Happy New Year, Newgrounds!!

I wanted to post a nice New Years drawing today, but I've been a little burned out in terms of art, what with the Secret Santa event and the writer's jam! so I might as well just post something here! Kind of a recap of the year, like a lot of other people are doing!

The more I think about it, 2023 was a pretty good year for me!! I had this idea in my head that I "accomplished nothing" or some shit like that, but I did a bunch of things this year that I'm happy about!

winter

My first drawing of 2023 was this fanart of Badass Beatrice! I still really like how this turned out haha!

Made this Valentine's day Pico fanart in February haha!

spring

Listened to my sister's club playlist in March and this was the result xD

Hit my one year newgrounds-versary in April and was really excited to see this get frontpaged!!!! :D

I had a really happy Pico Day in May! I'm really proud of this drawing still, because of the sheer amount of time it took and the number of characters I included!

I'm also really happy with this drawing of Boyfriend I did hehe!

summer

I don't really open up about my mental health all that much on here, but I'll just say I struggle with getting out there sometimes. But I pushed myself out of my comfort zone in June and went all the way to Philly to meet some Newgrounds people at Too Many Games!! It was amazing. I even wrote a blog post about it. A really sappy blog post.

I've been getting into gaming more, and playing a bunch of classics, thanks to @ErasmusMagnus. Thanks to him, I played Half Life for the first time and drew some aliens xD

Naturally, I drew a lot of pico fanart this year. Made this in June as well.

Drew my character Delilah for the first time in July. She is a book character, so this was me translating her from written words to an art version?? if that makes sense xD

Also in July, I had the honor of my character Kelly making a cameo on Doodlepup's Missing Wagon by StormyDew! This is seriously one of the coolest things that's happened to me on Newgrounds so far!!! Stormy is one of my favorite artists. This game is amazing and so fun, please go check it out!!

Made this comic in August, about my character Kelly.

fall

In September I participated in Writer's Jam 1! I wrote a story called Jamie, and it got second place! Made some art to go along with it!

I also participated in the Dinosaurs Attack Collab in October!!

For the Spooktacular, I drew a zombie version of my character, Kelly, based off the Half-Life mod, They Hunger

I had to say goodbye to my sweet hedgehog, Wendy in October.

I missed her too much to not get a new hedgie though. Made sure he looked nothing like her xD! His behavior is the polar opposite of her too I've realized, haha! I drew him for fun, and there's also a pic of him uploaded with the drawing.

Drew Gordon Freeman for Half-Life's 25th anniversary in November!

Also drew Kelly wearing an ugly sweater in November!

winter again

In December, I took part in the Gogos collab!!!

The Gogo I drew was Neko! I had like, four of him when I was a kid

I was gifted a drawing tablet in the giveaway in December!!! I made this with it so far! I want to get better at animation, and I'm looking forward to one day making something for the movie portal with this tablet!

Like I said, I wrote a short story for Writer's Jam 2 on Christmas Eve! I was a bit pressed for time with the holidays and everything, so uhhh I think it needs a lot of work. But hey, at least I got it done, and it's okay in my opinion!

And let's see, what else happened this year? Oh yeah,

Thank you for 200 fans!!!!!!

I never thought I'd have that many Newgrounds people interested in my art. I can't thank you enough for the nice things you guys comment on my stuff. It really makes my day, and sometimes it makes the really hard days not so bad! It's an honor to read what you guys think of the silly drawings I make. I've been trying return the love by commenting on other people's stuff to show them their work is important to me. I want to do more of that in 2024.

So, as for my other goals for 2024? I don't really know yet. Of course, I'm gonna keep working on improving at art! I want to get into animation, like I said. I also want to keep writing short stories and continue editing a novel I've been working on since last year. I've always wanted to publish a book, ever since I was a kid. It might be a pipe dream, but I want to keep working on that in 2024. And mostly, I want to get more involved in the community here, and my community IRL. I want to socialize more, and have more adventures going places. Hopefully traveling more too, like I did when I went to Philly!

Thanks so much for reading my long-ass recap, or skimming it haha!

I love you, Newgrounds ❤❤❤

See you in 2024!!

This is my entry for Writer's Jam 2! I used the prompt "Cabin". The word count is 2189, give or take a couple words.

Home For Christmas

December was the worst in that little town. Windham was north of nowhere, deep in the woods, somewhere at the end of the world. At night, it got so quiet the only thing you’d hear passing by on the main road was logging trucks. And they were all headed somewhere else. Lucky them.

Her family lived in a cramped old cabin and had nothing. No heat in the winter, barely any space, three people to a bedroom, only old hand-me-down clothes, inappropriate for below-zero weather. And in those awful Decembers, the snow would be up to your knees, so deep that walking from your door to the neighbors’ cabin felt like a million years. The power lines would often come down in particularly bad blizzards, and the power company didn’t exactly prioritize Windham, so there was no telling how long the whole street would be dark. Even though Windham looked like a Christmas card, there was nothing festive about it.

She picked a bad month to run away. But she was never the planning type, and she’d had it.

-xxx-

Robin thought of running away a lot before she actually did it. Her dad ran away. She heard from a girl at school who heard from someone else that he hopped into a train car one night and that was that. He didn’t even say anything before going. Not even an “I’m going to buy milk,” kind of thing.

Her brother Will told her that the train went all the way across the country. You could get on it at night and go east into the sunrise. Maybe you could get all the way to the other coast. It took a long, long time to ride the train that far. But once you got there it would be worth it.

“I could bring the cat, and I could bring Danny,” Robin said when she told Will about her plan. She was sitting on the floor in front of the TV that night. Will was on the couch, and the youngest brother, Danny, was next to him. Mom was in the kitchen, making a frozen pizza in the oven. It smelled good, and they were all hungry.

“Don’t be an idiot,” said Will. “Think of our dinner, for example. You can’t have pizza wherever the train goes.”

“Why?”

“Cause Mom won’t be there to buy it for you, stupid.”

“Why don’t we all just get on a train?” she asked Will, as MTV cut to a lame commercial break.

“Cause we’d have to leave the TV,” said Will, “And the oven, and electricity, and our beds, and the space heater, which we wouldn’t be able to plug into anything.”

“Yeah,” she said, “But Mom could get a house like this somewhere else. If we could get this one, we could get another one.”

“It’s not that easy,” said Will.

She sighed and hugged her knees, but she didn’t say anything else. After all, Will knew about these things. At fifteen, he knew everything. Robin was only thirteen. She wasn’t even in algebra yet.

“If we stay here at home,” said Danny, who was six, “Dad can find us when he comes home.”

He had a point. If they didn’t know where Dad was, they weren’t gonna be able to find him. They didn’t even have an address to send him a letter.

Will didn’t say anything else, probably for Danny's sake. But Robin knew how he felt about Dad. Mom came in later with the pizza cut up on plastic plates, and she handed them around.

“I’m still hungry,” Danny said so that Mom couldn’t hear.

“Eat it slow," said Will. "And drink lots of water so you get full."

Johnny Cash was on TV. Even though it was grainy and the picture kept going in and out, and the sound was staticky and dull, Robin listened all the way through when he sang Wayfaring Stranger. She wanted to go wherever he was singing about going. When he said he was “going there to see my father.” She related to it, whatever it meant. She wanted to go “home”. Even though that was technically where she was now.

“What does wayfaring mean?” she said.

“It means traveling,” said Will. “A wayfaring stranger is a traveler people don’t know. Like a drifter or a squatter or hobo. Stop asking so many questions.”

-xxx-

The woods were pretty at sunset. Even in the winter, when sunset was at four. 

She just followed the tracks and followed the tracks. That’s how you found trains, right? She didn’t like that she was walking at night, but daytime wasn’t ideal for running away, because she'd get seen. That’s what she figured anyway.

By dawn, you’ll be on your way home, she told herself. Maybe you’ll spend Christmas with Dad again.

The sun was golden before, but it dropped fast. It had already gone below the treeline, and soon it would disappear. It had been clear and sunny that day, but now the clouds moved across the sky, and the dark purple came, with the orange turning bloody red, then turning darker and fading.

She thought of going back to the cabin. Maybe she could spend one more night somewhere with a bed and blankets, even if there was only a space heater to huddle around, and the blankets had moth holes. 

She could’ve thought this through more. Maybe even had someone help her get to a station or something. But that would be one more person who'd know she was leaving.

-xxx-

“It’s not Mom’s fault Dad left,” Will said one day, as they rode their bikes down the road alongside each other. That was back in the summer three or four years ago. It was shadier under the pines, but it was still sticky out. 

“Mom’s a bitch,” Robin said. “She drove him away.”

“Where’d you learn that word?” said Will.

“Lots of people say it. Christina says it all the time. And so does Sarah to her mom.”

“Well you don’t need to say it,” said Will. “You’re way too young. And Mom’s not a bitch. Dad left on his own. Even if he didn’t like Mom, he could’ve at least told us where he was going. If he thought Mom was such a bad parent, he could’ve taken us with him.”

“Mom doesn’t even try, and she doesn’t give a crap about us. She’s always out.”

“She’s out because she’s working,” said Will, as they rounded the bend in the road over a rickety old bridge that led onto a bigger road. “She’s working so she can take care of us and Danny.”

“She wouldn’t have to work so hard if she didn’t drive Dad away.”

“I told you, she didn’t drive dad away!”

“She did. She’s a bitch. She’s always in a bad mood. No wonder he didn't want to be around her.”

“I don’t wanna go in circles about this,” said Will. “I just wanna go to the arcade.”

-xxx-

“Robin,” said Mrs. Walker, one Friday afternoon, during extra help, “Are you just not understanding this concept? The crust of the earth is what we walk on. Below that is the mantle. Below that is the outer core– that’s the first part of the center of the earth. Below that is the inner core.”

“I get it,” said Robin.

Snow was falling outside, and Robin could hear other kids having fun out in the schoolyard.

“Okay, but can you label it on this worksheet?”

“No,” said Robin.

“Well… Why not?”

“I can’t remember it.”

Mrs. Walker looked like she was trying not to say things that would damage Robin’s developing self image. Robin didn’t really care. She’d rather Mrs. Walker just spit it out.

“Is it… hard for you to remember?”

“No,” said Robin.

“Then what’s the issue?”

“I don’t know.”

Mrs. Walker took a deep breath. “Okay. Well, how about we move on to your math homework. I’m glad that you’re here for extra help. I can tell you really want to do well. Now, I’ve noticed that when we do Order of Operations problems in class, you have trouble with the multiplication part. Do you know all your multiplication tables?”

“I don’t know.”

“Okay… Well, do you want to try going over some now?”

“No.”

“Alright. Well, maybe we can just do the four times tables. Do you know what four times one is?”

“No.”

“Well, it’s four. Any number times one is itself. How about four times two?”

“Forty.”

“You know it’s not forty.”

“Yeah, but I don’t really care.”

“Robin, how are things at home?”

“Good.”

Mrs. Walker looked like she wanted to retire.

-xxx-

Leaving the cabin without a word to Danny or Will was the worst part. Even if Danny was little and annoying and liked to make a ton of noise, she would still miss him. Even if Will was a know-it-all who didn’t agree with Robin about Mom and Dad, he was still her brother, and he always protected her when she got picked on at school. Or if there was a mean neighborhood dog.

But she left through the back door anyway, without a word. She told herself she’d come back for them.

-xxx-

Robin spent a lot of time looking at one picture of her dad. She was a baby in the photo, and he was holding her. He looked so happy. Like he had all the time for her in the world. The Christmas tree stood in the background, and you could see snow outside the window.

When she got off the train and saw her dad again, she already knew what would happen. She rehearsed everything she’d say.

“Robin, is that you?” he would ask when she knocked on his door. “Look how big you’ve gotten! I’ve missed you so much.”

“I came all this way on the train, just like you did,” she’d say.

“Oh, I’m so proud of you,” he’d say. “I've even set up this whole room for you, for when I was planning to come get you kids. You don't even have to share with Will and Danny anymore. I gave them the room in the attic. I’ve been holding onto all these Christmas presents I got you every year. Now you can open them all!”

-xxx-

Robin didn’t remember when she collapsed in the snow and fell asleep. It must’ve been warm and comfortable, for her to fall asleep that easily. All she remembered was being tired and worn out one moment, and being on the ground the next.

A bright light shone in her eyes. Maybe this was the same light people always said they saw as they were dying. But she opened her eyes and realized she was very much alive. 

“What’s your name, young lady?”

A policeman stood over her, shining a flashlight in her eyes.

“Robin Sullivan,” she said, as sirens blared.

-xxx-

When Robin woke up in the hospital, her mother was in a bad mood, muttering something about expenses, and paperwork, and insurance. But she smiled through her annoyance when Robin sat up.

“Well, Danny’s certainly been worried about you,” she said. "You're lucky you didn't freeze to death, good Lord! What were you thinking? Were you trying to ruin everyone's Christmas?"

Danny came rushing over and threw himself onto the hospital bed.

“My sister! She’s back!”

Will gave her an awkward one-armed hug and said, “Here’s a tip next time you wanna run away: Bring a map or something. I didn't even need to look for you. You were only a couple hundred feet from the house the whole time, idiot.”

“Your father isn’t coming to visit,” said her mother. “I heard he’s been arrested. Again. I swear, that man is one bad day away from a lifetime in prison. And I'd be happy to see it!"

After a pause her mother said. “Robin, you gotta do better in school is all I’ll say. Don’t wanna turn out like him.”

Robin ate a soggy hospital meal for her Christmas Dinner, just a pale and tasteless ham and mustard sandwich. And she opened her Christmas presents in that uncomfortable bed. The mattress felt like cardboard, and nurses would rush in and out to take her vitals. But Danny had made her a card with construction paper and glitter glue, and everyone signed it. She assumed it was supposed to say, "Welcome Home, Robin." But everything was spelled wrong.

When she got back to the cabin, nothing had changed at all. Except for the tiny fake Christmas tree, which someone had plugged in while she was away. As she sat there with her brothers by the fireplace, she listened to Danny yelling Christmas songs, and Will yelling at Danny for eating all the cookies. Her brothers needed her. And so did her mother, to some extent.

Robin knew she didn’t like this home as much as the one she’d invented for herself. But it was her home. It was real. And she accepted it, with a half smile. 

Maybe she’d pay more attention in school from now on.

Update 9/21: Making this update a little bit late, but I was really excited (and a little bit shocked) to see that this story won 2nd place! Huge thank you to everyone, for everything.

This is my entry for the Writer's Jam 1. It's a short story, based on the prompt, "kingdom".

Jamie

I lived a couple hours north of Sacramento when I was a kid. In a tiny Sierra Nevada town, where the population number barely hung above three digits. The people who lived there were mostly poor. But the rivers were long and cool and ran through deep ravines carved over generations, and from the ground sprung tall redwoods, and I’ll never forget the smell of the pines. Everywhere you looked, there was a view fit for a postcard. And that mountain air was fresher than any place I’ve ever been to. 

You’d think breathing that air would heal a soul. But it didn’t.

Maybe it was the high elevation, or the fact you’d have to drive through miles of trees and views to find a place where everyone didn’t know you. Maybe it was cabin fever. Maybe rust from some of those broken down old trucks by state route 70 leached into the drinking water. Something made people a little off.

There was a man named George. 

People called him King George. Even though he had no government position, he ran that town.

You could hear him before you saw him. He drove this old, rusty Ford Pinto, with a long gash in the side, and one broken headlight. Whenever George was around, that clunky old car came wheezing up the hill, and the diesel-smelling exhaust that should’ve been coming out of the tailpipe rattled and puffed out from under the hood, or through the grill, or from everywhere there was an opening.

The sound would give some folks time to high tail it out of the Exxon parking lot, or tell Sharon at the diner they wanted their food boxed up, or even to duck into a store and hide in the bathroom.

George was trouble, and he liked it when people said that. He was surprisingly average, 40-something, not too tall, and not notably thin or fat. Always wore Levi’s and a flannel shirt. But he made himself out to be a big deal. His temper was volatile, and he would explode if someone made a misstep or talked to him when he was in a bad mood. He’d stand on the toes of his pointy boots, spitting threats from under his mustache. If he was upset enough, he pulled out a revolver, but he rarely fired it.

George said he was best friends with Sheriff Smith and Deputy Brown. Said the sheriff was like family and their kinship went back generations. He said the deputy had given him money to pay for a surgery his dog needed at one point.

“That’s how I can get away with everything,” he’d say. “I could get away with murder if I want. And I’ll tell you, I have a lawyer from New York CIty. He knows me personal. Don’t even need to pay, but I can if I wanted. I’m a genius at networking. I can talk anyone into doing anything.”

My mom’s friend Johnny Parker once said George knocked on him and his wife’s trailer window at half past three in the morning, saying if Johnny didn’t come out and give him fifty dollars he supposedly owed him, he’d burn the trailer down. Johnny said no, and George stood outside for a long time, firing his shotgun in the air every few minutes. George’s mean hound dog was outside too, scratching furiously at the screen door and barking. When George started shooting the heads off the lawn angels, Johnny gave him as much as he had on hand. Which was practically nothing. The lawn angels would’ve been worth more if George had just taken them. 

If you were on George’s bad side, he’d do anything he could to make your life miserable for three weeks or so. Then he’d find someone else to target. That’s just the way it was.

King George. King of a run down Sierra Nevada town no one wanted to move to. The only people who lived there had been stuck there since birth. If people did move in, it was because everywhere else was too much money. The majority of the real estate was mobile homes. Who’d want a kingdom like that? You might as well be king of a dirt pile.

I was a little girl then, in the early 1980s, when King George was terrorizing everybody. By the time I was eleven, even I had my fair share of run-ins with George.

Which brings me to the subject of my friend Jamie. She lived in the Cheyanne Mobile Village, same one as Johnny Parker, where she and her mom and two brothers rented a 14-by-72 foot trailer and a small-ish lot around it with a chain link fence. And that was a nice trailer compared to some people who lived there.

Jamie was a tough, wiry girl, probably smaller than she should’ve been for a 12-year-old. People mistook her for younger. But you didn’t really notice how small she was after a while, because she was everywhere– climbing on walls and fences and up trees, kicking cans around, poking sticks into anthills, chasing squirrels under people’s porches. She was always in motion, never at rest. Everything excited her. Everything prompted a question from her.

I knew Jamie had issues in school, and she was in special ed. I also knew she had a bad father who wasn’t allowed to come round the trailer. But Jamie was the kind of person folks just wanted to be around, and we had fun together.

Me and Jamie sometimes walked to Avery’s General Store to get snacks or soda. One day in July, we stopped in for ice cream, and as it turned out, it was the wrong place to be that day.

Jamie was squatting down by the comic book shelf, the soles of her sneakers peeling off at the back. I stood over the ice cream cooler trying to think of what to get, and I talked to Mr. Avery, who owned the store. He was gentle and never raised his voice. He was patient with even the meanest customers. His hair was always slicked back. His thick, round glasses made him look bug eyed. Mr. Avery’s golden retriever, Specks, wagged his tail and walked back and forth between me and Jamie, licking our hands and wanting attention.

The door slammed open, and in slunk George, with two other men trailing behind him. One of the men was tall with straw colored hair, and the other was rounder and shorter with an underbite like a bulldog, and a cigarette that poked out from between his small, misshapen teeth.

Me and Jamie drifted back into a corner, out of George’s way. More instinctual than a conscious choice.

“My dog’s been hurt,” said George. “Someone tried to kill him, but they didn’t succeed. He’s been howling all night in pain. If I find out who did it, they’re gonna get hit by a truck. Don’t know who I’ll have do it, but I’ll make sure someone hits ‘em.”

“Ah,” said the tall man, walking like a scarecrow over to the counter. “You got a big box?”

Mr. Avery didn’t say anything, just took an empty produce box out from under the counter.

“That’s too big,” said George. “I need a smaller box.”

“How much smaller, Mr. Townsend?” said Mr. Avery.

“You know, just the size of an average, run-of-the-mill, big box.”

I tried pulling Jamie to the door by her shirt sleeve. She didn’t wanna go with me. Just watched the men from under her shaggy bangs.

“Let’s go to the Exxon instead,” I whispered.

But Jamie kept watching, and I could see her wide, dark eyes dart from George to Mr. Avery. It was the same look she had when she was engrossed in a really interesting TV show. Or when she was studying a dead animal on the side of the road.

“Lemme stay,” said Jamie.

“Why?” I asked. “It’s just George being George.”

Specks, Mr. Avery’s dog, stood between the men and us. He didn’t growl or bark, but his hackles were raised.

“There’s this box,” Mr. Avery said. “This a good size?”

“No, no,” said George. “That’s too small. You should know a normal-sized big box when you see one. You like making simple things complicated, don’t you?”

“I have lotsa different sized boxes,” said Mr. Avery, calmly. “Might help if you said what you were gonna be using it for.”

The round man with the cigarette spoke in a long, slow monotone. “It’s just a box. Don’t be stupid. Just give us a box.”

“Alright,” said Mr. Avery. “Well, here’s a bigger box than the last one.”

“That’s too tall and not wide enough," said George.

Mr. Avery didn’t get upset, just kept looking under the counter, digging up more boxes. And every single time, George would say it was wrong, and he’d get angrier and angrier.

I tried tugging on the back of Jamie’s overalls.

“I don’t wanna be here anymore. Can we go?”

“I wanna make sure Mr. Avery’s okay,” said Jamie.

“He’s fine,” I said. “I don’t wanna get involved.”

“Now listen,” George said, raising his voice. “I don’t know who you think you are, wasting all my time, but I got important people to talk to and things to do. I could have your whole store burned down if I want. Just gimme a damn box.”

“There are no more boxes,” said Mr. Avery. “I showed you every single one.”

George started hovering his hand over his hip, where he wore a belt with a buck knife.

“Jamie,” I said.

She just stood there blank eyed as she watched.

George flashed the knife out of its sheath and held it with a grip fit for slashing things. I knew George didn’t usually hurt people, just threatened to a lot. But I was still scared and didn’t wanna get caught in the crosshairs of it. I thought Mom might scold me. And I trusted that Mr. Avery would handle the situation.

Specks started growling low and walked between George and Mr. Avery.

“Put that knife down,” Mr. Avery said. “You folks don’t need to threaten me. I’m cooperating.”

Jamie raised her thin face and rolled back her bony shoulders, like she was about to spring forward. She pushed back her shaggy, blond bangs, so that her dark, sunken eyes showed clearer. There were circles underneath, from sickliness, or tiredness. I never noticed how hollow-eyed she was under the bangs.

I could’ve sworn she was an idiot.

“What are you gonna do?” I whispered. “You can’t stop him.”

She stayed next to me– didn’t step forward, just calmly spoke, in her soft, small voice. “He showed you all the boxes.”

George turned with an intense glare in his eye. And when he saw that it was Jamie who spoke to him, his brow raised in confusion, and then furrowed in contempt.

“Go on home,” he said, as if he was talking to a misbehaved four year old. “Talking back to grown ups won’t do you no good. You’re too young and stupid to get it.”

Jamie didn’t look scared or angry. She barely moved, and she didn’t smile or frown. Just stared at him like she had been doing. Like she was studying him. Trying to learn something. “Alls I said is he showed you all the boxes. You gonna go burnin’ down the store just cause he don’t have the one you want?”

“You gonna go to school and learn some basic first grade English?” said George. “I can’t reason with people who’re too uneducated to string intelligible sentences together.”

“You gonna use that knife?” said Jamie.

I cowered behind her, even though I was at least a head taller. I didn’t really feel any safer. Maybe I just wanted to show George I didn’t mean any harm. Funny, since he was the one with the knife.

“I’ll use the knife if I needa use the knife. And I ain’t scared to use it on kids.”

The door opened again and Deputy Brown walked in. George put the knife away, then he looked back down at Jamie with a yellow-toothed sneer.

“You’ll learn your lesson,” George said to Jamie. “I’ll teach you not to talk back to adults. Every bratty kid needs to learn that at some point.”

George nodded to his other two men, and took a pack of beer cans from the cooler by the door. He kicked Specks with his boot before walking out. The dog whined but didn’t bite back. The two other men took bags of chips and candy bars and sandwiches and packs of cigarettes. The tall one even took a whole stack of lottery scratch tickets.

Mr. Avery told us he called the sheriff’s office when Jamie had George’s attention. 

“It’s just not fair,” said Jamie, “You let him take your stuff.”

“No, it's not fair, but that’s life,” said Mr. Avery. “That’s the way it is.”

“Why didn’t you do nothing when he was taking your stuff?” said Jamie.

“I wouldn’t’ve gone to the trouble of calling at all, but I couldn’t let him threaten kids.”

“Hope he goes to jail for this,” said Jamie. She turned to Mr. Avery, “He’s gonna go to jail, isn’t he?”

Mr. Avery said nothing, but watched with us from the front window of the general store. George got in the passenger seat of the cruiser. We didn’t see him get handcuffed like people do on TV.

I told Jamie, “I hope they finally make him stop. Threatening kids is low, even for him.”

Jamie didn’t take her eyes off the passenger side of the cruiser as it drove away. “He thinks he’s king of everything. If I was king or queen of everything I’d be a hell of a lot nicer to folks I thought I was better than.”

The next day as I was riding my bike to the trailer village, I saw George hanging around with some people by the Exxon station. He walked even more smug than usual, if you’d believe it. That night, Mom told me someone at the bar told her that Sheriff Smith and Deputy Brown gave George a “talking-to” but it was more like the three of them went out for lunch at the diner.

I went to Jamie’s the next day. The grass around the trailer village, brown and beaten down from years of boots and dog paws trampling it, was even drier than usual. It was a hot day, too hot to stay outside. You could hear the cicadas’ high pitched buzzing all day. People wanted rain. Someone said they had seen smoke on the mountain. The deputy drove one cruiser up and saw that a cabin’s roof caught fire. Everyone was saying the dryness and the wind caused it. And that wildfires might follow.

Me and Jamie were lying on our stomachs in the big room of her trailer, in front of the grainy, black and white TV. The screen was probably no bigger than a foot across.

“I can’t believe it,” said Jamie. “He can pull a knife on folks and alls he gets is lunch with the police?”

“Guess so,” I said. “Like Mr. Avery said. We don’t have to like it, but that’s the way it is. Now, I wanna make a card castle, so move the fan away.”

Jamie moved the floor fan in front of her face. She wore her same battered overall cutoffs that day, just with a lighter, short-sleeved plaid shirt. She swung her legs back and forth above her. Her beat-up and faded green converse lazily knocked into each other, like she wanted to get up and run. It was like I said, even when Jamie was at rest, a part of her always had to be moving.

“Shouldn’t be the way it is,” said Jamie. “So why is I s’posed to accept it? I seen Louise this morning, the lady in the double-wide next door. Told me that George’s stolen people’s cars before. He’s broken into people’s houses. Burned people’s trailers a couple times. Actually burned them down ‘stead of just saying he would. He hurts animals too.”

“He’s always done that,“ I said. “He’s done that since before we were born.”

"Still shouldn’t be how it is," said Jamie, "Louise said when she was at the grocery store, someone said George is targeting me now.”

I looked up from the castle of cards I’d been building, and my matchbox VW hippie camper I was about to drive through it. Honestly, I didn’t believe her. Maybe I thought the people George targeted did something major and on purpose to upset him. Maybe I thought Jamie was being dramatic. Maybe I thought that since Jamie was a kid, George would go easy on her. I just didn’t believe it.

“You’re being paranoid,” I told her. I regret telling her that. “No one’s coming after you, okay? You barely did anything wrong.”

“That’s the point,” said Jamie. “He hunts people on his bad side. Doesn’t have to mean they did nothing wrong.”

“Well, what’s he even gonna do?” I asked.

Jamie took another matchbox car out of our plastic bin. A brown Pinto. She drove it over to my card castle and parked it underneath.

“Louise said he’s gonna burn this trailer down,” she said quietly. “Or he’ll make his friends do it, while he’s safe in his castle.”

“What castle?” I asked. “He’s poor like the rest of us.”

“He don’t have to be rich to have a castle and a kingdom. Just has to have power.”

“He likes when people are afraid of him,” I said, rolling over onto my back, and staring up at the water-damaged ceiling. The trailer really wasn’t much, and that’s why I didn’t wanna believe that he’d go to the trouble of burning it down. Her family owned nothing. “You saying that’s why he’s so powerful?” I added.

“Yeah,” she said.

“Alright,” I said.

“You know, he’s worse than the worst kids at school,” said Jamie. “And those kids get punished for missing homework worse than George does for burning down people’s houses. That’s real life– it ain’t fair and it don’t follow any rules.”

“Yeah, it sucks,” I said.

“You know we’re defending him,” said Jamie. “Every time someone don’t stand up to him. We let him get away with stuff even if we don’t mean to.”

"How are we supposed to stand up to him?" I asked. "We're just kids."

"Maybe we should treat him how he treats us," said Jamie. "Maybe then he'll stop."

"But wouldn't that make us just as bad?" I asked.

“It should be our kingdom just as much as George's. Why shouldn't we get a say in what happens?”

I got a note in my mailbox the next day. I immediately knew it was from Jamie because the handwriting looked like a four year old did it.

I told my mom about George's threats. Mom talked to cops. I did too. 

There is “no evidence.”

Not surprised.

George heard. George is mad.

-Jamie

I didn’t see Jamie for the rest of that day. But I saw George outside the general store.

"I can talk anyone into anything," he said. "I can get anyone on my side. Get this: the sheriff doesn't even like me anymore. He says my behavior's 'deplorable'. But he doesn't have a say in the matter. My lawyer could get me out of arson if I wanted."

That night, I saw smoke coming from the trailer village. And the smell of the smoke wasn’t like a campfire. This smell was electrical and polluted, like burnt rubber and wires. Mom drove me to Jamie's trailer. The sunset was red and raw, because the fire burned brighter. Everyone who lived nearby gathered on the street and watched. Ash fell like snow.

I saw the fireball, where Jamie’s trailer once stood. Through the exposed molten ribs of the walls I saw blackened, melted furniture. And the 12-inch-screen TV lay charred nearby. The skeleton of the chain link fence still jutted out of the dirt. Jamie’s mom and her brothers were fine. As fine as you can be watching all you have burn to the ground. All the photo albums, all the food and appliances, all the snow globes, all the books, all the kids' drawings and toys. All Jamie’s mother had earned in life– her kingdom. The sheriff was right; it was deplorable.

The burning wreck was too hot to stand near, but I saw a figure a few yards away, looming over something on the ground. I ran up without thinking. Jamie stood over George, holding his revolver in her hand. The fire George had set raged behind her, crowning her with an eerie, burning halo. She didn't look triumphant, just scared and confused.

“I thought I had to,” she said.

George never murdered anybody. But Jamie just had. She never wanted this, but our town was her kingdom now. I almost believe George was proud to pass the crown onto her.

TMG 2K23

I went to the Newgrounds meetup at Too Many Games! I feel lucky that I got to go, and I wanted to express my gratitude by doing my own recap post!!

I joined Newgrounds last year, but unlike a lot of other people who joined in the 2020s, I don't feel like I came in "late". I think I found out about this website at just the right time, for me at least. As I've said many times on this account, Newgrounds helped me a lot. Before I joined, I was drawing, but I wasn't getting better, because I didn't care. As a young teen, my ideas seemed endless, but as an adult, that passion was replaced with art block, and art became a major slog. I wasn't enjoying the process of drawing or the final result. But when I joined the site, I saw the kinds of things people made on here, and I thought they were incredible. I was devoted to getting better once I had a reason to. It was almost ten years of art block and I think it definitely hindered my improvement progress, but the good thing is I'm back in the saddle.

To name a few creators on this site I really looked up to from the get go, Tom Fulp obviously, MindChamber for his absolutely badass animations that exude that ‘90s and early 2000s edge, and creators newer to the scene like the funkin’ team who are almost single handedly responsible for reigniting my love for campy 2000s aesthetics. God, there's so many more, I can't name them all here. But I was raised on flash games, playing them on miniclip every time I got the chance on a weekend on the family PC. Or on my cousin’s PC in their half-unfinished basement back in like ‘06. Had no idea a lot of those games were on Newgrounds. I think this site does speak to me in that way.

I rarely ever travel. I get nervous in crowds and around new people. And once the pandemic hit, I went full shut-in mode like everyone else, but I found it hard to get myself back out of it again. When I saw that there was going to be a meetup not too far from the state I live in, I thought that it might be good for me. It was my first trip in a long time, and I was definitely a little nervous. But going to a city I'd never been to before and then talking to artists, game devs, musicians, and animators I'd looked up to, it was a bit of a dream come true.

TL;DR - i write too much but i like newgrounds

We've finally reached the part where I talk about the con lol:

I definitely feel like I acted a lot more like a starstruck kid than I would’ve liked to, but I guess that’s how it worked out. I pushed myself to talk to as many people as I felt I realistically could. Someday I'm sure I'll say hi to more of you, but the people I did talk to were so much nicer than I could have even hoped for and I'm so glad I got the chance to meet you!

I ended up having a really good time. And that fact still feels a bit surreal. I was very anxious and didn't think I'd end up having such a good time! But I stayed at the con the whole weekend, and I had fun just looking around at all the cool stuff that was there! I'm not afraid to talk to strangers anymore.

There were a lot of newgrounds people there, and it was a little overwhelming, but eventually I started talking to people! Due to how few people I talked to (let alone built up the courage to talk to long enough to tell my username to) a lot of you probably don’t remember I was there. But I have brown hair, I was wearing this really gaudy button up shirt with the ugliest fire design in the world (which I love), and I’m less than 5 feet tall. xD

A few of the people I talked to:

@ErasmusMagnus - Thanks for coming with me to the con xD I'm glad you had as much fun as I did!

@RavioliBox - I talked to you for a bit, and you were literally such a sweet person aaaa! You make amazing art, thanks so much for signing my sketchbook!! <3 I think you were one of the first people I talked to and you were so welcoming and that genuinely helped me feel more comfortable.

@TomFulp - It was really cool to meet you!! I think I came up to you and said something like, "Oh, I'm a big fan of your work." Aaaaa xD. What I meant was I really appreciate all the work you put into this site and really defining a lot of early internet history. Not to mention how much you've helped creators grow and get their own work out there. If it wasn't for Newgrounds, I don't think the internet would be what it is today. Thanks for showing a lot of people that, with the help of the world wide web, art and games and animations and music are things everyone can do if they put the time in to learn and grow those skills. And I like the games you've made obviously aaaaa. But to cut myself off before this post gets too, too long, thanks so much for signing my sketchbook!!! You were really chill to talk to for the short time that I did!

@vividlance - Thank you so much for the bracelet ;___; I'll literally keep it forever. It's so so so awesome, and it also proved to be really helpful, since we could identify other newgrounds people at the con after the meetup when people took their name tags off!! I'm so grateful for the bracelet, thank you for taking the time to make SO MANy of them holy crap!! You also just seemed like a really nice and upbeat person! I wasn’t afraid to come up and talk to you, because I knew you’d be kind to my anxious little self lmao

@EugeneDoesArt - I hung out with you and ErasmusMagnus for a while on.. i think saturday?? Thanks for playing that crash bandicoot racing game with us LMAO! I was terrible at it but I had a great time! You were really chill :D

@Hibachi - Your art is legendary, and I love it. Thanks for the posters!! I did not bring a poster holder tube thing as we were advised to do, and i regret it since it got a little drenched in the rain on the walk back to the hotel xD But it survived!! It's another thing I got at this con that I'll keep forever. I talked to you for like 5 seconds but you were super nice!! :)

@PKettles - This list is actually labelled incorrectly, because you're on this list and I actually didn't get the chance to talk to you. But I wanted to because I love your art so much, and you're such an inspiration, aaaaa!! You were one of the first newgrounds artists I saw when I joined and said, “oh my gosh, this site is so cool. The artists here are so cool.” Your pico day art this year was amazing, and it was so cool to see it in poster form xD

@ninjamuffin99 - I met you on saturday, which was really really cool!! You were also just super, super chill and easy to talk to??? But yes, thanks so much for the stickers and thanks for following me ;___; obviously I love your work haha

@SrPelo - Thanks for signing my book!! :D You make incredible stuff, and I'm glad I had the opportunity to meet ya!! You drew the spooky kids in my sketchbook for me, thank you so much *cries*

@NeatoNG - I talked to you briefly! I love your animations, and I love your art. Portal Squad was a freaking awesome pico day movie. Loved the one from this year too, it was incredibly badass!! You seemed cool as well! :D 

@emizip - I loved your ENA cosplay!!!! You were definitely easy to spot from a distance, so especially on like saturday, I could see you and I was like, “oh, yes, there’s newgrounders over there.” I talked to you briefly, and I thought you were really cool, you might not remember me

I talked to a few other people, but I don't know everyone's username!! It's definitely weird seeing people's real faces and not their profile pictures lmao. I should get out and go to these things more!! :0

Here are some more highlights from the trip! Just like, fun and memorable things that happened!

James Rolfe literally just walked over and sat down at a table a couple feet away from us at the hotel when we were eating dinner. I didn't wanna say anything cause he was like, having dinner with his friends. Vinny Vinesauce was in the same room at the same time. Kinda wish I said something xD I binged like all the AVGN videos last winter.

I saw 30th street station which was HUGE! Didn't get the chance to see more of philly, but next year, next year!

I really wish I'd taken more pictures!! I didn't take nearly enough... But I took this lowkey kind of aesthetic photo on the train home of my sketchbook with some of the stickers I got!!!

Anyway, yeah, this was my hashtag emotional recap of my unforgettable, incredible, lifechanging time at the newgrounds meetup at too many games!! Hopefully I'll be seeing you guys again somewhere, sometime soon!! And by then maybe I'll be able to talk to you long enough that we can be friends xD

Commissions!!

I've decided to open for commissions! I have made a post on the Collabinator with all the info about that. If you wanna get some nice art of your character or whatever you'd like in my style, feel free to message me! I love drawing for people! :D

Also, my Etsy shop is open again! I added my commission listings on that.

If you have any opinions on things I could change on my commission info, don't hesitate let me know! I want the info to be as clear as possible for people who might be interested. Your feedback is helpful and appreciated!

Happy New Year, Newgrounds!

By the time you see this, I'll have just posted my last drawing of 2022.

In April, I signed up for Newgrounds and felt right at home almost immediately. My boyfriend introduced me to Pico's School near the end of 2021, and I can't say I liked it at the time. In fact, I found it really disturbing and horrifying. But I don't know, some things have a way of growing on us in ways we'd never expect. I found myself becoming surprisingly fond of the game. I was borrowing my boyfriend's computer to play Pico (and several other old flash games) enough times for him to suggest I just make my own Newgrounds account.

When I did, I realized I could upload my own art here, which was crazy. It opened up a whole world of ogling at all the amazing illustrations, games, audio, and movies made by other creators. This pushed me out of my comfort zone as an artist, and I improved my skills quicker than ever before. This site gave me the inspiration and motivation I desperately needed. I'd been artistically blocked for a long time, to the point of stagnation, and I had developed a serious lack of passion about my work. Newgrounds resuscitated my creative drive.

In 2022, I got used to drawing full scenes instead of my default boring shoulders-up shots of characters smiling. In April, when I joined, I made my first art post, a drawing of Pico. I continued posting drawings for the next couple months. In June, I participated in my first Pico Day! I still like the art I made for the contest, even though I can see ways I've gotten better since then.

That was the same month I developed Kelly, the first original character of mine that I've genuinely cared deeply about on a deeper level than, "She's cute. I like her design and personality." I completed the rough draft of a 50k word story about her in November (National Novel Writing Month), thus reaching my goal of writing a novel in one month. I was 15 the last time I cared enough to stick to one novel idea long enough to finish it.

I played a lot of games, watched a lot of animations, made a lot of art, talked to some cool people, and most importantly had a really good time here since I joined.

So, here it is, my last art piece of 2022:

Kelly is in the middle, standing next to Pico and Cassandra.

She has on the same scarf worn by my very first original character, who's also the last character I made that I was really passionate about. That's a story for another day, but that character may as well be passing the scarf onto her.

This drawing is a tribute to Newgrounds and a reminder that sometimes the kick in the ass you need to start loving art again can come from unlikely places.

Today I tested positive for Covid. I have not been having terrible symptoms as some people do, however, I have a wicked sore throat and just a general out-of-it feeling. I'm also extremely run down and tired to the point where I haven't really been able to draw much of anything, so I'm sorry if you don't see me posting any new art for the next few days. I'm in isolation, and that's not fun, considering my birthday is this Sunday the 21st. I am required to stay in isolation for the next five days, so that's how I'll be spending my birthday.

I'm turning 23! This year went by really fast...

Hope everyone reading this has a nice day, morning, evening, or night! Stay safe.