Hey There, Art Advice Anon Again! Your Tips Have Been Very Helpful, Especially The Idea That You Just

INTERACTIVE UKRAINE MAP

https://liveuamap.com/

Someone asked for a reliable source of information, I’m not sure if every claim on here is reliable but this is an interactive map and shows all events in ukraine right now

air strikes, border skirmishes, confirmed deaths etc.

I forgot I have to be active here so here’s my Twitter tutorial on how to draw folds I made a while back to help a friend!

,,,maybe this request is weird but I’m a sucker for vague horror stuff,,, but what if The Rookie is just sorta off? Like they appear blurry in pictures, their voice in the comms sound super weird, or they look scary from the corner of your eye? No preference with suitors just whoever you think would be interesting. They/them pronouns please!

Again I’m really sorry if this is weird or if it’s too much to ask,,, and if you don’t feel comfortable doing this you can just delete the ask.

The Confessional Booth

or: There's something not quite right with the rookie. No one is willing to bring it up.

Wow, look at me, working my way through my inbox. I've honestly lost a lot of confidence in my writing but this was fun. The next two weeks I'll only be posting smut.. so, yeah, send in ur requests luvs

"WELCOME BACK, KYLE"

The laptop monitor winks to life, the blue light maps the planes of his face. He does not look at the HAVE YOU BEEN SAVED YET HAVE YOU BEEN SAVED YET HAVE YOU BEEN SAVED YET below.

Kyle doesn't remember what he's writing even as his fingers linger above the keys of the next word. His earphones have long stopped playing music, only white static drifts to his ears.

He bought them yesterday. He doesn't know when yesterday was. He thinks he's lived this day before.

"No casualties encountered.." the document stares at him, the clock in the corner has stopped its solid tick of time. In the corner of his eyes, he sees a single crow linger by the windowsill.

Footsteps sound in the hall outside. The door opens, a hint of malaise and rot fills the room. This is routine.

"Hey, Gaz," they say. Kyle fights the instinct that tells him not to turn around. The Rookie doesn't go inside, face obscured by the harsh fluorescent light overhead the corridor.

"Need somethin', Rookie?" He thinks he sees them grin at him, teeth jagged and laugh wrong in all the way humans aren't. "Got any idea where the Captain is?"

"Think he's out for a smoke," he says, not meeting their eyes. He is the only person in the base with them. The beads of his rosary dig against his palm. Kyle doesn't know to whom he prays to. All he knows is that no one is listening.

(Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee;)

"Alright. Want to go to a pub? Wouldn't do us any good to be rotting down here," they ask him. Kyle ignores the unmarked grave that flashes over his vision. He looks over his shoulder and meets the too-dark gaze of the crow. "Sorry, mate. Need to finish this report."

"Come on, Captain wouldn't mind-"

"Sorry," they pause. "I really have to finish this or Price will have my head," he insists. They stare at him from the doorway, shifting from one leg to the other as if weighing what this lie will cost him.

They can't read minds, he has to echo, he has nothing to fear.

They inch forward and the iron cross of his rosary bleeds a bead of crimson from his palm. Their unseen eyes flicker to his trembling knuckles, then to the window. Their lips pull up into a smile. "Maybe next weekend?"

"Definitely. Sorry for turning you down, mate. Just.. busy." No casualties encountered screeches at him from the screen. They're not-quite-face suck him in. It is a sinkhole of dark decay. Everyday he treads closer to the brink of falling.

"Don't worry, I'll catch you next time." They grin, smile a little too large on their face, voice without any discernible accent. They mean it.

"See you then." He doesn't.

(blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus—)

The door closes and their footsteps echo away. There is still a figure standing behind him, their reflection on the screen of his laptop. Kyle doesn't turn around. He knows better. His mama taught him to never look.

When they are gone, for what feels like hours later, he stands and locks the door. He knows it won't help them from breaking in.

He has followed all the rules. He has nothing to fear. Kyle looks to the clock. It's 3:14.

The crow is no longer by the windowsill. The window latch is closed. He draws the curtains and blinds.

—

The light in John's office flickers, the sky outside is dark. The cicadas are shrilling and singing and he is glad for it. When they stop, a different being roams the corridor.

The Rookie's file reads a long string of [redacted]. The paper holds a reddish stain on the right corner. He tells himself it's spilled ink.

Every week he checks what their name is, every week he forgets. The note in his pocket reminds him to never check more than once every seven days.

There is a roll in-between his fingers. The air is hazy and humid. The smell of tobacco in his nostrils, the taste of smoke on his tongue. John leans against the chair and follows a crow's path above the cornfield.

It lands on the shoulder of a scarecrow. There are footsteps outside the door. The cicadas stop singing.

There is a knock on his door. He pans the CCTV as far right as it goes.

He knows who it is. It is routine.

The crow. The cicadas. The knock.

The Rookie stands there, shadows pooled at their feet. They stare at the camera, unblinking and empty-eyed. John is being watched even if he is the one watching. His breath stops short in his chest.

(Holy Mary, Mother of God,)

There is another knock on the door. It is already dark. He does not answer.

"Captain, can I come in?" they whisper, voice crawling through the cracks of the walls. They almost sound human, but there are no other soldiers who leave their rooms at night. He does not answer.

"Captain, I'm coming in." The door is no longer locked. They step inside, crossing the boundary of the doorway.

This is new. They were never able to enter rooms without permission before.

"Rookie," he speaks through clenched teeth. Their eyes gleam in the dark.

For a second, he thinks they're looking at him.

They are not.

They track a silhouette in the cornfield outside, face bleak and cold. The scarecrow is a little closer than how he remembers.

Shadows spy them as their not-body passes through the room, sticking by the walls. John blinks once and now they are right behind him.

He does not turn around. Their breath is hot against the back of his neck, their hand right over his shoulder.

"Captain, did you see anything tonight?" they ask, feigning a tone that vaguely sounds apologetic. They sound too human.

"No." He hasn't seen anything. Sometimes he forgets that anything outside his office exists.

"Why are you lying?" He does not respond. John's teeth are clattering, his palms clammy. He swallows around a dry mouth.

"Are you afraid?" He doesn't turn around. It doesn't matter that he is. He doesn't flinch, doesn't check if anyone else is awake.

At night, you are alone if they come to your door. He hears a flap of wings.

"You didn't see anything tonight."

(pray for us sinners,)

"Nothing," he whispers. His blood is cold.

When they're about to leave, they linger by the doorway. They stare at him, gaze straight, eyes milky white and soulless. They do not blink. Razor sharp teeth grin at him. John makes sure not to meet their gaze.

The door closes. The lock turns from outside.

He looks to the window. It is afternoon. There is no cornfield. The ground outside is barren. Its harvest is hollow.

The skin of his neck crawls. There is something in the room with him.

A life-sapped carcass of a crow lies on the floor right below the clock.

It reads 3:15. It has always been 3:15. John hasn't seen anything.

—

The fog speeding through the streets is thick. The flickering lamp lights do not cut through the haze. Nothing cuts through the haze. The fog has been here since forever. The white-haired old man down the road says it's ne'er receded even when he was still playing by the creek.

There is no eventual dissipation. There never will be.

The fog is alive.

"Rookie, give me a sit-rep," Johnny grumbles, eyeing the mossy oak tree that is always 4 feet away. "Rookie?"

Their voice crackles, static broken. "..cHurCH.."

"Anything else?" He does not remember how they got here. A whisper from the woods behind him tell that it doesn't matter.

It doesn't matter. He is never leaving. It doesn't matter.

"I- it MaTtErs.."

""D you jus'say?"

"..hUrRY." Johnny spares the woods a last glance. It waves him goodbye.

A crow caws.

He arrives at the church some time later. Its floorboards creak with every step he takes. Mold and decay has taken the building. The Earth is taking back God.

The pews are dusted. The Bibles he sees are blank. The holy water, maggot-infested, is dark.

There are footsteps that lead to the confessional. "Good evening," The Rookie whispers inside.

He enters the booth. His skin crawls. He cannot see their face. He does not want to.

(Now, and at the hour of our death,)

"Confess your sins, Sergeant," their voice is dry. Johnny does not listen to the hymns that have started to play outside the booth.

"I don't—"

"Confess your sins or you won't be able to leave." It is not a threat.

The bell rings overhead. The tower had been empty. The organ begins playing. "Hurry," they urge him.

Murmured prayers begin rising from the church. He sees shadows roaming the aisle.

The voices are rising— give sentence with me, o god, and defend my cause against the ungodly people: o deliver me from the deceitful and wicked man.

"Confess—"

He spills open.

(Amen)

When the confession is finished, the shadows outside turn to face him. They are smiling. He grips the rosary in his pockets. It does not help.

The Earth has long taken God.

"Ego te absolvo," The Rookie whispers.

When he leaves the confessional, there are corpses of crows on the pews. They are smiling.

".. what's the time?" They tilt their head, unseen eyes turning away from the cross.

"3:16"

—

John 3:16

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

“are you ok?” no but I’m funny

Please read

So, there’s a thing that is bothering me and makes me want to quit writing… silent readers.

Woof~ Where do I start?

Ok, first thing first: writers are hungry for feedback. Trust me, all of us want feedback, even if we may not respond to your every comment, but it gives us reasons to keep posting our works. 

If you didn’t like something, speak up so we can do better in the future; if you liked something, I don’t know maybe a certain scene or whatever, tell us, so we can understand what type of content to write. 

It may be annoying to you, but it helps us grow as writers and gives us motivation to keep posting stuff (yes, even those who write for fun are writers).

Secondly: We spend hours if not days on every single story (or artwork), and receiving little to no feedback… sucks. (One of my friends stopped writing for this very reason)

Imagine yourself, working on a project for days, and your superior (may it be a teacher or your boss) just nods before moving on with his day.

Did it make you feel satisfied and/or happy/accomplished? I don’t think so.

Same thing with writers and artists. I don’t care if you’re just going to quote something from the story or point out a minor detail that you fancied, it still makes us happy to know that at the very least, there was something that you liked.

The main reasons, why writers stop updating at some point, is because there’s no fucking feedback.

Want to point out a grammar mistake? Please do. It’s a help for us and we appreciate it! Because it means you paid attention to our story!

For example, last Friday a beautiful human sent me a private message telling me how one of my stories cheered them up, and let me tell you it made my heart go over the moon at how happy I felt! (Lil baby if you reading this, I love you! And you beautiful people that voice your thoughts even though I’m socially awkward I fucking love you with all my damn heart!)

Thirdly: I come originally from Wattpad. And let me tell you that even if my stories back then were awful, I still had more feedback compared to Tumblr or other writing sites. Even if people bash Wattpad for having badly written stories, the community there is beautiful. Even nowadays I find myself going back to my now inactive account to read the comments, some of them making me go woo~ while others just make me laugh my ass off. It always makes my day better.

No idea what to comment? Go and check a random story on Wattpad and see what kind of comments you find there. Just go and check, and you’ll understand why writers are so hungry for comments and kudos.

Fourthly: I see a lot of blogs struggling with the following thing (I’m using my account as an example):

Like… why are you following me for? Why would some of you ever think that following us, and give us an imaginary large platform makes us happy? Personally, I don’t seek followers, I don’t care If I have a million people following me or just two, I care about the feedback.

It’s like having 2k followers on Insta but having only two likes on your pictures. Disappointing.

That’s how It feels, and a lot of other people (not only writers but also artists) feel like that.

Let me tell you another thing. You, following us, and giving us this seemingly ‘large platform’ gives us the impression that you like our writing unconditionally. But following a writer just because you liked one story (and then you plan on ignoring their existence) makes them feel uneasy and doubt their writing.

Yes, you read it right.

I cannot stop myself from comparing the numbers of followers that I have to the feedback I get, and It makes me doubt my writing skills and content, and I’ll just say to myself that “It’s the last one I post.” That’s what I said to myself when I published greedy. (You can consider me a whiny bitch I don’t care, as long as a writer spends hours, writing, editing, deleting, writing again, editing only to start all over again because something didn’t make sense, gives us all the rights to complain.)

Yes, I am grateful for all the people that liked my stories, yes I do love every single one of you, especially the ones that constantly support me on every single piece that I write.

But please, if you liked one fic, do not follow me! It gives me false hope and makes my expectations skyrocket.

Trust me, this is how every single writer/artist feels. If you check a writer’s Tumblr, you will find (sooner or later) a post in which they voice out their complaints about the same matter. It is frustrating.

However, I really appreciate writers that keep posting beautiful content even though they don’t get enough recognition as they should.  

And I’m not telling you that from only my point of view. I have friends that write for different fandoms and they face the same shitty struggle. And when they stop updating or publishing new content, those invisible followers start complaining and demand the writer to ‘please update’.

Like, how about no?

‘Please update’ is not something that motivates us. Trust me.

I understand that we all are humans, and everyone has their own life outside of social media, but so do writers. You spend your time going out with friends, studying, working, doing chores, reading, etc… but so do writers and artists. Some of them, don’t even have the luxury of having a social life, probably because they are too caught up writing stuff or drawing, and they end up relying on virtual interactions.

This last part is strictly personal… it’s just me complaining about a lil something that happened yesterday.

Having a newbie (that was also one of my online friends that I introduced to the world of fanfiction) privately messaging me and my best friend, saying how we put less effort into our stories compared to them and how we should stop complaining about the lack of feedback makes me go nuts. BITCH! We spend days writing those stories, you have no fucking right to tell us anything!

I’ve been publishing my stories on the internet since I was 12, you are in no place to tell me how my stories used to suck, because I was FUCKING 12 AT THAT TIME! Of course, they weren’t masterpieces!

I don’t care about who the fuck you are, if you send a message to a writer and/or artist, complaining about how their work doesn’t deserve the attention it gets, you are trash.

With that being said, I’m sorry for wasting your time, I just had to let all those things out before I completely lose my mind.

P.s: To all those people who put up with my works, thank you! I love you!  💖💖💖

fanfiction writers are the literal backbone of society

I mean

Just saying

That protesters, right now, in Russia, are heroes, protesting in Russia is like a fucking gamble, and everyone gathering right now in the cities, HUNDREDS of people protesting, they know this war isn’t worth it, and it’s good.

Слава Украине!

Cлава Україні!