#so why do I feel

[moncuries]

guess what i watched on new years (a redraw kind of)

#hee hee #it was cute #(disclaimer i do not subscribe to d+ so my dollar was not going there iykyk) #pjo #percy jackson #grover underwood #annabeth chase #my art #fanart #hoo #i had to take silly pics of myself 2 get percys arm hand thing right #and then just cropped it bc yea #i almost gave annabeth the hair i did in the last one but i thought #why do i feel compelled to change her hair to fit the old image i had from the books and not the others #and i drew her actual hair from the show #and it looks sm better

[hamletthedane]

I was meeting a client at a famous museum’s lounge for lunch (fancy, I know) and had an hour to kill afterwards so I joined the first random docent tour I could find. The woman who took us around was a great-grandmother from the Bronx “back when that was nothing to brag about” and she was doing a talk on alternative mediums within art.

What I thought that meant: telling us about unique sculpture materials and paint mixtures.

What that actually meant: an 84yo woman gingerly holding a beautifully beaded and embroidered dress (apparently from Ukraine and at least 200 years old) and, with tears in her eyes, showing how each individual thread was spun by hand and weaved into place on a cottage floor loom, with bright blue silk embroidery thread and hand-blown beads intricately piercing the work of other labor for days upon days, as the labor of a dozen talented people came together to make something so beautiful for a village girl’s wedding day.

What it also meant: in 1948, a young girl lived in a cramped tenement-like third floor apartment in Manhattan, with a father who had just joined them after not having been allowed to escape through Poland with his pregnant wife nine years earlier. She sits in her father’s lap and watches with wide, quiet eyes as her mother’s deft hands fly across fabric with bright blue silk thread (echoing hands from over a century years earlier). Thread that her mother had salvaged from white embroidery scraps at the tailor’s shop where she worked and spent the last few days carefully dying in the kitchen sink and drying on the roof.

The dress is in the traditional Hungarian fashion and is folded across her mother’s lap: her mother doesn’t had a pattern, but she doesn’t need one to make her daughter’s dress for the fifth grade dance. The dress would end up differing significantly from the pure white, petticoated first communion dresses worn by her daughter’s majority-Catholic classmates, but the young girl would love it all the more for its uniqueness and bright blue thread.

And now, that same young girl (and maybe also the villager from 19th century Ukraine) stands in front of us, trying not to clutch the old fabric too hard as her voice shakes with the emotion of all the love and humanity that is poured into the labor of art. The village girl and the girl in the Bronx were very different people: different centuries, different religions, different ages, and different continents. But the love in the stitches and beads on their dresses was the same. And she tells us that when we look at the labor of art, we don’t just see the work to create that piece - we see the labor of our own creations and the creations of others for us, and the value in something so seemingly frivolous.

But, maybe more importantly, she says that we only admire this piece in a museum because it happened to survive the love of the wearer and those who owned it afterwards, but there have been quite literally billions of small, quiet works of art in billions of small, quiet homes all over the world, for millennia. That your grandmother’s quilt is used as a picnic blanket just as Van Gogh’s works hung in his poor friends’ hallways. That your father’s hand-painted model plane sets are displayed in your parents’ livingroom as Grecian vases are displayed in museums. That your older sister’s engineering drawings in a steady, fine-lined hand are akin to Da Vinci’s scribbles of flying machines.

I don’t think there’s any dramatic conclusions to be drawn from these thoughts - they’ve been echoed by thousands of other people across the centuries. However, if you ever feel bad for spending all of your time sewing, knitting, drawing, building lego sets, or whatever else - especially if you feel like you have to somehow monetize or show off your work online to justify your labor - please know that there’s an 84yo museum docent in the Bronx who would cry simply at the thought of you spending so much effort to quietly create something that’s beautiful to you.

#shut up e #long post #Saturday thoughts #this has been in my drafts for a week haha #also this is the heart of why AI art feels so wrong #forget the discussion of copyright and theft etc - even if models were only trained on public domain they would still feel very wrong #because they’re not art. art is the labor of creation #even commercial art and art commissioned by the popes and kings of history: there is humanity in the labor of it #unrelated: I did not know living in the Bronx was now something to brag about. How the fuck do y’all New Yorkers afford this city???

[hansoeii]

crowley

#fem presenting crowley you're everything to me #as you might know I've been recovering from an injury these past few weeks which is why I couldn't draw as much as usual #been doing a bit better so I wanted to give drawing a try again #while my arm isn't back to normal yet it feels a LOT better than 2 weeks ago #which is a good sign #still gonan take things easy of course #good omens #good omens fanart #crowley #fem crowley #why was one of teh suggestions for that tag fem crocodile #I'll have to look that up #david tennant #crowley fanart #aziracrow #aziracrow fanart #my art #fanart #my good omens art #good omens 2

[oars]

#i feel like tge fact im apprehensive about posting this is kinda proving my point #the way everyone talks about both weight gain and weight loss is just horrendous #like idek if i could fit all i wanna say in here especially while im at work but #i so badly wish people could be normal about weight gain and talking about it #its like if youre not in some constant state of wanting to lose weight people want to kill you #god forbid you want to put on weight to feel more comfortable in your body outside of muscles and a butt #fatphobia is a given thats a whole other few paragraphs #im grateful i have mutuals and friends who are normal but ill have or hear these convos and go #ok i feel sick. why do i feel this way why do you feel that way. #anyways i think fatphobia is one of the worst things to ever happen

[snarkspawn]

based ofc on this

#baldur's gate 3 #bg3 #bg3 fanart #astarion ancunin #bg3 astarion #astarion #stuff and things #userpharawee #I'm back! hi :D #just a quick silly thing to try and get back into the groove after two weeks hhh #wHY do I always feel like I forgot how to draw after not drawing for a while uGH. anyway. #how have you guys been? I hope 2024 is treating you well so far ♥︎

[blueboyluca]

“When I first heard it, from a dog trainer who knew her behavioral science, it was a stunning moment. I remember where I was standing, what block of Brooklyn’s streets. It was like holding a piece of polished obsidian in the hand, feeling its weight and irreducibility. And its fathomless blackness. Punishment is reinforcing to the punisher. Of course. It fit the science, and it also fit the hidden memories stored in a deeply buried, rusty lockbox inside me. The people who walked down the street arbitrarily compressing their dogs’ tracheas, to which the poor beasts could only submit in uncomprehending misery; the parents who slapped their crying toddlers for the crime of being tired or hungry: These were not aberrantly malevolent villains. They were not doing what they did because they thought it was right, or even because it worked very well. They were simply caught in the same feedback loop in which all behavior is made. Their spasms of delivering small torments relieved their frustration and gave the impression of momentum toward a solution. Most potently, it immediately stopped the behavior. No matter that the effect probably won’t last: the reinforcer—the silence or the cessation of the annoyance—was exquisitely timed. Now. Boy does that feel good.”

— Melissa Holbrook Pierson, The Secret History of Kindness (2015)

#dog books #this chapter was very sad reading #when you become aware of punishment #and its use and its prevalence #it's hard not to despair #again this is why positive reinforcement feels like absolution #maybe now my eyes are open I can make up for what I did #what I did because it's what everyone does #because it's more acceptable to punish than to do anything else #I've been having so many thoughts about punishment and society and justice #this book was very validating #another great validating moment in my jumbled thoughts #was listening to the You're Wrong About episode on justice #with Amanda Knox #it helped to ease the despair a little

[andthebeanstalk]

Today my therapist introduced me to a concept surrounding disability that she called "hLep".

Which is when you - in this case, you are a disabled person - ask someone for help ("I can't drink almond milk so can you get me some whole milk?", or "Please call Donna and ask her to pick up the car for me."), and they say yes, and then they do something that is not what you asked for but is what they think you should have asked for ("I know you said you wanted whole, but I got you skim milk because it's better for you!", "I didn't want to ruin Donna's day by asking her that, so I spent your money on an expensive towing service!") And then if you get annoyed at them for ignoring what you actually asked for - and often it has already happened repeatedly - they get angry because they "were just helping you! You should be grateful!!"

And my therapist pointed out that this is not "help", it's "hLep".

Sure, it looks like help; it kind of sounds like help too; and if it was adjusted just a little bit, it could be help. But it's not help. It's hLep.

At its best, it is patronizing and makes a person feel unvalued and un-listened-to. Always, it reinforces the false idea that disabled people can't be trusted with our own care. And at its worst, it results in disabled people losing our freedom and control over our lives, and also being unable to actually access what we need to survive.

So please, when a disabled person asks you for help on something, don't be a hLeper, be a helper! In other words: they know better than you what they need, and the best way you can honor the trust they've put in you is to believe that!

Also, I want to be very clear that the "getting angry at a disabled person's attempts to point out harmful behavior" part of this makes the whole thing WAY worse. Like it'd be one thing if my roommate bought me some passive-aggressive skim milk, but then they heard what I had to say, and they apologized and did better in the future - our relationship could bounce back from that. But it is very much another thing to have a crying shouting match with someone who is furious at you for saying something they did was ableist. Like, Christ, Jessica, remind me to never ask for your support ever again! You make me feel like if I asked you to call 911, you'd order a pizza because you know I'll feel better once I eat something!!

Edit: crediting my therapist by name with her permission - this term was coined by Nahime Aguirre Mtanous!

Edit again: I made an optional follow-up to this post after seeing the responses. Might help somebody. CW for me frankly talking about how dangerous hLep really is.

#hlep #original #mental health #my sympathies and empathies to anyone who has to rely on this kind of hlep to get what they need. #the people in my life who most need to see this post are my family but even if they did I sincerely doubt they would internalize it #i've tried to break thru to them so many times it makes my head hurt. so i am focusing on boundaries and on finding other forms of support #and this thing i learned today helps me validate those boundaries. the example with the milk was from my therapist. #the example with the towing company was a real thing that happened with my parents a few months ago while I was age 28. 28! #a full adult age! it is so infantilizing as a disabled adult to seek assistance and support from ableist parents. #they were real mad i was mad tho. and the spoons i spent trying to explain it were only the latest in a long line of #huge family-related spoon expenditures. distance and the ability to enforce boundaries helps. haven't talked to sisters for literally the #longest period of my whole life. people really believe that if they love you and try to help you they can do no wrong. #and those people are NOT great allies to the chronically sick folks in their lives. #you can adore someone and still fuck up and hurt them so bad. will your pride refuse to accept what you've done and lash out instead? #or will you have courage and be kind? will you learn and grow? all of us have prejudices and practices we are not yet aware of. #no one is pure. but will you be kind? will you be a good friend? will you grow? i hope i grow. i hope i always make the choice to grow. #i hope with every year i age i get better and better at making people feel the opposite of how my family's ableism has made me feel #i will see them seen and hear them heard and smile at their smiles. make them feel smart and held and strong. #just like i do now but even better! i am always learning better ways to be kind so i don't see why i would stop

[bigfatbreak]

Birds of a Feather previous / next

#my art #feralnette au #birds of a feather #long tags #sorry I went apeshit in the tags #LETS SAY IT ALL TOGETHER NOW #I - M - A - G - OOOOOOOOO #its fun drawing marinette's back to Alya and having her appear stout and unstoppable and totally logical #and then you see her face and she's like two seconds from completely snapping and is keeping it together by a thread #as a note just because mari feels very certainly abt smth doesnt mean she's right. feelings can be valid and also irrational #in the throes of grief she decided it was better to be alone than to lose someone again so she started pulling away #and lila made pulling away very very very easy to do #shes also vaguely aware she's being unfair in pinning this on alya which is why she started spinning the drain on cockmoth again #legitimately all the shit that's happened to her wouldn't have been so catastrophic if he was never in the picture and she knows it #but the bitterness of her bestie choosing a fantastic liar over her at the worst of times stiiiiiings #alya's personal timing was bad but lila really took advantage of the fact that marinette had been acting off and weird #she basically clocked marinette as being unstable from SOMETHING and made up a lie about her #knowing she wouldn't have the strength to defend herself #between her social life going tachy bc of lila and losing fu in a way that felt like personhood death marinette was really put on the spot #and alya doing her thing of busting in there and assuming her bias is correct was a terrible combo #essentially marinette is highly unstable and alya is just realizing that #busting in and giving her a lecture when she's slightly hysterical and definitely delirious from exhaustion is NOT the way #to show her she's self sabotaging #cuz thats just gonna make her double down on self sabotaging. bc marinette will not accept that she is also a CHIIIIILD

[soranker]

my girlfriend

#trigun #trigun maximum #nicholas d wolfwood #i saw a tweet the other day that was like. do u ever like a character SO MUCH that u feel shy/embarrassed even drawing them #AND I WAS LIKE .... YYEAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! #yall dont even kno how hard i cringe at myself whenever i post abt this guy.. but i power thru OTL #these r a few weeks old btw ive been busy so i havent gotten to draw him in like a month and it feels so JHDSGF&UY EIY$NU&RHGFJDG!@JFHBD #save me. save me nicholas d wolfwood #why did i write all of this DO U SEE WHAT I MEANN my head is in my hands rn

[stuckinapril]

friend wanted to see my tumblr, and when i told him i can’t show it to him bc it’s basically my personal diary he went “oh so I can’t see it but a bunch of strangers on tumblr can??” he literally does not get me. no one will get me like the people in my phone get me

#It’s just so different #even though it’s public it still feels secret and safe. i feel comfy sharing a lot more on here than I do in my actual day to day life lol #in my head I’m also just speaking to myself 90% of the time which helps #if a friend off tumblr saw my thoughts I’d feel so weird ab it #esp bc they might get the vagueposting about certain situations and tell mutual friends #no thank u. this is for me. I’m not about to start censoring my thoughts bc someone I know knows my tumblr #u guys literally saw me have LIVE BREAKDOWNS #meanwhile I’ll have the worst fucking day in history and tell no one about it. I’m already cripplingly private but way more so in real life #this is basically a low stress journaling outlet for me. it’s so important for me to maintain the separation #like this is actually my diary & has been so handy for letting out emotions / articulating thoughts / staying on track !! #& I’ve met so many kind people on here who actually get me. which is so hard to find irl bc I’m surrounded by pre-med gunners/overachievers #who are by standard not very good w emotion & can be competitive/judgmental. or at least it’s hard for me to be vulnerable in front of them #and I’m part of that crowd so I reserve my emotions only to a handful of very close friends #it’s nice to hop on here and express negative emotions!! or positive emotions!! just whatever I want and it’s low stress and people get me #I don’t have to worry about judgment or competitiveness etc etc #like everyone on here is so kind & nice & understanding. & just a breath of fresh air from the types I run w. it’s just nice to have this #so idk that’s why I think I’ll always be strict about keeping the worlds separate. it just works #p

[lilybug-02]

Pain is a great motivator…

Part 26 || First || Previous || Next

—Full Series—

Meanwhile Toriel:

(Loud noises don't wake her up usually.)

Artist note: I’m so proud of this :))) I know it’s a lot of dialogue and reading, but dialogue is grueling work for me. I’m glad with the art and for the amount of pages I made in such a relatively short time span -w- page 5 was super fun to work on. A lot of blood, sweat, and hours here... :) The backgrounds were a big bore tbh, but I finished them! Yippie!

#CHARA WTF DO YOU MEAN “COMPUTER”???? #lol i hope you guys dont hate me for what im doing in the next update. #IS THAT A MAC OS??? #Yes......owo'' #Kris and the Gang are LITTLE now. I've pixelated them and turned them into little game characters! #FINALLY!! #I never thought I would be going so far in the story to explain WHY Kris pulls out their SOUL and opens Darkfountains even when they killed #Berdly in Chapter 2. Pain can make people do horrible things. #Uhhhhhhhhh anyways. :3 I hope you liked it! I made this post a little too long for my liking and didnt get it out when i wanted too- #but thats okay! As long as people enjoy it :) #bread #art #deltarune chara timeline #deltarune chara timeline comic #seriously though #long post #man am I glad I switched over to the limited color palet! It helps me feel alot more relaxed uwu #This is....way over 16 hours of work q-q #chara #asriel #susie #kris #asriel dreemurr #kris dreemurr #kris deltarune #susie deltarune #deltarune #comic #my art

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

a couple scribbles i cleaned up. also i think i like drawing him in varying states of distress

#i desperately want to know what happened the first time he cried #actually is that something he can do? is he capable of it? #i feel like he wouldn't like it... #since crying is messy and we all know he enjoys/values his appearance greatly #i mean cmon. its an involuntary loss of composure. and especially if he doesnt understand what/why its happening #so in my mind rn hed be idk... kinda desperate to stop crying & act fine? #HES SO FASCINATING. WHAT IS WRONG WITH HIM <3 #many things probably! #what to do when you're a puppet created as a blank slate while everyone around you already Knows Shit and Understands Feelings #scribble salad #welcome home #welcome home puppet show #welcome home fanart #welcome home wally #wally darling #i know there's a lot of Head Empty jokes abt him #but honestly he gives the vibes of thinking constantly #always absorbing information and considering and learning and Forming Opinions #he LOOKS head empty. but he isnt. #i just cant imagine him never not Thinking #unless he really is head empty in which case. good for him. i support him no matter what. hes just like me<3

[floweroflaurelin]

How do you want to do this?

—

Goodbye, Faithful Caregiver.

#critical role #fcg critical role #cr fcg #bells hells #critical role fanart #critical role campaign 3 #cr3 #bells hells fanart #critical role art #cr fanart #otohan thull #fresh cut grass #floweroflaurelin art #ashton greymoore #fearne calloway #dorian storm #orym of the air ashari #cr frida #imogen temult #laudna #chetney pock o'pea #sam riegel #critical role spoilers #cr spoilers #rip fcg #AHHHHHHHH #SOBBING AND SCREAMING #this took SO LONG but I had to get these feelings out #four days on a single project I need you to understand how unprecedented this is for me #sam riegel WHY do you keep making me CRY

[pinkgibbon]

anton chigurh goes to stardew valley

#every1 in the notes asking me why I made this 🙄 art isn’t about why! it’s about why not! why don’t you marry safe art if you love it so much #i got a better shirt for him eventually but i dont have a pic of it #roleplaying as him was the only way i was finally able to bring myself to do joja route #no country for old men #stardew valley #i like to think of him as being magically stuck there for an indeterminate amount of time and trying to survive w/o murdering the whole tow #anton chigurh #marnie stardew valley #i better not see ANY marnie slander!!! #how do u tag them #stardew valley marnie #sdv marnie #morris stardew valley #sdv morris #stardew valley morris #i was not gonna romance anyone obviously but i really enjoyed drawing that pic of him w morris so i got the marry morris mod and it is so #goddamn funny. just the idea of. anton chigurh x morris. me and friends r having the time of our life with it. i even made fanart. #which i may post later if i feel like it #my art #fanart #ncfom

[autoneurotic]

#ALL U DO IS SUBTRACT 12 FROM THE CURRENT HOUR BABES BTW #14:55-12:00=02:55 #because we use 12 hour so that’s why u subtract 12 u see #i feel like almost everywhere other than american is hip with 24 hr time which is why i specified it like this #i’m american and i understand and use (and prefer) 24 hr #most people i know get it but hate it #wait did you know also they make twenty four hour ANALOGUE clocks #need one

[sergle]

There’s no shame greater than that of adding a mutual on discord, and then blowing it at establishing regular convos in the early stages. and then it’s been too long. and their name simply sits there....

#why do I do that bro. it's a sickness. a disease #sergle.txt #feel a lil too late now perhaps so i'm just gonna jump in front of this semi truck and see what happen