"Non paeniteo potitus."
+ details & process
And, process !!
The jump btwn the second to last and last always surprise me whenever I make one of these because I always forget to take snapshots after I start painting. It's always like: oh yeah heres the lineart with some colors- BOOM fully finished✨️
What he's holding are the Austrian imperial scepter and orb, seen below:
I was going to draw the crown too but decided I don't hate myself that much(maybe some other day), and gave him a golden laurel crown, bcs I'm obsessed with that as a motif, and also its very remincient of the boy king statue that started this whole thing!
There's some symbolism of this, both intentionally but also just historically. I love that the orb represents that the monarch is holding the world in their hand, basically every old monarchy has one of those, and I think it's very cool for symbolism. But also bcs of that, I was forced to basically draw catholic fanart so, you win some you lose some. The star halo above him head is both to reference those religious statues with star crowns(I saw them a lot in Europe and they imprinted onto my brain), as well as: his four championships of course!
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Jesus H Christopher, Pia. Your writing load is insane.
Maybe you should cut back on how many chapters you release for certain stories? Like Stain and Palma (since these stories dont equal income) until UtB the other Underline stories are almost done. Just a thought
Because I feel burnt out just by thinking of writing that much, so I can only imagine how you feel. Please take care of yourself
Hi anon,
TL;DR: My brain is stupid, which is why I can't do this, even though it makes sense and is logical.
Unfortunately the fanfiction is what often makes the original fiction possible, or more enjoyable.
If I lock myself down into too much schedule and rigidity, or if I only focus on writing for money, I actually start to hate writing, even if I love the stories. There is nothing like 'will this earn money, do people like this, would people pay, what if they all decide to stop paying for this, why would they pay for this, would I pay for this, how much would people pay for this, is there any incentive for them to pay for this, actually if I wrote a ton of different tropes maybe I'd make more for this, but that's depressing, but I need the money, shit what do I do, what if I lose my income, what if it all stops tomorrow, I need to write more, I need to write more, I need to write more' that is actually very exhausting and makes writing not much fun at all.
And to deliberately break out of that headspace as much as possible, I write fanfiction. Because that headspace (the one I wrote about above), on its own, even if I'm only writing two stories, can and has led to burnout and depressive episodes. I don't recommend it.
In a way, one of the reasons I can write so many stories right now (ADHD meds aside) is that I am letting myself break out and just have fun with fanfiction, and remember that my original writing is meant to be fun too. But without fanfiction, I lose sight of that very quickly.
Fanfiction means that when an original story chapter does super badly, generally there are still excited comments elsewhere that keep me going. That's how I survived The Ice Plague, and that story would never have been completed without fanfiction, because that was my worst performer of any story I've ever written. It also means if a lot of subscribers leave at once, I don't feel like The Worst Writer In The World. So having fanfiction behind me was like...a literal safety net or my security blanket.
If I have to discard my security blankets or use them less often in order to keep writing the original stuff, I might as well just stop entirely, because my longest hiatuses from Patreon (i.e. one lasted 1.5 years, many have lasted 4-6 months) have been when I'm mostly just writing original fiction, and am not writing much fanfiction, or not deliberately finding time for it, and finally get so stressed out re: money I literally have to stop. I'm on a (partial) Disability Pension.
A long time ago some professional people told me I probably shouldn't be working at all because of my mental illnesses and then paid me money because of the severity of those mental illnesses. My dumbass brain be pretty fragile, actually, and keeps chugging away because I make bad business decisions and write stuff I enjoy instead of writing to market, or doing rapid release, or releasing more novels (or novels). Writing does ironically help when I'm stressed, but not when I'm stressed about making money because of writing.
I will cut at my income before I cut at my love of this job, and unfortunately fanfiction keeps me going in this job, which means I can't really cut at that first.
(Also from a business perspective, it's actually a very good funnel to the original stuff and then subscription. Most of you wouldn't be here if you hadn't read one of my fanfics first and then gave the original stuff a try - I try not to think about that too much because I need fanfic to not be about money, but the fact is, I would not have this career without fanfic).
I do have plans to take two weeks off in January from posting chapters (I can still post rewards in the second half of January) and that's not too far away.
And the reality is that I probably would have kept going okay if real life hadn't imploded on top of everything like the world's worst bukkake party.
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How was year 2023 for you looking back ?
I'll admit I was going to say something along the lines of "Oh, it's been just another year! 🙃"
But you know what? No. It hasn't "been just another year." I've had so much happen this past year that I had to think for a good minute about it - because did all this really happen in a single year???
Yeah I've had my usual run of mental health slips. Some of them really bad.
But I've had so many wins this year too!
I finally took the time to really think about myself and feel comfortable in who and what I am. I finally said out loud to someone that I'm nonbinary. I talked with my counsellor about my issue with my physical appearance from my gender dysphoria. I came out to my family. I'm going by a new name now (socially at least), one that I feel better matches my gender identity.
And I started school again! After spending so long in such poor mental health where I couldn't even work, I'm now finally embracing doing something I love! I can finally say to my child-self: "You know what? You weren't wrong about wanting to be an artist. And you are good at it and love doing it!"
Yes, I'm doing an actual art course now! And I am loving every minute of it (even when the stress is high). I'm even planning on doing another year of it!
I've gotten friendly with the people in my class. It's been so long since I've had a physical, in-person sense of community. I thought it was something I'd never have again - but now I get to go into class and just talk with people and share dumb jokes. And its such a positive and supportive atmosphere! We're all artistic and of different lgbtq+ identities as well as neurodivergencies. (Through peer review it turns out I might actually fall somewhere on the autism scale - who knew? No wonder younger me was such a mess.)
For the first time in I don't even know how long, I've finally started to feel at least somewhat comfortable with myself. I'm done pretending to be a person I'm not and trying to fit other people's boxes. I still have my struggles and have a lot of history/traumas/whatever to process, but I feel so much better now that I finally feel secure enough to learn what kind of person I am. And I'm so lucky to be around people that are okay with that!
My family for the most part are accepting of where I am now. They don't really get "nonbinary", but most of them are still making efforts to use my chosen name. My relationship with one parent is still a trainwreck (I don't think its salvageable at this point tbh) but my relationship with my other parent has improved so much this past year. We now talk on regular basis and they have been my biggest supporter for both who I am as well as my artistic endeavours.
It's been one hell of a year. 2023 is the year I finally started feeling human. It's the year I started feeling like me again.
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What are your thoughts on the new DLC? We're early into the reveals but I'm excited to make a large and lovely library that gets demolished by some horrors beyond the stars.
I am so, so, SO excited for it!! I haven’t been able to sit still all day! Although, I am admittedly a little bit miffed that they announced the ~cOsMiC hOrRoR~ DLC after I’d already started my Eldritch Cult playthrough, lmao. Very rude /j
I do look forwards to having unspeakable horrors beyond comprehension to deal with when I play as a Solo Mechanitor who’s too curious for their own good in my next run, though! The underwater mechanoids should fit into that run nicely, too.
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