#edit: it makes no sense bc this got posted. if it's my internet how can it manage to post my post but not my comment???

[bat-the-misfit]

is it just my stupid internet or is any of you also not being able to answer comments???

[nothing0fnothing]

when i post things about narc abuse on my blog i occasionally get ppl being like "don't classify all ppl with npd as abusers!!!" when i didn't say that? tbh on the whole "is narc abuse ableist" thing i defer to my best friend's wisdom, he recently graduated with a BA in psychology (im so proud!!!) and he said smth to the effect of "if you're trying to diagnose them with npd to demonize them then yeah not good but also narcissistic is a word independent of that diagnosis so context is important" its like how ppl without depression can still say theyre depressed or someone without anxiety can say theyre anxious yknow? context matters! i call my parents narc abusers bc it "fits the bill" as in from the medical studies ive read from professionals, all this criteria fits their behavior, not bc i actually believe they have npd. their actions are narcissistic but actually having npd is a question i can't answer.

the point being: im sure you get a lot more comments like that on your blog than my own. the few i get make me upset for a while bc it feels so invalidating (or maybe im just chronically online lmao.) how do you deal with it all? i'm sure the answer is just "block" but does it go deeper? it must feel awful to be called ableist when all you've done is try to spread awareness about a very real thing that happened to you. i could use some of your strength bc your blog is still going strong even amidst the hate 🙏

This ask was actually so lovely to read. You're eloquent and educated and if you'd like to dm me please do any time I'd love to chat with you and check out your blog.

You're absolutely right about narcissism and NPD. Narcissism is a personality trait. One that most healthy people posses. You can't diagnose someone a narcissist, because "narcissist" isn't a disorder.

There's a misconception that NPD is the clinical diagnosis for excessive narcissism. Actually, the diagnostic criteria for NPD is very clear that one does not even have to have narcissistic traits to be diagnosed with it. And it has nothing to say about abusing others, so how recognising abuse is considered a drive by diagnosis of NPD is beyond me.

Saying your abuser is narcissistic doesn't mean you think your abuser has this specific disorder. We know this so to us it's common sense. Unfortunately common sense isn't so common, especially in the narcissistic positivity side of this app.

It's so easy to feel provoked when you know all this, and you're educated and you just want to make content that will connect you to a community of other survivors. Only for some asshole who barely knows what NPD is, decides they're going to make your trauma all about it. It's not chronically online to be made upset by behaviour like that. People like to tell us the Internet isn't real, but when it's our connection to communities of people who share our niche experiences, it is real. Don't undermine yourself when you feel upset like that. Words can hurt anyone, even when they come from an ignorant low life who thinks they can clean up the internet, one trauma support blog at a time.

Me personally? I like to wait to hit the block button till after I've goaded them into an absolute breakdown. It entertains me to no end to watch them rage like toddlers as they start to realise they know next to nothing on a topic I've absolutely schooled them in. It sounds cruel but I have no sympathy for arseholes, especially when they're intentionally spamming random accusations and slurs on my vent posts in hopes they can get a rise out of a vulnerable person. I might make a "narcissists rage at facts and logic" compilation for my own amusement... But that's not really helpful advice to anyone who isn't a bitter hag, like me.

When I first started on this platform I kept my most common response paragraphs in my notes and clipboard to paste and post when I got the same asks day in and day out. It really helped me to reply in a measured way I knew was proof read and edited without having to exert the mental energy it takes to type out a whole reply every time you get one. This of course is if you're so inclined to engage with them.

I also have a limit for how long I'll engage. Usually my rule is I stop responding when they stop asking questions, because my blog is here to be supportive, not to receive criticism from the pro narcissist community. When they stop being coherent and and start being belligerent, that's when will always I block them and that's usually the end of it.

I did have one guy who I'd blocked on 3 or 4 seperate accounts for being belligerent. He was making new accounts every time to spam my asks and reblogs with increasingly ridiculous, heinous and obviously ragebaity shit. I just reposted his replies onto reddit where the crowd is, let's say, more critical of behavior like that. He had an epic meltdown and I've never seen his username ever again. If you're not comfortable doing that, let me know and I'll do it for you. You'd be doing me a favour because I'm a little shit and I love to watch the fireworks.

My last bit of advice to you is to make mutuals and make them friends. I struggle with being sociable in any consistent way, but a few messages back and forth to foster a good relationship with the community is so helpful. It makes your blog feel like an actual supportive environment. It puts your content across the dashboards of more sympathetic people and less losers thanks to the algorithm. Most importantly, when you have friends on this app they're more likely to back you up when an absolute cretin who snuck onto earth decides to pick on you for no reason. Having that back up is invaluable to blogs like ours and it's so important to have it when you're just starting out, especially if you're already getting the narc apologists in your notifs.

That being said, I genuinely do hope you reach out to me. I'd love to be able to send you some more of my strength when you need it. 💛🤎💛

[greenokapi]

So… what do y’all do when you wanna do a bajillion things but you can’t settle on which thing to do so you just kind of end up doing nothing?

… lissen I’m still only recently diagnosed with adhd so I still don’t know how to work with it… I wanna draw so many things, wanna make merch, comics, I wanna write a fuckton of silly cringe fanfics… I wanna make videos? Like maybe youtube videos rambling abt stuff while drawing but then I don’t know if anyone would even be interested in that, and besides I haven’t done video editing in…. Probably close to 20years? What program should I use? Anyone got any tips on that?

I also wanna make stuff, lil bead things like these guys I made a while ago for example

I also wanna try doll customization cause it’s kinda only been the last decade or so where I’ve allowed myself to like dolls… reasons for that being … uh… gender stuff… it’s like only now in my life, around 30 have I finally gotten somewhat close to getting a grasp on my gender and sexuality, and I never even really realized before that this was something I had a problem with? Which probably makes no sense tbh…

I also wanna do sculpting and even paint, after art school teachers made me feel like I should never paint again bcs idk man I wasn’t up to their standards 🤷

And… I wanna do all this stuff but not only does brain say ‘adhd my guy’ but there’s also my increasing health issues that… I mean I’ve always had them but I guess getting older makes it harder and harder to constantly deal with them… and that’s another thing I never really realized was so bad until back when I was in Japan in 2015-2016 as an exchange student and would have to go to the hospital increasingly often bcs of pain nobody could diagnose… aand then I was shamed for it bcs having to go to the hospital in the middle of the night sometimes was a huge hassle to the dorm staff, idk I was a problem…

Since then I’ve had two operations and will probably need to have more in the future. Also, amusingly, when I finally got diagnosed I was looking at the list of symptoms, all of which I could relate to in at least some way, but the ones that stood out, for some reason, were ‘constant exhaustion’ and then below it was ‘insomnia’ and… maybe I’m not actually lazy when I’m tired all the time? But y’know, I don’t really wanna use a chronic condition as an excuse to just do nothing, plenty of ppl have chronic problems but still do stuff with their life… but when I think like that I also remember this isn’t a ‘pain competition’ or something like that and different people just have different capabilities to deal with chronic pain and such… idk, I honestly think I’m still trying to come to terms with the realization that being exhausted and in pain all the time probably counts as some kind of disability….. but I don’t feel like I’m allowed to say I’m disabled bcs I do also have good days, you know? I should probably try harder to just DO things?

Ahem, it’s like 9AM and I haven’t been able to sleep and stuff hurts… I just wanna go do something productive but instead I’m whining on here which I probably shouldn’t do bcs this is the internet and strangers can see what you post and maybe use it against you but also sometimes you just really wanna rant into the void… or maybe more like semi-void cause idk, maybe someone reads this and can relate or give advice or just talk or something? Buuut you suck at talking… then later you feel embarrassed about your tired rambles and probably end up deleting them and just bring them up in therapy later like you should…

Anyway, until this embarrassment pops up I’m probably gonna try to find some painkillers and go draw or something -3-

[florelia12]

I didn't come from any insta post idek you had a winx insta I found your account a couple hours ago. second, I do edits for the winx and I just have a hard time looking for tanned green eyed dirty blonde girls, so it does get annoying when people are screaming in your ear to find latinas.

I know flora was modeled after jennifer lopez, who is of puerto rican ethnicity but a freaking gringa and the worst example to represent latinas and I am a latino bc she's a weirdo but I won't say any farther. and for the record, it's hard to find girls that 100% fit flora's physical traits.

we all know she's latina. it's just that latinas like her are 3% of the race. ofc we ain't gonna have the perfect human version. they exist but not on the internet yet.

second of all, when I got into winx I didn't see helia as asian. it was people saying it. I thought he was just a guy with cat eyes bc there are non asians with cat eyes AND HE'S ANDROGYNOUS. it's not an asian exclusive feature. his eyes are clearly different from musa's and her dad.

the reason for that is bc he was supposed to be a female character so his eyes are similar to female characters than the male characters. HE'S ANDROGYNOUS sorry I had to say it again. please take that anger somewhere else. not all of us have the same perception of the characters as you.

Okay first of all...You come into my inbox and make careless comments and then tell me take my anger elsewhere?

I’m not attacking you after finding some random post of yours. You came into my inbox. You are online. If you are going to say shit online be prepared to piss people off. I would still be pissed off by what you said even if I didn’t have a bad day. I reacted the way I did because of your ‘cat eyes’ comment. 

I never said Jennifer Lopez is the all fucking shit. With everything that’s coming out about her yeah she’s a shitty celebrity. All I said was she inspired Flora.

But you came into my inbox and said “sometimes it's easy when people aren't in your ear telling you flora is latina bc she might be”

These words, regardless of what you said after this about not finding pics of her, imply that you don’t think Flora is necessarily Latina, "she just might be", and you find it annoying that people are telling you to be mindful of your edits of the character. 

If you can’t word your words right then you can’t come after me for understanding them the way you wrote them. 

You saying you’re Latino isn’t the trump card you think it is. People can have internalised racism against their own race (I’m not saying you, I don’t even know you). Me mentioning my race was to prove that not all Asians are the same, that it's a continent not a race. Though of course I agree all Latinos don’t look the same, that was not what I said. 

If people are telling you to find pics closer to how she looks, i’m sorry but I’m inclined to agree with them than you right now because I don’t even know what edits you are talking about. For all I know you could be whitewashing her. I can’t make a judgment on you without seeing what you do but i can make a judgment on a conversation YOU started with me. 

You said “she might be” and now you’re going to come here and said “we all know she’s latina” and come after me??? Go check yourself first. 

I think it’s common sense that you can’t find someone who looks like an actual cartoon character. Jennifer Lopez’s hair was dyed to the color it is so yeah you’re not going to find someone exactly like her. Then you also say it's easier to find a “perfect tan girl with green eyes” if�� “people aren’t in your ear telling you flora is Latina”. So then you’re saying you can find people with her traits? How do you know what race they are then if they’re not celebrities I guess? If you don’t know what race this person is online and you can’t find out but they fit your character then I don’t see the problem. I’m not saying they are most likely Latina but I don’t get what your point is here.

Your words conveyed that you were annoyed people were asking you to stay true to her Latina inspiration. I’d get it if they are expecting you to check all three boxes in every edit and that’s annoying you.  That even if you put in the effort to make edits of a darker skinned girl with brown hair they are coming at you cause her eyes are not green. But that’s not what you said in that post, instead you conveyed you were annoyed about the fact that people insisted she was Latina. So yeah, I’m going to think you are being racist and I am going to call it out. 

I never fucking said insta account. I don’t have a winx insta account. I said “this account”. My tumblr on which I replied to your post. Literally said in one post years ago i find it weird when people hc musa and helia as cousins and someone got defensive. 

Go read what i said before you come at me. Even if i was mad, i re read that at least 10 times to make sure I was saying the right things and I wasn’t getting mad for no reason.

And the Helia thing…

Who the fuck said he was supposed to be a girl? It’s literally fandom talk. It’s not a fact and I explicitly said Helia was never said to be Asian but he is depicted similarly to asian characters. In canon, Helia is not a girl and he does not look the way he looks because he was meant to be a girl. A lot of guys in Winx (even outside of specialists) have long hair because that’s always what they say when they want to claim “Helia was supposed to be a girl”. Or his name having feminine greek origins but this post is already getting too long to get into this and there are more impt points.

Look don’t read what some people post on insta facts or the winx wiki (run by people who never quoted that statement) and come argue with me about perception. People always quote Iginio when talking about Flora being inspired by Jennifer Lopez or Musa being inspired by Lucy Liu even if you can't truly trace it back but not once have I seen people quote Iginio when talking about Helia.

If Helia was really meant to be a female character then please point me in the direction of where anyone found that information outside of Winx Wiki where they quote "This could hint at the possibility of Helia originally being planned to be a girl". But it’s hard because we barely have enough information about characters as it is so you can’t claim that yes Helia was always meant to be a girl.

Whether you think he’s androgynous or not is not relevant to the conversation but why bring it up in a conversation about whether or not he is asian? 

My problem with you is you saying “helia to me he's not asian he just has cat eyes.”

My problem with you is using the term cat eyes in relation with asians. 

Here is a post explaining why it’s not a crime to not see him as Asian but also explaining why he’s heavily coded as Asian and why people ignoring it can be iffy. I want to highlight para 4, 5 and the last two paras as well. 

“The fact that you said he just has cat eyes already proves how you view Asian features. And also the fact that you identify he has Asian features but don't want him to be Asian is because of whatever prejudice you are holding onto.”

Your perception about Helia as whatever race you think he is (i also said that you never said he was white so I can’t and didn’t assume you said he was white) is not my problem here but your refusal to agree he has Asian coding because "I didn't see Helia as asian. it was people saying it" and then going on to use the words “cat eyes” is gonna rub people the wrong way. 

When you’re telling me you don’t think Helia is Asian because “he just has cat eyes” you’re telling me people think he is Asian because he has “cat eyes” but you don't see it because "it's not an asian exclusive feature". That people only see him as Asian because of his eyes. The post I linked shows other reasons why he is coded as Asian.

And then you said yourself, “his eyes are clearly different from muse’s and her dad”.

You are contradicting yourself here.

And if you can't see the problem in saying "cat eyes" then I don't even know what to tell you atp. There are respectful ways to describe Asian features and this was not one of them. What you are doing here is reducing them to a single feature that has been used to make fun of them for ages (to put it lightly because this is a deep issue) then describing said feature in a disrespectful way.

and before you argue that you weren't referring to them, here are two instances where you just did:

"I thought he was just a guy with cat eyes bc there are non asians with cat eyes"

"it's not an asian exclusive feature"

"His features are inspired by East Asian features, he shares similar design characteristics to Musa and other asian characters." I pointed out in my previous post that there are other reasons why he is coded as Asian even though I didn't expand before you say that I'm doing the same thing here.

"But, Musa's Asian and her "cousin" Helia just has cat eyes ???If you like that hc then why can’t you accept that he is clearly Asian?" I said this in relation to people identifying his Asian coding and then going I don't see it. Not to be like "say Helia's asian or die". I should have definitely worded that point better but I put it out and I can't change or contradict what I tried to say in my previous post so for that I take responsibility.

When I made that opening statement "Helia is Asian" it was to make it clear what my perception of this character was though again, I should have specified that. Then as I expanded, I pointed out your "cat eyes" comment and when I continued I specified that I was posing the following question to everyone as I shared my thoughts on the "Helia is not asian he is white" argument that others make. I have every right to do so on my account on an anonymous ask talking about his perceived race.

If all you wanted was an opinion on fancasts then that’s all you needed to say. But it was clear you were pissed about certain discussions in the fandom and chose to come into my inbox and say them. I made it clear I disagree. 

[dragonofeternal]

So this year has been really, really good in terms of like... reminding/validating that I'm actually like smart and good at what I do?

Like.

First off, I got my new job which whips ass and is super fun and challenging and pays way better and where my ability to do nine million different things is like very valuable. Like oh yeah, I can reformat this word doc/that powerpoint. Do you want me to do a little bit of graphic design to make this actually look nicer? Oh, you need this video for a presentation but it's on a site other than youtube? Yeah sure, I'll rip it for you. And also just the day-to-day of being able to take good notes, and being able to help copyedit training materials, and generally being a pleasant and mostly on top of things person in the office.

THEN, I took one of Killian's creative writing classes along with them. Which, for one thing, was super fun, good teacher, nice to have an organized space/time to hang out and talk about writing. But also it was really validating to have someone outside of the internet/my inner circle of friends read and critique my work who was like... I dunno another adult/serious writer type person? Our teacher is a published poet -- Though more specifically she's prolific as a TRANSLATOR of poetry. A fair number of the translated Palestinian poets you've seen being posted around tumblr recently are most certainly her work. -- and when she realized the level I was writing at she started critiquing my work a lot harder. Still had nice stuff to say! Just also being willing to dig in and point out places where I could improve.

We actually hung out with her last night at a fellow classmate's band's show and she took both me and Killian aside for expanded critique/thoughts on our final pieces, and said some really nice stuff which included that she sees both of us as like professional-grade writers who should continue to hone their craft and who she really wants to see succeed/get shit published/etc. I'm currently letting a short story (that is... probably gonna end up as a novella orz) that I wrote for class sit before I do another draft of it, and then she's offered to do a more critical line edit for me so I can shop it around and get it published somewhere really good.

(Which is also interesting because I see myself as working very much in genre spaces and she's very in the "literary" sort of mode, and she said that she saw a lot of literary prowess and style in how I wrote which she could see getting it published in a more literary type journal. And that's like a weird/wild thought bc of my complicated thoughts on the way the literary/publishing world looks at and treats genre writing blah blah blah....)

At the SAME show, though, our teacher had brought along a friend, who is also a teacher at the community college. Said friend works for the theatre department and recognized me from volunteering to act at a one-day event last semester for Killian's playwriting class. Like this was an event where I was acting for MAYBE a grand total of fifteen minutes. And she basically said "HEY YOU'RE REALLY GOOD, WHY HAVEN'T I SEEN YOU AT ANY OF THE AUDITIONS?" So then I chatted with her some about how I've done a lot of theatre over the years but time/jobs/money meant I haven't had a chance to in a long time...

But now my job is a 9-5! So I gave her my number and I'm now basically the understudy for if/when someone drops out of the productions currently going on. Apparently they have a lot of issues with people dropping suddenly so it's likely that I'll end up doing something next semester! Which is good cuz like. Damn, do I love the theatre, and I've missed it A LOT.

I dunno just having two different people being really impressed about my creative work in a short time was really, really mood/ego boosting? I dunno. When I last did theater in Pittsburgh I ended up feeling really burnt out by the exhausting sense of always having to hunt for work, feeling like I wasn't good enough, etc... And last year I was struggling a lot with feeling like all my writing was futile/unwanted/etc... So having people remember me and be super complimentary was. Nice.

[loverboy-cc]

Pardon my rambling. Illness of the mental flavour this fine four in the morning.

On one hand I want to post shit as soon as I’m done drawing but I also like keeping a queue bc then my account doesn’t die for 7-14 business days when my wrists act up not from an obligation to post just bc I like seeing people interact with my art and i know I could take a break and keeping a queue makes it so I can but also I love consistency and I just because I should take breaks doesn’t mean I like doing it and I think I may spend too much time on the internet but I’m not entirely sure what else to do with myself because what else is there to do for me as someone who can’t really go out or do most normal things. I suppose I could read but I already do a lot of that not even just fanfic I read a decent amount of novels im just horribly picky and I find the process of finding novels I enjoy exausting. I could write more music too but I already do that a lot and it’s debatable if that’s better because I end up obsessing over even minor flaws. I want to redecorate my room but I’m not sure if that’s a good idea or if I’m just tired bc I’m pretty sure I forgot to take my meds last night even though I slept what felt like a normal amount. I should also go to bed now bc I did take my meds and I know that’s definitely making my current situation worse but on the other hand I want to run. Which I know is a bad idea last time i tried to go for a run my legs gave out and I was stuck in the cold for 4 hours until my roommate woke up and could bring my wheelchair and I’m not sure when my knees got this bad. Like I could never run because I was asthmatic but it was a different kind of couldn’t like I could technically run it was just a bad idea because I’d have an asthma attack. But now I can’t because I’ll fall and won’t be able to get back up or I’ll be in such severe pain I can’t get home or one time I got lost and just kinda kept walking for almost 2 hours bc I forgot my phone so I couldn’t contact anyone and I shit you not I ended up in the neighbor town (it’s not that far and I didn’t remember crossing the highway either way) and after that I barely got out of bed for like a week. Not that I get out of bed often as it anyway and I think that’s why it feels like I spend too much time online. Because I only really remember being online because it’s the best part of my day. Like I know I have one irl I could be hanging out with but also that is so much effort and I love her dearly but it’s a different kind of yearning I think. I want to be normal just for like a day I want to have friends who want to talk to me and people to spend time with irl. But I also don’t. I don’t want people I don’t want friends and I know that. I want the romanticized version of friends that don’t have drama or problems or complexity and I think that’s why I value my online friends and my mutuals so much because it fills the social need without any of the issues that come with humans and I feel horrible saying that because I know my mutuals are human but online is comfortable and the block button is always a click away and I’m not afraid to use it but also I am because what if I’ve misjudged the situation not that I’ll ever ask.

Edit I’m expanding this because my brain has gone in a very irl dangerous direction and I need to keep my hands busy lest I do something fucking stupid. Sometimes I wonder how much my apathy shows and sometimes I wonder if it’s even apathy because I am apathetic in a clinical sense but I wonder if I’m exaggerating because I get bursts of excitement or feeling but it comes and goes in minutes like. Even then direction I was going isn’t out of and particular negative emotion it was a passive thought and I think that’s arguably more worrying bc instead of being jarring and worrying I considered making a catastrophically bad decision with all the care of someone picking want to have for breakfast. Maybe I’d feel better if I jerked off I don’t think that’s is a great idea but also there’s certainly worse options I’m wondering if this reads as much like a conversation as it feels because I don’t remember writing most of it but also reading it does sound like me but not and I don’t know why that is but I don’t want to think to hard on it so.

[kinetic-socks]

Long post expressing my frustration with my procrastination

wake up in the morning like yeah lets get this essay done today

have meal

go to class

ok essay time.

find myself crocheting instead. hey brain, what?

brain: we have time, we'll get it done later dw

well. crocheting isn't as fun now but ok, what can ya do.

ok, we don't want to crochet anymore. essay now?

brain: no let's walk around and listen to music. exercise is good and will help us later.

me: again, it would be nice to be getting work done but alright.

me: hey, I still wanna get that essay done. can we go home and do that?

brain: no. exercise good. shut up.

me: i guess this is what we're doing.

brain: ok we got a cut on our arm while running let's go home and treat that.

me: yeah sounds great. in perfect agreement with you there.

brain: ok, cut is treated. let's nap now *reads comics instead and does more crochet like simultaneously*

me: what is happening

brain: ok NOW let's nap (it is 10:30 pm)

me: is this wise? It's late at night and we haven't done any work, and what if we accidentally sleep too long?

brain: alarm will handle it (it did) and we need sleep or we won't be able to think

me: you make sense but I don't feel great about this

I get back up at like. mignight and am like ok. essay Now.

brain: we're hungry again, eat first. and use the bathroom and change your bandaid it's coming off.

me: eating and using the bathroom and changing the bandaid all sound fine. these are reasonable things for a person to do.

It becomes 4am. Don't ask me how.

me: pleasee. essay now, we wanted to finish it before tomorrow

brain: well, it's either essay or go to bed for the night, which means it's the latest we can start and have it be today, so alright! you can now make yourself take out a pencil and write a bit. but also let's write a tumblr post about this phenomenon to ask the internet if you're just an undisciplined bitch for procrastinating or if i'm the bastard. also good luck making yourself follow any tips they give on making yourself get started because you can't make me do shit. it would be funny to watch you try honestly bc it didn't even work last semester when you got so frustrated with me that you'd start hitting yourself. so I really cannot think of a single way you could ever subjugate me and I will only make you miserable if you try. I will also make you miserable by doing this even if you don't try. This is who we are and you're simply not good enough

me: ok, when I post the post can we do the essay then?

brain: yeah probably. it's almost the end of today so I'll let you get started on it. You wanted it to be today and I understand that. You're right that we don't have a lot of time left.

me: it's not really today anymore but you're right that it still feels like it. thank god for the small mercy that is you letting me do it at all. We've been thinking about it for awhile anyway, maybe we'll enjoy this. Oh and you'd probably fight me like this tomorrow if I did it then, right? We'd turn it in at 7 am instead of midnight?

brain: I might enjoy it but you'll still have to fight me the whole way. and oh yeah for sure I would give you hell tomorrow. I wouldn't let you start it till late at night. that's what we did last time!

me: okay. at least we'll be able to edit it tomorrow after we write tonight. Plus we'll hopefully be tired tomorrow and not the next day when we have more important classes.

brain: should we finish writing tonight it's very unlikely I'll want to edit it tomorrow and you're likely to be satisfied enough that we have anything that you won't call me on it at all. We're probably not sleeping tonight so I'm going to give you a headache tomorrow to compel you to sleep after class and then probably all day and you rarely fight naps because our sleep schedule is so bad you figure we need it. plus yknow it makes sense to sleep after an all nighter.

me: ok but we'll write the essay?? when this post is done??

brain: yeah alright put in a readmore and hit post now.

[bloggedanon]

🤔 Huh, y'know? That's actually a pretty interesting way to look at it, and that actually makes a lot more sense in a lotta ways-- but just in case, stop me at any point where I'm missing the mark because I'm actually realizing something about this that puts the internet in a much more jade-coloured hue than it already was JFOMXKANDJSKA (mid-writing warning edit: this is long as hell and equally unreadable send help)

Ok, so, like, it's not actually about the making and sharing of things in itself, so much as it is about the ability to talk over people that getting big generally entails, or even if you're not necessarily saying anything per se (like, say, an artist), then, depending on if you're both skilled and lucky enough to even get to that point, people still start treating you with some sort of air of respect or like you're some sort of authority on being some sort of Magical Art Wizard that's just That Much Better, and it's the failure to fight or contradict this (or similar) narrative(s) that wind up making you complicit in it (or just refusing to try and scale back a bit somehow). Izzat record holder for the world's longest and least readable run-on sentence (I just realized 🤡) right? 👀 bfkskdhas

This actually got me to notice something about the internet that I already conceptually knew, but never really appreciated the full impact of until now. That being... like, we all already know that algorithms (due to the profit-generating nature of engagement for privately-owned / corporate websites) make big videos and posts bigger and leave smaller ones to stagnate. It's now dawning on me exactly how little difference the lack of an algorithm makes in that department??? Because by spreading someone else's word around, both by reblogs / reposts AND by word of mouth (I'm going to be using a hypothetical, small, anarchist community as my example bc I'm only now realizing how fragile a thing anarchy can be to maintain), it poses all the same issues that an algorithm does, and that yout pointed out happens with something blowing up:

- The more people hear what you said, the more people might spread what you said, the more people hear what you said, the more people--

- It can break containment, be taken out of context, be maliciously twisted, etc.

- The more people are parroting what YOU say, the less room any other ideas have to take root at the same time (especially considering people generally only really focus on one thing or viewpoint on at a time, and given humanity's in a media literacy crisis, it's likely your idea is going to be seen as mutually exclusive to anyone else's, and that creaates Problems™ HDKWBDJ)

People ain't kiddin' when they say that we're the algorithm on here! And yeah, society at large works as an algorithm in the exact same way, dunnit? It exactly mirrors the way a business can and does grow under capitalism, its growth choking out other businesses like a weed-- the way we can talk over people the bigger we get-- and engagement is essentially the profit line of the internet, there's a point past which you have more than you can possibly need or handle, and oh my god. 👀 This also runs directly into the Monkeysphere issue too, which is also the second largest tool at capitalism's disposal to turn human lives into numbers (and also butcher people with a clear conscience), MUCH like how the internet is literally designed to do--

Oh my god, we can't have nice things on the internet. The internet is a socialization-based replication of capitalist authoritarianizm. Lordy.

And like, in a hypothetical anarchist community, if you were to posit a good idea and it got around, it's like, sweet! Everybody liked that. But now you (and maybe somebody else if they decided to take credit for the idea, though that's a tangential issue) are known as The Guy Who Came Up With A Good Idea (or worse yet, the one who comes up with Good Ideas [general]) and then boom, people think they should listen to you in particular becauee you had a good idea. Anarchy over. You're percieved as an authority, however slightly, and your ideas are taken into consideration over other people's, however small the difference might seem to be on surface level. Arguements from authority can then begin. So a proper anarchy would have to have a way to put ideas out entirely anonymously if you were wanting to potentially spread useful information beyond your own scope without becoming some sort of authority on a thing. 🤔 (← this was me realizing what you meant about not aggregating interactions under an identity HFKWJDJS)

So in shorter, it's not so much "If you're a content creator and you have even one fan, you're an abuser for continuing to post content" in itself so much as it is "If you don't break the capitalistic-authoritarian narrative that tends to naturally form from the respect you can garner from being connected to your work and ideas, then you are complicit in perpetuating this inherently abusive system, and therefore, are a guilty party within it." (👀?) JFKAHDJAJDFHKAVFWJD(?)

is this… satire?

[jelzorz]

All righty we're gonna do this BC apparently someone's been making the rounds again and there are a bunch of new fans here who are getting that as their welcome to the fandom and that's just not on 🤦‍♀️

Got a weirdly aggressive anon in your asks? Have they got some really weird takes that don't make any sense? Do they seem weirdly obsessed with Callum being a traditional, weirdly OP protagonist whose Sky Mage Powers give him Enhanced Speed and Agility?

You may be dealing with this fucker!

Dickface McGee over here has been around for a little while and has made a name for themselves because of their 600 sock puppet blogs that they use because people keep blocking them after they've been harassed. They've been known for a bunch of Internet Crimes including but not limited to:

Plagiarism (copy and paste of wholeass paragraphs and dialogue from fic with few to zero edits), and then shitting on the work they plagiarized from

Impersonation, including using your email address to create new sock puppet accounts

Paying for commissions before you have agreed to do the commission on an attemp to force your hand

Attempting reset your password on Tumblr and ao3 after you argued your point with them

Aka we really are talking the scum of the earth here, and they're a pain in the ass bc you can only do so much and this asshole doesn't give up.

Unfortunately, the only true way to get them to leave you alone is to ignore them, and even that results in getting an anon in your askbox once a month with a weird fucking ask about Callum's Princely Duties or something weirdly anti-Rayla. You can recognise them in a number of ways bc my dude over here isn't Smart, and continues to

Use buzzwords like Speed and Agility, Princely Duties, and Sky Mage Powers

Keep referencing a single page from the artbook

Lack general reading comprehension skills and thus will argue with you over points you haven't actually made

Have a weird general dislike for rayla and how significant she is to callum

Keep making brand new blogs with nothing or very few things in them to bypass being blocked

Most of this is outlined in the linked post and there are others who've made their own posts bc this guy just doesn't know how to stop being a creep.

Please be safe fam! Just block and move on! DO NOT get yourself into an argument this guy because once you're on their radar, they WILL NOT leave you alone. The original PSA post was written in 2021 as a result of continuous harassment from 2020 so PLEASE just don't engage. It's not worth it.

[fahbev]

@whumper-in-training

ok I don’t know how long my caption is allowed to be, but here it is! The promised fan art! I REFUSE to be self-deprecating here because I actually do like these a lot. Basically, I read this amazing story called ACP- The Agency for Cryptids and the Paranormal, (https://whumper-in-training.tumblr.com/post/673130936584568832/acp-the-agency-for-cryptids-and-the) and I totally fell in love with the character of Zak. This STORY MAN! It broke my heart in half and then lovingly stitched it back together, like multiple times, and I think that’s the ESSENCE of a good story. So yeah I made fan art. 

I was in the car on a fairly long trip, and I had my sketchbook, and I was like, hey, what should I draw? Fuck it i’m drawing Zak. So I drew Zak. I originally didn’t want to deal with how the hoodie would work with all the weird perspective and just gave him a tee-shirt, but then I yelled at myself: “COWARD! Draw the hoodie!” And so I erased the shirt and drew a hoodie. I figure that the hoodie in the picrew isn’t how the hoodie actually looks, it’s just the closest approximation you can get with a picrew, so I put an alien on it because yes. While I was drawing it though, I hit a fork in the road with the pose. I was going to draw him with his hand clawed and the other on his hip, but then I was like “what if he had his arm up instead?” And so I made two versions.

I drew werewolf Zak hell ya! I spent FOREVER inking this. Okay if was only like two hours, but inking is kinda boring and thus I procrastinated, and so it took me like three days to ink it. It took much longer than usual Bc I went over each line a bunch of times to make it look like fur/hair/eyelashes, but you can’t even see it Bc the colors are so dark! Argh! Usually color more than doubles the amount of time I spend on a drawing, but this time I just quickly threw down some color in only like an hour! I was so sure I was gonna say, “it’ll be quick” and then spend another six hours on it, because that ALWAYS happens, but it actually WAS quick so yes.

Last but not least, I drew the gang all together! Technically I drew this second, and colored it first, but you get the idea! This drawing filled me with all the happy chemicals the whole time making it y’all. After several hours it kinda wore off, but every time I zoomed in on Max’s face I got a fresh rush of serotonin. I decided to draw that one scene where they all fall asleep together because it was SO WHOLESOME! I wanted to draw the whole group, but didn’t know what kind of context to do. Then I scrolled through the blog, found that scene, reread it and was like “yes! That’s the one!”. And so I drew it. I did have to look up “do Muslim women sleep with their hijabs on?” And i’m glad it was a google search and not asking a real person Bc the response I found was basically: “No, you dumbass! Why would we do that? That makes no sense-” and several sarcastic responses to the same question on Quora and i’m just like: “:’D” I did look into it a bit more and realized the hijab has to stay on Bc while they are like family, they’re still not her mahrams. Also I figure that if I was gonna post this, even if she was alone, drawing her without it would kinda be violating her privacy yk? Like i’m exposing her for the whole internet to see. Kinda like drawing her naked would be. Anyway, I love this drawing, hope you love it too!

Ok, still keep your expectations to an army crawl because I never finish stuff, but fanfic is in the works. I am probably gonna wait until it’s finished to post it though, that way I can edit things and change earlier chapters. Also! I’m a total novice writer! So it’s probably crap! I don’t care! I have this policy that I would always rather make the cringe fanfic, wear the ugly clothing, make the stupid drawings, the cursed memes, shout all the embarrassing shit, do all the dumb things that teenagers do (as long as it’s not harmful or permanent obvi), sing all the bad karaoke, embarrass myself a TON, etc, and regret it later, cringe so hard in ten years, than to never let myself do anything, constantly hold back, never reach my full potential and regret THAT in ten years. Thank you for listening to my TED Talk. I still might very well be too shy to post it though ahhhhh. For some reason i’m WAY more shy online than irl, that makes no sense. Like I can walk up to a random person and talk to them no prob, but I get super anxious going in someone’s ask box. Maybe Bc I can’t read their body and face language like that? Idk. Like I said, just don’t expect anything.

[justjstuff]

I just wanted to let you know that I am a ginormous fan of DOF and looked forward to Fire Friday every week! Your writing skills are astounding and I’m so thankful for your incredible depiction of Sakura’s bad-ass personality and story in this fic. Not only that, I am amazed at all the consistently LARGE contribution you used to upload weekly because the quality is literally off the charts. I’m so thankful that you’re taking a break because I know that accomplishing all of this as well as you do cannot be easy! Nonetheless, I would like for you to know that you have a huge fan in me and I will continue to look forward to new chapters (whenever they may come-excellence takes time 😉). Really though, I can’t stop gushing about this fic and I guess just thank you for all of the hard work you put in it so people like me can get some free serotonin each time we read it lol. You’re amazing!!

Anon-san, your sweet words give me life, thank you so so much. I've had a lot of people tell me how much the weekly updates were grounding and a breath of fresh air in this pandemilovato but your comment has to be one of the best I've got so far because.... oh man, I desperately need not only others but also myself to realise just how taxing it was.

So yeah, thank you for loving my story but also thank you for reminding myself that it was a HUGE accomplishment and that it's okay if I maybe can't meet it anymore. I've recently begun digging deep into myself and started going to more intensive (and intrusive) therapy and had some diagnosis that are pretty mindblowing in a way and now I'm trying to be mindful not to push myself to my limits. It's hard af, let me tell you, I know the potential I have and it feels normal to always want to achieve it but I gotta remind myself that maybe my "full potential" isn't as healthy as I thought it was.

I'm extremely glad that I got the opportunity to give y'all that experience of nice 8-12k long chapters a week, with lots of character and plot work, at roughly the same time, every Fire Friday. *aggressively throws serotonin everywhere I can •̀.̫•́✧*

(pagebreak bc y'all didn't sign up for hugeass posts in your dash lol)

For a bit of an update on how my process is coming along: I got sick. Covid got me y'all and I still only had the first dose and suffer from asthma so daaamn this motherfucker's got hands. No need to worry about me tho!! My tests are coming back okay and at least my fever is gone BUT that means my brain is a bit like mush rn and while I'm still working, I'm doing so veeery much slower. Anyways, covid was just the cherry on top this month but I don't want to get too deep into it.

I genuinely think Fire Fridays were good not only for you guys (esp during that time back in 2020 where literally everyone was at home and routines were thrown out the window faster than you can say defenestration) but also for me, it gave me a nice sense of "normal" when everything was shit. Uuhh as you've seen in my last AN, I dropped out of college and am currently pursuing other dreams/way of living so I think having that set date will help me A LOT while juggling real life and fandom life. That being said, some things had to change.

First of all is the way of seeing Fire Fridays as if it's a deadline set by my boss. Nah, I don't get paid for writing fanfiction and I'm done treating it as a job. I know not a lot of people have the same care that you did while commenting and there is a lot of nagging and grumbling about Fire Fridays (even if sometimes those comments are even sweet while they do it) but I'm incredibly proud to say that comments from people in the internet I don't know hardly have an affect on me. Lol y'all haters can hate but I'm my worse critic and I fkn know it, nothing you say will change the way I see myself and my work. That being said, a lot of that nagging was being unconsciously done by me *gasp* I know. I'm an overachiever. Shocking.

NO MORE OF THAT.

Next order of business is how I was going about Fire Fridays. My first break came because I literally didn't have any "spare chapters" meaning, I wrote, edited, sent for my Beta to edit, and then edited myself again a whole ass 9k monster every week and that shit was like a kick to the ass right into the general direction of Burnout City. Not fun. So I took a "break" which wasn't really a break because I still wrote 71k words in that month and when I started back up with Fire Fridays, I had a lot of chapters to post, right? WRONG. If each chapter had 10k words (which is roughly what was happening on an average), that meant I only had 7 new chapters to post with severe burnout making it practically impossible for me to write anything else to the point that I couldn't even bring myself to edit the first drafts of those chapters. Again. Not fun.

So now, my idea has been: try to aim for Fire Fridays in a healthy way but also let my readers know they might not get another batch of those lovely what? six months of new chapters every friday. What does that mean? Well, it means I'm trying to write some chapters ahead! So while y'all aren't really getting anything since the last chapter, that has been a conscious decision on my part not to leave y'all with horrible cliffhangers when I can't be sure I'll make quick enough updates (and that definition has changed to maybe twice a month? We'll see). I'm writing. It's going fairly slowly by my standards but since I've come really close to giving up on DoF in favour of RL original content, I'm proud of it.

YOU're amazing, Anon-san. Thank you so much for reaching out, I hope you have a lovely end of the week and that you and your loved ones are safe and happy as can be in late stage capitalism <3

[formulatrash]

What are your thoughts on fanfic writing in the f1 fandom? I am pretty sure I saw you tweet about it at some point something small but I was too scared to interact with you on it over at twitter :D

So, this is a hotter topic than I’d really like it to be on my Tumblr and it’s my own fault but. Here we go.

RPF has some questionable ethics and some even more questionable origins. I’m ancient enough that it just used to get straight-up published as a ‘5 minute fantasy’ in young women and girls’ magazines where you’d get like, some 15 year old’s daydream about meeting a boyband member on holiday and falling in love and this was for some reason just treated as an absolutely normal bit of publishing not like ‘what the hell, that would be illegal’ and ‘why is this the fantasy we are encouraging girls to have as an ambition when it comes to sports or even pop success’ and y’know. 

Anyway, the 90s: really can’t emphasise enough how fucking weird having only a few sources to get your media from makes them.

Back to RPF; its roots are in political obscenity, if you want to talk about the bawdy stuff. The French Revolution, in particularly, wrote lots of erotica (the kinkier the better) about the royal family as part of refusing to acknowledge their divine rights under the church. It was an anarchical refusal to accept the situation as it was and to undermine it. 

Beyond that you’ve got historical fiction - Thucydides was all about working up a really good narrative take* on the Peloponnesian war back in the fifth century BC. Extra scenes, big dialogue, you know. If he’d known about self-lubricating buttholes then you BET Herodotus would have put them in the Histories.

Point is: writing fiction about real people isn’t really that weird, Shakespeare did a load of it. But we tend to problematise RPF and consider it strange, even amongst fanfiction.

Now, to 21st century sports and specifically F1. We speak here on Tumblr dot com, the audience where F1 fans skew most largely LGBT, non-cis and female or non binary rather than every other platform which is full of cis het men. Here is where we talk about fanfic. Because they don’t know we’re here, I assume, is the logic.

(they kinda don’t, to be fair)

Most of us do not see ourselves in sports. Most sports media is not aimed at the way that a lot of us were socialised to engage with stuff and most of us - lucky buggers like me aside - do not get to write the narratives of the way sport is engaged with or talked about or who does it. 

A lot of us who live here on god’s abandoned internet have drifted in and out of fandoms and a lot of that will have involved engaging with fanfiction. Fanfiction is a really fun sandbox to play in, as an adult - we get told to stop playing, as we grow up and it’s no surprise that we still want to. 

There’s a six monthly cycle of some AAA game that asks the question “is shooting people bad?” that prompts 10 broadsheet newspaper pieces on Videogames: Not Just For Kids Anymore (and sub in comics/superheroes/etc for games there) that makes everyone who knows that roll their eyes. Games and comics and superheroes are big, legitimised industries now that turnover hundreds of billions of dollars.

Fanfiction is an outlier, as the purest form of play in a lot of senses. Unfettered, it’s the democratic media platform; there’s no minimum standard for publishing, there’s no real limits beyond your own ethics on what you can publish. it doesn’t turn a profit, by its very definition and it allows lots of games and versions of itself within that. 

For something with a ludicrously broad definition that encapsulates hugely different types of works, it has defined forms; from drabbles to wingfic, as structural formats, we also recognise fluff or hurt/comfort as genre. Fanfiction isn’t really the thing itself, it’s the bookshop and what you find in it will vary on where you look and often, the advice of the bookseller or friends you speak to.

If you’ve enjoyed wandering that bookstore and adding to its shelves as part of the way you engage with media and then you come to a sports fandom? Well, you’re gonna look for the fic. If you don’t see yourself in the sport, as a woman or a queer person then you can write yourself in. It’s sad that we sideline the fantasies where we exist - given they’re entirely normal to have - into places where we jealously guard them away from the reality we daren’t intrude on but that is how it is.

And fuck: if your whole reason for liking F1 is cus you wanna marry a driver and you’re writing those 15 minute fantasies about them like you’re 15 and they’re a poster then it’s not doing any harm - it’s a lot healthier than stalking them. You might even work out what you really want or more things about yourself, in the process.

(if it’s ‘to marry an F1 driver’ then I suggest you take some boring swimwear snaps somewhere that looks expensive, stick ‘em on Insta and wait for the DM slide)

One of the things I like best in fanfic is the possibility of a queer narrative without complications, of telling queer stories without having to justify them as Issues, of letting us see ourselves and our own awakenings because fuck, you know the big book shop (if such things still exist) has one shelf of expensive, niche published novels you find difficult to related to and three sex ed books.

F1 fanfic was one of the ways I wandered back to the F1 fandom and one of the reasons I work in the industry now. It was enough of an in to make me want to really think, to have that new crush energy of obsession and enjoyment, about motorsport in a way I’d drifted away from as I felt sidelined from the sport through my early-to-mid 20s. I found brocedes much more compelling, as an interpretation and a way of processing the intense rivalry between Lewis and Nico - even knowing it was fictional conjecture - than I did the equally fictional conjecture about their psychological states and potential weaknesses published in the sports papers.

So, yes, I have read some excellent Formula 1 RPF. I have written some frankly mediocre and in retrospect very poorly edited F1 RPF that I posted to Twitter in a drunken moment of excitement because I was happy I’d finished it and forgot, idk. I have a tricky relationship to being a Notable Person I guess, I hadn’t intended any harm and was mostly worried I’d get flack from the industry. Lol. Anyway, only saying it cus like; this isn’t just me talking about things theoretically.

There’s a lot of F1 RPF that is more insightful than a lot of columns about ‘inside the drivers’ minds’ working off very little more than the RPF is.

Some of it, I won’t lie, I find really fucking weird but I guess like, that ain’t for me. There are a lot of problems with RPF - it’s too male, too frequently misogynist, too keen to reinforce homophobic ideas, too often white and blonde, not radical enough but those issues are for the advanced class rather than the 101 overview I was aiming for here and go well beyond F1 or RPF.

Shit I should be writing the weather report. Fuck. I’m the worst. Err, there you go, that’s a whole thing.

(I don’t read very much - I am busy af - but occasionally and especially on long haul flights when the idea of anything other than soothing is impossible)

*Actually tbh Thucydides couldn’t write for fuck but it was early and you know how when a tag’s young you’ll read a lot of mediocre stuff?

[ahardisons]

Ah yes I see and like your interpretation of Hardison’s overcompensation too (mine may have too much projection lol). I don’t know if I agree that the show “did Hardison dirty” but I also don’t know if that’s an Internet phrase that has a special meaning I don’t know!

I guess most of his backstory was focused on his Nana and the foster system but I wish we had a Significant Person from his post show up like for the others. (But hey! Breanna may help with more backstory and such in the revival!!)

I think I really just disagreed with the implication that those two episodes were bad characterization for him/didn’t fit his characterization because I liked how they extended (the ice man job more so than the gold digger job though, I think the gold digger job would have been better if it was pulled back a season or two). But re-reading your post/tags I’m not sure you actually said the episodes were bad characterizations and I may just be reading too much into it!

(As to Nate (disclaimer that I actually like him to a degree just not as much as the others but I don’t hate him as much as some) I think he kinda does that with the whole team but only with their skill set. The problem is he’s mentally defined Hardison’s skill set as “everything” which while complimentary would also be very stressful for him)

(Also about Parker tipping: I know right!! She was so separated from “normal” for so long that I can see her just not realizing things like this. Sort of like how in that one episode she seemed so surprised and sad that the man’s debt was from oncology (and then deleted it). She has all the compassion but not all the knowledge needed to apply it)

TBH a part of fan analyses is projection bc it colors each of our perceptions a little bit differently! this is why i love discourse bc as much as i love to defend my opinion, it’s just that: an opinion. and i also find that putting myself in someone else’s shoes is a great way of either confirming or editing my own thoughts so thank you for sharing your thoughts tbh

I AM ALSO HOPING FOR BREANNA TO FILL IN A LITTLE MORE ABT HARDISON but i also don’t want her to fall into the trap of being a tool to fill in hardison’s story line, you feel me? like i don’t want her AND hardison to both have the pitfall of having undeveloped backgrounds lmao

and i may have said bad characterizations i think? tbh i should read through those again and edit for clarity but anyway rather, i think it’s more apt to say inconsistent characterizations rather than Bad. bc hardison is still, for the most part, hardison. there’s just inconsistencies (in my eyes at least) that don’t make sense since they’re characteristics that seem to only show up in those episodes! i think i need to sit down and force myself through those episodes a few more times to really put my thoughts into words BUT YEAH - not necessarily bad, just very inconsistent and Weird to me.

YOUR PARKER COMMENTS KILL ME I LOVE IT SO MUCH ITS SO SO SO TRUE, like she was under socialized as a child bc of what her past in the system and what archie did to her and if you’re raised up AS a thief, there’s not a lot of time to teach morals or compassion in a morally dubious field like thievery. like she didn’t really even know WHY she was stealing only that it gained her money and it was fun to solve problems. it’s just like sophie realizing that stealing art still had a seedy underground that got people hurt despite it not being like eliot’s job where he was doing the hurting you know? once they both looked past the immediate gratification of the Self they realized that they could do something to help others.

[butterfly-winx]

Hi, This isnt about the butterfly au but i was wondering do you use any apps to draw your art on and if so which ones due you use? also do you have any tips?

Hey there! No worries I'm happy to talk about art in general as well!

I use Procreate (I think currently V5) on a first gen iPadPro to do most of the art and photosh*p cs2 for any edits, or compiling files when my layers overflow. (I'm not gonna lie, that is the major bummer with Procreate, but the app is well priced and I got no complaints about it otherwise.)

As far as art tips, go I wanted to acknowledge that these are tips I would and also do give myself, so it I am not an expert in any of these, but they are cool things to strive for.

1. Find the workflow for what makes sense for you. Not everyone has to do 2 sketches a lineart, flats and render in that order in every single piece. Experiment around, find what works for you, which parts of the process you enjoy, most importantly. I do very clean sketches on top of loose pose puppets and hate lineart. So I usually don't do that, but I get away with it bc I like doing the detailed sketch phase and "line sculpting" so I just go straight to colouring most often. Maybe you don't either, but for you a lineless style would work better. This is also how you can build style very easily!

2. Experiment with programs and find the one that supports your workflow best. I started off with a pen-tablet and PS/Corel painter and that didn't work for me for the longest time - I guess I never had the necessary hand-eye coordination for laptop and pen-tablet setups. Drawing ON the screen however, whoo boy my improvement skyrocketed. So I would urge everyone to look at what they struggle with while making art bc it might not be you, it might be the setup you use. Sure I could have spent a million hours fine tuning my lines to be straight, but I cold have also switched to a program that supports stroke stabilisation, you know? Also look into available shortcuts and pre-sets: the better you know your program the faster you are, the less likely you are to burn yourself out on a piece.

3. Build skills, but let your interests dictate what skills to focus on. Sure practice is key and you need to draw a thing a 1000 times to understand it, but I'm saying you are only going to draw something that many times if you like it. When I was into series that featured many male characters I beefed up on male anatomy; when I was crazy about a live action show I practiced copying the features of real actors; now I am neck deep in fashion refs and drawing different types of fabric. Find your passion and let it drive you! It does make sense to identify shortcomings and get comfortable with art basics like shape, light and colour, but if you don't find a way to apply it it a way that sparks joy, you risk your hobby turning into a chore (so this advice is mainly for hobbyist), so try not to do that and instead focus on eating your "veggies" and "dessert" as well if you can. Do sketches all day if you want, but you will need to face drawing the other eye or that hand on the hip if you want to see eventual improvement.

4. Collect inspiration with a goal in mind. It's fair and well to have endless lists of inspiring art and photography saved in your likes, pinterest or wherever, but it is good to sit down sometimes and examine why you saved a pic. (This is not for direct references btw). Ask yourself what you like about the individual piece and whether what you like about is something that just appeals to you as a beholder or whether that is something you would like to reproduce in your own art? It's actually a huge difference. I am drawn to stylised shapes and bold colours in art, but I like to paint like that? No. On the other hand I like looking at guache paintings and really taking apart how they were painted, bc that is the rendering style i like to push for in my art. It's a good idea to go cross-media in your inspiration: from traditional art to photography to industrial object design, you can find a lot of things to learn from outside your native art medium. If you found something you really like, you can do a master study of it (absolutely fair to share with public domain, classical pieces, if you copy a contemporary artist, do it for the sake of study and don't post it).

5. Don't compare yourself to others. Yes, I know this is the hardest. If you find yourself unhappy with the reception of your art online, it impacting your joy in creating art in the first place, it might be worth taking a step back. That's what I did. I was doing winx doodles for almost a year for myself only before I made this blog, (and this is far from being my first art blog on the internet btw). This may not be the right decision for everyone, but I wanted to say something other than "just don't give up", bc when you are in that spot it feels like utter bulsh*t. Social media has us comparing our skills and success to a million other people every day, and as harsh as it sounds, it's just not worth breaking yourself up over it. There is also no need to monetise every hobby you have and become the absolute best in it, especially when you are young.

So, to sum it up:

[bigmammallama5]

Hey Grace! I saw you posting Bon Appetit stuff and thought about checking it out. There is A LOT going on in that channel. What would you recommend watching first?? Thanks a lot:)

Oh my gosh there’s SO much good stuff on there, I still haven’t watched all the way back yet. I don’t know where to tell you to start but here’s what I’ve been watching on there! I’m sorry I’m about to start talking and I’m not gonna stop. But really, I think it’ll be about personality on where you wanna start, so here are some quick break downs.

I started with Claire on Gourmet Makes, but only because I saw people on tumblr and twitter shitting on her and drumming her up to be some kind of snooty asshole... which seemed like internet bullshit to me (it was the skittles episode), and I was right. It’s now one of my favorite series to watch because she IS smart and she reverse engineers shit to make a gourmet version. It’s impressive. So that’s a “smart” show, but I would argue everyone in there is incredibly bright. She also has cats and likes crafting.

Then there’s Brad with It’s Alive which is all about fermentation, experimentation, and his inability to form coherent sentences (but he tries). That one’s a little more wacky, you get to see him go places (I just watched his Hawaii trip from last year) to bring attention to local cultures around farming and fishing and the community, he went to Italy for olives, and as he says “it’s good clean fun”.

Chris ACTUALLY reverse engineers famous restaurant dishes while blindfolded. He’s a super-taster so he picks out the ingredients based on all of his senses except sight and then tries to recreate it. That’s another “smart” show and really interesting to see how he identifies ingredients based off his palate alone.

Andy goes around NYC to family restaurants of different ethnicities, gets in the kitchen, and learns how to make their (usually) most popular dishes. Watching that show has really helped me learn as a home cook because my family was very white-rice-grilled-chicken-steamed-veggie-with-a-little-salt growing up.

Alex takes you around New York or Philly, or any other city he may go to, to go into the old mom and pop places for subs or pizza or wherever to try what they’re known for to find his “perfect” version. He also does a series where he takes another one of the crew from the test kitchen to try one of everything on the menu, but you can only take one bite. I actually really like that one

Carla does more “traditional” style dishes if you’ve ever wanted your grandmother’s carbonara and I want her to adopt me. Molly does “simple” dishes to really try to show basics and the different ways you can make something tasty out of just a handful of things that you can ACTUALLY have in your pantry and I’m going to steal her wiener dog, Tuna. Rick brings the spice with mexican dishes and the rainbow flags and the most on point manicures and he’s a wonderful teacher. Amiel shows you how many ways to cook something, which is just kinda funny but I had to stop watching bc I didn’t really like the voice over. BUT I do like Amiel, just not the editing of his videos.

Priya is always excited to show what Indian food she grew up with, focusing on homey dishes to start that will fill you and bring you comfort. Sohla El-Waylly. I WISH Sohla had a show because that woman is brilliant. ANd I mean so brilliant, she made carbonara into an experimental desert. And she’s got that classic millennial depression humor and dogs which just cracks me up. Christina!! Also someone I wished had a show! She’s a fun mix of technical and home/traditional cooking for eastern dishes when she’s not helping run their social media team. And I love Gaby’s cameos, she’s theeeee test kitchen manager? I think? They had some promotions and I’m still not sure, but I love her, she’s adorable.

I hope this helps, and I hope you enjoy! It’s been really lovely watching them share their love of food.

[babbity-draws]

Hi, I absolutely love your artwork!! Especially the Francis Abernathy one!

I had a quick question, and possibly a stupid one, When you want to sell a piece specifically and put it online, how do you ensure someone doesn't just download and print it?? Or sending them a final click of their commision and they just download that?

Hi!! Thanku for liking my artwork!!! 🥺💖💖 I won't lie, I may not be the best person to be asked this question bc i dont sell my work online or do commissions (i usually just sell physical prints at conventions!), but I'll try my best to answer w/ what i know!!

Unfortunately there's no way to guarantee that someone online won't just download and use ur art at their own will, there are some ppl who are just mean and cant be reasoned with 😖😖

What you can do is watermark everything u post online! either ur signature, name, url/internet handle, whatver u choose, just place it somewhere hard to crop, like near the main subject matter or even at like a 50% opacity over a detailed section of ur art so its hard for reposters/art thieves to edit out! There's an artist I love that has their url just watermark overlayed from end to end of their piece so its just Huge! I'd also recommend never posting high-res versions of ur pieces online. there's a save option in most programs thats "save for web" where u have the option of choosing the resolution of your final piece. This will just make it harder for ppl to resell ur stuff bc if they try to enlarge it, it'll be quite blurry!

As for commissions, i'd recommend asking for full payment upfront (or 50% payment first and the 50% payment just before u send the final product) and making it clear to ur commissioner ur terms and conditions (i.e. personal use only, that u as the artist still maintain all copyrights, not to be used for profit, etc.). you can also watermark all the WIPs u send ur commissioner until ur ready to send them the final finished product once payment has been settled! Make sure u get everything in writing too, whether its in emails or creating a "Commission Form" for the commissioner to fill out and sign with what they want + making sure they're aware and agree to ur terms and conditions!

if worse comes to worse, most social media platforms allow you to report someone for copyright infringement! Its a rough process but ive deffs heard of times when it's worked! I'd also say familiarise urself w/ the copyright laws of where you live, i'm not sure abt outside of australia (where i live) but here it's that as soon as someone creates a piece of art, they immediately own the copyrights to it, u dont even have to register it anywhere (u can even have this in ur watermark! e.i. [ur name]  © 2021 [or yr of creation])!

the only reason why i havent done any of these things is bc im incredibly lazy ahaha im a really really small time/obscure artist with a tiny, yet wonderful, following so i haven't really had to worry abt reposters/art thieves (if ive been reposted, i have no idea but i 100% do NOT give permission!!). But that being said, even if youre a small time artist and haven't had to deal w/ these things, its still a good idea to put these things into practice! dont be like me lol

sorry, i know this got very long winded, but i hope it all makes sense and helps u some! please feel free to hit me up w/ more questions, and i'll try to answer them the best i can!!! best of luck to u 🤞💖💖