#that's the majority of the posts on this blog really

[opbackgrounds]

Do you have any advice for anyone who’d want to get more serious about analyzing One Piece and writing for this manga? I’ve been getting back to it and realizing the extent of the quality of its writing, and want to participate in it more seriously. Thank you for all the great work you do !

Take your time reading. I queue up one chapter at a time for this blog and it usually takes me between 30 minutes to an hour to go through and write out all my thoughts. Some of this is me getting distracted or having to look things up, but to be thorough you need to take time to really ruminate on what’s being said, and how Oda is saying it

In that vein, it is helpful to have a basic familiarity with the text and a grasp of where to find things in the manga. I’ve read through the pre timeskip chapters a lot, so even if I don’t know exactly where a scene is for cross referencing, I know where to start looking. This eases frustration and makes things go faster, but is also helpful when looking for patterns. It’s a weakness of mine that I am less familiar with post time skip stuff, and you’ll notice I reference it less often. The knowledge of those arcs just does not take up the same amount of brain space

Take note of what words or phrases are repeated, either in the arc you’re reading or the manga as a whole. These are the things that are important to Oda and the story: pirates, dreams, treasure, living a life without regret, justice, freedom, history. Certain arcs will have themes unique to them, such as music in Skypiea, but usually this will somehow loop back into the overarching narrative, such as the ringing of the golden bell being the song of freedom that brings peace. Usually each arc will have a small piece of the puzzle regarding these large narrative beats, and putting them together will give you the Big Idea Oda is trying to convey

Do not overlook the artwork. Oda will often utilize visual motifs, which again can be divided into arc specific or the whole narrative: the sun that pops up in Arlong Park, Skypiea, and Thriller Bark; the masks of Water 7; the use of shadows in Skypiea. See how Oda gives certain moments weight by using bigger panels or what he’s emphasizing with how a page is laid out. In a visual medium like comics, the art is part of the text just as much as the actual words on the page.

Oda loves himself a good literary foil. For major villains (and some more minor ones) try to find out how Oda is contrasting them to both Luffy and the Major Supporting Character of the arc. This will almost always tie back to theme, and is utilized to explore the character of all parties involved. For example, Kuro and Usopp are both liars, but Usopp uses his lies to help Kaya whereas Kuro wants to kill her. Qualities like lying are not automatically seen as negatives in OP, but how said traits are used is more important. On the other hand, Luffy is a character who revels in his infamy, whereas Kuro wants to run away and hide. This goes back living life without regrets and what makes a true pirate. This back and forth dynamic shows up all the time, and if you can put your finger on what type of foil a character (usually a villain, but not always) is, you’ll understand what type of theme Oda is looking to build upon for that arc. A good shorthand for this is paying attention to who and what makes the protagonists (usually Luffy, but not always) angry, or if the antagonists use similar language to the protagonist but twist it to fit their nefarious purposes, like Kaido talking about Joyboy or Buggy’s idea of treasure during the Orang Town Arc.

Hope that helps, and know that deep analysis of any kind is a learned skill that takes time to get comfortable with. It is both a blessing and a curse that your unique experience will naturally lead you to notice and pay attention to different aspects of the manga than me or anyone else, meaning at the end of the day your reading of the text will be unique to you. I always ask myself what it is Oda is trying to convey with any given chapter, but that’s just one way of media analysis. For others Oda’s intent isn’t important to them, just the text itself. You’ll have to figure out how you want to tackle things, but it’s well worth it in my opinion.

[myloveonherknees]

What are your thoughts on the old posts coming out? Not asking in a malicious way I just want an outside perspective

oh god. i've been sitting on this for a while (& this blog runs off a queue, so i'm not On Here as frequently as my posts suggest), and what i think is worth saying has shifted over time. overall, my take is that it's very disappointing on several levels, especially the fan response.

before i get into it, please know that i think racism is bad. that's a statement few people will consciously disagree with, but it warrants saying nonetheless. i'm not interested in minimizing or excusing what was said (and if you feel compelled to do so in the notes of this post, it'll be removed). i'm not interested in making a case for why it's wrong, either – i don't think it's my place as an ethel cain fan blog to do anti-racism 101. because i think identity matters in discussions of racism, i'll share that i'm a mixed Indigenous person that looks white. centring those most impacted is appropriate in situations like these, and because the screenshots contained anti-Black slurs and anti-migrant rhetoric, that is not me. that's not meant to encourage people to be weird to fans who are directly impacted, it's more to encourage self-reflexivity in how people engage with this.

onto actually saying stuff – i'm sad the screenshots had to come from that weird transmisogynist ethel cain hate posse. i think the fact that it was them who leaked it ended up pulling focus in a way that feels slimy. i'm not sure how that could've been avoided, and i suppose it was only a matter of time before they did something that would warrant a public response. still, i think their other attempts at bad-jacketing hayden are/were less compelling than the curiouscat screenshots. the majority of those other criticisms (fetishization, paraphilias) exist at the intersection of transmisogynist rhetoric and bad-faith interpretations of the ethel cain project. i'm sad those criticisms get to be lumped together with condemning the racism displayed in those screenshots. i feel like some people really want hayden to be a victim in this scenario – and she is in some ways! – but that exclusive focus on how she's been victimized implicitly glosses over an objectively harmful thing (i.e. using slurs, being flippant about racism) she fully admitted to doing. i can understand the desire to "protect" an artist you like from what you feel is unfair criticism, but i think it's really vital to separate out the racism thing. you do not need to defend that, and it actively makes fan spaces hostile to BIPOC when you do so (and that is bad!)

semi-related to the above, i'm sad this situation has some ethel cain fans talking like fox news commentators. i promise that no one needs to do the work of defending or minimizing racism. no one needs to be using "woke" as a pejorative (it can also be appropriative when used positively, but that's a whole other conversation) nor does anyone need to wax poetic about how much they hate cancel culture. those are all socially conservative right-wing talking points, and i frankly resent them being entertained in a fan community i consider myself part of. morality aside (though i do think the morality of this situation matters), it is very embarrassing. i'm also noticing some cruelty directed at those who do find the racism included in those screenshots inexcusable, and i hate that. you do not need to call them/us oversensitive, nor do you need to lump them/us together with the transmisogynist hate campaign that originally dug up those screenshots. two things can be true at once: the people who brought those photos to the public are nasty little freaks, and people are valid in having negative thoughts/opinions on their content. again, i think separating out the racism here is important.

at the end of the day, i don't think there's one entirely correct "answer" to this – it's up to each person how they want to think about it and how they want to shape their engagement with the ethel cain project going forward. i will say that if you believe racism is bad (and i hope you do!) think long and hard about if your commentary on this situation tacitly minimizes what has occurred. in all honesty, i don't think there's a way to publicly discuss how "you'll never hate hayden" or whatever that doesn't read as racism apologia at some level. i don't think that's the intention people have in mind in making those statements, but it's the effect nonetheless. i'm unsure what to do with that, but there it is.

personally i don't have a strong sense of where i've landed with all this. i'm a person with fairly niche politics, so i don't feel the need to be morally or politically aligned with artists whose work i enjoy the way others might. no public figure is going to meet that standard for me. still, using slurs is a standard of politics/morality i think it is very easy for anyone to clear, so i'm disappointed in that respect. i'm unsure on how i feel about the statement. i'm also disappointed in the fan response it's generated. saying that, i don't have immediate plans to abandon what i'm doing here, but it's been less like... exciting or joyful, maybe? i will keep you posted on if that changes for me.

i think that's a good place to end this off. all my love to BIPOC ethel cain fans that have been hurt by this scenario, both the screenshots and the fan response ♡

[biblically-accurate-dca]

painting test with a limited color palette

here's the moon equivalent!

[aroaceleovaldez]

What is the PR disaster in question that made Rick announce TSATS? I wasn’t active in the online fandom at that point

Of course! This was awhile ago so it figures people don't remember it/aren't familiar:

Basically a couple years back (2020) the fandom had some posts circulate discussing the ways different characters in the Riordanverse were written poorly or offensively. There was a masterpost that went around tumblr but the two major points people were particularly focusing on were Piper and Samirah (particularly because Piper had featured prominently again in Trials of Apollo recently and the third MCGA book had further emphasized and discussed Samirah being Muslim, since it was supposed to take place during Ramadan). Basically each had multiple posts breaking down the ways they were depicted incorrectly or offensively. The entire fandom for a little bit was VERY intensely discussing this (and it's around this time the "RR crit" tag got very popularized on tumblr - it did exist before, but suddenly was being used VERY frequently - cause it was that wide-spread - though the discussion took over basically every side of Riordaverse social media on different platforms). People really wanted Rick to respond to these criticisms, so he did!

He made two blog posts, one about Piper and one about Samirah. He has since deleted both so the links are to archived versions. The short version: he essentially tried to justify his poor research and double-down that he hadn't written them offensively, actually, people were just being mean to him. The fandom, of course, reacted poorly to this.

[Further elaborated events under the cut since this got a bit lengthy]

(Fun fact, this all happened within a month or so of the time i posted an open letter on aphobic tropes in the Riordanverse that Rick replied to, and then he immediately followed with announcing that Reyna was intended to be ace-coded [which cause a LOT of fandom debate] before Rick dipped for a couple of weeks, and then came back to post the blog posts in response to Piper and Sam stuff. So I like to jokingly refer to this as "The time I imploded the fandom/drove Rick off of twitter." Twas I that set the house ablaze.)

Rick fully left social media after this and the LT Musical social media manager became Rick's social media manager for the time being.

So this all happened June/July of 2020. Tower of Nero would end up being published in October of 2020 and a few months after that Rick would state that he was done with the series and wouldn't be writing any more series installments involving Percy, and also that he wouldn't be writing a Nico quest following Tower of Nero as it "wasn't his place to" and encouraged the community to write their own versions of Nico's story.

The community continued to circulate the tumblr posts and discuss the topics of Rick's offensive character depictions, and this is also where we see the dramatic shift in how the fandom depicts Piper in fanwork (though in most cases it is admittedly not an improvement 😬) because of all this discussion. This is also around the time when the fandom brought Viria under scrutiny claiming that she was whitewashing Piper as part of the same discussions, through the justification that she was drawing Annabeth as having tan skin (which she does canonically), and if Annabeth has tanner skin then Piper then that's whitewashing Piper? Except they were using completely separate images of not fully rendered Piper art versus Annabeth in dramatic lighting, so it's all very awkward and poor logic, and did actually get kind of racist. A lot of people were calling it "Tannabeth Blackchase" (yeah, i know) or similar and a common sentiment you'd see repeated is "Don't draw Annabeth as having darker skin than Piper, because that's offensive/racist/whitewashing." (Note: it was not phrased "don't draw Piper as having lighter skin than Annabeth" - we also won't get into certain offensive depictions of Native Americans, but I digress). But yeah, the Annabeth stuff in all that did not age well at all.

Anyways, in October of 2021 however Rick would announce that he was co-writing The Sun And The Star - with a lot of heavy emphasis on how Mark Oshiro works as a sensitivity reader, and some false advertising from the official social media that Mark Oshiro was the first time a non-Riordan author would be collaborating on the series (disregarding the ghostwriters completely). One of the big criticisms in the breaking down of issues in Rick's writing was his lack of ever seeking a sensitivity reader, and fans claiming that a sensitivity reader could solve a lot of the problems. This was basically Rick's "look! I totally listened!!!!" (though it did little to actually improve things, based on the book) and in TSATS as well Piper gets a large cameo at the end where the text very directly addresses a lot of points made in criticism of Rick's writing of her.

We also then of course got the CoTG trilogy later, explicitly stated to be for advertising purposes for the show.

So basically, short version: Rick came under scrutiny for a lot of offensive writing within the span of two months, made some bad blog posts doubling down about it, left social media. TOA ends. Rick says he wasn't going to continue the series/write what would become TSATS. Community celebrates the end of of the franchise but also continues to discuss Rick's poor writing and the blog posts at length. Rick suddenly announces TSATS and Mark Oshiro's involvement. Everybody gets distracted from being mad. Show announcement stuff also happens and the discussions peter out.

[makowo]

i need pjeg chapter 2 or somehting bad is gonna happen

[leroibobo]

pictures from the old city of jerusalem's "african quarter", which comprises of ribat al-mansuri and ribat al-basiri. mamluks built the compounds in the late 13th century to house muslim pilgrims and the poor. ottomans used them as prisons, and the british closed the prisons when they occupied jerusalem in 1917. the ribats then came under the ownership of the islamic waqf, and were leased to the local afro-palestinian community.

afro-palestinians have an array of origins. like some other diaspora communities in palestine, some came through pilgrimage - al-aqsa was on their hajj path, and while many would visit to pray there, some decided to settle in jerusalem. there are also some who came to palestine enslaved or conscripted, most recently to ottomans. some came during the time of the british mandate, many as conscripted laborers to the british. afro-palestinians who can trace their ancestry do so to nigeria, chad, senegal, or sudan.

jerusalemite afro-palestinians were employed to guard al-aqsa throughout the ottoman period. during the 1948 palestine war, some joined the arab liberation army and fought with fellow palestinians to defend al-aqsa and their presence in jerusalem. the position of guards has been taken by occupation soldiers since the 1967 war, after which a quarter of the afro-palestinian population became refugees in surrounding countries.

jerusalem's afro-palestinian community still live in the compounds today, which also house the local african community society. (the door in the last picture is theirs.) afro-palestinians as a whole face the same legal, social, and economic restrictions and maltreatment as other palestinians, compounded with the same anti-black racism from israeli government and police which ethiopian jews and eritrean asylum seekers face, which result in a form of "passport racism" unique to them.

[anghraine]

I'm trying to redirect my political thoughts from my fandom escape blog again, but I found something interesting enough that I thought I'd talk a little about it.

Occasionally I choose suffering (looking at the more granular 2024 exit poll breakdowns rather than the summaries that I mostly don't trust much at this point). Anyway, I did find something intriguing, if not particularly surprising, in the CNN exit polls, which were done in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin with a sample size of 22,914 voters.

(I mention the specific states forming the sample because this pretty notably excludes any blue states while including some reliably Republican ones.)

Anyway, most exit polls including CNN's let respondents identify their place on the US political spectrum: conservative, moderate, or liberal (reminder that "liberal" in US usage can be a pejorative for "less leftist than me" but also a shorthand for "radical leftist" but also for "anyone who doesn't seek a cishet white Christian ethnostate", but also can be a more neutral synonym for progressives and/or leftists and is often used that way, as here). So you can look at the election results for each of these ideological factions and what share of the overall sample size they represent.

The interesting thing: this "liberal" category accounted for very similar proportions to 2020 of the overall vote in the sample (24% in 2020, 23% in 2024—a difference well within the margin of error of exit polling). There is no need to explain liberals/leftists staying home in 2024: at least in terms of proportions of the overall electorate, they didn't. Just under 1/4 of voters in 2024 were liberals or leftists, just as in 2020.

Okay, if the most leftwards faction of the US political spectrum actually formed a similar proportion of the electorate, then who did they vote for?

Harris. In CNN's own exit polls from 2020, 89% of this faction voted for Biden, and (surprisingly!) a full 10% voted for Trump. God knows what motivated that 10% Trump share after four years of his hellscape of an administration at the height of COVID, but in any case, that support cratered in 2024. 91% of this group voted for Harris and only 4% for Trump. It's an estimate, but it looks like these very peculiar Trump voters had enough of him in 2024 and around half either voted third party this time or for Harris.

So which faction is Trump's victory coming from? Further consolidation of the far right?

In part, yes! 90% of conservatives voted for Trump in 2024, vs 85% in 2020—likely, some conservatives who voted third party or even for Biden in 2020 came "home" this year. However, conservative turnout was actually a little down in 2024, proportionally speaking: conservatives dropped from 38% of the sample in 2020 to 34% in 2024.

But there's one more major faction in all this: "moderates" or centrists. To be clear, we're talking about the US version of centrism, given that this is a US organization polling US voters about US politicians, not "Bernie would be center-right in Denmark" or whatever. This moderate faction jumped from 38% of the overall sample in 2020 to 42% in 2024, and they swung hard towards Trump, though Harris still won a plurality of them. In 2020, 64% of moderates voted for Biden vs 34% for Trump. In 2024, 57% of them voted for Harris vs 40% for Trump—that is, the Democratic lead among centrists dropped precipitously from +30 to +17.

Tl;dr—ideologically speaking, this data suggests that Trump owes his victory to gains among both right-wing and centrist voters rather than some faction of would-be leftists or progressives apathetically staying home or voting third-party or otherwise deserting Democrats (because they're insufficiently radical or for any other reason).

Oh, and if you're curious as to how this compares to CNN's 2016 exit polls, I also checked those! Harris's 84-point lead among the most leftwards faction is a significant improvement from HRC's 74-point lead in 2016. Trump also got 10% of that group in 2016, as in 2020, so it's this campaign—not Hillary's or Biden's—that managed to eat into whatever the hell is going on with that group.

Harris's +17 with moderates is actually a slight improvement on Hillary's +12 in 2016. Biden's jump to a +30 lead among centrists in 2020 represented either a backlash against Trump from centrists, or Biden's own rapport with that group, or some mysterious issue some of those voters had with both HRC and Harris (I wonder what it could be!!), or some combination thereof. Regardless, there are a lot of actual ideologically centrist voters in the USA and not just would-be leftists who haven't heard the good news of Marx yet. And Trump has an iron grip on the right wing at this point: he beat Hillary with conservatives by +65 in 2016, then beat Biden with an even larger margin of +71, then leapt to a 81-point lead over Harris with right-wing voters this year.

[every-sanji]

[fancyshooting]

r3volv3r oc3lot

[ironicsoap]

you are expendable, you are not expected to return

[bearotonin-international]

Hey, I love this blog, but it does feel a bit irresponsible to be sharing a video where a human is performing extremely dangerous and somewhat sketchy behaviors with wild animals. I went looking for info and could only find that tiktok and don't have the mental energy to parse through all of that to find out if that place is even legit (the way he handles interacting with the ostrich and bears make me doubt). And looking through the tags, the video is showing the false idea of domestication of wild creatures.

I just wanted to share my concerns since I don't usually see videos like this come across my dash unless they're being critiqued cause of who I choose to follow. :c

hi friend. This person works at some kind of animal sanctuary and is a trained professional. Also, if you actually listen to the video, he explains that he doesn’t interact with the animals (the brown bears) that he didn’t raise and doesn’t fully know and trust their behavior, because it is dangerous.

also the video literally has the text in it that says clearly “Do Not Attempt” because this man is a trained professional who works with wild animals for a living and is NOT encouraging people to treat wild animals as if they are domestic and safe to touch

the team is dedicated to posting responsible and ethical bear programming, and can be trusted to vet our posts. we do not require any additional assistance, thank you.

friends, we would like to take this time to gently point out that coming into someone’s asks with unsolicited ‘advice’ or ‘concerns’ about the way they run their blog is actually an etiquette no no and generally not something that’s in any way appreciated. We’ve been getting a fair few of these types of ‘helpful suggestion’ asks lately, and would like to remind people that this is not something the team particularly appreciates, especially when there isn’t a fully factual or correct basis. While your intentions may be harmless or well-meaning, it doesn’t mean that you should unsolicitedly share your opinions directly in people’s inbox and ask them to change the content they post on their blog.

this is not an indictment of this person or this ask, but a general reminder to everyone. and we shouldn’t have to specify, but unfortunately feel we must say that there is never permission to go harass anyone involved in this ask. If you don’t agree with something, just ignore it and move on. There will be no unkind words said on or in response to this post, friends.

[aglionbyacademia]

“glimpse of an anxiety riddled mind” installation 2024 janell richter

Do NOT repost

[kryptonbabe]

The lobotomy of Gears, Megatron's most heinous crime and the tyranny of the majority: an unnecessary socio-historical perspective of a Transformers episode

As I was watching Changing Gears, the 7th episode of the second season of The Transformers I was not expecting to be sucked into a black hole that took me to 20th century psychiatry, democracy criticism and minorities rights. And well, I just needed to put this out there, if nothing else to show how media can affect us in different ways, this was my personal Transformers journey of the day.

The episode revolves around Megatron's plan to remove the personality modulator of the Autobot Gears and use it in his evil sun draining machine, the details are not important, what matters is that Gears personality is fundamentally changed without the engine stolen, and his uptight and irritated personality, turned from this:

To that:

I don't think it's a long shot to understand this change of behavior as something very similar to the effects of the lobotomy treatment that was popular in 20th century psychiatry. This type of brain surgery is defined by the severance of the connections between the frontal lobe and the rest of the brain. "Often, the procedure made people quiet and docile, which they interpreted as a sign of success" - according to MNT. Which is exactly what happens to Gears without his personality modulator.

This is a Sylvia Plath dialogue with a lobotomized patient from her 1950s novel The Bell Jar. And Gears "perpetual marble calm". This excerpt came to my mind because that book along with a couple of movies made me (almost irrationally) scared of these kind of procedures when I was younger. By being underage (back then), depressed and gay I thought I was a perfect victim for invasive, radical ways of making me "normal". Times changed of course, but back then disabled people, the LGBTQ+, women and others with a "strange behavior" were the main targets for lobotomy.

When Ironhide sees Gears transformation from irritable runt to docile servant he is appalled, disgusted...

LOL

How dare Megatron turn Gears into that? Removing the agency and liberty of an individual while keeping them alive, Megatron was way out of line, right? However... by the end of the whole conflict, a complex moral twist takes place among the good guys, the Autobots, when Trailbreaker admits:

Here, Trailbreaker position is reminiscent of that of husbands who would approve of the docile behavior of their wives after the lobotomy surgery. Particularly in a time where women were expected to be calm, cooperative and attentive to domestic affairs. Also I hate the fact that Bumblebee calls that calm behavior "photovoltaic pussycat" because that sounds cool, but in that case it's terrible, stop trying to make debilitating procedures cool Bumblebee! This interaction quickly took me to some dark places, a place where your loved ones can choose how you should behave, a place where you have no choice but to conform to a social expectation, making others lives easier while turning you into a limited being. Maybe not the place where the writers of this kid's tv show wanted to take their audience, I'm aware, but regardless, that's where I ended up, for a while.

They vote and decide to keep Gears without his personality modulator, and Prime agrees:

With this sentence Optimus perfectly synthesizes the concept of majoritarianism in the way of perpetrating the tyranny of the majority. "If the majority rules, what is to stop it from expropriating the minority, or from tyrannizing it in other ways by enforcing the majority's religion, language, or culture on the minority?" (Oxford Dictionary). In that case, Gears had his rights to keep his behavior and personality removed from him by a democratic rule. That reminds us that democracy as a political system is not without its flaws. If the majority agrees on it, does that make it immediately a right or good decision?

Luckily Gears interferes, with a threat that sounds both violent and vague at the same time, a nice touch of writing for a kid's show:

Never change Gears, nothing wrong with a little threat of violence to guarantee your rights to be your own person.

After his threat the Autobots listen to Gears, respect his wishes and Prime just gives his personality modulator back, after that they all laugh!

And honestly... I think they're happier with Gears just the way he always were, grumpy and irritated, but his true self, look at their smiling faces!

At the end of the day this episode's moral is probably: Hey kids, if they're not evil, accept your loved ones for who they are. Let's keep lobotomy procedures in the past and learn to respect our differences based on our deeply flawed history. At least, that's my, admittedly, very specific take on it...

I know this episode took me places and reminded me of old fears and thoughts I didn't have for a while, but it felt good to organize and share these ideas. Thanks for reading it.

[violetsareblue-selfships]

good morning!!! <333

[cookies-after-dark]

Hey want some hurt to comfort stuff I got based off the idea of black sapphire thinking of ruining y/n's life in that one post? Well had an idea:

Imagine if y/n was already depressed before meeting them...and already isolated, alone, bad thoughts...no rumors spread about them and stuff but just say y/n doesn't like looking themselves in the mirror...cue shadow milk one day plucking them up and black sapphire meets them too and notices how y/n is already broken...wonder how black sapphire would react to that lol...a depressed reader lol!

Uh well. I will be honest with you anon, depression has a very heavy connotation to it and this is mostly an unserious porn blog; any heavy topics I talk about (toxic relationships, unhealthy dynamics, everything about yandere) is done in a sexual manner. I'm willing to write about fluff and comfort but I don't think this is the place to talk about straight up depression (at least I'M not really comfortable writing about mental disorders/mental illnesses on a porn sideblog).

Sorry about that, just my personal boundary.

[daily-whistlebreeze]

I'd like to quickly say something as my blog keeps on growing and inspires new daily blogs. Never in any way shape or form compare yourself to what I have been doing here for the last four years. It isn't good for you, I am too much of an outlier to be a good comparison point.

I began drawing Whis every day in a time where I needed something to hold onto and by some luck I had a perfect moment every single day after dinner to draw my whis for the day. It has become a key piece of my daily routine, nearly the only thing I will know for sure I'll do. This isn't something easy to achieve and honestly stiffens me a bit for other activities, but I have grown so attached to Whis that I gladly take this responsibility. Daily Whis is my job and I enjoy it (usually)

I've been going at it for four years now, but it hasn't always been smooth for me either. Outside circumstances (like exams) or my dwindling mental health have at many points forced me to skip days or really plan ahead to have Whisses prepped in advance (I tell you, when I went to Greece for a good 11 days last year, I was working overtime to have all the Whisses I needed for the trip).

Sometimes I do just want to skip a day because I'm too tired or distracted by another thing and it's fine. I only make it a problem for myself because I have this daily gimmick and an anniversary to celebrate every year, but most daily blogs don't have such strict constraints and that's good.

These blogs are supposed to be fun. It is fun to draw a specific character/thing every day, it is especially rewarding if you can hold onto it for a little while and see how you've grown since you started. Day 1 of daily Whis looks so less good compared to my recent art, but it's incredible to be able to look back at all the progress I've made in the four years I've been at it. But in all, this is just supposed to be fun, art is supposed to be fun and these blogs are never an obligation to hold onto. I've managed it, but through a collision of circumstances so unlikely and specific that it's really a miracle I'm still working.

Doing it daily is a good challenge, it forces you to try and keep a stricter schedule on the drawings you want to post. It teaches you time management (usually. Be aware that sometimes you'll still start pieces that are a bit too big half an hour before posting time. Or at least I do), drawing every day improves your skills by practicing a little every day and is just fun. Sometimes you really need to just draw the character standing there and it's amazing you can just do that and share it with people who will enjoy it.

But doing it daily is still challenge and not something your life depends on. Not everyone has the time to manage a daily blog, it does take an hour out of every day where you could be doing something else, or you don't have access to your art equipment (I've downloaded an art program on my phone to make quick 5 minute doodles for those days I'm away from my computer when it's posting time, but nobody should be forced to do this) or life just gets in the way damnit.

So I want everyone to know I feel so incredibly honored to be the source of inspiration for other daily blogs to begin, but please do not force yourself to draw if you're not feeling inspired or well or you don't have the time or literally any other reason and please, if those reasons do come in the way don't feel guilty about it. Draw while the joy is there and if you want to challenge yourself by doing a daily, absolutely do so, but take care of yourself and just focus on what's enjoyable and that isn't the same for everyone.