#but that's a different thing

[misc-obeyme]

Barbatos is loved for his perfection, but what if we love him and were not perfect?

This is something I think about a lot. Barbatos is famously good at everything he does, and while that may simply seem impressive and admirable. I van only ever imagine it being slightly painful. Yeah, at the start, I'd be like "Wow, I love my multitalented boyfriend. I love to watch him work his magic." But then when it comes to something I also love doing, I'd just feel inferior.

I'll be using gardening as an example. I love gardening! I've had flower and vegetable gardens my whole life. In fact, I just planted one for this season, and I like to think I'm pretty good at it. So, when I ask Barbatos for some help with my garden, it'll all be fine and dandy, and we'll have a nice little gardening date. All is well until I go to the Demon Lord's Castle and bare witness to the huge gardens with herbs even the masters couldn't cultivate. (Simeon mentions this about Barbatos' Dark Thyme, I believe. Could be wrong, though)

So now, whenever I ask Barbatos for help in my garden, I can only feel that he's bored and believes I'm doing something wrong because he is so much better than I.

Even if it's not him who harnesses a skill, just someone he knows. Barbatos is the butler of the future king of the Devildom, meaning he attends all the balls, meaning he sees the live orchestra. Imagine how inferior I would feel when I find out Barbatos has seen the best cello players of all time play in front of him several times over. Do you think I'd ever want to play for him after that? No way!

That's another thing I often think about. Just the fact that he's done or seen far better shows of skill would completely put me off and make me not want to show him anything in the first place.

I know he'd say I'm silly and reassure me he loves me no matter what. He doesn't care about my level of skill! BUT I CARE ‼️

I think perhaps you're missing one very crucial thing here. Barbatos would love to help you with your garden because it's yours. He would love to hear you play the cello because it would be you he gets to hear. He would see you putting your heart and soul into something you love and that's the part that would matter the most to him.

Imagine that someone you love, who has never gardened before in their life, decides to start a garden. Would it bore you to help them? Or would you see that as an opportunity to flex your own gardening skills? Maybe you tell them about things that messed you up in the beginning and save them from undesirable results. Maybe you feel happy when they succeed because you gave them good advice. Maybe they come across a problem in their garden that you didn't have to deal with in yours, but with the experience you already have about gardening, you're able to help them find a solution.

I feel like I can give some insight on this concept in a more general sense and inevitably it informs how I think Barbatos would be.

I'm kind of known irl for being "the writer." And that means that people want to show me their writing. I've never once read someone else's writing and been like, wow I'm bored and I know I could write this so much better. It isn't my story. It's theirs. And it's theirs in a way that is unique to them. I could never hope to replicate it. Just because they're not as experienced at it as I am doesn't mean it isn't just as important as anything I've written. I get excited when I see people writing because I love to write and now this is a passion we share.

I think Barbatos would be absolutely thrilled that you enjoy gardening. Because it's something he enjoys, too. I don't think he would ever compare you to anyone else, whether you're gardening or playing the cello or writing or even making tea. It doesn't matter how skilled he is or how perfect he is. What matters is that you're doing something that you love and he gets to share a piece of that with you.

Everything has been done before and there will always be someone better at something than you. What makes that thing special is that it's yours. And I can't imagine for one second that Barbatos wouldn't understand that concept on such a deeply fundamental level that he probably doesn't even realize it.

[crymeariveronceagain]

How can you deal with the problem of suffering if everybody conspires to estrange you from suffering?

--- The Only Problem, by Muriel Spark.

[batbcomic]

I love your comic so much! Is there any chance we'll see what happens to Temperance in anything you write in the future?

I have a book with what I'll call "Big Temperance Vibes" lined up for two books from now with my agent, but I think an actual Temperance spinoff would sort of undermine BATB as a standalone. I like the idea of her in a School of Solomanta setting, though, maybe posing as a young scholar...getting mixed up in something dark...needing to nip home to ask some advice about this whole mixed-up-in-magic business... A certain brother-in-law being Very Much Against This...

[butchfalin]

the funniest meltdown ive ever had was in college when i got so overstimulated that i could Not speak, including over text. one of my friends was trying to talk me through it but i was solely using emojis because they were easier than trying to come up with words so he started using primarily emojis as well just to make things feel balanced. this was not the Most effective strategy... until. he tried to ask me "you okay?" but the way he chose to do that was by sending "👉🏼👌🏼❓" and i was so shocked by suddenly being asked if i was dtf that i was like WHAT???? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO ME?????????? and thus was verbal again

[angelicgarnet]

the way people online talk about autism is getting really weird, like do they know that neurotypicals still have interests? that someone being passionate about a hobby doesn't mean they're autistic? you guys know that right

[liones-s]

one of the biggest things I can advocate for (in academia, but also just in life) is to build credibility with yourself. It’s easy to fall into the habit of thinking of yourself as someone who does things last minute or who struggles to start tasks. people will tell you that you just need to build different habits, but I know for me at least the idea of ‘habit’ is sort of abstract and dehumanizing. Credibility is more like ‘I’ve done this before, so I know I can do it, and more importantly I trust myself to do it’. you set an assignment goal for the day and you meet it, and then you feel stronger setting one the next day. You establish a relationship with yourself that’s built on confidence and trust. That in turn starts to erode the barrier of insecurity and perfectionism and makes it easier to start and finish tasks. reframing the narrative as a process of building credibility makes it easier to celebrate each step and recognize how strong your relationship with yourself can become

[eastgaysian]

[bereft-of-frogs]

There’s that post that’s like ‘everyone should get into a tiny niche fandom at least once’ fully agree, that was really fun -- but I would like to add that everyone should get into a fandom where their opinions run counter to major fanon because it really teaches you about sticking to your guns and trusting your interpretation of the text without having to rely on peer validation

because WHAT are people talking about sometimes

[stil-lindigo]

lead balloon (the tumblr post that saved me)

if this comic resonated with you, it would mean the world to me if you donated to this palestinian family's escape fund.

--

no creative notes because this isn't that kind of comic.

I know I don’t owe any of you anything but I still felt compelled to write about my long term absence. And I feel far enough away from the dangerous spot I was in to be able to make this comic. I have a therapist now, and she agreed that making this could be a very cathartic gesture, and the start of properly leaving these thoughts behind me. I am still, at seemingly random times, blindsided by fleeting desires to kill myself. They’re always passing urges, but it’s disarming, and uncomfortable. I worry sometimes that my brain’s spent so long thinking only about suicide that it’s forgotten how to think about anything else. Like, now that I've opened that door for myself, I'll never be able to fully shut it again. But I’m trying my best to encourage my mind in other directions. We'll see how that goes.

I am still donating all proceeds from my store to Palestinian causes. So far, I've donated over $15K, not including donations coming from my own pocket or the fundraising streams which jointly raised around $10K. In the time since I made my initial post about where this money would be going, the focus has shifted from aid organisations to directly donating to escape funds.

If you'd like to do the same, you can look at Operation Olive Branch, which hosts hundreds of Palestinian escape funds or donate to Safebow, which has helped facilitate the safe crossing and securing of important medical procedures for over 150 at-risk palestinians since the beginning of the genocide.

[aparticularbandit]

renge might be my favorite minor character and it has absolutely nothing to do with her being voiced by monica rial absolutely nothing at all because renge is nothing like kirika, she's basically a female hifumi. ish.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

the fact that shakespeare was a playwright is sometimes so funny to me. just the concept of the "greatest writer of the English language" being a random 450-year-old entertainer, a 16th cent pop cultural sensation (thanks in large part to puns & dirty jokes & verbiage & a long-running appeal to commoners). and his work was made to be watched not read, but in the classroom teachers just hand us his scripts and say "that's literature"

just...imagine it's 2450 A.D. and English Lit students are regularly going into 100k debt writing postdoc theses on The Simpsons screenplays. the original animation hasn't even been preserved, it's literally just scripts and the occasional SDH subtitles.txt. they've been republished more times than the Bible

[serialunaliver]

when people talk about serial killers that target women they do not often enough specify it's typically a vulnerable demographic of women (sex workers, often ones in poverty) rather than like, a random woman jogging in an upper class neighborhood. these sex workers are a favorable target due to cops not giving a shit, stigmatization of sex work resulting in these women being isolated, and already existing violent misogyny towards them in our society.

[harbek]

Get ready for a Game Changer!

I̴̫͈͖͠'̸̘̺͛ͅv̸̲̰̦͛e̵̬̪͊ ̸̧̬̤͂b̸̼̰͊͒͜e̵͇͎͐ẽ̶̟ṉ̷̯̪͗͂͒ ̵̭̑̓h̸̬̾̄ḛ̴̛̹̪̿r̸̮̊e̴̖͆̒ ̵̣̬̲̽͝t̴̳̫̔̇ḣ̴͓e̸̥͕̎ ̴̡̧͉̔̒̏w̶̲͑̀͐ĥ̶̖o̴̙̻͂ļ̷̍e̵̫͇̅ ̸͍̓͂̕t̷̗̗̼̂̅i̴̟̞̍̒̈́m̵̲̠̃ͅë̶̡̳͇́͒͐!̵̹̦͌͠

Drawn in Photoshop, animated in Spine Pro. The final art piece I made for my bachelor thesis on GIF as a medium for art.

I've been researching digital art in the context of modern folk art, outside institutional or commercial art. I analysed almost 500 art GIFs across Tumblr, Artstation and GIPHY.

There's almost no academic research on art GIFs, so it was important to me to examine and document it. I also examined the optimisation of GIFs and how it relates to web sustainability.

And because the bachelor program was focused on art practice, I then created my own art GIFs, and it seemed only right that I should do it through fanart of something I've been really into lately. Thanks @samreich and the rest of Dropout for giving me some unhinged content as inspiration. Watch 'Game Changer' everyone, it's great.

[g3othermal3scapism]

rose tyler visiting home wearing tshirts from artists and tours that havent happened yet or tv shows that dont exist yet and everyone thinking she just has weird obscure music taste and is rly weird. its 2006 rose tyler walking down the street and everyone who glances at her shirt is thinking ‘who in the fuck is olivia rodrigo and where did this girl get a 2024 tour shirt’

[gideonisms]

I LOVE being alive so I can be mediocre at SO many different hobbies

[foundfamilywhump]

the question, you see, is not ‘is it too ooc for this character to cry’ but rather ‘what circumstances would push this character to cry’

this is the whump wisdom, go forth and make that character cry