Nina / 20+/ London. A multi-fandom blog, not spoiler-free and sometimes I forget to tag properly. I like anime/manga, asian dramas, fairytales, fashion, photography, and art/writing things.
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stop believing that you ran out of time to shape yourself into who you want to be! stop believing that its ruined! stop believing you don’t have potential! you are not a fixed being! you have endless opportunities to grow.
Any time I feel the grip of anxiety that I’m too old or don’t have time to do something with my limited hours after work, I just remember the wisdom of the ancients:
Look. My mom is 65. She just divorced my shitty dad, is in therapy, wearing what she actually wants, cutting her hair how how she likes, and is exploring her gender and sexual identity. She went from being stuck in the middle of nowhere watching fox news 24/7 to a guest house in the city where she paints and reads, goes to dance classes and botanical gardens, and has started playing D&D with her kids and our friends. She says this is the life she always wanted and she has never been happier.
This year, I want you to be unapologetic when you create.
Don’t apologize for your writing, drawing, music, designs, films, sculptures, cosplays, knitting, sewing, cooking, and anything else I might’ve missed.
Don’t apologize for the quality.
Stop being afraid of what you can accomplish. You might think you can do so much better, well guess what? You will. You’re always improving. But if you start to apologize for the best you can do at this moment, then you might restrain yourself, stop yourself from taking risks that will help you.
I know this is a hard thing to stop. I do it all the time. When I submit art to people that I’m not so confident about, I’ll apologize in advance.
This year, I challenge you, and myself, to stop doing it.
The best drawing advice I can give to anyone who wants to improve quickly is to use cheap notepad paper and ballpoint pens. I know it’s tempting to buy the cool fancy supplies but then you’ll feel pressured to not waste them. Use garbage materials and burn through them with zero thought. Only use pen because it forces you to commit and stops you from second guessing your lines and redrawing them over and over. Learn how to use your mistakes and then learn how to get it right the first time. I took numerous art classes and nothing taught me more than buying a big pack of Bics and legal pads and sketching anything that came to mind without hesitation. Fill a few pages everyday with the first thing that comes to mind. Don’t rip out pages you don’t like, just flip to the next page and try again. Watch yourself improve. If you really want to be a good artist, you need to learn how to draw from the ground up without relying on quality materials.
So I got locked out of this account from 8th to 26th June (a little over 2 weeks!!!) You’d think I would’ve spent that time productively, like writing and drawing more or updating my other socials, but unfortunately I did not. Instead I moped until support emailed back and then boy, did I shriek and do a happy little dance twice there in my kitchen. It made me re-evaluate my relationship with this hellsite (affectionate) a bit.
I joined all the way back in 2011 (12 years, jfc), and it really is basically a giant scrapbook of all my passing interests and current hyperfixations. I realised how much I missed and craved my fandom fix, the creative content, the random quote or interesting facts, the tiny peeks into other people’s scrapbooks and stray thoughts, that I sometimes pasted onto my own. A lot of the people I used to chat with are gone now, losing the energy to keep up with this frenetic site that I now sometimes do too, but it still kinda feels like being part of a community. You catch a glimpse of other people’s lives, conversations, passions, and it’s like yeah I’m not just alone in my head all the time - other people can be a little crazy too, have weird thoughts, random moments and fixations. Life moves on, no matter what.
