#what's left if i stop huh

[sleepsucks]

Hi! i rlly enjoy ur comics! howd u got started doing diary comics and what keeps you motivated to draw them?

Hey thanks a lot !

when i started i was mainly inspired by cooler people than me doing similar things;

Boulet's blog , not daily and in a pretty different vibe, still already made me think making comics about your life could be cool & funny (tbh autobio comics blogs were pretty popular on the french internet in general at the time & there were many more of them, but i didn't dig enough back then so boulet was my main ref )

@lucieebrey's Muggy Ebes daily comic diary at the time was absolutely my main inspiration ( and tbh i've ended up drifting towards her style evenmore over the years, square-format often-4-panelled animal-headed schmuck type )( absolutely not a bad thing but i hope im not ripping it off too much huuuh )

(her blog is a recent new one and doesn't have those comics, but you can see a sample of them on her website ! )

very similarly, @kochalka's American Elf is a massive classic of the genre, big inspiration for lucie ebrey in the first place too i believe (and many others), and while i'm not sure i knew those when i got started i found & read them afterwards and they def fed into it

as for MOTIVATION oof huh;

i honestly don't know anymore how i did it when i started, it was in hopes of getting better & making something then, so i had enough motivation to fuel it going in, and probably forced myself a bit extra to set the habit. (if you wanted to start a similar daily project, i think it's really mostly about powering through the first few weeks or months ! after that it sorta becomes a background thing)

but now ?? it's honestly mainly the habit, as well as an arguably unhealthy approach to it : now that i'm that far in i'm both used to doing it AND really don't want to break the streak. not really thinking about it too much anymore AND unwilling to consider stopping

also a pinch of "currently i'm and have been in a big dump creatively and this is the last real project-type thing i have going and i HAVE to hold on to it"

I wish i had a cool answer about how these are very meaningful and important to me and a huge part of how i see the world and i keep drawing them for that kinda cool reasons but HONESTLY i'm just not that deep.

i'm making those because i do & i'm somehow not done yet

( to be more positive about it it's also just neat to do most times and i still have an absurd amount of progress to make still so who knows where it could go when i can manage to start evolving again. i'd like to see )

[inkskinned]

the thing about art is that it was always supposed to be about us, about the human-ness of us, the impossible and beautiful reality that we (for centuries) have stood still, transfixed by music. that we can close our eyes and cry about the same book passage; the events of which aren't real and never happened. theatre in shakespeare's time was as real as it is now; we all laugh at the same cue (pursued by bear), separated hundreds of years apart.

three years ago my housemates were jamming outdoors, just messing around with their instruments, mostly just making noise. our neighbors - shy, cautious, a little sheepish - sat down and started playing. i don't really know how it happened; i was somehow in charge of dancing, barefoot and laughing - but i looked up, and our yard was full of people. kids stacked on the shoulders of parents. old couples holding hands. someone had brought sidewalk chalk; our front walk became a riot of color. someone ran in with a flute and played the most astounding solo i've ever heard in my life, upright and wiggling, skipping as she did so. she only paused because the violin player was kicking his heels up and she was laughing too hard to continue.

two weeks ago my friend and i met in the basement of her apartment complex so she could work out a piece of choreography. we have a language barrier - i'm not as good at ASL as i'd like to be (i'm still learning!) so we communicate mostly through the notes app and this strange secret language of dancers - we have the same movement vocabulary. the two of us cracking jokes at each other, giggling. there were kids in the basement too, who had been playing soccer until we took up the far corner of the room. one by one they made their slow way over like feral cats - they laid down, belly-flat against the floor, just watching. my friend and i were not in tutus - we were in slouchy shirts and leggings and socks. nothing fancy. but when i asked the kids would you like to dance too? they were immediately on their feet and spinning. i love when people dance with abandon, the wild and leggy fervor of childhood. i think it is gorgeous.

their adults showed up eventually, and a few of them said hey, let's not bother the nice ladies. but they weren't bothering us, they were just having fun - so. a few of the adults started dancing awkwardly along, and then most of the adults. someone brought down a better sound system. someone opened a watermelon and started handing out slices. it was 8 PM on a tuesday and nothing about that day was particularly special; we might as well party.

one time i hosted a free "paint along party" and about 20 adults worked quietly while i taught them how to paint nessie. one time i taught community dance classes and so many people showed up we had to move the whole thing outside. we used chairs and coatracks to balance. one time i showed up to a random band playing in a random location, and the whole thing got packed so quickly we had to open every door and window in the place.

i don't think i can tell you how much people want to be making art and engaging with art. they want to, desperately. so many people would be stunning artists, but they are lied to and told from a very young age that art only matters if it is planned, purposeful, beautiful. that if you have an idea, you need to be able to express it perfectly. this is not true. you don't get only 1 chance to communicate. you can spend a lifetime trying to display exactly 1 thing you can never quite language. you can just express the "!!??!!!"-ing-ness of being alive; that is something none of us really have a full grasp on creating. and even when we can't make what we want - god, it feels fucking good to try. and even just enjoying other artists - art inherently rewards the act of participating.

i wasn't raised wealthy. whenever i make a post about art, someone inevitably says something along the lines of well some of us aren't that lucky. i am not lucky; i am dedicated. i have a chronic condition, my hands are constantly in pain. i am not neurotypical, nor was i raised safe. i worked 5-7 jobs while some of these memories happened. i chose art because it mattered to me more than anything on this fucking planet - i would work 80 hours a week just so i could afford to write in 3 of them.

and i am still telling you - if you are called to make art, you are called to the part of you that is human. you do not have to be good at it. you do not have to have enormous amounts of privilege. you can just... give yourself permission. you can just say i'm going to make something now and then - go out and make it. raquel it won't be good though that is okay, i don't make good things every time either. besides. who decides what good even is?

you weren't called to make something because you wanted it to be good, you were called to make something because it is a basic instinct. you were taught to judge its worth and over-value perfection. you are doing something impossible. a god's ability: from nothing springs creation.

a few months ago i found a piece of sidewalk chalk and started drawing. within an hour i had somehow collected a small classroom of young children. their adults often brought their own chalk. i looked up and about fifteen families had joined me from around the block. we drew scrangly unicorns and messed up flowers and one girl asked me to draw charizard. i am not good at drawing. i basically drew an orb with wings. you would have thought i drew her the mona lisa. she dragged her mother over and pointed and said look! look what she drew for me and, in the moment, i admit i flinched (sorry, i don't -). but the mother just grinned at me. he's beautiful. and then she sat down and started drawing.

someone took a picture of it. it was in the local newspaper. the summary underneath said joyful and spontaneous artwork from local artists springs up in public gallery. in the picture, a little girl covered in chalk dust has her head thrown back, delighted. laughing.

[ganondoodle]

i really like tumblr bc despite its reputation i get way less annoying people being clowns on my posts on tiwtter i can mention literally anything i dont like about totk and you bet theres some guy that either gets really salty about me not worshipping the game like a god that can do no wrong or straight up get mad about what they IMAGINED i said

[lanayrutower]

this keeps me up at night btw.

[carcarrot]

OH MY GOD A YEAR AGO TODAY .

[mlm-blues]

HAIRY FUCKING ARMS!!! the crowd goes wild

[inkats]

having a crush is like poison status effect whenever u have to think.

[invinciblerodent]

(oh, i should not be trying to playfully weigh in on a "who's your LEAST favorite companion?" post, it starts off lighthearted and then it makes me go on my Fenris-rant again)

[keeps-ache]

why's all the colorful stuff always in the kids' options oTL

[pipperoo]

the kudos to hits ratio is the devil, but i can’t help but calculate it constantly

(not fun, do not recommend)

[lovinggreeniehours]

(kicking my feet) what if i sprinkle some renachrome angst in that vision chrome gets in chapter 11 hidden story

[oidheadh-con-culainn]

i do think it's kind of funny that ao3 seems to have made a blanket change to all the "mythology" tags to make them "religion and lore" (not a good change) EXCEPT the "arthurian mythology" tag, which remains intact despite a Number of people trying to get that one reworked or at least different wrangled for ages. they're like "we're taking mythology away from all the contexts where it might be applicable. and leaving it in the context where it's dubious. this is a sensible change"

[danielnelsen]

well i guess i can play bg3 now, assuming it finishes downloading sometime in the next 2 months

[lovevalley45]

so i’ve been rereading ‘magnus chase and the hammer of thor’ as of late n like. obv fierrochase was one of my forever first ships (along with jefferchase ofc) but i was reading like “oh i didn’t remember that alex also mentioned liking hiking i can’t believe i never wrote a fic abt that” and now my ass is sitting here like. i cannot be writing fierrochase fanfic in 2024

[moonlightperseus]

my god is this unfinished fic i wrote when i was fourteen actually... good?

[astromechs]

al ewing did not work this hard to bring gotg back to pre-mcu synergy days for y'all to wipe out everything he did and take it right back there