going back and changing, in all honesty I'm nowhere done with the story and I've technically been writing it since 2018...!!! though, I'm hoping someday at some point, I'd like to translate my story into a comic and post it online :') I had a reference image of her and other characters posted on my dA but I deactivated it last year so...rip

her backstory includes a lot of worldbuilding which is...a lot, not to mention still being figured out right now, but as a character she's very similar to a shounen protag hwgwhsbsj she's determined and hard working and the word "quit" is not in her vocab (and if she has to quit she feels very adamant against it). she's kind and likes to help others but is also extremely naive so her worldview is really quite skewed. she sometimes comes off as a brat because of her childish outlook (hence why I draw her pouting so much haha)

outside of her official universe, I draw her a lot for fun, especially for days like valentine's day - she's in a ship with a friend's oc that's also in my story, and I have a tradition of drawing that ship every year lol

thank u for showing interest in my oc!!!!! I unfortunately don't have a lot of existing stuff to point u to but I'm always excited to answer questions hehehehe

#asks for becki #becki's ocs

[franeridart]

Anon said: How are you just like "Oh these are just some warm up sketches" and post a full finished piece, while I'm over here sketching a triangle person and calling it a finished piece.

I dunno if this was a legit question asking for a legit answer, but I do happen to have a legit answer so I might as well give it! If I wanted to go into detals with it it’d take me forever though, so allow me to separate it into two points to make it easier

I learnt how to be very fast in putting down my lines and trained myself into not overthinking every single dot I put down. This took about five or six years of drawing daily and a whole life of drawing occasionally before then, because to do so you need to reach a point where you’re drawing something you’ve drawn so many times that by now your hand sort of goes without you needing to think about it much, so it’s not a fast process, but boy is it worth it. Mostly learning how to not overthink it, overthinking it used to be 90% of my time spent on a drawing and dear god did it suck the joy out of everything I drew

I have two very distinctive ways of approaching a drawing, one where I actually put effort in it and the other where I just want to let the squiggles out of my pen, and warm ups are the second one - the lack of effort I’m putting in can have different forms and show in different ways, so a warm up could be a fully colored piece as it could be just a pencil doodle, depending on where and on what exactly I’m being lazy: it could be the type of tool I’m using that allows me to draw without having to line, it could be a very tiny canvas that lets me avoid a ton of details a big canvas would demand. I might be cutting the time I usually put in making sure my anatomy is correct, I might be using a shading technique that takes a tenth of the time my usual one would, I might be using a style that’s just easier and faster to draw, or drawing characters I’ve drawn a trillion times in extremely generic poses and clothes. There’s a lot of things that I can do to make things faster for me! It’s skills you gain as you draw a lot - you learn how to draw things the hard way, and then you realize that along the way you learnt how to do them the easy way too

hope this actually answers your question! If it was a question at all lol if it wasn’t then sorry for rambling, please pretend I didn’t say anything hahaha

Anon said: I love your newest comic!!! So adorable!! I noticed Bakugou's mom does the affectionate hair rustle thing to him in the manga/anime, do you think Bakugou subconsciously does the same to show affection cause of it? I love the way you draw faces and poses, it's so expressive!!

Ahhhhh thank you so much!!! And yeah, it might be! After all we do take a lot from the people we live with even without realizing, and he’s already so similar to his mom!

Anon said: I saw your bakushima comic from October 9th (2019) where Bakugo falls asleep studying and Kirishima sets him down on the table properly and it was so soft my heart is crying

;;;;; !!!!!!!! I’m glad you liked it!! <3<3

Anon said: If it not to much, could I possibly get a Ochamina doodle pls? I just love some sweet lesbeans 👉👈

Awww I’m not taking requests right now, but I’ll keep it in mind for next time I want to doodle and don’t know what!

Anon said: I love your art! I envy you.

Please don’t! There’s a lot of reasons why being me isn’t a lot of fun - if it’s just my skill you envy, then all you gotta do is draw a lot! 

Anon said: i just went through your entire kiribaku tag and omg it was beautiful seeing the progression in your art skills but still keeping the same funny/cute/heartwarming/etc traits you thought up for their dynamic!! i hope that makes sense haha !! love your art keep it up

It does make sense!!! Thank you so much both for looking through the whole tag and for thinking so, it means a lot to me!! ;;; <3<3

Anon said: Hey fran! I hope you're doing well(especially with quarantine and all)!! I really love your anatomy and how fluid and stylistic it can be! It's super fun to look at! I wanted to ask you if you ever did any in depth studies on anatomy? Like muscles and bones. I've heard a lot of artists mention the necessity of studying bones/muscles, i'd really like to know your opinion on the subject

Ahhh god thank you so much!! And... hmm let’s see if I can word this properly and have it make sense - always keeping in mind that this is just my opinion, of course!

If all you want to do is to draw, then all you need to do is to pick up your pencil and draw - it’s really that easy as far as I’m concerned. You don’t need to know anatomy in depth to just draw, everyone has seen a person, everyone knows how a person looks. That is, if all you want to do is to draw for the sake of drawing. If you want to draw an anatomically correct looking human being, though, you do need to know how anatomy works - and the deeper you’ll go into studying it the more correct your people will look. It’s kind how everyone can draw a bicycle, but if you want to draw a realistic bicycle you’re gonna need to look up references for it, you know? It’s all on the level at which you’re interested in drawing, the more technically skilled you want to be the more you’ll have to study

As for my personal experience with this, I hate studying with a passion. Studying puts a damper on my enjoyement of everything, and drawing isn’t excluded from this - you put a book in front of me expecting me to study it and suddenly I never want to pick up a pencil again. This means that I never sat down and studied anatomy in depth and all in one go just to learn how to draw a human being, but it doesn’t mean that I didn’t, slowly and now and again and in bits and pieces, study parts of the body to get a better understanding of it. I know better about the skeleton than I do about muscles, and I still have enough to learn about everything that anyone who’s studied anatomy properly would find a trillion mistakes in everything I draw, but my way of going about drawing has always been and always will be putting my enjoyement of it first and foremost, so I’m not interested in putting myself through a tour-de-force to learn everything there is to know about anatomy just to make my doodles look appealing to someone with a medical degree haha I’m just doing me, and when the mood is right I look up how to properly draw something, but until then I just do it as best as I can with my limited knowledge, being fully aware that what I’m producing is far from accurate but being willing to make that compromise for my own comfort

So that’s my opinion on it lol it all boils down to how important it is for you to know how to properly draw the human body - of course it’s gonna look more professional and better if you’ve studied it, but everyone has their own priorities, you know?

Anon said: Thank you for your hard work, seeing an upload from you is so nice, and the colors are so pretty

Thank you so muuuuccchhhhh!!!! TTATT <3<3<3

Anon said: Opinions on Tokoyami Fumikage 💕

One of my top faves in the whole manga, actually! I have a drawing in the making of him, I should get back to it..........

Anon said: HOLY SHIT FRAN THE TOES HOW YOU DRAW THE TOES SO WELL FEET ARE THE DEATH OF ME AND YOU’RE OVER HERE DRAWING TOES THEY’RE SO GOOD PLEASE TEACH ME YOUR WAYS!!! -❤️

Thank you!!!!!!!! So pretty much my way of learning this specific skill was being obsessed with elves when I was fifteen and wanting to draw them all the time  and also for whatever reason being convinced that they were not supposed to wear shoes so I just drew a lot of feet with references and tutorials and stuff till I could draw my elves properly. Which isn’t necessarily what you need to do to learn how to draw feet, but, I mean, it worked for me lol

Anon said: I love ur Bnha ships and all but what would u do if some of them didn’t become canon??

Oh, I actually don’t care about that at all? I don’t expect most of them to become canon anyway - like, ochadeku sounds reasonable and kamijirou seems to be getting there, but everything else I never even considered it as an actual possibilily. I don’t really ship because I want to see my ships become canon, I just like the potential in what I can make with them? If that makes sense? They’re just fun to think about and I like making fancontent, that’s all there is to it really haha honestly if I had my way no ship would ever be canon ever ha ha ha

Anon said: Slep is for the wek

No actually sleep is for Frans who want a chance at getting up tomorrow morning without an headache for once, so I should do that and go to sleep already lmao

#fran answers #a couple of long ones in this one !!!!! #feeling blabbery tonight

[faerielleart]

hello my easter bunny! tysm once again for the wonderful art and all the effort that you've put into it! and i hope you indulge me in asking you this question, but how would you explain your drawing style? do you have any artistic influences or so? i just noticed that you tend to make use of pop culture references or literary quotes, but i'm not sure if that's something you deliberately intend to do in all of your works. much love <3

hello dearest! :D

thank you for the nice words aaa ;w; i am genuinely so happy you enjoyed your present ✨

these are very interesting questions 🧐 i’ll answer in order:

how would you explain your drawing style?

this is probably the hardest question for me to answer because i tend to switch it up a lot shdjskdkd it kinda depends of what i’m trying to convey, if i want to make something cartoonish or something more realistic, but i’d like to say it’s generally semi-realistic with a heeeavy emphasis on the “semi” hhhh i guess i am also kinda inspired by old school anime that i used to watch as a kid like sailor moon, the rose of versailles and others. i tend to do my best to get realistic proportions for the characters i draw and don’t really do heavily stylized work with exaggerated features, i try to imitate real people but i’m also incredibly stubborn and like to suffer so i always avoid using references unless i really need one (ex: muscles, hands, feet, dynamic poses) because i want to build a better visual memory for how a human is supposed to look like. when i first started posting my art i tended to do black and white only, then i got progressively more comfortable with colors. i’d say my signature thing would be the lighting :D and the lil dots of atmospheric dust, but yeah i have a tendency to do a lot of backlighting or random streaks of light, i think it looks pretty 🥺 also i like drawing hurt/comfort which is why i do a lot of black and white art, i think it looks nicer bc it reminds me of old photographs and it’s just a ~vibe~ i enjoy hehe but when i use color it’s super vibrant and saturated kinda like a punch in the eyeball. so yeah my artstyle in really brief words: inconsistent but shiny as hell with an extra colorful punch in the face when i feel like b&w doesn’t do the job :’D

do you have any artistic influences or so?

quite a lot! when it comes to backgrounds, i take inspiration from studio ghibli and makoto shinkai movies for scenery, kyoani for indoor settings. i freaking love yusuke murata and takehiko inoue’s artstyles and i love hirohiko araki’s use of color. as far as the technicalities go, my art never looks “smooth” bc i can’t figure out how to draw with airbrush tools to save my life, and i am very very veeery influenced by impressionism, which is why i paint in broad strokes that look messy and you can also kinda see all the lines hhh and i guess the focus on the lighting comes from my obsession with caravaggio when i was in school :’) oh also i absolutely have to mention the two italian comic artists whom i’ve been following since i was a first year middle schooler just getting started with digital art, mirka andolfo and angela vianello; they’re probably my biggest influences and lil fangirl moment i met mirka at a comicon a few years ago and she drew me hiyori from noragami as she was in charge of drawing the alternate cover for the first volume release and she was so nice and kind and encouraged me to keep making art and excuse me i’m gonna cry- angela vianello is also an absolute legend and her work is absolutely breathtaking, she’s probably *the one* who helped me shape my artstyle the most through the years. haven’t met her yet unfortunately ;;;;

about the pop culture references and literary quotes

BINGO i am a literature student and an anthropology student which comes with an extra art history, theatre history and philology+mythology on the side which means that basically 99% of everything i’ve ever posted stems from either a song i was listening to or a book i was reading or anything i was studying for my lectures bc i’m a huge nerd and i love making art of things i love inspired by other things i love (cue me recalling the obscene amount of AUs and wips i have in my gallery). my fav levihan stuff i’ve ever drawn were inspired by jane austen, victor hugo and anne carson quotes :D also a ton of musical theatre songs! i am a giant les misérables stan (book and show) and i have quite a few things inspired by it. yeah i basically have no originality and my brain needs to go “OH THIS QUOTE IS RAW AS FUCK” and “OHHH PRETTY SONG LYRIC” for me to start producing things hhhh

thank you for the questions 🐰💜💜💜

[callhimnowmarisamylove]

2020 Creator Wrap: Favourite Works

rules: it’s time to love yourself. choose your 5 favourite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you’ve brought into the world. tag as many writers/artists/etc. you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

 I was tagged by @queenofnabooty thanks kween!

1. (We’ll go chronologically here) My Jopper reunion piece! I drew this soon after the announcement that Hopper was alive in Russia, and I had this fanciful image of them reuniting in a snowy sunrise (as you do...) I like experimenting with different light sources and distributions, so it was a fun challenge to work with a cold wintery light, but mixed with soft orange and yellow sunny edges. (Also, bald Hop, lol) 

2. My tragic Masriel + Lyra, Abyss comic strip - I just thought, what would be even sadder than the scene in the book where Marisa and Asriel launch themselves into a never-ending-all-consuming abyss... I know! If their estranged daughter was there to watch it all happen and become even more confused about her terrible parents and her feelings for them! I’d also never done anything like a comic before, but this couldn’t be conveyed in one image. I’m pretty proud of how it all turned out considering it was a new process and format.

3. My HDM Season 2 poster - I had already done a Season 1 poster, and wanted to continue it as a series. I got thinking about how the second book has such an emphasis on the windows and the knife, and that formed the idea to incorporate a stained glass window format, to combine the elements and aesthetic of the ‘Tower of the Angels’, but have the window show segments of the larger story and characters, each separated by stained glass, just as they are separated by worlds in the book. I think this may be my favourite piece of fanart, and I was hugely gratified when the BBC Instagram shared it on their account!

4. Emo Marisa - Just a simple portrait after the first HDM S2 trailer dropped. That black outfit had me clowning about flashbacks which was obviously wrong, but it was fun to clown and this is a simple, but nice piece (Ruth is so good to draw because you just get her mouth right and voila! There she is!)

5. HDM Season 3 poster - I’d had this in the works for most of the year, but only got round to properly colouring it recently. I wanted to include multiple references that book readers would know, while also making an aesthetic and balanced poster. Hope I did the tragic wackiness of ‘The Amber Spyglass’ justice! (Also, yes, dressing Lyra like Marisa was absolutely and completely intentional)

I want to give a special mention to my Masriel Golden Dust piece which was posted right at the end of last year so technically doesn’t quite make the cut off, but it’s one of my absolute very favourite works and was pretty popular on tumblr too, so I’m quite proud of it :)

I’m tagging @a-whole-tempest-in-a-teacup @cozcat, @dollsome-does-tumblr and @oceanssapart ( I know @queenofnabooty already tagged you, but I love your gifs so much I just have to)

#tag game #fun times thanks sami! #it's been a productive year #hdm #stranger things #Alice art #masriel #jopper #long post

[thattimdrakeguy]

I’m writing this fic about the Batfamily and I’m afraid of writing them as OOC. If you are able to, could you please give some tips on each of the Batfam’s personalities and characteristics? To specify, Dick, Jason, Tim, Steph, Cass, Babs, Damian, and Duke are the characters I’m using. It would be really helpful! Thank you!!

This is a tricky question, because I don’t know the story of your fic to help you in any specific way. So if after this you wanna DM me for more specific help on how to work things out, I’ll be there to help you right away unless I’m doing something, but I have no plans.

I’m going to go from easiest for me to do to least easiest, because I obviously know Tim the best, but even then, it’s hard, because going off the character’s you are choosing, it’s set during the part of the timeline were he went OOC, but I’ll do my best just to say his general character so you can use that as a base for things. Like how he was developed in his origin and all that, and notable characteristics he’s had as he grew while still in character. With some that even if they weren’t around with some of those characters, would apply to them.

His is also going to be the longest, like way too long, because he’s a way more nuanced and complex character than anyone ever gives him credit for. So he takes a lot longer to explains by a freaking large margin. Like sorry if it’s too big, I just kept saying more as more came to mind because I feel like his nuances are what makes him interesting and easy to right. Once you get a hang of his nuances, and you get used to it, it makes it easier to put yourself into his mindset to how he works, which makes him easier to write as well.

(THIS IS AN INCREDIBLY LONG POST, AND I APOLOGIZE. I just really wanted to be thorough and give contexts to stuff. It’s less of tips and more of an overly long description of what I know about each character and what’s in-character and what’s not going off of how the character’s were developed to be, and not counting the out of character writing. So really sorry about this being so freaking long)

Tim:

Tim’s origin right off the back is having met Dick at a very very young age, I don’t think he could even strongly walk yet, so I’mma say three. He was instantly attached to Dick, he just admired him instantly just for giving him affection. He was his hero. But he was also there the day Dick’s parents died, which traumatized Tim and gave him nightmares for years. But being able to remember that night so thoroughly, he remembered a specific move that Dick could do that very few could, and that’s how he found out Dick was Batman, and logically, Bruce Wayne was Batman.

There’s a large misconception that as a little kid, Tim followed Batman and Robin around, but that was not the case. At least not physically and literally followed them around. Closest being when I believe he happened to come across Batman in his origin story, and purposely did his best detective work to figure out where Dick would be.

As shown several times but most strongly in his origin, but wasn’t as strong the more he went on, he’s sort of socially oblivious to what’s considered normal or not, or what other people are thinking of him.

For instance he just knocked on Starfire’s and Dick’s apartment, asked Kori (Starfire) if Dick was home because he needed his help, and when she said no, just bolted even when Kori asked his name. Just concerning the crap out of her. Even when he first met Dick, he just wouldn’t say his name because “NO TIME”, he just squirmed around place to place on his bike being completely oblivious of himself. In his first miniseries he searches up information on Clyde (a former government agent he saved and befriends) that he shouldn’t have, unaware that that’d obviously be crossing a line for some people. Even taking his girlfriend to a car show, where there was a lot of bikini models around, and it didn’t even occur to him what it’d look like he was there for. He was just genuinely bubbly to see the cars.

He doesn’t do any of those sorts of things out of malice, he’s always just presented as being incredibly oblivious of himself quite a bit. Most likely from not having his parents around that much as his childhood progressed, and typically just living in boarding schools, or with a nanny. So he didn’t really developed right as one interpretation, and another being (that was actually almost confirmed if it wasn’t for Tim getting a writer before another could say it) is that he’s on the Autism spectrum. Which is technically verified, as he has many symptoms of Asperger’s. But that isn’t technically canon, as it never got to be officially said. But it’s valid enough.

Tim’s main strength is his detective work, he also knows how to use a computer to his advantage. Many modern comics act as if Tim is a master hacker who could hack into anything. But he actually mostly used them for detective work, and small hack jobs, some of which he failed. He seemed to have learned more about hacking from Barbara, or at least some what implied, as Babs let him help her build a big computer, or something of that sort.

He also took karate as a kid, and is implied to have also taken gymnastics. It’s stated that he’s actually really good at gymnastics by Alfred in Tim’s origin, but his fighting skills, despite the karate lessons he had previously taken, isn’t as good as the others. Hence his staff, and having to be clever in how he goes about a fight.

How Tim operates as far as emotionally or mentally depends too. Sometimes he’ll go straight from the heart and get himself in trouble, but other times he’ll take his time to really plan something out for himself on the spot. It depends on how his emotions are at the time. If he was just picked on or beat up, he’ll be more agitated, and if something really really bad that happened, he just go so far in he just beats the crap out of everyone as bad as he can. As shown by trying to apprehend someone that shot someone he knew at school, or Batman betraying his trust (in an honestly out of character story). If he’s calmer though, or at least doing his best to be, he’ll use his brain more before he starts. I think his talents in planning have been overstated for ages, because while he’s good at it, he’s not exactly the greatest or overall good. Just enough to work fine enough to get the job done.

One of his biggest mental weakness’s, is his constant insecurity. Somethings that’s so constantly on his mind is letting someone down, rather it be Batman or his dad Jack, or even Nightwing, or his team. The reason why Tim acted so different and more of a seriously brooding personality in Young Justice, was because he was so insecure about not having powers that he thought he had to push himself to his limits. So he used some Batman leadership tactics, and fought harder than he ever fought before just to seem like he was even worth having around. When by himself though, it’s more of a sadness, an upset feeling in his gut. Tim has anxiety about things, rather or not he’s good enough. He’s not a super confident person when it comes to himself. He doesn’t think much of him.

One editorial person answering fan questions in the back of comics as they used to, even described Tim as meek. He doesn’t brag or think much of himself as super according to it.

He’s also stated and shown to be internally scared quite a bit, even shaking when he first got his own Robin suit. Another occasion saying the cold water might excuse his shivering. Which goes along with his anxiety.

Another thing about him that is more low-key and not as noticed, is how Tim, even though he clearly thinks of himself as a kid, heck even the letter column above says so, he has also said since being Robin he’s never had time to be a kid. But he is also still a kid.

As they specified his voice a bit more, he tended to use heck, Holy crud, dang, fudge, weenie, and even Pus Bucket (a reference to Ghost Busters) as his choice of cussing (if that even remotely counts).

And even if it’s not noticeable at first, is shown as having a secret teddy bear that he kept hidden under his mattress so I assume no one would see it.

He’s also a pretty innocent kid despite what all he sees. His mind doesn’t go to the gutter. He trusts people far faster than he should, even trusting Lady Shiva, the world’s most dangerous woman and know criminal right away.

Even Tim’s step-mother saying so out-loud. Showing that this is also the case in his personal life as well.

It also goes along with his social obliviousness. This stuff being rounded into not having any street smarts, which was a main theme for Tim directly in his first miniseries. As well as being naive.

Of course as life went on that wasn’t the case as much, but in the above screenshot, Dana (his step-mom) is saying that as Tim is already 16.

Tim in-general also being a super hero fanboy. As a kid he watched the news, clipped out the papers on them, collected, and even drew his own Batman art (and potentially) others to put on his wall.

Tim’s general behavior while socializing also depends on his emotions at the time. He’s normally very nice and friendly, when not super depressed or down on himself he’s bubbly. But he’s also still a kid, he can pout when he’s hurt, and passive aggressive to people he doesn’t like. Examples being, literally not listening to a jock that picks on his friends, an over-arrogant jerk he met in France, and even Steph because she kept being reckless and flirting with him when he didn’t like it.

Nothing straight up insults, but just generally passive aggressive, give them a clue he doesn’t like them very much even if it never worked. He just wants them to go away, unless they’re a straight up bully. Tim, if it’s no one he specifically knows that will invade his personal life, will beat up bullies. He really can’t stand a bully.

Another thing about Tim is that even though he’s an introvert typically, he’s also not very shy. A shy kid wouldn’t travel miles on a bike (and I freaking hope busses) to meet someone he barely knows because he believes in Batman needing a Robin. He also stands up to bullies, and unless he’s really uncomfortable could talk to about anyone. He even slept in only his briefs and undershirt in the house of someone he doesn’t know, with two people he also barely knows. With that example also probably adding up to the socially oblivious part of his personality.

As far as his relationships go, he canonically thinks of the Bat-Family as his family. Dick calls Tim his little brother, Babs treats Tim as her baby brother as well as acting like his/ Aunt/ Mom depending on the situation (I think Tim fell asleep on her couch after eating pizza while using his cape as a blanket and drooling. So Mom’s a stretch but still), Bruce is his distant but still father figure, Alfred is his grandpa (who he actually plays video games with), even Cass to an extent treating Tim as a baby brother as well.

He is very much the baby of the family. And Tim talks to them about personal stuff (bar Cass cause he was scared of her in the beginning), most of them from Alfred and Dick, to the mute hunchback in the Batcave Harold (who is a real character and I love him). He was always collecting advice from where ever he could get it.

He’s also intensely morally operated. He hates killing. He said he took an oath to let himself be killed before ever killing, getting PTSD from feeling responsible for a death, and even crying when he had genuinely thought Bruce killed someone.

As far as how he tries to present himself, he is constantly doing his best to take everything as seriously as he can, even shunning himself when he starts to stop taking things as serious, he wants to be seen as serious, trustworthy, and reliable desperately so he doesn’t let anyone down. He is constantly hard of himself, and is always trying to be what he thinks Batman wants him to be. Which is were a lot of his anxieties from. Even trying to think of what Batman or Dick would do because he regards them so highly. Even calling Bruce the great man he’s ever known I believe during one of his post-origin pre-Robin appearances.

He’s naive and oblivious of himself, as well as childish in some areas (I think his nanny yelled at him once for it), but overall what he tries to hardest at is taking everything seriously as possible, and using his brain as much as he can. He may not be the most mature, often actually handling situations very immaturely, but he does his best to at least seem like he’s mature, and to an extent he actually can be genuinely very mature, or at least as much as a naive oblivious child can be.

Dick:

This ones a lot shorter probably, because I don’t read him as much, but still have a good handle on him.

I think he’s a character very few always write correctly, because they ride too much into the friendly, compassionate guy. Which, compassion being his main motivator in how he goes about as much as he can, and he’s incredibly friendly, he’s also a very angsty and angry person deep down.

He’s a perfectionist, a trait fics tend to give to Tim more, but actually belongs to Dick. He gets really hard on himself when he thinks he messed something up badly, having nightmares over it, he doesn’t like himself when he messes up something badly. And even if he’s not a naturally angry person, when he is angry, he can be VERY VERY angry.

And until Batman writers in the early 00s started it, I wouldn’t even had considered him all that chatty. He had some jokes in him, was very light hearted when not in distress or mad, but as he was developed by Marv Wolfman, who basically created the Dick that has remained the base for him ever since, he was relatively a generally calm guy when he wasn’t emotional.

He was polite, a charming guy, the type of person you want to bring home to your parents basically. He dressed well. Did his best to keep people accommodated. 

He wasn’t a goofy, constant jokester that’d talk your ear off or keep begging for hugs. 

He’s not that kind of guy. He’s just a gentlemen.

He’s also not that much of a thot. He’s a “wait till it’s right” sort of guy when it comes to sex.

He’d do anything in the world he could to make sure his friends felt right too, and that they were okay.

But all this doesn’t mean he’s not just a one note personality. Depending on how bad he feels like he messed up, he’ll distance himself from people, stop caring as much about his appearance, get more violent and mean. He also doesn’t take well to Batman’s nonsense, he’s probably the person he got specifically mad at the most. He didn’t like the way Batman went about stuff after a while. He had complicated feelings towards him.

Despite people nowadays just thinking of Dick being Batman’s son officially, adopted, end of. That wasn’t exactly their relationship. Dick had a complicated relationship with Bruce. Part of him looked at Bruce as a big brother, and another half a dad, and he wasn’t even adopted, just a ward. Something that Dick was actually quite insecure about, till apparently he got adopted as a grown adult man (which I dunno is true or an edit, but I’ve seen it somewhere).

Dick’s relationship with Tim is pure big bro baby bro. He was very protective of Tim, calling him the closest thing to a brother he ever had, and little brother, before they were ever even officially brothers. He’d push Tim out of the way in times of big trouble, make him stand back, ruffled his hair all the time, and loved teasing him. But when they started off, Dick just sort of thought Tim was a weird annoying kid, given that Tim was acting so screwy during his origin, Dick really didn’t know what to make of him, but the closer they got, they got very very close. Dick cared a lot about Tim a ton once they got accommodated. Tim would even call Dick on the phone just to talk to him about anything from his day to his problems. Tim could count on Dick to help when ever he could. Tim was Dick’s dweebie baby brother who he took care of when needed. Even teaching Tim how to wash clothes personally since Tim didn’t have a clue. 

I don’t think him and Jason really had a relationship. He gave him a number to talk about stuff like Robin angst, and a few pics show they hanged out at least once or twice, but nothing suggests they were close. It seems like Dick was hard on himself, because Jason died before they could get close. After the Red Hood, Dick’s just kind of a-- dick to Jason, and Tim was too, but I don’t consider that in-character. Neither Tim nor Dick would be even remotely okay about the killing, but I can’t picture them treating him like he’s a joke and less than trash. Too much emotional baggage there. Tim would be distant to Jason, and Dick would be uncomfortable and conflicted. That’s my guesses on a more accurate relationship.

Dick’s always had a really big crush on Babs ever since he was a kid to the point they were stuck in a small area together and Dick lost dignity over-- I dunno, puberty effecting him. There’s no way I can put that that’s comfortable. But Dick has a crush on Babs, that got put into a romantic relationship both ways when they aged down Babs, but for some people the relationship is relatively gross because of the age gap, and feeling the need to age down a character like Babs, who just looked at Dick like a kid, to just date him. It’s complicated, and I dunno enough about them besides that exactly. I’m not the guy to ask on that.

He doesn’t have a proper relationship with either Duke or Steph, but it doesn’t seem like Dick’s ever been the fondest of Steph. And Duke’s new, and they only ever been around each other in fan service moments. So I don’t think he has a real actual relationship with Duke.

Dick and Cass despite I don’t think ever being shown much together, also had a sweet relationship. With Dick doing his best to make sure his sister (before she was adopted, but Dick treated her as one nevertheless much like Tim as Dick’s baby brother) was comfortable, acting goofy, and to  me coming across as if he’s always really wanted a sister. But they weren’t super close, but there’s enough there to say that they easily could become close.

Dick and Damian was mentor mentoree, and to a large extent Dick was Damian’s father figure as Bruce was dead. As written by Damian’s creator, Dick didn’t seem to like Damian at all in the beginning, but as Dick could realize and understand his responsibilities more, they did gain a closer bond. Dick would put Damian in line (besides when bad writers were too afraid to make Damian seem like he’s in the wrong fully), sometimes even the hard way, and could be very proud of him. They aren’t big bro little bro like how some current writers act for pandering purposes. But they did grow to be close, even if Damian’s naturally really emotionally distant. Dick always wanted the best for Damian, even if he couldn’t always handle it the right way or knew what to do. He was a guy in his early to mid 20s with the responsibilities of reraising a 10 year old kid that was raised and abused by a cult, who can blame him.

Damian

I’m kind of just getting Damian out of the way, because to be frank, he’s been a really crappily written character since his origin, because he personality just absolutely switches between every writer, and he’s just so badly written that way.

But I’ll go off of what I believe to be what his writer wanted, since that’s the most accurate you can get.

Damian was raised and abused in a cult. That dictates a lot of how he thinks.

He was not close to his mother (which is out of character for Talia, and they later switched that after the reboot, but to be frank if Talia was always in-character Damian wouldn’t exist as we know him. He’d be a total different person and character). And he seemed to despise the way his dad goes about things. He seemed very indifferent and had his mood set to angry in general when he first met.

Which made it all the weirder when an issue later Damian seems to want his parents to be together, despite making it clear he doesn’t even like or think much of either one of them at all.

He was also very entitled, because despite being treated as an experiment some of the time, he was also treated as a prince the other half of the time. He thought the world was his, and he deserved everything.

He nearly killed Tim because he thought he deserved being Robin, as Tim was just adopted and not a “real” son. Seemingly he thought that was what he had to do to have his dad accept him and treat him as he thought he should.

He also seems to think he’s above Jason as well.

He’s also shown as sexist and homophobic.

He was brash and reckless about everything. Had a talented in just about everything just because of how he was raised, and goes off on his own to do stuff, because I assume he thinks everyone else holds him back.

After Dick though, Damian learned to not be a murderer (which I also think he might’ve learned before cause he wants to live with Bruce, It’s a little weird and not given enough time to actually be developed fully in an easy to digest way. Which is another reason why I think he’s such a poorly written character), also more reserved, and reckless.

As he was originally intended, he was very tall and not cute. His height being around 5′2 to 5′4 at age 10. Meaning he was an inch taller than Tim was at 13 when Damian was 10 off of that first one, and only an inch shorter than Tim at the age he  met him, where Tim was 17 going on 18. It may not be drawn that way, but you also have to remember this is 00s and beyond era DC Comics were Tim despite being described as looking 12 got drawn as big as Dick sometimes. Don’t always use the art to go off of certain information. I say he wasn’t intended to be cute, because there’s a scene were he was at a gala, where a woman clearly wanting to gold-dig Gotham City’s most eligible Bachelor Bruce Wayne by getting close to her son, but she immediately backed away when she saw him.

Which sounds harsh, but Damian’s also basically the “anti-Robin”, he was everything a Robin wasn’t meant to be and he was intended to just die and that’s it. Hence why he was with Dick to keep the Batman and Robin dynamic intact, just in reverse. As you can see, they completely forgot what made Damian interesting when his character gained some consistency with his creator.

Damian’s development was that he grew a actual caring heart even if he still carried the generally same personality. He was dismissive of people, sexually harassed Steph, was generally anti-social-esque. 

And honestly because every writer after (even the one everyone seems to think is his best writer, which I massively agree times a billion and infinite more) just kept reverting him, again and again, even when they wrote stories with character development, it was gone again. And applied a whole bunch of traits that aren’t like Damian in the slightest, so if you pay attention. Ya can tell Damian’s not Damian, he’s literally not even a shell of his self. They just painted another one to look kind of like him, and even then they don’t do that because he freaking looks completely different some of the time. They botched him so much.

But that was the main thing about Damian. 

I think one reason he got close to Dick and no one else was because Damian from his origin (no matter how poorly written they showed it), always wanted to have a proper parent. Which it seemed he could never have. And Dick grew to serve that purpose, as Dick was the one teaching him lessons, and making sure he was actually safe.

But of course later on DC Comics literally forgot everything that was letting him slowly become a better character. So that sucks.

I partially came into this fandom because of Damian. So when I actually got to read him, I was so freaking miserable after. I genuinely wanted to like him so bad, even voicing that to people I was chatting too as I read the comics, but I literally just couldn’t see why anyone cared for his comics. I don’t think any of them are fully well-written.

But it did help me grasp what Damian’s suppose to be like as I could tell what he’s suppose to be and not suppose to be, much like how I learned about Tim’s actual personality vs the one writers that don’t care about him write.

Steph

Just doing this one to get a more negatively centered one out of the way, because I struggle to find any personality traits I deem actually likable when put under context.

Because she’s full of her self, reckless, cynical, more or less sexually harassed Tim, kissing him against his wishes (and before ya say Tim did that first. it’s a little less offensive when Tim didn’t do it sexually or romantically. That was just for a dumb trope. A reward kiss. It’s still gross, but it’s a different context that’s less directly offensive), goes behind people’s backs sometimes, can be emotionally abusive, and shows signs of physically abusive.

So I don’t exactly find her super likable. And her spot in the Bat-Family was so contrived, that often nowadays I just don’t pay attention her anymore, but in fairness a lot of that’s just cause she has crazy stans that start fights that were barely there, be hypocritical, and group bully folks. So it’s relatively hard for me to wanna look at her these days.

But to be more specific before she seems like an actual freaking demon woman or what ever. Some of that doesn’t come across as bad compared to what it could be. Besides the emotional abuse, that was just a thing and the comics and people just elected to ignore it even though that was written by her creator.

She’s reckless in a way where she clearly doesn’t have proper training to make sure no one or herself gets hurt. She’s been shown causing herself to get hurt or underestimate stuff. She also doesn’t listen to people that know more about what they do, and she usually relies on luck to get by.

She’s full of herself, because she more or less says she’s an adrenaline junkie, and might just be beating up bad guys because she finds it really fun and exciting. She likes the thrill. And tries to put a title of super hero on herself sometimes, because she tries to seem heroric as she does it. She also does it to make up for her dad, which is more admirable, but behavior wise and focus wise it’s more pinned on her just being an adrenaline junkie.

She also just constantly just flirt with Tim even when he didn’t want it. Which is what sexual harassment is. She also kissed him for her own satisfaction twice, once nearly getting them both killed cause people were shooting at them, and another as them and other people were close to freezing to death because they were stuck under snow. That kind of behavior able to be under sexual assault given the context for her kisses was just for herself. Even the time she tried to say it was to make up for Tim’s reward kiss, she quickly makes it obvious it was just because she’s very sexually attracted to him.

She also just nearly lets criminals die a lot because “What’s one more life”, and seems to not care much for the lesson of not killing, specifically her dad. Like she still has the moral standard not to kill, but compared to the others it’s not one she takes as serious. She learned her lesson on being cynical, but it’s still ingrained in her personality.

I also have a whole very long post on why her relationship with Tim doesn’t work, and how she was abusive. I don’t feel like going over that again but that’s a thing.

Besides Tim she has no real relationship with the others besides Cass, which is another relationship I don’t fully understand, because Steph borderline insults her, and Cass thinks she gets in the way so much she just fractures Steph’s jaw to knock her out. They gave them some admittedly cute moments, but it’s never felt right to me. Always felt forced and pandery, but it’s a thing. They’ve played tag each other, and talked about how both of their parents are abusive.

She also had one with in Batgirl, but the best I can describe that is, she helps Steph so she doesn’t hurt herself, and she can be pretty gruff sometimes, but is also caring. it’s just kind of a been there done that sort of thing.

A lot of Batgirl is sort of forced. Bat-Family has reasonable criticisms of her, writer does something to make them more unlikable so readers still like Steph, Steph proves them wrong, they respect her. It’s a formula for a few stories in her Batgirl run.

People have also said her and Damian have a sibling relationship, but I don’t agree with that. Damian sexually harassed her and kept looking at her boobs. Damian had a crush on her, but he was also a stubborn entitled jerk to her. Steph just got back at Damian by making him dress as a normal kid to embarrass him, and when she saw Damian never played before got him to jump on a bouncy castle. Besides generic banter that’s about it. And given Damian’s personality, they never did anything like that bouncy castle thing again. It’s a really big stretch to call that sibling-like. And even the stuff you could stretch is still doesn’t pay attention to the Damian talking about her boobs constantly thing. Parts of it was just pandery, as a lot of that Batgirl run was.

So I don’t overall have a good opinion of her. She’s perseverance and doesn’t give up, and won’t take no for an answer, but given the context it’s not in a good way besides saving Tim’s and others lifes a few times.

Babs

Despite having read her a lot I don’t know her a lot, because she’s typically always the other character in things. The lady that gets the information.

So I only know a few things about her.

She has the perseverance and won’t take no traits, but in a more positive context. She has no use of her legs but that doesn’t stop her from fighting crime and helping people.

She’s a serious, and mature personality. Every case is very seriously to her, besides a few Tim got into because they were just very goofy.

She can also joke a lot. She has a very teasing personality in her as well. Especially with Tim, she seemed to find Tim really cute and loved teasing him.

I pretty much only have panels of her and Tim besides a rare few maybe, cause as I said she’s mostly a side character helping out.

I have read Birds of Prey but that was possible a year or two ago, and I didn’t really pay attention so I’m not as sure.

She’s very leaderly, and will direct the traffic so to say. She’s a magnificent detective and hacker. Stands up for herself. Inquisitive. Her mind always seems to be thinking of the next thing to think about.

She’s a character I can’t talk about as well without it being one dimensional.

Cass

Cass is another character I don’t have the best grasp on but been trying to learn because she’s probably my second favorite Batkid even if I don’t understand her as strongly. But I do get a lot of her basic personality, and a bit of the nuances, even if I’m not ultra confident on it yet.

She’s quirky, she knows how to tease, but she can also be a bit objective based unless she’s bored it seems, like she does watch TV, but when she has a goal she will not stop until the goal is done. She’s a fully compassionate person as well, she sees little kid needing help, she helps little kid.

Also given her upraising she can be more socially oblivious than anyone else, even Tim. She’s walked around an apartment she was sharing with others butt naked. I think she accidentally flirted with Babs (not a shippy thing, it’s a, Cass said a thing she didn’t understand thing), because she couldn’t tell the difference between a platonic thing and cheesy romantic thing as she watched TV. 

She doesn’t always listen. She will just beat by her own drum unless she believes in something someone else said more.

Given her mind wasn’t raised to be socializing, a lot of this stuff makes sense and is kind of obvious when you think about it.

Cass can also be very stubborn when she has a goal, even when it’s against someone else’s wishes.

She’s mostly been a loner by herself, but she has grown to seem to genuinely like having company around to bond with.

She’s been shown being protective of Tim. Literally carrying him out of a fight zone.

Babs’s is more or less her mom.

Dick and Steph’s I’ve described before.

Distant with Alfred, but Alfred will occasionally drop by to help out. They’re still carrying if they aren’t as connected as others.

Not gonna lie I can’t remember her relationship with Bruce.

But that’s some of the basics and slight nuances of Batgirl. I’m still in the early part of learning about her. So I’ll probably understand her more later on. I genuinely really like her though. I like how she isn’t a one dimensional character like some writers make her out to be. She’s genuinely really fun to read.

Jason

I actually know Jason quite a bit because I made a big long post about his time as Robin (post-crisis only, not counting the scripts written before the 80s reboot, or anything inconsistent).

He’s anti-authority, angry, cusses, smokes, violent, murderous tendencies, aggressive, but also has a genuine heroic spirit, is appreciative of the opportunities he was able to have, loved being able to learn especially, had insecurities, and a lot of his violence was in the name of being a more aggressive way of justice. He’d never hurt an innocent.

A lot of this is explain by the fact he was raised on the streets more or less.

When ever he got especially violent was because of a bad guy hurting or killing an innocent or committing abusive acts of any sort. He probably seen a lot of bad stuff on the streets and doesn’t handle it.

He’s pretty decently cynical because of thinking that’s the best way to deal with it.

He was also moody, but after his upbringing that’s to be expected, and unlike what some thinks, Batman was actually understanding and did his best to help Jason back even if he didn’t get it as first.

Jason isn’t a villain, he is a pure anti-hero, he wants to help, he loves to help, when he feels like he should help he does. He just has his own way of doing it that lots don’t agree with.

When he became the Red Hood, all of this stuff just became amplified because of the traumatic event he went through and the feeling of not being avenged and abandoned again.

Where as before he’d nearly kill people, he outright does now with even left empathy. He had a sack of decapitated head once just so other criminals knew he wasn’t playing around. 

However his moodiness came out in different ways. He was actually a very calm, chill personality as the Red Hood, until his traumas got poked at, where he’d go back into his angry bitter ways, but to a more unstoppable way. He’d be more violent, more angry, more inconsolable, more unstable.

As the Red Hood, he is a very far ahead planner and tactition. People always call Tim the planner, but to me Jason is the planner and tactition of the group. He had a large plan that took a while to do, but caused him to accomplish a lot in a short time. Tim does it in the moment or moments before and does a fine enough job, but he isn’t a good leader. Dick is a good planner tactition and leader, but it can also just be shortly before he does something. Jason thinks very far ahead and how people will react and think, how to get under their skin, what will piss them off, what will give him what he once etc.

When he’s not unstable, he’s calm and collected, and is always trying to get under people’s skin. Not in a large over the top way, but just a bit. In an almost charming sort of way. A sly way. He pokes buttons when he’s calm and collected.

As to be expected his relationship with the Bat-Family is complicated. He’s mostly just in the Bat-Family almost purely because of his past in it, more than what he is currently. He’s more of a loner type that will get help when needed, but until the New 52 said otherwise, he’s not much of a team player as he mostly works by himself.

Bat-Family wants him to get better, but at the same time I think they recognize it’s gonna take a lot for Jason to get better, and since Jason is dangerous it creates a lot of overwhelming feelings. Bruce is upset at himself and is almost grieving Jason all over again, Dick has regrets he never had a chance to know him till then, and Tim’s relationship has been so varied and never really felt right, I’d say  most likely Tim would be scared of Jason, and upset at him. Jason was a Robin that killed. Going off of how Tim reacted to thinking Batman killed, he’d probably be genuinely miserable at the thought of what Jason became, and be distant from him.

Jason is sly and hard to read unless he’s emotional.

Duke

Duke is the hardest to say anything for, because he’s the newest, most obscure (even tho he is gaining quick prominence), and so therefore has less to go off of. Not helped by a lot of writers making him very two dimensional at best a lot of the time.

He is a natural leader, a dare-devil, very willing to put his life on the line at any time, and passionate and almost stubborn about helping people. He wants to save people, and he’s always wanting to help, because he wants to make his neighborhood a better place.

And that’s almost all I can say, because having read his mini-series he doesn’t have many character traits, and WE ARE ROBIN, where he was introduced and I got that from was short lived.

He’s only with the other Batkids when they really wanna pander, so I can’t even accurately say anything, and the few times you could make a guess it’s not in-character for the other. So he’s just hard to tell. Besides Cass.

I think he’d naturally get along with Bruce, Dick, and Tim, and he’s shown being closest to Cass in the Outsiders series. Considering Cass a sister I believe. They console in each other, care about each other, worry about each other, and look after each other. That’s the closest relationship he has.

But it’s hard to say a lot for him.

AGES:

To be blunt I can’t say with full accuracy because there’s so many inconsistencies plus reboots.

But I’ll go into oldest to youngest, because some don’t realize some ages.

Dick, was 21 when Tim was 13

Jason was 18 when Tim was 15

Cass is the same age if not older than Jason

Steph is two years older than Tim

I believe Duke is around the same age as Steph

and Tim and Damian’s ages off of that is pretty obvious.

--

Sorry this is so freaking long, but like I said, just DM me. I’m about to watch a movie, but I’ll get back to you as soon as possible. I at least hope this helped some, and if it’s too long, just message me because it’ll probably be less overwhelming then.

#long post

[wehavethoughts]

Zack Snyder's Justice League Review!

Zack Snyder's Justice League dir. Zack Snyder (2021) Warner Bros. Pictures, DC Films, Atlas Entertainment and The Stone Quarry Science Fiction, Action, Superhero Movie

Rating: 3.5 Waves

Summary: Tormented by visions of a dark future, Bruce Wayne aka The Batman attempts to gather a team of superheroes to defend the planet. When alien tyrant Steppenwolf arrives on Earth seeking a long forgotten technology, this group of heroes must do everything in their power to keep him from locating all three Mother Boxes and destroying the world.

Content warnings: Violence, Death, Body Horror, Gore

This review DOES NOT contain spoilers for Zack Snyder's Justice League

A bit of background for those of you thinking “Didn’t Justice League come out years ago?” You are exactly right! Justice League was released in theaters in 2017 and is the fifth movie in the DCEU (DC Extended Universe). The same company that produced Justice League then funded Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) which is a different version of the story that was released in 2017. Zack Snyder was actually the original director of Justice League (2017), but he stepped away from the project during post production and the film was handed over to director Joss Whedon. Whedon’s creative decisions led to rewrites, heavy editing and a notorious reshoot that required removal of Henry Cavill’s mustache via CGI. Therefore, Justice League as it premiered in theaters in 2017 was Joss Whedon’s vision of the story. As some of you might remember, Justice League (2017) was considered a “flop” as it lost the studio ~$60 million overall and was received by fans with mixed to negative reviews (6.2/10 IMDB, 40% Rotten Tomatoes). But since Zack Snyder had left so late in the project, there were rumors that his version of the film had been nearly finished and there was hope that the movie Snyder filmed was actually better than what Whedon had created. Fans took to social media to demand that Warner Bros release the “Snyder Cut'' of Justice League and in a move I personally find baffling, Warner Bros actually gave Zack Snyder another $70 million to finish his version. Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) which was released on HBO Max is the final product.

While understanding the context of how this movie came about is neat and honestly pretty hilarious, I never got around to see Justice League (2017) so I cannot give any commentary on whether this new film is any better. For those who are curious, my fiancée who has seen both says that the movies are extremely similar in plot, but there are significant changes to characterization and pacing. This review will solely be on the merits and shortfalls of Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) in a spoiler free context since the movie was released just over a week ago (if you want to talk spoilers DM me I have So Many Thoughts).

Honestly, I was surprised how much I enjoyed this movie. My expectations were quite low considering what I heard about the original 2017 version and the fact that I’m more of a Marvel fan. The most surprising thing for me was that I sat through the entire 4 hr and 2 min runtime (for reference the runtime for Justice League (2017) is 2 hrs). Aside from Lord of the Rings (Return of the King runtime 4 hr 11min), I usually don’t indulge in movies that require me to block off an entire day, but I was curious and I love bandwagons.

The highlight of this movie are the characters. Each of our main characters had a deep, solid backstory that drew me in and made me invested in what was happening in this world. One thing lacking in a lot of ensemble superhero movies is balanced screen time between the main cast, but Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) uses its time wisely to give each character depth and critical purpose in the narrative. Even the villain had compelling motivation as to why he is on earth doing dastardly deeds, and while I wasn’t rooting for him, I respected his motivations. I also appreciated that the writers of this movie made the characters intelligent. Sure, some decisions were driven more by emotion than logic, but the way defenses are set up and how our heroes use their unique powers left me incredibly impressed.

The characters’ interactions with each other was also very enjoyable. Snyder took the time to include scenes centered around the team chilling with each other in ways that were refreshingly low stakes and mundane. The story was interspersed with scenes like Wonder Woman and Alfred making tea, Aquaman and Wonder Woman musing over cultural differences, and Cyborg and Flash digging up a body where you could really see the characters grow from strangers to teammates to friends. These scenes also peppered in some light humor that kept the movie from becoming too dark without distracting from the tone.

Since Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) is technically an action movie and it is rated R, I feel like I should touch on the action sequences. Overall, the action was incredibly fun to watch! It was made for the big screen so watching the epic battles for the first time on my TV at home was a bit underwhelming, but the well choreographed, high stakes fights were still visually pleasing. For a rated R movie there was not as much gore as there could have been, which I appreciated and the level of violence was pretty much what I expected from a comic book movie.

The action scenes also do a fantastic job with power escalation. By that I mean the action illustrates the limits of one character’s power clearly in relation to other characters’ powers. This way you are aware of exactly how impressive the characters and their powers are on their own and so when someone or something stronger shows up we have context for how big of a threat we are dealing with. The clean way the story shows us everyone’s respective powers and their limits makes it so the stakes feel more tangible and it's not just unfathomably strong characters beating the shit out of each other with the winner decided by chance.

There are a few reasons the movie didn’t get a full five waves from me. First was that the Amazon’s outfits were very clearly made by horny men based on how much skin they were showing. I, a bisexual, personally love to see superheroes in less then full coverage, but when the Amazon warriors have their entire stomachs and cleavage out of their armor for no reason it exhausts me. What happened to the tasteful and stylish armor from Wonder Woman (2017)? This feels like a step in the wrong direction.

The next concern I have that has kept me from recommending this movie to people is the overall pacing and length. While there were some great uses of the extended run time like the action sequences and team bonding I mention above, there were so many scenes that were way too slow for me to stay engaged. I found myself editing the movie in my head, like did we really need 2 full minutes of Bruce Wayne and his horse climbing a dreary mountain? I don’t think so. This was a narrative where I needed to pay attention lest I miss critical pieces of the story, but the random scenes that dragged on too long had me going to get snacks and checking my phone throughout. If I could rate the movie by halves the first half would get 2.5 Waves because of how it dragged and the second half would get closer to 4.5 Waves since the story really picks up and fun things start to happen.

The final part of this movie that kept it from getting a higher rating was how closely it was tied to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. In fact, the first scene of Zack Snyder's Justice League is the final scene of Batman v Superman. There were many plot critical tie-ins to previous movies that left me feeling confused until I googled my questions during the slow scenes. If you have never seen Batman v Superman or Man of Steel then you will miss a lot of this movie, which I thought was unfair because other DCEU movies came out before the first iteration of Justice League like Wonder Woman and Suicide Squad and while events in those movies are mentioned in passing they are not nearly as important as the Batman and Superman-centric films. If the DCEU is going to pick favorites, the least it can do is pick movies I actually like (Wonder Woman (2017) remains my favorite DCEU movie to date). In general, superhero movies seem to be trending toward sagas and I prefer movies that you can just watch and enjoy without needing to see a bunch of other movies first.

Overall, I did very much enjoy this movie, but based on the run time alone it is not going to be for everyone. Measuring movie success during the pandemic is trickier than looking at box office numbers and labeling it a success or a flop, but it does appear that Zack Snyder's Justice League (2021) is doing well as far as critical reception and viewership. I hope that this success will allow the DCEU to explore all of the fun nooks and crannies of the universe Snyder pulled together. In fact, half of the epilogue of this movie felt like set up for future movies. I hope they come to fruition because there were some pretty compelling teasers at the end that I would love to see played out on the big screen.

As I mentioned before, I’ve never seen the original cut of Justice League, but Snyder’s version left me fulfilled and satisfied with the narrative, so I am happy to have seen this newest cut first. This is a movie for people who love DC, love superhero movies or are just really invested in the hype.

~TideMod

#Zack Snyder #the snyder cut #zack snyder’s justice league #Justice League 2021 #Justice League 2017 #DCEU #DC movies #Justice League #spoiler free #TideMod #wehavethoughts! #WHT! #reviewblr #movie review #film review #long post #action movie #superheroes #superhero movie #wonder woman #aquaman #the flash #cyborg #superman #batman #steppenwolf #mother boxes

[asterlizard]

My 2020

I think it goes without saying that this was a challenging year, and it was no exception for me as well: cancelled trip to the UK (supposed to bring home more items from my grandparents' house) and France (it would have been 20 years since my last trip to Paris), cancelled dogsitting plans (I miss Brinkley's face! 😭), technical difficulties during the summer, November blues, and overall just fighting boredom.

But as with every year, I'm using this post to focus on the positives I accomplished this year, and all things considered, I think this was a good year for me, and I got more done than I would have expected.

I participated in 3 (three) zines this year: -Eccentricities (BNHA steampunk zine) -Moonlight Chorus (Sailor Moon theme songs zine) -The Ties That Bind Us (BNHA gen zine) This was a lot of fun, and I'm learning new things in the process! The latter two also kept me busy during the summer. I applied for more zines, but haven't been accepted to any of them. Oh well... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I drew a lot in general, and I got a few popular posts (my BNHA gen comic got 1K+ notes, which surprised me! Thank you for your tears)

I finally started learning ASL, but I broke my 2020 resolution of sticking to one language back in January 😂

Discovering a recipe for rosemary bread 🤤💗

I have become more outspoken about disability rights. In the past, I was too afraid to have an opinion on anything, even standing up for myself, so I'm glad I have something I can be more assertive about

A good thing that came from the lockdown is exploring more of my neighbourhood, and acquainting myself with the local pets during my walks (mostly cats, and an African grey parrot who will gladly share her repertoire of noises with us)

I got a bird feeder, which is a double-edged sword, because the birds are delightful to watch, but they're easily distracting, and it's not an exaggeration to say that it's really difficult for me to look away

Mum got me a Scrabble board for Christmas! I never played it before, and in the past I would find a lot of references to it and not understand them. Anyway, I'm already having a lot of fun with it, and finally beat Mum after 4 (four) games!

Some of my resolutions:

Finish reading Haikyuu (I hoped to finish it last year, but nevermind. As of this post, I'm all caught up in the storyline with the anime, I'm going to try and get it done in January, I'm ready I'm not ready)

Make more donations (although I'm definitely not a millionaire and my funds are limited, I have been well off, and I want to take advantage of that)

Join more zines and fan projects (I currently have a couple of them in mind I'm interested in joining, hopefully I can be accepted! 🤞)

Graduate college (idk what I'll be doing afterwards, but that will be part of the resolution)

In the last minutes of 2020, I heard a saying that one thing we're good at is bouncing back from hardship, and I hope 2021 will become what 2020 should have been.

Stay safe, take care of yourself, keep following safety protocols, and hang in there! Hopefully this pandemic will all be over soon! 🤞💕

#my posts