#i hope that isn't an overly spiteful way of putting it but i've been really burnt out and really demoralized for the last while!

[4lph4kidz]

i keep second guessing all my takes and ideas being all boo hoo i'm going to get a bad grade in jakeology. as if i don't have peers and more importantly as if there aren't already thousands of people out there who have done it so, so much worse than i ever could

[doodlesfromthebird]

Heya I've been drawing for a few years now but I'm still learning every day and I'm more than aware of the skill gap between me and others which is fine I am willing to work hard and improve. You and your art is a really big inspiration to me and I hope to reach your level someday. Can't help however but be really demotivated and easily affected by the difference between me and others and I know I shouldn't compare myself with people who have been drawing for wayyy longer than I have. What was your experience while improving your art? Any words of wisdom from the bird? I love drawing and I don't want to lose this kind of connection to it but most of the hours I spend practising are driven by spite and hatred over my own self aaaagh is this too personal lol thank god for the anonymous option lol I LOVE YOUR ART, I look at everything your passion for art overflows through your work.

Hey, pal! It's nothing to fret over, and I'm glad you feel comfortable sharing this! I think getting all your thoughts out this way is already good way to start, and I hope that alone was able to let off some steam on the subject.

I absolutely know how this feels, and it's still something that crops up for me time to time, too! It's gotten easier to manage over the years, but there's certainly times where it's taken the wind outta my sails and sunk my energy to be creative.

I think when you're wrapped up in that headspace, the best thing to do is stop the struggle and don't try to force progress. Don't even allow yourself to problem solve, or ask anything from yourself when that cloud's over your head. There have been plenty of times where I just end up making myself feel worse by simply asking "why do I like to create in the first place?" because I'll come up with overly critical answers "well, it's the only thing I'm good at"

Wait til you've distanced yourself from that frustration, and then give yourself time to reflect. Why do you actually enjoy making art? What about your connection to your creativity is so special to you? At what point in time did you enjoy drawing the most, and why? Why do you want to improve in the first place?

It's difficult because I think it's wonderful that you're pushing yourself to improve and practice. There's been many times where I've wished I could go back in time and tell myself to get more serious about practicing sooner. However, I absolutely don't think it's worth putting strain on your connection with your creativity. I think spite can be a powerful motivator, but when it's fueled by your own dissatisfaction and hatred for your own work, it cuts off the flow of that essential part of you that loves to create for the sake of it.

Sitting down to practice is going to feel like torture, because that spark of joy just CAN'T get to ya when you're trying to appease that part of you that thinks its you're gonna get left behind if you don't work harder. Brute forcing improvement has absolutely worked for some people! But it's also completely normal for that work style to make YOU feel miserable if it's at odds with how you actually enjoy drawing.

Is this all to say that you should only try to get better when you're in LOVE with how you feel about art? Not at all! You don't have to try and add any special feelings or force positivity, you just have to remove the resistance and the burden you put on yourself as best you can.

So if I could suggest anything, as corny as it may sound: be more kind to yourself. I mean it! Make peace with where you are. Celebrate your small wins. Detach yourself from it, if nothing else. Your art isn't always going to look better than it did yesterday, but look back on your work from a year ago! If you don't like the way your art looks, that's fine! That can be 100% true and it doesn't have to be a bad thing. You're going to improve. Take inspired action and practice in a way that draws that connection you treasure with art closer to you. Spend more time listening and indulging in what the creative in you wants to do in between study sessions.

I can comfortably say that I'm at the skill level where younger me would have wanted to aspire to be at. And yet, I have MANY days where I look at my work and wished it looked like someone else's. I still stare at a blank canvas with an idea in my head and feel dejected because my skill level isn't up to par with what I want to achieve. I promise you your art has value the way it looks Right Now.

Once you give yourself that grace, you're going to start looking forward to practicing. The inspiration that'll hit is going to motivate you to try things you might never have thought you'd attempt. Once you look at your work differently, your work is going to change. That's not going to be easy at first, but you can start by just saying "I am where I am, and I'm getting ready to be even better."

If you're interested in some suggestions to maybe get in the flow, while also satisfy the brain's need for Progress when practicing just isn't hittin' right:

Challenge yourself to scribble whatever pops into your head. Anything. Maybe it's absurdly complicated! Who cares. draw The Last Supper from memory in five minutes as best you can. Draw an insane fight scene with stick figures in weird angles. Your brain is going to !!HATE!! doing it, but that's fine! It's going to force you to detach from it. Allow yourself to create something that's bad and can be thrown away right after. Don't spend more than 30 minutes on these. Take the most complicated ideas off a pedestal by just Attempting them anyway.

Challenge yourself to draw only what would appease your inner child for a full day. If you used to trace over screenshots from a tv show to insert a fan character in, DO THAT. Draw something while listening to the soundtrack of one of your favorite video games as a child. Draw an alternative book cover for one of your favorite childhood books.

Practice anatomy by turning the models your referencing from into your favorite characters.

Color/paint a scene/character by picking colors from a screenshot in a movie you really like.

put on a favorite show/movie and draw for the entire duration of an episode/movie run-time. Draw passively without the intention of showing it to anyone.

draw a bunch of large, wonky shapes that fill up the entire canvas/paper and draw mini illustrations contained within those shapes.

IF ALL ELSE FAILS!!! GO TAKE A NAP!!! :) Don't be hard on yourself for being hard on yourself, either. Allow yourself time and ease.

I hope any of this brought hope, or comfort, or even just something to consider. I'm so glad you enjoy my art!! Thank you for your kind words. You and I and everyone else are walking this same road to improvement, and even though sometimes it might not feel that way, we're ALL walking side by side. You aren't alone, friend.

[mortifyingideal]

i was tagged in this by the wonderful @fremulon (thanks cherry!) and accidentally deleted the whole thing twice so now i'm mostly just posting it out of spite and without a read more due to said spite. SUCK IT TUMBLR.

1. How many works do you have on AO3?

I have 10 published out loud and 1 published anonymously

2. What’s your total AO3 word count?

226419

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

okay so this is really only my most recent life. i have been around a lot. a lot. i was there, gandalf, during the superwholock years (and an active participant) so over the course of my life it's like

Harry Potter, Teen Titans, Sherlock, Doctor Who, Supernatural, Inception, Daredevil, The Avengers, The Musketeers, Wells & Wong Mysteries, Twin Peaks, Homestuck, Red vs Blue

but in this lifetime i'm just writing for Good Omens (and have written for DuckTales and Cruella)

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

1 — Loosely Ballroom (surprising absolutely nobody)

2 — Look Not Too Deep

3 — ergo propter hoc (okay this one is kind of a surprise actually but i'm very happy about it i love this fic)

4 — café au vin

5 — an institute you can't disparage

5. Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

i do! i try to respond to every comment i get on the day of/the day after i get it. i've met a lot of good friends this way, and i also just like taking the time to respond to people who've taken the time to respond to something i made. makes me feel good (plus i want everyone to like me)

the only downside is it can get a bit overwhelming at times? particularly with LB, which gets a shitload of comments per chapter and can take me up to two full days to read through them all and answer, and if i'm having a bad brain time i just cannot face doing it. so if you've ever left a comment and i've not responded, i promise It's not because i don't appreciate it. my brain machine just was going brmmmmmmmmm.

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

i was going to say NONE BECAUSE I DON'T WRITE ANGST but i guess if i had to decide it would be the RVB fic that's on my ao3 right now, which has an angstily hopeful ending.

7. Do you write crossovers? If so what is the craziest one you’ve written?

hahahaha

CRAZY LIKE A FOX

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

not as far as i'm aware! i have had several uhhhhhhh overly familiar meant-to-be-jovial comments on/about the above crossover from people i don't really know very well that have told me i'm a terrible person or i've committed crimes while i'm out here like, cool this is art i made and put in the world for fun and believe in and i don't really... know you? but those comments were meant in good faith imo so i don't really think it counts as hate

9. Do you write smut? If so what kind?

the last time i tried to write smut, crowley got stabbed, so the kind that sends people to the hospital i guess?

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

not to my knowledge. good luck formatting all the images and italics, anyone who might try.

11. Have you ever had a fic translated?

again, not to my knowledge!

12. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

infamously. it's the only reason anyone might have read this far. also attempting to collaborate on an as-of-yet-unfinished-project with @indieninja92 who is a creative genius with their finger in many, many pies. speaking of, have you visited hauntedswords.com recently?

13. What’s your all time favorite ship?

errrrrr i mean probably aziraphale/crowley, not to seem obvious. they've been with me since i was like 10 years old, they haven't gone anywhere, they will probably be bothering me until the day i die.

14. What’s a WIP you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

I WILL FINISH ALL OF MY WIPs. okay no that's not true, i have the start of an inception fic that is a GO AU that i honestly think would have been fucking slammin' but the time for that has passed now.

15. What are your writing strengths?

a very definite sense of character voice, attention to detail in terms of enriching the world i'm writing in, dialogue dialogue dialogue, smash cuts (are they even called smash cuts in writing? WHATEVER THEY ARE I CAN DO THEM)

16. What are your writing weaknesses?

you are my collaborator. you send me back part of a chapter and tell me i have a sentence that is a bit too lengthy and doesn't work, and i need to edit it. i send it back to you. the sentence is now an entire paragraph and a half, with three jokes, a metaphor and a new line of dialogue embedded in it, changing the overall tone of the chapter. this is known as The Mort Special.

i also get very in my own head about not really being a good writer, or not being as good as the people (or person specifically i suppose) that i'm working with. i'm working on this! i'm not working on The Mort Special, though, that's always writing gold.

17. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

this is a really weird and specific question, who hurt you OP? errrr i guess much like any quirk of writing, it's fine when used sparingly and with a deft hand.

18. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

fuck me, probably Harry Potter? neopets roleplaying boards were a gateway drug.

19. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

this is the part where i pretend i'm going to say something other than Loosely Ballroom. i don't think i'll ever make something else in my life that's made me feel the way making that has. it's been—to delve into reality TV speak (and paraphrase crowley from a future chapter)—a real emotional rollercoaster.

plus it's just fuckin' funny isn't it.

tagging @phoenix-soar, @thyra279, @heycaricari, @stillseekwill and @katnoggin (and anyone else who might want to!)

[rosemary-is-in-pesterquest]

literally I was watching someone's playthrough of pesterquest as it was being released, and I almost finished it, but then I got spoiled for the fact that Ult Dirk shows up, and it totally knocked me off the wagon. like I've had it in my head that eventually I'll go watch Dirk's content, but it's been so long since I watched everything else... by this point it'd be kinda disjointed to even do that.

also, I was weirdly irritated by MSPAR in pesterquest? I found them so charming in hiveswap, because they were characterized as kind of a bumbling, overeager and well intentioned traveler that just wanted to help. but in pesterquest they get all know-it-all ish... it's reeeeeeally off putting. like I could forgive them being confused or disheartened, but they went a step too far and got all cynical and been-there-done-that, and gave a lot of advice that just wasn't good? as if they were some sort of expert or something. it makes pesterquest kind of irritating because you play as an irritating audience surrogate character who does shit that you don't actually want to do.

like, okay, Eridan's route, right? at the end, the advice MSPAR gave was basically "stop being an asshole" which is like... warranted and fair? but first of all, this Eridan needs different advice than homestuck's Eridan! and second, would a real asshole actually take advice like that? it's so... basic.

Eridan is a character that I'm not super attached to, but I get peeved when people get him wrong. in homestuck, the thing that Eridan needs, is to realize that if he wants something from another person, he has to try not to be a leech about it. everything is all about his perspective all the time. when he wants something, he'll ask, but if he doesn't get it, he'll whine and beg, and if people get mad at him for doing that, he gets all self deprecating and bemoans how hopeless his situation is, and how much everyone hates him. like he'll literally annoy one person into getting fed up with him, just so he can go cry to another person about his problems, and ask them for advice that he probably won't even take, because getting attention was the point, and this is technically what he wanted anyway. and the more people catch on and get frustrated, the more fuel he has for his "everybody hates me" pity party.

and the interesting thing about Eridan is that all of this probably comes from a real worry that nobody could like him, even if he tried. I mean, most of his friends are lower on the hemospectrum, and have a systemic reason to hold some sort of resentment towards him. so like, he probably likes Feferi because the two make an appropriate match class-wise... but he also probably likes her because she's his only friend that is more privileged than he is, so she can't hold his status against him.

also, pesterquest leans into that old fanon thing where Eridan is indiscriminately desperate and will date anyone. like... no! originally, Eridan specifically wanted to fill all of his quadrants! he wanted a matesprit (Feferi), a kismesis (Vriska), an auspistice (Kanaya), and a moirail (possibly Karkat). and not only that, but he wanted these specific people to fill these specific roles for him unconditionally and without conflict, in spite of their actual feelings. Feferi doesn't want to date him... she doesn't even really want to be his moirail because she's doing all the emotional labor and it's exhausting. and Kanaya had a red crush on Vriska at the time... the last thing she wants is to be auspistice-zoned! meanwhile, Vriska is becoming less and less interested in Eridan anyway because she's got her own unhealthy fascinations with certain people. so like, Kanaya wouldn't even be acting as a proper auspistice anyway... she wouldn't be helping to calm a volatile rivalry, she'd be trying to force a lackluster relationship to continue. that's like, the opposite of how it's supposed to be!

literally the only one of these that might've worked is Karkat as his moirail, because Karkat is amazing at giving advice, and dealing with difficult people's bullshit without getting sucked into too much drama. but like... that's probably the one relationship out of all of these that started from genuine charisma between two people, rather than Eridan deciding who he wanted to pursue based on a checklist of socially advantageous qualities. at least with that, it's implied that Karkat also likes talking to Eridan... like, both of them are getting something out of this. in all other cases, Eridan isn't even in it for the romance. he's in it to gain validation by living up to a societal standard.

it's only after our 12 trolls end up on the meteor after their SGRUB session that Eridan starts getting all weird about dating people other than the specific four he was already interested in. and that's specifically because there are now only 12 trolls left that exist. these people are the only ones left, so if he can't get a relationship to work with any of them, that's that. so basically, when pesterquest characterizes him this way, even though he still lives on a fully populated Alternia... why is he acting like that?

Eridan needs to learn how to actually put something into a relationship that he wants to get something out of. and to do that, he needs to believe that he has value beyond his status, and that it's possible for people to be motivated by more than class politics and spite. he treats people exploitatively because he expects them to try and exploit him just as badly... it's not just about fixing bad behavior. it's about him learning to put in work, and give another person reasons to like him, without feeling like a sucker for conceding any ground. the more defensive he gets, the worse he is.

and pesterquest messed up Jake's route too! what is it about hope players that stumps people like this?? I get that Jake is tricky, but jeez... I won't get into it as much, but Jake is always masking what he really feels, and the way his route handles him makes him seem like he's acting equally neutrally friendly to each of the other alpha kids. but then it implies that his true feelings are that he considers all three of his friends' romantic interest in him to be equally serious, and equally unwanted. that is... blatantly untrue. he knows Roxy might find him attractive but won't make a genuine move on account of Jane. she literally drunkenly told him so. and Roxy also drunkenly told Jake that Jane likes him. meanwhile, he also pretty much knows that Dirk had a crush on him when they were kids, but back then he kind of shut it down, or at least sent mixed signals, because he wasn't confident about having a crush on a boy. now Dirk himself is not confident that Jake actually likes him, and is trying to back off because he feels like his younger self was overly aggressive, but the AR is still as brazen as Dirk used to be when pursuing Jake, so it kind of undermines that attempt. still, Jake feels like he might've already come off poorly to Dirk. he does like him though... and he knows that Jane has a crush on him, and doesn't want to be the one who disappoints her, so he weasels his way out of addressing it. that is the deal with the alpha kids. not Jake just kind of bemoaning the fact that all of his friends are in love with him and he's not down for anything. so once again, we see a pesterquest route written on the basis of mistaken assumptions.

sorry for going on and on and on... I just find all of this so frustrating. half the characters are only the fan interpretations of themselves, and MSPAR sucks, and the meta is confusing, and... I wish it was good but it's not.

I love you for this ask anon, I never played friendsim but I did see a lot of people who tuned into all the friendsims express annoyance over the way Reader was portrayed in pesterquest. I can't even remember what happened in the Jake route bc I'm tired but it definitely could've been better.

Imo, best alpha kid routes go from: Roxy, Jane, Jake, and Dirk (half his route wasn't even dedicated to him lol rip)