#my goals here are drawing art and making actual posts instead of reblogging 7 things a day from random subjects

[dualitysdownfall]

i hate doing this because i feel like i’m pressuring people into giving me notes. i hate that feeling. i am by no means the type who has to have everything be about them. if everything was about me i’d probably be completely overwhelmed. and i definitely never mean any of this to discredit my consistently active followers. to those people, i see you, and i appreciate you. it means so much to me and i thank you so so much.

but i see all these artists sharing their work and having tons of people not only give it notes, but comments. real genuine comments. i love this, this is beautiful, i need more of this. i see all these people appreciating others’ art. and then i look over at my own art blog.

radio silence.

am i doing something wrong?

i draw. just as others do, i make art. i fanchild-gush over things and post sketches and complete works of different styles and colors. i don’t feel like what i’m doing is vastly different from what other people do.

am i doing something wrong? is it my lengthy captions? the wrong tags? too much of the same single character?

is it just who i am as a person?

i’ve always said i must just have natural human-repelling properties. i don’t say this to be overly self deprecating. (it’s a pretty regular amount i’d say.) it just actually feels like some aspect of my existence beyond my control prevents a majority of people from interacting with me.

it’s not just here, either, and it’s not just my art. it was something of a goal of mine to be able to build a following on the internet based on my own content. whether that be music or art or something else. because you know, the internet can link anyone anywhere. two people could live on opposite sides of the planet and still be besties. anyone could find your creations and really enjoy them.

well, i guess either they aren’t finding them or they aren’t enjoying them.

across all my social media accounts i’ve a couple of times built a sort of decent following if you go purely by follow count. but only handful of them actually consistently interact with my posts, and with the exception of close IRL friends and mutuals, they rarely ever comment or talk to me.

it just kind of sucks. i work hard on my art and i’m really proud of it. i put effort into my music, brainpower into my writing. for maybe two likes. possibly a reblog if i’m either especially lucky or especially pushy.

no comments. no feedback. nothing. where is everybody?

honestly im surprised that, in the moments after i save my drawing and add it to an image post, i still have the mindset of “yay i did a thing time to share it with people”. because the way things are going, it’s more like “time to share it with two friends and the void”.

or, as i more cleverly put it, scream into the void and have maybe 1% of the void scream back.

i love my art. it makes me so happy to draw, it makes me so happy to see something i’ve created and think, “that’s mine. i did this. tiny little harper did this.” i’m sure it’s common nature for people to want to share things they like with others.

think of it like a little kid, because i pretty much am one, who is super excited about something and wants to tell this adult they know all about it, but the adult is just kind of like “[parental chuckle] okay kiddo”

its like. did you even hear me? did you even see what i did? do you even care?

there are plenty of bigger things i could be worrying about. i could be researching college majors and potential careers instead of typing this out. most of the time i try to ignore the sad flatline that is my art blog’s notes, with occasional spikes of a whopping one or two notes every few days. most of the time i try to just be like hah yeah thats to be expected.

but sometimes, like right now, it really gets to me. “nobody’s leaving notes on my art posts” becomes “nobody likes my art” becomes “i must just suck as a human being because no one gives a shit what i have to say”.

i hate sounding attention seeking. i hate sounding like im trying to be manipulative. because i do not intend that in any way. i say it every time because it’s true: no one is obligated to like or interact with my content. if they don’t want to, they don’t have to. i will not hold it against them. you can’t control what you like or don’t like.

but i guess i just refuse to believe that the total number of “tumblr users who do like my content and are willing to interact with it of their own accord” is like 7.

is there something i should be doing? something i should stop doing? is it just the way i am?

but i’ll never know, will i, because the people who can tell me don’t care enough to talk to me.

sigh... i’m sorry for the long and depressing post. i’m sorry for always venting about being a nobody. i’m sorry if anything feels like i’m selfishly trying to attract attention. again, that isnt my intent. i always feel like shit when i start being all “why is no one giving me notes” because i don’t want to pressure people. i’m sorry for being all gloomy. again, i have nothing but endless appreciation and love for those few who do actively follow me and interact with my posts. you guys are cool.

well. i am going to bed now.

[clevercatchphrase]

2017 in review, and goals for 2018

If I had to describe 2017 in one word it would be... monotonous. Sure, there were plenty of ups and downs, but for the most part, especially the latter 6 months, I just felt like I was going through the motions, holding my nose to the grind stone, doing work and paying off student loans. 2017 blew by me, and I remember thinking each month passed by with unusal quickness. There's a strange sense of disociation with that, like I wasn't really connected to reality for most of the year, and instead watched it pass me by from a seperate temporal window. In a weird way it may have been a bit of a godsend as well. I hear 2017 was hard for a lot of people, but feeling so disonnected from the year may have protected me and cushioned the blow in a sense.

I lost a family member this year in early june. I knew it was coming ever since january as I hated having to watch them deteriorate and get worse and worse until they finally passed. The three months leading up to it and the three months after were particularly hard and left me feeling unable to write or draw or do anything productive. I still miss them terribly. I always will. But I hope I won't let it immobilize me as much this year as it did last year.

Anyway, Let's review my goals for last year and see what I've accomplished. I’ve a lot to say, so for brevity’s sake I’ve put it all under the cut.

GOALS FOR 2017 1) Finish my 50 billion fan fictions so I can get back to drawing Ah ha ha ha ha ha ha. HAHAHAHAHA. The depression I got halfway through the year throughly put a halt on this. I haven't even finished one of the fics I've started in 2016. I got close, seeing as i participated in NaNoWriMo this year to try and force myself to finish, but I still need to revise and edit all that I've written and the motivation is non existant. GOD, I have so many stories too, all of them still undertale fan fiction because I'm still not over that game. I'll list them all when I share my goals for this year later below. 2)Draw in 2 pages of my sketch book each week so I'll finish a sketch book in a year. I was SO CLOSE with this one! I filled out 95 pages! But you know what i discovered in august? I realized that my 100 page sketch book.... was actually 150 pages! Oh well! I drew more this year than I thought i would! Just because i didn't hit 100 pages, doesn't mean I didn't accomplish something! 3) Finish 14 out of the remaining 27 lessons on my duolingo course I went fucking above and beyond with this one. I hit this goal back in may, and then I completely finished up the danish duolingo course by november. I also passed my 1095 day streak which translates to doing duolingo daily for OVER 3 YEARS STRAIGHT. I still practice daily to build my vocabulary, and I know I can't speak it for the life of me, or follow along with fast speakers, but give me a few minutes and I can probably read it for you. Funny how that works, where I can understand danish if it's written out, but ask me to translate from english to danish and I struggle like a butterfly in a tumble dryer. 4) Become passibly fluent in ASL I have this box of 600 ASL flash cards, and this year I practiced two of them a day until I got through the entire box. I certainly learned a bunch of new words but I wouldn't say I was fluent yet. I certainly don't know all the grammar rules yet. I HAVE been able to sign with people at my job, though I do rely heavily on fingerspelling still. Most everyone I talked with seemed to know I was trying and they seemed really excited that I could understand them if they were patient with me. I put more of my focus on Danish last year, but now that I'm done with Danish, maybe I can focust more on ASL. My sister told me about this site similar to duolingo called "memrise" that actually has an ASL course, so you can bet I'll be looking into that. 5) Read the entire dictionary I did this! I kept two spiral note books and wrote down any words I thought were cool or interesting! I haven't gone back and re-read the words I wrote down, but maybe I will this year! It was exhausting. It was weird. I still can't believe I spent about 200 hours last year doing this. 6) Read one new book every month Much like my sketch book goal, I almost completed this one. I kept it up every month until October, and then I just... stopped. I read more than I thought this year, though I ended up usually waiting until the last week of each month to read, and I also cheated by counting the dictionary as one of the things I read (hey, it's a book, ain't it?) I also re-read old books that I know I like, so not entirely 10 new books were read this year. Reading 1 new book a month isn't one of my goals this year, but I hope to read more new stuff reguardless, 7) Actually use the tutorials and references I reblog Seeing as I barely did any digitial art this year, I can't say I did this one. 8) Do more art streams I think my goal was to stream once a month. I clearly didn't do this. I DID stream in 2017, I just didn't tell anyone. Idk why, I just... went live for people to see but didn't let anyone know I did. I also only streamed like... twice? sigh... So... out of the 8 goals I set, I would say I accomplished close to half. I read the dictionary, I finished my danish language course (which I'm counting as two completed goals) and combining the "read 1 new book a month" and "draw 100 pages in a sketch book" I'll count that as one completed goal. I went through all my ASL cards, though I'm not fluent, OH! I also wanted to pay off 6k loan that I had. I want to count this one as a success because I DID FUCKING PAY OVER 6 THOUSAND DOLLARS IN LOANS THIS YEAR. I got a surprise loan I had no idea about in june that was 1500 dollars, which threw me off. I managed to pay it off in 2 months, BUT IF THAT LOAN HAD NEVER EXISTED I TOTALLY WOULD HAVE FINISHED PAYING OFF THE 6K ONE. I've got a little over a thousand left to pay on the 6k loan now, which I will complete by the end of January. I'm so close to being under 10k in debt... GOALS FOR 2018 1)Go from being 5 figures in student loan debt down to 4 figures in debt (pay off 2 out of 4 loans) If everything goes according to Keikaku I'll achieve this by the end of June. This has to factor in things like updating my car registration in april, oil changes, tune ups, tire rotation, gas and food expenses, but as long as I don't get fired I should be fine! 2) Stretch Daily Not exercise. I never exercise. But it would be nice to increase my flexibility. 3) STOP TOUCHING YOUR GODDAMN FACE/ find an effective acne treatment I also want to try washing my face daily. Im fucking 25. I shouldn't have this many pimples. 4) Do another song comic I made A lyrictale for Undertale at the end of 2015 in ten days. I want to make another. I already have it scripted, now I just need to do it. 5) Do at least one art stream a month. Hey, maybe I can stream the next song comic I do. Sure, it'd spoil the song and story for everyone, but doesn't that sound fun? 6)Practice ASL I just started looking into Memrise and their ASL courses. They actually have A LOT, AND! THEY HAVE SIGN LANGUAGE COURSES FOR OTHER COUNTRIES! This year is gonna be fun. (Also, the only reason I want to learn ASL because of Undertale. I'll let you figure out how they are connected) 7) Sew 4 stuffed animals I started sewwing a Hobbes plush in the middle of last year. His body is finished. I just never did the head. The other three stuffed animals I want to make I will keep a secret because I love to keep people guessing. 8) Make two AMVs There are two songs I want to put to Avatar; The Last Airbender, and Avatar; The Legend of Korra. I have about half the footage... I just... need to rewatch the shows and put the clips together. Hey, maybe after I find all the clips I can do a stream of that as well. 9) Last but not least, finish my many, MANY Undertale Fan Fics. a. You Monster (34 out of 37 chapters are written, but only 29 are posted) b. Finish the "Of Two Minds" series (it's explicit don't look) c. Color Theory (A chasriel one shot) d. Something Left Behind (Terrible AU Idea #647) e. Let's Get Real (Self insert, joke, parody thing that will also be explicit) f. Game Day! (something about soccer games with Mettaton along the same vain as Field Trip!) g. Would You Like Fries With That (Nicepants because there's not enough of it in the world) h. Science Fair! (something with Undyne and school projects along the same vain as Field Trip!) i. One that is so horribly dark and fucked that I won't even describe it here. Welp! Those are my goals for 2018! What are your goals for 2018? Whatever they are, I wish you success and improvement, health and wealth! Stay safe this year! I love you all~

[miximax-hell]

Well, let’s do something special this time!

I haven’t introduced a new miximax with anything but reference sheets since the very birth of this blog. For those of you who weren’t there (aka none of you, quite literally), I got this blog going by reblogging old illustrations of Max’s and Kageno’s miximaxes, and I added some information about them to turn those old drawings into proper blog posts. I thought that, for a change, it might be interesting to do that again.

Sure, a lazy sketch is hardly as interesting as a full illustration, but full illustrations have never been popular in this blog, anyway, so it hardly even matters at this point. One of the perks of being unpopular is that no one really cares, so you can do whatever you want! Hah!

But let’s move on. Today, I am truly glad to introduce you all to Tetsukado’s miximax--or an early concept of it, at least. Here’s my answer for those of you who were mad because Tsunami wasn’t part of this project (and if you didn’t know about that, you should check this link--or the “Characters” link on the sidebar).

The final design will come soon enough too. But, for those of you who want more information about TetsuTsuna, feel free to continue reading. uvu

Today, I would like to talk about why I chose Tetsukado to take Tsunami’s powers. To be completely honest, it was a very long process and is probably the most interesting thing about this miximax, although it’s also one of those things only 1-2 people care about. I’d rather talk about it now, along with this early sketch that no one will care about either, than along with the final design, which tends to get a tiny bit more love. I only hope that those of you who do stop by to read this will be satisfied...! If you aren’t, though, by all means, let me know what else you’d like me to talk about.

Enough babbling. Let’s get started.

As I mentioned long ago and a couple of times, while this project is mostly based on crossovers, I do want a fair amount of Inazuma-only miximaxes. Ideally, I want one Inazuma-only miximax for every Inazuma Eleven game released--that is, 15. Right now, and counting TetsuTsuna, I have 6, plus another 7 ideas yet to explore. It’s very difficult to choose characters from this franchise to bring back as auras, but I knew from the very beginning that Tsunami (and Tyranno) had to be part of this. So, in their case, it was mostly a matter of finding the right person to inherit their massive and super cool power.

Now, Tsunami is a very interesting case. He is a defender, but he is a defender whose main perk or distinctive trait was that his ability to shoot was rather remarkable. In fact, despite being a defender, the anime never showed him using anything but shot hissatsus. Even in the games, the main story only ever gave him shots. We can’t ignore he was superb at shooting, but we can’t ignore that he was a defender either. I wouldn’t be doing my work properly if I ignored either of those things, and, even if my art is subpar to say the least, I pride myself in my concepts, okay. ww

I had many candidates to take his aura. My first thought was to give it to any defender from Inazuma Japan, because, well, the team is losing a player, so it’d be rather cool to get Tsunami back through a miximax. But... none really seemed fitting to me. For reasons I will explain some other time, Kabeyama would never be a good candidate. The closest candidate was Tobitaka, since his kicks are strong and both characters are linked through their character songs, but Tobitaka has enough with his own crazy hairdo the connection still seemed quite feeble.

I eventually realised that the best candidate within Inazuma Japan was Hijikata: they are seen together often, are arguably the oldest members of the team, they both come from Okinawa, I’ve always thought that Hijikata has a sea theme going on too, and, well, they’re a nice match in general.

But Hijikata has two problems.

He’s not a defender, and Tsunami’s aura would therefore not benefit him as much as it should. Yes, I’m picky.

He can’t take Tsunami’s aura for the exact same reason as Kabeyama. You smart kids can probably guess why by now, but I won’t reveal it publicly juuust yet.

Those problems, while seemingly minor, really get in the way of the miximax. So, instead of trying to push a wrong aura onto someone, I decided to look elsewhere for a combination that would really suit my tastes. ...Tough as it may be.

After a quick look, I realised no Raimon player suited my tastes either. Which, honestly, I was glad to see. I wanted him in Inazuma Japan if I was going to keep him in the first trilogy.

...And that’s when I took the first real step towards enlightment. Why keep him in the first trilogy when Tsunami had already shone plenty there? Giving love to his adult self, who had NO RELEVANCE WHATSOEVER in Go and barely appeared at all, was faaar more interesting. Why limit ourselves with the power of a kid when we can have the power of an adult? A power that, by the way, had yet to be explored, because all he did in InaDan was shoot once.

So, as much as I was fond of Tsunami making a grand return to Inazuma Japan, I eventually ditched that idea. And it wasn’t easy, because I hate ditching good ideas. ...Or ideas in general.

I started looking for alternatives. The first person who came to my mind was Hamano, because I looove Hamano and he deserves huge amounts of love. Thank @raishiteru for my bias. But... well, Tsunami and Hamano are complete opposites, and not in a good way. While I love contrast, it didn’t feel right to change Hamano from a laidback cutie to some... ADHD guy all of a sudden. It’s a change that doesn’t really help Hamano. And, once I realised that, I also realised that Hamano is a midfielder. If Hijikata lost points for that, so should Hamano. Let’s be fair here.

Once Kai-Kai stopped being an option, I looked at Go Raimon’s defenders. Kurumada, Amagi, Kariya, Kirino, Shinsuke... Meh. I love Kurumada and Amagi, but, well, I don’t see how they’d benefit from Tsunami, and they didn’t fit together either. Considering Tsunami is an Inazuma character, why’d you settle for some half-assed miximax when there are infinite universes out there waiting for you to find your perfect partner? It’s such a waste, both for Tsunami and for the vessel. Tsunami deserves to share his power with someone who will think, “It’s Tsunami or no one else.”

Still, not finding a right candidate in Go got me quite down. I really wanted Tsunami in, and I was afraid I’d have to go for something half-assed or something I was simply not personally content with. I will admit that, despite how much I love it, I didn’t remember Galaxy existed until a long time after I started thinking. But, as soon as I did, everything clicked extremely well.

Galaxy, the ignored season, has Tetsukado in it, and Tetsukado is the absolute perfect choice.

Tetsukado is a defender, like Tsunami. Tetsukado is hot-headed, like Tsunami--although what that hot-headedness causes is completely different and that’s really interesting to look into. Tetsukado is closely related to the sea, like Tsunami, because he wanted money to buy a boat for his dad. Tetsukado is very muscular and strong, which makes him excel at something defenders don’t usually do: shoot--which, again, is Tsunami’s specialty. Tetsukado gets a shoot hissatsu that he uses strategically from his position as a defender, like Tsunami. And, heck, both Tsunami and Tetsukado are newbies when they are first introduced to us. If we’re just looking at them, they truly are a match made in heaven.

But what if we don’t just look at them? Because this is what bothered me the most.

Again, not having Tsunami in InaJapan irked me, but I’ve set this whole project with a simple idea in mind: teams don’t each go in one direction. They move together towards one goal, and players can move around, mix and have different partners. This is why groups aren’t necessarily made of people from the same team. So, even if Tetsukado is an Earth Eleven player, he could very well mingle and play with InaJapan members. In fact, doing that could lead to some very interesting situations, like some InaJapan members being happy about having Tsunami back and treating Tetsukado, to an extent, as little more than a vessel that holds Tsunami’s power instead of acknowledging Tetsukado’s own power and own self. Hmm hmm, nice stuff there.

But, for those times when Earth Eleven is the one who needs to battle alone, can Tetsukado really make the most out of Tsunami’s power if it comes to that? And the answer is yes, he sure can. Those of you who know what I was getting at before will probably understand what I mean, but the rest of you will have to wait until I decide to explain TetsuTsuna’s powers thoroughly to understand why Earth Eleven can let TetsuTsuna run wild. Trust me--it’s cool.

And last, but not least, a question beyond objectivity. Let’s remember for a second that this is not Chrono Stone. Jii-chan isn’t here with his notebook to go around choosing auras and assigning them to whomever he finds fitting. Here, everyone can decide their destiny. Gouenji chose Yuuichi. Endou chose Yagami and Jii-chan himself. Fudou chose Layton, Kurama chose Tyranno and Rika chose Bayonetta. The vessel has full control over their aura. So, Tetsukado should have a reason to want Tsunami.

Beyond the objective fact that they are really similar in many senses, I think Tetsukado would be very okay with receiving the aura of a legendary player who is so similar to him and whom he shares so much with. But, in this case, I think Tsunami would actually suggest it, because Tetsukado is hot-headed in a way that’d probably make him embarrassed to ask for anyone’s aura. But look at Tsunami. All of his friends are fighting (as kids), but he can’t because he was born one year too soon and his young self really can’t take part in that. Tsunami, both young and adult, would feel very, very pissed and frustrated. He would like to be part of the battle, lend a hand, be useful somehow. And he’d probably be on the lookout for someone to take his power as soon as he heard that the whole miximax stuff was a thing.

So not only is this match perfect, but it has the special touch of being the one match where the aura proposes and starves for as much as the vessel. ...You know, other than Handa’s. But Handa’s is a tad different, as you may remember.

Also, much like Handa is my favourite original Raimon player, Tetsukado is my favourite Earth Eleven player. By far, in both cases. ...I see a trend here.