I've really actively been working on myself for the past ten years, only to realize the way I was trying to be, just ain't for me.

I've gotten rid of my social anxiety, I've learned how to do small talk and be really good at it, I've learned how to be in groups and how to communicate, I've learned how to connect with others, step out of my comfort zone and get rid of my fear of trying new things.

And now I'm like huh... I'm actually happiest at home in my comfort zone. Its not that I can't do all the things I could never so anymore, but I don't really want to? Its kinda peaceful.

btw artists you should maybe stop posting your art on pinterest if that's something you've been doing, i know a few ppl who have been sharing their art there

i'm not sure if this section has been updated at all or if it's always been this way but I was taking a read through their soon-to-be-implemented update to their TOS to see if they'll be adding anything with the increased usage of AI and this looks like perhaps this section exists (at least in part) for that reason 🤔 [thinking emoji]

unfortunately their report function for art theft/reposting has historically been less than stellar (an understatement) and I don't really see it improving any time soon but perhaps they will improve it with this update to their TOS and privacy policy! one can hope at least!

link to the preview of the new TOS: https://policy.pinterest.com/en/terms-of-service-preview

alt text for the screenshot below, as well as linked in the embedded image description feature:

A screenshot of a section of Pinterest's new Terms of Service. The subsection heading reads: "How we and other users can use your User Content". The highlighted text reads: "By providing any User Content on the Service, you grant us license to use, store, publicly perform or display, reproduce, save, modify, create derivative works, monetize, download, translate and distribute your User Content. Nothing in these Terms entitles you to any payments or the right to share in any revenue from any monetization of User Content."

Image description note: If you want to read the full paragraph, please visit the page I've linked in the post.

Omg, Dante Basco ships Zutara! My life is complete.

which ocs in the fandom do you find the most interesting? also, which ocs do you think have the most aesthetically pleasing designs? finally, which ocs have you only heard of but would like to know more about?

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh nooooooo ha haaa noooo i can't possibly answer this because it would be soooo unfair to have favourites wouldn't it's comet knight by @kittenvirus

talking to a friend about getting back into art and i think the #1 most important piece of art advice i could ever get or give is just "figure out what is FUN to you"

like i think there is sooooo much emphasis on how to build SKILL in art but a lot of it really treats art like a job or like video game grinding, like it's this thankless job that you have to work at in order to reach a Threshold and i know it's not EASY to make yourself have fun but like

imo a solid 70% of the reason i create art is because the Act of Drawing is fun to me. it's fun problem-solving and planning and putting down lines and playing with colors and tools. it's fun to depict little scenes in my head or to create outfits or to find ways to fill the canvas. never forget that creating can be fun. sometimes it's hard and sometimes you have to battle through your own blockades to get there but the ultimate goal should always be to ENJOY it, to find what you enjoy doing and then do it forever. improvement will follow enjoyment.

i think especially with all the debate about ML image generation it's more important than ever to embrace FUN. if you're only focused on the end result it's so easy to get in your own head- to think about what doesn't look good or what skills you don't have yet or to compare yourself to other artists. but photography didn't kill the art of drawing and AI won't either because, simply put, there will always be people who want to do the physical act of making art because it's fun to do! using paints and markers, splashing colors around, doing shitty pen doodles, using the symmetry tool in your art program to do abstract mandalas that are just squiggles formed into patterns. do art like you're 5 and you've been handed markers to pass the time. do art like you're bored in class and you're keeping your brain entertained by drawing stick figure comics in the margins. do art like an absent thing, do art because it satisfies your brain. the goal is not to make something beautiful and perfect, the goal is to make something because your hands need to make and your body needs to make.

"I can't fix the world but I can change it" has literally changed me as a person

A few (primarily Southern) superstitions I found while doing an Antrho project. Most of these are from my family's history, but a lot of them are also just very common Southern superstitions that I thought were cool.

The first male to enter the house after the New Year has to give the family a dollar, which has to be taped above the front door indicating that money will flow throughout the house for the new year. According to my mother, this comes from a side of the family that she believes was Polish. She's not sure if that's true or not, but my grandmother on that side did this every New Year's until she died.

Eating black-eyed peas, collard greens, and pork on New Years brings good luck. This one's very common and my family does this every year (my parents cut out the collard greens, but my grandmother keeps them in. She also uses hog jowl instead of regular pork). The peas are for luck, the greens are for money, and the pork is for prosperity.

Putting a mirror on your porch can prevent the devil from entering your home. Basically this comes from the idea that the devil can only enter a house at night and must return to hell at sunrise and by placing a mirror on your porch, his vanity will cause him to spend the entire night looking at his reflection until the sun comes to banish him.

If you plant a cedar tree and it grows to be six feet tall, you'd lose someone close to you. This one comes courtesy of my grandfather and was honestly one I'd never heard of before.

To prevent spirits from entering your house, paint the entryway/porch of your house with haint blue to confuse them since spirits can't cross water. You see this a lot here and mainly it's the porch roof that's painted haint blue, but I've seen doors and shutters also painted this way.

If you have cracks in your house, a boo hag (a trapped spirit that kind of acts like a vampire) can use them to enter your home. Boo hags mainly use a person's breath as sustenance instead of blood, and it's believed that if the person being fed on by a boo hag struggles, the hag will just take their skin. The hag also has to return to their own skin (as when they feed at night they have none) by morning or else they will be trapped forever without skin.

Having a bottle tree can ward off evil spirits. This is the same thing as painting your porch haint blue, except you hang blue bottles on a tree instead. A lot of people have these regardless if they believe the superstition and they're honestly really beautiful.

sudden itch to write a rare pair fic thats not Percy related

but like

the last time I did that it ended up becoming my top fic and lead to me deciding that you know... actually I hate that ship just out of spite so i'm not sure how good of an idea it is

maybe if i try like femslash or something super super rare with side characters or something

delighted that i'm so much more fond of chuuya at this point than i was just a couple years ago. it took the stormbringer play, the cannibalism play, and the fifteen manga (still haven't gotten to those two novels in their entirety, I Will Soon I Promise), it took 6ish+ years, but i can confidently say I Get It Now. Now i just need asagiri to break him (affectionate) in the manga and actually give him a character arc already <333

i'm learning that sometimes one of the biggest steps in self-improvement/recovery is realizing that there were some situations where i was the toxic person in the past.

Okay so the most reasonable thought I've had all month is definitely "I should clear my calendar for February and just spend the entire month writing f/f fic, shouldn't I?"

That seems reasonable, right?

local man discovers he's gotten into the habit of using DBT techniques without actually being taught them because at some point he realised that the things we get the urge to do when we have strong emotions often aren't healthy and that he doesn't like how he feels afterwards so he started noticing when that was happening and going "fuck that shit" and doing the opposite instead

so after some contemplation (and a nice, very warm shower - along with decompressing by watching some Laat Week Tonight lol) I've decided that it's probably best for me to stop overthinking and letting myself fall into a mental spiral from the whole situation.

Because I was.... heavily unregulated and sort of unreasonable over the whole thing. I have incredibly bad anxiety, and it got to the point where I was imagining that he was forced to do things (such as change his discord settings and stop talking to me) when in truth that is highly unlikely.

I cannot put it aby better than I was spiraling, and needed to find stability.

Like how the hell am I supposed to know? How am I supposed to know what's happening? It doesn't help me to be so attached and so incredibly worked up from everything I notice and see. I felt like I was being almost downright creepy. I was driving myself into a very bad mental state, and i need to step back.

Stop being so incredibly attached to something I simply do not have control over.

So, obviously i will continue to be here and wait for when he returns. But I need to detach from this idea that i actually know him and his whole life, down to everything happening in his everyday life and that this is incredibly "abnormal". I simply need a break from this, it's too much mental strain on me and probably even him.

I sent a message asking if he was okay, and that's all i can do. Spiraling out of control won't help me or him at all.

we have moved on to persuasive speeches in comm class n bc we have so little time left in the semester they're gonna be partner debates, so i have grouped up with the guy in there with whom i started talking abt genshin a while back, n we're just like. "fuck it. let's just do the ethics of gacha games and whether they should be regulated like gambling in casinos"

this year has been really definitive for me in terms of healing, listening to my own needs, moving on from relationships and reconciling broken ones. there's also something about november (and the fall season in general) that makes me ruminate about my growth, so i'm in this cute little mood now where i'm feeling really proud of myself for the decisions i've made this year. some of them were extremely difficult decisions but now that i'm living my life just fine (in fact better) after having made them, i think they were for the better and i'm glad i took that leap of faith.

i also think i'm finally starting to put myself first. and a telltale sign of this remarkable progress is that i've been thinking more about how i'd like to start living for myself and how i should make that happen. i'm finally making plans and time not for anyone else, but for myself.

anyway nov has been really lovely so far and i think i'm incredibly lucky to have experienced everything that i have this month. <3

I really wanna understand your love for kieran culkin, I loved him in Scott Pilgrim.

Oh my god this is so nice you really don’t have to ask but I love that you did!!!!!!!!

I wish I had a less lizard brain answer to attribute the spark to but sometimes you need someone to do something sexual in order for your brain to unlock that interest in them and the Roman/Gerri phone scene takes the prize. When I rewatched the show I had zero recollection of the emotional scene that happens right after because apparently I blacked out lol. So then I’m watching the rest of the show through new eyes which of course leads to huh, I definitely love this character and am attracted to this being, but do I also love this person? Anon, he’s so lovable! The pro and con of Kieran & Roman is there is A Lot of Kieran in the character. Uh the best parts, we hope. He’s this secure short king with quick wit who talks fast and can require a bit of attention but is humble as heck about how good he is at his job and has this quirky decorated right appendage and isn’t afraid to crack jokes when someone broaches the subject of his irl family or politely shut them down when he thinks they’re off base about something. I love the little bit I know about him and his wife’s relationship and the way they can publicly poke fun at each other. I love that he lived in the same tiny apartment from 19 to 39 until his wife finally said “you’re on a hit TV show.” I love how sweet and diplomatic he is when someone tries to poke him about Jeremy Strong being weird. I swear you can feel interviewers become infatuated with him for being a real and funny, charming person. In conclusion, I think he's neat!