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wanted to share some of the illustrations i did for indie author Linn Tesli and her children's books about dragons and fairies. i'm incredibly proud of my work for these, and i'm very sad we never got to make a third book.

#art #dragon book tag #was that my tag for it. i don't remember #they're also out of print except u Can buy english paperback copies from am/zon

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varpu from @plantcomic!!!!!!

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happy dunmeshi dhursday to those who celebrate

#excited to get home...

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0: the fool

oohhh nooo watch outtt

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i swear i wrote a similar thing back when i first made my "it's my human right to be annoying" post, because the notes for it always fill up with "yes! i am loved even if i'm annoying sometimes!" and "i love my friends even if they annoy me sometimes!" - and this is all good and real and true!!! the people who love you will love you even if you are annoying and flawed and a human being with quirks and needs.

it's not exactly what i thought about when i wrote that post, though. human rights are not reserved to those who are loved. im a person who's alive!! there's nothing wrong with being annoying regardless of how many people love or don't love me!!! i exist on this earth and i'm a whole animal with emotions and needs and thoughts!! even if i were the most wretched miserable beast i have a right to exist here same as anyone. i don't have to love or be loved to have that. nya

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KNIFE TO MEET YOU

[fanart of + screenshot from In Stars and Time, a videogame by @insertdisc5]

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they're friends...!!

[Mirabelle and Siffrin are from In Stars and Time]

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all tangled up

[fanart of In Stars and Time]

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the boss was coming over so everyone were like "ok everyone on their best most professional behaviour" so i was telling her how nice this workshop is and how helpful everyone is, and she was like "It really is nice! we've even got this fabulous view over the royal residence - wait is that a limousine" and then we all went to go look at the limousine.

i'm currently doing a practice placement at a really fancy, recently renovated watchmaker workshop! it's got a big window view over the royal residence for when any royals are in town - and as fate would have it, some of them are :') several of the watchmakers keep window watching to see what activity is happening out there. enrichment

#swedenquest #(norway edition) #being a monarch must be like being a fish in a fish bowl that everyone wants to stare at

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i'm currently doing a practice placement at a really fancy, recently renovated watchmaker workshop! it's got a big window view over the royal residence for when any royals are in town - and as fate would have it, some of them are :') several of the watchmakers keep window watching to see what activity is happening out there. enrichment

#swedenquest #(norway edition)

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something i was told about painting with watercolour is that what you don't paint is just as important as what you do paint. recently i realized this is the same lesson i was given in poetry class, where we shaved off every redundant word. negative space huh

#not just poetry. i was thinking about this while reading a book and admiring the restraint of the storytelling

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something i was told about painting with watercolour is that what you don't paint is just as important as what you do paint. recently i realized this is the same lesson i was given in poetry class, where we shaved off every redundant word. negative space huh

#not just poetry. i was thinking about this while reading a book and admiring the restraint of the storytelling

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please read natural satellite by @sixpossumsinatrenchcoat

the conversation:

#congrats to natural satellite for Completing!!!

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sorry i'm still SSSS blogging today. i meant to draw but instead i reread adventure 2 and. hm

like, it starts out fun, you have characters interactions and dreamsharing and interesting locations and new outfits and hotakainen backstory!!!! that's the stuff i think fondly of when i think of adventure 2. it sets up for an emotional throughline for the hotakainens that would be so so tasty to follow and explore, especially considering what happened to tuuri in the last adventure!!!

but then... nah. when tuuribird shows up, something that should've had a BIG impact, especially on lalli - there's almost no reaction among any of the characters. it's just "oh okay." and like, i get that the whole deal with the finns is that they aren't very open about feelings but come on. come on!!!!!!

i think that is the point in the comic where things start to feel off for me. it SHOULD be exciting, you have connected all the characters and you're digging into the main plot and not just fighting small fry along the way, but........ ?????????

it's also around that time where minna starts working on the infamous bunny comic, and some of the author comments from that period of time made me wince. the whole ssss reading vibe gets Weird!! it's really hard for me to extract the experience of reading the Comic from the experience of witnessing its creator getting converted and baptized in frozen lakes and following a higher calling to create a comic whose message is frankly rather stupid!!! also i don't read the comment sections but clearly shit went down in some of them, maybe because minna said some awful stuff in her streams??? i don't know!!!!!! i don't really need to know!!!!

and then the comic just gets boring and drags on forever. look, the worldbuilding and the monsters are cool, and the art is always lovely, but the true joy of ssss for me has always been the characters. and then they don't really... do or say very much with each other for the rest of the story. like they're following the plot beats, but so much of the comic us just monster fights, beasts fighting each other, the plot HAPPENS but there's no emotion tied to it. the most egregious example is when lalli and onni have the spirits of tuuri and ensi with them, and they have a conversation - and we don't see ANY of that. it happens off screen. we get NOTHING. there's ZERO emotional reward. the characters are for all intents and purposes unchanged. there has been no arc or change in their dynamics. WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE!!!!!

it feels like the beats of the story were all planned out, but not fleshed out at all, and when minna got this far she no longer cared about these characters, or like telling this story served any purpose. the potential is there! it's easy to imagine another timeline where this story is rich in character interacton and growth. instead we get a hollow shallow shell of a comic. welp!

i so badly want to admire minna's decision to end the comic "properly", but i really feel like it might've been better to have just abandoned it when her priorities shifted. it's so sad to see the characters getting neglected like dolls in a dusty toybox. it really breaks my heart that she doesn't believe ssss has any value beyond "empty entertainment" when it meant so much to so many. SIGH

people who couldn't be bothered to finish reading adventure 2 are right actually. there's nothing there.

#spoilers under the cut for whatever its worth

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im sorry im sorry this is just very funny to me

Keep reading

#ok since we're mourning ssss again i can bring back this #it's still funny

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i would like to say that i recommend Adventure 1 and not Adventure 2, since that's where it goes downhill, but honestly there's a lot of stuff in the first half of adventure 2 that i enjoy. such as

Would you recommend the SSSS comic? I know little of it beside the very beautiful artstyle and premise

to answer the question of if i would recommend SSSS as a comic: yes, yes i would.

a description for those who don't know: Stand Still Stay Silent is a post-apocalyptic horror + adventure webcomic set in the nordics (norway, sweden, denmark, finland, iceland) that have been isolated from the rest of the world and gone back to their old gods. the the world outside of safe zones is full of trolls and beasts - humans and mammals that got infected by a horrible virus and turned into monsters. the story follows a ragtag crew that ventures into the old world (derelict denmark) on an expedition to collect books.

the comic updated every workday until it concluded in 2022, and consists of two Adventures. the creator had plans for many adventures with these characters in this world, but ended it after two when she wanted to take a new direction with her life.

what i love about it:

- the art is GORGEOUS. it's been a huge source of inspiration for me. open any page and it's a masterpiece, and you will ask yourself "how the FUCK did she update this FIVE DAYS A WEEK"

- the characters are wonderful and endearing. i just, i love them so much. i am so thankful lalli hotakainen exists he is one of my #1 blorbos forever

- the world is so cool. the blend of chunky sci-fi and norse mythology fantasy magic slaps. it goes so hard. i fell so hard for this comic when i got to the big ferry ship with a viking style dragon head prow added to it. it's everything

- it really really gets nordic cultures. it's difficult to explain all the dynamics and nuances but it just gets it. it brings me as a scandinavian a lot of joy to read a story that speaks to my heart this way. the attitudes, the language barriers, the cultural differences... it was so refreshing to me in a media landscape dominated by american stories. when the pandemic hit, i decided to reread the comic because i found such an odd comfort in seeing how it depicted the scandinavian countries reacting to, well, a pandemic.

- there's kittycats

what i don't like about it:

- the most glaring and obvious flaw is that everyone in the comic is white. there's not a single character of color anywhere, not even i background shots or the prologue. there's no mention of the saami people (the indigenous people of northern europe), either. i believe this was done in ignorance more than malicious intent, but the implications are Extremely Bad and it's been bothering me (AND MANY OTHERS) since day 1. that is the number one caveat i will give to anyone wanting to check this comic out. i've been in the discourse trenches and i am not going to excuse this. it's just bad!

- you can tell in the middle of adventure 2 that the creator has kind of lost interest in the work, around the time when she found jesus i guess. like, very few people can keep up work on the same creative project for years and years and years and i think it's fine that she wanted to drop it, but it's a bit sad to see the comic dragged to its end like a limp corpse, and feeling like the creator no longer really cares about the characters.

- minna sundberg has said and done some questionable things, presumably gotten somewhat radicalised over time, and has also converted to hardcore christianity which is what her new works are about. there's nothing about this in SSSS - there is a moment of christianity represented in the story in a sort of mythological sense, just like the other religions, but this was written before minna's conversion. her new works... are a Choice. i have much to say about them, and i have, and im not gonna rehash it now.

SO YEAH hopefully this will help you take an Informed Choice! i got into this comic in 2015 and was deep in the fandom and it's for better or for worse part of my soul foundation now.

i also recommend A Redtail's Dream, minna's "practice comic" before SSSS, based on finnish mythology and the kalevala.

#but once u get to the bears it's kinda meh #i also forgot the mention that the prologue of the whole series might feel a little overwhelming with how many characters are introduced #at least i struggled to get thru it #but it has good reread value after youve gotten into the main part of the comic honestly #the characters introduced in the prologue do not show up in the main comic which is set 90 years later #another another caveat about ARTD: there's some instances of the r-slur being used. sighs

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it’s like herding cats!

it’s kitty!! [image ID 1: a digital drawing of the main characters from the webcomic stand still stay silent as cats, except the cat who is interpreted as a human girl. she is small and chubby,  she is white with a blush and freckles, blue hair, and a fluffy ginger bob. she wears a reddish tunic and a fluffy cape that has the colors of her cat form, cream and orange. she is running and pointing ahead, with six cats going along her, and a tiny blue bird flying after her. image ID 2: a digital sketch of kitty from stand still stay silent interpreted as human, sitting.]