#I managed to do so many things..!

[konveeart]

I thought last year I made the Art Summary post in January but I played myself. Anyways, Happy New Year!

I figured in early 2023 that I have a difficulty differentiating "want" with "have to". It's a real piece of tangle that became alarmingly obvious in the last months, between end-September to spectacularly turn into an aggressively-flashing-sign in December. I found more balance than I ever have to this date in the first half and by losing it in the second I can confirm what made it work, which is a big win. I am entering 2024 determined, carrying my worries and feeling nervous, but I don't feel desperate. At least, not in art..! For the future.. the pov might heavily rely on my dopamine levels and Vitamin D deficiency.

I drew a lot this year! The difference between sketching and drawing/painting grows in my folders but I've consistently for 2 years kept a "warmup" folder which also grows with a satisfactory level of diligence and fun. I taught myself to draw decent hands (still struggling when they are closed or.. doing more things than fingers being spread-out to show "I am a hand"). I also did a lot of new things!

::Quick Summary

January: launched an enamel pin ks campaign || February: drew a lot of アキ天, zine work & made my first home-made sticker-sheets🍓|| March & April: chibi-style exploration, SK8 sticker-sheets, sketchbook challenge and campaigned another special-merch collaborative project (」*´∇｀)」 || May: Convention time! ..and final zine work for the year (￣▽￣)ゞ || June & July: busy with the ks & packing orders || August: r e s t ♥ (with the best beans! I miss you all!!) || September: revisions, file-sorting, wrap-up commissions, picking up my projects again || October: online-shop run, comic-drafting, life gets busy || November: life is on fire, paperwork, learning to study (and succeeding) but getting tired, trying my best to keep on drawing!! || December: burnout caught up, Christmas cards give me life (*˘︶˘*).｡.:*♡, escaped to the mountains, pet a lot of cats

Thank you for an adventurous year 🌱 Wishing everyone all the best for the coming one ♥

Fun facts:

I've done a decent amount of work for myself and I plan on doing more! I keep having the difficulty of working out some boundaries for myself but it's improving.

This is not a resolution but if by the end of the year I have not sorted out my files, that's it I'm deleting them...! (bold statement)

Feb-Mar-April I discovered The Pudding Club and GOON and their music gave me so much energy! This is one of my favorite songs and makes me do a little dance every time I hear it~

What steadily led me to burn-out by December was denying myself wind-down time, daily, for four months (if not more). I remember feeling anxious in Jan - April for making so much work and still going. "Can it really be this good? Is this normal??". But the seedling sprouted and I took good care of it, despite my worries. I intend to keep taking care of it with more diligence. Sleep and food are necessities, and so is play.

[delicourse]

Another year, Another lesbian pride gown moment🌸

[nikonuee]

SVSSS AU where due to dimension shenanigans Shang Qinghua gets to meet alternative versions of himself. Including notable figures such as Original Flavour SQH and the SQH who did take the rock route when he first met MBJ :)) OG!SQH is much more proper and peak-lordy looking then our local hamster and is just so so grossed out by the demon loving SQH's. Why on Earth is a version of himself Married to Mobei-Jun? and the other one is fawning over him too! Like you willing chose to be into that fucking thing? at least one of them managed to kill the demon...

Meanwhile Rock-hua (Who is much more scarred and physically inclined since he didn't have a MBJ to call on whenever he got into trouble) is looking at Mobei-Jun like "Ah, it's nice to see him again, especially with his head in one piece :))"

Mobei-Jun is very conflicted about everything that's going on.

[turtleblogatlast]

I love Raph and haven’t said that enough so to be more specific I love that Raph is a soft boy who loves bear plushies, a gross boy who eats an assortment of things that are definitely better left alone, a smart boy who is more than capable of taking down villains through planning and fortitude alike, a strong boy who is dedicated to training his muscles and fighting prowess, a teenage boy who loves his brothers but is more than happy to tease and roughhouse with them, an angry boy who sometimes lets his anger take a hold of him to cover the fear, a gentle boy who is generous with hugs and affirmations to those he loves, a capable boy who takes on more than should ever be expected of a teenager, a good boy who just wants to be a hero and slowly comes to realize the cost of that duty, a good boy who has no reservations about putting himself in the way of harm coming to his family, a good boy who’s a great brother and son and person and deserves only the best the world has to offer.

[tubbytarchia]

I just wanted to draw this cool pose but then it turned into a color study. Uh this video changed my life

[sweeneydino]

Teehee.

[yeonjune]

Yeonjun about the strain he felt while preparing for his debut solo project ✙ "GGUM" MAKING FILM

[swampthingking]

andrew’s definitely gotten in trouble with his pr manager for tweeting things along the lines of:

“no mania inducing medication will compare to the euphoria i will feel the day donald trump drops dead”

[orumoru]

Minimum wage au what do we think chat

[kennethbrangh]

JOHN TURTURRO as IRVING BAILIFF

Severance | 2.04 Woe's Hollow

[napping-sapphic]

love normal daytime yearning that’s like i need to share so much joy and happiness so i can love this life with another person☺️ and then nighttime yearning comes in with its haunted ass voice echoing in your head like i NEED to love someone so much that it gives me a reason to save myself

[ratsinspats]

vox in some of my outfits because i have a lot of silly clothes and thought he’d look like a dork and i was not disappointed. i wear a lot of dangly earrings and wanted to give him earrings but i wasn’t sure how to do that so. antenna caps?

inspired by this post!

[vaguely-concerned]

bunter keeping peter from being swallowed up by an evil bog with the kind of hysterical strength otherwise only known by mothers deadlifting cars to save their tender babes is something that can actually be so personal

[beedreamscape]

This has to be the last thing I say on C3 finale because otherwise, I will not stop, it simply baffles me in its mediocrity. And obviously, this will be negative, if you loved it, good for you, this is my takeaway as someone who loved this campaign and was severely let down.

This finale changes everything that came before and not for good, better yet, it emphasizes all the faults in the structure of what c3 tried to be, it made most of the campaign feel like a true exercise in futility — How far can we go in a campaign that is meandering and unsatisfying? How long can we have the same discussion over and over and over again despite everyone knowing how this will end? How long can we drag out characters that don't change without anyone noticing? (spoiler everyone noticed)

Can't say I was emotionally invested in the finale because I tapped out back in the 70s, came back for Aeor/Downfall shenanigans, and left again. But in experiencing the finale something became clear to me:

THIS STORY NEEDED TO BE SHORTER.

WITH ANOTHER PARTY AT THE HELM.

If the objective from the very conception of C3 was to wipe out the gods, that had to be clear from the very start. And it wasn't clear, at all — not in the characters, not in the starting city, not in theme. This was a completely different campaign at the start! That clarity was what made Calamity so great, it was short and precise, and every pc SERVICED THE THEME, filled with hubris and contempt, not to mention the setting.

Even Ludinus went in circles for convenience of the campaign length and became a weaker opponent for it, more of a nuisance than a villain. The threat he posed at episode 50 was much stronger than now at 120 something. The battle against Otohan was more nail-biting and emotionally engaging than fighting Ludinus and Predathos, a god eater!!!!

This campaign would've benefited from three to four acts instead of one overarching objective like the past campaigns because urgency is the name of the game and we can't carry urgency for 70 episodes straight (and they didn't).

The constant inclusion of the other parties made it clear how easy it was to detach BH from the story, how easy and fun it was for them to tell it through another party's eyes (one of the main reasons why I walked away back when I did, but that's more of a personal preference).

Which is not to say Bells Hell's didn't deserve a long story! They could very well have existed in a more intimate campaign which these characters were clearly built for! Their premises begged for closer looks in slow moments, something tragicomical, exploration of the inner world while developing MARQUET and its microcosm of injustice and politics which was left in the dust mid-campaign (pun intended).

And I'm not suggesting this just for our enjoyment, I know it's them playing and their enjoyment comes first blah blah, though this is a multi-million company therefore their jobs but this would contribute to their enjoyment! You could see several moments in the campaign how tapped out they felt and acted. I doubt it was "fun" discussing the gods situation ad naseaum, trudging through landscapes they barely cared about, with empty arcs.

I could nitpick every fault I see in the finale but it would be pointless, these issues have been dragged from ages ago and poor character matching, and now this is a culmination of everything and it barely fazes me anymore.

(And yeah it's their game and it's "free", but that doesn't undermine its weight as a story, stories were made be analyzed, and it was a poorly structured one no matter how much I still like and admire them as people.)

WHICH is not to say I had no fun at all ever, I did! several times! and that's what makes me upset, it could've been great instead is just meh.

[arttsuka]

you should draw fiddleford in some other outfits☺️☺️😋😋😋 (this isn’t a coverup to make my fidd obsession sweet… I swear…)

Here he is with a funky outfit :)

And here he is wearing a straight jacket (from an uncooked au I have in my mind, don't ask)

[dimonds456]

Gonna say something controversial.

Ford Pines is a nuanced character who is neither good nor bad. Absolving him of his crimes is actively a detriment to his character and does a disservice to the storytelling of Gravity Falls, but defining him exclusively by his mistakes without taking the time to understand him is a purposefully bad faith take that actively makes your enjoyment of the show worse.

He is neither a good or bad person, because "good" people and "bad" people aren't real. There's just people. And people fuck up sometimes.

If no one fucked up and if no one held onto those fuckups sometimes out of sheer desperation, the world of fiction would be way more boring, unengaging, and dull.

Ford Pines is a mess and I don't want him to be sanitized or demonized. I just want him to be a mess.

Thank you