#have i been so fucked up

[emilnikos]

I need non autistic people to realise meltdowns are a real debilitating thing that has a serious effect on your mental and physical health NOWWWWW!!! The way its been trivialized and lessened pisses me the fuck off. It's not a tantrum and it doesn't come from "being too weak-willed" it's painful and it's embarrassing AND MOST OF ALL IT'S INVOLUNTARY!! Don't claim to be an ally to autistic or disabled people and then make fun of people who have meltdowns. Literally get the hell out of my sight

#i can't believe i have to day it but autism /is/ a disablity. its disabling. meltdowns are part of that. #'oh this is a lukewarm take' you dumbshit fucks have been throwing the word neurodivergent and meltdown around so #casually they have both been said at me with the same disdain as a swear word. you guys will accept making fun of autistic people #if someone jn your circle who is 'cool' does it first. at your big ages. shut the hell up

[artkaninchenbau]

A h-heartfelt reunion..?

Bonus

#Sir Crocodile #Monkey D Dragon #Emporio Ivankov #Dragodile #Crocodad #My art #One Piece #We're not gonna talk about the work I should be doing rn I have Severe Procrastinitis and I'm doing my best okay #Alternative version where it was both Crocodile and Garp beating Dragon's ass before Iva-chan joined in but that was too much effort lmao #I'm a believer in Dragon being a Wind Logia so don't worry guys he is 100% taking this beating intentionally #He knows what he did and he's dealing with the concequences of his actions. With grace. #You know I realize Iva-chan should be two whole meters taller than Crocodile but we're just gonna ignore that #Look Iva-chan taking Crocodile's side and being like ''Crocoboy is right you fucked up bad Dragon'' brings me joy #And for real I've been wanting to draw this for months. But never did because I had other shit to do. Which I still do #But. You know. Sometimes you need to draw a shitpost. It's ✨ self-care ✨ #And appearently One Piece shitpost comics have become the thing I draw for myself on occassion

[bixels]

Learning that fans hated Applejack and called her "boring" is crazyyy to me because I genuinely, unironically believe AJ's the most complex character in the main six.

Backstory-wise, she was born into a family of famers/blue collar workers who helped found the town she lives in. She grew up a habitual liar until she had the bad habit traumatized outta her. She lost both her parents and was orphaned at a young age, having to step up as her baby sister's mother figure. She's the only person in the main gang who's experienced this level of loss and grief (A Royal Problem reveals that AJ dreams about memories of being held by her parents as a baby). She moved to Manhattan to live with her wealthy family members, only to realize she'll never fit in or be accepted, even amongst her own family. The earlier seasons imply she and her family had money problems too (In The Ticket Master, AJ wants to go to the gala to earn money to buy new farm equipment and afford hip surgery for her grandma).

Personality-wise, she's a total people-pleaser/steamroller (with an occasional savior complex) who places her self worth on her independence and usefulness for other people, causing her to become a complete workaholic. In Applebuck Season, AJ stops taking care of herself because of her obsessive responsibilities for others and becomes completely dysfunctional. In Apple Family Reunion, AJ has a tearful breakdown because in she thinks she dishonored her family and tarnished her reputation as a potential leader –– an expectation and anxiety that's directly tied to her deceased parents, as shown in the episode's ending scene. In The Last Roundup, AJ abandons her family and friends out of shame because believes she failed them by not earning 1st place in a rodeo competition. She completely spirals emotionally when she isn't able to fulfill her duties toward others. Her need to be the best manifests in intense pride and competitiveness when others challenge her. And when her pride's broken, she cowers and physically hides herself.

Moreover, it's strongly implied that AJ has a deep-seated anger. The comics explore her ranting outbursts more. EQG also obviously has AJ yelling at and insulting Rarity in a jealous fit just to hurt her feelings (with a line that I could write a whole dissection on). And I'm certain I read in a post somewhere that in a Gameloft event, AJ's negative traits are listed as anger.

Subtextually, a lot of these flaws and anxieties can be (retroactively) linked to her parents' death, forcing her to grow up too quickly to become the adult/caregiver of the family (especially after her big brother becomes semiverbal). Notice how throughout the series, she's constantly acting as the "mom friend" of the group (despite everything, she manages to be the most emotionally mature of the bunch). Notice how AJ'll switch to a quieter, calmer tone when her friends are panicking and use soothing prompts and questions to talk them through their emotions/problems; something she'd definitely pick up while raising a child. Same with her stoicism and reluctance at crying or releasing emotions (something Pinkie explicitly points out). She also had a childhood relationship with Rara (which, if you were to give a queer reading, could easy be interpreted as her first 'aha' crush), who eventually left her life. (Interestingly enough, AJ also has an angry outburst with Rara for the same exact reasons as with EQG Rarity; jealous, upset that someone else is using and changing her). It's not hard to imagine an AJ with separation anxiety stemming from her mother and childhood friend/crush leaving. I'm also not above reading into AJ's relationship with her little sister (Y'all ever think about how AB never got to know her parents, even though she shares her father's colors and her mother's curly hair?).

AJ's stubbornness is a symptom of growing up too quickly as well. Who else to play with your baby sister when your brother goes nonverbal (not to discount Big Mac's role in raising AB)? Who else to wake up in the middle of the night to care for your crying baby sister when your grandma needs her rest? When you need to be 100% all the time for your family, you tend to become hard-stuck with a sense of moral superiority. You know what's best because you have to be your best because if you're aren't your best, then everything'll inevitably fall apart and it'll be your fault. And if you don't know what's best –– if you've been wrong the whole time –– that means you haven't been your best, which means you've failed the people who rely on you, which means you can't fulfill your role in the family/society, which makes you worthless . We've seen time and time again how this compulsive need to be right for the sake of others becomes self-destructive (Apple Family Reunion, Sound of Silence, all competitions against RD). We've seen in The Last Roundup how, when no longer at her best, AJ would rather remove herself from her community than confront them because she no longer feels of use to them.

But I guess it is kinda weird that AJ has "masculine" traits and isn't interested in men at all. It's totally justified that an aggressively straight, misogynistic male fandom would characterize her as a "boring background character." /s

At the time of writing this, it's 4:46AM.

#mlp #yeah i wrote this last night during insomnia. #yeah i know an embarrassing amount of crap about this kids show #but whatever it's my hyperfixation i'll store as much useless information as i want!!! #i'm gay and neurodivergent i have an excuse #in case you needed more proof that aj's my favorite character #personal #delete later #unless you like this analysis stuff #i get why they didn't reveal aj's parent's death until way later and why they didn't do much with it but i wish they did #cuz narratively there could've been so much material with aj's grief. like. i feel like we gloss over the fact that she lost her #mother and father as a teenager #i tried keeping my personal hcs out of this to keep it unbiased #but i'll put some in the tags #involving rarijack –– i think aj can be (but not always) very self-conscious about her relationship with rarity #anxieties that she's not the right fit or that rarity will move away and leave her some day or that another woman will take her attention #(like in rollercoaster of friendship?? nudge nudge??). basic seperation anxiety stuff #long post #regarding applebloom whenever i think about her and her parents i think about that scene in steven universe where steven looks up at #a portrait of his mother and openly wonders what kind of sack lunches she would've made for him. that episode still fucks me up

[inkskinned]

at some point it's just like. do they even fucking like the thing they're asking AI to make? "oh we'll just use AI for all the scripts" "we'll just use AI for art" "no worries AI can write this book" "oh, AI could easily design this"

like... it's so clear they've never stood in the middle of an art museum and felt like crying, looking at a piece that somehow cuts into your marrow even though the artist and you are separated by space and time. they've never looked at a poem - once, twice, three times - just because the words feel like a fired gun, something too-close, clanging behind your eyes. they've never gotten to the end of the movie and had to arrive, blinking, back into their body, laughing a little because they were holding their breath without realizing.

"oh AI can mimic style" "AI can mimic emotion" "AI can mimic you and your job is almost gone, kid."

... how do i explain to you - you can make AI that does a perfect job of imitating me. you could disseminate it through the entire world and make so much money, using my works and my ideas and my everything.

and i'd still keep writing.

i don't know there's a word for it. in high school, we become aware that the way we feel about our artform is a cliche - it's like breathing. over and over, artists all feel the same thing. "i write because i need to" and "my music is how i speak" and "i make art because it's either that or i stop existing." it is such a common experience, the violence and immediacy we mean behind it is like breathing to me - comes out like a useless understatement. it's a cliche because we all feel it, not because the experience isn't actually persistent. so many of us have this ... fluttering urgency behind our ribs.

i'm not doing it for the money. for a star on the ground in some city i've never visited. i am doing it because when i was seven i started taking notebooks with me on walks. i am doing it because in second grade i wrote a poem and stood up in front of my whole class to read it out while i shook with nerves. i am doing it because i spent high school scribbling all my feelings down. i am doing it for the 16 year old me and the 18 year old me and the today-me, how we can never put the pen down. you can take me down to a subatomic layer, eviscerate me - and never find the source of it; it is of me. when i was 19 i named this blog inkskinned because i was dramatic and lonely and it felt like the only thing that was actually permanently-true about me was that this is what is inside of me, that the words come up over everything, coat everything, bloom their little twilight arias into every nook and corner and alley

"we're gonna replace you". that is okay. you think that i am writing to fill a space. that someone said JOB OPENING: Writer Needed, and i wrote to answer. you think one raindrop replaces another, and i think they're both just falling. you think art has a place, that is simply arrives on walls when it is needed, that is only ever on demand, perfect, easily requested. you see "audience spending" and "marketability" and "multi-line merch opportunity"

and i see a kid drowning. i am writing to make her a boat. i am writing because what used to be a river raft has long become a fully-rigged ship. i am writing because you can fucking rip this out of my cold dead clammy hands and i will still come back as a ghost and i will still be penning poems about it.

it isn't even love. the word we use the most i think is "passion". devotion, obsession, necessity. my favorite little fact about the magic of artists - "abracadabra" means i create as i speak. we make because it sluices out of us. because we look down and our hands are somehow already busy. because it was the first thing we knew and it is our backbone and heartbreak and everything. because we have given up well-paying jobs and a "real life" and the approval of our parents. we create because - the cliche again. it's like breathing. we create because we must.

you create because you're greedy.

#every time someones like ''AI will replace u" im like. u will have to fucking KILL ME #there is no replacement here bc i am not filling a position. i am just writing #and the writing is what i need to be doing #writeblr #this probably doesn't make sense bc its sooo frustrating i rarely speak it the way i want to #edited for the typo wrote it and then was late to a meeting lol #i love u people who mention my typos genuinely bc i don't always catch them!!!! :) it is doing me a genuine favor!!! #my friend says i should tell you ''thank you beta editors'' but i don't know what that means #i made her promise it isn't a wolf fanfiction thing. so if it IS a wolf thing she is DEAD to me (just kidding i love her) #hey PS PS PS ??? if ur reading this thinking what it's saying is ''i am financially capable of losing this'' ur reading it wrong #i write for free. i always have. i have worked 5-7 jobs at once to make ends meet. #i did not grow up with access or money. i did not grow up with connections or like some kind of excuse #i grew up and worked my fucking ASS OFF. and i STILL!!! wrote!!! on the side!!! because i didn't know how not to!!! #i do not write for money!!!! i write because i fuckken NEED TO #i could be in the fucking desert i could be in the fuckken tundra i could be in total darkness #and i would still be writing pretentious angsty poetry about it #im not in any way saying it's a good thing. i'm not in any way implying that they're NOT tryna kill us #i'm saying. you could take away our jobs and we could go hungry and we could suffer #and from that suffering (if i know us) we'd still fuckin make art. #i would LOVE to be able to make money doing this! i never have been able to. but i don't NEED to. i will find a way to make my life work #even if it means being miserable #but i will not give up this thing. for the whole world.

[stellarspecter]

@pscentral event 20: antagonists ↳ THE LORDS IN BLACK in NERDY PRUDES MUST DIE

#nerdy prudes must die #npmd #starkid #npmdedit #team starkid #the lords in black #hatchetfield #hatchetverse #npmd spoilers #userisiah #userfaiths #userbaz #usercats #userhallie #noooo fucking clue what to tag in this fandom lmao #musicaledit #? sure #anyway yeah i watched npmd and immediately had to make this i was up until 1 am last night #wouldve been earlier but i had to take a break for dnd lol #i was gonna do a tua set for the event but this is easier and better so like. slay #i just wish they had more screen time. pokey and tinky have less than 20 seconds each </3 #oh and the titles and stuff are from the fan wiki. hope i didn't get anything wrong #i've been getting a lot of use out of this motion blur text transition its so funky fresh #*edits

[sapsolace]

obsessed w these boneheads as of late :]

#griddlehark #tlt #the locked tomb #gideon nav #harrowhark nonagesimus #gtn #when u and the situationship livin it up in a haunted palace... FO FREE!!!!! #i wanted 2 do a background 4 this but college and work have been kicking my ASS so #figured i should just post it and move on i got other sketches and wips #anyways hello tlt fans do not expect me 2 draw anything the same twice. love u <3 #in this kitchen we fuck it And we ball. no artistic sameness and we like it that way. i also serve food once a month #stay at your own risk #i've been going insane over tlt by myself on my side acc and the longer i have no one 2 talk abt nona grief with #the more art i will pop out. but also pls i need 2 talk abt this shit w someone i'm coughing and dying out here

[alfalfairy]

I was thinking that it was crazy that the Gukgaks didn't get any kind of financial assistance - including money for post-secondary education - from the government after Pok's death, given his successful track record and dying in the line of duty.

And then I remembered that Kalina pulled strings to get Pok on a list of enemies of the state right before his death which would probably be the equivalent of a dishonorable discharge, and revoke any of that assistance that would have come otherwise.

So it's another thing Kalina took from Riz, besides his father - his chance at college, without running himself into the ground to get there.

#this bitch is the gift that keeps on giving #she's fucked up his life so much #this might have been obvious but i wanted to put it into words #riz gukgak #kalina #dimension 20 #fantasy high #fantasy high junior year

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

he's squeaky toy. to me.

#aough i love him so much.... #i will never be able to recreate this style/design i already know #my love for him is so great that it renders me unable to draw him consistently #it took all of my willpower not to clutter this with heart scribbles #himhimhimhimhimhimhimhimhim- #welcome home #welcome home puppet show #scribble garnish #welcome home fanart #welcome home wally #wally darling #NOOOOOO I MADE HIS CARDIGAN TOO DARK. FUCK #itsfineitsfineitsfine No One Will Notice #sigh. anyway... #i love his lil ascot and bizarre hair and cat smile and- #i have decided to put Slightly More Effort into my doodles. i think it might be worth it #even if the sun is up and my wrist hurty and im tired. i have been drawing for hours und hourz #and putting that right after more hours und hourz of crocheting? Ouch My Tendons

[captainjonnitkessler]

I truly, TRULY do not know how to say this, because the fact that I have to say it makes me feel like I am losing my grip on reality. But no, in the post-capitalistic anarchist utopia, I will not be relying on “autistic minecraft girlies” to be building inspectors because - and this may shock you - one of those occupations takes years of education in how to read and interpret hundreds of thousands of lines of regulations based on complicated math and physics that were the result of decades of tragedy and death, and the other one involves playing a children’s video game.

#i am begging this website. BEGGING it. to stop acting like building codes are state oppression #and please stop reducing blue collar jobs to 'so easy any handyman could do it with a youtube video' #that's how people fucking die #i didn't spend five years learning how to do my job safely to watch people online tell me it could've just been a course in high school #i know that this is like. a minority minority opinion and not really worth getting worked up over #but it's so annoying to see supposed leftists denigrating blue collar jobs like this #same poster also opined that we won't need garbagemen #because 'if the trash is bothering people they'll figure out a way to clean it without having to pick it up' #like what??? does that even fucking mean???? #construction

[umblrspectrum]

you'll never guess which movie i finally watched after 2 years of being lazy

#dont you just love it when your artstyle changes like 5 times in the span of a day #i saw emmachen1003 give them the glove type thingys and went “that looks cool. im stealing it” #so uhm. props to them for being awesome and making cool art #anyways that was a fun movie #not gonna say the title here cause i think it messes with searching and i dont wanna do that #that n frame is like the first time i have ever done a decent angle/perspective thing #im so proud of it you don't even know #murder drones #murder drones uzi #murder drones n #serial designation n #murder drones nori #absolute solver #i guess #or is it absolutesolver #whatever #oh yeah uhmm #murder drones episode 7 #murder drones episode 7 spoilers #murder drones spoilers #its been 2 weeks but im gonna give it another day just to be safe #just realized i fucked up the quote and its pissing me off so edited. go fuck yourself

[words-writ-in-starlight]

listen I expected literally Nothing from the D&D movie okay, like I can't make it clear enough that I expected the most soulless money grab with a good cgi budget imaginable, I went in having already gone through every stage of grief and landed on acceptance and LISTEN

I fucking CRIED during this dumb RPG movie. it wasn't just "not terrible" it was objectively good with a clever plot and compelling characters and sincere emotional beats. this movie loves D&D so fucking much and it NAILS the "a bunch of goobers try to be cool and accidentally discover The Power Of Friendship And Also Great Violence" classic D&D party vibe. their barbarian's last name is fucking Kilgore and my entire family cried in the theater.

I hope they make twelve of these motherfuckers.

#honor among thieves #dnd #dungeons and dragons: honor among thieves #holga kilgore #she is a BARBARIAN whose name is KILL GORE like who among us has not been in a party with this exact character #some new player who picked whatever they were told was the easiest class and gave them a name that is 98% a joke #and just piggybacked their backstory onto the most experienced player's as like rp training wheels #and then smash cut 60 sessions later and we're all getting choked up over john dingus or whatever #do you motherfuckers know how rarely i cry????? about ANYTHING????? #god it was so good #i am going to watch this an unhealthy amount #i want a separate movie for every red wizard and also one about xenk's backstory #his name is X E N K with an X these writers have played some fucking DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS #do i have to buy dead in thay now?????? i think i have to buy dead in thay now #i literally ran dnd on friday and this movie put me in WITHDRAWAL i want to play some dnd Now

[puppyeared]

littlest furth shop

@laikascomet

#i think i had a little too much fun with this lol #i also wanted to draw road boy and other characters but maybe when they actually get introduced #i do have a sketch of him with a lil chainsaw.. im not gonna be normal when he gets introduced man he looks so sillygoofy #if you squint laika's eye marking is a clover yue's is a crescent moon and mars' is a star ^_^ #i wanted to give laika an accessory too but i couldnt think of anything.. maybe a stack of pancakes?? #im curious to see the apocalypse side of the story too.. like so far we have an idea of the comet fucking everything up #and im assuming that lead to a ripple effect causing the apocalypse but exactly how bad?? i cant wait to find out #rn im kinda piecing stuff together.. larkspur delivers mail in a beat up van so that might mean all transportation is grounded #the buildings we've seen so far are intact like the observatory and turnip's house but idk if thats the same for big cities #laikas playlist only includes songs downloaded on yue's computer and there hasnt been internet in 20 years.. but radio signals might #still work.. if yue grows his own food we can assume that mass production and distribution also isnt a thing anymore #sorry im a sucker for worldbuilding.. and the furth puns are fun to me. i like to think toronto would be clawronto.. and vancouver wld #be nyancouver.. barktic circle.. mewfoundland and labrador.. canyada.... #christ i have so many drawing ideas. willow if youre reading this im so sorry youre probably gonna expect to see a lot of drawings frm me #like. i wanna draw laika in the akira bike pose so sosososo bad. IT WOULD BE SO AWESOMECOOL. ill teach myself to draw bikes if i have to #i also wanted to animate laika leekspin.. man #my art #myart #fanart #laika's comet #laikas comet #laika #mars #yue #furry art #fur #littlest pet shop #lps

[clouvu]

Mother and Father 🫶

#genshin impact #arlecchino #peruere #clervie #arlevie #CANON CANT HURT ME IF IM DELUSIONAL ENOUGH!!!! #I feel like im a peasant who was just struck with the bubonic plague #they're rotting my brain so fucking bad ive yet to have a moment of peace since the animated short dropped #head in hands shaking crying throwing up because Clervie would've been a wonderful mother to the hoth children #the way she would've given them all the genuine affection and care she never received from her own mother #Not to mention she wouldve had arle's curse in check and softened her out around the edges for the children as well

[vaguely-concerned]

So much of Garak as a person starts to make sense once you know his childhood was a fucking gothic novel. His main playground was a graveyard and he'd play pretend by perfoming improv eulogies to an imagined audience. For a long time his main touchstone for most important figures from recent history is 'oh yeah I know about that guy my dad buried him. great flower arrangements for that one'. He finds out later his 'parents' are actually a brother and sister who had to get married to avoid the utter shame and social devastation of having a child born out of wedlock, and they live in the basement of his biological father's house. (the madwoman in the attic vs. the tiny elim in the basement.) His biological father calls himself his uncle and locks him in a closet whenever he fails to live up to his insane and unpredictable expectations and everyone just has to act like that's normal and expected, and his will hangs over everything at all times, unseen but always felt keener than anything else. The father who actually raised him grows the world's most beautiful (and as it turns out, most poisonous) orchids and keeps the mask of a god hidden in a box in his work shed. Everyone in the house is choking down secrets like it's the only air they know how to breathe anymore.

What I'm saying is that right from the get-go this guy never had the faintest shot at turning out normal, so I'm glad that by middle age he's found a way to get a bit silly with it as he continues to be deeply deeply not normal about anything ever <3

#guess who's reading a stitch in time! #star trek ds9 #elim garak #a stitch in time #star trek #ds9 #I will make a monster post of asit thoughts eventually but just. jesus christ!!! what a start in life lmao #tolan and tain seem to have been... well not exactly friends probably but to have had some connection beforehand #did tain know him or mila first??? how was mila and tolan's sibling status presumably not known publicly? #at what point during all of that did tain start to have sex with tolan's sister. the more you think about it the more fucked it gets lol #under the circumstances... shoutout to tolan and mila for not leaving him somehow even more fucked up interpersonally than he is #and no thanks to tain for anything ever I hate him so much

[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.''

[chrollohearttags]

meg baby, I promise we’ll all look the other way if you decide to strangle that chimera ant built bitch. I promise we won’t say nothing.

#nicki got to be one of the nastiest bitches I’ve ever seen in my life #you ain’t had a fucking hit in 10 yrs good enough to act the way you do #it’s crazy it took her being so vile to meg for ppl to get it #it’s always ‘protect blk women’ w/her until it’s somebody she don’t like lmao #and her only beef with her is that she collabed with cardi #the only one who stuck by her side mind you so ofc she #she’s been terrible and I remember back in 2017 when ppl jumped me for ‘defending a Latina woman’ over her #the same bitch that co opted a hashtag meant for missing and murdered blk women for her own bullshit #while cardi was using her platform to speak up for breonna Taylor and police brutality? oh okay #she’s a nasty witch and her karma will come #rap beef aside #‘how you got 3 Grammys and can’t stay on beat?’ #how are you the supposed queen and been rapping since Jesus was in Jerusalem but have zero? #bringing up her dead mother..you deserve to rot #cherry chats 🍒 #I’m so happy cardi no longer feeds into her bullshit and lets her stupid ass talk to the wall #all the new girls are outshining her and I’m so glad they don’t have to grovel to her #the fact that these girls just came out and are her competition says more abt nicki than it does Meg cardi latto or anybody else #her peers should be missy kim queen latifah etc #and yet she’s linking up with 23 year olds and beefing with girls 20 years her junior #guess that predator spirit run in the family huh