¯\_(ツ)_/¯

This post has been published simultaneously by themayflynans on Tumblr and Adrianners on Dreamwidth.

We are very sorry to bring the news that @kitsunebi-uk, known to her friends as Linda, passed away unexpectedly last week. Her family has asked that those wishing to honor Linda’s memory donate to Leicester South Foodbank’s fundraising campaign. The Chuffed platform requests an optional tip instead of subtracting its operating costs as fees from donations, so 100% of funds raised will go directly to the food bank.

We’d like to share some memories of Linda in this post, and invite others who knew her to do so as well.

NHS: 0/10, what's the point? Honestly his storyline is so grounded in rejecting his family's toxically masculine skillset and counting on uselessness to make him underestimated that I think it ruins the character.

NMJ: 100/10. BUTCH SWORD LESBIAN AND HER FEMME ART GAY BROTHER.

JYL: 6/10 the new improved Jiang Fengmian, now with 100% less abusive parenting. Maybe as a MALE character with high emotional and social intelligence he will be allowed to drive his own storyline.

JC: 9/10, collects more deadly accessories than her mother and probably started that fist fight with her fiance before Wei Wuxian got the chance.

WWX: 8/10. Troublemaking teen that looks like her hot mom accidentally makes half the young masters of her generation fall in love with her, only to be swept off her feet by the peerlessly beautiful ice queen who turns out to have been a hopeless lesbian the whole time.

LWJ: 8/10. See Wei Wuxian above.

WN & WQ: 7/10. Shy socially awkward girl dies and goes fucking feral. Tsundere boy medic who would literally kill himself for his baby sister. Flawless in concept

JZX: 4/10, interesting but I would not want any daughter of Jin Guangshan living under the same roof as him.

JGY: 3/10, more interesting than Huaisang but mostly in a way that makes me depressed

MXY: 6/10, also depressing but would give someone more qualified than me an interesting way to explore wwx's relationship with gender.

XY: 1/10, unhinged goth girls are great but the yandere jokes aren't worth it

LSZ: 9/10. Sizhui is already like twenty thousand wish fulfillment tropes anyway, just make her a full on YA heroine. Mad Scientist Wei Wuxian's beautiful daughter and Lost Princess of the Wen clan, the twin jades' lusterous pearl and apple of the Lan clan's eye.

LJY: 6/10, I'm always up for loud and disruptive women.

Free maps for those of us gaming online while practicing social distancing.

While I forgot to post about maps from last month (including the large Island Cathedral up above), I also want to announce I’ve put a selection of my maps on Gumroad as free/pay-what-you-want to help out those of us gaming online while practicing social distancing. 

I’ll likely add a few more in the coming weeks, but if you do use them, I’d love to hear about your encounters and how players interacted with the different elements!

The Procgen Mansion Generator produces large three-dee dwellings to toy with your imagination, offering various architectural styles and other options. Each mansion even comes with floorplans:

A random example:

I find it easier to make prompt lists so I can write with what I’m inspired by. I’ll probably add to this as I find new prompts I like.

I took these from several prompt lists that I’ve reblogged, so that’s why they may look familiar. 

ANGST

“I can’t do anything right.”

“Please don’t cry.”

“Why are you awake right now?”

“Why are you lying to me?”

“Forget it, you’re a fucking asshole.”

“Don’t you ever do that again!”

“Do you even still love me?”

“Nobody’s seen you in days.”

“Why are you awake?”

“I’m worried about you.”

“Can you shut up for once in your life?”

“Holding everything in doesn’t help, you know.”

“If you don’t hug me right now I think I might fall apart.”

“Just get home as soon as possible, okay?!”

“I told you not to fall in love with me.”

FLUFF

“Go with me?” “As long as you hold my hand.”

“Is there a reason you’re blushing like that?” 

“Have you seen my hoodie?” “Noo.” “You’re wearing it, aren’t you?”

“OH you’re jealous!”

“Can we stay like this forever?”

“Please just kiss me already.”

“I think you might be my soulmate.”

“Sleep over? Please?”

“Are we on a date right now?”

“I think I’m in love with you.”

“Are you flirting with me?” “You finally noticed?”

“Am I your lockscreen?” “You weren’t supposed to see that.”

“I wish we could live together already.”

“They’re so cute when they’re asleep.”

“I just wanted to let you know that I think you’re beautiful.”

“You take my breath away,” “…” “y’know, like the song haha”

RANDOM

“Quit touching me, your feet are cold!”

“Sharing is caring, now give me the hoodie!”

“Did you seriously just get your foot stuck in a toilet?” “Maybe.”

“If I die, I’m haunting you first.”

“But I’ve never told you that before.” 

“Stop being grumpy, it’s lame.”

“Can we please stop running? I think I’m dying.”

“Can you please…? Hmmm, I don’t know. Maybe put a shirt on?!”

“You come here often?” “Well, I work here. So I think I’d have to say ‘yes’.”

“Aren’t we supposed to be working?”

“You’re insane,” “You love me,” “Not right now I don’t.”

12.    “Give me attention.”

13.       “YOU SAID TO BE HONEST STOP HITTING ME!”

14.       “Okay, so maybe I didn’t see that coming.”

15.         “I’m too sober for this.” “You don’t even drink.” “Maybe I should start.”

16.          “You met me yesterday,” “Yes, and I would die for you. Next question,”

17.          “I’m telling you. I’m haunted.”

18.         “Well, that’s tragic.”

19.         “She’s hiding behind the sofa.”

20.         “I’d kill for a coffee…literally.”

21.         “What do you mean she’s my new partner? She tried to kill me last week!” “Sounds like a you problem.”

22.         “Good thing I didn’t ask for your opinion.”

23.         “I’m bulletproof…but please, don’t shoot me.”

24.         “Did you just hiss at me?”

25.         “It’s six o’clock in the morning, you’re not having vodka.”

26.         “The diamond in your engagement ring is fake.”

27.         “No. Regrets.”

28.         “How drunk was I?”

29.         “How is my wife more badass than me?”

30.         “It’s your turn to make dinner.”

31.         “They’re not your kids, back the f*ck off.”

32.         “I could punch you right now.”

33.         “Welcome back. Now fucking help me.”

34.         “I’m not buying ikea furniture again.”

35.         “Oh honey, I’d never be jealous of you.”

36.         “That was kind of hot.”

SITUATION PROMPTS: 

KISSES

“Good morning” kiss

Kiss on the forehead 

Kiss on the nose 

Kiss on the neck

Kiss on the back 

Needing to kiss to hide from bad guys

Exhausted parents kiss 

Hiding/hoping not to be caught kiss

Before Bed kiss

In Secret kiss

Public kiss

Against a wall kiss

When One Person’s Face Is Scrunched Up, And The Other One Kisses Their     Lips/Nose/Forehead 

Lazy Morning Kisses Before They’ve Even Opened Their Eyes, Still Mumbling     Half-Incoherently, Not Wanting To Wake Up

Routine Kisses Where The Other Person Presents Their Cheek/Forehead For The     Hello/Goodbye Kiss Without Even Looking Up From What They’re Doing

Kisses Meant To Distract The Other Person From Whatever They Were Intently     Doing 

websites:

Animation World Network

Animation Backgrounds

Animation Magazine

Animation & CGI

Animator Island

Anime News Network

Cartoon Brew

Character Design References

On Animation

Reference! Reference! (free database for animation)

11 Second Club (monthly character animation competition)

tumblr blogs:

animationart

animationforce

animationtidbits

aspiretoanimate

calartscharacteranimation

disney-moments-sketches (Allen Ostergar’s blog, animator at Walt Disney)

drawingforsuckas

fuckyeahconceptart

storyboardresources

theanimationarchive

theartofanimation

wannabeanimator

resources/tips:

Animation schools: 1 / 2 (Top 50 USA) / 3 (Top 100 international)

Which animation school is right for you? (Ringling vs. CalArts)

Don’t want to/ can’t afford art school? you’ve got other options.

Animation Mentor: The online animation school

Art school exercises!!

51 Great Animation exercises

20 things you can expect as a traditional (2D) animation student that they never tell you

A Survivor’s Guide to Life Inside an Animation Studio

Animation basics: The art of timing and spacing

Animation Notes From Ollie Johnston

Animated chart of the basic principles of animation

10 Second tip: Always Anticipate

book: Animation: Learn How to Draw Animated Cartoons by Preston Blair

book: A System for Planning and Timing Animation by Glen Keane

book: Timing for animation by Harold Whitaker and John Halas

book: Gesture Drawing for animation by Walt Stanchfield

Basic 3D Animation Terminology

Digital pencil test!!

Keys to Emotion in Animation

Lessons from Disney’s Zootopia

Model Sheets central

The importance of Acting in Animation by Segio Pablos

Printable exposure/dope sheet

Phoneme Chart

Recommended reading for animation students and enthusiasts

The 5 Types of Animation

The Know-How of Cartooning 

The Unofficial Truth about The Animation Industry

Why Disney Sends Its Animators To Life Drawing Classes

Walk/Run Cycles reference

What is Pixar looking for in Animators? (scroll down)

Portfolio Advice for The Disney Animation Internship

What is Rigging?

3D Rigging Terminology

3D Modeling Terminology

tutorials:

Animation for Beginners: Where do I start

Animation Physics (Video tutorials on physics for animation artists)

Animation tutorial part. 1 AKA “the secret of animation”

Appealing Poses in Animation

Background & Movement in TV

Blinking tips

Breakdown tutorial (middle frame between to keys)

Drawing & Composition for visual storytelling

Drawing for Animation

Drawing a Likeness

Animation fundamentals + tutorials

Filmmaking: Composition and Framing

Getting Shape Change

How to animate using photoshop

How to animate Characters in Perspective

How to Animate Head Turns

How to Draw Gesture

OpeenToonz tutorials masterpost

Overlapping Action and Drag

Portfolio tips / Making A Successful Portfolio

Lyp Sync tutorial

Line of action

Basics of good cartooning 1-12 by Sherm Cohen

Squash & Stretch tutorial

Squash and Stretch 2

Storyboarding tutorials by Sherm Cohen

The Illusion of Life: 12 Principles of Animation

Tilt, Flow & Rhythm

Underlying Structure When Animating Expressions

TVPaint tutorial: Uploading and Coloring Scanned Animation

supplies (traditional animation):

10 Essential Art Supplies for the Traditional Animator

How to Use a Light Table for Animation

Making a Simple Animation Lightbox

Peg bars, Animation Disk & Desk

softwares:

free

Blender (3D creation suite. It supports the entirety of the 3D pipeline: modeling, rigging, animation,etc)

Emofuri (animate using .psd files)

Google Sketchup (

Live2D ( animation/drawing software

OpenToonz (Studio Ghibli’s open source animation software)

Pencil2D (create traditional hand-drawn animation (cartoon) using both bitmap and vector graphics)

Renderman (Pixar’s free 3D rendering software)

Sculptris (Free digital sculpting tool by the makers of Zbrush

SculptGL (Online modelling program)

Synfig (2d animation using a vector and bitmap artwork)

paid

Zbrush (digital sculpting sw by Pixologic)

Mudbox (digital sculpting sw by Autodesk)

Cinema 4D (digital sculpting sw by Maxon)

TVPaint  (2d animation)

animation studios:

Aardman (Bristol, UK)

Blue Sky Studios (Greenwich, USA)

Dreamworks (Glendale, USA)

Fox Animation (USA)

Imagination Studios/CN (Burbank, USA)

Industrial Light & Magic (San Francisco, USA)

Laika (Hillsboro, USA)

Luma Pictures (USA / Melbourne, Australia)

Nickelodeon Animation (Burbank, USA)

Pixar (Emeryville, CA)

Rise FX (Berlin, Germany)

Studio Ghibli (Tokyo, Japan)

Sony Picture Imageworks (Vancouver, Canada)

Sony Pictures Animation (Culver City, CA)

Walt Disney Animation (Burbank, CA)

Weta Digital (Wellington, New Zealand)

inspiration: worth watching short films

Coda by and maps and plans

Contre Temps by the Contre Temps Team

Duet by Glen Keane

DOG ENVY by Olivia Huynh

Fallin Floyd by  il Luster

French Roast

Gravity by Ailin Liu

In Between by Gobelins

Jinxy Jenkins and Lucky Lou by Michael Bidinger and Michelle Kwon

My Big Brother by Jason Rayner

Night Light by Qing Han

Nephtali by Glen Keane

Nocturne by Kari Casady

Historia de un Oso by Gabriel Osorio

Home Sweet Home  by home sweet home the film

One Bright Dot by  Clément Morin

Stickboy by Giant Ant

SOAR by Alyce Tzue

Tsunami by The Animation Workshop

Thought of You by Ryan Woodward

Vagabond by  The Animation Workshop

Fragrantica: perfume enthusiast site that has a long list of scents. v helpful when you’re writing your guilty pleasure abo fics

Just One Cookbook: recipe site that centers on Japanese cuisine. Lots of different recipes to browse, plenty of inspiration so you’re not just “ramen and sushi” 

This comparing heights page: gives you a visual on height differences between characters

A page on the colors of bruises+healing stages: well just that. there you go. describe your bruises properly

McCormick Science Institute: yes this is a real thing. the site shows off research on spices and gives the history on them. be historically accurate or just indulge in mindless fascination. boost your restaurant au with it

Canine Body Language

Cocktail Flow: a site with a variety of cocktails that’s pretty easy to navigate and offers photos of the drinks. You can sort by themes, strengths, type and base. My only real annoyance with this site is that the drinks are sometimes sorted into ~masculine~ and ~feminine~ but ehhhh. It’s great otherwise.

Types of High Heels: A page describing twenty five different types of high heels. It gives a description and pictures. Shake it up from just “stilettos and kitten heels”

Random Job Generator: Exactly as it says. The site offer more generators like characters, plots, or town names.

Glossary of Hosiery Terms: Figure out what is what on a pair of stockings.

Men’s Dress Shoe Guide: A quick guide describing the eight most common types of men’s dress shoes. Pics included.

… phew. this ask almost passes as a legit question, but the ‘xoxo’ at the end is a little much.  still, what a great opportunity to talk about this ongoing problem of people ignoring warnings that a work contains content that upsets them, then complaining that they were upset when they viewed it.

(first, a side note: don’t censor the word ‘pedophilia’. It’s not a slur - it’s a content warning. If you censor it, the blacklists of people who don’t want to see posts that mention pedophilia won’t catch it and they could be harmed. Just use the word.)

anti-shippers who look at a fic or fanwork’s tags and say ‘this has problematic content! I better go tell the author how problematic their content is!’, I have news for you:

warnings on fanworks indicate that the person creating the work knows the content is ‘problematic’, not for all audiences, and may hurt people if they view it unsuspectingly.stop taking fanwork warnings and tags in bad faith and using them as an excuse to harass and harm creators.

warnings aren’t ‘disclaimers’ (and aren’t used as such). they’re the CONTAINS NAPROXIN. KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN sticker on painkillers. The content is good, even helpful, for some people, but for others who don’t need it or are too young to understand what they’re consuming could be harmed. take the warnings seriously and if you don’t like what they say the fic contains, you really are better off not reading/viewing it!

‘they’re not warnings, they’re advertisements!’ they can function as both! people who want to read that content can find it and people who don’t want to read that content can avoid it. everyone is happier, except anti-shippers who are mad that people are enjoying content they don’t personally approve of.

‘If the creator knows their content is problematic, then they shouldn’t have created it in the first place! Or if they did, they shouldn’t have put it on the internet for people to see!’ well that’s a very different conversation. What you’re saying is that you advocate for censorship, and in that case ‘don’t like don’t read’ would be worthless: only things you like would be allowed to exist in the first place.

But let’s talk about how ‘they shouldn’t have put it on the internet for people to see.’ the basis for this is, I know, that it could corrupt the unsuspecting youth who read the bad content. But isn’t this a bit contradictory? if a fanwork is tagged with a warning that it contains abuse, everyone who looks at the fanwork is going to know that 1) the author believes that abuse is bad and needs to be warned for, and 2) the work contains abuse. Taking these points together, no matter how positively the abuse is depicted, a viewer has foreknowledge that it’s abusive and the creator thinks abuse is bad.  It’s simply insulting to imply that viewers will look at the abuse in the fanwork so uncritically as to not think it’s horrible after receiving such a warning.

In fact, I’ve heard anecdotal evidence that people who have been raped or abused (or still being abused) or undergone other harm have read fics with these warnings and because of the warnings, realized what had happened to themselves was not okay.  If anti-shippers had their way, those fics wouldn’t even exist, much less be warned for.

I’m about to say something radical, so brace yourself: 

because tagging warnings is the accepted way to warn people about dangerous content in fandom, the things more likely to cause confusion and harm in fanworks are the things that aren’t warned for.

Even the most positive depiction of abuse would be spoiled by a warning. Can you imagine if the beginning of every copy of Nabokov’s Lolita started with ‘Warning: this work contains depictions of csa, abuse, and child grooming.’ It would force readers who are blind to the hints that the narrator is unreliable to read the work with a very different eye, and I doubt most people would read it and conclude it’s a love story the way many people do today.

Now Lolita was intended to be a kind of monster story from the point of view of the monster - it was never meant to be a positive depiction at all. Nabokov’s work was too subtle for most people, but he was a master storyteller. I think if he could, he’d go back and add a warning so people would stop getting the wrong idea.

In fandom, where we have a widely-accepted tagging system, potentially harmful content that the creator adds deliberately will be warned for. But the potentially harmful content that the creator doesn’t know about won’t be - and that’s the stuff that tends to be a lot more sneaky and insidious.

Let’s take your example: 

“i can be as racist as i want and you have to deal with it because i used a disclaimer".

Racism does crop up a lot in fanworks, but not in the way this implies.  There’s a huge difference between a creator recognizing racism exists and utilizing it as an aspect of a setting or acknowledging it in a respectful, truthful way and a creator who does not recognize their own racist blind spots and therefore ends up perpetuating harmful stereotypes or providing racist narration without realizing it.

The former tends to be warned for; the latter never is because the creator doesn’t even know they’re being racist. The former may be painful, because racism is shitty and harmful and real, but a person can steer clear if they want to avoid it and the warning shows the content is known to be bad. The latter is more painful because it’s not just depicting racism: it is in fact perpetuating racism.

So which is actually worse: the fic that has a warning for racism or the fic that doesn’t?

And this can be applied to anything. A fic that depicts a character being abused but doesn’t warn for abuse tells me that the author doesn’t know the work contains abuse (which is worrying for the safety of the author). A fic that contains dubious consent but the author doesn’t warn for noncon/dubcon/rape tells me that the author has a poor understanding of consent.  These are the fics that are more likely to be dangerous. Fics without content warnings are also the ones most likely to unironically and uncritically depict the bad behavior in a positive light - because the authors have been taught by the rest of society outside fandom that what they’ve depicted is normal/not harmful. They are victims, and they need help, not people yelling at them about how problematic they are.

Two last notes, which I’ll try to keep short:

If a fanwork depicts a relationship that’s canonically unhealthy in a world where it’s fluffy and healthy, they are not responsible for putting warnings on their fic that pertain to the canon version of the ship.  For instance: Kylo and Rey are enemies in current Star Wars continuity and Kylo tried to torture Rey for information. But if a fic is set in a future where Kylo is well-adjusted and happy and dating Rey in a non-abusive relationship, the fic does not need to warn for ‘abuse’. the fic doesn’t contain abuse. Let it go.

No creator is beholden to using anti definitions of words like ‘pedophilia’, ‘abuse’, and ‘incest’ for their warnings. The definition of what antis call ‘pedophilia’, ‘incest’, and ‘abuse’ varies from fandom to fandom - sometimes from pairing to pairing. While tags will always be somewhat subjective, the wide variety of definitions these words have in anti-shipper parlance makes them all but meaningless, so use them when you see fit, not when antis demand it.  If antis have a problem with it, they’ll just have to start treating ship tags as warnings* and avoid all depictions of ships they don’t like. (which is what we all wish they’d do anyway.)

And now for the final irony: every time anti-shippers use warnings as a reason to go yell at people about how their fanworks are bad, antis give creators less incentive to tag warnings. People might start to hope that if they just don’t warn up front for the potentially dangerous content people will stop yelling at them without even looking at the work itself. Or if the work is borderline (’maybe this is abusive but maybe it’s not’), they may opt to go without the warnings so they can avoid the extra trouble. this is already happening with dubious consent depictions. If a noncon warning gets you yelled at, then fics where the consent isn’t completely denied will just not get warned for at all, and that’s fucked up.  And when the warnings aren’t there, people are way more likely to stumble on something of a nature that upsets them! 

So as usual, in their crusade to eradicate all content that isn’t unquestionably wholesome and pure antis make everything a little less safe for everyone. Thanks, guys.  (please stop.)

and creators: please, depict terrible things in your fanworks in whatever light you choose - and warn for them. you might accidentally help save someone from a real situation that’s terrible.

anyway, bringing this back to add: on AO3 the option ‘Choose Not to Warn’ is a blanket warning that the fanwork might tick any/all of the 4 Major Warning boxes on AO3 (underage, noncon/rape, major character death, graphic depictions of violence). That’s why clicking a ‘Choose Not to Warn’ work also takes you to the consent to view adult content page.

In other words: if you wouldn’t click on works tagged with any of the 4 major warnings, then don’t click on Choose Not to Warn works.

what? you don’t like how much that limits your options? well …

more than a few AO3 users have noted that they’ve switched to using the ‘Choose Not to Warn’ option because of harassment directed their way by people who haven’t read the work in question: just viewed the warning tags and decided to tell the author they’re a bad person for creating a work that needed said warning.

if you want the ability to avoid certain kinds of content easily, don’t attack people who tag their works with warnings for that kind of content solely based on their tags. They won’t stop creating: they’ll just stop tagging.

for all the artists following me

draw fast. it’ll look messy for a long time but you’ll improve faster than if you spend 4 hours on every drawing

if you draw in pencil and have a habit of erasing all of your mistakes, try drawing in pen or marker. i know it’s scary but it’ll help in the long run (i’m speaking from experience)

try different methods and mediums but don’t worry about mastering any of them, just have fun

if you’re not rich, buy art supplies from the dollar store, not the art store (seriously. i go through a sketchbook about once a month and i’d rather spend $4 on one than $15)

there’s no wrong way to learn. you can copy other people’s art if you want to, just don’t post it

DO NOT worry about having a consistent style. do not. just draw however you want

if you want to make original characters then do it. don’t worry about if they’re original, or a good design, or if they have an accompanying story. make sonic ocs. do it. it’s fun and it’s not hurting anyone

try not to kill your back. stand up and stretch once in a while

make a folder and save all of your favorite arts for inspiration 

draw from life. draw your dog. draw your teachers. draw your desk. draw your own hands (seriously that’s the best way to get better at drawing hands)

in general, drawing from life or a photo is better than drawing from a diagram

draw whatever you want. draw youtubers if you like youtubers. draw undertale if you like undertale. when i was a kid i drew nothing but shadow the hedgehog and horses. everyone deserves to draw what they want without being mocked, and if people start making fun of you, block them and keep drawing

don’t expect to get any notes at first. don’t let it discourage you. if you want validation go show your art to your mom or your friends or your teacher or your grandma

take breaks, but don’t give up.

(5/23/19) hey! it’s been over TWO YEARS since i made this post at age 16 and it’s still getting notes

i stand by these points! and i’m glad they’ve encouraged people! just keep in mind, none of these suggestions are RULES, they’re really just tips to try, and they definitely helped ME, but may not help everyone. 

feel free to donate to my ko-fi or support me on patreon or check out my commissions! link in description