#so I've had to practice

[boomkawaiiboom]

I want to elaborate on this! So Neil has practiced this a lot. I've practiced it, in the sense that I speak in front of 60-70 people a couple of times a month.

Here's what I've been taught:

1) Learning to speak/present or whatever in front of audiences is not a process of learning not to be nervous. It's learning that being nervous is not a problem. Because, and that's point

2) those feelings you get when nervous - quicker heartbeat, heightened senses, tingling - they are your body helping you perform better than normal, giving you a shot of something extra. It's not a symptom of your body shutting down. And therefore

3) when practicing this, try remembering afterwards that no, your body did not ahut down on you. Stumbling over your words does not count as a shut down, that's just how speech works if you're not very, very well practiced. I still stumble over words, but I get back on track by taking a deep breath and starting that sentence over.

Being nervous does not mean your body is going to shut down.

And lastly, a practical tip:

4) ask someone in the audience to be your buddy while you're talking. They can be a friend, colleague or just a random person who seems nice. Their job is to be placed somewhere at the middle of the audience, and be looking and smiling at you at all times. That way you have someone to focus on when you're not looking at your notes, meaning you won't have to flit your focus around.

In my organization this has been institutionalized so that all of the people at the middle table of big assemblies know they have a special responsibility to look the speaker in the eye - because it helps!

And remember: practice does not make perfect - practice makes improvement. Don't go for perfection, cause then none of us are ever going to speak up.

Hi Mr. Gaiman,

Just got out of your reading of A Christmas Carol and we (my mom, aunt, and I) absolutely loved it! We also loved the little poem at the end. I have a few questions for you if you don’t mind.

1.) Is A Christmas Carol your favorite Christmas story and if it isn’t, what is? 2.) How did you learn to speak for long periods of time without stumbling? It was very impressive, especially to someone like me who tends to get very nervous when speaking in public.

3.) To that last point, do have any tips for dealing with anxiety before talking in front of people?

Thank you again for the fantastic performance and I hope you have a Merry Christmas!

1) I think my favourite Xmas story is O. Henry's Gifts of the Magi

2) I guess it's what I do.

3) I was terrified tonight before it started and just as terrified while i was doing it if I stopped to think. You do it anyway.

[screwpinecaprice]

Of course they'd be jumpin on a pile of leaves, it's basically mandatory.

[thewanderingmask]

so yea

1-2 months of on and off effort later IT'S MY FIRST EVER HERMITCRAFT (by which i mean exclusively tango tek) ANIMATIC

IN WHICH A MAN TALKS ABOUT BINARY FOR ALMOST 3 MINUTES (it's based actually. and was really fun to animate)

[mad-as-a-box-of-frogs]

Oh, Banner, I love you, man!!!

Marc Spector in What If... The Hulk Fought the Mech Avengers? [6/?]

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Shout out to all artists who had to work without any strong direction or instruction.

I wish you a merry “the client likes it anyways”

[erinwantstowrite]

what are your thoughts abot how Damian and Tim's relationship is portrayed in most fanfics?

personally, although I like the angst part of their relationship I wish there was more fanfics where they're closer and have real siblings dynamic (like u know they 'hate' eachother but they would destroy anyone who would want to hurt their brother)

oh, boy, do i have a lot to say about this one. buckle in, folks.

i feel like a lot of the time, if they're in a fic together and the fic author doesn't like one of them, the other is going to be mischaracterized to hell and back. sometimes... both are mischaracterized.

i'm all for a fanon interpretation of a character- obviously, because i have fanon interpretations in my fic too at least a wee bit- but sometimes it goes too far and it no longer feels like we're reading about the same character

let's talk about Tim.

Tim doesn't have a good view of himself or his standing in any emotional aspect. which is often misconstrued about him believing that he was Jason's replacement (neither he nor Bruce thought this, but it was Bruce's fear), or that his worth as Robin wasn't enough. that's not true at all. i'll say it again here: Jason didn't nearly kill Tim at Titan's Tower, nor did he go there to kill Tim. and Tim fought him back. he even told Jason to his face:

"you can't be that good" "I am."

he knows he's a damn good Robin! he trained with the best, he helps lead the YJ! he doesn't doubt that he was the best person for the job. but when it comes to the emotional aspect of Robin, i think this is where Tim stutters

this is because of how Tim's parents showed their affection.

i think canon neglects that aspect of his trauma, which is why so many people hang onto it. in the comics, Tim is shown to have a lot of friends both in and out of suit. he's abrasive and isn't afraid to ask the hard questions. but he is riddled with self worth issues. his parents were barely around him, they didn't know him well at all. and they loved him, but from a distance.

Tim now sees himself as someone that can receive love from a distance. he is incredibly self reliant, and has been from a young age. he sees all of his accomplishments as obligations. he does well at school because he had to. he takes care of himself because he had to. and in his mind, taking up Robin was partly another obligation. he does his job well because he has to, and he might doubt this sometimes like anyone else, but at the end of the day he is confident in his ability to get shit done.

now, the emotional part of Batman and Robin is where i believe i enjoy a fanon interpretation more. he actually does have a good relationship with Dick, but I'm not too sure about Bruce at this point. this topic is nuanced because Batman writers make him so diabolical at times to the point that i would consider it ooc. but other times they're very close and Bruce admits this. so i replace it in my head with a more stable and realistic version that i've seen written by fic authors very well.

Tim views himself as someone who is there for a job: help Batman. but there is a lot of wonder and awe there. his favorite Robin was Dick. (I'll say this again so everyone hears me: his favorite Robin was Dick. yes you are allowed to have nuance and put Jason in there as someone he looked up to as well, please do. but put some respect on Dick's name!) now that he's working with Dick Grayson, someone he admires so much, as well as getting the honor to wear the Robin suit, he feels more like himself than he has in years. he's good at this, and it's also fun. he meets so many people and he gets to make a difference in the world. yes, it's a job, but it's also very freeing

he never did this be Bruce's son, or to replace Jason. his relationship with Bruce started off extremely rocky, with Tim forcing himself into his life in some way because he believed that Batman was going to get himself killed or get someone else killed, or Batman would cross the line. and Gotham would lose the only person who had such unwavering optimism for them. he and Bruce come to an understanding of being partners but not father and son. Bruce doesn't want to open himself up to that hurt again. but we all know Bruce, and that's not what ended up happening. Bruce would never be the same person he was before, but he is not incapable of love.

Tim would not understand that change. I'd get more into this but i don't want this post too long and i wanna save it for when i'm not supposed to be sleeping and when i'm writing one of my Tim fics for once. all we really need to know is that Tim's emotional intelligence is dogshit, and him coming to see Bruce as a father, and Bruce seeing him as a son, would baffle him. because his parents love him... at a distance. and Bruce sees him every day. that's not how it's supposed to work, right?

so.

sometimes, Tim is treated like a porcelain doll who can do no wrong. many aspects of his canon has been altered by fanon to be "worse" than it is. his neglect by his parents did, indeed, happen, and it affects him deeply. but his parents weren't like. beating him, or leaving him without food or shelter or supervision. Tim was clever enough to get around that supervision all on his own. which is why they should have been there in the first place. (they should have been there regardless). and emotional neglect is still a very real issue??? no one has to make it "worse" by making the Drakes out to be monsters. i think Jack often emotionally manipulated Tim when he was around, and I don't know if Jack was even aware that he did so. (which is why i can see some people delving into that nonexistent relationship that DC gave us, and finally giving those implications more depth. there are a lot of good fics that go over this)

often it's hard to read a fic for Tim because they go too hard into making Tim an anxious shy ball of sunshine. Tim is weird, and he stalked the Bats, he stalked Nightwing, he broke into Titan's Tower before he even became Robin. he's a weirdo. he fits right in with the Bats for that reason. some people make him out to be the victim or some kind of damsel in distress, and sometimes we get to see a phenomena where other characters talk like a book about emotional intelligence that their therapist gave them. which is... fine, if you're just writing to write it, maybe helping yourself. but let's take a step back and see Tim is not like that. he is a very capable person, and his not some "uwu, woe is me, i'm so shitty at everything and if you even look at me wrong i'll cry." i honestly believe that Tim is the type of character to hate crying in front of someone and even if he was actively dying he'd be holding back those tears.

whereas Damian? gets the opposite treatment??

granted, i don't actually know too much about Damian, but i at least try to understand him and his background

he's the youngest of them, and i think many people forget that Damian isn't a reader of the comics like we are. he wasn't going into that family with the emotional connections to these characters and their backstories like we did. he was taught about these people, the idea of them. like how we could be taught in class about people from a long time ago. and i can ensure you that Damian was not taught proper emotional intelligence, nor would he have the best grasp of it himself when he was younger than 9 years old. imagine all of your teachers and also your mother told you about these people and their accomplishments, and then told you that the person all of them look up to is your father. the person that you want nothing more than to know, to see, because the people around you talk about him so highly. someone you haven't gotten to meet yet, because you aren't "worthy." can you imagine being told all your life that you are not worthy to see your father yet? and not knowing if he believes that too?

but one day, you are going to be by his side as his son. i don't want to get too into the culture of the Al Ghul family because i don't actually know that much (i'm sure someone would know more about this, feel free to add on if you want to), but this is important to Damian. it's important to his mom. it's important to his grandfather, the leader of an extensive organization that stretches hundreds of years.

then he gets dropped off in a different country, culture, language, and family and he finds that things are not as he had been told his entire life. his father has many flaws, they do not believe the same importance of a blood tie as his family back home does. they question his entire upbringing to his face many times, they question his mother who he loves deeply. he's nine years old. imagine yourself in that position. you don't know yet what role you're playing in an adult's life, but you want to. desperately. you want to know where you stand. you want a hug. not to mention that Damian actually is a very emotional kid. he was taught to shove that deep, deep down, and not let that out.

too many people write Damian as if he was a "feral" kid which is kind of not something to put on him? i don't like it both because he wasn't feral, he was an asshole. there's a difference. and because it feels like a microaggression?? at times?? because once again... the culture that he is from... is important.

they have been racially profiled for many many years... and yes, everything that you read is political whether you want it to be or not. the act of reading is political. you should definitely be aware of what a writer's goal is when they were giving something to you. you should be reading deeper. again, i'm not from his culture and i can't say if it is an insult/insensitive joke or not, nor am i saying everyone who's made the joke before is a bad person. i have made jokes about Tim being a feral kid before and whatnot. i'm saying that no matter who you are, it is your responsibility to think critically about your media and kindly about other people. it feels uncomfortable to me because i know how wrongly the Al Ghuls (specifically Talia) have been treated by writers in the past. and Damian is an extension of that bias. just look at how many times they try to push Ian Wayne on us. or how they'll pull back on Damian's character development when talking about the Al Ghul family.

this probably isn't my topic to write about, at least not before i learn more about it. but since i get a fair amount of viewership, maybe someone will listen to me that won't listen to someone of color that has already pointed this out many times. with the comics fandom, and Batman fandom specifically sometimes, people don't care to think further about why the characters of color are so often and conveniently left out or forced into an archetype. take that as you will

so! he has spent his entire life believing he had to live up to two great legacies, both of which are VERY different. the intricacies of the Al Ghul family are often boiled down to pure evil by both fanon and canon writers, which dulls Damian's resolve and reasoning for what he had done, or makes it hard to connect to him. he has since learned more about who he wants to be and has come to respect his family in many ways. excuse me if i'm wrong, but i think part of why Damian came so hard for Tim was because Tim had everything Damian wanted. he had a place by Batman's side as both his son and his partner, and was very well respected by Batman and Nightwing both. he's older, more mature, he has stature in both this society Damian now has to fit into and within the family dynamic. considering Damian grew up in an assassin cult that solved threats to their dynamics or positions in power by murder, it wasn't a far leap for a child from that environment to make. he was modelling what he had been taught his entire life.

think about the mistakes that you made as a kid. and i don't mean something silly or funny now, i'm talking something that makes you feel ashamed. embarrassed. hurt. something that perhaps now as an adult, you reflect on as being totally uncool. and i want you to think about if maybe your environment had a role to play in that. maybe you made an insensitive joke that your mom or dad would have found funny, and someone pointed it out and reasonably made you feel like a jerk. shit happens. but you hopefully grew from that.

now imagine that mistake was you hurting someone.

yes, he was annoying. he was bratty, at times. he could be a little calculating shit. he hurt people with both his words and his weapons. Tim obviously had many many many reasons to be upset about his treatment- but I fear that most of his anger ended up directed at the older people in their lives that were supposed to be the ones to do something about it!

and though i hate that Tim went back to being Robin (it feels redundant), i have seen panels that show that the two of them working side by side after Damian and Tim both went through some life and perspective altering events both together and alone, has made Tim see Damian as his little brother, and vice versa. Damian has grown so much and many people just... don't care. no matter their reasoning for hating Damian, it's unfair to not look further than those cutting words written decades ago, or to bring up his mistakes every time you want to be mad at him. and i think it does a disservice to Tim to make him a bleeding heart about this when he has clearly forgiven Damian and cares about him. he rags on Damian like any older brother would, and Damian makes remarks like a younger brother would. personally, i think the two of them are doing pretty good right now

the development of their characters is actually so interesting within the canon aspect, even if they can fumble the ball every now and then. and the mischaracterization takes away the value that their canon relationship has. i personally love reading fics that have Damian and Tim teaming up. in aus where one thing changes and Tim and Damian become brothers later, i think it's actually so silly and fun when Damian respects Tim or thinks he's cool. or even without the au aspect! just like, a fic where the two of them are working together and it's either silly or serious, Damian having a begrudging respect for Tim and Tim being protective over Damian, etc etc, is sooooo much fun

[mazken]

brush test slash rendering practice with ayem

[prettymediocrewizard]

[weaverofink]

A Clara portrait because I love her so so much :) dialogue from the last episode of season 3

image without dialogue below:

she :)

[indornaga]

The Transitory Nature of Identity

it's natural for one's identity to shift, to reimagine itself through the years, especially as one begins to understand themselves more as they age.

we talk a lot in the community about "what if the id is temporary--!" and there's a lot of folk who are scared that things *are* transitory, when it shouldnt be a scary thing!

it feels a little like baring my soul, but i want to share my identity progression with y'all as an example that even those who seem to have figured their shit out, only look that way because they've had time to get a grasp on who they are!

(cut because it's long lol lots of images)

before i was daski, i was Sewreel. a wolf/dragon hybrid shapeshifting goddess of destruction. for reasons that are way too long for this already long post, we Split--she was her and i was me, and yet we were the same person, an alter ego if you will. and yet, you can see where while i've always been a dragon, a canid, a shapeshifter, and a goddess in some faculty, the form it took was very different!

this is the very first iteration of me as daski, i'm the orange canid.

due to a change in how my phantom limbs felt, i changed what "i" looked like, sort of rapid style.

..tbh i dont remember why i started using the kyuubi form, other than i liked it? lol

in amongst the stumbling through forms i enjoyed being portrayed as, i found the one that y'all might be most familiar with: the destructor dragon, the serpentine goddess that led me to finding the alterhuman community.

who, even then, went through some "form finding" to figure out what felt like me!

but i didnt stop there. the signature on most of these you see is based off of my incorporating the odd instincts of wanting to be fluffy with being a noodle

during all this time, i was still messing around with other forms as well, ones i didnt realize until later that were incredibly important to my identity.

i still cant believe how close to an indoraptor i got with this one. it's incredible.

i tested out my affiliation with water as a dragon, as well

Until we get up to today!

the ultimate culmination and understanding of where i've come from, and what i've found i've liked through the years. you can physically see how each transformation has lent itself into the next iteration.

each and every step of the way has been important, and while i may not currently identify with the steps i took to get here, they were all intrinsic and important stepping stones to understand how and why im me. i thank each form for the comfort and understanding that it gave to me, and i would be less of myself today had i not had each and every one of these forms as a part of my journey!

[aseuki]

YOURE this comets defense system? What makes you so important. You look like just another Astral to me. - Dawn

The comet awaits. A challenge has been issued. Beware the star's eternal...

@kirbyoctournament

[jerrythebug]

This is how my first try at drawing Booster and Beetle went. I was redrawing comic panels and such, it was great fun!

[redgoldblue]

that's agent sugar pink liquor liquor lips to you

(inspired by this post and this vid)

[franky-y]

some drawings of my fav guy

[shalom-iamcominghome]

The funniest cultural difference is seeing people freak out over traditional jewish practices (such as the practice of separation in marriage after birth and similar)

Maybe it's because I'm autistic, but the biggest thing that would get me to marry someone is if we were prescribed times to separate from each other physically. You're telling me you and your partner are glued to the hip???

[sysig]

An eye for a life, unquestionably worth it (Patreon)