Confession: You made me love crossover ships. I embarrassingly used to really... get confused by them since they had zero basis in canon. However, all the ships/friendships in the Eriverse somehow... just click? (Even if they didn't click people can just use their minds to make it click.)

Anyways... thank you. (RoseBots, SongByte, GhostAshRiotFlower and Kento my beloved)

[I forgot about Ilia/Hanami! And Ada and Brute! (Also would Eloni/Eri be on this list?) I LOVE CROSSOVER SHIPS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!]

Meant to answer this earlier whoops! lol

But hey! I'm glad I could get you to like crossover ships! (and technically OCxCanon ships for that second ask ;3c)

Also, don't worry about being confused by crossover ships (or any harmless ship that doesn't seem to make sense). Like you said, some people can just make characters click in their minds!

And I guess that's what I kinda do! Because I am always giving my explanations and reasoning behind WHY a character would do something (or someone lol), that it makes more sense to people for a crossover ship to "work" than it would if I just tossed out a bunch of art of a random crossover ship.

I also try to keep in mind characters main defining traits and try to match them with someone compatible (either they are mirrors, opposites, similar, whatever that character is looking for), but I can absolutely admit I am most likely making characters OOC.

Though, I guess it's justifiable OOC-ness because a lot of the time the major events of that character's story is not happening, or happens in a different way (either more impactful or less) which will absolutely have an impact on a characters... well character.

Basically I'm a person who likes logistics and TRYING to stay true to a character's core personality traits. So when I think two characters would be friends, I kinda jump on that, and then I slowly work them up to being in a relationship if I want to take it into that direction (since I can just put them into situations that makes them closer over time, like how Yinu and Peni trauma bond about losing their dads, leading them into friendship and then a relationship).

I don't know what I'm saying anymore lol, I literally rewrote this post 4 or 5 times now, but I'm glad either way that I was able to get you to like crossover ships and relationship! :D

They are fun and add new dynamics! Sometimes you gotta fudge the world logistics from one universe to another (whether you are putting characters into a new universe, merging them, or placing on set into another universe) to make things make overall sense, but that's where the fun comes in! The logistics! The reasoning! Make shit up if you want but also have fun and try to make it make sense (even if it only makes sense to yourself!)

[also, I will say, those OCxCanon ships, Eriloni, Brada, and Ilihami or whatever, are a lot less "logistic" and more ME finding as character cute and wanting to pretend to be with them through a character that was a lot more my own than a canon one.

Usually I prefer pretending to be a character with another character, like Purl x Cyril and West. Very rarely I personally want to be with a character. But when that does happen, most of the logistics go out the window and I am the person making shit up and ignoring reason just to make out with a character with a persona or OC lol]

I cannot stop drawing Alastor help me

the thing about art is that it was always supposed to be about us, about the human-ness of us, the impossible and beautiful reality that we (for centuries) have stood still, transfixed by music. that we can close our eyes and cry about the same book passage; the events of which aren't real and never happened. theatre in shakespeare's time was as real as it is now; we all laugh at the same cue (pursued by bear), separated hundreds of years apart.

three years ago my housemates were jamming outdoors, just messing around with their instruments, mostly just making noise. our neighbors - shy, cautious, a little sheepish - sat down and started playing. i don't really know how it happened; i was somehow in charge of dancing, barefoot and laughing - but i looked up, and our yard was full of people. kids stacked on the shoulders of parents. old couples holding hands. someone had brought sidewalk chalk; our front walk became a riot of color. someone ran in with a flute and played the most astounding solo i've ever heard in my life, upright and wiggling, skipping as she did so. she only paused because the violin player was kicking his heels up and she was laughing too hard to continue.

two weeks ago my friend and i met in the basement of her apartment complex so she could work out a piece of choreography. we have a language barrier - i'm not as good at ASL as i'd like to be (i'm still learning!) so we communicate mostly through the notes app and this strange secret language of dancers - we have the same movement vocabulary. the two of us cracking jokes at each other, giggling. there were kids in the basement too, who had been playing soccer until we took up the far corner of the room. one by one they made their slow way over like feral cats - they laid down, belly-flat against the floor, just watching. my friend and i were not in tutus - we were in slouchy shirts and leggings and socks. nothing fancy. but when i asked the kids would you like to dance too? they were immediately on their feet and spinning. i love when people dance with abandon, the wild and leggy fervor of childhood. i think it is gorgeous.

their adults showed up eventually, and a few of them said hey, let's not bother the nice ladies. but they weren't bothering us, they were just having fun - so. a few of the adults started dancing awkwardly along, and then most of the adults. someone brought down a better sound system. someone opened a watermelon and started handing out slices. it was 8 PM on a tuesday and nothing about that day was particularly special; we might as well party.

one time i hosted a free "paint along party" and about 20 adults worked quietly while i taught them how to paint nessie. one time i taught community dance classes and so many people showed up we had to move the whole thing outside. we used chairs and coatracks to balance. one time i showed up to a random band playing in a random location, and the whole thing got packed so quickly we had to open every door and window in the place.

i don't think i can tell you how much people want to be making art and engaging with art. they want to, desperately. so many people would be stunning artists, but they are lied to and told from a very young age that art only matters if it is planned, purposeful, beautiful. that if you have an idea, you need to be able to express it perfectly. this is not true. you don't get only 1 chance to communicate. you can spend a lifetime trying to display exactly 1 thing you can never quite language. you can just express the "!!??!!!"-ing-ness of being alive; that is something none of us really have a full grasp on creating. and even when we can't make what we want - god, it feels fucking good to try. and even just enjoying other artists - art inherently rewards the act of participating.

i wasn't raised wealthy. whenever i make a post about art, someone inevitably says something along the lines of well some of us aren't that lucky. i am not lucky; i am dedicated. i have a chronic condition, my hands are constantly in pain. i am not neurotypical, nor was i raised safe. i worked 5-7 jobs while some of these memories happened. i chose art because it mattered to me more than anything on this fucking planet - i would work 80 hours a week just so i could afford to write in 3 of them.

and i am still telling you - if you are called to make art, you are called to the part of you that is human. you do not have to be good at it. you do not have to have enormous amounts of privilege. you can just... give yourself permission. you can just say i'm going to make something now and then - go out and make it. raquel it won't be good though that is okay, i don't make good things every time either. besides. who decides what good even is?

you weren't called to make something because you wanted it to be good, you were called to make something because it is a basic instinct. you were taught to judge its worth and over-value perfection. you are doing something impossible. a god's ability: from nothing springs creation.

a few months ago i found a piece of sidewalk chalk and started drawing. within an hour i had somehow collected a small classroom of young children. their adults often brought their own chalk. i looked up and about fifteen families had joined me from around the block. we drew scrangly unicorns and messed up flowers and one girl asked me to draw charizard. i am not good at drawing. i basically drew an orb with wings. you would have thought i drew her the mona lisa. she dragged her mother over and pointed and said look! look what she drew for me and, in the moment, i admit i flinched (sorry, i don't -). but the mother just grinned at me. he's beautiful. and then she sat down and started drawing.

someone took a picture of it. it was in the local newspaper. the summary underneath said joyful and spontaneous artwork from local artists springs up in public gallery. in the picture, a little girl covered in chalk dust has her head thrown back, delighted. laughing.

i dont know how else to put this but to approach books (or any media, really) solely for the sake of relatability is genuinely incredibly heartbreaking......to have such little (or such unwilling) imaginative scope that you cannot stretch yourself, even marginally, in a different direction to what you’ve known or are used to knowing when the very POINT of stories is to transport you somewhere else, into someone else, so you can do just that........when fran lebowiz said a book “is supposed to be a door!” and george saunders said good prose “is like empathy training wheels” they were right!!! they were so so so SO absolutely entirely right!!!!!

Lan Wangji Goes To Lotus Pier AU: Part 3: Enveloping Feelings.

(Part 1, Part 2, Part 4 (soon))

While we're on the topic of De-aging AU's I wanna talk about Jason and Damian if Jason was 14 again real quick.

Do you guys think that Damian looks at this version of Jason, so different from the version he knows, nothing like the person he was told Jason was, and feels uncomfortably seen?

Damian was always told that Jason died because he was reckless, because he disobeyed orders, he was fired as Robin and he got himself killed. A cautionary tale, not a threat to his position. He dismisses Jason because Bruce does, because Dick does, because sometimes even Babs and Alfred do.

That's not the kid that he's looking at now. This Jason is happy, and smart, and full of love that has not yet soured into grief. He hangs on Bruce's every word, trains until his hands bleed and his body gives out to perfect the moves Bruce teaches him. He looks at Bruce with stars in his eyes and he calls him dad.

And Damian can't help but think, that this is the perfect Robin. The perfect son. And if Jason - sweet, loving, strong, Jason - can be fired, can die and have his room locked away and his pictures torn down, can have his last memory as Robin be as A Good Soldier, how could the rest of them ever compete? What could Damian do to stand a chance?

Jason will never grow out of the shadow of Robin, like the rest of them did. As long as Bruce, and Dick, and Babs, and Alfred look at him and see a dead kid who came back wrong, he will never get to be anything else. He will not get to be looked at through who he is now without the shadow of a dead boy looming over him.

And the worst part? Jason is exactly the same person he was back then. Bitter, sure, angry, justifiably, but he is still the boy with too much love in his heart and righteous fury festering in his gut. He is exactly the same boy who threw himself in front of an explosion to save his mother.

(The lines between the mother that betrayed him and the father that disgraced him are so very blurred. Fire or blade or crowbars or fists it does not matter. It ends the same way it always does because Jason Todd always dies, in every universe, in every timeline, Jason dies and crawls out only to be killed again and again and again.)

missing someone bad for you

trista mateer / trista mateer / sue zhao / u.k / u.k / clementine von radics / trista mateer

I think a lot about Leo standing up for his brothers in the things that really matter to them.

Like- Leo is the one who immediately pushes Mikey and Donnie into finding Raph the second it’s clear that their oldest brother is missing because he knows Raph can’t handle being separated like that.

Leo is the one who stands up for Mikey when Mikey wants to go on a solo mission, actively vouching for him and being the one to convince Raph into letting Mikey go, because being independent and proving himself just as capable of standing on his own two feet as everyone else means so much to Mikey.

And Leo defends Donnie’s honor in particular when his brothers’ intelligence is insulted because Leo is well aware of how important Donnie’s smarts are to him - and how important having those smarts valued and acknowledged is as well.

All this goes right into just how well Leo knows his brothers. For as much as he’ll tease or fight with them, he knows them, and he loves them.

whoever popularized the “amity wants hunter dead” fanon is literally my worst enemy. like look at this. they’re buddies. imagine being wrong about Everything

and the fact that amity is second to the airship before they realize that hunter wasn’t actually taken.. she does not hate that boy!! they are friends!!!

Guys. The cows were about how if people don't like you or don't want to listen to you, they'll decontextualise your actions and use them to discredit you in any situation. How doing one (1) memorable bad thing can be held against you forever. The cows are about looking a council of world leaders in the eyes, telling them we're all being robbed of our futures by megacorporations, showing them the receipts and numbers and photographic evidence, and being told none of your arguments matter actually because you're The Cow Guy.

The cows are about how people don't forgive, not really.

summer is coming so i'm giving them the beach day they deserve

She’s just a girl~

second chance

the thing is there's like, a point of oversaturation for everything, and it's why so many things get dropped after a few minutes. and we act like millennials or gen z kids "have short attention spans" but... that's not quite it. it's more like - we did like it. you just ruined it.

capitalism sees product A having moderate success, and then everything has to come out with their "own version" of product A (which is often exactly the same). and they dump extreme amounts of money and environmental waste into each horrible simulacrum they trot out each season.

now it's not just tiktokkers making videos; it's that instagram and even fucking tumblr both think you want live feeds and video-first programming. and it helps them, because videos are easier to sneak native ads into. the books coming out all have to have 78 buzzwords in them for SEO, or otherwise they don't get published. they are making a live-action remake of moana. i haven't googled it, but there's probably another marvel or starwars something coming out, no matter when you're reading this post.

and we are like "hi, this clone of project A completely misses the point of the original. it is soulless and colorless and miserable." and the company nods and says "yes totally. here is a different clone, but special." and we look at clone 2 and we say "nope, this one is still flat and bad, y'all" and they're like "no, totally, we hear you," and then they make another clone but this time it's, like, a joyless prequel. and by the time they've successfully rolled out "clone 89", the market is incredibly oversaturated, and the consumer is blamed because the company isn't turning a profit.

and like - take even something digital like the tumblr "live streaming" function i just mentioned. that has to take up server space and some amount of carbon footprint; just so this brokenass blue hellsite can roll out a feature that literally none of its userbase actually wants. the thing that's the kicker here: even something that doesn't have a physical production plant still impacts the environment.

and it all just feels like it's rolling out of control because like, you watch companies pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into a remake of a remake of something nobody wants anymore and you're like, not able to afford eggs anymore. and you tell the company that really what you want is a good story about survival and they say "okay so you mean a YA white protagonist has some kind of 'spicy' love triangle" and you're like - hey man i think you're misunderstanding the point of storytelling but they've already printed 76 versions of "city of blood and magic" and "queen of diamond rule" and spent literally millions of dollars on the movie "Candy Crush Killer: Coming to Eat You".

it's like being stuck in a room with a clown that keeps telling the same joke over and over but it's worse every time. and that would be fine but he keeps fucking charging you 6.99. and you keep being like "no, i know it made me laugh the first time, but that's because it was different and new" and the clown is just aggressively sitting there saying "well! plenty of people like my jokes! the reason you're bored of this is because maybe there's something wrong with you!"

Act 2 Thanks for reading

Hello I love your art!!! I was reading through your changeling au and Felix mentions that fae are creatures of mirth. They literally need attention to survive. But what kind of attention? I guess I'm wondering because Adrien has been in the public eye for a while now, but has been personally neglected for even longer. What does that mean for him? Is he starving? Is he in danger of dying? Does he even know it? (I assume not given he doesn't even know he's Fae).

If he is starving / in danger of starving who is the first to realize this?

it depends on the mirth, on the attention, on what it is they seek. Without making things too complicated - I don't like to define everything into neat little boxes after all, there's fun in nuance - Felix is just explaining from his experience, the Fae he was with tended to be "entertained" by certain aspects of their playing, which was the mirth that kept them relevant. Relevancy more than anything is really what keeps their wheels greased.

In Adrien's case though, the reason he's cloying for so many names and to have so many thralls and attendants is because he SHOULD be a more social creature and has been kept woefully alone. He is kinda starving in the way a fae starves - he's relevant, but only in an image his father constructs OF him, which means it isn't REALLY him - and he has no one to play with. No friends, no lovers, and no rivals, makes a very sad fae