"Everyone has been telling you to cheer up, be more positive... but do you feel any better? You're enabling them to walk all over you. You're shouldering all of their blame. You can't expect progress by being rational when they're irrational. Instead, you should try leaning into your anger and frustration a bit. Embrace your inner hatred, instead of pretending it isn't there. Spite those who wronged you, instead of suffering in silence. Get up and follow me."

Sophia stands out among my cast as being openly negative and grumpy, and antagonistic in some ways. I don't think her first appearance in 2021 was a coincidence. As I was getting older, a lot of frustration and anger in my life was piling up and I needed a way to vent. I'd been unemployed for over half a year during the pandemic, and I'd been diagnosed with an obscure form of blood cancer about a year prior to that. I view her as something of an avatar of my negative emotions. A variety of hardships since then have made Sophia even more relevant to me, and I like to draw her when I'm a dour mood.

This piece is similar to a prior Sophia piece that used a greyscale + red color scheme ("Hostility Restrained") though I prefer this one's composition and facial expression. I wanted to "go hard" with this picture and channel my own anger/hatred but I don't know how effective I was on that front.

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Clip Studio Paint w/ Wacom Cintiq Pro, ~10 hours