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luxaofhesperides · 4 months

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Can I please have meet cute/weird with mistaken villain! Danny (but really just a engineer and or chem student) and the one being put on investigation cause Danny is a day villain(not really)! Duke

Technically, Danny Fenton is innocent. Technically.

Duke wants to give him the benefit of the doubt, especially since he’s having so much trouble finding solid evidence that Danny is stealing from a wide variety of people, but he’s been burned before by trying to see people as better than they were. It doesn’t change the fact that Oracle’s cameras keep spotting Danny right before a building on the street is broken into and something stolen. He’s always just walking down the sidewalk; no one has spotted him entering or exiting a building, but he’s around far too often to be unconnected to these burglaries.

It doesn’t help that strange, petty crimes have been on the rise since Danny first arrived in Gotham.

So.

Danny Fenton is technically innocent.

Duke is trying to prove that he’s not.

Maybe I’m looking too closely, he thinks, going over Danny’s sparse file in the Hatch. Maybe Danny’s only one person in a bigger operation.

He could just be the lookout, the runner, the information gatherer who marks which buildings to hit. He may even be the scapegoat, the sacrificial lamb; Danny has no support in Gotham, no family, no job. There would be no one to help him if he got arrested or injured in a fight. He’s a freshman college student from Illinois who should be unprepared for life in Gotham but is somehow managing to survive like a native.

There’s a lot about Danny that doesn’t add up.

Duke has seen plenty of different people since he first went out as the Signal. He’s tried to be kind and give people the benefit of the doubt, but it leads to his loved ones being put in danger. Some people are truly evil, some working on a malicious agenda, some are misguided in their beliefs, and some are desperate people who see no other way to move forward.

He’s not sure yet which on Danny is, but he’s hoping Danny is just desperate and needs a little help to get out of a life of crime.

Which leads to the next problem: Duke has no idea what Danny is steal, or why. He hits both rich and poor folks, civilians and members of the mob, and once, notably, stole something right out of Cobblepot’s office. Allegedly, at least, since no one saw him enter or exit the office, not even the security cameras.

But added to the whispers going around about a new group in Gotham snatching people up from the streets, and some strange green substances found in warehouses often raided by police for the frequent drug labs that pop up in them…

It doesn’t look good for Danny. Especially when a few of the items he stole were found where people either vanished or where that green substance has been found.

A week of analysis in the Batcave and they still don’t know what it is.

Both Damian and Jason suspected Lazarus water, but the composition was completely different. By the look of the molecular structure, it shouldn’t have been in a liquid form at all.

All these findings lead back to one person who may have answers: Danny Fenton.

According to Tim, who’s already broken into Danny’s dorm room and checked over all the labs he has classes in, Danny has some concerning items in his possession. Various inventions and little metal knick-knacks put together by a practiced hand. He was also the one to find all the information that went into Danny’s file when it was first being made: social media posts, school report cards, news articles about his parents… everything.

And then he had an emergency mission to take with the Titans that swept him out of Gotham leaving Duke to tackle this investigation on his own.

He doesn’t have Tim’s natural skill in stalking and invading privacy. He hates breaking into people’s spaces and following them around, but needs must and he has to force himself to work through the discomfort.

It’s a good thing he did, too. Danny’s leaving his dorm after his last afternoon class, hood up to hide his face and something held in the front pocket of his hoodie. He ducks around people on the sidewalk easily, almost as if he’s gliding through the crowd instead of walking.

Duke follows from above, bending the light around him to hide him from sight.

He walks for some time, weaving through alleys and streets as if he’s been in Gotham his whole life, leaving behind the university campus to head towards Otisberg. There’s something strange about the way Danny walks, as if he’s moving around people who aren’t there, guided by something Duke can’t hear. Even using his meta abilities doesn’t do much beyond show him where Danny’s going to be in the next few seconds.

He continues to follow Danny on the rooftops, walking along the edge to keep him in sight.

Then Danny stops behind an apartment building and tilts his head back to look up at it. He tilts his head to the side, then nods and looks around the empty alley. Duke crouches down, keeping his eyes on Danny in the hopes of catching him in the act—

Danny disappears.

Duke curses under his breath and jumps down from the roof, putting more strength into his abilities as soon as his feet touch the ground.

The space where Danny was has a faint outline, oddly enough. He’s never seen that before. From it is a semi-transparent trail, smoke-like and a pale green leading into the building. It goes straight into a wall, as if Danny walked through it.

He can’t go in and search the entire apartment, but he can grapple up and take a look into the hallways to see where Danny’s heading. If he was looking up, then that’s where he should be heading.

It doesn’t take any effort to scale the building. There are ledges and windowsills and plenty of handholds for him to propel himself off of, and paired with his powers, Duke is able to find the correct floor in just under two minutes.

The green smoke slowly dances through the air of the ninth floor, on the east side of the building. If he’s been counting the rooms correctly, then the target of tonight’s burglary has to be apartment 924.

The curtains are drawn on the window he makes his way over to, and his abilities don’t show him anything helpful for the immediate future. He hates going in blind, especially to a civilian’s home, but capturing Danny takes priority. Duke picks the lock and slides the window up slowly, making sure it stays quiet, then slips into an empty bedroom.

He makes his way out into the hallway on silent feet, keeping a wary eye on the thin smoke strands of green, curling along the walls. The rest of the apartment is empty as well, pale sunlight slanting across the floor through the blinds.

Everything is still and silent. Danny’s nowhere to be found.

Did he miss Danny leaving, somehow? Was this a misdirect to get him out of the way while Danny stole from another location? Did he know Duke was following him?

But no, his ears pick up on the faint sound of clothes rustling.

Cautiously, Duke turns towards the front door, where the door to the coat closet is open. He focuses on what’s going to happen in the next twenty seconds and sees Danny panic, then disappear from sight again, but a transparent outline of his body is visible just enough to show him where he runs to. Best not to spook him; Duke pulls at the light around him and bends it to hide him from sight.

Then he moves along the wall, getting around the open door without bumping into anyone or anything.

A figure in front of the coats, shoving them to the side roughly, flickers in and out of view, almost like a reflection in water, distorted by ripples on the surface.

Danny pops back into visibility suddenly, scowling at the coats. “Are you sure it’s in here?” he asks the empty air.

There is no answer, but Danny acts like there is. He rolls his eyes and says, “It’s a favor. That I’m doing for you. I can literally stop right now and you wouldn’t be able to stop me.” He shoves aside another heavy winter coat, then sighs. “Why don’t you look for it, and then tell me where it is.”

He steps back and bumps into Duke.

Danny whirls around, eyes wide, and blast of green light has Duke crashing back into the wall, trying to blink spots out of his eyes.

“Wait!” he yells, grabbing for Danny before he can run off. “I just wanna talk!”

“Standing right behind me like a serial killer does not make you look like someone who wants to talk!” Danny yells back, slipping through his hands like mist.

“I just have a few questions!”

“Well, I have a question: why?!”

“Will you hold still, we’re being too loud!”

Danny escapes to the other side of the apartment, next to a window looking fully prepared to fling himself out of it. But he does stop yelling, so Duke is counting it as a success.

“Why is the Signal coming after me?” Danny asks, glaring at him suspiciously.

“Dude,” Duke says, “You’ve been seen outside of every single building that’s had a burglary since you first arrived in Gotham. All the Bats are after you, they just sent me because I’m the only one active during the day.”

“All the Bats?” Danny repeats, losing what little color he had in his face.

He looks legitimately scared, pale enough to be concerning, and Duke drops his guard and tries to relax the tension in the apartment. “I’m not gonna turn you into the cops or anything. I just had questions and you seem like the most likely person to have answers. That’s it.”

Danny still looks wary, ready to run at a moment’s notice, but he doesn’t leave when Duke approached casually, leaning his weight against the couch.

“So,” he begins, “What’s the deal with all the thievery? It’s rarely something super rare or expensive.”

There’s a long few minutes where Danny doesn’t answer, looking anywhere but at Duke. Then he twitches a bit and glares off to the side, and says, “I taking items that are contaminated with ectoplasm to help ghosts move through the veil and leave Gotham.”

That tells him nothing! That just gives Duke more questions! But at least it’s an answer, the first one any of them have got.

“I think you’re gonna have to explain a little more.”

“Ghosts are real, alright?”

“Yes.”

Danny stops. Squints at him. “What do you mean, ‘yes’?”

“Ghosts are real,” Duke repeats, “There are a few who help heroes or are heroes themselves, but that’s more on the magic side of things so I’m not super familiar with it.”

“Magic,” Danny says slowly. “Sure, alright. Um. Yes, ghosts are real. And there are a ton in Gotham who need help moving on, but they’re too weak to get past the veil. Something about Gotham has made the veil super strong, so they need a little boost to get through. Additional ectoplasm bonded helps with that.”

“And that’s why you’re stealing random things?”

“The ghosts I help can kind of sense ectoplasm-infused things, but they need me to grab them since they can’t hold anything without a physical body.”

Duke nods slowly. “Okay, that’s starting to answer some things. We have found those objects in the last places missing people were seen. Any idea what’s going on with that?”

“Yeah, those people were already dead.”

The way Danny says the most concerning answers as if they’re nothing is really throwing Duke off his game. He was expecting to be calm and serious to keep Danny from freaking out too much and look like a legitimate hero. But as soon as Danny started talking, all his nerves fell away and Duke is left grasping for composure.

“They were…”

“They were ghosts, yeah. And they needed to get through the veil. But they were also able to possess their own bodies and didn’t realize they were dead until I had to break the news to them, which is why it looks like living people just up and disappeared.”

“Okay… What about the green stuff we’ve been finding?”

“Ectoplasm.” Danny holds up a hand and a neon green light surrounds it. Except it looks more solid than light, as if it can be touched, and it moves on its own like fire around Danny’s fingers. “It’s what ghosts are made of.”

Oh. If Danny has ectoplasm, does that mean…

“Are you dead?” Duke asks, heart dropping.

Instead of looking upset about the question, or even disturbed by it, Danny just shrugs and waves his hand back and forth. “A little.”

“Okay, so let me get this straight,” Duke says, trying to resist the urge to rub his temples. It’s a habit he didn’t mean to pick up from Batman, and it would just look silly with his helmet in the way. “You’re just doing all this to help ghosts?”

“Yeah. Basically. They asked for help man, of course I was going to help them.”

Danny’s a good person. He’s just a good person to ghosts. But this is good news either way, and he can let the others know that Danny isn’t the next Catwoman and is entirely unconnected from any drug production. Everything that made him look like a criminal is just the fault of ghosts.

“Speaking of,” Danny continues, “Looks like they found what they need, so I’m going to grab that real quick.” He pushes off of the wall and heads for the closet again, moving past Duke without any fear. Duke follows, keeping a few feet of distance between them so Danny doesn’t feel trapped, and watches as he shoves aside the coats again and pulls a shoebox out of the depths of the closet. From it, he takes a single intricate lace headband and holds it up.

It looks normal, if a little old, but when Danny sends ectoplasm through it, the lace lights up and holds the glow.

He pulls some strange contraption out of his pocket and holds it up to the headband. It makes a few beeps, then Danny mutters, “7.4 millisieverts. That’s enough to get you through the veil.”

Another concern Duke can let go of: Danny’s not creating weapons like his parents have, he’s just measuring ectoplasm through his own inventions.

Maybe he could talk to Bruce or Tim about getting Danny an internship at the R&D lab in Wayne Enterprises? That way they could keep a closer eye on him while seeing what he can create in some of the best laboratories in the country.

Well, it might take having them meet Danny before they trust him enough for that, but Duke is sure he can make it happen.

“I better go see this through, then,” Danny says, shoving the contraption back into his hoodie pocket. He gives Duke a small awkward wave, then pops out of visibility. “I’ll see you around, I guess?” he disembodied voice hedges, and Duke smiles.

“I’m sure I’ll be able to find you again.”

“Cool. I gonna go now!”

He doesn’t see any sign that Danny’s left, but he gets a feeling that he’s alone now, the apartment suddenly emptier than it was before.

As strange and concerning as Danny and all his bizarre actions were, Duke is glad he was able to finally talk to him and get some answers. Knowing how Gotham pulls people him in, it’s only a matter of time before the other Bats are exposed to Danny’s kind of strange. He’s already looking forward to it.

For now, though, he has a file to update in the Hatch; POTENTIAL THREAT will be removed and replaced with GHOST HELPER.

If anyone goes snooping into his files and gets confused, then that’s their problem. Duke’s explained enough. And Danny can take care of the rest, once they go through the effort of tracking him down. Duke's done his part, he's ready for the rest of them to step up to his level.

He can’t wait to see what other kind of trouble Danny can get it into.

#ghostlights #dc x dp #dp x dc #dcxdp #dpxdc #prompt fill #my writing #could not do a meet cute/weird in this prompt so i made it a meet disaster lol #heres danny trying to focus on his education!! and then ghosts start popping up asking for help bc gotham wont let them leave #so danny has to make a few contraptions to be able to help them (mostly ecto tracking/measuring/containing) and it looks SOOO sus #the ghosts also have a weak ecto sense which is how they find him bc hes FULL of ecto #and that means hes robbing houses during the day/late evening bc the night is for homework and stress #duke is just... trying his best lol.#sorry if the last part of this is rushed or confusing i am slightly sick and can Not focus #anyways i hope u enjoy!!#thanks for the prompt!!

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puppyeared · 10 months

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Big cat

#ft my poorly drawn monstera leaves for vibe #I was thinking abt shinx and luxray like. I know theyre supposed to be lions but I feel like cheetah or serval would work well too #like with electricity and stuff. wouldnt speed and agility make more sense for an electric type? esp a cat shaped electric type?#maybe it would be ok for luxray to be heavy built because itd be really big by then. but I thought hey it would be cool if its preevolutions #could focus on speed for escaping. escaping and hunting yknow #maybe this is just because I watched a cheetah documentary last night and thought they were cool #I also have a hc that luxray can charge up electricity and make its whole body glow like an x ray #like you can see it’s bones through the blue parts of skin. either as a threat display or courtship #the shinier and bluer the fur is the better you can see the bones. which would mean its feeding itself well #but Im not a biology expert Im just using what I learned from birds LOL #so sososo normal abt luxray line (is my favorite pokemon)#my art #myart #pokemon #illustration #shinx #Luxio #luxray #luxray line

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cemeterything · 10 months

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my dreams need to stop giving me fucked up ethical dilemmas i'm sorry but i don't think like that. if you put me in a survival situation i will simply do whatever i want.

#🐉#last nights dream was a massive tidal wave and all the people around me were insisting we had to stay and help #as many people as possible escape. and i was like erm no we dont. and walked off and just told people i met along the way to start running #if they wanted to live or stay and die and let them handle the rest.#and when all my companions called me a horrible person for it i was like well being a good person isnt going to mean anything #if im dead is it. lol.#ill take my tortured conscience over oblivion. see you in the afterlife maybe.

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princeyam · 10 months

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growing up 💐

#the legend of zelda #loz #zelda #ocarina of time #sheik #princess zelda #young zelda #pokemon #kirlia #gallade #i finally finished these last night they were sitting in my drafts for over two months LOL #they mean the world to me.........

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wavesoutbeingtossed · 3 months

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Randomly thinking about “tolerate it” (narrator voice: it was not random) and how under the cloak of fiction it is ostensibly inspired by works like “Rebecca” (which Taylor said she read during the 2020 lockdowns I believe?), with the line of “you’re so much older and wiser” indicating that the speaker is significantly younger and inexperienced compared to the person she’s speaking to and a pretty direct reference to the plot of the book.

But I saw something somewhere once that stuck with me about how it might not be referring to relative age between the characters but chronological age as in the passage of time in a relationship. And that made me think about how in a contemporary context, it might not necessarily be referencing an actual age gap between the two characters, but rather a sarcastic or cynical response to the man’s claims that he has matured (“you’re so much older and wiser [than you were before/than you were when we met/etc.]”), which then made me think about that line in relation to the woman. And that it could be taken like, “you act like you’ve matured so much in our time together and like you know everything, while I’m supposedly still stuck as the girl I was when we first met.”

Which then made me think of the “right where you left me” of it all and did you ever hear about the girl who got frozen time went on for everyone else she won’t know it and the bit in Miss Americana where she talks about how celebrities get frozen at the age at which they got famous, and how she’s had to play catch up in a lot of ways not just in her emotional growth but kind of in general. (Which also made me wonder if she’s ever been called out for immaturity/lack of curiosity/lack of education about things in her life…)

Which then made me think about the rest of the song, and @taylortruther’s posts yesterday about “seven” and “Daylight” and the way Taylor idealizes her youth yet contrasts it with an almost sinister reality in its wake, and the line, “I sit by the door like I’m just a kid,” because the discussion raised that her relationship let her recapture some of the childlike joy and wonder she’d lost. So this line is a double-edged sword: the speaker sits by the door with childlike hope that the person will come home and cherish her, but on the darker side, feels like the child dealing with the monsters she doesn’t have names for yet and the feelings of isolation she felt as she aged.

I’m not saying the song is necessarily autobiographical; like most of the songs on folkmore, it’s clearly a fictionalized story based on media she’d consumed and created, but we know a lot of the fictional songs were infused with her own feelings and experiences and… This idea swirling in my head picked up steam and now I kind of can’t stop thinking about it. Sorry but I’m a little obsessed now.

Like maybe it might start to shed light on why she identified so strongly with the novel in the first place…

#the third eye has been opened #😵‍💫#like tolerate it was always a difficult song #even when we learned it was based on Rebecca it obviously took on new meaning post-joever #and especially in light of ttpd #but the thought spiral i went on last night when i started thinking about all these connections #and the evermore of it all #I’m Charlie at the conspiracy board again #writing letters addressed to the fire #me thinking too hard about Taylor lyrics #evermore my beloved #tolerate it #i kinda gave myself the ick with all this 😵‍💫#because of the ttpd of it all coming up #and i feel like i remember interviews where Taylor said joe was so well-read especially about like world events and politics and stuff #and supported her when she wanted to start speaking up (not getting into that)#but just based on ~vibes now I wonder if that was like a sore point too at some point #which again i have no proof of but just like… experience with pretentious millennial art bros lol #oh man oh man oh man #this feels like some sort of huge revelation at 1:00 am #when i started writing this lol #eta: when I queued this in the middle of the night i didn't see all the excellent discussion about the seven/folklore posts #so all of you who have been posting about them this morning consider yourselves tagged too!

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khytal · 4 months

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last night I got robbed while sitting in the car in a parking lot and I ended up with a bloody/swollen lip during the struggle 😔

all things considered I'm very lucky to have gotten away with just that but I keep thinking about how stupid I was. like I know better to a degree bc I wear my bag while I'm driving but. still

#khytal.ks #I'm the most upset about losing my car keys (I was driving a different car)#it had a memento from an old friend and now that's gone forever :(#anyway my whole face hurts and I was so stressed I didn't sleep well last night #I've been laying in bed all day I just don't feel well mentally and physically #I mean what matters is that I'm still alive but I feel like shit lol

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plistommy · 2 years

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”Steve Harrington is a bottom!” I scream into the mic.

Everyone starts to boo me so I walk away in shame, but then two voices coming from the crowd stop me.

”They’re right!” the two people yell and who does the voices belong to? Billy Hargrove and Eddie Munson.

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greypetrel · 8 months

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Crisp those Lines!

Or: a small collection of suggestions for a crispy, neat lineart.

SO MANY OF YOU ASKED FOR THIS (it feels absurd to say, yes), so here you go.

A premise: there's no right or wrong way of inking, and some of the following tips entirely depend on the type of inking I do. Which is neat and clean, with no blacks, and moreover: digitally. More under the cut because it's gonna be long and full of explanatory pictures. Here's an example:

SOFTWARES AND BRUSHES:

Let's address the elephant in the room: Photoshop SUCKS for inking and linework. The stabilisation of the brush there is SHIT. Good for colouring and painting and doing photobashing, but for Lineart you want it to be precise. Do yourself a favour and don't use Photoshop. I generally use Clip Studio Paint, but i have to say that the best program for it that I've tried keeps being Paint Tool SAI 2. It has few functions, it's true, and I use CSP because it has more instruments. But if you don't want to pay much, SAI is incredible as for brush rendition and stabilisation.

As for the brush: you don't need a fancy brush, anything in your software will go. What I use and what works best tho must have:

Tapered start and end.

High stabilisation (I go from 60 upward, lower it down for trees and grass or anything more natural that needs to be less neat and flowy)

Low tapering.

It must be set so that pressure controls only the dimension. The more you push on your pen, the bigger the line gets. No colour or opaciy variation!

On Clip Studio Paint, I use the G-Pen in the program. It's good as it is, but I think I did some variations as per here:

FILE DIMENSIONS:Better work larger and then resize down. Sizing files up digitally is possible, but it leads to unfocused images. I generally work on files at 600dpi (300 is fine too, but don't go any lower. Particularly if that's something you want to print later on, any printing wants a minimum of 300dpi). in roughly an A3 format (bigger dimension is 43cm). Most pictures I upload here are 6000x5000 pixel. A bigger file will give you more possibilities with brush sizes, and it'll be easier. Remember: digitally, sizing down is ok, sizing up is not something you should do.

SKETCH:

This is the suggestion I should follow but never do. Having a clean, polished sketch simplifies your life A LOT. This is because if you don't have to worry about drawing details and fixing the anatomy of your drawing during the lineart, and doing it so GOOD because it's the lineart... You'll go that much slower and your life will be more complicated (it's not impossible, my sketches usually are very rough. I am ok with it, the most I do drawing wise is during the lineart... But I'm lazy, don't do like me. A good sketch will help you out.) Compare the two sketches below:

Another note about your sketch layer: you know those memes that complains that the sketch looks good but when you hide it the lineart is shitty? That's easily solvable. When you're inking, lower the opacity of the sketch layer down, A LOT. I generally go for a 30 or 40% opacity (depending on the colour of the sketch. the yellow sketch will go around 40% because it's less visible, the purple one lower).

When you're inking, you MUST see clearly the lineart you're doing. If the sketch isn't contrasting enough, you won't see clearly what you're doing... It's like trying to sketch with a dim light, not seeing the paper clearly. See the difference:

BEFORE YOU START:

You probably have read it everywhere, but it bears repeating: warm up your hand. You're using muscles and for more than five minutes. The warmer they are, the firmer your hand is, the easier it gets controlling your lines. It also prevents you from damaging your wrist. Stretching is also great, and grippers are nice to have. Keep your hand fit!

As for warming up: I usually do some calligraphy exercises, practicing on flowy cursives. You want to practice varying the pressure of your lines in a single trait, hence why calligraphy is good. But generally, what you can do is...

PRESSURE VARIATION AND LONG LINES:

So. My main tip and trick is to vary the pressure of your lines. In the same line, and between different details. This will help making the lineart more dynamic and interesting. A note: this works for semi-realistic styles. If your goal is obtaining a Cartoon Network style: they have generally little to no variation and it works. My suggestion would be to study the kind of style and effect you want to obtain, different styles will work best with different linearts. If you're aiming at hyperrealistic painting, there's no point in spending time over a lineart, for example, I inked the same lineart, but with a brush that doesn't vary it's dimensions with pressure, and not changing the dimension of the brush.

What makes my linearts look "flowy" and "neat" is the fact that I tend to draw less lines and longer, and pay attention when I stop, to start the line where I end it. This will give the impression of one continuous, single line, and make everything more fluid. See above in the french hood: on the right, I left the line rough on purpose, you can see where I stopped and started again. On the left, where I took care of it, you can't.

Generally speaking:

Thick, dark lines communicate that the object is close to the viewer (always keep the viewer in mind!) or in shadow. Lines should be thicker on the outside of your objects, to separate two planes, and in stuff closer to you.

Thin lines are delicate, they should be used in the background, for small details (see the hair, the lips, the small wrinkles around her eyes.)

As for line continuity: in both cases, the line of her face is one single line I drew. This can be obtained with a smooth result, particularly in curved lines, by getting the brush stabilisation on higher settings (80-100): sacrifice speed for accuracy.

MORE IS MORE, WHEN IT COMES TO LEVELS:

Particularly when there are two objects intersecating, or more characters interacting… Instead of inking all on the same level, I always do one level for each object, trace the WHOLE line as if there was nothing above, and then erase where it's not shown. This is a little thing, but pays off. Always in the drawing of above, the feather and the hem of the bodice were on separate layers, and then I erased the bodice under the feather. Take advantage of being inking digitally and not traditionally!

For many characters, here's an example of a vignette of a comic page before cleaning it up and erasing. Every single character and the weapons are on separate layers

For this it's very useful knowing your recurring mistakes. For example, I tend to draw heads bigger than they should. I know I do, so generally I keep the head on its own level, and the body on another, so it's easier to modify and size down just the head without getting crazy selecting only the lines you want with the lazo.

Again, you're inking digitally. It's not easier than traditionally necessarily, take full advantage of your instrument!

OTHER TIPS AND TRICKS:

High brush stabilisation sacrifices speed for accuracy. The line will lag a little from your cursor. Get used to watching the cursor and not the line, and trust that the line will follow.

GO SLOW.

Rotate and flip the canvas. Don't ask me why, but tracing long lines towards me is always easier than not the other way around.

Use the Free Transform, Warp, Distort etc etc and the Liquify to your heart's content if you notice the lineart has something wrong. The only cheating in art is using fucking AI generators (and AI pictures are not art, sorry not sorry)

References are your friends. Study how an artist you like does the lineart. Try and imitate them, and if you can and need to post them: tag them! (don't trace and sell it as your own)

Experiment with brushes, find one that you like for the effect you'd love. You do you, there's no right or wrong way of inking.

Remember to breathe when you trace those lines! (and to drink and do pauses and stretch, you don't want a tendonitis!)

Have fun. Lineart is not evil, lineart is your friend!

I hope this essay is exhaustive enough. I'm tagging ALL THE PEOPLE that requested it (and giving each of you a muffin). @ndostairlyrium @narina-gnagno @salsedine @whimsyswastry @layalu @n7viper

If you have any questions, don't hesitate in asking!

#tutorials #lineart #inking #digital inking #digital art #tips and tricks #petrel explains #COME LO FECI (cit)#listen if we're mutuals and we chat... ask me to share my screen I don't mind the company when I work if it's not something I can't show #or if it's not too late at night for me #also I unironically like how Alyra inked without variation looks even angrier and more judgemental than normal LOL #also some spoilers for The Last Bacchae if you follow that #“Marmotta” means “Groundhog” in italian #art ref

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shadow-the-crow · 2 months

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Tma au but it's 2010's ya dystopian. Everyone is sorted by fear alignment, like factions.

#someone has probably already had this idea but whatever #i had this thought last night at 4 am literally half asleep lol #but for once i actually remembered to write it down #i mean imagine...#“but your family has always served the flesh! are you sure you should join the web? i heard they're dangerous!”#“this person is marked by all fears?! they're a danger to our system!” (i mean - kinda true lol)#tma #the magnus archives #tma podcast #tma shitpost #tma entities #divergent #tma au #i hope i'll have time to write my michael analysis tomorrow

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brittlebutch · 1 year

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the evolution of the operator symbol over the course of the series is so endlessly fascinating to me, because like. Alex came up with the symbol and only ever really used it on his hypergraphia papers, which we don't really see him do much (if at all) after season one

but Brian,, Brian uses that symbol constantly. It's basically a signature by the end of the series - he leaves it on Tim's medical records, and on the back of Alex's photo of Amy, and on the note he left for Jay about Benedict Hall - he even uses it in his final video to unveil his name - it's self-referential, but he doesn't ever really seem to use it to denote The Operator the way Alex did?

Like, to me it really does seem like he basically appropriated it. "This is the symbol you created for the thing that was hunting you, but now I'm the thing that's hunting you" - like, hh fuck dude, Looking At You

#N posts stuff #marble hornets #totheark #mh lb #i was thinking about this last night and just rewatched all of the totheark videos to check my own work lol #and like. even in the videos he uses it as a self-referential symbol #he uses it in Intermission - 'did you see me? i saw you'#he uses it in Reminder - 'do you remember me?' immediately followed by His footage of Jay at the antique store #he uses it in Decline - 'he will pay' denoting His revenge quest on Alex #sometimes there IS more ambiguity in its application - like in 'Inquiry' or 'memories'#where like maybe it could be denoting the effects of the operator's influence? but those are s2 and i'm Mostly talking about s3 #but i mean even in s1 the symbol shows up in the last frame of some videos like a signature/sign off #sorry brian is just so fascinating to me i want to study him like a beetle

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ef-1 · 4 months

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girlhood

#i have to fly out to capetown to see mother and im literally debating if i could land in the morning and leave at night on the same day #like. anything longer than that is going to ruin my year.#when she called and did her “katherine. you have to be here on the 10th” i literally sobbed in my bed for the rest of the day 😍😍😍#not dyeing my hair black for a year and its getting lighter and lighter everyday and i look like her again #and my therapist telling me “you need to do things for yourself.” but like can i? sorry that woman traumatised me and i actually cant :)#like everything i do is informed by her #I'm going to go and just like everytime the only way to keep my sanity is to mirror her. talk and sit and speak and read and eat like her #and its such a terrifying experience bc i remember that im capable of emulating her viciousness and maybe i am my mother's daugher 🤢🤢🤢#and im going to come back and its going to take fucking months for me to feel like myself again #“oh you look so beautiful just like your mother” i hope you DIE lol !!! the fact that my conception of beauty was shaped by her #growing up with this cruel beautiful detached woman and realising that at the intersection of beauty and wickness is a lifetime of pain #and still being so desperate for her approval- for any metaphysical proximity to her that i felt elated when #people would tell me i look like her. that it meant i was also beautiful like her and maybe she'll love me a little for it #but now i know for a fact that i do look like her and it makes saliva swell under my tongue - that moment right before you throw up-#when people mention it 😍#last time i was in capetown my optic neuritis flared up (and i know for a fact it was that it was ms-stress related from having to see her)#and i thought i hid it so well even though i had near constant headaches & lethargy until she said “katherine give me the red notebook”#and i knew that she knew all along. it was so acutely humiliating standing there and knowing she knows i cant see which one is the red one #and she tilted her head and said “whats the matter? do you not know what red looks like?”#im never going to have kids. my mother and i read eachother so well it can only mean im never too far removed from becoming her #lol!!!!!!!!!

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b4kuch1n · 1 year

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the legends speak of it as a kind of enthrallment: the life ended by the tiger is tied to the tiger. in this way there is a line of souls following the beast, for no reason except to show that they were killed. that they could be saved - if only the beast would die [...] in the dark of the wood you see it walk, shadow to shadow, followed by loss after loss after loss, a tail trailing seemingly into the deep death of night [...]

#bakuspecial #cw: body horror #cw: nudity #ask to tag #hi. this is actually not at all the piece Ive been sitting on. I just suddenly really wanted to sketch this at 4 last night #and now. it got done before the one Ive been looking at for uhhhh four days! awesome #this legend I only know like colloquially but it is real btw. iirc #like if a tiger mauls u ur soul has to follow it around until it does #dies. I mean dies. when it does anything is kinda why ur there in the first place #this is very divorced from its full context tho lol tigers and most big animals were generally thought to be long lived and uh. magic?#like they become sapient. when they live long enough. and they start learning spells n shit #so when u become tiger thrall its assumed the tiger actually has stuff for u to do. ur not just following it doin nothing #granted the stuff its assumed it'd want u to do's probably fucking up people's lives or find more stuff for the tiger #greed is also assumed for these beasts generally. so yeah #okay holy fuck I should NOT be awake rn. my brain is not working anymore #have a good night lads. had a really fucking good beef stew tonite. here's to many more of those and for u guys to have some

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thenothlng · 11 months

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in theatres um......... never

#w101 #wizard101 #lemuria spoilers #⭐️ : bea #🌌 : dasein #🎨 : my art #OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH my god im so happy i finished this lol #OH AND IF ANYONE WANTS TO DO THE ID FOR THIS POST PLS DO BY ALL MEANS im bad at. describing. visuals. so if anyone wants to please do #i literally started this last night at like. 3 am teehee *twitches at you*#i would watch this noir detective romance and im sure it would make me cry at LEAST 2 time #oooo my god im so normal about this :3 thumb up #the text was pissing me off... it looks ugly... no it doesnt ^_^

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h0l0gramglasses · 9 months

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#been on a big picard-era Q kick lately #and by lately I mean last night and today lol #q star trek #star trek q #john de lancie

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comradekatara · 1 year

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I feel like I see ppl say that ozai is dumb (and I totally get why, because he’s extremely shallow to the point of looking downright foolish) but honestly..... is he?? is ozai dumb, is zhao dumb, is zuko dumb, or all they all just men from the fire nation who were taught to embody a certain aggressive, active, prideful, impulsive, violent, reckless, singleminded mode of masculinity that praised them for certain behaviors and virtues such as strength and power and condemned any man who didn’t align with these values?

ozai is smart enough to seize and maintain power over the fire nation, which is his life’s primary goal. zhao is smart enough to invade the north pole, which was impenetrable for the past century of war, and while destroying the moon obviously is not a sensible thing to do, it does carry out his intended effect, which is to debilitate his enemies and demonstrate the sheer force of his power.

zhao’s lack of accounting for the spirits can be attributed directly to the fact that a key aspect of fire nation propaganda is denying spiritualism to the point where he finds iroh silly for respecting their status in the ecosystem whatsoever. he’s not unintelligent, he’s just ignorant due to his cultural upbringing. of course he has massive blindspots, he was fed fire nation propaganda his whole life, but he would never have risen through the ranks of the fire navy just through ozai’s favor alone.

furthermore, the idea that ozai’s reliance on the women in his family to do his dirty work (ursa killing azulon, azula capturing zuko & iroh and taking ba sing se) is a sign of weakness doesn’t actually hold water. if anything, ozai using women for his own ends and then discarding them once they are no longer useful to him demonstrates his strength as a patriarch.

additionally, the way he banishes zuko by giving him an impossible quest with the promise of return on its completion incentivizes zuko to remain loyal to his nation and his father, instead of simply banishing him with no hope of return, at which point zuko would have nothing to lose in attempting to usurp ozai, which is clearly an anxiety for ozai considering that zuko was banished for threatening treason in the first place. (and note that zuko only does resist ozai once he returns to the fire nation, something azula orchestrated without ozai’s approval. if zuko had stayed in ba sing se as a fugitive it is highly unlikely that he would have ever participated in the avatar’s revolution, but azula wanted her brother to come back home and found a way to make it so.)

ozai is very good at manipulating people, he is a very powerful firebender (think of the way he is able to summon lightning instantly, underground, moments after an eclipse is over, without any sort of warning), and he was very close to winning the war for good only six years into his reign. he is myopic, shallow, egotistical, and generally wrong about many things, but that doesn’t actually make him dumb.

i think he mostly seems dumb because when put next to azula (or iroh, or ursa), he is far less subtle in his intellect. azula is shrewd, calculating, clever, and far less image-obsessed than ozai is. she is completely willing to sublimate herself for the sake of serving her empire, whereas ozai is the empire and therefore must project absolute power at all times. zuko, especially in book 1, is far more like ozai than azula is, which is what makes azula such a threatening villain: the fact that she is a girl is crucial to her character. so many of her traits that make her so much more threatening than anyone else in positions of power throughout the show are directly born out of the fact that despite being raised on the same values, she was socialized differently.

her feminine behaviors and the expectations placed on her as a girl are what make so her anomalous among the myopic, egotistical, prideful, power-hungry fire nation military. she doesn’t care as much about projecting power, so she’s able to get rid of her fancy fleet and recruit mai and ty lee, she’s able to disguise herself to enter ba sing se instead of laying siege to it and successfully takes it over when iroh could not after nearly two years. she does not rely on brute force, but rather “feminine qualities” such as manipulation, calculation, and subterfuge. same goes for mai and ty lee, hence why they are also so powerful despite merely being two non-bending teenage girls. by not being forced into performing those restrictive masculine behaviors, she is able to beat the men at their own game.

similarly, ursa uses poison to kill azulon, an act she does for the benefit of the men in her family (ozai and zuko), through a traditionally feminine weapon. a fire nation man would never think to poison their enemy because that is not how men kill other men. but use a woman as a proxy, and this becomes a sufficiently masculine act through the way in which the man exerts his power over a woman.

iroh uses brute force and projection of power as his primary tactics before his reckoning (see his siege on ba sing se), and manipulation, scheming, disguise, and sublimation to achieve his ends only after he has unlearned fire nation propaganda and gained a broader perspective. sokka is similar in this regard, in that it takes him learning feminine strategies from women warriors (the kyoshi warriors technique is about using their opponents’ force against them) to understand that he needs to prioritize his intellect over brute force if he ever intends to win a single fight. zuko’s blue spirit persona demonstrates his capabilities for being smart in battle, but when he is not inhabiting the blue spirit (his mother’s values), he is channeling ozai, and thus loses fights due to his aggression and impulsivity, which is always used against him.

zuko’s growth involves him improving as a fighter when he sheds the fire nation model of masculinity that values blind rage and aggression, and instead embraces the feminine values of warmth, healing, gentleness, and understanding, which allows him to go toe to toe with azula as someone who has internalized feminine values by virtue of being born a girl: being calculating and precise instead of powerful, manipulative and scheming instead of blunt, and patient instead of impulsive. the final agni kai sees azula prioritizing sheer power as she suffers a nervous breakdown, which zuko and katara are able to use against her in a way that they otherwise could not since she is uniquely impulsive and reckless in this fight (although she is still able to strategize as shown when she points her lightning at katara instead of zuko).

the reason azula seems so much smarter than ozai is because she wasn’t raised to prioritize her own ego above everything else; no, she was raised as a girl, and this social disadvantage also proves to be her greatest strength. the reason iroh seems so much smarter than ozai is because he is willing to embrace multiple ideas about the world, instead of just one. to his credit, ozai is very good at implementing his idea; it’s just that said idea sucks. ozai isn’t dumb, he just has an incredibly limited perspective. he’s great at what he does, which is projecting power. but he has no reason to do anything else, so we really shouldn’t expect him to.

ozai isn’t stupid, he’s just wrong. and yes, there is a difference.

#analysis #hot takes #ozai #azula #zhao #iroh #zuko #wrote this whole thing in a frenzy last night after I saw someone call ozai a dumbass lmao #I mean he is a dumbass but he’s also way smarter and more powerful than I think we want to give him credit for #it’s not his fault his life’s single goal happens to seem very stupid to us #but yeah azulas entire character would simply not work if she wasn’t a girl lol like her gender is so integral to her character #and why every girl in avatar is a better fighter than the big strong powerful masculine men who fight using brute force #toph beats boulder. etc

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