#you can interpret any game like you would any art piece

[deliciouskeys]

Cozy Corner Domaystic prompts #16: Going through immigration and #24: Identity theft.

Guys. Guys, I’ll be honest. I have no idea what possessed me. I think I found these two prompts as some of the most challenging to imagine as a domestic fic, and… my thinking got a little bit too outside the box.

This fic will have an intended audience of about 1 (me). But I want to give major major props to @olliveolly who introduced me to this game and was the one who came up with this That’s Not My Neighbor / Boys crossover AU (with a couple lovely art pieces on the theme). The “lore” of this horror game is very simple. Tell me you don’t see it:

Butchlander. That’s Not My Neighbor crossover/AU. Rated E (why). 3.3k words (why). 2nd person to allegedly reflect the feeling of first-person gameplay (why). Is this domestic fic? Welllllll. It takes place in an apartment complex so it counts, right? Lax interpretation of ‘going through immigration’ but honestly that’s what this game really reminds me of 😂

Another day, another interminable shift working as the concierge in the dreary lobby of this apartment complex. It was exciting at first, sure, what with getting to play the first and last line of defense against the doppelganger monsters that attempt to sneak in every single day. But you’ve just gotten too good at noticing discrepancies. Nothing gets past you anymore. You know every single feature- hell, every single freckle! -of every single resident in the building. By this point you’ve got all their phone numbers memorized, for no better reason than there is simply too much tedium to this job. You find yourself wishing you could actually watch the D.D.D. ‘decontaminate’ the lobby, as they so euphemistically put it, instead of just sitting there twiddling your thumbs behind a pulled down rollup metal shutter after summoning them. You could still make out screams without seeing the brutality, and you knew the D.D.D. employed flame throwers and other serious weapons to deal with these monsters. Sometimes you caught yourself feeling just a little bit of sympathy for the doppelgangers, even though their main goal in life appeared to be to imitate people to blend in and then feed upon human flesh, and your main goal in life was supposed to be to ensure none of them would ever get let in through the locked inner door.

John Gillman comes in through the first door and gives you a tired, nominal wave before fishing around in his pockets for his documents to gain entry. He might be your favorite resident— always polite, always in that clean-cut milkman uniform at least when you happen to see him, because no one really leaves the apartment building outside of work obligations. There’s no nightlife in New York anymore, not with everyone nervous of dark alleys or being alone on the street, especially after dark. When you came over here from London, you certainly didn’t expect to get stuck here during a worldwide apocalyptic event like this that has resulted in curfews and lockdowns. You certainly didn’t expect to get zero action and get a mindnumbing job just to make ends meet. It was probably still more interesting than your gig working as a bouncer back in London, but at least you got fresh air there, and sometimes a date to go home with after closing time. Maybe that’s why you’ve started hyperfixating and daydreaming about one of the residents— the involuntary celibacy is getting to you.

John just always looks uncannily attractive. Maybe it’s that silly uniform that’s easy to fetishize. Maybe it’s because his tired eyes also look like bedroom eyes, or the dark circles function the same way eyeliner would. Why is he always so tired anyway? You know he lives alone up there in F03-02. He never gets any visitors either. How much can a person masturbate, really? There’s a rumor around the building that Becca Saunders’ tyke might be his, but you don’t really see the resemblance, and have your doubts that this didn’t just start as a “sleeping with the milkman” joke that got out of hand. People just like to gossip about single mothers. Things like this shouldn’t be considered scandalous. It’s 1955 for god’s sake!

“Sorry, William,” John says, hurriedly shoving his ID and entry request form underneath the glass so you can take take a look. “Almost thought I left my ID at work.”

“Long day, huh?” you ask without expecting a reply, pretending to scrutinize the documents while making small talk. You know this is John. You’d know him from a mile away. But it doesn’t mean you can’t have a little bit of fun. “Looks okay, and you are on the list of people authorized to come and go today. But can you take off your cap?”

John grabs his milkman cap off his head, exposing a mop of blond hair, looking mussed after being under the hat all day. You really wish you could test him, see how far you’d be able to take things before he refused to cooperate. Take off your shirt, John. Gotta make sure it’s really you. You never know these days. But of course you don’t. All you’ll have is your fantasies about breaching every code of ethics and using your master key to gain entrance into his apartment, seducing him, ravishing him right in the middle of what must be a depressing bachelor pad. Give him much darker undereye circles by keeping him up all night. Give this apartment complex a more interesting rumor to spread about the milkman in their midst.

“You’re good to go,” you say and press the green unlock button to let him in. He gives you a wan smile and walks out of view, and you listen to his footsteps ascending the stairs.

The rest of the afternoon is uneventful, only a few people coming and going, and a couple of doppelgängers with laughably strange appearance or bad credentials being dispatched quickly. Or at least it’s uneventful until John walks in, just a little bit past curfew.

“Hey William,” he says, sounding distracted, rummaging in his pockets for his documents as a cold sweat breaks out on your forehead. This better be a doppelganger, you think to yourself. But he has both his ID and the entry request filled out correctly. He looks identical to the John that passed by here a couple of hours earlier. This can’t be.

You start dialing John’s number, not taking your eyes off the man in front of you.

John’s eyes widen with alarm when he sees that you get an answer from the other end of the line.

“Yes, hello? John here. I’m not expecting any visitors.”

You hang up pretty abruptly, staring at the John in front of you, searching his appearance for any subtle defect or inconsistency but finding none. Your finger is hovering over the alarm button.

“Oh my god. Oh my god, you think I’m someone else? It’s me, William! I swear to god it’s me! I don’t know who you let in earlier, and who’s answering the phone now, but it’s not me up there!”

And shit, you believe him. You must have fucked up. Gotten smug and sloppy. Maybe the doppelganger handed you a fake ID but you didn’t notice because you were too busy daydreaming about fucking him.

“William, please believe me, please!” John is pressing up against the glass at this point, clearly scared that you’re going to quarantine him in the lobby and sic the D.D.D. on him. They don’t tend to ask questions. You’ve never had it happen, but you’ve heard of innocent people getting snuffed out on the mere suspicion of being doppelgangers, the D.D.D. rarely admitting to such mistakes even after the fact.

“Alright, alright, I believe you. I just have to think…” you mumble. “I’ll let you in, but don’t go up to your flat. We have to figure this out.”

John nods frantically and slips into your office after you buzz him in.

“What are you going to do?” he asks, and if you weren’t scared shitless at the moment, you’d probably get a kick out of how vulnerable and scared his expression is compared to his usual tired, impassive one.

“I should call the D.D.D. and get them to go up there,” you think out loud.

“Won’t you get reprimanded?” John asks, and oh how sweet of him to worry about your job when you’ve fucked up so royally and almost gotten him killed with your negligence. Maybe already gotten some of his neighbors killed.

“I just don’t want you losing your job over this— you’re the best concierge we have,” he says and then looks down shyly, as if realizing how strange that concern is.

What is this? Are you dreaming? Maybe you’re just out of your mind with adrenaline, but John sounds like he’s got feelings for you.

“Let’s just go up there and see what’s going on,” he says, and damn he’s persuasive as fuck. You want to go and deal with the mess you made, and protect him.

“I’ll go up there and just check,” you say, hardly believing yourself as you grab the fire extinguisher from the wall as a makeshift weapon. Everyone who was scheduled to return to the building has, so you shouldn’t get any more legitimate people coming through, but you still tape up a note that you’ll be back at your post in a few minutes. “Right then. You just stay down here and wait. I don’t want you putting yourself at risk. If I’m not back in five, call the number on the post-it.”

John shakes his head and follows you up the stairs. “I’m not letting you go up there alone,” he says in that quiet irresistible voice and you start to wonder if there’s something strange going on. Why are you going on this potentially suicidal mission to deal with a doppelganger on your own? So what if you get fired? No job is worth your life, right? But you probably wouldn’t see John ever again if you lost this job and that’s clouding all your judgment right now.

Knocking on John’s apartment door is probably not a good idea, and will just give the monster inside time to prepare or hide. So you take out your master key and turn it in the lock as quietly and quickly as you can. The door swings opens with an ominous creak, revealing a dark living room with no sign of anyone there. Did he hear you coming up the stairs? You try to keep John behind you and shield him in case anything sudden happens from within the apartment, but then you feel a strong push from behind and both you and John are in the flat now.

You’re so stupid, so critically, fatally stupid. The John you let in earlier was the real one. You’ve let a doppelganger convince you that you made a mistake, and now you did let one in. You whirl around, try to hit him upside the head with the fire extinguisher you’re brandishing, but he blocks the move with little effort.

“I thought we agreed,” he says, and you realize he’s speaking not to you but past you to someone else in the room.

“Thursdays are my days,” an identical voice answers from behind you and you step back and try to make sense of what you’re seeing. Two John Gillmans, both in the same uniform, neither one looking the least bit spooked, both looking mildly irritated if anything.

“Since when,” the John who came up behind you asks of the other one. “I get to be here every other day, doesn’t matter what day of the week it is.”

“So now what are we going to do about him?” the John who was in the apartment asks, pointing to you. “Why didn’t you just leave once he called me? Are you stupid?”

Your heart may be racing, but your thinking feels as slow as molasses. They’re …. both doppelgangers?

“What have you done with the real John Gillman?” you whisper hoarsely. The twins turn to look at you and you’re creeped out by the very similar smirk that spreads across both of their faces. They’re really impeccable facsimiles of the real person, but this is an expression you’ve never seen on John.

“You’ve never met the ‘real John Gillman’,” one of them says.

There’s enough cold sweat that’s broken out on your back that it starts to trickle down as drops.

“We like you William. It would be such a shame for our friendship to end.”

You hold up the fire extinguisher in front of yourself defensively, but you’re not sure you can really do anything against two of them. You’ve never noticed before, and maybe the real John’s teeth didn’t look like this, but the two doppelgangers have sharp looking canines when they’re grinning. It’ll serve you right to get devoured in this dark flat for making so many mistakes and bad decisions in a row today.

“So you’re just going to kill me then?” you ask.

“We’d really rather not,” one of the twins says. “A murder would bring a lot of snooping law enforcement if not the D.D.D. Itself.”

“And it’s so hard to find good lodging to spend the night.”

They must be joking. “You really expect me to believe you’re not just here to eat people?”

One of the twins rolls his eyes. “Eat people! Yeah, that’s why we’re here, clearly.”

“Has anyone in this apartment building ever disappeared in all the months you’ve worked here?” the other one asks.

“How should I know?” You’re beginning to feel like this has to be some sick nightmare. You can’t possibly be having a civil conversation with a couple of cannibal monsters. This thought has a strange calming effect on you. “If I didn’t know you lot were masquerading as John Gillman, how am I to know how many other residents are real people?”

The twins turn to each other, still smiling and shrugging.

“We’ve been on a vegetarian diet for a while,” the other says and you can’t help but bark out a laugh.

“Laugh all you want,” the other one says, spreading his hands in concession. “But milk is more than enough to sustain us. We do think people are delicious, but there’s one thing we like much more than eating them.”

“And what’s that?” you ask, emboldened by the possibility that you’re just in a ridiculous, paranoid, bad dream of a worst case scenario at your job.

“We’ve been watching you William. We think you’ve been interested in us.”

“We’ve never fucked anyone from this building, and never fucked together, but there’s a first time for everything, right?”

You just stand there, fire extinguisher still raised up defensively. No question about it, this must be a nightmare that’s slowly but surely twisting itself into a sexual fantasy.

“Come on, William. Let’s make you comfortable.”

You can hardly protest as one gently pulls your makeshift weapon out of your loose grip, and the other one sweeps you off your feet with preternatural superhuman ease and carries you over to the couch in this sparsely furnished apartment.

Gentle but insistent hands undo the buttons on your trousers and then maneuver you so they can pull them off completely and free your legs.

“Humans are such fun creatures,” one of the Johns comments when he sees that despite your fear of the situation unfolding right now, you are sporting a half-hearted hard-on. It somehow only gets harder when you hear them talk about people as another species.

Both Johns are still fully dressed, situating themselves to kneel on the floor on either side of you. It’s wild. You must be dreaming. And as you watch both Johns lean forward, extending their tongues and licking your cock up and down from opposite sides, you realize that if this is a dream, you never want to wake up.

They know what they’re doing. They bring you right up to the edge of orgasm and then pull away, leaving you feeling desperate and even annoyed. You’re not annoyed for long though as they both strip down, and you see that their human-mimicking powers are perfect, down to the most minute details that would never be seen under clothes. Granted, you don’t know what John Gillman looked like naked, so maybe they’ve taken artistic license and embellished. Whatever it is, they’ve compared notes, because they still look indistinguishable to you.

“Like what you see?” one of them asks and you realize you I’ve been staring, maybe even with your mouth hanging open. You never imagined you’d hook up with a doppelganger, let alone two of them at once. But you have imagined foisting yourself on John in this very flat, and you’re about to live that daydream.

You end up doing things with the two of them beyond what you’ve ever dreamed of. You fuck one of them, and at the same time get fucked by the other one from behind, the cheap bed’s metal joints creaking and moaning from the motion of three bodies rocking against each other. You let them suck your cock and rim you to get you back in the mood for another round, trying not to think about how unsettlingly hungry they both look, and who they really are underneath the human-looking exterior. The exterior slips periodically when they’re in the throes of pleasure. You wince when they betray just how strong they really are, whenever they flip you over or change positions, as if you weigh nothing. You try not to pay attention when their eyes start glowing red when they’re particularly turned on, but it’s impossible to ignore in the darkness of the bedroom.

“William, you are fucking delicious,” one of them declares, licking his lips obscenely after swallowing down your cum, and all you can do is emit a short nervous chuckle, and think that even if they do decide to eat you at the end of all of this— either to cover their tracks, or just because they might start feeling peckish after all this is over— it will still have been worth it.

You don’t get eaten. In fact, you’ve had the time of your life, and as you get up from the bed and mumble that you have to get back to your post before your shift is over, the two Johns lie languid, naked on the bed watching you, each enjoying a post coital glass of milk (that’s all they have in the fridge— you saw when they opened it), like perfect mirror images.

“You won’t be making any unnecessary phone calls, right William?”

“We can count on you to be discreet and keep a secret, right?”

Through the combined haze of being scared for your life and then having the time of your life, there’s still one thing that bothers you, and you ask about it, against all your best self-preservation instincts.

“So what have you done with the real John Gillman?”

They turn to look at each other, not exactly conspiratorial but it still makes you uneasy.

“Oh, John Gillman never existed. We’ve been around a lot longer than you humans think. Many of us never tried to replicate and replace real humans.”

“Yeah, and a lot of good that did when some of us started! The ones who are doing it are the reason we’re being hunted now. Unoriginal hacks. And so bad at mimicking too.”

“So many embarrassing ones out there.” They both nod at each other.

You’d like to believe them. You really would. “So why choose this persona?”

“The milkman gets free milk and gets around in your society! And humans seem to like this look,” one of them says, grinning and gesturing with his hand over their naked bodies.

“But we only ever get to enjoy bored housewives.”

“And why are there two of you?” you ask hesitantly, glancing at the clock on the wall to verify that you’re not late yet.

“Oh there’s more than two of us,” one of them says and they laugh in unison in a way that sends a chill down your spine.

~~~

You think you’ve got it all worked out. You’re letting the John Gillmans stay in the apartment undisturbed, and you let them through even when it’s obvious that there’s more than one of them coming and going. You figure it’s a win-win. They promise to protect the building from any rogue doppelgangers who infiltrate and intend to harm the residents, and in return get a place to stay the night peacefully. You get to visit apartment F03-02 after your shift ends and have mind-blowing sex. They seem to enjoy the orgies as well. They know your shift hours and try to only come and go during those times. There doesn’t seem to be a problem with this arrangement.

Or at least not a problem that you’re going to make into your problem. When one of the Johns walks in, visibly smeared in blood, you do give him a hard time.

“Come on, John. Just because I’ll let you in, doesn’t mean you can just stop trying to look decent. God forbid I call in sick and someone else is here.”

John shrugs and goes through the formality of pushing his ID and entry request under the glass window.

“And get a new ID…” you tell him when you see bloody fingerprints all over the worn paper.

John shrugs, doing his usual tired act, despite how ridiculous it looks to be so bored and nonchalant when he’s smeared in blood.

“Whose blood is that, anyway?” you ask, wondering why you’re not more disturbed.

“Someone who was of no consequence and who won’t be missed,” John replies, terse and cool as a cucumber.

“I thought you said you were vegetarian?”

“I’ll take a cheat day if I run into a wifebeater,” John says, shrugging.

You buzz him in, telling him to get washed up before someone sees him, wondering if you’re being colossally naive to believe his story, and wondering if you’ve got a death wish because you’re still looking forward to going up there once your shift ends in a few hours.

(What in the world. 💀)

ETA: now with another art piece by @olliveolly

#cozy corner domaystic #lol #butchlander #that’s not my neighbor au #homelander #billy butcher #the boys #the boys tv #fic #mystuff

[corpsegirl-sephie]

Slay the Princess and Death of The Author

A terrible "essay" I made to get all the thoughts out of my head

There is only one character death that can't be avoided in Slay the Princess: that of The Echo (or The Narrator, if you prefer), the one who created the construct the game takes place in, the entire scenario it revolves around, and the characters that take part in it. He was dead since before the game even began, the sacrifice he had to make for this all to work.

Why did he have to die? Because The Shifting Mound would have been changed by his perception of her, and thus the construct becomes even less reliable.

In order for this to have any chance of working, the number of perspectives that she can be molded by must be as low as possible, preferably zero, but, by the very nature of what he has made, there is one perspective that can't be removed: that of The Long Quiet. He is inextricably linked to her until his task is done.

This is where the meta-textual interpretation comes in: The Shifting Mound is the story, and The Long Quiet is its audience. A story is incomplete without someone to see it, appreciate it, analyse it, just like she is when we first find her. What's the point of a story if no one hears it? Without someone to make sense of it all it's just a bunch of words. She asks us to bring her perspectives, so that she may be whole. The game is asking us to experience it and bring our own interpretations to the table, come to our own conclusions about it, and thus make its existence meaningful.

The Long Quiet is similarly incomplete at this stage, unaware of his true nature as a god. Without a story to watch unfold, an audience can't exist, it's just people, and people with nothing to do at that. Put someone in a room by themselves for long enough and they will eventually seek relief from the crushing boredom and loneliness in the same place: art. They'll hum to themselves, or start twirling about in some semblance of a dance, or, maybe, a story will start to form in their mind. People are drawn to art and stories, they are the greatest constant throughout human history. It seems fair to say, for our purposes, that we, too, are incomplete without art.

Only by interacting with each other do the two gods come to realize their full potential. If you choose to ignore the princess, and just turn away from the cabin again and again, you will find only a torturous existence for both of you, with no meaning to be found.

However, there is a third option, neither engaging with the story nor ignoring it altogether. The Echo did put a piece of himself within the construct, as all authors do by the nature of creation, and thus, there is still a perspective that is not your own at play, that of the creator. If you choose to just follow The Narrator's instructions without a second thought you reach the "good ending" to the game, an obvious joke but an ending nonetheless. The game does end and the credits do roll, but you got nothing out of it. The princess is dead and you are a mindless husk, neither of you ever having reached your true potential.

Choosing to follow the "word of god", relying on authorial intent rather than engaging with a story yourself, experiencing it firsthand and coming to your own unique understanding of it, is gonna lead you nowhere. You will not have been enriched by what you just experienced, and the story will have no meaning.

#if you happened to see this same post a while back that was an unfinished draft i accidentally posted #also i did do this a lot sooner than even i expected to i just really couldnt sleep #slay the princess #slay the princess spoilers

[esprei]

I just recently got into the submas Fandom and people kept telling me about Emmet x Volo being bad and toxic.

But when I looked into it, all I saw was your art of them and some. And it's not toxic at all??? What are people talking about?

You show them so nice and healthy wholesome together. It actually makes me interested in that ship.

Is that wrong of me? I just think your art of them is pretty neat.

Maybe more people should see how you show their relationship and stop not letting people have nice things.

hey there! first of all, welcome to the fandom! :D hopefully you'll have a great time! and I can do my best to explain this from my perspective at least. or... at least from what I've experienced/seen. (sorry, this will probably end up being long ;;) so to preface, it's not wrong of you at all to be interested in the ship! Emmet and Volo themselves have had zero interactions with each other in canon up to this point, so their interactions/relationship/etc are a blank slate, free real estate sandbox that's up to one's imagination and fanon interpretation. there's nothing inherently wrong about putting them together because they have no dialogue between them or anything that can be referenced as "this is how they would go together, this is how they would interact because it's been established that way in this game or piece of media". all we've got is their dialogue and individual personalities that we can glean from official sources (i.e. Pokemon Masters EX, the Pokemon Special manga and BW/BW2 for Emmet and Legends Arceus for Volo). really the only thing that "connects" Emmet and Volo is Ingo ending up in Hisui. and the reason I say this "connects" them is because a popular theory is that Ingo being sent to Hisui was a direct result of Volo having Giratina open the rift to try and drive Arceus out. but none of this is actually ever stated in canon, I believe. (also when I've seen some people talk before about this theory, there's basically this implication that Volo did it out of malicious intent, as if he knew he was going to bring Ingo specifically to Hisui by doing it and...? I'm so sorry, but no, I just cannot get behind this at all. Volo's sole purpose of getting Giratina to open up the rift was to drive Dialga and Palkia mad in order to bring Arceus from out of hiding - that's literally what he says in the game's dialogue.

I highly doubt that he had any idea as to who Ingo was at all before he met him at some point in Hisui for the first time). but yeah. i only bring this up because it's kinda what I think started the idea of Emmet and Volo interacting at all? maybe not exactly, I can't remember because it's been too long and I both don't remember and wasn't too directly involved when all of this started. but essentially Emmet and Volo even being considered interacting kinda revolved around this idea that Emmet is looking for Ingo, finds out that Volo was the reason for the rift that caused Ingo's disappearance, and that now leads me into the part of why I think the ship is seen as toxic. so. the main reason I'm pretty sure that people say that the ship is toxic is because of how much a lot of early art/works portrayed it (based on what I just explained above). and it's totally fair. because admittedly it did start out with some violent aspects and really just Emmet doing things I personally don't think he would ever do. for example, beating the crap out of Volo for being the reason Ingo disappeared. Emmet being violent in order to demand answers for the sake of getting his brother back. etc, etc. and this really put a bad taste in people's mouths because it really just cast Emmet in a bad light. that, and it was a toxic, unhealthy portrayal of an enemies to lovers trope. and Volo was kinda portrayed as conniving/sneaky/manipulative/etc, and yeah. just things like that I think made popular for it ended up giving the pair a bad rep early on when Legends Arceus was still a popular topic (we're talking like... I dunno. late March into April and on of 2022? ...2022 was when PLA came out right?) honestly though? the beauty about a ship like this is that, as i said before, it's a completely blank slate. it's free real estate. you can portray it however you see fit because there's absolutely zero canon to base it off of (as far as the two characters themselves interacting with each other goes). it can be as wholesome as you want it to be. or it can be enemies to lovers. it can be rivals to lovers. it can be just two guys who happen to meet on the Battle Subway or in Gear Station and connect through a shared love of Pokemon/battling and develop a relationship that way. just because the ship itself maybe had the majority of its portrayal in the beginning as unhealthy doesn't mean it's forever bad, toxic and all around unsalvageable at this point. and while I certainly don't expect anyone who's perhaps uncomfortable or otherwise turned off from the ship because of its roots to suddenly turn around one day and warm up to it because it has potential to be portrayed in a wholesome or positive way, I also don't think it's very fair to blanket label the whole ship bad and toxic just for the fact alone that a lot of the early works for it were depicting a not-so-healthy relationship between the two. i mean that was like... two years ago at this point. things can change. anyway, this is getting long like I knew it would so I'll stop there XD I hope this at least maybe gives some context as to why the ship is seen that way by some? but at the end of the day there's no canon official way to portray it. it has potential to be healthy! and there's nothing wrong about being interested in it. that's just my two cents on it :D

and lastly, thank you so much! it really warms my heart to hear that you think my art of them is pretty neat! I really do want to draw more for them, just... you know. time and motivation 😅 but hopefully I can do something again for them soon!

#trainwreckshipping #submas #subway boss emmet #pokemon volo #anonymous #asks #i could say a lot more but i think this is more than enough lol

[an-established-butt-dent]

“Solas?“

“Yes, Vhenan."

“What are you drawing?“

He still has his eyes on the piece of parchment in front of him, but slows down the repetetive movements of his hand tracing the shapes on paper, as if that might offer him more time to find his answer. "Oh, just some practice. It helps me sort my thoughts," he says with the casual air of somebody trying to evade a question.

“Can I see, then?“

He glances up briefly and notices she has stopped reading her book on the early history of Neromanian magic. She has one elbow propped up on the table and rests her chin on her hand. She is looking at him expectantly, her book clearly forgotten.

He pauses the scratchy movements of his pencil and says rather hesitantly.

"It's not finished."

She leans forward a bit more, trying to catch a glimpse at his paper. He subtly angles it away from her. She might have barely noticed, had she not noted his newfound secrecy regarding his recent drawings. She has become increasingly curious over the past few weeks, and his forced casual demeanor after her question only fills her with more anticipation.

It makes her think of the first time he showed her his artwork. …

The first time she had walked into the rotunda in Skyhold and found Solas high up on the scaffolding with a paint brush in his hands and a concentrated look on his face, she was surprised to learn of his motivation.

"History needs to be documented," he had said when she asked him what he was working on.

After climbing down the scaffolding and taking a step back to admire the process of his work, he continued, "Not by the words of diplomats, but through the eyes of those skilled in artistry. Words will be forgotten, but images? Those will hold significance across time."

She had been moved then. By the bold lines in the fresco and the fierce look in his eyes as he regarded her as he spoke. Like she was someone worthy of admiration. Like he truly saw her. It reminded her of his words before their first kiss.

'You change everything.' He had said.

She didn't really believe him then. She didn't want to be put on a pedestal, far removed from the world and the simple and nomadic lifestyle of her clan that she was accustomed to. She missed roaming mountains and hills, not fighting blighted Templars and navigating treacherous games of power with nobles. That life had seemed like such a long time ago, even though it had barely been a year.

But perhaps she didn't need to suffer though all of this alone. She had her friends. Dorian with his jokes. Varric with his stories. Cassandra with her quiet support and camaderie. Iron Bull helping her with her fighting stances and teaching her new drinking games with Cullen. Even Cole, though he was still figuring out what the word friend even meant. She would help him with that, she had decided then. Friends; they made the aching pull of homesickness more bearable.

But Solas.

Who was he to her? She could call him her friend the supposed. She had the feeling they were becoming closer and yet there was an undeniable distance. Always leaving space for interpretation and mystery while never backing away from any of her questions. So much knowledge he shared, and still she had the feeling she barely knew him at all. He had slowly and unknowingly developed a talent for surprising her with new insights and he did so later again that same evening.

The next hour passed quickly while they were still talking about art and the different depictions of elven lore. He had stared at her intently for a moment, considering her.

"I want to show you something." he had said.

She never passed up an opportunity to learn more so she had indulged him, following him to a plain-looking crate to the side of the room. He removed the protective wards with a wave of his hand. He then uncovered some, by the looks of it, handbound books. He observed them one by one carefully, with a nod of acceptance when he seemingly found what he was looking for and handed her one of the books.

As she opened the first few pages she discovered they were sketchbooks filled with rough outlines in preparation for the next installment of the mural.

Excitedly he pointed to notes in the margin and spoke of where he learned the techniques for collecting and grinding his own pigments. There was a red ocre in the Western Approach that he had recently discovered on one of their missions which was apparently incredibly well suited for his purpose. At her encouragement he had shown her more of of his other drawings too. First of symbolism and color studies, but then more personal ones: of the views of the mountains from Skyhold, running Halla, drying herbs and even of some of the members of the inquisition she recognized.

In turn she told him about how she used to carve wood, especially when winters were rough and her clan was stuck in the same place for long waiting out the biting cold and punishing snow. To keep her fingers from freezing and her mind from wandering to dark places, she had started to carve.

"I haven't had the time since, well you know, this whole mess." she waved the fingers of her marked hand which flashed a sliver of green. Solas had looked thoughtful after her comment, almost like there was a tinge of regret behind his eyes.

The conversation steered in a different direction afterwards, like the seriousness of their predicament weighted more heavily on their shoulders than before. The mysterious books disappeared back into the chest and not long after she had excused herself and called it a night. Somehow she couldn't shake the feeling she had overstepped.

A few days later she returned from a short scouting mission. She climbed the steps to her sleeping quarters, exhausted. She hardly noticed there was an odd-shaped package leaning against her bedroom door until she almost stumbled over it. Her tiredness trading itself for curiosity, she moved to pick it up.

There was no note attached but once she unwrapped the bundle she discovered a beautiful and distinctive elven carving knife and a solid piece of oak wood.

She couldn't help the warm feeling that spread though her body, feeling the comforting weight of the wood and the cool metal of the knife in her hands.

….

She shakes her head as she's brought back to the present. That same rotunda they have since spend so much of their time together. Researching, reading and talking. There had been barely an evening where she didn't end up in the rotunda with Solas. At least when she wasn't away from Skyhold, trying to save the world on missions throughout Thedas.

She looks at Solas from her spot at the table with a mischievous glint in her eyes.

It takes a lot of effort to hide her smile.

Whith an amused tilt to the corner of her lips she says, "You know, Dorian told me he found some sketchbooks laying around, depicting a rather familiar elf. Anything you would know about that?"

Is he… Is he blushing?

"Um, Well you see." he cleares his throat trying to school his expression. "Those were private… And hidden for a reason."

She can't contain a smile. Solas flustered, that's a rare sight.

"You've seen them?" he askes quietly. She notices he has started fumbling with the edges of the paper. She didn't believe his ears could turn a brighter shade of pink.

"Maybe," she says while averting her eyes to the ceiling. She glances back to him out of the corner of her eyes.

Solas looks at her like she has grown an extra pair of ears.

She leans back in her chair and stretches out her legs comfortably under the table. Knowing she has him she doesn't want to push more and decides to spare him some of her teasing. She turns to look at him and softens her expression.

"I rather liked them."

Knowing that is probably not enough to explain why she had looked at his private belongings without permission and seeing the dumbfounded expression on his face slowly making space for embarrassment she decides to tell the whole story.

"I know shouldn't have overstepped, but Dorian said he had something urgent to discuss and before I was even halfway up the stairs he assaulted me with flying books, shouting about discovering my secret admirer. Either I would have stumbled to death or caught them. And, well… Once I started looking I couldn't look away… " she trails off with a slight tinge of shame in her voice.

"You liked them?“

She lookes at him, surprised by the hopefulness in his voice.

A wave of understanding washes over her.

He hid the drawings from her, not because he didn't want her to see them but because he was afraid of her rejection. Even though they had spent the last few months becoming more and more tangled up with each other, stealing fleeting glances and sometimes passionate kisses, they still hadn't really taken a moment to talk about what there was between them.

When she saw the drawings he made of her she had finally understood his interest in her was genuine and went beyond anything resembling a casual dalliance - something she can now confess to have been rather afraid of, because she had developed deeper feelings for him from the moment he started sharing detailed stories dreamt in the fade and his perspective on magic intertwined with life. And then there had been that first kiss… Wel let's just say she's in way too deep to turn back now.

And for all the effort he put into keeping emotional distance between them, he had apparently failed from the moment he had started putting her likeless on paper. For she could see the passion and emotion in the lines, soft shadows and hidden meanings. It made them stand out from all the other drawings she had seen by his hand.

What he couldn't yet put into words, he had found a different way of showing.

"Yes I-" suddenly feeling unsure she pauses for a moment and crosses her arms looking for the right words. "The drawings, they reminded me of who I could be." She takes a deep breath finds her courage and continues. "Someone who people will tell stories about. Not stories about Divine intervention, but of an elven woman's fight for justice. For a kinder world. Somehow I never really managed to see myself that way when I look in the mirror. But those drawings… I guess it's easier to understand who I've become by seeing myself through your eyes. To see the change I'm part of, but most of all to remind myself of where I came from."

She had uncrossed her arms and angled her body towards him over the table. A determined expression rests on her face. He hadn't taken his eyes of her from the moment she started talking.

He looks at her thoughtfully for a moment, considering his reply.

"Very well" he says while some of the tension visibly drains away from his body. She raises her eyebrows in question. "Then it's only time you started showing me your carvings in return. Some good blocks of wood have gone missing. I overheard Blackwall complaining about recently." He shares the accusations with a bemused smile on his lips.

Now it was her turn to blush.

"I was planning on showing you, but first I wanted to practice… " she trailed off her sentence, knowing she doesn't actually have a valid excuse for hiding it from him. And it was not like she hadn't backed him into a corner first.

Feeling relieved he wasn't pulling away at her recent discovery she changes her mind with newfound courage and stands up abruptly while extending her hand in invitation. The purpose of their late night reading session forgotten.

"You're right. And I'm willing to offer you a tour of my recent carving exploits, but only if you can refrain from commenting over the woodchips carpeting the floor." He starts to move as if to get up but she makes him pause as she isn't done yet. "But in turn I will pose for your next drawing." Solas looks at her confused for a moment, as if considering her question.

She pauzes for a moment and adds without hesitation.

"Naked."

"What?"

"That's right."

From a balcony upstairs they could hear some muffled movement followed by a familiar voice echoing down "You know Solas, if you're looking for nude models you only need to ask!"

"Dorian!" they say in unison, horrified.

Solas quickly tucks the sketches under his arm and stands up to grasp her hand, surprising her by pulling her close so fast she has to steady herself with her other hand landing on his chest.

Only a breath away from her ear he says softly so only she can hear.

"It seems like you found yourself a deal, ma Vhenan."

She squeezes his hand in response and when she looks at him there isn't a hint of his previous embarrassment. Instead there is a look of hunger and challenge in his eyes. It's so easy then, to lean over and kiss him, her lips a promise and Dorian's earlier interuption temporarily forgotten. Before she can get lost in the soft press of his lips she pulls back and feels a delighted thrill in the way he slightly chases them as she takes a step back. With a teasing smile on her lips she tugs on his hand bringing him back to reality and encouraging him to follow. As they make their way quietly towards the door she throws a judgemental look over her shoulder towards where she imagines Dorian to be hiding.

She is just able to make out a muffled conversation on the first floor "… These lovesick fools seem to keep forgetting this is a public space, if they don't want an audience they should find a room!"

Not sure if she should be terribly embarrassed or slightly thankful for Dorians intervention she doesn't manage to hide her smile.

"Let's get out of here then." she says as they start to make their way through Skyhold.

He squeezes her hand.

"Gladly."

#solavellan #solavellan hell #solas x female lavellan #solavellen hell #solavellen fanfiction #dragon age inquisition #No one can convince me otherwise that this scene hasnt happened #bioware robbed us from this being a real cutscene in the game #I mean dont you just love the idea of Solas sharing his passion for art and history with lavellan? #and all this time at skyhold #for sure she has run into him a few times covered in paint #and i just love the headcannon that solas ans lavellan forget they have an audiance of Leliana #Dorian and Fiona sharing popcorn and betting on who will make the first move #and you just know the frustration Dorian has felt #seeing the fools in love while they barely make a move at each other aside from fleeting glances #he had to get involved somehow #imagine dorian spending weeks on tearing down the magical wards on that chest #just to findout it filled with portraits of lavellan #LOL #dragon age inquisition fanfic #the dread egg #solas #solasmance #inquisitor lavellan #writing and artwork by me #acrylic ink and finelines on bamboo paper

[prickly-paprikash]

Don't you just hate it when one of the biggest grifters online decides to like a piece of media you like?

Gatekeeping is wrong. Forcing someone to like something in the specific way I interact and consume a piece of media is wrong. Art is meant to be viewed through a multitude of lenses, and each individual will have their own way of interpreting that creation. And that's good. That's fine. That's human.

But when an Anti-Woke Grifter who thinks alcoholism is a really cool personality trait and decides to brand everything about themselves as that; who has historically engaged and criticized films and shows and games and books in bad faith; who has put down women and POC's and Queer representation in media; who is one of the biggest dicks in the online space decides to actually pay attention to an art that is pretty much dipped, coated, laminated, and injected with fucking GAY, ANTI-PATRIARCHAL ENERGY—that's when I get mad.

For those not in the know, Critical Drinker has posted a review for Blue Eye Samurai, saying he likes it.

You know... Blue Eye Samurai?

The show that oozes Queer Wrath? Feminine Rage? Curb-Stomping Toxic Masculinity and the Patriarchy whenever and wherever it can? That Blue Eye Samurai?

See, he's done this before with Arcane.

He says he likes it. Him and his ilk say that, "Finally, the wokies have done something actually good!" and point to Vi and Jinx as strong female characters written well!

But they also say, dang, feels like all the men in that show are idiots and that they had to be dumbed down to make room for the rainbow-haired girlies brigade. Who have all remarked that Vi and Caitlyn's relationship is forced and being shoved down our throats because god forbid women like women!

I got sick of watching his Arcane review halfway, and this was before I knew what a douche Critical Sucker was.

So I ain't watching his Blue Eye Samurai review. Why?

His Glass Onion review was done in bad faith.

I didn't like She-Hulk, but that's because that show was a byproduct of abused VFX animators, creatively bankrupt executives, and writers desperately trying to manage a convoluted shared universe that continues to buckle under its own weight. Political Stinker over here thinks that it's pandering, stupid, feminist garbage. He is one of the biggest Anti-Feminist voices in Youtube.

Him and his incel brigade have an obsession over hating Captain Marvel and Brie Larson. These basement dwelling cucks rant and rave over a mediocre duology and an actress that just lives in their tiny heads rent-free.

He says that they are removing men from leading roles and roles of great importance!

So why would I want to listen to an inebriated libertarian's opinions on a show that has become the show for lesbians, trans mascs, and other lovely brands of gay and feminism that he oh so despises? He'll most likely praise the action and violence and shit like that, then probably say that Mizu and Taigen's homoerotic rivalry isn't gay actually. Or that Mizu and Akemi's narrative foils don't scream enemies-to-sapphics. Or that Mizu, WHO'S NAME MEANS WATER AND HER ENTIRE CHARACTER REVOLVES AROUND FLUIDITY ISN'T IN ANY WAY SHAPE OR FORM FLUID IN HER GENDER AND SEXUALITY.

Fuck. I'm sorry. I don't even care if he doesn't say that. He's made so many disgusting, disparaging remarks about any piece of media that shows an inkling of progressive themes that what else am I supposed to expect?

If anyone watches it and sees this, lemme know. Watching an Anti-Woke bullshit video with just myself is just straight up wading through the desert without proper protection. No thanks.

Anyway watch Blue Eye Samurai again. Because I know you watched it. Watch it again. And again. And when you're done, watch Arcane. Watch She-Ra. Watch Dragon Prince. Castlevania. Watch anything "woke". Consume trans-positive shows. Make all the haters and even the ones who like it but have no ounce of media literacy irrelevant. Let them dry out and die, please.

#blue eye samurai #mizu #mizu blue eye samurai #taigen #akemi #arcane #vi #jinx #castlevania nocturne #castlevania

[capybaraonabicycle]

End of the Year Creator's Ask Game

I need more ask games in my life so I made one to reflect on our creative output of the past year. I think I have seen similar games before so I hope I am not stealing from anyone.

Please put an ask into the ask box of the person you reblogged this from <3

Which work of the past year are you proudest of? Can you pinpoint why?

Is there a work of the past year you could see yourself revisiting in the future and redoing/changing/reinterpreting?

Have you redrawn/rewritten/revisisted any earlier works this year? What are your reflections on how your interpretation of the subject has changed?

Which wips are you taking into the new year?

Which wips of the last year will you abandon/leave behind?

Which one would you say is your most popular work of the last year? Are you glad it is this one that turned into a sensation?

Which work of the last year do you wish had gotten more recognition? Why do you love it?

Have you gotten any feedback this year that has stuck with you? Is there anyone you would like to say thank you to?

Have you found any new inspirations this year? Is there anyone you would like to say thank you to?

Have you tried anything new this year? Any new art forms perhaps?

What are your creator's new year's resolutions? Do you have any?

(For creators that do fanart/fanfic/etc) Which show/movie/book/etc have you created for the most? What do you enjoy most about creating for it?

(For creators that do fanart/fanfic/etc) Which character/ship have you created for the most? What do they mean to you?

Are there any new characters/fandoms/subjects you started creating for during the last year? Do you remember what made you get into them?

Have you created any new OCs this year? Care to introduce us?

Is there a subject/character/show you wish you had created more for? Why do you think you didn't?

What is the biggest creative hurdle you had to overcome last year? What helped you through it?

Can you pick a line/image fragment/etc of your work that encapsulates the last year best for you?

How many words did you write last year?/How many pieces of art did you create last year?/How many sets of gifs did you create last year? /[insert suitable question for your type of works]

(How) has your work managed to surprise you last year?

Have you done any collaborations last year? Which one(s) was(were) your favourite(s)? Is there anyone you would like to say thank you to?

Are there any challenges/gift exchanges/etc you participated in last year? Which one was your favourite?

Are there any tips you would give yourself from one year ago concerning your art/work?

Can you name one to five things that made you happy to be a creator during the last year?

Can you share one to five favourites of the works you made last year?

Free ask (ask any question about last year's creations that you like or leave this blank for the creator to choose their own question they would like to answer)

Whether or not you'll send/receive any asks for this game: If you're reading this and you're a creator, then thank you for all your hard work! I may never see it but knowing how many people on this site are putting their love and energy and time into creating stunning works for free for everybody is making me unbelievably happy. Thank you for being a part of that! No matter whether you made 5000+ works last year or a single one in theory - Thank you for creating and thank you for dreaming! You're beautiful and so is your art <3

#ask game

[slugtranslation-hypmic]

Hey slug! Obviously it's a bit older now, but I was wondering if you might be able to translate Sougyaran BAM, from Kuko? I feel like I don't quite understand the TLs I have seen, so I was wondering if there were certain references or concepts I'm missing here lol

I saw the email notification of this request at the perfect moment. Too anxious to do work or anything else productive. Too caffeinated to sleep. Fuck it. Time to look at Kuukou for an hour.

Under a cut for length

Like a lot of Kuukou's... well, everything... this song is an eclectic mix of elements that can all more or less be distilled into these couple of bullet points:

Trying to fight the listener

Dropping powerful life advice or Buddhist teachings

Claiming his music is both a game changer and the kind of stuff that gets your blood pumping

Scatting, rhyming without meaning, or otherwise making wordplay

Outside of the parts that are straight-up nonsensical, the majority of the rap is very casual to the point of being rude. However, it's also interspersed with formal religious language. Again, both of these are how Kuukou talks, but I get why this would make it difficult for someone to translate.

I talk about this a lot whenever I translate anything, but an important (and maybe the most important!) part of any translation is determining the methodology, focus, and goals before you begin. I figure that if someone's asking me to look at song lyrics for songs that have been out for years, they probably care a lot more about the minutiae of what the character's saying than if I'm writing a rap as part of a longer work where readers aren't going to give it much attention. In that second case, it's probably more important to convey the appearance of a rap--rhyme, rhythm, what have you--and make sure I'm hitting the overall meaning rather than translate word-for-word. You know? The issue is, translating word-for-word would produce mostly nonsense on this one, since my interpretation of its meaning is largely coming from reading between the lines. There's also no real meaning outside of the four bullet points above. It's all vibes. So, this is a vibe-focused translation. When Kuukou says something with no meaning (that I can tell) outside of wordplay, I've exchanged it with a fresh wordplay. At the same time, since I assume the audience wants to know the minutiae, I put footnotes at the very end for the most curious souls. Finally, outside of wordplay moments, there is no attention paid to rhyming, rhythm, or line length.

Also I spent like forty minutes on it so it isn't a polished work of art or anything of the sort. Lyrics:

You wanna piece of this? That’s cool, tough guy. Bring it on. ‘Cause I’mma mess you up. Hmm? You’ve had enough? Yeah, bitch, I bet you’re fuckin’ SATIETIED. Who the hell do you think you are? Aw, who I am kidding? It doesn’t matter who you are. I’ve never met an ass I couldn’t kick! And while I’m here thrashing your sorry butt, listen up. I’m Kuukou from Bad Ass Temple, representing Nagoya, yo. And I’m gonna be world champion. Whazzat? Who do I think I am, some kinda fancy-pants hotshot? Nah, dawg. I’m a monk, haha! Get in the zone, do it or go home, this ain’t the scene you’ve known. [1] I’m a rebellious rhymer staging a revolution. C’mon, join me! Let me hear your voices!

“Enough determination can move mountains,” as they say. Yeah, a-a-a-and I’ve got determination for days.

San gha gharan bam! [2] S-S-S-Scatting n’ rapping, rapping with my razzle-dazzle tongue [3] Check, ch-ch-ch-check it, che-wa-watch out Gha bam! S-S-S-Scatting n’ rapping, rapping, BAT’s sexy leader [4] Kick, kickin’ kickin’ killer San gha gharan bam gha gha gharan bam gha gha gharan bam Gha gha gha gha gharan bam

Say what? Rules, rules, rules—who the fuck cares about rules? I’m the ruler now. A ruler and a schooler. [5] Yo, I’ve got that brand new music— When I ring this giant bell, people hear that shit far and wide. Beat it! And lyrics? You already know I spit so much fire they call me a dragon. I’m all about the impulses, the anarchy, let’s fuckin’ go! I’m a breath of fresh air up in this shit. Eight pulls, nine pulls, ten pulls—someone say temples? [6] If you don’t know already, then you oughta listen up. You don’t need any of these options. Go make your own. Paint that shit vibrantly. Go try something new! And if it goes so well you can indulge in some goddamn rejoicin’? Then hell yeah, now we’re talking.

Yo, man. The world’s all in how you see it, as they say, and don’t you ever forget it. A-a-a-and I may be a monk, but I’m not preachin’ just to scold you! [7]

San gha gharan bam! S-S-S-Scatting n’ rapping, rapping with my razzle-dazzle tongue Check, ch-ch-ch-check it, che-wa-watch out Gha bam! S-S-S-Scatting n’ rapping, rapping, BAT’s sexy leader Kick, kickin’ kickin’ killer San gha gharan bam gha gha gharan bam gha gha gharan bam Gha gha gha gha gharan bam

Yeah, life’s got ups and downs. You asking me, “Whatchu lookin’ at?” [8] Your ASS, lol got ‘em. Wassup, wassup, I’m a rhymer. I’m makin’ some good shit up in here. Hm? Ey, dance, dance over days when our hearts are aligned [9] Shoo bidoo doo bidoo Roo bidoo doo bidoo Tickili tickili tackili-tatt-too

Yeah! Haha! My rapping’s freakin’ EXHILARATORY. Hello! Aight, c’mon on, lemme give you some of this and wake you right up. Yo, c’mon, c’mon, c’mon, ho!

Gharan bam gharan bam Gh-gh-gh-gh hey! Bring it on, tough guy! R-r-rapping, rapping, r-r-rapping with my razzle-dazzle tongue R-r-rapping, yeah, gh-gh-gh, hey!

Yeah, clear the scene, ‘cause I’mma reinvent the scene. [10] Yo, get outta my way. I’m Evil Monk, the dragon of Bad Ass Temple, you know. Rrrrrrah! [1] This last is literally "clear weather (空)" or "energetic vibes (空)." At face value, it appears to be nonsense for rhyming. However, at the very end of the song, Kuukou talks about "the vibes/the scene (空気)" changing and him changing it (which can also be read as the weather changing/clearing up), which makes me wonder if those two are related. Just in case, I wrote them with a possible connection in English too.

[2] 僧伽藍 (sangharan) is a short form of 僧伽藍摩 (sangharama), a Buddhist temple or monastery. Bam is, of course, the sound of Kuukou throwing hands.

[3] 饒舌 (jouzetsu) is a fairly formal word in Japanese to refer to excessive talking. However, I was surprised to learn in the process of TLing this that it's also Chinese for rapping which appears to be how Kuukou's using it here. Also, if you're curious how English "jazzy" became "razzle-dazzle," I realized near the end of the song that I needed to start this word with the same sound as "rapping" (because he scats the j sound on jazzy and jouzetsu) whereupon I set out to find a good synonym. The issue is, I wasn't sure exactly how the lyric writers were using the term, so I put "jazzy" in an English-to-Japanese dictionary to get "loud, invigorating, eye-catching." Yeah, that's Kuukou all right. "Razzle-dazzle" is similar and starts with an r, so there we go.

[4] The lyrics say "xy な leader" (the な is just indicating that "xy" is being used as an adjective, btw) which I assumed means sexy... ekkusu ii said quickly sounds like sekushii. To be sure I wasn't barking up the wrong tree entirely, I ran a quick Twitter search on that line and found a very large number of Japanese Tweeters thinking the exact same thing I was. (It looks like Kuukou's VA once flashed his collarbone on this line in a concert, delighting scores of collarbone lovers everywhere.) That being said, searching anything on Twitter and finding horny Tweets isn't exactly a novel concept. Well, if I'm wrong about this, then at least I'm in the good company of all the thirsty Kuukou fans. Hahaha. If this seems OoC to you, I feel like it's here mainly for fanservice, not necessarily because Kuukou's trying to get some with the person he's beating up and/or preaching at. Although, idk. If you ship Kuukou with anyone, you could very well see some parallels...

[5] Literally "I'll beat up [everything] including the roulette board." Wordplay on rules (ruuru), ruler (ruuraa), and roulette (ruuretto)

[6] Literally "Terapii (therapy), terapii, terapii, tera (temple)-- Oh, the age of temples?" Wordplay/stupid joke

[7] I don't like how I worded this line, but I don't care enough to spend much more time fussing over it. Kuukou's making a joke that, as a monk, he delivers religious sermons 説法. However, in colloquial terms, a 説法 is a telling-off when someone does something undesirable. Kuukou, as a frequent doer of undesirable things, gets these from his dad constantly. Therefore, he's being like, "This isn't the LAME STUPID kind of 説法... this is the kind that ROCKS! *sick guitar riff*"

[8] These two lines seem like complete non sequiturs because they're paired together in Japanese for rhyming. (nami ga dekiru/nani ga mieru)

[9] I admit that I'm struggling to understand this line because the grammar is very irregular. Japanese Twitter is not being especially helpful here, as most Tweets featuring it are some version of "God, this damn song is stuck in my head."

[10] Literally "[Someone] changes the atmosphere/scene. The atmosphere/scene changes." See note 1

#hypmic translations #hypmic asks

[chevvy-yates]

[NC_RES]_27022048-NCA steyr_v_portraits_030_CS.file ///core:_vijay_steyr.file\\\

—

⚠️ READ: Please do not repost/reupload any of my art here or to any other platform, or I will be forced to do anything to get it annihilated. Rogue cyberspace jacket by @pinkyjulien. The Witch pose pack by @busyvampire.

—

For a long long while I've wanted to shoot pics of how I see Vijay as a netrunner in cyberspace or how I imagine a Cyberpunk 2077 cyberspace interface in his style could look.

More under the cut. Beware you may read how my head breaks into pieces as I try hard to understand Cyberpunk's netrunning world lore. I copy pasted some texts from lore books about netrunning because I lack in explainging by myself — so if you're interested, there you go:

First I thought about making the background black, like how it's in the game when you stand in front of the blackwall or talk to Alt. But somehow that isn't it for me.

I've read a while ago netrunners can program their cyberdecks I-G interfaces with a so called 'CREATOR' program that makes netspace like the netrunner wants or has to imagine it.

"There are two other programs on a cyberdeck. One is the Operating System: a program that listens to the instructions the Netrunner thinks to it and obeys his commends. The other is the CREATOR virtual reality system, which is really a complex drawing program that tells the I-G that “when you get this signal from the Net, show the guy this image instead of the one he normally would see.” Our small and stupid computer also has a capacious memory; it can store and run various programs (as directed by its owner), and it also has a huge library of images that both CREATOR and the I-G interface draw upon to interpret what the Netrunner sees while in Netspace. […] By activating the Creator drawing program hardwired into his cyberdeck, the runner is basically modifying the deck‘s basic I-G interface program. First, a background is selected from a huge database of backgrounds, then modified by using simple controls to adjust color, shading and texture. Then the 3-D objects are selected from another database of objects scanned from real life, then stored in a compressed, high-resolution form. The objects can be decompressed and “assembled” into virtual reality on four different levels of resolution. When a runner saves a program, he is saving all the instructions for redrawing the virtual reality he’s created. Anyone entering the Virtual (either where it is stored on the runner’s cyberdeck or in another system) automatically activates the picture and causes the cyberdeck or computer to reconstruct it."

— Rache Bartmoss' Guide to the Net – The Cyberpunk Sourcebook for the Global Computer Net

I'm honest, I'm having a hard time to understand the netrunning world as decribed in the lorebooks. Somehow it always ends same for me like when I watch documentations about the universe expansion, dark matter and supermassive black holes for too long: my head hurts, I have too many questions and I think I'm the dumbest being on the planet. lol

But this gave me basically the idea to make it look like it looks now in the pics, so I imagined maybe Vijay programs it so that it looks like how he wants it. But if he enters other parts of cyberspace he may not have an influence on it as it changes into a different interface if I understood it right.

Anyways, I took a behind the scenes shot this time if you are interested how my 'set' looked. It was very experimental. Who needs a photostudio? x)

By the Way:

The glowing balls visibly in his hands or next to him stand for an anti-system program named 'Cascade II' Vijay uses. Lorebook says this:

"Cascade is not a daemon, bearing more in common with Virazz and Viral 15. lt can only be used against a system CPU. When used, it overwrites system code, causing the CPU to switch programs at random. Every turn there's a 2 in 10 chance that whatever program the runner has encountered will change to something else at random-files might switch to ICE, ICE to system controllers, etc. Anything is possible! lf used against a cyberdeck, the deck chooses a new program at random to run each turn. Cascade can only be stopped by preventing it from reaching the CPU, or by dumping the system code and reloading it ICON: A floating ball of energy."

— Rache Bartmoss' Brainware Blowout – The Hardware and Software Compendium for Cyberpunk

Most of the netrunning stuff will stay a mysterium forever for me and I get why netrunning in the game is made that simple as it is. You simply cannot transfer this massive cyberspace stuff into a videogame. I imagine that e.g. Night City would have to be entirely rebuilt as cyberspace with changing interface virtual realities – everything needs an icon, has code gates, data walls, all kinds of watch dog programs and so on. There's like terrabites of programs runners use. From what I undestood is the quickhacks used in the game do invade other runner's and machine's MicroNets and we basically see it only happen in the real world because we do not see a runners cyberspace window. They are described like this:

"While The Net is a global community exploring everything fit for man and beast, a microNet is a pinched-off part of cyberspace all to itself with very small scope and very defined purpose. MicroNets are in things like: your own cyberwear, your smartgun, that AV-4 you were chased by last night or the hot little red Audi convertible of that girl you’ve been trying to find an excuse to get to know."

— Rache Bartmoss' Brainware Blowout – The Hardware and Software Compendium for Cyberpunk

MicroNets can be accessed through connection from outside (like these kind of data points or when you got real world access to it so you can simply jack in as we know in the game) or 'microNetrun' via a runner's c-deck. And I think ingame quickhacks such as "Synapse Burnout" as we gamers know them are in reality more Anti-Personnel programs called "Brainwipe" "Zombie" or "Lich". Last two are the evolution of Brainwipe what is describet like this:

Brainwipe is the simplest of a series of black programs, all of which are designed to attack the Netrunner instead of his programs. All black programs can be carried by an intruding Netrunner and used to attack other 'runners encountered in the Net. Brainwipe tracks the victim down, fries his forebrain with a jolt of current, and reduces him to a drooling vegetable <1D6 each turn to INTI. The screaming Netrunner feels his mind melt away, until his INT is reduced to O and he dies. Lost I NT cannot be regained.

This surely is a program Jaysen will definitely make use of. Vijay could but doesn't since he doesn't want to kill people anymore (he used it in his early runner days with a drugged mind as well).

Okay, okay I need to stop or it gets worse.

#cyberpunk 2077 #male v #masc v #oc: vijay steyr #male v monday #cyberpunk oc #cyberpunk v #virtual photography #netrunner #cyberpunk lore #long post #I had to put my thoughts down somehow

[banavalope]

Hello, I'm a Homestuck and Good Omens fan and just saw your post about coffee. I came to the Homestuck fandom way late, though, and don't know what the coffee theory was. I was wondering if you'd be willing to share that story from the trenches if it's not too traumatic :)

I'll preface by saying, this all happened near about the time I began to step away from Homestuck, as this was late 2011 to early 2012. My recollection could very well be missing some juicier deets, because I always managed to avoid the worst of it. In all I had a pretty benign time floating about the Homestuck fandom, I'll say that. My knowledge is as a fly's.

If you want the short version: once upon a time, the Homestuck fandom was so stupid it had discourse over the way coffee was drawn in a single panel, because the stylistic choice used to show the way cheap potted coffee has that oil slick sheen on the top Really got the gamerz thinking Gamzee was putting troll blood in the coffee.

The long version is this: this Act was annoying. All the Acts had been annoying, there'd been rather more than six of them so far. The fandom's toxicity was at its most potent, and the main fandom exodus hadn't happened yet. But the stylistic choice brewing on page 4702 of A6I2 suggested a discourse was on the horizon, and it was the size of planet fucking Jupiter.

To understand the affairs of 2011/12 Homestucks, a few things are important to mention: first, nobody enjoyed Act 6. Ask anyone from the tumblr era First Wave, we all agreed that Cascade would have been a better place to start wrapping up the comic as a whole. When Act 6 opened introducing the alpha kids, a whole new plot derivative, and we all realized we'd have to go through the same slog again, that the story wasn't over, the collective exhaustion was palpable. SWATHS left unhappy; worse yet (for some), the alpha kids brought us away from the game of SBURB and the over-aching plot, to instead place our focus on their interpersonal relationships. It was a bad time to take your audience away from a well crafted climax.

Reading it now as a completed work makes this not so bad, because the book is wrote. You can consume it as a finished piece and clearly interpret a through line for yourself, start to finish. Skip it even, if you want. When you've no idea at what time the next update will come, while all the pieces remain necessary to tell the story, any pacing is bad pacing.

Second, while Homestucks are known for many things - all of them cringe - the one that goes overlooked most, in spite of the ripple effect we still feel from it today in every corner, is the sheer amount of over analyzing done to the story itself. Every panel, every inch of every pixel, was a part of a puzzle we all collectively made up. Theorizing was an integral part to the Update Culture era of Homestuck's fandom, that we Figure Out the Story, you had to be the one who predicted what came next. Impressive how none of us came up with some kind of fandom Nobel Peace Prize, for how much we lauded it as a lifetime achievement.

I'll give you, Homestuck does have a very rich narrative. Much of it, I'll favor, is even intentional. It made worldbuilding choices captivating enough to get people painting themselves grey, for fun, so surely it had a few right ideas in some places. And there's nothing wrong about analyzing your media, picking apart its references to tie together a background story, even if it's just one you make up based on how you experienced reading it. That's kind of the whole point of consuming art. It's to be discussed, share your personal conclusions on. Theory is the breath of creativity.

It's the whole part about wanting to be right, where Homestucks as a collective force wanted to start eating each other alive on the spot. We were fucking OBNOXIOUS with theory posting. I'll be honest with you, I really ate that kind of thing up, and even I was getting annoyed. People were beginning to stretch, likely to cope with becoming bored.

Finally, the sober Gamzee controversy. This came about a while before coffeegate, but the effect the inciting update had on Homestucks is comparable to a haunting. It was fucking chernobyl, and a bad day to be a nuclear scientist because now it was your problem. Vriska fans - equally insufferable, as we all were by some respect[1] - and Gamzee fans fought with each other VEHEMENTLY, just to see whos gang was better. Keep that in the background of your mind as the theme music to what's playing. Everyone was anxiously wondering what had happened to Gamzee, because for the last several some-odd panels, we'd lost the boy. He was full of murderous intent, we were down to precious few characters on the meteor left, and we'd lost the boy.

So here we are. It's 2011. We're standing now at the end of the world, we've lost the boy for several panels, and finally the plot is trying to move along. We're all tired, and irritated, and divorced, doing this song and dance one more time but god willing the LAST TIME, when a joke about the look of shitty potted coffee gets made.

And some harbinger of the fucking apocalypse takes to tumblr dot com, drafting up a post about how Gamzee - living in the meteor walls - is putting troll blood into the coffee. Because, otherwise, how is Kanaya as a rainbow drinker doing so fine? Dave called the taste metallic, like blood. Something something long forgotten theories about trolls blood here something something. People would chime in to say "that's just how coffee looks", somehow it dissolved into actual discourse of people violently discussing back and forth how it could ONLY BE BLOOD, because coffee drawn in a prior panel UPDATES AGO didn't have the film on top, only now AFTER SOBER GAMZEE. Etcetera. It was just the worst case of reading too hard into something that you done ever did see.

Shortly following this, many people who were already growing exhausted with Homestuck's narrative direction at this point decided to take this coffee theory as their sign the flood was coming and to board the ark or learn how to swim. Anyone who learned to swim subsequently left during the exodus of 2015.

Again, my memory is pretty hazy. Thanks to Requiem Cafe, surprisingly difficult to google these days. Certainly another old still following me will have something more to add that I'm forgetting, as your handy dandy unreliable narrator.

[1] Said the Eridan fan.

#bana stop talking #homestuck #doddleys #i shouldnt tag this as good omens but theres an evil part of me that wants to

[arcadekitten]

Hello Arcadekitten!!! I read the Stellamb wedding post(s) and it got me wondering about how Stella’s wedding dress would look like… I absolutely love Sweet No Death, so I knew I had to make some artwork of it!! And, because I absolutely suck at explaining things through text, here is my interpretation of Stella’s wedding outfit in traditional art! ✨💫🌟

Materials Used: Mixed Media Paper, Ink Fineliner Pens, Alcohol Markers Gel Pens, Paint Pens, Highlighter and Mechanical Pencil

Time Took: 1 week

I don’t know if you’re okay with people sending fanarts and stuff to you, but I absolutely love your work and well, I’m quite proud of this piece (even if I probably shouldn’t be lol) as I worked extremely hard on this and wanted to share it with you! I hope that’s okay ❤️

A little artist “#Deep Dive tm” because I put WAY too much effort into the tiniest details and I am NOT gonna let them get overlooked 😤 /jk

-Stella’s dress is made with her signature colors rather than white, because I felt that with her being a Star Witch and all, a species that mostly has extravagantly colorful clothes (in my humble opinion) she felt that just going with plain white on what is possibly the most important day of her life would feel… well, a bit redundant, so she opted for a more ‘colored’ ballgown, with lacy gloves and a pearled veil and all. The local tailor and dressmaker is a bit confused, but Lambchop is definitely not complaining! ;) 💕💓

-(Well, that, and I also felt that the color blended WAY too much with her skin tone and changed it, but that’s my little secret hehe 👀😉)

-In my mind, Stella can make her hair look like it has a small galaxy within it! With actual moving stars and little twinkling lights. ✨💫✨⭐️🌟I think that she usually saves it for special, grandiose occasions, buuut since she’s not the kind of person who would THROW a grand, special occasion, she never unveiled it before her wedding day! (Poor Lambchop’s heart nearly gave out on the spot right then and there! 😭❤️)

-I didn’t add her usual Star hair clip because she already has like… 10 stars in her design already lmao /lh ⭐️

-As you can see, her bouquet’s… cloth? Fabric? I’m not sure what to call it… thing? The stuff that her flowers are wrapped in are Lambchop’s colors! Thought that it would be a neat visual detail… also, I can totally imagine Stella requesting that specific color scheme from the local florist! 💐🌷🌸

-Speaking of flowers… I decided to color in one of the moon daisies a little bit… differently hehe ;) It’s a small reference to the beginning of the game, where we see Stella change the color of the one rebellious moon daisy, from orange to lavender, except this time… she keeps it and uses it in her bouquet! 💖💗

-I like to think that it symbolizes Lambchop versus the rest of the townspeople… and Stella’s way of acknowledging him as a “real person”, at least compared to the others… one who is different, one who is unique… the one that she’s going to marry 💍🩷

-(it’s so absolutely sappy when she tells him so that he just couldn’t resist kissing her right then and there)

-And finally… (this is the last one I promise) I cut out the entire drawing to make it look like a potion bottle, partially because Stella is a witch, and partially because I had this cute lil idea that she stores all of her happiest memories into a magical bottle and takes it out whenever she feels sad, so that she can ‘experience’ it again and feel happier. Of course, with Lambchop by her side, she never really has to use it!💞🩷💗

-And yes, I also made the bottle have Lambchop colors as well 🐏 Just a nice little thing tying em together more visually… ❤️

…And I am SO SORRY for ranting!!! I worked incredibly hard on this piece (traditional art is NOT my strong suit, lol) but I wanted to make something special for one of my favorite games and one of my favorite game devs! So here it is, and I hope that you like it! 🤞❤️😁

(P.S: Any ideas for Lambchop’s wedding design?)

Oh my goodness this is BEAUTIFUL!! The artwork itself is just stunning!! You took so much time on it and it really shows, especially with all your attention to detail in it(and I LOVE hearing your explanations for some of the choices you made!! They're just so darling!) Everything about this is stellar and I'm in love with it, thank you so much!! ♡ ♡ ♡

Also I TOTALLY AGREE Stella would not wear white for her wedding!! Color all the way!! ♡

As for Lambchop's outfit...I think I've got it envisioned in my head but I haven't quite drawn anything for it yet! Top hat, definitely. I think his suit isn't black. Probably brown! Bowtie on the neck. His pants are more like shorts and are cut juuuuust above the knee! Still wearing long socks with garters. He looks incredibly dapper--as he should!! It's his wedding!

Hopefully he at least looks good for the photos before he decides to get any mysterious red stains on his outfit. (It's fine. Stella could clean them with the snap of her fingers, but still!)

#sweet no death #stellamb #witchywool #lambchop #stella #fanart #ask

[tothepointofinsanity]

Do you have any super into detail thoughts on kyosaya? I know you've drawn a few art pieces for the ship, but I haven't seen any written think pieces about it from you.

I know there are some who don't like to use ships as a way to tie to a characters personality, so I guess I'm curious what your overall thoughts are on it and how it ties into sayaka as a whole.

"Think pieces" is a pretty neat way to put it...The primary foundation of KyoSaya to me revolves around a uniquely sapphic relationship that I hope would be expanded upon in future shows in the series.

↑ Yet, what are all these words supposed to mean? Sayaka has always done things for the sake of others. Her sense of justice elevated to the point where she views herself as a knight, someone who kneels in the face of goodness in respect of whatever is honourable to maintain it. But a knight is just another form of a pawn, just a stronger one whom everyone perceives has the ability to: 1) protect others 2) kill The Enemy.

Sayaka used to only ever have been able to interpret this in an extreme and binary vision. If she has to defend others, she has to devote herself fully to the cause. To her, the notion of self-care and self-preservation is difficult to comprehend since she feels as though she always has to be a monolith of one singular thing, of one side of things. To her, everything is like a chessboard. There is no way to play knight for both teams at once: either you prioritise yourself, or you prioritise others.

I understand that it is also a realistic depiction of how individuals like Sayaka constantly push through their own struggles alone while always uplifting others, a demonstration of unbalanced relationship dynamics. When this vision is challenged, Sayaka does not know where and how else she is expected to just "move forward" when she realised reality is not a simple game of chess. So she shrinks her view of the world further by clashing with Kyoko, since Kyoko is The Enemy who obstructs Sayaka's own perception of all that is Good and Just. Sayaka knew she was manipulated by Cubey™, but it was not only in the later movies that she comprehended the full extent of it. Something like that feels too complicated in her mind, so it's easier, much less burdensome to just lock onto one person to be angry with. This mentality is almost a sort of fallacy for Sayaka given she becomes a Witch in every cycle she becomes a magical girl.

Sayaka wants to feel relied on by humans. Kyoko does not desire nor expect anything from people, and thus balances out the extremes of Sayaka by being detached from worldly expectations - at least, that is what's consistent with Kyoko's perception of herself. A puppet without strings. She is not a pawn, not a knight. That's why she was angry when she realised the wish-granting alien omitted information on magical girl mechanisms and their life cycles. Instead of shovelling forward headstrong like Sayaka, however, Kyoko reconsiders her childhood memories and her desire, and it was to die with Sayaka so that Sayaka would not have, in Kyoko's eyes, perished for the sake of The Greater Good, because Kyoko believes still in the Self, not the vague promise of a better future.

Uhm. It's probably nonsense now that I put it in legible words. Some other KyoSaya fans who are big brained enough should educate me more on their dynamic, but I find their relationship to be interesting. It's very fallen angel x demon coded. I feel...as though Sayaka and Kyoko are hard to separate given they exist as characters that neutralise and support each other. Perhaps not codependent, but Sayaka was unhinged enough for Homura to not threaten her once, but twice whenever Madoka's feelings are involved. Meanwhile Homura was more...tolerant of Kyoko. Kyoko is there to keep Sayaka in check to make sure she doesn't piss off the Devil to the next century, and to me that is also funny.

[Although, it is tragic that since Sayaka embodies the sea, the only way Kyoko can only be with her "in death" due to the theme of Ophelia, her lover and the flame of the witch. Who could have predicted the doomed yuri is doomed. A sinking ship, even.]

#me rereading this: maybe i am a fake kyosaya fan... #i do love all ships with sayaka in it except maybe when it involves kyosuke #since it was confirmed that even if sayaka got together with him she would have been called a monster #okay. #mfw seikyu is literally too mentally ill to support herself. she's. trying guys #but it feels nice for sayaka because she feels being cared for by someone else for once #and it's “better” because she doesn't want to burden madoka #so she instead she turns to a person not previously familiar with her #but oops she caught feelings and now sayaka is stuck with 99 insight and kyoko is just eating as usual #i also like that their colours and personality are inversed #the ocean is furious but the flame is cozy #ASKS 💌 #kyosaya #madoka magica #sayakyo

[st4rstudent]

tips on how to draw cogs?

truth be told, I haven't drawn many cogs (mainly just one or two), but I will try to answer this as generally as I can!

This is a long post so I'll post this under the cut.

my biggest tip, as well as for anything, is to break down the shapes. If you try to look at everything at once it becomes really easy to overwhelm yourself. Examples will be drawn sketchy, but hopefully the point gets across.

Our first test subject is mouthpiece which I've never actually drawn before [marketable plushies post doesnt count]. as you can see, I tried to break down a lot of the shapes into much more simpler ones. A lot of cogs seem to share some very obvious shapes, probably because a lot of them are object-related (normal cogs included- first that comes to mind are pencil pushers).

You can do this with really ANY character. Here's our second test subject DOPA for another example.

now these are mainly references from the pictures themselves, which are great as a starting point. my other big tip is just to practice. you don't have to do big full pieces every day, but even just little doodles will help you. i think its very rare for anyone do to super good their first time and this goes with anything, even if you're a highly skilled artist.

you've probably also noticed but I've left out details in my examples, such as the little dots on mouthpiece's eye borders. If you feel that adding all the small details would overcrowd your drawing or just not help it, then I think it's fine to leave them out (of course there are always exceptions to this but as a general rule, its ok).

along with removing details, i think adding details also cannot hurt [to an extent]. if there's something you think would look nice then add it. who cares its your drawing have fun. As an example I'll use prethinker. I always add the little line in the middle, which his model doesn't have. But this is also based off of the 1.3 promotional art as well. Another example could be that when I draw misty, I add a line that connects their eyebrows to their eye. idk just feels more robotic to me and i like it

and again as you notice, my drawings are not model accurate. your style is most likely not going to be exactly like the game and that's completely fine. adjust to your liking, interpret as you will. enjoy the process of creation.

And finally, I'll add my little tip for metal coloring. One thing about metal is that usually the lightest highlight is next to the darkest shadow

The gif goes as base -> shadow 1 -> shadow 2 -> highlight 1 -> highlight 2 -> cleanup + extra

I like to add a few light marks to indicate scratches. although if you wanted more depth, you'd take the darkest shadow and lightest highlight and put them together like this

often the metallic parts are not the focus of my works so I leave it without. As for the random black marks on the lineart, that just also gives it more depth.

And finally, look at other peoples art. Look at the way they draw and pick out bits and pieces of what you like and try to interpret that in your own style.

ok I think that's all. Hopefully this helped!

#clemask #long post #sorry #these are kind of vague overall art tips rather than specific ones but i think its because a lot of my processes follow the same general ar #tips that i follow #but yeah my general rule is just to practice and observe. there will be things that you change and thats fine #sorry if you wanted a specific cog. if you did you can resend an ask and specify but either way i hope this helps you! or anyone else

[quohotos]

I present to you, my Magnum Opus. The Underland Chronicles rendered in the style of an early 2000s flash based point and click adventure game (the MNOG)

I have spent so long on this. Inkscape doesn't log total project time the way Krita does, but it's the most time I've spent on any single piece of vector art. Even then there's still a million things I want to go in and change but... aaaaaa you have to cut it off somewhere. I have been copy pasting rats for hours, and don't even get me started on the shadows. The shadows look good, they are not physically accurate. I tried.

Here are some bonus features!

No text overlay. Clean if you want to print it or make it a desktop background.

Close up on Solovet and Ajax I've never actually drawn Solovet, or any underlanders really. I definitely am phoning it in by framing her from behind. When it came to designing what kind of armor they'd wear I took inspiration from both Greek and Roman designs. Ajax was originally much more saturated red until @paksenarrion-dorthansdotter corrected me. The books describe him as dried blood colored. (please don't look too close at the rats they don't hold up to scrutiny)

Close up on Ripred. He looks just a little bit small and fat in this one, but that's just because he's slouching. When he stands up it all stays in his hips and ass. I always draw Ripred like he appeared on my cover of Code of Claw. The scar on his face isn't really visible from this angle because it cuts left to right and he's looking left.

Lastly, here's Gregor and Ares. There is an official design for his armor as seen on the cover of my copy of Code of Claw. I redesigned it because I thought that version looked kinda pants, tbh. Little goofy and hard to take seriously.

The great thing about vector art is you can zoom in and obsess over tiny little details that end up only being like 4 pixels wide in the final export. Case in point, these rando flyers. Such minute detail that gets flattened out to a single pixel in some cases.

Sidenote: I always imagined the flyers as more microbat inspired, which is why I draw them with tails... but these ones end up looking very flying fox-like and have also some megabat proportions. This isn't really an intentional artistic choice, it's just a compromise I had to strike to make them look decent. I need to practice drawing microbats more.

Oh well. The author isn't that descriptive about their proportions so I guess it's up to interpretation.

Lastly, here's the original sketch that I traced over. A lot of features ultimately got cut, as well as the dimensions to the side being changed. Solovet originally was going to have a braid but then I remembered that line from the first book where Luxa explains that you have to cut your hair to go to war. Ripred also looked a lot more teddy bear like in the sketch, so I ended up not even tracing him. Bane was a redraw, and I actually did trace part of Ajax and then just frehanded the rest.

If anyone is reading this far and hasn't read the underland Chronicles, now is a great time to go to your local library and pick it up. These books slap and this tiny community would love to suffer our brainrot welcome you into our fold.

Fly You High

#my art #tuc #the underland chronicles #the underland chronicles spoilers #tuc spoilers #the code of claw spoilers #vector art #mnog #bats #rats #fantasy #tuc20 #inkscape

[resonancewitness]

Reading (into) xz's vlog from Milan (part 1)

First of all, I am interpreting this vlog as a statement/ message from a person who said at least once that he would be scared/ annoyed/ disappointed if he was perceived as only a pretty face. Or a clothes rack, I would assume; all excellent exterior and no substance.

A person who wants to be appreciated for the efforts he makes in trying to understand the characters he portrays, — that also means effort in understanding people in general better, — the efforts of empathy and the efforts that result in exceptional regulation of embodiment and emotional expressions, which allows to touch people’s hearts, transport them into a different position in their inner journey, invite them to become better people, transform them, entertain them, bring them joy, and possibly even heal them. Give them access to meaning, hope, and persistence.

A person who is not just an _object_ of adoration, pursuit and attention, a means to the end of somebody’s profit-making, but a subject, a human being with his own personal feelings, principles, values, choices… and boundaries. 

A message addressed, I would say, “to whom it may concern”, to the best and deepest meaning of the word “concern”. A message into which time, effort and careful thought was put in, and makes sense to put time, effort and careful thought into reading it, which I will attempt to do. Even if I don’t manage to receive the exact meaning that was put in, I am showing up and making an effort of understanding. This vlog is a piece of art, and as any piece of art, it resonates with people differently. 

I will first give due attention to the symbolism of a coin-shaped token, that is either running across the showed scapes on its edge, or being tossed like a coin. There is no difference between “heads” and “tails” sides, therefore it is not a coin.

This is important, because a coin toss when there is a difference between “heads” and “tails” is a way of making a decision in a situation when the two existing options are equally unpleasant and the result does not matter much, or a person just feels very tired and confused to make a good decision in a different manner. But a token that does not have “heads” or “tails” implies the futility of decision-making in a situation where there is no choice. The protagonist tosses the token and looks at it, but it makes no difference, there are no alternatives to choose from. 

The token first appears when the protagonist boards the train that travels through the sky. The token falls, the clock is ticking. A token nowadays is usually a means to either enter some form of public transportation, or to switch on a gaming machine like “grab a toy”. 

For me the symbolism of a flying train is about the “traveling between worlds”, “slightly psychedelic or magical experience”, and also “time when you are a passenger and the speed and direction of your travel does not depend on you”. I can’t tell for our protagonist, but for me travelling by plane is always an experience of “shedding my responsibilities at least for a while”: no matter what I do or how I do it, unless i do something completely outrageous, it is not going to influence the movement of the plane. I can’t fulfil my usual responsibilities while on the plane. So it is a form of mental rest and relaxation, some form of surrender: “nothing is in my power at the moment; I need not try to fix things; I can let go”. 

Our protagonist is — blissfully? — alone in the carriage; he does not look particularly blissful, neither in reality on the plane he would be alone. But no one interacts with him, nobody mobs him, stalks him or presses on him from all directions. And even if the noise on the plane and the stress don’t let him sleep, it is still an experience of having space for himself. 

The token starts rolling on its edge when the protagonist is almost asleep. For me the metaphor of “on edge” is significant here. The token can only roll along while it is capable of maintaining its balance. You get to participate in what you want, be it travel or a game, if you keep your balance, move at the necessary speed for doing so, and navigate carefully… but the flip side of this is that you are on edge. 

The train-plain lands, the protagonist is shown holding a camcorder. He is not just the object of other people’s gaze. He looks at things himself, choosing how and to what he is going to pay attention. What experience to preserve and remember is his choice. We see some of the views he pays attention to. The token rolls by him on the floor. It is getting dark. The atmosphere and the pose of the protagonist gives a message of profound exhaustion. The token, against the laws of nature, jumps up from the floor onto the table and is caught by the protagonist. This balancing on edge needs to stop, I am stopping it. 

(to be continued) 

#xiao zhan #sacred reading of visual texts #reclaiming agency

[rememberthelaughtermp3]

SAOSIN COLLABORATIVE ZINE

title is a work in progress. the zine will focus on translating the name and along the shadow, but any of anthony's work with saosin is fair game too. some suggestions include: translating the name's 20th anniversary, what a song (or album/ep) means to you personally, artwork based off your interpretation of a song or album. I am not very good at thinking up these prompts so im hoping you guys are better at this than i am.

any kind of art or writing is very much welcome! no video/gifs or webp file sizes though. any written submissions would be ideally around 300-350 words.

one submission per person, unless you would like to submit an art piece to accompany writing (or vice versa), in which case please reach out to me so we can discuss it first, thanks.

submission deadline is the end of september (subject to change). once i have collected all the submissions, I'll put them into a canva document or pdf which I'll make available to you guys.

this is my first time running anything like this so some small details may change while I work everything out.

tag me in or send to me any submissions. posts about the zine will be under #saosinzine for now until I work out a better title

#ez.txt #saosinzine #the post is a work in progress but i think ive got most of it down #zines

[abyssal-debonair]

hey Sky community, you have a racism problem

look at this

these are officially released promo art depicting the in-game spirits. I am also going to gesture at a few stills from the animations.

not even touching on that the spirits in-game are all various shades of blue, but yknow what, I will touch on it. they’re blue. the ancestors spirits are all various shades of dark blue, sometimes with darker brown wisps of skin or explicitly dark brown when portrayed as alive. likewise the skykids are various shades of brown or darker colors. I know y’all can see that.

so with that out of the way

why the fuck would you draw them white?

see, this has always bothered me for the year I’ve been playing Sky and interacting with its online fandom – seen it speckled in Skyblr, in the art channels of Skycord, throughout Twitter, disconcertingly prominent on Instagram – but given how immaturely the Sky community handles confronting any amount of discourse, I never wanted to say anything publicly cos I didn’t want to be on the receiving end of a deluge of harassment this oh so positive and kind playerbase is known for.

then TGC Twitter retweeted a piece of art that whitewashes the ancestor spirits.

deep breath.

I don’t want any of you racist shits to take this as confirmation that it’s somehow acceptable to make the ancestors and skykids white. sure, TGC says a lot of things in this game are “up to interpretation,” but it strikes me so strange that some of y’all look at these darker-skinned characters and immediately go against canon to give them light pink or paper white skin. why is it so hard to draw these darker-skinned characters with the dark skin they have both in game and as how TGC officially depicts them?

I’ve seen several excuses for this:

“I’m humanizing them.” okay and why does this humanization necessitate making them white? why do you have to make these nonhuman characters human? why does your brain immediately go to “white” when considering “human” and not any other palette for the many people of color who make up the majority of the human population?

“I’m projecting onto them.” you can’t project onto characters with dark skin? you don’t find characters with dark skin relatable? that’s quite racist. I, as a black child, often projected or saw myself in pale-skinned characters that dominate the entertainment media I watched growing up. surely it shouldn’t be that hard for white people to see themselves in non-white characters. surely.

“it doesn’t fit my artstyle / I’m not used to drawing POC.” then you are a terrible artist unwilling to challenge yourself or your own biases, unwilling to improve your skills or explore other palettes you may find favorable and attract a larger diverse audience. drawing with another color is not that difficult. if you do find it hard, there are a monumental amount of tutorials on illustrating people of color and darker skin tones out there online for free. you can even color pick from your reference! the only thing stopping you is your racism.

"they’re not human so it can’t be whitewashing.” true, the characters of Sky are not human, they likely don’t have human conceptions of race to them. I’ve been asked before “why are you bringing race into this?” as if I’m the one racializing non-raced characters. look, I wasn’t the one who drew them white. believe it or not, white is a race – it isn’t the “default,” it isn’t a non-race, white is a race. making these non-raced characters white is racializing them, putting race upon them that they do not have. it’s weird. for all you complain about “making everything about race these days,” why go out of your way to portray these humanoid characters with dark skin as white? fun fact: it’s still whitewashing even if the character is not a human being, especially if said character resembles humans of color.

however, I will add that is particularly insulting to see characters with explicitly black hairstyles drawn white. if I see another ancestor or skykid with an afro, afro poof(s), or dreadlocks with pale skin, I am going to bite someone. likewise, the Enchantment spirits take inspiration from Arabic cultures, Flight crew have influence from Inuit and other Northern American indigenous cultures. no, I am not invoking cultural appropriation to condemn your skykids with Lively Navigator’s hair or Cheerful Spectator’s afro or Fire Prophet’s short dreads or Indifferent Alchemist’s turban – that is perfectly okay. it’s the far too many Sky fanartists whitewashing skykids and these ancestors that is the problem.

I’m not demanding you to be canon compliant, I’m asking you to stop whitewashing, to stop erasing the little representation the players of color have overall. we do not often see people who resemble us in Western media very often, especially as the majority of the characters. it’s the same for those who ascribe gender onto these canonically agender characters, contributing to nonbinary erasure, though that is a story for another time.

and this doesn’t even touch on the afro chibi trend (how come this black hairstyle is only ever “cute” when it’s on an infantilized character? and for fucks sake do not call it clown hair or broccoli or, god forbid, cotton) or how Vault Elder’s headscarf is used to make “eggs” or “chickens.” why can’t you appreciate our hair and our headcoverings as just as fashionable as uncovered white hairstyles? why do y’all keep calling POC hair fucking food? if you do it as a joke, it’s still a racist joke. do you know how hard it is for me to exist without white people nonsense as a Black person with an afro irl? don’t get me started on the bullshit hijabi Muslims have to deal with. the best you could do is not mock their appearance.

now there are those of you who have been doing these racist things without really thinking about it. you just drew the ancestors with pale skin cos that’s where your mind goes or you’ve been a silly afro chibi for a while or you drew your white self as a white skykid. reading this, you’re doubling down now cos you don’t think you’re racist, you’re not a raging bigot, you can’t be a *gasp* bad person!

and, yknow what, I don’t think you’re a bad person either. I condemn the actions, not the person (unless you’re an asshole). like you, I grew up in a white supremacist society participating in racist institutions down to the micro level, not questioning what I was taught or socialized even if I was often on the receiving end of microaggressions. but I learned to confront the prejudices that have been socialized in me because they maintain an unjust world that hurts  people unnecessarily. even now I am still confronting prejudices that have been ingrained in me because I understand the harm they cause and the oppression they perpetuate, how bullshit have and continue to make the world a hostile place for people of color like myself. I stop doing bigoted things. it’s the least I can do.

surely, you can too.

and for those blokes who are aware of how racist you are and continue to do this shit anyways? fuck you.

sincerely, a Black Sky player

#sky: children of the light #sky children of the light #that sky game #thatskygame #sky: cotl #me speaking #tw racism