Imogen

Happy Pride!

the concept of the admirers of knights giving them tokens or "favors" to show their love before a tournament or battle has me so fucked up today. like it's such a small gesture but it speaks volumes. i cannot be there in body next to you in the dust and blood and pain to share your victory or defeat, your suffering or your celebration, because honor and duty and social convention requires that i be elsewhere, so wear me over your heart so that my own might go with you. i cannot keep you safe but if you wear my love perhaps the world and its people will be kinder to one it knows has another waiting for it to rejoin them. nobody else might even know who the ribbon tied to your arm or flower tucked in your breastplate belongs to unless they saw us exchange it, but you and i know. and they will know that we exist. they will know that our love exists.

I’ve been thinking about Actor AU

girl did you really kill cringe culture or did you just replace it with the need to prove the media you dislike to be morally wrong and bigoted so that you have a reason to bully its fans again 🤨

I'm sure you've been asked this hundreds of times but how did you develope your art style? I especially love the way you color your pieces. They're chefs kiss for sure lol

i think of art styles as just ways you view the world,, how you choose to emulate what you see from life. disregarding how skilled you are in art, how you draw rn is your style, it just develops over time.

if you follow artists on social media, you’re gonna see elements of their art style you enjoy and may want to include in your own art (you might copy the way one artist draws eyes, another on their noses, another for their coloring style, etc.)

(i answered a separate ask about my own inspirations that influence my style here!)

and the more you draw, you’ll slowly find out what works for you.

for example, if you copy the way one artist draws eyes and continue to use it in your own style, over time, how you draw eyes could develop into your own way. that artist was just the foundation to help pave the way for your own art style.

like, your art style isn’t just made up of your favorite artists’ styles, it’s also based on choices you make. your style can be made up of:

(1) things you find appealing! if you like sharp angles and geometric shapes, your style may be more angular because it’s something you like! it’s not necessarily because an artist you admire did it, it could just be because you like drawing things that way and like how they look.

personal example: i like drawing lines in hair! i find it really appealing and like the shapes they make when i do it. i took inspiration from a friend who drew in a geometric style, but i didn’t rip this exact hair technique from them or any specific person. i just happened to do it and liked how it looked. i find it appealing, so now it’s just part of my style.

(2) things you just have fun drawing! if art is your hobby and something you really like doing, of course you’re gonna wanna have fun as you do it! so find particular things that you really enjoy drawing out.

personal example: when i sketch, i really love little scribbles like these! it’s just so fun to taper off lines this way.

i’ve done them so much it’s practically become second nature when i sketch. i like to be loose with my lines and don’t like making them entirely clean cut. i like the freeing feeling of letting my lines go wherever, and often the result is just scribbles like these. they’re fun to do, so i keep ‘em!

(3) techniques done just for the sake of convenience. you may start to find shortcuts in drawing/coloring certain things, and over time that technique will just become implemented in your style.

personal example: as aforementioned, i like keeping my lines loose and sketchy. if you look at my lines, you’ll see that they’re not very clean; they go off the edges and are open ended sometimes.

it’s a mix of inspiration from ramonn90’s art, but also it was just convenient for me.

i’ll be honest: i’m lazy. sketchy lines are convenient because i can be lazy: i don’t have to spend time cleaning up my lines and i can leave in my mistakes.

additionally! y’know how some artists complain that their outlines look boring and less expressive than their initial sketches? i also felt that way about my art in the past, but i found a way to counteract that that worked for me:

nowadays whenever i sketch, i copy and paste it onto a new layer. i keep the parts i like, erase the ones i don’t, and then continue to outline everything else onto that layer.

for me, this is convenient because it helps maintain the expressiveness of my initial sketch, because i’m keeping parts of the sketch in the final outline.

another personal example: how i color backgrounds. again, i’m lazy. because i’m lazy, i don’t really draw out backgrounds—i don’t want to spend time drawing every little leaf and tree and detail in the back. instead, i throw a bunch of blobs of color onto the canvas and call it a day. let viewers interpret it for themselves.

this was all out of convenience because i’m lazy. but hey! it works, i like the way it looks, and i have fun doing it.

there are probably more factors that play into the development of your style, but that’s all i can think up atm.

also, if you’re curious about my coloring in general, i like impressionism and blocky coloring styles. i love traditional paintings where you can see each brushstroke and color. here’s a pinterest board of art with that kinda style that i like!

compare that to some instances of my coloring—

and you can see the influence.

i used to get so hung up on what my style was, but as i continued drawing, the development just became natural and not something i put as much thought into.

this is all just how i interpret art styles, so i hope that gave you some insight on my thought process!

AO3 donators, it’s voting time. And one particular candidate not only doesn’t understand AO3 on a fundamental level (somehow, despite being a tenured user and an unfortunate volunteer) but actively wants to push censorship. They are the exact kind of person we don’t need involved with OTW or AO3 for that matter. The same kind of person we have to actively fight against like, all the time. I frankly don’t know how the hell they even became a volunteer but, anyway. Got vote for people who won’t actively work to destroy it.

Tons more info in the reddit thread here https://www.reddit.com/r/AO3/comments/wlxk3m/otw_board_election/

There’s already several posts around here on tumblr of people with the same worries, but not enough imo.

what’s in a kiss?

Scar loses his first life to Grian with a kiss to the knuckles.

He gets played at his own game – he’d be the first to admit it. Grian asks for a life, to test out the transfer system he says, with a smile and a wrinkle of his nose and the edge of a flirt to his voice, and holds out a hand. And, well, Scar’s a showman at heart. Always has been. Always will be.

And Grian’s always been able to play him like a fiddle, when he puts the effort in.

Scar takes the proffered hand like a gentleman, bows low over it with a smirk and a bit of theatre. He kisses a life into Grian’s scarred knuckles with panache, with a flourish, like a magician pulling rabbits out of a hat. Like a promise.

When Grian runs off with it, laughing and teasing and gleeful with fledgeling chaos, Scar mourns half for the loss of the life and half for a kiss unreturned. He ignores the kernel of ice that sets itself to seed at the centre of his heart.

–

He gives his second to Bdubs, from half a server away – a kiss blown into the open air, imbued with a mission as it leaves his palm. He feels it, as it catches the currents of the wind and is dragged away, a homing missile with a purpose. Etho watches him, eyes narrow, and Scar smiles and promises him it’s been done.

He feels it, too, when it reaches its mark. A phantom of stubble brushes against his lips, the ghost of a warm cheek pressed to his mouth. His chest feels a little colder than it did before.

–

The third goes to Cleo, a thumb brushing her hair back from her temple, his lips touched to the papery skin there. She tenses beneath the touch, lips peeled back, teeth bared– and then shudders, relaxes, as the kiss presses a life back into her. When she blinks, her eyes open the pale yellow of buttercups and dandelions, and the lines of tension are gone from the corners of her mouth.

Her skin is cold beneath his lips as he pulls away, the transfer complete. The space between his third and fourth ribs is only a few degrees warmer.

–

Joel gets the fourth, both of Scar’s hands curled over the solidity of his shoulders and lips pressed firmly to his forehead. Scar gets a mouthful of hair, half of it hastily dyed over red with bleach and box dye. He can smell the ammonia of it, and leans back before it can make his eyes water. The warmth trickles out of him in slow degrees.

–

And then it’s Grian again. 

Grian, stood in front of him with eyes like rubies, and a mouth twisted into something hard, something half-cruel. There’s a crossbow in one of his hands, a bloody-edged axe in the other. His gaze keeps sliding sideways, to that monstrosity of an obsidian cage, like he can’t quite bring himself to meet Scar’s stare.

Scar reaches out with both hands, and then hesitates. Lets one fall back to his side. He catches Grian’s chin with one knuckle, and tilts it upwards, careful, so careful. Until Grian’s eyes – tired, defiant, calculating – are forced back to his face once more.

“Last one I’ve got to give,” Scar says, with a lopsided smile, and leans in.

Grian’s lips are warm beneath his, dry and bitten-chapped, and there’s people watching, and Scar doesn’t care. The rubies turn to liquid gold between one slow flutter of lashes and the next, and red blooms across Grian’s cheeks instead. It’s chaste enough as kisses go, but Scar holds it just a second too long to play it off as a joke, and he can’t find it in his cold and aching heart to regret that. 

He pulls away and Grian blinks, dazed, flushed pink beneath his freckles. “Take better care of it this time, you hear me?” murmurs Scar, into the space between them, like a secret.

Like a plea.

He doesn’t wait to see if Grian nods before he steps back, turns on his heel, and turns his back on the last life he has to spare. His ribs ache, cold metal against teeth. His heart stutters beneath the ice, as best it can.

–

The sixth life burns out of him, too hot and too fast for him to scream. When he wakes up in his own bed, he doesn’t feel cold any more.

He doesn’t feel much of anything at all.

I’m really confused on what my gender and sexuality is, what do you have to say that would help?

Try not to stress out about putting a definitive label on it, because at the end of the day, the label doesn't matter that much. It comes down to what you feel, who you like, and what you identify with. Sometimes this takes a long time. It took me until I was 20 to finally realise this stuff myself, for some this realisation happens even in like their 60s!

My advice would be that you don't need to rush anything. Like who you want to like and if you absolutely feel like you NEED to have a label, use whatever just feels best at the time, you're allowed to change. Or you could use a more vague, yet overarching term like "queer" or "genderqueer" as those cover basically everything.

I wish you all the best in your journey! :D

fuck you. *dragon time*