#like i try to maintain the habit by drawing stuff out even w no end in mind

[lemongogo]

[jaypsnax]

Another post! Ranging from oldest to newest, yet again. Which is actually a bit sad, since I think some of the earlier stuff came out better. Suppose that might be a consequence of trying to get so many ideas out(I drew most of these today), since my brain’s just been FLOODED with them. Kind of. Not all of them are the ideas I want at the moment, but I just work with what I’m given. Also I think this format of post with big chunks of art and then commentary below is one that kinda fits me well, but also makes me really impatient, since sometimes I make something I feel the need to show immediately. Yet at the same time... it’s easier to click that post button when it’s just one over several individual posts. Also feel like bad putting things in the tags that way. Which is a bit contradictory, considering I end up having to tag more characters and such... just brain logic, go with it. Lots and LOTS of thoughts below the cut, mostly about Beffica.

1st: Just another Buddy here, really. I was a bit in between ideas and couldn’t figure out what I really wanted to do. Plus it was practice for adjusting their design. Messing with the teeth primarily, and the bag just kinda... happened. Replacement for the Snaxscope that I’d previously been drawing there. Dunno if I’ll keep it... on one hand I like shoulder strap looks and messenger bags are sick as hell, but it’s rather disruptive for the character silhouette. We’ll see what happens. Also my fine detail stuff for them is really inconsistent and I feel like I kinda lost something that made me rlly like the design before??? So that’ll be a thing to hash out in the coming days. If I can get myself to focus, of course. 2nd: Here’s a favorite of mine that took some real doing. I was working on it most of yesterday and most of the brainwork came down to figuring out how the hell to pose everyone. I found the thought of them all splayed out in bed super damn cute, and while it ultimately came out less goofy than I actually wanted it to... I still like it. Shoutout to drawing along the edges too much and making fitting in Big Tall Filbo difficult. Maybe I can fudge it by saying I can see him as the sort of person to hang his leg off the side of the bed :p Especially if it’s hot. Fan on, leg stickin’ outta the side. Then aside from that, Buddy being too tired to actually fully take everything off and just plop down w the hat and loosened collar ‘n tie... fucking yum. It’s not a detail I intended originally, but I wanted to kinda... maintain the design I’d kept for them while also not having them straight up in bed fully decked out. Compromise! 3rd: Heere starts the Beffica focus... at least for a little while. Dunno what it is, but she’s always appealed to me. Despite the mean girl schtick, or perhaps because of that schtick, I gravitated towards her. After the initial slight wincing at the first drops of “Zonk off”, “Squeeb”, and the abbreviations she uses. Seems to be fairly common for me to find a character I initially dislike or is just a jerk, and then turn around and say “Actually no I LIKE them dangit”. And see, the thing about her is that she has those nuggets of tasty character that shed a fair bit of light on why she acts the way she does after the initial negative opinion. A shared trait with Floofty. She’s made mistakes that drove the people she considered friends away, and ended up sticking to the very habits that likely caused such rifts on Snaktooth as well. Which is exactly why, well, she isn’t really in a good relationship with anyone. But you. And she admits that even your own relationship is tenuous at best ‘cos she just started calling you bestie from the outset and you ran with it. She figures it’s probably only a matter of time until she drives you away too. Despite how she acts, it seems like she still really doesn’t... like herself that much. Doing her quests is just going further down that rabbit hole and continually indulging her bad habits. Y’know, like most of the other inhabitants. Beff sees what she’s doing as a GOOD thing and believes the worst of people. And starts off seeing the worst with Wiggle betraying Gramble’s trust like she does, but then as things go along there’s less and less for her to find. Cromdo just... dances and sings at night. Chandlo is a perfectly nice guy, but she completely denies that he doesn’t have any deep dark secret. Otherwise it’s furthering her reliance on Bugsnax, which you could say she’s one of the worst cases of. She’s not the most likable character, but she is definitely one of the most interesting. I reckon she probably did see some pretty bad shit to make her think the way she does. It doesn’t justify her actions, but taking the time to understand her offers a lot of insight. It’s ironic too that despite Floofty’s shaky at best morality... Beff takes the cake on the grey morality and is probably up there with the hardest Grumpuses to sympathize with. And despite that, I latch on. Then, of course, once you get to the end of the game... it seems she’s been doing some thinking. And intends to do better for herself, which presumably means doing better by the people she’s friends with too. Which I personally have thought of developments for. Like actually forwarding her relationship with the Journalist and, of all Grumpuses, Filbo. For how much she seems to address him personally and the focus on interactions between those two. Which lead into all my thoughts about either close friend group or straight out poly w em. I had more ideas for developments with her which I’ll expand on shortly, aside from mentioning that I very explicitly thought of her actually apologizing to some of the people she wronged. Especially Snorpy. But to actually address the damn drawing and not talk forever on character analysis... obviously there’s something different here, yeah? The idea for the triple heart locket thing admittedly just came to me on spur of the moment while I was thinking about Buddy, actually. How I wanted to adjust their design and such. Absentmindedly drifted over @/Yejomo’s(I hope they don’t mind me mentioning them by name?) take on them with their post-Snaktooth design change. I thought “What if Beff’s design changed and she got extra lockets for the two people she’s hooked up with? And so it was done. 4th: HAHA HEY SPEAKING OF @/YEJOMO.... this piece was shamelessly inspired by the Beffica and Floofty art they did yesterday. Or was it the day before yesterday? I don’t know time <3 But yeah just two unlikely pals talking it up over some tea. (”You drink tea? I thought you’d be like... more of a coffee type or something.”) (”Mm, well. You would be half right in your assumption. Coffee for work, tea for pleasure. You may be able to envision how little I get to have of the latter as of late.”) That’s not what would be in the dialogue bubbles. Just what was in my head. Also inspired by the Floofty/Beffica dynamic of that one fic I’d mentioned before, with them becoming friends and collaborating. It’s not what you would expect, but surprisingly, I think I could see it work. Maybe. Anyway, you can really tell I’m not used to structuring scenes or drawing things that characters are actually... interacting with in some form. But it’s decent enough. Poor right leg on Beff though. I think that’s gonna need some medical attention. 5th, 6th, 7th: Now.... we get to the final stretch. Good on you if you’ve made it this far and no shame if you haven’t. I’m just writing chapter length posts for the sake of it out here. These draws stem from one of the previous discussion posts I made about Buddy going freelance after losing their job. Journalism kinda basically turned detective work. In my brain, it makes total sense of Beffica to participate when: 1. She already had a background in Journalism, and explicitly in digging up dirt on people. 2. Despite her cynicism of people, it seems like she does still have a fairly good judge of character. 3. She has some sense of justice probably, considering the fact that she goes out of her way to expose Cromdo’s crimes and tell him that she won’t let him get away with doing those sorts of things. 4. In my way of things, she... y’know, hooks up with Buddy and that’s just extra motivation. I see it as a way of Buddy continuing to do what they seem to have a real knack for, and after the whole Grumpinati affair... maybe even keep up to date on potentially relevant information and up to snuff on their skills. And also as a way for Beffica to exercise the skills she has in a setting where they can be used positively. Keep an eye on Buddy too, for personal reasons and for Filbo. In this instance, it’s about Buddy conducting and interview and by the end, Beff calling that she can easily smell there’s some covering up. There was going to be extra panels of her saying “I don’t know WHY they’re lying. I just know that they’re not telling the truth.”, but I didn’t quite get around to it and I burnt my brain out a little. And that’s it!

[hrsloren]

HELLO EVERYONE ! i’m rlly excited to be here at hearsay. actually is a new kind of rp concept for me so if im a little slow in coming up with ideas please be patient w me, i promise i’m engaged and interested. i’d also love recs of your fav murder mystery stuff for inspo! neway some info about ren is under the cut (along w some plot ideas!) and ill message yall once i have a chance to read over the apps so that hopefully i can come 2 u with some thoughts for plots~ ur also welcome to message me first of course or hit that like or really anything else lol!! discord avail on request for plotting, too, if thats more your style. 

kwon loren is a 26 yr old scorpio, horror enthusiast, entrepreneur (cough, drug dealer), n webtoon artist and she’s never met a villain she didn’t want to write a redemption arc for.

yes i almost exclusively chose her name bc it can be nicknamed into ren which obviously sounds like wren and i thought it was punny / suitable lol. 

unfortunately the only one of those that makes any money is the entrepreneurial bit and that is a totally illegal path. so her day job is her night job as the overnight manager of the gs25 near her dingy apartment building.  she works sunday to thursday nights, usually, since she makes the schedule she selfishly schedules the part timers on prime weekend night slots.  she also draws weird commissioned porn for folks w strange kinks (tentacles?? yoikes no judgement but yoikes) when she needs the xtra won.

she was the black sheep of her family even before her personality really showed itself, and once she revealed herself to be a tomboyish, unruly, temperamental, reckless, passionate, and alarmingly contrary child the whole thing just got worse. rlly the only person she was ever very close with was her grandfather, who is a somewhat-renowned murder mystery / horror writer. sneaking peaks at his books and manuscripts was probably what kindled a lot of her weird proclivities as a child, which she carries forward to now.

she’s quite excessive in a lot of ways. too much smoking, too much drinking, too much feeling, too much dreaming, too much scheming, too much writing.... basically the only thing she doesn’t overload on is sleep?? so check out those atrocious under eye shadows sometime bc its a yikes from me yall. 

u can track her moods pretty easily despite the fact that she’s got a hard to read face. once  you get used to her habits and mannerisms its rlly clear to see that she’s an open book. the only thing that can throw it off is that she’ll try to stop smoking abt once every 3 months, at which point she becomes a complete nightmare w very little notice. it usually doesn’t last very long unfort for her lungs.

speaking of smoking shes the kind of person to immerse herself in things easily and get totally wrapped in them. like, she’s v prone to addictions or obsessions. this can be with things, people, television shows, etc. she’s never known a good series she didn’t binge as quickly as possible, a good book she didn’t read cover to cover, sleep be damned. this means she’s often kinda grouchy or trying to sleep something off. she’ll also talk ur ear off about whatever she’s fallen into at the moment. 

just for a weird fact, she has a complex about her hair. its naturally relatively coarse and bushy and curly and frizzy. her mum used to pull it back every morning in a rlly tight ponytail and pin down all the unruly bits with bobby pins or barettes and she hated it, it always made her head hurt and obviously it made her feel like her hair was ugly.  so for a long time she chemically straightened it and did all kinds of treatments, but now she’s trying to maintain it more naturally. so yeah sometimes it looks like a birds nest but at least it’s healthier. 

she’s very picky about her surroundings and organizing her personal space, especially when she wants to work on something. she gets picky about things being in a good visual order, and if she notices something is out of place around her, she’ll hyper focus on it until she can fix it. this can be something meaningful (noticing she didn’t do the dishes) or something absurd (noticing someone left a napkin on the ground at the cafe, across the room, and having to go throw it away before she can focus on anything else). 

just like with her surroundings, with aesthetics, and with substances or media,  she hyper focuses on people too. when she decides someone is ‘hers’ she will go all in on them, becoming loyal to the point of honest to goodness fault. this isn’t to say she’ll tell them they’re the best at all times or be unrealistically enamored with them. she’ll still be fully cognizant of and happy to point out faults, but she won’t turn her back on them. she’d help you bury a body, basically, but she’d tell you what a goddamn psychopath you were as she did. 

FOR SOME PLOT THOUGHTS

her only real established canon relationships have to do w her drug trade or her much better cousin (just ask anyone in her family) so she’s very well open to just about anything. she’s canonically close to magpie and cousins w swallow, of course, and sells to an established handful. i’d love to get her a bit wrapped up in things these days, maybe some secret trading or ferreting things out. i imagine she feels loyalty to magpie and resents those who might come out with accusations against him. 

i’d love her to have an outcast ride or die best friend from high  school, someone who was also on the black sheep side of things. she did participate in the high school literary magazine (layout) and on the newspaper (though not as seriously as one might have hoped) and certain undesirables spread rumors about the english teacher “favoring” her (at least some guiding figure finally liked her dammit). so bullies from high school are fully possible. she was kind of a weirdo (duh) so i imagine it would have been pretty normal to pick at her here and there, though she did try to fly under the radar a lot. people who used to harass her coming to her for pills now could be a thing to explore, or someone who dated her in high school but didn’t really want to be “out” about it due to you know like dumb high school social differences so resentment grew and it was a whole teen movie drama that ended up without the happy ending and now its weird when they see each other, which could go many ways. those she’s befriended or so forth since coming back to town down on her luck, also, would be welcome! 

anyway if you made it to the end of this ily very much and i hope we can plot asap huhu

[niksethi]

#1000wordsofsummer Day 3

I didn’t write yesterday, so I guess I’m shooting for 2000 words today. That will be a struggle since I literally have zero idea about what I should talk about today. But since the amount of words is so damn large, it’s totally worth it for me to spend some time just sharing my stream of consciousness.

I feel like whatever I’m doing or wherever I am, I’m constantly appraising the value of that activity or that place. As in, every movie I see or book I read, I think about how I’d rate it in a 1-5 scale. Every city I visit I try to place in my internal rankings of all of the cities that I’ve visited. It’s a weird thing that sometimes improves the quality of my experiences and sometimes degrades it, as I lose the plot in favor of trying to find some sort of specific combination of things that will give me clarity about how good or bad something is. When I was last watching a movie, Upgrade, in my head I would start at a value based on what I’d heard about the number and move it up and down throughout the movie based on how I felt about the different aspects of the mise en scene. At some point, I started to feel like I was becoming like the unfeeling robotic AI that was a key character in the movie.

I’ve been applying this same methodology to my time in NYC. There’s a lot to appreciate in NYC and a lot that’s not so great. Each moment I enjoy or hate contributes to my overall corpus of information that I’ll use to decide the BIG question I want to answer by the end of the summer - do I want to live here for some of my life? Every time that question really appears in my head, I have to remind myself of what my mentor Henrik told me, “the city will always be there, and it will always be easy to visit, too.” Although my question is fairly important, I mustn’t feel like the city will be inaccessible if I don’t decide to move here. One of the biggest cities in the world is only a single flight away from most major cities in the world. All that being said, I’m really starting to warm up to NYC as a whole. A few months ago, I was completely convinced that this city isn’t for me. As a shy introvert who enjoys quiet and avoiding crowds of people, what could I find in the most energetic city? How would I find the necessary solitude and time for reflection that I know I need just to keep my head above water?

It didn’t take long for me to start feeling the effects of the frantic energy that permeates the concrete jungle. Since day one, I’ve had to be very careful about my caffeine consumption, since my base anxiety levels have risen dramatically, making each cup of coffee a gamble that could either lead to being energized or to shakes and anxiety attacks. (As I write this, I sip on a cup of cold brew that keeps me teetering on that fine line between the two possibilities.) Yet, I feel like I’ve been fortunate to find spaces that help me recharge and escape the chaotic energy. Parks are ubiquitous in the city and it’s easy to just wander into any one in particular and just watch all of the good boys and good girls run around the dog park. I think what’s helped me the most to adapt to living in the city is giving myself permission to be alone. Despite the fact that there are so many people in the city, it’s incredibly easy to fall into this deep level of despair from loneliness. Initially, I was afraid of falling into this state, so I would spend all of my free time with people. It was enjoyable but also draining, and I would wake up each morning with so little energy. It turns out that I’m still extremely introverted and I really can’t handle that much social interaction. Since I’ve let myself spend more time with myself, I’ve been much happier. There are moments when I feel lonely, but I don’t really have a problem with that every now and then. I’ve also been lucky to meet some great people who make the time I do spend with people meaningful and enjoyable. I’ve had a lot of friends in my life who I would spend time with but it would feel like I was just a way to pass some time, rather than a friend or someone important to them. The energy people put into their social interactions can really change the dynamic of a hang out completely, and I wasn’t even aware how much it mattered until now.

On a less philosophical and “out there” level, NYC has so much to offer to me. I hate driving and I love the subway and how it can take me anywhere. I love the inherent strangeness of the average person and how people watching can be more interesting than watching a movie or reading a book. I love the great diversity of dogs that I see throughout the city. I love the kindness of immigrant business owners who seem so comfortable with their own culture and so eager to share it. I love seeing different cultures express on every street, be it tourists or people who live here, enthusiastically chatting in their own language (as I write this I see a group of beautiful French people greet each other with kisses, catching up in a way I can’t understand).  I love that finding a good meal is easy. I love dodging cars to get where I want to go and I love glaring at tourists who walk too slow or stop in the middle of the sidewalk. More than anything else, I love how accessible the city feels. It’s empowering when a city has everything in the world and all of it is just a train ride away. I feel as if I can do and start anything if I really want to since everything I could possibly need is so nearby. Like basically everything else in the entire world, the way to approach living in the city is through balance. I have to be continuously intentional in order to keep myself from losing myself to the hustle and bustle of everything that’s going on but also make sure that I maintain space for myself to breathe and relax when necessary.

This next part is kinda off-topic but it relates to doing stuff as a part of the hustle and bustle

On Friday, BuzzFeed Design invited the brand designer Mackey Saturday to come speak about his design work, as a part of our internal design speaker series Design Club. He was a great speaker who told the story of his career and how he worked to create iconic brand identities like the Oculus logo and the Instagram wordmark. His skill in creating beautiful and lasting visuals was really inspiring for me, someone who has always struggled to create visually interesting design work. Since my skills as a designer have mainly been on the problem-identification and research side, I was struck by the huge gap between his skills and mine. Coming into this summer, I knew I wanted to develop my skills as quickly as possible. I was unsure whether or not I wanted to focus on my “strengths” in the discovery phase of the design process or develop my “weaknesses” in visual design. When I spoke to our (now former) VP of Design Cap, he told me “I think you’re kinda early to be working on balancing things. If i were you I’d be working on as many different things as I can and stretching my skills as much as possible.” That brought me back to Earth and reminded me that I don’t really know as much as I thought.

Going forward, I want to focus on finding projects that will help me do that. To kick off, I’m thinking about exploring a branding project of some sort in order to really stretch my visual identity skills. Maybe I’ll do multiple or freelance or something. I really have no idea. Maybe I’ll tackle my personal branding project that I’ve been thinking about forever. It’s so weird and difficult to design for yourself since you don’t have a fresh set of eyes when you’re presenting to the client. It’s your own eyes the whole time! The big thing is that I want to be able to at least slightly do something related to design that manifests in the real world. I’ve made logos and designs that have been printed on t-shirts and hats before, but I don’t know if I was really designing for those purposes or fully accomplishing what I was aiming for. The bigger thing is that I don’t really like any of those designs (except for the art matters logo, that’s still beautiful other than the type).

One thing that I’ve noticed is that it’s really hard for me to get started on any visual projects. I think it might just be because I’m out of practice. Writing has been continuously easy for me since I’ve been consistently writing something once a week for nearly a year now and I’m not really falling out of my habit. With visual work, whether it’s illustration or interface design, I’m not doing it all the time so starting a project in that area just seems like an impossible task. I need to take the first step towards doing it so it will keep getting easier and easier, but until then maybe I’ll start just writing out my ideas before I get there. When I was scanning through the old design case studies on our company Basecamp (a wiki of sorts I guess), I noticed that some of the designers would create their initial prototype as a story or something written out. By forcing themselves to convert their ideas into words, they were able to iterate on the design without having to draw or mock anything up, which would be a relief for me while I languish in the difficulty of starting these visual projects.

Another idea relating to this that I’ve been pondering is finding external interests. Although I love design, I’ve always wanted to be more involved in filmmaking, animation, and music. I could very easily spend a lot of my time exploring these things and working on projects to advance my skills, but I’m leaning against doing that. The giant behemoth of the full-time job search looms over everything that I do, and not focusing on my career more than my interests stresses me out. But who knows? Every design interview seems to tell me to have external interests outside of design to become a better designer. There are just so many paths I can take, so many ways to spend my time and probably so many ways that I could make myself happy. I can’t possibly know what will be best for me. The only path that’s certain is the one that I decide to take and focus on. I want to escape my state of stasis that I’ve developed while trying to choose between the many potential options. I’ve been trying to adopt the mindset that the best decision is the decision made quickly and firmly. This is better than indecision since you can change later if things go wrong, or you have more time and energy to contribute to fixing things if the decision was the wrong one.

I’m roughly at 2000 words and I’m frankly exhausted, but I’m happy that I was able to do it!

[pet-diary]

⟰Here are my 2018 New Year Resolutions!!!⟰

This year I am hoping to be really focused on building better habits in the things I want in my life. For instance, I really want to be better at drawing. I know that I have to practice DAILY if I ever want to be a ~person that draws~. I used to be a ~person that draws~, but over the past 10 years, I’ve really just let that habit fall to the wayside for other habits and hobbies, which makes me so sad! I used to love drawing! And this is something I really want to be a part of my life, a part of who I am as a person... So I decided to set some realistic goals to motivate myself into learning new styles and mediums that I would love to know how to do, while maintaining the habit of drawing daily. You can see how I did it below. Same for all my other resolutions and goals, I tried to set up plans to make them work. :) Some of my resolutions are just general and I didn’t come up with a plan for them. I just need to remember to check-in with myself every so often and remind myself to do them.

PLAN FOR ACHIEVING RESOLUTION GOALS

The template (in case you want to do it this way too):

[Name of resolution - Quick tag line so you can see it at a glance] ✨ Goal: What is the main goal here? How would it define you as a person? 🎯 Target: Specifically, what will it look like to have ultimately achieved this goal? 🏹 Aim: What steps can you take to achieve it?

ACADEMIC & CAREER // [Continue learning Japanese, gain basic everyday life language skills] ✨ Goal: Learn enough Japanese to be capable of basic conversation and writing. 🎯 Target: Study Genki textbooks + online apps or sites every week. Practice vocab in daily life. Teach Trev basics to make it more fun. Learn vocab for everyday life items and situations. 🏹 Aim: Read and practice Genki textbooks or Textfugu at least 1 session weekly, practice vocab app or other forms of study at least 30 mins daily.

CREATIVE // [Draw regularly again + Focus on practicing a monthly artist style/medium] ✨ Goal: Be a regular drawer, learn how to use different art mediums, practice favorite artist's styles. 🎯 Target: Dedicate every month to practicing a new style in art, choosing one medium and one favorite artist to focus on. Drawing something daily. 🏹 Aim: Draw at least once per day, doesn't matter how much, but ideally aim for an hour daily. Practice monthly art style for inspiration. Choose at end of month specifically who/what to focus on, print off inspiration to hang around room and be inspired by. Try to learn something about the artist along the way, immerse in artist's life/process while learning the style.

Some possible artists to study (off the top of my head):

1. Risa Mehmet 2. Faetus 3. Hospicemilk / fever-breath 4. Song__Caramel / Caramelsong0915 5. Henry Darger 6. Winsor McCay 7. Yumiko Ōshima (The Star of Cottonland) 8. Minipete 9. Guppy 10. Nao Emoto (Forget Me Not) 11. Gosho Aoyama (Case Closed) 12. CLAMP (Sakura) 13. Henriette Willebeek le Mair 14. Yuko Uramoto (The Life-Changing Manga of Tidying Up) 15. Tyrus Wong 16. Louis Wain 17. Eon (Super Secret)

Some mediums to study (off the top of my head):

1. Watercolor 2. Pastels 3. Ink 4. Markers 5. Crayon 6. Charcoal 7. Graphite 8. Collage 9. Paint of some kind (gouache?) 10. Clip Studio Paint 11. Color pencils

[Share photography regularly + Focus heavily on shooting/sharing film] ✨ Goal: Become listed as featured artist on Grace and Girlhood (i.e. post enough film photos to be considered film photographer). 🎯 Target: Edit and share photography every month, focus heavily on film. Post to IG, submit photos to G&G. Keep up with scanning negatives so that it's easy to post film regularly. Learn to use to continue practicing w/ diff film and cameras. 🏹 Aim: Post at least 5x monthly. Work on photography scanning/editing for at least 1 hour weekly.

LIFE // [Immerse myself in lifestyle (grad school, art, Seattle, etc), blog/vlog whole process (good & bad)] ✨ Goal: What is the main goal here? How would it define you as a person? 🎯 Target: Specifically, what will it look like to have ultimately achieved this goal? 🏹 Aim: What steps can you take to achieve it?

[Become an early riser + Go on daily walks] ✨ Goal: Wake up earlier every day, taking advantage of daylight. Have more time to spend with Trev. Become someone who goes for morning walks/runs (be that person who finds a body on an early morning jog!). 🎯 Target: Wake up early, go to bed early, make it a regular habit to become an early riser and get the most out of the daylight. Go on morning walks regularly.🏹 Aim: Go to bed around 9:30-11pm, wake up at 5:30-7am, make a coffee/tea to go, go for a walk/run, make breakfast when I get home. Wake up as early as possible!

[Cook more + Learn more Japanese & vegan recipes + Prepare bento regularly] ✨ Goal: Cook dinner more, and make bento for work/school the next day. Make rice-based recipes more often, eat healthier meals, snack healthier. 🎯 Target: Make enough rice to justify buying a new rice cooker (reward!). Go through recipe books and try more Japanese recipes. Eat healthier, make more vegan-based meals. Make bento for me and Trev with cute bento accessories, for work/school/picnic. 🏹 Aim: Make a rice-based recipe at least once a week. Plan and make meals from books and saved recipes from Pinterest (focus on vegan and Japanese recipes) every week. Make lunch for Trev and I the night before using bento accessories and online inspiration.

[Watch more anime + Read more manga] ✨ Goal: Become someone that watches anime/reads manga and web comics on a regular basis. Become more familiar with existing shows/comics. Pick up art inspiration for web comic and art styles. 🎯 Target: Watch anime regularly, read web comics everyday instead of wasting time on other stuff. Get inspiration for my web comic. Practice techniques from shows and other comics/manga. 🏹 Aim: Watch anime at least 1x weekly, instead of other things I watch. Start a series w/ Trev and add it to show rotation. Read web comics/manga at least 1x daily, check update feed for series I follow on Webtoon and other apps. Check feeds like My Anime List, Anime News Network and Honey's Anime for inspiration.

(Cutting the rest of this entry because it’s already written in the image, but wanted to include it for readability and searchabilty).

ACADEMIC & CAREER // * Continue learning Japanese, gain basic everyday life language skills * Apply for grad school * Learn how to talk about what you know, about yourself, & to talk in general * Continue fleshing out career goals

CREATIVE // * Draw regularly again + Focus on practicing a monthly artist style/medium * Share photography regularly + Focus heavily on shooting/sharing film * Start the ephemera shop! * Start working on graphic novel!! Don’t let the idea die unrealized

LIFE // * Immerse myself in lifestyle (grad school, art, Seattle, etc), blog/vlog whole process (good & bad) * Become an early riser + Go on daily walks * Be openly autistic – fuck worrying about what ppl will think anymore * Make new friends, make an effort to meet ppl, esp in grad school * Set down roots, even if you have to uproot them eventually * Continue taking the bus, be more self-sufficient, grocery shop, run errands alone * Cook more + Learn more Japanese & vegan recipes + Prepare bento regularly * Watch more anime + Read more manga * Read (for fun) at least 1 page a day * Start watching movies again, the feels can be good in the long run * Listen to music more often, get into new stuff

PHYSICAL & MENTAL HEALTH // * Maintain weight, don't go over/under healthy ideal weight * Look cute more often, even just around the house * Stretch every day, regardless of exercise * Go on weekly walks, at least 3x weekly, esp morning walks * Exercise alone or w/ Trev at least 1x weekly, aim for 2x weekly * Push yourself to do things that scare you! Esp if it’s irrational fear * Look into getting on medication to deal w/ anxiety * Maintain positive mindset, esp upon waking up & greeting Trev at end of day * Be nicer, control anger better, be more empathetic & friendly