#who reads this

[third-half]

2023 Self Check

Honestly, having an overall middling year where most of my troubles were my brain’s fault was kind of a breath of fresh air. Being out of commission for most of last year with a fucked up knee at least got me thankful every morning I can get up and walk around without a brace or cane. I don’t really agree with the doctors and my Dad that I’m “young” but I’m apparently still young enough I can heal. That said, I’m kind of let down in myself for letting depression and laziness get the best of me like, worse than usual this year. It hit kind of hard when sitting back and going through old archives of content and realizing that:

Sketch-A-Day was 2015 Eishi and Dixie was before that Revolver Knight ran from 2005-2008 or 2009

Meaning I’d basically failed to really deliver on any of the series/game/etc ideas I’d pitched from 2016 onward with the arguable exception of the dungeon crawler card game’s first version. If anyone was curious as to whether I’d touched on some of that stuff in the meantime the status of my Things right now is:

Angel Dust (The Gatty Thing)- Pretty much axed, as much as I love the character, it was kind of turning into edge for edge’s sake. The thing about Gatty Ling is I’ve had the idea of an erratic, destructive but adorable and well meaning character kicking around for ages but she’s kind of just a blank slate beyond those traits and I’ve tried to plunk her into like three completely unrelated settings with different origins. I was also attempting to kind of do a distinct art… sub…style with her stuff closer to a moe VN look, really pump up the cute to make the dark stuff pop, but well, Madoka already exists and the last iteration was basically Madoka with Robots. I probably wouldn’t rule it out forever but I’ve kind of been using some bits and pieces of the setting to flesh out the Plane Girls Thing

Revolver Knight Reload- I got like three pages into drawing a complete remake of my old webcomic, but kind of got cold feet from a combination of things. I didn’t think I was ready to take on another gigantic long form story, though I promise that the new version was *MUCH* more refined. Like Gatty, I wouldn’t say it’s *impossible* I mess with this, but I think I might look into something closer to a light novel with spot illustrations than a full on comic in the interest of like, finishing before I die.

Critical Heaven (The plane girl thing)- Still active, but having a bit of an identity crisis. It began as a ‘skirmish’ tabletop wargame then I got to thinking about it as more of a shmup-inspired duel game. The format of tabletop/print is also kind of iffy because I know people would be more likely to play it digitally and I have like, zip experience putting a substantial game project together. There’s also a more or less complete ‘campaign’ jotted half in my head and half in my notepad (putting it in a game with multiple endings would save me from deciding which ending to give it, hmmm.) But in short, yeah this is still being picked at.

Irrgarten (The Dungeon Card Thing)- I know I lead off with kind of the downer limbo thing but I’ve actually not totally abandoned this, definitely not the setting. Surprise, Radona is from this world! Really, I could probably bring this back pretty easily by revising the original game rules, the biggest issue we ran into play testing was that items didn’t ‘feel’ very valuable- characters were strong enough on their own not to need them. Maybe I can bump this up in priority.

There are probably other story ideas I’ve mentioned over the years and not followed up on, but characters from axed stuff do tend to surface in other projects if I’m attached enough to them. If there are any particular things that you enjoyed my work in or reading about in the past, do let me know. I’ve had a hard time motivating myself, so a nudge wouldn’t be a bad thing about now. Next year, I would really like to put more effort into having a regular “thing” to work on, maybe I’ll bring back some gag comics. Definitely plan to do more drawing in general because drawing one decent thing then going radio silent for two weeks leads to needing to de-rust like, every time. I’m a creature very vulnerable to inertia.

So, no promises here, but my goals going into 2024:

Put some time into practicing more ‘dynamic’ content like simple animation and game design since I have like three game making programs sitting around

Regular art posting, with a focus on improving quality and speed

Minding my health more since it’s easier to be active when there’s less of me to move

Establish a more regular streaming schedule since it helps me trim down my backlog

This kind of turned into more navel gazing than I had planned to be doing, but I thought this was a good time to touch base on some things since I’m back to posting here… well, okay, ‘regularly’ is a stretch, but there are a lot of things I’ve brought up before and not followed up on in a long time. If anyone has still been reading this- thank you, truly. I hope that with a bit more focus and less dwelling on the gnawing darkness in my gut, we can have some fun here again.

Oh, yeah, by the way- also been kicking around a top X games list I may get to posting soon, but may save for New Years Eve.

[omegaverse-anesthesiologist]

why is ao3 is blocked on the hospital wifi????

[yeehawpim]

a comic about fix-it fanfics

[bookwyrminspiration]

I can behave normally around books

[bamsara]

"youve already written that trope" yesss. i like it a lots. i will be writing it again. 1000 stories of the same trope over and over again for ten million years

[justnoodlefishthings]

The way people demonize seagulls is actually unreal. Almost all of their natural habitat has been destroyed (almost all coastal areas have been developed, destroying natural sand dune ecosystems) and they're doing their best to adapt. They're literally just trying to survive. You're in their home. The vitriol some people have for these gorgeous sea birds just because they're not shy about snatching food if you're not cautious is insane

[beepboopappreciation]

Is this anything

[shoomlah]

I have a feeling that beneath the little halo on your noble head There lies a thought or two the devil might be interested to know You're like the finish of a novel that I'll finally have to take to bed You fascinate me so

You Fascinate Me So, Blossom Dearie

[m3djed]

"he would not fucking say that" but you ever be looking at fanart and suddenly its "he would not fucking have abs"

[carlyraejepsans]

"speak for yourself" make your own post❤️

[christadeguchi]

women………….. | DOROHEDORO

(by the way. this is noi.)

[doyouknowthisdragartist]

"what's the appeal of drag kings" because women are my favorite guy next question

[juiche]

a moment of peace before the whole world shatters 😇

get your own print here ❤️

[venator-signum]

the pjo fandom on tumblr vs tiktok is so funny cause we've all (or most of us) have already read the entire series, we know what's going to happen so we can see the parallels and the tragedy behind it but on tiktok???

they're in love with Luke

they think he's so kind and nice and its wonderful he's percy's friend, there's no way that he'd be evil - I've seen theories that annabeth is going to be the one who betrays percy (prior to ep4)

the tonal shift is insane and I can't wait to see all these first time viewers lose their fucking minds

[ciderbird]

academic bias is so funny because you’ll be reading about the same historical event and one person is like “Despite the troubles that befell his homeland and near constant criticism of the court King Blorbo remained strong in the face of adversity” and the other one is like “after letting his people carry the brunt of his cringefail decisions Blorbo the Shitface refused to listen to any reason and continued to be a warmongering piece of shit. Also he was ugly.”

[ered]

Here’s my take on the whole audio books vs. reading:

Oral tradition of storytelling predates written ones by millennias, and honestly, which one you like is just a personal preference.

The actual difference is

when listening, you have no idea how to write characters’ names

when reading, you have no idea how to pronounce characters’ names

hope this helps!