#faults writes

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Comic journal: halloween, cosplay, gender exploration

I was originally working on these in time for halloween, but as you can see it got delayed for quite a bit - partly because of procrastination, partly because there's a feeling of 'I wonder if this is too personal to put out?'

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In which I frankly talk about my feelings with the Touhou fandom

I haven’t written about it much elsewhere, except maybe on twitter (and even there, it’s in bits and pieces), but I’m really doing my hardest in telling myself to really slow down from being involved in projects. Specifically, I have to slow down from working on Touhou stuff. It’s not as if I am short on ideas or plans for projects: on the contrary, I have lists of projects that I would like to work on (mostly being illustrations and comics)... But realistically speaking, my postgraduate research works would not offer me the luxury to pursue them. Lets back up a bit:

I have been in the situation where I was... admittedly obsessed with being involved with as much projects as I could afford too, during my last postgraduate research. And while there were other factors which had hampered my progress during that time, if I wanted to be honest, my involvement in those projects really did eat up a lot of time and effort that would otherwise be be better spend on my REAL work.  With my recent enrollment in the current postgraduate program, I feel that I could easily return to that obsessive periods back then... And the prospect rather worries me: was I going to once again neglect my work, just to get the feeling as if I’m, somehow, working on something much bigger...? I view the act of creating as being a natural response of wanting to develop the fandom. We contribute our own take to the series, and perhaps connect with the rest of the fandom - or at least, with ones who share our own perspective or point of view. I really was -still am - invested with the Touhou Project series, and I really feel like I wanted to be something bigger than I could be on my own... Yes, that was - is - the kind of attachment I have with the series. Unhealthy? Arguably so, and I hope this writing would help see things in a much clearer perspective, whether there is any good to keep on being involved with the series… Unfortunately, with the passing of time... perhaps it’s me being jaded, or just more entitled, or a combination of both... but I started to feel some sort of disconnect with the series....  No, to be more exact, I feel a sort of disconnect with the local Touhou scene.  For the longest time, along with a couple of other driven artist friends, we felt like we had something cool to contribute to the local scene, more specifically in the form of doujin works. There was - still - a lack of doujin works in our local Touhou scene, and we figured that the most reasonable and sensible thing to do was to come up with our own contribution.  We did collaboration, we put out books, we released merchandises, we tried to attend whichever events that we could possibly get our foot in. Four years in, and we found that we now could no longer afford to attend to events as regularly as we could - due to both time and financial constraint. Stubbornly, I pushed for our participation in two events for this year, despite the rest of the group choosing to stay on the side (with one exception, hiya moogs) - and I even worked on a couple of new releases which I have not attempted before.  I felt pretty damn good about the end product, thinking they were some of my better works in recent times.  And then the events came and passed, and I’m left with the cold realization: that my works were frankly not connecting with the market.  It confirms something which I knew, but have never cared to admit it - that in the context of the local - nay, maybe even the whole - Touhou scene, my works is... not one that particularly fits the popular taste. The realization really bums me out, as I have always felt inspired seeing other artists working in the confine of the fandom that have a more, shall we say, ‘alternative’ style - the ones that decides to mix up their influence and themes, and not go for the style/themes that are decidedly more popular in the fandom Looking at those bodies of works, I try to bring that spirit into my own stuff, taking some unusual inspirations and influences and things that generally interest me, during the process of creating - with the hope that I could offer... nay, contribute an alternative to the fandom... Now, going back to the local scene, I realized that I tend to view the events as where I should focus my effort - i.e. I only work on big projects that are to be released as books/prints etc. - that I have not really put that much effort in building my online presence. Sure I was posting every now and then, but was I really engaging with the people? Am I just not spamming, without any meaningful interaction? So was it really surprising that the public reception during those events aren’t as well as I would like them to? I don’t hold anything against the Touhou fandom, even if I admit that I fell into the temptation of blaming that ‘they don’t get it!’ now and then... But really, it’s on me for being so insulated, thinking that my stuff is the hot shit, yo.  And thus, I have decided that I would actively stop from working on any major projects for the foreseeable future - to just use the time to recharge, find inspiration, get the original sense of spark that lead me to originally go on a quest of doujin making... perhaps, most importantly, the build a deeper, more meaningful connection with the fandom. I wanted to thank a few individuals which I’ve reached out earlier as I’m grappling with this situation - for words of support, for advice on where I should go next, for renewing the fire of wanting to contribute to the series.  I would like to really move away from feeling entitled - feeling as if ‘being different’ is a merit in of itself - to being more honest in my work. That, is what I would hope to be my guiding ethos moving forward with my interaction with the fandom. And that could only be possible if I am able to be honest with myself: why was I upset, what do I expect out of all this, and where do I want to go? 

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I made a list of the Top 10 Song Discovery - old and new - from 2024 for one of the music server that I'm in!

YouTube playlist

Spotify playlist

Very brief writeup for the song selections:

I Am The Intimidator - Gasoline "Better pump the gasoline motherfucker!" is just so goddamn catchy

Huntsmen - Rain Highlight to this post metal Americana themed album, with soaring vocals and great buildup

Meer - Come To Light This release is my Album of the Year. Such a joy to listen to, with amazing vocal performances and great arrangement

A Swarm Of The Sun - An Empire The whole album is this big moody atmosphere, that to just pick a track does not do justice to the experience. Listen to the whole album for the big sads

Mother of Millions - The Line This is more of a buildup to the following track on the album, but it's strong enough to stand on its own. The whole album feels big, heavy, evocative

Fellowship - Hold Up Your Hearts (Again) Cliche thing to say, but this really gives anime opening vibe. I do like my cheesy power metal every now and then

Forndom - Den kärlek som vi gav Beautiful Swedish folk with orchestral elements

[older releases]

Fleshwater - Kiss The Ladder Mix of shoegaze and grunge? Apparently there's some a bit of resurgence of shoegaze these days

YUSUKE CHIBA - SNAKE ON THE BEACH - - ラブレター I haven't really explored his work outside of TMGE. Rest in peace Veltpunch - Crawl Random find through the good ol' algorithm. I've been listening to this song a good deal through 2024!

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Today Neurosis’ A Sun That Never Sets turns 20, so I wrote a track-by-track writeup of the album, and painted based off the cover illustration!

Album writeup

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https://afsafe.blogspot.com/2020/07/faults-artists-highlight-alphonse-mucha.html I wrote another entry in the Artists Highlight series, this time focusing on an artist associated with the Art Nouveau movement, a spiritual, patriotic Czech who see the importance of form in depicting the universal beauty of the spirit - Alphonse Mucha

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I drew Hiroaki Samura for a write-up on my blog: Faults' Artists Highlight: Hiroaki Samura

Happy 50th birthday, Samura sensei! 

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cafkl 6 comic book review.pdf

I have written a review for CAFKL 6 in the style of a journal paper, bringing in my background as a postgraduate researcher. I guess you could see this as an exercise into writing for me ahaha. Will be uploading the whole review in a conventional photo album format on Facebook later on.

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We have a confession to make: we were actually planning for going through a hiatus period for an undeterminable time, but the appeal of the new Touhou game was irresistable for us (...Okay, only for one of us!) that we had decided quite last minute we'll be joining Touhou Matsuri this year as well. Speaking as myself (Faiz Faults) I'd like to thank Floare Dina @ Caramel Milk Tea for joining our circle to become the ridiculously named Bisjut dan Susu, and other circles Dex Hexallion - Ensemble of Gensokyo  TH NUSA - Neighbors Under Sudden Alliance and the people from Singapore Touhou Lepak Corner  for the boothing experience. And of course much thanks for Malaysian Touhou Brigade for managing the event. Congrats on the Yuuhei Satellite concert yo! Thank you for the continued support for our circle, we hope to be able to return with renewed vigour soon.   To the artists out there: Remember the ABC... Oh!