Chronically ill night shift worker with horses who just wants a place to put her occasional RF based nonsense.
Discord; margroot
General art blog; margroot
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Content is normally catered to the early era, rf1, 2, and Frontier ~ [Please feel free to send me things of that era. Please. Will appreciate you forever.]
Much more talkative in DMs than servers or dashboards; fatigue has taken over my life tbh. Thank you for your patience, and I'm sorry I don't share/talk as much as I used to.
Like I said in my last post, I am going to try and do at least 5 pictures this year! (I do not care about team alliance, friends and mutuals are chosen by me wanting to make people happy, not because of points it'll earn the game♥!)
Like I said in my last post, I am going to try and do at least 5 pictures this year! (I do not care about team alliance, friends and mutuals are chosen by me wanting to make people happy, not because of points it'll earn the game♥!)
Health update; things have... stabilized? I don't want to say plateaued, but. Leveled out? Reached a point that I think is safe to call "normal," to know what I'm dealing with.
Positives below, I promise
TLDR; long covid sucks. Last october/november killed my drive to be creative. I've been in a hobby rut while trying to find a way to get some quality of life back. I wound up turning to reading for the winter/spring, some old favorites plus some new "are now part of my favorites" favorites. (James Islington is currently impressing me.)
After juggling some meds and supplements and combos and times of taking them, I've found a mix that gives me strength. I'm not just staying awake, I'm able to do my job and walk around without suffering. Light sensitivity has also been cut down so much. I still get insane migraines, but, only about a fourth of the time I was last year. Dropping. It's mid June and I've been... okay. Whereas the last couple years I've started to become heat sick in april.
I'm still trying to get some hobby and communicative energy back; art still feels scary, and fanart feels stressful. Like if I mess up a character that isn't my own, it's just more reason to step back away from art, to not go back at all. I don't like RF fanart feeling scary, after it's been such a fun place since 2020. So I've been trying to tap into art over on my personal blog, very slowly, with that silly gray mascot cat. This month has started to see me WANTING to open Clip Studio every day again. I'm hopeful to maybe do at least 5 things for ArtFight this year, even if they're lower "quality" than I'd normally like.
October is up in the air this year, but out of careful consideration as opposed to... the health collapse that was last year. (Oct 5th sucked.) I may skip it this year, and instead try to return in 27, we'll see. I actually have a little faith that I can do that, instead of just... saying so. I miss it. The two months of planning, the month of thrill, the joy of hitting post, the collecting of each piece into one big spread at the end of the month... and that's so much better than where I was so angry at it last year.
I've also kept playing video games, very, very, VERY slowly. Still haven't touched rf5 or GoA, but it's started to trickle into my brain again. I talked a lot about Grimshire over the winter (so very recommended for those of us sick of the harem factor in the farming genre) and have dabbled in a good deal of Legend of Khimorii lately. Daily!!! DAILY!!! Along with brief dives into Subnautica 2 and (back into) Valheim. It feels good. I missed playing games. I hope to do a replay of the Metro series so I can finally finish Exodus and hop in the 2039 train, as well.
Lastly, I owe some of you so many messages. Thoughts. Replies. Explorations. And I'm so sorry. I've read every single one. I appreciate you all, especially in these last 3 years of "wtf do I do now" after I got sick.
There's not much else to this; I just had the energy, want, and time to reach out today. Hello to new followers, I'll try to draw or make other Rune Factory stuff again. And to my old familiars, I think of you all, I do miss you all, I'm so sorry I'm more a lurker than a participator right now. Been pulling my mental health up onto the plateau alongside the physical
My inboxes are always open, otherwise, I'm watching you all from my metaphoric window.
Contrary to popular belief the biggest beginner's roadblock to art isn't even technical skill it's frustration tolerance, especially in the age of social media. It hurts and the frustration is endless but you must build the frustration tolerance equivalent to a roach's capacity to survive a nuclear explosion. That's how you build on the technical skill. Throw that "won't even start because I'm afraid it won't be perfect" shit out the window. Just do it. Just start. Good luck.
Just scrolled through I think your last year of posting and had to follow, love your art and the way you think about the old RF games. There's such an earthy warmth to them that you clearly appreciate and capture. Cheers!
This is, by far, one of the kindest things to ever come into my inbox. Thank you so much, friend!
I just adore the way the older games set their atmospheres/mood and their almost deadly calm, plot creeping up toward you like a cat in the shadows. I yearn for the 00s slower style of video game storytelling, and am so glad it feels like I'm doing a decent tribute.
This is a late reply but know I thought about your message a lot up until this point. Thank you! Please have the best of days!!
Mei from Rune Factory: Harvest Moon for the collab on Bluesky!
Famously forever in my heart as "chat's wife", Mei was the dark horse of my 2023 RF1 replay. I still have a lot of questions and am intrigued by her character, motives, and backstory. She serves as a perfect example of how RF1 always gives me reasons to go back and discover more!
I finally threw my hat in the ring of that massive Rune Factory Anniversay collab going on, and was lucky enough to see Lord Ethelberd in his rf4 return glory was still available to draw!✨
Since the big, complete rf4 image was posted earlier, I figured I'd queue this up to post~
hyperfixating on a fictional woman who went underdeveloped in canon is literally FUN and the 80-90% of fandom people who only do the same for background character men have no idea of the degree to which they are fucking missing out
hour 1 of thinking about an underdeveloped woman: idk it would've been nice if she had more screentime
hour 100 of thinking about an underdeveloped woman: ok but despite having only eight lines of dialogue she is literally THE most interesting nuanced and tragic character in the entire series and these writers had no idea what they even had. how is no one else seeing this it's literally so objectively obvious
I've been playing a lot of Grimshire since my brother in law introduced me back before Christmas, and, I've been loving a farming game where the farming is important again. Not just. "Do this just to make money go up, but you don't have to." I hate how little you have to farm to do anything in 3 or 4's story. (still haven't played 5 or GoA so I don't speak for them.)
What I'd give for the technologies like drying/pickling/other preservation, and the necessity to actually provide for the town in bad weather, to actually be in and a thing in RF
