admittedly, i am afraid to talk about this, but have wanted to for a long while. i don't see a lot of people discuss this kind of thing, but i decided to do so for the me who was struggling and didn't know. also i have no idea where i am going with this and it's very late for me rn so here's a whole ass ramble on vent art. and also a bit more on how it's impacting how i view my art, now. i am terribly sorry if it's not very cohesive, my thoughts on it aren't yet cohesive either WOOPS
i wanted to talk a bit about how vent art really impacted my mental health, and how the idea that art needs some kind of meaning to have meaning really has been weighing on me lately (i know this is a concept i am assigning to my work and is not actually the norm/standard expectation of others consuming art. but it IS a sentiment i have seen enough that does impact me).
i want to specify, obviously i am not saying vent art is bad.
nor that doing vent pieces, or vent blogs, will ultimately result in what i went through for a number of years. rather, that this did happen to me, and there is a near impossible chance i am a unique case in any experience i will ever have. if you do vent art and it helps you, that's good! im not judging anyone for anything here. if your experience does not match my own, that's what it's like to be human~. i am not invalidating anyone on purpose by sharing my own experience. sorry for the insane disclaimer but it will eat me alive if i go to sleep thinking "what if they think x cuz i didn't say y and think im a terrible person"
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i used to do vent art frequently (you won't find much on here as it was uploaded to a personal at the time). anytime i felt down or had a line of dialogue in my head making me feel bad in a way, i would draw for it. but the way i had interacted with it was really unhealthy. it became a terrible feedback loop where i'd feel bad, draw how i felt bad, look at the art, and ruminate even more on how i felt bad, until it spiralled so out of control i would lose touch with reality and get lost entirely in feeling like garbage.
i would just get so lost in the cycle with vent art that it would make my mental space worse and worse, and i would use the vent art as a negative confirmation bias. the words that hurt me i wrote down and anytime i looked again, they would hurt me again. but i would keep looking, and i would keep drawing.
i have always used art as an outlet, but for some reason the way vent art impacted me was unhealthy. it wasn't a good outlet. and it took me years to cut ties with it. i relied on vent art for a long time, but it took a lot of introspection and thinking to realise it wasn't the release i thought it was. and it was hard to let go, too.
i haven't touched the blog in a few months, now. i haven't done much vent art at all since then and genuinely, i've been doing SOOO much better. i no longer ruminate nearly as much as i had done so, i no longer get caught in a feedback loop that lasts for days to weeks. i still feel like garbage like people tend to do, but i don't put myself in a cycle over it anymore. i have gone back to it a few times in moments of desperation, but what used to be every week/every few weeks is now once a month maybe. and not to the extent at all (i would oftentimes post ~20 images in one night, before).
but i keep thinking about how, while the way i had done vent art was bad for my mental health, i keep feeling that just because i do sparkly cute and happy drawings, now, or drawings with no real meaning, that my art has nothing beyond face value... i do like a lot of my vent art. i think their compositions, or hidden messages and meanings, or colour use, was interesting.
but it wasn't worth the price for me.
so i am a bit caught in an in-between, here. my favourite form of art is the expression of love-you liked something so much, you dedicated time to draw it. and yet i cannot ascribe that to my own work very often. i think that man i wish i could make art with some kind of deeper meaning, that speaks to people, that's more than just pretty colours or shiny shading or a character everyone likes, or a character i like. but i just... don't know if it's for me.
ultimately, i could develop a healthy relationship with expressing and exploring negative emotions or experiences through art, but... do i want to? do i have to? do i need to? is it not enough to just draw something because... i like it..?
of course, the answer is yes, draw what you want, draw how you want, it's your art. but i am still trying to come to terms with that idea. i dont want to be seen as some shallow artist who just draws what's cute and pretty because they can and it's all they can think of, but like what if that's just what i like to draw??
in the end, that alone is good enough, drawing because you like to, because it's fun, because you like the thing you're dedicating time to creating for. it's just hard to grapple with after discarding a type of art that i felt was the only way i drew "for real".
anyways i am sorry this is soooo fucking long, and for all the clarifications (IM STILL NOT SAYING VENT ART BAD AND EVERYONE WILL DO WHAT I DID!! Dx) and the fact i had no real point here (probably)
anyways i will continue to draw what i want because i like to, as i have always been.
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Hi, you seem like I can trust your opinion. I am looking for TV show recommendations and I need shows that are either a) actually good, or b) at least entertaining without too much second hand embarrassment. Help me chef
Oh I love this question
1. The Bear, my recommendation of this is mostly inspired by you saying "help me chef", but its also really good (and critically acclaimed if you care about those things). It's pretty popular at the moment so if you haven't seen it already, you've probably at least heard of it. Its a dramedy (like 60/40 drama/comedy), about a chef taking over his brothers restaurant after they (the show has some potentially triggering content so look into that if you have to before watching) killed themself, and if follows the ups and downs that come with that.
2. The Other Two, its a comedy about an older brother and sister, to a teen boy who's become like a teenage Justin Bieber over night celebrity. And it follows how the older siblings handle it/try to exploit their younger brothers new fame. I think its a really good satire of the entertainment industry.
3. Taskmaster, this show, just trust me, its really entertaining, I'd say the show its most similar to is Whose Line Is It Anyway, as its comedians doing silly things, but its also not like it that much, its really its totally own thing, again trust me! It's very funny, it may take a couple episodes to really get the gist of the show but its so worth it. Also there is i think 17 seasons of it all on youtube for free so lots to catch up on!
4. Severance, its a dystopian drama about a guy whos consciousness has been split between his work and home life, so when he's at work he has no memory of life outside of work and vice versa. And each side of his consciousness is slowly trying to piece together what's going on on the other side. It's a really interesting show, if you like the show Black Mirror, you'll probably like this!
I hope you like/check out some or all of these! Feel free to message me back thoughts on these shows, or even ask for more recs!
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okay so i don’t mind reg bc w/e this is fandom innit ppl can do what they want, but i think you’re so right that remus and lyall are fundamentally much more interesting characters and so is their relationship. reg by himself is somewhat compelling but no one in the fandom seems to care abt what makes him compelling i.e. stuff that actually happened in canon not just fanfictions that he’s been featured in. for instance, i see it being stated as though it’s fact that his parents abused him which we don’t know iirc? we know that sirius was mistreated and i do think being raised by political radicals would likely cause a turbulent home life, so i doubt regulus came out of his childhood unscathed, but we have no actual proof he was treated similarly to sirius at all. he was still a supremacist, just not to the extent that his parents were. as far as i’m concerned he died a fascist, but he had a “for thee but not for me” tory level attitude about certain things.
oh absolutely! with regards to my position on regulus, im in no way trying to say that people can’t/shouldn’t like him—as you say, people can do as they like, but im just personally not at all interested in him or with what general fandom consensus has chosen to do with him. the things that would make regulus compelling in canon do not necessarily compel me anyway, but more than that i agree that a lot of people have chosen to virtually wipe those things out out in favour of creating a morally pure conceptualisation of him that they don’t feel the need to defend (not that i think anyone should have to defend having an interest in regulus anyway).
i suppose i am just not personally predisposed to having an interest in canon regulus, so his popularity is not something i fully understand, but particularly the version of him that has been created by fanon...honestly i find him irritating, and generally i find even less to be interested in in a conceptualization of regulus that strips him of agency, flaws and responsibility. i said in that other post that i dont think regulus is as complex as he's given credit for (which applies even more once fanon is through with him), and i honestly stand by it--i reckon he was fully willing, albeit having been influenced by his upbringing, to become a death eater, and i don't buy the narrative that he had no choice and was forced into it and had no personal sympathy with the politics of it all. i find it ridiculously convenient. and then, i think he started having doubts when the impact of all it all became a little too close for comfort (for thee but not for me is quite a perfect summary lol), and he turned traitor. that is really all there is to it for me. i do not think that he would have rejected his parents' ideology if given the chance, the way sirius did. but i recognise really, since i don't think a character's morality or lack thereof should dictate whether you're allowed to enjoy them, the discussion of regulus' morality is sort of besides the point lol, other than the fact that i find his complete and unrealistic redemption via fanon rather boring and admittedly a little lazy.
my comparison between his relationship with sirius and lyalls relationship with remus in the earlier post was mainly just me. making a joke of sorts and being a little unserious, but i do genuinely think lyall and remus are a lot more interesting and complex--though i 100% recognize that this is largely personal preference and im not trying to dress my opinion as an objective fact. mainly, i guess where i am with it all is that i already dont really have an interest in regulus from canon, and despite his huge surge in popularity i have never seen anything in fanon that really changes my mind about that (apart from. maybe one fic). which is fine! nobody is obligated to sit here and try and tailor their own takes on, or fondness for, this guy to attract my interest, or win me over. that is not their job. my opinion holds no more weight than the next guy's, and my lack of interest in regulus is not anyone else's problem, just like i am not ever going to exert energy trying to win someone over to liking remus or liking r/s. i am never going to go to someone's blog or fic and have a go at them for liking regulus/demand they justify themselves. BUT, in the safety of my own blog, i figure im safe to say these things xx and as far as im concerned, my favourite thing regulus ever did was piss off and die xx
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