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raedas · 11 months

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hey i was just wondering how you figured out you were aro?? no pressure if you’re uncomfortable sharing of course ! but i’m kind of questioning and i thought maybe hearing other people’s experiences might help. and also i was in a relationship for almost a year so that’s probably somewhat significant and additionally complicating ahaha <333

hey anon!! first and foremost good luck with figuring everything out <33 i know at least for me, questioning can be a long and hard and typically ongoing process, but we'll make it through :] i'm gonna stick the rest of my answer beneath the read more bc im getting the sense im gonna go on for a bit FGDHLKSFAJ

one of the biggest things for me that i think is necessary to preface everything is that i've never really had an "oh" moment like some people talk about. there's never been a moment where i saw a label or a flag and was 100% sure i fit into that box, its more like... years worth of questioning and then the internal meter in my head slowly ticking over. like, when i was figuring out i was queer, i maybe started questioning in like... fifth grade you could say? but it started as more of a "oh im definitely not but like What if" and then gradually began to tick more and more towards "oh i think i might not be cishet" to eventually when i hit the... idk, 80% or 90% certainty mark it was more of a "fuck it, im queer" feeling. there's always going to be that bit of doubt for me, i think, and coming to terms with being aro was very similar for me in that regards

another thing is i was ALSO in a relationship for almost a year, and that's during the time when i was coming to terms with being aro/arospec, which im sure you can imagine was an Experience. i do think being in a relationship was the best thing for me trying to figure out i was aro though, bc i definitely got that sense of Wrongness of trying to think of myself as existing in a romantic relationship. like, when i thought of myself as having a romantic partner, it always felt a bit like i was playing at a part and acting like i had romantic feelings more than i actually did. of course that came with.. a lot of me trying to ignore my own feelings and feeling guilty about it up until i broke up with my now ex (this is like the funniest inside joke ever to us now dw) so that's where i was coming from w/ my experiences

i also began to realize that like, whenever i try to imagine myself in a romantic relationship, its always in some ambiguous future like 10 or so years down the line, which completely distances myself from the idea. i have no idea what a romantic relationship with someone would look like for me, it was just this idea of "yeah, someday in an ambiguous future ill have a romantic relationship with someone and we'll cook together and hug each other and have fun" until i realized that i don't actually want a romantic relationship, and also that... none of those things that i actually envisioned are exclusive to a romantic relationship. in my life ive had a grand total of 2 crushes, both of which were/are queerplatonic but also like... if i imagine having an Actual relationship its just stressful to me and not even really appealing, despite the fact that i have a crush on them.

one of the most important things im coming to terms is that its okay if im wrong, its okay if however many years down the line i find out that im actually entirely allo and fall in love with someone. like i said i dont know if ill ever be 100% confident in my own labels especially with the whole issue of "how do you prove a negative". for now, though, calling myself aro is something that makes me happy and feels, most of the time, accurate. another really important thing i think is that aromanticism is entirely a spectrum. you could be aromantic or arospec in a billion different ways*, or you could be none of them, and thats okay too <333 good luck with everything anon i hope hearing about my experiences helped a bit :]

#*honestly none of the arospec labels are Personally helpful to me because again. ive never really had that Oh moment where everything clicke #and i think thats what microlabels are kind of for #essentially if i wanted to identify as any of them it would take hours of examination and proving and disproving etc etc. its easier for me #personally just to call myself aro as a catchall. does that mean im fully aro? does that mean im just arospec in some vague way? im not #entirely sure yet myself. and thats okay too <33 #wishing you the best once again anon feel free to update me or send me an ask whenever!!!!#asks #anon #aromantic #<- why not. for pride month #ok to rb

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aegialia · 3 years

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self-indulgent reflection on being on tumblr

so i recently hit 1000 followers on here and this blog has existed for almost exactly 8 years, so i wanted to ramble about tumblr and my experience of it for awhile. under the cut so definitely feel free to ignore this.

i started this blog right around when i was fourteen and had just started high school. at that point, i was out to my parents (and no one else) as bi, i had an inkling i was Struggling with something but i had no idea what and felt like i couldnt actually acknowledge it, and i had left leaning but very vague politics. tumblr definitely has shaped my journey around sexuality/gender/mental health/politics, both for good and for ill.

for good:

seeing other ppl talk about being lesbians helped me realize i could be a lesbian w/o being a traitor to the concept of bisexuality. hearing trans ppl talk about their experiences and explaining non-binary stuff and dysphoria helped me understand what i was going through

i don’t like talking about my mental health stuff in detail on here, but suffice to say, i was Going Through it in high school. i’m still going through it now, but i am in a much better place (thank you medication and 7 years of therapy!). seeing ppl talk about the weird, dumb, awful parts of mental illness let me acknowledge that i was going through those things too, that i wasnt like evil for feeling like that, that i could change. people talking about adhd/autism was particularly helpful---being able to identify why i’d always felt like my brain just didn’t work right is the first step in the (ongoing) process of not hating myself for the way my brain works

politics is definitely the area where i think tumblr was the best for me. i got exposed to so many opinions i definitely wasn’t hearing in school, from intelligent, well-read people who could articulate theory in ways i could understand. tumblr didn’t give me my politics and i didn’t learn everything i know about theory from it, but the communities of people i was around pointed me in the right directions. tumblr was also a good place to learn how to react to criticism. this doesn’t seem to be most people’s experience, but getting called out over minor things on tumblr genuinely helped me learn how to take a step back, look at my behavior, apologize, and try to change, which, as it turns out, is a helpful skill irl as well

for ill:

wrt sexuality and gender, it’s probably pretty obvious someone who’s journey is ‘cis bi girl -> cis with a million different microlabels -> nb w a million different microlabels for both sexuality and gender -> nb butch lesbian who’s not super into romance’ would have some bad times on tumblr. the bi circles i was in made being a lesbian seem like an immoral choice, the ‘’’mogai’’’ (or whatever u wanna call them) circles made me feel like i had to divy up and perfectly label every aspect of myself in a way that really wasn’t helpful for me, the lesbian circles i was in made me feel like being a lesbian was about ending up in a monogamous butch/femme cottagecore relationship and that there was something wrong with me for not really wanting that. to be clear i think microlabels can be very helpful for people/a monogamous butch/femme relationship is a perfectly fine thing to want, they just didn’t work for me. im very very glad ive reached a point in my life where i dont feel the need to stay up to date on the latest discourse and am more focused on finding a way to exist that is comfortable for me and supporting my community irl. 10/10 would recommend to everyone

not going to get deep into it, but social media is. not good for my brain in general. i still enjoy using tumblr, but these days im pretty careful to step back from it frequently and treat it as an occasional hobby.

the cons of political stuff on tumblr are probably also very obvious. there are some just awful discussions on here and the culture surrounding the way we handle bad behavior and justice and accountability and working to become a better person and make up for the harm you’ve caused has historically been fucking awful and trying to unlearn it and find new ways to engage with this stuff is exhausting.

for all that i’ve changed over the course of having this blog, this blog has stayed pretty fucking static. i started out being super into diana wynne jones and the iliad and those are still two of my biggest interests and things i talk about the most on here. there are definitely specific things that have petered away (i started this blog almost entirely to keep up with good omens fan stuff and i pretty much haven’t touched it since the miniseries came out, i haven’t sought out pacific rim/supernatural/elementary/mcu content in years), but im still pretty much interested in the same things. i like relatively small fandoms, i like weird side characters, i like to be a grumpy child playing with my toys in the corner. when a fandom im in gets popular, i tend to stop engaging with it entirely (hello rqg/tma/good omens/enola holmes!). i dont think its a pretentious ‘i liked it before it was cool’ thing so much as a ‘people get Weird and awful when a fandom hits a certain level of popularity and there’s too much content and i really, really hate the bad faith arguments larger fandoms tend to spawn’ thing. i’ll consume content from big fandoms, but i pretty much refuse to actually engage with them at this point.

one of the stranger parts of my experience of tumblr is the social side. i’ve never really known how people make friends online---how do you go from liking each other’s posts and occasionally replying to them to actually being friends who communicate off social media? i’ve had conversations with ppl on tumblr and i’ve had sort-of friendships that are contained to tumblr where i’d like to get to know them better, but i’ve never figured out how to do that. my best friend’s job is pretty much to make friends/connections on the internet (she’s an activist and artist), my dad knows people everywhere in the world from twitter, and i’m just sitting here like a little old grandpa who doesn’t understand how you can have internet friends.

at this point in my life, i’m fine with this, but this has made me feel real fucking bad in the past---like, if everyone online, even the ppl who say they’re weird and brainbad in a similar way to me, can make friends on the internet, what’s wrong with me? particularly in high school and my first year of college, when i was just horribly lonely all the time, it made me feel super disconnected and like there was something fundamentally bad about me. these days, i’m a lot chiller about it. i use social media to engage with stuff i enjoy and share my thoughts about it. it’s okay that my social difficulties extend to me not knowing how to use the internet to socialize.

on a somewhat related topic, it’s wild that i have 1000 followers. obviously, that’s not an actually super large number and a huge number of them are probably bots or inactive. if you post consistently for eight years and follow lots of people, like i do, it’s not a surprise to end up with this many followers. it is also, thankfully, the sort of followers that are not fans. probably most ppl following this blog dont remember why they followed and dont know anything about me or my interests. this sounds like its meant to be depressing but it’s not. i like that my way of engaging w the internet lets me do pretty much whatever i want and no one will care. the mere concept of being. like. tumblr famous in any capacity, even just in one community/fandom, is viscerally horrifying to me.

i really enjoy the space i’ve created for myself on here. on one hand, going back through my blog is obviously embarrassing and full of hating my past self. on the other hand, i now have a very nice collection of things i enjoy in this blog. i like seeing what i’ve been interested in and (when i’m in a good mental health place) i like to be able to remember how i thought and talked about the things i loved when i was younger. im not at the place in my life where i can love a younger version of myself, but sometimes i can laugh at zir with a level of fondness.

i’ve always been paranoid about sharing details about my life on here (and the fact that my parents have always been able to see it certainly contributed), so the version of jack on here is a carefully curated version, who’s super enthusiastic about the things they love, was very conscientious about apologizing and trying to do better when ze messed up, and tried to be polite to others. that’s a younger version of myself that i’m closer to being able to have compassion for than the version i find in essays and poems and memories.

i’m starting grad school in ten days and i’m still using the blog i started when i began high school. tumblr has helped me in a lot of ways and hurt me in a lot of ways, but i still have to admit that it’s been a significant factor in shaping me. i’d be incredibly embarrassed to admit that irl, but it’s true. other than my family and like one friend, this blog is one of the only things that’s ‘known’ me since i started high school. i’ve changed so much in that time and im glad to have this weird little record of myself throughout those changes, even if i’d probably warn my younger self away from tumblr if i could go back in time.

tl;dr i have had a mixed experience on tumblr and i have mixed feelings about that experience. no idea if anyone read any of this very long, very rambling internet memoir

p.s. fun facts about this blog:

i’ve never changed my icon or blog title

i recently got a second version of the poster i got my blog title from. i chose my blog title by looking at what was hanging on the wall directly in front of me.

my original url was gloomthkin. this was not, as you’d probably assume, an otherkin thing. i had literally no idea what otherkin was at that point. i’d just learned the word gloomth from a bill bryson book and thought it would be cool n edgy to be the child of the quality of gloom. i changed my url after i learned what otherkin was and realized everyone probably assumed something about me that wasn’t true which i hated (not bc i had an issue w otherkin, just bc i don’t like ppl thinking untrue things about me)

during my good omens days, i once sent a tumblr ask to nail guyman which, in retrospect, was kinda rude. i stand by the content but id never send an ask like that now. he replied to it privately in a way that so deeply embarrassed and shamed 15 year old me that i’ve never gotten over it. i still get nervous and embarrassed when i see anything about him or his books

#gloomth and circumstance #this is definitely not required reading!#i just felt like rambling for a very long time about my feelings and my blog #w bonus blog trivia at the bottom that amuses me and probably no one else

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morshtalon · 5 years

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Shin Megami Tensei

(Definitely part 3 of a series of posts on the entire franchise)

For the end of MegaTen II, Atlus pulled out all the stops in terms of who you'd meet and what their importance to the lore was. While the ending arguably did leave some room for further escalation, by choosing to continue the story as it was, they'd be agreeing to keep being derivative works in relation to the books that originated their backstory. Sure, it was hardly the case anymore, what with the extreme departures MegaTen II took from the novels, but still. I guess the relative corner the writers got themselves backed into, combined with the clamor to have a more independent franchise on their hands, prompted them to scrap their established continuity and kick off a new one of their own. Whatever the real case was, it was definitely a smart choice, and thus was born Shin Megami Tensei, a way for them to keep their profitable series going. Also probably a much better game than a MegaTen III would have been.

Anyway, with a new continuity, possibilities were endless. They could better retread grounds they had already covered in the previous two games (well, really just MTII, since the first one barely even had anything going on), and expand upon ongoing themes while not having to worry about the usual expectation for a sequel in terms of magnitude and impact. Given that, it's unsurprising that, in comparison to MTII, this game dials things down a notch, relegating most of the more classical power fantasy stuff to the third act and preferring to engage in more character-driven events while leading up to it. None of the final enemies in SMT are as powerful as the ones in MTI and II (in story terms, actual battle stats notwithstanding) and the influence of cosmic forces that would have been enemies fought directly in the titles so far takes on a distant, more psychological approach (for the most part), unable to be challenged by the player. This helps build them as respectable overarching threats, and keeps the setting more subdued and the stakes higher, since it feels like characters are acting under the banner of things so powerful the player shouldn't even think themselves able to scratch them. It's good not to stat things sometimes, and it's quite impressive that they exercised this restraint way back in 1992.

For the demons that ARE fought, though, the artists really put their all into it this time. Even compared to games in the series's near future, I think this is the best looking they would be for a while. I mean, sure, Majin Tensei later on would have more detailed graphics, but I feel the art itself was worse there, with some weird proportions and a lot of palette swaps, while this game keeps things more consistently good overall.

Naturally, one longstanding tradition of the franchise introduced in SMT was the philosophical axis of Law vs. Chaos and the branching story that allowed the player to sit in any one point of the spectrum, with a modified final act depending on your decisions up to a certain point and where in the axis they would leave you once this point is reached. This system was partly a logical progression of the two endings from MTII and partly a way to integrate gameplay significance into what was already the grand point of SMT's storyline. While a good idea on paper and certainly innovative for its time and context, the warring faction-based story meant that as far as the plot is concerned, Law vs. Chaos pertains more to which of the factions you're appeasing with your decisions rather than any particularly lawful or chaotic behavior. There are some things that shift your alignment that have to do with being lawful or chaotic, but those lie mostly outside of the plot, in small actions that only serve to bring things one way or the other on infinitesimal increments and are meant more as an extra level of thought put into the system to label certain actions that were always there. The parallelisms between one faction and the other (i.e. temples that are identical in functionality; quests that consist of killing the other faction's quest-giver or vice-versa), together with certain easily exploitable ways to shift the alignment variable any way you want (so that you can play the game being entirely chaotic up to the crucial point where your alignment is locked, then right before that, exploit the mechanics to bring yourself to Law without having done anything lawful throughout the rest of the game), make the whole alignment system feel arbitrary, or at least the actual coded-in gameplay layer of it. I feel like maybe having only the unrepeatable story decisions actually affect alignment could help mitigate this somewhat. Then again, as I said, the story stuff doesn't feel much like the player being lawful or chaotic, so... I don't know.

Regardless of which path you take, you are going to get into a lot of fights. The game plays basically exactly like MTII, with an overhead top-down overworld and first-person dungeon crawling once you enter an area. This time around, very few areas are safe from enemy encounters, which makes sense since you're mostly just walking around Tokyo and a lot of first-person areas are just sections of the city that are populated (and besides, all of Tokyo is under threat from the demons). It made me realize that it's actually the typical RPG that opts to be nonsensical about the no-monsters-in-towns rule, but I'd be damned if that's not a smart choice on the part of the typical RPG. There are so many random encounters in this game, it's a common occurence for you to get several 1-step fights in a row. When I play an RPG, there's usually a point where I get really bored of always fighting enemies, then I finally escape the dungeon I'm in or go into a town and it's a big relief, like I can finally walk around and talk to people without having to stop dead in my tracks to fight the same enemy I already proved I can beat five hundred times before. Not so much in this game, and you'll definitely be crying out for an Estoma or a Fuma Bell most of the time. If you even know these two things act like repels in Pokémon and realize how useful they are.

If you don't know, however, you're going to need a lot of patience, because once again the game is very easy. Aside from, once again, a difficult earlygame, especially if you didn't put the right stat points into your protagonist (read: vitality and speed), the same basic problems from the previous two games' core concept of walking around and fighting dudes can be found here, but this time guns have ammo. Ammo doesn't actually count how many bullets you have left, it's just an extra thing you can equip that gives your gun attack an extra property such as more damage or a status effect. Thing is, status effects have an absurdly high hit rate in this game, work on most bosses, and there's a type of ammo that causes the "enthralled" status effect, which makes the target attack their own allies. Once you've got your hands on it, the game has been effectively turned into an interactive movie, even easier than the NES ones. Even without it, magic always seems to go before physical attacks, and both lightning and ice spells can stop an enemy for the current turn, so you'll likely always find a way to trivialize encounters within your disposal if you're just playing the game normally, even if you didn't realize it. With good speed, lightning or ice spells at your disposal and some status effect ammo, nothing will ever be able to stop you, no matter how hard they try. Once again, it's a preparations game, and that auto-battle button will get an intense workout this time around. I actually cleared the entire final dungeon under the effect of consecutive Fuma Bells, because of the combined effect a high encounter rate and the knowledge that the bosses could not stop me had on my brain. It's all about knowing which things are actually useful and which aren't, so it's actually just about struggling until the point you figure it out, then blazing through the game's fights half-asleep.

Still, battles notwithstanding, I think the exploration is more masterful than ever this time around. There isn't any significant portion of the game where you're clearly going after McGuffins, the whole story is pretty tightly paced and the balance between open-endedness and plot progression is well kept. There is a clearly evolving status quo for the entire setting of the game, and each time a major change happens new areas are made available while others are locked away. You can feel the effect the events of the narrative are having on the whole scenario, and the progression creates a bit of a disorienting effect as you attempt to find your way to the next significant location (which can and very well may cause you to get hopelessly lost on occasion, but that's part of the experience, I think). It's a pretty admirable blend of elements working together to create a continuous experience. This bleeds over into the characters themselves, who have evolving arcs and, for the most part, continue to be relevant and to have all sorts of crazy things happen to them through the course of the game. Consider it a much more mature attempt to do the sort of character-based revolving scheme that Final Fantasy IV also tried to do.

Overall, this is a game that further plays around with story concept brought over from MTII, experiments somewhat with new ways to go through some of its story beats, and creates a character-based narrative that goes through admirable amounts of change, to the point you can feel the whole cast working through their arcs as things escalate and reach a fever pitch. The gameplay is significantly less refined, though, and, admittedly, even the respectable things in SMT have struggled to stand the test of time, especially when you consider what later SMTs and SMT spinoffs would go on to do. I think this earns the original a 6.5 out of 10, my first non-integer score. It's damn respectable and admirable for 1992, but it has so many outdated things in it that it's hard to actually get oneself into the proper mentality to admire it unless you actually make the conscious decision to play the series in chronological release order. But who would be masochistic enough to do that, right?

#megaten #shin megami tensei #megami tensei #rpg #game #review

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kosmicdream · 6 years

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hey!!! i just read to the most recent update of ffak (my favorite webcomic ive ever read tbh) and i kinda wanna try making my own. did you have the whole story planned out before you started or is it an ongoing thing? also how did you make the website for it? thank you for making such a cool comic!

Thank you so much!! And let me try to figure out a way to answer this properly. My process is a bit complicated to explain because it is very organic. Its almost like I am never done writing it, because I am always letting it grow/stretch and explore as I think about ffak every day, and every night before sleeping I’ll try to brainstorm things I havent thought of. So spending that much mental energy on something, you never really get ‘done’ with writing a story. Even when i eventually finish ffak, im sure i will be still working on it (or things I would have wanted to do.)

However!! Before i started working on ffak, when it was just called HELP! i established many things narratively that I stuck to and have not changed about the story. So I think the process of this comic, in a simple way, could have been broken down like this in.. stages?

1) I laid down the basic framework of the world, such as the functions of king worms specifically, the aiguille family, helpers, several characters (some havent even appeared in the comic yet!), king leadman, as well as antony/rome’s narrative arc/dynamic. that way their character arc was already figured out before the comic started and I knew it would be the central ‘root’ of the story. I knew how i wanted Rome to be introduced, and how he would meet canary, not knowing the connection between canary and his brother. I had a rough idea, even from here, how their character arc would come to a point (and basically what sorts of things the story would likely eventually close on) I also knew the general setting was on moons and how the humans got there, and how advanced society was, and what the red lights “really" were and what they meant..i figured out what ‘vein’ was here.. ect.. many worldbuilding things!!!It might sound intimidating, but this process happened very quickly. I basically figured this out in the.. day? before i started working. I have had a lot of experience with roleplaying so i think that helps with me making quick decisions. I knew i had enough to work with that I didn’t feel intimidated to start actually drawing it out-- especially because i had the rome/antony thing already set down. 2) Then when I actually started to work, things started to develop very quickly. I knew basically all i needed to for Hekatons before i got to introduce knife (their origins, history, involvement in present day politics) and before ch6 i also wrote all of the “supporting cast” (at the time) which included dylan, fork/spoon/knife, paper/scissor/rock. So i ws able to write Thumb and Heel, and set up the overall dynamic of what the world was like in the present day. (also Spoon/Scissor’s connection.) Cash was actually written in the first batch of characters oops, but her design really became more detailed during this stage because of scissor. 3) then things got more complicated as i dug deeper into the past, and wanted to include crimson. So!! I fleshed out the origin and true history of this world. basically as soon as crimson appeared I had everything in place and felt comfortable enough to include crimson, who borrowed many things narratively from a character i roleplayed for years. Anyway, i figured out all of the deep past of the world and decided to draw it out since it was so interesting in ch 9/10. I think this was around in the 2nd chapter when i figured this out, but my memory is fuzzy. I know by the time i did the flash forward scene in ch2 i had decided many things and so all i had to do was get to them in the comic to cement it in. 4) I forget when exactly (maybe around in chapter 5 or 6) , but i decided to bring in a very old story i wrote in 2009 for good leadman’s origin story-- as i thought it would be cool to make good leadman the protagonist for this old comic i wanted to do, and that helped make the background for heel and thumb more “believable” to me because they were already symbolizing this old story i had written the entire thing of. Oh that’s something else to mention, because that world was part of a collection of stories- i was able to develop DMTIA that way because i already had this cast and just decided to merge the stories into the FFAK setting. I think when i did this, it pretty much was the final big thing to make me understand everything i needed to know about this world. All the story arcs felt pretty realized and I could see how the ending could go at this point.

I guess to summarize, is that i let things grow but also had things planned from the start and once i commit to an idea, it doesnt change. Even if it might appear somewhat frustrating to work with, i like to use them to make my next decision. sometimes that means i dont get to do all i want to do, but i still have a lot of flexibility in this setting like i wanted to have from the beginning.

Even now when i feel like pretty confident that I’ve explored every nook and cranny, I’ll decide to revisit a older storyline or facet of the world and strengthen or build on that. That’s why i ended up with so many fucking side characters because I’ll brainstorm for them for a day or two and suddenly have a lot of material i know wont even “technically” go into the story even though its there. (like, Spot for example was not meant to be so interesting, but i wrote a huge fucking story for him that obviously wont get really any attention.)

So.. its ongoing and it is also not ongoing and hasnt been for quite a long time now? (after two years of constant work it felt.. really complete and done in a lot of ways. we are now currently on year three, moving to year four!) I think the best thing to do is to keep in mind what kinds of methods for writing make you feel comfortable and is your natural brain-pace. I like working with an aspect of fluidity and room for growth and flexibility because i don’t like being boxed in or “outgrowing” my project too fast. So keeping that in mind, i designed ffak to be a comic where it could grow with me and change. that’s pretty much why i decided worms would be a great subject and theme to work with because they are characters that naturally, evolve and change based on what they eat and absorb. plus the themes in ffak just are so fun to work with i will never be bored of it. structuring a project with these things in mind for when i run into walls or feel unmotivated have kept me engaged. I think that is part of why i cannot let it go because I still feel really excited to write and contribute ideas to it.

However, Chapter 12 really feels like I’m settling back down to my original plans and taking my time and patience to communicating all the structured planning ive put into it. I’m not letting it grow the same way anymore because it doesnt need to. I feel comfortable with understanding its voice/style and pacing and im no longer recovering from the uhh.. shock of it existing? I promise that once you actually start making a comic, its a wholly different experience than just it being in your head. and it will sound, look, and feel different than what you thought it would be-- that in itself has influenced a lot of change in ffak because honestly at first i was not expecting to draw it so explicit. that was difficult to get used to but im happy to have embraced that aspect of my work.

So HMM.. I made a strong spine or foundational backbone in the beginning before i started, then fleshed it out as i was in the process of making it, and i always continue to leave room for it to grow. just not grow in EVERY aspect anymore. i also dont chop down branches, but i try to hone in on specific things to make them more clear. i think chopping stuff down and removing things is generally not the best to do because its easier to build up and work with what you have than make big retcons after youve already started or established. also the challenge of working with limitations makes you feel that needed bit of pressure to really commit to your work in the moment of making it and i feel like its helped make me more serious and confident about what i write about. I never feel lost on what to do because if I cover and figure out something, that’s how it is. I make it work regardless!

everything is done with careful consciousness to the overall balance and product of the story, while also not suffocating it in a box of limitations of what it could be. i treat it like a living thing in my mind and heart and that means i work to have thoughtful conversations with it and myself about what its needs are, what my needs are, what i want to do with it and what it wants to be.. ect. its almost a spiritual thing really. i feel like its important to always reflect and engage with your art and art process to feel a stronger connection and purpose behind what you are deciding to do and what it means to you. i am probably repeating myself a little here but!!!!!! its worth saying!!!!!!!!!

I also really think it adds to the interesting and fun “layers” to the story, as there has been different stages to its development and it brings in different feelings with each layer. But then the older or more ‘’foundational’’ ones pop in and they seem to give off a different atmosphere (antony and rome) vrs some of the newer additions (like jacket) who are more for shallow, fun decoration or an interesting potential to explore in the future. Like, Jacket is not a character that has a lot of foundational plot connected to him, but he’s an interesting development in terms of the potential of a worm and symbolizes that early-ffak-mindset of growth and experimentation. so i think it makes him a really unique and fun character because he embodies a lot of new and old aspects of ffak’s narrative and my journey with working on the comic.

I could go on and on, but I hope this sort of gives some insight to my process and how I write/work. because in a lot of ways, it isn’t linear. just like how my comic is! sometimes this makes ffak very disorienting for people to read, but if you keep in mind that ffak is very organic and personally tailored to my mannerisms and with that in mind, it makes a lot more sense why it is how it is and the patterns in it become much more apparent. Anyway! thank you for reading and good luck working on your own stories! it can be challenging but i think it is absolutely worth the effort.

Also i did not make the website, my good friend Tegan did. :3 i do not know anything about websites.

#ffak faq #ffak #feast for a king #unholyopossum

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ainaindou · 6 years

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1feb2018

gosh executive dysfunction is gonna kill everything i try to do whether out of love, passion, or necessity. even projects where i am invested 100% voluntarily slowly decay in my hands due to the lack of a drive, and it’s so disappointing.

spotify is probably the best thing ive ever subscribed to 10/10 would recommend

concerning pasts. i’m not sure if i’m healing at all or just just really good at slapping another bandage on. most days it’s all very numb and it feels as if i’m merely processing information as an observer from the outside, sifting through memories and “feelings” that are definitely mine, yet they don’t seem to really affect me anymore. rare moments come when i have more time and quiet and suddenly my mind spins into overdrive and suddenly i’m me again, which is great but also feels immensely awful bc those “feelings” turn from cold information back into actual active ongoing emotions- god knows how awfully i process those things.

considering the amount of failed attempts at securing a traditional career path it’s probably time to explore other alternative options but i have no real idea where to start. i could idle where i am a bit with no real issue but boy my parents are fking annoying about their passively suggested disapprovals concerning many different aspects of my decisions despite all the support they claim to have.

concerning present. context is actually super important and there’s never really enough. a habit of mine, for comfort and ease of mind i love to set clear and concrete definitions as to what certain relationships between myself and other people, and lock it as such inside my head. but relationships are organic and they grow and change and even sometimes decay. so it happens a bit too often that suddenly something happens that’s completely out of my expectation and calculations one way or another and i have to redefine exactly what is my standing with another person. sometimes adaptation is very easy and of little consequence, but other times, the complete relationship becomes rotten due to this. part of it is on me, whether or not i want to invest further energy to try and salvage a disconnect. part of it is on the other side, whether they want to be patient with me or not. as a side, i’ve only met two people in my life so far that share my exact social dynamic, one in which we can comfortably hold our relationship in indefinite stasis for whatever length of silence just so happens to transpire between us, and then easily pick up momentum wherever we left off and develop things mutually at our convenience. that’s super precious to me, and very comforting to be fairly honest since i know i’m not the only one who functions in this way.

i’m not super sure what my next big purchase will be. i do want a full-powered workstation/gaming rig, and i also want a cintiq. but i’m functioning fine with the tools i have right now. i could finally invest in the doll collection i’ve been thinking of, but where the fuck to i even start lol. my living arrangements are very temporary anyways and to invest in a physical item collection right now might not be the best.

i’ve migrated partially from tea to coffee. not like a full migration, but more like i just guzzle both now 24/7. tea at work and coffee everywhere else.

concerning future. ambitions grows slightly dimmer every year bc reality becomes more concrete. there’s also a really weird thing where i “know” what is optimal to pursue, but the arbitrary scale of effort vs reward makes it so that i don’t bother to optimize. this is a statement that applies to so many aspects of my life, and the end result is my life is mediocre. not great, but not horrible. vaguely i thought about seeing if i wanna find a way to become a tattoo artist bc for one thing im super interested in meeting and working with (on) people that normally wouldn’t be in my field of sociability. in any other context ofc i wouldn’t even bother bc my social energy level is like below negative but anyways i should look into that. it’s something, at least.

about actual romantic relationships. it almost feels weird to me that i have any sort of experience at all. and it also feels super alien to me (for most part) that i even care about this aspect of my life still. predominantly, i can’t be bothered. i spend almost all of my available effort and energy just barely holding myself and my life together and afloat, how the fuck am i gonna even be able to spare some for another whole living breathing person? my emotional state is super stale too, and it’s not like i have a desire or desperate need for intimacy (quite the opposite sometimes). yet, i think my own situation is somewhat akin to having acquired the taste of a forbidden fruit. i know what i could have, and i crave it so. even full well knowing how poisonous it most likely could become. my past experiences all ended up kinda suck, and i always kinda hate the things i did/didn’t do that made it that way. (except the very first one. we were young and completely naive and stupid some of what she did was fucked up too lmfao so) i kinda crave a very simple sort of distant intimacy and i have n o fucking idea how to describe or define what i want or if anyone else in the world is compatible with what i’m looking for. language fails me for sure bc i’ve tried at least once with this definition with someone else and the end result was we both figured out we said and agreed on the same words but we had very different definitions. our original friendship has been strangled also as a result. which is one other thing that i am exasperated with myself for.. it’s pretty much impossible for me to consider an intimate relationship of any kind with someone unless there’s a pre-existing friendship as a foundation. yet in the pursuit of a deeper relationship it just puts the friendship at risk and i don’t know if this is ever worth it. should i just be happy with the friendship now and like not fuck up shit again? is this also parallel to my tendency to not pursue optimization in my life? but friendship isn’t a mediocre thing either. super confusing and will require further thoughts definitely

ashmute has godly music for whatever’s left of my soul i hope they make another album soon bc there’s not enough.

my nose bothers the fuuuck out of me. not appearance wise, but the fact that the cartilage inside just isn’t properly attached to my skull and so slips off-center all the fucking time but idk if i wanna get surgical procedure done either. same thing about lasik bc i’m actually tired of glasses but laser eye surgery is not perfect and my vision is invaluable to me and my livelihood. idk idk idk.

anyway.

#journal

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