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celestial-productions · 1 year ago

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Since I haven't posted in a bit I wanna post something so I can at least confirm I'm alive. And to let y'all know who have asked me questions I will answer them soon! I'm just a bit busy with family stuff. So here's some of my lunar facial studies, I'm an art style impressionist and the style for the celestials was originally inspired by Julian Draws on twitter! So usually I do facial studies of images they have drawn before so I can get a good idea of how dynamic their faces are. And sometimes I try and make up my own faces and tweak them to my liking! That's why sometimes my style changes, hope it clears that up!

Another few things that I haven't really mentioned is that I haven't really explained a lot of things about Lunar Celestial because I've only really scratched the surface of his story. Originally I wanted to execute it through asks but so far I've been struggling to find a way to properly draw it out. So I've been thinking about writing it out. Though I do want to disclose. Lunar Celestial is essentially apart of a TSAMS AU that doesn't really include the main cast but they do have involvement, like sun, moon, eclipse, and killcode. Asides from that there isn't really any other relation except for the introduction of the newton star.

And a bit of insight on a few other things, Lunar Celestial is not a real animatronic nor a real Celestial. He is essentially not even real at all. He is what we call an imaginary friend and was made up by a child as a comforting father figure by ANDY or formerly known as ANNIE before his transformation (FtM). And essentially the whole reason this story began is because Andy abandoned him at the Freddy Fazbear Pizza Plex and sold him there so he could be apart of their franchise. Which resulted in him getting an animatronic shell so he could interact and walk around easier since other animatronics couldn't see him unlike how humans could, except for Roxy. He ended up working in the daycare and grew this hatred for children. I won't explain everything because I'd rather show it off through the story, but if there are any questions y'all wanna ask feel free. And if you don't want lunar answering those questions just let me know! I do have other stories I'm gonna add to this blog since this is a main hub account for all my projects, so I'll have this story, the main celestial story and a bunch others. They will have their own titles soon!

Some of the others in this drawing are random designs or celestials in a story.

#daycare attendant moon #daycare attendant sun #fnaf daycare attendant #fnaf moon #fnaf sun #fnaf superstar daycare #moondrop #sundrop #art #daycare attendent #fnaf au #fnaf security breach #fnaf sb #sams au

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ot3 · 5 years ago

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your last post made me think about how I loooove how you use color in your art, it's so vibrant and full of life and movement and expression! I was wondering if you had any advice on how to do color studies? perhaps doing drawings with limited palettes? or anything similar?

First things first, thank you, I really do appreciate comments like these! this post now also has a follow up for finish limited palette pieces

I'm obviously very fond of limited palette art and color studies/color thumbnailing are great ways to get that done. When people think limited palette there's often the association of unrealistic and fantastical color palettes, but learning to limit your color use absolutely applies to semirealism and just builds stronger color theory in general. I was planning to talk about limited palettes in more realistic color use in this post, but this already ended up way too long. If that's something people want to hear about I can talk about it later.

Color theory basics crash-course! I'm sure almost anyone who has colored anything is familiar with this, so I'll be SUPER brief, but I want everyone to be on the same page for this. Color has three qualities you need to take into account: Hue, saturation, and brightness. Hue is what we think of as the 'color'. Saturation is the vibrancy of this color; how bold or dull it is. Brightness is how light or dark the color is. Here's this all labeled on a color picker I stole from google.

As a rule of thumb, things that look good in color should look good in grayscale. Having a strong range of values (brightness) makes for a strong image. Keep this in mind when you're picking colors – knowing what areas need to be light and what areas need to be dark before you start coloring will make your life easier. I'm going to teach you when and how to break this rule later, but for now let's just talk about picking a palette. I've found five to seven different colors to be a really nice sweet spot for working with limited palettes.

There are three main types of color palettes ill work with and ill provide examples each of them. I expect you to all politely refrain commenting on the amount of homestuck fanart that's here.

Monochromatic, where the piece is all within one color family with slight variations in hue, and larger variations in brightness and saturation

Accent, which is essentially the same as a monochromatic type with the addition of a strong, contrasting secondary color in one or two variants. Normally the accent color is lighter and serves as a highlight. This is not any kind of a hard rule, but is instead just what I like.

Split. There are two (or more) main colors at play, each with a couple of different shades.

Cool. Now lets see how we'd go about making one of these palettes.

I'm grabbing an inconsequential sketch i've already got and we're gonna slap some color on it. Let's start monochromatic – I've gone and just tossed six pretty random shades of green on it, picking what goes where based on what I want to be light and what I want to be darker.

Keep in mind, by monochromatic, I don't mean just picking one color and making it lighter or darker! Adjust your hue within the same color family – some of these are very blue, definitely more blue than green, and some are much warmer and yellower. Play around. In this stage I like to have every color on a distinct layer, so I can just recolor the entire layer at once as I tweak the palette.

On the right, I have each color lined up in order of lightest to darkest just so I can get a sense of what I'm working with. Lets go ahead and call this one thumbnail. Now I'm gonna group the layers, duplicate them, and flatten the copy. I'll shrink it down and shove it off to the side so I can compare it to the other ones I make later.

Okay, I did a few more almost completely arbitrary monochromatic palettes. Here they are compared with their grayscale counterparts.

All of them have the same number of colors, and lights stay lights, darks stay dark, midtones stay mid consistent between all of them, but the range of values is different between them all. The difference in light or dark between each tone is different and it gives a different mood that you can see even in black and white. None of them is more 'correct' than any other, and it's all about establishing the tone and atmosphere you want. Experimentation is key.

Now lets try making this a complimentary palette. With a strong accent color, your accent should be placed at areas of importance. People are naturally drawn to contrast and when using an accent color in a piece it'll make that area stick out, so make sure you're placing your colors with intent. For this I went back to that first set of greens I had because it was my favorite. Since this palette is over all very dark, I am going to make my accent the lightest color, because that'll stand out more. In a lighter palette, try making your accent the darkest color. Once again I must stress these are not hard rules – there are very few hard rules in art at all – but these are very useful tips for getting emphasis in the right place. This is just an example piece so I'm not being huuugely thoughtful with how I'm placing the color.

Here's the same image but with the lightest green just swapped out for a far more vibrant accent of yellow. Looks pretty terrible. I don't want all of the papers and blinds to seem so prominent. So let's scrap this and try a different approach. We're gonna instead add our accent as a sixth color to our palette.

By adding another color, I've added another level of detail. Figuring out how to manage detail isn't just dependent on how many colors you have, but this is already going to be ridiculously long so I'll spare you that spiel. This is another one of those things I'll talk about more later if people want to hear my #thots. Using the new yellow accent, I emphasized the eyes, the mug, and added some interior detailing to the objects on the table. I also decided to place yellow in some of the windows of the outside buildings, to add a bit more interest in that area, and to justify giving yellow back lighting to our little goblin lad here, which makes him stand out nicely.

A split palette makes things a whole lot more complicated. Now that you're gonna be working with two different base colors you don't just only have to worry about which one is lighter or darker, you have to worry about how the hues look next to each other. Lets work with an orange on top of our original green here. I picked two of the greens and replaced the darker one with a darker orange, and the lighter one with a lighter orange. Now our palette is six colors split 50/50 between orange+yellow, and green.

But now something interesting is happening. Let's take a look. If you're particularly keen eyed, you might have noticed that there's a third set of colors here, using a greyish brown in place of the oranges. What's up with that?

Well, what's up with that is, they are orange. The palette on the far right is what happens if, instead of choosing my own oranges, I simply hue-shifted the bluegreens until they were technically orange in hue.

The oranges I chose just based on how they looked without actually checking the value and saturation of actually changed the value hierarchy of the whole piece. The table, instead of being in between the objects stacked upon it in terms of brightness, is lighter than either. This isnt bad at all – there's absolutely nothing wrong here. It's just important to be aware of things like this! This is why I said a split palette is the most complicated of the three I'm talking about here – in many occasions, the hue hierarchy can top the value hierarchy. Keep that in mind for slightly later.

I think split palettes work really well for comics, and I like to make my comics with split palettes. Whereas with a single illustration, you can just putz around with your color thumbnails until you get something good, for a comic you're locked into your palette once you've done the first page. Unless you're some sort of insanely meticulous person, in which case I envy you, you probably don't have every single page of your comic blocked out with respective values and can't apply your palette to the whole thing at once to test it. This means you'll need a palette that's pretty versatile. Having a split palette where one of the hue sets is lighter than the other overall allows you to decide whether you're going to create an overall light panel with dark accents, or vice versa. I'm gonna compare two palettes I'm using for comics to make this point.

Here's a sampling of the comic pages in full color, at 0% saturation, and adjusted for grayscale respectively. You'll notice a slight difference between the desaturated colors and the grayscale colors – grayscale seems to hold truer to the full color version, doesn't it?

Now, here are the palettes themselves, and some grids showing the relationship between every pair of colors. When you don't know exactly what you're going to be using any given palette for, the relationship between any two colors becomes more important than ever. The bottom palette is split three ways, red yellow and blue each with a light and a dark, and then a completely neutral dark gray color. I'm using it for a long ongoing ace attorney comic I'm drawing. The top one has 4 shades of blue that go from darker and cooler to lighter and warmer, then 3 shades of orange that get yellower as they get lighter. Underneath is just the values – you'll notice that the top palette has a larger value range, with its lightest color being lighter than that of the bottom palette, and it's mid tones spaced further apart.

What you'll also notice about the bottom palette is that instead of the reds being lighter than the blues and darker than the yellows, the value alternates dark red dark yellow light red light yellow. Take a look at the color grids. You'll notice that for the most part, every color in the palette on the right looks good with every other color. That's not nearly as true for the palette on the left. The light blue has a weird vibration where it meets either of the reds, and a few of the pairings just aren't particularly pleasant. Honestly, from any objective ideas of color theory, this palette kind of sucks shit. Lets make some adjustments to it.

I've changed the dark yellow and light red hues so now the light red is slightly darker than the dark yellow. That's the palette that's on top now. Looks better, doesn't it? But so now the question becomes why am I using a palette that looks awkward, disharmonious, and visually strained when I know exactly how to fix it? The simple answer is because I wanted a color palette that's awkward. I wanted that visual strain. I have trouble working on comics and general, especially anything as long as this one, and I wanted a color palette that already meant things would come out looking a little bit wonky, so I wouldn't be as concerned with nitpicking all the details and making everything pretty. I think the sort of visual upset also fits the tone I'm keeping with a lot of the comic.

Remember earlier when I said I'd talk about breaking the rule of stuff looking good in gray scale and in color? That's now. Take a look at this image.

Which of the three colors is darker: the red, blue, or yellow? The stupid truth of it is that there's not really a proper way to tell. All three are technically the same 'brightness' but our brain tells us that the blue is the darkest, and the yellow is the lightest. Why do our brains do this? Let’s make em gray now.

On the bottom you can see what the colors look like when they are set to 0% saturation; as you'd expect it's a homogeneous gray blob. So then what the fuck is going on with the grayscale one? The grayscale one is closer to the way our brains interpret the colors, but we know this to be an improper rendering of their respective values. Which is the correct version, then – the grayscale or the desaturation? Luckily, we're using a computer, so we can have photoshop tell us the exact balance of hue, saturation, and brightness of any given pixel. Let's take a look now.

Wait, huh? We can plainly see that all three of the colors are at 49% brightness. But neither the desaturated value or any of the 3 grayscale values have a brightness of 49%. So what does a brightness of 49% look like?

Okay. Sure. Why not.

All of what I've just shown you regarding grayscale is to emphasize the point that your best judgment for which colors look good is a far better measuring stick for a good color palette than any technicalities. Even if the value is the same, the hue can differ enough that you can still get a beautiful finished drawing. Color and our perception of it is so, so vastly technically complex. You can not allow yourself to be bogged down by this. Simply practice, and color will become intuitive to you over time. I have a lot more I could say on the subject of picking and using your colors, but this is already insanely long. Feel free to ask any follow up questions, I hope this was of literally any use!

#long post #uhhhhh.#color theory #i guess #i drew this #Anonymous

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tickle-bugs · 3 years ago

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I had two people ask for some advice on starting up/running a blog, so I thought I’d make a little post for anyone else looking for advice! There’s no one right way to run a blog and I am by no means an expert. This is just a compilation of some of the things I’ve learned :)

Feel free to add advice to this!

- The first thing is something I cannot stress enough. Write for yourself first. You will be absolutely miserable if you’re only writing for attention. I’m not saying it’s easy, but it’s so incredibly important. If you don’t like a prompt, fandom, or scenario? You don’t have to write for it! A personal example: I’m a theatre kid and total musical nerd. I could probably write some compelling Dear Evan Hansen or Hamilton headcanons if I wanted to, but I don’t. That’s fine! I’m allowed to say I won’t write for it and deny prompts/requests for those fandoms.

- Set boundaries. This is a very mixed community with all sorts of creators and participants with hands in different baskets. Don’t want minors to interact? Put minors DNI in your bio. SFW only? Put it in the bio. No RP? Bio. This goes for private conversations/askbox/other interactions as well. If someone comes into your askbox/dms and says something that makes you uncomfy, shut it down.

- My advice is more geared towards writing than art or video, but I suppose you could apply this advice as well. Make what makes you happy! If you’re only in one fandom, feel free to stay there and make content for it. Multi-fandom? Excellent! Completely non-fandom? Epic! Make the content that you want to see and the content that makes you happy to create, especially if you’re in a more niche fandom/area.

- Organization. ...I’ll admit this one is more of a personal pet peeve than something urgent, but it is something that people positively respond to. If you have some sort of consistency/organization to your blog, it’ll make it easier and more enjoyable for people to navigate. Make a fandom list/indicate your fandoms somehow (mostly for prompt purposes. people can’t read your mind, so it’s important to tell them what you will write for and what you won’t, however you want to do that)!

Make a masterpost/link your fic tag! Use a fic tag of some kind. Give your fics summaries and leave a little bit of the fic above the ‘read more’ to intrigue folks (look at #my fics and my masterpost for basic examples of how I do this, if you need!). Use read mores. Please use read mores (if you can, idk if they’re on mobile. regardless no one wants to encounter a three thousand word block of text on their dash). (No seriously though, organize your blog, even if it’s super simple. literally just a ‘mine’ or ‘my fics’ or ‘[pseud] writes’ and a fandom tag. It’ll make it easier for people to find your stuff and support you)

- Practice general internetiquette. Please remember that the people in this community are real people with feelings, boundaries, and lives outside of the blog that they run. Be genuine and people will respond to you! Don’t manipulate people into likes/reblogs/attention. No one wants to be on the other end of that. Being in this community isn’t a transaction or a mosh pit, it’s an experience.

- Be ever-so-liberal with the block button. Someone’s user makes you uncomfortable? They give you bad vibes? They’re a minor/older than you and you don’t want them interacting with your content? You don’t wanna see their blog for some reason? Block em. This goes for anons too. That’s what the button is for. Don’t feel guilty for using it. Use it.

- How you write is 100% a personal choice and not really something that I can give advice on, but embrace your style! take prompts if you want, or don’t. Write oneshots, series, drabbles, or novels. Write romantic, or don’t. Etc. Change things up if you feel like it. Do what you want. Your blog, your style, your rules.

- Numbers matter. Don’t let them define you. This is a bit of a harder one to explain, but I will try. I often say that I don’t care about numbers, and I really don’t, but that’s not to say that I don’t see them and they have zero effect on me. I absolutely notice and am bummed if a fic doesn’t get notes, or at least the notes that I was expecting. That is entirely normal and okay to experience. What isn’t okay, though, is creating for the sake of getting notes/numbers/attention (re: write for yourself first, internetiquette). If you find yourself relying on tumblr for gratification and a reward, I implore you to take a break. I’m not your therapist or your parent, I’m not gonna tell you what to do, but when you make things only for the sake of notes, people notice. Celebrate your milestones. Know that it’s okay to be bummed about low notes/celebrate getting plenty. Just make sure that you don’t depend on the numbers for your happiness, or you will be miserable.

- You’re (probably) doing this for free. You are providing people content: a service. Produce as much or as little as you’re comfy with, but always remember that. No one is entitled to what you make. If someone asks you for headcanons, sends a prompt when prompts are closed, etc, and you don’t feel like fulfilling it? You have no obligation to do that. Getting commissioned is another story entirely, but as long as you’re making free content, you have zero obligation to do anything for anyone and certainly no time constraints. It can take me months to finish prompts, and that’s okay. I do them when I do them and I fill them how I want to. If my prompts are closed, I deny new ones until I’m ready to accept them. Make yourself happy first.

- How you interact with others is up to you! It’s generally considered good practice to like/reblog your mutuals fics/art, but this is not necessarily a hard and fast rule. I veeeeeery rarely reblog fics for fandoms that I’m not in, even from my mutuals. What you can do to show your support (and you should try and show support somehow. No one is in competition. Everyone’s in your boat, whether they have no followers or 1k) is send an ask/reply to the post/leave tags to let the author know you liked it. Like the fic and don’t reblog it, if you don’t want to. Just make sure you show your mutuals (and others in general!) roughly the same support they show you, however you decide to do that. Treat others how you want to be treated, as cheesy as it sounds :)

- Don’t repost content that isn’t yours without express permission from the original creator, and credit them appropriately. If you see a cute piece of tickle art and the artist doesn’t want it reposted? Don’t repost it. Don’t post fics/videos/gifs that aren’t yours (obviously if it’s like a scene from a movie/a clip on youtube that’s different, but don’t take credit for things you didn’t make, including ideas). Can’t tell you how frustrating it is to have work stolen from you. Don’t be that person. ‘Credit to original artist’ and ‘credit unknown’ is total bullshit btw. Link/tag the creator in the original post and make it clear you don’t own the content. Best practice is to ask the original creator if they’re okay with reposting, work inspired by or connected to theirs, etc. This goes doubly for saving/downloading someone’s fics.

- It is not illegal for a minor to have normal, nonsexual, healthy friendships with people older than them. There’s a weird attitude that minors have nothing of value to offer adults besides a relationship/sex, which is...not true? Minors are thinking, living human beings with feelings, thoughts, and opinions. You can talk to them like normal people, because they are. Just obviously don’t talk about/introduce sex or endanger them. Minors don’t bring up sex/activities you’re underage for with an adult. IDK this isn’t a seminar just...don’t be weird. Adults can offer great life experience, support systems, and the basic joys and needs of human connection. Minors can too. Mind your business unless someone’s actually in danger. The next point is a caveat, though:

- If you’re a minor, don’t interact with NSFW blogs/blogs with ‘Minors DNI’, NSFW blogs don’t interact with minors, etc etc. Not your parent or whatever but this is pretty common sense and it’s for everyone’s safety, but especially the NSFW person. internettiquette!

- If you use your TK blog as a side blog (meaning you have another blog as your main blog, not two separate accounts) and don’t want your main exposed, that is up to you. I recommend not liking posts. Also, follow people that you trust. These actions route through your main blog and your main will show up in the notes. You can reblog from a sideblog. If you want to send an ask “as your tk blog”, send an anon and sign it somehow, like ‘hey :) // @/tickle-bugs’. It should tag you in the post so you get a notification when it’s answered!

- Find your people! As an anxious person this one has been hard for me, so I know it’s hard for a lot of people. Fandom is literally a community of shared interest. Peachy and I have an iron bond almost two years later and we met talking over shared interests. You can absolutely find your people here. If someone makes you happy, strike up a conversation! Send an ask! You never know what doors it might open or whose day you might improve :)

- If you were an anon/lurker on someone’s blog and they inspired you to write/submit/start your own, sign your messages!! the common form that I see is either an emoji or [noun/context of the ask]!anon (prodigal!anon (i miss u every day), butterfly!anon, etc.) Let us know how to find and support you!! Those messages produce good brain juice.

- The big finale: Have fun. If you’re not having fun here, maybe you could tweak something to make things enjoyable. Running a blog is like driving a car. Keep your hands on the wheel, respectfully indicate your intentions (flashing lights optional), and be safe. Poebody’s nerfect, y’know. If you make a mistake, course correct. I’m by no means perfect. Your favs aren’t either. Just do your best and have a good time :)

@rosytickles and the anon in my inbox, I hope this helps! Thank you for asking me, I’m very honored that you value my opinon/experience/advice. I apologize if I come off as preachy or aggressive, I envisioned grabbing my younger self by the lapels and shaking me vigorously while I wrote this. Probably a bad idea.

Anywho, hope it helps. Anyone with questions, additions, or comments, my askbox is open! Just be constructive, is all I ask.

#bug speaks #advice tag #sorry again if this sounds preachy or aggressive at any point i literally wrote it like i was grabbing younger me by the lapels #these are all things i learned through experience/observation i promise im not talking out of my ass here #the largest obstacle to maintaining a blog is how you view your happiness in relation to it. talked about it above but yeah.#also like i said: not a professional and not your parent. just giving friendly advice sine i was directly asked for it.#might add more to this if I think of more #my askbox and dms are open for questions/comments/additions just pls be respectful and constructive #other tfb community members feel free to add to this!

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askmymylittleponyocs · 4 years ago

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LETS - TALK about the old ask arts-

I was going through all the ask questions you guys sent me and me responding with the arts. wow my art improved so so much...god. i- holy-

and also still surprised sweet was the most popular one that got asked but i wonder if its cause of her “dark” form that got the attention, which hey if it is i dont mind! i was surprised out of the few ocs i had at the time she got the most love. qvq which ey i appreciate.

however i do want to talk about that honestly because I changed up so much on sweet i decided her dark form is actually from a being that was trapped into her body which the being wants to be called Rose. i do have a story planned out for the two but want to get into details and such with the two and hopefully get the fanfic and such going on FIMFiction.net and hopefully get a comic going as well too.

so many of my ocs you guy’s have seen on my blog that answered the asks given have gotten redesigns. most of them. Artistwing had to get a upgrade on her design but she stayed the same just her hair color got tweaked [as shown in the last ask i answered]. sunroyal flight got a redesign for sure along with her cutiemark. krystal got one too and many many more have. i cant wait to show you guys the arts of them soon. :)

i do appreciate you guys following my blog, and again, i apologize so much for the absence of not answering. do know i had kept ALL of your questions and It does make me happy seeing you guys still want to ask, no matter how many or very few of you guys want to ask.

I apologize also for the lack of links or such to my ocs to see what my ocs look like that you want to get to know of as well that you want to ask. i apologize that alot their bios and such are in the works and i want to make sure their bios are good to go. i am still teaking and working on backgrounds on most of them even the old ones because theres alot of ideas i have in mind, just havent been looked through too much but i promise its being worked on and you guys will 100% get them for sure.

as for the blogs ponysona [i guess assuming it showed up in some of the asks. the alicorn pony with the white coat and red mane and tail one i mean.] yeah that pony is not gonna be the “ponysona” anymore, so now on my ponysona rain will be answering some of the questions if directed at i guess me a bit. or the blog owner??? plus the random alicorn pony for the blog was odd and i...dont mind plain mlp ocs, but this one i didnt like im a sucker for certain colors and also details so- im like- noooooooo ;-;

so- yea XD

do keep an eye out for more arts of mine of mlp [which my MLP art will be reblogged from my main to this account blog since all my arts are gonna be posted in my main. the only arts i post mainly here is, of course, me answering the questions quq)b and i do reblog my answered questions here to my main art blog as well in case no one follows this blog]

i hope everyone is having a good day and hope everyone stays safe. more answered questions are coming!

#blog #update #askblog #ask pony blog #My Little Pony Ask Blog #mlp ask blog

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mrsandok · 3 years ago

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Making Sense of Good Things

My heart has been full with nothing but positivity lately. For myself, my friends, and for what’s to come. Nevertheless, there’s some serious stress attached to these early days of this new stage in my life.

Ever since taking up Buddhism, it’s been an exercise in learning what makes me happy and what doesn’t. I’m finally able to begin to articulate what makes me happy and how to maintain it. There’s definitely some grueling parts of the introspective effort to look at my life when confronting the things I don’t like about myself; nevertheless, it’s healthy to acknowledge and move toward change.

Stoicism has also helped knowing that I’m not in control of a lot of things in my life and I’ve learned to accept that. I’ve always sought complete control in different, if not all, parts of my life. It’s been an active effort to…just…let…things…be.

I’m happy my friends are in a similar place in life with me. Mayo just got a UX job. Bryan is settling back in Cali. Sean is finishing a two year music project. Taro is settling into his PhD program. And me...

I feel like I’m a new teacher again.

I went from a 20+ person department to a department of 6. Not only that, being back in person with a full classroom for the first time since March ‘20 is surreal.

Students and staff alike are trying to find their footing. Some are faking the funk saying that they have it handled. Others, like me, are open with how hard this shit is.

It’s so different. I dedicated 16 years of my life to English.

I felt pretty far removed to those 16 years during the first few days. The class demographics are so different. I have English learners, different grade levels, a variety of mild to severe students with special needs...with...one...curriculum of art/photography.

It’s wild.

I want to be selfish and think solely about myself and continue to do my thing like I was doing during summer but I have a job to educate these students and not disappoint their families or the administration that trusted me with this position.

I’m slowly settling in and enjoying the moment for what it is: Weird and funny while reminding myself that I’m in it for the long haul.

Summer Sandōk is 290 days away.

Some shit that’s amusing to me:

- I’ve always found it weird to ask another person permission to use the bathroom. I’m sure it’s weird for them…having been at home for a year and a half back to school and to these rules that a stranger adult imposes on them.

- It took me four days to remember how to do a seating chart!!! I kept making all these careless errors and confusing students but I wasn’t able to tweak it in a short time so I just ran with it. I was so used to Google Meet populating an Excel sheet of who was here and who wasn’t. Now I’m dealing with a bunch of masked students rather than students having their cameras off. Haha.

No one said this shit was gonna be easy.

I get a bunch of comments saying “at least you won’t be grading essays anymore!”

I smile as a friendly form of agreement hoping it’s a congratulatory expression rather than one coming from envy.

But going back to the story of Buddha…everyone suffers.

Sure—English teachers suffer from the amount of essay grading they have to do. But we all suffer in our own specific way. (Poor people suffer because they’re poor / rich people suffer because they’re poor / etc.)

I’m definitely suffering from exiting the pandemic and trying to make sense of my new department and role at the high school.

This time of being nervous, anxious, and exhausted will pass and I’ll be able to work a job that will put me in a better place mentally

As I reflect about my new role, I realize how fucking stressful my job of being an English teacher was. It took years for me to humble myself and realize school isn’t about me--it’s about reaching the students and getting them to care about themselves, the community, and the world. That shit is fucking exhausting.

Five years of dealing with Trump’s rhetoric not based in facts in my ELA classroom was mentally taxing. My job as an educator revolves around creating independent critical thinkers and if what’s dominating the news, social media, and policy was that orange dude--it would have been fucking irresponsible if I ignored it. Especially in a class focused on rhetoric and logical fallacies.

I had the blessing of my administration with my approach; nevertheless, I was putting a mark on my back knowing my values are showing on my sleeves and it was prone to parent complains about their child’s commie teacher.

I somehow came out unscathed.

I attribute it to me making a point that I’m not trying to instill my values on them. I’m attempting to give them ways to explore who they are rather than blindly listening to their parents and/or tv while telling a story of how I became the person I am today.

I wrote about that in an earlier post during the pandemic where former students were asking me “how to feel” about the George Floyd protests.

My answer was always a version of “Figure that shit out yourself. I’m going through it with you.”

That extends to my teaching. I feel like I have a good understanding of my life and the story I’m creating for myself and it took years after college. I hope they’re asking themselves existential questions knowing they’ve watched plenty of people that lived the American Dream get shattered during the pandemic.

As shitty as it may sound, I feel pretty comfortable keeping up with current events but not necessarily having to tread on thin ice when bringing into the classroom.

I can definitely incorporate it; however, it’s a much different focus than the head on approach I was doing in English when I compared nonfiction to the fiction we’re reading.

There isn’t any fiction in what we’re doing right now. I’m more concerned about them getting to the point where they can engage with art criticism as well as create their own art.

This is a comforting feeling knowing that stressful part of my life of trying to make sense of the world in my classroom may be over.

I don’t necessarily need to bask in my anxiety. Haha

It’s very surreal how I got here. But, I like to remind myself that I earned it based on my work ethic, pedagogy, and my unwillingness to compromise who i am.

Some things that are stressing me out is facing one of my favorite mantras head on.

“Don’t assume people share the same values as you.”

Some of these students don’t give a shit about art and may never give a shit about art. And that’s OK.

My first day spiel revolved around the fact that I’ve been relentlessly chasing my artistic side ever since earning my undergrad.

Art has always made me happy. It was so silly of me to give it up.

I can’t assume that students will find happiness in art. That realization somewhat took some of the excitement of my new position away--but at least it’s grounded in reality.

Now I just have to refocus my personal pursuits alongside the “professional” part of my life of being an educator.

---

I had my first lecture concerning the principles of design. It was such a good feeling knowing that this is pretty much the foundation for the rest of the year. In fact…it’s the foundation for the rest of my career if I remain a photography teacher.

I’m really excited for what’s to come. I inherited this program during the perfect time where people have faced changes and challenges head on so they’re receptive to my approach—whatever that approach ends up being.

There are definitely personal goals I’ve applied to myself during this transition that all revolve around the idea of “taking better care of myself.”

Aside from my main career, I want to continue to foster the other creative parts in my life.

I want to do a much needed website revamp that gives a nice preview of who I am with links to my mixtapes, photography, art, and writing.

My primary audience is me; however, I do want to model it as my Q4 project to my students which centers around taking control of your online identity and using as a tool to network and be proactive with chasing their goals.

I also want to start living a more analog life.

Doom scrolling seems engrained in me at this point—I have to remember how much happier I am when I’m productive and step away from the screen.

Memes, news, and even small talk with instagram friends will always be nice; however, it isn’t everything.

I disabled story replies when I felt my stress and anxiety increasing during my first week at school. It was so liberating not to deal with distracting small talk.

I still like the idea of adding to my story simply because I enjoy how Instagram archives these moments rather than me flooding my very curated (red) theme. 💅

Engaging with my online audience is fun, too--but only when I’m in a good place to balance it in my personal life.

Memes—or any account for that matter—that vie for your attention is frustrating in a meta sense because I don’t want to be part of the giving end of stroking someone’s ego through likes and attention.

It will always be vacuous. Some accounts get it, though. Whitepeoplehumor’s kevin knows the opportunity he was given and is making the best of it without compromising and “selling out” in his own way.

That’s what I want.

I want to sell out in my own way and not have a single person’s opinion about me matter.

Maybe one day.

I’m definitely an extrovert that feeds off other people’s energy. That’s what made me fall in love with DJ’ing and realizing that this is a skill a lot of DJs lack. A lot of DJs are terrible because they’re not humble and think they have the best taste of music while disregarding the crowd.

But I think I’ve changed during the quarantine. I don’t necessarily want to please strangers and vibe off their energy. I’m not sure I care that much. Haha.

I’ve been reflecting on my life before the pandemic. I was making $$$ while being able to balance my teaching and DJ life. However, I’m not sure if that necessarily made me happier. It allowed me to eat Sugarfish daily and other empty activities like that. But, during the quarantine, I learned I reallllly liked the opportunity to do nothing on the weekend as a sort spiritual reset.

Weekend obligations definitely serve as a distraction from the stress I face during the week. I rationalized this as a healthy distraction because it gets me PAID

But…not quite sure if it makes me happy especially since I’m sooo tired of ‘90s hip hop or even being forced to play EDM when I never fucking want to do that.

I wish I could get paid for my twitch sets. Too bad the (bored) audience with nothing to do and no where to go is back to real life.

I thank the people that enjoyed my twitch sets every chance I get. It really helped ground me during the pandemic.

In fact, Quarantine Fridays were definitely one of the happiest parts in my life where I was able to connect with friends, new and old, during those trying-ass-times.

It’s surreal to look back at how I spent 1.5 years in this one bedroom apartment with a shitload of plants.

I’ll do a reflection post on what that meant to me later. <3

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dlamp-dictator · 6 years ago

Text

Allen’s End of the Year Rambling

Folks, I haven’t been in the best state this past year.

I know that’s probably not the best way to open up for this summary of Allen’s 2018, but... I think it’s obvious from my lack of activity that I haven’t been pumping out essays and content like I usually have been. Things have been trying in the life of Allen X. I left my old job, started a new and frankly less fulfilling (and paying) job, had a handful of mental meltdowns, and generally not having a good year, at least not internally.

And on top of that this new season of the Senran Kagura anime is garbage, and that just makes me feel sad.

All in all, not having a great year.

I wanted to do this Rambling in the same vein as last year, but... I can’t. I haven’t done my Anime and Video Game Updates that much this year, meaning I don’t have a good record of all the games I’ve played and anime I’ve watched this year, so I can’t do anything Top 5s this year. I mean, I watched a buttload of anime and played a lot of video games, but I just didn’t make a record of it, and I don’t like my lists being filled with just the most recent things I’ve watched and did.

Ugh, this is just making me feel sad. I’m... just gonna’ get to the end of the year stuff now:

Politics

And just like last year I’m gonna’ talk about the elephant in the room.

God, as if I wasn’t feeling depressed enough.

Why is there a slowly growing Fascist movement in America? Why am I hearing about children being separated from their parents by our American government? Why are we still talking about that goddamn wall? Why is our government shutting down because of that goddamn wall?

Like... Jesus folks, the most I do in terms of politics is a quick google check of who/what to vote for to make sure I’m not agreeing to legalizing arson, how the hell did we end up here?

...

Well, I know how we ended up here, but a deep dive into current American politics to back up my claims will take a bit more research than I care to delve into on this blog. It’s times like these that make me want to dig deeper into our politics and make people more aware of what’s going on, but I know I’m part of the problem as well.

I’ll stand on my soapbox for a later date, but if you guys think that this is all a good thing, you’re wrong and I have nothing else to say to you.

Also, unfollow if you’re right leaning or a vocal Conservative. I want literally nothing to do with you.

Art

Okay, so for a bit of good news, I’ve been doing a lot more drawing, at least compared to last year. And save for my small bouts of self-loathing I think I’ve been improving.

These two were done in the same year, and I think there’s been a lot of improvement. I want to get better with my proportions and general anatomy, but so far I think I’m doing alright. Might try and do comic stuff next year. Nothing too ambitious, maybe just some one or two-panel scenes with a setup and punchline.

Writing

Even more good new, I’m finally working on some original projects in terms of my writing. Well, working on them in earnest anyway. Yeah... Violaceous Storm wasn’t working out too well and I realized I can’t do any original work the same way I do my fanfics. Kung fu girls story is getting tweaked a little... well, a lot, and I’m also starting to work on a story about forest ninjas. I’m think of making them short stories or vignettes, more likely the former just given my current level as a writer.

I’m also continuing to write Reversal Princess, along with dropping Rabid Avenger. Sadly, my heart just in it to keep working on a Tokyo Ghoul fanfic anymore given some of the issues I have with it as a story, among other things.

I... haven’t talked about Reversal Princess yet, have I? I’ve been working on it one and off for about two years now... huh, I should fix that soon and do a Dictator’s Works on it.

Media

Again, haven’t been recording a lot of what I’ve watched, read, and played throughout this year, but here are the highlights:

Been getting back into the Fallout series despite everything happening with 76, and I plan on giving New Vegas a shot next year. Been enjoying this series a lot, at least 4, so I wanna’ see what the “good” Fallout game looks like.

As some of you might know, I’ve been getting into Girls Frontline since it first released and I’ve been enjoying it... yeah, that’s really it. Ingram and PKP are best girls.

I’ve gotten back into Elsword and it’s been... a trip. Being a Wind Sneaker main is suffering, but I’m having fun over all and can’t wait for Laby to come out here in the States.

Not that I’ve talked about it, but I’ve been keeping up with the Twin Star Exorcists manga, along with the Railgun series. I’m likely going to stop actively keeping up with these two series once the 14th volumes of both series come out. They’re great, but that’s all the money I’m willing to put into them for now.

Also got into Seraph of the End too. I’ve got... feelings about it I’ll talk about at a later date.

Been watching a lot of older anime lately now that Hi-Dive is on VRV. Might talk about those later.

Speaking of, I switched out my Crunchyroll account for VRV. Been liking it so far.

Plans and Hopes for the Future

I’m not going to bother with a Resolution this year since I think those go forgotten once February hits, but I’ll just talk about my hopes and overall plans for 2019 in terms of this blog and my online presence:

Finish Reversal Princess. I just want to finish this tournament arc and finally put it to bed so I can work on other things and fanfics.

Draw a comic. Not a web series or anything, but just draw some kind of three or four panel comic.

Actually do my monthly Update posts

Post lyrics again

And... that’s about it for this Rambling. I know I’m usually more formal and organized than this, but... it’s been quite a year for me, so I’m just gonna’ take this slow as I get back into the swing of things.

I hope you folks have a happy holidays, I’ve got some big plans with family these next few weeks and hope your plans go well too.

#your dictator is speaking

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