#2021 is still hard

[wizardlymilf]

they've been slowly creeping into my brain again

separate drawings below cut

#my art #sam and max #the last time i drew either of them was (flips through calendar) september 2021 #i still hate drawing sam's hat why is that shape so hard for me #not meant to be ship art but i don't mind if you tag it as such. theyre married to me

[rotomicity]

TGCF art from 2021 which were very experimental and very much something out of my comfort zone but am still so satisfied with

(gonna ramble more under the cut 👉 )

My main inspiration for these were definitely classic storybook illustration styles and the watercolor-like illustrations included inside the tgcf books which depict hualian's daily slice of life routines as seen below

I wanted to capture that feeling of warmth i got from reading but i also went with the storybook look because their relationship (and by extension broad strokes of the entire plot) really did feel like something out of actual myth or legend; i'm chinese indonesian and was raised surrounded by chinese culture + values so tgcf felt VERY familiar to me, it threw me back to my childhood reading or listening to tales about chinese deities, i'd say the storybook image definitely came into my mind pretty quickly bc of this

I find this style somewhat hard to replicate now but if i could or have the time to, i really want to continue the 'companion pieces to chapter titles ' concept i did with the last 2 pieces (which are of the same chapter title but i was just indecisive 😭😭), i even had 3 more planned based on my favorite titles before burning out back then

#tgcf #tian guan ci fu #heaven official's blessing #hualian #hua cheng #xie lian #mxtx #danmei #rotomic does artz #IF YOU READ THROUGH ALL OF MY RAMBLING THANK YOU VERY MUCH #as you can see i am Very Normal about this book :) #(said like a liar) #what was 2021 me cooking....like why did they go so hard on these #also bonus hozier in there bc i associate hualian with like real people do a lot #tbh a lot of hozier songs would work for them #i REALLY want to do a companion piece for chapter 243's title bc wowee #it still gets me to this day. i remember it n suddenly im like what the fuck (fond and sad)

[blueskittlesart]

what do you think his thoughts were at that moment?

this is an insane question and i am going rabid trying to answer it. for context this is about my. link dead on the fucking floor compilation. i. e. "what do you think went through link's mind as he all but DIED in precalamity botw."

i've thought about this before because. well obviously i have. look at how many times i've drawn it. i think context matters more than anything when examining that moment, because it's essentially the culmination of link's entire life up to that point in the worst way possible. you have a kid who has been raised to either win or die. those are his only two options. he's known this for basically as long as he can remember. either he defeats the calamity like he's supposed to and lives the rest of his life as an untouchable gold standard of soldier, as proof that all that pressure and pain he suffered worked, or he dies and dooms everyone he has ever loved to suffer horribly for the rest of their likely very short lives. And i do think he thought about this extensively, because how could you NOT, and i think that he probably believed that death was the most likely outcome. He was raised by a soldier, around soldiers, to be a soldier. soldiers are practical. soldiers strategize for the most likely scenario. they're not pessimistic, but they know how to look at a situation objectively and make a judgement call. Looking at link's situation objectively, it would have been obvious that he couldn't win. he was one kid, a 16-year-old boy, with maybe some above-average swordsmanship skills, but too many variables were missing. he couldn't hear the sword's voice. zelda's power wouldn't manifest. Hylia, who should have been there guiding them through this prophecy that SHE had supposedly inflicted on them, was completely silent. the divine beasts may have given him some hope, initially, but it was clear below the optimistic facade that hyrule was toying with very dangerous forces they didn't truly understand. I think he very likely went into that confrontation with the calamity anticipating death.

what's most interesting to me about the scene of link's death isn't that he fell, but WHERE he fell. because he didn't die in the sanctum, at the scene of the calamity's birth, as one might have expected. he died in an empty field along the road to a fortress that might have been able to protect him. Link, the bearer of the triforce of courage, the boy raised to die a martyr at the hands of the calamity, who had all but accepted his fate before the monster even showed its face, chose to run for safety, what some might call the coward's approach, instead of dying where he stood at ganon's hand. and it seems almost out of character at first, when you think about the person he was when he first met zelda, the person who would do anything in his power to show no weakness, to take the pain and the stress without flinching or faltering. the boy who so completely embodied that idea of "courage." but i think that zelda was the piece that changed him. If it had just been him at that final confrontation, maybe he wouldn't have run. maybe he would have been content to take his final stand and accept the death he'd been promised. but zelda insisted on being there, too. "there must be something i can do to help." and while link was a soldier, more than willing to engage in self-sacrifice, he was also a knight, sworn to protect this girl, and so he couldn't in good conscience sacrifice HER, too. so he ran. he tried to live, at a moment when he should have expected to die. and i think that was infinitely more courageous of him. to go against everything you have ever known and expected is infinitely scarier than accepting the outcome you've always anticipated. Running for his life (and for zelda's) was running into the unknown. escaping death in that way was defying everything he'd built himself up to be, everything everyone expected of him. Who is link if not the hero who faced the calamity with courage? what would he have to be if he could not be what was expected of him? in that moment, he made the choice to step into the unprophesized timeline, into a world where his actions were no longer defined by some great all-seeing power. and that was the most courageous move he could have made in that moment. he must have been terrified.

so what was going through his mind as he made his last stand? Honestly, i think the only thing on his mind was zelda. I don't think he cared about himself, his physical condition, any of it. I think he made the choice to run because of zelda and so he made the choice to take his final stand where he did because of her, too. just before zelda's power manifests, we see him try to continue fighting even inches from death, so gravely injured that he's unsteady on his feet, using his sword to keep himself standing. i think he must have known that he was in no condition to fight anymore, but he expected death to come for him at one point or another. what mattered was that she might live as long as he kept going. that's why he ran in the first place. not for himself, but because zelda was there and zelda didn't deserve to die like this. Even once zelda's power manifests, link only gives up and allows himself to fall once a beat or two has past--once he's sure that there really is no more danger. that she'll be okay, that she can make it past the fort and into relative safety even if he lets go here. He collapses then, and only then, after running miles through fields and woods, already gravely wounded, because in that moment he sees that the danger has past. a soldier's work is only done when there is nothing left to fight. a knight's work is only done when his princess is truly safe.

maybe he was relieved that he'd managed to hold on as long as he had. that he'd been able to find her some form of safety, in one way or another. maybe he worried about what manner of things would come for her once he was gone. maybe he wondered why she wouldn't just leave him and run for the fort. i'm sure there was a flash of regret in the back of his mind, for the family and friends he'd leave behind, for the people he'd let down, for the calamity he wasn't able to defeat. but this was the outcome he'd expected, even if it had come in a slightly different form. Even if now there was a girl hovering above him begging him to open his eyes.

#can you tell i never stop thinking about this specific moment? lol #i still think my loz dissertation line about this moment goes hard btw. #'There is a flash of golden light. He cannot raise his head to witness it. but it is warm. so warm. it feels like safety. like home. #He closes his eyes and breathes in. he is sure he is dying. This will be his last breath. At least it will be warm and soft and golden.' #like damn ok 2021 blue. you get it. go off #asks #zelda analysis

[artsy-n-smartsy]

behold...

the Luigi

#Luigi #Super Mario #super mario bros #super mario fanart #Fanart #nintendo #This work is from 2021...but I still really like how it came out :] #Also fun fact...Luigi is my longest-standing fictional crush #It ain't hard to see why eheh...man is a sweetheart and cutie <3 #Also I really should upload more of my fanart on here....not just my TF2 stuff ^^; #Sooooo yeah I will work on that #artsy's art

[angel-derangement]

#hey here’s a thing I just found in my camera roll from 2021 #drew this and wrote this poem in a very hard adhd time #hard hard adhd times since then but I have grown a lot and know more about my own patterns now. so it’s not this bad again #but I was proud of this poem and I think I still am. it’s fun. hope u like. #my art #adhd

[the-acid-pear]

I still think it's insanely hot of Jack to be evil. Like literally rip to the whole world but seeing a man be evil because he simply wanted to is literally so cool and sexy. I know I wanna throw myself under a table to hide every time I see him be evil but that's irrelevant. It's still the ever.

#luly talks #jack Kennedy #dsaf #dsaf jack #like he literally jsut wanted to. he did ir bc HE wanted to #he wasn't gaining anything but control and BY GOD do i respect that. #i literally would've kin jack so hard if I'd met him around end of 2021 or somewhere around 2022 #or i dont know i dont remember the era where i too was yearning for control #jack does remind me of my oc X in that regard #also in the creepy fucking smile 🫡 #also while I'm here let me say henry saying i didn't mollycoddle you is still so fucking funny #how i wish we'd have had him just. casual style

[dippersguidetotheunexplained]

you know predicting an edgy live action gravity falls show in 2025 isnt that far off from predicting an out-of-the-blue edgy adult oriented bill book in 2024 in the grand scheme of things really. i was close

#still mortifying to me that this post breached containment so hard. had decently well known tumblr funnymen slapping the word 'fiddauthor' #on their blogs in 2021. lokcdown was some other shit the balance of the universe was unstable

[churbo]

continuing my self imposed tradition of drawing these guys for new years! Happy new years everyone!

#onwards to 2024! this year was just warmup and 2022 and 2021 and 2020 and 2 #jjba #jojo #jojo's bizarre adventure #diu #diamond is unbreakable #josuke higashikata #okuyasu nijimura #koichi hirose #havent posted for a hot minute sorry.... burnout n college sucks ass #even tho i dont draw much jojo anymore it still holds such a dear place in my heart. also my ocs that I DO draw constantly are from it sooo #technically. TEHCNIALLY i am still #id like to post here again tho. maybe ill compile my oc doodles into one huge post and just dump it on yall idk #ocs are hard to share outside of ur friends tbh but maybe you guys would enjoy it :3 aurelio especially ouguh aurelio my dalring boy... #anyways ill get out of yalls hair now have a good one!

[luca---paguro]

suuuuper experimental luca piece because i wanna get good at backgrounds

#luca paguro #alberto scorfano #luca pixar #pixar luca #luca 2021 #pixar luca 2021 #luca pixar 2021 #SOOO HI GUYS!!!!! A FEW THINGS #I'm probably not gonna do art at ALL next month becuase of artfight! if yall want that i can send it here (but alas i have none luca oc's s #nothing there will be in theme s m h #BUT ALSO ALSO YALL ARE SO COOL!!! and if you ever wanna dm dont worry im so down!! #uh uh and last! this is...a tad silly but... #does anybody have good luca fics... (pretend im doing the finger pointing at eachother emoji yknow the one) #last time i looked (which tbf was a bit ago) and none of it was very good BUT BUT i may not have looked very hard #BUT STILL #REGARDLESS I HOPE YALL HAVE A GOOD DAY!!! SORRY FOR TALKING SOOOOO MUCH!! #my art #myart

[toy-powerhouse]

Interstella 5555 x Rise of the TMNT AU. Like the main characters of Interstella 5555, the turtles are a popular yokai/mutant pop band that get abducted by an evil music manager and are forced to take on human identities until they're rescued, all set to the music of Daft Punk. Also, they wear orange suits because it was Mikey's idea to start the band.

#teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rise of the tmnt #rottmnt #tmnt au #rottmnt au #tmnt fanart #rottmnt fanart #although it looks more like Sealab 2020 or Sealab 2021 if you prefer #oh boy i'm still struggling to make digital art #and these turtle suckers are so hard to draw :'^) #my fanart

[silawastaken]

I was reading ur bsd fanfic and I was like wow this so reminds me of early sbi fanfic and then I scrolled up and saw ur username and was like. Ah. I Get it.

NO. STOP. STOP. OEJEHDJDJDHDHD

I HAVE NEVER WRITTEN NOR READ SBI FANFIC(<-filthy liar) I SWEAR NO NO NO 😭😭😭

PLEASE THE USERNAME IS GENUINELY A COINCIDENCE. YES, I WAS A DSMP FAN. YES, IT'S LOWKEY STILL AN INTEREST. BUT THAT DIES WITH ME OKAY??? SHUT IT.

please i thought i was safe

im changing my username because of you/j

#the death grip dsmp had on me should be investigated #I was never INTO IT into it #not like I am with bsd #but the interest has stayed lingering since I first found dsmp in early 2021 #as fucked as half the creators are #the dsmp still holds a very special place in my heart #and this IS a safe space for dsmp fans cause I know how hard it is the let go of a hyperfixation or special interest- even if the creators #are bad people #BUT THE USERNAME IS A COINCIDENCE. #YEAH YOU GUESSED CORRECTLY #BUT IT'S A COINCIDENCE #bsd #ao3 fanfic #silas yaps #(should i unearth the sbi fanfic? revisit it mayhaps?) #(rewrite- anyone?)

[teardroprosa]

♦︎ girl, goddess, queen ♦︎

I haven’t had much time to art lately thanks to uni but I drew Miss Bylie to keep up with my tradition of redrawing her every year in December :D

and here is 2022’s version ♡

#i’ve been so busy at uni god i am sorry for not having enough time to consistently update this blog ): #i can’t believe i’ve been drawing her for 3 years wow #not showing 2020’s version #or 2021 #the beginner vibes were extra hard back then #still a beginner but i’m looking forward to 2024! #will try to make more art too hehe #my art #fe3h #fire emblem #fire emblem three houses #artists on tumblr #fe16 #byleth fe3h #byleth eisner #female byleth #fe3h byleth #fire emblem three hopes #few3hopes #few3h #fire emblem warriors: three hopes #fe three houses

[dr3amofagame]

speaking of apparently tommy's touring a 2021 save of the server with technodad.

awwww that’s nice

#technodad can fix that boy I believe #my asks !! #I don’t touch on cc stuff much here but regardless of cc opinions #it’s hard to deny that dsmp was a big thing and that they all played their parts #it’s kinda bittersweet looking back like I won’t say that I don’t miss what it was like in 2020-2021 #but time passes and hey I’m still kicking here and having a blast

[oflgtfol]

i was talking to my therapist last week about how i'm kinda excited but also equally apprehensive about starting grad school this fall because yes, i so so desperately needed a gap year otherwise i think i literally would have killed myself and/or had a breakdown big enough to land me in the hospital, and even beyond that i just needed to figure out a more concrete plan of what i'm going to do with my life in general -- while all of that is true, and i'm glad i took the gap year for it, i'm also apprehensive because i genuinely feel like an entirely different person than i was even at this exact point in time last year, nevermind anything earlier than that. it's only been a single year of me being out of school but my life has changed so dramatically, mostly for the better, and my whole personality has flipped on its head, it's just going to be so fucking weird going back to the same school, the same campus, potentially seeing my old friends around. augh

#sorry i was trying to find a post in my music tag in my archive and i scrolled so far back i got all the way to april 2023 #where i referenced sitting in a dining hall #and its like. DINING HALL ?!?!?! #im going to be sitting in the fucking dining hall again in just like four months. UGH #brot posts #it's almost similar to the separation between high school and college. where i feel like hs me was completely different than college me #and now only a mere year later i feel like. post-undergrad me is completely different than undergrad me #although now that separation is exacerbated by how short a time it was and just HOW drastic a change it was #like . a bitch goes on antidepressants suddenly theyre a whole new person. #like im lowkey excited to see my old classmates and friends again #but i also am dreading it bc like hi. hey. i have the same name and face as the person you knew but i'm someone else now. sorry #and also just the persistent fear that i'm going to regress or at least even just /feel/ like im regressing #just by being back in that environment again? #even if i'll be on meds this time and actually going to therapy and overall having so much more support than i did in the past #so as nostalgic as i am to be on campus again it's also like. hard to separate the present from the past #like despite it all. this bathroom was still the very same place i went to have a mental breakdown weekly #this bench outdoors was the place i sat by myself to eat lunch in the blistering cold bc i couldnt eat indoors during covid 2020-2021 #this bench indoors was where my friends had an intervention with me and forced me to call the on-campus mental health services #just . idk. feeling a strange mix of nostalgia and also being haunted by bad memories #oh the woes of going to grad school at the same place you got your undergrad. While mentally ill #but alas i need to save money by commuting and having instate tuition

[drbtinglecannon]

I always had faith TOH was going to end with Luz having access to both worlds, and a distinct life in both. The usual way Isekai stories go is the character is either tossed to a new world against their will and their story revolves around trying to get home (like Amphibia), or the character was miserable with their old life and never want to go back (insert basically any Isekai anime here).

Luz seemed like she fit into the second category, with having repeatedly talked about being an outcast back in the Human Realm, but with the show's reoccurring themes of found family and "weirdos stick together", it felt like it would've been a punishment to make her choose between her beloved mother or her beloved owl family & friends. This scene in Hunting Palismen really solidified that theory that she'd get both worlds in the end.

And then it ended up true!

Not only did Luz not have to return home and leave behind the Demon Realm forever, like all the stories she read before, but she also did get to be a witch back in Connecticut.

I know the finale was over a week ago, but I'm still thinking about how lovely it was that Luz got to have her happy ending that was tailored to her specific needs that suits the story.

#toh #toh spoilers #the owl house #toh theory #luz noceda #hunting palismen #im rewatching the show rn & like. s2a hits so fucking hard. eotp. ttlgr. hp. k3ohd. er ;_____; el. just. AAHHHHHHHHHH #i cant believe s1a is from 2021 ;____; how has it been so long already. how is the show over already. luz got her happy ending & im still #so emotional about it #tc posts

[tc-doherty]

Art tag list: @magefaery @bloodlessheirbyjacques @hakbot and, @memento-morri-writes since you said you would like to see it! You may need to open the images in a new tab because they're fairly large

2020 is the year that I was injured, so it has to start over again at that point. Honestly the fact that I managed to draw anything at all that year is already a miracle. I think the first three (which are all from one image) I drew before I was diagnosed and my pain wasn't quite as bad

Since then I've just sort of been trying to get back to where I used to be a little bit at a time

#my characters #my art #in 2014 I was reading GNG so I was just in a dog mood #drew a lot of dogs #I could have filled the whole row with just dogs #2017 - 2019 is like 50% Fire Emblem fanart although you can hardly tell because I redesign the characters aggressively #2021 is all redraws of old art from 2004 - 2009 #That was a specific rehabilitation project that I did but didn't end up finishing #These last two years have mostly just been character design because it's still hard for me to draw