part of raff law's interview with the standard

Wanted to draw but didn't wanna mess with anything that had pen pressure in it just yet, so here's some ms paint doodles done while I watched a manchild play lethal company

book 5 of the year done!!!! im literally one book away from halfway to my goal and the first month of the year isn't even over yet fjsksk i am DEFINITELY going to hit it this year!

Are your gijinkas (race wise) based on the actors for the most part or the pokemons design for the most part? I'm curious to know :3

I don't really have a definitive answer for this, but when think abt it, it's a bit all over the place if that makes sense??

Like some of them aren't really a specific race (Like 4est, Pastey, and Lark), some are based on the actors (Like Jayweed and the Mykyie redesign I plan on posting soon) and some are based on the Pokemon's design (Sara and Braidy I think are good examples of this)

Tbh the only one who doesn't fall into either one of these categories is Grunpilo, that weird little freak.

for the writer ask

💭🚦💛 💌

💭 What inspires you and your writing?

this is a real marketing major-ass answer (from your local marketing major), but i love sharing knowledge and telling stories. writing’s one of those things that’s a bit of a compulsion for me—i’m always writing something. i took a five-year break from fiction writing before i stumbled ass-first into fanfic last year, but even in those years when i was focusing on my career, i was writing guides and trainings and a ton of other stuff—just not anything fun, lol.

writing is also so cathartic. sometimes i set out to tell a specific story, but at other times, a particular emotion gets me in a vice grip and i have to put it to words before it’ll go away. my stories tend to wind up as emotional dumping grounds as a result.

i don’t write things pulled directly from my own life, but there are bits and pieces of myself and things that have happened to me scattered throughout stuff i’ve written, and usually when i’m about 75% of the way through a piece, i’ll realize it’s absolutely related to something i’m currently going through. funny how art works that way, even when you don’t intend for it to.

and occasionally i just have a fire lit under my ass about an issue and i get so hot about it that i gotta compile my thoughts. looking at you, silver snow

🚦 What sort of endings do you prefer to write: ambiguous, bad, happily ever after, etc.?

look, i would love nothing more for them girls (pick whichever girls you please) to have a happy ending where they kiss and are stupid in love for the rest of forever. i love reading those kinds of stories. but in my heart of hearts, i love an ambiguous ending. i like when there are still questions after the story ends. i like thinking about where things could go or how the characters will go on after the events of the story. like, shared space could be read as having a happy ending, but i don’t really think it is. and with the victors; the vestiges, well. you’ll see :0)

come to think of it, i’m not sure i’ve ever written a happily-ever-after, but i don’t think i’ve ever written a 100% bad ending, either. i read too many bury-your-gays stories and watched too many sad european queer coming-of-age films in my youth to ever be happy putting that kinda thing out into the world. i want to write about love with all its ugliness, but not despair or hopelessness. i think what most appeals to me about an ambiguous ending is that lingering feeling of hope. it’s not the same as the kind you get from a happily-ever-after, and something about it speaks to me.

💛 What is the most impactful lesson you’ve learned about writing?

honestly? how to take criticism. i took a creative writing class in high school where we had to read our work out loud and then receive feedback on it from the other writers in the class, and that did a lot for me. going into that class, i’d already been writing for forever and had won some little local writing contests and such, so i was a wee bit of a pretentious douche. but i’d never gotten real critique before beyond, essentially, spelling and grammar checks. it humbled me lol. it made me grow so much as a writer, and i could see where i needed to improve or where my head was wedged way too far up my own ass for others to follow. it also helped me recognize strengths i didn’t know i had, and that was huge. it’s easy to get into a self-doubt spiral when making creative work, and good, constructive criticism can do so much to help avoid that.

to this day i love critique. i like knowing what worked or didn’t work so that i can continue to improve as a writer and do better next time. did my themes land? did something really work, but another part fall flat? i’d love to know!! i try to treat everything i write as practice for the next thing, and frankly that’s helped take some of the pressure off so i don’t go into total Perfectionist Mode.

i know critique is kind of a sensitive topic in fan spaces, but i think that’s because a lot of people have gotten unsolicited criticism that is purely critical and isn’t constructive. but getting good, constructive criticism will do so much to help a person grow as a writer. it’s scary, and sometimes it hurts! writing is very personal for most people, and it stings when things aren’t received the way you think they will be. but i know i’ve grown more from having my failures pointed out (and, very importantly, having the good things about those efforts acknowledged) than anything else.

💌 Is there a favorite trope you like to write?

actually Just answered this in another ask!

okay, i might let people in

. (tw heterosexuality)

i often forget that southern dialogue in terms of grammar is very loose and wobbly and then i go into twitch chats and the streamer has a hard time reading what i wrote bcuz the grammar just makes so sense.

it’s so hard trying to write a coherent message super quickly when american southern drawl mushes words together without a second thought.

i’m so extremely sorry 😭

God I love belos as a villain so much. He's so awful and realistic and just hrngjfjfg

vibrates normally like. Can I please draw Pansy. can I PELASE draw pansy

i can't explain it well bc my brain is fried after exams but i feel like there is Something there in the fact that whenever the byIer community talks abt how shipping byIer isn't inappropriate and that them kissing is completely normal and fine, people always, always, ALWAYS have to pipe up with "well yeah kissing is fine but [goes on to preach to the choir abt how nsfw byIer is bad]". like. why is that where your mind jumps. why is it that when one person says "mike and will kissing on screen like every other couple has been allowed to would be good and normal and expected, and writing fics where they kiss isn't inappropriate at all, and we should discuss why people think them kissing is any different and inherently dirty and Bad because therein lies the actual issue" some people gotta pipe up and prove that point exactly. like. do u get wht i mean? no one brings up "pr0shipping" or sex or any of that irrelevant shit whenever someone talks abt j4ncy or lvmax sharing a peck. so why do u bring that up here and now? why do you act like we're talking about anything else here and put words in our mouths? why do you feel Some Type Of Way as an lgbt person urself whenever someone else says that they'd like to see a couple tht looks like them express innocent physical affection the same way that everyone else in the show does? why do you suddenly start talking about cp when literally no one is fucking talking about that at all? like. hello. i can't be the only bitch that sees this i can't be the only person that goes 🤨❓❓❓whenever ppl start to needlessly steer the convo in tht direction like .......

english is actually a really fucking weird sounding language i'm convinced the only reason we don't talk about how weird it is bc it's fucking everywhere so we've all just collectively gaslit ourselves into thinking it's normal

OH about the finale at the shrine, this completely slipped my notice when we were talking about it, but Ichi says he's "reporting" Jo's verdict to both Arakawa and Masato. It's just not translated that way.

Not too big of a difference (well, it is to me, but I'm insane), but if it was highlighting anything, I'd guess it's probably Masato's change of heart. It would've been fair for Ichi to assume Masato wouldn't care and only "report" to Arakawa, but in the context of Ichi doing his damnedest to show Masato they all love him, it works in terms of, "Maybe I made him reconsider, and maybe now he would care."

Also... I'm looking at it in a "measured" way, since the chapter trophies are always just standard "Nth Chapter Cleared" messages that the localization team just spices up for us, but there's something I find really poignant about the Chapter 13 trophy being worded as "Fate of Our Fathers." The pluralization of both the noun and pronoun. Realizations that come too late.

Of course, Masato definitely didn't "know" and had no real reason to suspect it, but the Arakawas have this bizarre subconscious almost-psychic link. So even if he doesn't really think so, there's this sense that Ichi "might as well" be Arakawa's "real" son because they're so much more alike. And maaaybe he felt that way about Jo and himself at one point, because (as we've discussed) there has to be a reason Jo was Masato's "favorite."

[Follow up to this ask]

someone got banned from all of the libraries in my district for pantomiming shooting people with his hand

...

felt like aella’s original colour coordination was a bit bland so i decided to see what other combinations look like, i think i still like the classic the best lol