Dnf but they're young 👶

i miss them so much bring them back :(

hi this is kind of an insane thing to ask and i am aware of this. but i could have sworn you recently posted some velvet room akechi art but i went back to look for it now and cannot seem to find it and now have convinced myself i saw it in a dream. can you confirm or deny whether this exists or whether akechi is just That deeply ingrained in my psyche 🫶🏼 peace and love . fwiw i remember the art being very good so if it was you then good job and if not ... i guess know that my subconscious holds you in high regard?

hi yes!! i did post that really late yesterday then got weirdly self conscious about the #Quality of them so i deleted the post a little bit after OTL..... bit of an issue i've been having lately i'm afraid. but because this was a nice message and i'm trying to work on that here they are again

i also just found these doodles of him that i don't remember doing but you can have them as well. peace and love

do you have any tips on like personal worldbuilding in mlp? I've been kind of going back and forth for years especially for my sona's species and just not gotten anywhere w it

I'm not sure I know exactly what you mean by personal worldbuilding? I'll tell you all the reasoning behind my ponysona and hopefully that helps!

•••

My ponysona is a unicorn (or magic-using fairy, sometimes) because I think that having telekinesis would pair nicely with my particular neruoses. Theres an implication in fim that unicorns feel a societal expectation to be adept at using magic, and I think that lines up nicely with my experience with social pressure as a "gifted kid."

Likewise, earth ponies seem to be expected to take up a craft or trade, and pegasi to be athletic. Obviously this doesnt mean everypony lives up to these expectations, but ponies seem insecure when they dont live up to those expectations (i.e. Trixie, Fluttershy), implying there is some level of communal pressure to live up to them, however well-intentioned or slight.

I gave up on trying to come up with a cutie mark when I was younger, because I didnt feel strongly that I knew what I was meant to do. I think I wouldve been a late bloomer in this regard. The cutie mark I ended up giving myself is extremely vague, because I've realized that my life calling isn't very specific :)

I deeply love learning about organic systems and how they interrelate and effect each other-- biology, yes, but also culture and sociology! So my cutie mark is an organic shape in an organic green color (maybe a bacteria, or a flower?) with a spiral in the center that builds itself into a bumpy shape :) AND I like ART so it ALSO represents a cute little scribbly-- I make art for the sake of it, not because I have a specific subject matter I love! And I love making art because there is always something new to learn and I'm always building off of my experiences.....so spiral!!!!!!! yuippee!!!!!!

Obviously this is a ridiculously overthought cutie mark, which is perfect for me but dont feel obligated to make it this complicated XD

final rule HAVE FUN AND BE URSELF u can always change it later :)

Hi, big fan of your ace and aro art!

Genuine question here: How do you maintain a long distance relationship with your QPP (queerplatonic partner)?

Hey! Thank you so much for the kind words, that means a lot TwT

Regarding your question, apologies for the long shit incoming in advance, I'll probably share way more than what's needed, but anyway:

OK, to be honest, I should mention that I'm used to long-distance in most of the relationships in my life anyway, so that's kinda my bread and butter. I was bullied in my small town schools and later I went on to study foreign languages, so all of that created circumstances that made it natural for me to create real friendships mostly with people online or in foreign countries. I've always been more of a "next country rather than nextdoor" type of person to begin with, and my partner was no exception I guess.

We got to know each other online, so we were sort of used to the bulk of our relationship being online when we decided to be in a QPR. It was my partner's suggestion before we even got to meet IRL, and to be honest I'd never had a romantic or queerplatonic partner before and didn't fully grasp what it meant at the time, but it sounded nice, so I went for it! We met up IRL in 2018, a couple months after that (I was meeting up IRL for the first time with another friend who also happened to live in the area, in retrospect I really appreciate everyone's patience as I imposed a double visit and splitting my time in two between them TwT) and at that time it only cemented how much of a vibe it was.

After that, I was saving to visit them again in 2020, but... Y'know, the shit happened. The US (where my partner lives) enforced a travel ban on my country and several others that lasted until November 2021. It was incredibly hard during those times. We called very often, but since I'd been all riled up on the idea of hugging them again, and I was very affection-deprived because no one was allowed to see anyone or touch anyone (and that was pretty heavily monitored by cops for quite a while in my country), it wasn't enough for me to feel OK. The only way one could travel from a banned coutry to the US was to stay 14 days in a non-banned country and then travel from there – which I ended up doing in mid-2021 because I was basically going nuts. It was pretty damn expensive, but since nothing had been allowed for a while it's not like I'd spent my money on much, so I had savings, and I needed to prove myself that I could do it. We reunited IRL then for a good week. Then, because they'd fairly recently got a job (which meant more income for travel) and because US citizens WERE allowed to travel to banned countries, THEY visited me in September 2021 (and we formally promised to marry each other someday then, so even travel bans couldn't separate us in the future).

Despite all that, come late October 2021 and with no end in sight for the travel ban, I'd completely spiralled into despair over our future again. The travel ban and other restrictions made seeing each other so much harder and it was seriously taking a toll. Despite everything we'd managed that year, at that time, it felt so hard I was having serious self-endangering thoughts for the first time in my life, and I wanted to give up. That lasted about a couple days until I talked about it to them over videocall and heard their words of support and saw their face and got all angry like "fuck no, they can't take that away from me". So, because they're who they are, and because of extra support from some friends which meant a lot, despite everything, we didn't give up.

Now I'm free to travel to them again so honestly? Maintaining a long-distance relationship feels really easy right now. We text every day, videocall at least once a week and send each other care packages with gifts for our birthdays, holidays and special occasions. (Our time zone difference is 9 hours, which is convenient, cus when I wake up they're more or less about to go to bed so we can chat for a bit, when my workday is over theirs hasn't started yet, and when they're having lunch I'm having dinner, so we often share meals and watch stuff together over video calls.) We're both working adults with a stable source of income, which definitely plays into a lot, cus that means we're much more free to save up and make plans to visit each other – and by god ever since 2021 we've been making much more frequent plans, as of today we have 3 meetups more or less planned, one of them coming up this month actually, so that's pretty great^^

I do live in fear of another travel ban coming out of nowhere, so I do hope we can marry someday – though that'll be its own whole can of worms in terms of coming-out and immigration hardships, but we're determined to work through it. We're determined not to be long-distance forever. Kinda sucks that we have to go through something as amatonormative as marriage to achieve that, but also, ehh, y'know what, if that means someday I get to hang out with them in person everyday, it ain't that bad. It's a means to an end. And I guess it's a cute idea in a way.

...Welp that was way too long. tl;dr it's not easy every day. Some circumstances out of your control can really put you through the ringer sometimes. But on the flip side that means you get out of it stronger and the whole thing's kind of a virtuous circle. The more you fight for it, the more precious it is to you, and the more precious it gets to you, the more you want to fight for it. Kinda comes naturally to me at this point, so, I guess, don't make it a chore. It never felt like one to me. It's all a treasure if anything.

I've been in a rut as of late, and I really want to get better at form and anatomy. Your style is one of my favorite ones ever, what would you say were your biggest inspirations throughout the years?

hey, first of all i’m so very sorry for the late reply. hope you get to see this still since it’s been a while since you sent this ask... sorry

secondly, thanks a lot! i try to give some insights here, this question's always kinda hard for me to tackle because i'm having a hard time identifying my style and what makes it tick, idk... i guess it's a combination out of everything i like, starting from the artstyle of tf2 to various styles of my mutuals and people around here (but i think tf2, wanting to draw humans ever since i first laid eyes on tf2 and the cartoony artstyle of it all are my major fuels, ngl). 

as for anatomy and form: this is a matter i just recently pushed myself into because i felt really stuck in my ways. like... i never really did studies in my life, so when i wanted to draw i kind of had to count on it to ‘just work’, idk if this makes sense... i always felt like i didn’t actually know what i was doing there, and i worked with ref a lot (i would always recommend using ref, no matter what, what i want to say is that i realized i had not enough fundament to truly fool around in the way i liked to). and now that i started actually doing anatomy studies i feel so dumb because yeah. it IS making things easier x) i understand tho that for most it’s a motivational issue... you have to find a way to make it work for you. like doing studies, but implementing what you learned into a sketch of your blorbo, as an example.

as for resources, it’s hard to find good tutorials, mostly because the place is flooded with art bros trying to tell you “you don’t NEED anatomy and here is why” and then they make a sketch and you can SEE that they put SO MUCH ANATOMICAL KNOWLEDGE INTO IT. so there’s a lot of bs out there. there is good stuff out there tho, but it might take you a while to find what’s best suited for you. i could make a list of yt channels that really helped me but the thing is, everyone is at their own lvl and with different goals in mind, so i don’t think this would be very helpful.

what i can link you to tho are 2 videos that really opened my eyes in regards of a) finding your style and b) getting better at drawing a certain topic.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLfH9yOGs3o - this video tackles the whole ‘finding your style’ topic. because i often give the tip that you don’t find your style, style finds you (and i still think that is in its regards correct, because you just get subconsciously influenced by the media you consume and like and your fave artists’ style’s if you really dig them) but the ability to actively WORK on your style is there. it’s just something you have to put a lot of work into. but we’ll never stop learning, so there’s that. (she describes it with her landscape drawings but really this works for anything... from dynamic linework to just trying to find the right energy in your pictures)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0ufz75UvHs - this one really helped me getting over my fear of ‘drawing something ugly’ (big words from someone drawing ugly men as a hobby) but hear me out... because i have a weird brain that makes me recoil from something my mind thinks is ‘imperfect’ i really often get stuck with my art and either don’t experiment at all or get stuck with a sketch and spending hours on it trying to fix it... so approaching this matter like the video described just... melted that away. because when you draw 20 faces a day just telling yourself “NOBODY will EVER see this” you start loosening up... or at least i did. it’s also good for an analytical brain or people who strongly lean into that. this approach was especially nice while being stuck in an artblock... because i could easily just fool around and it kind of changed how i see doing art... like... nothing is ever perfect so i don’t have to make it perfect, i can analyze my art through a more neutral lense than my emotional attachment to it now... does that make sense?

last but not least, there are a ton of good resources out there for anatomical studies, my fave is still “anatomy for sculptors, understanding the human figure” by uldis zarins sandis kondrats.

SORRY THIS GOT A BIT LONGER BUT i put A LOT of thought into this as of late so yeah... maybe it’s gonna help someone too

Hey, hello! I just wanna say j really love your story and maybe to shine a light or perspective I guess. I remeber taking not of Rex's scion changing I a few panels, Jericho holding a book that was defiantly where he got the name from etc. But I usually just keep those comments to myself and don't voice them out. I prefer to write plot related comments most of the time.

Also I don't think you should be so hard on yourself. I the story is going good and yes I know bunkers and quotas have to be met so you need to okay it sade as possible to appease as most people as you can. But when you start doing that you kind of loose the essence that made the the art and story so interesting and intriguing. So I guess what I'm trying to say is, I know it's stressful, the risk of loosing your stability but you shouldn't be too harsh on yourself! Your art and story is very amazing and the few quips ppl have are just a few bumps in the road.

Anyway, I still love the comic and I love the story so far. I dint think things have been rushed and things are progressing nicely. Lobe the latest episode too. A lot of effort went into it and it shows

getting back to responding to these now that im finally a bit more settled down in my new place.

though i'm kind of in a better spot atm, because i just haven't been as focused on CoB with all the moving happening, not to mention it going on a hiatus as of this week.

but i did wanna still say, i know i've been incredibly negative as of late, and i'm sorry it's become noticeable. it's just been a long time since i had any sort of win regarding CoB and it's starting to ware on me. i do still get nice comments of course, but they're literally half of what each episode used to get. the likes are plummeting, fast pass is down just as i move to a more expensive apartment, and comments dropped from around 500 on average to less than 200. it's hard to feel like i'm not doing something wrong. and like your ask says, yeah, i wish i didn't care about numbers but..... -motions to the new, more expensive apartment i just moved into-

i'd like to still be able to afford this place a year from now and i don't think i will if things stay on the downward pattern they're on right now. not to mention, i'm going to have to ask WT for one more contract soon to finish CoB how I want, and i am VERY afraid of them telling me i've had enough episodes for how much it's making and to just wrap it up with the currently contracted number of episodes.

so yeah like... sorry. i should probably keep it more to myself, but it's really, really hard to not be sad and worried about numbers when they dictate your livelihood AND possibly even telling the story i wanna tell. :')

tw:depression

hello! I hope you're having a nice day 🍵 feel free to ignore this, but I would like some advice, if you can. basically I have depression (it's been 10 years, I'm 25 now) and I feel like it hinders me regarding the law. I wish it didn't, but no matter what I can't seem to fulfil myself within as I don't manage to grasp how fulfillment feels like. I intellectually understand the law which I've known for 1 year and half, I've read Edward Art and Neville and all, but there's still something I just don't grasp on a physical level, in a way. My brain understand but it's as if it didn't reach deeper than that, as if it didn't reach my heart. That's kinda what it feels like. I don't know how to make myself feel like life is worth it. I don't know how to give myself the feeling of the wish fulfilled, it just doesn't come to me. Saying I don't feel anything would be a bit of a stretch, but that's kinda what it is, I guess. Honestly I'm lost, because I feel like I understand the law conceptually but at the same time I find myself unable to apply it??

I'm sorry if it's confusing, but if you feel like you can help me a little, then thank you 💙

take care!

Hi angel, I hope you are doing great. I am sorry for this late reply.

I used to have depression and anxiety and I was hard to me to accept greater things or even want myself to live a better life. The thing that changed my views on it was learning that I could manifest my mental health. So i stopped listening to sad songs and following accounts that would make spicy jokes about being sad etc. It was a decision that I did. I told myself I did not wanted to feel like that then I did not needed to. It took me some months but I persisted. Healing myself was a process, and I wanted to pass through it. I wanted to be happy then I decided I would heal myself. I had to ignore and state that intrusive thoughts and such things could not stop me. I also kept telling myself that I deserved great things, it obviously did not felt real at the first day. I also used to feel weird in having 'wish fulfilled feeling' for so long because I could not understand how to feel good when I've been sad for my whole life. I did not wanted to feel like that, so I decided not to accept/unknowledge my weird feelings. Assumptions in my mind are just assumptions and states so I did not had to accept that in my mind. I let myself ignore them with the knowing that no matter how I felt (emotionally), manifesting is did with intention and decision. And now I don't feel weird anymore. Which is a new thing to me yet. I look at the past and see that I was for so long a girl with the worst self concept ever, I was just sad and anxious all the time. Not indentifying that as me took me out of that cycles, and still I sometimes think, "oh wow, it was that simple…". Well.. I hope this helps, angel <3

Hey there! First off I want to say I *adore* your art, you absolutely 1000% perfectly tap into the vibe and style of late 90's/early 00's 3D models in a way literally no one else does. I think about your art of your fake games' glitches (especially the forum post!!! it's. *perfect.*) all the time :)

And I've noticed how you're always very insightful and kind whenever you answer asks, so thank you for that!

If it's not too intrusive to ask, I was wondering how you went about finding a doctor to get your autism diagnosis? I've been pretty sure for a few years now that I'm on the spectrum, but I've never had a clue how to actually get tested/diagnosed. Especially since I'm an adult female too, and I've heard a ton about how autism is really overlooked/underdiagnosed for people like us.

But seeing that you were able to find someone who avoided all the common pitfalls and was able to actually help you made me want to reach out. I had been wanting to ask you this for a while (as you can probably tell based on what the question was haha) but I was too anxious to actually do it (still am, a bit ><). Again, feel free to ignore this part if it's too personal or you don't want to answer it for any reason!

It feels awkward to end an ask with that, so I'll bookend it with something I think you'll like: have you ever heard of trsrockin.com? It's an old fansite I used to visit religiously as a kid that talked about early Pokemon and Super Mario games and collectibles from them, as well as oddities like glitches from the aforementioned games, forgotten weird one-off SNES games, documenting fake/trick fanmade "cheats" for games, and bootleg merchandise.

It's one of if not the first public place (afaik) that MissingNo. and pals were discovered/talked about, and a little community came together to try and figure out why the glitch happened and what all the effects and variants of it were. Even you've been to trsrockin before and none of this is new info, I thought it would at least be a nice trip down memory lane :)

It's an old site that has since been taken down, and for some reason archive.org can't properly archive the full site/all its links. But luckily someone created a complete mirror of it! You can find it here: http://catfish.it.cx/trsrockin/trsrockin.com/index.html

AHH THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!! ;__; you're too kind... i know i haven't posted too much of my 3d work recently, but trust me, i have a LOT more of those faux-retro aesthetics in store with the game i've been working on... >=) i'm always so so happy to see other people appreciate janky ol' 3d graphics, LMFAO

also!! i've definitely heard of trsrockin eheehee... i was a bit too young to use it when it was in its prime (and also more of a bulbapedia enthusiast), but i've perused some archived pages before! old internet forums & fansites are just the best thing in the world...

ANYWAY: regarding your question! Honestly, I'm not sure if I'm the best person to give advice about this, because I feel like I kind of got my diagnosis by chance... Essentially: I started seeing a new therapist; she suggested I might be on the spectrum, I said, "Yeah maybe IDK"; I got a referral to an evaluator—and then an incredibly expensive diagnosis after a few months of waiting and testing.

My case differs in that I didn't really suspect being on the spectrum myself. Which seems a bit silly, considering I now realize I am... observably autistic. In abundance. But it was genuinely hard to puzzle out, what with all my other problems (particularly, severe misophonia, which can be REALLY hard to differentiate from general sensory sensitivity.) So about specifically seeking out a diagnosis, I unfortunately can't give a good answer. But I'm willing to talk about the rest, on the off-chance it ends up helpful! (Under the cut at least.)

I don't like to be too open about my Issues™ online—but I got a whole lot of them, and they used to be a lot worse than they are now, so I was stuck in that perpetual "adolescent with treatment-resistant depression" purgatory for, like... my entire adolescence! Because no one knew what the hell was wrong with me. I'm barely in adulthood now, but I'm extremely thankful to be broken out of that. Both the 'treatment-resistant depression' diagnoses AND the adolescence. Being told with authority that I, indeed, have an untreated case of mega-autism—and not an irreparably broken brain whose electrical activities zap SSRIs straight out of existence—is definitely relieving. And now I can confidently say shit like 'mega-autism', so like, wins all around.

About getting a diagnosis in general: in my case, I kind of needed one, because it would be not be feasible for me to go to school/work/exist without accommodations of some kind. (The evaluation I had was, in part, just to get a psychological report of any kind, since I desperately needed supporting documentation to request accommodations anywhere.) Otherwise, I'm honestly not sure if I'd bother?

On one hand, an official diagnosis is an incredibly affirming thing to have—especially if you didn't even suspect it before; things start making a lot of sense afterwards, LOL—but on the other hand, it is a tedious and kind of humiliating process. And possibly expensive.

And then, like you mentioned, there's the problem of some doctors being biased or plainly godawful at their job/poorly designed systems ruining everything for everyone. It's probably for incompetency on those ends that a diagnosis managed to elude me for nineteen years straight. (Vividly recalling the time my school had a counselor give me an impromptu autism evaluation, in which she concluded that I "didn't seem to have autism, but would probably get along really well with autistic people." WHATEVER THAT MEANT.) But! It's not impossible to get someone who knows what they're doing! I'd love to say otherwise, but I really did just stumble into a decent doctor... There's a lot of luck involved, and man. I did not get good RNG at first. (← I'M SORRY FOR BEING A GAMER.)

I went into the evaluation doubting I had it, and heavily doubting that I'd be diagnosed, but like... Hold on let me reach across your desk and slide you the answers to the autism test. The trick is to not even try to be normal, I think. Intermittently talk about CRT monitors, and how you like learning ciphers, and Pokemon glitches—or whatever else you're into. But those specifically worked for me! "Don't mask", is what I'm saying. (Really though, I think if you're answering everything to the best of your ability, properly administered tests done by a doctor who doesn't suck should be able to diagnosis you. If they don't, then the problem is something systemic, and far beyond anything I could reasonably give advice about...)

ANYWAY! (x2) I'm honestly not sure if any of this is particularly helpful, but if you decide to pursue it, I wish you luck with getting your diagnosis!! It's definitely a bit of a hellish thing to do—but dammit, if it's worth it to you, then it's definitely worth doing.

YOUR REWARD FOR READING THIS WHOLE POST IS: "Kinesin_walking.gif"

YEEEEEAAAAAAHHHH

is it cool to ask what turned you away from sammymacks?

It's alright! It's due to a few things.

I've been too touchy regarding it for a while, when I noticed that anything I did wasn't remembered or hyped up for like most others, I took it way too much to heart. Even things not related to art, like finding some stuff that wasn't dug up for ages or archiving certain things, felt like others were credited or remembered but somehow I wasn't remembered for that either. I didn't want praise for that, but it still felt weird, it's hard to explain.

Then there was how similar stuff to mine was hyped up heaps, but when it came to mine it felt like a lot of those same people were only kinda trying to be nice - the kicker is the difference between mine and that other stuff was that my stuff was mostly trans based so that kinda made it feel sucky even if not intentional at all.

Then the fandom hasn't been exactly a ray of sunshine a lot of the time either for other reasons.

Annnd a large part of the fandom lately has been sharing and making stuff that is personally triggering to me and it is getting harder to avoid.

So all in all; I'm stepping back so I'm not feeling so attached to something like this and so I can stop letting these small things get to me - to feel bad about these things isn't something that should continue so the best I can do right now is to just stop interacting with the art side of it and the fandom.

The fact my explanation is that long is silly enough and more than enough of a reason to get myself away from it, pff haha.

Are there any movies or such that you've really enjoyed lately?

awwww whoever you are you're so nice, asking me a light question when i've just been complaining about answering ones i get sick of (a fake problem that i created for myself and is no one else's fault).

I really liked M3GAN. Such a frothy, self-aware romp with plenty of interesting nuances in how it considers parenting and the weirdly boundaried way that we all regard children. And why the fuck is nobody talking about Brian Jordan Alvarez/ Caleb Gallo making his film debut in this movie???? Tumblr should be shitting itself about our boy making good

I also really shit for Banshees of Inshirin. My lovely friend Mel hated it and said it lacked clarity of conviction and was way too on the nose with the friendship being used as a metaphor for the war. But fuck that im a simple man who as I age grapple with many troubling questions about whether life should be shaped by my relationships to others or whether it should be shaped by pursuit of a higher intellectual goal or an art, and so seeing both those points of view reduced to their most bloody absurdity was painfully satisfying to me. shit was good

An older film that my partner and I both really enjoyed recently was The Last Detail. I did not expect to find myself moved by a Jack Nicholson military movie but that flick was surprisingly abolitionist and one of the dudes rockingest depictions of tender male friendship ive seen in a minute.

i'm also on a real john hurt kick lately. and jeremy irons. cant get enough of them

Where I've Been

Okay, so, 'sup babygrills. This is going to be a bit of a lengthy post, but I feel like I should update followers on here as to where I've been because I haven't been active for, like, months.

If you don't care to read all of the stuff under the cut, that's fine. Here's my TL;DR: I've been having issues with mental illness, trauma, motivation, gender dysphoria (?), and have been busy with college and YouTube/social media stuff. However, luckily my HK special interest has returned and I plan on posting more often hopefully. (Mild cw for mental health mentions ig.)

Okay, so, to begin, I've been gone a lot due to responsibilities outside of making Nyctophobia content. So, up until recently, I've been working on graduating from college. I've been finishing up my final class this Summer, but last quarter in the Spring was really difficult for me time-wise and mental health-wise. I've had a lot of issues with depression and anxiety throughout my life, and being at college was torturous and sapped all of my energy. It did not help that, last quarter, I had to be there at the college for six hours of my day five days a week. It was not easy to make art for myself and my channel, much less for this blog.

Outside of college, and I've mentioned this before in passing, but I also make YouTube videos and, at the moment, YT is my income (alongside comms as well). I've been pretty focused on keeping my my schedule at least a little bit consistent, and that alone has been draining and tiring. It also affects the kind of art that I can create, as I have to draw certain things for certain videos. I've been really weary when it comes to making content as of late, and I really need to take a small break so that I can work on stuff I actually want to work on rather than being stuck drawing certain things for the sake of videos I'm not inspired to make.

Pivoting more into specifics about my mental health, I have been needing to see a therapist for a long while, but I haven't had the motivation or the funds to pursue that option up until recently. Hopefully, I will be attending therapy soon. Last year in, uhm, September I had a particularly bad mental health episode and I've come to realise that some events that happened during that time have left me with trauma that I'm still currently working past and healing from. I've had issues with self-harm, depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, and self-perception for a long time, but in the Spring they were stifling and impossible to ignore. Lately, they have been better, though. So, that's nice. There hasn't been just the usual stuff lately (oh no, that's be too easy), but I've gotten jumpscared with gender issues (hooray, my favourite /s) during this time, and am struggling with my self-perception regarding my gender up to current day. (Hi, I currently go by Rot or Sexy Fictional Bug Enthusiast and my pronouns are they/them, but they may very well be they/he soon). Also, I had a bad identity crisis a couple of months ago and had to do this whole rebrand thing that was a lot of work and it kinda sucked away a lot of energy and time.

On top of all of that, ya boy's special interest metre has been focused primarily on OC stuff and other things outside of HK. It's pretty well-known that I have autism and Hollow Knight is one of my special interests. I'm unsure how it works for most people, but my fixations tend to come in waves and fluctuate (though super special meaningful ones stick for a long time). So, like, I had this whole issue with my mind always being fixated more on things outside of HK. It's been my OCs for a few months, but alongside that, I also suddenly became enraptured by The Owl House and my Digimon special interest sleeper agent returned for a hot second there. As of recently, I've been interested in HK again, but have been afraid to start/work on projects related to my AU because of me having to work on OC content for my channel and also for my friends who are invested.

As of right now, I have some more time on my hands to make the content I want to make, and my HK fixation is back (thank fuck). I've generally been doing a bit better in the mental health arena, but I will also be taking some time off of YT and posting videos regularly in favour of focusing on making stuff I want to make. So, like, expect me to be more active here for some time. I might be finishing a fic in the next month (hopefully) as well, and I have some general comic and art ideas. I just want to draw Auric again, god dammit. My beloved. <3

Anyways, thanks for reading if you did. Just figured I'd make a post about this for people who thought I died or something (and for the people who were once interested in my projects on here and are starving for content, lmao).

Hi! I just wanted to say, thank you so much for making the Red & Wolf comic. I just found it by accident and read through the whole thing in one night, I am seriously loving it so far. I'm autistic and I've always had a strong interest in wolves, specifically Little Red Riding Hood versions of wolves, and always wanted to read a story about the wolf having a sort of redemption or it being more than just "big bad wolf is evil and wants to eat the girl". There's hardly any content for me to dive into in regards of even just the fairytale itself, most stories are very gruesome, the short films online are incredibly dark and uncomfortable since those are the adaptations of the original grimm telling, or all of the red riding hood movies are horror films instead of fairytale adaptations. Or some sort of like... idk love triangle thing where it's all modernized or something for televesion where Red is wearing jeans and the Wolf isn't even a real wolf? But yours... this is like finding gold. I was hooked immediately and I couldn't stop reading.

Your story of Scarlett and Leikos... it's just so gorgeous, your art work has such clean lines and the way you draw eyes and hands especially is so beautiful. The design for Leikos' hair is my favorite!! And the panel you made where Scarlett is lying down on the grass/tree stump and she's blushing while Leikos is talking with her, oh my gosh, that's my favorite panel out of every chapter so far. Just... the vulnerability of these two growing closer, like... augh clutching my heart when Leikos is like "no don't cross the path you're gonna get hurt :(" and she's like "but I want to dance with you :)" like!!! she trusts him and he refuses to hurt her even when instincts kick in!! HIS BACKSTORY? BRO? I'M IN SHAMBLES?? Ugh your art is so GOOD and this STORY is so GOOD and I am just so thankful to be able to dive into a Wolf/Red story that has action, romance, suspense, all the good stuff. It's so perfect.

Thank you for working so so hard to make this comic. I'm an artist as well and I could never have the patience to upload one comic page, let alone several. Laying out panels is difficult and time consuming and not to mention you're shading and coloring the entire thing. Your poses are always fluid, never stiff, you have good perspective and composition, most ppl who make comics can easily just draw one single pose and one facial expression for 20 panels, but you've always had the expressions and body language shift and change and the camera view as well... and you gotta draw all those damn trees omfg. The flower meadow in the first chapter must have taken forever to draw too! Your hard work really shows in your art and I am so happy to have stumbled upon your comic. If you make any more merch for Red & Wolf on your Etsy, whether it's prints or charms or stickers or really anything, I would be more than willing to throw some money your way. Or if you open commissions as well someday, ahh, I love your stuff so much I would totally pay you to doodle Leikos hehe. Please have a wonderful day and take care! <3

AAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaa

What a lovely message! Thank you so much, Anon! I really needed to read this today <3 I'm truly at a loss for words, like you basically complimented me on everything I'm mad-insecure about?? It's really nice, like maybe I really am too hard on myself?? Whenever I look back on my old panels (which I've been doing a lot lately since reformatting Red & Wolf for print), I always feel like I put way too much effort and kind of only see what I did wrong, but if you and others recognize the effort and like what I did - then maybe it wasn't a waste of time after all. That makes me feel way better about it, thank you :' ) Also, your favorite panel is one of my favorite panels too, where I felt "dang, I kind of nailed it here" - which is SUPER rare for me, haha. I should read this lovely message whenever the impostor syndrome kicks in, it really lifted my spirits <3

🎱 🪐 🔪 🌿

🎱 ⇢ post your AO3 total stats 

User Subscriptions: 177 Kudos: 39,919 Comment Threads: 2,449 Bookmarks: 8,391 Subscriptions: 1,343 Word Count: 2,191,216 Hits: 373,375

🪐 ⇢ name three good things going on in your life right now

My dad has retired which means I can spend more time with him. Since I live and work near him & my mom, I can meet up with him for lunch sometimes on weekdays.

I've gotten back into reading new mangas lately now that there's a Barnes and Noble just down the street from me. Before that the closest book store was a resell shop that, though nice, doesn't have the greatest manga selection. With mangas and comic books I tend to prefer physical books over ebooks, so it's been really nice to be able to browse a large selection again without having to drive fifteen to twenty minutes.

I've been reorganizing my kitchen which probably sounds boring, but I've gotten some new dishware and glassware that's brighter and more colorful than my old stuff and so the open shelves actually look really fun now. Since I started indoor renovations last year, I've really been enjoying how having things brighter and more colorful help lift my mood, so I've been trying to extend that where I can.

🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

Hmmm, well... I've researched various sentencing standards for various crimes and how those crimes are classed. But that's not really weird. Nor was looking up how living wills work and power of attorney and what-not. Though it was interesting to learn that in the US if you give someone the right to make medical decisions for you when you can't, they cannot also be your doctor. So if you need a surgery and a surgeon in that field holds the right to make your medical decisions then they cannot also be the one who performs the surgery

Makes sense, but was also an interesting/relevant find for fic writing in the Flash with regards to Caitlin.

But weird... weird... I'm pretty sure looking up poisons is par for the course for a fic writer too. Average apartment rent...

I think I tend to look up more mundane stuff and make up the weird, really...

🌿 ⇢ give some advice on writer's block and low creativity

So it might help to step back and see if there are any patterns in when you're feeling blocked and/or low in creative feelings. For me, in the Fall I start to feel kinda burned out. It's definitely a seasonal thing for me that brings it on and, unfortunately, sometimes trying to just push through makes it worse. The more stressful my year, the harder that Fall burnout hits me.

Knowing what the pattern is can help you break that pattern, or learn to recognize and react in more helpful ways to minimize how it makes you feel.

For me, I think looking into aides for dealing with seasonal affective disorder may help. Having alternative hobbies that I can turn to also helps to calm me down when I'm upset or even just annoyed about something. I can pick up a video game to take my frustration out in the game battles or grab a paint-by-numbers or scratch art page and concentrate on creating something pretty to look at. It helps hit that creative scratch I need without frustrating me over how my own imagination is kinda at a low point for making fanworks.

But also there's learning to accept that sometimes burnout just happens. It's not my fault and being upset with myself doesn't fix the issue. Being able to step back and say 'okay, I need to focus on something else for now and let my creativity recover' isn't easy, but it's an important part of letting my brain heal from whatever is causing the block.

Hi! You know, I'm here to thank you. Thanks for the content and searching for a lot of details on Super-God Masterforce! Honestly, I consider it one of the best works on transformers, and it's very nice to see people who share a love for this anime. I hope someday it will be appreciated as a classic of transformers, as it deserves. And it seems that we are on the way to that. I want to say that there is another person on this planet Earth who loves Super-God Masterforce, and is not so alone in this! I hope this thought warms you up a little! (I apologize for the mistakes, I use a translator)

HI THERE UMMM

First, let me apologize profusely for the fact that I took.....way too long to finally answer this, but it was only because I wanted to wait until I had a moment to sit down and write a thoughtful response to this >//<’’

(Also don’t worry about the translator, your message is clear and all :3 I’m going to apologize in advance just in case I have any typos in my response, as I tend to get lost in my own writing quite often haha ^^’’)

Getting this ask genuinely made my day, you are the nicest human being waaa 😭💙💕✨ thank you so much!!! And I'm glad too that there's yet another person who likes Masterforce out there!! >w< Like, there's so few of us, but we are strong, and we are growing!!! hehe >:3 I will continue doing what I can to generate content for everyone to enjoy ^w^

OMG AND YEA!! MASTERFORCE IS INDEED A CLASSIC AND DESERVES SO MUCH MORE LOVE THAN IT GETS??? Lowkey I feel like a lot of tf fans just write it off as "the strange one with lots of humans" or deadass forget about/have no idea of its existence and I just??? Like it makes me so sad and even maybe juuuust a little irked ;w; literally people are out there acting like some tf characters came from the comics and not from this series for example.....*lies on the floor and sobs*

But I will hold onto hope that someday, more people come to appreciate this series and hold it in higher regard. It's got great writing, cool designs (and in the episodes where the animation was on-point, really good visuals), a banger OST (insert songs of course included~), great characters who mostly receive a lot of development throughout the series, really interesting concepts that I wish were used more often in TF media, and just....the vibe of the whole show is so good 😩💗👏 I have so much appreciation in general for all the installments of the Japanese branch of G1, but I feel like Masterforce was just the best mix of everything that can be seen in other series 😎

So anyways, even if I am slow with my art and writing and everything, I will probably never stop making content for Masterforce, writing random ramble-y things about details of the canon lore I think are cool!! And I am honored you found my account and enjoyed it as much!

Apologies once again for being so late with this (😳🙏) but thank you so much for this ask 🥺🥰

I've kept it in mind on days where my personal life has been going badly (which is a lot lately qwq) and I start feeling bad about a lot of things, including stuff regarding my social media/art/etc--at those times I reminded myself that there are people out there who get me when I talk about Masterforce--and I smile and feel a bit better.

So ye! Sorry this is a bit long!! Here's a little doodle I made, to hopefully make up for the wait ^^'' sorry it's a bit rough 😳 but, it's the whole Autobot gang (⁠◍⁠•⁠ᴗ⁠•⁠◍⁠)💙

Have a nice day/evening also!!! :D

-Kuni 💖

Ryan Davis and the Roadhouse Band - Tubby's, Kingston, New York, December 9, 2023

I mentioned that recent Uncut issue with the great On The Beach spread ... if you pick it up, you'll also get to read my full-page review of Ryan Davis and the Roadhouse Band's Dancing On The Edge, which emerged as a late-breaking 2023 fave. Feels like a total classic, pretty much everyone I play it for falls in love.

Here's the kick-off to my Aquarium Drunkard compadre Chad Depasquale's rave: Ryan Davis is tipping his beer to a world in moral and constitutional decline. Ruminating shortcomings, both inward and out, that seem to have settled into the standard, the Louisville-based journeyman defiantly declares he and his crew “the new vigilantes of the two-drink minimum” on “Free from the Guillotine,” the dryly pugnacious opener to Ryan Davis & the Roadhouse Band’s Dancing on the Edge, the latest and perhaps greatest notch in the storied songwriter’s belt.

Just in time, NYC Taper (which might want to consider renaming itself Kingston Taper) popped up with a very nice Eric PH tape of Davis and the Roadhouse Band at Tubby's. The gang sounds magnificent here, plenty of energy, plenty of style, pleasingly loose.

And hey, my Uncut review had a very brief Q&A with Ryan, chopped down considerably. Below, check it out in all its, er, uncut glory.

You seem to have mastered the art of the "long song" — the tunes on the new record sprawl, but they keep listeners hanging on every word. What's the secret? Did you have any songwriters who also go long in mind? Did you set out to write "epics" or did that just happen? What's it like playing these tunes live? 

I wouldn't say I've mastered anything, but yea I've learned to comfortably inhabit a song of substantial length. It's not something I ever set out to do. In fact, every time I sit down to start writing new songs, I consciously tell myself that I will make a concerted effort to be more direct, to write more impactfully without dragging the listener through such winding trenches. But here we are now discussing my 7-song 2xLP and further into the trenches we appear to be going. I've come to accept that maybe that's where I flourish, in some ways? A better songwriter than myself could derive a similar vehemence with far fewer words. But I do what I can within the space I know how to carve out for myself.

I don't feel strongly enough about this to warrant saying it out loud, but it's possible that Van Morrison or more likely Dylan or less likely Springsteen could be some deeply seeded points of reference and/or permission for the long song thing. Like in a strictly embryonic way. Not in terms of craft or studied approach, just things that were soaked into my brain by a certain age. Playing the songs live, in their current state (I'm on tour with a full-band as we speak) has been infinitely less punishing than I may have once envisioned it would be, specifically in regards to that. I'm pleasantly surprised every night by the time we finish playing Flashes of Orange that I somehow never feel buried beneath it or praying for an early exit from its brakeless 10 minutes of lyrical shelling. But I also think that's just a testament to how much I love playing these specific songs with this specific group of friends.

In the liners, it says you were taking a hiatus from writing "song songs" – was that a healthy thing to do? Why do you think inspiration took hold again? Do you have a particular favorite song on the new record, where it all came together? 

It was an imperative thing to do. I started writing songs for what became the first State Champion demo in summer of 2005. I was living abroad as a college student, shy and alone, far from home and without much reason to be there. I had just turned 20. I wrote and toured those kinds of songs for the next 14 years. I put so much of my life and identity into it, and I owe a lot of who I am to that work and those experiences, but I ultimately felt like I reached a point of terminal velocity with the completion of ‘Send Flowers’. I'm incredibly proud of that record, we all pulled a lot out of ourselves in order to make it, but it felt like an organic and necessary end to that phase of my life. It isn't entirely easy to talk about or explain. I just knew it was time to take a break from putting my mind through the endless song cycle, without really knowing what would fill its void. I started spending most of my time making experimental electronic tracks at home, just learning everything I could about 4-track recording, exploring new instruments, making freeform improvisational compositions with friends, while simultaneously returning to a disciplined visual art practice for the first time in well over a decade. Not only were these processes filling the songwriting void satisfactorily but they were also starting to shape me into a new and better version of myself, a re-wired or at least a re-prioritized version. For the first time in my adult life, I wasn't thinking about touring or promoting or even any sense of "community” whatsoever. I just wanted to *make* new things. Almost obsessively. And the more I sharpened those instinctual tools, the more I slowly started circling back toward the unexpected desire to return to "song" form with a clear and conditioned mind. It certainly didn't come easy. It was painful, actually. There was months if not years of struggle and self-doubt, of giving up and eventually trying again, but once I finally positioned myself to fully re-enter into that mode, I wrote the song "Bluebirds in a Fight." After that, I was like "ok, I think I understand how to do this again." Much of the battle was getting to that moment, but from there I was able to have some fun with writing the rest of it.

You're kind of a Louisville hometown hero — what is the music community like there these days? Who are your favorite local artists/bands/etc?

I think any kind of "hometown hero" attitude that could be applied to me, if that's even an accurate suggestion, would be based on my years of organizing a beloved music festival in Louisville, KY called Cropped Out (2010-2018). I can objectively say that it was a really special, magical, life-affirming thing that people truly cared about, but I'm not sure that can be said about most of the other things I've done throughout the bulk of my life spent there. I will say, however, that the Roadhouse Band show in Louisville on this tour (which was essentially the record release party) felt different. It was so fun and convivial and emotionally charged. The room felt full of love in a way that I wasn't expecting nor had necessarily felt before. Perhaps due in part to some sort of post-Covid communal/subcultural alchemy, you know. I essentially hadn't played songs in front of people there since 2019. So the overwhelmingly positive reception to the new record was not taken for granted.

It's an interesting place, Louisville... Endlessly frustrating, in a multitude of ways, especially as a person who tried very hard to "make things happen" there for so much of my life. It ebbs and flows between feeling electrified and stagnant, but even at its sleepiest there are so many brilliant, talented, strange, inspiring aliens who inhabit it. Even now in my peak years of introversion, I can appreciate that about it and inevitably feed off it in incalculable ways. If it weren't for Sapat alone, my musical trajectory would be different and likely lesser. All the bands born out of that band, all the freaks I've met through just surrounding myself with those people since moving back home from Chicago back in the late '00s, not to mention the actual music and all of its various modes of creation. They somehow continue to be a perennial source of joy, wonder, discovery.

Things I wanna do in 2024 or just in any time frame it doesn't matter

Sell my stuff online and ship countrywide

Have my website up and running and looking very legit and not sketchy or crappy, with shopify and a blog and videos and recipes and cute art and a contact page. Good enough for customers to buy from and want to engage with

Film a fucking recipe video

Get the things I need for filming like tripods and lights

Learn video editing and get fast

Post more, consume less

Sell locally to vendors like coffee shops.

Get my cottage license so I don't get fined

Play another show and play bass well

Hire a good photographer to take portraits and food pics

Maybe get a nice camera to take my own food pics? I want to learn about lenses and exposure and framing and stuff

Read more recipes and try executing them. Blog about it

Read more in general

Write more in general

Talk more in general but also listen and don't interrupt so much

Paint more. I have 2 commissions as of Jan 2024 and I haven't started either of then yet!!! Neither of them are paid though lmao

Follow up with others and reach out, start conversations and ask people what they're up to. Especially the creatives I love

Draw more. I need cute meme inspired cat pics for Bakery Burnout and I want to print my own stickers at home.

Stop spending money. Redirect the shopping compulsion with creativity.

Go to Ireland

Go to Lightning in a Bottle

Not run out of money lol

Really good sex

Eat at more restaurants and expand my pallette

Reconnect with old colleagues from the industry without acting like a goofy drunk

Throw more good parties. Had an excellent one right at the top of the new year on the second weekend of January. Met new people in my home who gave us compliments and said "it's rare to find good house parties like this these days" and the genuine connection I felt was intense. Could have been the molly. However people legitimately had so much fun and hosting is something i discovered I love to do in my late 20s and I want to refine it. I want to practice the art of creating a beautiful environment for people to connect and have fun within, especially with regard to food, art and music.

Generate more income outside of my full time job. Invest more of my income and get better at making my accounts grow. So tired of being poor dude I'm over it. I'll play the evil capitalist game because I'm stuck inside it

Admire and honor my body. Give my body the time and effort it takes to keep me healthy and feeling good about myself. Take photos of myself. Paint myself and give myself permission to feel beautiful. Humility will only get me so far and I've been humble long enough I think.

Follow through with projects I start. Complete some things.