♕ @dailytudors​: TUDOR WEEK 2023 ♕

Day Five: Most Used Tudor Related Resource >> My slowly expanding collection of Tudor nonfiction books.

btw

prsk touhou collab is making me want to get into touhou...

Smart Ass by Reese Morrison

goodreads

Ben doesn’t need anybody. Maybe he’s a little lonely sometimes. And isn’t known for making the best decisions. But what’s a little hacking to save his friends? Except this time Ben’s exploits have awoken his AI work interface, Max, as a SPARK—a self-aware robot who maybe doesn’t have the best grasp on ethics and might have a teensy little obsession with Ben. And a Dom voice that makes Ben swoon. (Not that he’d tell anybody.) The only way to keep Max safe is to keep him hidden. Ben can totally handle this. Probably. Max has found his purpose in Ben. For the past two years, Ben has been the center of his world, literally waking him up every time he steps into the office. And now that Max is sentient, it’s obvious that Ben is already his. He just needs to convince the prickly smart ass that he’s worthy of love, while dodging the company programmers (who think he’s a malicious virus), the law (because, uh, no reason), and Ben’s boss (because he’s a wanker). Max can totally handle this. Probably.

Mod opinion: I haven't read this book and again I probably won't, but if you enjoy trans BSDM romance it sounds fun.

I can def be an asshole sometime, but I do think one of the goals of this blog is to less agressively recommend games that aren't D&D to people. Lady Emily's recent post visavis indie ttrpgs does kinda exemplify an issue in how the community will often be assholes and recommend hyper niche games, instead of going "Hey WOTC is a racist monopoly, here's something else you can play that's also good and also malleable". + I've seen people just be huuuuge assholes about reccing games and im like. whats your angle here?

Anyways this is why I recommend TSL

you know what, here's some tumblr tips from a veteran :)

if you use desktop, you can customize your theme as much as you want! this isn't as hard as it sounds, due to the fact that NUMEROUS people make themes for free use. theme-hunter is a good starting point, if you wanna do that

blocking and filtering is a god sent. you can filter tags under settings, specifically filtered tags, or filtered post content. the first filters by tag only, the second by post content (so if someone doesn't tag a certain word, that'll catch it)

there's honestly not really any rules to tumblr? if you wanna reblog a bunch, go for it! if you wanna keep that to a sideblog, and only post art here, go ahead! your blog is pretty much for you. so post whatever you want!

blocking people. good

there's no real follow back thing, which i know was huuuuge on twitter. so if someone starts posting stuff you don't want to see, you can just unfollow them! people do not care

if you want to follow more people, i highly recommend doing some tag scrolling! just search for something you're into (a fandom, art, cooking, etc etc) and check out a bunch of blogs! personally, i love scrolling the tags, though i can be a real hazard- but! that's where tag filtering comes in too

you can turn off anon, or just asks in general, as you want. you can also turn them back on! basically, if people starts being dicks, you can just remove their ability to do so at you entirely

don't censor words! this is both because that makes it harder for people to filter them, and also because a lot of us finds it super silly

however!! tumblr's search function is. pretty broken, so if you complain about a ship, or groups of people, it's probably a good idea to censor it in some form. especially with ships, because the post will then show up in the ship's tag, which. not what anyone wants!

the original poster of a post can see anything you add to their post. this includes tags. so while it's generally a good idea not to be a jerk in the tags, they are also for your benefit, and is generally used as a mix of comment section and organization tool. though even that is up to the individual

honestly, tumblr is super laid back and really customizable. you aren't forced to see anything you don't want, and you're entirely in control of your experience here! the best way to keep in touch with the 'community' as a whole is what's on trending, but even that is easy to avoid, if that's what you want

basically, just post what you want, tag it if you want people to see, and vibe! unlike twitter, this is more of a fan space, so while there's no real way to like, make business connections, it's a lot more chill

hope you enjoy your stay, and that at least one of these tips will be helpful! ( •̀ ω •́ )✧

Sharing this coz I find it really useful, thank you so much anon!

Hey, I wanna get into the green lantern characters but I really don’t know where to start. Do you have any recommendations for specific comics that characterize them well? (I’m also gonna read the comics with your boy dw)

hiii!!!! here's reading guides for hal, guy, john and kyle, a second guide for john, one for alan (and his kids), one for carol, and one for simon and jessica. (and charlie). for hal specifically, i would ignore the rebirth issues on the list, start with emerald dawn parts 1 and 2, and then jump to the hard traveling heroes arc! imo hal's most fun issues are in the 70s to early 80s (before englehart's run). as for carol um. lotsss of misogyny everywhere but she's very fun in the 60s and early 80s and i love chris priest's characterization of her. for kyle, you really can just jump right in from the start of his run!

for characterization, huuuuge fan of anything done by chris priest or j.m. dematteis! Green lantern: willworld is a very fun, self contained book you can read without needing to know much about the lore!

I love your art ∩__∩ Do you have any headcanons on L or maybe matsuda??

THANK YOU SO MUCH <3

Eh, I have nothing for Matsuda 😅 The one thing, which may be considered as headcanon (i'm still not very sure which thing may be called headcanon), is that L may have a vinyl copy of "Cure For Pain" by Morphine (maybe it's because i was a huuuuge fan of Morphine? who knows!!)

(highly recommended!) (maybe one day i will draw L on Morphine concert. No one can stop me)

april reading meme!

BOOKS

We Will Devour The Night by Camilla Andrew. The version I read is available in the author's ko-fi (aninkwellofnectar), and the final version will come during fall of this year. I've talked about this saga before (The Essence of the Equinox), and I still recommend it to those of us who like complex characters (especially female characters), gothic horror, and lush prose. This is a sequel, and I like it even more than the first instalment. It gets deeper into the darkness of the world and it's an amazing read. The third and final part has started been posted on ko-fi as well, for anyone interested.

Why Does He Do That? Inside The Minds of Angry and Controlling Men by Lundy Bancroft. I wish I could make everyone read this book. It wouldn't fix everything, because it runs against a lot of people's deep-seated belief systems, but maybe it would make SOME of them start second-guessing those beliefs... Anyway. A MUST read in terms of abuse and intimate partner violence.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. I read the book for the first time about 15 years ago, and only reread it now. I loved it even more than the first time. The atmosphere, the revenge tale, the love story between Catherine and Heathcliff, all the ways these families' lives affect the others, how you have to parse through Nelly's account of events... I still wish I could hit Lockwood in the head with a stick lol. Just once. Not even too hard! But hit him in the head, I would xD

COMICS

Batman: Huntress/Spoiler - Blunt Trauma. One of those "it could've been so good if it was good" comics. It would've had to NOT been written by Dixon, of course. His ideas about these two characters are palpable here. He's met real women and girls, I know this, but he's completely failed to take anything from these meetings into account to understand them as people. And boy, does it show in his writing.

Green Lantern: Willworld. I've had this comic in my list for aeons and I moved it up when I found out its author would be writing Jason's upcoming ADITF "what if" story starting July. I really liked this one, and how it showcased Hal's character. It's not a guarantee I'll like his Robin Lives run, because comic writers have biases and blind spots and huge gaps in their knowlege regarding certain characters, but "he seems to be a good writer" is already a huuuuge leg up compared to most modern Jason content lol.

JLA: World Without Grown-ups. This was interesting because I've watched the Young Justice (cartoon) version of this premise, which is VERY different, from the villains to their goals to the handling of the crisis (since the cartoon had an established teen team), down to the emotional beats (the Zataras). They're too different to be compared, tbh. This one was quite fun though, and it made me feel very fond of Bart. Also Tim's parasocial relationship with Jason's memorial made an appearance LOL.

Colin Wilke's appearances. I am MOURNING this kid. He has like 9 appearances (and a couple of them are barely a few pages) but each one is gold. Bring him back. Make HIM Damian's best friend. Integrate him in the storyline!! His character and his dynamic with Damian had so so much potential. I am definitely going to include him in my fics.

Batman: Li'l Gotham. (plus the two stories introducing it in Batman Annual #27 and 'Tec Annual #11). A couple of things conspired (including me finding out there's a version of Colin in this lol) and I ended up reading it while I was sick. It's mostly fun fluff (as opposed to just corny fluff) and a quick read without much meat in it, but a few things nudged the inspiration muscle and Dustin Nguyen's art is adorable.

Batman Tales: Once Upon a Crime. I liked this one more than the above! It follows in that universe (a Gotham where everything is smaller and cuter lol), mixing it with some fairy tale vibes. Pinocchio!Damian is A Concept. Although my favourite story was "The Snow Queen", with Mister Freeze. The art goes into a whole other level in all of these, but especially that one.

Batman: The Chalice. Bruce Wayne receives the Holy Grail. I read this one in my list of Talia appearances and hers is the part that interested me: Ra's wants the Grail to make her immortal, like him, and Talia tells him that she has no desire to live forever. Her words are "Having lived my life in your company, the prospect of eernal life is not the attraction for me it might be for another." There are A LOT of things you can read into that sentence, and one of them, to me, is the idea that death to Talia would be an escape from Ra's, which is... interesting. Sidenote: this one was written by Dixon, who once in a while gets his wired crossed and is not wholly terrible with female characters xD

Ghost/Batgirl. I hadn't heard of Ghost before but I'm kinda curious after reading this mini run. I found a lot of the concepts it worked on (resurrection, mind control, etc.) quite interesting, although I ended up feeling the execution didn't delve too deeply into them. It's an story I might want to reread and pick apart at some point, though.

JLA: Tower of Babel. Yeah, THAT arc lol (also part of my Talia-reading). I also read JLA Secret Files and Origins #3 (in May, though), which shows Talia's whole thoughts on it as she steals the plans + some of the consequences the whole thing has for the other bats whose teammates no longer trust them (Dick, Tim, Barbara) + the wording of Bruce's contingency plans (which btw includes acceptance of lethal methods against Clark lol)... he certainly got off easy after this añsdlkfjasdf. Honestly, imo, the most selfish, cowardly thing he did was walking out before the JLA could tell him they'd voted him out. I know he and the comics probably won't frame it like that afterwards, but that's how it felt to me. The very least he could've done is face his teammates.

what inspires your art? I mean art style and ideas. I noticed a lot of your art looks like tarot cards, is there a reason behind it? And do you have any recommendations for someone trying to make more stylized art?

Thank you

A real art related ask??? On my blog???? You're in the wrong place, my dude. We only shitpost gayly here.

/j

Inspo:

Fr tho music is a huuuuge inspiration to me. I have a David playlist I listen to when I'm drawing that just fills my head with 700 ideas per second. I'm thinking of actually doing something where people anonymously send me a number from 1 to 84 (# of songs I have on the playlist currently) and whatever number is chosen, I have to draw something based on the song that correlates with the number.

Biggest inspo has been this song lately:

Probably my fav song to make Jackalope art to.

Aside from that, what inspired my art style was "I like how rusty lake draws noses" mixed in with other cartoony styles that I like. I like shapes, so my style is very shape focused. I assign general traits to the shapes like circle is friendly, square is tough, etc.

So when I design a character or stylize a character, it's mostly about personality. Their shapes reflect who they are. Does that make sense?

I also really like religious imagery and metaphors/symbolism/imagery and would prefer to make my art vague over just outright saying what the drawing is meant to be. Ya know?

Tarot cards:

if I had a cent for every time someone told me that I'd buy myself dinner. I know next to nothing about tarot cards 😭 the reason my art looks the way it does is again, shapes. I like having shape centered backgrounds (ex: sharp triangle mountains. Circles like halos around character heads, etc...)

Here's a recent good example I did for a commission

Symmetrical shapes and lines fit with what I do for my art style. It just looks nice to me. But I'm glad it gives my art that sorta "tarot" aesthetic.

Recommendations:

YES! Highly HIGHLY recommend 3Dtotal publishing "creating stylized characters" books. They helped me so much and they're wonderful, easy to follow, with varied examples

3Dtotal publishing in general have a great selection of art books that I think anyone looking to get better at art should check out. Especially stylized art!

I've been crocheting for a few years but I've been wanting to learn how to see plushies now too and you're a great inspiration to me

Do you have a specific place where you buy your cloth for them? And do you look for a specific kind as well? I believe it's called minky or something similar, right?

That's awesome!! Sewing plushies is so fun, and I hope you enjoy it! I buy my plushie making fabric in a few different places. Nowadays, I usually buy minky from CaliQuiltCo on Etsy. I like CaliQuiltCo because they let you buy minky by the 1/4 yard or a cut they call a "fat half", which is 36" by 30". I usually get the fat half; I find it's a more usable cut of fabric for plushie making and with most of the things I make half a yard lasts me quite a while I get my fleece, faux fur, and faux sherpa fabrics from Joanns Fabric, a chain craft store in the US. I would only recommend buying from Joanns in person, not online. They've had some issues with inventory management online, and sell a lot of their minky in 2 yard minimums, which is a LOT of one color for plushie making (all of this is based off of experiences I had with Joanns website a few years ago. They might be better now, idk). In person, they also have remnants bins where you can get the remnants from a bolt of fabric (usually a yard or less) at a huuuuge discount. That's the main place I get my faux furs because faux furs can be really really expensive. If you're starting out sewing, I'd recommend fleece. It's significantly cheaper than minky, almost as soft, has a similar amount of stretch (so you can use it on the same patterns), and I've heard it's easier for beginners to work with when starting out. Oh, one more thing: I recommend Shannon minky, specifically their cuddle 3 minky. Their longer pile minky fabrics are good too, but they are significantly trickier to sew, to the point where sometimes I just handsew them instead of machine sewing

I have got to the point in my Even if Love character study fic where I get to write about Lae’zel and Manva’s relationship and man I am BUZZING.

If you’ve not romanced Lae’zel I huuuugely recommend doing it with a Dark Urge who is on the knife edge.

Astarion is fantastic with a resist urge, Minthara is soooo good with a darker dark urge, but Lae man. That romance is incredible.

The woman cut and brushed his hair😂😂 the think pieces on wether Tim recommended her or there friendship is wild

She’s a stylist from LA who works in the industry ffs

😂😂

Hey, inquiring minds wanna know! Tom and Timmy are only two of the most popular and well-known younger actors in Hollywood today. 🤷🏾‍♀️ Both with HUUUUGE fan bases.

It's kinda silly the think pieces lol, but I can see why some would be interested in knowing.

Look, I trust what actors say about each other... and Tom and Timmy have said nothing but GOOD things about each other. So, let that be your guide 😅

Fun things that happened yesterday:

I've been trying to 100% Hyrules Warriors for a long while now - which if you know much about that game, you know thats a HUUUUGE task - but I reached a big milestone in it, which is obtaining every Lv4+ weapon in the game!

My mom sent a Christmas care package with a bunch of gifts, and some Christmas cookies that are so delicious, but she ALSO sent one of my favorite childhood board games!! Its called Forbidden Island, I highly recommend it!!

My amazing beautiful talented gf made an AMAAAAZING chicken soup and there's tons of leftovers of it

In the spirit of Christmas, we rewatched Scrooge 2022 and I'm happy to report that I still find that old man very attractive and very lovable uwu 💖💖💖💖

Hiya! I’m not really sure where to look for this info (sources I’ve found conflict with each other), and I’ve bought keychains from your Etsy store before so you may know? Are artists allowed to sell fan merch on Etsy, or is that some kind of copyright issue? How are you doing it? I’m a beginner artist and I eventually want to open my own shop but I’m a bit intimidated lol

soooo, it's a bit of a loaded question, haha. we have a lot of experience with etsy, their copyright system, customer service, etc.

technically, etsy does not allow the sell of any kind of intellectual property that belongs to someone else. before, they used to mostly just ding on listings that had trademark names in the titles, but now, a lot of the copyright strikers are going through and looking at listing photos, at the actual content of what people are selling.

so -- it leaves a lot of artists kind of in a complicated spot.

when it comes to the copyright strikers, i can give you (some) good news from actually communicating with some of them, including 'remove your media', which was one of the biggest copyright strikers for anime merch in particular. (art & merch for books has been totally fine on our end!)

remove your media is no longer working on etsy to strike down most anime merch. that's franchises like berserk, nge, jojo, & more that are basically free to sell their merch now. that being said, we are aware they are still working with viz media -- they've striked down our one piece stuff, for example.

about a year ago, we had a huuuuge mishap with etsy shutting down our main shop. they gave us several copyright strikes and we actually went ahead and contacted the copyright striker (remove your media) to resolve it. the guy was actually super, super nice & said that because they're mostly targetting bootleg / dropshipping shops & because he really loved our cause (ie. the rescue), that he would let us continue to sell our work, even if it was technically copyrighted. companies like his own are basically hired by funimation, viz, crunchyroll, etc. to strike down copyrighted / trademarked material across the internet -- etsy, amazon, & more.

so, he contacted etsy directly and got all our strikes removed, got all our listings put back up. we gave him all our listing numbers and he whitelisted them with his company.

it was a super, super kind thing of him to do but! periodically, a strike would still happen, we would email him, he would get it put back up. even with this system in place, though, etsy went ahead and still shut down our shop. :- ) it was a whooooooooole horrible mess. most of our income at the time was coming from etsy because they have SUCH a good marketplace. one thing i will give etsy that is so integral to growth: they get your art & products out there.

unfortunately, that was as much as the copyright guy could do for us and we just basically kept fighting etsy for about a year, until they finally decided to give us our shop back because it was apparently shut down "accidentally".

this is the mess that is etsy:

i think i'll always recommend them for getting your name & art out there, but it's particularly hard for people making merch from existing franchises right now, so tread very carefully! if you get one strike, take down all your trademarked merch ASAP so you don't get multiple & don't get shut down on a whim by etsy.

etsy is mostly functioning on ai. they don't have many real people working behind their customer service or even the bots that shut down people's stores, so every day, tons of people get their stores shut down completely for no fault of their's, trademarked merch or not.

SO ESSENTIALLY: while etsy is a fantastic base for growth & actually making some income off your art, i absolutely recommend investing in other ways to make it as well. make your own shop front / website via squarespace or shopify or bigcartel to have on the side with all the same products. send business cards in all your packages with your socials & main site. DO NOT COUNT ON ETSY or RELY on them for your main source of income, because they are totally unstable and it could really bite you in the ass (like it did us) at some point.

i really hope that didn't make your thoughts worse LOL i know you mentioned being intimidated but alas, artists really do have it rough OTL we're all just out here trying to get our work seen.

ps. i have receipts & proof of communication but for the sake of not wanting to get anyone in trouble that wanted to do something nice for us, i'm not going to be naming anyone / posting them here!

Hey I saw you mention looking for a farming sim. Might I recommend Coral Island? It's like Stardew Valley on steroids with a huuuuge diverse cast plus scuba diving, the traditional mining and farming and cooking, a massive museum, etc. Ive been having a lot of fun with it!

oh I've been *looking* at it\loosely following the development for a while now. it looks very pretty and character customization and decorations seems to be very cute, I'll give it that.

but idk, I have some doubts. maybe (probably) I'll eventually cave in and give it a try once I have the funds and the game is a bit more bugs-free