#and i just feel morose

[skitskatdacat63]

Back in my monthly depression era ig but. Thinking about social media and art, and how their relationship has fucked with me. I'm glad I started drawing fanart and I don't regret it. And I think I've really improved my skill this past half year plus. But man it gives me such a terrible complex. That paranoia of "who even would give a shit about this" and "when will people be done with me."

I think any artist always craves some recognition and praise no matter how much you say you draw for yourself. You can draw for yourself but it's still extremely gratifying and inspiring to have people's approval or thoughts on it.I used to draw for myself more and draw so much random art, but I discussed it a lot with friends and it made it more gratifying, to have that interest. And I lost that kinda, a lot. I feel like for a bit btwn losing that and drawing fanart, I can't really remember, I didn't draw as much bcs it just felt a bit unrewarded and it felt bleh.

And then I started drawing fanart. Which felt very rewarding. I'm happy I've not ever really felt the desire to make widely "appealing" art. If you look at even the first things I posted, it's extremely niche, and that's been a lot of fun! But it's also just made me so paranoid and self conscious. What if people get tired of this. What if people find it strange. What if people find it annoying. What if I'm being repetitive. Etc. It's really irritating bcs I KNOW people have told me they find my stuff interesting and that they like it. But my brain can't help but think, what is the expiration date on this, when will it become boring. I discuss my art with people and it's fun, but that self consciousness clings to me like a parasite. Like ah I better hurry this up and enjoy it while I can before they get annoyed and tired of it.

I guess this is all to say, I don't always like my relationship with art, and I hate the way social media messes with your brain. I remember for a bit I would post my art on Instagram and do the whole hashtag game. And then realized it was messing with my relationship with art so I dropped it. And then did the same thing with Twitter, than dropped it, etc. I just hate how I can't let myself enjoy anything. Idk maybe I'm just burnt out or something, but whenever I think of drawing lately, there's just this voice being like "what's the point of even drawing this, why would anyone care." I hate you evil voice in my brain!!!! It's not even a thing about notes, and I feel greedy even simply admitting any of this. I think it's more of a craving of a deeper connection and discussion. Which is what I always seek when I create art. But social media makes you think about numbers and attention and makes it unhealthy and makes you feel guilty for wanting something that's pretty reasonable.

Blah blah blah anyways don't reply to this like, oh you need to fix your relationship w art by taking a break from socmed! It's just this continual cycle and maybe one day I'll break it. But sometimes it just hits harder some days. I just want to stop feeling cringe. I hate it cause internally I'm like "I am cringe but I am free" but that only has to do with actually creating the stuff. Posting about it is the trap I think. Again though, it's natural to crave discussion and approval, but putting myself out there makes me want to curl up in a ball. I miss the days when I was younger and creating all kinds of random art and forcing it upon people with absolutely no shame. But now it's like. I toss my art into the room and shut the door and hide behind it with bated breath. And it often feels like any conversation I have just sates me for a tiny bit and then I go back to feeling empty. Is it ungrateful? Or is it just natural to want to keep having and partaking in a good thing?

Someone sent me advice on this feeling at some point, about how its better to talk to people individually rather than just on main. And I agree! I had a lot of fun the last third of last year. And for some reason it's just felt different ever since the new year began. I just don't know how to recover, and to start having fun like that again. I've drawn a lot of things I've immensely enjoyed since the year began, but for some reason, which I can't really parse, have had way worse self loathing and insecurity about it all. I just wanna recover my joy back :( is that too much to ask

Tldr; yay art improvement! Complex ideas! Much discussion! However: nay! Makes me feel cringe! Makes me feel like I'm running on limited time! Makes me crave too much!

[specialagentartemis]

The end of a fandom fixation is such a bittersweet feeling. It’s like a fever breaking; you were in the throes of it for a year, two years, however many, it’s all you think about, you want to discuss it and create for it and relate everything back to it, it’s the constant running background noise of your brain. And then something happens or maybe nothing happens. And one day you realize that you don’t really care like that anymore. You don’t feel the desire to check the Tumblr tag or keep up with the AO3 tag and the fan conversations spinning ideas about it don’t give you the urge to join in. You sit down to your fanfic WIPs and don’t really see the point. You’re looking forward to the next installment but don’t feel the need to Do Fandom about it. It’s gone from your Fandom back to a thing you just like.

[doeeyeddyke]

the thing about being a queer Muslim is that i'll see someone with a flag or a sticker or pin or some such and i want so dearly to at least say hi or show some sign of joy or acknowledgment or community but no one actually wants a Muslim who is also a queer and are discomfited by the thought and implications of it

(i've found that they especially are thrown off by my wearing a burqa and masking, whether they think i'm just an ally or not)

[joelletwo]

[ID from alt 1: sketchy gintama thumbnails: a sitting takasugi in ominous shadow, gintoki resting an elbow on a desk with hand on his head, kagura in a curled up crossed leg sit eating something, gintoki slumped over leaning his weight on his sword confusingly positioned around his head, gintoki opening the door to a building zura hides under the stairs to, gintoki standing straight and flinging his sword arm out, takasugi lounging in a circular windowsill bansai kneels in front of

2: same pic opacity lowered to show these were drawn, in the same order, over capital letters A-G respectively]

idle practice while i try to find good art youtubers.....................

[deadgit]

4 AM and I can't sleep... so it's time to post my deeply unpopular, but fervently held belief that Rimmer fell first, but Lister fell harder.

[bcneheaded]

I was just thinking and... Artemis is not kind. yes, for all his friendliness, and all the fancy and amicable language and behaviors he displays outwardly to just about everyone who enters his shop... he's not genuinely nice. Artemis is a demon. in any verse of his, he used to be something akin to a spirit/god of LOVE, but was twisted into Wrath, or Hatred - which is the opposite. After leaving the pits of hell, having his little demonic tantrum and breakdown and finally growing weary and finding some semblance of clarity, he's grown out of what he was once again, and became something new. He's still wrathful, hateful, angry, and morose, but now he's so much more without even realizing. He's evolved and will continue to do so over time even if he stagnates for decades, centuries even. The friendships and relationships with other muses that he develops will influence his personality and the way he views things in time, as we've seen it happen already countless times ofc! And for those who did earn his respect and care, he does truly care for them and would gladly go out of his way for them (to what degree depends entirely on the level of closeness). But again.... Artemis is not kind, by nature and he hasn't been for a very, very long time. He was genuinely just plain and simple EVIL He was a villain - a monster, unrecognizable to how he acts now- doing horrible, unspeakable deeds for the pleasure of it. It's how he got the bones he wears in and on his body. So while he might be polite, charming even, and friendly - if he does not know you... he doesn't care about you nor what happens to you. If say for example, he sees you wandering that ruined cityside he lives in - rampant with entities that prey on the Living - and he saves you from being taken by evil spirits or demons? Chances are good that he did it for himself, or to be spiteful - to deny the other entities their prize (you / your soul). If he doesn't know you, the likelihood that he'll go out of his way for you is very low. But if there's something in it for him, some kind of reason as to why it might be worth his time and energy to actually step in... he might! But like all demons, it's good to be wary and to assume he doesn't care about you or your well-being, at least at first!! Artemis is not nice, but that doesn't mean he's malicious or cruel (anymore. not intentionally - he's quite literally under the mindset that he's just 'too old and tired for that nonsense'.) Artemis is manipulative, charming, cunning - he's everything you expect from a demon (though without a host, so he's certainly not attractive in any semblance of a conventional manner lmao - but he dresses well! and I think it's also telling just how-- *gestures at all that* --that he actually is, considering he's NOT attractive... but still puts people at ease, mostly, and can charm them to hell and back if he wanted to. He uses that not to manipulate people per say ?? like, he does not have an evil agenda by any means. He's just existing at this point, distanced from the gods and devils and just living his... life(?) if you can call it that. He's TRYING to do better. But he's still just... a demonic entity. A greater demon, for sure, if he had to be equated to some kind of level or whatever, but a demon nonetheless. But even for demons, there can be growth! and he is growing, very very slowly.

[uncanny-tranny]

I don't necessarily buy into the idea of love languages, but I think figuring out how you show your love to others can be such a great idea.

I've learned that I show love through gift-giving and creating things with my loved ones in mind. While this won't be compatible with everyone, the core of why you like expressing your love in particular ways can help you explore how to expand on how you express it.

I think this is important because I think we should strive to be adaptable and to understand ourselves as deeply as we understand the people we love. By getting to know yourself, you can how to appreciate all these qualities about you

[kanerallels]

It has been an Interesting Day today

[skitskatdacat63]

2023 Las Vegas Grand Prix - Qualifiying - Fernando Alonso

[eccentricmya]

I find it strange that people here would obliquely comment on the creative choices of their fellow artists/writers in the fandom.

Yes, there are times when we do not agree with someone's depiction of a character, but don't like, don't read exists? And if you stop reading, then what's the point of dredging your irritation up? There will always be fandom trends that don't agree with your headcanons or perhaps even go wildly against established canon. But fandom is a free-for-all sandbox. You cannot dictate it to your liking.

Yes, I'm aware I'm being a hypocrite right now. Making the same vague posts and trying to dictate what one writes on their own blog. But I thought of how seeing such shading posts might make a newcomer feel about sharing their creativity that follows the fandom trend. How a post made in a joking manner might scare someone shy about to post a fic/art with the same 'irksome' concept.

So maybe some posts are meant to stay in the drafts, folks. Or shared with your bestie in private messages. (Perhaps this post is one such example.)

[stupidcanofpeaches]

sometimes i feel like im running out of time to do anything. i see all this art around me gorgeous sketches and edits and animatics and i think man i wish i kept doing this back when i had more free time more energy. i wish i was brave enough to keep singing i wish i kept trying to learn how to play guitar i wish i kept drawing my shitty little sketches and i just didn't. i didn't. so what now? all i can do is write and it just doesn't feel like enough it really doesn't. i feel like i was more brave when i was a teenager. now i open one of my many empty sketchbooks and i look at the page and i swear one of these days ill cry real hard about it. nowadays its like if im not instantly good at something it doesn't feel like its worth to continue. i draw a character, the character looks like crap and i feel like crap and i put it down. all of my expensive watercolor pencils and nice markers and oil pastel are just gathering dust while im waiting to feel brave enough to tackle my failures. and its not like i owe this to anyone to do this, i don't have to be very good at it to enjoy it but something in me doesn't allow it. why must i feel like it needs to be good why must i feel like i have to get something out of it whether attention or validation or profit. why can't i just do my shitty art for the sake of it and the enjoyment of the process of creating something?

its not supposed to be a race and im not losing but ill be damned if it doesn't feel like im dead last in some marathon i did not want to participate in.

[aeide-thea]

do you ever think abt like. how it takes you twice as much work to arrive at half as much personhood and by the time you've managed to scrape yrself together that far the ppl you were trying to join in with have moved on

[beeapocalypse]

been a real detached couple of days. dont know why

[disengaged]

i worry that i will never really feel whole again

[upwards-descent]

Ooh we gettin cuddly drunk in the apartment club tonight

[feline-evil]

As someone who, due to life factors i don't wish to detail, had turned to social media years ago as his only way to find any kind of social interaction or ability to find others like himself i find the slow, disgustingly pitiful deaths that capitalism is causing to major sites not only incredibly aggravating but also deeply sad and worrying. The internet is getting more and more sprawled out and disconnected and there are both more and more sites and yet fewer and fewer places that really feel like you can congregate on and easily find things you're into and people who are into them too, it feels like community is harder and harder to foster; and lets not even get into how hellish this is if you are a fulltime independent artist online who has yet to create a large enough fanbase to support you and follow you to wherever you have to go when the next site inevitably becomes unusable or hostile to you. And i know we like to encourage people to touch grass and go offline and make connections out in the real world and i agree that that is incredibly important, but i do feel like there's this elephant in the room of the fact not everyone can; the circumstances i have existed in have shut me off from socialization and i HAD to turn to the internet for it, and i KNOW i am not the only person who has lived their life in this position! People who are broke, disabled, live in areas hostile to them or simply devoid of community and without social events; sometimes the internet IS your best bet at socializing and i really do worry about people like this, like me, as the internet slowly rots as it is lately.

The internet was also for me, and i'm sure many others, the only place i could explore my queerness and learn about such concepts as being trans; if it hadn't been for social media sites like this one (as occasionally well meaning but clouded by discourse as it was) i would never have even known trans men existed nor that i could be one. I would have had no idea what was 'different' about me or that i could choose to be something other than that which was slowly destroying me with the grief i felt for having to be it. I never would have met my boyfriend either, nor my friends; you can scoff if you like but genuinely the amount of life changing and life saving things the internet have provided me with have ensured i am still here today. I don't know, i'm just mournfully watching as the year slowly erodes what little i've had over the years in terms of people seeing what i make or having spaces to talk to one another and I'm worried about how bad this is going to get. With every death of a social media website that's become The One we congregate on we each spread off into a million different smaller, harder to find each other on ones, and who among us can really say they have the same time to give 5 different sites that they give to 1. My world was lonely before the internet became a thing i could access, and so was many other peoples i'm sure. I'm worried about it becoming that lonely again for people.