thinking about the way arthur looks to merlin whenever he disagrees with his father or in any moment of internal conflict and how he does this as early as episode five when lancelot is punished. just like. merlin is his moral compass, his impartial party, the person that doesn't expect anything from him but will tell him when he's wrong but he's also the person standing at arthur's side when arthur dares to stand up to his father, he's the servant that isn't afraid to point out when uther's wrong and side with arthur, and arthur trusts him implicitly.
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I love how much of a complex and intricate character Astarion is.
You can approach his story in so many different ways, and it will still make sense, depending on your perception of events and what we are given canon-wise.
I don't believe there is a singular, correct way to handle his trauma. Everyone is different. We all pour bits and pieces of ourselves into him, as our experiences shape how we interact with his story.
It's truly fascinating to read all these different perspectives surrounding him.
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Disney mirrorverse is so funny
(A brief sumary of actual scenes in the game)
Malleficent: YOU ARE A DISGRACE TO THE FORCES OF EVIL!
OOgie Boogie an agent of chaos: ÒwÓ
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Malleficent: Belle, sweety, I don't go around calling you out for your mistakes do I? No? So silence.
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Jafar the second he sees the absolute mistake it was creating the mindless evil mirror versions: SPIT THAT OUT. SPIT. THAT. OUT. I DID NOT GAVE YOU PERMISSION TO EAT THAT THING-
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Rapunzel after 3 seconds alone with Oogie Boogie seeing the others arriving: OH THANK GOD MALLEFICENT AND BELLE ARE HERE-
Malleficent: ... that would be the first time anyone reacted like that to my arrival... strange
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Also... DOES CAPITAIN HOOK JUST WEARS TICK-TOCK AS A FUCKING MANTLE HELLO?????
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DRAWING BACKGROUNDS: TIPS AND TRICKS
So many people are afraid of drawing backgrounds and I think it's a shame, so here's some tips and tricks, because I'm not perfect at it myself but I think the hardest part is really just knowing where to start.
First off: Perspective
Yeah, yeah, that's the scary word. But I promise you, once you're familiar with the basics, backgrounds are a LOT less intimidating. Don't get discouraged if WHEN you have trouble with it. Even professional artists struggle with it. I promise you, screwing it up is good and normal. That's how you learn after all!
Now I'm not going to go into detail on how to do it here, because honestly there are a thousand and one free resources online and in libraries that can explain it far better than I ever could in a singular broad-strokes tumblr post. But I AM at least telling you you should familiarize yourself with these basics:
Important Terms:
Horizon Line: A horizontal line across your canvas, showing your viewer's eye level and providing a location for most of your vanishing points.
Vanishing Point: Integral to drawing in perspective. The sides of a 3D object get smaller as they become farther away from the viewer in space. This point is where the parallel lines of a side eventually meet.
The Basic Types of Perspective:
One Point Perspective: Good for drawing things that you're looking at straight on.
Two Point Perspective: Good for drawing things at an angle.
Three Point Perspective: Good for drawing things the viewer is looking up or down at, especially at an extreme angle.
[Click images for ALT descriptions]
And if you're comfortable with these and serious about improving your skills for use in storytelling, I also might suggest looking up:
4 Point Perspective: Great for extra wide or tall shots and for camera tilts if you're doing an animation or animatic. I think some other names for this in animation include "banana pan" and "warp pan."
5 Point Perspective: Fish-eye lens. Good for all your angsty anime boy slipping into madness needs!
Some perspective tips I wish someone had told me earlier:
Objects' relation to the horizon line is constant.
A super helpful tip to remember when placing a character or object in space is that they will always (assuming they aren't changing in size or moving up or down) have the same relation to the horizon line no matter how far or close they are. If your horizon line is at shoulder height for your focus character in the foreground, any character of the same height in the background will still line up with the horizon line at the shoulders.
How to pick the distance between your vanishing points:
2 pt perspective uses 2 vanishing points, 3 pt uses 3, etc, etc, but how close should they be? Well, first of all, for anything that isn't one point perspective, one or more points will usually be off the canvas. Super annoying, I know, but the closer your vanishing points are, the more warped your drawing will become.
Second, a helpful thing to know is that choosing the distance between your points is basically the illustration equivalent of picking your camera lens! Photography buffs will know that wider (shorter focal length) lenses show more space and make the distance between foreground and background more dramatic, while longer focal length/telephoto lenses are flatter, and more focused and intimate. The same is true of vanishing points that are closer (shorter focal length) or farther apart (longer focal length).
2 point/3 point/etc doesn't actually mean you're limited to that many points total on your page.
this one confused me a lot when I was getting started, lol. A lot of examples will show you drawings of nice, neat cities or something, in which all the buildings are facing the same way in order to demonstrate perspective drawing. But in real life, buildings don't all face the same direction. They're at all sorts of different angles. So how do I do that??? Answer: Just because you're drawing in 2 point perspective or whatever doesn't mean you... have to actually keep your 2 points in the same spot. You can move them around, just keep them the same distance apart, so you're not screwing up your camera lens.
Other Tips:
Use reference!
The instant you try to draw a house, you're going to forget every house you've ever seen. That's just how it goes. Buildings are complicated. Do yourself a favor and collect a few reference images first, buddy!
Consider details (like architectural style, amenities, and materials)
Your building will look more like a building when you keep in mind that buildings have gutters and door knobs and light switches and paneling and stuff, and aren't just boxes with roofs on them. Again: reference! You will forget electrical sockets and baseboards exist immediately. Art brains are dumb.
Use details and texture to fill in negative space
Giant stretches of blank space tend to be boring and distracting. Put a few suggestions of wood grain or something on that wall back there, bud, just don't overdo it.
Line weight
Darker, thicker lines draw more attention, look heavier, and look closer to the viewer than lighter, thinner lines do. Take advantage of this to draw the viewer's attention to your focal points, de-emphasize less important details, and imply depth. It's up to you to decide how you want to use this and what your style is, especially once you start getting into combining or replacing it with shading, values, and color, but a helpful rule of thumb is to try reserving your thickest lines for focal foreground characters and use thinner lines on backgrounds, especially details in the far distance.
Perspective guides
If you're drawing digitally, take full advantage of any perspective tools you have access to! A lot of art programs lately have begun adding perspective guide features that let you set up vanishing points and then literally guide your hand as you draw so you stay in perspective. Some of these include Procreate, Clip Studio Paint, and Adobe Fresco. (still sadly none in Photoshop as far as I'm aware, what the heck, Adobe!). Check through the settings of yours to see if it gives you any perspective guides or other similarly useful tools. They're 100% worth it! And for god's sake, if you've got any skew or perspective warp tools, draw your complicated shapes flat and then warp them instead of spending an hour on it! Don't make my mistakes!
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The Distortion didn’t like Michael as a who.
I mean, it says itself that it doesn’t want to be Michael. But the who and what thing actually brings us farther than that. It shows us his whole arc.
We all know the quote "i am not a who, archivist, i am a what." When i first heard it, i thought: Makes sense, it’s an inhuman creature, not a person, it just can’t have enough identity to be a who. Like it says itself.
But in Michael’s statement, it talks about having your who torn from your what, and replaced with another who. So it actually did have a who before becoming Michael. And it even admits that Michael also was a who, a who that became part of its being.
I think… it could just never accept being Michael. As it said, Michael Shelley was a constant reminder of its failure – the embodiment of it. The Distortion was forced to become the embodiment of its failure. To think with its mind. Of course it could never accept that. Imagine how horrible that must be – despising your own mind. (I think some people can relate to that, actually. I’m sorry if you can. I can.)
So it tried to disassociate itself completely from being Michael. To pretend it was only a what. I mean, we see that it’s comfortable with it/its pronouns as Michael, but not as Helen. As Michael, it embraced its inhumanity – not because it wasn’t comfortable with being a person in general, but with being that specific person it was forced to become. A person whose mind wasn’t made for the Spiral. Its failure incarnate.
But just before the Distortion in its Michael form dies, he ends his statement with "that is who i am". WHO. (thanks @totheidiot for pointing that out to me ^^) Michael finally got to talk about everything he had to endure. For the first time, he said the cruel truths out loud: How much it always hated being Michael Shelley. He told Jon everything, which also forced him to face the truth himself. And i think facing it finally allowed him to accept it. Accepting how shitty something is is the first step towards learning to live with it and maybe even learning not to hate it.
He could finally accept his mind. His who. Every part of himself.
And not even two minutes later, he died.
(Of course, the Distortion itself didn’t die. But its current state of existence died. It finally accepted its who, only to get it painfully torn from its what again.)
Because he got too lost in his who. Talking to Jon allowed him to be more human. But the cruel world he lived in doesn't reward humanity. It exploits the weakness that comes with it.
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