I wish i could drop 1.5k on a laptop. I wish spending money prompted me into marketing commissions. Even when i wasnt getting money from the gov or job, and was watching my savings dwindle...it never pushed me enough to start asking for money or making a com sheet or streaming or freelancing

And i wish it did, i wish something would motivate me to do it, to actually follow through.

I legit dont think even homelessness would do it.

Im so tired of working and seeing no results but needing to keep working for the chance of results. It seems like such an impossible battle.

And i cant tell if the issue is my disability/mental illnesses or if im simply not trying hard enough. That the problem is me, my stubbornness or what have you, or things i cannot change or have control over.

Should i be able to succeed with what i have? Am i really not trying hard enough.

Or do i lack something, something i dont have access too and thus shouldnt beat myself up over my constant failure as a person and artist. And the fact that i dont have it isnt my fault.

Okay so i know this is your askbox and everything but I want to say that i feel like the bosses would start to hate pizzahead after peppino tells them what he was planning on doing, because as far as I know they were simply hired to guard the keys and look out for peppino.

I have some very minor tweaks to this but for the most part i agree!

put under a readmore bc i dont wanna clog up any potentially Non-Exploded pt tags lmao

-Pepperman, the eccentric man that he is gets shown 1 (one) image of a fucked up drawing of peppino and hes like ‘yes yes fat little human man, got it.’ And continues sculpting as if he hadnt heard pizzahead at all. Hes the MOST startled when peppino enters his arena bc he literally forgot he had to fight him 😭 hes like WHO is this little sweaty human in my fucking ART STUDIO????!! and then immediately gets stomped.

He is definitely indifferent to pizzahead; he didnt really care about this weird man and even postgame hes like well. This sly dog led me straight to my muse so I cannot be too angry with him 🤔

-Vigilante is like ‘hmm. Never seen this man round these parts; whatd he do?’ And pizzahead is like if you need a reason; its no longer just a simple request; its a bounty. And Vigilante it like ‘well... A bountys a bounty; if he wanders into my town he aint comin back out’ and pizzahead is like great! Fantastic! Im holding you up to that 🧡

Vigilante is probably the one most angry about pizzahead. Hes not exactly lawful good but he does Not like being used as Hired Muscle. He hunts down Bad People; not a human some weirdo has a personal vendetta against. He doesnt know exactly WHAT that vendetta is but its not worth his time and its not worth getting his cheesy ass handed to by Peppino again 😭

-The Noise craves violence and destruction. Hes a little menace! He also likes money. LOTS of money. And lucky for him, Pizzahead had seemingly Infinite Funds. Funds that he used to hire the Noise; to utilize this brats WEALTH of questionable tools and contraptions in case Peppino climbed his way through the tower. The noise was like ‘ur hosting this shitshow on TV? give me a 40/60 split from whatever ur filming and you have a deal’ and he does NOT find it troubling at all that Pizzahead is so eager to accept this.

He never figures out that the recorded content was never actually hosted anywhere. He eventually tries searching it up, asking his agents to look up anything recent with his face in it but they all come up emptyhanded. When asked about a name or title or scheduled tv slot and publishing, hes a bit sheepish to admit he never asked. Thats not his job! Thats his agents job! Hes so weirded out though; Pizzahead gave him a Ton of money. Obviously not alot by the Noise’s standards but more than what most people could even remotely afford. Weird. Well he got money and Peppino doesnt try to kill him unless he ignores the restraining order placed on him so its okay ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

-Fake peppino cant really comprehend hate. But he does comprehend…distrust. A man comes up to him, gives him a picture of some human, asks him to make sure this human does NOT make it to the top of the tower- ‘nononono. Listen to me. He does NOT make it past you. Do you understand that? I am serious. If you see this man come by your sorry excuse for a shop, kill him. Maim him. Eat him; i dont care WHAT you do as long as he does Not get this fucking key.’

And Fake Peppino just nods. But hes so wary despite his dopey expression. Hes got little goosebumps prickling along the back of his neck as the man hands him the key and a picture of the human. A human that looks like him. JUST like him. In the back alley of his poorly lit pizzeria. Just like him…Hes a bit taller than the man in the picture but…just like him… just like him just like himjustlikehimjustlikehim- ‘Yeah, yeah, just like you, but listen- listen; hes messin' with My business and you gotta understand that, right? You have a business too! Whatever this…*gestures weakly* is. You would be. Sad. If someone destroyed your business. Right?’

A slow nod.

‘Exactly! See? Right on the same page! Thats why im countin on you!’

When Fake Peppino gets to see that Human Peppino has his own Pizzeria; a pizzeria that almost got destroyed (a BUSINESS just like his...) everything seems to click into place at once. Hed probably maul Pizzahead like a chimpanzee 😭 WHAMWHAMWHAM BASH THAT DOUGHY FACE IN !!!!!!! Peppino doesnt need the manpower, but its Nice to have the equivalent of a bulldog guarding his shop

hi im putting all my asks in one post again. these are from like the past month and a half approx? some digimon thoughts some tmnt thoughts some art musings u know the usual

@waywardistics YAYY thank you so much for ordering! I'm glad it got to you & that you are enjoying it!

this is kind of a missive to everyone who ordered but: I am very nervous about pre-orders whenever I do them... nervous that not very many people will order, nervous that there will be supply chain or production dilemmas and I won't be able to get copies out to people in a timely fashion, nervous about having people's money but having an indeterminate amt of time where i have not yet "held up my part of the bargain" etc etc SO. THANK U GUYS...FOR ORDERING and being patient and im so glad it got to y'all

@seanonthemoon (idk why i cant tag u BUT) interesting... i gotta be honest I don't think abt the crests that much. i agree that they're very much like heres the "girl" crest heres the "nerd boy" crest etc to the point that it becomes almost meaningless. but i think what makes them even more meaningless to me, and is probably the reason they kind of designated girl/boy crests etc is that i think like the digivices they're toys and merchandise more than they are actual narrative tools LOL. I wouldve loved something with cody and mimi! theyre both so deeply empathetic and sensitive.. theres a lot they share but i think because they look so different on the surface it would make it difficult to market that merch...booo capitalism boooo toy marketing its all sexist bullshit at least here in the u.s. idk if japan is that different though.

I'm actually a little frustrated with how often 02 and 02 related media squanders cody in general lol. he feels like a parallel of izzy, joe, and TK(season 1 tk) while also being kind of none of those and suffering through lackluster characterization as a result... and then once ken joins the team it feels a little redundant. there's a couple cody-centric eps of 02 I remember really liking but then i think abt how he's been used since in like post-series content and 02:the beginning where they made him type on the computer even though obviously that's yoleis thing but because he had nothing else to do and aghh... my blood boils. i feel like the youngest but most serious anime achetype even at its bare bones is actually rly interesting idk why they don't play it up. UM. Once again my opinion is that he should be taller LOL and maybe they should play up his kendo martial arts honorable training stuff more idk. tallest + youngest + most serious just seems like a recipe for success for me. well. theres still time. and theres always fanfic.

THIS IS SO NICE TO SAY and not the first time someone has said it but i appreciate it everytime because i really admire the mm art style so much. It's like part of why I got really into the movie because I really recognized my own artistic sensibilities and aspirations in the way they stylized everything.

UM And i feel like since watching the movie and looking at all the concept art and making my own art i do feel like its only become more obvious how much my own art is lacking LOL LIKE when you see something that feels so similar I think the differences only become more stark. those artists are definitely on a different level than me. But it's nice to hear people say it doesn't look so different from their pov. thank u ^^

thank u!!!!!!! i love mundanity and naturalism... there's something so beautiful abt it to me lol... I feel like my anatomy needs work actually but ive been feeling better abt it this year so it's good to hear! thank you!

DLKGDSGDLALSNDF WAS IT TOO FAR..?? firstly, yeah I was thinking late teen/young adult ages for both of them ie 18-19ish, definitely not the age the kids are in the movie lol.

but also they arent DOING anything in that pic it is literally just a confrontation + some innuendo... I think teens should be allowed some less than subtle innuendo.. its like one of the top 3 classically teen pastimes...

this is such a funny ask to get because i feel like i haven't been able to do thin lineart until like. this past year or two maybe LOL. UM having a line-centric art job helped I think. I started on craig of the creek back in 2022 and thats a show where we spend a lot of time inking so I had a job where I was constantly moderating my line weight 40 hours a week every week for over a year. disappointingly, much of improvement is simply horrendous amounts of practice.

Here's a tip though: I think a lot of thin lineart boils down to confidence. I think instinctively we read thick, bold, fast lines as confident but theres actually a lot of obscuring you can do with a thick line. if you're not sure whether the nose on the face or a browline should be a little more left or a little more down you can hide that with a thick line and pretend its a shadow. or hide it with a bunch of quick lines and the eye can kind of approximate where looks best among the mass.. whereas a thin line is rly singular and stark and hides nothing, it needs to be precise. so anytime i know i want thin lineart i spend a LOT of time sketching, making sure i know exactly where i want my lines to go. so im not second guessing by the time im inking...

ok thats kind of a broad tip lol... here's one thats more applicable: IF POSSIBLE, lower your pressure sensitivity on your device. most devices have some way to edit your pressure sensitivity curve. I use a surface pro at home and this is what my pressure curve looks like most of the time.

When I work on a wacom it looks even more like a reverse L shape LOL. I'm naturally a really heavy-handed artist and I use a "light" or "hard" pressure curve to compensate for how hard I'm always pressing on the pen lol. if you're like me and you struggle with going too hard with the ink too fast... this will probably help a lot!

SFHASLDFH I LOVE THIS ASK this is like the type of question a person gets asked when chalk drawing on the sidewalk at recess LOL. but i understand because I've been struggling also for like. months. I think I'm finally starting to nail it down though so here's some of my observations.

[feel free to save this img but **please do not re-post it or share broadly**. my biggest fear in the world is to spend 30 min on some notes and become a widely proliferated art tutorial im not even kidding. i made it low contrast and difficult to read on purpose.]

my other tip is to just look at and study a lot of reference because that's all ive been doing. the tmnt are really cartoony so its difficult to use like actual anatomical reference unless ur going for that look BUT theres been so many adaptions in so many different styles that there's a real treasure trove of stuff to look at for how to simplify, stylize, and dissect these characters while keeping the recognizable essence. so theres lots to pull from.

If you want to expand further, it's also good to have 5) something sci-fi 6)something fantasy 7)something mundane/slice of life. a bedroom is a really good go-to. And of course some bgs can be two or more of these things at once.

I've definitely answered asks abt bg tips before but here's one specifically for if you want to do bg design for a job:

Your portfolio should probably have at least one of each of the following 1) an interior 2) an exterior 3) a cityscape 4) a nature scene. Just to cover kind of the basics of what you'd be asked to draw on any given project.

I actually feel like I don't have that many cityscrapes in my portfolio... this is something I'm gonna try to work on in the coming year LOL. OH ALSO. This is a very basic tip and people will tell you it all the time but its worth repeating: look up portfolio websites of artists who have the job you want. An easy way to do this is to go onto imdb for any cartoon or movie you like and to find the names listed as "bg/background designer" or whatever then just google that name +"art" or "animation" most artists have some public facing internet presence so it's not hard. spend time studying their work and hold those images in your head! it's a good way to get a good idea of what "industry standard" looks like and comparing ur own art to it... I know people sometimes get bummed comparing their art to others but if you can keep your head up lol.. it'll help you figure out what you need to work on!

.

.

.

ok thats all i have to say sorry for typing so much. happy new year everybody who read this far LMAO!!!!!

600 is entirely reasonable for a sheet like that, especially considering the work it requires. (I do art just as a hobby and i know how long that stuff takes.)

this isint entirely equivalent but when you are selling your craft you can set what feels right and makes it worth your time, I see it far too frequently with artists underselling themselves when what they do is just as valuable as any other service being paid for.

I work in auto detailing and diagnostics and I charge out the ass for biohazard or or sharps, that makes it unsafe/more difficult to work like, refuse to work on the vehicle until it comes back safe to work on or double the price

even then, the people who really want it, will pay for it, because they are paying for your time, skill, and tools.

also something to be said about the money making being able to handle worse clients better, but in my line of work i get to tell them to come back later so they cant helicopter over me.

Btw if you drive, check your oil and tires, and make sure your winter kit is ready!!

anyway, best of luck and well wishes. o7

exactly this! I didn't wake up one day and set my prices like this - it's been a long process of steadily building a clientele as well as working full-time and raising my prices to match the amount of time, skill and love I put into everything. I see so many artists undervaluing themselves and it's heartbreaking to see.

also thank you for your hard work my friend! o7 y'all are hard workers who deserve to be compensated fairly too!

also ty for reminder for oil check. We need to get our winter tires ready!

friends, skincare is everything esp when you are in our situation 💀 my best advice is to join ipsy and set your preferences to skincare. no one asked but heres my fave skincare tips:

retinol is everything! and vegan retinol is just as good ✨ retinol speeds up cell turnover, which minimizes aging and lightens dark spots. if you are a picker or cu tt er retinol should be in your daily arsenal

vitamin c is also great for lightening dark spots

hyaluronic acid is great as well and they put it in a lot of stuff these days. i only use cc cream now instead of foundation and concealer and its life changing. the purlisse cc cream is full of good stuff but also color so you can put it on every day and not feel bad about it. also good if you are bad about taking makeup off every night.

red light! if you can get your hands on a red light mask, DO IT. if not, find another skincare tool that uses red light therapy. you can use the tool to massage your products into your skin.

i cant believe it took me so long to realize this but rubbing products in (most of them) boosts their effectiveness SIGNIFICANTLY. the hero cosmetics lightening stick is great for dark spots and what helps is the roller ball.

skincare in the bathroom or at a vanity 👎🏻 skincare in bed/on couch while watching tv 👍🏻‼️

keep some products in places where you spend a lot of time; bedside, desk, purse, bookbag. you will end up using products more when they are within arms length.

keep your favorite products out and on display. it helps to see what you have and reminds you to use it. plus it’s typically pretty as decor 💕

AHA and BHA for exfoliating instead of scrubs.

avoid picking but if you do pick or (like me) have an actual issue, pimple patches are your best friend! i recommend hero cosmetics.

hero cosmetics is great because is not extremely pricey, you can get it at target and on amazon and it’s marketed as gender neutral (bc basically all skincare is gender neutral)

if you like/can afford “luxury” brands, these are my favorite brands at the moment: BYROE, REN, Intoxicated Cosmetics, Kat Burki.

try to buy on posh or mercari if you can! people sell new stuff all the time because they get it as a gift or forget to return it or just never used it and need to declutter. save your money!!

hi! what do you make of ai art? im conflicted cause i see how its great for disabled people in many ways, but then i look back at the work people put into becoming artists and mastering the craft and feel many things lol i wish i could look at it similarly like i look at producers for example, where you have a vision and tools and you know how to use it well so you dont need the musical training background to be creative, but i cant help but feel like its more complicated with visual art? that theres a whole other side besides having a vision and good understanding of a shortcut tool. im very very torn and also sorry for all that on your succession blog but knowing youre a fantastic artist whos recently been dealing with this sort of impossibility to make art i wonder if you have some insight in this area.

sending love!

i appreciate u wanting to know my opinion on a Hot Topic such as this! i dunno man i have an aversion to any definition of art of any kind that requires effort or skill as essential features that make the art “real”. i think a lot of what is happening with AI discourse is that people are appropriately appalled by the way capitalism mangles creative output and even what kind of relationships artists can have with their work and with the rest of the world. i do not have a problem with a machine that digests and reconfigures information — a machine is just a machine. if one copied the way i make texture with colored pencil and produced an approximation of a new original work by me, i would be fascinated by what reactions i might have to it. would i feel threatened by it? would i be flattered? what might it open up for me, to see my work broken into a particular machine’s data? this is just a dream, though. i see many artists understandably frightened by what the exploiter class may choose to do with their new toys (and what they are already doing to us with them). it just sucks to see that very plain class antagonism passed over with arguments about the “purity” of human-made art, how it is somehow apparent to any observer when a work is truly endowed with a “soul” (if these arguments sound eerily like fascist aesthetic principles, it’s because they are fascistic).

and then to see people cheering for their own doom with this thing of mr. game of thrones & co suing chatGPT, complete with condescending explanations of how it’s not going to hurt fanfic writers because the problem these multimillionaires have is actually with people monetizing their work, and the true humble Fan would ne’er ask a but penny. do people really not see how this is making the divide between the “artist” and the “common person” greater? it is so goddamn expensive to survive right now, and the wealthy are using fear of technology as a tool to prevent you from making money, and yes, making art at all. only those with enough capital to protect their intellectual property with the force of the law are allowed to express themselves through art. yes, i think it should be well within your rights to bind and sell (for money, yes, money) your game of thrones fanfiction. so many of us are living in poverty right now, bombarded by entertainment but prevented from ever chewing it up or spitting it out. ed roth’s rat fink character had it right. fuck mickey mouse. like, we’re actually back to saying “fuck mickey mouse” being really cool. put him in a blender full of data, have it put him into a beach scene with BBW anime versions of lara croft and princess peach. intellectual property is a historically recent phenomenon. it is a tool to make the rich richer and get you well and squarely fucked. theoretically, yeah, it sounds good to have your work and livelihood honored and protected, but just like they’re trying to replace artists and actors and writers with AI, every single tool becomes a weapon in the hands of the rich. the hell people are worried they need more punishing copyright law to fix is already here. the woman who designed care bears & strawberry shortcake never saw a penny from it. AI art is only a threat in the hands of the corporations that happily do these things in the first place.

anyways. lol. i’m not very technologically minded in my own art practice — i’m not naturally drawn to new technology as a part of my work, and find many of the results i’ve seen from current AI art tech to be kind of aesthetically unpleasant. artwork contains unpleasantness, though. i’m not really interested in arguments over what artwork “should” contain, only what it does. i think the best AI art i’ve seen (ie: the stuff i’ve enjoyed the most) has been from alan resnick:

it is so terrifically disquieting. it leans into what makes AI-generated BBW lara croft kind of difficult to actually jack off to. the overlapping lines of bodies, the nonsense text. but then, if this work has merit, is that because alan resnick is uniquely special, thus proving the point that the technology is only valid in the hands of a “real artist”? can mr. resnick be said to be the “artist” of these images at all, because he trained a program to his own style and input interesting ides? does he deserve lots of money for his work creating iconic adult swim shorts like this house has people in it? well sure

or would this art only have value if somebody put a tremendous amount of labor into it? you know. my mother used to tell me, “hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work”. she said she should nail the phrase to my forehead, like martin luther at the church doors. having very recently become disabled & chronically ill, i don’t believe it anymore. i believe we should be able to use technology to make ourselves more free. we should not be so financially insecure that we are threatened by anyone expressing themselves with something we made. the ultra-wealthy are threatened by infringement because they need everybody else to stay poor, and the poor are threatened because they do not want to be poor any longer. it’s got nothing to do with strange scrambled pictures. if i could take pictures of every work of art i’ve ever loved and put it into a machine that mixes it up and turns it into a monster, i would do it just for a bittersweet laugh at it.

i watched a video a few weeks back about cozy games and how they have kind of an illusion of escapism and peace but they often take form of being a sort of capitalist grind where youre just gathering resources to sell and buy stuff over and over right. they didnt mean it as like a bad thing btw it was just like a 'hey isnt it interesting how this is like this' kind of thing

and yeah i can see that applying to most games they were talking about. but then they brought minecraft into it and they were like 'for example, in minecraft, everything is a possible resource!' and idk it felt wrong to me

because like, yeah sure, everything in minecraft is a possible resource, but... not in a capitalist way? the closest thing to a money system in minecraft (and im talking singleplayer/small multiplayer. this does not include big servers) is the villagers, but you can go your entire playthrough without trading a single thing with them, and i often do.

aside from them, the uses of your resources isnt any amount of riches. if you get the valuable items in the game, you dont keep them around as currency, you use them for tools or armor or whatever else theyre used for. there isnt really a care for money in minecraft

instead what resources are used for is building, making art, exploring, having fun, surviving.

thats not capitalist, thats just... how humans live outside of money (i cant think of a better way to phrase it)

you can argue that its still capitalist that the resources still 'need uses' but then thats just saying that existence is capitalist

also literally not everything in minecraft has a 'use' unless you count ambiance or whatever as a use. bats in minecraft do nothing. you cant tame them, they dont breed, they dont drop anything, i dont even know if you can use a lead on them!

i know its not the same because theyre not blocks, but pretty much every other creature in the game has a 'use', and yet here we are. i wouldnt even want it any other way! obviously im the bat guy so i love them lol

idk how to phrase my point but it just rubbed me the wrong way. in minecraft, you dont do what you do for the hope of getting money, you do it because you can. you can gather everything yourself, you can build a pretty base because you can, you survive because you can. youre free. you dont worry about running low on things because someone else holds them from you for a price, you worry about them running low simply because theyre running low. the only thing getting in your way is yourself and the area around you.

Hi! So I need some advice. I've been to a few mental health professionals, and told them about my system, told them about my switches and buying stuff I don't like for specific alters. And none of them believe that I have DID/Osdd. Some don't know what alters mean.

The only explanation I've ever gotten was, "It's really rare." They haven't tested me. I filled out a online test and gave it to them but they didn't talk about it next session or tell me the result.

Does that mean I'm a singlet? Is this all just a delusion? If three doctors think I'm wrong then I'm wrong, right?

Hey, glad I can help!

So, there are a few things here that I think would be useful for you to know, first and foremost. Now, before all this is said, don’t let it be any kind of discouragement to you. This happens to a lot of people with and without DID.

There is not a single online test that is going to tell you whether or not you have DID with any kind of accuracy. Yes, this includes finding official diagnostic tools like the MID or the SCID-D or anything else. Even if you have the scoring guide. There is not a chance that you, in your position (or any [especially nonprofessional] undiagnosed person, for that matter) are going to find those tools helpful. Your therapist or psychiatrist will see online tests as equally unhelpful.

Paper testing is not required for a DID diagnosis. If a therapist is a specialist and knows what they’re doing, they will be able to diagnose you after a while of talking to you and getting to know you and scoping out your symptoms.

Doctors telling you that “this disorder is rare” is their way of telling you they don’t think you have it without saying that directly.

Now, all that being said, I doubt that these are dissociative specialists that you’re seeing. I haven’t known of a dissociative specialist that would agree with the statement that “DID is a rare disorder” or at the very least would say that out loud to a patient. I wholeheartedly believe that the opinions of doctors/psychs who do not specialize in trauma and dissociation/dissociative disorders should be wholly, if not mostly, disregarded. They don’t know what they’re talking about and have likely spent very little time researching it.

This kind of puts things up in the air for you. You may or may not have DID, and the likelihood doesn’t swing further in either direction from the information we’ve got here. The only way you’re going to find out for certain is if you see a psych who actually knows what they’re talking about. Anyone else is a waste of time and money, and I’m sorry you’ve been subjected to it already. The ISSTD site can help you find dissociative specialists, and so can Psychology Today. I’ll reblog this post with some resources and advice on helping you find a therapist. Being completely upfront is the way to Do do not tiptoe around any of it. Be straightforward. And remember that your priority is treatment, not diagnosis, because if a specialist believes you have DID and can help you, whether they write that down on paper or not only matters for insurance purposes.

I cant and won’t tell you whether or not you have DID, because I don’t know you and I am not yet a professional. I will tell you that going to an eye doctor for an upset stomach isn’t going to give you any answers worth your time, and that this is pretty much doing that. a find someone who’s worth your money and time for the issues that you believe you’ve got.

Good luck, and I hope you have a wonderful day.

hey friend, sorry if this is a little personal or you don’t want to answer, please feel free to ignore, but why did you decide to give up alcohol? i want to myself and i think i should, but i’m having trouble giving myself the push to get there. i’m worried about things seeming bleak, or boring, or that i’ll have to explain everywhere. any advice or inspiration is much obliged. congrats!!!!!

hey! no bestie it isnt too personal at all! im super open about stuff like this so please feel free to ask anytime you have questions! im happy to be a support for you because this has been hard but its also been so so so worth it and i will never look back!! <3 my response may be triggering for some due to the content so im gonna put it under a cut! so trigger warning: alcohol, blacking out.

for starters some people just cannot handle alcohol the same way - its literally a brain, chemical thing... some people just can't do it. for me it was endless nights of blacking out, having no idea what i said or did, sick of throwing up all the fucking time and ruining clothes and rugs. im one of the people that if i have one drink it will almost definitely turn into six which turns into ten which turns into black out. i was a nice drinker, i got real obsessed with how much i love everyone and was super friendly so that wasnt apart of my issue. i just felt like... i dont remember what i did or said. it triggered my ptsd and anxiety, every single day after i went hard drinking i would be an anxious mess and feeling suicidal because i was embarrassed or anxious that i had done or said something super humiliating even though that wasnt my track record. i just dont have a healthy ability to stop. i have no off button once the alcoho hits my system so i cannot control how much i drink. i tried that, may times and it never worked. its an all or nothing kind of thing for me.

i also chase the dopamine hit - every sip of alcohol once you start to feel drunk continues to feel like a dopamine hit! thats why you dont realize youre drinking way more than you want to sometimes, because once your kind of out of your normal mindset it takes over and tells you its a great idea..... at least for me it did!

my girlfriend and i went to a taylor swift themed night a bar just days after our decision to get sober and we thought it would be terrible and uncomfortable and i was like "i cant sing or dance without alcohol no way this is gonna be fun" and we did have a wonderful time! there are so many fun mocktails and almost every bartender ive ever come across will be more than happy to throw something fun together for you if youre worried about being able to go out out.

my father is an alcoholic and he and i are estranged because of it. he has been extremely, extremely sick lately with liver and kidney issues from his drinking. and for obvious reasons, i dont wish to repeat that cycle in my near future.

pro tip: if you're somewhere where you order your own drink privately if you get a soda water/sparkling water with lime and ask for it in a rocks glass no one will ever know you arent drinking! i do this a lot when at weddings or parties because i dont feel like talking to drunk assholes about how great they think being drunk is lmao

anon i am more than happy to clarify anything or answer any further questions you have!! its intense to go at this alone, so seriously i got you if you need anyone. <33

alcohol can absolutely be a fun tool if used responsibly and great for celebrations and all that fun stuff but like... you dnot need it to enjoy it. but its expensive, too - in so many ways! so you save money if you just get yourself a pretty lil soda with lime and prance around and just have fun being yourself without a substance taking control for you.

im actually learning a lot more about myself and what i really want and need out of social situations because im in control of myself and my autonomy instead of not remembering what even happened.

Hi this is the same anon that sent the big ask. I suppose what it boils down to is do you or do you not support n3cro z0o p3do or general pr0ship stuff even if it's no contact and kept solely fictional. Apologies but for my own comfort I need to hear this directly. Censored the terms so they don't show up in searches

I do not support those things at all dear god no, but I also acknowledge that I cant stop people from creating it because I'm not god, but I can call it out when I see it because I still find it utterly disgusting personally for, what should be obvious reasons

I'm anti-censorship but also anti-creeps, easy

My only exception is if someone has those more.. "problematic tastes" but are actually in the process of getting professional help about it (or wish to, moneys tough) rather than isolating in internet echo chambers that convince them they are always correct and what they're doing is perfectly moraly sound and doesn't ever hurt anyone or any thing, unfortunately I have almost never seen this in action myself though, only once, which is dissapointing but expected

Fiction DOES effect reality wether you like it or not, "fiction" was used as a tool to ruin my life and I will never waver on this stance, get bent

does anyone still use Sai 2 ?

and also use windows 10 ? im so so tired, the app works fine, then the next day it wont open.. this is the 3 time now.. I donwloaded so many others .exe , I delet it, and re install it again, nothing I did last time changed! is like any other night! I was just cleaning up sketches! and today no Sai.exe open, none of the 3 files I have! and no, I can not affort pay over $40 dollars, the money I make goes directly to buy food and pay taxes.. and just, the app worked just fine!! why? is it because is windows 10 pro? Is it because my ran is too filled?? why?? I need to finish so much work.. please if you use paint tool sai 2 , please help me out, I need to finish this work, I need the money of the commissions! I did every step that reddit shows up, I have tried getting any sai.exe that I can get.. I just dont get it, it worked yesterday , I was drawing ! why today wont open?? Edit- had to move some files from a unfinish Sai 2 to the files I already have.. lets see how long it takes to break again.. Edit 2 - seems like the issue is the custom brush I made for myself.. any of those files may have corrupted, ending with first an error that Sai cant open..something like "createprocess failed with error 2" I suppossed that the "creaste process" the app tried to bring back my tools, it was after I kept trying that suddently it would open but not respond, forcing me to use the adm. to force the app to close.. so yea.. Im sure there's only 3 ppl left that use Sai . but in case my future self gets in trouble, or anyone, I'll leave this here..

im gonna start working on my game for real very soon (just need to finish playing some video games cause i cant focus on more than one thing at a time) and i would rather post about it here than the bird site. i want to post about it because im pretty much starting from scratch here and if anyone has any advice i would like it. and also it just seems fun to me to post about when i have cool ideas or make dumb mistakes. i dont always know how to be properly interactively social but i want to just do things? and if you want to stop and watch and ask me questions, i will be pleased as punch

i dont know if ill ever finish this project and i especially dont know if ill ever publish anything or try to make money from it. i loved writing fic and i loved getting to share it and there was no money involved there. i want to keep that vibe going. soooo unfollow me now if you dont want to basically read the development diary of someone who doesnt know how to be a developer

as far as where i am now with it, ive been ~thinking~ about it a lot and if i know anything from writing fic its that thinking about your project constantly but not doing anything about it definitely counts as working on it. i did take a hefty chunk of time to learn C# and how to use unity but i havent touched either in a while so we'll see how much like riding a bike those are.

anyway. i have no idea how to design a game from scratch by myself, but i do know how to project manage because thats basically my day job. if i break it down into its parts, i can work backward from the end goal and figure out what i need to do to get there. sometimes those steps mean making stuff and sometimes theyll just mean learning how to do shit. this is going to take a long fucking time and learning how to do shit is never a waste of time imo

when i break it all down, the very first thing i think i need to do is get a decent outline of the story and its main branches. the visuals, audio, and gameplay will all stem from the narrative. the good thing is developing the story is the part of this im most confident about. i think im going to play around with using yarn spinner to build the story because branching narratives/player choice is going to be critical and i dont think my usual tools for writing a linear narrative are going to work.

hopefully i have something to share again soon

i would have written in this in my journal but i dont have it with me so

i had a productive therapy session this morning. we talked about goals and achieving them and actually Doing things, like just doing them, instead of thinking about it and never actually getting started.

i told her i need help with it, and need accountability. so we arranged that i would be writing at least a page a week in my novel. i think its a good goal, and im glad i have someone to report back to, because just doing it all based on my own willpower and discipline has been really hard.

i still have yet to write my FIT essay, and im still contemplating doing it at all. i think it would be great to go back to school, but theres money and the fear of getting stuck in a commitment. i really wanted to go in the first place because i thought designing and making clothes would actually be a practical job for myself, and i think i could really make it work in the meantime.

ideally of course i finish this book, but i figure that could take years, and i want to quit my current job, so i thought that making money off of fashion would be a good idea. but now that im thinking about it, i dont even know if i need FIT. not only is everything on google and youtube and what not, but there is a place ive taken classes at before in the city called the sewing center and i feel like i could really benefit from that, like obviously its going to be a lot less money and time than actually going to college for 2 or 4 years.

i took a few classes at sewing center and i liked it, and learned a good amount. its hard to afford it when ur paying out of pocket because it can really add up, but the good thing is that i can take the classes on my own schedule. i just kind of fell off of learning to sew and making things so i need to get back into it.

i have a really hard time with the actual getting started with things, executive dysfunction i guess, bc i know once i start it will be easier, but god, just making myself go into the studio and beginning is so. fucking. hard.

i have the tools i need, the inspiration, the resources, etc. i have no one to blame but myself for not just doing it, its a hard truth. i feel a shift coming though, i really do feel happy about having my therapist hold me accountable for things i desperately want and need to do. i started reading a book i had bought a long time ago for research on the 1920s for my novel and began reading on the train. the research part is much more difficult for me than the actual writing. but 1 page a week should be doable.

as for sewing, i should give myself another kind of goal/deadline. maybe just make a little something every week. i like feeling accomplished and i love to create. i cant live without it. if im not making a full on outfit i can at least work on jewelry or accessories and stuff.

tw unresolved whining

so i had to cancel my writing ai subscription today because i found out they were doing images and its just making me reflect. i dont use it so i didnt notice, i mostly just wanted to tool to grow and mature. it was like my one indulgence. anyway. i wasnt involved with ai writing tools at the the BEGINNING beginning, but i was definitively there before All This. and i remember having never been so excited in my life about writing. i hadnt actually had fun writing in years, i realized (went to college for creative writing degree, for reference. like this was supposed to be my whole ass Life).

and i felt so hopeful, because it seemed to me that this was the perfect tool for me personally. it filled in all the parts of me i struggle with because of Depression and Exhaustion and We Live In A Society disease. im not sure whether or not i was using it like it was supposed to be used back then (definitely not how its supposed to be used now), but it reall felt like having a dance partner. we went back and forth sentence by sentence (sometimes word by word), making something that pushed and challenged me because it would 'write' things that i wouldnt have even considered. and i could go off of that one word or turn of phrase for paragraphs. until i got stuck. and i suppose you could get that if you wrote with another human being, which could be cool, but it was also a paradoxically safe space. sometimes you dont want to write extremem trauma whump angst with other people and i think thats okay

and it was fun. and there were issues. but it was okay

and then the art bots came.

and i felt... angry, obviously, on behalf of all the artists who were getting jacked. but i was also... pissed off. because all of a sudden people hated AIs for theft unilaterally (a good thing to be mad about) but they hadnt given a shit before. back when it was writing. because i am also a writer of normal human works. on places where content was being scrapped from. and all of a sudden there was a new cultural norm, at least in the circles i cared to be in, and no one cared about writers. at all. in fact to date ive only seen one post/piece about ai theft of text and i went out looking for that.

and it was like. i hadnt thought about the datasets before, not really. no one thinks of this is stealing (fiction) writers jobs. its only just now, like the past couple months just now, becoming a talked about problem because it steals journalists and REAL writers jobs. academic jobs. serious good people. not nasty little fiction writers. much less poets i am not a poet but i have never ever seen anyone talking about ais taking jobs from poets. and they can. people who think ai cant write mostly, i think, dont know how to use them correctly. (then again i also think people who think they CAN write fall under the same umbrella, so... ai writing programs have. problems as unique spottable and predictable as image ais adding an extra finger.)

anyway at the time, though, i hadnt really thought about tet theft in datasets. back then you really had to KNOW what generative ais were to understand what was going on. no one was explaining except to other people who got it. and of the people who got it, no one was talking about it. i wish they had been. obviously we are all of us individually responsible for our participation in society but. why wasnt anyone talking about it before? why is it okay to steal someones words? or at least, passable. why is it still passable?

it just makes me feel things. and i dont have any answers. besides that writing AIs should be the EASIEST thing in the world to fix. unlike with art, the public domain for written fiction is both massive and still popular. as in, people will use an AI trained on older writing whereas AFAICT, the only ai image makers that make money need to mass-steal anime and pop art. no one's arguing about Ye Olde Oil Painting Ai.

i dunno. it feels. odd. because obviously i cant support a place that steals. but i feel some kind of emotion about dropping a tool that made me feel connected to writing again, in order to support a (good and important) fight that doesnt seem to care about writers at all

i dont have any resolution. just upsetness. i wish we could use this tool for all the good its capable of. instead right now its just a big theft machine.

one day with the march of tech i guess we'll be able to run beasts like these on our own, and then i think we'll see more ethical options. it just sucks in the meantime.

Heya thank you so much for the art advice earlier! I was wondering if you had any specific suggestions for programs and/or brushes (you know specifically for someone whose only fine art experience has been in pencil and charcoal 😭) .

I’m currently using iArtbook because it’s free. I know Procreate is probably the most popular program but I’m literally -$300+ in my bank account right now, so that isn’t a current option 😅.

However I do believe you can upload brushes to the iArtBook app, honestly I’m not sure, I haven’t tried but you can edit the brushes in a very similar fashion to Adobe Photoshop. So I’m assuming you can also download and upload brushes. I actually really like this program because it has a similar feel to Adobe programs and as a Photographer I’m very experienced with Adobe (I have an Adobe Cloud Account).

In all honesty I’ve never been a good illustrator (since my main focus in my fine arts education was always photography) , but I find the activity meditative and I’m ALWAYS looking to improve.

(Also I was gonna DM you but cant so sorry for the long question 😅)

Yo, it's all good. No apology necessary.

I can only suggest what I know. I've never used Procreate, and I've never even heard of iArtbook. I'm also one of those that absolutely will torrent my art program of choice. And have.

A long, long time ago (like probably thirteen years), I got a copy of Corel (Coral? Idek anymore) free with the purchase of my Wacom bamboo tablet. I didn't know what I was doing yet and I hated it. My laptop hated it. It was very heavy and lagged big time.

I switch to Gimp, which is legally free and open source. I used Gimp for years with zero problems. You can import a lot of Photoshop brushes into Gimp without issue. Compared to Photoshop and Paint Studio, it's incredibly underpowered. Looking back at the art I made, however, I was not poorly off.

From Gimp, wanting more, I then switched to Photoshop CS5. It was incredibly easy to find and install. Personally, I say screw Adobe, since their current model is subscription based. I hate that. I used PS for yearsssssss, up until last year, I believe. It wasn't too heavy for my laptop to handle unless I used too big of a brush. It allowed me to expand my knowledge of digital art programs. It has way more to offer than I'll ever use. But as i mentioned before, the natural art brushes are ... okay, and the blending tool is awful. I learned to NOT ever use the blending tool because of PS.

Throughout time in my PS years, I switched from a Wacom Bamboo tablet to a Huion pen tablet (three different ones) to a Huion Kamvas 16 Pro tablet. With my family's help, I put money towards improving my art by way of hardware, and each tablet became significantly better. A good tablet will help TREMENDOUSLY, but by no means does anyone *need* to splurge on a screen tablet like the Kamvas series. I recommend Huion. It's hard to go wrong with them. In case that ever tickles your fancy.

Like, I'm pulling examples of art I've done with these programs and tablets, specifically unshaded pieces, to show that the software and hardware doesn't necessarily make the piece.

Now, I'm using Clip Studio Paint because it comes with so many native traditional brushes. Again, the company switched or threatened to switch to a subscription pay, so I have no qualms in resorting to circumventing their purchase page.

I will say, I think I love Clip Studio more than I ever did Photoshop. The brushes are just ... perfect.

Like this. This isn't pencil and paper! It's the pencil brush that comes with Clip Studio. It draws JUST like a pencil and I feel like I'm in my natural element when I get to use it.

If you do decide to use PS, or a program that is PS brush compatible, I'll have to find that set of brushes that works similarly to these.

These pictures both used one of the pencil brushes from that set in PS. The horse was painted with a watercolor wash brush; the human with a chalk brush. It's nowhere near as versatile as what can be used in Clip, though.

But I'm sure you could find many brushes through dA and gumroad to use until you find the one that works for you, too!

For the Farming Sim Ask game:

🥒🍇 🍍🥔

This game is so much fun!

Farm Sim Asks!

Cucumber 🥒 - Favorite non-human character/mythical being?

I think that might be Inari. I was not expecting to love them as much as I did when I first saw them in 3oT. For the most part I've been neutrally positive about the mythical characters in the games, but Inari really wormed their way into my heart. Something about their dialogue and the friendship they form with the farmer really endeared them to me. Also, they're cute a heck!

They're a more mature deity than Witchie and Dessie in the games, but they're also not petty/negligent like some iterations of the HG and WP are in other games. They hit that perfect middle ground for me.

Not sure if I would ever marry them, but I did enjoy befriending them.

Second runner up would be the Harvest Goddess from Save the Homeland. I love her design and her whole vibe. And she's genuinely nice to the protagonist.

Grape 🍇 - Which game would you like to see a remake of?

It's hard to pick just one, because there are a lot of games that I missed playing entirely because they were on consoles I didn't own at the time they came out and/or I wasn't paying attention to HM games. So like, any of those.

But for a game that I have played and would like to see a complete remake of, Island of Happiness. PLEASE. It had a great cast of characters and a fun setting but a lot of the game mechanics make the whole thing frustratingly unplayable. But it would need a lot of changes for me to be happy with it. Get rid of the gd water/sun point system for one. And the hunger bar! Nothing makes it harder to earn money in the game than having a farming system that does not guarantee crops, aka wasting hundreds of g, no source of actual food from the get go, and also having your available energy for doing things dependent upon whether you can find something to eat. which you cant. and I low key hated the Wonderfuls system for tool upgrades, but I can work around that.

So like. I don't want a completely faithful remake of IoH, like they did with FoMT. I want the whole game rebuilt from the ground up so it behaves like other HM/SoS games.

Pineapple 🍍 - What is your favorite art style of the games?

I did already answer that one. Short answer, (M)FoMT, SoS1, and 3oT.

But in general there's something I like in all the games. I'm not very picky about art styles and design lmao, so long as things are cohesive within the game I don't mind the changes between them.

Potato 🥔 - Favorite non-romanceable character?

Hector. My favorite sad, single dad, who I think deserves to find love and happiness again. Let me romance him gdi

That being said, I genuinely enjoy a lot of the non-romancable characters in the games. They are, imo, more important to making the towns feel like real communities than the marriage candidates. And it's kinda nice to have characters that bring life and depth to a town without their story/relation to the character revolving around romance.