#make bad art etc etc. they tell me if i keep practicing i will one day make art that isn't bad

[sucharide]

anyway. them

[iraprince]

Hi Ira! Do you have any tips for drawing characters in perspective/foreshortening? I’ve been trying to learn recently but I keep feeling like the characters end up way out of proportion.

sure! it's a complex thing that i'm sure other ppl have covered more thoroughly/coherently than i have, but i can try to throw together some quick notes on the stuff i tend to keep in mind.

the first one is one i'm sure you already know about and that everyone is sick of hearing but i'm reiterating it anyway bc it's just that important: REFERENCE!!! ref ref ref!!!! even though the intent is often to exaggerate or stylize well past what ref can offer, it's still a great way to train yourself and to start to build up a kind of visual library in your head of how certain body parts tend to behave in perspective, what overlaps look like and how to stylize them, etc. if you can't find reference that suits what you're drawing, try to take it yourself -- this can be tricky w foreshortened poses but if u have a housemate etc who can help you it's worth it. (i always feel kind of goofy when i'm taking my own ref but like, nobody ever has to see it. do it for the art)

the thing w ref tho, and i think this comes out with exaggerated posing/foreshortening even more often than usual, is sometimes u can really faithfully follow ref and stuff STILL looks bad/wonky/just OFF -- because sometimes in real life things just look dumb! that's how it is! that's when it becomes our job to just fudge it, and a reliable way to do that is by returning to basic construction.

so here's an example of a wip layout where i had to figure out a bunch of bodies in perspective. the camera is above the group, looking down at the central figure -- that central figure laying on the floor is not foreshortened, because it's laying flat and kind of directly facing the "camera," but all the figures standing up around it have to be foreshortened bc their heads are much closer to the viewer than their feet. when you think of them as just a bunch of complex bodies, that is really overwhelming.

what helped me a lot was to remember that you can put basically ANYTHING into perspective if you shove it into a box! then you can use those boxes -- which are MUCH easier to accurately draw in perspective -- as a guideline, and basically make sure everybody's respective body parts "fit" into those cubes.

you can do this in conjuction with using perspective rulers/setting up vanishing points/etc, but with enough practice you can just eyeball it and you'll already find yourself way ahead in terms of simplifying stuff and giving yourself guidelines. this is also really helpful with more complex poses -- in this case, the figure in the top right is standing pretty square, with all the different segments of her body facing forward, but hopefully you can imagine how breaking the body into boxes like this can help immensely in cases where, for example, the shoulders are twisting one way and the hips are twisting another, etc. simplifying all these different parts of the body (which are frequently putting themselves into DIFFERENT perspective by moving independently from each other) as boxes or other simple shapes stacked on top of each other lets you organize things visually and figure stuff out one piece at a time, instead of the mental nightmare of "oh my god i have to draw all this wiggly organic stuff all at different points in space"

here's another example. i freehanded this one, but i can try to kind of retroactively break down what i try to keep in mind when drawing stuff like this; a lot of it boils down to just trying to be consistent about how different body parts relate to each other + how that's all framed from the viewer's pov (stylized below as a camera angle):

it helps a lot to think of exaggeration in size as just a tool you're using to tell the viewer how close something is to the "camera." (if you've ever struggled to draw a leg in forshortening because the ankle is thinner than the thigh and trying to honor "closer thing = bigger" while still keeping that in proportion -- this is where using basic shapes in perspective helps!)

i'm struggling a little to explain it in words so i hope the diagram helps; basically, dole out the heaviest foreshortening to the parts that "deserve" it most (are coming most aggressively toward the viewer/"camera"), and worry about it less on body parts that aren't doing anything crazy (for example, in the main image, the torso's relationship to the camera is pretty neutral, so the body is drawn without much foreshortening or exaggeration. in the little camera angle diagram i drew in the top left, though, the body IS heavily foreshortened, because viewed from the front in this pose the head + torso would be sticking out straight ahead.)

this is a way more loosey-goosey approach than the boxes in perspective of the first example; i found this pose less difficult than a multi-character situation so i was winging it. is the "perspective" of this body probably correct? i'm like 99% sure it isn't. but 99% of illustration is just making sure things LOOK right, not necessarily actually DRAWING them right, and you can gloss over a LOT if you just try to make sure the spatial logic in your drawings is like, more or less consistent. once you've tricked the eye of the viewer into being like "sure, i buy that one leg is further back than the other and we're looking UP" or "yeah, it looks like we are looking DOWN at the tops of these character's heads", you can pretty much get away with murder in terms of actual perspective/anatomy, esp if u have a very stylized art style. be brave!!!!

[dorkfruit]

i put this together using my computer's trackpad so the new year is already starting out . bad .

posts: J | F | M | A | M | J | J | A | S | O | N | D

template

reflections on the year, my plans for the future, some studies i did, and wips for the next year all down below for those who are interested

tldr; we will be ianthing next year so watch out!!

oh dear lord it's been another year. 2024! can you believe it! i don't talk much on this blog because i have a tendency to talk too much, but it's my little new year's treat, so here we go.

RECAP

i started taking drawing "seriously" in December of 2020, starting to do studies and stuff, and each year since i've ramped it up more and more. this year, i did. a lot of studies. there's probably like at least 200 more in my folder now (not including the 300 days worth of gesture drawings i did), with things like painting, faces, feet, poses, etc. anything i was struggling with, i went right into studying it. my art has been mediocre for a pretty long time now, and it's only the past few months where i feel i'm starting to get the hang of it, which is exciting!

more importantly, i started posting a lot more on this blog. i really like documenting my progress, looking on where i was before and seeing how i've improved. everytime i draw some fanart, im like, oooghh i can't wait to show my (: followers (: !! lots of locked tomb art of course. i've been trying to nail the energy of the different characters, which is why i enjoy books so much, because you get a lot of creative control. drawing ianthe is my fav of course, cause she's my lil nasty, but also i enjoyed doing designs for characters i hadnt thought about before, like judith.

in addition to the locked tomb, we had some new fandoms that got brief moments in between iantheposting: Fear and Hunger, Postal, Faith The Unholy Trinity, and a couple of old ones too, like We Have Always Lived In The Castle and The Merciless.

i posted about 115 times this year, although most of those are shitposts LOL i love posting stuff on my blog and showing people my stuff <3

THE FUTURE

my plans? do more ianthe art, of course. ill be working on more studies, probably going to work on developing a style, and figuring out how to paint. i'd like to do more actually finished pieces, but let's be honest, it'll still be mostly shitpost doodles. i'd like to do more weird stuff. i've been messing around with some gore and NSFW near the end of the year, and it's fun to draw for me. i like idk art that evokes some type of emotion, especially discomfort, and so i find that type of art fun to do, so if you don't enjoy what i've done thus far in that direction, perhaps this isn't the blog for you. i really like horror media, and so i want to do some stuff like that too.

for specifics, i like western type art, a comic book-esque style i'd like to aim for. but i'd like it to be a little more. weird with it. i find comic books often draw all the characters the same, and make all the characters traditionally attractive, and that's boring to me so i'll have to work on finding a way to keep things weird, while also appealing in a graphic sense. the worst thing my art could be is bland and forgettable.

locked tomb wise... more tridentarii art. need to be really weird with it. i have lots of wips planned, like i have a whole page worth of just thumbnails, so i wanna get some of those done. also i had a few animatics i wanted to do. mostly stupid shit, once i learn how to do animatics, then we'll do actual serious ones. id also like to do more comics. i have some comics storyboarded out with my girlies, i like telling a story so, need practice on that. id also like to develop a way to consistently draw them, for convenience sakes, so i'm not fighting for my life every single time i draw these characters. oh and i wanna do some outfit stuff. i draw them in like. generic clothes everytime but i'd like to come up with a few actual outfit designs, that i can just reference back to. and, of course, more shitposts. lots of stupid shit in 2024 for sure. there was something else i wanted to say here but i can't remember.

ART

oki enough rambling, here's some IMAGES for yall to look at i know everyone loves to look at images.

began this year by warming up with gesture sketches (almost) every day. i started with 20 poses (30 seconds each), and then in november i was like. ugh my hands suck i need to get better at hands, so i switched to doing 10 hand sketches (60 seconds each). i want my art to be very energetic so it's important that i do these !!

anatomy studies of extremities because i'm flopping at those -_- ive gotten better with hands but they're still a struggle. i hate feet tho still

need to get my painting game up. i joined an art forum to get advice, and the biggest suggestion i got was working on my values, so i did various value studies. also lots of faces because my faces flop !!

random doodles to work on drawing from imagination. on my "sketchbook" pages, as i like to call them, i'm usually pretty loose and messy, since the point is just to be drawing so often these will suck, but that's fine. i don't think very much when i draw faces on here either so they end up being in my Instinctive Style i suppose you could say

ianthe wip. i was planning to do a few drawings based on the idea of her having Missing Arm nightmares, but the lineart was intimidating to me so i haven't worked on this one more yet /: also there was going to be a toontown gay homosexual toxic yuri comic that i was gonna put here with it but the page is way too long so umm guess that'll have to wait.

...

anyways. thank you for reading if you got to the bottom of this! i appreciate all the support that i've been getting lately (extra big kissies for the same like 5 people who always reblog my posts youre the best). and we will be ianthing soo hard in 2024 so watch out!!

[venacoeurva]

I will be opening 2 slots for this style! Please specify if you want the regular cel shaded one or the old print style one (Wren threateningly in his undies is the best example of the textures and inking I have 🥲), prices are the same. One image per person sans minor alterations. Please read the rules below.

They’re first come, first serve--Contact via IMs only, asks are tedious and difficult to navigate back to to get refs, and idk if asks still get eaten but I'd rather not give it the chance.

RULES

These commissions are NOT permitted for commercial use, use in training AI, NFTs or any involvement in cryptocurrency, campaigns, or promotion that contributes to financial gain. This includes assets such as icons, banners, character art, and similar for streaming, Youtube, blogs that make a profit, and other websites. If there’s a chance you will profit financially from its use, that falls under commercial.

You will get 2 minor to moderate fixes in your commission past the sketch phase. Be prepared and have your resources and ideas ahead of time and if you remember any changes please tell me all of them at one time as one fix. I will not practically or actually redraw or recolor a commission due to customer negligence.

You are not permitted to remove watermarks on the pieces.

I must know ahead of time if you intend on creating physical objects using the piece.

There is not a contractual forfeiture of rights from me to you, I extend them to you. I retain a right to use commissions for promotional and portfolio reasons.

Payment must be up front in full via Paypal invoices (so I need your associated email, NOT a paypal.me link).

When describing things such as the poses and scene, please break the text up into smaller chunks. Also, please don’t tell me to just do whatever, that isn’t helpful at all, stressful, and odds are you know these characters more than I do!

Must have a visual reference for any OCs or character who are difficult to find good references for (such as for a very niche series). I need as neutral lighting in screenshots as you can manage, if you want color accuracy I need accurate colors for colored pieces or the ability to infer what they would be in the lighting of the commission. If the screenshots are too bad I will say no until you can get a better one.

Keep it SFW, suggestive at most for adult characters only (vulgar dialogue or text allowed as long as it's not bigoted or in poor taste). Upper nudity is fine for adults. You must be an adult for that. Fetish content that wouldn’t be clocked from an outside perspective is not allowed. I can also tell when people try to stealth fetish art out of me.

I will not emulate other online artists’ styles, and this commission opening is for the above style only.

If you want me to illustrate part of your fic, do not expect me to read it. Give me a description of the scene as you would any other illustration. If you try this, I will reject your commission.

Shipping is fine (OCXCanon, OCXOC, CanonxCanon) provided it isn't incest or adult/minor. If I'm skeeved out by a particular one you bring up I'll also let you know if I won't do that one.

I won't draw other peoples' OCs that are not yours unless you know each other. People do that without consent, it's weird!

Nonhuman/elf/other humanoid characters are fine, including furries or monsters.

No real people other than cases such as your fursona, etc. and no real person shipping/fanfiction or fanart.

If you're being unprofessional via playful rudeness, flirting, bigotry, demanding I prioritize your comm in the queue or to work faster I will refund you and immediately stop working on your commission. You will be blacklisted.

No politics, no bigoted content (including transphobia and exclusion), no shitty tired jokes like farm tools, rape jokes, pedophilia jokes, or anything involving F/yr unless it’s him getting being obliterated into a fine paste. You get the gist, he makes me uncomfortable and I refuse to draw him, and poor enough taste concepts will get you rejected and blacklisted.

There are some series I refuse to draw for full stop. If you ask for one, I’ll let you know.

I can say no to any commission for any reason.

[iztea]

Maybe you have some drawing tips for beginners?

Your style is incredibly beautiful and it just inspires this thing inside me to grab my iPad and start drawing but unfortunately I have no idea where to even begin

Or maybe you have some recs where to look to learn how to draw stuff?

But I understand completely that it’s your thing and artists should never feel pressured to share all their techniques and secrets, you worked hard on it!

I just really really love your art to the point where I just look at it for 30 minutes straight with this big feeling in my chest

<3

ah it was never about being secretive, i'm pretty open about my drawing process since gatekeeping knowledge is a big pet peeve of mine. It was more like,, laziness because writing a cohesive and helpful drawing tutorial is pretty difficult and i wouldn't even know where to start; i'm afraid i'll get maybe too technical and what have you.

As for tips for beginners, i've shared plenty on my couriouscat so you can scroll through the answers there, i also have some drawing timelapses on my twitter account as well (albeit you'll have to scroll a little)

I'm very flattered you feel that way about my art, it really means a lot to me and i'm glad to have inspired you to draw as well that's awesome and i wish you best of luck!

I actually don't know how different drawing on an iPad is compared to a graphic tablet+desktop, so I am actually pretty clueless in that regard. I think Procreate is the most used digital art app for iPad so you can start by getting it and familiarizing yourself with the UI. I think this step is often overlooked. The brushes and the chosen program can make or break the drawing experience. If you simply find yourself not enjoying Procreate, experiment with other apps or maybe try switching to a graphic tablet, maybe that feels better and is more suited to your tastes.

To be completely honest, one "bad" piece of advice that i should probably keep to myself is to draw something you actually enjoy: fanart, Pretty Girl Portrait(tm), your cat, landscapes etc even if it's above your skill level (becoming obsessed/ fixated on some character from a piece of media also works wonders i'm just gonna throw that out there). The main point is to actually care about your chosen subject in order to get inspired and to have that inner desire of "doing them justice" aka drawing them well. The traditional art learning route probably involves studying the fundamentals, shading spheres and cones and simple 3D forms blablbablah which. Yeah ! sure that's probably better advice but i'm telling you what will make you want to keep going and not get discouraged after a few failed attempts.

As for the drawing subject, I highly recommend having photo references to guide you.. you always need refs it's a recurring thing. My fastest artworks are the ones where I have the right references. the less references the more difficult it is to draw something

As a beginner it is also a good practice to draw OVER your photo reference to get the proportions right ( i'm not talking about literally tracing the contour of a face or limb ( just an example ), but moreso identifying the Main shape which makes up that body part and observe how long is it in respect to the other components, how does it connect to the other parts etc - big difference. Tracing won't help you in the long run).

Another thing you can do is to study your favourite artists and see how They tackle whatever it is that you like in their work. how do they simplify facial features? what about anatomy? color/ light etc and kinda reverse engineer your way through their process. ( but i highly recommend to just keep these practice sketches to yourself, and to not share them on social media- unless you get the artist's permission)

This is how i got into drawing and what i did back then, again, for more technical hands-on information i did answer similar CCs before so with a little bit of stalking you'll find them in no time

I wanna finish this with some resources that helped me:

>youtube guys - sinix, ahmed aldoori, marco bucci, and also just speedpaints in general i highly recommend watching those

>for simplified anatomy i found @/ taco1704 's ref sheets to be very helpful but ........... I'm pretty dry here i just look up refs on Pinterest tbvh

speaking of, here's my pinterest i have a bunch of art related boards board cool stuff overall maybe they can help guide you towards some direction or inspire you in some way idk

ok i kinda suck in the resource department listeN. im starving too just.................. watch youtube speedpaints ok

SORRY IT'S SO LONGGGBGGG i hope it was at least a bit helpful? this was all over the place... I'll try to come up with a tutorial as well but i really gotta be careful with how i go about it. I'll leave you with this for the time being. Again, thank you a lot for the kind words, I really am very grateful and touched esp by that last part about staring with the big feeling stuff eeeeeeeeeeeeee really wow T T that's so lovely and a big compliment thanks ty ly

[bapouro]

If you have the time and if it’d be fun at all, can you talk about how going to school for art is/was? Like what was bad about it but what did it make you realize about why you create? What was originally incomprehensible that became digestible after being surrounded by it? I’m just curious because I really only got into art after college age.

Hi

ive finally handed in my final project ever last friday and after somewhat recovering i can now answer u. (ill put an aside here that before i started uni, i saw a lot of the online umming and awing about art school and it being a scam etc that made me nervous going into it. i dont really think it has been for me but keep in mind im doing this in the uk. i think if i was in the usa or somewhere where it was that expensive i think youd get just about as many benefits going to somewhere like a community college instead. its worth a bit of money but not a lot of money.)

i realised while turning over your questions in my head last week how much doing my degree (illustration undergrad) during covid lockdown, illustrated (haha) the point art school had for me. and the point being that after trying to stick it out for the first few terms during lockdown, i deferred, i didnt really see the point i had already spent my entire life making art in my bedroom online for free, without somebody telling me what to do. practically what that degree offered me was physical facilities and resources, but really what i wanted it for was that vague miasma of drive and something bigger than myself to physically 'prove' myself to. i was and still am very interested in that gap between the online environment i learnt art within that felt a world away from my 'real life', and coming to meet with that 'real life' was kind of my goal. i needed both to meet on a very basic level for my quality of life. and id say i succeeded. twice now somebody i was originally mutuals with online turned out to be in my class. i live with one of them now. and i feel some pride now looking back on how much i felt like i had to separate my 'school' art and my 'personal' art during secondary school and now theyre practically one and the same. in fact one piece of advice ive kept with me from the uni tutors here is they consistently wish the students wouldnt 'hold back' so much on the kind of work they make: one of my friends, the one i now live with, was doing a tasteful furry pinup statue for a project and one of the tutors essentially asked them why the statue was being so sexually subtle with it, for example.

so what was bad about it! man... thinking about it the same reason i gave for why i came back after lockdown could also point out how flippant the reasoning was. its still a lot of time and effort let alone money to be putting into something that you dont Need an institution for. and art and academia, as much as you might try, arent going to be as neatly married as maybe STEM and academia. not that there isnt a place for it. we need it in there. but basically your work still has to get 'graded' on things so they can prove themselves as an institution so they can still get money to run. i ''apreciated'' the deadline part, for what it was, because i was(/am) a serial put-er off-er and i knew i needed something big to try and train me out of it. but the actual mark scheme and trying to work off of it is never not going to be nebulous. what the hell does it mean to 'demonstrate my awareness of the changing landscape of contemporary illustration' graded between 0 - 100 via a 3d animation. ive done pretty well. sometimes id get top marks. a couple times i wouldnt even pass and id have to do it again. the only pattern i could really see between what got those marks for me and what didnt was effort? so take with that what you will.

yea that being said, what it helped me realise why i create... i am thankful my particular course at my particular uni is so into their experimentation / medium diversity. because it proved to me again that experimenting is something i love to do. i could keep doing it forever maybe. but that also made me realise after trying to do that project after project that its only one part of the enjoyment. i couldnt sink my teeth in as much as i wanted. part of why im glad to leave is im glad to try and focus on just a few things now. take a project at my pace... reeeally get way too into it. hopefully.

what was originally incomprehensible that became digestible after being surrounded by it? mm.. i think getting to see a lot of the behind the scenes and the people actually doing illustration as a job kind of softened my glare on some art styles / ways of working i dislike. not that i Like them now but that kind of flat illustrator thing.. for some people it really is more of a job than anything else. i think thats fine. theres all kinds of other art to enjoy outside of their 9-5. i just hope they like it too. but of course it does set a precedent for what clients expect/what you feel like you should be making..? oh also i did actually end up really enjoying the couple of art essays we needed to write. reading cultural/art/etc pdf essays was something i already liked to do like reading baudrillard and ellen dissanayake and things but it was great to actually get to apply it in writing. and i think it certainly became more digestible to realise that these kinds of writers and this kind of writing wasnt some hard to penerate academia i couldnt be a part of really but turned out to be writing about things that already applied to life, whether i went to uni or not. really the whole experience... for me i felt like it was just something i needed to do. if anything just to get away from my family and make my own life. im glad i did it. but really art is art no matter where you find it. uni gave me a push to go further, i could sit around and say i couldve done it without uni but i think we overestimate ourselves. i think i couldve but i bet it wouldve taken longer and i may have experimented less, challenged myself less. who knows. just dont ever let something like that put you off art, it will always find you again eventually. im glad you got into it too.

[bosskie]

Molluck Study Night

Man, I don't remember when was the last time I managed to draw this many sketches in a day... Last night I studied Molluck's anatomy, so the rest of the sketches here will be about naked Molluck. But this was the last one I did since I also wanted to just practice drawing his face. I had no idea how to draw him but then I just looked at those cutscenes and wanted to draw this one because he is just so cute when he is pondering after looking at the blimps in the first part of the good ending! This wasn't easy one to draw and I actually fixed this a bit digitally since I realized my mistakes while editing the photo of this... It just feels like I still have so much to learn how to draw this Gluk... I feel like I lack of something, making me unable to ever be professional in art, but maybe I just haven't been doing enough art, studies etc...

But currently, I do am trying to improve my art since I feel like I'm just stuck and haven't really improved in a decade... So, here's some random Molluck anatomy studies, being in order I made them:

These are actually quickly made sketches, so that's how I was actually able to draw this much in one night... Though, I finished that portrait after waking up since I become too sleepy to finish it. I personally feel like these sketches only show how poor my anatomy skills are, so I wasn't even sure if I post these or not but well, still wanted to be brave and show my poor skills bare naked, just like Molluck is... This is just how I feel about these sketches... They show my real skill level and I don't think that it's good... Well, gotta just keep drawing. Though, I do still sketch a lot poorer stuff when I try to figure out how to realize my drawing ideas... Well, I guess that I could give you a look at these actually awful sketches:

All of these are made for a sketch/drawing I have posted here. (Yes, I tend to sketch stuff using Paint.) Frankly, this is how I tend to see my skills, how I feel when I look at my stuff... I know that it's not nice to see an artist calling their art bad but I just wanna be honest, like brutally honest about how I see my stuff, so here's kinda like a visualisation of how I see my stuff, at least during my worst moments... There do are moments when I do feel like I can actually draw but they seem to be just little moments and I'm soon back to thinking about that I cannot draw a thing. It's depressing and it makes me feel kinda depressed when I look at the stuff on this post but well, this blog has also kinda been about the journey I have been doing with my Molluck art/stuff, in many ways.

I'm sorry but I just cannot pretend that I loved my art... I love Molluck so much but at the same time, I just hate myself so much... I don't even know why but I just feel like my life is already a failure... Just feel like how this stuff shows how I cannot truly draw... How me being skilled is just a lie... Man, I just have so bad impostor syndrome... I feel the best when I forget myself but when I think about myself, it only depresses me... I just tend to think that every energy/time/etc. spent on me is wasted...

Even looking at the stuff on this post makes me feel worse, I still wanna post this bad art. I just don't feel like that the portrait looks great either but I tried my best and that's the main thing. I just feel so bad about myself... It feels like I'm only able to practice self-love thru Molluck, making him being kind to me while I tell myself the worst possible things... This is one of the reasons why he is so important to me... He is the one that tells me inside my head not to do it, not to end it all... Frankly, like I said some time ago, it's actually like a mundane thing for me to think about suicidal things, just nothing special anymore, it's been so long like this, over a decade... This also kinda one reason why I'm so open about my own situation, I'm getting so tired of this... To describe how awful my mind is, I can say that it has just laughed at me when I have been reading about how seriously suicidal thoughts should be taken, said how I'm not worth saving but all the others are...

But I'm still trying to fight, even I have felt like life is pointless for over a decade... The cycle of life has just felt so odd: born, grow up, (breed,) die... Like, what's the point of this all? Why to live, why to survive... Thinking this stuff was the reason why I got depressed, just don't understand the point of living, doing anything in life... Maybe it's my personality that just makes me unable to enjoy life, stop caring about this... But like I have said, I do still feel like I'm a failure, so I'll never really be anything... This is how I just feel and I don't know how to stop feeling like this... Just everything I have 'achieved' feels like mere luck or 'lucky mistakes'... I just feel like I'm a living lie, my impostor syndrome is this bad...

I don't wanna depress anyone else but my blog has kinda become like this, that I also write how I'm doing with my mind since it affects my stuff a lot and Molluck kinda just keeps my mental health 'in place'. I really had some positive things in mind to write here but I just cannot when I feel like my 'art' looks so bad right now... Well, another time then. I'm sorry but I'm just fighting for my own life with my mind... Since I more like hate my creations, I'm only able to show my stuff related to Molluck since this Gluk is just the love of my life... This was also the reason why I didn't take part in that OWI's fan celebration thing they just held, just have no mood for making my stuff more visible, show it around but here. Like I have said many times, I felt like deleting my submission to that SoulStorm tattoo contest I won, it just looked so bad in my opinion... I only wish I was able to see what the people who enjoy my stuff see... Why is my mind just trying to kill me, but there somewhere I still know that I'm not so awful as my ill mind tells me, that I do have hope, that I shouldn't take my own life... Man, brains are so odd too...

I don't wish that I end this all because of all the bad things I tell myself. I more like wish that me being open about this can help the others like me. That's why I'm also working on a game related to mental health issues like mine. Thinking about publishing/showing it makes me feel nervous though but I'm trying my best with being able to show my stuff since my life kinda depends on it... Man, why it's so difficult to feel anything positive about myself... I seriously don't know why I hate myself so much... Why I have so high expectations for myself... Why I feel like I can do nothing in reality...

[nottoonedin]

An Important-ish announcement..

Firstly:

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR 500 FOLLOWERRSSS!!

I am shooketh rn, I didn't expect so many people to like my art ;w; <3💕✨✨

Speaking of my art.. Secondly:

I've been thinking, and I've decided to stop posting my art for a while.. Not forever though dw!!

Recently, I haven't really liked my art, I feel like my art improvement has become stagnant in my opinion, and I feel like social media is the main reason why.

I don't feel I've been drawing for myself, and that's obviously one of the most important drawing tips that has been repeated over and over so many times haha. But I've been telling myself in my head recently ''I need to draw _____ or else I won't get attention,'' and I've been trying to pump out art pieces to post online, and I very quickly come to hate that piece. ''That definetly wasn't my best work.. I could do so much better.. But it gets more likes and attention than my other works, so oh well..'' All of this for a quick short dopamine boost from the likes, reblogs and comments..

I don't want to keep drawing if it makes me feel terrible about myself and I end up getting burnt out. I want to be able to improve without the worry about likes and attention weighing down on me. I want to draw for ME. I want to draw my ocs, my little stories in my head, fanart of stuff I enjoy. I wanna FINALLY learn to animate (Which I know takes a LOT of time and practice). I want to enjoy art again, instead of feeling like it's a chore, like it's my job and not a little hobby that's an escape from the real world.

I'm not blaming anyone for this, and I don't mean to seem like I am lol.

But anyways, sorry for rambling, just wanted to let you guys know why I'm not gonna be posting as frequently as I usually do (I probably won't post for a month or 2). Please don't feel you need to comment ''Oh, you don't need to feel bad about not posting, art is for you blah blah blah etc etc'' I'm aware of that, I'm just notifying you cuz I can >:DDD

Love ya'll, tysm for sticking w/ me this far. <3

[wwouldvecouldveshouldve]

Male, romantic preference

MITB: INFJ

information about your hobbies

Oooo, I crochet, listen to music, cook, just adopted a cat, go to the gym (trying to become a competitive weight lifter)

information about topics you like to discuss

I’m a psychology and English major graduate. So I live to talk about sociology and human history and how that relates to the culture and habit of modern humans. Love deep conversation, I hate small talk. I give good life advice to my friends and people younger than me.

information about things that you hate

I am not a math person. I am not a fan of video games or most science fiction. Like I don’t like Star Trek or Star Wars but 2001 a space odyssey is my jam.

information about your personality

My personality seems to be a combo between Akutagawa, Poe, and Kunikida. Need to be recognized but also anxious and type A neurotic.

something that makes you unique (fo example, you like antiques from the 19th century. trust me, there's something that makes you a little bit different from most of the people around you)

I am working with my local university’s history, art, and earth sciences departments to be able to create experiments to recreate artwork normally seen in museums for the purpose of giving stolen artwork back to their original cultures.

if you are okay with being matched with a character who commits crimes/is a bad person/etc

Yeah, I don’t really get along with people who try to do the right thing by the right means all the time.

something that you value in others

Honesty and commitment. I hate flakes and cheaters.

something that you can't stand in others

Cheating.

I hope you were not kept waiting, darling! here is your matchup with the one and only kunikida!

kunikida is honest, practical, and reliable and he expects the same for his partner. of course, he eventually learns after meeting you that the love of someone's life does not have to meet every single one of his requirements. you fall first but when I tell you he falls HARD. he remembers every promise, anniversary, and special date. he cuts out a certain portion of his budget to spend on you, but he is weak to your requests. he is a complete loser for your love and dazai occasionally takes advantage of that. he enjoys conversations with you and is always looking to learn. your knowledge on people and life is always recorded in his notebook (every detail about you is in there <3) and he sometimes uses your psychology facts in his work. he's very grateful for how you help others and how you have changed him. he does not particularly mind your dislike for math, despite having taught the subject. he understands, after teaching many students, that people have different specialities and preferences and it is useless to pressure someone into being someone that they are not. kunikida appreciates how organized you are but you two must keep each other in check when you take things to far. additionally, you give good advice to each other in times of need. the agency thinks it's adorable! it takes a bit of time for kunikida to get used to your cat. eventually, however, he grows to adore the little fellow and spoils it a little too much. he enjoys being able to find it whenever he comes home, it's a stable variable in his life. he's always a little nervous that you two could be injured, so he forms various habits to keep your little family safe.

I finished it! I kept putting it off (I am too obsessed with verlaine to function), sorry. I hope you enjoyed the matchup :)

[normal-with-adhd-is-a-joke]

hi

i just got diagnosed with me cfs about a month ago. I've been bedbound since July (doctors think I got it post-covid) and I'm extremely bored. I've been working on isolation by seeing friends once a week but it's just like... how do i fill the rest of my time? I can't stand to watch tv or scroll tumblr anymore, the internet is making me depressed. So what do I do? I'm sleeping like 16 hours a day. I can only get up to do simple chores and stuff. I struggle with reading/processing info and I lie down most of the day. How do I entertain myself? Especially with something that feels fun, satisfying, and "productive."

TLDR: newly bedbound and in need of a hobby I can do offline from bed, please help <3

hi, thanks for asking! I also spent the vast majority of the first 3 or so years I had CFS laying down, it can definitely be difficult to find stuff to do. Here are some things I did:

Video games. This one is a pretty common recommendation but I can't not recommend it because it's what I do pretty much all the time. If you have trouble positioning a computer like I did you can get an overbed desk (I have this one and it's served me pretty well). If you're looking for game reccs, the Sims 4 is now free and there's a ton of free custom content available for it online for when you get bored of basegame. For paid games, Minecraft, Don't Starve Together (even if you're playing alone the Together version is better), Oxygen Not Included, 7 Days to Die, and Sheltered all have a ton of replayability. I also recommend adding items to your wishlist and waiting for sales if you're buying games off Steam, Sheltered is actually on sale for $3 on Steam until Nov. 21.

Textile work. There's a reason a lot of textiles are considered "grandma" hobbies, they're easy to do with limited energy. There's a ton of disability adaptations for textile projects like knitting, crocheting, embroidery, weaving, etc. Choose one that seems fun to learn and go for it. I tried to do knitting but found it hard laying down so I switched to crochet and it's been going pretty well. It's fairly inexpensive as well, crochet hooks are like $5 and you can fine cheap yarn at places like Walmart for less than $5.

Art. You don't have to be good at it or have fancy supplies, either. I'm a big fan of coloring books, both physical ones and coloring book apps. I also use an app called Sketchbook to make digital art on my phone sometimes. You can trace stock photos to help you practice, or you can just make your entire art process tracing and coloring in stock photos.

Writing. Another one you don't have to be good at. Just think of stuff and write it down. You don't even need to write it down if you don't want to, you can just tell yourself stories in your head as well. Writing fanfiction can be a tool to help you get inspired to write your own stuff too. I got into writing by writing Warrior cats fanfic that was objectively bad, but it was fun and it laid the groundwork for making my own stuff. You can also just keep writing fanfiction if that's what you enjoy.

Origami. This one's a little niche but I find makng origami very satisfying. Some people claim you need special origami paper, you don't, regular notebook paper is fine. The instructions from this website have been useful for me.

That's all I have as far as hobby suggestions, if anyone has any other suggestions feel free to add!

[mars-ipan]

overcoming anxiety (through practicing the things that scare you) is so interesting. i used to be horrified of taking up space or alerting other people of my presence. now i'm compelled to tell strangers i like their outfits or hair or earrings- on bad days i tell maybe a quarter of them. do i still overthink it? absolutely. but i call attention to myself to tell someone else my opinion. and with the way they tend to smile and tell me "thank you!" i'm pretty sure it's taken to heart.

i used to be horrified of making phone calls as well. this is one i'm still getting over- i just Don't Like Doing It. i used to have a phone call routine that i still joke about- realize i need to call someone, cry, avoid it for a few days, suck it up, write a script, memorize the script, cry again, final script read, make the call with the script in front of me. and i would be Exhausted by the end of it. i don't cry when i need to call people anymore. i'm even needing scripts less and less- i've found out that people actually won't kill me if i talk a little too fast or stumble on my words. i doubt i'll ever like making phone calls- i especially hate robots (i'm afraid they'll mishear me and direct me wrong or a person will suddenly show up and i won't be prepared)- but i can make them now.

i get overwhelmed really easy. just a thing that happens to me. my brain is really really good at taking one task and breaking it up into thousands of little tasks and it feels like i'm drowning. if i try to make it fewer larger tasks then it starts to feel insurmountable. i was completely lost on how to deal with this (other than avoid until you get that panic attack and can do work in the post-catharsis calm until 6:00 AM) until one night when my dad (who i often meet late at night due to overlapping mental illness symptoms) asked me how to eat an elephant. i looked at him, confused, and he said "one bite at a time." that was way more effective than any other analogy i've seen has been. "light at the end of a tunnel"- i don't feel like i'm moving forward, i feel like i'm scaling a wall. "steps on a trail"- i can see my destination, but it feels impossible to move forward. but eating an elephant? that sums it up perfectly. this huge task which seems impossible at a glance. but it must be done. so you eat the elephant, a bite at a time. every time i'm overwhelmed i repeat that phrase to myself. it hasn't made any major changes yet, but it keeps me calm enough to start before i hit the panic attack, which i'll take.

i was such a perfectionist growing up- i actually thought it was a good thing (school always taught me to strive for perfection). but it made me scared to try new things- if i wasn't immediately good at them, then it clearly wasn't for me. i'm still not great at starting new hobbies, but i try a lot of new things within the hobbies i already have. i test out different ways of making art, i try new puzzle games i don't understand, etc. and the feeling of steady improvement reminds me that i don't need to be good right away. some of the most satisfying moments don't come from immediately being good- they come from achieving that skill over time. i'd like to try to learn to sew soon.

idk it's interesting. i rewire my own brain's fear response by doing the Horrifying Thing enough times for me to understand that no i will not die. and while i'm doing it it feels like nothing is changing. i get so stressed every time- it can actually take a lot out of me (turns out fight-or-flight burns a lot of energy). but i look back at then vs. now and i realize how far i've come, and i can't help but think "huh. neat"

[nevergeneralize]

Albert knitting is such a good detail!!

A) It’s a little bizarre and quirky, which makes it great already, but also

B) I like it when the men of Team Moriarty are given domestic/traditionally-feminine traits/hobbies (even the profiles telling us about Patterson caring about skincare and thus being assigned an overwhelming beauty routine delights me so much)

C) James Moriarty is “like a spider,” per The Final Problem:

“He is the Napoleon of crime, Watson. He is the organizer of half that is evil and of nearly all that is undetected in this great city. He is a genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker. He has a brain of the first order. He sits motionless, like a spider in the center of its web, but that web has a thousand radiations, and he knows well every quiver of each of them. He does little himself. He only plans.”

Knitting isn’t exactly weaving but it’s similar enough if you squint, so Albert has a spider-ish hobby appropriate to being 1/3 of James Moriarty, that’s fun!

D) He uses his talents for textile creation to needle (get it????) Moran, and this is the noblest art

E) He’s bad at it and he knows that but he’s doing it anyway and that’s basically therapy for Albert!!! Overcoming perfectionism and learning to be proud of the things he does/makes is so healthy we love to see it!!! (I know this omake is perhaps more of a throwaway joke than serious character exploration but I’m choosing to read into the fact that) He apologizes or feels guilty or unworthy constantly, but he’s absolutely not apologizing for these strange, ugly sweaters

Look how pleased he is, hush Moran!! We’re so proud of him for being proud of himself! You really did outdo yourself this time, Albert!!!

Interesting that we get some of the same energy here, in the actual manga, with regard to his (also evidently pretty bad?) cooking:

Fifty chapters later and he’s back at it, practicing being bad at hobbies, eagerly sharing the imperfect fruits of his labor with his loved ones! That is genuinely hard emotional work and he really should be smug about it! Go Albert go!!!

I say “eagerly” but both scenes could also be read as sort of sarcastic; maybe he’s more proud of inflicting his hilarious knitting/cooking failure on his family than proud of each outcome as a creative achievement, but I think that’s still pretty cool? I’m no psychologist but I think if Albert ends up doing what is essentially CBT for OCPD just for the lulz/because he’s trolling Moran, that is A) hilarious, and B) still making him Do The Thing and probably is accidentally great for him. “Acting as if” is a real strategy of modern behavioral psychology used for managing anxiety, low self-worth, etc: the idea is to act as if you are proud of your creative output and eventually you can learn to actually feel that pride. And anyway, sharing amateurish creative work is pretty vulnerable, especially when you can see its amateurishness for yourself; Albert being willing to make a joke out of failing to do something to an ideal standard still seems like a very significant step beyond his usual abjection in the face of imperfection. Basically this is great for him any way you look at it. Keep knitting badly, Albert!!!

(Oddly when I looked up “acting as if” to make sure I had the name of the CBT skill right, I learned that CBT owes much to William James, one of the founders of modern psychology. Also lots of results citing Alfred Adler. This was a slightly confusing search-result-skimming process.)

[rubykgrant]

OK, I've rambled about it to a couple of people, so I may as well just gather all my stupid thoughts into one place, so it won't be buzzing around my head anymore; a collection of random WWDITS thoughts that I have (kinda) sorted out, and some Thoughts on Vampire Guillermo!

Obligatory shout-out to @beansprean, because the comic My Familliar's Ghost inspired some of these thoughts (so if you enjoy WWDITS, check it out! lots of other great art by them, too!)

-First of all, and bear with me on this, he STAYS a Vampire at the end of the season. The final scene doesn't end on him being grossed out at the thought of eating people, it's just a montage of him having fun around the house doing Vampire Things, tra-la-la~

-New season starts. It's a few weeks later, and Guillermo is still having fun being a Vampire. It's mostly OK, the others have all been previously taking turns going out at night with him to do Vampire Things (showing him all their favorite spooky activities, so he can figure out what he's capable of, what he's into, etc. most of them didn't have anybody take care of them when they first changed, at least not like this, so it's kinda nice)

-However, Guillermo has started ditching them to go have his own fun. Nandor is ESPECIALLY upset by this; being the one to make Guillermo a Vampire was supposed to be the BIG THING, but that got ruined, so he thought they could still be Vampires together and THAT would be a BIG THING, but now Guillermo is being a Vampire by himself, without Nandor, and HE NO LIKEY!

-Meanwhile, Guillermo's family is also missing him, but he's literally started acting like he doesn't even care if his mom feels disappointed in him (he's high on a whole ego-trip). Part of the reason; they all eventually try to attack him on instinct now that he's a Vampire, and he does repeated memory-wipes to fix it. This is just TIRESOME. His family keeps messaging him, in particular, because they were excited to have him meet a distant family member the got in touch with after doing a family tree kinda thing... the cousin eventually meets him, and seems to be the ONE person who doesn't get all stabby with the stakes around him and the other vamps, so. That's cool

-After a while, the other vamps kinda just want to adopt the cousin as their new human buddy, and Guillermo is getting more and more distant. His ego-trip moves on to a power-trip, because he feels like he finally has everything he's ever wanted, and the people around him act like it's a bad thing. Some rather... un-hinged rage fits occur

-This sets up a purposeful parallel; the vamps have sometimes worried about "losing their edge", as they have softened up slightly in recent years. While they DEFINITELY aren't 100% "good" people, they aren't as "bad" as they used to be. Ironically, they have recovered shreds of their humanity (and again, they weren't "super nice" when they were alive, but you think about things differently when you feel like a "monster"). Meanwhile, Guillermo just LOST his. They try to tell him, when he's getting a little wild out there "That's a little over-kill. Calm down. You're making a mess", and he's having NONE OF IT; he's the Queen Bitch now, get used to it!

-The cousin finally just comes out and explains they are, in fact, related on the van Helsing side, they've just had a lot of practice keeping the Slayer instincts in check. There is a bit of an issue with Slayer family lines (beside the van Helsing, there's more out there) trying to keep tabs on any descendants who become Vampires. Some other Slayer folks heard about Guillermo (because some pissy vamps told on him, first he kills half of them, now he takes over their turf and won't share), and the cousin came to check on him. The cousin explains they DON'T want to kill him or the other vamps, but there is a PROBLEM...

-Not only is Vampirism a curse, Slayer families have a bit fo curse as well; if one begins to change into a Vampire, they essentially need "permission" for it to be completed. The first human blood they drink needs to be from a Slayer relative. Guillermo didn't do that, so now he is a VERY unstable Vampire. He's literally going to become more and more intense, until he not only just rips through humans, he'll tear himself apart. The cousin says they can still fix it by un-doing the Vampirism

-So, same situation with Derek, except they tell him what's going on, and he agrees to the staking if they PROMISE to resurrect him right after. Now, the only problem is catching Guillermo

-He's ticked off and not thinking clearly. He winds up going to see his mother, because of some twisted thought about "getting rid of anything that reminds him of being human". The other vamps try to reason with him "You're either gonna wind up killing them OR they'll wind up killing you, and this is NOT OK"

-It's Nandor that has to confront him physically, and there is a VAMPIRE FIGHT. Yes, they've fought before, but this is off the rails, no holding back, VICIOUS fighting. The cousin has to get in there a little bit, because Guillermo is kinda winning... but Nandor still gets through to him "I know you better than anybody, and I know you do NOT want to hurt your mother!"

-Guillermo finally chills out. They undo the Vampirism, and now a few extra months catch up to him all at once (still a fuzzy face Guillermo moment). Th cousin tells him about the issue about Slayers turning into Vampires, but Guillermo is pretty depressed now... he totally ruined his own Vampire experience, he almost became the worst kind of monster (not even a cool and sexy one, like he literally almost ate a bunch of babies)

-The cousin reminds him, his family of vamps stopped that from happening. He has a chance now to live a couple more decades as a human (save his eventual ghost some "unfinished business"), spend more time with his family (and say goodbye to them slowly and naturally, no weird strings attached). When he's ready, after a full life, he can be a Silver Fox Vampire. The cousin even offers "If I'm still around, you can get a sip of Slayer blood from me. I've donated blood before, it's fine"

-So! The delightful horror of Vampire Guillermo going on an un-hinged power-trip, the irony of the other vamps trying to be the voices of reason, the angst potential of a whole FIGHT with Nandor, and the hope that someday, Guillermo can become a Vampire again, in a way that won't destroy him...

-And while I know it's a cop-out in Vampire stories to say "Oh, this Vampire isn't evil, they only prey on bad people", but like- yeah, he can just DO that. He also doesn't need to always KILL every person he bites, he could get like 20 blood snacks a night, and nobody dies. Heck, Colin Robinson could look something up on his phone, and find a private meeting for a bunch of weird "Anti-Me Too" groups, and Guillermo is like "Well. Let's go take back the night~", and they all eat some creeps for dinner. It's fine

[humphul]

its cuz u misunderstood (i think? benefit of the doubt) fairuzfans post. the post was saying how zionists are dismissing peoples support for palestine by equating it with a trend or ""fandomising"" it like its a movie or show and not an actual land and people being ethnically cleansed. so people who say stuff like oh your only supporting palestine because its trendy rn or the "palestine fandom" (which is an incredibly tone deaf and disgusting this to say, think of it like saying the blm fandom or something along those line) are trying to minimise both palestinians suffering and peoples support for them.

i don't think that's what the post was saying.

of course support for Palestine doesn't automatically mean you're treating it like a fandom. people care. they should.

but some people are treating it like a fandom. i've seen literal fursona-style art personifying Palestine as a hot girl with big tits and Israel as a dumpy snotty toddler. i've seen "the virgin zionist and chad freedom fighter" memes.

the fact it's become so sided like some sort of football game, "if you're not with us you're against us" erasure of the center etc. is trivializing it, like there are no real human victims, humans with human nuance, who don't fit within a neat little dichotomy.

people keep telling me to kill myself because i support a two-state solution (since supporting a two-state solution makes me a Zionist, and Zionists are the bad guys) even though i support a two-state solution because i believe it's the only solution that doesn't end in hundreds of thousands, or millions, of deaths.

those people don't care about the victims, they care about taking sides. they want to be in the Correct Opinions Club even if it's at the expense of the victims. they're treating it like a fandom, and that's what i was criticizing. that's what the original post was criticizing: the people who only jumped on posting meme-heavy Palestine discourse since october 7 like it's their new blorbo.

i think having sympathy for Palestinians is a good thing, actually. i think civilians dying is bad. just like you.

have you considered that the first ask you sent me was dehumanizing? you implied i'm sick, framed it as a medical problem, said i need help because i'm "fucked in the head". you attacked me because you thought i disagreed with you.

even if we do disagree about the practicalities of solving this mess, we don't disagree on the ethics. we both want fewer people to die. do you really think i'm fucked in the head when we share the same goal?

one of us is wrong about the practicalities of reducing civilian deaths, and whoever that is, it doesn't make them sick, just imperfect. i'm sorry you felt the need to lash out at that, but unfortunately, everybody on the planet is imperfect. including you.

[musical-chick-13]

The workshop thing wasn't great in that respect but it wasn't that bad either because it was so clear that people were jealous when they were being harsher than the professors, who did step in at points when it veered from critiquing stylistic choices into doing exactly what people who think tagging fics on that post is okay are doing. It didn't discourage me from writing but it did solidify my decision not to major in creative writing (this is probably also why I in particular was a target: it wasn't my major, it was a hobby, but I was as qualified as them and got as much praise as they did and even one time more than them on the very first exercise of my first workshop, which probably didn't sit right with them, but only fueled me further because I am nothing if not a creature of spite).

And that's the thing too: so many people can't grasp that there's a huge difference between "this isn't for me" and "this has a lot of issues". Which to preface, unless someone's asked you to beta for them keep your mouth shut. They're doing this for free. Exit out if there are too many errors or whatever (and errors isn't even exactly the word I want but I'm exhausted and didn't sleep enough last night). Not that those people SHOULD beta either even if they were asked, honestly, because they clearly do not have a grasp on what constructive criticism actually is or how it works. You don't need a workshop to learn that either, just basic human decency and Google.

But like anyways. In the workshops I read plenty of things I just Did Not Vibe With, but were objectively very, very good art and you could tell how much care the author put into them. Sometimes things just aren't for you and the author didn't poorly execute that concept, actually.

I ran into this a lot in Performance World, too, back when I was trying to get a singing/stage performing career off the ground. There are SO many threads of that part of my life I can relate to this discussion and it would take far too long to explain them all, but there VERY much was a culture of perfectionism. Jealousy and extreme competition were incredibly prevalent, lots of "stay in your box," lots of complaining if people didn't stay in their box. Even when we were learning (or doing community theatre just to stay in practice or build up a resume), the stakes always seemed astronomically high. Someone could do a passable or even genuinely good job; but if it wasn't good in the "right" way, then it was still seen as meaningless.

For courtesy's sake, I'm putting the rest of my thoughts under a cut, because. Well. This got long. As answers by me are wont to do.

There also was a lot of "pick a genre" and "this is the only MEANINGFUL type of music/art/etc." The opera crowd hated that I liked musicals and pop music because those styles were all "stupid" and "frivolous" and "simple" (which isn't. even true, no art form is a monolith, and what those words mean is going to be different for every person, but, you know). Everyone else hated that I sang opera because it was a "pretentious art form" and "boring" and "sexist/racist/etc." (Those first two are incredibly subjective, and plenty of modern opera works exist that seeks to not uphold those forms of prejudice.) There was "if you look like [x], then you can't do [y performance type]." "If your voice sounds like this, then you can't EVER pursue ANY roles outside of this small pool of stuff because you need to know your place; if you don't, people will think you're making Bad Art." And then you, at best, get shamed, and, at worst, can't make a living.

All of this, of course, was a matter of opinion. Most of it, like you said, boiled down to the fact that people were doing things that weren't, actually, bad or untalented or ineffective--they just didn't work for people. They didn't meet some arbitrary, subjective standard that had no real, concrete, actual meaning. But when people with any degree of power start taking their artistic opinions as immovable fact, we end up with...well, we end up with the current theatre climate, and we end up with whatever is happening in fandom communities right now. (Because just as there are some people who, for insisting on a lack of constructive criticism, should not be beta readers, there are some who should not be educators or directors.)

There were a lot of reasons that I eventually stopped performing publicly/on stage. But a big part of it was that I just didn't want to deal with that culture anymore. When I made the decision to walk away, I had gotten to the point where I'd started to hate singing. My primary form of expression, of catharsis, of solace, since I was eight or nine years old. And luckily, withdrawing from a professional pursuit of art has helped me get some of that back. But I see those same issues--that same negativity, that same judgment--starting to pop up in something that isn't even meant to be for money or a career or anything other than personal expression. I see so many people getting discouraged, starting to lose the love they had for that expression. My love of art was almost taken away from me, to the point where for a very long time I couldn't even do it for fun, alone, in the private comfort of my house. And if I can do anything to prevent that from happening to someone else, I sure as hell will.

I'm glad that you were still able to get some good out of that workshop, because that's not always easy to do when the people around you are acting like that. (And kudos to realizing that you didn't want to do this as a major/career, that's not always easy to do either.) And I know I've talked more about professional art, but this is so prevalent in the way people talk about community theatre, too. Being upset that a student production doesn't have Super Stellar Voices/Acting, ragging on amateur singers just for posting a karaoke video on their personal Facebook page, expecting Met-opera-level singing quality or Shakespeare-scholar levels of acting text analysis from a group of volunteers who are spending their precious few after-work hours to put on a musical, just because they want to share that story with people. I've seen lots of comments that it's not meaningful because it's "bad." When. I've done a lot of community theatre. Plenty of it is not bad, actually. If you hate it that much, you don't have to attend a production. (Just like how. if you hate a fic. you can hit the back button.) And even if it is "bad." It's still going to be meaningful to someone. Even in a "bad" production, at least ONE of the actors or crew members will have a good time helping create it. And at least ONE audience member is going to have a good time; whether that be because they simply love theatre, someone they love is involved with the production, or because they don't care about an arbitrary "quality" measurement. And I absolutely think the same thing is true of writing, and of fanfiction especially.

If, for example, someone goes to karaoke and screams "I Dreamed A Dream" from Les Mis extremely off-key and grating, because they're experiencing a shitty situation and just need some catharsis? I don't have the right to rag on them for that, I would be an asshole. If someone posts a cover for fun on YouTube of...I don't know, "Take On Me" and can't hit the high notes, but wants to pay tribute to a song they love, who the fuck would I be to take that away from them? So if someone writes a "silly" or "stupid" or oh-God-forbid "cringe" piece of fanfiction (which. AGAIN. do not have any concrete meaning because those are SUBJECTIVE TERMS) to get some feelings out or to talk about how much they love a fictional character. Well, I think if you call them names over that and try to publicly shame or harass them, then, quite frankly, you are engaging in pointless, cruel, and braincell-less behavior. And you can stay 10,000 feet away from me.

[deadboyfriendd]

hello, i hope you are well and that the holidays are treating you gently! in response to an ask i sent in earlier and you talked about cochise and your inspo being blood meridian:

firstly apologies for the length of this reply! OMG!!! wow thank you so much for this incredibly thoughtful answer and yes ofc i would love to talk to you about writing or anything else anytime!! i haven't read blood meridian but i've heard lots of good things about it, i just tend to get squeemish at graphic violence but i'm willing to give it a go to see how the original work, as well as your derivative (i mean that as a compliment) work handle violence and keep it from being simple shock value and mean something in your respective stories. i also haven't read cochise but something tells me i should do my homework. in any case, excited to analyse violence! you mentioned that stone gothic helped you establish the kind of narratives you're interested in and i'm excited to see how you develop and build on the tones and structures you excelled in in that fic!

it's also interesting that you're designing a reader character who sounds quite different from ones you wrote before, naive and cloudy doesn't sound the same as one who realises they just have to keep going on, and that's honestly really brave of you! stone gothic reader sounds similar but hallmark and the 50 first dates girl sound more in line with another sort of fmc. lots of writers tend to write a specific sort of character and it's not necessarily a bad thing, why fix something that ain't broke/write what you know, etc etc, but i am excited to see how you face that challenge on!

I also like the idea that both of them bring some sort of change out to each other. i really really love the line you brought up, "i will not know gentleness in the way i love you". it's very beautiful, i went and re read the letters until i found it and it touched me in a new way. firstly, thank you for talking about your inspirations, that's always great to hear from any artist and it's amazing how much art inspires other art and takes themes and ideas and reshapes them for new stories and purposes! that line is so good and i deeply love the concept of love as softening, of melting, of turning someone who has seen a lot and reminds them of the gentleness that still exists in the world. but the inverse of that that you're planning, of a reader who becomes stronger, more practical, a little more aware of what's going around her, is also a new and exciting thing to think about love! a lot of people, me included, think about love the first way! one of the first qualities i'd want any partner of mine to have is gentle, kind, soft, but the idea that love can also be expressed in making you "harder", stronger, more smarter, worldly, just, i guess more capable? is interesting! its especially interesting because i think it relates somewhat to how a lot of first generation immigrants i think conceptualise love, including my parents, which funnily enough, in certain aspects i show you can explain the western frontier (it's not a one to one match. but. certain aspects, especially since many cowboys were people of colour.). for my mom, for eg, loving my dad was largely an endeavor of mutual success in a new country. their love was made of shoveling snow and breaking ice and living with people they didn't really understand and a lot of that meant becoming smarter and quicker on their feet, and sure they're gentle and nice, but there's also a lot of bonding that happens when you're both working and moving together in a world that's out to get you, and that's an interesting way to make the romance actively part of her character growth, and imbues it with a sense of theme instead of another plot point for the sake of it.

as for the garrison mentality, lmaoooo i do sort of love when nature is seen as a great terrifying unknowable thing and omg!! doc hollidays' last words being "well, i'll be damned" as he went onto the gentle goodnight when he he was sure he'd die a violent death is both ironic and i think, idk if you mean to make it as one, but a very juicy character trait to deal with in a romance. someone who is very sure that they will perish to the forces of destiny and feel a sense of inevitable destiny about it bc of the things they've seen, and instead be actively surprised by the gentleness of their end or the overall tenderness that still exists in the world, is all very delicious, and a complex i absolutely adore. the world can be cruel and evil and chaotic but it can be just as tender and good and soft if we really look for it, especially if we see it in the faces of the people we love! i am also very curious to see if there will be some pedestal-putting of reader at the hands of steve as you mentioned that she is running away from something that steve hasn't really considered a dark past of her own....wondering how he might react when he finds out this person he saw no violence in may have some blood in their path at all and the kind of toll that it could take....all in all incredibly excited to see whatever you're cooking with and it's obvious that there's some real heat in your kitchen!

my apologies for the essay in your askbox, i just found your answer to my original director's cut question so interesting and it's always fun connecting with people and asking them to discuss their art! also, i talked a bit about things in your answer that interested me and how i thought they'd play out, i hope it goes without saying that whatever you decide to do in your story is the right thing to do, especially on a free platform, and any speculation on my part is just excitement and curiosity of a project that sounds interesting and has a very clear passion behind it, which is always something to admire! death of the author and all that is fine, but i believe toni morrison more when she says reading is an act done by writers and readers together! again, hope you're doing good, and excited for bisbee, friend! much love <3 :) !!!

Hi! Sorry I'm just now getting back!

I will say Blood Meridian is VERY graphic and very sudden with the violent onslaught of violent events. If you are squeamish I would avoid reading it to be completely honest, for the sake of readability, historical accuracy, and the general appeal to audience that my readers are, I'm not going to write in several events even remotely adjacent to Blood Meridian in Bisbee. The violence that I do write in is going to be more easily palatable and necessary for character development. Stone Gothic really helped me develop that melodramatic tone and how I can write in a love story with debilitating hurdles. I ended up falling in love with this form of writing and have written it in several different fics: SITG, The bisbee and Cochise Universes, and a lot of my WIPs. I think Bisbee's reader's downfall is ultimately naive, yet is using that personal to ultimately mask the fact that she is painfully self aware. It has been really helpful to me so far to pull pieces from my other characters- who ultimately contain pieces of me- and stitch them together to create a different worldview.

I think a really big part of it so far is that writing has, like a lot of other people on this platform, held some sort of catharsis for me. It is a way for me to write out and process things and understand that, even though I'm hard to love, I'm not impossible to love. The Stains in the Granite reader really helped me through that. The house had such a big part in the actual fic because the street was based off of my childhood home and the house I grew up in! I actually lived down the street from a Dr. Cullen who was a dentist and had yellow show-quality labs! The SITG reader helped me find that part of myself that I knew was mean and helped me process that, even though I am not an internet personality with a shining smile like Disney on ice, that I am a real person that is worthy of being loved. My Nellie reader was how I was learning to process major grief as an adult and trying to navigate those feelings for the first time in my life. It helped me metabolize and marinate in those feelings of losing a loved one, losing a past version of yourself, or losing grip on who you thought you were. Nellie is gritty and forward like I am. She is learning how to heal alongside Eddie. The same is going to go for this Elsie character, my reader from Bisbee. She is loud and obnoxious, she pushes steve a little too far, she is naive, and she is ballsy. She is also carrying the baggage of a past life and a past lover.

I am a firm believer that you are a culmination of everyone you have ever met, and the boys in my fics are merely catalysts for change within my readers. I still listen to Valentines Sux by the frights every valentines day because my ex-best-friend and I did it once and drove around town in heart shaped sunglasses and ate shitty chinese food because we thought we were unloveable but at least we had each other. I wear turqoise and paint cactus landscapes because my grammy fell in love with the desert and let us love it, too. I got into the habit of documenting and photographing even the most mundane things in my life to accomodate my best friend who lives across the country. My readers are shining examples of the way we carry pieces on everyone we have ever met like stones in a suitcase.

I can also relate to conceptualizing love through stories of immigration. My grandfather was a Finnish immigrant who joined the US air force, got stationed at the Clark military base in the Philippines, and then met my grandmother! I didn't know my grandfather very well as he died when I was so young, but seeing how that love manifested itself into met needs is so much different than the way Mr. Flea and I love each other or the way my mom and dad love each other. My grandmother is a very cold person, however, she shows love by means of met necessities. She will make sure you are clothed and fed, make sure you are still in school, make sure you are disciplined and poised and polite- but she will not tell you she loves you. My mother was raised coldly this way, and my dad was a child of divorce, born to teen parents in the 70s. My parents conceptualization of love was also not outward, and oftentimes expressed as frustration or overbearing guardianship, yet we were fed and we were clothed and we figured out how to not kill each other together. However, Mr. Flea was also a child of divorce born to teen parents, though his mom his very outwardly affectionate and he is, too. It's really interesting to me to see how our environments really affected the way we love each other and how we had to learn to heal and navigate each other in the six years we've been together, and the four we've lived together. I was 16 when I met him, after all! One of my favorite examples of this is my grammy, on my paternal side. She was one of many children, her father died of complications of Polio later in his life- when she was 13. She doesn't remember him much, but she did know that he was a talented and published author. He wrote westerns! We were able to get our hands on a collection of recounting he had from the family. My grammy and I read through every page and laughed and cried together 1.) because our diction and humor has been so overtly passed down through generations like stamps and 2.) you could tell that he loved his family by the way he wrote, not by the way he showed it.