lightanddarklove

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everyone should be allowed to fight their dad at least once

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Revising some of my horse drawing tips pages, starting with necks!

Corrected some muscle names and added more explanation/ method.

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Mentally, I'm here.

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Putting together a mood board for this year's art new years reminders:

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Homemaking, gardening, and self-sufficiency resources that won't radicalize you into a hate group

It seems like self-sufficiency and homemaking skills are blowing up right now. With the COVID-19 pandemic and the current economic crisis, a lot of folks, especially young people, are looking to develop skills that will help them be a little bit less dependent on our consumerist economy. And I think that's generally a good thing. I think more of us should know how to cook a meal from scratch, grow our own vegetables, and mend our own clothes. Those are good skills to have.

Unfortunately, these "self-sufficiency" skills are often used as a recruiting tactic by white supremacists, TERFs, and other hate groups. They become a way to reconnect to or relive the "good old days," a romanticized (false) past before modern society and civil rights. And for a lot of people, these skills are inseparably connected to their politics and may even be used as a tool to indoctrinate new people.

In the spirit of building safe communities, here's a complete list of the safe resources I've found for learning homemaking, gardening, and related skills. Safe for me means queer- and trans-friendly, inclusive of different races and cultures, does not contain Christian preaching, and does not contain white supremacist or TERF dog whistles.

Homemaking/Housekeeping/Caring for your home:

Making It by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen [book] (The big crunchy household DIY book; includes every level of self-sufficiency from making your own toothpaste and laundry soap to setting up raised beds to butchering a chicken. Authors are explicitly left-leaning.)

Safe and Sound: A Renter-Friendly Guide to Home Repair by Mercury Stardust [book] (A guide to simple home repair tasks, written with rentals in mind; very compassionate and accessible language.)

How To Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis [book] (The book about cleaning and housework for people who get overwhelmed by cleaning and housework, based on the premise that messiness is not a moral failing; disability and neurodivergence friendly; genuinely changed how I approach cleaning tasks.)

Gardening

Rebel Gardening by Alessandro Vitale [book] (Really great introduction to urban gardening; explicitly discusses renter-friendly garden designs in small spaces; lots of DIY solutions using recycled materials; note that the author lives in England, so check if plants are invasive in your area before putting them in the ground.)

Country/Rural Living:

Woodsqueer by Gretchen Legler [book] (Memoir of a lesbian who lives and works on a rural farm in Maine with her wife; does a good job of showing what it's like to be queer in a rural space; CW for mentions of domestic violence, infidelity/cheating, and internalized homophobia)

"Debunking the Off-Grid Fantasy" by Maggie Mae Fish [video essay] (Deconstructs the off-grid lifestyle and the myth of self-reliance)

Sewing/Mending:

Annika Victoria [YouTube channel] (No longer active, but their videos are still a great resource for anyone learning to sew; check out the beginner project playlist to start. This is where I learned a lot of what I know about sewing.)

Make, Sew, and Mend by Bernadette Banner [book] (A very thorough written introduction to hand-sewing, written by a clothing historian; lots of fun garment history facts; explicitly inclusive of BIPOC, queer, and trans sewists.)

Sustainability/Land Stewardship

Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer [book] (Most of you have probably already read this one or had it recommended to you, but it really is that good; excellent example of how traditional animist beliefs -- in this case, indigenous American beliefs -- can exist in healthy symbiosis with science; more philosophy than how-to, but a great foundational resource.)

Wild Witchcraft by Rebecca Beyer [book] (This one is for my fellow witches; one of my favorite witchcraft books, and an excellent example of a place-based practice deeply rooted in the land.)

Avoiding the "Crunchy to Alt Right Pipeline"

Note: the "crunchy to alt-right pipeline" is a term used to describe how white supremacists and other far right groups use "crunchy" spaces (i.e., spaces dedicated to farming, homemaking, alternative medicine, simple living/slow living, etc.) to recruit and indoctrinate people into their movements. Knowing how this recruitment works can help you recognize it when you do encounter it and avoid being influenced by it.

"The Crunchy-to-Alt-Right Pipeline" by Kathleen Belew [magazine article] (Good, short introduction to this issue and its history.)

Sisters in Hate by Seyward Darby (I feel like I need to give a content warning: this book contains explicit descriptions of racism, white supremacy, and Neo Nazis, and it's a very difficult read, but it really is a great, in-depth breakdown of the role women play in the alt-right; also explicitly addresses the crunchy to alt-right pipeline.)

These are just the resources I've personally found helpful, so if anyone else has any they want to add, please, please do!

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Merry Sinsmas, Have Some New Memes!

I've been cooking yet again. Ended up with over 20 as a Sinsmas present for everyone. Feel free to take and use as you see fit. I might make more later if I get ideas. These are thoroughly lacking some of the characters.

Sinsmas Memes Part 2

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We need to acknowledge Fiddleford cult era because as fun (and true) as "man who's scared destroys himself" is, he absolutely was a villain and I fucking love him for it.

Oh of course his heart was in the right place! He's absolutely sympathetic and meant no harm on others. He was trying to help. But also, the perspective of regular townsfolk on that is so fascinating because he is a open and shut case of a crazy bad guy. He's a man who erases people's memories by force and has a whole cult and knowing him he probably seems so hospitable which draws people in but if you say or do something he thinks endangers the Blind Eye he'd turn on you in a moment and erase your mind.

Imagine being a member of his cult as this sweet man who offers services starts forcing them. As he goes from well adjusted to forgetting he needs glasses and frazy hair and his shoes falling apart and his temporary fixes "until I get it repaired" turns into his normal appearance. When you realize this isn't okay, you can't leave. You can't voice concerns. Because he refuses to hear them and offers bullshit promises or a hit of the memory gun to console you, and traitors get their brains wiped of the blind eye. As your friend/boss/leader turns from a friendly man to a kinda unstable man to a man who's scary (he was tall af I would not want him to look at me with that disheveled look and crazy eyes asking me if I'm going to betray him?? Fuck that) to someone who doesn't even know his own name.

Fiddleford from his/a future perspective is a tragedy and deserves love and a second chance, but Fiddleford from a present outside perspective drives me insane. We don't get enough cult Fiddleford from his own perspective where he has to grapple with him decaying but it's too late and losing everything, but an outside perspective is nonexistent

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you ever have situations that make you want to take people by the shoulders and go "you are not 15 any longer. this behavior is no longer quirky and cute. it is exhausting for you and everyone else to act like a teenager you haven't been in a decade or longer. knock it the fuck off"

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As above so below

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noivern art, testing out the color lasso tool!

it's really cool to use, it made some nice sharp angles but my shaky fingers really struggled on this one :')

click on the image to see it in higher quality!

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dipper is a weirdly special kind of character to me because I was that type of kid, the one who wanted to grow up too fast and got irritated at their sibling not taking things too seriously and never wanting to seem childlike. i connected heavily with him, and honestly the entire arc of Gravity Falls being in part about him learning to just be a kid really helped me in the long run. it was a great wake up call seeing a character so similar to me at that age learn to finally stop trying to be an adult before i was ready.

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i will now impersonate the mating call of the steven universe fan

*clears throat*

we

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i Drew The Dew bc peridot is my fav space dorito rock and i wanted to do something fun today

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I get a lot of feelings from these scenes!  

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vidalia was kinda on to something tbh if i were pals with amethyst in real life i would also fill my garage with paintings of her

[Image ID: A digital painting of Amethyst from Steven Universe. She is sitting and looking at the viewer /.End ID]

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I almost forgot to post the commission I made for my favorite rat ❤️ @larsforevermore we love rat writers obsessed with SP