#theres this feeling i get sometimes. i find it very hard to articulate. its part despair and part awe. dispair at how beautiful the world is

[opens-up-4-nobody]

...

[tigerdrop]

okay kind of obsessed with the body swap art tho. idk why i just like benrey getting to bully gordon with his own body, his own voice, and i like gordon trying to navigate whatever weird shit benrey’s got going on. gordon not being able to figure out or control whatever organs in benrey’s throat produce sweet voice so it’s just spewing whatever emotions he’s feeling at random (including Horny? uh oh. can’t hide that as easily as a surprise boner can you gordon?)

this ask kicked me into actually thinking about it and your brain is so huge. massive. i lost control

last night i was struggling to articulate thoughts for the body swap thing but this is kickstarting me. i. really love bodyswap stuff........(sighing) i am yet again having to confront the fact that i latched onto an embarrassing number of Things after having first read about them in [REDACTED]. truly hate being alive

so like......potions. you can get into a whole lot of weird stuff with potions. truly loving that darnolds 5-minute existence gives me an excuse to think of the stupidest horny potions scenarios

and why in the fuck wouldnt he have a bodyswap potion just chillin in his lab. why wouldnt benrey crack that bad boy open and take a sip while darnolds bitching at him "dont you touch any of those goddamn potions. im not gonna tell you which ones which so if you die, you die"

gordon claps benrey on the back afterwards like "well, thats a risk im perfectly happy for him to take" but uh oh you fucking buffoon. the touch is what activates it. and shit just starts spinning and schlorping in his mind and he nearly falls over clutching the lab bench next to him and when he cracks his eyes back open, hes........shorter. and everybodys asking if somebodys okay but that somebody isnt him and hes kind of miffed about that

and then gordons head turns and he sees Himself being steadied on his feet by tommy and darnold and hes like.......guys? guys. hello! and the sound of benreys voice coming out of him with that irritated and loud timbre makes everybody turn to face him........b/c that is so insanely weird coming from him

im like way into the idea of benreys, like, Eye Darkness Thing transferring to gordons face when their bodies are swapped, too. its just his malevolent energies manifesting physically no matter what body hes in

Wait god wait. Like. Benrey in Gordon's body and he gets horny for some reason and has to live Gordon's fucking pained life of the suit edging the hell outta him- Bc now Gordon can actually fucking jerk off for the the first time in days. No edging bullshit from the hev suit

benreys newfound appreciation for why gordons such a bitch all the time

RRRRRRRRRRR gordon able to go wild beating his meat that night finally but right before he does he stops because hes looking down at. 8)!

YES EXACTLY....... gordon freeman humbled by the sight of benreys huge meat. except its his meat now 

at first he only feels mildly weird about jacking it when hes not even in his own body right now but hes been edged for days now and hes just thinking "if i can just get this out of the way now, ill be clear-headed for however fucking long im stuck in black mesa. maybe this is why ive been so goddamn stupid lately. yeah"

but then he gets some time and space to himself at long last and unzips and the shock of seeing benreys huge uncut dick instead of his own brings him back to reality like "?oh my god what the fuck am i doing"

embarrassment! guilt! but also hes still fuckin horny and eventually curiosity wins out. whats the harm, right. its not like he has to say anything about it. and gordon freeman is (mostly) heterosexual and hes never been this up close and personal with a foreskin before and hes just......curious. scientifically

maybe hes even.......locked himself inside one of the company restrooms while hes at it. just to make sure hes got privacy. and there is a mirror right there........  he was gonna just bust one out and leave as fast as he can but now hes curious

starts. thumbing the hem of his shirt under benreys vest. starts lifting it up experimentally just to see where all that hair leads. out of curiosity. and seeing the curve of benreys stomach peek out in the mirror makes him hiccup on sweet voice inadvertently 

weirdly enough theres a part of him thats both relieved and disappointed that hes never seen that color before

he never envisioned that seeing benrey like this would be a turn-on but like......with that vest and that helmet on he just looks like some kind of fuckin roundish rectangle shape. but now gordons intimately familiar with how his body feels to move around in......what hes gotta look like underneath all that armor and ill-fitting work clothes......and the hornier he gets the stupider he gets

takes off the helmet.......just to test the waters. if somebody manages to bust in, thats not so weird to explain. and hes surprised by the shock of black hair he finds under there. he doesnt know what he was expecting....but honestly, benrey looks, like, kind of nice like that. more like a person

im slightly obsessed with the idea of benrey just not even registering as a Real Guy, physically, to gordon, one that he could possibly be attracted to, until hes out of his work uniform.......like hes more of an icon of a person than anything up until that point. pure signifier. no substance

like......you know......the equivalent of how benreys HL model registers to 99% of people watching the series. sure, thats not necessarily anything youd register as "hot", most likely, but then u peel that away and its like........Oh

the model is the icon and the representation of the icon is the real

and gordon runs a hand thru benreys hair and tries out one of those shitty little smirks benrey likes to use on him and the effect is.......dizzying. is that him? is that what benrey really looks like to him?? he feels fuckin salacious doing this

he can even.........get his face up close to the mirror and really look at those teeth

run his tongue over them experimentally.......feel their sharp edges.......and, no, theyre not sharp like a knife, but they are definitely pointy. and surprisingly well-kept......hes never seen benrey brush his teeth before but clearly he must. theyre so smooth and slick under his fingertips

and then he flushes and drops his hand b/c hes getting some weird fucking thoughts right now........but looking back up at himself in the mirror and seeing benreys face all wide-eyed and red makes the issue worse

oh, you really like seeing him look like that, dont you. and gordons pissed b/c this isnt even his fucking brain but its still whispering the exact same neurotic, self-defeating shit at him that hes trying very hard to tamp down

and then he starts getting a little crazier. taking off the vest. he can explain that, no problem. its just kind of hot. heavy. he needed a breather! its normal. just in here to splash some water on his face and cool down, nothing wrong with that. but that just makes benreys shirt all the easier to access.......and he tugs the hem of it just a little higher and looks at himself in the mirror and runs a thumb over the curve of his stomach, where the hair is thickest, and he shivers

gordon freeman is deeply normal and would never get off to the sight of a guy with arms the size of his head tentatively dragging the hem of his shirt up, just for gordon to look at him closer

hands shaking from nerves as he decides to loosen his tie and start unbuttoning and he sees more and more hair-dusted skin and muscle and fat and a thin sheen of sweat reveal itself

> i could see gordon trying to tense and flex the muscles a bit just because hes normal

HE IS, AND HE WOULD

he doesnt know when "being horny b/c hes been pent up and edged for days and he just needs to get his rocks off real quick so he can be normal again" turned into "being horny b/c the way benrey looks under his uniform is scary good to him" but if he thinks about that too hard hes gonna have a panic attack

tells himself that its all just because he hasnt been able to get off. thats why hes thinking this shit. hell stop thinking it once he nuts

> hey this is a quick aside but yknwo how he talks to himself in third person sometimes? what if he does and then kinda does a mental double take at how his name sounds coming out of benreys mouth, with his voice. ok thats it goodbye

oh ym god thats making me go insane. doing it by accident and then.........saying it again. on purpose. just to hear benreys voice doing it

getting one knee hitched up onto the sink and leaning forward with his arm braced against the mirror and his forehead leaning on his arm and tugging benreys dick (no, idiot, thats your dick right now, stop thinking about it) and tentatively groaning out his own name and it comes out so hoarse and desperate that it punches him straight in the gut (too bad, hes thinking about it, he cant not think about it, not with the way he looks and sounds right now)

> remember in the series when benrey called him gordon one (1) time and he noticed immediately and was like..i think thats the first time youve called me by my name.

he looks so fucked out and slutty in that mirror that it almost makes him pass out

eyes darting like hes trying to commit every single detail of how he looks right now to memory (b/c he is. he fucking is. he wants to make benrey look like this so fucking bad. just for him. wreck him and get him flushed and sweaty and panting and moaning gordons name and jesus christ, okay, thats where his brains taking him. okay. cool)

hes dizzying himself thinking about it. he knows benreys hot for him by this point, theoretically. assuming his weird come-ons werent just jokes. benrey would probably let him do this to him. benrey would probably want him to touch his dick. gordon thinks about how good it might feel for his own hand to be on benreys dick and he cant get himself solidly into one headspace or another - hes gordon, hes benrey, he wants to touch, he wants to be touched, he wants to feel his own hand on this dick (and god, maybe he could. maybe he could ask. wouldnt that be crazy.)

benrey in gordons suit and gordons body and gordons face leaning over him, b/c fuck, he really is tall compared to benrey, hes figured that one out awful quick. and gordons (his) hand on his (benreys) dick and stroking him and leering down at him with those dark, dark eyes that dont even really look like his eyes, anymore, not with the way theyre shaded over, and hearing his (benreys) (his) voice moaning out his (gordons) (definitely gordons) name and all the little "pleases" and "thank yous" that he cant stop letting out b/c benreys voice was made for it, made to beg and whine and ask so nicely, and his heads spinning as he comes all over the fucking mirror and sink

> i wonder if this could be combine with the ideas that parts of the self or like mind is still a bit left behind if that makes sense, like with benrey also wanting this that part of the reason gordon wants to say those things

"do you want to fuck him or do you want to be him?" well my good bitch, perhaps you can have a little of both. welcome to my personal hell

hes never come so hard in his fucking life and the noise that rips out of him when he does, finally, after days of being jerked around (ha ha) makes his ears burn with shame

now if you really wanna go crazy. imagine that benreys up and walking around this whole time b/c being edged by his stupid broken suit is making it impossible for him to sleep, and he hears........all of this. stops and presses himself flat agains tthe wall to listen

he cant actually get into the bathroom to scare the shit out of gordon/offer to join in/etc, b/c this stupid flesh body of gordons cant even noclip, but he can press his ear to the door and. listen. and he can flush all the way down to his chest when he hears gordon in there, moaning out his own name with benreys voice

so thats what gordon wants him to do, huh. thats what hes thinking about.

poor benrey, tho. he gets to experience just a lick of the endless fucking suffering that gordon goes thru every single day just by being alive, and "the HEV suit trying and failing to suck him off to completion while his dick twitches against the hard metal of the interior every time gordon groans in there" is just one small part of it

anyway . see ya. my final message

[bisexualmoses]

5/23/34 (there’s so many questions so pls answer any others you rly want to express!!)

Im so embarrassed that I took so long to see this and answer it im sorry!!! I always think that ill see it on my mobile notifications or ill get an email but i only see asks when i go on browser version of tumblr which i almost never do cuz i can never remember my password...i hope im answering the right one (lgbt jewish asks?)  because i scrolled for a very long time and couldnt find any ask memes and so ultimately i just had to search asks on my blog but we all know search on tumblr sucks

5. have you found lgbt jewish community?

no i would say i haven’t. i dont have a lot of jewish friends irl which unfortunately precludes me from have any lgbt jewish friends and im not great at making friends online either. im sort of hoping to move to nyc one day with one of the main reasons being to have a better jewish community (an lgbt, observant but egalitarian jewish community more specifically) 

23. do you think your connection to faith is different from cishet relationship to faith?

I do but more just because I really do think every jew has a different connection to faith and to judaism, you know of course who i am informs my faith thats how it works for everyone. 

34. what’s the best part about being jewish and lgbt?

its hard to really name a single thing but i guess for the intersection of being jewish and lgbt its that judaism values and emphasizes like learning and questioning and interpreting and but above all humanity and that we are all in gds image i think that really contributes to why i never feel like my jewishness contradicts the fact that im trans+bi

thanks so much for asking!!! i love talking about my jewishness and judaism although i do find it hard to articulate myself sometimes because theres just so much to it you know the layers

[kosmicdream]

Hi I’m Kosmic. I draw webcomics and my webcomics are really long sprawling huge cast ones that will go on for years and they’re non linear and all this stuff that makes ppls heads spin when they try to explain wtf they’re about. I ask myself this question a lot: How the fuck do I maintain this motivation for continuing projects that are honestly, probably bigger than i can possibly feasibly create??? How do i avoid swallowed up by anxiety of my own creations???? is that energy going to run out at any time? should i be worried?? Well! For some reason I... don’t? like i get winded sometimes but in the end, I actually quite like what i do and I don’t care that it takes literally years to make my stories. but when I step back and look at it objectively it does make me scratch my head and wonder how i came to be in this situation. So, sometimes i  try and write a few things that help me with understanding my own process, for whatever reason. Or at least I’ll TRY to articulate some of the things i seem to tell myself again and again that help me feel very comfortable with my writing/creating process. So if you want an insight into tips that i give myself.. this is that! 

TIP #1 - Everything you Plan will take longer than you planned, but you can make it easier by unexpectedly including information you might have otherwise withheld.

Secrets are cool in your stories. I have so many of them, but I also understand that they’re much more fun to share than to always keep locked up and out of knowledge. I often overshare to the point where ‘info dumping’ happens which is often considered an unattractive quality in comics. But IDM it so much because my comics just need to be drawn and you can’t glorify and hold every flaw over your shoulders when in the end its not going to be that big of a deal. I think its better to give out more information than finding reasons to bend around a story to avoid revealing things. I feel it might even be more obvious if you attempt to do that.

Also, I feel that everything planned in a story can happen quite quickly, and feel much shorter than actually drawing it. Even with the experience ive gained, i still am surprised just by how much i must throw out to make my long scenes shorter and snappier. even then, they are still really long scenes. I don’t mind doing this, I like to make my stories this way- but ive also designed my comic to serve this pace by making my pages less intensive physically to make. I’m not going to go in depth about this as ive already discussed this many times before, but I do think its important to understand that generally, a commitment to a comic is going to be bigger and longer than it appears in your mind or even on paper as a script or thumbnails.

(my comic eggshells, for example, was originally going to be 340ish pages long. but back then, my pacing was much different-- and my pages were generally twice as wide with around 15 panels per page..sometimes more. but i would over-render and make them hard to read, and now i draw very few panels per page and my comics are much ‘longer’ in page count.)

TIP #2

-Accept that your ideas are bigger than what you can draw and enjoy the private context and history of your work without feeling like its less accomplished for not being all out there. Validate yourself but also understand that your readers are not going to understand the depth from your perspective and they will be engaging with the view they’ve been exposed to.

This is kind of a complicated one but I think that its both humbling to accept your work as this multi layered experiences of contradicting perspectives.. theres the planning and your engagement with the goals, the work of translating your creation to others and the vulnerable exposure of these ideas to the audience. As the creator, you get to see things in a very unique way that no one else can but... the one feeling you will never get to see is the audience who has no idea what will happen next. You can anticipate it, but in the end its so vast and unpredictable that it will be impossible to judge what they ALL will FEEL and sometimes? their perceptions can alter your own enjoyment of your work. I guarantee it will change it in SOME way.. that’s part of the sacrifice.

TIP #3

-Allowing change, flexibility and growth into your series- and letting go of control over all facets of it.

As time goes on things just change. Its hard to accommodate or prepare for that kind of investment in your work when you feel like you havent even gotten through the starting gates of your story. Comics are particularly difficult for that because once you draw a thing, it takes time to edit and you cant really undo and go back. Each panel informs and builds on the next. You have to use what’s there and figure out how it can be a structure for the future.

Accepting the past that has helped create the situation and platform of your comic in the present, which will lead into the future. Personally, i’m not a fan of retconing* certain decisions that have been already made into the canon-- however, i think if a new conclusion or idea is discovered in the process of writing and it works to include because it creates a new and alive energy in the work that will help push it to the next stage.. i think that’s very helpful and useful for sustaining the growth and motivation in a story. Making choices like this can be tricky, however, but even small ones can give a lot of natural growth and flexibility in the comic. The problem can often come with letting go of that unseen, unrealized version we had intended. I know for myself, i can get very nostalgically attached to old ideas but-- if i think of something better that works or makes more sense, I’m always thankful to let go and let my stories grow into a better thing. I try to remember where it came from, however. Because that helps inform me where to go.

(*generally my definition for this is altering events of the past, certain core plans of the comic, character motivations, or facts that are connected to the worldbuilding. im kind of a hoarder so once its in the story aka on a specific page-- its not going anywhere. until then things can be up in the air. for example, the characters knife and spoon were not originally intended to be mutually in love and it was more of a one sided idol worship, but as i fleshed their characters out i realized that it was mutual and it changed and altered the story because of that. now it cannot/will not be “undone” for whatever reason bc this is.. an established fact in the story. but at one point, it was not! i hope that makes sense.)

SO TO SUMMARIZE... plans will always be “”bigger”” in the ever expansive space of your mind so also dont be afraid to get to the point sometimes even if it feels a little, like. less exciting than you thought? accept your story is going to be different for YOU vrs your audience and make peace with that disconnect even tho its disorienting + upsetting sometimes & accommodate the ~natural personal and artistic growth~ you will experience and let go of things that might be holding you or your work back from improving with you. but also dont try to cut out too much of the past because.. it is what helped you get to where you are right now? focus on the present & allow growth for the future, dont try to alter the past and pretend it didnt happen. bc that will be confusing as fuck for everyone involved and also probably hurt the story more than help it. esp if its a long one. ur building a tower dont pull out too many foundational blocks and try to make it too much of something else unless its growing there on its own.. u kno? 

When I try to write these tips these are just things I find myself doing in a cycle as i create that seem to keep re igniting my passion for my story again and again. It makes me curious because it also is a very instinctual thing so I thought I might try and write it out!!!!!!!!!! ENJOY.

ALSO some bonus thoughts!!!!!!!!!! I will say that I’ve never completed a long format comic series, so take it w/ a grain of salt imo. HOWEVER...I probably will, eventually. Even if I don’t, I do enjoy writing really big ones and I feel very happy with the work i do on them! and still feel no inclination to move onto other things. Or even when I work on other things, I don’t have a feeling of dropping a story entirely. (for example, i still intend to work on my older series eggshells and don’t really feel a desire to ‘quit’ that story even when i have matured as an author/artist since starting it.)

When I read really long comic series I wonder a lot of internal decisions that happen out of sight, since the timeline of a comic that you read is so much different than the timeline it takes actually creating the thing. its so easy to write/plan/form ideas for lifetimes of work that will never be realized, so what is it that we actually get in the pages? What aspects of this author are we actually seeing? how much have they grown since beginning and what about the story we will never know? I know I’ll never know, because, I am only the reader! And as the creator, I will never know what the feeling of my work as the reader. or the cool and interesting things they predict will happen based on their perseptions, which are so different from mine. Yet!! we are all engaged in the same story unfolding, never fully discovering what its like on the other side but only getting little glimpses and thats fascinating how a story is almost this vast illusion of experiences maintained by so many different minds. 

Long format comics captivate me because they are just, really time consuming to make and the pacing of them are so different and less consumable than other stories. They like become.. this place you live in! Why are they my favorite to enjoy even when its natural that, when a story becomes longer, its going to end up attracting more & more issues? Why do i Not care about resolutions to long stories sometimes bc my expectations for them are different?? (also lets face it, experience writing long stories is going to be different than writing short ones because it takes time to write longer things & we are not going to have as much experienc having more than one completed super long multi-act-multi-characterplot story vrs a bunch of smaller ones. it doesnt mean its EASIER to write shorter ones, if anything id argue its probably much harder to write good short things + isolate a story down to that focused vision than making tons of long ones that avoid endings) but..yet!! here i am...

why am i constantly drawn to trying to understand long format stories when I probably could improve faster by writing shorter things??! i dont really know! but i follow my heart and my heart likes to do things this way......

anyway, this entire post is mostly inspired by the fact that many of my favorite stories started before i was even born or have been going on for decades and i wonder if we’ll ever read the endings to many of them.... would it.. matter? they’ve already inspired me so much even without a resolution because i can imagine my own endings to things.. but in the end that is not what happened in the actual story. it was only in my mind.. and yet it never happened, and was an illusion unknown to anyone but myself.....and sometimes my favorite stories are my favorites because of the things i imagined them to be, rather than what they actually were or how they actually turned out.. i dont know how this happens..... but i wonder about what this means with my OWN comics, and how my perceptions of what they could be vrs what they are is like, this weird illusion that also exists only in my mind and no one else can see it. yet we are both looking at the same thing. and i want to know what others see and i never will get to??? ....stories are......... so fucking spooky!!!!!!!!!! AHHH!! ok thats all. thx for reading

[my-motherflippin-blog-son]

SOME POSITIVE REFLECTIONS FROM QUARANTINE

I think it’s important to acknowledge just how non-linear, progress is. You’re gonna bounce all over the place for a long time before you start feeling like you actually put some distance between where you started and where you are now. And even after all that effort, all that struggling, progress, on anything, often feels underwhelming.

I spent a whole year struggling with a lot of anxiety over this project, really worried about having a senior project that feels substantial. Something that can make up for my weak ass portfolio. Something that feels honest but smart, something funny, something to better myself, something that could make a positive change in the world beyond me. I needed it to solve all this because i was scared of being a failure. I already knew that anxiety made me waste a lot of time throughout school, it had skewed how I lived my life so dramatically. I thought I could make up for everything I knew I did wrong if I could just do something something substantial and meaningful. And in my subconscious, I felt like I if I could do that, it would define who I really was beyond that anxiety, beyond all my fuck ups. 

It took me a solid half a year to come up with an idea I liked. I wrote dozens and dozens of pages of research. I wanted to make sure that each step I took toward that abstract end goal was the right one. Then problem after problem was thrown in my lap, forcing me to alter my idea. And I can blame my lack of progress on all the constant shit thrown in my lap, but I know the real reason was all that anxiety. It was paralysis, something keeping me too afraid to move forward or make a wrong move. 

Part of it was I needed to know I was doing the right thing in everyone else's eyes. And at first glance, that’s not a bad thing. The world is empathetic, you’re only as good as the value you can bring to everyone in your life. How much love can you give? How many problems can you solve for others? Can you give back more good to the world than you add to the bad? I still think those ideals are what part of make the world a kinder place. At the end of the day, ya just want the most amount of people to be happy. Theres so much good in the world you want to be a part of. It wasn’t bad thinking, it wasn’t toxic, but it was partially a need to please everyone in order to validate who I was. It’s those sorta thoughts that were informing my mentality. But you can’t define yourself as long as you’re doing it through the lense of others. 

So there were all these hiccups, there was all this anxiety because of the democratic primaries and graduation, and on top of that, then the virus hit. And I felt more paralyzed than ever. I’d designed a whole project around focusing in on a specific evil, approaching it with some wit and levity, and making a change. But then the rules of the game changed and i just couldn’t care anymore. And why would anyone else? When you’re drowning, It’s hard to care about someone complaining about how cold the water is. That’s kinda where I was at, it was just a lot all at once. And honesty what affected me emotionally the most is that this was a project about me having something to say and being able to say it with a little bit of wit, and I just had nothing funny to say. I couldn’t find anything funny. I had nothing productive to say, no clever solutions, nothing that added to the good. No one wanted to hear another white dude complain about capitalism without offering any solutions, especially me. MAYBE you could argue listening to someone vent is fun, but the only reason listening to someone vent is fun is because you don’t see your feelings articulated as well anywhere else. But it’s like, when the whole world is screaming, what’s the point in screaming too? I just wanted a distraction. But I didn’t realize that till later. 

I spent almost 2 months having done virtually nothing. Then I met in a big group with all of Anthony’s advisees, where it turned out everyone had been affected in some way. Most people now had to make a change to how they were going to present their ideas but were still about to go on with their project, and some people were even close to done. But I just wasn’t. So when it got to me i just kinda plopped all my baggage on the table. I said I’m depressed in every possible way but outright saying it and still talking about my project, not even realizing i was doing it. I shouldn’t of done that, but was exhausted and drained so I had no filter. and after i said my piece, they talked at me for a while trying to help me find some peace in not feeling up to creating anything, but the question that stuck in my head was Anthony asking “so if this wasn’t for senior project, what would you be doing right now?” 

And honestly the answer was “nothing”. I didn’t wanna do shit. I wanted to play animal crossing and watch Buzzfeed Unsolved for 16 hours a day and listen to the same 5 Tennis songs over and over. I left that meeting feeling a little nihilistic. I had no ideas and nothing clever to say. I felt stripped of everything. This project was already my hail mary as it was. There was no way I was ever going to make something that felt substantial in time. No matter what i did, it was going to feel underwhelming to me.

But the fun thing about nihilism is that sometimes it leads to optimistic nihilism. Optimistic nihilism feels like kinda surrendering yourself to the universe, theres a feeling of clarity. If I was going to be a disappointment, who cared what I made? people are going to be underwhelmed no matter what. What future is there to worry about when every future plan you had was scrapped? Fuck it. It doesn’t have to be meaningful anymore; If you have nothing to say, say nothing. 

But I kept thinking about Anthony's question and realized that if I were to be forced to make something, it would be little animation loops. Its all I felt like doing. They’re fun to make. everything else felt forced. Something simple and pretty like the “How To Forgive” visualizer. 

And in the past, being inspired by a piece of media would make me anxious people would think I was copying or worse, that I was doing something derivative of something better and people . But recently, I wrote a “manifesto” for design issues about the current design trend which I called “Behance Style”. This manifesto made me break down everything these trendy designers were doing. using the same imagery, the same image making techniques, the same style fonts, there was so much of “the same”. It all felt so derivative of each other. But it didn’t matter to me. I liked it anyway. I was still entertained. And because now that I understood how this trend worked, I knew if I wanted to, I could subvert it, so I wasn’t afraid of making things in that style.

I’d been asked some variation of “forget the grade, what would you normally make? what do you want to make?” many times throughout this project. But I spent the last 6 years not making anything for myself, it was all to try and meet some standard. So when people asked about my personal projects, I didn’t know how to make any. Anxiety made me work non stop on school stuff, I never gave myself the time for stuff outside of what was required. And was always too anxious about school to feel compelled to make anything for myself. It was a distraction controlled by anxiety and self hate. I’m still struggling with the idea of making things just to make them without being influenced by outside forces, but this felt like a big step in the right direction.

Saint Cloud by Waxatachee dropped and it was just so pretty and cathartic and that was all I listened to for like 2-3 weeks. Between Saint Cloud and Swimmer, I had all these ideas for little pretty loops. Gabe Gundacker started his new project and I’ve been loving everything he’s released. I started listening to a lot of love songs. The Midnight Gospel came out and while the narratives are so thoughtful and engaging, that show partially felt so inspiring because the visuals feel like they were made with the mentality of “lets have fun with it.” It all felt really nice to just be able to appreciate something purely for being pretty. I didn’t care if people judged my music taste for being basic or thought my visuals we’re corny, I just wanted to make stuff to distract myself. 

I just realized im writing in the past tense, even though i’m currently still in the middle of this project. Maybe to solidify the reality I want to exist? 

Im still working on it now, who knows how this’ll all turn out, but all this feels like a nice step in the right direction. just moving one very small step at a time and then often thanking another step backwards or sideways feels exhausting but eventually you make progress, and it’s the only way to go about it, especially when you feel like you’re starting from nothing.

maybe edit that last paragraph tomorrow. i wrote it and it feels like a conclusion but i definitely didn't mean for it to, im just tryna wring out the last ideas i got in my head before going to bed. you might even wanna delete it and move shit around. i wanna come back to this tomorrow. really explore this and get to the bottom of shit. theres more i wanna say but i cant come up with the words that feel right. it s 5:04 am.

[caredogstips]

Husband Articulates He Cant Afford Her as a Stay-at-Home MomWhen He Testifies Her Why, I Was FLOORED

“Now, I dont at all mean to offend anyone with this upright. I merely have to say that for me personally, I cant afford it.”

Author : Steven Nelms

Ive had this thought in my head for a while now. Ive been thinking that I cant afford for my spouse to be a Stay-At-Home Mom. Now, I dont at all “ve been meaning to” offend anyone with this upright. I just has to be acknowledged that for me personally, I cant afford it. Id like to explain exactly what I entail by that so that no one considerations Im in any way denigrating Stay-At-Home Moms. On the contrary, I mean that I quite literally cannot afford my partner to be staying at home. Heres why…

My wife remains home and takes care of our son every single day. She changes his nappies, feeds him, participates with him, employs him down for his nap, and comforts him when hes upset. And thats simply the bare minimum.

A child can frequently get that notice at a day-care. But on top of that, he is her alone focus. Theres no other children to tend to. He gets all of her. All of her adoration, all of her time, all of her power. She is always there, always near, and ever listening. Apparently, this is part of being a mother. You take care of your child and you develop young children. But lets face it. In our date and age, every service( and I make EVERY service) is hirable. There is a company ready and willing to do just about anything.

So while, yes, my wife is my sons mother and it is a natural cause of has become a mother to love and care for your own child, there is also a exceedingly quantifiable dollar amount that can be attributed to the services interpreted. I am in no way trying to simplify, objectify, or denigrate the priceless cherish of a father for their own children. But makes be real. Pay day find good for a conclude. Because youre seeing your hard work realized in a tangible direction that lets you plow yo soul. And this is exactly why I cant afford my bride being a Stay-At-Home Mom. The national median weekly payment for a full-time nanny is $705. Thats $ 36,660 a year.

We make ends meet comfortably and are by no means rubbing the bottom of the barrel. But according to the 2014 tariff brackets, we fall nicely in the second tier, right in the $12,951 – $49,400 levy array. Even if we were constituting the maximum amount allowed for our levy bracket, the services offered rendered of caring for our child every single era of its first year would suck the majority of members of our income. Flat out , no question, tournament over, I cannot afford my bride to be a Stay-At-Home Mom . And thats simply the beginning of it.

A regular cleaning service costs anywhere between $50 – $100 per visit, depending on how big-hearted your space is, how late of a cleaning you miss, and especially whether or not “youve had” domesticateds that molted like crazy. FYI, Im persuasion our hound is short haired because he molts every inch of it every minute of every day. It never even has a chance to grow. We also have a toddler, so those of you who the hell is unfamiliar, that represents a tissue box left unattended for nearly 18 seconds is totally vacated with its contents strewn across the suite. Same with erases. Toys rapidly find their way from his bedroom to the front room. Remotes disappear missing. The dogs water bowl sometimes get spilled. Books will rarely operate off their shelves. So on and so forth.

Picking up the accommodation is part in allotment with maintaining the place presentable. Not to mention the natural progression of soiled bowls, dusting, vacuum-clean, etc ., etc. So acquiring you crave the place to bide comparatively clean, especially whenever you have parties over, youre looking at $100 per week at the bare minimum to abide presentable. That includes up to a whopping $5,200( again, omitting the extra deep clean, or speedy pick up for hosting busines ).

Does your partner ever range errands for you? Buy the groceries? Get you a brand-new battalion of white undershirts? Personal buyers on average run around $65 an hour.( Thats eliminating the couple thousand dollar body fee required to utilize their services .) Average the amount of time spent at the grocery stores or department store per week at 4 hours and youre looking at around $260, and thats an extremely conservative average. Thats $ 13,520 a year.

Does your spouse ever cook dinner? Prepare lunch? Prepare lunch ahead for “youve got to” take with you to work? A personal cook, educating 2 dishes of five meals can run from $400 and up. So presupposing your Stay-At-Home wife educates even a few dinners a week, youre looking at around $240 at the least per week. Thats $12,480 a year. And thats eliminating any hosting, any additional mouths to feed, or extra dinners to cook or extra surfaces and entrees for bowl lucks and vacation parties.

So far were looking at a splendid total of $67,860! Remember, were working with terribly conservative medians here. Thats daily care for your child that the average full-time nanny would add. Thats twice-a-week cleansing of your residence by a damsel services that are gets the place presentable. Thats three banquets devised a week of simply two helps. These quantities, for the most percentage, still descend embarrassingly short of all the things that is really attained each and every week. And thats simply taking into account 3 business!

If your partner takes care of your budgeting, finances, and paying of bills, then add on $15 an hour for the average proportion of a fiscal aide. If youre in the corporate nature and your wife romps any kind of capacity in professional interactions at business dinners, then add on $75 an hour for the average rate of a PR assistant. And if you dont think your spouse manner or social interactions alter your image and force in the workplace, then youre simply flat out an ignoramus. If your partner does the majority of the laundry, then youll need to add at the least a fee of $25 a week for the bare minimum washer/ dryer personal service.

Lets median five hours a week on financial services, 4 hours per business dinner( about 3 a year ), and a weekly laundry busines. Lend that onto our very conservative estimates for childcare, mansion cleanse, and patronize, and thats an annual salary of $73,960. Looking objectively at an almost insultingly conservative median of the services made, I cannot afford my bride .

And gives recollect, theres no sick leave with childcare, theres no paid time off, theres no 401( k ). All of the incentives that someone who realizes over 70 K a year would normally experience are not part of this slew. All of construction workers acknowledgments, virtue bonuses, and recognition that comes with being a part of country offices are out too.

My wife sometimes feels condescended when I request her permission to buy something for myself. She feels like its my money and my call on the paycheck so I shouldnt have to ask granted permission to get myself something every once in a while. The actuality is, Im ashamed of any time Ive ever reached her feel guilty or humored when shes acquired something for herself. Im ashamed that she has ever felt like she doesnt have just as much right to our income as I do. The point of the matter is that our income doesnt even come close to covering what she does for our family. I would have to make over 100 K to even begin to be able to cover my living expenses as well as utilize my wife as a Stay-At-Home Mom!

In short, I cant render for my bride to stay at home. And Ive tragically failed to show my bride the appreciation that she deserves. She loves me, desires our son, and adoration our household, so obviously she isnt doing any of those thoughts for a paycheck or even for acknowledgment. But it certainly doesnt hurt were told that as a Stay-At-Home Mom her appraised salary is roughly double my actual income. So in a very weird method, this is my path of saying how much I appreciate my bride as the mother of my child and the person who is always has my back no matter what. You are more treasured than rubies. And I cant afford you . ( All proportions manifest actual frequencies of real transactions offering these services ) About the Author : Steven Nelms is the leader scribe and video editor for weareglory.com. Their duty at We Are Gloryis to encourage the sharing of Christ’slight through interviewing people about their testimonies and posting thoughts and reflections about its own experience in the pursuit of God. They aim to build a community of disciples and share content spurring the pursuit of Christ. Check outmore from them on their blog.

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