I will make a proper post for The Saint of Steel illustrations later, but for now here are some sketches and close-ups <3 After reading books, I convinced my editors to change their armor to how it described in books, so paladins on covers have chainmails and tabards! Just on the covers for Paladin's Strength and Paladin's Faith the armor is different because of the plot. Also, I spent too many hours painting Stephen because he deserves it, yeah.

I identify the most with the woman who has a green velvet ribbon around her neck and keeps being like "DONT untie my neck ribbon or something really bad will happen" and then her husband unties the ribbon and her head falls off. this is extremely real to me. spent my whole life like "please don't do this thing to me or really bad stuff will happen" and everyone around me being like "that sounds fake" and doing it anyway. and then my head fell off!

i've seen quite a bit of confusion about this, so let me attempt to clear things up :

empathy is the ability to feel somebody's emotions as though they are affecting you personally. for example, somebody tells you "my dog died last night!" -> you now feel as though you've lost a pet personally -> you feel grief and sadness just like the other person. not everyone has empathy. it's a trait some people develop and others don't. some have high empathy, some have low empathy, some (like me) have none.

sympathy is the ability to understand and care about somebody else's struggles, even if you don't feel them yourself. so, somebody tells you their dog died -> you realize how this affects them emotionally -> you care about this person, and are upset that they are suffering. not everyone has sympathy either! it's a scale, just like empathy.

compassion is doing something to relieve another person's suffering or make them feel better. somebody tells you their dog died -> you don't want them to remain upset -> you come up with ways to help them feel better, like offering comfort and distractions, or other forms of support. compassion is a learned trait, not something you can be born with like empathy or sympathy. anyone can learn to be compassionate, although some may struggle more with it than others; it's a skill, just like anything else.

however, none of these are required to be a good person. that's a choice you make on your own accord. i hope this clears things up!

Study of Leyendecker's art style with Layton and Claire from professor Layton

recently my friend's comics professor told her that it's acceptable to use gen AI for script-writing but not for art, since a machine can't generate meaningful artistic work. meanwhile, my sister's screenwriting professor said that they can use gen AI for concept art and visualization, but that it won't be able to generate a script that's any good. and at my job, it seems like each department says that AI can be useful in every field except the one that they know best.

It's only ever the jobs we're unfamiliar with that we assume can be replaced with automation. The more attuned we are with certain processes, crafts, and occupations, the more we realize that gen AI will never be able to provide a suitable replacement. The case for its existence relies on our ignorance of the work and skill required to do everything we don't.

burn it 🔥

(he/him) 🐇

said this on bluesky but:

i genuinely encourage non black people to engage with this, who might be worried they can't because of the word "nigga" because they feel like it's overstepping. the only way it would be overstepping is saying it to me when ur not black, but please don't be afraid to engage with black art.

i kinda get annoyed when non black people police other non blacks on how to engage with black culture because it creates a problem where non black people avoid us all together which can be extremely isolating and create even MORE tension and overall being uneducated.

No but the Hunger Games really said "what do you hate more- the atrocities or the people who commit them against you? Because like it or not there IS a difference. If you hate the people who commit acts of pure evil more than you hate the acts themselves, what will stop you from becoming just like your enemies in your pursuit of justice? What will keep you from commiting those very same acts against THEM when the opportunity arises? And what then? The cycle of pain and suffering will never stop. Round and round it'll go. Nothing will ever change. But. BUT. If you hate the atrocities. If you hate the vile, senseless acts MORE than you hate the people who did them to you. If you are able to see that evil is evil regardless of who does it... The cycle ends with you. No, you may never get justice. But you will never be responsible for making others, even your enemies, suffer the same crimes you have. The atrocities will never be committed by you, never by your hand. And that's the way you change the world. It's the ONLY way" and that's why I am sure it will never stop being one of the most relevant works of fiction ever created

okay and this is a WAYYYY better way to phrase this, as opposed to "you have to love the oppressed more than you hate the oppressors". because that phrase seems to guilt trip you for hating the people who oppress you and seems to try to strip us of our teeth. it tells you that you shouldn't be angry. the truth is, you can't get equality if all you ever do is love the oppressed.

but the hunger games quote is so much better because it says "you're allowed to be angry! you should hate what is happening! but make sure you're focusing your anger on how it affects real people, that way you're fighting for them."

i think something that is often overlooked in conversations about platonic and romantic relationships in media and the argument that “two people can just be friends” is that a big part of being queer, for me personally at least, is that i am deeply in love with my friends and would do absolutely anything for them and this sentiment alone opposes the heteronormative idea that your friends are supposed to play a secondary role in your life after a certain point. my friends are not just my friends. they’re not just anything. they’re my friends.

frostbyte :(

I appreciate the sentiment but I don't get all those "we made it to the longest night of the year! the light will start returning soon! it's all uphill from here & we're halfway there!" posts because like. Oct-Dec is the easier half of Winter. Jan-Apr is way harder. there's no big holidays or decorations, everyone is kind of over the whole Cozy Hygge Sweaters & Cocoa vibe so they're just tired & restless instead, and the whole thing is so drawn out & uneventful that it feels like it lasts 10x longer

the cold season Oct-Dec:

the cold season Jan-Apr:

I would say my top 3 non-cheating non-abuse (though these can be signs of an abuse relationship or warning signs that a relationship is going to become abusive) are 1.) do not slam doors, occasional accidental door slamming is fine but doing it passive aggressively and/or habitually is incompatible with what I need and want in a relationship 2.) never yell at me in anger! ever! if you’re so mad at me you’re not sure you can hold to that one, go elsewhere and send me an angry text message instead. screaming in surprise, excitement or fright is totally fine but if you scream at me in rage, I’m going and 3.) do not destroy things in rage. first fist through the drywall or thrown and shattered cologne bottle will have me dipping. this one isn’t even a personal safety boundary, it is such a turnoff that I do not think I could ever have sex with someone again if they punched a wall. that is so embarrassing and ick-inducing.

these seem so simple but there are so many people in this world who could not fulfill these requirements and do not see these requirements as reasonable. I don’t want to be in any relationship where we’re frequently arguing but these are the things that would make me think “oh, this isn’t a talk it out situation, this is not worth salvaging”

you can never go back. this is your one life. you had a bad childhood and that's it. you lost your teen years to mental illness and that's it. you're miserable in your 20s and that's it. you just go forward

we need more mean butches in media that never reconnect with their feminity and never feel longing for the nuclear life they gave up on. and I mean nowwwwww

AND THEY DONT BECOME COPS

Like we have commodified human connection to a degree where if you go beyond smalltalk you're oversharing and if you talk too deeply about your life you're traumadumping and if you get visibly upset you're manipulative and if you care too much you're codependent and if you want to talk about anything heavy you're expected to go hire a therapist because your friends shouldn't have to deal with that stuff and yet we're all sitting around wondering why so many people are lonely...

blood under fingernails

I remember one time I got INSANELY high off of edibles while playing Among Us, and it quickly became apparent to the other players online. I forget how honestly but literally anything "sus" I did was ignored by everyone because I was so fucking high. I tested this theory by standing in front of a body and the person that actually reported it didn't even mention me. The funniest part was when I was trying to do wires, I kept fucking up over and over again, so I was just standing in front of wires for actual minutes trying to figure it out. A small crowd of players gathered around me to watch and would get mad every time someone reported a body or emergency meeting because "she's never going to get her tasks done if you keep interrupting them." I don't think anyone cared about winning at that point, they just wanted to see the high crew mate succeed in her tasks.