#I've learnt how to draw when i was like 7 for 2 years

[stachesainzcore]

Guys yk what I sketched Danny Ric😭. I'll post one day if I get confidence.

[intakeofbreath]

I was tagged by @thoseeyeslikefire, thank you!

15 Questions

Answers below the cut:

1. Are you named after anyone?

Nop

2. When is the last time you cried?

Well, I woke up crying yesterday after having one of those vivid dreams. It has been a while since the last one... 🙄

3. Do you have kids?

No, and I plan to stay like this forever

4. Do you use sarcasm?

Not really. I find it hard to use it in regular convos or while joking at all, but somehow it comes natural to me if I'm being mean during arguments, which... is something I'm trying to avoid resorting too at all tbh

5. What is the first thing you notice about people?

Nothing very specific. I'm very bad at reading people.

6. What is your eye colour?

Dark brown

7. Scary Movies or Happy Endings?

Mmh... the only scary movies I like so far are slashers, and yeah happy endings are great but pretty much all the story I end up loving aren't the ones with happy endings. Safer to go with nothing, I guess?

8. Any special talents?

To be honest, my self-esteem is pretty messed up at the moment to consider I have any special talents... I'll pass this question, yeah

9. Where were you born?

Let's say south of Spain, but not quite.

10. What are your hobbies?

I love reading and playing games, mostly on PC. I occasionally write and draw digitally. Lately I'm getting back to do some programming in my free time as well!

11. Do you have any pets?

No :(

12. What Sports do you play/have you played?

Pffff... The only sport I've ever done consistently had been swimming back when I was a kid (up until I was 9 yo). Then I switched to aerobic classes until the teacher and a group of her preferred girls excluded everyone else... Yeah, that happened. I lasted a couple of years, then returned when I was 17-18 and left again because the same teacher and a new group of girls were doing the same bullshit. And I haven't done any sports at all since.

13. How Tall are you?

162cm

14. Favourite subject in school?

I couldn't pick just one. History, physics and technology.

15. Dream Job?

I think there will always be a part of me that wants to know what it is to work at a library or even at a book store, but I think that will never happen. I'm currently working as a developer and software analyst, which is what I studied at uni, and I'm really happy to be able to work in a field I do like a lot. Sometimes I wonder if I should have taken the path of a history teacher... but I recently learnt that I have no patience to teach someone, let alone a group of teenagers... bullet dodged I guess

No pressure tag: @mrslittletall @kayleighwhatever @girlvinland @knighthoneybee @weeb-cheese @darkfirelion

[anxiouslyextroverted]

any hot takes about anything?

I got heaps but the main 2 I've been thinking of currently have been.

I do not like people who tell me that me saying "I have autism" is bad.

I do not like the quote 'practice makes perfect'

So the first one about autism. I got my autism diagnosed at 6 and from that point onwards especially at school, my autism was seen by everyone as just my identity, I was called autistic as an insult on the daily basis and multiple slurs. so the idea that people are trying to say to me that "I'm autistic > I have autism" is weird to me cuz not only have I experienced more ableism from people that have used the "identity first" language, but I also have used these terms interchangeably. Its not that I see autism as a disease, I just used them interchangeably. but I always prefered saying "I have autism" because it makes me feel more comfortable seeing Autism as this extra thing to me rather than just my whole identity because my whole life I've had to convince so many people that no, autism is not just my identity, I have a personality outside of my autism diagnosis ffs. So yeah. Whenever psychologists and people in general saw me as "autistic" that was fine until they made it my entire being. My parents, friends, helper teachers would always say "Oh you're shy right now, thats you being autistic" "oh you're talking a lot its cuz you're autistic" , "You're not introverted, you're autistic." Its fine to use identity first language ofc if it validates you to be proud of autism, but I wish ppl would undestand that there are so many people that are uncomfortable with just being seen as 'autistic' as their identity, when I just can't see autism as my identity. So many times where I've had to tell people all my life "I'm me. My autism BARELY effects me." and im sorry if that is insensitive but its an objective fact for me that my autism does not effect me nearly as much as my helper teachers, friends and family claimed it did. I hope that explains why I just get so annoyed when people try to change my way of seeing it srry. Autism is not who I am. I'm me before my autism. Personality comes first.

And the second one about the practice makes perfect. I have been drawing since I was 7 years old. I drew on the daily basis both digitally and traditionally and I'm 20 now and you'd think I'd be at a pro level since I have been drawing every single day since 7 but no... I'm barely even intermediate. I'm average, I can't even draw angles or perspective and it took me last week to actually know how to draw lighting + lineart. So Practice doesn't always make perfect. What makes you good at things is practicing the right way. My years of drawing never worked out because I am naturally a messy person who can't draw angles and shit like that, I was learning how to draw overall rather than focusing on fundamentals (watching tutorials on how to draw manga chars rather than tutorials on anatomy ect is oof), I treated art like a stim rather than actually focusing like I would dissociate always and not think whilst drawing, memory bad, I have blind optimism which is just seeing things as way better than they really are. It srsly didn't help that so many of my friends learnt how to draw like a pro within 2 WEEKS which was insane to me. So yeah I just hate that quote. I'd ague that even practicing the right way may not even work either, some people just arent born for certain things. Like aphantasia and dyslcalculia seriously impact my ability to draw. Oh and this didn't just happen with drawing but with dancing too, I danced ever since 3 and I should be a pro but I'm not and all my practice amounted to nothing.

so ye theres some takes ig. The 2nd ones less controversial but I just feel so strongly about it cuz im sick of artists in particular getting told "just try" "just draw everyday" "just practice" and fuck it, its how i feel about exposure therapy too. I did performing in front people + public speaking since i was 9 and it never once improved my social anxiety infact I'm pret sure it made it worse. "oh you have social anxiety. just do confident things" bro that doesn't always work for peoplee

[dolldoll5987]

Graduating high school is not worth celebration, it's worth the exact opposite.

As a senior in high school I get bombarded with questions like what I'm going to do after I graduate, like go to college or get a job. I've been suicidal since I was 11, all I want to do is die, which is what I've been trying to do for the last 7 years. I suppose my last fleeting hope was that after school was done I could finally just relax. Now I'm kinda hit with the pressure to do something else... when I don't want to. I mean, sure, being a productive and contributing member of society is all fine and brilliant when you actually have the will to. For the last 7 years all I've had the motivation to do is try to figure out how and get the courage to kill myself. I don't have the energy to go to school, but do because I have this crippling fear that if I miss just one day I'll fail and have to repeat this year of torture.

I suppose what I'm getting at is if all there is in life is to either get a job or go to school to be able to get a job you want (...depending what it is, I suppose), still labour in a way, all for money just to pay to live — what's the point if you don't want to live? Like, it's all work and payments for something I didn't ask for, and didn't want. Why would I put so much energy into that?

Also, I'd like to make a point to say that when I say there's nothing else in life besides that is hyperbolic in its own right. There are friends, family, hobbies/aspirations, whatever. None of these make me happy. I have few friends and no energy to socialise anyway, my family sucks, and I have no aspirations or hobbies. I mean okay I like reading, writing, drawing, and gaming and have a niche interests in things like criminology, forensics, medicine, science, and other stuff, but not enough to make it into a living. Well, maybe, but I definitely don't have the energy to. I'd need more school, and school is the definition of Hell for me. In a lot of ways it made my depression and eating disorder worst, although I do not blame them entirely for these events. I take blame where I need to. My fault for isolating myself (due to lack of energy to socialise, which isn't my fault, but I still made the choice to do what I did), my fault for resorting to an eating disorder as a desperate distraction and to feel good about myself for once. It's my fault, I get it.

Teachers and other staff ask me if I'm excited to graduate and I'm like. Well. I say yes but it's mixed feelings. It's odd, I hate school and want to get out, but when I do that I have nothing else. I don't have the smarts or motivation for college, and I don't see the point in getting a job to labour away and pay to live when I don't even want to be here anyway. I don't hate learning, I just don't like how schools teach. Maybe I'm pedantic about it, but there have been some teachers that give us easy work loads and easy classwork in itself and still managed to leave me feeling like my time was being used well there because 1) I had fun for once, and 2) I actually remembered what I learnt. I wish more people teach like they do. Now I just feel like a big ball of lost potential because I've had so many people tell me I'm smart and even at genius levels yet I never use it in a good way I always do it to detriment myself.

I don't know. Not everything has a good ending, especially not this. I plan on offing myself after I graduate, which is soon. I won't do it immediately after I graduate, probably.

I just. Ugh. I want to cry. I should be happy about graduating, but I can't be. All I can think about is how everyone else has their lives figured out - going to college, getting a job, whatever, while I'll be by myself with no friends, no life, no potential, and bored out of my mind but with no energy to start something. Even then, nothing interests me socially. I hate social interaction to the point of isolating myself entirely just to avoid it, which is a bad thing to do probably, but socialising causes me pain. I feel so different from everyone else and that I'm too weird and people are only ever nice out of pity or deception.

It seems that when I'm very bored, I get the most suicidal. With nothing to distract me I realise how dull and shallow my life is compared to everyone else's. Everyone else has friends, everyone else has at least some happiness, yet here I am with a chronic 😐 expression to the point people constantly ask what's wrong/if I'm okay when it's only my resting face. It's annoying having to always answer. Like... no, I'm not okay, but for the sake of this conversation, yes. I wish I could just disappear forever.

I don't want advice, I don't want help, I don't even want to make it better. I've been on meds and in therapy from ages 7-15, and it didn't help me at all, even made it worse sometimes. My life was doomed from the beginning, and since late 2019 it's gotten so, so much worse. Please, I just want it to end. When will the malnutrition that I've been experiencing for half a year finally just kill me? When will this all end? I want it to end. I want to die. Please.

[wistfullinsomniac]

Being an artist online

I kept thinking about my past 6 years being an artist online, nearing 1k followers on twitter and wanted to write some stuff I've learnt in this time. This isn't career advice or anything like that, I'm not some hugely successful BNF, but just some personal art things I would of told myself when I started.

1) The feeling of getting a piece that gets 100s of interactions from strangers is just as good from getting passionate feedback from 10 of your friends. Trying to aim for maximum engagement is exhausting and it's far more rewarding to create for a small group who appreciate you! Keep creating for yourself and a following will start naturally.

2) Popularity as an artist isn't all it's cracked up to be. Almost every artist I've talked to who achieved huge popularity in a fandom also had to deal with intense scrutiny and imposter syndrome. From the outside it might seem like the end goal of creating art, but I don't think it's a healthy one, especially if you rely on it for creative fulfilment. Create primarily for yourself, you deserve it.

3) No matter how far you take your artistic skills, there's always a bigger goal. You will reach a stage in your art you never considered possible, but the feeling of your work not being up to your personal standard never goes away. Your eyes will always be bigger than your stomach. The only way around this is to internalize it and accept your art for what it is and know you're going to improve with each and every work, as long as you try.

4) The only way to solve a problem like being unable to draw hands or backgrounds is to focus and push through with practice! If you have a weak point in your creations, focus on that and do as much of it as possible. Before you know it, that weak point will become your strongest point!

5) Don't consider yourself as working towards a finished, self contained creation, but rather working as a practice towards your future abilities. This will help with creative blocks and even if you end up unsatisfied with a work, you can accept it as just a part of your practice that will help you in the future.

6) Use references and do studies. Seriously, do a bunch! It's the best way to improve and I know its kind of natural as a beginner to attempt drawing something you've never studied before and to have it not work out, making yourself feel like a failure. It's silly looking back on the things I attempted with no study then beat myself up for not getting to look how I wanted. There's no point where you graduate from using references, only when you've internalized enough details to fill the gaps. If you have access to life drawing classes I can't recommend them enough.

7) Don't focus or agonize over your "style", as a lot of new artists often do. Your style develops naturally as you internalize other works and it's better to try to study as many different styles as you can. You can start choosing directions for your style as you go, but keep in mind your personal style is most often invisible to yourself but visible to others. It's nothing to fret over.

8) Similarly, don't let your "style" become a crutch when it can be a tool. Don't shy away from traditional or technical studies, they really aren't as hard as they seem and having a good grasp of the fundamentals will make you far more confident and equipped to push stylization a lot further, rather than just copying the stylizations of other artists who have studied their fundamentals.

9) Don't shy away from criticism. An experience I've realized I share with a lot of artists in school was receiving a piece of criticism from a teacher or a friend that at the time seemed both cruel and true, making us hate the work and our failure to fix these issues, but the criticism itself was internalized and we improved on these faults in the future, making our work stronger in return. After an experience like this, you begin to seek out criticism a lot easier, because you learn how effective it can be to push yourself further. Can it hurt? Yes, but just like physical exercise it gets easier the more you do it.

10) Burnout isn't a failure or lack of effort on your part, it's a natural and important part of creative improvement. The journey to getting better with your work isn't a straight line, rather it's one with a lot of humps and dips. You will achieve a great work you never considered possible, then languish as the next piece just seems to fail in compassion. During these times it is ESSENTIAL to give yourself a break, take the time to look for new art work to be inspired by and do technical studies as you build up to the next great work. These humps can be almost debilitating the first few times they happen in your practice and I've known a lot of beginner artists who gave up at these points, but once you accept them and no longer treat them as a personal failure, improvement is inevitable! Train and fight! Warriormale!!!

Most importantly in art, have fun with it. Always :)

[petewentzisblack1312]

What got you into fob? I've seen your posts a lot and I always wonder how some peeps found the boys

ok so we have to start when i was about 6 ish years old, 2006 thereabout, when some show comes on and i see some dude on the screen who has like. eyeliner and straight black bangs and i dont know why but this freaks little me the fuck out and i knew 1 thing and it was that this dude was like an example of a cliche rock and roll guy so i decided right then and there i would NEVER get into alternative music because i did not under any circumstances want to look like that.

so fast forward almost a decade, i have just learnt albums are a thing that exist with maroon 5s overexposed (this is so sad alexa press f) and my best friends and i go to the movies to watch big hero 6 bc i thought itd be fun, and i realised Holy Shit I Love This Movie And Also Want To Be An Engineer, and then the scene plays (you know the scene) and my friend and i turn to each other and agree, this song? a banger. hard as hell. love this shit. and i left the theatre and i couldnt get the song or the movie out of my head so i subsequently watched big hero 6 like 2 more times (very major for me, a person who doesnt really watch movies) and listened to immortals by playing the music video (i use the term loosely) on loop for like 2 days. and then i realised, boy. i sure do like this song and i think its my favourite song and i cant even parse the lyrics. i should listen to some other stuff. so i listened to other stuff off ab/ap, on shuffle, and i loved it a lot and i realised immortals wasnt even my favourite song anymore. so i was like dang, if thats the case i should listen to another album by them (because rememver id just learned albums exist) so i listened to save rock and roll, again on shuffle (because it didnt really occur to me that order mattered yet, one foot in the door) and i realised again, liked this even more than what i last listened to. so then i went to folie a deux, and im not sure if i hit shuffle, because the first thing that played was disloyal order. and i thought for a moment something was wrong, because it was quiet, but then there was the click of what i now know to be billiards balls, and the organs, and patricks voice, and i think i met a god when i heard that. i think that did something to me.

from then on i was hooked. im still hooked, mind you, but i have the benefit of not being 14 now. so everything i did had to be related to fall out boy. hell i could play the 7 degrees of fall out boy if anyone would humour me. i was obsessed. so then, a few months later, my art teacher gave us an assignment to draw facial details, but i didnt feel comfortable asking my friends because i wasnt used to having good ones yet so i thought theyd say no, so i decided, hey. google pictures of fall out boy. so i did, i opened google and searched 'pete wentz' and was looking for good pictures to use as a reference and then i came across the exact picture of him that scared me into avoiding alternative music for my entire life up until that point. i honestly dont know which one it is anymore (i THINK it was him in the full band portrait from ioh?) but i still think that its fucking hilarious that seeing pete wentz kept me from realising im a fan of pete wentz. 6 year old dils would hate my style so much til i explain that ironically our exact philosophy is entailed by those scary rock and roll type people. like to a T i was straight up an anarchist (and kind of a communist too?) without even really understanding what that means. its hilarious.

anyway thats how i became a fall out boy fan.

[preyasi]

Thank you so much for the tag!! Your answers are so interesting and I'm glad you got to grow and experience so many new things!! ❤️

1) What is your favourite thing you created? Which work are you the proudest of?

Right now my favorite favorite thing is this fic, about trans!Steve. It took me about 2 months to write, because I wanted to get the emotions just right and true to my idea. I think it ended up being very heartfelt, and I'm happy that it's out there for everyone to read and anyone to relate to! 🧡

2) Is there anything else you are proud of that you achieved this year?

yes, I learned editing images this year!! I've learnt a lot about design and color theory though these edits and what all elements make up a piece. Earlier (when I used to draw more) I tried making them all by hand on paper, but ofcourse not everything would work out the best that way. But this year I have like a whole folder of apps to get my brain child looking exactly as I want.

3) Did you explore anything new this year? (A new way to be creative, a trope you didn't write before or an idea you hadn't thought of earlier, etc.)

Well i explored Bucky this year tbh. and all the rest of my ideas stemmed from him. I made edits, I made moodboards, I thought up headcanons, I even wrote a light dom/sub fic (which I never would've even considered last year), and my writing ideas folder has never grown so fast.

4) Which work gave you the most difficulty? What was your biggest creative challenge this year?

I'd say in terms of work required, the two sambucky gifsets I made were the most exhausting. Because I wasn't using the appropriate apps (or even knowledge about how tumblr gifs work) it took me a whole day to make a gifset.

In terms of emotional energy, it'll have to be the trans!Steve fic again. I have cried multiple times while writing it. That fic has my goddamn soul buried in it, and I love it for that.

5) Which work brought you the most joy?

is it cheesy to say all of them 🥺 (translation: have I not talked about trans!Steve enough?)

Fics take a lot more effort, so they're far and few in between, but they're worth it in the end.

Edits and moodboards barely take time for me (Like I made this one in just under two hours from scratch.) but the dopamine rush is amazing single everytime.

6) Which of your works do you think people should check out?

I'd love if people would check out my first stucky fic, Hold Me In Your Arms, because that's a special one. And the fic I've talked so much about already, the trans!Steve fic, here I am myself (after all the years that passed).

For moodboards I love my sambucky cross ari and dante moodboard, and a Bucky HTP one made for whumptober prompt torture.

7) Do you have creative plans for next year? Is there anything exciting you are currently working on?

I plan to write atleast some of the ideas thatve piled up in my notes app. And if I can handle it, possibly start a multi chapter fic.

I'm working on my follower celebration rn (still have to make the post for that, sigh) so that'll be fun!!!

8) Lastly, any words of wisdom or anything else you would like to share?

Do 👏 things 👏 for 👏 yourself 👏

this would be my biggest advise. I've had moments where I feel like I'm just cranking out stuff for the notes or the engagement and my heart's not in it. That'll make it so exhausting and you will hate it afterwards, as I can see from my personal experience. Make things you like because you want to make them for yourself. Creativity is not a job bestie. 🫂

I'm gonna tag @thepanipurisimp @sunshineomeara @endless-navigator @plutoniumpluto @leave-her-some-bones @ghost-inacup @ginazmemeoir @gopikanyari @allegoriesinmediasres @chucklingmaniacally @randomfandomtraveller @sgt-seabass @poppunksnowwhite @lost-shoe

(feel free to do it whenever, or not do it at all if you don't feel like it) (and anyone who wants to do this, hop on!)

End of the Year Creative Wrap-Up

I am sure there are more tag games like this out there but this was something I thought would be fun! No one tagged is obligated to answer but I thought this would be a nice way to talk about all of our creative endeavors and reflect on the things we made this year ❤

1) What is your favourite thing you created? Which work are you the proudest of?

Picking favourites is hard but I think my favourite fics are let me just stop fighting and the dreamer who built the first trapeze. My favourite moodboard is either The Winter Knight or be soft, be kind. I am also incredibly proud of my enby witch!bucky fic but that one hasn't been shared yet as I am still working on it.

2) Is there anything else you are proud of that you achieved this year?

There was a moment this year where I felt like I wouldn't create again or do fannish things again but I am proud (and glad) that I stayed/came back to it because I ended making lovely things and I am happy to be among friends here <3 I am also proud of myself for sharing let me just stop fighting because it was such a personal story for me.

3) Did you explore anything new this year? (A new way to be creative, a trope you didn't write before or an idea you hadn't thought of earlier, etc.)

I started making moodboards which has been a lot of fun. I like that I now get to share my joy for fandom in multiple ways and it's also a great way to play with ideas I have that I don't know how to turn into a fic :) I also joined a round robin for the first time and it was my first time collaborating on a story in a really long time, it was a joy to particpate in such a lovely project with such lovely people! It made me realise I would love to collaborate more in the future.

4) Which work gave you the most difficulty? What was your biggest creative challenge this year?

I struggled with a few things this year. I planned to do Kinktober and then only wrote 4 fics, despite wanting to do much more than that. A lot of the fics I had planned for that challenge ended up being too much of a struggle. Another big creative challenge I had this year was dealing with insecurity (insecurity makes it so hard to be creative and so hard to share your works and not get sad) and dealing with starting college (because suddenly I don't have all the time in the world to be creative anymore and many more deadlines that have to be a priority).

I have a huge pile of unfinished works because insecurity got to me and I gave up on them. Some works I struggled with that I did share were Fighter (a moodboard) and Stay.

For Fighter I didn't know how to fill my prompt for the longest time and then when I did I struggled with finding pictures and getting them all to match in colour. Out of all my moodboards I think it's one I spent the most time on. Luckily I am pretty happy with the end result.

For Stay I struggled with putting everything I wanted into the fic and getting it to flow right. I also struggled with characterization for this one and still am unsure if I got it 100% right. I feel like I left too many things out in the fic in my efforts to just finish it. Even though it's not my favourite work and there are some things I already want to change, I do think it's a sweet story.

5) Which work brought you the most joy?

The work that brought me the most joy is fell in love when i saw you standing there. That was just such a delight to write and I think it's a really cute fic

6) Which of your works do you think people should check out?

I would recommend checking out these fics Lovely Days, the Pretty Magical series and Hotel Bar Daddy. For moodboards I recommend checking out Quiet Days (Stucky), The Winter Knight (Bucky Barnes), where the sea takes us (Stucky) and i believe we were meant to be (Stucky).

7) Do you have creative plans for next year? Is there anything exciting you are currently working on?

I am still working on witch!Bucky which I hope to share next year. It's a work I am really really happy with and it just brings me joy. I am also planning to join a big bang next year, which would be my first one so that's very exciting. Other than that my plan is to just keep creating things that make me happy :)

8) Lastly, any words of wisdom or anything else you would like to share?

The last things I want to mention is how grateful I have been for everyone who shares their creative works (it is so brave to share your works!) and also that I am incredibly grateful for everyone who has been kind and supportive about my works. Those things truly keep me going even when I do feel insecure about my creations and I appreciate you all SO much. And one last thing: make that self-indulgent thing because it's so so worth it, even if you are the only one who is into it. Create the things you wanna see <3

I am tagging: @dreamsinthewitchouse @otp-holic @steve-x-bucky @musette22 @howdoyousleep3 @christywantspizza @marvelousescapism @turtle-steverogers @dixons-mama @kocuria @blanket-burrito-bucky @greyhavensking @somanywords @moonagedaydreamohyeah @iamthe-wo-manwhocan @its-tortle @moonykat @riricitaa @stevebuckydogtags @between-a-ship-and-a-hard-place and @buckybarnesdeservestobehappy

(Again, absolutely no pressure at all to answer. And if anyone who isn't tagged wants to play, you are more than welcome to! I couldn't tag every creative person I know, Tumblr wouldn't let me haha 💖)