iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 5h

Thank you! ❤️ I am determined that I’ll learn to handle the things.

Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 5h

Thank you! They’re from these weird ink blocks, which you can use like paint, oil pastels, or inks? Never really sure how to use them properly, but I love the colours they make.

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 6h

I missed a lot of this - but I’m so pleased you’re okay! (At least, relatively speaking.)

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 7h

Yeah, tonic tastes like the kind of water that’s going to kill you. Like, it tastes like it’s gone wrong. You put Chartreuse, lime juice, maraschino, and a cherry in it. Then it’s nice.

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 7h

Mattie likes gin. I like it in a cocktail, sometimes, but… not neat. It tastes *dirty*, and not in a fun way.

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 7h

It was a learning experience. I learned that gin is fucking disgusting.

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 7h

Is this like me with the gin? Is there a video?

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 7h

Tomorrow, however, I’m gonna really feel the skill gap because I know what I *want* to draw (OCs fucking in an alley) and what I will almost certainly settle for (Fred draws another gothic archway.)

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 7h

I really wanted to play with light and perspective today, as well as mess around with my “Inktense Blocks” and… turns out I still don’t really know what I’m doing with any of them, but… it doesn’t have to be good, it has to be done.

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 7h

#PoorlyDrawnOctober Day 6: Lantern (+bright colours - or as close as you’re getting from me.)

A black lantern with brightly coloured flames inside it.

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Reposted by Alys Wilfred Earl

Romy S. Rasper @romluras.bsky.social · 06/02/2025

Epistemicide is going on in the USA atm. Ressources, knowledge and access are destroyed with the primary goal of complete eradication of marginalized communities.

Post by taliabhattwrites:

Epistemicide" is a term you should become very familiar with in all discussions regarding trans oppression.
It sounds fancier than it is. The term is related to the concept of epistemic injustice. In essence, trans people have historically been subject to a form of epistemicide: our stories, histories, testimonials, ways of life, all erased and buried to maintain the patriarchal myth of dichotomous, naturalized, immutable sex.
We are then further marginalized through epistemic injustice, prevented from participating in the processes of knowledge-production, our testimonies devalued, our voices suppressed and our identities defined for us, not by us. The perception of us shaped by others, instead of ourselves. The conversation about us dominated by the voices of those who'd rather stamp us out, shouting over us constantly.
If you're not accounting for this as a central mechanism animating transphobia, you're missing a lot of the picture.

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 12h

Right, so, I always feel that the first guy who ran a marathon died as a result, and that maybe that means they’re not a great idea?

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 12h

Right? And when we’re working on it, we sometimes have to pretend it doesn’t but… Thems the breaks.

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 12h

EXACTLY. I also think it’s also this trend of… understanding fiction as true documentaries of alternative worlds, rather than a series of techniques intended to create an effect. It’s not literally true even ‘in-world’ because ‘in-world’ doesn’t really exist!

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 12h

I mean, this is less about changing stylistics than wilful misengagement with the very concept of descriptive language. But yes, writing fashions have changed a lot.

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 12h

(I know that isn’t a nice thing to say, but it’s the nicest thing I can manage in the circumstances. No one bloody looks at basketball and goes, “Why are the bouncing it so much?? It would make so much more sense if they just walked with the ball and the nets were on the ground.”)

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 12h

Our senses are very evocative. They are how we understand the world, and process a huge amount of information quickly. Writers try to distill that sensory experience in to comprehensible imagery for their readers and if you can’t understand that… … maybe retake your English GCSE.

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 12h

“She smelled of a summer garden on a golden evening, sun warmed earth and fresh cool water.” “Did she ACTUALLY though?” Look. Basic reading comprehension for the straw man: from the description, how did the character A’s smell make character B feel? Why do you think the writer used those words?

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 12h

“Her eyes flashed dark.” “What, how?” A rush of adrenal feedback caused her pupils to dilate momentarily, and for her to make a sudden movement with her head. The POV character, hyperaware in this situation, noticed these body cue as what they were, a sign of anger or strong emotion. C’mon.

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 12h

It’s the same with all of these stuff. “He growled.” “Did he growl? What, like an animal?? He went grrrrrrr???” No ffs. His voice got all low and intense because emotion, and it made him sound scary (and maybe a bit sexy.) You know that. Or you do if you’re not being deliberately obtuse.

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 12h

In the same way, when we smell the air in autumn, our brains provide a whole lifetime of autumns and the emotions, and visuals connected with them. For the real human, or character, it’s happening in the background - a writer’s job is to bring it to your conscious attention.

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 12h

(Too many theys in my example.) But… when we get caught on someone’s eyes, to the extent we notice the colour intensely, we are doing something atypical. No, few of us consciously describe the eyes to ourselves in the moment, we simply *feel* - and a writer’s job is to convey that feeling.

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 12h

Or even, “God, they’re hot.” But that doesn’t actually convey what they’re FEELING and DOING. The feeling is almost religious awe (cathedrals), illumation and wonder (stained glass) and what they’re doing is staring in to someone’s eyes in a more than incidental way.

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 12h

No, the characters don’t notice someone’s irises are like “arched cathedrals of blue-green stained glass” or whatever, what they mean is they’re staring in to a pair of very beautiful eyes and feeling enchanted and awed. What the character is probably thinking is, “they’ve got lovely eyes!”

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 12h

Also, I saw a really bad writing take earlier, which I will not repeat, but look. The reason writers often work the way they do is that they are trying to convey- quickly and elegantly - the emotions their characters are feeling due to subconscious cues in their environment.

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 12h

My problem with first person becoming the default in so my SF/F is that there is so often the urge to give everything away, and it always saddens me. I know I’m probably out of step with what other readers want, but I love to do my own legwork.

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Reposted by Alys Wilfred Earl

🦇💀 Rigg-or Mortis 💀🦇 @rigg.lgbt · 14h

The state of the NHS. JUST VACCINATE PEOPLE. IT'LL SAVE SO MUCH MONEY.

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Honestly, I’m finding the qualifier really liberating. It’s letting me do stuff I wouldn’t normally try (and if I do make a REAL mess one day, or don’t have the time to do more than a doodle, I’ll hopefully still feel I can share it.)

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

EXACTLY. And the green meteor when the last one died. That’s my line and I’m sticking to it.

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

If the light is unnatural it’s… intentional… because it is an omen of the end of the Golden Age?

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

(I decided the angle I was painting the Tor from and the angle the light was coming from completely independently from each other 😂)

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

You’re a marvel, you know that? Thank you. So. Er. I *did* put it the wrong way round, but I can probably pass it off as a sunrise.

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Oh, thank god! I was working partly from memory, partly from reference photos. (Although, I think I might also have the sun in the wrong place, because….)

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Although, crucially, I have not attempted perspective yet. Or foreshortening.

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I’m really enjoying this, though, because it’s letting me take risks, or try things I’ve always struggled with - often to find that although I’ll never find it easy, or be great at it - it’s actually not as bad as I remember.

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Also, made Nimüe left-handed, but I think that’s allowed.

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I think I’ve drawn the Tor the wrong way round, but shhhhhhh.

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

#PoorlyDrawnOctober Day 5: Sword (+ a tool you never/rarely use, watercolour.)

A water colour of a a hand emerging from the lake and holding Excalibur. There is a stormy sky and the Isle of Avalon is on the horizon.

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

🥰😂 My estimation of my own writing depends a lot on my mood.

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I don’t talk about it often because I will not become embittered. I will lead a good life and a full life, and surround myself with people who value and understand me as I am. But dear god, it wears on a person.

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Being trans is a series of constant, tedious indignities bestowed by the state and the populace, and being non-binary doubles that by either making your life an endless humiliating battle with those things, or making you complicit in your own erasure. It’s exhausting.

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

(I also hate that all of this is so horrifyingly complicated by the fact I’m not actually a man, and don’t really want to be in the gents either. Do you remember when our line single stall, gender neutral facilities?)

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

“I would NEVER erode your legal rights,” they say, eroding my legal rights. Yeah, so, remind me why I had to get changed stressfully in a toilet this weekend so that I could use a swimming pool? LAST YEAR I could have used the men’s changing room.

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

I am really sick of the current string of bigots who cannot hack people pointing out their bigotry. “Errr, you can’t actually say we’re eroding your rights because if we were doing that we would be wrong, and Bad People, so you’re obviously mistaken! I’m a Good Person.” Uh-huh?

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It's Pipes, Mum! Pipes is here! @scriblit.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

The UK Arts & Ents industry contributes over £10bn to the UK economy a year & one of these days our politicians might even realise that instead writing it off as icky girlie flouncing bc you can't do a photoshoot in a hard hat & hi-vis gilet at the national theatre without looking like a tit

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Me, aged 5, being read the last two Narnian books (in-world chronologically): I don’t know why, but I am FASCINATED. This is going to be important somehow. (You could probably solve the energy crisis by using C.S. Lewis’ coffin as the motor and letting me talk about Narnia. It could power a city.)

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Alys Wilfred Earl @alysdragon.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Later in the month, the prompt is for “favourite childhood character,” so… There’s gonna be a Narnian Prince tied to something.

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Trimontium Trust & Museum @trimontiumtrust.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

On this #WorldAnimalDay, we remember the horses of Trimontium. Trimontium was a primarily cavalry fort, evidenced by our huge volume of horse-related finds from bones to tack, and even little figurines like this terracotta statue found on the fort site!

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