thatweirdafbeing

[thatweirdafbeing]

I feel like I have the broken shards of the past borrowed deep within me while my abusers walk around free and fine.

It’s not fair but I’m too exhausted to do anything at this point.

[thatweirdafbeing]

I don’t think 16 year old me would be proud of where I am today. Honestly, she wouldn’t understand many of the decisions we’ve made.

I mean, why would we leave the only person who ever promised us so much love? Yeah, he isn’t easy, but neither are we. Haven’t I learn that years ago? Everyone says he has so much patience with me, patience that they never had!

So she showed him patience as well. She knew, back then, that love is not easy, especially not for people like them. And she wanted to be all that he said she was, in the beginning: his ray of sunshine, the only good thing in his life, his life savior. Anything he needed. As long as we could say it was love, no one could say otherwise.

On the other hand, maybe 17 year old me would be proud. Maybe not. After all, she took the decision, of breaking up. But she regretted it. The moment people said he’d hit rock bottom, the day his mother called, late at night asking if I knew where he was, if he gave me any news… But specially the day she found out he already had another.

We new we couldn’t last much longer with him. When we snapped, it was either breaking up or seriously harming ourselves, or him. Still, we worried everyday afterwards: what if he did something stupid, on porpoise or not? What if they blame me again? What if we actually could had saved him? It only lasted a couple of weeks, though.

And he moved on, immediately. And it was, at the end, all for nothing. They loved, cared for, and forgave him, and never received anything in return, not even peace or closure.

18 was a blur. It’s hard to say what she would think of today, she just wanted everything to end. Didn’t really mattered how. 16, 17 thought about ending all, too, but hey, we had to stick around, for him. He was always worse than me right, emotionally. We were all he had… Until we weren’t. We were all we had. And it wasn’t enough.

We weren’t very present, for most of the time. Best to just put on some distraction and check out while pretending to watch it. We tried to appear fine, cause we knew momma told us so, we didn’t need to hear it. We felt pathetic enough to have believed it would pay out if we just endure it. Back at 16 a lot of people definitely believed we could change him. Or so they said so. But at 18, in 2019, we saw how the world viewed girls like us.

From 19 to 22 there was a lot of fear of the future, come to think about it now. Way more than hope. Fear of Covid. Fear of the oh so many crises happening, right when it was time to be an adult and deal with all that on our own. But when have we not been on our own right? Well, now. There was a new boyfriend, and along with him the fear of him also turning out to be abusive. Then the fear of being too much for him.

Past 18, all of the old mes would be proud of 23 years old me, for the most parts. Maybe they would rather not have to hold back tears when talking about 16 year old us. Maybe they don’t approve our therapist calling us victims. But that’s ok, I’m not ready to call myself that either.

Yeah, I don’t think all those past mes would be proud of were we are, because it’s not where none of us thought we would be. But, God, I’m so happy we’re not where we used to be. And for that, I’m proud of all them, if for anything, for having stuck around.

[thatweirdafbeing]

Just create the thing you want to create. Because who's going to stop you? Oh, it's you yourself? Well you can't let that bastard win, can you?

[thatweirdafbeing]

hot artists don't gatekeep

I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard

Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.

Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.

Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.

Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.

SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.

SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.

Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.

Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.

Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.

Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.

Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.

[thatweirdafbeing]

EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE OKAY

[thatweirdafbeing]

Another day, another RadioApple drawing that absolutely no one asked for

Original:

[thatweirdafbeing]

Republicans will do anything to avoid raising the wage

[thatweirdafbeing]

Because I need grumpy tsundere Husk purring while cuddling his Angel!

A little comic I made in Procreate for practice, I’m quite proud of it!

[thatweirdafbeing]

To recognize TERFs, anti’s, fash, incels and other internet shitstains, one pattern you need to recognize is this:

They take some normal human behavior

Explain it in the darkest, most bad faith way possible

And then ignore any other, often more realistic, explanation.

A simple example:

A lot of adults watch TV shows about high school relationship drama.

Dark bad faith take: all these adults are obsessing over teenager sex lives because they want to fuck teenagers.

More realistic explanation: a lot of adults have memories of their own high school relationship drama that they like to relive, process, etc through media.

Another realistic explanation: People can empathize with the stories of hobbits, dragons, defense lawyers, plucky detectives, space rebels, talking dogs and teenagers in high school without always having a desire to fuck the characters involved. It is possible to just enjoy a story as a story without it fulfilling some emotional of sexual need.

Like, when you take a tiny step back, it becomes clear that the jump from ‘adults watch high school dramas’ to ‘they all want to fuck teenagers’ is absolute moon logic.

This logic only works if you assume the absolute worst possible things about the group you’re talking about. This logic works if the only lens you can see a group through is ‘predator’ and you do not acknowledge that they are completely humans who can just do non-predatory things like ‘enjoying stories’.

And assuming the absolute worst possible things about a specific group while denying their complexity and humanity… well, that is absolutely key to what TERFs, anti’s, fashos, incels, etc. do.

[thatweirdafbeing]

Small artists you need to understand that when you see an artist who you think has 'made it' tells you not to worry about the numbers and to not fret about getting more likes than reblogs they are not telling you it because they think you are stupid for caring or because they dont need to network to survive they are very likely telling you that because they have witnessed first hand the way the numbers game tears people to shreds in terms of mental health and motivation

[thatweirdafbeing]

Gentle reminders for the literature folk

"Oh! Trigger Warnings are an attack on my autonomy as an author" it's not. Really, it's an information you give your audience so they can protect themselves on a fragile momment. It means some people will opt out, it doesn't mean they are censoring your work. The content it's still there, and many will view it.

"But the audience is questioning the need for that scene on the work-" as is theyr right. Once you publish your work, those who view it will have opinios on it. The ones that are respectfully sharing that opinion are well within the lines of the author-viewer dynamic. And that's ok! Criticism is not the end of the world! Allow yourself to reflect on your work and maybe - just maybeee - change the way you see/do it.

Art's autonomy, just like freedom of speech, it's the liberty to do your thing, say what you have to, create your art without guidelines or fear of legal persecution for your fiction. It is NOT the exemption from criticism or responses from your espectador. On the artistic side, you can do whatever you want, share what and if you want, knowing that people will interpret and understand it from their view point. And again, that's ok. That's the magic of creative work, of art, once shared, it's a communication. Be respectful, ignore those who aren't and keep an open mind.

Criticism and censorship are worlds apart. Belive me. I don't know about the rest of the world's experience with it, but look up any Brazilian artists from the 60's and 70's. Read 1984, do a Google search, I don't know. It's very, very different. Artists have changed a lot soldiering through nonsensical critics.

And finally, literature does not exist on a vacuum. Yes, your work it's fictional, it shouldn't be analysed by reality standards but by it's own internal rules. But, that doesn't mean you are not sharing a world view. Even if it's through irony, through metaphor, through the voice of those you want to criticize, it's there. Sometimes authors glamorize certain things, sometimes they demonize certain actions. Sometimes their opinion on a certain topic will be visible. And since there is no canonic rules given to you by your peers, no structure that had to be followed or else, (aka author's autonomy), readers will assume that's on you. Oh well. If it isn't the consequences of your own autonomous actions. Stand for what you believe, clarify any misunderstandings and follow along.

(I know I said finally but) TAKE EVERYTHING THE ACADEMY SAYS WITH A GRAIN OF SALT. THEY ARE NOT THE VOICE OF THE GENERAL PUBLIC JUST LIKE THE PROFESSIONAL CRITICTS AREN'T EITHER.

Keep that in mind and keep writing what you love :) your desire to create will meet the desires of those who wants to connect with your art. It always will, when done with love and honesty. Keep going

Edited because I was angry with my Literature Analysis's teacher and her weird takes on author's autonomy the time I post it

[thatweirdafbeing]

A thought that kept me awake at night:

Almost every kid like me knew this ritual: Conceal, don't feel, don't let them know. You had to keep it all to yourself, not ever taking the veil off. Even alone, to avoid breaking the habit.

Keep your head down, and count your blessings! "Now days it's a little better. In the old times people like you were hidden, trapped and caged, by their own families! Specially if, say, your parents had a lot to lose if word got out of a kid like this, born in their lineage..." Sometimes they still are. Sometimes they don't have to. The pressure, the constant anxiety of keeping your facade is too much. So you isolate, to lessen the threats of your peculiarity being noticed. You hide, because you understand: don't let them in, don't let them see . Be the good kid you always had to be. Conceal, don't feel, don't let them know.

But, you're not a kid anymore. Now you are in charge, and no one can be in their own little world once there isn't anyone to manage their life. In that moment you realize you have no idea how to handle everything that takes to be functional, normal. Well, now they know. And they don't like it.

Run, hide, seclude yourself from all those who don't accept you. Maybe you are lucky enough to be free there. Maybe at first you won't know what do with yourself. It won't be easy, but you'll learn. Or maybe they will force you back, because they don't know what to do with someone different either.

Now that you have let it go, you can't go back. It's not your wish to hurt anyone, and shrinking to fit on what they deem appropriate, stretching to a breakdown point, will certainly do that. You learned that you can be so much more, leaning on your abilities, maneuvering your limits. If everyone could just move past their bias or else just let you go on your own way....

Every kid like me should know we can be ourselves and be so, so much more than a nervous wreck trapped by relative norms. You can, if you stop concealing, start dealing with your feelings and just, let it go

[thatweirdafbeing]

A snake damned humanity.

And a snake gave humanity it’s best shot at redemption.

[thatweirdafbeing]

the creators struggle of "yes I absolutely made this for myself and I should absolutely appreciate that I made this thing that turned out amazing and be proud of it on that merit alone" vs "man it'd be cool if everyone liked this thing I made as much as I do"

[thatweirdafbeing]

You know what? I never thought of that. Funny that, stories where the characters know as much as we, the spectators, do were always my favorite. Maybe because in those, we don't judge the characters actions based on something they don't know but we do.

We this new realization, will try to give characters more grace and see if I can enjoy them more!

Will also try and write a story were the main character is the last to find out about everything and one where the audience walks along side the mc in the discoveries....

[thatweirdafbeing]

[thatweirdafbeing]

Every time people hit me with the "why, why can't AI write/create art as a human?" I think about the saying "every story has already been told." I'll explain, stick with me .

If you give 5 different creators the same prompt, they'll each create something different. They'll have the base in common, but what make them art is the unique human element. And there are SO MANY VARIABLES on being human. Are they Italian? Are they Colombian? Did they grew up poor? Were they raised by loving people? Have they ever traveled aboard? Are they in love? Have they ever grieved a loved one? What's their age, their sexuality, their social status? Every single aspect that can vary from person to person will unequivocally change their experience on life, which will translate into their craft.

And that's why AI can't write like humans. That's why AI can't make art. You can tell any whatever-chat to write like a rich mixed-race person from Canada who were raised by loving grandparents who did everything to overcome poverty and give them an opportunity, but with this exact same characteristics, a straight and a pan will have different experiences. A half Chinese half afroamerican person will differ from a half Nigerian half French. Hell, their interests, the people they interacted with, every. single. thing. about. an. individual. sips into their art.

AI doesn't have experiences. Doesn't have depth. Doesn't have what makes art, art. Life.