#doing anything is hard

[nebulousmedic]

Apologies for the lack of art. I'm getting increasingly less interested drawing and just my hobbies in general.

#not doing great mentally aha #I know what's causing it #but it's hard to change my habits #therapy is not really an option for me so like #yikes lmao #I don't wanna seem like I just want attention but I think you guys deserve to know cause I used to post so very often #anyway yeah #mun talks #just rambling #doing anything is hard

[koddlet]

personal rules for winter ❄

#this was fun bc i didn't intend for it to be kind of cryptic #i just wanted to make some reminders for myself about winter cuz i never learn #especially the back cover which i guess isn't really a rule but still stands. i'm in a rural place so when it gets dark it's Dark #and its hard to want to do anything #zine #mini zine #illustration #nonfandom #analogue art

[blueboyluca]

“When I first heard it, from a dog trainer who knew her behavioral science, it was a stunning moment. I remember where I was standing, what block of Brooklyn’s streets. It was like holding a piece of polished obsidian in the hand, feeling its weight and irreducibility. And its fathomless blackness. Punishment is reinforcing to the punisher. Of course. It fit the science, and it also fit the hidden memories stored in a deeply buried, rusty lockbox inside me. The people who walked down the street arbitrarily compressing their dogs’ tracheas, to which the poor beasts could only submit in uncomprehending misery; the parents who slapped their crying toddlers for the crime of being tired or hungry: These were not aberrantly malevolent villains. They were not doing what they did because they thought it was right, or even because it worked very well. They were simply caught in the same feedback loop in which all behavior is made. Their spasms of delivering small torments relieved their frustration and gave the impression of momentum toward a solution. Most potently, it immediately stopped the behavior. No matter that the effect probably won’t last: the reinforcer—the silence or the cessation of the annoyance—was exquisitely timed. Now. Boy does that feel good.”

— Melissa Holbrook Pierson, The Secret History of Kindness (2015)

#dog books #this chapter was very sad reading #when you become aware of punishment #and its use and its prevalence #it's hard not to despair #again this is why positive reinforcement feels like absolution #maybe now my eyes are open I can make up for what I did #what I did because it's what everyone does #because it's more acceptable to punish than to do anything else #I've been having so many thoughts about punishment and society and justice #this book was very validating #another great validating moment in my jumbled thoughts #was listening to the You're Wrong About episode on justice #with Amanda Knox #it helped to ease the despair a little

[inkskinned]

the thing about art is that it was always supposed to be about us, about the human-ness of us, the impossible and beautiful reality that we (for centuries) have stood still, transfixed by music. that we can close our eyes and cry about the same book passage; the events of which aren't real and never happened. theatre in shakespeare's time was as real as it is now; we all laugh at the same cue (pursued by bear), separated hundreds of years apart.

three years ago my housemates were jamming outdoors, just messing around with their instruments, mostly just making noise. our neighbors - shy, cautious, a little sheepish - sat down and started playing. i don't really know how it happened; i was somehow in charge of dancing, barefoot and laughing - but i looked up, and our yard was full of people. kids stacked on the shoulders of parents. old couples holding hands. someone had brought sidewalk chalk; our front walk became a riot of color. someone ran in with a flute and played the most astounding solo i've ever heard in my life, upright and wiggling, skipping as she did so. she only paused because the violin player was kicking his heels up and she was laughing too hard to continue.

two weeks ago my friend and i met in the basement of her apartment complex so she could work out a piece of choreography. we have a language barrier - i'm not as good at ASL as i'd like to be (i'm still learning!) so we communicate mostly through the notes app and this strange secret language of dancers - we have the same movement vocabulary. the two of us cracking jokes at each other, giggling. there were kids in the basement too, who had been playing soccer until we took up the far corner of the room. one by one they made their slow way over like feral cats - they laid down, belly-flat against the floor, just watching. my friend and i were not in tutus - we were in slouchy shirts and leggings and socks. nothing fancy. but when i asked the kids would you like to dance too? they were immediately on their feet and spinning. i love when people dance with abandon, the wild and leggy fervor of childhood. i think it is gorgeous.

their adults showed up eventually, and a few of them said hey, let's not bother the nice ladies. but they weren't bothering us, they were just having fun - so. a few of the adults started dancing awkwardly along, and then most of the adults. someone brought down a better sound system. someone opened a watermelon and started handing out slices. it was 8 PM on a tuesday and nothing about that day was particularly special; we might as well party.

one time i hosted a free "paint along party" and about 20 adults worked quietly while i taught them how to paint nessie. one time i taught community dance classes and so many people showed up we had to move the whole thing outside. we used chairs and coatracks to balance. one time i showed up to a random band playing in a random location, and the whole thing got packed so quickly we had to open every door and window in the place.

i don't think i can tell you how much people want to be making art and engaging with art. they want to, desperately. so many people would be stunning artists, but they are lied to and told from a very young age that art only matters if it is planned, purposeful, beautiful. that if you have an idea, you need to be able to express it perfectly. this is not true. you don't get only 1 chance to communicate. you can spend a lifetime trying to display exactly 1 thing you can never quite language. you can just express the "!!??!!!"-ing-ness of being alive; that is something none of us really have a full grasp on creating. and even when we can't make what we want - god, it feels fucking good to try. and even just enjoying other artists - art inherently rewards the act of participating.

i wasn't raised wealthy. whenever i make a post about art, someone inevitably says something along the lines of well some of us aren't that lucky. i am not lucky; i am dedicated. i have a chronic condition, my hands are constantly in pain. i am not neurotypical, nor was i raised safe. i worked 5-7 jobs while some of these memories happened. i chose art because it mattered to me more than anything on this fucking planet - i would work 80 hours a week just so i could afford to write in 3 of them.

and i am still telling you - if you are called to make art, you are called to the part of you that is human. you do not have to be good at it. you do not have to have enormous amounts of privilege. you can just... give yourself permission. you can just say i'm going to make something now and then - go out and make it. raquel it won't be good though that is okay, i don't make good things every time either. besides. who decides what good even is?

you weren't called to make something because you wanted it to be good, you were called to make something because it is a basic instinct. you were taught to judge its worth and over-value perfection. you are doing something impossible. a god's ability: from nothing springs creation.

a few months ago i found a piece of sidewalk chalk and started drawing. within an hour i had somehow collected a small classroom of young children. their adults often brought their own chalk. i looked up and about fifteen families had joined me from around the block. we drew scrangly unicorns and messed up flowers and one girl asked me to draw charizard. i am not good at drawing. i basically drew an orb with wings. you would have thought i drew her the mona lisa. she dragged her mother over and pointed and said look! look what she drew for me and, in the moment, i admit i flinched (sorry, i don't -). but the mother just grinned at me. he's beautiful. and then she sat down and started drawing.

someone took a picture of it. it was in the local newspaper. the summary underneath said joyful and spontaneous artwork from local artists springs up in public gallery. in the picture, a little girl covered in chalk dust has her head thrown back, delighted. laughing.

#writeblr #warm up #this is longer than i wanted i really considered removing that part about myself and what i went thru #but i think it really fucking bothers me that EVERY time i talk about being an artist #ppl assume i just like. had the skill and ability to drop everything and pay for grad school. #like sir i grew up poor. my house wasn't a safe space. i gave up a FREE RIDE TO LAW SCHOOL. for THIS. bc i chose it. #was it fucking hard? was i choosing the hard thing?? yes. #but we need to stop seeing artists as lazy layabouts that can ''afford'' to just ''sit around and create'' #when MANY - if not MOST - of us are NOT like that. we have to work our fucking ASSES off. hard work. long and hard work #part of valuing artists is recognizing the amount we sacrifice to make our art. bc it doesn't just #like HAPPEN to us. also btw it rarely has anything to do with true talent. #speaking as someone with a chronic condition i hate when ppl are like u have it easy. like actively as i'm writing this my hands r #ACTIVELY hurting me. i haven't been posting bc my left hand was curled in a claw for the last week #this isn't fucking luck. after a certain point it's not even TALENT. it's dedication & sacrifice. #''u get to flounce around and do nothing with ur life'' is a narrative that is a direct result of capitalism #imagine if we said that about literally any other profession. #''oh so u give up 10 yrs of ur life to be a doctor? u sacrifice having a social life and u get SUPER in debt? #u need to work countless hours and it will often be thankless? well i wish i was that lucky'' #we should be applying that logic to landlords ONLY #''oh ur mom and dad gave u the money to buy a house? and all u did was paint it white and rent it? huh.''

[sculkshrieking]

they finally got that camel ride together

#desert duo #life series #life series spoilers #secret life #secret life spoilers #goodtimeswithscar #grian #scarian #trafficblr #drawing's kinda hard right now but i would do anything for them #my art

[danggerine]

going insane thinking about the harrow and palamedes friendship. harrow, who has never met another necromancer her age forming a bizarro 3D chess rivalry while pal worries about her safety at every possible turn. harrow, who is up to her eyebrows in paranoia and secrecy, trusting the sixth house with gideon unconscious and hurt, letting them into the ninth house quarters unsupervised. if “i cannot conceive of a universe without you in it” is goth for i love you, “death first to vultures and scavengers” has got to be goth for i love you (platonic). pal’s first reaction when harrow comes into his bubble in the river is to scoop her up in a hug, and at this point she doesn’t remember anything about him because cutting out all her memories of gideon is impossible without cutting out memories of the sixth, but she still makes him a skelehand to inhabit anyway. when harrow’s memories are finally whole, she tells dulcinea she couldn’t face pal knowing that his pen pal girlfriend died on her account, but the next time she “faces” him, palamades’s soul is in someone else’s body and harrow’s body is full of nona’s soul. he spends six months protecting and caring for harrow’s body (and nona obv), believing in the possibility of bringing her back to it the same way cam believed in him. “god, do you know i miss harrow terribly.” and by the time harrow comes back to her body at the very end of ntn, pal is gone forever, fully pauled. the last time harrow and palamades see each other as their complete selves is in canaan house, alive and unlyctored. two of the smartest and loneliest people in the solar system meet each other in the worst of circumstances and spend the rest of the story dancing around each other as fragments of themselves, trying to care about each other in the interim but never fully meeting like they did the first time. a friendship made almost entirely of missing the other person. “do you know i miss harrow terribly.” god. i need to lie down

#behold: a block of text i do not feel like putting paragraph breaks in #i am so fucking crushed that they try so hard to take care of each other in different ways but never see each other ever again #he gave her a lift you off the floor hug in the bubble and she didnt even know why. #the thing that made him miss harrow was ‘look at me like you’ve worked out how to kill me’ bc he knows scowling is her display of affection #she couldn’t even REMEMBER him in htn but she helped camilla find his soul and put him back together anyway #is this anything. am i sounding as insane as i feel #tlt #harrowhark nonagesimus #palamedes sextus #katie don’t look #ntn spoilers #htn spoilers #gtn spoilers

[cranity]

head over heels

#nicholas d. wolfwood #vash the stampede #vashwood #trigun #my art #idk how to explain my trigun feelings other than my fav flavor of it being that wolfwood falls hard for this chaotic blonde first #and they proceed to share intricate rituals throughout their travels but never do anything about it #and then vol 10 happens #:] #anyways im a wolfwood falls in love first believer right here #he would do anything for that man

[ewwww-what]

Nobody is as excited about the preview as I am. I have paragraphs.

#very bad doodle I just need to get this out there #don’t look at it too hard I’m begging #someone please talk to me about the blood rush breakup before the world explodes #it is not that serious but I will do anything for twenty seconds of them arguing #the episode hasn’t come out but I am shaking #every time they talk I become a little more evil and fucked up #genuinely though aside from the silliness of the conversation being about sports I have some very strong feelings about the little bits we- #-got to see in the preview #like I will inevitably talk about it but just because I know people are gonna beat me to it I just want to express how excited I am #fantasy high #d20 #d20 fantasy high #dimension 20 #gorgug thistlespring #fabian seacaster #thistlecaster #<- yeah fuck it why not #for my one mutual who likes them #this is for you and you only #fhjy spoilers #my art

[lynaferns]

There are two types of DCA artists evolution:

-Nose got bigger over time.

-Nose got smaller over time (almost disappearing sometimes)

-(third option) there was never a nose.

#I'm the first type #dca fandom #fnaf daycare attendant #btw I'm not criticizing or anything. draw them however you want #I'm just pointing out something that I've been seeing since the beginning and I think it's funny #most people draw the nose small or straight up don't draw it and I get it. noses do be hard sometimes

[jewreallythinkthat]

Something I really don't understand is this obsession the anti-Israel crowd (in the West) have with death and martyrdom. All they care about is dying, and often killing for their cause; I see nothing about building a better future that isn't based on the murder of 9 million Israelis.

It's easy to die for a cause. The challenge is living to make a better tomorrow.

#jumblr #antisemitism #i/p #killing yourself and others does nothing to promote peace. frankly killing others is just terrorism in this scenario #if you want peace then you should be workng with jews and israelis #deal with antisemitism islamophobia and the rot in the knesset to move towards a two state solution #anything other than a two state solution is discrimination and death #dying for your cause is not cute or progressive. its lazy because you didnt want to put in the effort to do real work moving forwards #jews are 0.2 of the worlds population. if you refuse to engage with them you are the problem #majority voice doesnt mean correct. it just means loud #if your voice is leading to people killing themselves then you need to take a long hard look in a mirror

[bamsara]

you know what i mean

#sara shush #doodles #maybe its executive dysfuntion maybe im unmedicated maybe its my chronic illness but i am having a hard time doing Anything #and im blaming hte weather #where are my clouds #pls may i have thunder #summer is genuinly doing the worse for depression

[general-cyno]

Luffy + being completely normal about Zoro.

#tvedit #onepieceedit #oplaedit #one piece live action #opla #monkey d. luffy #roronoa zoro #zolu #one piece #zoro #luffy #myedit #mygifs #long post #THEY'RE SO #luffy always being so happy to see zoro and thinking he's cool makes me feel things ok #luffy: if i had a first mate i would hype him up so much - #also the fact that when everything's seemingly falling apart the person he wants (needs) most by his side........is zoro #im so unwell #also maybe im just a simple man but 'i'd do anything to save him. anything. except stand in the way of his dream' goes so hard #love is real actually #this isn't even all of it......but if i giffed more this post wouldn't end #love them so much

[thegreatidk]

My biggest beef with the way Annabeth was written in the show is that I think Rick fell into his own trap. Like his whole thing with Annabeth is that just because someone doesn’t look smart doesn’t mean they aren’t. And while it’s about their literal looks for both the show and the book, book Annabeth also sometimes acted in ways that people wouldn’t stereotypically associate with “smart” because I think we’ve all be condition to think bbc sherlock no emotions genius is the only way to be smart. Book Annabeth acts super flustered around Luke because she's a kid and she has a crush on him, she's afraid of spiders, and wanted to see the arch just because she thought it was cool. In general book Annabeth is allowed to be sillier and have a wider range of emotions than show Annabeth without it detracting from the fact that Annabeth is smart. I find this whole "stoic genius" idea is often used to put down teenage girls for being dumb and superficial just because they show emotions and the only way to beat it is to be cold, calculating, and emotionless and most people just aren't like that.

#Like on a personal note I was in robotics in high school #And all the other kids were juniors and seniors and also male #And they would bully me so bad for liking anything remotely girly or being emotional #And I was really trying to earn their respect because I wanted to captain next year #And the only way I felt I could do that was by supressing everything #And I remember relating so hard to Annabeth and being jealous of her because she acted basically the way I did #But nobody thought she was dumb or not worth leading a quest because of it #like yes percy bullies her a little lol but at the end of the day he doesn't question her wisdom #pjo show crit #annabeth chase #pjotv spoilers

[jattendschaton]

Émilie Agreste purposefully giving Adrien an allergy to feathers to make sure her son would never be able to use the peacock miraculous in the future

#miraculous ladybug #emilie agreste #adrien agreste #I'm never quite sure what I think about emilie as a parent #but clearly she was aware of gabriel's obsessive tendencies #and maybe she didnt want him to be able to force adrien #(his son who he can literally control to do anything) #to wield the peacock miraculous #hard to do much miraculous-ing when you're sneezing every two seconds ! #she trusted her husband so little she had to magically prevent him from using his son (in this specific way) #((obviously gabriel has lots of other ways of controlling his son)) #(((but this one particular way—the way that emilie is most familiar with and the way that was ultimately going to kill her— #he cant have that way. she will protect adrien at least from this. at least from what killed her))) #that or it was just for the bit #who knows

[spielzeugkaiser]

I have been grabbed by nostalgia for a certain show I started to watch the first few live-action episodes of..

#one piece #opla #monkey d. luffy #roronoa zoro #sanji #nami #usopp #chopper #(had to include chopper because he's adorable) #I CAN'T BELIEVE op broke the curse but my god is it good 😔💖 #I have not watched anything yet but I love them all and I do wanna draw opla content one day #it's so much fun!! #the nostalgia is kicking hard too 🥺

[daftmooncretin]

fellas is it gay to lovingly caress your captains face as you remove his memories because you don’t want him to cry anymore. (he’s crying because he flirted with leonardo da vinci’s robot girlfriend too hard and she blew up fyi) just before this a mutual friend told you he pitied you because you had no capacity to love.

#although wiping jims mind was quite an unhinged breach of trust #the way he just sadly whispers ‘forget’ 🥹 #why did bones come for poor spock so hard this episode this episode though? #he didnt even do anything to deserve it lmao #he actually tried to protect kirk from finding out the truth because he knew it would upset him #and bones was still like this is on you bitch #episode is requiem for methuselah btw #tos #star trek tos #star trek #jim kirk