#maybe today will be different…

[seenoweevil]

Something about a professors ability to take a project so personal and exciting and turn it into the most soulless uninspiring project you’ve ever done

[chalkrub]

pwyw com from last month ! these are closed now but i will open again at the end of feb maybe

[starlitmeadows]

Reunion

[ladeldee]

I just like the idea that once Missa hears Phil has another "kid" he'd try and do whatever he can to help and Phil feels emotions about it

[inkyrainstorms]

A Saturday Morning

Staring at my hands and wondering what the hell just happened. @aroace-get-out-of-my-face aha. Ty for saying I draw fast my brain took it as a challenge. How did I do this.

[pineapple-frenzy]

Ahaha I missed zutara week again this year :'> I was way busier this week than I thought I would be. Thank god my prof moved the deadline cause ain't no way can I finish an animation by tonight ajskaidlsk anyways, since the deadline got moved I decided to take a break from it and draw some zk :>> happy zutara week!!

[keferon]

Was there any classes you had to take to be a storyboard artist? I’m thinking of going into a field like that!

I took an online course (Not telling which one because their whole thing significantly dropped in quality over time)

and that was pretty much it. But to be fair - I had decent amount of experience of drawing comics beforehand. It helped significantly because I was already familiar with the concept of visual storytelling through composition and expressions.

I was like. CRAZY passionate about learning to storyboard so I was doing all the homework and watching aaall the lessons and then they were giving optional homework for people who wanted to really lock in and optional-optional little things that no one even expected us to draw. But I was making ALL of them. All the time.

So when the course ended my teacher was like goddamn you got a lot of energy in you huh? And he contacted one producer he knew and basically went "hey I have one student who has zero experience but will work and learn really hard"

And that producer went "Okay I trust you" and hired me without interview haha

[crabussy]

dude. my life fucking rules. feathered velociraptor shleich figurine for $2 at the op shop. captain of one of my favourite ferries complimented my shirt TWICE (and we are now introduced!). new friend waved me over to sit next to her in a lecture. found a way to make my pony collection even more enjoyable. sky was so beautiful it was a crazy pale blue and there were cirrus clouds catching the sun. the ocean looked like molten green glass. I'm going swimming in the sea and having lunch with a few friends in a weeks time. I've earned 500 dollars this week just from my art which is a milestone I didn't expect to hit without joining a company. I'm not feeling as fatigued as usual. it rained in the morning which was really lovely. I thought I was going to be super late for uni but I made it right on time. I'm kind of in love with the world today

[untitledgoosegay]

re last reblog I do see fanfic culture pushing/replicating a certain model of "what trauma looks like," "how trauma works"

this is a problem across all areas of society obviously, but transformative works are, well, transformative. they're about crafting and modifying narratives where the fan-creator sees a flaw or a lack -- often for the better! don't get me wrong, I've done my fair share of "I take a hammer and I fix the canon," it's the main thing that gets my creative gears spinning -- but what happens when that "flaw" is simply a narrative not conforming to popular expectations?

some people just don't get PTSD from events that sound obviously traumatic. they're not masking, and they're not coping; they just straight-up didn't get the permanently-locked stress-response that defines PTSD. they walk away from a horrible experience going "well, that sucked, but it's over now." some people do get PTSD from events most people wouldn't find traumatic. we don't really know why some people get PTSD and others don't. but fandom has an idea of events that must be traumatizing, of a "correct" way to portray trauma. you see the problems with this lack of understanding in e.g. fans pressuring the devs of Baldur's Gate 3 to add dialogue where the player character badgers Halsin about his own feelings on his abuse -- because he must be traumatized, and his trauma must fit a certain mold and presentation of sexual trauma, under the mistaken impression that anything outside that narrow window is somehow "wrong" and disrespectful or even harmful to survivors.

take, for another example, the very common trope of a traumatized character who hates touch or sex "learning" to like touch or sex as a part of their healing process. certainly that can be healing for some people; other people will never like, or want, touch or sex, because of trauma or because they just don't. the assumption that someone who doesn't want sex or doesn't like to be touched must be traumatized, must be suffering from this perceived lack, is seriously harmful -- to asexual people, to people with sensory issues around touch, and to people for whom healing from trauma means freedom to refuse sex or touch.

and there's a secondary trope, one that's slightly more thoughtful but ultimately repeats the problem -- that once someone has learned that their boundaries will be respected, they'll feel it's safe to soften those boundaries. once they feel safe refusing touch or sex, they'll feel comfortable allowing it on their own terms. but many people don't, and many people won't! many people will simply never want to be touched, and never want sex, and they are not suffering or broken or lacking because of it. the idea that proving you'll respect someone's boundaries entitles you to test those boundaries -- the paradox is obvious, and yet this is something i've seen hurt (re-traumatize) people i care for.

people are imperfect victims. people don't heal in the ways you expect. many people have positive memories of their abuse, of their abusers. many people hurt others in the course of their trauma, in ways that can't easily be unpacked in a 5k oneshot. very few narratives of trauma and recovery actually fit the ones put forward by popular children's media and romance novels -- which are the ones I most see replicated in fandom spaces, because they provide the clearest narrative and easiest catharsis, and so they're easy and soothing to reach for.

that's not necessarily a bad thing! i am not immune to goopy romance tropes. i am not immune to teary catharsis. not every fic has to grapple with ugly realities. but there's a problem when these narratives become predominant, when people think they're accurate and realistic depictions of trauma, when the truth of trauma is unpleasant and uncomfortable, and doesn't fit any single narrative, let alone one of comforting catharsis

[coldbycrossfade]

MAN THAT REALLY COLORS THIS RESPONSE IN THIS CONVERSATION SO DIFFERENTLY FOR ME

[youdent1ty]

two drifters off to see the world,

there's such a lot of world to see.

we're after that same rainbow's end, waiting round the bend.

my huckleberry friend, moon river,

and me.

sometimes i like to dream they went on trips together in the crab

i can just imagine stone waking up and being greeted by robotnik in full florals, running around the crab with pool noodles and towels before saying, "oh, did i forget to tell you? we're going to the bahamas today."

someone please write this fic i think it'd be silly

[clumsypuppy]

mmmkay

[marshmallowgoop]

no thoughts just Heiji Hattori (HD)

[piromina]

loooooove adrien and felix. the boy who did nothing wrong and the boy who did nothing right. the one who ran from home and the one who had nowhere to run. the one who burned too bright and the one that faded too fast. the one who believed in second chances and the one who never got a first. the one who thought he was unlovable and the one who loved him anyway. the one who kept trying and the one who let go. the one who bled for love and the one who never let himself feel it. the one who had everything to lose and the one who had lost everything.

[sotiredmostnights]

i know everyone likes to put tharja in the "yandere goth girl" category but tbh i feel like pigeonholing her into one specific archetype does a huge disservice to her character. is she obsessed with curses and robin? yes. is she constantly shoved into a fanservice role by intsys? absolutely.

but i think a lot of people forget just how impactful a lot of her supports are...there's something about tharja that makes nearly everyone who interacts with her divulge their deepest secrets and points of anxiety with her. we see this with libra, who tells her of the abandonment he endured at the hands of his parents. we see it with nowi, whose cheerful demeanor slips off as she tells tharja of her missing parents. and although tharja is not the only one lon'qu confides in regarding ke'ri, their support is notably the only one in which lon'qu divulges that there was romantic involvement between he and his childhood friend.

and despite her antisocial exterior, she always listens mindfully and offers to help! she even goes out of her way to discreetly help the shepherds (getting virion to do odd jobs that benefit civilians, interrogating henry to make sure he bears no ill will towards ylisse, etc).

a big thing about tharja is that she IS kind. she IS considerate. she just also has a reputation to uphold as a dark mage and that (paired with her overall awkwardness ofc) makes her true nature hard to see at first glance

[odetojupiter]

so, we know that abuse and victim responses to abuse are very central to aftg, but what i find interesting is how other characters respond to the victim’s reactions, especially when it comes to mourning their abuser. there’s something about kevin mourning riko, aaron mourning tilda, neil mourning mary, andrew mourning cass, thats so important to me because it really truly highlights how even when people are united through similar traumas, the differences in their situations makes it impossible to fully understand the relationship a person has to their abuser. neil, aaron, and andrew are united through the abuse, neglect, or - what the fuck is the word i’m thinking of? permit? condone? i mean, knowingly allowing it to happen and not intervening - stemming from a maternal figure. but neil can’t understand why andrew would hold on to cass for so long - he refused to let her go until aaron came into the picture. and andrew can’t understand why aaron would mourn for tilda, potentially viewing aaron’s grief as a betrayal of their promise. and they all ridicule kevin for his reactions to riko. of course, neil and andrew are also abused by riko, but they still can’t understand the complicated relationship between kevin and riko because, at the end of the day, they just weren’t there.

i mean this is primarily an observation but i really love how trauma and trauma response is depicted as nuanced, complex and overall just difficult to understand from an outsider perspective in the books. it reads as really real, and though it can be frustrating when a character doesn’t understand a different character’s response, you have to understand that their perception of said character’s response is warped by their own experience of abuse.

andrew bounced from home to home, never had stability, so obviously he held tight on to the first mother-figure that didn’t outright hurt him. his self-worth was probably low enough that he thought living with drake was a fine price to pay to keep cass.

neil only ever had his mother, and he’d willingly accept her harsh hands because he believed she was just keeping him safe from the very real dangers that were closing in on them.

aaron was dealing with an addiction, and so was his mother; he was equally dependent on her to avoid withdrawal as he was scared of her anger.

i don’t really have a point anymore but you get what i’m saying