the dreams are how we haunt ourselves

There is truly no greater love than taking your most adored fictional character and throwing them into the emotionally-devastating angst fueled trash compactor and pressing every single button on the machine just to see what will happen

I think it's so adorable that early humans took wild gourds - a tiny fruit that hollows out as it dries, making it float - and decided to make something out of it

they thought the tiny fruit was so good that they bred it for thousands of years, making it larger to form into bowls and cups, and different shapes to become bottles and spoons

and musical instruments

And then, people took the hollow gourds they farmed, and they turned them into houses for birds. We adapted them into the perfect houses for birds, and now there are specific breeds of birdhouse gourd just for making into birdhouses

And humans dedicated gardening space and time and thousands of years of breeding to make the gourds so absolutely perfect for birds, that there is a species of bird that lives almost exclusively in them

Modern au Laios&Kabru going somewhere (don’t ask where. Maybe they have both signed up for a cooking competition out of town)

Don’t judge him. He’s been dropping hints for months.

I was wanting to try doing an art piece in the style of the signature spell poster art pieces you create. But I’m not really the best at coming up with a composition for such a thing.

Do you have a process for how you come up with the compositions for them?

oh, awesome! it is an INCREDIBLY enjoyable style to work in; I hope you have fun with it! :D

I'm not great at putting my thought/art process into words, so my apologies if this doesn't make a lot of sense, but I'll try! my first step is always to do a LOT of thumbnails to figure out both the idea and how I want to show it; not trying to do a real sketch or anything, just little doodles to figure out what exactly I'm trying to portray. (I also call these "garbage passes" because they're not meant to be any good, they're just there to throw things out. aha. ha. ...anyway.) I think it's important during that first stage to really focus on the idea and the layout and not to get too bogged down in the actual drawing yet!

I tend to save my final thumbnails, so I'll use 'em as examples (I posted the ones up through episode 5 here if you're interested!) (and, uhhh, spoilers through episode 5 also in this post, hopefully that won't be an issue!)

the main thing I try to think about in composition is balance -- not necessarily in terms of symmetry, but in where each element is placed and how much space it's taking up. remember, empty space is still space! it's also really important to think about the parts that don't have anything in them, as much as the parts that do!

personally, I like to divide things up roughly by both halves and by thirds -- there's a lot more in-depth info out there on why the "rule of thirds" in particular works well visually, but in short, our brains tend to focus on things that are placed closer to imaginary division lines, instead of in the exact center of an image. so even when I'm doing something that is very centered and symmetrical, I try to keep that in mind and generally aim around those for landmarks like faces/eyes (or...where they would be, anyway) and other focal points.

it's not a formula of "the character's face should be in this division of this grid" or anything, more like "our minds like to focus on these areas, let's think about how to use that", if that makes sense! and of course rules are made to be broken, art is lawless anarchy, and so on. but it can be a good starting place for deciding where you want to put things!

(blue - thirds, red - half)

and against the finished versions, because they do usually end up changing a lot (including the empty space of the border):

(...these actually lined up a lot better than I thought they would. :') it makes me look like I do things way more intentionally than I do.)

other stuff I just try to keep in mind is that our eyes like following arcs and paths, which can be a good way to guide the eye:

and frame and control the focus:

honestly, composition is one of those things I feel like I struggle with a lot, so I'm not sure how much of this is helpful or actually makes sense outside of my head. but hopefully it helps a little! it's all just stuff to think about while drawing and not anything hard-and-fast, so don't, like, stress out about making sure things are lining up exactly on the thirds or anything. again, it's more "our brains think these are the dopest parts of the rectangle" than anything else! take advantage of the cool parts of the rectangle!

NOW GO HAVE FUN DRAWING seriously though, it is always super cool that other people like this idea and style enough to want to do it themselves and for other/their own characters! thank you! ❤️❤️❤️

they should give me a goddamn oscar for keeping a straight face while they talked about hypnosis in psych class

the appeal of yeojeong as a normal guy who’s just a little bit off. not enough that you would notice when talking to him, of course, but it’s just there, under the surface. a disturbance. and i think it’s interesting because typically you have two types of guys somewhat adjacent to this: guy who seems totally normal but is secretly sadistic/a psychopath, and then guy haunted by a traumatic/troubled past, who has that secret layer of torment running beneath the surface of their image. but yeojeong breaks through these archetypes, and i think part of it is because he’s just so...calm. it’s not that he’s living a double life (kind doctor by day, killer by night) or hiding part of his past (everyone he worked with knew about what happened to his father, and watched his downward spiral during his college days). he’s not the typical male character who is, at every attempt, trying to outrun his tragic past (even though he does run once or twice); he’s not haunted by flashbacks, or suffer from PTSD in the way that is usually portrayed in dramas. and i think part of that is because the glory is a story about victims. it’s dongeun’s story, first and foremost, even though it is also yeojeong’s story, and hyeonnam’s story, and sohee’s story. but it’s a story about dongeun’s pain, and when it’s not about her pain, it’s just about the pain of victimhood - unlike other dramas, this isn’t a show where male pain outweighs the rest.

so yeojeong is just a normal guy. he’s handsome. he has a good career. he’s a plastic surgeon, an interesting choice when both his parents were/are hospital directors, and his father seemed to have worked in the er or something of the sort prior to his death (or at the very least wasn’t a plastic surgeon). something could be said here of yeojeong choosing the ‘safe’ path as a doctor, a path where he cures pain and makes people happy without the added risk of being attacked by one of his patients. there’s no proof of that in the show - why he chose to be a plastic surgeon - but it’s an interesting thought path to travel. 

dongeun says he must have lived a good life. that he’s never had to worry about the path that he’s on. and that’s true, to a certain extent. to everyone, including her in the beginning, yeojeong is perfectly friendly. he’s perfect, but not the perfect that people perceive as too perfect (i.e. the guy who’s hiding things); he has his moments where he spazzes out, gets into fights, goes crazy over dongeun texting him back, teases his mom. he’s perfectly well adjusted (a perfect contrast to dongeun’s ‘maladjustment’). he wears flip flops to work and gets the same coffee order daily. he plays go with old men in the park.

he likes to listen to the fizzing of vitamin tablets in water because it calms him down. is this a strange thing? only because he thinks it’s important enough to mention to his therapist. he does it at work too - drops the tablet in, closes his eyes, rests his head. he does it at home - drops the tablet in, opens the drawer, draws a knife. it’s about the noise. bubbles rising to the surface, like bubbles rising from underwater. he stays underwater until the last possible moment, when he has to break the surface in order to breath. dongeun makes him feel like he’s at the eye of a storm - a deceptively calm center, while everything else rages outside. and i think it’s kind of important that he makes that comparison, when he’s someone always seeking that calm. the soothing noise, that makes him feel lonely.

so he’s just a normal guy. a normal guy who receives letters on a regular basis from the prisoner who brutally murdered his father. he doesn’t like letters, he tells dongeun. who knows what he does with the letters - does he keep them? does he throw them away as soon as he sees them? he must have read some of them; maybe you only need to read one to know what is in the rest. maybe he’s still reading them; maybe he keeps them without reading, an invisible torment. it’s not what he does with the letters that matters, but that he receives letters at all. 

can you still call it a haunting if you’ve almost made your peace with it? if you’re living with it? 

he’s just a normal guy, who looks his therapist right in the eyes and tells her that she couldn’t fix him. he diligently attends therapy for years on a regular basis, even though it doesn’t work. he finally abandons it when he moves to semyeong, because he chooses to embrace dongeun’s revenge. he chooses his own revenge, too, in a way. the dark part of him that he can’t escape. the one that makes him pick up the knife, who asks dongeun who to kill before she even tells him she wants any of them dead, even when he’s a doctor from a family of doctors, and doctors don’t kill - they save lives instead. 

you couldn’t fix me, he tells his therapist calmly. so calmly. as if there’s not a bloodied man sitting next to him, a man he dreams of killing. the man is just life to him, just like the letters are life to him to. a dulled numbness. an acceptance of it. 

is your son going through hell? can you even tell it’s hell, if it’s what you’ve become used to? is it hell when you’re a doctor dreaming of murder? is it hell to no longer be tormented by dead men and living murderers who send you letters? is it?

emo Nico x scene Will Solace...

Sad boy time every Monday!

Based on this picture of him from the shounen jump 55th anniversary spread poster thingy mingy.

young vets au - pov you’re on ken’s phone

(if you want more curt/ken pls go read this amazing young vets au fic @swifty-fox wrote for them (and know it gets nsfw towards the end))

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liked by evblakely, cbiddick, alexjeff_art and 41 others

kennylemmontree much to think about

buckyegan_ I hope Curt’s paying you for the videography.

bennydemarco Oh I’m sure he is 🍆🤪

comment deleted

crozbee Aw aren’t we a good looking group!

liked by jherman, dew_ey, rosenthal_ and 30 others

kennylemmontree not a bad day meeting croz’s 32nd baby

cbiddick ☺️📸

jeancrosby Was so good to see you guys!!! Come see us next! 🇬🇧

galecleven17 I thought it was baby number 40. My bad @crozbee.

who’s going to ride my bike when i’m back in school?

They're going to make flower crowns later!

more adhd jason grace or die by my sword

Prince Jenson of Somerset

+ process & lore

Yayyyyy omg finally have drawn portraits of the four main characters!!!! I'll show the process of Jenson's first and then them all four together. Though it's a shame the Seb/Fernando ones are older, I think it's hopefully obvious how much I've improved since November?

Look at him in all his handsome, princely glory 🥹 It's funny, I'm always happy with the second sketch and initial lineart, and then I start coloring it and I absolutely hate it, and it takes a significant amount of time into the painting for me to like it again. And then I reach a certain point and I'm in love with it again. Ugh though I gotta say, I love drawing the curls, it's just so 18th century, but at the same point, man I always will love my original lineart for the hair the best ah. Also yes I absolutely had to give him a big ass hat with feathers, he really is that kinda guy to me. I originally drew a bicorne and then realized that those don't really exist until basically almost a century later oops, so tricorne it is!!

Okay now omg look at them all together 🥹

Haha wow I have improved a lot! Just like the Seb/Fernando ones, Mark and Jense's were meant to be put together. I think there's a lot of inherent characterization in their poses that highlight the difference between them. Mark is looking up, very wistful, looking up to greater people, greater things. Jenson's head is tilted down, almost looking at the viewer, he is very satisfied with his role and revels in it, he's here to slay!

Okay, yes, lore, characterization, sorry that it is so far down on the post!!

Jense would probably be the fan favorite if this AU was an actual book or show or something. He's the guy you randomly find while browsing Wikipedia and you're like, woah this guy is so cool??? Unlike Sebmarknando, he doesn't really have the same level of angst, he's kinda just chilling. He's a bit harder to write a lore post about, because he's basically that character who is always magically around the corner, ready to witness some crazy thing and just breeze past it.

He is less linked to Seb than people like Mark and Fernando, because he's basically just his personal minister of transportation(read: horse fucker), so he avoids a lot of the relationship complications and drama, but that isn't to say he's completely uninvolved. He really likes Seb, and loves to hang around with him and serve him, but he's not as beholden to him. He's who everyone goes to air their grievances or to get away from the others, and he's very happy with this role. He's generally willing to play any side in an argument, but does tend to have a pretty big soft spot for Seb overall(Seb also gives him cuteness aggression, and he wants to bite him. Especially when Seb puffs himself up and acts super bratty when he gets offended at not being seen as a proper ruler.)

He's royalty from other kingdom, but pledged his loyalty to Seb's kingdom when he was quite young and has served him(his father first) ever since. He started off somewhat low in the military, rose to a pretty high rank, was a renowed war hero, and then ended up retiring pretty early to tend to Seb's horses. That's an oversimplification, but yeah. He liked the military life, was very good at it, but decided he had done enough, and wanted to be involved in more direct service, albeit more laid back. As I mentioned in Mark's post, Mark *really* doesn't understand his choice to do this, because if Mark had been in Jense's position, he can't ever imagine being able to let all that go and living the quiet life.

He is the palace whore, everyone has been with him honestly. It'll be like, some man walks into his bedroom, only to see Jenson in bed with his wife, but instead of being angry, he's like "wow you couldn't even wait for me??" He's just very carefree, and happy to just slut around and tend to Seb's horses.

I think he definitely still advises Seb, and would go to battle if truly need be, but generally seems to be living in a different world than the weird psychosexual homoerotic political drama that the others seem to be living in. But as I said, it's not like he doesn't contribute to it! He loves to goad Fernando, and constantly plays devil's advocate in "debates" between Fernando and Seb. He's also obviously the one that keep "accidentally" locking them in rooms and forgetting where the key is.

Sorry if this isn't very explanatory, I hope it gives a general idea to the type of character he is???? As always, let me know if you have any questions! I kinda struggled on what to write here because I'm finishing this at almost 8 am 😭 so I'm not sure if it's great or not. But basically you need to know: horse fucker who is generally breezy and carefree but also can be a bit of a menace to society every once in a while.

And never let you go ♥

Bonus without the overspill lighting:

Imagine Egg A1 still has one life left, and it somehow manages to escape the facility... It is being followed by mobs, by Federation employees, being hurt by the poison ivy and other environmental threats, but it keeps running, because what other choice is there? That parkour course was a trick after all, the last block was a fake, it was never meant to pass that test in the first place.

So it keeps running, but the Federation workers are getting closer. It won't be able to avoid them forever...

But then it bursts through some bushes and comes face to face with someone new - and it's Bad, out building or exploring or just wandering alone. A1 is immediately afraid, of course. It is a stranger, a very visually striking stranger, the complete opposite of the pure white and featureless employees of the Federation. But there are people close behind, and it knows what will happen to it if it is caught, so... It has no choice but to try. It has no way to communicate, no signs or books, so it simply rushes to hide behind him and hopes he understands, and that he is willing to help...

And Bad, for his part, well.. he's an extremely cautious and paranoid person, and this is just an incredibly confusing and unexpected situation to be in. An unknown egg appeared out of nowhere and is hiding behind him, he can see Federation employees in the distance that are clearly looking for something... He knows that the code has been disguising itself as eggs, and that the strange egg in front of him with no marks, no distinguishing features, an egg that he has never seen before, could easily be the code monster preparing to attack at any moment...

But there is absolutely no way Bad could ever look at an egg in distress and not try to help it, even knowing it could be a trap.

So he quickly digs a shallow hole and pushes the mysterious egg into it, covering it up just in time, and when the employees throw him a book asking if he had seen anything, he lies effortlessly, he complains about nonsense, he asks them where the Ekea is and is as annoying as he can be, until they leave.

And now they're alone... just Bad an this mystery egg in the middle of the woods, A1 too afraid to leave the hole even when Bad tries to coax it out. He gives it food and tries his best to comfort it, to tell it everything is okay and that the pursuers are gone. He gives it some signs and a book, trying to see if it will write anything to him or answer any of his questions, but he gets no reply. A1 is just too afraid to even attempt to answer, and Bad doesn't even know if it understands him. He tries what few words he does know of the other languages, and still no response.

What should he do? As much as the image of a tiny, terrified egg makes him want to do all he can for it he also needs to be safe. He can't bring it home, because if it is a code there is no way he is bringing it anywhere near Dapper. Should he call someone else for help, or would that draw too much attention? Would it even be safe for him or the egg to let anyone know right now? And was this egg dangerous, or harmless and in need of protection? He wouldn't abandon it regardless but...

What now?