#long post oops

[rouyn]

Tom Burke and Holliday Grainger as Cormoran Strike and Robin Ellacott in The C.B. Strike Series, one set of gifs for each of the series so far.

[amaebii]

ebiii, do u have any tips on designing an hsr oc? I just started designing mine (she's a halovian) and I have no clue what I'm doing 💔

HALOVIAN OC (* ´ ▽ ` *)‼️💌 YAYY YAY YAY

idk if i have any proper tips because my process is kind of all over the place, but personally i start with an idea that id really like to see ingame/enjoy making, if that makes sense !!

all my ocs are very self indulgent; june is the way she is because shes my self-insert and i like rock music as well as a bunch of other stuff, syaoran is half-borisin because i think werewolves are cool, lucy is .... like that .... because i love pyschological horror and mysteries 🎉

i decide on a vague theme or concept i like a lot first and then a bunch of stuff branches out from there (´∀｀*) that way, im sure that ill always love drawing and making content about them 🩷🌸 hence the doodles above lol

for june specifically it was REALLY DIFFICULT for me to decide on her final design since shes from penacony, and all the penacony characters are from a bunch of different backgrounds with different elements– compare this to characters from the xianzhou, for example, who have a much more cohesive aesthetic. even subfactions inside the xianzhou have more subtle design motifs between them if you look, like xueyi and hanya being part of the ten lords commission and having similar color palettes for their clothes !!

penacony has characters from .... all across the cosmos Σ(＞□＜) so i had to pick more specific characters that june would have visual ties to so she would look more 'part of the world'

im surprised people havent commented it yet since i was sure i was being super blatant, but june's coat colors are half inverted from sunday's. this ties into their lore while also tying them together visually.

she also has the most similar color palette to acheron, since they're both self-annihilators touched by the shadow of the nihility d(^-^) (ignore boothill hes stinky)

for designing halovian characters in particular .... she's based off of a raven, the same way that sunday and robin are based off of doves plus the symbolism and etc.

before i started daily boothill i was actually thinking of making 'halovian weekly' where id try to design a different halovian character every week based off of a specific bird, so i recommend also trying to find a bird species youd like to include in the design ^^ 🩷🩷

[skyespark]

I was arguing with my mom about AI art the other day. I talked about wanting to make a comic, but not having time to draw everything because I'd want it to be really long and thought out. She said something like: "what if you just plan it and use AI to generate all the art for it."

My first response was really just to get angry. The way she suggested it as such an acceptable thing to do really bothered me. I argued that AI isn't human and I'd be losing all the soul in doing it that way. She didn't get it, since, to her, it'd still be my ideas or whatnot and AI is just a "tool" I could use to make the thing I wanted.

Then, I tried to talk about the environmental impact of AI. That didn't work either.

I think it was then that I realized the most simple thing I had forgotten to mention by simply regurgitating the common anti-AI arguments (which I of course believe in, but at the end of the day that's not what bothered me most).

What I brought up was how, simply, I enjoy art—and the process of creating—so much! Why would I give up the step of the process I enjoy most just for some AI slop to speed up the end product for me (and do it awfully - but that's the thing, it's not always going to be awful, which is oh so scary)?

I love drawing, I love the process of creating things and planning them out, and what hurt most about her suggestion was how she felt it so trivial to suggest taking that step of the process away from me. She wanted to replace this thing I loved most with a robot, for the sake of efficiency.

We live in a product-driven world. Consumerism, fast fashion: everything is meant to be a product consumed, quickly used then discarded. In "Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism," E.P. Thompson discusses how the industrial revolution marked a shift from task- to time-based work. Before, people would make money by how many products they could create. Products were artisanal and crafted. But once industrialization occurred and everything became mechanized, time became directly proportional to money. If you spent five hours at a machine, you would make five times the money and produce five times the product than you would have having spent one hour working.

That is to say, this industrialized world has now spiraled into a all-consuming capitalist system where we value the end product and ease of production over all else: AI art is easy to produce, and easy to consume (it's everywhere).

But: I believe that as a society we should put more of an innate value into creation. Drawing brings me so much joy, and generative AI is a morally corrupt mechanism that could steal the absolute joy of creating from future generations.

In my time drawing and posting art online, I have come to love every type of art. I find "beginner" art endearing and absolutely wonderful; you can just feel the effort and earnestness put into each piece and the whole conceit of calling some art "good" and some art "bad" is just so pretentious to me.

I hope we can all enjoy creating, and the shared humanity that we spread through it. My favorite part of drawing has always been connecting with others through it, and there's something so existential about that quintessential human aspect being stripped away from it.

[zenigatas-eyelashes]

Did someone say trans Goemon and part Ainu Goemon??? Mind telling us more about this pleeeeeaaaase?? :D

hehe yes I did say that. So glad you want to hear more!!

I don't have an exact backstory and everything figured out for him, especially in relation to how he got his name, but your post was a really cool tidbit of info that happens to work well with my headcanons about him being Trans and Ainu! Before I explain: I've done some research on the Ainu but am by no means an expert!

I really just love the idea of him growing up in an Ainu centered community in the country. Overtime, many Ainu are part Japanese as well or at the very least speak Japanese (bc sadly Ainu is an endangered language but also due to more opportunities in the future that way.) Many who live in the country will also send their kids to school in the city.

The specifics of Goemon's backstory especially depend on what era I imagine him having grown up in. But very basically, I usually picture him having attended school in the city (having various minor interactions w/ the rest of the gang or just Fujiko if he goes to an all girl school.) Additionally, (whether that be death of his parents/family/loss or separation of community etc.) I imagine he'd eventually move fully into a much stricter traditionally Japanese environment, gaining his present name, and hiding/being forced to suppress his Ainu culture moreso than he would've had to do normally. This is where he would've been raised as a man. Whether because of the cross-cultural preference of men, a need for a man to inherent the Goemon name, Goe having hidden his true sex because of safety and his identity, or a combination of all. Later, in his early 20s I enjoy abiding somewhat by the manga lore that he got sick of his master/being an assassin and latched onto Lupin and Jigen.

In regards to his name, he possibly would not have gained an Ainu name at all. Ainu may raise children without regards to sex until about 4 and will call their kids by a nickname based upon what they enjoyed as a young child (their toys, playthings, food, etc.) Also, as far as I've learned, family names were not as much of a thing and the name of a person was not to be passed down or mentioned much after death. (This is all just based on articles tho, it's hard for me to find information about Ainu social life/raising children.)

Anyways, as you can tell, I could write about this forever. The idea of Goemon feeling like a fraud due to his Trans and Ainu identities are very good character potential to add onto his already canon perfectionism. I believe he'd eventually come to terms with both and appreciate elements of both cultures as well as himself as the successor to the Ishikawa's but it'd definitely take some time.

[eksentrismi]

Really random question and this isn't like important or such, I'm just asking for some advice if anyone's got any (and this post will be full of rambling, sorry in advance <333)..... but does any of you here know any good methods or ways to learning languages in an actually fun way? I'm bilingual, but idk, I've always really liked other languages and languages in general. And I'd love to study and learn more of them, but oughhh....... I find it so difficult to study them and I haven't found an actually working method for it, like one that would actually help my impatient AuDHD ass to study, lmao

Like idk, I'd love to learn (well, more like "try learning again") Swedish, Russian and Polish. <333 "But what about French and Spanish?!!" you may ask and well, trust me, I would like to learn those too someday... sorry to tell you this, but lmao, I actually did try studying those when I was a lot younger. I studied French for like 6-7 years in school and Spanish for 2-3 years in school too...... And I learned absolutely nothing from them (due to undiagnosed autism + ADHD at the time), and I know nothing much of them anymore, lmao. I forgot everything. Like I don't even remember the basics anymore... I can tell my name though, like. Je m'appelle Roni. Me llamo Roni. Embarrassing as hell to admit this too, but I also studied Swedish in school (as it's an actual mandatory language to learn in school here usually when you're 13-16) and I don't remember much of that either. Jag heter Roni och jag är 23 år. Men jag är inte så god i talar på svenska, förlåt lol. Also about Russian: I actually tried studying that too ages ago but only for like few months, and I had to give up when I generally lost energy for studying in school anyways. I still remember very few Cyrillic letters though and uhhhh, also like.... one word (and only because I actually read it on a side of a train once while adventuring in Tampere's train station recently). Мурманск... which means Murmansk I think??? Lol, iirc it's one city in Russia-

[gnirewolf]

really big fan of daisy! im in the middle of designing a lynx character rn and im v much having daisy as a point of inspo. what are some big inspiration/thoughts for her design?

whoa!!! thanks for asking :] so identity stuff but basically in high school I created 2 dog fursonas and for the longest time I kinda just. super aligned with dogboy online, but while exploring gender stuff I've also been trying to push back against parts of myself that I've just kinda accepted and run with since high school! so enter catgirl fursona ideation

I've been really into greens and flowers since like 2021 or so, for a while I was just taking a lot of pics of nature cuz it fit and it made me fall in love with weird greens. a lot of this manifested in grove, but I still wanted to keep the green and floral theming for daisy cuz they're nice, but I was thinking about something a bit less sparklefurry for her. I've also always been into the idea of piercings so the industrial piercing was like, an ideal thing I requested

now that I'm thinking about it, the idea really formed when I thought about the name Peat Moss for an idea of like a cat PNGtuber sona, and I kinda repurposed the idea. but to go with the theme I was imagining like, a grey coloration overall but with mossy green accents

the last inspiration piece of the puzzle was choosing a lynx specifically. I was kinda super into the catgirl vibes of Kuri from @coochiekrab, and I was also really enjoying some of the lynx designs crisstail had done, so I thought a lynx would be cute as a specific kinda cat. I think after having 2 general dog fursonas for so long, I wanted something a bit more specific instead of just like a housecat vibe, ya know?

I really was happy with the end design of commissioning grove as a character design, so I decided to take all these details to @immogoat who did the actual designing, and I sent over a few color palette ideas, kinda still internally focused on the idea of something muted/common but with a colorful accent. and overall, I really liked the options he gave me!! I think I was a bit torn between 3, 4, 5, and 8, but in the end I went with 8 (with some tweaks). I'll also say, the gauge piercing was totally the artist's idea and now it's one of my fav features of daisy!! overall, top tier design experience ^w^

and here you can see the color palettes I sent, with the top one being kinda unique and the bottom two being more faithful to the original Peat Moss character idea

[nobodysdaydreams]

I love the “Curtain/Nathaniel Benedict goes from scary villain to the society’s weird uncle” arc, but may I present the “They were family all along whether they realized it or not” theory:

What’s crazy to me about the show’s version of Nathaniel Benedict/L.D. Curtain is that despite his evil intention and manipulations, he, in a weird toxic way, has always actually cared about the kids. Obviously there’s the scene where Reynie says that he knows that despite everything Dr. Curtain cares about his son, which is the point in his speech when Nathaniel asked Reynie to stop talking because he felt a narcoleptic attack coming. But I don’t think it was just SQ that Nathaniel cared about. I think in some twisted way he cared about the other four kids too and might have even considered or thought of considering them family before season 2. (warning, long post, but hear me out).

Reynie/Sticky- Besides Sticky and Reynie the only other person we see Curtain have those weird manipulative dinners with is Garrison, who he describes as his “friend” (despite his obvious manipulations). Granted, maybe he does those fake-friend dinner manipulations to a lot of executives/messengers/employees and we just don’t see it on screen, but it’s never implied that he treats Jackson, Jillson, Jeffers, Marlon, or even Martina that way, and she was the top student at the institute. Martina also tells the boys that no one has ever made messenger as quickly as they have. Additionally, Curtain favored Reynie a lot before he realized Reynie was resisting the whisperer and thought Reynie was only trying to befriend his son to get ahead. Before that he gives Reynie and SQ speeches about other people trying to take advantage of/betray you and treats them very similarly. Curtain even tells Reynie that “he had limitless plans for him”. He also ends up favoring Sticky more than anyone. Curtain might have sent Sticky to the waiting room but that was before he became a messenger. And when Curtain hears Sticky’s greatest fear for the first time, his empathy and concern were genuine. Even when he finds out Sticky is working with Reynie, he still begs Sticky to get back into the whisperer even though he could just get another kid.

Kate- They make a point of showing that Curtain is impressed with the answers Reynie and Kate gave in class when he first meets them. Additionally, we see Curtain dismisses and mocks nearly every request brought to him by a student/employee regardless of who it is. So why would he listen to Martina and save Kate from being barged to (of all things) play tetherball which in no way helps with his plan? Curtain would likely not know the names of all students and leave that to administration, only monitoring the names of top students he’d use as messengers. Martina speaking with him was probably the first time he made the connection that his ex-possible friend/employee’s daughter was at the school. Regardless, it’s still the only time he listens to and respects input from a student/employee and on a surface level, it seems random and out of character.

Constance- He doesn’t do much with Constance other than comment on her psychic abilities at the end of season 1, but he’s still impressed with her power. If they stick to the books, he was also aware that an orphan psychic child existed that could mess with his plans and was at some point trying to locate her.

But more to the point: Why would Curtain favor the majority of the society like that? Is it really just because of their talent/usefulness/personal connections? We don’t get a lot of details on what Curtain wanted to use the children for besides starting the emergency, but honestly, as crazy as it sounds, I think he was planning to adopt them at various points in time. Curtain’s adopted SQ, so we know he’s adopted his ex-employees’ child before and might have tried to do so with Kate, but something went wrong and he couldn’t track her down until he found out she was back at the institute. (I don’t know if he would have still considered adopting Kate or maybe even all the children after sweeping them, but book Curtain swept SQ’s memories and show Curtain used dangerous fake happiness to get his brother back so it’s not totally outside the realm of possibility). Also, as far as Curtain knows, Reynie and Sticky are orphans around the age he and Nicholas were when they were looking to be adopted which is why he projects the conflict he had with Nicholas so strongly onto them (though he switches which one he views as himself in the situation). Even when he realizes Sticky betrayed him, he still begs Sticky to join him, stating that he doesn’t need Sticky, but wants Sticky to be a part of this, that he recognizes that Sticky is incredibly gifted (which goes with Sticky’s fear of not being wanted and Curtain’s already visibly upset at this point. Maybe even more sad than angry you can see he’s almost crying). As for Constance, her being a psychic child Curtain was looking for makes the “that little girl is psychic, I should have anticipated that” line make more sense because Nathaniel, on the verge of completing the emergency, was probably thinking to himself “See Nicky? I never needed you anyway. Soon I’ll have the world. And my own family” but after discovering his ex-employee’s kid, and the two orphaned messengers he connected with work for his brother is now thinking “Ugh, at this point Nicky probably has that psychic child too. Wait, that actually would explain how she destroyed my machine. Oh… of course. Of course Nicholas has every other special child I’ve ever looked for (besides SQ). Because Nicky always gets everything, doesn’t he?”.

Also: Curtain hates betrayal, especially when he feels like it’s from someone he actually did trust or care about. That’s why Curtain is so eager to sweep Milligan again, to get control over and admiration from his brother, to make Reynie squirm when he thinks he’s the spy, to brain sweep Kate, to put Sticky under artificial happiness and to “treat them without mercy”: because in his eyes, they betrayed and hurt him first, and they deserve what they get. Yet even in Season 2, when the children are his enemies, he still insists on calling them a society. Yes, he is trying to destroy them, but he also on some level recognizes that these children deserve admiration. This might be because maybe, despite his evil intentions, Curtain saw the same special thing his brother saw in these children and a big reason he is wants to destroy them is because he actually cared about them before he realized they were against him and is now so determined make them pay because of their loyalty and connection to Nicholas, his ultimate betrayer.

However, despite Curtain’s anger over Nicholas’ betrayal and all the horrible things Curtain has done to Nicholas, deep down, Nathaniel still cares deeply about him and wants his brother back, which is seen when he has a complete breakdown when Nicholas freezes. He is also distressed when Constance freezes, though it is more subtle (probably because others were in the room), but when she wakes up, Nathaniel looks genuinely relieved, is holding back tears, and unconsciously starts walking forward when he see them hugging each other. You can tell he wants to be a part of their family, and in a way, through their connection to Nicholas, he always has been. This is an interesting contrast to book Curtain who hates it when Nicholas calls himself his brother and uses the children as a means to an end, whereas show Curtain seems to really want and need that family relationship, but is struggling to obtain it in a healthy way. I’ve made like 50 posts already speculating what Nathaniel as their redeemed uncle would look like, so I won’t beat a dead horse but by golly is that the direction I hope they take this.

[variksenvarjo]

already a year of studying korean??

wow uhhh.. that went fast

i'm going to reflect on some parts of my study process below :) but yea, it feels kinda surreal, but i can see the progress!!! i honestly needed some extra motivation right now, and this definitely gave me a boost

vocab: probably my strong point. (almost) daily anki practice, adding new words pretty often. so i can understand a lot of words, it's just the application and conjugation that's the problem

grammar: i think this is the main thing holding me back. i technically know a lot of grammar rules, i have them written down and can find them easily if needed. i just haven't really been practicing any of them, so most of the time i don't remember them without looking them up in my notes.

immersion: i mean i listen to a lot of korean, doesn't mean i understand it hhhh. i started following some accounts posting in korean on different apps, so i'm hoping to practice my reading there casually (in addition to my specific reading time). the excitement i feel when i understand something is so great i just !!!!! (also emulating an old animal crossing game in korean, it's definitely still too difficult for me to understand hhhh)

so, goals for the next year?

honestly i need to reduce the time of learning new stuff and focus on practicing the things i already know. then once i'm more confident with those, i can start adding more concepts again.

so i think in general more focus on practice and application. i need to read more, write more, speak more. i don't think it'll be easy but i want to try :)