[Kabuki's Art Izakaya]

{Commissions open!}

{Current Fandoms/Hyperfocuses}

Feel free to hit me up when you want to write about one of these fandoms. I won‘t bite, I promise. Also these are changing/rotating frequently.

Narcos

The Bear

Diverse History Topics (At the moment: Cuban Revolution)

Very specific interest atm: Tauromaquia and Matadors

many more

{My Personal Zine Collection}

The Matador Zine

{Fanzine Experience}

Page Artist for "Force Fatale"

Page Artist for "Death is only the beginning"-A The Mummy (1999) zine (free digital download)

Page Artist for "Return to the Unknown"

Hello there! <3

Thank you so much for your question and WELCOME to the most niche fandom in all of tumblr.!

So about how i got into it..., it's kind of a funny story. About a year ago i scrolled through Pinterest in search for some 'character faces' (people with very individual faces) to draw and i stumbled upon this picture:

Instantly, i was hooked. The expression, the eyepatch, the whole outfit...I knew i want to draw this man as a character study, so i searched for him and found out the name: Juan José Padilla. When i looked him up, i deep dived into his life story, since the question kind of sticked with me about why he was wearing an eyepatch and holy moly, it was wild.

This was basically the beginning, that i wanted to learn more about matadors and the tauromaquia, also because it is such a controversial and brutal tradition, that is so far away from anything i knew (as someone from Germany). It kicked off with the usual internet research, wikipedia etc. and then i read some books and consumed media about it, which also included streaming some live corridas via VPN on Canal Sur and TeleMadrid. And yeah, what should i say? There is so much more behind this fuzz than just "a man kills a bull". It's an old tradition with very strict rules, a deep sense for the weight and strange beauty of death. But it is also a spectacle with incredible stories (about men, women and bulls) and a lot of drama. It's very difficult to explain, you have to see and discover for yourself. I just warn you, that it is important to prepare yourself for what you will see in the faena of a corrida. It is hard to watch, if you are going in blindly.

Here are some of my resources, which i can recommend:

Manolete (film starring Adrien Brody and Penelope Cruz about the legendary bullfighter manolete and his steamy love drama)

The Matador (documentary from 2008 by Stephen Higgins about the matador El Fandi)

Tardes de Soledad/Death in the Afternoon (documentary by Albert Serra about the matador Roca Rey)

Ernest Hemingway's books: Death in the Afternoon and The Dangerous Summer (Hemingway is basically explaining bullfighting, his personal thoughts on it and stories like the rivalry of the bullfighters Ordoñez and Dominguín in Dangerous Summer)

Into the Arena: The World of the Spanish Bullfight by Alexander Fiske-Harrison (A GREAT book, where the author – and Englishman – tries to explain the Spanish bullfight through the eyes of an outsider and goes out to discover it firsthand. This is literally my biggest recommendation about the topic)

As already meantioned, if you have a VPN, you can check out live corridas on Canal Sur and TeleMadrid or you watch older ones on YouTube.

About finding "your matador": This is very personal, i feel like there's a blorbo and fav for everyone since there are so many different matadors out there. My personal loves are (of course) Juan José Padilla, Morante de la Puebla, Andrés Roca Rey, El Fandi Sebastián Castella, Alejandro Talavante, El Cordobés (the old one), José Tomás, Diego Ventura and Guillermo Hermoso (both are rejoneadores – very worth to check out too, these are the matadors on horses). But there are so much more out there!!! A lot of them have instagram too.

And if you need someone to fully go fandom-mode over this topic, you know where to find me hehe! *returns to the trashcan*

Had to break my art fight flow for Oldtown's own Jeremy Fragrance.

Kicking off the new Art Fight Season 2026 on this account with my first pieces for Team Comedy!

We had 40 degrees in Germany and AC isn’t a thing here (I hate this), so I decided to somehow scribble something my mind does not need a lot of brain for. Matadors again, yeah.

Roca Rey, Manzanares and Talavante alongside a headshot of Montoya and a chibi of annoyed Larita, who is Roca Rey's mozo de espada (I love him, he’s so silly).

Yeah, Toreros again.

{The Bear Is Coming Home}

HEAR ME, HEAR ME! It's Art Fight season again!

I have a whole bunch of fresh OCs, so feel free to pick the one (or ones) you like the most and let's FIIIIIGHT! *shadow punches* I am excited for all the cool characters out there, my fingers are tingling, my coffee as dark as the night and my iPad is on fire.

Find my profile here:

THREE TEAMS FOR ARTFIGHT THIS YEAR!?!?!??!

My OC vibes scream tragedy... but my silly mind screams comedy. I am too cringe for mystery.

{The Vessel // Ezekiel Pike}

Ezekiel is the younger brother of Gideon and was the actual heart of the lighthouse. Since he was a young boy, he dreamed about becoming the next lighthouse keeper, stepping into the footsteps of his father – although up till now, this role was always given to the oldest son. But since Gideon knew quite early that he would like to leave the town to study somewhere else, it was agreed that Ezekiel would stay to tend the light. After his older brother left, he started to learn, what it took to be a keeper of the light as he became his father's apprentice. However, the day he would've gotten the most important lesson in his life and the secret to what the lighthouse was really about, he made a terrible mistake that would change the fate of the whole town. When his father was away to get something from the town, Ezekiel wanted to do him a favor and clean the windows of the lamp. As he did, he unknowingly changed the precise settings of the light – the barrier that kept an old power away from the coastal line. And it freed the way for a voice to slip inside of Ezekiel's head to make him its vessel.

Dagon. Still laying th the deep of the ocean and waiting to regain his full might, was able to slowly corrupt the mind (and body) of the poor young men, until Ezekiel paid the price for this unfortunate mistake.

Just two of my fav historical matadors.

I am currently reading a biography of El Cordobés, which i found in the bookshelf of my grandpa (he travelled through Spain a lot during El Cordobés prime, so he got it to get more insights about it back then) and MY GOD. His story could easily be a movie. Growing up in the chaos of the Spanish civil war, he lost his parents early and grew up in extreme poverty, almost starved and then one day he decided to become a matador and risked his life many times on his path until he later became one of the richest and most successful matadors ever. It's really worth to check out the book, it's "Or I'll Dress You In Mourning" by Larry Collins and Dominique LaPierre. I got a lot of inspo for my matador oc Montoya.

First of all: Welcome to one of the most niche corner of tumblr. Second: Hell yes, this is the only way to treat those weird guys in their silly tight pants.

{Pasodoble}

During Semana Santa, Cayetana visited Sevilla's Plaza de Toros for the very first time and witnessed the triumph of a man, who had been a nobody till his hands found a capote.

Little did she know in that moment, that she would see Montoya again that very evening, when their roles switched and his eyes were the ones that watched her dance.

{The Woman from the Waves // Ava Morin}

Ava grew up in the small coastal town underneath the light of the Pike Lighthouse. When she was just a child, she played on the rocky cliffs at the shore and got lost, when she fell into the unruly water. Her parents really thought they had lost her, until the girl appeared again – days later – laying on the beach with no memory of what had happened and a dark spot on her cheek as well as a mysterious kraken-shaped amulet around her neck, which she refused to take off. But aside from that, she seemed alive and well, so her parents just thanked the ocean and god for giving them back their only daughter. But it was a different god that had saved her and changed what once was a mere human. And for her life, he demanded a sacrifice. Because Ava was now meant to become the bride of Dagon and return to him, every foggy night after she had come off age.

Ava knows that something is different with her, that the ocean calls for her, every time the thick fog lays itself over the waves in front of Orrowick Harbour. But she is not able to grasp fully, what she is becoming and what Dagon had done to her. Neither does she know, that she was the reason for the death of a long list of fishermen around the area... Because every time she returns to the land, her memory is clouded again.