#and thats okay. they dont need to be

[theygender]

I know it's been said before that a lot of the reasons people say they don't like cats just boil down to them not understanding cat body language, but that really is the case huh. "Cats are mean, they roll over for belly rubs and then attack you when you try to pet them!" Well okay, for dogs rolling over means they want belly rubs. But for cats, rolling over can mean one of three things:

I trust you to pet my belly

I trust you NOT to pet my belly

I want to play! Give me something to swat at!

If they mean the first one (it's rare but some cats do like belly rubs from trusted humans) then petting them will be fine

But if they mean the second one, if they're just rolling over to be more comfortable and trusting you to respect their personal space when they do so, then petting their belly is likely to make them feel offended or betrayed. And depending on their personality some cats might react to this invasion of personal space and betrayal of trust by scratching or biting the offending hand

If they mean the third one and the thing you offer them is your hand instead of a cat toy... They're going to try to play with your hand. And that unfortunately involves claws and teeth. You wouldn't offer your hand to a dog as a chew toy, would you?

And the thing is that there's really not a way to tell which of these three things a cat means unless you get to know them and understand their personality. Bc of this, the safest course of action when dealing with unfamiliar cats is to just avoid touching their bellies when they roll over. (And with familiar cats, avoid touching their bellies if you know they're likely to react with teeth and claws. This part should be common sense.) But some people would rather just assume that all animals operate like dogs and then get mad when cats operate like... Well. Cats

[fearforthestorm]

rolling up to the fandom function in a tshirt that says STOP SEEKING VALIDATION FROM CONTENT CREATORS. HAVING THE GUY WHO MADE THE THING YOU LIKE SAY YOUR ART IS COOL IS GREAT BUT YOU DON'T MAKE FANART FOR THEM YOU MAKE IT FOR YOU. and on the back it says STOP SEEKING PERMISSION TO MAKE FANART AND STOP ONLY MAKING THINGS THAT ARE "ACCEPTABLE". IT DOESN'T MATTER IF WHAT YOU MAKE IS "GOOD" OR "ACCEPTABLE" IT MATTERS THAT IT'S SOMETHING YOU TOOK THE TIME TO MAKE.

[paintedcrows]

Holiday Classics

Been thinking about Ford watching the 70s Animated Lord of the Rings Movies... (companion comic to this post!)

[bubblingsteam]

[theoldkyokodied]

Uploading all my Tomgreg art at once from the past few week before season 4 hits, who knows in what kind of mental state i'm gonna be once it does :')

[sketchy-tour]

HELLO HI HELLO I AM!!! RECOVERING CURRENTLY!!!!

So I haven't posted in a small moment and planned to get myself going again soon but right now I am recovering from an accident (I won't get into the nitty gritty) that has left me quite shaken. FIRST OFF I AM OKAY! Minor injuries so nothing alarming I am physically fine besides being sore for a bit and some scrapes and bruises that are still healing, including my arms which is making drawing a bit difficult. I'm slowly getting better but cant really draw for long periods and honestly I might not draw much for a bit till I feel better both physically and mentally. its the mentally part that might take some time. But I'm resting, rest assured!

ANYWAY this is more just an update cause I know i've been a lil absent. ESPECIALLY after this accident. I'm not abandoning the blog by any means, def still check on tumblr but couldn't seem to muster the energy to interact with much at the moment as my brain is a little rattled up.

I hope yall are all okay! I hope your days are bright and yall are taking care of yourselves!

I promise I'm doing what I can to take care of me!

[obsob]

there he is......the man of the house

[inkskinned]

the rise of AI art isn't surprising to us. for our entire lives, the attitude towards our skills has always been - that's not a real thing. it has been consistently, repeatedly devalued.

people treat art - all forms of it - as if it could exist by accident, by rote. they don't understand how much art is in the world. someone designed your home. someone designed the sign inside of your local grocery store. when you quote a character or line from something in media, that's a line a real person wrote.

"i could do that." sure, but you didn't. there's this joke where a plumber comes over to a house and twists a single knob. charges the guy 10k. the guy, furious, asks how the hell the bill is so high. the plumber says - "turning the knob was a dollar. the knowledge is the rest of the money."

the trouble is that nobody believes artists have knowledge. that we actively study. that we work hard, beyond doing our scales and occasionally writing a poem. the trouble is that unless you are already framed in a museum or have a book on a shelf or some kind of product, you aren't really an artist. hell, because of where i post my work, i'll never be considered a poet.

the thing that makes you an artist is choice. the thing that makes all art is choice. AI art is the fetid belief that art is instead an equation. that it must answer a specific question. Even with machine learning, AI cannot make a choice the way we can - because the choices we make have always been personal, complicated. our skills cannot be confined to "prompt and execution." what we are "solving" isn't just a system of numbers - it is how we process our entire existence. it isn't just "2 and 2 is 4", it's staring hard at the numbers and making the four into an alligator. it's rearranging the letters to say ow and it is the ugly drawing we make in the margin.

at some point, you will be able to write something by feeding my work into a machine. it will be perfectly legible and even might sound like me. but a machine doesn't understand why i do these things. it can be taught preferences, habits, statistical probability. it doesn't know why certain vowels sound good to me. it doesn't know the private rules i keep. it doesn't know how to keep evolving.

"but i want something to exist that doesn't exist yet." great. i'm glad you feel creative. go ahead and pay a fucking artist for it.

this is all saying something we all already knew. the sad fucking truth: we have to die to remind you. only when we're gone do we suddenly finally fucking mean something to you. artists are not replicable. we each genuinely have a skill, talent, and process that makes us unique. and there's actual quiet power in everything we do.

[bruhstation]

you never change, do you

[zleepysnails]

i like making joke aus but i also like putting a bit too much effort on them

[kyonshi-8610]

ᜉᜓᜆᜁᜈ ᜀᜅ᜔ ᜎᜃᜐ᜔ ᜅ᜔ ᜂᜎᜈ᜔ ᜀᜇᜏ᜔ ᜀᜇᜏ᜔ ᜊᜓᜋᜊᜑ potaina ang lakas ng ulan araw araw bumabaha

[spartalabouche]

sometimes its really obvious how much people dont actually believe presentation=/=gender when they see their nonbinary friend go from extremely masculine to relaxing back into femininity once theyre comfortable with their gender and every time they call it detransitioning with zero indication thats what their friend is calling it. i dont know how to tell you this but sometimes you present a certain way for social reasons and not because thats how you actually feel. sometimes you experience dysphoria about your body that is actually related to how people view you and not how you feel about your body. i really dont think its that uncommon for trans people to swing really hard in one direction for the affirmation and then relax back into a different presentation once they are more comfortable in their gender

[star-forg]

An idea. A concept if you will.

there is now a second part

[walking-circles]

i cant tell things apart ! i dont know where they start !

[sideblogdotjpeg]

ive been thinking about the red string superstition recently and also sol bufo always and it makes me sick how uncannily caldwell tanner has made sol to perfectly target me personally

(+ cropped versions !)

[fairsweetlonging]

the thing that sets apart hua cheng from most other devotee/worshipper-type relationships in other media is that hua cheng would actually throw himself on his knees and crawl across the floor if xie lian wanted to, he would demean himself without shame because shame comes from the perception that you have done something wrong or foolish in another's eyes, and hua cheng would never see his god's will as either, nor care for anyone's else's opinion