Are you by any chance willing to offer your thoughts or suggestions towards someone else looking to start a Mew/Mewtwo-focused blog? I keep second-guessing my idea a lot, and I worry it might get viewed as too much, I guess... and your concept just seems so fun and unique that it makes me still want to try, but I don't quite know where or how to start.

I'll try my best! (This ended up being quite the read, hoo boy...)

I'll start by saying that I got remarkably lucky. I don't know why people took a notice in my blog, and the last thing I want is to get a big head over it and become some out of reach hot-shot on a pedestal. I aim to treat others with respect, and hopefully earn respect back. (And if I ever fall short of that, I'm sorry!)

It may be worth noting that I've been drawing since I could hold a pencil (/crayon/marker, whatever came first), which has led to me getting T O N S of practice, both traditional and digital. And I do recommend practice, if you want art to be a part of your blog. Study references, draw what you like, draw dumb stuff, have fun! And don't be afraid to let the way you draw things change, because that definitely happened to me!

I realized recently that having this blog has mitigated a bad habit of mine, and that's the habit of endlessly tinkering with my ideas. I can hold back on sharing my ideas when I feel like they need to be "ironed out" or "made better". And yeah, some ideas, especially if they're brand new or just came to you, they need to be refined.

But sometimes it's possible to just put the raw or underdeveloped idea out there and expand on it later.

I know it can be very scary to put ideas out there and "set them in stone". There may come a day I re-visit an idea and think "I don't want this to be like this anymore". I don't know what I'll do if that happens--Will I keep it, or retcon it, or meet somewhere in the middle? I don't know, but the fear of being in that position will keep me from posting anything at all!

I also recommend giving your characters history. A life behind them that led to who they are today. When I started my blog, I had a very vague idea of a history, but enough to give me a sense of who they are as people. It's another example of raw ideas being expanded on, because a LOT of my characters' history has been made up since I started this blog.

I know this is getting a bit long now, but there's one more silly little thing that came to mind that's purely an assumption on my end. As a fellow second-guesser, I tend to feel the need to apologize a lot. Try to resist doing so; think about if you truly feel sorry about it, or if you just want to appease whoever you're apologizing to. Ultimately what you do with your art and blog is up to you, so a lot of the things you may want to apologize for really don't deserve an apology.

You of all people should realize that sometimes motivations for behavior can be more complex and mysterious than tracing them back to one single childhood experience.

THE X FILES GIF MEME [2/9] SCENES from Oubliette (3.08)

hi it's nyx here once again to talk about lark vs henry and what that meant for sparrow because i swear every episode that shows even a Little bit of sparrow's actual personality is controversial.

"nyx what do you mean by this" well it's a very blatant fact that sparrow does not get much nuance in the fandom: this is especially prevalent when examining hero's conversation with normal where she explicitly calls out lark and rebecca alongside sparrow and yet sparrow is solely blamed. because of this, every time we do see sparrow be his genuine self in the show - from talking to scary and shielding her from violence to taking charge of grant and lark and wanting to help the teens to the most recent episode's case of him not believing in animal captivity - i've noticed people quickly jumping on him for being hypocritical but nobody asking why he would be hypocritical, or why he's made choices that clearly do not reflect his actual beliefs.

so let's talk about that, shall we?

i know i've talked about this before but it bears repeating: sparrow is complacent. he has consistently made decisions that go against his own beliefs, bottling up his actual thoughts on the matter in order to "keep the peace". we know this, this is a canon fact, he said as much about lark and rebecca's affair!

why does he do this? well to me, what makes the most logical sense is that this stems all the way to lark and henry's conflict. if the rogue card is only predicting anger and not enforcing it, that means there is more to lark's anger than just what happened with walter. part of that is his fear of being unable to protect the people he cares about, being helpless in situations where he could've done something, yes, but i do believe there's another root cause to his anger, one that would fuel him for decades: sparrow.

...well, more specifically, how henry changed sparrow.

we know that lark wasn't the happiest about the lovewolf split. after the lord of chaos arc, sparrow starts very slowly developing a separate personality, enough so that he and lark aren't necessarily the same kid, one unit, the same person twice. sparrow tried to teach lark his new philosophy, it was ultimately rejected. lark doesn't understand it! but he loves sparrow regardless. that disappointment, that resentment of how sparrow had changed... it goes back to henry, to henry giving sparrow that speech and reinforcing those beliefs!

we also know that originally, sparrow didn't want to pick a side. he wanted them both to get along! to reconcile! and we know that lark didn't tell him about what he saw on the throne, which has me believing that there were, perhaps, other things that lark didn't tell sparrow in crucial moments: such as his decision to release the doodler, since we really don't know if sparrow knew. sparrow would've been happy to reconcile the two, and it makes sense if this was something he didn't know but something that shakes his perspective: aka, what happens if lark doesn't confide in him. to get lark back on his side, he has to be on lark's side irrevocably, which means abandoning his peacekeeping and mediation to choose lark wholeheartedly.

so by the time the ep23 flashback happens... sparrow has lost that bit of personality he had started to form in s1. he's lark's other half again, helping him with plans, sharing his ideas. he has... you could say, lost his confidence in being a lovewolf, because despite his best efforts, it only brought more strife to his family and he doesn't want to lose lark. we know this! he doesn't want to lose lark!

and then, they find out the prophecy, that one of the twins will have a kid who will save the world. think about everything we know about lark, how stubbornly persistent he was on fixing things Himself since he puts the weight of the world on his shoulders alone. lark doesn't blame sparrow or henry, he only blames himself. would he jump at having a family to fix his mistakes? no.

but sparrow would.

so sparrow takes that burden from him. sparrow has hero when he is twenty, and lark gets to be the cool uncle who helps around the house and hero blames both twins equally so we know they did this together. sparrow doesn't want to lose lark again, he doesn't want to be himself, he adapts to rebecca's views because it's easier than admitting that maybe he shares some of the same- definitely makes him marrying a vegan centrist make sense, right? he can use rebecca as a scapegoat and it Works. his own personality gets shafted in favor of being the same man twice with lark, he bottles everything up, he disapproves but never says as much.

and he fucked up with hero. clearly, he knows that. hero has a regular life now at a private school with a job and an internship and she's a massive dweeb and i don't think any one of you could look me in the eye and say that lark approved that. it was sparrow's decision! and we know what lark thinks about sparrow's parenting: i need every one of yall who truly believes that lark would be a better father to normal to go and relisten to normal's introduction scene in ep1 and then to the end of ep24 again where lark explicitly tells normal that being the mascot is a waste of his time when he could be learning "actually useful" skills (like hunting and survival- and yall still think sparrow was the one having hero kill deer?) and that he's too soft-hearted and naive and that is sparrow's fault for being too nice. normal would not be the same kid if lark was raising him and that is NOT a good thing lmao

all of this to say. i am so tired of people understanding lark's nuance and understanding grant's nuance and understanding the s1 dads and their nuance and how their trauma fucked up their relationships with their kids and yet sparrow is the one yall bash every other week repeatedly without ever wondering like. huh. maybe it is strange that his actions now don't hold up against his actions in the past. maybe there's something else going on that is consistent with literally every other aspect of his character. it is so tiring to go into his tag and see the same things over and over and over again repeated on loop every time we see sparrow's actual personality slip out beyond him perpetuating the "same man twice" persona. he's nuanced! they're all nuanced! and that's a good thing!

sparrow's biggest issues are his complacency, the way he upholds decisions that might not really be the best decisions because it's easier. his love for lark and his desire to fix things clouds his judgement and yeah, that means he goes against his own morals frequently; or at least, he did. so far in the season though, with how he's treated normal being in the line of fire and getting into his mess, he's definitely already realized this and is putting in the work to ensure that normal doesn't go through what hero did- something that lark is not doing. sparrow's also been the best towards the other teens consistently, the most willing to listen and change his perspective (as demonstrated again in ep24- really i just think people need to relisten to ep24!) and he's definitely not the best dad but that can be said not just about all the kiddads but also about literally every dad in this podcast, because that's what this podcast is about. thank you for reading and i hope i don't have to make this post again in a few weeks <3

Challenge 9: Collect Metal SUBS RECOMMENDED + MILD FLASH

if i had a nickel for every time i saw a character that went from (being seen as) a sleazeball comic relief asshole to (being seen as) a tragically empathetic/caring sadman who, in the fourth season of their show, played an instrumental hand in the death of the most important person in their life (aka an immediate older male relative they loved desperately despite his disgust towards them, his conviction that they're fundamentally broken bad people, and his refusal to ever give them the approval they so desperately craved) then pretended like they weren't affected by that death despite so obviously being in deep deep pain until, finally, they have a massive breakdown and yell at a blonde man (a half friend half enemy who is basically them but more successful and earned their dead loved one's respect [and who they are shipped with by a small subsection of the fandom]) for killing their father with a harsh business move (an accusation that's a clear deflection from the true source of blame, themselves) and then, upon realization that blonde man appears unruffled, they start to shout increasingly delusional lines about their superiority over the blonde man and how much power they have over him, thus effectively destroying any chance for their business relationship............ if i had a nickel for every time i saw this exact character/situation in a prestige television show, i'd have two nickels, which isn't a lot, but it's kinda weird that it happened twice, right?

to what degree do you think Cartman will grow to be a better person?

According to Trey’s commentary in Tsst, it doesn’t take much: Discipline, a firm male figure in his life. And now, implied by the end of Pandemic Special and towards the end of P.C, time away from friends who enable him are the ingredients for a better Cartman.

As little as it takes for him to be grow, it’s also just as easy for him to regress. Liane giving in on one occasion reverted what was months of firm parenting. A stagnant Kyle in P.C spurred Cartman’s paranoia, and reverted him back to his scheming 10 year old ways. He thinks he’s being talked down to and self sabotages out of spite at the end of Future Me. I think also a contributor to his Cartman-ness is how South Park itself doesn’t let him stay good for long, meager as his attempts may be on occasion. He’s the adults’s scapegoat (Bass to Mouth) as well as the Kids’s (Good Times With Weapons). the kids encourage Cartman to retaliate against Pc principal instead of letting him accept detention, and they smash his things while he was sincerely attempting to be PC.

Anyways, Cartman’s demonstrated he can be good in PC— he’s the father he never had, a loving (perhaps overzealous) husband, embracing the religion he’s constantly belittled.

While it was one off gag in Future Me, Cartman was inspired by end of the episode to study and work at his appearance. His future-self was proof that if he really wanted to, he can turn his life around.

He has the capacity to come to to right conclusions, (“should I just apologize to my friends and ask them to take me back, and tell them I was being a selfish jerk? Admit I was wrong and ask for forgiveness?”) He just… doesn’t have the discipline nor the humility to do so. (“Nah, screw that! I’m just gonna keep being a fucking dick!”)

At this point, we’ve experienced both extremes of the spectrum of goodness Cartman lies— his worst as a homeless drunk, the bastard boob-job narcissist he is now, and his best as a self made millionaire, or a family man devoted to his faith, or the obedient little boy who does his homework before school and eats a gay ass grapefruit for breakfast.

It isn’t a question to what degree Cartman can be good, because he’s shown to be good in various ways. The question is whether Mattrey/ the town of South Park will allow him to realize his potential. Given the very recent circumstances of The Hot Dog… well, it remains to be seen.

According to the app, I've got fifteen minutes left in The Heir of Redclyffe, but I don't want it to be over.

[begin image description: four photos of a tortoiseshell cat with a pink plaid collar, playing with a cat toy that looks like a small bundle of teal chunky yarn. in the first image, she is crouched next to a couch with the toy caught between her front paws. the second image is slightly blurry and shows the cat lying on the right side, partially curled around the toy. the toy is caught between her front paws and her head is blurry. she appears to be licking the toy. the third image is slightly blurry and shows the cat in the same position as the second image, this time holding the toy against her cheek. her head is almost completely upside down. the fourth image shows the cat in the same position, rolled slightly onto her back and holding the toy with both front paws against her chest. end image description]

got lux a new toy (so i could get free shipping with her meds from chewy) and she LOVES it (totally has nothing to do with the fact there's catnip in it)

it's a little bundle of fake chunky yarn, and the band that keeps it together is elastic so when she unravels it i can bundle it back up

i did open it out of curiosity to see how tightly it's bundled and to see if it's going to get strewn all over the house, and there's one piece of yarn tied so tight around the middle i genuinely can't tell if it's just tied or if it's sewn lol. it's gonna be a while before she unravels it

and she loves her other new toy too:

[begin video description. the same cat from the pictures is sitting in front of a round, dark green plastic toy with three levels and a ball trapped in each level. there is a plush bee dangling from a wire attached to the top of the toy. she gently touches the bee with her paw, then turns her head to the side and watches it. she crouches down to look at the lowest level of the toy. she begins to sniff at a leaf-shaped toy on the ground beside the plastic toy. the person behind the camera flicks one of the balls and makes it roll around the track quickly. the cat watches it and bats the ball with one paw twice, then remains still for a few seconds and watches the ball, which is now still. the person behind the camera flicks the ball again and the cat watches it, her head moving quickly with lizard-like movements. the person behind the camera reaches out and moves the bee on the wire, startling the cat. she stares at the bee for a couple seconds with her head tilted slightly, then looks at something off to the left and the video ends. end video description]

For the first time in a long while, I got to go to a white elephant gift exchange this December! We had a low price ceiling and my practically wins out over any practical joke sensibilities every time, so on the designated shopping day I left my local overstock store with a nice chopstick set, some fancy (not at all mess-free) popcorn, and a dream.

When I was growing up, my mom was an intrepid homeschooling parent who loved event planning, valued cultural exploration, and had married into a Japanese family. Multiple times - sometimes in the setting of a multicultural fair, at least once as a kind of class party (with celebratory takeout at the end) - she faced teaching large groups of children how to use chopsticks quickly and with as little cost and cleanup as possible.

Her answer was popcorn! It's edible, so you get the full motion down, and lightweight but large enough for less coordinated sticks to pinch. It has tons of nubbins to grab and widely varied shapes to experiment with. Specifically, we used air-popped kernels, without oil or toppings, so when it gets overzealously crushed or bounces away and gets missed by a broom, it's basically biodegradable styrofoam.

What I'm saying is, this is my mom's fault. Other than the choice to draw so many hands in one afternoon on the same day as the party, while also baking a snack. That's all me. This primer was delivered in the format of a tiny booklet (if you look up an "eight page zine" that's also a method I learned from my mom, to turn single-sided misprints into notepads), with fewer jokes and tips than I'd have liked because I simply did not have time to transcribe a hashi rest fold or hairstyle. But reformatted (for Mastodon) it looks fairly respectable.

Lengthy image descriptions and full poster format under the cut.

[ID: A title page reads "How to Use Chopsticks" in all caps. The words "without too much mess" are between two straight, orange lines, which start with round points at the left, evoking chopsticks, and end in flared shapes of a silhouetted splash on the right. Below the lower line are the words "by CJ Gladback." All the text is in black, the background is white but appears light orange due to a repeating geometric watermark pattern of CJ's logo in orange overlaid on the whole image; her handle on most sites is included once on each of the following spreads: @cjgladback​

Next is the first spread of four illustrations with their instructions. On the left half of page are two line drawings of a right hand holding one and then two chopsticks, with the text, "The first stick rests on the side of your ring finger's nail and the flesh between your thumb and index finger. Your middle finger's pad holds it securely while it can slide against your thumb as your hand changes posture in use. The second stick is held between the knuckle of your thumb and the middle section of your index finger. This is the one you move to change angles; it may touch but doesn't really rest on the middle finger's tip." In orange, two arrows indicate the rest points for the first stick while small hashes emanate from the points pressed on the middle and ring fingertips and under the thumb's joint holding the top stick. On the right upper quadrant of the page is the text "Hold them close to parallel to scoop." A hand holds two sticks poked into a bowl of rice between the viewer and the palm; a series of parallel orange lines emphasize the space between the sticks. The remaining quadrant's text reads, "Press with your index finger to pinch firmly." This hand is holding an indistinct rounded shape in its chopsticks, with an orange arrow indicating the rotation of the index finger's tip to press the top stick's point toward the bottom's.

Next is the final spread of the pamphlet. The upper right text reads, "Practice with something medium sized and low mess like (air-popped) popcorn." A single piece of popcorn is held in disembodied chopsticks above a full popcorn bowl, with several kernels fallen to the surface below it. Text below reads, "Pick up your dishes to bring close to your mouth to scoop the harder to grab foods." An implied tilted bowl of food (fried rice or porridge with diced pieces) protrudes off the page, covering only the lower left corner. Close-up chopsticks have their points buried in the food and their lines fade out toward the right. The final black text, underlined by two orange chopstick shapes, reads, "but most of all, do what feels comfortable and eat well!" In orange in the lower right corner, the parenthetical "(and maybe knit a scarf)" is followed by a small orange drawing of a steaming bowl of noodles and sliced egg with a noodle line trailing toward two upward angled sticks with loopy hashes indicating knit fabric hanging from them.

The final image is the full booklet in its web format, with the three previous images from this post stacked vertically. Some orange lines have been added between what were pages in the print booklet, to aid reading flow. /end ID]

one last thing for tonight which was just an abandoned sketch i had. had something else in mind but that's probably gonna take a little bit which is fine. we stay silly :]

.

Sasuke: 25, 28, 30

Naruto: 25, 28, 16

this ask game

sasuke

25: when do you think they acted the most ooc?

uhhh the very end of shippuden when he’s leaving the village and sakura comes running after him to ask if she can come.. and he POKES HER FOREHEAD and says maybe next time….. HE WOULD NOT DO THAT. HE WOULD NOT DO THATTTTTTT the rage that instilled within me…. anything after ch 698/699 isn’t actually real To Me though and everyone is insanely ooc so uhh it’s hard to pick otherwise. the thing with sasuke is he’s constantly pulling unpredictable things in which in the moment it seems a little crazy or weird but it’s always further explored later and then it ends up making sense….. so i feel like for him i have to use an end of shippuden moment T.T but i offer this as a replacement panel

[ ID: a manga panel of sasuke tapping sakuras forehead. he says “i’m gay.” END ID. ]

28: the most unnecessary thing they ever did?

this is so hard. sasuke didn’t do a single thing wrong so i’m really trying to figure out smth that he did that was unnecessary… okay i thinkk maybe what i can say is this.. although i do understand why he would do this, and it was absolutely in character— a product of a pre-teens pent up rage and trauma— i do think him challenging naruto on the hospital rooftop in the classic was unnecessary. i don’t blame him for doing it, nor do i think he was necessarily in the wrong or out of pocket, but in the grand scheme of things it was unnecessary. was it necessary for him? absolutely, he needed to do this for himself, to answer the question thats been nagging him for ages… but all in all i guess i can say that it wasn’t really necessary.. this is still so hard to say tho because I GET IT I GET WHY HE DID IT and i do believe that for *himself* he had to do it otherwise it would have driven him nuts, but in the grand scheme of things he technically didn’t rlly have to. maybe.

30: the funniest scene they had?

well the first thing that comes to mind is when he reanimates the previous hokages and interrogates them to decide whether or not he’ll destroy konoha.. cause he’s intensely asking these questions to the hokages of past and has questions for every single one of them except minato LOL like he really just leaves minato standing there the whole time in silence… listening and learning… OH OH WAIT NO hold on actually i think a scene that made me laugh harder is when he and naruto are fighting kaguya and she shifts them into the location with lava and sasuke summons his eagle and everyone else is falling and naruto yells “sasuke, over there” pointing to sakura and kakashi, and sasuke looks over for a second before immediately looking back and saving naruto LMFAOOO bro did not care ajsjshsjhs hold on i’ll rb it in a min too ik where to find a screen recording ehehhee it makes me cackle

naruto

25: when do you think they acted the most ooc?

i think at the beginning of the war arc while he’s being hidden away training with killer bee… there’s a fair bit from this i think is slightly ooc but the biggest thing to me is while he’s addressing “dark naruto” at the waterfall… i just frankly don’t believe he would be able to push away and ‘get over’ all the hatred and pain and agony inside him that he’s been repressing for years caused by the way the village has treated him just like that.. and then the waterfalls like ‘oh shit yea u did it you are No Longer Angry or Hateful’….. like there’s just no way he can suddenly just accept all that after 16 years.. uhm ok i love that he hugged himself and i think it was very sweet and cute, and i wouldn’t trade that out for anything buttttt there definitely had to be more to it than that to make it something that naruto would actually be able to move on from and work thru while staying in character. that was just a speedrun to move on the plot quicker heh.. it’s just ooc.. naruto has been a hateful little menace his whole life there’s no way he can get over all that pain stored inside him so quick in that moment… ugh.

28: the most unnecessary thing they ever did?

i mean i think it’s stupid and funny but i’m gonna have to go with the obvious practicing reverse harem jutsu more than the rasengan… WHY DID HE DO THAT LMFAO other than to look at naked boys 🤨🤨 sus? also just like… forgiving so many people that should not have been forgiven. jiraiya, sakura, itachi, village as a whole, ect ect…… idk very messed up. i think a lot of the writing around naruto getting rid of his anger was very sloppy and not well written.. so i think the way he just instantly forgives these ppl is unnecessary.

16: a childhood headcanon?

naruto bleaches his hair.. so as a kid he had black hair for me :p (and during long missions when he doesn’t have time to do touch ups his roots start growing in hheheh).. also i think narutos apartment was so messy all the time because he really didn’t like spending time in there all alone.. so he’d do what he needed to (eat, sleep, bathroom, ect) but then would immediately head out.. so he didn’t really care for cleaning since he was rarely there anyways…

the first time i ever saw the word radfem was back when the dancestors were coming out and someone used it to refer to latula/porrim

Ooo, I just calculated up all of my projected posting dates for my fic for the rest of this year and the midpoint is going to get posted on my birthday! :O

Well, now I can’t change my posting schedule. That chapter *has* to stay on my birthday. It’s the time travel reveal!

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Basic Info ✧ Multi-fandom + personal blog ✧ About page ✧ Tags list [faves are in bold; former interests are crossed out]

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My Things ✧ Art ✧ Cosplay ✧ Writing ✧ Original Characters ✧ AO3

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Details ✧ Current hyperfixation: The Silmarillion [Mairon, Melkor, Maedhros, Maglor, Eöl, Maeglin] ✧ Queue always running [usually 2-3 months long] ✧ Occasional gore/nsfw ✧ Everything is tagged; blacklist as needed ✧ Tag for personal thoughts/ramblings/daily life posts is 'withoutwords' ✧ I block/blacklist easily and follow/follow back hardly ever [ND brain health requires keeping following count < ~50 blogs]

just saw your style post and i just wanted to chime in :]

it took me a VERY long time to figure out what i wanted for my art, and hell, i still dont know sometimes! I have a lot of very different styles I use at different times that just feel right for that particular drawing but its still my art! i spent a lot of time looking at other peoples art and translating certain things about their styles into mine, and over time it turned into my own. but i tried a LOT of things. I was a furry artist for 4 years for gods sake ; so things change! try new things and mess around with ideas you have for your style and if they dont stick, thats okay! and if they do, thats awesome! good luck man i love your art and if you need help with anything my dms are always open

Ooh yeah that's a good point!!! yeah I feel the same way about the thing with having a bunch of different styles (I'm not sure how much the art I *post* reflects that though lol), because from a glance they all look very different to me, but then when I look closer there's a lot of, like, common threads between them ? I mean, they ARE made by the same hand with the same brain so I suppose that makes sense.

And the thing about experimenting is a good point, too!!! Because when I'm feeling good about my art I do get much more experimental, but then when I'm feeling all weird and mopey about it all and I'm drawing stuff just so I can feel some semblance of productivity ,,, I kind of use certain things as a crutch, I guess ?

There have been times, mostly a little while back but sometimes I do have moments of it still, where I'm trying out "A New Style" or maybe trying to draw in an old style, and then I like it more than my 'normal style' and I get this feeling of, like, AAAAA what if everything else I've done in between abandoning this old style and this exact moment was a total waste of time ???!?!? Or if it's a new style that I was trying out as a one-off and I like it just as much as my 'normal style' its like what do I do now??!!? Do I 'change my style' or not? And none of that is very logical of course, but it's more of an Abstract Feeling that I'm trying to translate into words than an actual thought process.