tlbodine

[tlbodine]

Ok here’s the thing.

Friendship is all about the give and take, and no, that doesn’t make it transactional, it’s just how human relationships work. I vent to you, you vent to me, all is bueno.

It is 100% valid to want a friendship wherein neither of you vents your feelings or opens up about hard stuff. In fact as you grow older *most* of your friendships could be like that, and that’s a-ok. You can have fairweather friends. You can have people you just have a good time with who never know you outside of whatever context. And maybe something happens to deepen that friendship and maybe not but either way, cool.

What you can’t do, though, is have a friendship where *you* get to vent and dump your trauma but *they* can’t. That’s shitty.

If you’re always complaining about your life but as soon as they start in on their thing you shut them down, you’re being a shit friend.

Sometimes this circumstance is temporary. If you’re dealing with a massive traumatic Thing right now and you don’t have the bandwidth to deal with your friend’s work drama, fine. But if you always have A Thing and can never deal emotionally with their thing, you need to renegotiate that friendship — either listen more or dump less or just call it off.

Not every friendship needs to be a ride-or-die soul bond, and sometimes friendships strengthen and weaken with time and it’s totally fine. But if you realize you’re lonely all the time and your friends keep abandoning you, rule out the possibility that maybe the level of friendship you’re offering doesn’t match what youre asking in return.

? where am i

#life advice

[tlbodine]

“In fiction we assume that humans are cowardly. But in reality, humans are often generous and brave. We are a self-hating species, and like any self-hater, we are mostly incorrect.” --WTNV 232

[tlbodine]

[tlbodine]

reminder that coming up with some fake little dudes and creating intricate storylines in your head is a completely free and fun way to pass the time and the government can't stop you

[tlbodine]

Just a reminder for those who overthink :

You are just fine, you’re doing just fine, no one cares about that one slightly awkward thing you did that one time, no one minds if you have messy hair and you are a pleasure to talk to

[tlbodine]

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.

#resources

[tlbodine]

This. Your duty as a critique partner is first and foremost to understand what the author is trying to do, judge whether it's succeeding, and flag areas where it is or is not hitting the mark from your perspective.

Where things get tricky is when the author says that their goal is to sell the book to a publisher and become an upmarket commercial success, but that goal is at odds with their ideal vision of the work. That's something you can point out (if you're someone who's pretty familiar with the market, at least) but can't really do much about. They have to resolve that paradox on their own.

if someone asks you to read their writing and provide feedback, remember that your feedback should help them get as close as they can to their ideal version of the work. not yours. not capitalism's. theirs.

[tlbodine]

bring back tumblr ask culture let me. bother you with questions and statements

[tlbodine]

Yes I AM horny for the sea. And what of it?

#moby dick

[tlbodine]

My primary author presence is on tumblr so you can see how well that’s going

okay tumblr’s exclusion from the twitter social media ban list is hilarious but genuinely we do not belong on there. if a real human person asks “where can i find you on social media” and your choice is a swift death or revealing your tumblr, most of us would simply expire. half of y’all change urls every week like you’re in witness protection. just imagine for one second attaching your wholeass government name to your latest two am clownposting and tell me that didn’t send a cold chill down your spine. the only place i ever want to see the words “connect with me on tumblr!” is on the ao3 profile of an author i’m actively stalking. anyone in the world can follow me except anyone i personally know. antisocial media.

[tlbodine]

This is extra funny when you know that paramedics often use songs of a certain bpm to hold their rhythm for compressions.

My roommate’s preference for this was “Stayin Alive” by The Bee Gees.

When you’re having a meltdown but your brain goblins are playing a funny song on repeat in your head

[tlbodine]

I think there’s a lot to be said for learning to decouple identity from behavior, at least as it relates to adopting new habits and maybe also abandoning old ones.

Like….I think for some of us at least, there’s this trap we can fall into where we associate a certain behavior with a certain kind of person, and avoid the behavior, when realistically a lot of behaviors are values neutral.

For example, I never would have considered myself to be a spreadsheet user, because I associated them with this image in my head of number crunching accountant types. But it turns out they’re a great way of exploring all kinds of data beyond that, and now I have a reputation at work for being a spreadsheet gal.

Same deal with journaling. I never thought of myself as The Kind of Person who makes lists and uses a planner because I associated that with this image of being rigid and controlling but then I fell into the bullet journaling habit and it’s had a huge positive impact on me.

Or exercise! For so long I avoided exercise because I associated it with douchey gym bros and the popular volleyball girls who bullied me in high school. But there are so many other ways to be fit! And so many other types of people who do fitness!

I guess what I’m saying is don’t discard a tool just because the people you associate with that tool use it a certain way. You can use it in your own way without sacrificing your identity or “selling out” or whatever.

And also like. Maybe routinely challenge your assumptions and mental image of other people, too, because maybe you’re making judgments that are inaccurate and unkind without even knowing it.

#life advice

[tlbodine]

A fish with human teeth has just been spotted swimming around in the ocean with a hateful smile

#my work here is done

[tlbodine]

I learned how to cook as a self-preservation tactic starting around 10 years old. Not that my parents didn't feed me, they absolutely did, but if I wanted anything outside my mom's pretty limited rotation of meals, it was on me. She'd buy the groceries and help me out if I asked but I was on my own to track down and experiment with recipes and this was, frankly, one of the best skills I ever acquired in my life.

Cooking became one of my primary hobbies in grad school when I was broke as fuck. It's a great broke hobby because you need to eat so it's not costing you extra money and will, in fact, save you money in most cases, and you become the instant best friend of everyone at your workplace when you roll in with a batch of freshly made-from-scratch bagels.

I strongly advocate for EVERYONE to learn how to cook. It's the best way to ensure you have access to cheap, nutritious food that you enjoy eating, and the more you learn about food science and cooking, the more flexibility and variation you'll be able to incorporate.

If you have Amazon Prime, all of the seasons of Good Eats are on there, and that's a fantastic resource for learning the science of food. I also really love Ethan Chlebowski on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@EthanChlebowski

I'm working on a "how to teach yourself cooking" guide that I plan to release for free or PWYW or something as soon as I'm able to finish it. Somebody come hassle me in my DMs about if you don't see me post it soon.

I'm curious. Reblog this if you know how to cook

I don’t even care if it’s macaroni, ramen or those little bowls you stick in the microwave. Please, I need reassurance that most of the population on tumblr WOULDN’T STARVE TO DEATH if their parents couldn’t fix them food or they couldn’t go out to eat. 

#cooking #food #I know people have different struggles #and cooking doesn't always seem accessible #but i promise #there are low spoonie options #there are cheap options #there are options when you have no stove #and no fridge #everyone deserves homemade food #i love you #i want you to be fed

[tlbodine]

Genre then author

[tlbodine]

To put it very bluntly.

You will always make a better impact helping people who need it than trying to hurt people you think deserve it.

[tlbodine]

Having recently watched this, can confirm. It’s delightful.

This is the highest compliment I can bestow, but Dungeon Meshi reads like it was written for, if not by, Terry Pratchett.

Oh, you have a dungeon with monsters and adventurers? How does it work? Who pays? How do you get enough supplies? People will eat anything when hungry; do they eat the monsters? People will cook feasts from rotten meat and weeds; what feasts can you make with monsters?

By the way, here is a terrible pun about soup.

You want heroes to have peril, but also to live? Easy! Just have a ressurection spell. Well how does it work? What's the point? What would people give to live forever? What would people give to die?

Here's a dwarf whose magical shield is a wok.

And if they come back, it still hurts right? Do people remember? What happens if they forget that, outside of the dungeon, they can't come back? What if the thing that brings them back also ties them to the dungeon more and more, changes them, makes them different without knowing why.

Whilst you were thinking about that, the halfling founded an adventurers guild. It's an actual union with dues etc. btw he's a deadbeat dad apart from this.

The dwarf from earlier carries familial trauma that will haunt you for the next decade. The protagonist holds his sister's skull as the first proof that there is anything left of her. The two female leads share a love so deep that giving it a name would pollute it. The protagonist's sword is a mollusc.