#“I was here like this too”

[moriamori]

Even now I feel the ghosts of muscles and nerves wishing to induce pain, as my upper torso works on healing missing skin from ripped kinetic sports tape used in recovery.

The words "Do what you love while you still have the bodily means to do it" rattles through my bones, I'm not that old by human standards but the sense of a countdown remains regardless. Comics are a deep love of mine. They're also the medium to tell a story very, very slowly.

With an average life span of 80 years, knock off my current 30, that's 50 years left. A completed series could take about ten years, many have taken longer. The manic could commit maybe five stories. Realistically, most manage half or a quarter of one. Maybe complete one. Maybe two. And my arms hurt, my spine pinches. My fingers tingle.

With my current funds, I choose between one physio session for the month, or hope to save up enough for an ergonomics assessment of my awful workdesk-setup in a slanted apartment, with a chair too big and items eternally too wide, too heavy for me. "This time," I say, "This time, this will help me get closer to drawing again".

I had wanted to be a freelance illustrator, when I realized my day job would never financially reflect the amount of work I do or don't put in. I wouldn't be able to increase my funds if I took on more work. My job will only realize they can expect more work out of me for the same pay. Getting hired elsewhere, while a possibility, would likely involve obtaining a new job that is twice as stressful and pays a tiny bit more. I don't even want this career.

I used to do commissions. I used to draw like I breathed. The irony of working in an art school is that the continuous exposure to technique and "how to get better", mainly makes you able to see your own mistakes and your own shortcomings over and over again. It's always about improvement. Find the faults, do better. Do better. Do better.

Don't sing this way, sing that way.

I feel like I've lost my voice. I feel like my voice hasn't much to say, actually. I know people loved it, once. People even demand my return.

"I want to see the next pages." "Where's that comic you said you'd do?" "Made any art recently?"

Positive attention doesn't pay bills, doesn't give me lunch, doesn't offer insurance for my physio therapy bills. It almost did. But I would have to keep performing. Keep producing through the burn. And I want to. I do. That's the awful thing in the end. I also want these pages done.

I want to love to create again. I remember I loved. I loved fearlessly. Made fearlessly. I embraced bad art. Minimalist art. Shitty art.

"I know you can make better than this." "You didn't put effort in this one."

Please put effort in me.

I am sorry the previous conditions I worked in were not enough, and the past support was not enough. I did have patreon. I did have some support. I had people willing to pay me for my time and effort and they even had patience. It was almost enough. Almost.

A flower still wilts if only given a slice of the sun it needs. It can try to grow in those conditions but it isn't going to be good.

"It used to be enough before!"

Maybe I grew. Maybe my appetite and my needs got bigger. Kids' meals don't fill me anymore. What right do I have to ask for more, when I have nothing to show for it? When what I make, may end up being terrible regardless?

"Remember you will love," I tell myself once more. Maybe I'll love regardless, in the end. Pages or no pages.

I do love terrible comics, in the end.

[the-gayest-sky-kid]

god i love my friends. shout out to people who love their friends. this is a post for friend lovers

[bbbbbbbbatman]

Bruce keeping a tighter and tighter lid on his identity around the Justice League because with each new person to reveal their identity he realizes that he has fucked far too high a percentage of his co workers as Bruce Wayne and he has to take this secret to his grave

[mynnthia]

was talking with a friend about how some of dunmeshi fаndom misunderstands kabru's initial feelings towards laios.

to sum up kabru's situation via a self-contained modernized metaphor:

kabru is like a guy who lost his entire family in a highly traumatic car accident. years later he joins a discord server and takes note of laios, another server member who seems interesting, so they start chatting. then laios reveals his special interest and favorite movie of all time is David Cronenberg's Crash (1996), and invites kabru to go watch a demolition derby with him

[artkaninchenbau]

Crocodile finds a strange stray cat an 11-year old Nico Robin (AU where they met 13 years earlier. Robin's been on the run from the World Government for 3 years. Crocodile's 27 and has not set up base in Alabasta yet)

It seems like I have become possessed. By some sort of demon.

Bonus:

[bread--quest]

visitor at our museum made a comment today that made me question a lot of things so i'm making a poll about it

the scenario: it is a beautiful day outside and by beautiful i of course mean "cloudy with a chance of rain". sky is gray. smells rainy. possibly already drizzling. you don't really know How rainy it's going to get, but there will definitely be Sky Water happening for a good portion of the day.

also feel free to mention where you're from, if you think it's relevant or just want to give a shout out to your location

[chloesimaginationthings]

The FNAF Vanessas meet their younger selves..

[pokimoko]

I can't keep being fundamentally changed as a person by animated movies, it's just not sustainable.

[shootingstarrfish]

psychic kiddies having lunch!

[greykolla-art]

“I’m a SHARK-” said Alastor the deer demon, “because it’s a good metaphor!’

(NO I will not do a part 2!💕)

[inkskinned]

this is just my opinion but i think any good media needs obsession behind it. it needs passion, the kind of passion that's no longer "gentle scented candle" and is now "oh shit the house caught on fire". it needs a creator that's biting the floorboards and gnawing the story off their skin. creators are supposed to be wild animals. they are supposed to want to tell a story with the ferocity of eating a good stone fruit while standing over the sink. the same protective, strange instinct as being 7 and making mud potions in pink teacups: you gotta get weird with it.

good media needs unhinged, googling-at-midnight kind of energy. it needs "what kind of seams are invented on this planet" energy and "im just gonna trust the audience to roll with me about this" energy. it needs one person (at least) screaming into the void with so much drive and energy that it forces the story to be real.

sometimes people are baffled when fanfic has some stunning jaw-dropping tattoo-it-on-you lines. and i'm like - well, i don't go here, but that makes sense to me. of fucking course people who have this amount of passion are going to create something good. they moved from a place of genuine love and enjoyment.

so yeah, duh! saturday cartoons have banger lines. random street art is sometimes the most precious heart-wrenching shit you've ever seen. someone singing on tiktok ends up creating your next favorite song. youtubers are giving us 5 hours of carefully researched content. all of this is the impossible equation to latestage capitalism. like, you can't force something to be good. AI cannot make it good. no amount of focus-group testing or market research. what makes a story worth listening to is that someone cares so much about telling it - through dance, art, music, whatever it takes - that they are just a little unhinged about it.

one time my friend told me he stayed up all night researching how many ways there are to peel an orange. he wrote me a poem that made me cry on public transportation. the love came through it like pith, you know? the words all came apart in my hands. it tasted like breakfast.

[hinamie]

sympathy for cain

[brainrotcharacters]

the easy grip on the knife. the leg over the seat. the hand over the other seat. the sassy "come get it" move. you know the bitch is smiling behind that mask even as he said the line.

[sheepgirlmaidtummy]

man. this whole thing pisses me off because like. even when people talk about staff having a history of hating trans women, that this isnt the first time, without fail black trans women are forgotten to be included again and again. im not surprised this caused such an uproar when the popular white woman gets deleted. nobody should be, its been that way like forever. some cunt in my inbox got annoyed i called rita a sex worker (lol? okay)

but i mentioned that in my post because so many black trans women have gotten removed from this site for their sex work alone, regardless of if it "broke community guidelines" or not, especially when tumblr live and the ads on this website are so fucking horny. idek what to say rn because like. this wont get as many notes as the posts talking about her will. the exploding car thing is gonna get more attention than the trans women on this site you dont actually care about listening to. ive been talking about how unfair it is to be a black tgirl on this site for years and nobody cares.

i love rita, we talked abit the other day and she's doing fine, dont get it twisted and think i hate her or some bs, she's a big fucking reason im not fucking homeless.

but part of why her deletion got to #1 trending on tumblr for multiple days in a row is that she's white

[fluentisonus]

He added, after a pause: “Remember this, my friends: there are no such things as bad plants or bad men. There are only bad cultivators.”

Les Misérables, Volume I / Book V / Chapter III, trans. Hapgood

[captain-mozzarella]

Obi and his padawans :3

I wanted to redraw this but I thought it would be more fun if I did a continuation instead :))))

My original file was apparently too big X)