A Cheap Imitation - Blog Posts

slideshow timelapse sorta thing for the izaya tarot card piece i directed rosa in drawing.

a light tarot reading, because i'm still fond of what i cooked up here. expect allusions to the ending of aci and general detailing of my intentions throughout. some nuances omitted because i want to see if anyone else catches on to them....

probably the most obvious thing is the card itself, wheel of fortune. generally it suggests change, cycles, some big turning point in your life. with the eye cutout slashing through the sphinx i meant to encapsulate izaya's plan of flipping the wheel over on the game makers and throwing them under an imitation of their own work.

there's a distinction in the meaning of the card when it's upright or reversed. looking inward, the card reads upright towards him and reversed as presented to the onlooker. throughout the chapter there's a lot of emphasis on the lack of sincere connections he has, how no one seemed to reach out genuinely concerned about his absence. his attention drifts to his phone a lot as he works, and he continues to work until the end of the chapter which i'll leave here.

it's hard for me to articulate but i hope you can see how i also wanted to convey izaya's personal development at this point of the fic.

less obvious is the positioning of izaya's finger keeping the lion out of view. i know shizuo is technically an aquarius but that thing looks boring and i'm not partial to the zodiac anyways so to me he's the lion in reference this bit from the first chapter.

you could also read shizuo as the bull hidden beneath izaya's shadow which i was also considering as a nod to a bull charges at the stirring of a cape. regardless it can work both ways in keeping him out of view for this part of the plan.

and this one just fell into place for me but wheel of fortune happens to be the element of fire!! which if you know you know.

there's a lot i tried to work into this composition and i have to thank rosa again for putting up with me and making it look amazing.... collaboration with me is pretty intensive but rewarding to see the initial ideas get visually realized.

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

This is a collab I did with my friend @loppiopio when we were fanfic book clubing "A Cheap Imitation" back in 2023 man, good times good times

Linking the fic here in case anyone is curious

so i think. there is something special in the way izaya rifles through wallets to catalogue people. i hesitate to call it a love language because, i wouldn't even know how to even define that but.

this guy takes in every scrap of information he can get on someone and starts mapping out the kind of person he thinks they might've been. i know he doesn't care about them individually but i still think he's genuinely fascinated by people and enjoys knowing more about them.

but okay, he'll keep most of that in his head and prioritize keeping only the most essential things directly on him (i like to travel light) so that's his own belongings, polaroids of a family he wants to know more about, sim cards taken from people's phones, condoms, jakow's id, and… shizuo's wallet?

keep in mind that izaya is very deliberate about even the information he documents on his phone (because silly recordings of shizuo are so very important) and of all of the ids they come across he only pockets one. he leaves every other wallet and their cards on the ground!!

the fic doesn't explicitly show us what's still in there but i choose to believe he kept the whole fucking thing. because here, is a record of shizuo. nothing overly personal sure, but proof of his presence as just a guy. a guy who takes public transport, who prefers to use cash, who just has a slip of paper in there that serves no function (it's an old ticket for one of kasuka's movies), who likes to eat at particular places, often, who has connections with others in his life, who feels bad about breaking people's cars, who always carries a condom even if he never gets the chance to use it under the impression that he wouldn't want to be in a relationship, a guy that isn't aware that condoms expire and shouldn't be kept in wallets. and something happened to that condom.... all mundane and carefully preserved with, a few additions.

you're probably not going to understand all of it just from looking at it, and neither would izaya. that's the beauty of it i suppose. but tell me why?? this bastard must've had this thing smuggled away since chapter 6!! y'know, when he totally wanted that guy dead?? 🤨

[archived from november 1st 2023]

anatomy of a heart // open up

cardiogram.carrd.co

anatomy of a heart // open up

cardiogram.carrd.co

found these while fixing up the photos for the main post and thought they were cute so why not share some other process images for this one.

out into the world.

let's play a game?

psychic damage.

in water, fleas will drown.

in a flash.

live izaya reaction to chapter 29 (honey python) of a cheap imitation.

just some 🥥 related sillies i've made for that fic we all know.

an imitation of the cheap variety

Chpt 1 // Chpt 2 // Chpt 3

Chpt 4: part 1 // part 2 // part 3 // part 4 // part 5

(You can find this comic on tapas / mangadraft and spoontasti’s fic on ao3)

Chpt 1 // Chpt 2 // Chpt 3

Chpt 4: part 1 // part 2 // part 3 // part 4 // part 5

(You can find this comic on tapas / mangadraft and spoontasti’s fic on ao3)

Chpt 1 // Chpt 2 // Chpt 3

Chpt 4: part 1 // part 2 // part 3 // part 4 // part 5

(You can find this comic on tapas / mangadraft and spoontasti’s fic on ao3)

Chpt 1 // Chpt 2 // Chpt 3

Chpt 4: part 1 // part 2 // part 3 // part 4 // part 5

(You can find this comic on tapas / mangadraft and spoontasti’s fic on ao3)

Chpt 1 // Chpt 2 // Chpt 3

Chpt 4: part 1 // part 2 // part 3 // part 4 // part 5

(You can find this comic on tapas / mangadraft and spoontasti’s fic on ao3)

"He didn't feel anything when Izaya tried to kick him in his stomach. It only made the flea drag his back slowly up towards the broken screens. Right up to where Shizuo saw his own face in the recording. Splintered thicker than the strands of a spider's web was his own enraged expression.

There was blood all across his cheek. A second later he realized it came from the screen. He really did look like a killer. Like everyone else on this island. He deserved to be here. He was something cruel, ugly, and loathsome."

observe!! i commissioned the lovely @rosa-maltz to draw that scene from a cheap imitation by @spoontasti, because the imagery bangs and i just had to have it actualised in their style,,, if you've yet to see either of their work before now go check it out it's as awesome as it looks.

A gift for @uyecaq (also thanks for the dialogue, I had to do a comic for that, the visual was strong when I read it)!

Thanks for all the fun this year and for cursing my brain with these two idiots. Looking forward for more trolling next year!

🍙

tw: gore

And that’s it for chapter 3!

Chpt 1 // Chpt 2

Chpt 3: part 1 // part 2 // part 3 // part 4 // part 5

(You can find this comic on tapas / mangadraft and spoontasti’s fic on ao3)

tw: gore, injury

Chpt 1 // Chpt 2

Chpt 3: part 1 // part 2 // part 3 // part 4 // part 5

(You can find this comic on tapas / mangadraft and spoontasti’s fic on ao3)

TW: hand injury, gore, horror

Chpt 1 // Chpt 2

Chpt 3: part 1 // part 2 // part 3 // part 4 // part 5

(You can find this comic on tapas / mangadraft and spoontasti’s fic on ao3)

tw: light gore, injury

Chpt 1 // Chpt 2

Chpt 3: part 1 // part 2 // part 3 // part 4 // part 5

(You can find this comic on tapas / mangadraft and spoontasti’s fic on ao3)

Chpt 1 // Chpt 2

Chpt 3: part 1 // part 2 // part 3 // part 4 // part 5

(You can find this comic on tapas / mangadraft and spoontasti’s fic on ao3)

Several mistakes were made. That’s it for chapter 2!!

Chpt 1

Chpt 2: part 1 // part 2 // part 3 // part 4

(You can find this comic on tapas / mangadraft and spoontasti’s fic on ao3)

Chpt 1

Chpt 2: part 1 // part 2 // part 3 // part 4

(You can find this comic on tapas / mangadraft and spoontasti’s fic on ao3)

tw: gore/dead body !! be careful

Chpt 1

Chpt 2: part 1 // part 2 // part 3 // part 4

(You can find this comic on tapas / mangadraft and spoontasti’s fic on ao3)

Look, he has priorities Chpt 1 Chpt 2: part 1 // part 2 // part 3 // part 4

(You can find this comic on tapas / mangadraft and spoontasti’s fic on ao3)