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am-i-the-asshole-official · 7 months

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AITA for not talking to my childhood friend after she falsely accused me of trash talking her?

I (16F) have been friends with Jane (16F) since 4th grade. We've been pretty close, and even our moms have been good friends.

Now, Jane has had some bad experiences with past friendships which causes her to automatically assume the worst in people and misinterpret what people say to her. This only increased over covid when we briefly lost touch due to online schooling and our classes being shuffled. She was medically diagnosed with anxiety last year as well.

This year, I've already heard a shit ton of rants about my other friends and how everyone is mean to her. This seems a little exaggerated to me, but I never tell her so and instead always patiently hear her out. I try to be supportive, but sometimes the things she tells me sound outright ridiculous.

An example of this is an experience she supposedly had with my friend Raya (16F) who is also in our class. According to her, Raya challenged her friendship with me and passed mean comments about her. This seemed quite out of character to me since Raya is a total introvert and struggles to make conversation with anyone, let alone bullying people. (I later learnt she actually brought the topic of our friendship up to strike conversation with Jane and try to befriend her since I am their common link)

All of these accounts on Jane's part felt suspicious to me, which I did not express, but left alone, knowing she was probably just misinterpreting others' words. However, I did often wonder if Jane ever made up such incidents about me and shared them with any of her other close friends. This was another sentiment I ignored.

Recently, I came back home to a very angry mother. Upon asking why she was mad, I found out that Jane had cried to her mom after school saying that she overheard me say mean things about her to my classmates. I had not done any such thing, so I obviously denied the allegations.

When I asked what exactly I had done, details were given to me sparingly. Not only was I unaware of what I said to cause such a reaction in Jane, but also she had posted about it online. Though she had not taken my name in the posts, I felt very attacked considering the circumstances.

My mother kept insisting I go talk to her, but I found it unreasonable to "patch up things with her" when I had never done anything wrong to begin with. I'm kept in the dark about whatever possible misunderstanding could've happened and I'm just supposed to go talk about it when she didn't have the guts to even specify what I did?

I didn't talk to her for around 5 days following this incident. Today Jane came up to me trying to "get over it" saying she missed me, still refusing to tell me what I'd even done. I've acted friendly so far, and I've tried to cooperate with her mental issues, but this whole situation is making me rethink our friendship. She's pretending that nothing happened, but the whole ordeal makes me wanna distance myself from her.

Sorry if I missed any details, it's a quarter past midnight and I am very sleep deprived.

tl;dr my childhood friend with anxiety accused me of trash talking her and refused to elaborate when I asked about it, so I just ignored her for a few days

What are these acronyms?

#aita #am i the asshole

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joviantwelve · 1 year

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Hello! I've been doing some long, hard thinking about my current commission offerings.

TL;DR:

I am doing away with my "standard" menu (headshot/halfbody/fullbody/etc.) in favor of more experimental work.

Effective June 1, my commissions will close completely, including the waitlist.

If you want any of my current offerings, please let me know before then. You will be added to a final waitlist queue, with payment only required once I get to you.

If you're currently on my waitlist, or are interested in what's next, please see the bottom of this post. Once the final orders are complete, I will focus on relaunching.

Below is a more elaborate explainer of why I'm doing this, and what I'll be doing next.

Introduction

Essentially, commissions have worn on me more and more as time goes on (which may be tangible if you ordered one recently and it took months). Part of me wondered if I was burned out on art in general, or it was just becoming less of a hobby for me, but that sentiment didn't feel quite right. After all, I could still get grabbed by a picture idea every now and again, which I would then crank out in one evening.

Was there some sort of difference between the pictures I could hammer out quickly vs. the ones I couldn't? Well, I wouldn't make a post about an investigation without already having a prime suspect.

My Art Style

When I first started drawing aliased, it was to quickly crank out panels for my forum adventures, mostly because I was using GIMP and didn't know anything about brush settings. I was way too frustrated with anti-aliased lines and how little I could make them look how I liked, so I retreated into something completely different.

It worked for a while, but as I became more comfortable with the style, I developed bad, perfectionistic habits (something I've already mentioned being A Problem I Have). I would tweak lineart at the pixel level, just because some stray bump or two bugged the hell out of me. I consider this one of the reasons my art output has slowed down.

Trying to embrace a "perfectly inconsistent," or "consistently imperfect" look as "my style" just created its own irony. For example, I will deliberately draw patterns and textures by hand, because it sticks out too strongly otherwise if I just paste it in. You can bump into this quickly enough by scrolling through my various character references.

I would love a world where all my OC references feel "current," but as it stands, I'm finding it increasingly hard to work on the remaining characters I want to draw while commissions are also an obligation. Taking a break from aliased character art commissions in order to work on aliased character art references is...just doing more of the same? It isn't a break.

In order to create breaks that actually feel like breaks, I have to compromise. ONE of these has to go home and change. My personal art gets priority here, and I still very much want my OCs to look consistent in their reference art, so...I need to find a more efficient way to draw for money that keeps my dysfunctional brain entertained.

The Long, Slow Realization

Back when I used GIMP, I tried the chalk brush on a whim and ended up quite liking it. The rough look helped me ignore what I would consider "imperfections" otherwise. However, perhaps because I had a comic or character references I wanted to keep consistent, I mostly considered it a fun oddity and nothing more.

More falling dominoes that would eventually lead to this post were my experimental style offerings that I introduced last year (at the time, I just offered it because I thought people may be interested in art that looked relatively unique), Art Fight (having to agonizingly obey "finished not perfect" because of the event deadline), and other gift art I did around this time (the reasoning being, it's gift art, they wouldn't mind if I used it to experiment).

Now that I use CSP and am no longer bound by webcomic obligations, I've been experimenting more with brush settings. Wouldn't you know it, most of my modern art of my original stories is no longer aliased. I go "off-model" deliberately, fuck around with layer settings and effects, and enjoy creating pieces just because I saw a cool tutorial, brush, or program I wanted to try. These are the types of pictures I mentioned I could crank out in one evening. Maybe they're not "formal," but I feel like they're the most "me."

With all this new experience swirling around in my head, I finally realized: Why am I not selling art I actually find fun to draw?!

The New Offerings

Currently, I'm leaning toward one style of illustration only, cheaper than the experimental style I offer presently, and "rougher" as a result. I want something equivalent to my '22 Art Fight output; something flashy, unique, and most importantly, quick to do.

The specifics are what I intend to figure out while I work through the queue. Here are some thoughts already rotating around in my brain:

Should I offer price "tiers" that roughly equate a level of "polish" (equivalent to sketch/flats/shading) or just go with one-price-fits-all?

Should I still offer sketches as a cheap alternative, or is that too confusing with my Ko-fi already sort of being that?

Should I offer specific pricing for bust/halfbody/fullbody/etc., or was that another symptom of why I had commission burnout before, and should be avoided?

Should I eschew all of the above and just offer one thing at one price (e.g. "give me $50 and I'll draw your OC" with no other choices for the buyer), or is that too intimidating?

And so on. The last option is currently what I'm vibing with the most, but it's definitely the most daring idea of the bunch, too. (& If you have any thoughts on this, let me know! I have so much more thinking to do.)

The Old Offerings (But New)

When I reopen, I would like to have as few options as possible. However, I have considered the possibility that an old offering would speak to me and I would add it to the new menu again. Here are some thoughts on those:

Icons have a pretty high chance of coming back.

I've always liked drawing faces and headshots the most. If I decide not to bring back headshot sketches, I could just roll it back into "icons" and instead offer colored sketchy headshots. This would be similar to the headshots I did for Art Fight, but...with colors.

Half/fullbodies would depend on how the new style goes.

This is elaborating on what I said in the previous section. While I'm sure my core audience (i.e., you) will be fine with a potentially spontaneous angle to my commissions, buyers I'm less familiar with might not be. I want to try "one price fits all," but if someone gives me shit about me drawing a bust when they were anticipating a fullbody, I might have to add options to specify this.

Regardless, the style would still be "experimental" either way--the composition is what's important about it (which is also why I feel like I can get away with one single price). If anything, I feel like forcing myself into the little boxes of "halfbody" and "fullbody" was partially what was stifling me. Like, when do I ever consciously decide to draw a halfbody of an OC? I don't. It feels very arbitrary, and I'd like to distance from it.

MOST IMPORTANTLY: Character design is NEVER coming back!

I deeply appreciate those that did want a brand spanking new OC from me, but I've never considered myself to have a terribly strong design sense. They just kind of ended up being extra nervewracking to do because I had to design a character on top of drawing a fullbody. I will still take the final requests for these, but this is your absolute last chance for a Jovian Twelve™ Brand Original the Character.

What if I'm Already on Your Waitlist?

You don't have to do anything! I will get to you when I get to you. After June 1, I will close the waitlist, and whoever is on there will be able to have one of my old commission types, as promised. You can change your request anytime as long as I'm not currently drawing it!

Reminder that my waitlist is NOT "first come, first served;" I order it based on the complexity of what's wanted. Because of my slow pace, I didn't want to keep someone waiting forever when all they want is three sketch headshots, you know? This is a heads up that if you change your request, your position in the list may change as well.

I have no ETA when the current waitlist will be completed, given that currently, fullbodies are taking me months. Sorry :( Just another reason I'm making this post!!

What if I Want the NEW Style?

I will accept up to five (5) waitlist slots that want to "test drive" the potential new commission style, placed after the "traditional" queue is all cleared out. (So, you'd be waiting extra long.) If you're interested in this, get in touch! I will offer them to you at a lower rate than what I'm expecting to charge for the real deal, as thanks.

If you're already on the waitlist for something else, and want to test the new style instead, let me know! Just be aware this would bring you to the bottom of the queue as described above (but it WOULD give me one less commission I'd have to go through to get to the new stuff, WINK).

In the chance I get no takers the entire time it takes me to go through the waitlist, then the first five commissions I do in the new style will just have to be "test slots" instead.

Final Word

I know these long posts might not be terribly interesting to anyone that's not me, but I find it therapeutic to scrawl my thoughts out in text. Additionally, I'm over 30 years old and conclusions are still the hardest part in writing an essay. I can feel my writing style begin to devolve the closer I am to the end...

Uhhh.

Thanks for reading, and understanding?! See you soon, maybe?! Get in touch if you want to discuss Commissions From Me?? 💃 Cool.

#text #commission #why do i type huge essays like this? what's wrong with me #at least that's off my chest now I GUESS

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strongsadapologist · 3 days

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what did strong sad ever do? if anyone you would need a strongbadapologist

(note: I headcanon strong sad as transfem and will be using she/her throughout this post out of habit, sorry if that's confusing)

SHE DIDN'T!!! that's the thing, she's done NOTHING TO JUSTIFY HOW SHE'S TREATED!!! at least not to the level that she's mistreated!! i'm going to have a TL;DR up front because dear god can i rant about how mistreated she is in the show!! and i will under the cut!! sorry if this takes a while to actually post it is after midnight and i have work in about five hours so i might stop writing in the middle of it!! but anyway back to the ask at hand!!

short version: i use "apologist" in the "i will defend this character with my heart and soul" way instead of the "they're bad in canon but i will ignore that because i like them" sort of way. i've seen a lot of people actually treat her character with the respect she deserves outside of canon but in canon she's constantly put down for things that are either out of her control or made worse by those around her, and because of this i will fight for her honor until i die. it is simply the role i have been destined to play /j

(edit: i'm also just terrible at coming up with names for things. i wanted to rebrand because my old blog name was based on an old fixation and i wanted it to represent how normal i am about homestar runner instead, strong sad is my favorite character so i wanted it to have something to do with her. and the best i could come up with was "strong sad apologist" because at the time of choosing it i'd only seen a few sbemails with her in them, but multiple were mean to her and i didn't understand why. so it's a mix of being bad at naming things and "strong sad apologist" sounding better than something like "strong sad simp" /hj)

long version: WHY DO SO MANY CHARACTERS AND PEOPLE IN THE SERIES TREAT HER BAD dude. like i'm sorry but literally the sixth strong bad email, the first one that she plays a major role in, is called "depressio" and the email reads "tell strong sad he is dumb and a crappy guy." what did she do to you?!? SIX EMAILS IN?!? h*r had been going before the strong bad emails became a series sure but BRO!!! i should clarify that i'm relatively new to h*r and have only seen the first 100 or so strong bad emails, and even fewer of the toons, but that's enough for me to be confident that she is horrifically mistreated. i've seen exactly one interaction where she wasn't being demeaned or put down in some fashion, and it's the scene from "where's the cheat?" where her and homsar are playing connect four. technically, in the ween toon where coach z asks about her beautiful house and beautiful wife, that's also a non-demeaning interaction, but it exists so they can make a reference to the talking heads, so i don't count it. and there could be more, but i either don't remember them or haven't seen them yet.

strong bad especially man, i don't understand what the hell his problem is. the argument could be made that he's mean to everyone, especially homestar and the cheat, but it's borderline uncomfortable to watch him onscreen when he decides that strong sad is apparently satan reincarnated, and he needs to haze her as much as possible to make sure she stays degraded enough to not rise up or whatever. i'm tired, i hope that makes sense. essentially, i hate whenever they're both onscreen, because it usually involves him being unnaturally cruel to her. whether it be putting her underwear up for auction to get her off the couch so he can watch tv, or putting coffee powder in her orange juice (i mean, it was decaf coffee powder, so that might just be her incredibly low caffeine tolerance, but the sentiment is still mean as hell), or using the fact that he put coffee powder in her orange juice to do a science fair project and having his end conclusion be that she's adopted, or throwing a cake in her face because she (rightfully based on the original email) assumes he's going to do something nice for her, he just can't fathom not being a dick to her. and the fact that it's implied that he gave her her belly button with a power drill...what the hell, man? i feel like a cartoon review youtuber talking about modern spongebob, this isn't even funny cruel. it's just cruel cruel.

i'm not going to pretend i dislike strong bad as a character. i think his character is at its best when he's done something douchey, but he gets rightfully called out for/put down for it. that's why i don't hate an email like stand-up like i do depressio. one feels like a rightful callout or a way to show the audience that a character who always portrays himself as an untouchable is embarrassingly human as well. the other feels like finding someone passed out in an alleyway and kicking them in the nuts instead of trying to help.

in her blog she mentions multiple times in which both strong bad and strong mad make her life worse, whether it be by having storm water drain into her room and right above her head, or by having strong mad kick/punch (i don't remember which one off the top of my head) her in the side of her knee, or by strong bad leaving sticky notes on her face while she's sleeping proclaiming how awesome he is before coming in and hijacking her blog. and that's just from one page of her blog! what's the meanest thing strong sad's done back, covering the series as a whole and not one offshoot of it? remove strong bad's couch eggs in morning routine? say that strong bad's computer that exploded and sent him flying through two walls into her room was cheap in gimmick? show the audience little strong bad's stand-up routine in stand-up? not go to the store because she went last time? that last one is from the first episode of strong bad's cool game for attractive people, homestar ruiner, and if you trigger this dialogue by opening the fridge, you can walk approximately 10 feet and find a house plant that belongs/belonged to strong sad, and strong bad tells the audience that the plant killed itself after strong sad started talking to it. and when she points out that that's not true, he says, to quote him verbatim, "that's not what the note said!" obviously, him doing things that are worse won't cancel out anything bad she's done. but that's irrelevant, because the most she's "done wrong" is say some slightly mean/insensitive comments towards strong bad and embarrasses him exactly one time that i'm aware of. is it wrong of her to show something that strong bad is clearly embarrassed by? sure, and that's a fair point. however, considering strong bad consistently participates in the strong sad lookalike contest, which she says she's insulted by (and excited by, but that's less important), i consider it completely fair game.

in my eyes, her only crimes are A. having depression (which is obviously not her fault, and it's implied that she's being medicated to help with her depression [i assume that's what her pills are for, anyway], so she's potentially making an effort to lessen her depressive symptoms), B. being depressing as a result of her mental illness (which is only exacerbated by living in a home where her housemates/siblings seemingly hate her and treat her like dirt, only having one person not actively be mean or indifferent to her), C. being overweight (which i shouldn't even have to explain why that, in no way, means she should be treated as subhuman), and D. being artsy/having interests (which she does more in newer h*r content as a way to flesh out her character besides just being depressed/depressing, so it's very unclear what strong bad actually wants besides a punching bag). i'd like to imagine that if she ever realizes her worth and moves away from the house of strong, potentially even free country usa as a whole, she'd find people who'd actually appreciate her for her creativity, either agree with or try to lighten her gothic outlook on life, and wouldn't try to sell her legs to poachers.

(...but i'm also wearing a shirt with her on it as i write this, so take all of this with a grain of salt. for reference, she also says the line "food should be consumed in the most depressing way possible" in her blog, and i just ate a bowl of pizza rolls while sitting on my floor at 1 in the morning, so maybe i'm quick to defend her because some stuff just rings too close to home for me to not defend it, lest they talk down on me by condemning things i do. especially since i actually like sloshy, which i'm pretty sure exists just to point out that strong sad's music taste is bad [and so's mine, to be fair]. i could be completely misinterpreting that, and sorry if i am. but i'm mostly partial to her for the same reason i'm partial to characters like meatwad - they're picked on for illegitimate reasons by a douchebag brother figure, and they don't deserve that at all. i could treat them right, in a platonic way. if you actually read all of this, i not only thank you, i also hope this makes some amount of sense. i am very tired. it is currently 1:54 am at the time of writing this out. i need to be at work in four hours. i've spent almost two full hours writing this one post out. i am SO fucking normal)

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spottedenchants · 2 years

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Hello! So I really want sink my teeth into Touching Sentiments but I'm unclear whether it's supposed to be read chronologically or following the sequence that they're posted in? Do you have any particular recommendation? Either way I'm excited to witness the sappy wizards being in love and kiss a lot

Oh, hello hello!! :D

I got a little rambly, so here's a summary, and I'll get into more nitty-gritty thoughts under the cut :3

Tl;dr: there is no 'supposed to' about it at all!

If your curiosity is caught by some fics and not others, each fic is technically independent of the others and thus all of them can be read in whatever order and quantity you see fit!

On the other hand, if you're specifically interested in TS!Essek's characterization/relationship developments and want to catch up with everything, I suggest the following:

Note the date you start reading the series

Read in chronological order, ignoring fics that are posted behind your own pace through the series (i.e. no need to backread)

Then read in posting order, beginning from the date you started reading the series (and if you run into a fic you have already read, you can just skip it!)

That should get you through Touching Sentiments without missing anything :3

And now for rambles, because I cannot be contained.

The two orders of the series (chronological and posting) are mainly for my own organizational purposes, and they both have their merits!

The chronological order, I see more as a linear explanation of characterization shifts and development, as well as a slightly clearer way to note how the emotional arcs and background events (i.e. out of Essek's primary focus) are moving, a more-or-less standard story structure of cause and effect in which A leads to B leads to C, etc (though with letters missing in the middle).

As for the posting order, since I'm writing disperate points of time concurrently, reading in the posting order can sometimes really showcase thematic and narrative parallels (ex. Essek and Caleb having a quiet, intimate night together vs. Not). It also starkly demonstrates where Essek's (and the Nein's) characterization could head (ex. early TS!Essek has a very hard time verbalizing his wants with his NPC syndrome, whereas he gets a better handle on it by 1.5 years down the road, so that contrast can be like 'whoa what how did that happen').

I do also try to keep everyone believably in-character based on whatever point in the timeline any particular fic is set, so jumping around might be disorienting in terms of characterization, but that's honestly part of the fun for me :3

So the thing is- it can be read in whatever order you'd like based on whatever strikes your fancy! You don't even have to read all of them, and I try to tag with enough detail so that people can find only what they want out of it.

For example, if you're specifically curious about the slow burn aspect of Essek and Caleb's relationship, you can read just the shadowgast fics tagged 'Slow Burn', or 'Pre-Relationship' + 'Developing Relationship', in chronological order. If you want to read how Essek interacts with Luc and Kingsley, and how the two compare, you can just jump around and read those fics. I try to keep each fic self-contained, and any references to in-series events are made under the assumption that they will be taken in stride (ex. as of right now there are references to the wizards taking a bath together around 1.5 years post-canon, but that fic has not been posted yet).

I hope that all answers your questions, but if not, please feel free to send another ask my way :D Have a nice day!! ^w^

#essek thelyss #chanswers #nottamoose #man i wish i could reorganize tags on mobile #anyway i have Many Thoughts about touching sentiments and i love talking about it #and am always open to answering questions about it xD #grown into a little beastie it has #the wizards have a vise grip on my brain #what will they do next #idk but yes i do unless i don't #i'm forever humbled that y'all are interested in watching this jigsaw puzzle get slapped together #feels like fingerpainting and it's very very fun :D #touchsent lore

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syrips · 7 months

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religion ramble below, not trauma/negative stuff, just a random reflection on something i noticed, with a mix of a dnd thing i love

kinda long. tl;dr at the bottom

so, i dont consider myself religious but i consider myself spiritual, i like to read religious, philosophical, sentimental texts/art. i like to enjoy the potential meaning, lesson, and purpose behind them; and, regardless of what i do/dont believe, it makes me feel a personal, human connection with people, in the past, present, and future, that will read/see the same things i did. and, just maybe, they will connect or experience it in a similar way that i did. but, even if they didnt, especially if they didnt, it just reminds us of how unique each of us are

but anyways, the above was just for context. the main thing i wanted to talk about was related to dnd, the deity ilmater. i know fictional deities are based/similar to religious figures irl, (so im not viewing ilmater as a 'real' religious figure,) but there's something that deeply connects me spiritually to the entire concept of ilmater and the fictional religion.

the act of wanting to take away people's burdens, the act of wanting to ease their pain and suffering, even at the point of lying to them to ease their pain. even at the point of sacrificing yourself for the sake of others, no matter how evil, cruel, wicked, irredeemable they are. if anything, it is especially because of how evil, cruel, wicked they are, that you wish to take away their pain. to ease their pain, no matter how cruel they are. no matter how intentional their evil deeds are. and yet, i cant help but be in awe of that level of spirituality. (i know ilmater has limits, but i think i would seek peace for everyone, even if it is a pipe dream.) it soothes my irl heart and, even if i were to be hurt from it, it feels nice to be at such a level of peace and kindness.

obviously though, the irl world is too complex for such a 'simple' plan of easing everyone's suffering instantly like that. but still, it's nice to dream, or try, with the things that i could control. maybe i cant help someone undo something toxic, but i could help take an animal/insect out of my home and place them back in their own home. i could clean up litter without minding how or why the previous people left it there. i could thank the cashier and wish them a nice day. i could smile at everyone, greet everyone, treat them kind. not because of who they may potentially be, but because of who i know i am

but, i dont know, back to the dnd thing. im surprised at how 'small' / 'mortal' ilmater seems to be seen compared to other deities (in the fictional world). and yet, it feels even more niche and personal to me because of that. ilmater's entire concept (as well as their stereotyped followers) feel like they are the 'doormat', the 'pushover', the 'weak', the 'pathetic', the 'ignorant', the 'naive'. etc. but what's wrong with being the pathetic, weak, naive? what's wrong with seeing the best in people, even if - especially if - they don't even see that in themselves? what's wrong with having rose colored glasses, and tending to them as if they were the roses i see them as? what if i'm okay with getting pricked by their intentional thorns, with the chance to help them just to grow a little bit?

obviously, for my own health and the health of others though, i cant do that safely irl. i can't let a dangerous person roam freely in anothers' safe place. but, i can wish and direct them to how they can take accountability for themselves, to wish them to rehabilitate safely into society. to wish for them to smile, laugh, and feel peace, by doing actions that harm no one, not even consequently themselves. to love them from afar, not excusing their behaviors, but bringing awareness to their actions, to help them become better people, if even, by just a little

ok i rambled far enough to not remember the point of this post, goodbye hehe

tl,dr - gonna self insert SO hard in my ilmater PCs

#cw: religion #ilmater #my infp is showing #random syrips rambling #-ships my ilmater cleric with abdirak shamelessly-#shoutout to my therapist who will read this and go 'yep. nothing surprising'

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sevenhundred721 · 11 months

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!! If you see me liking your art but not reblogging, it is in my queue !!

You might wanna read this before you follow/scroll through my blog. It's basically just an 'about me' and some content warnings. That said, it's a rambling wall of text because I kinda lost the plot, so there's a tl;dr at the end. Don't really care if you read this, I'm not the boss of you. Follow if you want.

Also, check out my art tag. There's not much in there, but I'd still appreciate some eyes on it. For now, I just use #my art

Just hit me I don't have a pinned post and my bio is a quote let's fix that. I'm white, I'm an adult, I'm a high-school dropout. Call me whatever you want, my name means very little to me. That said, my friends call me oil, and the most recent enemies I've had (rude teenagers in driver's ed) called me Cowboy Girl. I am not a girl. This is unrelated to why these people were my enemies. I think it's really funny, so call me by it if you'd like. I really only care about how I'm gendered irl, don't sweat my pronouns too hard on here. I'm not gonna mind if you don't use the right ones (he/him), and if a situation arises where somebody gets them wrong or uses different pronouns for comedic effect, don't worry about correcting them. I will do that if I see fit. And if it's not something I can see or respond to, then what I don't know can't hurt me, idgaf.

I like posting art, but it's pretty sporadic, so it's not really worth following for. I appreciate reblogs when I do post it, though. Art requests are always open, but I usually don't get around to doing them, i just hope they'll inspire me to draw something fun. I guess technically, this is a personal blog. The only fandom I have a recent history of interacting with people in, beyond just looking at/reblogging posts from, is transformers, and I'm still more of a lurker than anything. If you see me talking about/reblogging things from smth you have interest in, my dms and ask box are open. I enjoy idle chatter.

I'd prefer minors don't follow me, but I don't mind interactions from minors on my sfw posts. I just sometimes post/reblog things that are nsfw. That being said, the most you'll see in that department on this blog is just some conventional softcore fetish content and artistic nudity. I sometimes forget to tag gore, blood, and needles when I reblog them, and I do enjoy horror media, so if you are sensitive to that stuff, while I do try to tag it, I can be forgetful sometimes so my blog may not be a safe place for you.

If I reblog or post something and it has any kind of bigoted dogwhistles or is just generally misinformed, shoot me an ask or DM so I can delete it. I refuse to knowingly enable bigotry on my blog, and if I post something bigoted, it is out of ignorance. I'm not going to delete any post I make just because some stranger on the internet tells me to take it down, but I will genuinely consider what you say to me and I will take it as a queue to read more on the topic in order to investigate the stance I took. Don't try to do petty discourse with me. This is mostly about queer microlabel shit or powerscaling leftist ideology. It's sometimes interesting to think about, and I have opinions on that stuff, but ultimately, arguing about it does literally nothing for anyone except waste time that could be spent doing anything else. The sentiments are better expressed in opinion piece essays instead of bad faith arguments with strangers. I'm open to criticism, and I enjoy talking to people who don't share my opinions sometimes, but please show some decorum.

Tl;dr: white, American, he/him, adult. Some nsfw content sometimes. Might rb horror content (including blood/gore/medical equipment), in the past, I have forgotten to trigger tag it, and I may make that mistake again. Open to dms/asks, please tell me if a post I've made/rb'ed has offended you, and I'll look into it. Art requests open, but I probably won't do them.

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corishadowfang · 2 years

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If you're friends with Lacan Shinn, then you need to see this

Hi there, I see that you're good friends with Lacan Shinn on FF.net. I think you should see this. He has in the past targeted women, acting as their friend only to turn on them afterwards, and as a woman yourself, you should read this full report. What you choose to do with the info is up to you, but I felt I needed to say something.

----

Thank you for the submission and the warning! Debated how to respond and if I wanted to, because...oh boy. (For the record, that is not directed at you, Anon, that is directed at the person you sent the message about.)

tl;dr: I am sympathetic to some of the stuff this guy is dealing with and still try to be nice in my review responses, but he has also caused me a decent amount of stress, and I feel like, at the very least, it's better not to interact with him via private messaging. Context and explanations under the cut, because this got...long.

So my relationship with Lacan Shinn is...it's friendly, but we're not friends, if that makes sense? For context: several months ago, Lacan Shinn left a review on Dandelion Seeds, then sent a PM asking if I wanted to talk about Kingdom Hearts. I like talking to people, so I said sure, and then quickly discovered that our personalities...did not mesh super well in close contact. I asked to cut off contact via PM and just interact through reviews--since that was distant enough an interaction that I figured it wouldn't result in problems for either of us--and he agreed, and I thought it would probably be the end of it.

It was not.

Despite agreeing to not send any further PMs, he continued to send them. He is still sending PMs. I have repeatedly asked him to stop and he has not. At this point I've also told him that I won't be responding to any further PMs--even in the context of 'stop sending me PMs'--and have stopped looking at them. They are still coming. I haven't blocked him mostly because like...he's mostly tolerable when I'm just interacting with him through reviews and I can ignore the PMs at this point. He's also talked about some of his personal issues via PMs and said that my stories and such have helped him feel better about things, and so if this can help and I can manage without undue problems, great. (And also I'm just...very slow to block people.)

THAT SAID, there is a reason I'm posting this with all this additional context and not just saying, "Thanks for the head's up"--and that's because while I AM sympathetic to his personal issues and still try to be nice to him, I actually agree with the sentiment of the warning. At the very least, I don't think you'll want to interact with him too much through PMs--YMMV for reviews, but if you DO feel uncomfortable at any point, then take your personal comfort into account first. I took out the link to the post (because it links to a doc with personal information, and way back at the beginning of this I promised that I wouldn't post any personal information about him, so I'm going to uphold that promise), but I will give some general context for why I think this way:

One: Obviously he doesn't really listen when you ask him to stop. I suppose to give him credit, he HAS apologized--many times, in fact--but it still hasn't stopped him.

Two: He does have a tendency to trauma dump (which is WHY I have a lot of context for his personal issues). I'm...well, the short answer is that I'm USED to this sort of thing, so trauma dumping doesn't have too much of an effect on me, but not everyone's going to be able to handle that, and I feel like people should probably be aware that's a thing rather than being blind-sided.

Three: He is very...opinionated. Sometimes about strange things. Sometimes about things that...definitely rubbed me the wrong way. (There were...several points of contention between us.) He had very strong opinions about con. crit., for example, and didn't like that there were people who didn't want unsolicited criticism on their stories. I know from experience that trying to change his mind won't work and will likely only make things worse. Reviews you can kind of dodge around the issue with, but you're likely not going to be able to dodge it with PMs.

Four: On that note: con. crit. If you're not comfortable with it--and there are lots of valid reasons not to be--then you're probably better off just blocking him and not interacting even through reviews.

Five: He IS prone to guilting people into doing things. I don't think this is something he's doing intentionally, and given previous experience he'll likely apologize if you tell him, but he also...won't stop. On a related note, he is...well. He can end up sending very alarmist messages out of his own fear, which, depending on how you handle that, can cause a lot of distress. (Ex. He has sent messages to me saying that people have posted public attacks on me. As far as I can tell, this is not the case, but he seems very convinced that this is true.)

Six: There are other people in the fandom that he'll tell you to block. Don't. They're people who he's caused a lot of distress to, and they reacted accordingly to try and get him to back off. They are the people who helped create the document I delinked, and while I DID take out the link (because, again, of the aforementioned promise), I absolutely do not blame them for creating it.

This is all based on my personal experience with this reviewer. Anyone reading this can do with this information what they will; I'm able to interact relatively peacefully via reviews, but that might not be the case for other people. As for PMs...I am still definitely of the opinion you shouldn't interact at all. Please do what you need to do to keep yourself safe and block if necessary.

#submission #debated for a long time how to respond #still not sure if this is the best way to do things or not #but that's kind of been my perpetual experience with this reviewer #if you think i should do something different or if i handled this poorly please let me know

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kenobihater · 2 years

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eskel’s scars in fanart

there's a problem in the fandom that irks me: people either seem to struggle with drawing eskel's facial scars, or they don't even attempt to do so. you may not think that's a big deal, but as someone with an old and faded relatively minor facial scar in an inconspicuous place, that makes me feel like shit! if i knew who eskel was when i was first dealing with the psychological fallout of being scarred, i would have felt a lot better about myself, because if he's still handsome while scarred, i could be too! he's a very visibly scarred character, and i'm absolutely certain i'm not the only person with a facial scar who looks up to him. minimizing or, god forbid, completely failing to add his scars in the first place, sends the message that the scars are both unimportant to his character and/or "ugly". both of these sentiments are false!

in the games, he got his scars from his child surprise deidre. i'm certain they had a negative impact on his self image as well as served as an unwelcome reminder of his mistakes every time he looked in the mirror. not drawing them, or minimizing them, erases that. now, onto the second part of why minimizing his scars is bad: it sends a terrible message to people with facial scars, that they're either not worthy of being portrayed accurately due to being "ugly", or that they're such an abhorrent concept that they should be erased altogether. that's bs, plain and simple, and i'm not going to waste any more time explaining why that's so harmful, as i'm sure y'all can understand how messed up that is.

so to hopefully rectify this problem of inaccurate representation, i've put together a guide consisting of some reference pics and commentary with the goal of guiding people to improve how they depict the character!

TL;DR at bottom!

okay, so first of all i want to say that i understand that not everyone draws in a hyperreal style, and that some simplification/streamlining of the scars is unavoidable. that's fine, so long as you aren't crossing the line into minimizing them. the easiest way you can avoid minimizing them is to add depth! his scars are extensive and vary in depth, with some areas being more superficial and some being more severe.

(click 4 better quality!) here i've made a map of his scars via picsart, outlining the edges and shallower areas in red, and adding blue where the scar tissue seems deeper in the face. it isn't a perfect map (his hair is in the way, and i myself attempted to simply so that the overall form of the scars is easily discernable), but it'll do.

some things to take note of are where each scar starts and ends, like how the one bisecting his upper lip starts the highest up and ends below his lip. another thing to note is the width and depth of each scar, and where they are the widest and the deepest.

now, i want to make note of one thing in particular that i most often see misrepresented: his upper lip. eskel's upper lip is so scarred and damaged that it no longer completely covers his teeth when his face is completely at rest.

this, this right here, is the thing that a good portion of eskel fanart is missing. something i've noticed in particular in fandom in general is how certain superficial facial scars, like geralt's, are celebrated, or at least never misrepresented, whereas severe scars that would actually affect the scarred person's day to day life for a while, like eskel's, are ignored or minimized. this lip injury would have made eating, talking, and drinking difficult for a while. he probably can't whistle or drink through a straw anymore. his other scars were undoubtedly deep enough to his a facial artery and possibly even a nerve, both of which could have complicated recovery, even for a witcher. and now that they're healed, his teeth still peek through. ignoring that is ignoring his canon character design, plain and simple. i don't care if you think his lips being damaged and his teeth showing through isn't "cute" or "hot" or "aesthetic" - scarred people don't exist to be any of those things, we exist because we exist, and we deserve accurate representation in fanart.

TL;DR stop drawing eskel's scars badly or not at all, doing so is an injustice both to the charater as well as people irl with severe facial scars. try to study both the width and depth of each scar, as well as where they begin, intersect, and end.

#len's meta #eskel #witcher eskel #the witcher #tw3 #the witcher 3 #tw3 wild hunt #the witcher 3 wild hunt #eskel fanart #people who are assholes abt this get blocked

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swindlefingrs · 6 years

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Do you ever just get such strong Deacon Feels, that you just want to bundle him in soft blankets and feed him nice things and call him pretty? The prettiest, I'd assure him. [And hope that my sudden attack of comfort doesn't weird him out.] Like, dude, I should be sleeping, but I'm laying awake thinking about this nerd. Help. Do you have any headcanons/ideas on comforting a sad Deeks? That wouldn't make him squirrelly and break out in hives? Or bring out the awkward finger guns in self-defense?

tl;dr: Help Deacon feel like he matters. Him. Not the Railroad. Him.

ts;wr:

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head in how you imagine he’d react.

To put a point on “sad”, because I think it informs how someone feeling sad may want comfort, most of my sad #Deels come from sympathizing with his struggle over: his loss of identity, a loss of the self, a loss of control, self-imposed isolation, anxiety over the unknown, the self-defeating inner monologue that Imposter Syndrome fuels, the inevitable burnout from fighting for a cause, and the pain of subsuming one’s ego and personal needs for a greater good.

In this scenario, we’re running into two fundamental obstacles at comforting that are intertwined: Deacon’s inability to be vulnerable, and Deacon’s subsumption of his ego to his work. He reduces his vulnerability by letting his sense of self be consumed by his work; and the more he does his work, the more he loses his sense of self, and his ability to be vulnerable.

Deacon’s Lack of Vulnerability

The amount of trust and patience it would take to know when Deacon is feeling upset in the first place would be monumental. Vulnerability is dangerous. Being known is dangerous. Deacon uses subterfuge to add distance and safety. He actively works against being known, even with people he’s worked with for decades. He keeps himself outside of his community, despite watching over it and caring for it. Through his behavior (like face changing and lying) he actively keeps people from knowing him, from being understood.

Without being vulnerable enough to ask for comfort, or vulnerable enough to accept comfort - can anyone earnestly comfort him?

Deacon’s Lack of Ego

Even at his lowest affinity, when he is the most angry, he doesn’t really allow himself value his personal emotions; he’s upset at what the Survivor has done and how that reflects on the Railroad and runs counter to what the Railroad is trying to accomplish. He’s willing to be around and work with (albeit at a distance) with someone who’s methods he hates, for the good of the Railroad.

None of this is to say he’s a mindless Railroad automaton. He has morals, has likes and dislikes, loves and hates: he hates wanton murder, dislikes scamming folks, he loves helping people, likes playing along on jokes. But when the chips are down, his highest priority is the Railroad and how the Commonwealth sees them. His verbalized wants are what he wants for the Railroad, and not necessarily himself.

In my mind, much of Deacon’s post-game growth is with himself because of this. Feeling sad for himself could be a big step for him. He (and the rest of the Railroad) has a lot of decompression and priority shifting to do post-game. How they decompress is anyone’s guess, but I can imagine he finds himself having some good days and some very bad days.

Without understanding what he personally needs, wants, and desires - can anyone earnestly comfort him?

Comforting a Deacon

With all of that in mind, combined with Deacon being such a pro-active person, I tend to think in actions as to how a Survivor would make him feel better if he trusted them enough, and knew himself well enough, to let them know how he truly feels.

If a high-affinity, Railroad aligned, post-game Survivor could tell that Deacon was upset, they could do things like:

Make him feel involved - not what he can do, not what he can accomplish, but him - the person. Include him in planning, in events, in the Survivor’s day and life.

Make him feel like he’s seen - he’s spent his so many decades of his life being invisible. Talk about him (with varying levels of truthiness), refer to him, bring up things he’s said to other people. Help him fill space.

Show up for him - he’s been kicked out of HQ so many times, he runs solo because partners don’t work out for him. Sure, his voice is listened to, but maybe the Survivor chimes in when the rest of the RR might be shooting down his voice during an all-hands meeting.

Tell Not-so-tall Tales - take time to reminisce about all the weird shit and shenanigans they’ve gotten into and survived. He was there, with them.

Show that the Survivor listens to him - bring him that stupid box of Blamco Mac n’ Cheese. Even if he lied about actually liking it, he knows the Survivor listened, regardless.

Help him work - his work is still important to him. The Survivor helps him get it done. Makes life easier for him. It shows they care, maybe about the Railroad, maybe about him, but with his life so intertwined, maybe the difference isn’t important right now as much as the doing.

Get him moving - sometimes crawling into bed is good, sometimes it’s not. The Survivor asks for help picking up some supplies. Getting out and walking helps Deacon’s mood a bit. They bring Dogmeat along and throw the ball for the mutt along the way.

Foster self-expression - writing, painting, sewing, cooking, sculpting, gardening. They make, create, discover, enjoy.

Respect his boundaries - if he says he’s fine, they don’t dismiss that. If he says he wants to be alone, they respect that. If he says he doesn’t want to be touched, they respect that. A Survivor can leave the door open for him with a “I’m here to listen” or “if you want a hug, I’m around”.

I tend to think of these things through my Sole Survivor and how they interact with Deacon. Everyone communicates and expresses themselves differently, though. A Survivor who is more quiet and cerebral might think of different ways to comfort. A Survivor who also deals with their own feelings of inadequacy might project onto him. A Survivor who might lack the will to be an emotional support might ignore or reject him as he slips into sadness. It really depends. I’d love to know how other Survivors would handle Deacon dealing with sadness.

As for calling him pretty? The thing is, I don’t think he changes his face because he thinks he’s physically ugly - he changes it to lose himself, to hide, to do his job effectively (because if he doesn’t do it effectively, the cause suffers and so do the people he cares about). I understand the sentiment behind what you’re saying - to make him feel better - but I don’t think telling him that he’s pretty as much as that his face is important, would be as fulfilling. He shouldn’t need to be pretty to have value. No one should. I don’t know what kind of dysphoria Deacon deals with, if any. He remarks on how it’s easier to look himself in the mirror after having his final affinity talk, so I assume accepting himself metaphorically and literally is part of his growth.

Maybe a post-game Survivor finds an old instant camera and takes photos with him, pinning them to walls, writing funny captions, making new memories with him and the face he’s growing into, and coming to accept, as the one he used to help save the Commonwealth.

When all is said and done, I think at a very basic level, Deacon knowing that someone that he admires, cares about him feeling sad, would be a big deal for him.

Notes:

I feel like I should clarify that I don’t generally interpret him as a fundamentally sad person. When contrasted against Preston Garvey’s very real, verbalized struggle with depression and suicidal ideation - Deacon doesn’t read in the same way to me. Sure, Deacon can experience sadness just like anyone, but when I think about characters that would benefit from extra comfort and understanding, it’s usually characters like Preston or Cait.

#deacon #fo4 #hey thanks for your patience with this #I hope it was helpful #with your hashtag-Deels #I was away from my computer for a while #thetinfoilcat #depression cw #suicidal ideation mention #in regards to Preston #long post #deacon meta #welcome to Overanalysis Central #this is your tour guide speaking #on the left you can see characters I over-identify with #and on the right you can see the people #who are confused as to why I can't just simply answer a thing #like a regular person

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omegawizardposting · 6 years

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Anon who was joking about imperialism in SNK here. The big separation here is Nazism vs Imperialism. I'm not saying he's a big ol' Nazi -- the Eldian situation does seem to refute that. What I'm saying is that when read through the lens of "this author has expressed imperialistic views in the past" a lot of it reads like a love letter to Japanese Imperialism. 1/2

I don’t want to spoil anything because idk how far you are, but the Eldians are a divided people and the way the sides are painted is very comparable to how some of the more nationalistic Japanese paint those that aren’t. There’s a lot of talk of returning Eldia to its former glory (which involved Eldia pretty much ruling a large portion of the world). Without going too in depth a lot of it reads like the “return Japan to its previous glory” rhetoric some Japanese imperialists have. 2/2

I’m completely caught up, and I didn’t read it like that at all. Also, it doesn’t really seem like Eldians are particularly divided. It’s more of a division between those who don’t want to risk their lives, and those who are willing to in order to free their people from oppression.

The Eldians are literally living in ghettos, being subjugated by the Marley. The story of the Eldians doesn’t really sound at all like the story of Japan or of the Japanese people. Additionally, there are many anti-government, pro-people sentiments in Attack on Titan, on top of what I’ve already discussed of the story openly criticizing historical revisionism and governmental corruption.

The allegory is much more comparable to Nazi Germany than to Imperialistic sentiments in Japan.

Additionally, the history the Eldian rebels were fed by The Owl wasn’t entirely accurate either. The goddess Ymir was neither a genocidal maniac nor a flawless being who gave only life and prosperity. The Owl reveals that to Grisha before handing over the power of the Attack Titan to him. More than likely, the history of the Eldians is much more complicated than “good” or “evil,” “right” or “wrong,” just like everything else in the manga.

They weren’t and aren’t a flawless race. Proof of that is the Eldians living in Paradis, who are all deeply flawed individuals, even those of royal blood (see: the entire Reiss family). They are merely a race, with a history the full depth of which has yet to be revealed–but they’ve been subjugated for at least a hundred years by another group of people, and they’re understandably angry about it.

Additionally, what Imperialist sentiments are you talking about? Where has Isayama expressed these sentiments? Where has he come out and discussed his love of Japanese Imperialism? Are you really basing that judgment of him off of a manga that is, if our disagreement is anything to go on, open to interpretation? Or on his single praise of Akiyama, which had nothing to do with the man’s Imperialism, but rather to do with Akiyama’s simply-led life?

(Which, yes, to me, an American, seems far too kind a compliment; but, as I said, American culture and Japanese culture vary wildly.)

You might be able to draw parallels between Eldians and Japanese Imperialists, but there is plenty of anti-Imperialist sentiment to be found in Attack on Titan as well. The Eldians are actually being oppressed, as a race, by the Marley; why wouldn’t they want to take the world back from those who murdered their kin and forced them into ghettos? It’s not pro-Imperialist sentiment just because Isayama Hajime is Japanese and that’s a thing in Japan; this is a pretty common motivation in fiction, take back the world from those who would seek to crush you.

In fact, that was Eren’s goal from the beginning: take back the world from the Titans, the world he was born into, the world he should have been free to explore.

Now it just so happens that he has to take it back from the Marley, who are actual genocidal maniacs.

TL;DR It seems to me that you’re reading way too much into the rebels’ desire to free themselves from oppression by reclaiming their world from the Marley and ignoring the entire rest of the manga.

#anonymous #pondering potats

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sabertoothwalrus · 7 years

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hi! i've been following u for a while & i'm a fan of your art so I just want to double check here before being upset re: that comic thing u reblogged: keeping in mind that the man-hating feminist stereotype has existed for much longer than Tumblr, & that people saying “I hate straight/white people” is often a joke/frustration from experiencing discrimination, to what extent do u actually believe that saying those things is "what leads to" an “us-vs-them mentality” between eg. white & black ppl

what I said was: #i know a lot of the example things are usually said as jokes #and dont have nearly the same political weight to make it 'reverse racism/sexism' or 'hetero/cisphobia' #but like #don't be a dick????#don't be rude and excessively hateful???#it's what leads to a very black & white us-vs-them mentality and that's what's so toxicok so how about an example: ace discourse. The argument is over whether or not being ace is inherently lgbt. Both sides have reasonable points. There aren't "good guys" and "bad guys" in this subject. But!! The Discourse devolved from a respectful discussion about how various people define what it means to be lgbt in the first place, to people on both sides just being genuinely shitty to each other. Like,, it frustrates me so much seeing people proudly calling themselves "aphobes". People like that took the "I only want to exclude cisgender heterosexual or heteroromantic ace people" sentiment and warped it until it became "lol I hate all ace people" and making posts with "op is an aphobe". By calling themself an aphobe is implying that they don't like ALL ace people, regardless of their other gender or sexual orientation. Which!! Is rude and messed up!!! You became so focused on the "us-vs-them" that you started ignoring that there are some people that aren't 100% either "us" or "them". tl;dr: please, try to recognize whenever your knee-jerk reaction is anger. Even if your anger is justified, take precaution to make sure you don't have more people under your fire than you intended. Try EDUCATING people WITHOUT using condescending phrasing or insults. Don't start fights if you don't need to.

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