𝒯𝒽𝑒 𝒟𝓇𝑒𝒶𝓂𝑒𝓇

As a former music teacher, I can also say that "learn the fundamentals first" is the death knell for a vast percentage of beginners, especially adult learners.

I've run into this with drawing several times, where some well-meaning artist has lectured me on needing to study anatomy properly or not use shortcuts like CSP brushes. And oh, believe me, I know. I know exactly how to learn an artistic discipline in a structured way. I just...don't want to!

The thing is, I'm not aiming to be a professional artist. I want to draw my gay little anime guys. I would undoubtedly improve at art much faster if I approached every gay little anime guy drawing as a study exercise. But I would also have quit drawing a decade ago if I couldn't just let myself enjoy drawing imperfect fucked-up little guys with whatever shortcuts I needed to body myself across the finish line.

With my adult piano students, my approach was always "What's your goal?" If their goal was to learn exactly one Elton John songbook to play at parties, then...that's what we did. We'd put tape on the keys to label the notes, and just fuckin go for it. Learning exactly one Elton John songbook is a good and noble musical goal, full stop.

Some of my students needed and enjoyed a more structured approach to learning; if they wanted to be able to play classical music, then yes, scales were going to have to enter the equation at some point. And yet others would learn the Elton John songbook, catch their white whale, and realize they wanted to explore more of the ocean. The scales were still there for them to learn!

Often the choice isn't between "learn art well" and "learn art imperfectly" - the choice is between "learn art imperfectly" and "don't do art at all." To which I say, learn imperfectly! Or, what the hell, don't 'learn' art. Just do, and enjoy the doing of it.

🎶is she german or autistic? by @mumblesplash (x)

My blorbos

Derek is suffering but its fine he'll be rescued by an angel <3

So I'm thinking about an au where Ryland returns to earth and he is hailed as a pretty big hero. Yeah the avengers also saved the world in the battle of New York City, but that issue only lasted a few days at most. The long awaited return of the beetles and the unexpected return of the Hail Mary have been decades in the making.

Eva Stratt now runs a sister organization to shield that defends the world against threats that can't be solved with punching. Eva welcomes Ryland into the organization as both a researcher and head of public communications with tears and open arms.

This job is mutually beneficial, Stratt gets her favorite scientist back and never has to let him out of her sight again. Ryland gets to go all over the world and teach kids about science, while also getting to do work he loves.

It also helps that Stratt is helping him hide from the public that astrophage gave him super powers. Having a healthy work/life balance and not getting shoved into a big test tube is made infinitely easier when you're owed about one million and one favors by the women with more power than most government officials.

We watch just the flash backs from PHM, then we stop when grace gets chucked into space.

Next we watch Ironlung and Barbie (we can also add The Fall Guy here)

Oh yell heah crappy little comic strip I made about all of Graces siblings

Court Gentry, Colt seavers, Jason Grace, and Thalia Grace

The crossover is really crossovering right now…PLEASE SOMEONE MAKE ART OF ALL OF THEM, IM BEGGING YOU.

A Grace who had a close brush with corruption years ago. Who literally studies microbial life, and found something too close to the other side of the veil. Who’s lucky he was kind of an arrogant prick at the time, for he doesn’t know just who he insulted or how close he came to meeting a horrifying fate. But still, avatars tend to be petty, and the mark was left -his name was contaminated, and other scientists seem to feel an urge to avoid him like the plague. It isn’t a new experience.

A Grace who is a middle school teacher. Whose job is to take the unknown, the confusing, the scary, and explain it in a way that makes sense. Usually, knowing about things makes them less scary. But- not always. He still remembers the moment he learned of it, and the conversation he was forced to have about the red string of fate and the darkness rotting the sun. And it’s this exact skillset of his that the lady of ice needs to save this world.

Grace kills the astrophage cell, then breeds it, and earns his first mark -a petrova line of his own, running from his chest to his neck that can be seen in total darkness. The weird curse on his name clears, too, which he’s grateful for but vaguely worried by. He never notices the effect which replaced it, that people who spend a lot of time around him automatically seem to grow attached and listen to what he says -probably for the best that he doesn’t learn the power he has.

Slowly, he accumulates more marks over the course of the project, vaguely afraid of how something seems to watch him, but also not really intending to bring it up so long as nothing continues to happen. He realizes too late that these aren’t curses, they’re gifts; of course the Entities don’t want him dead. No world, no fear to feed on.

Stratt has a plan. The Entities have a different plan. Martin was marked for death anyway, but Shapiro couldn’t have done the job either. They have to go. Grace was nowhere near the explosion, but he’s marked by desolation all the same, and now stewing in the end as well.

Stratt doesn’t intend to let Grace walk out of this room if he refuses. He is way too far in to back out now, and the entities have such a grip on him, anything Stratt does to interfere will only delay the inevitable. She doesn’t want to do this to him -but anything SHE does to him is better than the alternative.

Grace still has the pinprick mark from that needle. Still finds pieces of red string in random places. Still carries the appendix removal scar. While Grace was sedated in a cell somewhere, Stratt warned the guards that if anything supernatural occurs, that they should not interfere, for it will pass within the hour. That it did, several times. The room filling with fog is quite a sight to see.

The coma thing malfunctioned; nobody survived the trip on their own. And so, Grace became an avatar of earth’s fear without really understanding what was going on, only that he needed to live.