I'm currently making a Magnus Archives book nook and it's consuming my life 👁️

sorry for the wonky brightness on these!! my room has no good lightning. SO! I decided to just draw the stuff i want instead of waiting for my brain to write a fic about it, considering how perfectionistic i am, i'll never get there.

here's an explanation for all that happens! (btw theres more detail but i wrote this specifically to be short and assuming u know some stuff urself already!!) gary adoption arc

4, 7, 17 and 21 for the specific artist ask game :)

Thank you for the ask! (The ask game)

4. Fav character/subject that’s a bitch to draw:

Zhou Ying from Tai Sui!! I know he's literally a book character with no specific canon appearance, but I accidentally created a massive challenge for myself in designing/drawing him lmao.

I really like the face I've landed on for drawing Xi Ping from the same novel, and since he's supposed to be beautiful in a sharp, overbearing type of way, I tend to draw him with a thinner face and a very prominent chin and cheekbones. And I think that look suits him! The problem with that is that Zhou Ying is supposed to look a lot like Xi Ping, especially in the lower part of their faces, except, especially early in the novel, he's also notably thinner and frailer. He's also got his sort of spooky, all-knowing placid eyes. Yet he's supposed to be beautiful! How do I take a face that's already 70% chin and cheekbones, make it even bonier to an unhealthy degree, give it unsettling eyes, and yet retain the sense of beauty? I haven't quite figured that out yet lmao.

I also struggle a lot with either emulating Jun Mochizuki's art style or translating her character designs to my own, which I why I rarely draw fanart for VnC despite absolutely adoring the series. I'm trying to get better at that though!

More under the cut because this got long <3

7. A medium of art you don’t work in but appreciate

Two answers here. The most immediate and obvious one is digital art in general, since I work pretty much entirely traditionally. I'm always so impressed by the kinds of lighting and color effects that I see in work by people with access to things like photoshop layer adjustments. I know "digital art" is almost an absurdly broad category, but god there are some very impressive pieces out there done entirely with my good friend the computer.

Also, I adore papercraft/papercut art. Every time I see something really intricate made out of cut paper, my brain just, like, short-circuits in awe. It's so cool!! Speaking of Tai Sui, one of my all time favorite pieces of Tai Sui art is this Xi Ping by Yutaan here on tumblr. If you really want to see some really cool papercraft, Yutaan's stuff in general is incredible imo.

17. Do you eat/drink when drawing? if so, what

Not really, no. Since I'm almost entirely a traditional artist, I'm really paranoid about food getting stains on my paper 😔. Even stuff you think is stain free, like, say, a pretzel, can result in unexpected grease spots if you're not careful. So I generally try to keep snack time far away from whatever I'm drawing.

I do drink water when I draw, since I'm pretty much always drinking water no matter what I'm up to, but I have to be careful to keep the glass somewhere that I'm confident can't spill onto my paper. I've definitely gotten water stains on a lot of sketchbook pages in the past lol.

21. Art styles nothing like your own but you like anyways

I was just talking about this with some friends last night! One of my oldest and dearest friends is the artist troubled cryst, which I find hilarious because our art processes are exact polar opposites lmao. I am an incredibly slow artist, prone to spending hours inking fairly simple drawings as I fuss over line weights and try to perfect tiny details in pencil before I ink them. I lean hard into the fussy and painstaking side of things. I also just adore black ink and will fit about as much of it into a drawing as I can. The ink is very much the main character for me, and color's just kind of a bonus.

Meanwhile, my bestie Meg Troubledcryst is, in the best possible way, kind of fast and loose as an artist. Her pieces are full of color and movement, with an emphasis on that expressive motion, and her lineart tends to be on the free and sketchy side. I know from talking to her that she hates to spend too long fussing over any one drawing or any one part of a drawing if she can avoid it. She can probably crank out two fully colored, good-looking pieces in the time it'd take me to do one effortful round of lineart lmao. But I love her stuff! I think it's really cute that we're such different artists even though I more or less started learning how to draw as a tween because of her art.

Go look at her stuff!

I also adore paintings that do a lot of work with light and color, despite the fact that I am, as established, a black ink girlie in my own art. Current obsessions are these sky paintings by autoneurotic and these oranges by itsc.

Anway, as a bonus for being nice enough to send me an ask, here's a little sneak peak at a couple of my wips.

Meta asks for the writers thing!!

7, 14, 23!

7- What do you think are the characteristics of your personal writing style? Would others agree?

I, personally, think a lot of what sets my writing apart from others' is actually a hallmark of my ADHD- in that, I constantly drop little tidbits of headcanons, to the point of it almost being detrimental to the narrative. When writing, I'll actually get sidetracked in describing, for example, a character's clothes- where they came from, who made them, they were a gift for this holiday I just made up from their favorite aunt who died soon afterwards- and sort of lose myself in the detail to the point where it's distracting. I have to edit a lot of it out after the fact.

But I will say- multiple people have told me that what they like about my work is the physicality. Some of my friends have told me that I've actively made them physically feel descriptions in their bodies- @miss-spooky-eyes "I want to throw up everything I've ever eaten" was among the best compliments I've ever gotten. This remains a point of pride even though I mostly do it on accident.

14- At what point in writing do you come up with a title?

It's a toss-up. I have titles set aside for pieces I haven't written yet- still finding the right thing to title all guts no glory, all survivor no guilt- and then there's stuff like let her be soft, and let her be mine, which up until five minutes before posting was called please god just get to the porn.

23- What’s the story idea you’ve had in your head for the longest?

When I was a little kid, I actually had a story concept about identical twin girls who were captive in a house together, raised alone and completely dependent on each other, and then one left and got kidnapped and the other had to save her. I've been chewing on that one for a solid twenty years now, in a lot of different forms- from Thirteen's backstory fuckening to new HFW concepts about Aloy and Beta to original work ideas that I have percolating. It's got a lot to say about loneliness, I think. Not mine, obviously. But some other bitch in here is fucking lonely.

You know what? You know what? This is my blog. Its midnight on finals week I'm gonna blabber about the pokemon ocs I made based on my family. Deets under the cut!!

OKAY SO the hypothetical game these guys belong to is very much in that early pokemon phase where the gyms were actually cool and very heavily themed and like, getting through all the grunts is kinda part of the gym. (I haven't played the games since black and white idk if they do that anymore but that's the vibe). I just love the idea of all these characters (plus 2 more that fit into the lore) just existing in the game and if you ask them enough questions/pay attention enough you realise they're all related!

SO not in order but the first of the family you encounter is Big Jo (dad). He works in the lab that you start the game and pick your pokemon in with the professor, he's just a dude typing away on a computer (BUT he has a cute raichu that occasionally does a little spark to fix his computer!) And if you talk to him he gives you a couple revives. In the dialogue he asks you if you're going to challenge the normal type gym leader, and if you say yes he gets excited bc that's his daughter!! He let's you know it's not a very hard gym but she tries her best. A small detail that's important: He has a couple of knickknacks on his desk, a teddiursa doll, a few letters convered in ink, a poster for the elite 4, and a wooden statue of a mamoswine. Also workshopping this idea but he may talk about how much he wants to travel, and if you encourage him to you see him touring around throughout the game!

Next ofc you encounter Bedhead Bo! Her gym is very easygoing, the building looks like a gym on the outside but once you step in you realize it's a super elaborate pillow fort! Corridors and all. There are pokemon sleeping and walking about, snorlaxes you have to climb over, and a whole room full of beds you have to jump on. All of the grunts are either asleep (blocking your way) or just doing sleepover things. Once you finally get to her little chamber she slides down a big piles of pillows to greet you, and none of her pokemon are in pokeballs they're just vibing. She's the first gym so you beat her pretty easily, but she wishes you luck on your journey (and gives you a couple more revives).

About midway through the game you stumble across a dark and spooky town. This town is incredibly superstitious because unfortunate things happen there all the time, and people in the town warn you to watch out for "The Omen". Every once in a blue moon, on a dark stormy night, The Omen sneaks out of his manor. He wears a dark wool coat, squeaky black boots (who KNOWS what they're covered in!!) And is always wearing a plaguedoctor mask. Its said that the Murkrows that haunt every corner of the town all report back to him in the depths of the Manor. He's difficult to find, but if you battle him, he gives you the dark type gym badge. His gym is mostly exploring the manor, an old decrepit house filled with other trainers who want to find him. It's pretty hard to find your bearings in it, door lock behind you and the ceiling caves in at some point, eventually, you come across a nest of Murkrow, and as you walk toward it they disperse to reveal the door to the basement. You walk down the long dark staircase to find a PILE of Murkrows, who once again disperse to reveal! Some dingy nerd playing video games on a couch. He notices you came in and asks you if you're here for the badge, you say yes, and he points to a little table with a badge on it, guarded by a Murkrow in a party hat with a banner that says "congratulations!". He introduces himself as Po, and if you've gotten this far you can just have the badge, but if you want to battle him you can. He also explains that he's really just a lucky guy who inherited the old house, he's not some Omen of darkness. He's pretty sickly, so he tries to stay indoors when he can, and when he does go out he wears a fun mask. He only goes out at night because he's got a weird sleep schedule, and come on its ALWAYS stormy in this town. If you talk to him again, he asks you if this is your first badge, and if not he asks if you've gotten the normal type badge yet. When you say yes he comments they hey! That's my little sister!

Near the end of the game you battle the elite four. Now bare with me cause to be perfectly honest I've never gotten that far, so this might all be nonsense. The elite four in this region is heavily themed, a little bit like professional wrestling but more theatrey. It's also kind of a team sport, with support trainers for each core member. When you show up to the arena to apply for the league, the first Elite Four member you meet is Captian Moby and his crew. They're VERY pirate themed and VERY hammy. He's actually a super nice guy, and shows you the ropes of the league. If you ever get on the topic of gym badges, he'll tell you how proud he is that BOTH of his siblings are gym leaders! His name is actually a shortening of his real name, Mo Beonnie, or Mo B., or Captain Moby!

The last two arent pictured, but they revolve around the ice type gym, or just a general ice type area. The ice area is a natural history museum and research facility on a glacier, headed by Professor Vee. She's a super sweet lady who takes care of a lot of fossil type pokemon that are found in the glaciers! She rehabilitates pokemon who got messed up by poachers who recombined them improperly. She's takes extra special care of a mamoswine who's pretty much the mascot of the whole facility, but she insists she's just watching him for a friend. There's an area of the facility dedicated to courtyards themed to different periods of history, but the center courtyard has a statue of a women in full gear smiling with the mamoswine. If you read the plaque, the yard is dedicated to "SnowCap" Snow Beonnie, the former head researcher and rehabilitator of the museum.

So that's my self indulgent little pokemon lore! The whole idea of all of they're names being Bo, Po, Mo, Jo, and Snow is a little silly and obvious but I think if it were spread out throughout the game it would be a really cute little detail. I love making these hypothetical pokemon thingys and I have even more for my irl friends, so maybe I'll continue rambling about them someday. If you read the whole thing wow thanks!! Basing things off my family just makes me so happy I hope yall like it!