#I haven't even applied

[heartshattering]

Me: idk, maybe I'm not stable enough for grad school, my life feels like too much of a mess and I know it's probably only for people who have their lives in order and know how to cope well enough to handle it...

Me after looking at "grad school memes" where everyone talks about using substances, never sleeping, and constantly feeling a sense of imposter syndrome: Oh wow, maybe I actually will fit in after all

[inkskinned]

the thing about art is that it was always supposed to be about us, about the human-ness of us, the impossible and beautiful reality that we (for centuries) have stood still, transfixed by music. that we can close our eyes and cry about the same book passage; the events of which aren't real and never happened. theatre in shakespeare's time was as real as it is now; we all laugh at the same cue (pursued by bear), separated hundreds of years apart.

three years ago my housemates were jamming outdoors, just messing around with their instruments, mostly just making noise. our neighbors - shy, cautious, a little sheepish - sat down and started playing. i don't really know how it happened; i was somehow in charge of dancing, barefoot and laughing - but i looked up, and our yard was full of people. kids stacked on the shoulders of parents. old couples holding hands. someone had brought sidewalk chalk; our front walk became a riot of color. someone ran in with a flute and played the most astounding solo i've ever heard in my life, upright and wiggling, skipping as she did so. she only paused because the violin player was kicking his heels up and she was laughing too hard to continue.

two weeks ago my friend and i met in the basement of her apartment complex so she could work out a piece of choreography. we have a language barrier - i'm not as good at ASL as i'd like to be (i'm still learning!) so we communicate mostly through the notes app and this strange secret language of dancers - we have the same movement vocabulary. the two of us cracking jokes at each other, giggling. there were kids in the basement too, who had been playing soccer until we took up the far corner of the room. one by one they made their slow way over like feral cats - they laid down, belly-flat against the floor, just watching. my friend and i were not in tutus - we were in slouchy shirts and leggings and socks. nothing fancy. but when i asked the kids would you like to dance too? they were immediately on their feet and spinning. i love when people dance with abandon, the wild and leggy fervor of childhood. i think it is gorgeous.

their adults showed up eventually, and a few of them said hey, let's not bother the nice ladies. but they weren't bothering us, they were just having fun - so. a few of the adults started dancing awkwardly along, and then most of the adults. someone brought down a better sound system. someone opened a watermelon and started handing out slices. it was 8 PM on a tuesday and nothing about that day was particularly special; we might as well party.

one time i hosted a free "paint along party" and about 20 adults worked quietly while i taught them how to paint nessie. one time i taught community dance classes and so many people showed up we had to move the whole thing outside. we used chairs and coatracks to balance. one time i showed up to a random band playing in a random location, and the whole thing got packed so quickly we had to open every door and window in the place.

i don't think i can tell you how much people want to be making art and engaging with art. they want to, desperately. so many people would be stunning artists, but they are lied to and told from a very young age that art only matters if it is planned, purposeful, beautiful. that if you have an idea, you need to be able to express it perfectly. this is not true. you don't get only 1 chance to communicate. you can spend a lifetime trying to display exactly 1 thing you can never quite language. you can just express the "!!??!!!"-ing-ness of being alive; that is something none of us really have a full grasp on creating. and even when we can't make what we want - god, it feels fucking good to try. and even just enjoying other artists - art inherently rewards the act of participating.

i wasn't raised wealthy. whenever i make a post about art, someone inevitably says something along the lines of well some of us aren't that lucky. i am not lucky; i am dedicated. i have a chronic condition, my hands are constantly in pain. i am not neurotypical, nor was i raised safe. i worked 5-7 jobs while some of these memories happened. i chose art because it mattered to me more than anything on this fucking planet - i would work 80 hours a week just so i could afford to write in 3 of them.

and i am still telling you - if you are called to make art, you are called to the part of you that is human. you do not have to be good at it. you do not have to have enormous amounts of privilege. you can just... give yourself permission. you can just say i'm going to make something now and then - go out and make it. raquel it won't be good though that is okay, i don't make good things every time either. besides. who decides what good even is?

you weren't called to make something because you wanted it to be good, you were called to make something because it is a basic instinct. you were taught to judge its worth and over-value perfection. you are doing something impossible. a god's ability: from nothing springs creation.

a few months ago i found a piece of sidewalk chalk and started drawing. within an hour i had somehow collected a small classroom of young children. their adults often brought their own chalk. i looked up and about fifteen families had joined me from around the block. we drew scrangly unicorns and messed up flowers and one girl asked me to draw charizard. i am not good at drawing. i basically drew an orb with wings. you would have thought i drew her the mona lisa. she dragged her mother over and pointed and said look! look what she drew for me and, in the moment, i admit i flinched (sorry, i don't -). but the mother just grinned at me. he's beautiful. and then she sat down and started drawing.

someone took a picture of it. it was in the local newspaper. the summary underneath said joyful and spontaneous artwork from local artists springs up in public gallery. in the picture, a little girl covered in chalk dust has her head thrown back, delighted. laughing.

[multi-lefaiye]

not sure who might need to hear this or if it's just me that needs to, but i've had this thought for a bit and i wanna write it out

you are not a machine that exists to make art. you are a human being, and human beings need rest and breaks.

creative block happens. it's natural, and embracing it as part of the process is far better in the long run than stressing out over it.

we live in a world that emphasizes productivity above all else and needing to Make Something, but truly it is not the end of the world if you're not productive 24/7.

[bonefall]

i think people are calling for a mass extinction event not because disabled people bad/ugly, but because the amount of incest happening is genuinely horrific. that, as well as to a massive amount of cats that bear no significance. if we were talking about a real situation occurring in real life, no one in their right mind would be suggesting this, but this is just the quick and easy way to do it in the context of the books. besides, any method to try to fix this problem is never going to be implemented by the erins because they don't care

This is a call for a mass extinction event because of the inbreeding and this is what I'm talking about. No, they're not just saying there should be a cutback on unneeded background characters. Asks like yours are a major reason why I am collecting screenshots for a folder.

Do not clown around and try to convince me that I'm not seeing what is clear as day. I'm not talking about people who want a mass extinction event because they want less background nobodies, or because it would be an interesting plot. I'm talking about people who respond to MOONPAW's EXISTENCE with "we need to kill most of ThunderClan"

And by the way, killing off a bunch of cats for a "mass extinction" is the exact OPPOSITE of what would fix this problem. You want to mass slaughter random characters so the pool is even SMALLER than it was when we started?? You want us to go back to the beginning of these problems in TPB, when ThunderClan only introduced four female kits who lived to adulthood who could mother the next generation??? THINK.

(Sorreltail, Ferncloud, Sandstorm, Brightheart)

Why is the vastly more common response "KILL THE ICKY" and not "USE THE BRAND NEW LAW THAT ALLOWS CROSS-CLAN MATE MIGRATION" hmmmmmmmmm????

We need to back up, too. Why do YOU think the amount of incest happening is genuinely horrific? Because what this "deformed icky inbred moonpaw" discourse has taught me is that we seem to have VERY different reasons for reaching our conclusions.

I think it is genuinely horrific because this series with a theme about "legacy" should have better rules about what counts as immediate family, the careless Erins prevent their newcoming cats like Stormcloud and Fernstripe from having time in the spotlight, and clan culture's extreme social control over the lives of the cast is cultlike and needs to be addressed as a harmful thing. OTHERS seem to think it is "genuinely horrific" because ThunderClan might have ugly disabled kids. We are not the same.

[tradingjack]

having fun with colors for once :P

thanks @creepycoffins for the awesome dtiys :D

[dxxtruction]

I sort of divorce Armand from the larger moral implications of the trail, and what I mean by that is - while he still falls at fault for all of them, and further had a morally special position to prevent it that he takes on additional fault for - his primary concerns are actually divorced from anything that's even going on. In other words, to get at understanding Armand I sort of have to take on his own position. He's rather self possessed and his only actual goal is to ensure he has stable 'love' (even if it can never be real or reciprocated without high control obligations/fear/threat/or lies both to himself and other(s)).

"I did not see your love lasting as long" = he sees the coven as a source of love. Which he'd accept, even in a debased position, if it meant a consistent stability in knowing he is 'loved' (if a fucked up idea of it).

So, if the coven wants to do this whole production he doesn't care how it goes, or what its implications even are, or would achieve, so long as he gets what he's after. (Meaning Claudia is little to no object to him in this, but to the coven they (C, L, and M), and the racist and public humiliation done onto them, are the primary objective.) He appeases this objective to get at and earn his own, rather than it coming from himself, or his own beliefs. Of which are only self serving, and morally bankrupt to begin with (generally he's moral, as he has certain values about being good, but he's extremely okay with doing amoral, and violent things if it serves his own interests). Since his objectives only extend to Louis, Claudia is killed. He never loved her in any way, and saw her as worthless for it, so she's killed.

Armand probably would've preferred, though, that she run off with Madeleine and Louis stay with him, but because he has such strong objectives about maintaining 'love' at all costs he gives to the covens wishes to earn it from them. (At least this is the impression I get from how he looks so defeated and sad by it, like he's not gloating in this).

He ties literally all his worth an existence onto others need and desire of him, and so puts himself in an awkward position where he believes he's nothing if he can't have someone to possess or to alternatively possess him (Thank you Marius de fucking Romanus /s). This idea about worth naturally gets projected onto everyone else, (again fucking thank you you actual prick). And the more worthless you are to the world to him the more he doesn't think you deserve to live, or there is a point to your existence.

The ideal of a worthy person to him is Marius (eugh yeuck), and the things Marius imbued into him as things which are valuable or which make him valuable. (Success, sex, beauty, intelligence, devout servitude, etc.)

This whole thing is why I'm also of the opinion he let Lestat do it (and/or he planned for it) so, come time for things, he has/could give himself a choice (however unworthy of it he is) between Louis and the coven. He's after his own self worth, and the image of this self worth is torn between the two.

"Who am I Louis?"

The only way he'd personally think he'd be worthy of it from Louis, I'd say, is if he was already fully divorced from all the implications so didn't see himself as responsible for them. Moreover, he was probably under legitimate threat by the coven, however shallow of one it may look to be, which would further cement this idea. Even if he did come to realize his own guilt and shame about it, maybe even recognize how at fault for it he was (hence later hiding in lies about it). As events were proceeding he'd effectively removed blame off himself, and remained innocent by his own mental framing of being helpless to prevent anything (perhaps unconsciously).

But anyway, he casts himself as helpless and this achieves unwarranted sympathy from Louis, and further, convincing the coven they're in control (he's using the tactic of a child crying), so he can come out on top of whatever choice he then ends up with. What's a bit interesting is that (I hope I'm remembering this right) he encourages Louis to leave again right before he goes to tear everything down. So this either implies he wants to give Louis a choice still, to go free, or had already chosen the coven over him. If it's the former I think that's important, because it shows he does see others have some inherent value outside himself. But (sadly) can't apply that same understanding to himself. (Which, again, might mean this idea he was helpless isn't deliberate. He's just screwed up like that, consistently under an impression that he just is. Which is the biggest lie there is perhaps, but given his life, something I can deeply understand, even relate, to where it comes from).

As a disclaimer this is just an explanation I've come to, as it makes sense to me, explaining partly as well his further abusive behaviors, and is not me trying to agree with his position. He doesn't deserve forgiveness in all this, and is at fault for everything he is shown to be doing or simultaneously not doing.

[halloweentual]

gaming will make you go man i miss the pathologic 2 barter mechanic

[mypunkpansexualtwin]

My quote of the week that filled my girlfriend with Rage:

"Destiny is just Kingdom Hearts for Halo fans."

[uncanny-tranny]

Something I always wonder with the whole: "The lazy populous doesn't want to work!" is if it's only being said to keep minimum wage at the very, very lowest end of 'survivability.'

The "lazy worker" isn't truly a problem. The employers are.

[some-mari-thoughts]

Hey all!!

I'm VERY likely to be in this MAP!! We are still looking for animators tho, so if you wanted to try animating for a map this is the perfect time

I really love the storyboard potential, this shall be cool!! Some of the more complex parts are not even taken yet at all

More MAP talk under cut

If you apply, list your discord name as nickname in application! The leaders don't speak english too well

Also theres many younger applicants n participants so the server is a bit chaotic

[savage-rhi]

Magenta.

[biracy]

I know this can be contentious (and even just mentioning this kind of analysis as a serious one makes a lot of people who don't understand what literary analysis is very angry) but I actually think it's pretty cool that people can draw both transfeminine and transmasculine reads of Jesse from hit TV show Jesse out of the text of the show. Something something shared experiences something something solidarity. You get the idea

[fromtheseventhhell]

I'm sorry for coming to complain but I have something to say: I already know that in this fandom there are many opinions about what Arya and Sansa's relationship is going to be in the future and that we always complain that the Sansa stans talk about Arya as if she were going to become a servant of her sister, "one is the strength and the other intelligence", which are going to complete each other and all that shit (among all the other stupid things they have said) I agree with complaining about that because they are erasing attributes of Arya's character THAT SHE ALREADY HAS, and that we have always talk about Arya being a character apart from Sansa, someone who has her own story, her own purpose and that her whole character is definitely not reduced to just becoming her sister's employee after she always treated her badly in the their childhood.

Okay, I agree with all that. Those types of comments bother me too. But I feel that as a result of this very silly arguments have been born about why Arya and Sansa could never be friends because "they are very different, in personality, experiences and worldview" I'm sorry but I don't agree with that because, it is true that they are different, but let's not pretend that they don't have many things in common, and this goes beyond their personal characteristics or the fact that they share an entire family.

How different are their experiences? Yes, one is the red fortress and the other has to travel thousands of kilometers but in the end they both went through similar things. Both saw their father die, both were abused, both were beaten, both have been sold into marriage, both have been sexually abused, both have met cruel people and have had to pretend another identity to survive. The fact that it is in different contexts does not take away from the fact that they do have similar experiences, so that argument is very silly. And I don't say it with the intention of saying that Arya and Sansa are going to be the "best sister foreveh" I just hate that argument cause it dosen't make any sense, also throughout the asoiaf universe we have seen how completely different characters have had a great relationship come on.

Tyrion and Jaime are also wildly different and loved each other, Sam and Jon are also wildly different and no one is saying they could never be friends.

Also, it bothers me that they ignore the fact that Arya DOES care about Sansa, maybe Sansa doesn't care about Arya that much but Arya has always been fond of her sister, even when she was cruel to her.

Again, I don't come here with the intention of saying that they are going to be the best sister forevah and all that, I just hated that argument and also pls don't erase that from Arya's character either! that she has always been a good sister to Sansa, even if it was not reciprocated she was always loyal to her people, to her "pack"

Plus Arya and Sansa's relationship is definitely deeper than just "respect." Way more.

I feel like this is a good example of my earlier point that Arya stans need to over-explain points/theories to not have them taken maliciously (especially if they included Sansa). I still want to answer this in good faith though, because I don't believe you intended it to come off like that.

But I feel that as a result of this very silly arguments have been born about why Arya and Sansa could never be friends because "they are very different, in personality, experiences and worldview"

I will start by saying that the theories about Arya and Sansa not getting along aren't retaliatory to the fandom's perception of the "Stark Sisters 4ever". The idea of them not getting along is based on their conflict in AGOT, them being written as foils, George saying that they have issues to work out, and the fact that their characters haven't fundamentally changed since they've been separated (i.e. what's in the books). They've both been through a lot but trauma isn't a substitute for growth, and the issues they have will still exist. A big part of their conflict is Sansa's classism, which leads her to look down on Arya, and she has yet to grow out of that trait. If she reflects on this in TWOW then that's a different story. For now, we have to speculate with what we have. Not only that, but I could see Arya having less patience for her sister's behavior considering everything she's been through. There could be mutual hostility.

Tyrion and Jaime are also wildly different and loved each other, Sam and Jon are also wildly different and no one is saying they could never be friends.

As for this, the difference is that we're shown these characters having a positive relationship on-page. No one says Jon and Sam can't be friends because we see their friendship develop. Tyrion and Jaime eventually have conflict, but there's also a caring relationship built between them before that. Arya and Sansa have tender moments and fond memories, but their relationship is mainly antagonistic in the first book. If we had seen them getting along well before and, say, the trident incident had been the source of their conflict, that's an entirely different dynamic.

I just hated that argument and also pls don't erase that from Arya's character either! that she has always been a good sister to Sansa, even if it was not reciprocated she was always loyal to her people, to her "pack"

I don't think anyone with this prediction is ignoring Arya caring about her sister, it's more about the lack of growth on Sansa's part. While Arya tries to apologize and bridge the gap, even thinking of ways to please Sansa (I'll kiss her and beg her pardons like a proper lady, she'll like that), we don't have any equivalent moments from Sansa. She has fond memories of them playing in the snow, thinks of naming a daughter Arya, and overall misses her family and I'm not downplaying that. It's just that it doesn't supersede the relationship we've seen play out between them (or the fact that she thinks of Arya as unsatisfactory even though she believes her to be dead). It shows that they love each other and could reconcile, but there's no guarantee. Arya can't maintain that relationship one-sided and, considering she's already tried to apologize, Sansa will have to put in some effort on her side.

Plus Arya and Sansa's relationship is definitely deeper than just "respect." Way more.

I don't think their relationship is built on just "respect", they do have sisterly/familial love but that isn't all-powerful. George has stated that he reworked the Starks to give them conflict because they were all getting along and "families aren't like that". I doubt that he'd go to that trouble just to conveniently get rid of that tension, especially considering the amount of sibling conflicts we see in this story. No house gets along perfectly and this is intentional! We aren't ever going to really know until we get TWOW, but I just dislike the framing of this theory as baseless or trivial.

[shopcat]

okay i'm going to post the cats i'm looking at anyway bc i don't even live where they are it's hours away. so here

[silentreigns]

Not even being dramatic when I say this is the 2nd worst gymnastics scandal after Sydney 2000. The FIG should be ASHAMED of themselves for their handling of this Olympics

[thisfairytalegonebad]

Hm. I really wish my brain worked the way it's supposed to.