harry, as venus by botticelli

the birth of harry finally come to life, thanks to the incredible visions depicted in de amore ex tempore, a fic by @persephoneflouwers that has me dreaming like i haven't in a while. thank you <3

“And if I do touch them,” he hisses. “If I say use this sword” — In one swift motion he scoops Time’s sword off of the ground, holding it up so that the blade gleams — “to slit their necks what will you do? Will you don the Deity mask that sits in the pouch at your hip? Will you follow me across time? Hunt me down?”

A piece I drew inspired by this fic by @adrift-in-thyme.

bonus close-up under the cut:

Robo-Boyfriends AU (My Sona Version) - Effort

Woe word-less comic be upon ye! I think it's very fitting with my sona being mouthless LMAO. I haven't worked on RBAU in a short while so take this thingy before I continue to work on MO again :thumbsup::thumbsup:

Explanation/vent under the cut (it's VERY long, so know you've been warned)

I'm tired. I'm tired of pretending it doesn't affect me at all. I'm tired of not wanting to express genuine frustration on my blog. I've been trying my best to keep my blog and every other platform I have as a place of escape for myself. I want it to only be filled with mostly good and optimistic things. I already get enough crap and more in my private life, I don't want to see reminders of them in places where I want to escape. Which is why I've been pretending to not see the numbers, that I don't feel under appreciated, that I don't vent as much when I want to or when I do I'm quick to delete them.

I know that many artists online go through this and have expressed their frustration on this experience-- where they put in so much effort and time on their works and they barely get any feedback or interactions or when they do get feedback it's often on the works they don't even put that much effort in. I love RBAU and Cloud Nine.. they're my AUs that basically gained the most traction here but the time and effort I gave to making those comics and random pieces of gradient-themed drawings don't even compare to the rendered pieces or the animated works I've made for them.

As much as I appreciate the reblogs and comments on the posts that reached so many people, I often wonder why it's always the works that I didn't put my all into. It makes me feel discouraged... not in continuing to draw or make creative work, but to actually put in more effort. But if I'd do that--stop putting in more effort-- then I would only make myself even more miserable as I don't like stagnation. I hate stagnation. I hate getting bored of the things that mean so much to me. Sharing my art and improving on it means too much to me.

But it's weird because I tend to observe the interactions with other blogs. They look to put in so much effort and make such beautiful rendered pieces that I adore and yet they are appreciated as deserved. While there are artists who make "shitposts" (their words) who also gain so much traction and appreciation. This observation makes the voices in my brain start correlating the quality of my work to the interactions. If I'm being completely transparent, I get these thoughts a lot. But I also don't believe them. I don't want to believe them.

Before anyone starts saying "ohhh you shouldn't attach your appreciation of your work from external factors" etc etc-- I KNOW. I am FULLY aware. I'm completely aware and have rationalized this situation over and over. That this is just how the internet goes. That these are factors I don't have control over. That my work is gold and it doesn't have to be determined as such by numbers. That someday the people who appreciate my works will find me. I. Know.

Still, knowing these things doesn't make the feelings disappear. It's like I want to be mad, and cry at the same time but also understand that I just can't really do anything about this but let it be. It's as if the more I care about a project, the less likely people will. I don't want to pretend like I don't care about a project just for it to be appreciated. But I also don't want to feel as if I'm not getting as much appreciation or attention that I think my work deserves.

I've been experimenting with my works and how I post them here on Tumblr and on YT since last year. The ones that are shitposts are seriously what gets more attention AHAHAHA I am laughing with frustration. Look, I love making memes and poking fun with characters as much as the next viewer and artist but by god. I can't just keep churning out funny haha low substance stuff in exchange for interactions. That's not the kind of artist that I am. I like making things that has lore; that has depth to them. Like how I tend to make lore heavy AUs right after getting my silly, lighthearted works blow up just to remind myself that the relationship I have with my works will not grow if I keep chasing after the interactions, the numbers by prioritizing quantity over quality.

Or maybe people just don't like my ideas? I guess that's a possibility too. Maybe my ideas just don't resonate with people enough. It's not "consumable" enough. Or maybe they don't like my art/writing/animation style. Yet more factors that's out of my control. But I also get told that people like my art, my writings, my animations. And they mean so, so much to me. But it just doesn't add up sometimes, y'know? If people like my work and stick around because they like my art no matter the fandom then why don't I see it? Thoughts like these make me feel so ungrateful actually.

I'm sure there are many people who look up to me as an artist and think how "popular" I am. I've been told this so many times. And yet, I don't feel either of those as strongly. Hell, even as I type this long vent out, I feel like people will not even care. Or worse. Perhaps they may think I'm focusing on the wrong things or think I'm being insecure and jealous of other people's well-deserved appreciation from others.

For the record, I am not. I think every single (actual, not AI) artists put in so much effort and love to their own works most of the time and if they get appreciation for it then I'm sure as hell that they've been seeking for it too and now that they're getting it and it's there then they should bask in it and rejoice. They really should.

Sigh. This is getting far too long. I'll stop here. I hope my words and my thoughts came out clearly. I'm writing this out late at night. Don't worry, I'll still be putting in the effort I've been putting in lately. I'm still going to work on MO, and give my best to make Assassin Eclipse's design to be as on par with Assassins Sun and Moon. I'm still going to write and continue the lore in the fic. I'm still going to animate the lore-heavy Welcome Home animation I've been working on slowly day by day. I just wanted to let this all out. Venting it to my friends just seem to not be enough. I gotta express it where people can see it. I think this is just my last straw too. I've been holding out for so long and 2024 really hasn't been that kind to me lately that I just can't anymore.

Anyway, the next post will be much lighter, I promise.

My two cents on the whole situation

I think a lot of people in the Welcome Home fandom are misunderstanding the bigger picture here. It's resulting in a lot of people expressing disappointment and pointing fingers at people who aren't even the problem, and while the intentions mean well, it's causing the toxic environment Clown doesn't want.

In his post, which has now been privated, he talks about how overwhelming everything is. He even directly states that it's not just about boundaries, and while he has trouble putting it into words (and I will not put words in his mouth in the process either), Clown indicates that the sudden spotlight and attention is overwhelming him. And that's completely understandable - he's just one guy! Plus, he's been making stuff for Welcome Home for years, so it only makes sense to fluster over the sudden rush of attention in only a week. A week!!!

The reasons why boundaries come into play with all of this isn't just because his THREE rules were violated by garbage people. It's the fact that he had no time to establish boundaries beforehand, and it's stressful to suddenly have to think of EVERY facet of fandom culture and establish the dos and don'ts. But as Clown said, what's happened has happened, and all we can do is move on. Which leads me to my next point:

Clown explicitly said to not reprimand people on his behalf. He doesn't want the fandom to waste time and energy on people who have already crossed the line. What has happened, has happened. With that said, it's important to educate and point out when someone has crossed a boundary, but you shouldn't go through so much effort and anger over someone who clearly doesn't give a shit.

I've seen a lot of people who are making posts with a lot of "shame on you!"s and "You are all trash." I've also seen comments on harmless fanfics or art saying things like "You're the reason this fandom sucks." What awful things to say!

This fandom is probably one of the best fandoms I've been a part of. Why? Because a large majority, and I mean a LARGE majority, are respectful of Clown and want to do right by him. I've never seen a community band together so quickly to change their ways, apologize, spread the word, and evaluate the decisions they've made: not just in this fandom, but every fandom they've ever been a part of. That's HUGE. I've been on the internet for a very long time, and I don't think I've ever seen anything like that.

Yes, there are BAD eggs in this fandom, but there always is. What's important is that I haven't been seeing those bad eggs. Like, at all. I haven't seen a single explicit NSFW post, and I haven't seen a single piece of mass-produced merch. I've only heard about them through word-of-mouth, but I've never actually seen anything with my own eyes. Not that I doubt anyone, but I'm saying this to illustrate just how little bad eggs there are in the community. And this is a HUGE community.

In fact, I think we're so good, that we're starting to punish ourselves for making fandom content, and that is also awful. I want to reiterate what Clown's three major rules are:

Refrain from publicly posting NSFW content or content that wouldn't be safe for children to see/read.

Do not mass produce merch. Commissions and personal projects are fine, but they cannot be mass produced to be sold.

Do not impersonate and claim his art as yours. Give credit!! Don't trick people, and don't profit off of someone else's work!

And that's it! I've seen a lot of people taking down their fanfictions and art and AUs just because they're worried about Clown. That's super sweet and it warms my heart to hear that the community is so considerate, but remember, the three rules above are the only don'ts. Lots of people are scared of continuing to overwhelm him, and they're also scared that he might stop the project all together.

I assure you, he's not. Firstly, his fan works guideline is still pinned on his Tumblr blog!! If he wasn't sure of fanworks all together, he would have simply privated the post and write a new one with new rules. The rules have not changed. He loves to see fan interpretations, your AUs, your OCs, and your art! This is all explicitly stated! You can read it here incase you forgot -> https://www.tumblr.com/partycoffin/712519493403934720/apologies-if-this-has-already-been-asked-but-how?source=share

Secondly, he actually posted an update on his ko-fi that indicates that he's doing much better and that he's "elbow deep" into working on Welcome Home! I'm a member that gets to see all of his posts on ko-fi, and while I'm not going to show you the whole post (obviously), I will quote an important part you guys should see: "You have all been so delightful to me (Setbacks happen with an abrupt shift in attention, I realize, so roll I will with this newfound experience!) and I was like 'Oh, let's post a tasty preview!'"

Clown acknowledges all of the goodwill and kindness the community has shown. He even states that he's learned from the experience and he's working hard on Welcome Home to see it through!

This was a very long two cents, so I'll end it here.

tl;dr, You guys are being too harsh on each other/yourselves, and that's the last thing Clown wants. He's doing better, Welcome Home is still being worked on, and you shouldn't have to shame yourself or others for posting perfectly kosher fandom content. There's only three major rules, three, so you shouldn't have to feel bad about what makes you happy.

oc drop number one!!

you haven't seen taivas' pretty face in a while, so I thought I'd share this rendering practice I did! this was one of the rare times I coloured my sketch before doing the line art :>

because of that lucky circumstance, you practically get to see the first conception and the finished piece this time around! I might post just a close up of all of their eyes, since I put extra effort into rendering them!!

have a fabulous next 24 hours and write a friend or family member how much you care for them! they deserve it c:

Hi AKOM, I read Ian Leslie's article about "Now and Then," which you re-blogged, with great interest. Like you I believe it to be a fairly "sane take." Like many readers, I was struck by one passage specifically: "As far as we know, it wasn’t a sexual relationship, but it was a passionate one: intense, tender and tempestuous." The negation isn't necessary for Mr. Leslie to make his central point, which is that the Lennon/McCartney relationship can best be understood as a love affair. So why mention it at all? Because the idea of a sexual relationship (or attraction, even) between the two men is so offensive it has to be excluded, even though no one brought it up? Or as a circumspect way to introduce the idea to the discussion, buffered by the careful addition of "not, as far as we know?" I think it's the latter; I'd wager many readers do. And my feelings on this are mixed. Because the tone of "by no means do we want to suggest the presence of base carnal desires" is one of disapproval. Had this sentence not been in there, the love affair analogy would have spoken for itself, to be filled in by the reader at will. On the other hand, it's hard to ignore the possibility that these five words, "as far as we know," are the entire point of the article, which otherwise doesn't make a big effort to specify the exact shape of the love affair analogy. Passionate, yes. Breakup, yes. Hurt feelings and coded messages, yes. The Beatles' music as carrier of suppressed emotions—yes, but which ones? "In a sense, the music of the Beatles, which brings so much joy and consolation, is the glorious fruit of male repression. We like to think we live in a more emotionally enlightened age. We have learned to talk it out. Yet sometimes I think that is itself a kind of avoidance, or a failure of nerve. We’ve awakened from the dream, and yet seem to be more confused than ever." Is he talking about the current state of talking about John and Paul? What do you think? (I hope he expands on his analogy in his book.) P.S. I love your podcast and the hard work you put into it so listeners like me can feed their heads. Thank you for that! [P.P.S. I took out a digital subscription of the NYT because of this article, and no, I did very much not read the comments, nor do I intend to do so.]

Hello @crepesuzette2023! Thanks for writing! :) To be honest, the line "as far as we know, it wasn't sexual" didn't strike me as anything other than responsibly agnostic. I think if you ask the reader to reframe an already extremely famous creative partnership as a love affair, the natural follow-up question would be: sexual or platonic? In that event, stating he has no knowledge of it being sexual while also allowing for the possibility it might have been is exactly the right tone to take, IMO. Because that's the truth; we don't know either way. Honestly, I've been a bit bewildered by some of the tumblr response to this article. As I said, I think Ian Leslie's is a thoroughly sane take. Then again, I've been publicly talking about John and Paul as a love affair (on not just my own podcast but other peoples' as well) for years now, so maybe I'm in the belly of the beast. Don't get me wrong, it's very gratifying to read this in the NY Times! I'm excited by this shift towards open discussion in the public realm, but it's hardly scandalous. Leslie has been working on his book since 2021, I think. I don't agree with him on everything, but I think his takes on Lennon-McCartney are very good and sound. I recommend his piece on Get Back if you haven't read it. TBH, I'm not sure what the highlighted passage means. If I had to guess, I'd say he's talking about the way Beatles scholarship so far has refused to publicly accept Paul and John being in love, or contemplate what that means to their art or their lives because we have historically been too scared or cowardly. And maybe the act of creating timeless art as a display of love is much more powerful than being able to say the words to someone. But I don't really know. :) Also, this is just my (Phoebe's) response. Daphne and/or Thalia may have different takes. Thank you for the kind words about AKOM!

.

these days every time i start on an art idea for myself that's more than a sketch i just get this weird fear that it will suck, or i stop halfway through because the amount of work i need to put in for it to be as good as i imagine is more than i feel like handling at the moment. i haven't done a legit illustration that i put effort into (as in multiple concepts and serious thought about composition, value thumbnails, color thumbnails, etc) in about a year, and i still haven't done all those action pose studies i promised myself i'd do way before that. the point of those at the time was for my webcomic which I no longer have any interest in finishing bc it's just too much right now. but all that to say i keep trying to make things and finding myself lacking when i had all these cool art plans for this year.

like. it's the middle of january, i have plenty of time, i don't need to worry about this. i'm just. annoyed that i still have baby fears about some parts of art despite being confident in many aspects of it.

i just want to get back whatever my brain was on when i did 2 major zine pieces and three 15+ page comic chapters in a year while working my other job. like that's definitely the reason I was burnt out, but. If I could get a fraction of that back I think I'd manage my creative energy better now. If I can pool my knowledge together and shake all the dust off I can make so much cool stuff. I just. I'm realizing that I want to update my portfolio and I don't have any recent personal pieces that feel up to the same level of effort as the stuff already in it. So I want to make stuff I'm really proud of this year, if I can. I just have to be patient with myself, which is possibly more of a challenge than doing action pose studies.

You said you're willing to talk about writing and I know you can't contribute as much (fair, I'm an author and earlier someone asked you about pastels and I was like, well duh they like pastels look at their tumblr layouts only to keep reading asks and realized they were talking about the other kinds of pastels 😭)

But right now I just feel so excited as a writer cause I've got some really exciting plans coming up soon. With my current WIP (beloved sex worker au) I'm dabbing into very different character dynamics and really mature themes that I never let myself explore before

And either after that's done or before I finish it as a little break I'm planning on something that's gonna be really short and sweet. It'll be a nice change of pace from the sex worker au and its gonna be shorter so less thinking needed. I hesitate to call it low-effort cause it's not really, but that's probably gonna cap out between 3k-5k which is bite-sized for me as a writer to work on (I know for some writers that's pretty long and no shame to them, just for my personal averages that's very much on the short end of the spectrum)

I'm just excited to create honest 🫶

And the reception of the SW!AU has been so lovely it makes me want to write more 🥰

How about your art? Any exciting pieces on the way? A new setting you want to put them in?

I really don't know how to ask artists about their progress sorry 😅

I imagine you guys aren't all that different but for writers we can all speak in tropes and while artists can do that to, you guys also go outside the bounds of tropes a fair bit lol

(wait omg this makes me wonder if I also misinterpreted that ask as meaning the wrong type of pastels HAHA)

OOOOH this sounds so interesting I love seeing people explore new dynamics with characters and their interpretations of unique scenarios and such. Also I'm a sucker for sweet stuff too so needless to say i will be SAT for anything you post!

I've been working on art slowly but surely! I've got a few ideas on the back burner but the next two weeks are still stressful exam season for me so I haven't had a /ton/ of time to whip out drawings like i usually can haha. Hopefully soon™️ tho

oh yeah I never thought about it like that but I definitely see it! I wish the fanbase did more bigbang events with artists and writers together because I always love to see collaborations within one trope/genre/prompt/etc. because it can still be so varied :0

Hey idk if you've answered this but what is your art process and what do you use for traditional and digital art?

Honestly I don't even know but at the same time I know the processes are very similar. I'll try and do my best HSNFKAH

Digitally I like to just Do Whatever Feels Good so it's a very "trust the process" kind of thing. Mainly when I draw digitally though I'll start with this.

Basically just making rough shapes and then the details on different layers while changing the opacity.

In the case of traditional it's a LOT more casual and I really don't have a good explanation for it? Basically skipping the rough detail layer and instead going to a sort of rough sketchy look (which is what I've been doing traditionally mostly these days.)

Digital linework is where I correct my mistakes (most of the time, if it's something Not Serious like this it'll be a lot looser looking!) And most of the time that's actually kind of where it ends lol, most of the digital stuff you see from me nowadays is only finished stuff I put effort into.

But when I finish lineart I tend to delete the sketch layer entirely so I don't mistake it for something else, and then color under the lineart layer.

And in this case I decided to give you a rough idea of how I do my shadows+highlights? I don't do it All The Time but I put them on separate layers and play with the layer settings !!! Genuinely cannot advise this enough it's really nice and fun to just see what looks best. In this case though I used a basic multiply layer for the shadows and then on a layer above it placed a few highlights where a general light source would be coming from.

Something I highly suggest is doing what feels right to you in the moment. If you're itching for something that you haven't drawn before, look at photos of what you want and then try and memorize as much of the look as you can! It's a neat little exercise for stylization I've found out, but it's also super useful for when you need references too. Don't ever be afraid of them.

Going back to trad. art though. When I'm not working with very quick sketches with pen/pencil it can come in two ways: clean pencil drawing or something made with pen+marker.

I use mainly Sharpies for colored traditional pieces, and my secret is that if you're limited on colors, LAYER IT ON!!! One shade of a green can give you a decent shadow!!! I use Micron pens for lineart and a white gel pen to sneak in a few little highlights here and there. On paper I don't put much emphasis on light and instead focus on the shadow part (mainly because it's hard for me to figure out a good lighter color for things HAHSHSJAH)

But genuinely whatever you do I don't think having a "style" is perfectly fine. It's a fluid thing that's ever-changing for some and if you fall under that category it doesn't mean that you're not skilled! Play around, have fun, generally just see what looks cool and cooler :)

have u seen the new jacob geller video? seems like itd b up your alley. id be curious to hear your thoughts on the philosophy of archival he talks about

Oh it was DEFINITELY up my alley, as an (at the very least) above-average obsessed fan of archiving my life's work to the best of my abilities. Geller brings up a really good point I've had to wrestle with, myself: What's the extent to which I can, well, archive?

Lately I've had to omit archiving multiple versions of my art because there's just... so many. Often I found myself erasing old versions just to put new ones in, only occasionally regretting it months or years later. There's some physical doodles I just haven't been able to archive, some that are probably lost forever. Sometimes I go about my day and check Discord only to find something missing I can't quite put my finger on; another server, deleted. How much do I archive of myself? Every word? Every pen stroke? Every conversation? Every thought, every dream, every morsel of food, every footstep, every blink, every fucking breath I've ever taken? Where does it stop?

The answer is it doesn't stop. At least, if you want a full archive of yourself. Different people have focused on different things, yeah. Some make dream journals, others make food diaries, others digitize their notebooks, others have github repositories or the like. But by god, is it hopeless to do everything.

I've tried to back those servers up, but, well... They get updated every day. I can't make backups of every server, every day. Archiving takes time, immense amounts of time, out of my day. Lately, I've been going to class lectures only to spend the time archiving my mind-boggling collection of notebook doodles from high school, for a purpose that isn't really that important right now. I'm not saying it's a universal experience, but to me, the process and goal of archiving puts me violently in the past and violently in the future, and rarely in the present.

I find myself just scrolling through my Everything Drive aimlessly, taking in the same colors I've already looked at for years, and it just feels like... I'm getting nothing new done. And then I continue building up this Everything Drive, for some unforeseeable unattainable "ideal" state that will never happen. I look back and I look forward constantly and sometimes I forget I can just step back and take in the moment as it is, without having to save an audio log of it, without having to record a video of it, without having to be constantly in fear of the decay of my memories. (Note that I have nothing against recording videos of things. I mean, I do that. A lot. That's why I bring it up. It just gets a bit too much after a while. I have 2000 videos and 2000 audio recordings on my phone. I barely ever check them.)

Callie, you probably have a few art pieces that might not be accessible anymore, because you might have put them in a discord server and just... Never kept a copy on your computer. Even for the art you made that is still accessible... How will you even go through the effort of collecting and archiving them, now? I got lucky to start my Everything Drive project relatively "early", in 2020, because Unus Annus scared lil ol me. Even then, I had a lot of work before me. I can't imagine starting that same project now, 3 years later.

On a slightly related note, sometimes a friend's hard drive just gets wiped. Sometimes someone's art hosting site gets taken down. Sometimes there's even something as mundane as someone quickly deleting their discord message as a joke. Things get deleted all the time, outside of my control.

I try to archive as much of myself as possible, but that's basically where I stop. Just myself. I can't archive everyone else to the extent I do for myself. I just hope they get to archive at least a small piece of themselves, their own way.

Back to Geller's video, though. I wanna say, The Internet Archive isn't fully a forever archive. People can try, yeah, and with enough people, something could very well last forever. But with individual items, it's a different story. I used to be very into the Archie Sonic comics, all for one specific character (if you want to know, it's Shard the Metal Sonic). Internet Archive, at that time, had a collection of pretty much every archie sonic comic, neatly organized and easily accessible straight from the website. It was a beautiful thing. Months later, trying to find a panel of a comic to take a screenshot of, I realized the collection had been taken down for copyright reasons. Sure, there's other collections of Archie Sonic comics, but those often fail to capture... Everything. Even the one I was looking at probably failed to capture everything. Some only have the early era of the comics, some only have the comics from Ian Flynn onwards. Some omit the spinoffs, others omit the end pages of the comics with fan mail and whatnot. One collection appears to be the most substantial, but seems to have forgotten a few pages in a few issues. It's just... Impossible, really. To get everything, and make it out in one piece.

I can't capture my paper doodles as accurately as they appear; in the Everything Drive, you zoom in enough, and you see pixels. There aren't pixels in real life. If I were to preserve every page of my high school notebooks, the scale of the collection would become gargantuan and completely inaccessible; just like Borges' map. I don't currently have the resources to download every video I've ever put on youtube or every stream I've done on twitch, and keep them on some external hard drives. I certainly don't have the space or even the time to preserve everything I love, everything I wish could stay just a little bit longer on this Earth. We all have our times to go, and all we can do is move just a few centimeters higher on this sinking ship.

So here I am, carving out my own corner, displaying only a select few categories of what I wish to preserve about myself. And in this corner, I'm happy.

Sorry if this rant is unhinged. I'm not deleting any of it. Guess I'm staying true to this topic, lmao.

I want to end by saying that if anyone wants to scroll through my Everything Drive (a google drive collection of as many digital + physical things ive made as im able to find and archive), I can send you a link! Just dm me if you wanna. Haven't fully finished organizing some recent art projects and a vast majority of my notebook doodles, but there's still already a fuck ton of shit in there.

Also my music streaming platform of choice is VLC Media Player

The update nobody likes seeing: I Think I'm Taking A Break.

"Fandom is a community" they said.

Funny - I've possibly never felt more alone.

Never felt so isolated and overlooked in favor of the familiar, the "famous", the friendly and out-going. Maybe it's all just the Seasonal Affective Disorder talking, and this is all momentary, but right now, it doesn't feel that way.

It sure doesn't feel momentary between how low my interactions have been on writing that I have put so much fucking effort into.

The community I foolishly thought I was a part of only ever seems to stick to reading their same circle of friends, endlessly, forever. Rarely ever do I see someone else gets given a chance outside of the friend group. And that's an "if" on if they reblog something a friend didn't write...

"Reblogging is important for everyone!! If you like a fic reblog it! Everyone in this community is equally important and valued."

Fucking is it? Am I?

Is it important for EVERYONE in this community, or it just applicable to your friends? Is it only your friends who get your reblogs, and your comments, and your reaction memes, and whatever else? Is it only your friends who are worthy of your time for a simple reply when it comes to thanking ""everyone"" who left you a comment?

If everyone is as valuable to this community as you claim... why aren't you acting a little more like it?

Why are there people like me who feel like they have to resort to "Put Yourself Out There!" type of posts in order to get absolutely pitiable levels of acknowledgement in return for time and energy that only ends up being a waste?

A waste of the organizer's time, and a waste of the participants' time.

Some sweet soul (and god fucking bless them) sent in my Last of the Pack artwork in for a previous Fandom Friday some time back and the interactions barely budged. I think I only ever got 2 additional notes from the recommendation...

I signed up for a follower appreciation event where people were supposed to submit their masterlists, and the participants were supposed to pick two (at minimum) items out of their assigned masterlist to react to/comment on in their reblog of either the work of fiction or piece of art...

... And I haven't seen a single reblog out of it from whoever was assigned to me (yet, I believe there's still time within the event deadline, to be fair).

Thing is: I don't know that I'm gonna be postponing this inevitable hiatus I feel I need to take in order to see those for much longer.

I'm probably going to stick around just long enough to post a Fives x Reader that an anon requested from me, and then I'm going to bounce. I don't know for how long. So that means I don't know when "Deep Night" to Poets and Painters will end up being posted.

That means I don't know when anything will be posted again.

But I think I need to perform a serious evaluation of the effort I'm expending for the turn out of any type of interaction I'm getting in return while lowering my expectations AGAIN before I come back to my sideblog.

Hi! Let it be known yor art is very scrumptious, I adore the way you approach character drawings, and the overall style is very pleasant! Lots of creativitive design choices and it's lovely to see every time I stumble upon it! I make effort to reblog artis I like, but don't consistently have the energy to look up all of their work, so I thought I'd ask if you mind sharing some artwork of you tgat YOU'RE specifically proud of?

I hope you have a great day 💜

hi!! first off, thank you so much for your compliments 💕💕

and gosh, i wouldn't blame you for not looking through all my art even if you did have the energy, since i share so many sketches and stuff that dilute the higher effort things haha (not to put down my sketches, since it's what i like to do, but i know it can be a lot to scroll through)

so yeah, i'd be happy to share some of my prouder pieces! [im gonna try to make sure all images have IDs in their alt texts, but if i miss one, oops]

a more recent thing is the lepideity/herald and this goldfinch

(I haven't worked on the infinipede sketch in a while, but I still plan on making it in a similar style to the herald since I dig how that looks)

Then some stuff from last year:

[characters belong to @/chipper-smol, @/wugfish, @/sofd-maybe, and myself respectively]

The art I did for the Bug Fables zine would be here if I could share it, but I'll have to settle for this preview:

And I'll finish off with a couple Hollow Knight fanarts <3

There's plenty of art from further back that I'm also quite proud of, but I limited it to this and last year so that this post wouldn't be too long. Thank you for the excuse to share some of my faves, and I hope you have a great day too! <3

Been reflecting a lot lately on how when I'm really forced to my limits the need to do something large and creative and satisfying overwhelms me. Completely.

It comes out in the fanfic (started writing the week Trump got elected and haven't come up for air since). But also in more obviously unhinged things.

Some if you know that the first leave of absence I took from my PhD I built a loom and started weaving a rug.

A part of me was aware that what I was doing was ridiculous, but I did it anyway.

The rug was for the stone cold floor in the Worst Flat.

It was that cold that I wanted a Rug for the Kitchen. In the winter I slept with two duvets, a blanket, a giant fleecy nightgown, and two hot water bottles and it was Still Too Cold - both because I couldn't afford to heat the place and because the heating didn't work properly.

I could have bought a rug for cheaper than the Rug eventually cost me in wool, but it felt good to buy four pieces of wood and a bunch of nails, build my own square loom and teach myself to weave.

I had been doing just the PhD, in terrible conditions, for too long.

So I took three months off, built a loom, wove a rug, and wrote my essays on Stephen King's The Dark Tower and the Midernists. And I felt better. A bit. I would still be in the Worst Flat for a while yet, and it was going to get worse.

This year I've been sick as a dog, hanging on to my job by a thread and stretching the willingness of my employer to continue to employ me. I'm sick, sick, sick and my anxiety is overpowering and I'm making a nearly-life-sized sculpture of a butt.

This has taking dozens of hours of work - probably more than 100 by now. We use the phrase 'labour of love' but that's so fucking sanitised. Doing something like this, or building a loom, or writing 800,000+ words of fiction you can't sell is something more than love. It's *driven*.

People talk about creativity as an added extra. Something writers and artists and actors 'get' to do (because we know we all want to do it - we know it's valuable) but it's not really a choice.

If you force me to not be creative for long enough it bursts out at the seems. I do something that is absolutely not worth it in terms of the effort and finished result.

The rug is *terrible*.

The fanfic is good, but how many novels could I have completed of original fiction had I devoted myself in the same way?

The Butt Sculpture is pretty good, but there's enough wrong with it that you can tell it's my first attempt at doing something like that. And I'm going to have to hide it from some of my guests. It's huge and fragile and it's taken months and what was I thinking?

I wasn't thinking. I had to do it. Had I the money and time to work free of pressure I might have produced many more far more sensible pieces of art.

Creative people can't put the creativity *down* and when we try, or we are forced to by circumstance, it comes for us.

Or it does for me, anyway.

Because when I can't do it it's fucking *damaging*.

And imperfect though it is, when I look at Butt Sculpture and how GOOD it is, for a first attempt, I feel grief for all the art I could have produced in a kinder world that enabled me to live in a creative way, day-to-day.

I'm a pretty good writer. I'm a pretty good amateur artist. (I am a pretty terrible weaver.) I could have been so much more. And it hurts, the space that's left by all the undone works.

16, 29, 30 for the artist ask game?

16 (Something you are good at but don't really have fun doing) - i'd say i'm pretty good at doing things in a comic-style layout! but the thing is. it's also an absolute pain every time. which is why i haven't posted anything else like this one from a while ago - even though it's a simple one, it was still just. so weirdly time-consuming. mostly because of the problem of working out the layout, i think, and even then i feel like i could've laid that one out better. maybe that'll change if i do things like that more often, but anyway, yeah i think it counts for this

29 (Media you love, but doesn't inspire you artistically) - uhhh don't know, with most of the media i love i make art of or am inspired by it. even in the case of, like, victorian literature or 60s/70s sci-fi novels, that kind of stuff still somewhat inspires me artistically. even with, like, games that i love playing but haven't done proper fanart of, again i'm still somewhat inspired by them. idk i think the only media that could qualify for 'doesn't inspire me artistically' would be maybe minecraft/gaming youtube stuff, and even then i've absolutely made mcyt fanart before

30 (What piece of yours do you think is underrated) - here's a few of them:

this art of january, which isn't, like, the piece with the most effort/polish put into it ever, but the other piece it was kind of made in relation to got over twice the notes... so it's underrated by that standard

this drawing of carrie (gore warning). such a nice drawing and yet so little acknowledgement compared to most of my other fl art

almost every piece i did for this year's artfight tbh. with the exception of the wayback vs vinki piece, most of it got way less attention than my usual art when i posted it here

but for the most part i think my art has been like. getting pretty much the same amount of love each time. although while going through my art tag i've noticed that most of the art i've been posting is fanart... so i'm sure my answer would be different if i shared more original work. also there are other pieces that are more 'underrated' but that'd require going too far back into my art tag

1 and 14 for the ask game please!

1. Show your most recent wip

Well. That would be a redraw I'm doing of a piece from the summer bc Rory's design has changed a lot LMAO I haven't started anything "new" yet!!

OC art gets posted to @digirhys bc I keep this acct just for fanworks!✌🏻 so that's where the final for this will go (a cropped version at least. The full will go on cohost)

14. How has your art changed over the years?

Oh boy. In almost every way possible, I think!! Save that I am still keenly focused on character art, from my love of storytelling :0

From a technical aspect my art has of course changed and improved tremendously from when I started drawing when I was still single digits lol the inevitable outcome of never really Stopping Drawing :V

I don't have records of old traditional art as much, so the oldest art I have that isn't toddler art was from when I was around 11-12 – those aren't these lol but I started using dA when I was a young teen, so I have those as archives of what I was doing digitally (the left group of drawings are from that first dA acct, as far back as when I was 14 :Y

I think on the more con/critical side of things, my creativity has been severely stunted. In part I think that's a natural progression of thinking as I've aged, but one I know can be combated! It just takes an active effort and approach to work creativity and whimsy like a muscle, and that's something I know I haven't done a great job of :'3

It's bittersweet looking at old art where I can see how much fun I was having and how there were no inhibitions, no worrying about things being OP or cringe or "Mary sue". It's heartwarming being able to see that passion in my own art, and simultaneously i feel a bit guilty n ashamed that I've let a lot of it get worn out of me by Life, in part by things out of my control;;;;;

It is DIFFICULT to throw those cares aside again! Almost all of the storytelling I used to do was in collaboration with friends I fell out with, and it was a bit of a slap in the face to realize last year/during 2023 that I never really told stories or built characters on my own, and it's been hard for me to find that joy and passion. I loved what I was doing with friends and miss that feeling of community, but I think it's important and I want to learn how to create and tell stories primarily for myself now, too. What's been most difficult initially is fighting against a feeling of embarrassment just while simply brainstorming – it was a lot easier to throw caution to the wind and just revel in the Fun of Creating Whatever when surrounded by ppl making things with me with the same abandon!! TTwTT when we're all having a good time who cares if anyone else thinks it's silly, yanno?

I haven't quite figured it out, but that's one of my goals this year. I love doing fan stuff too when the inspiration strikes but I definitely want to put more energy into working on My Art, and figuring out what stories I want to tell and the characters involved. I think it'll be a big step, making the effort to make that shift, in helping to further heal my relationship w art in general and continuing to relearn how to love it and the messy, sometimes frustrating processes :'3

i'm not dead yet

hiiiiii

so i haven't posted. in a while 😭😭😭😭😭sorry bout that i've been adjusting to new responsibilities and this semester has been very hard. so most of my free time has been devoted to writing (i set a new year's resolution to write 1k words a day every day and i haven't broken it yet!!!) and we've been squeezing in a couple mins here and there for art but there isn't much to show yet! working on an oc piece i'm really proud of, and i've got some doodles that i'll probably post eventually :))) (hope y'all don't mind a little less high-effort doodles in the margins of my lecture notes photographed with terrible lighting but it's all i've got in me rn 😭)

but anyways. about my fics. i'm sure most of you are aware of the absolute Insane amount of words we've been putting out this year. we just passed 400k a week or two ago omg. and like. i'm thinking about showing them off on tumblr??? because i'm v proud of a lot of them. like at least some masterposts/rec lists of my faves so you don't have to sort through like 4 pages and a good number of e fics oopsie

so like. just putting out some feelers. would anyone be interested in that? would like to know if at least some people would enjoy that, so i don't make a blog that no one wants to see lol. another option would be to just add writing content to this blog but i wanna be sensitive if people only want to follow fics/only writing 💖

anyways, to sum up: not dead. hopefully gonna start posting doodles soon. writing blog???