#i wanted to get it off my chest

[tulipsie-art]

today marks one year since i left full-time art behind to work as a computer person and i think i can say for sure now that it was the right decision for me

it pains me to admit it because i fought against the idea for so long and was so dead-set on being a career artist but, i'm a lot happier now, not because i'm drawing less (trust me, i'd love to draw and work on stuff i'm passionate about all day), but purely because my work is so much less stressful. i had people telling me that because i'd got 25k or 30k followers on twitter that i'd "made it", that i'd hit the holy grail and could now easily make a living from my artwork, but that was so, so far from the truth lol

i was barely scraping by off commissions with a tiny stipend from patreon, and i would have new artists coming to me asking for advice on how to "make it", how to turn their art into their career, and like, how do you turn around to these bright-eyed artists who are making great work, who see you as their goal and say "i put years of hard work into building this following, got a few huge lucky breaks and i'm earning less than £400 a month from doing it full-time", that fucking sucks man

i don't write this to say "don't follow your dreams!" or "don't bother", i love making and posting art and i've met some of the most wonderful people doing it, but i think my thoughts mirror a lot of youtubers you see who give advice to new youtubers and say "for the love of god do not make this your career" - the unfortunate truth is the whole "social media artist as a living" thing, except for a very select lucky few, is a very rocky business model at best, and if i haven't already mentioned, can be extremely bad for one's mental health for a whole bunch of reasons

it's a career path i see glorified a fair bit and a lot of people aspire to it, but having tried to walk that path and been ostensibly "successful", god damn is it tough, if not impossible

i guess my other point, if there is any, is that artists on the whole have it really fucking tough, and if you have an artist you love and it is within your means to support them, please do so. i guarantee they're struggling out there - most artists with similar or even bigger followings that i've spoken to have had experiences that pretty much mirror my own, so i don't think i'm an isolated case

thanks for reading if you did, and i do want to say, i really, really appreciate you all <3 i don't get to draw much these days, but i do get to draw whatever i want, and to post it here and still get such wonderful positive reactions makes me very happy :)

[ellenchain]

Vorbește-mi limba!

My headcanon is that both Lucas and 47 sometimes still speak Romanian.

What we know about the institute is that they trained their boys in all the languages that are important in the big wide world - especially English. We'll ignore the fact that IOI simply hired English VAs because it's easiest to market when everyone speaks English.

Makes it unfortunately harder to speak convincingly in other languages if the VAs can't speak the languages in question (e.g. in Dubai, 47 could also speak Arabic, or in Santa Fortuna, Spanish - but I guess David can't speak either).

Still, I would have liked to get some insights into what it's like when our two boys talk to each other. Also in English? Or would they - if no one was listening - switch to Romanian? After all, they grew up there and the staff at the institute certainly didn't speak English so perfectly (if you consider the time in which the two grew up).

I can imagine that Lucas loves to swear in Romanian. Or whenever he gets upset, Romanian words slip into his mouth. 47 probably rather avoids speaking in Romanian. But when Lucas secretly wants to talk to him, he also changes the language.

It would have been nice to get a little insight into their private environment here and there. I'm convinced, it certainly sounds nice when 47 and Lucas talk in Romanian.

What do you think?

[noesa]

i think the thing that is specifically bothering me about the conversation about the new hbomberguy video ("live your life in a way so that hbomberguy doesn't tear into you for 3 hours", "hbomberguy has figured out how to death note someone through video essays", "oh new hbomberguy video [incredibly dense paragraphs of text] i now despise james somerton") is that it really feels like people aren't paying attention to what hbomberguy was actually saying. like, as much as he wanted to make people aware of the plagiarism issue, he also very explicitly did not like the fact that he might even remotely have a financial incentive to make those sorts of videos. and rather than the last video, which was a "get mad about this" call to action, hbomberguy spent this whole video sympathizing with the people who were directly out indirectly affected, and wanted the focus of people's attention to be on uplifting small queer creators

but also, negativity drives engagement so i guess it's to be expected.

[pokimoko]

I can't keep being fundamentally changed as a person by animated movies, it's just not sustainable.

[itistimetodisappear]

Yes we've all heard aroace people complain about the 'you haven't met the right person' line. But to the idiots citing this as the reason aroace people 'aren't oppressed’: No, micro aggressions aren't what's oppressing us.

I could talk about corrective rape, but I'm not going to because that's not what scares me the most. The worst thing about being aroace (aromantic, and asexual to a certain extent) is that society is set up for couples.

Being aromantic is a crushing economic disadvantage. As a couple, you can save more. As a legal couple, you can borrow more. This puts Mortgages out of reach for a lot of aromantics. Adopting too. Although aro people can adopt, you must have a similar income to a couple, which again, rules out a lot of aros. Don't forget Immigration, spousal visas will never be an option for us.

Being poor and aro means you're denied housing, family, international movement, basically anything that allos of a similar income would get. And anything you can get, you'll have to jump through many more hoops for. But we can't fix this by legalising aro marriage, like we did for the gays. Until our society's economic system is completely revolutionised, we'll be waiting.

It's impossible to compare oppression. You can't objectively say which minority group has it worse and I really mean that. But also I'd rather be called slurs and hated by Christians all fucking day.

[the-phantom-peach]

Meeting the Light Dragon ✨🐉

[tagged as spoilers!]

[corvidcall]

None Of You Know What Haiku Are

I'm going to preface this by saying that i am not an expert in ANY form of poetry, just an enthusiast. Also, this post is... really long. Too long? Definitely too long. Whoops! I love poetry.

If you ask most English-speaking people (or haiku-bot) what a haiku is, they would probably say that it's a form of poetry that has 3 lines, with 5, and then 7, and then 5 syllables in them. That's certainly what I was taught in school when we did our scant poetry unit, but since... idk elementary school when I learned that, I've learned that that's actually a pretty inaccurate definition of haiku. And I think that inaccurate definition is a big part of why most people (myself included until relatively recently!) think that haiku are kind of... dumb? unimpressive? simple and boring? I mean, if you can just put any words with the right number of syllables into 3 lines, what makes it special?

Well, let me get into why the 5-7-5 understanding of haiku is wrong, and also what makes haiku so special (with examples)!

First of all, Japanese doesn't have syllables! There's a few different names for what phonetic units actually make up the language- In Japanese, they're called "On" (音), which translates to "sound", although English-language linguists often call it a "mora" (μ), which (quoting from Wikipedia here) "is a basic timing unit in the phonology of some spoken languages, equal to or shorter than a syllable." (x) "Oh" is one syllable, and also one mora, whereas "Oi" has one syllable, but two moras. "Ba" has one mora, "Baa" has two moras, etc. In English, we would say that a haiku is made up of three lines, with 5-7-5 syllables in them, 17 syllables total. In Japanese, that would be 17 sounds.

For an example of the difference, the word "haiku", in English, has 2 syllables (hai-ku), but in Japanese, はいく has 3 sounds (ha-i-ku). "Christmas" has 2 syllables, but in Japanese, "クリスマス" (ku-ri-su-ma-su) is 5 sounds! that's a while line on its own! Sometimes the syllables are the same as the sounds ("sushi" is two syllables, and すし is two sounds), but sometimes they're very different.

In addition, words in Japanese are frequently longer than their English equivalents. For example, the word "cuckoo" in Japanese is "ほととぎす" (hototogisu).

Now, I'm sure you're all very impressed at how I can use an English to Japanese dictionary (thank you, my mother is proud), but what does any of this matter? So two languages are different. How does that impact our understanding of haiku?

Well, if you think about the fact that Japanese words are frequently longer than English words, AND that Japanese counts sounds and not syllables, you can see how, "based purely on a 17-syllable counting method, a poet writing in English could easily slip in enough words for two haiku in Japanese” (quote from Grit, Grace, and Gold: Haiku Celebrating the Sports of Summer by Kit Pancoast Nagamura). If you're writing a poem using 17 English syllables, you are writing significantly more content than is in an authentic Japanese haiku.

(Also not all Japanese haiku are 17 sounds at all. It's really more of a guideline.)

Focusing on the 5-7-5 form leads to ignoring other strategies/common conventions of haiku, which personally, I think are more interesting! Two of the big ones are kigo, a season word, and kireji, a cutting word.

Kigo are words/phrases/images associated with a particular season, like snow for winter, or cherry blossoms for spring. In Japan, they actually publish reference books of kigo called saijiki, which is basically like a dictionary or almanac of kigo, describing the meaning, providing a list of related words, and some haiku that use that kigo. Using a a particular kigo both grounds the haiku in a particular time, but also alludes to other haiku that have used the same one.

Kireji is a thing that doesn't easily translate to English, but it's almost like a spoken piece of punctuation, separating the haiku into two parts/images that resonate with and add depth to each other. Some examples of kireji would be "ya", "keri", and "kana." Here's kireji in action in one of the most famous haiku:

古池や　蛙飛び込む　水の音 (Furu ike ya　kawazu tobikomu　mizu no oto) (The old pond — A frog jumps in The sound of the water.)

You can see the kireji at the end of the first line- 古池や literally translates to "old pond ya". The "ya" doesn't have linguistic meaning, but it denotes the separation between the two focuses of the haiku. First, we are picturing a pond. It's old, mature. The water is still. And then there's a frog! It's spring and he's fresh and new to the world! He jumps into the pond and goes "splash"! Wowie! When I say "cutting word", instead of say, a knife cutting, I like to imagine a film cut. The camera shows the pond, and then it cuts to the frog who jumps in.

English doesn't really have a version of this, at least not one that's spoken, but in English language haiku, people will frequently use a dash or an ellipses to fill the same role.

Format aside, there are also some conventions of the actual content, too. They frequently focus on nature, and are generally use direct language without metaphor. They use concrete images without judgement or analysis, inviting the reader to step into their shoes and imagine how they'd feel in the situation. It's not about describing how you feel, so much as it's about describing what made you feel.

Now, let's put it all together, looking at a haiku written Yosa Buson around 1760 (translated by Harold G. Henderson)

The piercing chill I feel: my dead wife's comb, in our bedroom, under my heel

We've got our kigo with "the piercing chill." We read that, and we imagine it's probably winter. It's cold, and the kind of cold wind that cuts through you. There's our kireji- this translation uses a colon to differentiate our two images: the piercing chill, and the poet stepping on his dead wife's comb. There's no descriptions of what the poet is feeling, but you can imagine stepping into his shoes. You can imagine the pain he's experiencing in that moment on your own.

"But tumblr user corvidcall!" I hear you say, "All the examples you've used so far are Japanese haiku that have been translated! Are you implying that it's impossible for a good haiku to be written in English?" NO!!!!! I love English haiku! Here's a good example, which won first place in the 2000 Henderson haiku contest, sponsored by the Haiku Society of America:

meteor shower . . . a gentle wave wets our sandals

When you read this one, can you imagine being in the poet's place? Do you feel the surprise as the tide comes in? Do you feel the summer-ness of the moment? Haiku are about describing things with the senses, and how you take in the world around you. In a way, it's like the poet is only setting a scene, which you inhabit and fill with meaning based on your own experiences. You and I are imagining different beaches, different waves, different people that make up the "our" it mentioned.

"Do I HAVE to include all these things when I write haiku? If I include all these things, does that mean my haiku will be good?" I mean, I don't know. What colors make up a good painting? What scenes make up a good play? It's a creative medium, and nobody can really tell you you can't experiment with form. Certainly not me! But I think it's important to know what the conventions of the form are, so you can appreciate good examples of it, and so you can know what you're actually experimenting with. And I mean... I'm not the poetry cops. But if you're not interested in engaging with the actual conventions and limitations of the form, then why are you even using that form?

I'll leave you with one more English language haiku, which is probably my favorite haiku ever. It was written by Tom Bierovic, and won first place at the 2021 Haiku Society of America Haiku Awards

a year at most . . . we pretend to watch the hummingbirds

Sources: (x) (x) (x) (x) (x) (x)

Further reading:

Forms in English Haiku by Keiko Imaoka Haiku: A Whole Lot More Than 5-7-5 by Jack How to Write a Bad Haiku by KrisL Haiku Are Not a Joke: A Plea from a Poet Who Has Had It Up to Here by Sandra Simpson Haiku Checklist by Katherine Raine

[zhukzubast]

...so about those preview costumes

[anantaru]

whenever i write smut for diluc i tend to forget to write the actual smut scenes because i always add too much descriptions of romance in the fics and how much he loves you, i just want to make it clear in my writing that his love has no bounds and how diluc loves you is very intense. listen, this man is such a passionate lover, he is blooming from how you allow him to love you until he feels how you become this beacon of hope to him. i just have to get my point across on this, he is so akin to mr. darcy from pride & prejudice, diluc is a good man, he is intelligent and kind to people, he protects them, he is wise too, funny in his own type of way. what else is that he would die for you. he would kill for you. he would conquer the world for you. diluc would do it all and look utterly handsome while doing it! case closed.

[alevens]

zolu is maybe one of the easiest ships i've ever liked. they're dating, except when they're not, they're best friends even when they're kissing and they're still captain and first mate when they aren't. they hold hands, they hug. they have sex. they don't.

Luffy can hold Zoro's katanas and Zoro can hold Luffy's strawhat and no one bats an eye. one says "You're so cool!" and the other says "You're strong" and it's just another way to say "I see you, this is why I follow you/this is why I trust you". it's not seeing each other for a long time and still knowing how the other's steps sound like against wood and sand. the captain runs and the first mate follows. it's always "Zoro and the others" and "Where's Luffy?"

if they're just friends, if they're something more, if they don't have a label for it, at its core, it's just about how they get each other. they understand how the other's mind works. however you view them, it doesn't erase they fact that they love each other in a way they don't love other people.

[nibbelraz]

When your brother wants to betray the powerful demon king you both work for but you know that's NOT going to end well so you try to convince him not to do it but he's also seen those LUSTFUL gazes you do to said demon and calls you out

[maerhiya]

in regards to the constant dismissal of his aroace identity, i hate it when alastor 'fans' say and use the excuse: "he's fictional, he won't get offended."

like, you're right, but it can and will offend us.

when you see yourself being represented on screen, of course you'd feel enthusiastic about it — representation allows individuals to see themselves reflected in the media they consume, validating their identities and experiences. but when so many people take that representation and decide to disregard and discard it, it is so fucking frustrating. we finally have another character to be part of the tiny amount of representation we have, but then people don't even care about how much it means to us? like yeah, alastor won't get offended because he's not real, but it frustrates and annoys us. do you realize that it's also technically invalidating the aroace community? that you're invalidating our feelings? imagine feeling like you're finally being seen because your orientation is finally being represented in media, and people just decide to blatantly ignore, discard, and invalidate it.

media has such a powerful influence on real life, representation being a prevalent factor of it. there are numerous posts that dictate how people went to watch a movie/show or read a book just because a character depicts their identity in it — obviously, being represented is an incredibly uplifting and validating experience.

which is why seeing an aroace character in a popular show is so meaningful to us because we live in a world where romance and sex are literally everywhere and prioritized above all else. (and it's pretty obvious that alastor's on the repulsed end of the spectrum, but even if he wasn't, at least make an effort to acknowledge his sexuality instead of continuing to portray him as allo; aroace folks can be in relationships but it's not going to be the same thing with allos' experiences.)

any and every representation matters, but why does that seem to stop at people under the aroace spectrum? like y'all can't even let us appreciate the scraps of representation we have. we barely have any, so are we really that dramatic for being upset at how people easily disregard and dismiss our identities that are being depicted on screen just like that? is it truly wrong of us to want to defend and maintain the little representation we have?

[ladysansalannister]

A huge problem with antizionist activists at the moment is that so many of them are just absolutely itching to see more violence. They don’t want to stop the violence. They don’t call for a ceasefire and peace anymore. Instead they call for Israelis/Jewish people to be ethnically cleansed from the region instead of Palestinians. Like they literally just think the “wrong people” are being murdered right now. They’re a bunch of western spectators with nothing on the line agitating for more violence in a region thousands of miles away so they can root for their “team.” It’s a game to so many of these people, and a game they want to end in even more violence than has already been perpetrated by the Israeli government and Hamas.

[coolnonsenseworld]

(this is part of the calendar 2024 lore, now on pre-order, to know more check out prev posts)

April was Keith's idea of relaxation. He enjoyed parks, the feng shui of them, nature's ability to thrive despite and against anything happening - the silence of it. Watching Keith wind down and relax when he is a strung wire most of the time, would definitely make Lance feel all lovey-dovey and clingy (as he tends to get) and when he’d worry he is disturbing, Keith would comment this is exactly how it should be - the constant yin to his yang, and the yang when he feels yin.

Also - both shirt and hoodie are Keith's (he has way too many hoodies with quotes). Lance took the hoodie for Keith, but Keith insisted he won’t get cold, so he wore it himself. On the way home Lance funds Keith the biggest sushi serving he could find on the menu, and, believe me, nothing lights up Keith's eyes like a table full of rice and algae. Lance just watches with a soft smile. (Keith does end up getting cold)

[stuckinapril]

me stoically navigating my way through drama bc bigger things are ahead and it’s not my fault people are dumb

[sad-leon]

I've reblogged my moots' posts, but i want to say it for myself as well

I don't care what you make, I don't care what you support, as long as you tag your stuff properly, I have no problem with you

This goes for Tcest, April x Turtle, NSFW - if you create or engage in this content, you're welcome here as long as you don't force it onto me, which despite what a lot of people complain about, is not a problem I've run into

They're fictional characters, I just wanna have fun with my silly little turtles, and if you wanna have fun with these silly little turtles with me, you're welcome here