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Drawing Ryōmen Sukuna

Development notes

This post has been in the making since last year, before the manga has reached its current arc. My aim was to respond to comments that pointed out that my version of that time didn't look like the one in the anime. I calculate everything I do and the way I do it. My current goal is to share my thoughts on the development of my take on him - simply because I'm a nerd when it comes to anatomy and I love figuring things out. It involves a lot of thinking, questioning, analysis, dissecting information and building theories. So I totally understand if it's not anyone's cup of tea.

MANGA SPOILER WARNING

The very beginning

I used to have a serious case of lack of self-confidence. My earliest art of Sukuna dates back to 2021, but it always felt like my skills are not worthy of this particular character. I never shared my art. I was also struggling to find my artistic voice. I was obsessed with the idea of semi-realism, but even if I managed to pull it off after weeks of stylisation practices, I didn't like the results.

Due to personal reasons, I stopped trying to draw him for a long time.

The development of "my" version

It was an entirely conscious decision to draw him differently.

The top reasons for the change was that I didn't want to sexualise him in his host, Yuuji, who is a minor. Back then I thought he inflicted the deformation on himself (extra limbs, eyes, etc), for the sake of efficiency, and I was curious what he looked like before that - or what he would look like in a civilised environment.

During the process, I considered a number of factors:

the beauty standard of the other JJK men - I wanted him to fit the lineup - his original appearance made him stand out quite much

in a setting where he adheres to the rules of society, more or less, I believe his MBTI personality type (ENTJ) would dictate a lot of his choices when it comes to appearance, at least to a certain extent. I thought he would choose to have an appearance that fits the beauty standards of the era

I kept his tattoos because it's a very distinguishing feature of him, but I also exercise freedom in the way I draw them, to make them as stylish as possible

Reincarnation

I used to believe once he reincarnates, his proportions would be closer to that of a "normal" human, even if he has some extra limbs. However, his size and features are above and beyond of what we are used to, and even the story emphasises their malformed appearance. So a a whole new era of Sukuna started in my art. I chose my favourite manga panels of him and mix-and-matched the most attractive features into a figure that I consider on the fine edge of monstrosity and unconventional handsomeness.

Even when I draw him with a regular number of limbs, I keep his usual mass and proportions. I dubbed this form "true gains" form.

I also realised that some of the tattoos Yuuji's body displayed was a product of the partial reincarnation stage, like we see it on Tsumiki's forehead.

NOTE: Did anyone notice that Sukuna is getting progressively more and more human/handsome in the manga? When he took over Megumi's body, I also noticed that as the story progressed, he started to look older and more mature. I'm curious of it was a conscious decision.

Twin dilemma and speculations

According to the Japanese wikipedia page, the mythical figure Sukuna could have been a conjoined twin. Despite my extensive digging in the matter, I was shocked by the recent lore drop.

My question: what does Sukuna look like in a universe where he did not absorb his twin in the womb during development?

It hasn't been confirmed, but I find it very possible now that he was born with his extra limbs, eyes and mouth, as well as the deformed, wide features. (...as opposed to my first theory about him altering his own body for the sake of efficiency)

This, however, would mean that in a universe where both him and his brother are born healthily, he would look different. There is the obvious lack of extra arms, eyes and mouth - but I believe he would also be closer to the JJK beauty standard of men, as far as proportions go (eg. more narrow face, anime-esque nose, larger eyes).

At first I was hesitant to accept this idea, as I'm very attached to the 4-arm hulk / "true gains" form now, but then I realised: this would mean that "my"version of him actually has logically explainable place in at least an alternate universe.

Thank you if you got this far.

I may edit this post later. Let's see where the story takes us.

How long does it take for you to finish drawing?

I'm an artist (beginner) and i unconsciously set unrealistic goals for myself and need a reminder of how long it takes to complete a drawing, Thanks.

Hi! In the context you presented it in, that is a really interesting question, so I'll try to approach it thoroughly. I hope I won't make you roll your eyes too much.

Where to start, where to start... I guess the first thing I should say is that there is a difference between time I spend preforming the action of <drawing>, and the time I spent <working> on a particular piece. The first would be counted in hours, the second one - days. I'm a big believer in slowing things down, and giving things time - going through options, gathering research and references, taking breaks every 1h of sitting and drawing - and seeing things through until I achieve the goal I set at the beginning of the process.

The goals are usually different each time: "quick design", "character exploration", "analysis of an artist's linework and experimenting with the knowledge gained", "creating an aesthetically pleasing image", and so on and so forth. Of course I don't write these down like it's a school assignment, but knowing in the back of my head what I'm actually doing helps me manage my expectations. I also enjoy being conscious of why I create - when I was younger regardless of what I was doing I had the thought "AND IT MUST LOOK GOOD AND PRESENTABLE! BECAUSE PEOPLE WILL LOOK!" ...and I think that obsession is the cancer of creative process.

Since the goals for each picture are different, the time I'll spent on achieving each one will be different as well, because the "satisfactory results" lay in different places. For example, the Marcile sketchpage was created in one afternoon, and took approximately 3 hours. The goal was to play around with a brush that has no opacity forcing my lines to be more decisive. I did that and so it is "finished". There's nothing else I want from it.

On the other hand, the cover of Asterism took about 10 days to create, the goal of which was to make "an aesthetically pleasing cover picture taking colour inspiration from the works of (specific list of artists)". I took my time designing it so that it looks aesthetically pleasing, made sure the anatomy is "correct" (a nebulous statement when it comes to stylised humans), took my time masking, and picking colours, and shading. I wanted it to "look good" to my own eyes so if something was not working I would go back, change it, alter it, move it around... that's the wonderful thing about personal art, you can take as long as you like making something satisfactory.

The funny thing is, with what the Asterism cover actually is (a cellshaded image), it could have been done probably in 4 days by the me 4 years ago. But that person was willing to sit 8-10 hours a day to draw with no breaks, she had little social life, and treated herself as a little circus seal performing tricks so that people clap around her, and the clapping was soooo nice because it meant that people remembered her and she mattered. And it worked for her! For long 10 years! Until her arm gave out, and the reality of never being able to draw again became more tangible than ever, and it's been following her like a fog ever since for the past 4 years. The me today works about 4 hours a day and every hour I take about a 30 minute break. I also don't post half the stuff I draw. There is also another aspect that dictates the speed of creating and that is familiarity with the subject matter. The less you know something, the fast you'll draw it! But as you get to know the intricacies of the process, and see all the building blocks, it will start taking *longer* because you will start accounting for every block. But then you'll eventually get familiar with the blocks and so the time spent on a picture will go down again! The cool yet overwhelming thing about art is that, there are always hundreds of building blocks. Form, composition, ambient occlusion, saturation, hue, light balance, line form...... and those are just the *some* of the generalised *categories*. And each category will have it's own subsection of building blocks! And then those blocks will interact with each other to create completely new area of expertise! This is crazy! Marcille sketch page took me only 3 hours to create because I am already quite familiar with linework - I have drawn 3-4 comicbooks worth of linework. This also means I am familiar with believable anatomy, more or less, which got utilised in the Asterism cover - the main bulk of linework got created during a 3h livestream. So.... what's the answer.... "It's all relative" is so unsatisfactory and probably not what you looked for. But you can draw something in 3 days and kill your body over it. Or you can become an expert in a field and dish the same picture out effortlessly in 8 hours. You can also split that 8h block over multiple days bringing you back up to 3 days. You could even add a whole day of visual research which might make your picture only marginally better. And even if we calculate it in terms of raw working time, pen-to-paper, like a self-inflicted capitalist tumor, that time can fluctuate still due to personal visual library and knowledge base. If I asked Tom Fox how long it takes for him to create his sketch pages his answer would probably be downward of 30 minutes. Yet I need whole 3 hours to create something *less* anatomically correct than him. And so here we are at the end of this perhaps unnecessary essay. And all we learned is this: it depends. Dry, not nuanced tl;dr, my personal timings: single sketch - 30mins; single linework pic 1-2h; Cellshaded illust - 16h; Rendered illust: 20-25h.

It all comes down to this

Carmy and Syd have much more in common than their passion for food.

They both grew up without one of their parent figures and regardless of the reason why that happened, the end result was the same for both: an absent parent and having to learn to live with that deep wound at a very young age. Pivotal.

Both had alcoholic parents (this is my educated guess about Mr. Adamu seeing as he drinks soda, the other option is that he doesn't drink alcohol because of religious reasons, which I don't think is the case). Only Emmanuel is a recovered alcoholic and Donna, well... she's Donna. Also pivotal.

The catch/difference is that these factors caused trauma in Carmy, however in Syd's case, since she was raised by a loving parent who has overcome his addiction (probably because of her) she didn't develop a trauma response like Carmy did. She did develop a G-Woman complex though, but that is something I will probably address in a later post because this one is about certain Sydcarmy parallelisms not solely about her.

They both developed another trait (by compensation) they have in common: A need to take care of other people, thus they both work in the hospitality and service industry. And they both developed a coping mechanism: Creativity. Whether that is through drawings or through coming up with recipes. The culinary arts are all about creativity as well, but not just about that, also about service and about KEEPING THINGS UNDER CONTROL, which is also another thing they have in common, they both want that, chase that. But they act differently when they don't get it and act the same way when they lose it. Aka: Review 1x7.

Their paths meet in more ways than one.

They understand each other and speak the same language. And even though none is a master in communication skills, they can definitely manage to understand each other without using words. Even so, as their relationship evolves, that should change.

Should be really interesting to see them both overcome their shadow aspects together, through working together and growing together, not just professionally.

If they didn't wanna do that, Braciole 1x8 would have ended differently.

If they didn't wanna help each other, they wouldn't have said this, because we all know it wasn't easy for them to admit it:

That's why, as I mentioned here and here, the show is about the FOUND FAMILY concept and about overcoming loneliness. No one achieves the level of growth the main characters have to achieve, alone.

I don't know much about you as a person, but from what I can gather you've had a long journey with art, but still have the motivation to continue even when its rough. I'm sure you didn't start out making masterpieces, so if its not too much trouble, do you have any advice for a 16 year old artist losing motivation? i feel like im stagnating right now and its awful

Idk man, all I can say is, draw watchu want without the care who's gonna see it or what they gonna say , commit to new ideas and care less about pleasing everyone, because I know that way too well, I started learning by drawing animals, flowers and nature, "you should draw something else", switches to furries " No you must do human portraits", draws humans *no one fuckin cares*, and I felt miserable drawing what I didn't want all the damn time just trying to please everyone and be liked, hell, I still do that sometimes cuz I'm a dumbass. When in reality, when you do your own thing is when you're the happiest, this internet bullshit? Yeah don't trust the likes and favs, people like what they find relatable, no one really knows how much time you've spent on your drawing or how much you love it, when a 5 min doodle you did could do more than a painting that took 2 whole days to complete just to be scrapped in a new speedy record, paint what you love for yourself and you only.

Don't be shy to learn new things, I have tons of stuff I don't post here cuz I know people wouldn't care about it, but here for this post, have this that I practiced when I felt too depressed to think of anything good and wanted to step back from the MD artstyle

You'll see, you'll thrive when you draw what you want, and get yourself a drawing buddy! That way you'll stop focusing on the internet and more on each other, and each other's improvement. Tbh I struggled with that one. Since everyone I had were not into art irl, I somehow managed to find someone after 10 years of drawing alone. I honestly wanted more people to join in and make an improvement circle, but unfortunately that never happened.

I found myself twice as productive now than ever, even though I'm not active here as much I am still drawing and making things, ofc giving you more comics! And other fun things in the future I hope.

If you're struggling to draw something just do it, man commit, i was uncomfortable drawing men and male characters for years, I've wasted so many years being "too uncomfortable" and draw a naked person like yeesh who fucking cares, it's for studying.

And ofc if you feel like you're not improving at all please, please experiment with your artstyle and try something new, please refresh your mind, I was stuck for years doing the same thing over and over, same colors, same 2px brush, drawing like a machine same shit over and over, I felt so stuck and lost, but also afraid to do something new, idk why, I guess I never felt good enough or deserving of it. I also didn't go to art school, I am NOT a professional, nor will i ever be in my opinion. Hell, me feeling like I'll never be good enough left me afraid to try and apply for art school, they were asking for sculptures, different mediums all that scary stuff and I was like, I don't.. know.. how to do those things... I can't build a portfolio in less than 3 months?!?! I don't even know how to use half of what they're asking for!!

In reality at the end of the day, art is what you make of it and no one can stop you, search for inspirations and don't be afraid to try, yes you'll fail fist 2 or 10 or hell even 100 times, but you'll come back with more knowledge than ever.

For ending I give you the most confusing drawing to ever exist [dw he's just sleeping on top of her and she's just ghasping for air but awe romance or sum lol] is it weird? Yeah but I had a fun time making it hahaha

Idk I'm bad at putting my thoughts together, but hopefully some of this helps.

𝐀𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐄-𝐁𝐎𝐔𝐂𝐇𝐄 — 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐀𝐖𝐍

↳ summary: A state dinner leaves the Grand Admiral wanting far more than was offered.

↳ pairing: Grand Admiral Thrawn/Mitth'raw'nuruodo x f!Reader

↳ [1.1k] content:18+ MDNI. Oral (f!receiving), masturbation (m), cumshot, general Thrawn power play bullshit, body worship(? In a roundabout way), power imbalance, eloquent Thrawn dialogue because this man knows his way around a thesaurus. - This is a @beskarbabs remaster -- original post date 2021.

thrawn masterlist I| main masterlist |I join taglist

Thrawn’s affinity to art was not contained to that of paint and marble. The Grand Admiral had often lectured you in his admiration of other mediums. From music and holofilm to the violent beauty of war, Thrawn would often regard each ‘piece’ while revealing parts he admired and elements that he didn’t– all while appreciating it for exactly what it was.

You had also recently discovered that Thrawn considered cuisine a form of art. It had come to your attention at a state banquet for the Empire, where you noticed the Grand Admiral scrutinising each singular component of the dishes presented to him before trying it all together. While he never showed his appreciation outwardly, he had a tell- the very slight, barely there uptick in his brow.

Given that he claimed to be satiated, what you hadn’t expected was the food at the banquet leaving him wanting. Thrawn prevented you from returning to the barracks and had instead requested you, a stormtrooper from his elite force, join him in the journey to his study. You didn’t understand why- it’s Thrawn’s Imperial Star Destroyer, safe, on lockdown, and Thrawn is, himself, a master combatant. Only when the durasteel door slides behind you, and he orders with hungry eyes for you to remove your armour, do you realise he doesn’t need protecting at all. 

He needs serving. 

While you would love to know how Thrawn thinks you taste at this moment, the position and the technique of his tongue between your thighs render you incapable of lifting your head from where it was hanging off of the edge of his curved desk in his office. Instead, you whine softly, thighs pressing into either side of his sharp-edged cheekbones as he curls his tongue around your clit. The bones are so honed that they feel as though they could slit the soft, malleable flesh open, dripping crimson onto his azure cheeks. 

Despite the heaviness of your eyelids resulting from the pleasure his tastebuds draw from you, you are sure of his tell– of the twitch of his midnight-blue brow. Thrawn teased your cunt ravenously, tasting every inch of you and relishing in the way you keen for him and spreading your thighs wider for his insatiable mouth. For what had been at least half an hour now, the highest rank of the 7th Imperial Fleet had been on his knees for you, velvety tongue gliding against your clit and devouring all you gave him.

The usually immaculate Grand Admiral did not mind getting his crystal white trousers dirty for a taste of your dripping cunt. 

Wailing brokenly, you shift your hips up slightly, clit brushing the tip of the Grand Admiral’s nose as he dips his tongue into your entrance once more. The ends of his fingers grip harshly into the thighs on his shoulders, keeping you in place as you struggle desperately for more. No doubt there would be bruises in the morning, not all that different from his own sky-blue skin. Tears well in your eyes, frustrated beyond belief at his leisurely pace.

It’s only when Thrawn decides it’s time to pick up the pace that he begins to suck at your clit. Your back arches off the table, again unable to hold still as your superior tortures you. Head still tilted back, you’re panting heavily from the intense workout you’d suffered, cheeks hot and sweat clinging to your body. You find yourself wondering if he likes you like this; fucked out and exhausted.

Flicking the tip of his hot, deft tongue across your clit, Thrawn manages to set a pace that has your orgasm building so tight and fast.

“G-Grand Admiral-” You stammer urgently, losing yourself as you thread your fingers through his deep midnight hair, “Thra- Sir, I’m-” 

His hands push your thighs wider apart, holding them steady as he rapidly traces your clit, and, oh, it hits you so fast. It surges, the muscles in your lower abdomen pulling up tight, and your back lifts once more as it just rushes through you. It cuts off your hearing- but you swear you are sobbing, cursing at the stars.

You’re exhausted when the afterglow hits, slumped against the desk with fatigue. Thrawn pulls away and sits up, drawing his thumb across his lips. His other palm splays wide across your abdomen, silently telling you to stay in this particular position, which you do gladly. You’re too exhausted to attempt sitting up.

The sound of the zipper of the Grand Admiral’s pants cuts through the singular sound of your heavy breathing, causing you to glance over at him. His hand works underneath the white waistband of his uniform trousers, taking his thick pulsing cock into his palm.

Again, only you pick up on the signs that he feels good. The slight hitch in his breath, the way his shoulders slump and relax. Always wound so tight, always carrying the weight of the 7th Fleet on his shoulders alone- wanting to please the Emperor.

He gives his cock a squeeze, brushing the pad of his thumb across the leaking tip as he lets out a shuddering breath. Those scarlet eyes flick up to take in your thoroughly fucked out state before he begins working his fist.

“I find myself drawn to you this way,” he muses, his steady voice refusing to betray him as he stroked his length from base to tip. You often wondered if he meant to portray himself this way, powerful and unmoving, or if he naturally exudes that aura. So much of your superior was yet still a mystery to you.

“Amongst even the finest pieces in the galaxy, You are by far the most striking creation in here,” he admitted, his voice a little strained despite his best efforts. You’ll take that compliment.

His fist was moving quicker, working just underneath the throbbing head of his cock. You watch him smear precum across his swollen tip as he did, strokes rough now.

Soon, his breath is hitching more, a somewhat violet tinge to his cheeks, which you assume is a form of flush. He’s close. You’d never seen him like this; most of your secret rendezvous quick while he took you from behind. This is a new form of vulnerability- one you felt lucky to witness.

With a few more rough strokes, Thrawn lets out a deep, quiet groan of bliss. His cum paints you, streaking across your chest and abdomen as he continues to pull at his cock. When he’s finished, the white ropes of cum paint the skin of your thighs too.

Unlike most times, Thrawn does not rush to dress. Instead, he holds your waist, thumb brushing the curve of your ribs as he admires you, taking in every inch.

“Yes. Most definitely the finest piece of artwork I have acquired.”

join the taglist here

@mortallyuniquepeach @not-a-unique-snowflake-blog @crybaby-blue-blog1 @heart-atttack @pansa-1-san @Malici0usPuff1n

Tagging some mutuals who may be interested (as I know you write for him!) @grinningnexu & @saradika

@mylifeisactuallyamess - this one is for you bb xx

I’m back ya’ll with more art! I had all the characters designed for a while but didn’t get around to posting them. Now I’m going through sort of an art block. I’ve got lots of ideas for stuff but everything I draw is crap. So I thought I should catch up on my other stuff. Like talking about this squirrel design for Apple Jack. Now isn’t she cute!

I really like the colours on the powered up ponies. Though I did give her a different shade of pink I thought suited her better. I also gave her a bolo because southern. These uniforms aren’t supposed to be realistic. More like something they would wear in promo images. Lastly look at the little band I put in her tail. I should do something like that with other squirrels.

I made her a squirrel because they’re farmers and Apple Jack’s personality is farm. Nah. I don’t approve Apple Jack hate. I didn’t think of her all that much, when I watched MLP as a kid. Now as an adult (it feels so weird writing that) I find her relationship with her family quite interesting. She always puts herself last. Probably because she was parentified, by having to take care of Apple Bloom and the farm. One of these days I got to write an Apple Jack / Rainbow Dash fanfic. I think she contrasts well with Rainbow Dash’s selfishness.

In the Squirrel and Hedgehog universe she would be raised very patriotic. She would often be the voice of reason. Though she would butt heads with Pinkie Pie over leaving her family and Fluttershy for not wanting to serve her country.

I don’t know why my ramble about the first character is always so long. Anyways. One of my best designs, Rarity! Originally I wanted to make her a mouse and reserve the weasels for the alicorns. But come on. Rarity deserved all the glam only reserved for high ranking military officers.

She was born into a royal family. Given a high ranking position in military since birth. Rainbow Dash had to earn her high rank through blood sweat and tears. With both of them having quite strong personalities they would of course hate each other. Rarity likes being in the military and bossing animals around. Though she can be a bit too much sometimes, she has a soft spot for mice. She doesn’t see them as her equals, but treats them better than many weasels.

Lastly Twilling Sparkle! My best design. It’s the bangs and eyes. I specially didn’t put any highlights in them. The idea for her came from my IRL friend. She told me Twilight Sparkle should be a lab rat. Technically she’s a lab mouse but the joke still works! Once I get over this drawing problem I might do the honorary seventh members. Sunset Shimmer (probably a fox) and Starlight Glimmer (definitely a hedgehog).

Until now I haven’t thought of how Twilight became a scientist. She probably started as a regular soldier. Then one day they needed a lab assistant. She would prove to be quite good so the scientist decided to teach her the ways.

Now I guess I should mention my idea for this MLP Squirrel and Hedgehog fanfic. Basically the mane six would crash on a deserted island. They would have to throw away all their prejudices to survive. Proving friendship is magic. I should do some research how war prisoners are transported. And some research on military ranks too. I’m not sure who is captured. I thought it would be the weasel side considering there’s a scientist amongst them. But on the other paw how would a group of ordinary soldiers manage to catch such high ranking animals?

If you got any ideas for this story, please write to me.

This might be my Last Post regarding Vivziepop

I'm just going to say this as a longtime fan since 2019 I was extremely disappointed, before all of this I started following her since 2019 and watched Hazbin Hotel and I thought it was good alongside Helluva Boss which I rewatched in the past of my Youtube Downloads bec the PLDT internet during the Coronavirus that started in 2020 was not great. I used to listen to her different music genres of her speedraws while I'm drawing and I also watch her speedraws and was amazed by the process on how her artworks was made. I even made a fanart about her for my college project

This is my fav Die Young music video that I made fanart for

Artwork I Made for Technicals in History of Graphics Subject in First Year College for my favorite artist and animator Vivziepop.

Although despite Vivziepop's success as an Indie animator and for running Spindlehorse, I cannot deny she's a very controversial person to any video or tweets about her is always related to her past controversies, while I do see that there are unfair accusations thrown against her I still wish she addressed her other controversial stuff that she didn't addressed whether she's aware of what she did or not and I'm not going to mention any names bec I do not want to be involve deeper in the drama bec I've seen there are other tumblr and twitter posts calling her out, not to mention the fanbase is divided with diehard fans, neutral fans, haters, stalkers and critical fans. Also the reason why I'm really dissapointed with her bec any controversy that is meant to call out her attention she blocks people on Twitter whether the person is criticizing her show and her actions and not to mention she started becoming unprofessional lately. I can understand if blocking is meant to avoid harassment, if that's the case, but when it comes to criticism she was acting unprofessional and not to mention not addressing in a professional manner can make people go unprofessional against the creator, if I'm being honest she needs a PR Manager or Assistant to guide her. At the end I'm disappointed, I expected better from her, being a longtime fan since 2019 deeply hurts me, for me this might be my last post including the tumblr fanart works I liked related to the show. I just hope she won't get the worst Cancellation that might make her leave the internet and cancel Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss and her other projects, bec that is the worst thing to happen and I wish she needs to step up her game and try to improve her behavior including the writing of her shows. Only time will tell until she realizes this, and I don't follow Viviziepop or Ayy Lmao anymore, and I'm all for valid criticisms for Vivziepop just as long as the people were not harassing her or sending death threats and also making false accusations against her and just because you may not like her as a person does not give it a free pass to make up false accusations and lies against her and is not acceptable, the fandom should do better. Until then, goodbye Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss fandom, I used to be a fan of the show but I cannot support Vivziepop anymore, and it's time for me to leave.

BTW the art that I made for college will not be removed despite my mixed feelings about Vivziepop it would be a shame for me to delete it with all the hardwork I made it. So it will not be deleted from my Deviantart and my tumblr post including my other Hazbin Hotel redesign edits and Beelzebub redesign edits in my Deviantart account if you guys also want to check out my work there.

If Charlie Morningstar the Princess of Hell will redeem sinners by making Hazbin Hotel a place to rehabilitate sinners and make them become better people, then I hope Vivienne Medrano who uses her creativity through her artworks and being an indie animator to inspire her fans and artists like me, but she needs to grow up and become a better person.

answering asks vol 2.

'Smiths' can encompass enginesmiths (mercury), armoursmiths (mars), alchemists (saturn) and some others - generally a smith is someone who works with engines or metal in any capacity, whether by constructing them, managing their fuel, making armour, etc. all of them have a completely degendered role in the church. They are supposed to be wholly devoted to their craft & church, to the point of becoming almost unpeople, sexless.

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I like pantera :) he's the main character beast sure (alongside leun) but he's got a lot of interesting history and has been through a lot.

To start out I do some basic sketches while looking at bestiary diagrams of the animal type. Then I draw the base proportions over a photo of the animal's skeleton. Once the joints are all in place and I could imagine it moving relatively freely, I pick a motif and design the armour shapes with that in mind (i.e leun's trefoils, taurus's waves). The motifs come from a bunch of sources - if I see them in medieval art around that animal, the beast's use purpose, the culture that built them and how it might differ in art styles to the 'basic' designs from the heart of the Mezian theocracy. Fun stuff like that.

As an exercise I have taken (human) characters from other settings and made holy beast versions of them, trying to imagine what animal it would be, what weapons, what armour designs, etc. Behold, Bowman:

It's a fun exercise! I recommend :>

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Hi! Thank you for the suggestion! I actually did try to use OneNote for my thesis but I found that it ended up an extra step that got in the way. Instead I organised my reference papers manually (and wrote up all my bibliography by hand as well). I haven't heard of Notion so I might look into it :> as someone with adhd I find that the best way for me is to make it stupid easy, which is why discord works because I already use it for talking with friends and I like the mobile app.

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SO true!! You can make whatever the hell you want forever and that sounds really cool, I'm glad I was able to help in some little way >:) (although, holy beasts are not robots.. i think the best description for them is just. exotic vehicles.)

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lmao it's totally fine!! I love to talk

Sir Heaven had such a profoundly negative experience with Leun that he struggles with the concept of making anybody else do what he now considers to be his burden. He also feels that taking any new people inside Leun would endanger them.

The bishop of Salvius cathedral is the guy Heaven answers to, and his superior officer. The bishop has reported the matter to the pope and they're still working hard presenting new potential novices to Sir Heaven, but the thing is that Sir Heaven rejects them for seemingly valid reasons. He doesn't just say 'no I'm not taking apprentices', he says 'this one's reaction speed isn't good enough' or 'this one is too prideful'. But the longer he tries to keep this up, the more suspicion he heaps on his shoulders. If the time came, no, he would not be able to deny a direct order from the pope.

Ketjan was selected at random, one of a large group of other children who were not raised in the church. This is to ensure that there is no per-existing bias or knowledge of how holy beasts work. And he just happened to be the only one of the group who could master Leun's very demanding dialogue tattoo. The recruiting enginesmiths, who designed Leun's systems, were the ones to train him, but Ketjan was the one to write most of the procedures for operating Leun based on feedback from the dialogue.

-

Replies from THIS post:

@ospreyonthemoon @kicks-tiktaalik-back-into-water

Krokodilos had an amazing high-tech ventilation system that used active air pumps to keep it circulating. But exactly like the second reply says, it broke down frequently. And because of how it worked, the interior of croc had to be air-tight so that the pumps could work efficiently. And, of course, if it broke down, and it was air tight on the inside, it instantly became a more dangerous deathtrap than your average passively ventilated beast.

There were valves that could be opened in an emergency but these were only added after the first Incident. The pumps would break down from the fabric seals degrading, lose efficacy, and then the parts furthest from the pumps would suddenly not get enough air anymore because air couldn't be moved such a distance with faulty pumps. The reason his enginesmiths want him to be re-commissioned is because the only barrier was the material used for the seals, and they believe they can innovate some new materials or try something different and have it work. They were even thinking of trying natural rubber, which would have worked perfectly, but they never got approval for it.

Poe Party Is A Very Pretty Show.

I've thought that every time I watched it.

I think I'm up to 6 times now? idk.

The humor is probably the first thing that comes to mind with this show, and rightly so, the comedy is great, but it's also just so nice to look at! So I wanted to show some love for the visuals and awesome camera work, too.

I've wanted to try this art exercise where you watch a movie or whatever and sketch out the different compositions when scenes/camera angles change and whatnot so you can learn some composition tricks and see what works and looks good, so I was like, Hey! Perfect show for it right here!

I started this little project for Rewatchers 2000 last week (vastly overestimating my drawing speed and time management skills 😅) and I finished it today, so here are all the mini composition study sketches I did!

No close-ups. I was lazy. Y'all can zoom if you want. <3

These are just tiny rough sketches because it was also supposed to be an exercise in not spending too much time on what were meant to be quick drawings, buuuut I forgot that a few times so some of these are way more detailed than others, lol.

I also didn't redraw every single shot I like, or else I'd still be going, so this is really more of a little sampling of Poe Party's majesty. Special shout-out to Chapter 6 in particular, which has a lot of cool visuals where the camera is constantly moving so I couldn't exactly capture that w/ static sketches. 🥲

idk how to finish this post in a clever way so, uh.......... bye!

Forgot I did these last months I thought I had posted them but I Didn't

Art block redesigns

V5

V8

Redraws from when I had art block a few times last month this one's from v5

I had fun making Yang's I think she look amazing in black it help her hair stand out morei gave Weiss a look that's a bit similar to what her outfit is in volume seven I wish they had hinted at something like that in volume 6

🟠

or maybe they gave weiss a new outfit while they were traveling, I also try to add all her teams colors to her outfit I also gave her some hair swords instead of just giving her that tiara I had her put

🟢

actual little dagger swords in her hair that she could use in an emergency if she lost her weapon to still fight with they don't shoot us but she could still try to attack someone with them or still summon if need be cuz I think she needs her weapon to summon it's not really clear,

🔴

I think well Oscar / Oz was at the house he could have dressed a bit more comfortably yeah I know this outfit I put him in isn't comfortable this outfit is actually from a manga I xxxholic and I just wanted to see how Oscar looked in it I actually like how it turned out I just changed some things on it and the colors

🟡

I also had the idea that maybe if Rwby could they would like have the characters change their outfits like every 3 days or so so you won't just leave them in the same outfit I know models are expensive but I wish they could do like some shows have done and have them in different outfits even if it's just two or three different outfits for different occasions and things besides pajamas like they did in volume 7

🔴🟡🟠

For the V8 redraw I put Oscar in a different outfit I think he should have gotten an outfit change at the end of volume eight instead of them just fixing up his same outfit like did he have a spare outfit somewhere that they had or did someone make him a new outfit or just clean his outfit that he had on often fix his jacket somehow 😅

🟡

And then what is still funny to me because in that same episode and even The following episode his model was really off for some reason I wish they had just given him a different outfit I know the outfit I put him in looks like it's all over the place but I still think this is a good design and look especially like what I did with his hair

🟣

I also like the outfit I put Blake in I think if they were going to put her in like a cat suit I wish they had put her in like a cat food snow jumper, I don't know why they've been putting her in white lately I wish they put her in purple or black more so I gave her a purple outfit with dark purple boots and one of those headband scarf things she also has a hood in case she gets trapped out in the cold and her Aura is low and she can cover her ears on her head

🟢🔵🟡

This was something I had to fun doing especially when I had art block which comes on every other week like week before last I was drawing a lot of stuff and it was so fun and I was actually making progress with some work that I wanted to put aside but I managed to get it done and all of last week all I had was art block mostly and I think I only got two pictures done hopefully I can get more done this week

OKAY WOW THERE WAS A VERY BIG POSITIVE RESPONSE TO THE TELEPHONE GAME, HI

FOLLOW THE TELEPHONE GAME BLOG! @hws-telephone

I thought about making a discord, but to be entirely honest, I really don't want to manage that. In hindsight it might be good for discussions and feedback's sake, but my moderator days are behind me (I used to be a discord and in-game mod for a Minecraft server and I think I would rather eat my hand than do that again.) We will. See.

PLEASE READ MY FOLLOWING THOUGHTS ABOUT THE EVENT! I would love to hear feedback, but I think this kind of event may have to be a trial and error sort of situation. I've never hosted an event before and this is one that will move semi-fast. I will also need to be holding decent communication with people!

• Skill level does not matter. Anyone is allowed to participate regardless of their skill level or materials of choice, so long as those who work traditionally are able to get clear/well lit photos of their submission

• I will need to hold an experimental round capped at 5-7 participants. I do not know how long I should give people to complete their part. Life gets in the way and I know not everyone is fast (I am very much not fast). However, considering there will be a large number of participants, we gotta get moving! I think as of right now, everyone would have 3-5 days to complete their parts, and if they need an extension they get 2 days. If we need more time, that's possible! THE FIRST SIX PEOPLE TO FILL OUT THE GOOGLE FORMS (linked further in the post) WILL BE CONTACTED TO PARTICIPATE IN THE EXPERIMENTAL ROUND.

• Once we get into it, there could be a short-format and long-format group? Short format being people only get 1-3 days to work while long-format gets a week? The different groups differ based on complexity? Unsure. Need community feedback on this. OR we could just have two separate groups co-running so people don't have to wait forever to play.

• GOOGLE FORMS SUBMISSION HERE FOR PARTICIPANTS

• Once I have The Participants, their usernames will be ordered randomly and that'll be the order the drawing is passed around.

• If this is an event with multiple rounds... Maybe each round has a different theme? I know I have different groups of people following me (off the top of my head, FrUK, FACE fam, and Nordic centric blogs in particular). I think the first round will just be using my design for Nyo!Austria because I'm interested to see if we use a character whose clothing isn't able to be referenced by a quick google search, how that will be affected by the telephone. Unsure.

• I will start the experimental round and the very first Big Round. Other people can volunteer to be the starting artist in the future!

• No posting your submission until the end of the round!!! This is very important. The point of a telephone is you only know what the person right before you did!

• When it comes to someone's turn, I will be reaching out via Tumblr DM (or through another contact method if that is preferred). I'm considering asking someone to co-host this event with me for organization's sake, but I don't. Really have someone to do that. So!

If there's anything else we need to talk about, throw it in the replies!!! This is really going to be a trial and error kinda event until we get it down! Ideally, this would be a fun year round project/event!

BELOW THE CUT IS JUST ME TAGGING EVERYONE WHO REPLIED TO/REBLOGGED THE ORIGINAL POST

Hi, you replied to/reblogged the interest check so you get Priority News that there is a telephone game sideblog to follow @hws-telephone and that if you're still interested there is a submissions post pinned to the blog.

THE FIRST SIX RESPONSES WILL BE CONTACTED FOR THE EXPERIMENTAL ROUND.

@doodlin-moons @hws-lceland @ironic-orange @vikingosten @soulsembers @yaqamole @dappy-dappernette @losnordiquitos @tema-makes-art-sometimes @dandelion-coffee-bear @spiritmoon23 @genpaele @astrophilic-soul @batataaurdoodh @the-heaminator @krazys-ass-emporium @sixcatsinajacket @hoasens @wackylittlegal @starsilversword @untitled-kitsune @2p-nyotalia

Latimas AU: Alien Abduction

Lati-Ingo awoke, groaning as his senses became aware of the pounding headache he had, and how uncomfortable he felt. When he tried to move his limbs they battled against an unknown barrier. Jolting him to a more aware state as he realized that he was in a strange rectangle container and looking around quickly he saw his brother was in the same situation next to him.  

It was only then did Lati-Ingo notice that he wasn’t using his ability and he didn’t feel his dragon or psychic power coursing through his body. He felt void, empty and helpless, something that he hadn’t felt in a very long time. So quickly swallowing back a need to panic he wondered how they ended up here together; they had been on separate missions that day, in completely different dungeons from each other.  

Despite the pain in his head, Lati-Ingo thinks back to what he remembers last-he had been using his Pokemon explorer badge to send back the rescued Pokemon along with his teammates, when something happened, the usual light that engulfed him to go home, changed colour -there had also been an odd buzzing sound before darkness overtook his senses and he awoke here.

He’ll make a large assumption that the same must have happened to his brother.

As Lati-Ingo tried to get Lati-Emmet’s attention, he discovered that this container must be blocking sound as well, because Lati-Emmet didn’t seem to hear him, only taking notice when he waved his claws around.

They greeted each other briefly before turning their attention back to the room they were in. It was odd, many computers and strange machines, with blinky lights that flashed and flickered which was surprising in itself. While he and his brother were interested in human tech, they had never seen anything actually working before, most were rusted or partly destroyed these days. 

When the humans disappeared, most Pokemon didn’t care much for the human devices and their upkeep, only select groups managed to keep certain old tech running like the Pokemon Centers that the Chansey and similar Pokemon were in control of. 

Lati-Ingo suddenly notices movement to his right and turns to see a large Beheeyem along with many others, coming in through a doorway, some already heading towards the computers and pressing buttons on the keyboards. 

Why had they captured him and Lati-Emmet? He tried to ask them this question, but again the container kept him from being heard or the Beheeyem chose to ignore his question as they didn’t respond to him. 

Lati-Ingo feelings about this situation were getting worse, he recalls his Uncle mentioned once that Beheeyem had the power to control Pokemon minds and tamper with their memories. These Pokemon could do who knows what to him and his brother and they wouldn’t even remember…then a terrible thought occurred to him…was this even the first time this had happened?

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

Originally this had been called 'Trapped' but realized 'Alien Abduction' was a better fit, I'll have to draw something else for the word/Art prompt 'Trapped'. Anyway while trying to figure out what I wanted to draw I saw this photo from the post below.

And well I got stupidly inspired with an idea and also thought that it would suit my word/art prompt challenge.

Hello! I’ve been following this mod for a little while now and I want to say!! How absolutely impressed and blown away how amazing it is!! The story and world building is so much fun! And the sprites and the amount of effort you put in each animation is phenomenal! The pokemon look so good and I adore how you made emmet and Ingo’s walk cycles different, and just the! Writing and seer amount of programming done is just! Amazing! Super bravo! You two so clearly but so much thought into (1/?)

First off, I'd just like to say thank you for taking the time to type out all your messages! It really means a lot whenever we get feedback like this!

Kade is brilliant on the world-building aspect of things and coming up with ideas... She sent me a whole google doc with a draft of their schedules a day after I managed to get Emmet in game. Really helped give this project a sense of direction!

I wasn't too confident regarding writing and pixel art at first, but having her take charge with scripts really helped me stay on track towards a higher state. After so many events, I feel like we have a good idea as to how to write their characters. Making Emmet's sprite first did make Ingo's a bit of a pain to draw (since he does not walk like that) but I'm glad I committed to the bit from day one.

I've been staying up late (I get too excited working on the mod...), but I'm making sure to sleep in to account for that! It'll be a while until we get around to releasing platonic versions of their routes (don't get me wrong, it's first on our patch priority- especially since so many people following this are aromantic! We just still have a long way to go regarding the base mod.), but I'm glad what we have is still enjoyable for now. Emmet's part of Ingo's 10 heart event is still one of my favorite things I've written. It wasn't in the original draft and was only added in during the coding phase, but everything is constantly evolving!

As for Chandelure and Ingo, they can understand each other, just not in the way the farmer can understand Pokemon. We actually discussed the logistics and capabilties together but I don't believe we've ever published it in a post. The farmer understands Pokemon as if they were recieving instant translations to English from the noises they "speak". Farmer has a bit of telepathy in a sense because sometimes, they're just making noises, but they can read their thoughts in words. (When writing Joltik, I don't actually have any text in my head... it's just babbles of "bah" and "wawwawawawawa" in my head. Baby noises.) Farmer also has an absurd ability to eavesdrop, so they can just tell if a Pokemon is thinking/saying anything.

Ingo and Chandelure have their souls bonded, but Ingo can't quite decipher what Chandelure's chimes mean exactly in words. He reads her through a mix of tone, how her flames burn, charades, and any visions she transmits into his mind through active effort. In the tunnel, she's just transmitting what she wants to say into the farmer's mind. Ingo can't pick up on that. When Chandelure communicates with Ingo, she has to will his perception, and it's only in images. If Ingo had the image of hand-holding with his crush flashed into his mind, he would just get flustered and eventually assume it's his imagination running wild again. He does get caught up in his ideas, so Chandelure can easilly gaslight him into believing it's his own train of thought rather than her fault.

In that same line of thinking, Chandelure could convince him that he's super down bad for the farmer with enough suggestions since she kind of wants to win a bet with Grandpa saying that they'll get married in three years. Ingo feels haunted about having a crush for a reason.

▷ Station Steward Thylak

Remembering My Roots - Rest in Peace, RateMyDrawings

I've talked about my old art before on here, but never really fully in-depth about the site that hosted it. I was reminded of it today while going through my FB memories and felt like I should actually write a true eulogy towards what once was.

Once upon a time, before LORE | REKINDLED, before Time Gate: [AFTERBIRTH], before I had even started drawing webcomics, I entered the world of digital art through one website - not DeviantArt, not Pixiv, but a little site called RateMyDrawings. Back in the day, it was one of the most popular browser-supported art tools, offering multiple different art tools that were, at the time, revolutionary. A flash drawing tool which could replay the progress of your drawing (but the tradeoff was that you had a limited amount of 'ink' aka recording data), a Java-supported tool that was essentially Photoshop Lite (but didn't come with the recording), and later, a more refined tool supported by HTML5 (?) that offered more 3D-like brush tools. There was also DrawChat, a live drawing flash tool where you could draw with others and chat.

And on that site, I created my first works of digital art. No drawing tablet, just a mouse and a loooot of patience. They'd host contests every now and then to win budget Wacom tablets. Sometimes I'd enter, I'd never win. I did eventually get my first drawing tablet, but by then, I'd moved on from RMD onto actual software such as GIMP and Photoshop Elements.

That site is gone now, one of the first art site deaths I'd ever experience in my teen years. I was around 12-13 when I started using this site and I adored it. When people talk about missing the 'tight-knit communities' of old, I don't think of DA, I think of RMD, my first home. Unfortunately, the site couldn't survive in the 'modern' era of the Internet, overshadowed by more advanced tools and art-sharing sites like Deviantart, Facebook, and Instagram.

But I did manage to backup some of my old art pieces before the site finally became completely shuttered in the early 2020's. For a while the site was awake but lacked any content or features, with a message from the site's creator Mick that it might come back, it might not.

It didn't. The old ratemydrawings.com URL now redirects to the inactive FB page. Any attempt to bypass that kill screen like before leads to an Error 404.

But while the site was in its comatose state - before it was shuttered permanently - I was able to access my old profile and extract some of my art pieces of old. I posted them to my FB about 3 years ago, and today they showed up in my memories.

I share a lot of art pieces from creators like Rachel Smythe in an attempt to preserve media. But I also need to remember to preserve my own. So here are a handful of the 100+ pieces I drew on RMD. Enjoy ( ´ ∀ `)ノ～ ♡

Don't be confused by the '1987' part of the username, I picked that number because I was a huge Zelda weeb and 1987 was the year the first Zelda game was made. Whoof.

What's ironic is I actually didn't have the Featured Artist award last time I was actively on the site, so it clearly happened while I was inactive in its final days. The one award I wanted the most and I wasn't there to witness getting it. RIP.

Unfortunately that's all I really have in the way of high-resolution drawings as I wasn't able to preserve much else (though if I find anything more I'll definitely add it to this post!) That said, I was able to nab some screenshots of my homepage via the Wayback Machine where you can see more of the pieces I did back then:

There are so many dorky ass drawings here, some from Time Gate (because it's that freaking old!!!), some are screenshot recreations from anime that I enjoyed (a very common trend on RMD), some are collaborations. There was a point where I learned how to color with the mouse by using low opacity colors and layering them one at a time. Really upped my game there LMAO That Ocarina of Time Link drawing was the first one I ever did that made it to the front page of RMD and y'all, I was so proud, the site back then I think had 50k users total which is nothing compared to the Internet today, but achieving that was one of the greatest things ever LOL The Skyward Sword drawing that followed was one that really felt like a milestone in terms of my art evolution, I felt like I was finally creating something good. I believe I did that Skyward Sword drawing off another DA piece at the time, it was really common to do redraw challenges on RMD what with the technical limitations of the site - I suppose redrawing stuff I liked back then should have been foreshadowing LMAO

That feeling wouldn't last forever ofc once the art high wore off, but even to this day I look back on the pieces from that era fondly. It's where the mysteries of digital art finally started to 'click' in my brain, and I had still barely gotten started.

I also have a few drawings preserved that were done after I got my first drawing tablet, and you can really tell with the improvement of the lineart LOL That said, I think I was around 18-19 when I did these:

Now, one thing that I really enjoyed doing on RMD were collabs - specifically, trading collabs where users would exchange drawing files through the RMD PM system with one another to do steps of a drawing together. Often times I took the role of coloring other people's lineart pieces, which is probably where I started to really learn digital art coloring and come into my own with it.

A collab with user "lime":

Collab with user "Mikai":

A collab with user "Overik", which I specifically remember struggling with because, at the time, my computer monitor's screen was messed up resulting in the entire thing basically being a fluorescent pink:

A collab with "Mist04" that I don't remember doing lmao:

Collab with "Adzumi" (?). I'm fairly certain that's who it was, I definitely remember the process of painting this one, I had loads of fun with it:

Collab with user "ForgottenArtist", IIRC this one was more of a coloring page where they gave out the file freely for others to color, so this was my version. The forums on RMD were great for that sort of thing, people would literally just upload their drawing files for people to have fun with:

So I guess I drew this next little thing in 2021 when the site was still 'live' but not functional, I completely forgot I did this though LMAO Basically the main URL took you to that kill page I showed above, but if you knew any of the extension slugs, you could bypass that kill page and get into the rest of the site, which I was able to by using my username URL. So I got into the Java drawing tool and made this little thing in the hopes I could upload it. Of course, it didn't work, but hey, it was worth getting a screenshot, I suppose:

It's equal parts nostalgic and bittersweet to go through these drawings. Life back then feels so far away and yet I still remember it so vividly, the hours I'd spend drawing on the family PC, feeling more at home with the friends I made online than the ones I had in real life, listening to music that I still listen to to this day. It's far away now, but it still lives through me, in the work I do today. Even someone like me can go from being a complete noob drawing with a mouse to a professional making their living stabbing ink into other people while still drawing the same stories they drew as a child.

There is one piece I had to dig up outside of FB memories, fortunately it wasn't hard to find because I knew I had shared it ages ago on my FB so the search bar saved my skin. My very first digital art piece, of Sheena Fujibayashi from Tales of Symphonia, one of my favorite games of all time.

My very first digital art drawing:

Recreated in 2019:

Past me went through a lot, and they'd be doomed to go through even more still (they hadn't hit the plague yet). And yet they're going to survive, they're gonna keep getting better and better with each passing year. Thanks past me - you've done a lot of dumb shit in your life, but sticking with your craft wasn't one of them. Thank you for walking - through all the good and the bad that you've had to weather through - so that I could run for us both.

FtM Hysto Recovery + Tips (Plus general tips for dealing with low/no spoons or recovering from any surgery)

I haven't been on Tumblr for years, but recently re-joined to check out art, as I start to work on getting my idea for a graphic novel off the ground (as well as getting serious about improving my art again). However, I'm hoping these first few posts get found by an entirely different audience. This is being written in 2023.

I'm going in for a laparoscopic hysterectomy on Thursday (today is Monday) and want to share my experience, as much as spoons will allow, so that other people can hopefully benefit in the future. I, personally, have struggled to find things online that fit my situation as a trans man with a history of pre-cancerous pap smears, abnormal bleeding, PID and ovarian cysts (but not PCOS). Although hysterectomies for "GRS" or gender affirming surgery purposes are easy to get where I live, mine in particular is primarily being done to avoid cancer and to stop the abnormal bleeding and random debilitating pain that comes out of nowhere every few years and upends my life for weeks/months. So if you're someone facing the prospect of a laparoscopic hysterectomy, regardless of your gender identity, and have a history of medical issues (but not PCOS or endometriosis) in your reproductive region, this blog may help you! Or, alternatively, if you're a trans man looking to get a laparoscopic hysterectomy, whether or not you've had issues in that region, this might help you, too!

It should be noted that this is written from the perspective of someone in their 30s with a complicated medical history, including Type 2 Diabetes and a very rare kidney disease (which has an average life expectancy of 29 years for men, but we aren't sure how it affects trans men), so the pre-surgery process I've been through is not the typical one. I also have chronic pain and know from my past experiences with very severe pain that a) I have a low tolerance for any pain beyond what I deal with day-to-day and b) I have a high tolerance for opiate pain medication, which means it takes a higher dose for me to address the level of pain that a lower dose would address in someone else. These both affect the length of time that I'll likely need to be on painkillers, and how functional I'll be while I'm on them. This, in turn, affects how quickly I'll be able to do things like return to work and driving.

I should also note that although it's common in some places for this surgery to be completed as day surgery, my jurisdiction almost always keeps people in overnight; this is because it takes almost 24 hours for the anesthetic to work its way out of your system, and until it does they won't have a true indication of your pain levels and, therefore, won't be able to make sure it's adequately controlled before sending you home. It's much easier (in my experience, and according to the doctors!) to stop you from having pain in the first place than to get it under control once you do.

Also, I live with my partner and a roommate, and my retired parents are about 90 minutes away and have a guest room. My support network isn't huge, but it's high quality. My partner managed to get 3 days off work for my surgery and the 2 days following, and after that is on a light workload for about a week in case she needs to take care of me. She also has a lot of flexibility with her job, and her boss really likes me, so if there are complications or she needs to spend more time at home to look after me, I don't think it's completely out of the question. All of this is to say that I'm going into this surgery from a very privileged place, in terms of not having to do much to look after myself in the aftermath. My surgeon did advise me, however, to take 1 week (for sure) off work if I could, and that I may need a second week. My work consists of two research jobs that draw heavily on my brain power, but don't require me to move around at all, especially as I work from home, so the issue is the painkillers, rather than actual healing time. Other jobs will require different amounts of time off work.

Because I'm neurodivergent and like to have as many details as possible about ... literally everything, I'm going to make this as detailed as I can. Essentially, I'm hoping to share everything I know and experience without leaving anything out. If it's too much detail for you, I'm going to be doing my best to include useful headers.

Notification of Surgery & Lead-up

I received notice about my surgery just over a month before my surgery date; it was around June 26th that I was emailed and told my surgery would be on August 3rd. I had previously met my surgeon in January, and was told it would be a 6-8 month wait until surgery. Between that appointment and being given my surgery date, I'd had bloodwork done, as well as an internal ultrasound. I've had several internal ultrasounds before and while they are far from pleasant, they are not as dysphoria-inducing for me as they are for other trans men, I'm sure. I am more physically uncomfortable during them than mentally/spiritually uncomfortable.

In the notification email, my surgeon sent additional attachments; about 200 pages of information from a) their office specifically and b) the health authority [one document about hysterectomies, one document about recovering from surgery in general]. These documents answered most of my questions, and also had instructions about fasting, pre-surgery instructions (there's a special sponge I have to buy and use the night before surgery and the morning of surgery) and recovery information. The documents were very generic, and because they came from different sources, the information was sometimes contradictory. I, personally, took the information on board in this order of trustworthiness:

Things my surgeon had said in-person during my consultation appointment in January

Things included in the information from my surgeon's office directly

Things included in the documents from the health authority

If there were contradictions that seemed extremely important (e.g. one document said to wash everything my face with the special sponges, while another said, in all caps, to absolutely NOT wash my head or face with the sponges), I followed-up with the surgeon's office or the most appropriate person (e.g. pharmacist).

Pre-surgery Appointments

Because of my medical history (diabetes and Alport's Syndrome), I had an extra step in here. My surgeon required me to have a consultation with my internal medicine doctor's clinic (but not with my specialist) to get the all-clear and make sure my risk level wasn't too high. This doctor made some assumptions about the medications I'm taking, which led him to think I had both diabetes and a heart condition, which would have put me in a much higher risk category. Because of that, he ordered extra bloodwork, and an ECG, and booked a follow-up with me for a few days later. That initial appointment with him ended on the assumption that the surgery likely would be postponed. However, the bloodwork and ECG all came back fine, and at the follow-up he gave me the all-clear and said my risk wasn't very high at all.

I had a few other pre-surgery appointments.

One was with the surgeon. In my case, the doctor actually doing my surgery is a resident colleague of the surgeon I initially consulted with. Now that I had a specific date for the surgery, and my life situation had changed a bit since the consultation (e.g. work), I asked to meet with the surgeon to ask questions that had come up since the initial consultation, and so that I could meet the person who would be cutting into me and make sure I was comfortable with her. She answered all my questions really well, and it turned out I was more comfortable with her than the original surgeon. This was a quick 5-10 minute talk, but I highly recommend asking for it, even if your surgeon hasn't changed. You'll have another chance to talk to your surgery just before being wheeled into the OR, but you'll be nervous and may be medicated by then, and it's just nice to have this conversation ahead of time and in an environment where you can look at a list of questions you've written down, and actually pay attention to the answers.

The hospital required another two appointments before surgery:

The pharmacist

About a week before my surgery, the pharmacist called for 5-10 minutes to discuss my current medications, supplements, vitamins and holistic medicines (if I were taking any) and to find out what time of day I take them at. Easy peasy.

2. The anesthetist

Exactly a week before my surgery, the anesthetist called to discuss the operation itself and the anesthetic. I'm not sure if the doctor I talked to will be the anesthetist who is actually in the room with me, or if it was just her job that particular day to call and get the information that will get passed onto the one who will be in the room. She was very nice, and explained the method of anesthesia, as well as how I'll likely feel when I wake up, etc. She also saw on my chart that I have a history of chronic pain, and zeroed in on my back and shoulder. She asked if there are any positions that make me more comfortable, and then explained the position I'd be in for my surgery -- tipped back toward my head -- and that this sometimes gives people back and shoulder pain even if they don't have any to begin with. She said my arms would be alongside my body, fairly tight to it, and I said that would be fine. I practiced laying them beside my body later that day and promptly discovered that's actually pretty painful for one arm, but I'll mention that when I get there and hope for the best! If I was having the conversation again, I'd answer by saying I wasn't sure how that would feel but that I'd practice it before the surgery day to see, and then ask who I could talk to if it turned out there's a better position or if that one wouldn't work. Ultimately though, the surgery should be 1.5 hours to 4 hours at most, so I'm not overly concerned. What you should take away from this if you're having this surgery and don't already have back/shoulder pain is that you might wake up with some, but that it should go away in a day or maybe a little less. This type of surgery also requires the surgeon to inflate your belly with gas in order to make room for the scopes and so that they can see what they're doing. That gas can stick around for a day, sometimes two, according to the anesthetist and can be a little bit painful or uncomfortable. I can't remember anything else that came out of this conversation.

In terms of pre-surgery appointments, that was it.

Tips and Tricks for Being Prepared

The next little bit is information I acquired through talking to my therapist (who's had several laparoscopic surgeries!) and many hours of research online, as well as living as a person who often has few spoons.

Get your first 1-2 weeks of meals planned and ready in advance. For me, this means I've picked up a large number of cans of Alphaghetti-type foods, and I'll be buying as many frozen meals as I can but have VERY little freezer room because my partner and I share with our tenant. Other options include things like HelloFresh, identifying nights when it will be easier for your partner if you order food in (if you can afford to), making big batches of food leading up to surgery while you're well and then freezing them, creating a list of meals you'd appreciate friends bringing over [remind them to bring them in disposable containers, so you don't have to feel guilty when it takes you weeks to get the containers back to them!], etc

Buy some Depends/adult diapers. I bought store brand (Life brand, specifically, which is Canadian) ones. The only ones I could get were maximum absorbency unless I wanted to pay twice the price for name brand ones, but I suspect I could do with a minimum absorbency one. I bought the underwear-style ones. In the store brand, they don't look very underwear-like at all, but if you have more money to spend, some of the name brand ones look convincingly like underwear! I also bought 'Unisex' ones, but would have bought womens if the unisex ones weren't an option; I suspect the mens' might have a built-in bulge area that would be awkward for me. The point of the adult diapers is that their 'waistband' is not a traditional waistband -- it's about 8" tall, very thin, and crinkle-cut so that it doesn't put pressure on your skin. This will stop you from having clothing pushing on your incision sites. BONUS is that they ARE absorbent, so you won't have to also wear pads to deal with discharge (which can, apparently, last for 6 weeks). Try the Depends on for a day a few days before surgery. Yes, it will be awkward and you'll feel silly. I am literally sitting in bed, with nothing wrong with me, wearing nothing but an adult diaper and a tee shirt while my partner's at work. But this has 2 purposes: 1) chances are you haven't worn these before, and you want to make sure you've got the most comfortable ones you can in terms of fit and style; 2) if you've worn them once already, it'll be familiar when you go to put it on when you're ready to leave the hospital; you'll know which side is the back and which side is the front, and the 'weirdness' of wearing them will be less unsettling. You're going to have other weird stuff going on, this doesn't have to be yet another weird thing happening!

If you live alone or your partner doesn't (or can't) change the sheets, layer sheets on the bed. That's right, layer your mattress with bottom sheets. That way, you can peel the top one off and have a cleaner sheet beneath it. It won't be the same as being able to sleep on a fresh, clean sheet straight out of the cupboard or dryer, but it's going to be better than the one you've slept, sweat or, universe forbid, bled on.

Get a LEAKPROOF (truly) travel mug with a handle. After surgery you'll have maybe one comfortable position to lay in. You're not going to want to get out of that position to retrieve your water, but you're also going to need to be drinking a lot of water (it helps you recover, and also helps get your bowels moving again). Being able to lose your water in the bed is a luxury, but a necessary one. I got mine at Winners for pretty cheap.

Get a nightie or onesie. I usually sleep naked. I don't really own pyjamas -- when I need to cover up to sleep (like when I visit friends or travel), I throw on a pair of joggers, or boxer briefs. But those both have waistbands and, remember, we're trying to avoid waistbands. I ordered a sleep shirt from Oodie, which was on sale, but still expensive (I paid around $60, including 1-2 business day shipping because I didn't think of it until the last minute), as well as a halloween one-sie from Old Navy that's apparently leftover from last year's halloween stock. I'm expecting the onesie to be way too hot, but I need something I can wear out in public in case I have to get groceries, or pick something up at the pharmacy, or stand outside because the building's burning, without exposing myself. I also borrowed a robe to go over the sleep shirt when I leave the hospital.

Have whoever's picking you up bring 2 pillows. One goes between your abdomen and the seatbelt, and you sit on the other one.

Have whoever's picking you up bring fast food. When you leave the hospital you're going to either be ravenously hungry or feel like you never want to eat again. Either way, fast food is going to be the one thing you didn't realize you needed so badly in your life until that moment. Your body's going to be craving carbs and fat, and fat is also what's going to help your pain pills kick in.

Have ice cream, chips or other junk food on hand. This is mostly so that you have something to eat when you take your pain pills. Fatty foods help opiates work faster; as someone who takes them several times a month for chronic pain, I've sometimes noticed a difference of -hours- between taking them with fatty foods and taking them on their own.

Get a walking aid. We use our abdomens for everything. If you don't already have something like a cane, pick one up. Keep the receipt though; if you don't end up using it, you can usually take them back. With that said, my therapist said it's at about the 2 week mark when you feel like you actually need one. If you don't have a cane but you have walking/hiking sticks, dig them out and keep them handy.

Grab some baby wipes. You can get laparoscopic incisions wet, but that doesn't mean you're going to feel like you have the energy or endurance to shower right away. You're still going to want to keep your pits and bits clean.

If you take daily medications, organize them in a pill organizer. Things can get confusing when you're on painkillers, or when a partner is dishing out your meds. You know exactly how many you take, and how often, so the best way to approach this is to get a pill organizer and get all your doses for a week ready before your surgery. Monday AM, Monday PM, Tuesday AM, Tuesday PM, that kind of thing. There's nothing worse than being on painkillers and trying to remember if you've already taken That Very Important Medication You Can't Miss or not. Or, worse, not even realizing you've missed something that can give you withdrawal symptoms, and suddenly waking up a few days after surgery feeling worse than you've ever felt in your life and wondering if you need to go to the ER, only to have it turn out that you missed your meds.

Buy something for yourself that you can look forward to. I bought a video game that I've wanted for a couple of years that was finally on sale. I haven't touched it, and won't until sometime after surgery when I feel up to it. Giving yourself a little reward when you're going through something hard is always nice.

If you're diabetic...take a minute before your surgery to remind your partner/anyone you live with/anyone who's going to be looking after you about how and when to check your blood sugars, what numbers are abnormal for you, and what to do about them. Being ill or recovering from a surgery can really throw your diabetes out of whack, even if it's well-controlled beforehand, and recovering from surgery might make you feel a lot of the same symptoms you'd feel from a hypo/hyper or DKA, so make sure you (or someone else) test your sugars regularly and have things on hand to deal with abnormal or worrying results.

Take your phone everywhere. Painkillers (and pain) can make us unsteady. As someone who's taken a fall and had to wait hours for my partner to wake up and find me and help me back to my feet (and then bed), I don't recommend it.

These are the things I know about pre-surgery, but I'll try to update...eventually if I learn anything new post-surgery.