The Magic of Fiction

I firmly believe that how feminist a book is is better demonstrated by its background characters rather than its mains

What I mean by this is that a book may have “feminist” female leads who are strong, competent, complex, whatever, but how do they portray women just...existing in the world? Are there women in the background, or is the fantasy novel with its strong independent Action Girl protagonists set on a background of generic male soldiers, guards, councilors, shopkeepers, messengers, and wizard apprentices? Are minor characters ever women when there’s no particular reason for them to be? When women appear in the background of your story, do they have any unique qualities that hint at a complex picture we’re not seeing or do they slide seamlessly into Pampered Noblewoman, Prostitute and Vaguely Maternal Older Woman Who Runs A Tavern Or Something?

If your protagonist is a fighter or magic user, do you show other women in those roles? If your society is more relaxed about sex discrimination, have you built a world that looks like it?

Have you built a world where your female characters don’t all have to be The Best At Everything, or is almost every female character placed where she can be extraordinary next to a bunch of male counterparts? Are you comfortable letting a female wizard or warrior be average or unimportant, or does she have to be one of the most skilled and powerful of them all, able to match or best all the men around her? On the other hand, are you comfortable having a female wizard or warrior be indisputably the most skilled or powerful out of the wizards or warriors, without drawing attention to her gender, placing her in competition with men, or having her be an exception to the rule because she’s female?

Are you letting your female characters be mediocre and un-extraordinary? Your world is full of powerful sorceresses, fierce battle maidens and calculating noblewomen, but do women do things in this world other than be Exemplary and Great and Awesome? If you’ve established that women do business and fight, do you have female soldiers carousing at bars and vaguely dull female Evil Minions Of The Dark Lord bumbling around doing evil bidding and female apprentices slacking on work or is every background woman we see competent and controlled and intelligent and doing whatever it is she’s doing without error, whereas only men are allowed to be foolish, impulsive, mess things up, or just be shown unflatteringly during the couple sentences we know them? In other words, does the world show women being unapologetically human beings or are all your female characters basically making up for being women by not doing anything that would badly represent their gender?

In particular, if you’re trying to show a society with gender equality, that means the dark lord is willing to hire women who are bumbling idiots as guards, and not just that some female wizards climbed their way to the top and became As Good As Men because they’re so badass they can snap god like a bunch of uncooked spaghetti.

Yes. This. Always this. In every book.

Forget the question of...

"is Azula truly evil?"

"Is she sympathetic?"

And focus on...

"is she compelling?"

"Is she well-written?"

ATLA headwriter guild for writing characters.

i read this as “characters should be false gods” and honestly mood

rapidpunches:

SHORT STORY/ONE-SHOT/ONE CHAPTER/COMICS 101 CRASH COURSE RAPIDPUNCHES’ STYLE

Good stuff.

Guys, I edit professionally. This list is legit. Incorporating these suggestions before you hire an editor will save you A LOT of money. Even if you did these and nothing else, you’d see significant overall improvement in your work.

That said, you don’t have to overthink these things when you’re writing a first draft. If you write, “she said angrily” in a first draft, you can always revisit the phrasing in a second draft. I mention this because overthinking style can lead to a loss of momentum, and losing momentum is why so many people never finish a draft. Give yourself permission to write fast, write messy or ugly, and edit your draft into beauty later.

If this post wil be popular, then in a month I will make a new part :з

Hello!

Let’s get some fun :)

All you need is:

1. Fashion look

2. Some character/person

Just make a list of the characters you want to draw,

Then randomly select the look number and character number. Profit!

P.S. Of course, you can use this challenge the way you want. You can, for example, draw yourself or your pet.

Treat this with imagination!

#dressupartchallenge

If this post wil be popular, then in a month I will make a new part :з

Hello!

Let’s get some fun :)

All you need is:

1. Fashion look

2. Some character/person

Just make a list of the characters you want to draw,

Then randomly select the look number and character number. Profit!

P.S. Of course, you can use this challenge the way you want. You can, for example, draw yourself or your pet.

Treat this with imagination!

#dressupartchallenge

hope this tutorial helps, anon!! a lot of this is a result of experimentation and seeing what looks best based on your picture. what i’m essentially doing is relying on the overall “mood” bg colour tie everything together cohesively by putting the local colours over it on the “soft light” filter. the other changes i do, such as the blue light on him and the flavour elements are all based around making it more cohesive, e.g. the glow from the pool is all over the background AND the subject, instead of just the pool, pulling them together, if that makes sense! 

of course this also relies on having some sense of what a realistic version of your scene would look like - for this comic i looked up “pool scenes night” on google to gather references i could take the colours from, and looked up lighting references for the way light would hit a face if coming from the bottom, stuff like that.

the other example is from a commission i did: 

in this case, the lighting situation has a lot more light, and isn’t as atypical as pool-at-night lighting. so it was easier to rely on my usual method of colour layering, i.e.

again, experiment experiment experiment! hope this helps! 

https://picrew.me/image_maker/55827

RP special: Arkan goes hunting for cryptids in the forest, but the cryptid is just @alpha-bread‘s character photobombing his pictures. (Corner fox art by said friend)

fantasy girl by elain on picrew

twitter: spotchy_pooch

https://picrew.me/image_maker/185656

Day 72! Who interrupted his orange time?

vibe

if you give me a task with no deadline i will literally never do it but if you give me a deadline i will get it done exactly 1 hour before the deadline even if the deadline is in six years

#this is ADHD#or possibly another executive function disorder but ADHD is the only one I really know about#the reason for this is an ADHD brain does not have an internal feedback system#ADHD brains require external input to make up for missing executive functions#like the ability to process multi-step tasks with delayed consequences#because to an ADHD brain#things don’t exist in the absence of consequences#meaning#people with ADHD are drawn to things like video games because the feedback is external and immediate#every action you take has an immediate effect on the game environment#and you can SEE that your actions are providing xp or moving a task towards completion#but for something like homework#the consequences of that homework being done do not exist until that homework must be turned in#and it’s either done or not done at that point#which is why people with ADHD function best closest to deadlines#the consequences of that work being done must be IMMEDIATE to compel the brain to see it as a task that requires completion#because the further out a task is from the consequences of it being done#the more an ADHD brain is incapable of acknowledging it#TASKS DO NOT EXIST TO YOU UNLESS THERE IS IMMEDIATE EXTERNAL FEEDBACK#THIS IS ONE OF THE BIGGEST PROBLEMS WITH ADHD BECAUSE TO OTHER PEOPLE IT DOES LOOK LIKE LAZINESS#BUT A LAZY PERSON JUST WOULDN’T DO THE TASK AT ALL#AND ADHD PERSON STRESSES THEMSELVES HALF TO DEATH TO GET THINGS DONE#BUT ISN’T CAPABLE OF STARTING THEM EARLIER TO PREVENT THE STRESS#BECAUSE THE TASK DOES NOT EXIST UNTIL IT NEEDS TO BE EITHER DONE OR NOT DONE#IT’S KIND OF LIKE SCHRODINGER’S BOX#THE TASK DOESN’T HAVE TO BE DONE OR NOT DONE UNTIL THERE ARE CONSEQUENCES FOR ITS STATE OF COMPLETION#so what LOOKS like laziness to other people#is actually a VERY SERIOUS FAILURE of the brain’s executive function system#which is a VERY serious medical problem#the name ‘Attention Deficit Disorder’ really fails to sell how serious the disorder actually is via @thecuckoohaslanded

god dammit my tags got cut off AGAIN I’m hitting the tag limit on like every post lately, I really need to work on that

Anyway I went on to say that there are 5 major executive functions of the human brain.  These are the ‘higher functions’ that really distinguish between a human brain and that of any other animal.  We have added intelligence on top of that, but these are the functional abilities our brains have that the rest of the animal kingdom does not have on a a structural level.  There are 5 of them.  ADHD affects all 5.  And none of them are actually ‘attention’ (the closest function to anything that can reasonably be called ‘attention’ is what’s called Working Memory, which is your brain’s ability to hold a specific task in mind to come back to it; distractions are inevitable, but a healthy brain will hear a phone ring, look up, and remember to go back to what it was doing before.  An ADHD brain will hear the phone riBANG ALL MEMORY OF THE CURRENT TASK IS GONE.  ADHD brain looks up, sees the name on the caller id, oh it’s an unknown number, oh it’s probably some political pollster, oh man this year’s election is just awful I can’t believe people are supporting that angry cheeto. Oh cheetos I’m hungry I should go make a snack.  What kind of snacks do we have?  Did I remember to buy cereal at the store the other day?  What about dog food?  Oh my god I forgot to let the dog back in the house this is why I should have gotten a cat.  Oh my friend sent me a great cat video earlier I should watch that.  AND GUESS WHAT YOU NEVER GO BACK TO WHAT YOU WERE DOING BECAUSE THE STRUCTURE IN YOUR BRAIN THAT SUPPORTS RETURNING TO A PARTIALLY COMPETED TASK DOES NOT EXIST THE WAY IT DOES FOR A NORMAL HEALTHY BRAIN.  This is why even if you start a task well before a deadline you can’t keep to it until it’s been completed; the consequences of it being done MUST be more compelling than everything else in the immediate environment for the brain to see it.  No matter how much time you give yourself to complete the task, if you have ADHD it will take you 100% of that time, every time, which is why having ADHD actually TEACHES YOU to put things off, because it’s the only way to shorten the total time actually spent completing the task – the disorder rewards you for self-destructive behavior because it’s the only way you can get things done at all, and you end up living in a permanent state of extreme stress, hopping from one emergency deadline to the next even though you hate yourself for it every single time).  The disorder has been horribly named in a way that trivializes just how serious and life-ruining it actually is.

ADHD is a very, very serious disorder and the pop psych/common understanding of it makes it seem HORRIBLY trivial compared to the real damage it actually does to people’s lives.

…

…

…ohhh…

This is both fascinating and… possibly slightly alarming.

@birbhubby this is really interesting reading.

I’m reblogging this again with a couple of book recs because I’m seeing a lot of people having lightbulb moments on my dash. 

You Mean I’m Not Lazy, Crazy, or Stupid? - One of the oldest books on ADHD/ADD in adults and a classic.

Driven to Distraction - Another classic and a great place to start.

Make sure you pick up the latest editions since our understanding of ADHD/ADD has changed a lot since those were first published.

If anyone needs further books recs or help finding specific resources, feel free to IM me or send me an ask. I’m not totally up to date on current stuff, but I’ve had my diagnoses for almost 30 years and totally count as experienced old fart now. XD

The crescent moon of bunnies and hay🐇🌙

made my own palette meme because why not! feel free to send me some or reblog/repost for ur own art needs 

Send me an expression and a palette along with your choice of ATLA or LOK character and I’ll draw it!

Drafting

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Motivation

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Other

Ko-Fi & Other Support

If you enjoy my posts and can afford it, I would greatly appreciate it if you donated to my new ko-fi page! Each of these posts represents multiple hours of unpaid labor. I love writing for this blog, but I’m also an underpaid 20-something trying to stay afloat. I’ve made this master post of every essay I’ve written for this blog as a way to show my appreciation in advance of any support. If you donate, to further show my gratitude and appreciation, I’ll take requests for essay topics in the ‘messages of support.’ 

If you can’t afford to donate via ko-fi, another great way to show your support is simply by reblogging posts that you find useful and helping my blog reach new writers. 

Thanks so much! 

Know what I’m salty about?

In all my art classes, I was never taught HOW to use the various tools of art.

Like yes, form, and shape and space and color theory and figure drawing is important, but so is KNOWING what different tools do.

I’m 29 and I JUST learned this past month that India Ink is fucking waterproof when it dries. Why is this important? Because I can line something in India Ink and then go over it with watercolors. And that has CHANGED the ENTIRE way I art and the ease I can create with.

tldr: Art Teachers: teach your students what different tools do. PLEASE.

WAIT INDIA INK JS WATERPROOF ONCE IT DRIES????? THE ENTIRE REASON IVE AVOIDED MARKERS MY ENTIRE LIFE IS BECAUSE JNK BLEEDS AND YOURE TELLING ME INDIA INK IS

F U C K I N G W A T E R P R O O F

oh man your teachers did not do there jobs!

-Yo painters, use pencil if u must underdraw beneath an oil painting, the lead is archival but ideally you should be doing underdrawings in a muted earth tones (siennas, umbers, ochres or earth green) with some titanium white added to it. (The white nearly matches the canvas and earth tones naturally blend with all colors on top unless u do super thin glaze washes).

-Trying to make a natural looking warm black? Don’t use black straight from tube, Mix alizarin crimson and viridan. add raw umber to adjust for light depth.

-If your into mixed media ALWAYS use acrylic first and oil on top (the gesso on primed canvas is acrylic based and oil sits on top of it great). NEVER put acrylic paint on top of oil, the acrylic will crackle/decompose and fall apart/off the canvas.

-India ink is permanent and if your using ink from a jar it should say it’s permanence. professional art grade pens usually have there permanace listed either on the pen or the companies website.

-Red cinnabar is poisonous, DO NOT EAT IT, no matter how much like fruit loops it smells.

-Translucent and transparent are NOT the same. translucent is *shiny* and a cloudier color, ideal for mixing usually ordor making vibrant colors like for eyes, cars, etc. Transparent is matte and usually a 50% transparency from an opaque color.

-ALWAYS DO A TEST SWATCH OF ANY NEW MATERIAL.

-any paint made with “true alizarin crimson” “red lake” and “chrome yellow” pigment is a fugitive paint. Fugitive means the pigment fades dramatically and disappears over time, (usually 5 to 15 years) lots of van goghs paintings have this problem. be very careful with these pigments. Alizarin crimson especially smells extremely sweet and like fruit loops or fruit loops, don’t eat it.

-gauche is a mix of watercolor and ink, proceed with caution as this material can be an asshole.

-Watercolor can be made darker/thicker by letting it dry slightly in cake form or in liquid form and can be dry brushed if u get the timing down.

-Paint liquid rubber or lay down thin pieces of painters tape on edges in watercolor paintings to Prevent bleeding between lines if u need super sharp edges.

-always tape down the entire paper edges when u paint with watercolor to a board to prevent the paper from curling as it dries.

-add salt directly into wet watercolor paintings to absorb pigment and make shit look like space.

-Always paint in well ventilated areas and avoid getting lots of paint on your hands. lots of paint is made with heavy metals and can cause cancer.

-natural materials aren’t always safe, especially

-Ones u collect yourself, do your research before grinding, burning, sanding these things especially indoors.

-use NATURAL bristles on your brushes with oil paint and SYNTHETIC bristles on your brushes for acrylic and watercolor. synthetic bristles literally break off into oil paint and stick into your painting, and natural bristles can’t handle the weight of acrylic paint and rip into 15 directions. Use hard boar bristle for the underdrawing/underpainting of an oil painting as it will force the paint into the canvas pours more effectively cause it’s stronger, use softer bristles for outer layers of oil painting and blending, boar will pierce outer layers and is to hard for anything but the first layer. can’t tell what u have? clean it up and brush it on your face, softer it is the better it is as doing outer layers of color.

-if you have a decent painters’ tape, you can prewet your watercolor paper, tape it to a surface & weight it down with some books to press it flat while it’s wet and help keep it from buckling later once dry, this is especially useful because for some reason, watercolor block is half again as expensive or more than a comparable sized pad or large sheets to cut down, even by the same brand

-natural sable is good for watercolor if you can afford it, i have two smaller brushes i shelled out for to try it, and while i probably didn’t treat the finer point one right, the other one is a miracle i’ve had for nearly 20 years.

-chinese calligraphy brush sets are fantastic for large work and washes and way, way cheaper most times than standard brushes, and it doesn’t seem to matter how cheap they are, either. they may shed a little, but they do a really good job holding and distributing water.