December 10

 - it is now aesthetically winter. Snow in the ground, people are wearing coats and white and black and red. The fashion has visibly changed. I thought I would hate winter but so far I actually like it better. 

- the concept and early design phase is quite frustrating for me because at that point nothing is fleshed out enough to be presentable. I’m drawing and putting a lot of creative effort in, but I don’t have a lot to show for it because the sketches are messy and not particularly coherant. Gotta keep reminding myself that it is worth it anyway, because once I have a concept I can make a bunch of really cool stuff with it!!

- for example right now I am developing a new character which is just fine except I don’t know what she looks like so all my drawings of her are really not very defined. That was stage 1. Stage 2 is trying a bunch of things, most of which will not stick. It also includes drawing her in her underwear to get a sense of her body shape and general proportions, which is useful for me but not really something I think most people want to see lol

- meanwhile the character concept is still fairly nebulous which means answering character prompts and such is slow and tiring for my brain. 

With familiar characters figuring out reactions is relatively fast and quite fun because it’s only a matter of taking complicated raw character traits and applying them to a novel situation. But if I don’t even know what the base traits are, it feels like trying to solve a puzzle when I don’t have all the pieces.

I remember this process well… and it took quite a long time to get out of it. The more cool and complex the character, the longer the marination time. Theoretically this makes sense practically it is frustrating as heck.

- maybe I have said this already but! Turns out Christmas is really awesome when it is adding whimsy to an otherwise tiring and mundane life. I guess that’s why festivals were invented lol is just as way to brighten up the daily grind or whatever

- BRUH my birthday is in two days!! It’s going to be wacky having my birthday feel exactly like every other day lol but that’s probably just the nature of being an adult. This is not an implied judgment of anyone else - I could make it a big deal if I wanted to. I just don’t particularly care to because of life being life and it bemuses me to find that this is the case..

- we are nearly in the home stretch!! Two finals next week, and a lot of homework to catch up on. And white glove checks are fast approaching, and…

- food situation is suboptimal but also… idk I don’t want to buy anything else when I’m abt to leave for a week?? Bother

- I’ve been eating a lot more sugar in general. This isn’t great but it’s hard to eat other things when it takes energy to cook anything that tastes good and cereal or bread or ice cream is immediately available…

- pros of studying healthy relationships as a hobby: learn more abt them, better understand people. Cons: makes being lonely in real life suck more 

- I hate thinking about money. I don’t know what I will do when I have to pay for everything with my own money I think it will make me very stressed out. I hope I find someone to marry who has a good job so that I don’t have to worry as much