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mycraftingjourney · 6 months

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Introduction post

I wanted to give a bit of an introduction to why I'm here, what I'm doing and so on.

tl;dr: I like clothes and I'm into sustainability, so I started (visible) mending a few month or so ago. I also crochet, although not as much as I'd like to, and I dabble a bit in embroidery. My goal is to kind of document my journey with these crafts and maybe inspire people to give some of these a try.

I'd also love to talk about all things (visible) mending, crochet, embroidery and fiber arts in general and share the knowledge I have / point people who want to start to some resources that helped me.

I've been into fashion/clothes and styling them on and off for a big part of my life. A few years ago, I also got into sustainability, learning about how buying new fast fashion damages our planet and exploits other human beings, and what may be good alternatives.

This path, inevatibly, lead down to getting curious about mending. I learned basic sewing skills when I was a child, but I never altered any clothes and apart from a few tiny things never mended anything.

However, this year, I wanted to change that. I've heard about visible mending before and I really liked it. I had a pair of jeans when I was a teenager that was patched (by someone else) that was my favourite pair. Unfortunately, I managed to ruin it beyond repair and also grew out of it, but this stuck with me. I always liked to express myself creatively, and in recent years, what I wear has become a big part of that. The idea that by visibly mending my clothes I express my passion for sustainability feels really good (and punk!) to me. The idea of altering clothes that I don't currently love but could love if something about them was changed is also a nice one.

I only darned my first sock a few months ago. My goal with this blog is to share this first darn as well as the progress I make, because I want to encourage other people. You don't have to make perfect mends to be sustainable. On the contrary, mend imperfectly, mend messy, but DO MEND. Even if you'll have to redo it at one point, when you have more skill, even if you don't end up redoing it and instead use that piece of clothing for something else, you still gave it another wear, or two, or three (or fifty) - and that's what this is all about.

I tend to be an extreme perfectionist and it's hard for me to deal with a situation where I'm not perfect at a first try. Surprise surprise, I am not when it comes to mending, or embroidery, or crochet, or anything at all really. But I'm trying to let that go and concentrate on what I achieve rather than what I did "wrong" or imperfectly. I want to share my messy bits and the things I'm proud of, and I want to update how the mends I did held up. As i mentioned above, I hope that maybe I'll inspire some people to pick up a needle as well. Even if you "only" fix that button or a ripped up seam. Every mend counts!

When I get into altering or even making clothes, I will share those projects too, but that will have to wait a bit since I don't currently have any space to put up my sewing machine and I do simply not have the energy nor patience to hand sew bigger things.

Apart from mending I also crochet. Talking more about that feels like a bit of an overkill here, I'll make a new post for that.

Recently I also started to embroider, with the idea of using embroidery in my (visible) mending and to embellish clothes. Here again I decided on a project where I just start and don't try to be perfect from the beginning on, I'll share more about that as well as my crochet project(s) soon.

I think this should be enough for the moment with the introduction. One thing about me, as you probably got by now, is that I'm really bad at being brief with my writing. I have no idea how often I will manage to make posts on here due to work and life, but I will try to do them quiet regularly, as well as sharing things I see that might be helpful / interesting / that inspire me. I also think I'll probably only write more for bigger projects but also just share stuff I'm working on / finished recently.

Maybe I'll also share other DIYs that are not really crafts/fiber arts related but I think are cool.

This isn't my main blog (thats @merryfromthestars), so if I follow I follow from there.

I'm also always open to questions, discussions etc. so just send me an ask or dm if you want! Just, I might take a moment to answer them, because life and work :) I'm excited to see where this journey takes me, and I hope some people will come along and maybe get inspired.

#sewing #diy #crochet #fiber art #fiber arts #long post #embroidery #sustainability #sustainable fashion #crochetblr #mending #visible mending #personal #solarpunk

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belethlegwen · 1 month

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Vent and an Update

Taking a brief moment from diving into more incredible writing on this app to just vent my frustrations that there are some styles of writing I just... wish I could do. I wish I could sum up as much in so few words as other people can. My fiancee, for one, is amazing at this and while I'm compelled to go on at what feels like extreme detail, there are moments where I just wish I could make these seeming seamless time-jumps and still leave people feeling satisfied.

Someone can cover a month's worth of things in a few shorts pages and leave me feeling like I've missed nothing; like it's all there, like it all just... flows. I write a bathtub conversation for three full chapters.

I know it's fine, but I just wholly empathize with the people out there who have amazing art that I stare at in wonder and awe who will voice to my face 'god I wish I could do what <another artist> does'.

We are the same. I am holding your hand in solidarity. I wish I could do what you all do.

ALSO

In hopefully just a matter of hours, our long national nightmare my terrible fucking insanity of moving should finally be entering the "IT'S FUCKING OVER" stage, leaving me the unpacking stages before the "Great American Roadtrip" stage and then more unpacking stages and then "That Marriage Thing" stage and then--

What I'm saying is chapters are coming. I'm actually really excited about it. It's been half a fucking year since The Stranding updated but I HAVE made a little bit of progress through all of this and I can't wait for y'all to see it.

blahblahblah, thank you for reading <3 Love you all and Happy Easter

~ Belle

#g/t author #g/t writing #gtauthor #author thoughts #big little thoughts #life update #The Stranding #writing brain

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retellingthehobbit · 3 months

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I went to read your comic on Ao3 and I noticed you'd started back in 2020. Aside from your clear and beautiful art progression, what can you tell me about the timeline of your comic?

Thank you! And yes, started this webcomic in January of 2020. “I sure hope nothing bad happens in 2020 that will hamper my ability to focus on a large personal project!” — me in January 2020 with all the naivety of youth. Top ten images taken minutes before disaster. This comic is like a deeply personal diary of my mental state, complete with the long empty hiatuses that are sort of like that part of Twilight where months of depression are represented by blank pages.

One of my favorite things about webcomics is how you can often see an artist’s style grow organically over time. I think it’s something that’s getting lost in the age of “Webtoon Originals,” where people are starting to expect webcomics to be produced by an actual production studio with a team of artists behind them and to maintain a consistent highly curated art style throughout. These professionally funded comics are fun, but they do lose the messy personal organic growth that used to separate webcomics from traditional print comics? But i could go on a whole tirade about webtoon haha 😂 !

The Hobbit is partially a story about someone learning how to express themselves. Bilbo starts the story as this stuffy little guy who is repressing a lot his own personality; he ends the story as a skilled artist writing elaborate prosy poetry about his adventures. I deliberately chose to start drawing the comic before I went to college, knowing my art style would change a lot of over that period!

Anyway here's the timeline as I remember it: Pre-development: I was working on sketches of the comic itself as early as 2016. Chapter 1 (A Bedtime Story/Tooks and Bagginses): (Posted on Tumblr in January 2020, on Ao3 later): Published shortly before I went to college. I was drawing in Paint Tool Sai, and hand-writing all the words instead of using a font. I set out to adapt at least the Unexpected Party chapter, but thought I'd probably adapt the entire novel within a year or two. ("It's a webcomic Michael. How long could it take? twelve months?") Chapter 2: (A Very Respectable Hobbit): Posted like a week after Chapter 1. This was when I still thought I could post a ten page chapter every week, haahahahahahahahahaha Fs in the chat.

HIATUS #1: DANCE BREAK: TIME FOR A GLOBAL PANDEMIC. The exact timeline of 2020 is a blur for obvious reasons, but I do remember the updates became very sporadic over this period. Chapter 3-5 (Very Old Friends and An Unexpected Party chapters): there’s a global pandemic. During Spring Break my college abruptly kicks us all off campus and sends us home. I keep looking at the “post dates” on these chapters like what??? Really? I posted that at thAt time? But there was a global pandemic happening and I was so busy and overwhelmed with college???? When did I have the time? I have no memory of drawing these. My memories of all 2020 are so blurry. I think these chapters just manifested spontaneously.

The weekly/biweekly update schedule has been tossed to the wind, never to return. Alas. Chapter 6 (An Enormously Important Dwarf, aka Thorin’s intro): I was back “at college” during our “hybrid” year, so in practice I was extremely isolated. this was posted during a year after the first chapter, in 2021. I would never have found the motivation to continue if I wasn't so excited to draw Thorin! I also joined a "comic club" at my college which was comprised mainly of awkward video calls with like three people. On a weirder note, this chapter was posted a few weeks after the January 6th attempted coup. I was drawing in a a weird headspace.

DANCE BREAK #2: IT’S TIME FOR A YEAR LONG HIATUS:

I've started to often dislike the word “burnout” when it’s applied to art. It implies that the problem is that you were drawing too much or that you can’t find inspiration, when often the problem is much bigger than your art-- it's wider economic anxieties and social circumstances outside your control. It is very hard to think clearly and create things when you are worried about your future, about work, about housing, about a global pandemic, about constant demands on your time, and about being extremely isolated. In hindsight, I wasn’t “burned out”— I was in a situation where I could not think clearly or produce anything. Chapter 7 (The Lonely Mountain): posted a full year after chapter 6. For a while I considered having this be the “last chapter” of the comic!

Changing art styles was a thing I was really motivated to do, and was my last “bucket list” item for the comic.

HIATUS #3: I get really busy with junior year of college! I grow more and more disillusioned with Tolkien as I learn more about The Hobbit Law crushing labor unions and worker's rights in New Zealand, and how Amazon takes advantage of that. The Tolkien Estate also releases a statement saying they disapprove of any unauthorized use of Tolkien's works for profit or not, which isn't really legally enforceable but is also just an act of pure contempt XD. Chapter 8 (A Tangled Web): I get sent to the emergency room in an ambulance for Reasons and begin drawing this in the weeks after, as I realize I don't care about the Tolkien Estate or Amazon or Warner Brothers or whatever hollow marketable products they produce under the tolkien brand. I think this is the weakest chapter of the comic, both in writing and art, and in hindisght think the comic works better without it pacing-wise. However!!!! I was drawing it in a weird mental state, so. XD

Also, at this point I am drawing entirely in Photoshop. Chapter 9 (Ash and Smoke): Back at college for senior year— time for dragon! The comic starts updating with something that resembles a "regular schedule!" this year had more and more people on campus in person, and I started to slowly make college friends :). Also, at this point I am the President of the comic club, and we are now meeting in person and rebuilding our comic empire. Chapter 10 (The Heart of the Mountain): Some funky bits of writing I'd like to revise at some point, but I enjoy the art in this chapter. Chapter 11 (Polite Nothings): If I were to do this all again I'd shorten this chapter and combine it with chapter 12. One important note is that originally, I tried to keep all chapters under ten pages. This made it easier to post them to Instagram and Tumblr, because tumblr still had a “ten image limit” at the time. However at some point I realized that was more trouble than it was worth, and really made the pacing difficult/slow as I struggled to split the story into ten page chunks.

A lot of webcomics often fall into what I call a “wheel-spinning” phase, where the author is so focused on finishing smaller updates that they lose the pacing of the larger narrative—- and so the story stalls out. I feel like I dealt with a lot of “wheel-spinning” while I was at college, both in my life and in my comic XD. Chapter 12 (The Quest): My internship company gives me an offer to work full-time, which I accept. in the last semester of my last year of college, I take the most helpful elective class I have ever taken: a class on using 3D models in blender to aid with blocking out illustrations. This is the first chapter where you see one of those backgrounds! From this point on my background art will improve dramatically. I also have lots of internet friends and college friends!

As I grow more confident in my art I also make the decision to change the character designs, something I’d wanted to do for a while. Chapter 13 (The Necromancer): I graduate college! It's time for some Lotte Reiniger art. I stay in my student housing until my lease ends. The art starts to grow more elaborate as I have more time to spend on it. Chapter 14 (Terms and Conditions): my summer is free, so I spend it drawing gay little hobbits. I move up North to live with my grandmother until my work start date. This is the very last “normal-sized” chapter of the comic, where I hold myself to keeping it under 10 pages. I also think this is where my new more elaborate character designs actually start to look a lot better XD.

I was finishing up apartment-hunting at this time, so both Bilbo and I were goin over contract terms. Chapter 15 (Unattached): summer free time!! More gay little hobbits. I move into my New apartment and sleep on an air mattress for a while. I have a lot of time to draw and the art gets far more complex; this chapter was also twice as long as my usual chapters. I am still proud of this chapter, honestly, even though it's gotten less attention than Chapter 16/17-- it's one I'd been excited to draw for a while. A lot of this chapter was drawn on my beautiful powerful beloved air mattress. Air mattress, my beloved. Chapter 16 (the Song of the Lonely Mountain): I start my new job! I get a BED. Lots of exciting things are happening. I was really excited to draw and post this chapter, because it’s one id been dreaming about drawing from the beginning-- it was surreal to see it "posted" because part of me never thought I'd get this far. I even started a tiktok and posted the chapter there, certain that people would enjoy it. However, tiktok basically ignored it, alas! This is why tumblr is the only social media site. Chapter 17: I continue my new job. My roommate surprises me with the news that they will move out at the end of our lease, making me realize that months have somehow passed. I make a post asking for anyone looking for roommates in Milwaukee to contact me via dms (that offer is still open, if you’re looking to move here in early June.) I privately am very confused about why anyone would ever want to leave a comfortable settled home to go off on an adventure and then realize that I am behaving exactly like pre-quest Bilbo Baggins.

Chapter 18: the chapter I am working on now!!! Another chapter I have been excited to draw forever!! It’ll feature studio-Ghibli-inspired backgrounds, exciting landscape art, and so much fun! I’ve also started a Patreon where, if you want to see “one page a week” instead of “twenty pages every Mystery number of Months” you can subscribe there. (The first page of Chapter 18 has already been posted!)

But yeah! The TL:DR:

I think the moral of all this (to me) is that it’s hard to make art if you’re just not in a position to do it, and you have to allow yourself time to grow and change as a person XD. Sometimes you need to spend a few years thinking and getting better before you're ready to go on an Adventure. I started this comic when I was very Young and Naive to the Ways of the World. The quality (and dips in quality) reflect my wildly fluctuating mental/emotional states while trying to draw each chapter in the midst of a global pandemic. My art has improved a lot lately, and I think a large part of it is really just being in a situation where I *can* improve— having a decent job, not being in the middle of a global pandemic with no vaccine in sight, not needing to live in constant fever-pitch anxiety, having friends, etc etc. I am completely different person now than I was while drawing chapter 1.

Not to be dramatic, but I think you can see there’s a lot more joy in the recent chapters than there is in some of the older ones. It's weird to look at your art and realize you've gotten happier. XD

#thanks for the ask!!!#and sorry it took so long to respond #I am Treebeard-core when it comes to responding to asks #just like I am Treebeard-core when it comes to posting this comic #it takes a very loong time to say anything in oooold entish #and we never say anyythiiiiing #unlesssss #it is worth taking #a long #time #to say #the hobbit #the hobbit comic #retelling the hobbit #lotr #lord of the rings

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abalonetea · 10 months

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Hi! Do you have a quick rundown for people who are new to the summer fest? I know you've got a lot of planning and stuff for it, so please don't let this be extra pressure I can totally wait until the event starts if that's easier!

Hello!

I absolutely do! We’re introducing several new features this year, so it’s going to be done a tiny bit differently than our previous years.

Let’s crack knuckles!

First off, the Writeblr Summerfest is a free to participate, do as much or as little as you want experience. The goal of the Summerfest is to bring the community together, share information on our stories, and just generally have a really good time! Fanfiction, original writing, DnD characters – it’s all welcome!

Every year, there’s a new theme. This year, I held a poll and the selected theme was haunted house! In the past, that’s only affected the merch (I do stickers each year!) and the blog theme. But this year… It’s going to affect a lot more!

To pair with the theme, there is going to be an over arching story. Several times a month, the story will progress, becoming a large prompt that anyone can take part in. The story will follow the exploits of a very specific haunted house that’s being explored.

Now, you can take any of your characters and have them explore this house. But as an added bonus, @mothersart has volunteered her time and services; she will be drawing Minkie Explorer Character Sheets, blind-bag style, for anyone that would like to purchase them. The character sheets will look a little bit like… THIS ONE … but will be designed to fit the theme of ‘haunted house explorer’. Consider supporting an amazing small artist and commissioning one when it opens up! FYI – the character you commission will be yours to keep fur-ever!

Okay, so! Overarching theme, overarching haunted house prompts to explore! What about beyond that, you’re wondering?

Beyond that, every single day that the Summerfest runs, from the first day of August to the last day of August, four fun games will go up! These games will consist of…

Moodboard prompts

Character questions

Writing prompts

Ask games

Occasionally, one of these will be subbed out for a Community Event, encouraging you to reblog/comment on other writeblr’s posts, make them gifts, and that sort of thing!

But wait, there’s still more!

Last year, Summerfest Bingo was introduced! The game goes like this: a bingo board matching the theme of the Summerfest (haunted house) will be put up! To get a bingo, you have to scour the Writeblr community, find a post that contains that bingo square’s prompt, comment on it, and reblog it! Keep the link to your reblog!

In our previous iteration of the game, those who completed it just got put on the Bingo Hall of Fame. More rules on how to submit it will be posted at the time of the game. That’s still going to happen! But as an added bonus, if you complete all three board variations, you’re going to get a special prize!

We’re still not done yet! There are two writing contests that you can enter! The first writing contest is free-to-enter, and the top three winners get a variety of prizes from story cover mock-ups to art. The second contest costs a small monetary fee to enter, and has a physical prize that gets mailed to you!

This will also be the second year for Writeblr themed Goodies! Last year, we did small blind bags! I’m still working on figuring out the exact specifics of the Goodies for this year, but it will either be another round of blind bags or Goodies that can be bought via an Etsy shop (it largely depends on how much extra money I can get pulled together for buying the merch tbh).

In short, it’s a free to play, do what you want writing festival, designed to help you share your works and fall in love with other writer’s stories as well, with optional pay-to-play games and merch available, too! I add at least one new event pretty much every year, and spend months putting it together.

During the Summerfest itself, I encourage comments and reblogs, and maintain @writeblrsummerfestreblogs best that I can to help ensure that these comments happen!

I am so excited for this year’s Summerfest!

This is my favorite way to give back to a community that has always been there for me.

#writeblr summerfest #writeblr #my dream is to have it be BIG one day tbh #mothers art

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redux-iterum · 6 months

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Do you have any advice to help or prevent writer's block? I have a terrible habit of starting but never completing what I write. Also really excited for the Charred Legacy!

Hello and thank you! My advice splits into two categories of writer's block, which I'll call here Classic Block and Progression Block. Classic Block refers to the block people usually mean, especially when drawing: that you can barely write three sentences before erasing it all because it's awful and you hate it, leading you to sit around stewing in frustration that your skill level is so low. Progression Block, meanwhile, is the block where the actual work of writing something to completion is a Herculean task, even if you don't hate your writing style. The distinction DOES matter, as you’ll see.

To start off, Classic Block sources from your standards of writing not matching what you perceive to be your level of ability. Maybe you used to like how you write, but now all you see is the flaws. Your skills have leveled out or lowered instead of steadily increasing in quality – at least, that’s how it feels. This leads to you not writing at all, or only getting a bit done and then abandoning it because it sucks and what’s even the point and you’ll never make anything good anyway and so on. It’s the same thing as artist’s block, just with typing.

This brand of block has similar advice in every medium of art that it appears in, which is “study and practice”. The only way to get better is to examine where your faults are at and work to fix them. If you find how you write dialog unnatural, for example, you take a look at books or scripts you enjoy the dialog of and pay close attention to how the characters talk, or you find as many advice posts on the web as possible about how to create natural-sounding conversations, or even just listen in to people chatting in the real world. Like an artist studies anatomy and feels more confident about their improving work, a writer studies all the advice they can get and applies it to their story, and continues writing for practice until they get somewhere they’re okay with. It may not be as easy as artist’s block to conquer, depending on who you are, but it is doable.

Progression Block is a different beast, and I’ve certainly felt it before on my comics and writing. This is when you’re at the beginning or starting the middle of your project and you find yourself unable to continue on to the end. Maybe you’ve lost the adrenaline that the start gave you; maybe the prospect of a long-term story is too daunting; maybe you ran out of ideas or passion; maybe you don’t like the start now and you want to rewrite it before you continue; maybe (and this is the most common one) you’ve found yourself at a part of the story you’re not that excited about and it’s difficult to get through it. Whatever the case is, you’re good at starting ideas, just not finishing them. This is extremely common, so don’t feel bad about it. I can’t count how many webcomics or fics I’ve seen left to rot after about a month of work on them. I’ve done it myself, multiple times! We’re all at risk of it.

The biggest thing to address here is that, sadly, writing is not always going to be exciting. That’s just a fact. You are not going to be riding a high the entire process. You WILL get to something that feels more like homework than fun. This is a guarantee for every single project that goes on longer than a couple pages, and sometimes even the short stuff isn’t safe. This is not a horrible thing, it’s just something you need to develop methods to overcome. Discipline is important if you want to take writing seriously. There are ways to get through this: dinner-before-desert (the promise of “I have to write this dull chapter and I’ll get to write the scene I’m really excited about”), setting small goals to get the unfun part done a bit at a time (writing 200 words a day, or a couple paragraphs, etc), finding things to appreciate (like that joke you threw in or how pretty this scenery is), and having something occupying the senses to keep flow going (listening to music, mainly) are all tools I use myself to get past potentially weeks of writing that I’m not excited about. You do need to be a little stern with yourself, but the reward of getting to the thing you’ve been dreaming of since the start is completely worth it, I can promise that. You just gotta eat your dinner first, and then we’ll get you some ice cream. One carrot at a time. You can do this.

Something that can get to people is the prospect of being “stuck” with something for months or potentially years. The size of a project can be intimidating, I understand that. You’re doing this particular thing for god knows how long, and you have to do it on a regular basis if you ever want to get anywhere with it? That’s a little scary! I get it! But that does not mean you won’t have fun, or won’t ever be finished. It took me six years to complete a comic you can read through in one day, I’ve started one I know will take me at least ten, and Iterum itself is going to be a long fucking ride I don’t dare to guess the length of. I have had the occasional sensation of leaning on a table, bracing myself on my arms, staring down at a drink and thinking “Jesus Chirst” about how long all this shit will take me.

With that issue, I’ve personally found that taking joy in the process is the best solution. “Well, I do love writing these particular characters, I’m excited to see how they’ll grow over time!” “Planning chapters is a very chill way to spend my evenings while still giving me something to think about.” “It’s so exciting to have all these secret plot developments no one but me knows yet!” And so on. Like in life, you should appreciate the Now, not constantly be fretting about Later or Before. Learn to love typing out dialog and prose! It’s doable.

Of course, you should have a few thoughts about the future. That’s where planning comes in. Some people can make up shit on the fly and write a complete, excellent novel. I am not one of those people, and not many are. Some architecture is generally necessary. When I don’t have a set general path ahead of time for me to take as I write, I give up on things because I don’t know where to go next. Create your path, however vague or exact it needs to be! My advice on planning is to start with only the most major of story beats, arrange them in the order you want or need them to happen, and add smaller connecting lines to them, then connecting even smaller lines to those lines, slowly getting more and more specific and detailed as you zoom in on the story beat-by-beat.

Another thing that might help you keep at it is finding an audience – at least, it worked for me. When I started writing for real, I was doing choose-your-own-adventure threads in forums, and then a choose-your-own-adventure webcomic, where people got to send in commands to move the story forward. I could not get anything completed on my own to save my life, but having people participating and actively waiting for me to continue the story helped me develop the discipline and work ethic required to do the projects I’m doing now (and taught me how to improvise extremely well, as a side benefit). Your audience could be one person, or ten, or a hundred. Even if they don’t comment or regularly engage with the story, just knowing that someone is there waiting to see what happens next can be a good motivator.

One final thing: you may fall into the trap many do of looking at the small bit of stuff you’ve completed, not liking it, and wanting to go back and rewrite it, because this time you’ve got the skills to do it right.

DO NOT FUCKING DO THAT.

All that’s going to do is trap you in an endless cycle of “improving” what’s already there at best, and wear you out from going over the same old ground over and over and drain your love for the story at worst. You will not be fixing anything. Put it out and move on. Don’t keep trying to rescrub the same plate until you put a hole through it. You’re going to look back and think it’s shit. That’s normal. Doesn’t mean it’s true, or that you should waste time “fixing” it. Learn to go “well, I don’t like it, but I gotta keep going”. Get it done. It will never be perfect, and the sooner you understand that, the sooner you can get this project done.

That’s about all the advice I can think of for now. I hope this prattling helped you, at least a little bit!

#ask #anonymous #i speak #readmore #advice #writing

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zimathan · 2 years

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In celebration for @dibothy and I’s marriage, I’ve made a Draw This In Your Style for everyone! :D Details, bonus images, and more under the cut!

Fun fact, this was meant to be a 2000 followers on tumblr DTIYS! I just, uh... couldn’t finish the original arts. I am now up to 2600 followers, SO, UH... BIT LATE. But!!! Today, the day this is being posted, May 30th, 2022, I and my fiance, @dibothy have officially been married - so it is the BEST time to finally finish an attempt at this DTIYS and post it for the masses!

Forgive me if anything’s a little weird, I’ve never hosted one of these.

RULES - Happy Pride Month! This DTIYS will be hosted from May 30th, 2022 until July 10th, 2022. (A happy birthday to my husband, too, since it’s ending on his birthday!) - Pose changes, outfit changes, design changes - they are ALL welcome! The ONLY requirement is that it is a wedding between Zim and Dib! This is (alas) a ZADR only DTIYS! - While I know it’s a DRAW this in your style, I know a lot of wonderful writers exist in the ZADR / IZ community - so we will be accepting both art AND written submissions! ;w; - All submissions on TUMBLR OR INSTAGRAM should be tagged with #zimathanDTIYS! Very important step! (Also, feel free to TAG ME @zimathan so that I can see anything, just in case tumblr fucks up and I can’t see something!)

PRIZES A big disclaimer on this bit - I struggle with art at times, and it may take me a while to complete a prize! So long as you guys are respectful and patient, I am absolutely okay with creating prizes for the TOP THREE that @dibothy and I choose! I hate having a tier list, so each prize will be the same for the three that we pick! Which is... -drumrolls-... A full colored piece! You can pick the style (of mine, posted within my art tag) you would like the piece in, you can have UP TO four different characters within said piece, and I will treat the art like a commission! Meaning I will give updates, show progress, and try my best to keep you in the loop! :D (Also, as a note, I am a person with limits, so please be kind, understanding, and respectful if I need you to give me another prompt or idea.)

BONUS CONCEPT ARTS For inspiration, mostly, I’m going to post a few uh... attempts! At finishing this DTIYS!

1-2. My first attempts! I got very far, but it was originally a two-part DTIYS. Very cute art, I just left it sitting too long and forgot how to finish it. <3

3-4. My attempt at a redraw for the original two! I like them both, I just couldn’t motivate myself to finish them! It’s okay, though. :3

5-6. The original concepts for Zim’s dress, and the more Updated tm version of Zim’s dress!

#invader zim #iz #zadr #iz zadr #iz zim #iz dib #zim #dib #dtiys #zimathanDTIYS #art tag #(i will tag this as my au next reblog because i dont want anyone to think its space invaders exclusive hehe)#happy pride my lovely little fandom! i hope you guys have fun ;w;

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insolenthare · 7 months

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Listen ConcernedApe I just wanna talk...

... about what these different things could be. And I just need things to think and type about. (This is going to be a WALL of text, fyi.)

I do not know what is considered a 'mini festival'. If it is like what the Winter Night Market is, then I get it; A festival that doesn't stop you from going into a part of the map to set up and time will still progress while it takes place. As for what they could be? No idea.

The only thing I can guess is that there is a high chance that none of the new festivals will happen in Winter, due to it having the WNM along with Feast of the Winter Star and the Ice Festival.

There is a mod out there that adds a festival that I would personally love to see in vanilla game play called the Festival of the Mundane. it changes the sewer map into a fun carnival for the Shadow People that you have to wear a mask to attend. Obviously it can't be that exactly but I had to give it a mention.

Okay, so, what is this thing? Honestly, judging by the shape and the circle in the middle, I want to say this is a seed for a Stardrop fruit. Maybe in the update it will be our turn to actually try and grow one of these instead of being gifted the fabled fruit.

But that also makes me wonder, how hard will it be to get this seed to maturity? I mean, the Sweet Gem Berry takes a whole month, same with the Ancient Fruit. Maybe growing a Stardrop would take a whole year? Maybe a whole year of manually watering the plant yourself (no sprinkler) to prove that you have earned that extra 34 points to your energy bar?

I love CA's art style, very occasionally I will not be able to tell what things are and I want to make this clear, I think that adds to the charm of the game's art style.

This is the case here, because I can tell this is most likely a crop of some sort, but that is all. Because it is three of the crop bunched together, I think it might come from a plant that gives out more than one at harvest; Like Blueberries and Coffee beans. Maybe these are just plain ol' beans, lol. For a small bit, I thought this might be Jicama, but I am not sure about that any more.

Fish TV Fish TV Fish TV. I have been wondering what this could be for a while now but I have no clue. We have the Worm Bin that makes us bait and Fishing Ponds can be used to breed fish if used in a certain way, so I have no idea what this machine could do.

I straight up think this is the top part of an avocado tree. I have seen people call this a bush but the rounded shape in the middle is screaming at me that it is a ripe Avocado ready to be picked. Maybe I am wrong and it is something else, but I swear I know what I am looking at.

I think a lot of SDV players are in the late-game, if not the end game portion of their files so this is awesome to see!

Something I did not expect to see is a new totem though. We have 5 different warp totems and a Rain Totem at the moment, so this tells me that either;

1) This totem does something similar to the rain totem where you use it and something about the next day is assured. When you have the best luck for the day, the fortune teller Welwick has a Purple Stardrop over their head, and this totem is a very happy looking one with purple... frills? This might be a very weak connection but I can see this being a totem that grants the best luck for the next day.

or 2) We might be getting a new area entirely that requires its own warp totem. I feel like something that big would be listed here, but I can't fully rule it out considering what most of the totems do in-game.

Turning to the remaining tea cup and the ... other thing now. Being able to craft a new tea might mean we are getting another new crop to grow the different kind of tea leaves needed for it. No idea what sort of buffs this tea could grant but the Green Tea we can brew doesn't give any buffs besides more health and energy so really, anything is good. (I actually love the thought of growing different tea bushes than just the one we have now because it would add some variety to my Tea Bush Fence I have around my barns and coops.)

As for what I can only describe as a Quiver, I literally have no idea. This is probably something we would unlock while expanding the Combat skill? Maybe a new weapon type? Maybe we will be able to handle a Bow as a more powerful upgrade from the Slingshot? Or maybe this is just a pencil bag and we will get a new fetch quest to return Jas's lost art supplies. I literally have no idea.

That explains this image than.

It makes sense that Ginger Island would need a tune up if you go the Joja route. A dirty capitalist doesn't deserve the magical whimsy the Island has to offer /jking. The clearly fake government drone bird is still in an area that doesn't have an upgrade available at the moment so I have no idea if it for something you can currently purchase with golden walnuts or something new entirely, we will just have to wait and see.

And 100+ new lines of dialogue!! Yes!!! Not sure what more to say with this one, it is something people have been wanting for a long time and I am ready for more reasons to talk to the different characters again.

**rubs my filthy hands together** If there is any other thing that could possibly hint towards a new area to explore, it is that ticket. Imagine being able to finally use that empty train platform at the top of the map, and riding a train all the way to the new area, aaaaa

It is most likely something to do with the new festivals though. In fact, I think all of these things will probably be in the new festivals. The ticket will probably be something you earn in a festival that will rival the Stardew Valley Fair. I know the box looks like one of the boxes that can wash ashore on the beach farm, but it could easily be a purchasable mystery box of sorts. Something you can buy at a carnival stand. And definitely not Shane in the hoodie there is probably a random NPC to be in the background. Or..

... That is straight up Shane's new winter sprite and he grows facial hair to help keep warm. He is absolutely the type to still wear shorts in the snow, don't at me.

For real though

This is adorable and it is getting me through. The mods that give the characters alternate winter outfits are so very valid. (Actually, I wonder if this will break those mods? Not sure.)

Not going to lie, I definitely will need a very good reward to do anything with the normal billboard requests at this point.

But 8 player multiplayer, holy cow. I know there is an exploit that, once used, can allow for almost any number of players on your farm, but this is great for people who do not want to crack open the game files and mess around with the numbers. I am waiting to be blown away by a fully functioning 8 person farm.

I mentioned this before on my Twitter, and I know this is asking for a whole hecking lot, but I would kill for a Nonbinary They/Them option for the game. I know this would mean hours and hours of rewriting though. Can't help but to want it though. I would love to be able to run to the Wizard's tower and chop off my farmer's gender, heh.

NEW FARM TYPE THOUGH. I know that would mean restarting on a whole new farm (Something I have done recently and don't really want to do all over again) but what more can be offered in terms of farming space?? I know the sky is the limit, but I have this idea of a hard mode; where you have very little farm space over all. Though it could be used to make small, cute and cozy farms that value aesthetic over profit. I have a habit of always going for profit so this would be kind of challenging to me, working on making a nice looking farm.

Also, as a huge lore junkie, I am definitely looking forward to new secrets. Does any one remember when we discovered the weird statues by putting random items in different boxes around the map? There are still some boxes that are just out there but we can't interact with! I would love to see something being done with those.

A couple more things I want to mention that I do not see a lot of people talking about, which I find very weird but eh.

New... Frogs? Their names are Tails, Shadow and Sonic, respectively. Seriously though, you know how we have Golden, Void and Blue chickens? Are... Are we going to be able to farm and raise frogs? Frogs have always just been this randomly happening creature when you cut grass but look at these cute little guys. I know they could still just be a random background element but the different colors just threw me off.

And lastly

I am looking through the map and I can't find these trees? (I fully expect someone to tell me they are somewhere and I am just being dumb, hah.) They look similar to the Totally Not Avocado Tree Top, maybe if we do get a new area these trees will be there.

I don't know how to end this post. I just like to talk. Peace.

#stardew valley #long post #ash gets deep #I do not care if I typo'd or misspelled anything I am not going back we die like men

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j0kers-light · 1 year

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His Lighthouse: Tuning In (LedgerJoker x f!reader)

Tuning In - Oneshot

KEEP IN MIND THIS IS NOT A STORY UPDATE!

Author’s note:

I’m still in recovery mode but my mind is so bored and filled with ideas! I managed to use my voice to text software to make a little oneshot to hold me over until I can type on my laptop again. If you want to timeline this oneshot in line with the series, I’d say it takes place between Breakfast for Two and Three Steps Back. Roughly? I dunno. It’s a scrap idea I wouldn’t be able to squeeze into the series as it stands right now.

As always, enjoy! I’m actually going to rest my hand now.

Taglist!

@blackreaderatrisk

A joyful tune escaped your lips.

It didn't have words much less a title, just a string of musical notes you hummed on the fly as you styled your hair.

It was any other day at your penthouse. The sun was beaming into your living room on all of your streaming equipment that was on your desk, ready to go. You had scheduled a virtual meet and greet for your fans that couldn't travel to Gotham to see you.

Cindy thought the idea was marvelous and wanted to make the event bigger than it already was but you toned her down the best you could. You wanted this to be intimate and fun, despite the expected turnout.

You posted the date and time months ago and the original message had already been liked over half a million times on different social media platforms.

In no way were you scared of your fans but that many people on a video? You had some pre-stream jitters.

Thankfully Cindy assigned IT and some background software programmers to make sure the event ran smoothly. But after that, it was all up to you.

She gave you free creative reign. Two hours of content completely up to you to plan and execute.

Saying you were excited was an understatement.

You made a flow chart to keep everything cohesive but added in Q & A slots in between segments for fans. Moderators would be standing by to keep the chat under control and to give you some breathing room so you didn't have to multitask. You planned this out thoroughly after all.

And rightfully so! You had a lot you wanted to cover.

Limited edition box sets were dropping next week and you purchased a main booth at the upcoming GothCon and you wanted everyone to know about it.

Signatures, private photo opportunities, timed book discussions, and new merch for sale at both the event and your online merch shop were available. You name it; it was happening.

You couldn't end the stream without giving a shout out to all of the recent art your fans had created since your last blog post and near the end of everything, you wanted to tease everyone about your new work in progress.

You couldn't help it! So what if you were a little troll? Your community loved that about you.

All of this and more, you hoped to talk about during the stream — if only you could get your hair looking right! You were so busy taking care of Joker these days your daily hair routine had fallen to the wayside.

It was still healthy and gorgeous just.. not right now. Trying to plait multiple braids to the scalp and letting the bottom portion be free and curly while pressed for time was nerve wracking and seemingly impossible.

It also didn't help that Joker was watching your every move.

Apparently he was in a good mood today. He acted more and more like your fake adopted cat by the day.

He wandered outside of his room after breakfast and decided to silently annoy you by parking himself smack dab in front of your desk.

His mind was originally focused on the tv but over time his eyes gravitated to you or rather to your hands that moved like magic through your h/c locks.

You were still working on the first braid and parted your hair with a fine tooth comb - how you did that so neatly without a mirror was mind boggling, and you positioned your hands to move hypnotically to form a braid.

He was also in awe with how fast you moved.

You braided about halfway back to the crown of your head before stopping. From there you let your natural texture be free and wild, spraying it with a curl defining product and incorporated it in thoroughly with a comb to set.

He fought back the urge to walk over and bury his hands into your fine silk. It looked softer than cashmere and it smelled intoxicating from far away. Were you trying to seduce him again?

You were doing a great job if so.

You started sectioning out the second braid but an incoming text on your phone stopped your progress.

It must've been IT in the way you wiped your hands free of any oily residue and fiddled with your computer setup with a huff.

Joker remembered you saying the stream began at the top of the hour. He glanced at the clock and began to worry if you would make it on time.

You were already dressed in a crochet top, a pale cornflower blue that hung off your shoulders, with a choker that proudly sported Will's family crest hanging from a leather band. Once again, fan made art pieces. You looked stunning as always but he knew if your hair wasn't perfect, you would cancel the entire thing.

And since he was secretly a big fan of yours, that was totally unacceptable.

He knew it wasn't his place. You two weren't close by any means, but that didn't stop Joker from standing up and limping towards your desk.

You noticed his presence a little too late.

Before you could open your mouth to ask what he was doing, Joker had already picked up your comb and began sectioning your hair right where you left off.

You turned into a statue.

His presence behind you was ominous yet you felt the gentle way he smoothed your hair back and clipped it out of the way with a hair claw. He used your previous braid as a model and carefully crafted the same halo pattern you began on your scalp in earnest.

Then the unthinkable happened. Joker started to do your hair.

You felt the moment his hands gripped the three strands and wove them up and over, back and forth to follow the pattern you created.

You had so many questions. Where did he learn to braid hair? Who did he practice on? How was he this good?

He applied just the right amount of pressure, not too loose but definitely not heavy handed, to make neat braids within his section. You felt the confidence in his grip, this wasn't his first rodeo.

And just like you did before, he stopped halfway and brushed out your ends, spraying it with your curl pattern styling agent and left it alone to develop into the effortless curls he liked (loved) so much.

IT messaged you again about performing a quick last minute bandwidth test and you gave them the okay while keeping your head straight. Joker paid you no mind and was working on the middle section when you couldn't take it anymore.

"Um.. how did you know how to do this?" You gestured at your head.

Joker's hand froze for a millisecond but continued braiding unfazed. "Would ya believe me if I said prison?"

Your snort told him no.

He smirked to himself but indulged in your curiosity. "But it wasss. One of my prison mates had nice long hair just.. like.. you. Although he's uhh, not alive, to brag about my work, he received all types of comp-li-ments before his.. untimely demise."

He felt you tense up. "You have nothing to worry about my dear Y/n!"

Joker brushed out a new part and caught a snag in the comb making you yelp. Your head followed the tug making it bump into Joker's abdomen. You could feel his muscles through his cotton shirt "Sorry!"

"Hm. That's my line." You tried turning around to apologize further when Joker forcefully jerked your head back straight. "Stay still."

Now that scared you. It would be so easy for him to snap your neck. Is that how he offed his prison mate with the good hair?

You gulped and bobbed your head but instantly regretted that action.

Joker's hands slid from your hair down to your neck where he massaged it gently. He bent down to whisper in your ear. "Now bunny... whaT. Did I just say?"

You felt horrible for being turned on. His hands felt so good around your neck and it took all of your strength not to moan out loud.

"Y/n."

He snapped you out of your thoughts. Your mouth flopped like a fish as you tried to form words that weren't about Joker choking you during that activity.

"You ah.. said to stay s-still." You stared straight ahead at the countdown timer set for your stream.

Thirty-six minutes left. Joker had well over half left to braid. Would you make it through this torture?

"Then be a good girl and.. stay still." He purred in your ear. He stood up straight and went back to work, adding in the golden beads you had scattered on the desk to a few braids that he finished.

Ohhhhh he knew he was cruel and like the obedient girl you were, you listened to him. If you had a tail it would be wagging.

When did you stoop so low?

With five minutes to spare Joker finished your hair for you and you dashed over to the floor length mirror leaning on the living room wall.

You turned your head left and right, admiring Joker's handiwork up close. It was incredibly neat and it matched the first halo braid you did perfectly. You couldn't believe that he did the rest.

You were about to turn and thank him but Joker was already behind you in the mirror.

At times you forgot how tall he was compared to your height. If you moved back any further you would bump into Joker's chest. Not like you minded but!

Once was an accident, twice and he might get curious.

You wanted so badly to rest your weight on Joker or feel his hands in your hair again, scratch that. You wanted to have his hands around your throat again. There was so much power you gave up in that brief moment that had you reeling. You wanted to surrender it again.

"Y/n. I asked if you like it?" His voice startled you again out of the naughty thots.

"Y-Yeah Joker, I do."

His green eyes flickered down to your colored ones, eyeing you warily.

Your reply came out way too breathless, almost like it pained you to answer v He hoped this video stream wasn't making you nervous. He'd stick around (out of sight of the cameras of course) and keep an eye on you.

It's not like he wanted to hear any book announcements or anything. He quickly acclimated to the fact that he was staying with one of his favorite authors but it was still an exciting reminder. You were right there! He could bombard you with questions or annoy you until you fled the room.

Right now, he just wanted to admire your beauty up close.

Joker singled out a strand of your hair that didn't want to curl and wove it around his finger to help it. He lifted the lock up to his nose and sniffed.

Divine.

Your eyes widened witnessing his soft gesture until his eyes met yours in the mirror. They grew heavy almost instantly with an emotion you feared to say aloud.

"Alrightyy your hair is done. Off you go."

And just like that Joker was back to being a jerk, roughly pushing you over towards your desk chair.

You were forced down into it and Joker's hands came to rest on the armrests beside you.

"Now... have fun doing your video blog.. thingy. I'll be here watching." He spun you around to face your laptop and towards the countdown timer that had less than a minute left.

Joker took up his original seat within your line of sight and licked his lips slowly. His smug look did nothing to help calm your arousal as the timer ticked down from thirty seconds.

You had half that time to wipe your mind clean and plaster a big smile on your face as your dear readers joined the stream and flooded the comment section with love and support.

You couldn't think about Joker as the participant counter jumped past three hundred thousand and rising. Did you even have that many active readers? Cindy must've ran a promo behind your back.

It didn't matter, this was your time to shine. "Welcome! Welcome everyone! I'm so excited you all joined!"

#ledger joker x reader #Tsundere vibes #ledger joker #black!fem!reader #heath ledger #joker x y/n #Long Reads #Smut #joker smut #reader insert #joker #yandere #a03 writer #dc comic #batman #romance #angst #oneshot #his lighthouse

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laneelliot12 · 4 months

Note

I love the way you draw cats! How did you adopt a style like that? Who/What were your inspirations?

Thank you!!! I'm so glad people have been liking them!! I'd say I get a lot of style elements from popular cartoons, like pokemon, but I also take a lot of care in my references, and learned to breakdown their shapes over years of trial and error. I'd say a majority of the inspo I got was from random warrior cats speed paints on youtube- I'd pause the frames and pay attention to all the different steps they did! I don't think any one youtuber stood out to me as someone I got my style from, but It's def an amalgamation of a bunch of creators from the early 2010's! I'd love to post something, or even a video one day, of how I do each of the steps I do to get where I get! [Below is a retelling of my art journey if anyone is interested!]

I'd like to think I've got two styles of drawing: art for ocs, and canonized fan art. For both I use a great deal of references, either chosen from stock/free use image sites or from pictures of my three irl cats (who are very photogenic <3)! I am self taught, which means I've gone through a LOT of trial and error over the good decade I've been into the WC fandom. About a year or two ago, my laptop (that I've had since childhood) crashed so hard it deleted everything from my hard drive, losing YEARS of progress/artwork that I hadn't posted anywhere. Foolishly, months before that, I'd deleted my DeviantArt where all my cringe emo ocs were posted, something I was embarrassed of at the time, and now deeply regret doing (fr keep and date ALL of your art it is so important for your growth). I wish more than anything that I could post some of it here to show how my style has grown and changed, but sadly, I'll just have to describe it to ya.

[^^^ Above: the only bit of art I have saved from that time!]

I started drawing wc art in the 4th grade with some friends at my school- a very close friend of mine had started doing it, and I had never really drawn before, so I just followed along with what she did; the meme-y 'firestar doesn't like waffles/derp' fad of the time had be in a VICE GRIP and a lot of my work looked like that. I drew almost exclusively on paper, until my parents let me use the trackpad/mouse on the family computer in mspaint, where my passion for it really started to take off.

From there I got into deviantart, and started out like a lot of young kids did- thick, uniform lineart, coloring in the flats manually, tons of airbrushes and clip images of sparkles, the GOOD STUFF. I would hold paper up to the computer screen and trace the emo mspaint scourge pmvs frame by frame, I was obsessed. Then, for my 13th birthday, my uncle gifted me my very first wacom tablet; a tiny, 6x6 plastic plate that came with a pen and a too short chord. I drew constantly, watching speed paints and reading riverspirit comics until my eyes melted out of my skull, rp'd and posted little comics about my day to day. This went on and I very slowly started improving the more naturally drawing came to me; I held my pen different, downloaded a pirated version of firealpaca, learned about lineweight, obtained LAYERS. Almost seven years ago now, that friend I started drawing with passed away while she was very young. I couldn't stomach drawing warrior cats art for a long time after that; and, my parents had been urging me to give it up for a while too (in their opinions, if I was going to waste my time drawing, it should be something I could do to make money. If only they could see my commission having ass now!!). I still made art, but I did it formally; still life, paintings, figure sketches. When I got to highschool, I went to a specialized program for gifted students (burnout king right here) and took a TON of formal art classes, studying it as my main field. I learned about shapes and color and the natural flow of a piece; but I never really get over my love of cartoons, or my love of warrior cats art. There was just something so special about it, so unique to any fandom I've ever been in, that eventually, I was called back to it. My life was very difficult during that time, when I decided to redraw some of my old digital art for a class warmup. I hadn't touched a laptop in years, and it was ROUGH, but I reconnected with it instantly, and it was the first bit of serotonin I'd had in a WHILE. I got back into roleplays, got back into tumblr, got back into all the old stuff that made me happy.

I graduated highschool in 2020 and started drawing a lot of warrior cats content in between shifts- which leads to where I am now! I was deeply insecure about it and would hide the fact I did it from people I knew irl because I was afraid they'd think im cringe (I am cringe and I love that about myself now, thank u therapy)- and now, I pay for our internet bill off warrior cats commission money, which felt like a pretty big leap!! I still like doing 'formal traditional art', and it has influenced my art and it's shapes a ton- but I still cling to the anime eyes I loved to draw as the kid who wanted to make cartoons for all the world to see.

#warrior cats #my art journey #inbox

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ra-archives · 4 months

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Thats a wrap! Here's my Art Summary for 2023

So much improvement this year, I'm really happy with my progress! I had to double check the date on January three times cause it felt like so long ago. Even July feels distant in terms of style and growth.

Also I just don't have art I could find for a couple of months, so left those blank. I probably have something somewhere but my files are a mess so they're lost for now

Also a blank version for those who want it

#art #my art #2023 wrap up #2023 art summary #I encourage fellow artists to join in on this. Its actually a lot of fun to compare art over the years!#Also look at that messy ass handwriting of mine #smh

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woelfin-sheeps-clothing · 1 year

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Just found your blog after popping into the J&D tag for the first time in a while and you're doing FANTASTIC work for this tiny fandom, especially with Dark Jak and Jaxter content! Us fans are getting FED :D

Hi there! I'm so sorry that I've taken this long to reply. Your message absolutely made my day when I received it, thank you so, so much! Believe me, I'm also getting a great deal of enjoyment out of all the Dark Jak art I've been making too. 😆

The Jak and Daxter fandom could not have come into my life at a better point in time. What started as me glancing up at what my husband was playing on the PlayStation gradually evolved into a very profound appreciation for the story and the characters, as well as the crucial chunk of videogame history Jak and Daxter became a part of. I absolutely fell in love with Jak's character come Jak II and watched a lot more closely when my husband started to play. I loved how he had a lot of moments of rash decisions and impulses and selfish behaviors, and the way he'd watch Daxter when Daxter was speaking with the edge of his lip curling up ever so slightly. He very much reminded me of myself when I was being a very difficult teenager and butting heads with just about everyone in my life. 😂

I'd fallen into a weird art rut I couldn't get out of, between being tired all the time and a lot of nonsense at work that was beginning to become nonstop (still is, if anyone wants THAT story), to the point I wasn't really happy with anything I was making, my progression as an artist was stalling, and I flat out was just not creating much of anything anymore. Then one day I got the weird urge to draw Dark Jak being sassy, and for the first time in a while I found that I couldn't put my tablet down. I just had to finish. I was excited to be done with chores because I wanted to get right back to working on the piece. I found myself learning new art tricks and falling in love with lineart and cell shading again and not feeling compelled to have a more painterly style. And then when I was done? All I could think of is "I gotta do that again". There was no waffling for three days on some half baked sketches, no avoiding creating because I'd inevitably be stuck. I knew what I wanted to make, and I knew how I was going to make the next one better with all the things I'd learned in the first one.

It's been exactly a month since I finished that first piece, and for the first time in a long while I can look back and see how much I created, be it simple sketches or a fully fleshed piece. That hasn't happened to me in such a long time that the past month kinda feels like a fever dream. But it's helped put me in a better mental state to start trying to build a new portfolio again, to start setting things up to become more freelance than in-house. It's also changed how I view my engagement.

Is it fun to get a bunch of notes? Of course. But now when I post a JnD piece, what I'm looking forward to is not the numbers but the comments, reading all the wonderful and silly tags people leave for me. It makes me so incredibly happy, and it put me in the orbit of a lot of other wonderful people in this fandom. I've gotten to see so much wonderful and fun art from others in this fandom too, and read many absolutely awesome fics made by the same people. It's been so freaking cool to me to have this more one-on-one interaction with folks that I never got with other fandoms. When I make stuff, not only is it making me happy to make it, but in the back of my mind I'm also going "I can't wait till x sees this!"

Sorry if this got way too TMI or drawn out, but please let me say with all of my heart thank you @whisker-biscuit , and thank you to everyone else's who's left fun comments and tags on my stuff these past few weeks. This has made the start of the year so unbelievably incredible to me in ways I didn't foresee, and I'm very thankful for it. I'm hopeful about my artistic future in ways I have been in a while, and it means the absolute world to me.

#jak and daxter series #jak and daxter #personal stuff #question and answer #seriously #y'all are so wonderful

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snow-in-liyue · 2 years

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Albedo x Homunculus!Reader - Ch. 2

Ch. 2 early! They barely had any interactions in ch. 1 cause it was just introduction basically so I wanted to get this one out, ch. 3 will take longer as I'm only at 200 word hehe

Description: Albedo tries his hand at creating an artificial human like himself, will he succeed? [1]

Fem!Reader

TW: Fear of thunder

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

One day, three months after your ‘birth’, you and Albedo were in his study, him sketching off to the side while you practiced your handwriting at his desk, kicking your feet in happiness where you sat. Although you enjoyed your lessons as well, these moments were your favorite, when you both could simply relax quietly in the comfort of one another's presence. Albedo smoothly glided his brush across a canvas in practiced strokes while yours were sloppy and fumbled. m M n N o O p P q Q... “Hey Albedo?” He responded with a curious hum without averting his gaze from his art. “Why are some capital letters just made bigger while some others look completely different?”.

At such an innocent question Albedo couldn’t help but to chuckle, “Well, truth be told I do not exactly know, language is ever changing and evolving along with mankind so I can only theorize that somewhere along the way someone wrote it like that and it just stuck.”

“I don’t like not knowing…” Your brows knitted in thought as you examined the letter Q on your paper. “What about my name? How did you choose the letters?” He smiles and puts down his paint brush to walk over to his desk where you are practically glaring at your practice paper. He takes a seat beside you and grabs his own piece of paper and a spare pencil, you look up to watch expectantly to see what he will do.

“Your name was chosen for its meaning, not its letters,” He writes (Y/N) onto the paper in a simple, easy to follow, font that differed from his usual style, “In my home nation, (Y/N) translated to ‘First Creation’” Albedo was slightly embarrassed to admit that he had to take into account that your ‘birth’ may have resulted in failure and he would have to try again, thus leading to a ‘Second Creation’ naming scheme. He should have known not to underestimate himself and then maybe he could have thought up something more poetic for you.

You stared at your name for a moment before looking up to him with those bright, curious eyes of yours, “First Creation… What does your name mean then? And does that mean that Mondstadt isn’t your home nation?” You had this habit of asking too many questions at one time but who could really blame you, you have only gotten a microscopic taste of the world from inside the home you two shared.

“My name is derived from a step in alchemy that involves the process of purification. Kreideprinz, on the other hand, just means Chalk Prince, which is the main material that we were created from, among others. And no, though we live in Mondstadt currently, my home was called Khaenri’ah.” He paused to place a hand on the top of your head, to comfort you or himself you did not know. “It was destroyed a long time ago. Since you were created using the same alchemy that originated from there you can say it is your home as well in a way. I wish I could have taken you there.”

Though his words were dripping in a tone of longing he kept a small smile. It wasn’t often that he thought of Khaenri’ah, what was done, was done, after all, but the prospect of being able to show you his home was too fond of a dream. You would have loved the Inteyvat fields. He also had the desire to show you off to his mother that he had progressed far enough to create complex forms of life by himself. And unlike her first attempt with his ‘brother’, his first attempt was successful.

Contradictory to the smile he displayed, you can sense that he was experiencing sadness, you would be sad too if you could no longer come to this cabin anymore but you knew you could only attempt to relate to his pain from your own experience, he had taught you this was called empathy.

You weren’t exactly sure what to say to help so instead you dropped your head to his shoulder, leaning into the warmth of his side to provide comfort that said “I am here” without speaking words. Albedo heard the response loud and clear, he had learned early on that you favored physical touch, after your first day of avoiding him in fear he had made sure to address one of your lessons on the topic. In said lessons did you learn common ways to initiate physical touch, when appropriate, how to receive consent and how to make your own boundaries. You started off rocky of course: verbally asking consent from him for even the smallest touches, awkwardly placing your hand on a weird part of him, his nose and stomach he found were the funniest, when you wanted contact, and once even staring at him for a solid minute before working up the courage to ask him to move places so that you could be next to him. He was thankful you had gotten the hang of it as he had grown to appreciate your touch, something he hadn’t received much of in his long life.

Albedo knew that you were trying to comfort him so he leaned into you as well, a conscious effort to assure you that you were exhibiting a socially correct behavior. You were both quiet for a few minutes before you spoke up again, “You told me that last names are shared between family, does that mean that Kreideprinz is my name too?”

“Family from blood or through marriage generally. Technically we do not hail from the same blood and neither are we married but you can still have it if you’d like, or I can think of a new one for you?” He almost didn’t want to add that last part, feeling some sort of possession towards you at the thought of you sharing his, albeit made up, family name. A family to call his very own. Sure, he had his ‘mother’ Gold and ‘aunt’ Alice and ‘little sister’ Klee but everything about you had felt different than what he’s experienced before with his family. This feeling ran deeper than he could explain with logic.

You pondered over the same yourself, rolling around (Y/N) Kreideprinz and the idea of being a family in your mind. Albedo made it very clear to you that you had your own freewill and that you were not tied to him in any way, shape, or form, and you should make your own decisions outside of what you think that he might want from you. You didn’t have to think long before you settled on your answer, pulling your head off his shoulder and twisting sideways in your chair to grab at the thickness of his bicep and respond in excitement, “I want to be a Kreideprinz! If we’re not blood then let’s get married!”

Albedo’s eyes widened slightly at the exclamation, not expecting that response from you but he was aware that you don’t exactly know what being married entails. “(Y/N)..” He started off slowly, not wanting to hurt your feelings by denying you, “People only get married when they are lovers and want to spend the rest of their lives together, romantically. Soon you’ll discover for yourself the difference between familial love and romantic love but you only have me to reference off of at the moment so you cannot make that distinction yet.”

At this reminder, you pouted. He had told you this before during one of your lessons on emotions but you didn’t like being told you couldn’t understand something. This rang true especially when it came to Albedo, he was the only person you’ve ever known so far but you know how you feel about him, he makes you happy and warm and based off of his teachings that meant you felt love. What classification of love? You didn’t know. But it was love nonetheless. You wondered if Albedo felt the same about you; you knew he cared but was it love?

He watched your face fall at the revelation but there was nothing he could do to help at the moment. Albedo was far too worried of accidentally teaching you to be dependent on him but he had to wait to make sure your core was stable enough to bring you to town and introduce you to other people. In time, he knew, but right now he had to do something to cheer you up. He still wasn’t able to decipher his feelings either so he calculated the best way to deal with the situation at hand was by using an effective distraction, “How about some tea and treats?” At the word ‘treats’ you perked up, meeting his gaze with large begging eyes. Success.

He got up and patted your head as he went to leave the room, being able to trust you on your own only just recently, “While I’m gone practice the strokes of your name. And if you need me?”

“Call for you,” You finished the practice line.

“Good girl, I won’t be far.” He watched as your attention turned down to the papers on the desk once more. Studying the contours of your face, he lingered in the doorway for an extra moment before finally heading for the kitchen to prepare your snack. Unknownst to you both, dark, heavy clouds were beginning to overrun the sky and descend upon the cabin, ready to unleash fury on to the mountain side of Dragonspine. This day was bound to come, Albedo thought as he noticed the light outside the windows shift darker and darker in forewarning of the storm about to hit. Since your ‘birth’ the weather around the mountain had been unusually stable but it was really only a matter of time before summer storms began to emerge. He finished the preparations and took your shared tea and small sandwich snacks back to his study only to find you out of your seat, cheek squished against the window as you tried to view the sky further up.

The outside world was fascinating to you, everything you could see from out the windows was the only taste you have been able to get so far. Albedo had promised to take you out soon but you couldn’t help but feel saddened that you weren’t able to go now. Everything was so new and beautiful, one time you even saw what Albedo called a ‘crystalfly’ flutter past the window. It was captivating and you couldn’t wait to find out what more awaited you in the world, the need to satiate your curiosity could rival even Albedo’s, like master like apprentice. When you heard him set down the items you rushed over to him, almost tripping over your own feet in the process, a wide toothy grin overtaking your joyous face as you gripped his hand tightly and began to pull him to the window with you. “Look!! Look!! The sky is super dark and there’s a ton of clouds, it’s so cool!! Can we go outside? Please please please? I’ll be good, I promise!”

During your pleading ramblings the clouds parted and rain fell, in the matter of seconds a heavy rainstorm had begun. Fat drops started pelting the glass and the view outside was obstructed and fogged with heavy streaks of water. At the same second, crashing thunder boomed overhead and a blinding streak of lightning cut through the dark. Your reaction was immediate, your once delighted expression was replaced, face twisting and pupils dilating in fear as you yelped and fell to the floor, squeezing your eyes shut tight and clutching your ears with your hands. It hurt him but he had to be assured that you would react to fear in a way that all humans were ingrained to react, so he didn’t warn you of what was to come. Tears streamed down your cheeks and jaw and shaky sobs escaped your trembling lips. The scientist in him was pleased at the results of the experiment but Albedo was human too. He knew it was a necessary evil but that didn’t make it hurt any less.

Satisfied that you knew how to react to fear, Albedo finally knelt down and embraced you in his hold, shushing and whispering praises and assurance in your ear that you did good and that you were safe, everything was ok. His earthly scent and gentle voice coaxed you out of the ball you were huddling into, frightened still but you believed everything he told you. He was your god as far as you were concerned. One warm hand ran up and down you back while another made home on the nape of your neck in an attempt to stabilize you. Your choked hiccups died down in time but your body remained tense, every new crack of thunder had you grasping harder at his body, face nuzzled into the crook of his neck. In his embrace you felt like nothing could touch you, here you would always be safe.

Once he deemed you have calmed down he took your head away from his neck to meet your eyes as his gentle hands moved to wipe tears from your flushed cheeks. Eyes as blue as the sky you now longed for met yours, “What you were feeling is called fear. You were scared, afraid, frightened. Tell me what you feel.”

This was standard procedure for you, trying something new always led to Albedo’s questioning, did you like what you were eating? What about it did you like? How did it make you feel? You knew why so you weren’t annoyed, your life was made from artificial means just like he and as his first human creation he was almost paranoid that something would go wrong and he could potentially lose you. He’s also expressed his fear of educating you incorrectly, to this say he still struggled socially at times, would he fail as a teacher? What if he led you astray? What if he manipulated you in any sort of way without meaning to? You wouldn’t know any better.

You gathered yourself for a moment finding it hard to talk, “I hated it. My throat hurts and… and my heart was beating fast, I felt like I couldn’t move and I couldn’t focus and my eyes were burning, why were my eyes wet? What is going on outside? What’s all that noise?”

Your breathing begins to pick up again in panic so Albedo pulls you to your feet and guides you to sit down at the desk once more, he places a delicate kiss on the top of your hair before sitting down himself. “Come, drink some tea to help your throat and nerves. Your responses were natural, remember it’s good to feel emotions, even if they can be unpleasant at times,” You jump at another loud boom, “What’s going on outside is completely normal as well, it’s called a storm.” He continues to go into base details for you to understand without overwhelming your fragile state while you sip on tea and nibble on your treats.

Once he was finished explaining the basics and answering your questions you felt better about the storm but it was still frightening to you. Extremely hot electricity bolting out of the sky at random intervals? Knowing what it is and what causes it didn’t make you feel any better, that was obvious with the way you were still tensing and jumping at each loud crash. In an attempt to ease your worries Albedo had tried to explain how being hit by lightning was a rare occurrence and probably wouldn’t ever happen to you. However, when he noticed you were still scared he changed tactics and assured you that it was normal, that is was human, to be afraid of lightning, that’s just how some people reacted. This made you feel a little better so when you finished your treats and Albedo had walked you to bed.

“Will you be able to sleep tonight or would you rather stay up until the storm passes?”

“I think I can sleep. Storms are natural so I’ll just have to be brave, right?”

“You don’t have to be brave all of the time,” He reassures you, tucking you into the blankets of the bed he had built for you in the spare room of his cabin. Previously used for untouched storage, it had now been furnished with a bed, chair, and desk, all carved by your creator's hands. Truly a man of many talents, they were prized possessions to you but to him they were amature at best, having several sharp angles and jagged lines but overall held their worth. He couldn’t leave you alone long enough to make the trip to Mondstadt so he had to make due with the nearby pine trees and some tools he had lying around.

“If you find that you’re too afraid to sleep then come wake me and we can stay up for the night instead,” He proposed, though it was spoken in such a way that made it more of an order than an option. You nod from beneath your blanket and, brows still knitted in concentration, you shut your eyes and try to block out the chorus of the storm. Pride fills his chest as he gazes upon your determined expression, still flinching every so often but refusing to let the storm win. Deciding it was best to let you take on the challenge by yourself, he leaves the room and lays down in his own bed seeking rest as well.

While Albedo was quick to fall asleep, being unbothered with how many thunderstorms he’s witnessed in his life, you on the other hand were tossing and turning in restlessness. Though the pelting of the rain against the cabin glass soon became nothing but white noise, the thunder that struck outside kept you alert. This sort of insomnia was a new feeling so you didn’t know what to do. You roll onto your back and stare up at the ceiling in thought trying to ignore the sounds around you. Would Albedo be disappointed in you if you couldn’t sleep? No, you know he wouldn’t, he’s always so patient with you even when you make a mistake and create a big mess. Even on days when you don’t feel quite yourself Albedo is always there to listen or be of comfort. Even when your brain is always full of questions and too many thoughts about what you don’t know and what you have yet to experience, Albedo is always right there to help you organize your thoughts and soothe your frequent headaches. He’s dependable, trustworthy, safe but do you really know him as well as he knows you inside and out?

Your heart sinks in your chest at the realization. Why hadn’t you thought about it sooner on how little you really know about him? You know his character for sure but it’s been months and only just today did you learn about his real home, about Khaenri’ah, what other parts of him were you blind to?

A small, warm trail of water slid down your face; a tear, you had learned the name for earlier. More following behind and soon your vision blurred as heavily as the rain pelted window on the other side of your room. You sniffled as another crash rang outside, your nose stuffed and breathing irregular as you fought off an emotional meltdown. You weren’t even sure why, your head was foggy in confusion and your heart felt like lead in your chest. In panic and confusion you threw the blankets off and stumbled down the hall to the one place you felt the safest, the most secure, the place where you knew deep in your heart that while you were there everything would be ok in the end. You ran to Albedo.

#albedo kreideprinz x reader #albedo x reader #genshin x reader #reader insert #chapter fic

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tenspontaneite · 2 years

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are you planning on finishing Peace is a Journey? i was binging it recently and its really good, but i noticed it hadnt been updated in like 6 months

You have very interesting timing, my good fellow!

As it happens, I've had a lot of shit on and have barely written for like five months, and ngl I am bigtime not enjoying it. So actually these last few days I was finally able to sit down and force myself back into the tdp fandom by binge watching reaction videos for three days and then finally by watching season 3 again and reading ttm, the art book, etc. I finished doing that today! And now:

Over the next....probably weeks, I'll be honest, I'll be starting the Grand PIAJ Edit of 2022. It's been a long time coming, and I put it off for a long time because I hadn't caught up with ttm or this or that, and then life just sort of,,, happened, and it got put off even longer. But yeah, now's time to start, finally.

I've got a lot to do, so I expect it's going to take a while. I've got bits to add, bits to tweak, grammar to edit, and on top of that....I've got to start seriously keeping track of a lot of running details in order to be able to do my consistency checks effectively in such an enormous story. For an idea, these are some of the things I've noted to myself I'll need to take notes down about during the next grand edit in order to track:

Clothing state and quantity; damage, discoloration, wash status

Food quantity and use

General supplies quantity and use

Rayla injury progression and healing

Sketchbook drawings progression

Campsites by day and description

Noteworthy scenes and conversations and exposition by day

....and some more stuff that's more spoilery. Point is I have a good amount to do, and piaj is so massive and so logistics heavy that I really need to keep easily searchable records of things like this so I don't trip up. In a recent chapter I almost rewrote a scene that already existed in another chapter because I couldn't tell the difference between 'I remember it vividly because I've thought about it a lot' and 'I remember it vividly because I've already written it.' I caught it in time but I don't want that to happen more often in a story as detail-oriented as this, which it will, if I don't take careful notes on my next grand edit. Which will start today or tomorrow.

I won't edit any public chapters until I've finished all the extant chapters on my computer, so you've got plenty of time to download the current version if you want to preserve it. I'll also make sure to preserve a copy myself and make it available for download. There will also be change notes added to the change logs of every chapter so you can get an idea of whether anything interesting was added or changed, or if it was just basic grammar or style edits.

In general, rest assured that my plans for piaj are too cool for me to leave it here!

#piaj #piaj misc #piaj asks #asks #lmao the timing of this ask seriously #it came just as i was finishing my catch up and going off to have dinner before appraising the state of the story #anyway the edits won't change anything major i don't think #but it's certain I'll add paragraphs and maybe even sections of scenes in certain places #my piaj plans have come a long way since chapter 1 was published #and while i was always writing for the long haul right from the start #with key events foreshadowed in the opening chapters #there are more key events planned now as well as misunderstandings i had about some canon details #that require me to make some changes #on top of that i have spent around three months sleeping in a tent since the last update #the very same tent i used as model for the kids tent #and this experience gave me some new ideas and first hand impressions i want to incorporate #it had been a very long time since i used the tent before after all #I'd forgotten a lot of the finer details and experiential stuff #and im a fucking sucker for those details

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