#someday i'll finish my drawings. not today. but someday

[crj-200]

did i ever show you guys the absolutely insane way i checked to see if the shoes i bought would work with a bridesmaid dress. because somehow drawing my sona was easier than just trying the outfit on

[palskippah]

Hi!

When the girls see either Mario or Peach they get very excited. If Nettarina was awake, she'd be excited too and urging Peach to hurry up. Also, imagine that 'babies!' like the one Mario says in the Mario and Luigi game with their babies selves sjsj

Also, Mario's that kind of parent that says they'll get the baby to sleep but falls asleep himself first. Peach always comes back to check on them and sees him and Nettarina (who can fall asleep anywhere) deeply asleep while Mariella's somewhere in the bed playing with his cap or babbling to herself (then she gets overtired from not sleeping and cries a lot, so Mario and Peach have to apply all the tricks to get her to fall asleep).

Also also, the socks they're using were crocheted by Peach [and she handed them as a gift to Mario on their baby shower- and she learned to crotchet just to make them clothes :'''v Anyways, I have a post for that too askjdasjd during that same baby shower, the babies get so much stuff from Peach that is unwrapped by Mario. He finds it kinda funny bc not only Peach's the expecting mom too, but she had been showing him all the stuff she has been doing for the baby shower (like showing how the little socks are turning out, or the toys she bought), and yet she wrapped everything for him to open]

[dbdonryo]

have you guys played the new game about the girl with a pink dress and a bow in her hair

[blue-arts-stuff]

Finally finish. I got a lot on my plate so I decided to finish up this artwork today. Enjoy bucktommy nation <[°□●]>!!!!

Sorry I couldn't draw more details cause it's so much you can zoom in on my phone. I love to try painting art with my fingers again someday.

Fyi: I used IbisPaintX for mostly all of my artworks.

Just some BuckTommy cosplaying as Mshenko aka [ John Shepard and Kaidan Alenko ], my absoulute favourite video game relationship.

I'll do Mshenko in BuckTommy 9-1-1 outfits later on if I have time. Till then! Enjoy!

[heartfullofleeches]

Letters from You

Yan T.V Show Cast + Clown Reader Snippet

-

Tap....Tap...Knock.....Tap...Tap...Knock

Hm, usually that always does the trick. The strangled hics and sobs beyond the other side of the door depress any chance of your playful banter getting through to the poor jester. On brighter days, she'd hear the secret knock you two came up with together and dry her tears enough to finish things off. Whatever got her upset today was really dragging her down....

"She's been like that all morning, Sunny...." Gus chimes in. The clown has been worried sick about his sibling as presented by the stormy clouds replacing the smiling suns beneath their eyelids. "Not even Holly has been able to get through to her... You're our last hope, Sun..."

"I'll try my best." Pressing your ear to the door, you strike your knuckles against the door - careful not to cause the jester more duress. "Melan? It's Sunday, do you want to talk? We'll leave you alone if you need space, but we all just want to make sure you're okay...."

Through whimpers and sobs, a small, quivering voice bleeds through.

"M...my letter.... I can't go anywhere without my letter! They promised.... They promised to write to me everyday...."

Oh, no... Placing your hand on your pants pocket, your fingers trace out the rectangular shape within the fold. How could you forget something so important to her?

You pull the crumpled envelope from your pocket, smoothing out its corners as you speak up. "Melan! I have that letter from your penpal. Handyman must've given it to me by mistake. I'll read it out loud for you, got it?"

You open the letter up as the sniffling stops almost entirely.

"Dear Melan,

Hey there, Melan! How's my favorite jester doing today? I got the drawings you sent with your last letter. I'll hang them up in my room soon as I have the chance. Ice cream is one my favorite desserts too. Maybe we can have some together someday. If not, have an extra bowl in my honor!

Are you taking care of yourself and your siblings? How's your practice going? I heard you can juggle two pins without dropping them now, I'm so proud of you! You're getting better and better everyday - that's why you're my favorite jester.

Lots of love, your dear penpal - Y/n."

The room on the other side of the door goes dead quiet.

"Melan?...."

A creak in the floorboards - followed by another. They continue until -click- the door unlocks.

"Th... thank you, Sunday... I'll be out in a minute. I'm sorry for worrying you...."

[the-east-art]

I have an ask about your awesome Au for stan

Taking in the sense of concepts Ford finds out Stan can shift into different forms and such.

Would you think he would turn into paranoid Ford and think the shapeshifter has been in stan’s place this whole time? (I know it wouldn't make sense timeline-wise. It could be the case that the shapeshifter was that petty that they discovered the portal and rebuilt it just to kill Ford themselves)

Mabel and Dipper are like “Yeah grunkle stan can just do that” while Ford is having a full-on meltdown as he shields the kids pointing a gun at stan.

lmao if you check the tag I did draw that. I ended up cutting the comic short (maybe I'll finish it someday but not today, letting my wrist rest up a bit) but basically Ford forces the entire family down to the bunker to see the Shapeshifters frozen form himself, and then the kids eventually talk him down. The number one piece of logic for Stan being Stan is the fact that in Dreamscapers the kids were in his mind and all the memories and stuff check out.

[mimzy630]

Today, October 18th, I'm saying happy birthday to my favorite Psyncer, Kuruto Ryuki!

The incredible @vividcitrus illustrated my transmasc Ryuki headcanon comfortably showing top surgery scars on the beach!

More on my story below the cut :)

Ryuki is absolutely the Psyncer I see myself in the most. I love all the Psyncers and really tons of the characters in AI: THE SOMNIUM FILES and nirvanA Initiative dearly, but Ryuki is the closest one I have to a kin.

When I first met him upon starting the game, I resonated immediately; he plays the somewhat asexual-coded straight-man to Tama's sexy routine which immediately endeared me, and his fluctuations between needing to prove himself and be the one to solve the case to being severely depressed at not being good enough... Yeah! No, hello, that's me lol.

I wasn't really a part of his little fanclub before release, but oh boy did I fall hard and fast for the scuffly little cutie, and that love only grew stronger as the game went on- seeing Ryuki getting so absorbed in his job he forgets himself, seeing him so focused on one way to solve things that he has to make impossible choices, seeing him get paralyzed by choice when it matters most... Yeah! I mean yeah that's all me yeah. Not to his extreme levels of course but oh yeah no every scene with him only made me love him more.

He's just adorable... Ahhh I want to put my hands through his hair... Ahem, anyways, as soon as I finished the game I was like damn... I might have a kinnie... And I don't think I'm exactly a Ryuki Kin per-se, but I do very much see myself when I look at him.

I am also transmasc! Specifically, agender, but who knows where my journey will take me. I have a hard time struggling to think of what I want to look like; I don't have a real sense of identity much at all, let alone visual identity. Most of my self-image is a big ole void.

But I know there are certain parts of me I'd love removed LOL to I reached out to m, the artist, and we chatted- I've always had a soft spot for transmasc Ryuki and been kinda hoping someone would draw him someday, so fuck it, I decided I make it happen myself. In the process of this commission, I forced myself to really think about how I'd want to look, how my scars would look, if I wanted nipple grafts, etc., and m was super happy to work with me on all of that!

The final version, with the more understated scars following the natural curve of the pecs that go from below the armpit to mid chest and no nipple grafts, makes me actually feel good... Like, hey, maybe someday I too could be topless on a beach, smiling and confident... It's a far-off dream that I have to save a lot for, but hey... That murky swirling void in my head has cleared up just a little bit, enough for me to be able to see a happier future for myself, and that's everything really.

I know I'll never look like Ryuki exactly, there are a lot of obstacles to this, but at the very least, when I find money and a surgeon, I can say "that. That's how I want to look, and that's how I'd feel looking like that." Which is more than I've ever been able to do! Dysphoria is my constant companion, but euphoria tends to elude me... @vividcitrus turned the tables on that!

[asoiaf-essays-collector]

I'll ... just leave my favourite asoiaf pairing here.

Lord and lady Stark of Winterfell.

Here comes some personal remarks:

I've been making this art for 12 hours straight. It's the middle of the night and my right hand hurts like hell but that's okay. Because you know what? It's my first finished art since...gosh, I don't even remember. Not some doodle, not some floating head with simple colouring and not a half-done sketch which I promised myself I would finish someday later and now it's been 2 years. No - this picture could be better, of course, you can tell probably I've cut some slack in the very end (I literally forced myself to draw for last couple of hours) but it is finished. I'm kinda proud of myself.

Today I've learned that:

a brush that you really like and is perfect for backgrounds and greens is most likely not fit to do clothes and hair and skin

to draw a bunch of roses in the hair is stupid idea, it doesn't look very good

I have no idea how to draw an old burn and what colour it is.

I should probably get some sleep, thank you very much!

[kinja145]

The evil has been defeated ; the french translation of DLTD is complete !!!!!!!

It has been almost 9 years since I started it. I was in my first year of highschool when I started, I've gratuated, I went to university for 3 years, graduated again, and now I'm working. It has been a long, long thing to do. I did it with passion, but sometimes I feel like I wasn't as much implicated in the translation of some chapters compared to others, but I still loved it from start to end. Sometimes I wonder how I managed to stay so implicated and how I didn't just abandon the project ! But at the end, DLTD is always somehwere in my thoughts, I just can't escape it lol DLTD is a story, a fandom, I can't quite seem to leave. I've been way less into it these past few years, but everytime I came back to it, it felt like home and it still does. I think I've felt almost every emotion with DLTD, and I'm not just talking about the first part, but DLTD as a whole. I don't have the words to drescribe how much this story means to me, how it changed my brain chemistry.

I know the story isn't perfect, God knows I can tell that. But I just accept it with its flaws and kind of cringe parts that are so reminiscent of 2010s ! Without DLTD there is no drawings from me, or at least less, and probably not so much progression. So DLTD saved my imagination in a way, even tho time and energy is missing now that I'm working but I still love to draw for it. Thinking back on those 8 years, I'm amazed to see how obsessed I was with it. I did a comic adaptation of the first chapter, an ending, a parody I never finished with Daniel, dozens of fanart, a discord (that didn't really work but it's still out there !). I met lot of people, including my beta reader YuuKyun whom I haven't heard from for almost 3-4 years now. I really, really hope she is okay and will reappear someday. Big kudos to her, she was so helpful in the early years ! This translation wouldn't exist without @burakkuenjeru19. She is the reason I even started translating it. So kudos to her. She also listened to me yapping about DLTD for all those years, and yapped back so yeah, really kudos. This story has literally marked me. Even today, we still quote the lizard in the toaster from chapter 2 with my friends (iconic !), and more parts of the story. We had so so much fun reading the story together, giving each other a character to voice. We did it again a few weeks ago for old time sake, and it was still so wholesome !! The chapters aren't all out right now, but I'll start posting one chapter per day in december. Wich makes me think ; ever since 2016, I've always had at least 10 chapters of advance on the publication. I think I can take pride in that uwu As for DLTP, I don't know for now if I'll get to it. It's just a whole lot of work, way more than the first part. But I feel like I'll miss it so maybe there's a world where I start the translation of it too. I'm just not making any promesses !

And to end this post, I have to thanks the one and only : @hateweasel

I don't even know what to say to thank you, Hate. You brought to me and to many more people so much with your story and your imagination. Your interest for the surnatural stuck with me and you put it so well into the story, I just love the fact that you don't represent surnaturals as monsters. Yeah, they're people too. I just love this concept !!

I was so, so scared the first time I sent you a message here to ask the permission to post the translation. I think I read my message like 10 times to make sure that there wasn't any mistakes... And then, you helped me tons of time with words, sentences, and parts I didn't get. And you let me have so much liberty with the adaptation of the story in my language, it was really, really great from you, thank you !!

We started talking a lot at some point even with jet lag, and it was really great even tho we had multiple conversation at the same time lol

You made me discover a lot of things outside of DLTD with your blog too, and I'm thankfull for that too.

I just can't thank you enough, and I think everyone else who has read and loved DLTD can say the same. Thank you again, Hate (especially if you read all that) !!!

I'm going to keep on posting the last chapters, and then post drawings here and there I guess, now. Until then, farewell duckies !!

[goron-king-darunia]

Eggtober 29th 2023

"Tell Me More": Korean Egg Bread or Gyeran-ppang

(Clip Studio Paint, Gouache Brush, Gouache Blender, Overlay adjustment layers to get the crispy brown bits to look right. 16 colors? 45 ish minutes.)

Egg 2 for today. You get the 3rd egg I did tomorrow. Gonna queue it.

So yeah, didn't know humans already invented the perfect food. Bread with an egg on top. What more can I say? I've seen a couple recipes suggest additions like sausage, bacon, or cheese. The main bread recipe seems to be a sweet vanilla flavor, so I guess this just tastes like the best savory-sweet brekkie combo? I want to try it so bad.

But alas, I'm stuck drawing it until I clean up enough space to make some at home. We have a marble slab counter specifically for bread baking and bread pans and everything, I just never have space because our kitchen is chaos. But maybe someday~

I wonder how @lady-quen's breadbugs will go about tackling this treat?

Smacking the @ for @quezify again. Imagine me aggressively dinging a service bell, but not in a demanding way. More in a "Finish line! You can do it! Almost there!" way!

SPEED PAINT TIME!

There is a brief stage where, admittedly, the egg white looks like that danish cheese filling instead of egg white (to put it very politely) so yes, I do see it. But shush, it quickly looks like egg and then delicious so don't @ me. XD

Speaking of which I cleaned up that meme image I made about Eggtober 1st 2023. I'll slap that under a cut just in case I need it...

I swear guys, my eggs accidentally looking suggestive is not on purpose even if that would be incredibly funny. But hey, 3 people saying a thing made me draw my ancient video game blorbo and the silly Chopper meme, so there's that. XD (The meme is free to use with credit, by the way.)

If you haven't seen the reason for the meme, here it is.

[faffreux]

can you tell us about when you fell in love with fawful? :)

Yep. In fact, I'll write a whole mini essay for you so I can add it to the FAQ section of my website coming up shortly LMAO (SINCE I NEED TO FULLY ANSWER THIS QUESTION FOR THERE ANYWAY, RIGHT???) CLICK UNDER THE READ MORE TO SEE IT BECAUSE THIS IS GOING TO BE THE LONGEST THING I'VE EVER POSTED HERE, LMAO.

To preface, I have been a fan of the M&L games going back to the early-mid 2000s when I was a kid. I had no involvement with fandom or anything of the sort back then but I used to hop on my mom's bulky computer and look up fanart and other related content as early as 2004/5 and as a result, ended up captivated by the characters long before I knew who they actually were. (As a result of this, I have the names and art styles of various old M&L fandom creators permanently ingrained in my head and often wonder where they are today since a good deal of them vanished..!) It wasn't until 2006 that I got my first handheld console (DS Lite) and of course, what did I do? Immediately begged my mom to order me a used GBA copy of Superstar Saga. 

When I finally had the game in my hands it was like coming home to a colorful world that I'd been captivated by for so long but never gotten the chance to actually explore until now. The characters felt like old friends and the Beanbean Kingdom as a location felt familiar and comforting to me. (As a side note, Popple quickly became my favorite. Shocker, right?)

I used to sketch various beans in my notebooks as well as on printer paper we had lying around the house. Long story short, I finished Superstar Saga and then a few years later in 2010 I picked up Bowser’s Inside Story and THAT’S WHEN THINGS SHIFTED–

BIS brought Fawful and his personality to life in a way that captivated my imagination like nothing else had prior. He quickly overtook Popple as my favorite character from then on forward… and that’s where it ends! Or.. is it?

Nah, that’s where it gets funky. Life got a little chaotic after that and not only did I stop playing video games altogether for many years, but I also almost completely gave up on art - the one thing I was most passionate about above all and thought I would make a career out of someday. A series of depressing events caused me to lose all hope and motivation for anything I created and the spark I’d kept inside of me for so long all but died out as a result.

We’re going to timeskip again, this time to late 2019. I’d just moved away from home permanently for the first time and had been getting settled in and no matter what I did to make my new apartment a cozy place it always felt like something was missing. My mind would keep wandering to the fact that I never made art anymore despite it having been such a key part of my life when I was younger. I so desperately wanted to change this and over the next few months the frustration only kept growing until on January 1st, 2020, I sat down in the living room with a pencil and paper in my hand and shut my eyes tightly before saying under my breath:

“I do not care what it is, I don’t care how it comes. Just please… PLEASE send me something to bring my art back. Anything… anything at all. I don’t care what I draw, I just want to be drawing again.” And with that, I placed the lead onto the paper and began to sketch…

And from there… a familiar face appeared!

(Now I could ramble to you about how much I do NOT like this drawing and how off model it is from how Fawful actually looks… but I’ll forgive myself since I hadn’t touched the M&L games in over a decade at this point and had forgotten most of Fawful’s character. And yet?? Here he was.)

How else can I explain it except that in that moment it felt like the pencil in my hand had suddenly become one of these:

A joy that I hadn’t felt in SO long suddenly filled my entire being and without wasting another second, I immediately went online and ordered both Superstar Saga and Bowser’s Inside Story to replay again. In the time waiting for the games to arrive I had started drawing daily again - sketching out various old characters of mine with dozens of doodles of the bean man stacked in between them all.

There he was… always smiling, always happy to see me, and oftentimes with his arms outstretched as if to give an encouraging hug. When the games arrived I worked through them quicker than I ever had prior - finishing up Superstar Saga in less than a week and subsequently moving onto Bowser’s Inside Story with a LOT of excitement built up for it. 

It was my first day playing and I was having the time of my life! The way Fawful looked in his little grey cloak with that enormous, charming grin of his as he bamboozled Bowser into eating the Vaccuum Shroom had me giggling with joy while words repeated in my brain over and over of: “I need to draw this later, I NEED to draw this later!!!” I WAS EXCITED ABOUT ART AGAIN… AFTER ALL THESE YEARS. I was practically hopping in my seat from the happiness I felt in my heart and chest every time Fawful appeared at this point!

This was how it felt until the moment I arrived at the Fawful Theatre and watched as he began dancing on the stage floor. THIS time.. something different came over me. If you’ve felt it before, then you’ll know what I mean when I say that it was like my entire body turned warm all at once, like some sort of flame had been lit inside. I’d never felt it for anything or anyone prior to then, and that's partly why it hit me as hard as it did. I was practically sweating.

Heck, I was so absorbed in my feelings that I had forgotten there was anyone else in the room with me! That is.. Until my roommate at the time spoke up: 

Her: Are you alright? Me: Uhhh… yeah, why? Her: You’re red as a beet. Are you sure you’re okay?

By this time I had realized what was really going on so I reassured her I was fine, grabbed my 3DS, and ran to my room to finish the playthrough on my own so I wouldn’t embarrass myself any further, hahaha.

In the days, weeks, and months following that moment I became dedicated to drawing the best art of Fawful I could possibly create! What started as a challenge to myself to ‘give back’ to the person who’d given me back the ability to create again turned into someone I genuinely could not stop drawing for how much fun I was having doing it. The desire to make better and better art in order to honor him drove me to improve at a speed I never had prior, and soon thereafter I created Jolligig as a way for me to be in this colorful world with him and to express the deepening affection I was feeling for him with every day that passed by.

By some miracle, my prayer had been answered and here it was in the form of a grinning lima bean.

[End of Part 1. Interested in the rest? Yes… there’s more, I’m sorry. Please let me know in the comments. This took a while to write so I thought splitting it up would be best if folks are interested, LOL.]

[dairyeri]

🎉14/14🎉

And so my dears, I congratulate all of us on the solemn completion of the prologue! 🥳

💖A huge Thank You to each of you for supporting me on this difficult path, it's really important for me 💖💖💖💖💖

Back | Next

MASTERPOST

What I achieved today, I consider a huge victory on my creative path, as it was my first experience creating something large scale. And there's more to come✨

Earlier, I mentioned that I had the idea for the comic itself about a year ago.

However, its development began only in June of this year. It's just that at some point I decided to finally pull myself together and finally started striving for my dreams and motivate others to not give up by my example 💖

When I started, I ran like crazy, not even knowing exactly how many pages there would be, as I started storyboarding only in the middle of the prologue 😅

This story I have been drawing for three months, almost every day, has changed a lot of things in my life from the distancing from a once loved one, to a complete rethinking of my limits and possibilities...maybe someday I'll tell you about it on YouTube.

As for the release of the next chapter, the first page will be out on September 17. And I want to take a couple of weeks to catch up on the backlog of material, so posts may or may not come out less frequently during that time (I apologize for that in advance), and hopefully I will finish some things I hope you'll hear about soon💖

And speaking of the chapters themselves, they promise to be pretty massive ( hopefully I'll have time to draw them out🥲 )

The first storyboard already comes out almost twice as big as the prologue, and the second almost four times as big, and moreover, will consist of two parts, the first of which is already ready in draft.

Again, everything can change, but the most important thing is that I will not give up so easily, don't even hope ✨✨✨✨✨ I'm with you for a long time💖💖💖💖

[insidekaz]

One Day, I'll write something as influential as Sonic The Hedgehog

(I know, I know. Very bold claim coming out of my mouth, especially for someone who just wrote out how hard it is for me to finish a project, but let me explain.)

Hello Internet. Kaz here, back with yet another entry cooked up from the inner workings of my mind. I know, a dangerous place to be at any time of the day, but what's life without a few risk? Anyway, I hope everyone is doing rather well during this forcefully and unfortunately commercialized holiday season. I'm doing good, inspired perhaps being a better word to describe my feelings right now. If it wasn't already clear by the title of this blog, I've recently had my nerdy spirit revigorated (big words for Kaz) after seeing the new Sonic The Hedgehog 3 movie that's currently in theaters.

First off, before I get ahead of myself,

NO SPOILERS IN THIS BLOG

As of the time that I'm writing this, Sonic The Hedgehog 3 was released on December 20th, 2024 and has only been in theaters for five days. I know a lot of people don't read these blogs, but I'm still not going to spoil anything here. What I will say is that Sonic The Hedgehog 3 is an amazing movie, one that I believe both Sonic and Non-Sonic fans alike should see! I will give a small word of warning though. The movies do draw inspiration from the games, but follow their own canon. This is just something to keep in mind when watching the movie. Trust me, this doesn't take away from the overall enjoyment. It just helps to have this bit of knowledge before going in.

Now then, to address the bold proclamation in the blog's title. When I say that I want to write something as influential as Sonic The Hedgehog, in no way do I mean I'm going to attempt to compete with SEGA and their mascot. That would be absolutely idiotic idea for me to have, both mentally and financially. Even as someone who makes some very questionable decisions from time to time, I'd have to be pronounced braindead before thinking I could triumph over one of the biggest video game companies in the world. Plus, I respect SEGA way too much for that.

No, what I mean is that I want to write something that could inspire millions someday. I wish for my work to lift the spirits of anyone who reads it. I want to my works to leave people on the edge of their seats, happy when the best happens to my characters, yet still holding onto hope when the worst comes. Like the Sonic franchise, I want people to fall in love with each character, both the heroes and the villains.

Trust me, I know that none of this is gonna be handed to me on a silver platter. The work I'm gonna have to put in requires dedication, me actually putting in more hours than I have recently. I don't really know what it is, but something about seeing Sonic 3 really lit a fire in a metaphorical way. I'm not really sure how to explain it. I've been a Sonic fan for decades now, the series being one of my top three favorite game series, the only thing before it being Gravity Rush and the only thing after it being The Legend Of Zelda.

Maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. I mean, there's nothing wrong with having ambitions. It's just the procrastination that's a problem. I'm not perfect, I'll admit that. I've just been really bad with managing my own time lately. Like I said in (I believe) my last post, I might have to hire people to pester me into doing work. I've been having both my partner and my best friend on my ass to get content out, and I'm slowly getting there. I was going to try and get a video out before the end of this month, but I've decided that it would be better to push something out in January instead. Better on the mental state, ya know?

Anyway, that's all on my mind for today. I hope everyone has a rather happy holidays and a pleasant New Years. I might type out a few more blog post before the end of the year. Until then, I wish everyone a good night.

Bye!

-Kameron D. Kazma

[gunophilia]

Hello, before I get too far into it, I'm just going to give my main point right away:

I get it.

Writing is hard. Art in general is hard, but in my experience, finding the motivation to continue a story is one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life. Trying to find the words to explain it is difficult, ironically, how do you really explain the overwhelming want to do only to loss all motivation the second you actually try? It's not that I don't want to write, I absolutely do, and I have all these stories and plots and ideas inside my head but the second I try and put pen to paper it feels impossible.

I guess I'll compare it to something else, albeit in a similar field. When I was younger, I loved to dry. Every moment of freetime I got in elementary school was dedicated to doodling all over my worksheets and notebook paper. And I was terrible at it, absolutely horrendous, but the best part was that I didn't care. I liked drawing, it never mattered to me how good it was. Until someday it did, and I realized that my skill level didn't match my standards, so I stopped. And every time afterward, when I would draw, no matter if it was a doodle in the corner or I tried to sit down and focus, I always gave up because it felt pointless. I'd lost my motivation, and so I gave up for years and I felt disappointed in myself. The same sort of thing happened with writing, one day I realized I wasn't happy with what I was doing because it felt armature.

At some point, about almost a year ago, I decided completely out of the blue that I wanted to try drawing again, so I bought a tablet to make sure I had to commit and couldn't give up like all the other times, I had a sit down with myself, and I asked this question:

What do I want out of my art?

And the answer was simple, to just enjoy doing it. So that was my goal, not to get better, but to just rediscover the joy thay drawing brought me. It definitely took a while, until I was able to look at other pieces of artwork and see things I liked and wanted to do myself rather than to compare myself to them. After a while I was drawing for myself, just to have fun, and I didn't care if it was good or skillful, all that was important was that I liked it and that was enough.

I still struggle with writing, I have a storyline that I want to follow but it's still just so hard to find the motivation, and I've decided that yes, one day it is going to happen, but it doesn't need to be today, so even just writing a silly little side story or even just a couple sentences of notes is enough for now, because it's still something.

Anyways this got away from me and I think the message for lost, so I guess I'll just put it plainly here, art is hard, and even if you love doing it that sometimes actually doing it seems impossible, especially if you feel like it's something you have to do over wanting to do it.

Sorry for the essay, but I'm feeling sappy tonight and a post of yours reminded me of my own journey.

I hope this was helpful, and if not, then I'm so sorry and please feel absolutely free to ignore this.

Have a good one, and I hope writing is something you can enjoy doing just for the sake of doing it. <3

are you me from an alternate universe? (jk) your story is very similar to what I've been going through. sometimes I get a spark of inspiration, but that by itself is not enough to get me to actually sit down and do the work. I sit down, realize how much time/effort will need to be put in, and give up before I start. it really sucks. i feel like i cant/shouldn't work on anything unless it can be finished in one sitting.

[cata-daily]

:) I asked one of my parents to patreon and they fully supported it because, yk, supporting cc's I love

[At first I was thinking of just yt membering, but my parent thought that patreoning was better because 1. 30% cut vs 8% 2. Youtube and google already get enough money (lol) and 3. More support :>]

Here comes sappiness or something, or something close enough because I probably can't do sappy-

Not sure I can really put into words how.. just.. happy- Cata, his content, his community, have made me the past almost two months I've known about his channel.

I've kind of said this before, but sometimes I was just feeling super down and then watched one of his videos and immediately was in a better mood.

Cata is the only youtuber I've seriously dedicated real time to drawing, and honestly? I think I can owe my current artstyle that I'm starting to really love to Cata, because his content somehow got me to say "I wanna do daily doodles!" and actually follow through.

I hope that someday I'll get around to finishing a longer project heh..

Anyways- as with any character or cc I enjoy, I'm always all for lore, no matter how nonsensical it is, it just makes me happy figuring it out- or not figuring it out and just being completely confused lol. Watching through some of the no-hit series (only today did I get around to watching every no-hit series reveal), aMiT, and CwaCoM was super fun! I'm not sure where I was going with that, uh, just that I like the lore :)

Mmmm yep. Cata content fun, I love it a lot. Makes me very happy :D

So yeah, damn, I do really like your work, Cata c:

[lumine-no-hikari]

Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #125

I'm still in a lot of pain today, but it's not quite as bad as it was yesterday. It's still a little hard to breathe, but I'm managing. Hopefully whatever's going on will be over and done with in just a few more days. I've taken some ibuprofen, though, and I'm well-hydrated. So don't worry about me, okay? I'll be just fine. 💖

I made myself a tea this morning. I made a toast-and-jam tea, and as a result of that, I get to show you one of the other ice creams I got! I'll show you the pictures I took…

This tea starts out as a beautiful shade of amber that resolves into a delicious shade of red:

This is the ice cream I put into it while it was still hot:

It's got a pretty drawing of a blackberry plant on the lid:

Here is what it looks like once the lid is taken off:

From there, we can put an amount of it into the tea until it feels correct:

Then once it's all melted, we can stir it up!

...I wonder if you would have liked how this turned out. I wish I could give you a mug and see...

I did my therapy homework today. In case you don't know, a good therapist is supposed to give the person seeing them homework to do over the week. Last week, he thought to capitalize on my tendency to write, and he asked me to write a letter to my inner child. And then he asked me to tap into my inner child and write back to myself.

It's generally in my nature to go above and beyond when people ask me to do things, whenever possible. And so I ended up writing three letters instead of just two. I ended up crying a lot during the process, but I came away from the exercise with a changed outlook on a variety of things. You can read what I wrote if you want to; it'll be the post just before this one. But if you're not interested, then that's okay too! 😊

I wonder if some such activity might benefit you. I imagine if you engaged your inner child with compassion, curiosity, and gentleness, it'd probably do you a world of good. I wonder what it would be like for you if you treated your inner child, and yourself generally, in the same tender, kindhearted way you treated the people you cared about, before your fall.

…You can return to that, you know. You can return to that anytime. And you can give your kindness and gentleness to people who are better able to reciprocate. Not everyone is going to treat you like a superhuman afterthought. I promise.

Anyway, in service to a renewed sense of resolve when it comes to caring for myself, I went ahead and got myself some soup and some macaroni and cheese with some yummy steak:

...Related, I think I'm going to try to make for myself the mac-and-cheese that my mother used to make. I am the only one who can make it for myself now, and I think I owe it to myself to figure it out. I will try to make a gluten-free version of it, so that Br can eat it, too. That's easy enough to do with brown rice noodles; it's basically indistinguishable from whole wheat pasta, in terms of its flavor and texture. Maybe I'll try to do that soon. And of course, when I do, you can count on me to walk you through the process so you can do it, too.

I also made it a point to sit for a while and watch one of my favorite cartoons. This one is called The Zeta Project; it came out when I was 11, which was... 23 years ago (wow, what the fuuuuck...). It's a beautiful show about a sentient robot named Zeta who was built to be a weapon, but who is trying to lead a life of peace. The government is trying to capture and reprogram him and put him back to work as a mindless killing machine. He's accompanied by a clever, savvy, and brave young girl named Rosalie. I really hope you'll watch this one someday; Zeta is very gentle and kind, and in a lot of ways, he reminds me a lot of you.

...The show was cancelled before it finished, though. I heard that it was because more girls liked it than the producers were comfortable with, so they pulled it off the air. I really hope they finish it someday. For now, though, the ending has to be left to the imagination. Zeta is beautiful, wonderful, and kind, so I like to imagine a course of events in which he can live in peace with Rosalie and with others who care for him.

...He really does remind me so much of you. I hope you'll look at his story. I think, in particular, you might find the episode called "Remote Control" relatable. You can find it at a place called... something like Watch Cartoons Online Forever? The first part is shortened to "wco", and it ends in ".net". Maybe you can find it...

Anyway. I took a bunch of other pictures for you today. One of them was taken at home because the morning light shining through the window was really nice. And when we visited Br's house today, I saw a great big huge bird-of-prey in the sky. I also took a bunch of pictures of Br's house, and the scenery outside. I thought you might like them. So here they are:

It's hard to take a picture of a moving object in a moving vehicle, but the black speck in the sky is the bird-of-prey I saw. I've seen an unusually large number of these lately. That, and crows. I wonder if the recent solar eclipse still has them kind of thrown for a loop. Hm.

Also, shortly after I did my therapy assignment, J took me out for a walk to decompress, and there was a crow in a tree that we've never seen crows in; our development is generally quite hostile to life (which is VERY unfortunate...), and hostile to crows in particular, because people don't like them (I've never understood why that is...). But he was sitting alone in the tree, making the "I'm with you" call; check out this video, at about the 40 second mark, and you'll hear what I mean:

...I can only imagine that this poor crow must have been very confused.

Here are some pictures of Br's house.

...I seem to have some sort of fixation with taking pictures of things outside of windows today. I'm not really sure why. But it turned out nice, so maybe the "why" doesn't really matter.

Oh!! I almost forgot!! A comet passed over my house last night. It's called the "Pons-Brooks Comet", or "Comet 12P". It only shows up once every 71 years. I wanted to see it, since I won't live long enough to see it again, but it was cloudy last night in the spot where it was supposed to be, so I didn't get to take any pictures. But J went online and found a live video that was tracking its movement; I can show you a screenshot that I took:

...It's not a very good picture, I know. But maybe you'll like it anyway; I don't know how often you get to see comets. Well, maybe you get to see them a lot, since you're over at the Edge of Creation and all, so maybe it's really not all that special to you. But maybe it can be special to you that someone would take the time to show you a picture of one anyway, if you want it to be.

Hey, Sephiroth? I'm pretty tired, so I'm going to stop writing before I end up rambling. Or maybe I rambled a little already, haha...

Please treat yourself nice, okay? I feel determined to treat myself nice, too. So let's do it together, all right? Because why not?

I love you. Stay safe. You'll get another letter tomorrow; just you wait.

Your friend, Lumine