but here's my favourite bit:

When I was 19, I made a large oil painting of the nerd I would eventually marry. I poured all my attention and care into this painting. It's the only art I have from back then that still holds up as a work I'm proud of today.

I entered it into a judged show at the local art center. It got an honorable mention. I went to see the show with my beloved model. One of the judges came up to talk to me, and highlighted that all the judges really liked the painting. It would have placed, except, you see, the feet were incorrect. They were too wide and short, and if I just studied a bit more anatomy-

I called over my future wife, and asked her to take off her shoe. Being already very used to humoring me, she did. The judge looked at her very short, very wide little foot. Exactly as I'd lovingly rendered it. I would never edit her appearance in any way.

The judge looked me in the eye, and to his credit, he really looked like he meant it when he said "Oh I'm so sorry."

Anyways the moral of the story is that all of those anatomy books that teach you proportions are either showing you averages, or a very specific idea of an idealized body. Actual bodies are much more varied than that.

For many of us, these characters found us during a really dark time and we don't call them our emotional support characters for nothing. And to have all that history so dismissively handwaved by the devs in their social media posts is actually hurtful as hell on a personal level...

(I get that 117 choices is insane and would take up an unreasonable amount of resources and limit storytelling. But I did expect 8 or 10, even if half of them just lead to codex entries. That would have been fine! I mostly expected that there wouldn't be choices from DAO and DA2 as well, but Inquisition?

How will they even give a throwaway mention to the Inquisitor's romance like they did for Hawke in dialogue in DAI, if you can't even select that Cass is Divine or Bull, Blackwall or Cullen are dead? You can't even say oh they're at home doing this and that. At best romances like Dorian or Josephine will get some content while others get none. At worst the romance choice input is actually just there to ask if you romanced Solas. Yes, I'm hella upset at that even as I am currently obsessed with Solavellan.)

Because most importantly this just makes the whole world of Thedas feel.. idk cold? Knowing that there is nothing to make it feel like we affected anything in the world so far and that so many of the characters we love will never appear again because they once gave us a choice involving them. Like, do I now need to hope I don't get any major choices for the new characters I fall in love with because that means they'll never bring them back again?? Better not get attached?? Is that really what you want to teach your players?

I don't have any hope that they are self-reflecting enough or care enough to do this, but maybe if the backlash is bad enough they'll start working on a patch that at least contains some codex entries and ambient voice lines? That's like my one piece of copium I can try to actually suspend disbelief for rn. Apparently I've entered the bargaining stage..

I've been hardcore hyping about Veilguard since 11 June (which happens to have been my birthday and like that was the best part of it for me) and I really don't want to feel this way, but I do and I don't know how to describe it other than I'm grieving.

Ahmad Al-Louh, his wife, two children (5, 4), and father in law with diabetes - unvetted but RIS is clean. €1,109 of €50,000

Habib, her husband, and four children 12 and under - unvetted but RIS is clean. kr895 of kr500,000 ($86 of ~$50,000)

Ahmed Al-Habil, his wife, two children, and parents - Vetted (line 163). £4,648 of £81,000

you tell the family you’re pregnant during a regular miya dinner.

ma’s smiling through her rice, too overjoyed to cover her mouth, an expected reaction.

but atsumu? he’s pissed.

“ya pregnant?!” he looks at you for a millisecond then to his brother. you’ve never seen shock transform into fury so fast. “and ya didn’t tell me?!”

“we just told ya, doofus.” osamu remarks while turning his body to place a palm on your belly as if to shield you and your growing child from his ire.

the answer flummoxes atsumu even further. “no, ya shit—“

“language.”

“—turd wad!” he corrects without missing a beat, ma’s reprimand just as inevitable as it is futile. “why didn’t ya tell me earlier?”

“what’d ya want me to do? facetime ya while she was pissing on the fuc—“

“language.”

“—flipping stick?”

the blonde twin looks at his brother as if he were an idiot.

“yes!” the answer basically expels like a demon exorcised out of his body, shaking him from hair to toes.

“are ya crazy?!”

atsumu stands which triggers osamu’s fight or flight (it’s just fight) response. he stands too.

“you’re the crazy one if ya think i didn’t deserve to know that moment ya find out!!”

the two are swapping fists now and though it’s not a reaction you expected, you’re not unused to it either. ma steals osamu’s chair, sliding in next to you as you ignore both her boys and she places half her portion of vegetables onto your plate.

fact: you are not part of the Canon universe, so already we are practicing suspension of disbelief. good job! hang on to that and use that to finish reading the story that the author has so graciously posted, FOR FREE. FOR YOU TO ENJOY.

long story short (for anyone who hadn't heard of this before) the kids online safety act, aka kosa, is a bill that will censor online content and resources for lgbtq+ matters, reproductive healthcare, activism (INCLUDING PALESTINE AND LIKELY OTHER CRISES GOING ON LIKE IN CONGO OR SUDAN), mental health, etc. everywhere--its effects likely won't be contained to just america.

today, july 30th, 2024, the senate passed it 91-3. it has officially moved to the house of representatives.

is this a pretty massive setback? yes. do you have every right to be scared, sad, angry, or whatever else about this happening? absolutely. but should you give up hope completely? NO!

even though kosa passed the senate, the house is on break/august recess at the moment. we have around an entire month to get emails, calls, and faxes in to house reps, maybe more depending on when they decide to vote on it.

should it pass the house and get signed into law, we still have a whole 18 months before it actually goes into effect. this is plenty of time for digital rights orgs (e.g. fight for the future, the electronic frontier foundation) and other groups that oppose it to file a lawsuit against it. even if, worst-case scenario, it flies through the house immediately after the recess ends, we can still fight this up to march 2026.

so, yes, remember what's at stake here, but also remember that it's not over yet. we lost a battle, not the war.

below are some resources to learn more about kosa and how to contact your reps (first link) + a page that lets you directly contact progressive house reps, sign an open letter opposing the bill, and view others' testimonies against it (second link):

It is not hard to link to your Tumblr or Twitter with a vague message like, “If you’re looking for my other works or other ways of supporting me, go here: link.” I have had people buy me coffees after enjoying my fic and asking where to support me. I threw up a link to my Tumblr and people cared enough to follow it. They were fully understanding when I explained in the comments that they could not commission me and I could not link them directly to any donation platform, but they could go to xyz link to read more. And they did! Nobody has to put AO3 directly on the firing line.

Go ahead and commission independently. Just do it anywhere else except on AO3. And then don’t come crying to the community when you, personally, get a C&D from a massive corporation.

AO3 is our bullet shield. Tumblr will pull your shit down. Wattpad won’t fucking protect you. LJ and FF.net already sold our asses for one (1) corn chip. AO3 is trying to protect us, you goddamn lemmings.

If you cannot follow the rules that protect fanspaces, you do not belong in our fanspaces.

Fictional characters are objects.

Stop telling people to encourage the cop inside their head.

How you treat fictional characters, given they are entirely objects of fiction, does NOT necessarily speak to your own character, and you do not need to be "careful".

It is not dangerous to imagine dark things happening to fictional characters. It does not mean you are secretly a bad person. It does not mean you unconsciously want to hurt people in real life. It is not a "slippery slope" to doing bad things to people in real life. You cannot damage your brain or turn yourself into a bad person by consuming "dark" fanfic.

"What did Inumaki say about me?" you ask later, far out of earshot of the man in question. "Was it bad?"

"What?" Yuuta crinkles his nose in delight as he repeats the motion, "You mean this sign?"

"Yeah."

I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard

Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.

Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.

Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.

Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.

SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.

SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.

Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.

Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.

Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.

Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.

you turn on the faucet and cup the water to your face, rinsing off the lather of your nighttime routine. sukuna leans his shoulder against the doorway, soapy baby bottle still in hand. his white shirt is soaked through, the dark, thick lines of his tattoos peeking through as it clings tight to his skin.

"What balls?"

"My fucking testicles," he growls. even with that snarl on his face, he's looking good tonight, just as he always is. "Because you clearly have them in your purse or something."

You bark out a laugh and his sneer just gets deeper.

"You neutered me." He flings the bottle in the air and suds fling across the room. You squeal and shield yourself from the spray. "I'm in the kitchen washing fucking baby bottles!"

"Ugh, not well though!" You wipe away the suds from your arms. "This is still soapy!"

"That's not the point!" Sukuna pops a hand on his hip.in a surprisingly sassy pose. "I used to be a bad ass, cracking skulls, snorting coke-- fuck, I used to churn your pussy good all night, every night."

You stick out your tongue and grimace in disgust. "Ugh, don't say churn, it makes it sound like you were making butter in my vagina."

He rolls a shoulder and mumbles under his breath, "Something was creaming."

"That something was you." You point to the door behind him where your son is sleeping. "I told you to pull out."

"You and that demon pussy destroyed me." Sukuna laments. "You've domesticated me! Collared me! Ruined me!"

You just return to your face routine.

"Fine." You pump out a bit of moisturer. "Never ask me for another kid then."