#stuff like skills and hobbies and all that

[un-pearable]

why are 99% of crochet animal patterns just vague blobs. cmon. i know we can do better as a community. have you seen the shit the national parks service put out? yeah, the NPS. there are grandmas on the frontlines of the most formally accurate critters this side of a 3D printer. we can do better than orb with two triangles sewn on. we can make a more accurate cat. that is NOT what a turtle looks like. step AWAY from the axolotl

[celine-song]

i thought my problem with hobbies was that i hate being bad at stuff so i always quit but it just hit me that it's actually always been at least partly a money issue... like it's not just that i don't want to be bad at something it's that i can't afford to buy supplies and THEN be bad. i stopped decorating my bullet journal not just because it didn't look as good as i wanted but because it didn't look that good AND i was spending money on supplies. i quit film photography not just because a lot of my photos were shit but because film is expensive so every photo had a price tag and having some of them turn out bad made me feel like the money was wasted. i never got to a point where i was good at any of this stuff because in my mind, i couldn't afford to keep going.

[icewindandboringhorror]

finally finished all of one character's entire quests/optional dialogue/questions/etc.... 100,000 words... .... aughhh

[rocksanddeadflowers]

What's one hobby you have that you'd recommend other people try?

Oh I have so many this is hard to answer.... I think maybe just simple hand sewing skills? Just because a lot of it is really easy once you get the hang of it, and it's incredibly useful and multi purpose. You can make new stuff or save your old favorite things! I love mending my clothes a lot (saves money in the long run and saves me the heart ache), and there's plenty of different kinds of hand sewing skills you can learn depending on what you need them for. I recently even learned scotch darning to save my favorite sweater!

(Sewing is probably my oldest hobby too? I remember being very little and denied real sewing needles so I made my own out of Christmas ornament hooks and fixed my brother's stuffies with them and made my stuffies clothes. I got my needles not long afterwards.)

I prefer visible mending for most of my things, but I practice making it unnoticeable too. I've fixed bedspreads, clothes, bags, and all sorts of things! I've also made new clothes and other trinkets out of scrap material, and decorated things too! (<- personally obsessed with patch work things lmao.)

Admittedly if you get into sewing as a major hobby a sewing machine is very helpful, but I still prefer hand sewing where I can bc I find the machine to be a little stressful. I usually use mine on bigger projects to save time, but I mainly hand sew.

Also I know you quilt so I dunno if that was the answer you were looking for lol... I don't know much about quilting but it is still sewing, and really cool to me. (Long arms look terrifying to me however.) But yeah knowing how to sew by hand is really helpful and fun! It's relaxing for me when I have the energy to focus and feels fulfilling. Even if it's not a good hobby for everyone, if it's a skill you're capable of learning, it's very useful.

[ocdhuacheng]

I have… lots of thoughts on milsiril and kabru and the commentary on mixed-race family/adoption, in particular white parents with children of color. I think it’s really cool kui incorporated this into the story because lots of (particularly white) people just think adoption is this pure altruistic thing and don’t think about the negative affects it has on kids (again, kids of color) to not have people of their own culture to grow up with.

[raisethe-velvet]

the amount of girls on tiktok who insist all women or fem presenting people NEED to wear makeup or else...something idfk? pisses me off to no end literally grow up, get off the internet, and go into the real world where the only women who share your opinion are also chronically online

not wearing makeup is not a "not like other girls #quirky" take its an "i refuse to conform to society's expensive and impractical beauty standards" take

[solace-seekers]

okay picture this. it’s 3pm on a saturday. just got off work which i’ve been at since like 9 am. i go to leave the building and im stopped by three ppl trying to ask me a question. i say sure, what’s the worst they can ask? bad idea. very bad idea.

ithey asked me at what moment i thought human life began. and i noticed as they were asking that they had shirts with small church logos on them. and i did not want to go back and forth arguing and not changing each others mind. so yknow what i did?

then i panicked cause i didn’t wanna answer so i just said “bye!” really aggressively and ran away 😭😭😭

[petorahs]

the first few art pieces for a new interest are always the loneliest, in my experience

[the-kipsabian]

i love waking up to realizations that my life is in shambles and i have no future

[no0dlru]

Just bought 37 makeup brushes for £7.07 (19p/brush) on ebay. Literally all the brushes I could need, for the price of a couple pints in a pub. So chuffed. Drugstore prices could never.

[agueforts]

yet another stream of consciousness post about how i'm doing nothing with my life and it #sux or whatever

[loverdude]

I'm just trying 2 do my homework but I'm like having a crisis about my art T_T

[bamsara]

I think that one thing people fail to understand is that unsolicited literary criticism coming from an online stranger who is reading with no knowledge of what the authors intended goal is, is not going to be received the same as say: the authors beta reader or friends who know what the authors intended goal and has the sufficient knowledge and input to help the author reach that desired outcome.

"But I'm only trying to be helpful" How do I know you have the knowledge and literary skill for you to be able to actaully do that when we don't know each other and you are essentially a stranger to me? Are you applying this criticism based out of personal biased experience and desire to see the story or characterization be driven in another direction or tweaked, or do you know the author's intentions for the character? If the story is incomplete, are you basing your criticism of a character on the incomplete narration with only partial information available of them or are you building up a report until the story's completion? Did the author provide you with the information needed to make a fully informed criticism?

Have you discussed with the author what their plans are or are you assuming them based off the narration, especially if the narration is proven or implied to be unreliable or missing key points of the plot? Are you unbiased enough to help them reach their desired outcome for the characters and story regardless of your personal feelings towards the characters/antagonists and setting? Can you handle being told your specific input isn't wanted because you're a reader and/or have no written anything relating to their genre or topic? Do you understand and respect that the author's personal experiences might influence their writing and make it different than how you would have done it personally? Do you understand if an author only wants input from a specific demographic relating to their story?

If it's for fanfiction or other hobby media, are you holding a free hobby to a professional standard? Are you trying to give criticism because you feel like the author has produced 'subpar job performance' of their fic? Are you viewing their work as a personal intimate outlet or something that must conform with mass media? Are you applying rules and guidelines when the fic is shared for simple sharing sake? Is your criticism worded appropriately and focused on the parts where the author has requested input on rather than a general dismissal and or disapproval?

Have you put yourself in a place where you assumed you have the input needed for the story to evolve better, or have you asked what the author needs and what they're having trouble with? Can you handle having your criticism rejected if the author decides their story doesn't need the change and not take it as a personal offense against your character? Are you crossing that boundary because you think you are doing the author a favor? Are you trying to be helpful, or do you just want to be?

I think sometimes when people hear authors go 'please don't give me unsolicited writing advice or criticism' they automatically chalk it up to 'this author doesn't want ANY constructive feedback on their stuff at all' and not "i already have trusted individuals who will help me with my writing goals and- hey i don't know you like that, please stop acting so overly familiar with me'

[transgenderdoctorwhomst-old]

rory williams is literally the most insane character. in love with the local batshit girl. best friend growing up was crimes georg. got erased from existence and turned into a plastic roman. 2000 years guarding a box. also the most normal man you've ever met. it's like he practices being normal. his hobby is Being Normal. he's a normal nurse who wants a normal life with two and a half kids and a picket fence. he's perfectly happy with the Fucking Insane life he has with amy instead, regardless.

his problem solving skills involve "tactical suicide" and "telling the eldritch entity possessing the tardis it should torture him and amy instead of killing them". these work. he also steals and carries around future and alien first aid stuff, apparently.

he became emperor of rome for a bit. he narrowly dodged becoming king of camelot. he knows how to dual wield a shortsword and a gun.

rory williams is a Perfectly Normal Man, despite all of this.

[eyivibyemi]

✧ I won’t really write descriptions for these, but see original post tags for explanation/commentary on the song snippet ✧

[allsadnshit]

Sometimes I think about my best friend in my 20's response to when I told her I was envious of how talented and skilled she was cause she was always the friend that was doing a million new hobbies and just really had it together in my eyes and she seemed so disappointed in me and said how she's always been perceived as "talented" for things she was not a natural at and had actually worked tirelessly hard to learn to do and how it's never a compliment to assume someone has something you don't simply because they got lucky because more often than not they were just as capable as you and just chose to take risks, dedicate time, push through discomforts or doubts that maybe you succumb to, and really earned things that are often nonchalantly disregarded by peers as having walking in with already in hand

And I feel like that conversation really changed me cause I've always been bad at school and been a slow learner so I just sort of decided I wasn't smart and it wasn't my fault I wasn't born with the same advantages of people around me and I think that's something we all do as self protection from the truth that the only thing truly keeping us from what we want is usually ourselves and our decisions about our own narratives that aren't actually in stone even if we see them that way

I realized my friend was actually just not a quitter, and that she also felt not good enough often but decided to keep going in times where I know I would have stopped in her place

And I feel like taking ownership of my life a lot in the last few years has made me understand her better, even with stuff like chronic illness that practically begs us to victimize ourselves and then that way of thinking makes us sicker and more dependent on others when we could be accepting help without considering ourselves so helpless

It's really weird interacting with anyone once I've realized so much of that because I see my old self in people when they talk to me like I have something they don't because I am finally making different choices than I used to and honestly it is very irritating regardless of intention

If you want something someone else has that doesn't give you permission to assume how they got it or what it is even like having it - and I think more and more people have decided it's not their fault how they are choosing to live and that's why they are so stuck