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lyrring · 6 months

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Do you have any tips for a young artist?

okay GOOD QUESTION so I'm gonna just start typing about some things I wish I had known as a young artist and keep adding to the draft of this answer as I think of things. LOL.

Advice I'm definitely qualified to give young artists:

1) If you are primarily an artist that draws humans or humanoid characters, I need you to internalize this very important fact: There is NO race, shape, type of body, etc. that you are 'unable' to draw. Y'all it is 2023 and Twitter is a cesspool of idiots running around INSISTING that they simply "can't draw black people", "can't color dark skin", or that "black people don't fit into my style."

But you, young artist anon, YOU know better now! Go tell all your friends! Spread the good news! There is no fundamental inability to include diversity in the subjects of your art--there is only unwillingness to learn.

Because that's the thing--a lot of people who say these kinds of silly things will also say that the don't want to 'get it wrong' (I typed and deleted a whole other tangent here. lol). The important thing about approaching diversity in your art is that you are earnestly trying, respectful, and open to being corrected. Hard to go wrong that way! There are tutorials abound--research is your friend!

2) Related: encourage yourself to explore and celebrate variety as you cultivate your unique style. and DON'T SKIMP ON THE FUNDAMENTALS! DO NOT!

I'm going to talk a little bit about what it was like for me when I started "really" drawing at like. 9 or 10. (cont'd.)

I got really into drawing because some friends of mine liked to draw anime in their free time in class. I centered my early drawing life around emulating a style that was strictly anime. Drawing realism or semi-realism seemed so ugly to me! I had no interest in it.

In addition, I came away with a message that harmed my self-esteem greatly, even if I didn't know it at the time: black people don't look good in an anime style. You just can't do it!

So I never tried to. I had a narrow focus, and I was reluctant to explore outside of it. If I'm being honest with myself, I hamstrung myself pretty hard by not being open to exploring a variety of styles. I also thought that the fundamentals of art (principles of lighting, color, shape, and the human figure, etc.) were a waste of time for me to study up on. I knew what I wanted my art to look like--pretty anime pictures! Lol.

All of the above is why I don't think I actually started to get "good" at art until September of 2019, roughly a trillion years after I started to draw. I know that because of those art summary memes, lol. Here, for reference:

tumblr compressed the image to shit, so you'll have to take my word for it, but yeah! lol.

Anyways, the point is this:

You will go through many stylistic phases in your life as an artist. This is normal, and honestly, I'd celebrate it! Be open to any number of unlikely stylistic influences. They may take your artistic sensibilities in a direction you'd never expect. All in service of developing your unique artistic voice.

If you want to be good at what you do, you will need to create a strong base of knowledge for yourself. This is what intentional study of the fundamentals does. Get that shit in your brain while you're young!!! You will be planting the seedling of your artistic prowess in much nicer soil, and future you will thank you for it.

3) Developing artistic skill is NOT A RACE! You will hear this advice a lot, but I'd like to talk about a specific nuance that I think is important.

There are a number of reasons why it would make sense for you to think that it is, in fact, a race. For instance, there are roughly a kajillion other artists in your age range. A lot of them are on social media, cultivating a following. A lot of them will be "better" than you.

Do not get attached to the idea of being a brilliant young artist. You will not be young forever. If your idea of skill is entwined with your identity as a young person, what happens as you get older? I'll tell you: You start to see more and more people who are way more talented than you, and at least five years younger, and it can really really hurt you because you have not been set up for success with the right mindset. Your pride and joy was not being a creator--it was being a young creator.

Being an artist, especially in the age of social media (jesus, i sound so old) is an emotional investment as well as a practical, skill-based one. If you do not take care of yourself emotionally, if you do not approach creating art and posting it online with the right mindset, you will destroy yourself. Worst case, you end up bitter and hating art altogether.

If you are able to remain reasonably detached from social media response in general--great! That bodes well for you. But that's a skill, like anything else, so it's much more likely that the way your art is received on social media will affect you.

If you are very young, say, in your teens, and your art is exemplary, you will probably receive a lot of comments about this! They might be astonished that you, at so young an age, are so advanced in your skill. It is GREAT to be proud of yourself for accomplishing so much at a young age, don't get me wrong. Feels nice! But just like you will be advised not to let mean comments go to your head, you need to be thoughtful about how you receive comments that praise you for your age specifically. You need to be firm in the understanding that your age is not what makes your art exceptional. Your art is exceptional because YOU made it and because YOU honed your skills!

Beyond that, stuff that you probably already know: comparison to your artistic peers can be very encouraging and motivating; conversely, it can also be stressful and lead to unfortunate emotional spirals. You know yourself best--engage with or steer clear of comparison according to your comfort. You're not on your friend's artistic journey. You're on your own one. This is a very cursory thought on the topic of comparison, but I don't think I could offer you anything you don't already know about it, y'know?

4) This one... I'm gonna try to get across a very specific point. My point is this: Know what success looks like to you, and be honest with yourself.

The definition of 'success' may evolve for you as you develop, but I don't think it's ever too early to have a frank conversation with yourself about what it means for you, specifically, to be a successful artist.

Do you want to develop the skill to draw or create a specific idea in particular? Do you want a kajillion followers on instagram? Do you want to build a portfolio that will get you into a specific creative industry? Do you want to cultivate a steady stream of commissioners? Do you just want to relax and get ideas out of your head? And any other infinite goals.

Obviously I'm saying this without placing a value judgement on anyone's definition of artistic success. This is a highly personal sort of thing.

The reason I encourage this is because it can provide additional direction to a young artist, for whom the world is an oyster. Different enduring goals will require slightly different approaches to art as a field. This goal may inform what you draw, what medium you use, your higher education & career plans, where you choose to post your art (if at all), how much effort you must invest in building a brand for yourself, the role of social media in your life as an artist, the kinds of artists you devote energy to being peers with, etc. Hope that makes sense!

Anyways, I hope this advice is helpful. I'm always happy to answer other questions related to this sort of thing. Go forth, young artiste--I believe in you!

#posting without proofreading be nice to me #ask #anon #art advice #artists on tumblr #text

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createserenity · 5 months

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Ficlet - A Time of Wanting

I've had some writer's block recently and have been making super slow progress with my wips. Then I saw these lovely kiss drawings by @mrghostrat and ended up being very inspired and writing not one but two new stories. The other is below if you're interested:

Thank you so much Bilvy for making such lovely artwork! (Also their Good Omens AUs are incredible, if you haven't read them I highly recommend them!) This is a ficlet inspired by the fifth kiss in the collage (this one). It's basically Crowley being silly and soft. (Set post an imaginary season 3 where they've saved the world and are talking again.)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Here on AO3 - or below

A Time of Wanting

Crowley wants.

He wants so badly and he's wanted for so long that it's a physical ache in his chest now.

He wonders how he's not broken in half with the sheer force of his wanting. He wonders how Aziraphale doesn't notice how much he wants. Surely it should be a tangible thing now, this longing that pulses through him every moment of his existence. This urge to reach out, to touch, to take.

But it seems it isn't, because Aziraphale is busy reshelving books, apparently oblivious to the demon sprawled out over the couch. He hasn't even noticed that Crowley has woken from the nap he was taking, hasn't noticed that Crowley feels as if he could shake apart with the sheer force of his emotions.

How has he survived this long without taking this silly fussy angel for his own? How has he survived without knowing his touch, his taste, the way the angel might look at him if he finally dared to do what he longed to do?

His sleep addled brain tries to imagine what those things would be like, it's nothing he hasn't imagined a million times before, again and again over thousands of years. This time though the images his mind conjures are so affecting, so very real, that they draw a whimper from Crowley's throat before he can stifle it, before he can push it down where it belongs so that he can get through another day of wanting.

Aziraphale obviously hears the noise because he turns, despite being atop the small chair ladder he uses to reach the high shelves, balancing precariously with one hand on the shelf as he looks over at Crowley and gives him a soft smile.

It's that smile that does it.

All at once Crowley's entire brain comes back online and suddenly what he thought were his own wild imaginings coalesce into memories. Actual memories. And he realises that he doesn't need to lie here and want without taking anymore. And that ache in his chest isn't his heart about to break apart, but merely where he's fallen asleep with his mobile phone jammed against his ribs.

Fuck he's an idiot.

He flails madly for a moment whilst his brain remembers how to control overly long limbs, and barely hears the clatter as the phone falls to the floor unheeded, but then he's on his feet, bounding across the bookshop.

“Angel.” The word falls from his lips almost reverently as he crosses the space and Aziraphale seems to recognise that there's something amiss, even if he probably doesn't realise just how stupid Crowley can be sometimes.

How could he have forgotten? Six thousand years of longing, and now he can have whenever he wants and his stupid brain can't seem to hold onto that fact.

By the time Crowley has closed the distance between them Aziraphale is on the lowest step of the chair ladder. Crowley slips his arms around his angel's waist, fully intending to bury his head in the softness of Aziraphale's shoulder but instead the movement is arrested by Aziraphale's hands. They come up to rest either side of his jaw, holding him gently, yet firmly in place.

“Crowley. Darling,” says Aziraphale, his tone impossibly fond and yet with that underlying hint of strength, as he searches Crowley’s face with eyes that don't even bother trying to hide their adoration.

And now there is an ache inside Crowley’s chest that's nothing to do with sleeping awkwardly smushed against his phone. This ache is his heart trying to contain too many feelings, too much love. It feels like it's bursting with it.

“Angel.” He breathes out the word softly, as if saying it again might somehow help.

Aziraphale smiles and pulls him closer, one hand slipping from his jaw to wrap around his head, whilst the fingers of the other hand press lightly, tilting his face upwards with a gentle insistence that thrills Crowley to his core.

“You silly thing,” Aziraphale says, as if he knows exactly how daft Crowley was being a minute ago. Crowley thinks he should probably object to that. Snap back a sarcastic comment to the patronising bastard of an angel that knows him far too well, that sees the vulnerability under his carefully crafted exterior.

But then Aziraphale’s lips are on his and all protests fizzle away before they've even made it to his throat.

This is what he has wanted for so long. This is his now. He can ask for this whenever he wants.

He shuffles forward, tightening his arms to mould their bodies closer together, mindful not to pull Aziraphale from his precarious perch. The kiss deepens just slightly and he feels Aziraphale's fingers dancing over his cheek as the angel tightens his hold on Crowley’s head.

There's a soft whimper and then an equally soft moan and Crowley is surprised to realise he isn't responsible for either noise. For a second he flutters his eyes open and focuses on the expression that’s crept across Aziraphale's features. It's open and vulnerable, filled with adoration and love and contentment, as if this is the one thing Aziraphale has always longed for and wants to keep forever.

The realisation, that this means as much to Aziraphale as it does to him, makes Crowley’s heart swell with emotion, even as the ache in his chest is dispelled, dissolving away into a warm fuzziness that seems to wrap around them both.

He lets his eyes drop closed again and leans a little more into the kiss. There’s a hum of contentment and this time he knows it's come from him.

He wanted for so long and now finally he’s exactly where he wants to be.

#good omens #good omens fanfic #fanart inspired fic #ineffable husbands #good omens fanart #no beta - mistakes are all my own fault #crowley loves aziraphale #aziraphale loves crowley #fluff #my writing

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south-sonic · 2 months

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Time for my Winner is an omega agenda~

Basically, Winner has been on suppressants from the moment he went into his first heat when he was like 14 because his parents did not want to have an omega son. They also got him scent blockers and fancy fake alpha pheromones that made him smell like one which, as you can imagine, after years of constant use definitely messed with his head. He never had a full heat and the last time he had actually smelled himself was when he first presented so now, as an adult, he doesn’t even remember what it was.

That’s why he’s so cocky and arrogant too, he feels like he needs to overcompensate for his omega side, needs to make everyone believe that he, Winner, is an alpha, in fact, he’s the best alpha out there. And yet, even though he’s pretty tall and imposing he’s always getting manhandled and pushed around and instead of pushing back he mostly just lets it happen because, no matter how many alpha pheromones he douses himself in, he still has that side that does want to submit, to give in, to make his alpha proud of him.

Hence, why is first instinct when Kim pushed him against the car was to wrap his leg around him, to pull him closer (the poor thing is touch starved)

Anyway, after the whole Tony fiasco, his parents do get him the best lawyer they can afford (which is a really good fucking lawyer actually) so Winner gets away with pretty much a slap on the wrist and some community service. His parents still kick him out with not much more than the clothes on his back because they will not have him around disgracing their image and the family name. He then realizes he doesn’t have anyone to turn to, maybe one of the old Red Racing mechanics let’s him stay for a few days but that’s it and then he’s back on the streets and, let’s be honest, Winner is not made for the streets and in no time he gets beat up and his backpack with whatever he could salvage before being kicked out is stolen. He makes it for a few more days before he starts to get restless, a little voice at the back of his mind telling him to go, to get out of there.

And that’s how he finds himself in front of Alan’s house.

He nearly gets the door shut in his face when Kim sees him but something keeps him from doing it so he hears him out. Yet, Kim doesn’t know why he feels so compelled to help him that he’s talking to Alan, nearly begging him to let Winner stay with them. There’s something different about him that Kim can’t quite put his finger on but it makes him feel softer about him than usual.

In only a couple of days Winner finds out why he was feeling so restless. He hadn’t been taking his suppressants ever since his bag got stolen and he wakes up in distress, in a puddle of slick, in pain and confused. Now, he had never actually had a full heat so he has no idea what to do, out of instinct he tries - and fails - to build a nest and is just in general having a terrible time.

The others wake up and the whole house smells like heat which leaves everyone confused because all their omegas are accounted for and very much not in heat at the moment so they start looking for the cause and the scent leads them to Winner’s room. From the outside they can hear crying and whimpering so everyone barges in thinking Winner is hurting someone in there only to find him naked in the middle of what’s, objectively, the world’s worst nest begging for help.

Kim is the first one to snap out of it and he sort of kicks all the alphas out of the room while Jeff and Sonic volunteer to build him a nest in another. Kim feels guilty, even if undoubtedly Winner deserved the way he treated him before, Kim’s mother raised him to never lift his hand against an omega and all the times he beat him to the point of drawing blood are heavy on his conscience (yes, one of those times he was pointing a gun at North and Sonic but his brain is ignoring that fact at the moment). Kim also realizes this all explains why he felt so compelled to help him when he first appeared at Alan’s doorstep.

Kim doesn’t really know what to do because he doesn’t want to feel like he’s taking advantage of Winner but he also doesn’t want to leave him in pain like this (it doesn’t help that Winner has now realized there’s an alpha in the room and the begging just got 100% worse and, as it turns out, he’s really good at putting on that kicked puppy look that has Kim scrambling to get on the bed). He compromises by laying down and letting Winner use him instead, at least until his brain is a little less foggy and they can talk about it. He would be lying if he said he had never noticed how good looking Winner was but his personality was so generally off putting that it made him forget about his attraction but having him like this, nose buried against his scent gland, kissing all over his neck as he pretty much rode Kim’s thigh does make some old feelings resurface.

Once he’s feeling a little more himself, Winner is just mortified about the whole situation and just wants to cry and/or run away but, for once, Kim is being so nice, talkingto him gently and scratching softly at his head and fuck Winner has wanted this for a while (not that he would ever admit it but he’s had a crush on Kim the moment he laid eyes on him and didn’t know how to act around him). So, he agrees on letting Kim help and lets him guide to the room Jeff and Sonic prepared for him (and it only hurts a little to see how good of a nest they built compared to his).

And the first time Kim knots him he just sees stars and drools all over himself with how good it feels and maybe this omega thing isn’t so bad after all.

#this got away from me #not really an analysis #omega winner #kimwinner #pit babe the series

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foreverindreamlandd · 2 years

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Locker Drama

Pairing: Neighbor!Steve Harrington x Plus Size!Reader

WC: 2.3k

Summary: Your locker neighbor, Tommy, can't seem to stop being an asshole to you. Even though they're technically friends, Steve draws the line when it comes to picking on someone who is apparently extremely important to him.

Warnings: Bullying, body image, fatphobia, protective Steve, does not contain spoilers for the show Stranger Things. Unedited because I am a piece of human garbage :,)

Note: Okay....so this is going to be the first fic within the Neighbor!Steve Harrington x Plus Size!Reader world. It's going to be a very loosely-structured series, friends to lovers with no real timeline (next fic could be them married with ten kids....kidding but you get the gist lol....hopefully). I hope you enjoy it! :)

*****

“All I’m saying is that when I grow up, I’m going to become Vice Principal of a school and tell any student athlete who thinks they have the right to skip finals and not do their homework to fuck off.”

You blanched at your best friend, shaking your head as you put your math books in your locker. “Robin, I’m pretty sure if you told a student to fuck off you would be fired on site.”

Robin groaned, head tilting up in frustration and leaning against the closed lockers beside yours.

“Fine,” she said. “I’ll just give them the detentions they deserve rather than just letting them off the hook for being the golden children of the school. Us band kids have more brains and talent than any of those boneheads and we get diddly squat.”

“At least we can find solace in the fact that we most likely won’t peak in high school.” You grabbed your supplies for science class. “Well, you might actually, if you end up working at one, Mrs. Vice Principal.”

Your lips quirked up into a smug grin as Robin groaned again, this time turning to lean her forehead on the locker.

“Okay, new plan,” she said. “How about-”

“Can you believe Mr. Cooper gave me an F on my paper?” You fought back a groan as the whiney voice of your locker neighbor approached. “I know I got every answer right because I was copying off of that redhead’s work!”

Tommy Hagan - whom you affectionately referred to as Freckles - strolled over to the locker next to yours, head turned in the other direction at his girlfriend Carol as she pressed her body against his.

Though she was tiny, it was enough force to knock Tommy back and bump into you.

He turned to sneer at you. “Watch it, Tubby.”

Your heartbeat quickened as both rage and shame flooded through you. At least the nickname you had given Freckles was somewhat tame. Tommy gave you one look up and down at the beginning of the school year and immediately deemed you as Tubby.

The first time he said it, you had thought you were hallucinating. It had always been your biggest insecurity, ever since you had put on weight in middle school, and kept putting it on up until this point no matter how many miles you ran and how many diet programs your mom had you try. Still, most of your peers had the courtesy of not saying anything, just letting you exist as long as you kept quiet and didn’t cause any problems.

Not Tommy, though. He just liked to push people’s buttons, and although he was dumb as rocks, he had a knack for identifying the things that hurt you the most.

The nickname stung like salt to a wound, but you knew to keep your head down and stay quiet. You saw what happened when people tried to fight back with Tommy. It only made him want to ramp it up.

He relished in the attention.

Your dearest, hot-headed best friend did not understand that, though, so when she heard his crude remark she scoffed. “Excuse you, numbnuts. But you’re the one who crashed into her.”

You narrowed your eyes at Robin, silently telling her to stop as Carol mewled. “Watch out, baby, you’re upsetting the freaks.”

“Yeah, well, I’m upset that I have to be in such close proximity as them all day!” Tommy’s voice grew louder as he opened his locker, side intentionally bumping into you once more to make a point. “All I’m saying is that it would be nice to have a locker next to someone who took up so much space! I can barely move around here.”

Carol giggled as tears started to burn your eyes. You kept your face in your locker in an attempt to hide your large frame from the world.

Maybe if I stand still for long enough I’ll just blend in and no one will notice me.

With your locker door still open, Tommy was out of view, so you only heard the slam of his door and a small yelp from Carol.

“That’s enough, Tommy,” a familiar voice declared.

Tommy scoffed. “Come on, Harrington. Just airing my grievances.” You could hear the dumb smile on his face.

“No, you’re just being a dick.”

You allowed yourself one small, almost unnoticeable smile.

“Why your panties all up in a bunch, King Steve? Am I being mean to your girlfriend or something?”

Your smile dropped.

There was a few moments of silence, and you could only imagine the type of disgusted face Steve was making then.

“Just shove off and get to class before another teacher flunks you and you can’t be on the team anymore,” Steve responded, the fight gone from his voice, switching to the charismatic popular guy that almost everyone knew and loved.

This Steve made you sick to your stomach.

Regardless of the disappointment you felt, Steve’s shift in demeanor was enough to distract Tommy. “Ms. Pine would never flunk me, especially now that her daughter is on the cheerleading team. Gotta make sure our team makes her look as good as possible, which means I get a free ride through history.”

You heard him mumble a let’s go, baby to Carol and then the hallway immediately became less tense.

You still couldn’t move, though, still horrified by the public humiliation.

“I’ll kill that asshole,” Robin muttered, crossing her arms.

“It’s fine,” you whispered, quickly wiping your tears.

“Hey.”

The familiar voice, now much softer and more sympathetic, was right behind you.

You closed your eyes for a second and willed the tears away before turning.

Steve Harrington stood in front of you, hands in his pockets and shoulders sagged, hair perfectly swooped to the side.

His lips were pressed into a thin line. “Sorry about that.” He shrugged. “Tommy’s an idiot.”

“He’s also a jerk, and still your best friend,” Robin cut in, glaring at Steve.

You watched him bite the inside of his cheek as his eyes flashed to Robin, running his fingers through his hair.

“It’s fine.” It seemed as if those were the only two words you were capable of saying.

“It’s not fine,” they both said at the same time, Robin with much more bite and Steve with a quiet assurance.

They both locked eyes in shock that they managed to agree on something, horror painting across their faces.

You couldn’t help but giggle at it.

Steve’s eyes went back to you, smile spreading across his face at the sound of your laugh.

“You sure you’re okay?” he asked, head tilting down a bit, making it so that his large, deep brown eyes stared into yours through his long lashes.

You fought the butterflies as they tried to swarm your stomach.

“I’m fi- okay,” you said, switching words when Steve’s eyes narrowed.

He nodded. “I’ll deal with Tommy. Meet you after school?”

You nodded back. “Sounds good, Steve.”

His smile grew ever so slightly when you said his name, and after making eye contact with Robin - who continued to glare at him - he walked down the hallway to his next class.

“You know I love you,” she said, shoulder leaning against the locker, “but I’ll never understand why you let that guy breathe the same air as you.”

You huffed. “It’s not like we’re besties, Robin.” Well, you used to be, but that was before Steve started high school and became an instant celebrity at Hawkins High. When Steve Harrington was just Stevie, and he was your favorite person in the entire world.

Now?

“He’s just my ride. As if I’d give up the BMW so I can ride the bus where the rest of the bullies dwell.”

She pursed her lips, still not buying it.

You sighed. “He’s a good person, Robin, I promise.”

At that, she scoffed, shaking her head and wrapped her arm around your neck to lead you to your next class.

“You’ve spent too much time in close proximity with Freckles, Y/n,” she muttered. “His idiot brain is starting to run off on you.”

*****

“How the hell do you have a B in chemistry?” Steve asked, shaking his head as you both got out of the car. “Erikson is brutal. I barely managed to get a D.”

“Hate to break it to you Steve,” you said while swinging your backpack over your shoulder, “but some studies show that doing your work and paying attention in class helps you learn enough to get a good grade.”

He whined, steps falling in line with yours as you approached the school building. “I bet it’s all a hoax. You actually suck at school and have found some new top-secret method of cheating.”

You gasped, feigning offense. “How dare you try to unveil my master plan and risk destroying my reputation as the school nerd?”

Steve laughed, opening the door for you as you walked in. “Don’t worry, your secret is safe with me.”

The two of you shared a small smile as you headed down the hallway. Your locker was closest to the entrance, so you prepared to break away and not see Steve until the end of school.

So it confused you when his stride continued to match yours, slowing as you both veered off to your locker.

Your eyes narrowed at him, slowly putting in your combination. “Listen Steve, I know you promised to keep things with Tommy handled, but I promise you don’t have to be my bodyguard anytime I’m at my locker.”

Steve’s head jerked back as he gave you a confused look, raising his hand to the lock of Tommy’s locker. “What do you mean? This is where all my stuff is.”

Your fingers began mindlessly turning your own lock, suddenly forgetting the combination as you stared at him wide eyed. “What…”

“I switched lockers,” he said with a casual shrug. You could see the corners of his lips twitch as he fought back a smile.

“You what?”

“What? It’s no big deal, Y/n. Tommy seemed to have such a big issue being here, whereas I think this is prime real estate.”

You bit your bottom lip, stomach turning to knots. “Steve…”

“It’s fine, Y/n. Besides, it makes sense that we’re neighbors in school and at home.” His face turned serious for a moment. “I told you I’d handle it. Now, you don’t have to worry.”

You scowled. “He’s still your friend, though. So he can come here and harass me anytime he wants-”

Steve shook his head. “Nope. Told him if he stepped foot anywhere near here that I’d have coach put him on the bench for the rest of the season.” He opened his locker, tossing his bag in and grabbing his books. His brows rose when he turned back to your still stunned expression. “Are you going to open your locker yet? Don’t want to be late for class and ruin that master plan of yours, Miss Cheaterpants.”

A bark of a laugh erupted from your chest and you lightly slapped Steve on the arm, pulling giggles from your new locker neighbor.

It brought an overwhelming sense of relief, having him by your side instead of Tommy. For months, you dreaded stopping here between classes, shielding yourself for another snide comment from Freckles.

Now, you didn’t need to worry. Steve was here, and though you weren’t the best friends you had been your whole lives, having him by your side made this spot finally feel like a safe space.

You turned your attention back to your lock, opening the door and grabbing books for your first class.

The worst part about Tommy’s complaints were that technically it was sometimes true. You did take up more space than others, meaning that your arm would inevitably wiggle around in his area as you moved.

And so, of course, the same thing would happen with Steve.

When your hip bumped against his, any sense of relief you had felt crumbled in seconds, the familiar feeling of shame the only thing left in its wake.

Steve felt your body go rigid, and he rested a hand on your shoulder. “Hey,” he said, turning your body to face him. There was a tenderness in his face that you hadn’t seen in years. “The shit that he said yesterday, what I assume he’s been saying…it’s all bullshit, Y/n.”

You tried to shrug and force a smile, but Steve knew you better than that, and his hand squeezed your shoulder. “No, listen.” His eyes pierced yours, face leaning forward until it was inches from yours. “What he said was absolute bullshit, and he’s a complete idiot for not realizing how lucky he was to be so close to you all the time.”

His breath tickled your skin, causing you to blink a few times as you tried to identify the tone he was using as he said this. This was nothing like the Steve you grew up with, nor was it the voice of King Steve, ruler of Hawkins High.

This was something different, and it brought heat to your core.

He seemed to lose himself for a moment, leaning less than an inch closer and the movement was so overwhelming your breath hitched. That seemed to be enough to break the tension, and Steve swallowed, standing straight and grabbing his books.

“I should get going,” he murmured, using his free hand to run his fingers through his hair. He gave you a small smile. “See you next period?”

You blinked a few more times, bobbing your head up and down slowly.

Steve bit his bottom lip, staring at you for a few more seconds before closing his locker door and heading down the hallway.

Your gaze remained on the spot he had been standing at moments ago, a part of you wondering if you were dreaming.

Maybe the new locker situation wouldn’t be as easy as you thought….

*****

Thank you for reading! :)

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#steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x you #steve harrington x y/n #neighbor!steve harrington #plus size!reader #neighbor!steve harrington x plus size!reader #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington #stranger things #stranger things imagine

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gokartkid · 1 year

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medium-fail actor!daniel pr relationship with model!max au

There’s coffee and a croissant waiting for Daniel when he comes in, which from Christian, means that he’s about to drop the craziest and most off-putting scheme on him.

He starts hypothesising in his brain: a summer of non stop convention circuits with sweaty nerds; starring in a movie where he’ll wear so many prosthetics he’s unrecognisable; creating, fucking, NFT’s in his image.

Christian at least has the courtesy to wait until Daniel is a few bites in to drop the bomb.

“We think,” a pause, for dramatic effect, “that the best thing for your image right now, would be for you to be in a relationship.”

Daniel pauses.

That was actually something unexpected.

“Okay,” he draws out the vowel, “great to know that you’re concerned with my love life Christian. Got a little problem from the get-go, I don’t want to be in a relationship. Thanks anyway, good chat.”

Christian chuckles, like Daniel’s said something mildly funny; it’s the kind of laugh you do to a little kid when you don’t know what they’re on about.

“No, Daniel,” and he has this magic ability to sound accidentally — or not so accidentally — condescending. Daniel leans back in his chair, and takes a long sip of his coffee. It’s hot enough that he can feel its path going down his throat, settling in his oesophagus “the idea is that it would be set up with you and someone that we, effectively, have vetted. You go out for a good while, get serious, and then break up amicably.”

“A PR relationship,” Daniel deadpans. It seemed to be all the rage in the industry right now; young, attractive, instagrammable couples popping up all over the place with mutual benefits in the fame-game. Daniel had thought — naively, it seems — that he would be able to avoid it.

“A PR relationship,” Christian confirms. He has the decency to give it to Daniel straight when they get to the point of it.

“And—“ Daniel rubs at his eyes, pinches the bridge of his nose. He can feel a migraine brewing, purely brought on by this conversation, “why would I do this? Like, I’m really leaning towards a fuck no right now Christian. This sounds like a really shit idea, just being honest.”

“Well—“ Christian’s always been good at keeping his head when Daniel is about to blow his top like this. He leans forwards towards him, hands spread wide and looking completely non-threatening in his stupid knit jumper, “I— we, don’t see it that way Daniel. We think it’ll re-invigorate your brand, generate interest, good promo before your next feature.”

“Uh huh,” Daniel says blankly, “this is still not answering my question Christian, because all of those things are do-able with a regular press circuit.”

Christian hesitates.

Another bad sign, red alarm bells ringing.

“With the awards season coming up,” he says delicately, the precision of a surgeon dressing a wound, “there’ve been a few communications, that in order for you to be a solid candidate—“

“Oh my god,” Daniel says, and the realisation is an anvil coming down on his head, “you want me to date some nothing person for a year to win an Oscar. What the fuck Christian. And, this is a real question, what the fuck are you thinking?”

“In order for you to be a solid candidate,” Christian interrupts him, calm even tone as if Daniel hasn’t said anything, “you need to demonstrate some maturity, and solidity, and a relationship would help you do that.”

“I am fucking mature,” Daniel says, and tries not to feel like a toddler throwing a tantrum as he takes an angry bite of his bribe-croissant, “people can be single and mature Christian.”

“People,” Christian is decidedly not making eye contact with him now, “can be single and mature, if they aren’t coming off the back of a public relationship breakdown. To be clear, by public relationship breakdown, I do mean the restaurant incident.”

“That wasn’t my fault,” Daniel says, immediately, “and it’s blown over now.”

“Has it?”

A pause.

Daniel shuts his mouth. He knows when he’s pushing something too far and more than that, he knows when he’s being a bald-faced liar. He switches tack.

“Okay. Who is it then, this hypothetical girl I’d be seeing.”

“Well,” Christian says, and he seems relieved to be back on script, “first of all, it’s not a girl. It’s a man, an up-and-coming model.”

Daniel has to fight not to groan.

“Is this some fucked up revenge plot for coming out as bisexual while I was dating a girl Christian, because I get that you couldn’t generate the kind of narrative you wanted from that but it was still, like, a big deal.”

It’d gotten him on the cover of multiple pride magazines and a Vanity Fair exclusive, which to Christian was like winning the Lottery. Daniel still thinks privately that the social capital of having a bisexual multiple time Oscar-nominated client probably gives him a — perfectly professional — managerial boner.

Christian just laughs again, doesn’t really respond to what Daniel’s just said. It’s a tried and true tactic of his.

“We think you’ll like him,” he barrels on, without interruption, “he’s nice enough Daniel, and it’ll be good for his career too, being seen with you.”

“Sure.”

Daniel has his own thoughts on this, on the YSL-too-skinny-simpering-personality guy he’s already made up in his brain, that he’s about to be saddled with for months. He knows that Christian can read them all on his face but— the most frustrating thing is that Daniel can see how this works too.

He knows the problems the Academy has with him. Daniel isn’t the type — the stupid, oblivious type — to not notice getting nominated three times and never winning, walking into the Dolby theatre and its gilded stage losing its luster every time.

Daniel used to relish coming off as free, and changeable, and real.

It was like a superpower, to be able to do whatever he wanted, get as drunk as he wanted with his friends, as high and wasted as he wanted, and have it come off as a dazzling star in his 20’s living a life that everyone would be jealous of. Only, the articles started to go from fun-loving, to problem-seeking, to commitment-phobic, to photos of him hungover in the mornings sunglasses on and holding up a hand against the paparazzi.

He stares at the grey listless sky, clouds fat with rain and nods along to whatever else Christian’s saying, logistics and press and staged shoots.

“—so I’ll send you his details, and we’ll set up an initial meeting then?”

An initial meeting; what a way to talk about a future fucking paramour.

“Yeah,” he says, phone buzzing with a google alert, “sure.”

#only able to write 1-2k hits rn xxx enjoy #dr3 #my fic #maxiel #f1 rpf #actor daniel au

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sleeptokenpuppy · 3 months

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Sometimes I hear "keep the freak show talk to a careful minimum"

and I think, "hi, it's me, the freak show, you can buy my silence with food, give me carbs please."

Which leads to a funny mental image where the discussion gets a little too risqué and Vessel frisbees a croissant or something directly at my face 🤣

Alas, the freak show talk is decidedly NOT at a careful minimum tonight bc my day job fried my brain and burned up my filter, so

My brain tried to imagine the boys in that "virgin killer sweater" that was trendy a few years ago and I do not have the visual art talent to make that image myself, so if any of y'all who can actually draw need some art inspo, I certainly won't stop you

You know the thing I said about "just because a song exists and gets stuck in my head doesn't mean Vessel needs to sing it" the other day? It keeps happening with Slumber Party by Ashnikko. Send help.

All the songs I can see them covering either end up sounding extremely sad or extremely horny. On brand? Maybe. Am I self conscious about it? Yup.

I have. SEVERAL. Vessel mask designs partying in my head, that I would TOTALLY make if I had the skills.

I will not give up on my Sleep Token Pole Routine Dreams despite having hurt myself literally two moves into my first pole class.

The teeth and biting and consuming imagery they use so much. I am 100% normal about it.

Especially where it comes close to blood imagery too.

Fuck, I just, I love this band so. fucking. much. It's unreal.

#sleep token #worshitposting #warning: this post got kind of wild

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cubedmango · 2 months

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hi!! i just wanted to let you know that i started reading cherry magic in july last year after seeing the anime announced on toyota-sensei's twitter! i couldn't even rlly translate the announcement myself without the help of google translate LMAO but her illustration of them looked so sweet i had to snoop around. more than half a year later. i am no longer normal and my brain is fully rotted over and i think of those two nearly every waking moment!! your art, along with so many others feeds me and your translations are So Appreciated thank you for doing gods work. i usually don't get super involved in fandom or w/e other than consuming fanart or fics so the fact i find myself actually drawing them is so new to me...idk cherry magic really is so refreshing and it's just nice as an adult to see a mature relationship between two working adults. there are callbacks to childhood or childlike behaviors or interests sprinkled throughout the manga's dialogue and i always appreciated how they weren't seen as embarrassing or immature to embrace or learn from as an adult, but encouraged or seen as a valuable part of balancing work, life, and love. idk it's def one of the more subtle and less expanded upon parts of it but i love how adachi's and kurosawa's love of manga, though seen as a children's activity (from how kurosawa thought people saw it) was actually one of their first mutual hobbies. it's also interesting to see how many things about kurosawa's psyche are remnants of ideas probably for a lack of better wording, were taught to him from an early age. his self-image, how he tries to uphold certain societal standards, etc etc. im glad he found refuge in adachi that way. im sorry for rambling for so long but i've just been thinking about these two so much ldks

anon pls u never have to apologize for rambling abt my fav guys of all time, u should actually talk w me about them more i want to hear ur thoughts !! the eng speaking fandom isnt that big (or at least i dont get to interact w a lot of ppl personally) but its fun making art and doing the translations for my blorbos so im happy other ppl enjoy it too 🥺

and yess everything u said abt the childlike/immature stuff krdc enjoy like the fact that their interest in manga and stuff is never made fun of or anything (which would be ironic anyway since theyre In a manga themselves fdkjskf) but actually one of the things that gets them closer is So good augh?? (also spoilers for the radio drama if u havent seen it yet, but to me one of the best changes they made was changing the port scenes setting to an anime con instead like Yeah!! theyre little nerd guys of course theyd attend a con!!!! that plus how they both like watching animated movies and playing games too like its a very specific thing to Me but that relatability w stuff i do myself makes them both feel a lot more human? if that makes sense)

also w kurosawas whole deal its Definitely a longterm thing hes had for a while, and in canon its mostly been his friendships/relationships that affected him (probs the most clear in ch45 my beloved) but from the way the meeting w his parents went theres for sure a lot of parental/family pressure involved too?? this is going into hc territory but i have like a whole Thing brewing in my head about kurosawas and maris relations w their parents and how that affected their self image and all growing up too and i rlly wanna make stuff for it someday (idk if anyone would be interested but id probably do it regardless so fkdjksjfk)

#the full idea actually is for a whole mari spinoff as like a fic or smth bc i care her immensely . but that is ambitious even for me lol #i have Thoughts about these siblings though like their issues intrigue me so bad. so much wrong w them i need to pick apart #and similarly w adachi being a child of divorce like! thats got to have influenced him right. i Have To Know #i think about these charas a normal amount as u can tell 👍#my answer

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s1renidae · 11 months

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does anyone else (specifically any other autistic ppl) really really struggle with art in terms of like. getting yourself to actually do it or learn how

I dont rly know how to articulate it but like. I have tried, I have BEEN trying for years to find joy in creating art but I CANT, because creating anything just feels like an unwinnable battle against myself. it's not exactly art block because I have so so many things I want to draw and i can envision them perfectly but then when it comes time to actually do it just. can't. I freeze up. I feel like I dont know how to do/make what I want to and I know that you have to make bad art in order to learn how to make good art but my problem is that if I can't do exactly what I want to do or if I don't know exactly step by step how to get where I want to go my brain just Won't Let Me. reaching the limit of what I'm familiar and comfortable with feels like hitting the limit of a map in a game like I just. hit a wall and can't go any further

and I've had the thought that maybe with the way my brain works I am just simply not meant to be an artist but I HATE that, because I love drawing I really do and I'm 100% more miserable being stuck with all the images in my head than I am when I actually do make something and i really really dont want to let my stupid autism/adhd/whateverthefuck stop me from doing something that i actually am passionate about but I just. can't do itfor some reason !! it's so frustrating and I've tried so many ways to get past it I've gotten so much advice from artists in my life and none of it has worked and I want to fucking cry because I refuse to accept that I just can't do what I want to do but I don't know how to move forward

I'll get to a certain point in a piece (usually I'll finish a sketch/lineart and MAYBE add flat colors) but then I think about what to do next and even if I know the process I just get overwhelmed and then I quit because that's easier and I dont know how to make myself not quit that's how I've been with everything I've tried my whole life and I'm about ready to just give up on doing or being anything that I want to because it seems like I'm just completely incapable of holding myself to anything

I really want to feel the joy/relaxation that I see other ppl get from drawing/painting and I used to feel that when I was a kid and it comes back in phases sometimes as long as I stick to just sketching but I just. can't I know im saying that a lot and it doesn't rly mean anything but that's rly all it is I Simply Cant. I struggle and then I give up because I'm such a perfectionist that I circle back around to not being able to do anything at all because I know I can't meet my own standards and I can't muster up enough dedication to learn and practice and ahhhhhh idk

I know this has become more of a vent post than anything but like please someone tell me I'm not alone or that there's some way around this shit because it's starting to feel really hopeless and I don't want to completely give up on the only hobby I've ever been this passionate about wanting to focus on

#.txt #vent #artists on tumblr #<<< summoning #art advice

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girl-mercury · 4 months

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it's been really interesting posting my art on here, i really appreciate my friends reblogging it and saying such lovely things about it

i never really had the spatial reasoning aptitude to draw well, and was never really outstanding at any of the arts or crafts i ever tried, so it was just... never my thing. i envy the way all the fanartists i see seem to be able to express the pictures in their heads in a way i certainly can't

i only started the watercolors bc i was curious if it worked the same as all the makeup i got obsessed with, if all those youtubers doing contour tutorials transferred to paper

and i only continued bc it was something i could hyperfocus on, and after years of being a comms specialist/editor all my working hours and writing (or unhappily not writing) in all my free ones, i just didn't have anything that wasn't endless words words words always in my brain. actually started considering some possible career paths into things that were image-based analysis, not realising that it's probably less of a career change that i need and more of a way to rest that better suits my neurodivergence

and then like a year and a half ago i was visiting @fourteenacross and she went to book club for the afternoon and i painted that whole picture of ed and she came back and was a little startled to find out i did art decently, which was when i realized i wasn't actually trying to keep this hobby a secret, i just... didn't talk to anyone about it really

so i started posting. haven't gotten around to posting some of the things i've completed. i don't really know how to scan the paintings as well as i'd like, probably wouldn't get on society6 or anything. i'd rather just send things to friends if it's something they'd like. i'm not trying to become an Artist in fandom, that's not really my role, i'm good with being a Writer, but i am happy with every note my art gets on here.

i still feel mostly like i'm just fooling around in coloring books, all my shit is traced off pictures and then painted in the most literal way possible, i have no Technique, it's all values and some colors like a contour palette from sephora, along with some dark eyeliner and a bit of lipstick

idk. i'm having fun. it's not serious. it's restful in a way that i haven't had in a long time, and i can get lost in it if i want, and i can do it well enough that i feel like i'm expressing something accurately enough for it to be satisfying

#personal #my art

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foster-the-moths · 1 year

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u have some awesome dreams . give me them👁️ njkhdcjd actually tho of the three i remember u sharing it's interestign that all three involved you being some sort of whimsical creature (i'm counting altsar as a whimsical little beast he's very silly and fun to m e)

WOOO YEAH i love talking about my dreams they are so Strange um putting all of these under the readmore bc. they are so fucked up sometimes SJFLDJFLJSJF these ones are more horror oriented bc those are some of my favorite ones. i am just listing 4 for now, because this post got very long. i can post more of them later maybe. i have a LOT more but these are just semi-recent ones i can access easily.

warning for descriptions of body horror, gore, injury, death, and parasites (big maggot) and images of body horror and parasites.

1: had a dream a was a little victorian boy (like 3 or something) on vacation with my family and we were on a train but oops!!! we got on the demon train by accident. the conductor surgically removed all of the skin off my face, taxidermied it, sewed it back on, and then sent me to a shadow mirror realm for 18 years. i got back to the Real realm and it turns out it had only been 3 years for my family; but they had still all been distorted beyond recognition and made into worse versions of themselves. my father had turned into a weird goat man, my mother resembled a deep sea fish, and i couldn't remember what happened to my sister or brother. they also didn't recognize me because i had aged 18 years. the rest of the dream was me trying to reverse their transformations.

2: had another one in which i was trapped in an extra-dimensional liminal space that changed and grew as i explored it. It had video game physics which is always fun. when i walked there was view-bobbing and my hands were always visible in front of me, like a first person shooter. i could also sprint jump and b-hop and side sprint and stuff like that. there were also small creatures that latched onto me and tried to kill me, but my hands were extremely lethal (they caused instant burning pain to whatever they touched, and if i pressed my hands against a living thing it would 'melt') so i was able to fend them off. this meant i was basically unbeatable, but could still be hurt.

^this is vaguely what i looked like. i could only see my hands but i'm pretty sure the rest of me wasn't 100% human. i'll draw something better later maybe.

3. a more tame one i had recently was i got trapped in a fantasy video game by accident and ended up in a village that used pinecones as currency. so i had to grow pine trees. and then this other guy started growing saplings on MY farm plot and i was PISSED. he showed me his farming techniques though so i let him stay. time passed very quickly, each hour was a new season, so four hours was a 'year'. i did not realize the implications of this until about two weeks (about 80 'years') had passed. the npc villagers started aging and disappearing and the guy who i planted trees with turned to face me and his face was rotting away. he told me i took too long.

4. less tame one. I had a giant maggot parasite that replaced all of my organs and it tried to control me via telepathic mind battle?? but. i won the telepathic mind battle. so now i WAS the maggot. and i was piloting my own body with weird nerve things and instead of organs there was just a giant maggot in my abdomen but i WAS the maggot and i could feel myself inside of myself. it was like if you could feel your organs against the inside of your skin. incredibly unpleasant sensation. i had to hide the fact that i was a maggot because usually the maggot wins the psychic mind battle and kills people so if my doctors found out i had a maggot parasite in me they would kill me.

^diagram of parasite in the body. the red is the 'nerves' used to control the body. the brain of the host and parasite become merged, which is how i 'became' the maggot. the maggot could also like. climb up the throat and peek its head out of the host's mouth to maul people with its fangs.

#asks #ask to tag #tw: body horror #tw: death #tw: gore #it gets a bit silly up in there when i lose consciousness!!!#also despite most of these sounding like nightmares i honestly had a blast in these dreams.#sometimes the funnest ones are the most fucked up ones! or im just used to them maybe

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these-are-the-first-steps · 2 years

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Here’s a random reylo ask for ya- did you ever have any theories/HCs early on in shipping reylo (cuz I believe you’ve said you were shipping since TFA) which you didn’t end up being into as much, or at all anymore as TST progressed?

Hello! Sorry it's taken me so long to get to this.

Story Time

So I saw TFA the second day it came out. I left rather bewildered- one, because a new actor I'd never seen before in my life (adam driver) gave such an unorthodox performance I couldn't stop thinking "The fuck does this guy think he's doing???" namely the interrogation scene where I don't think any other actor would have, nor could have, played it the way he did. I'm still shocked by the choices he made with his line delivery in that scene but in the best way possible. It's hard to explain. Anyway, that's one. Two also goes back to that scene. In middle school, back with Tokyo Pop was big, they held their very first manga contest for us regular american people to try our hand at Japanese style manga. Well, I felt like I could write, and my good friend at the time (she still is- we keep in touch!) could draw like a crazy person. So we decided to try for it. The only problem was, being middle schoolers, motivation and scheduling wasn't our forte. I did manage to write a short script excerpt of a story that had been brewing in my head for awhile at the time, and while I think I did eventually hand it over to her (I was suffering from perfectionism), the art never happened. We tried again in high school but then high school angst got in the way and it still didn't happen. Regardless, I still now had the only real concrete piece of writing for this story I had been sitting on for a couple years now.

Eventually....well, time moved on.

Cue "Star Wars: The Force Awakens", a sequel film I was INCREDIBLY skeptical about. I'd been watching star wars my entire life. My dad took me as a little kid to the big deal re-screenings of the original trilogy they did nationwide before the prequels came out. I had a lot of Opinions on this movie series. I had just moved to NYC and was out for a walk when I passed by Bloomingdales and saw, a bit to my shock, that their store windows were full of (allegedly) screen-used costumes and props from the upcoming TFA movie. I crept closer, had a look. Han Solo was the only thing I recognized. The rest? Unfamiliar. Alien. I had seen zero promotional images for this movie before encountering these windows and had only heard some things. I made guesses as to what everything was, before rounding the corner and being confronted with an irrationally tall costume. "Oh, is this the darth vader rip-off? lmao" (the only thing I had concretely heard about). "This guy had to be on stilts surely??" Kylo Ren. Funny at first, but the longer I stared at it, I shit you not, the more unsettled I got. I actually got *scared* staring at this costume. I took one very poor, very shaky picture, and basically ran away. (I regret not taking a better photo but oh well). I run into an article the next day at work about the movie and it happens to have the trailer and I decide, sure, ok, I'll give it a watch. Those windows were interesting at least. I basically had my tickets bought by the end of the day. So here we are, back to the theatre, sitting here as this audacious actor delivers the most ballsy performance I've seen the whole film as he interrogates the heroine, and I listen to what he's saying, and then, it hits me.

This. Is my story. These are my lines. I wrote this exact same exchange in middle school.

What the fuck??

This meant a lot of things to me. This meant that I knew where this story was going, and where it was going I liked very much. I went back to see the movie again a second time about a week or two later. I had to be sure-- I wasn't just imposing what was already inside my brain all these years onto a totally different story on the screen, was I? I watched, and waited. And sure enough....no, no it had to be it. These two? I know exactly how this is going to go down.

A few months later I visited back home and even managed to dig through a box and find my old script. I read through it, sort of shaking a little. My heroine- Light- had also been captured- by the Dark- and the song and dance were the same- Where am I? Does it matter? I can see everything. I'm not giving you anything. A summary, and as some years have passed again I have lost the print out in a box again, but some of the dialogue was ver batum.

I knew exactly where this new star wars story was going because I already wrote the damn thing in middle school, word for word, and if you thought for one second I wasn't going to tune in and defend this arc, that I never managed to get published myself at 13, with swords and shields and knives for my own personal middle school catharsis then you were dead wrong, my friend.

This may have seemed like a very round-about way of answering this question, but I wanted to give context, substance, because all of this ^^^^^ up here? It defines, explicitly, why I'm even here to begin with, and why I fought so hard from day one. There was nothing to abandon, or question, or shed. Because I already knew this story by heart. I had already written it!! And I still think ants and DLF and JJ Abrams and Terrio and the rest of those bastards can pry it from my cold dead hands, because truly they butchered my baby and while I may live with that, I'll never forget it.

Thank you for the ask, friend.

#reylo #reylo stories

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mod-ellisa-and-lynn · 4 months

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My siblings and I grew up in a weird kind of abuse, and that's only the precursor to the point. My abusor didn't want me to be good at anything that she wasn't, and really didn't want me to be good at anything she thought she was good at. It was never said outright like that though, it was snide comments. "Oh I'm so glad you stopped wanting to sing, you are terrible at it". "Both of your parents and your siblings are artistic, its sad you didn't get that gene." "Isn't there something more productive you could be doing"? "I went to culinary school so if you want to be good at cooking you need to listen to me. I don't think you can handle the pressure". (She proceeded to stand over me yelling to go faster until I was in tears, in front of guests)

There were way worse things that she did to us; this is only the tip of the iceberg. I won't go into all of it, but overcoming this one in particular paved the way for me to heal from the rest. She taught me a sense of helplessness that took a long time, even after escaping it, to find my way out of. I knew logically that making art was good for my mental health, that it didn't have to be any "good" it just had to be. But I couldn't get her out of my head, and every time I tried I felt shame. It started with a traumatized Oddish.

I love Pokémon. It's been my longest hyperfixation as someone with ADHD. I felt terrible looking at this. It didn't make me feel better, it made me feel like my abuser was right all along. Fortunately, I now had a support system of people who actually cared about me, who weren't also in that nightmare. They urged me to keep going, told me the Oddish was cute in a scary way. I can look back at it now and see my fears in that little chalk Pokémon. It still took a long time after that, but eventually I drew another.

He's a little rough around the edges, a little lopsided, but I was almost happy with this one. He was cute in a derpy way, the way that Oddish are just kinda derpy. This time, something clicked. I wasn't ashamed of it. I felt like I could do more. I changed it up a little bit.

This tiny little Azuril changed my attitude towards art. I was proud of this one. Finally, I had broken free from what a childhood of abuse had taught me. I did art at least once a week for over a year. Sometimes I liked what I drew and sometimes I didn't, but either way I've been much happier in other aspects of my life. It helped me unlearn body image issues, take accountability for things I did wrong in survival mode in the past, slowly cleared up a lot of my memory blockage, helped me handle confrontations without immediately bursting into tears, and other little things that have improved my quality of life. Not to say that this Pokémon cured my depression, but I'm acknowledging this step on my path. It's been three years as of a few days ago since my stepmom, my abuser, who had been in my life since I was three years old, kicked me out of the house. Last weekend I drew on my brand new drawing tablet, four Pokémon back to back. I'm proud of every single one of them.

And there's that Oddish. I know I'm still not the best artist, I am just drawing round silly little guys after all, and they're not even shaded for the most part. I'm just trying to say that art is so, so important for our brains. Humans need to create, not for the sake of productivity or standards set by others. It doesn't have to be deep and meaningful, or technically beautiful. It just has to make you happy. Healing takes a lot of work, and when anything seems like too much, when you don't think you can do anything, it's easy to not do anything. Sometimes, instead of looking at which problem is the highest priority, you just have to do one thing that you can manage.

#personal #abuse tw #my art #yall dont have to read this

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theoutworlder · 1 year

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TL;DR, Era goes on a disjointed rant about their childhood, can't remember whether they read The Hindenburg or Who Destroyed the Hindenburg? as a child, and is generally struggling with life.

A post yesterday made me think a bit about my childhood and I discovered that an early core memory has been corrupted. (I cannot be sure of a book I read that was very important to me, because two very similar books exist which both partially match what remains of the memory) The discrepancy was discovered when I tried to look up an image of the book's cover, only to get no results that matched my memory under the title I expected.

As I started jumping back and forth between paragraphs, my writing was getting further from the original thread's topic by the second, so I cut the wall of text response I'd written and rb'd the post without comment. But it was still in my clipboard, and I have the urge the share, or preserve, or generally talk about this. Myself.

This just reminded me of one of my formative childhood memories. Allowing children access to reading materials is so important. Having access to reading materials that fit my actual ability and interests, instead of what others considered appropriate for my age, was such a big deal. For good or ill, my mother never restricted the reading materials I had access to. But other adults alternated between calling me "gifted" and calling me out for not staying in step with my peers.

I was in the 3rd grade (about 1997) when I read a hardcover book I remember as "The Hindenburg". Checked out from the "high school" section at my public school's library, which was primarily nonfiction and reference books, with no more resistance from the school librarian than an "Are you sure?". It's been over 20 years and my memory is far from infallible. I cannot at this time verify WHAT BOOK I read. Research suggests it was either The Hindenburg by Michael M. Mooney, which has the title I remember but I can't find a cover that matched my memory, or Who Destroyed the Hindenburg? by A. A. Hoehling, the 1962 first edition of which had a cover in greyscale with orange text, which matches my memory of the colours but not the title or layout. Neither book is available in a digital format, or I'd probably read them both tonight to find out which one I it was.

What I do remember is a scene where a character walks on a catwalk or other part of the airship's frame (vague), that the destruction of the ship was presented as an act of sabotage (reviews say that both authors present the tragedy as the act of Erich Spehl), and that there were untranslated German words formatted in italics from which 3rd grade monolingual me was able to draw the conclusion that the unfamiliar words presented differently from the rest of the English text about a German airship must be German. Again, without access to either book, I can't be sure which it was.

At that point, I was getting distressed and needed to step away, didn't want it to be part of the discussion that spawned it, but also I'd spent time on it and couldn't discard it.

Extra context or something, idk my brain is getting mad: I am (almost definitely) autistic. More specifically, "I honestly do think there is an ASD component to what you are reporting." but also "you are not a label or a disorder" and some other waffly-looking language about why he didn't want to give me a diagnosis.

I was a precocious reader. Possibly hyperlexic, but barely spoke at all until after I started school and nobody bothered to look into that. "Shy". "Extremely Cautious". Prone to meltdowns. Difficulty recognising appropriate conduct. Learned "8 Eastern, 5 Pacific" when I was 5 to know when my program (The Moxy Show on Cartoon Network) would be on, and I still use it to remember the time difference. Didn't learn how to brush my own hair until I was 12. Toe walking until bursitis made it too painful in my 30s. "Galloping" gait. "Clumsy". Lots of GI issues as a kid resulting in missed school, then as an adult missing work. Chafing at rigidly imposed schedules but needing regularity. Struggling with open-ended tasks and questions, hating being given a task without being given clear instructions/expectations.

Rocking, tapping, keening, humming, sucking on my teeth, skin picking, self-harm.

Reading so much I got detention for it.

READING SO MUCH I GOT DETENTION FOR IT.

Not being deterred at all by detentions, since it gave me something I wanted (quiet).

"Reading at a high-school level" in elementary school, being decent at maths, either coasting through or absolutely sucking at everything else. Mimicking behaviours of other kids to deal with social situations into my teens (like saying I liked a particular boy when asked because I'd seen that answer was "safe" when girls gave it) until I didn't.

(I got interested in alternative subcultures somehow, maybe it started online? And when I was standing out already for how I dressed and what my interests were, I cared a little less about "fitting in" and only resulted to it when I couldn't come up with an answer. Significant examples include saying I was attracted to men I already knew were considered conventionally attractive AND had some adjacent interest in, like musicians I listened to. Turned out I had no idea what peers even meant when saying someone was attractive because I'm asexual and had never experienced it. )

Not recognising in the moment anything but the most blatant of bullying, well into adulthood.

In school, they tried at least once to advance me up a class (would have made their lives easier to be able to shift a kid from my so big it had to be split in two for our elementary years and produced the largest graduating class of my district's history class into a less-full one) but I refused because I would be separated from the only kids I knew.

((Why was I even consulted? Guess my mom liked letting me make my own decisions about some things, she let me refuse a fucking surgery as a child but I wasn't allowed to get a haircut until I moved out))

Somebody thought I might be talented with languages, but it turns out I'm probably just really good at learning to read them if they use the Latin alphabet, because I can read most Spanish I've ever encountered and a fair bit of German and can't construct a useful sentence in either.

Speech difficulties and disfluencies got WORSE in adulthood, I think.

This has turned into a huge disjointed mess. Maybe I'll stop by the school this week and ask if the library still has it while asking if they still have any records on me for my psychologist.

#era talks #era ends up talking about themself #mental health #Childhood #The Hindenburg #Michael M. Mooney #Who Destroyed the Hindenburg?#A. A. Hoehling #Childhood literacy #i was a weird kid #wall of text

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dilfdoctordoom · 3 years

Text

On Tom Taylor, the Current Nightwing Run & Ableism

I did mention I was gonna do a post about it, so here we are. There are some things I want to make clear before we begin: the issue exploded on Twitter on the very first day of disabled Pride month; disabled people have been discussing the ableism in Taylor’s Nightwing run since it began; nobody has blamed Taylor for what happened to Barbara in 2011. We are, however, blaming him for the way she is written in his series during 2021.

I am also going to be discussing the ableism in the fandom in this post. The reactions I have seen, from here to Twitter to TikTok, are showing not only a great misunderstanding of the situation, but a purposeful misunderstanding. The very real reasons disabled people are angry right now have been twisted to make us seem ridiculous and overly sensitive and I cannot help but feel that is very intentional.

Another quick addition: disabled people are not a monolith. Barbara Gordon spent over 20 years as a paralyzed wheelchair user. Stating (and I would like to note, never truly showing) that she is a part time cane user now is still erasing her disability. These things are not interchangeable.

So, with that out of the way, let’s begin.

Tom Taylor’s run is ableist. That is a fact of this situation. He made the active choice to include a version of Barbara Gordon that is ableist caricature. Story wise, the role that Barbara plays could have easily been filled by anyone else. There is no real season, within the narrative and outside of it, for Taylor to include this version of Barbara Gordon, who has received a decade of criticism from disabled people. It’s very well known that this iteration is problematic, to put it kindly, and Taylor is aware of that.

He made the active decision to include her, anyway, showing, at the very least, that he is passively, if not actively, ableist. Passive ableism is still ableism and disabled people are allowed to take issue with that.

That alone is reason enough for disabled people to be angry. But that’s not why things exploded on Twitter.

On July 1st, the very first day of disabled pride month, the new design for Barbara was dropped. After months of teasing Barbara’s return to a wheelchair using Oracle (see: Last Days of The DC Universe, Batgirl (2016), etc), they debuted... a new Batgirl costume that the artist has openly said draws inspiration from the Burnside suit.

There’s a lot of issues to unpack here, so let’s start small: the issue with consciously calling back to Burnside. The Burnside era of Batgirl stories was... beyond awful. The villain of the series’ first arc, was an AI based on Barbara’s brain patterns when she was disabled. It was evil because of all the rage and pain Barbara felt. The actual Barbara, on the other hand, was good -- because she was able bodied. Because her PTSD had been tossed aside. It was a horrifically ableist era that drove the idea that Barbara’s life was terrible when she was disabled; that it was some horrible, twisted secret.

Comics have kept that narrative going. Barbara is seen hiding books on chronic pain; she reacts aggressively to the mere idea that she could be in a wheelchair again, acting like it would be weakness. Whereas Barbara had once been Oracle not because of, but in spite of, her disability, who was fantastic representation for the disabled community, she now acts like it is the most shameful thing in her life.

To call back to Burnside is to call back to that ableism and make no critique of it. If anything, it’s to embrace the ideas of that era.

There is also the design itself to consider. Many people have pointed out the inclusion of a back brace, as if that saves it from ableism -- it does not. Any person who has ever worn a back brace can take one look at this design and know that they did not consult a disabled person. Hell, by how impractical that thing is, I doubt they even Googled a picture of a back brace.

It’s a superficial acknowledgement that Barbara is supposed to be disabled. Something that was apparently thrown in to appease the numerous complaints of Barbara being able bodied; something that no one working on it put any effort into.

When it comes to aids, this is not a new thing for Barbara in Infinite Frontier. She’s said to be using a cane occasionally, that we got a better look at in Batman: Urban Legends, and as any cane user can tell you... that is not a cane that could feasibly be used. It’s another pathetic attempt to acknowledge that Barbara is supposed to be disabled, without actually doing anything of importance.

[IMAGE ID: A segmented cane with a tri-pointed handle with a wrist strap. There is a stripe across the sections to connection them, labelled “solar battery charger buttons”. The text reads: “telescoping antenna doubles as cane or weapon if needed”. END ID]

Dropping this design (which we have now established to be problematic) on the very first day of disabled pride month is a sickening move. The very first day, and DC has doubled down on their disability erasure, thrown in superficial things like a back brace to act like it’s fine.

Tom Taylor is definitely involved in this, whether you like it not. No, he is not in anyway responsible for the events of the New 52 and what they did to Barbara Gordon, but that does not absolve him of blame for what is currently being done to her in his run.

When the design dropped, it started trending due to disabled fans reactions. To be clear: we were directly calling out the ableism in this design. This was Tom Taylor’s response:

[IMAGE ID: A tweet from TomTaylorMade that says: “Hey, @Bruna_Redono_F I think our new Batgirl suit is getting some attention.” He then adds a winky face emoji and tags @jesswchen and @drinkpinkkink. Attached are a screenshot showing that Batgirl is trending in the United States and a picture of the design itself. END ID]

This is him, bragging about how the disabled community reacted. Perhaps before this tweet, you could’ve made an argument that he was not ableist, but after he flaunted the fact that disabled people were rightly furious over this, like it was something to be proud of? No. If you are defending him, you are a part of the problem.

Taylor has included ableist writing in his Nightwing run, beyond the inherent ableism that comes with the current iteration of Barbara Gordon (whose inclusion, yet again, is his decision).

[IMAGE ID: A panel from Nightwing #79. Barbara and Dick are standing in his apartment. Barbara is saying: “I have some pretty new technology holding my spine together. I’m happy to do most things -- eat pizza in the park, take down low-level thugs -- but leaping from rooftops seems... unwise.” END ID]

What Barbara says in the panel above has bothered a lot of disabled people. The implication that she couldn’t “eat pizza in the park’ and “take down low-level thugs” without a spinal implant that conveniently erases her disability is... fucked up, to put it mildly. Those are both things that Barbara has done in a wheelchair. The first one is something wheelchair users can do and the implication that it’s not is beyond offensive.

But, let’s leave Barbara behind for a moment. I have previously mentioned that disabled people have been discussing the ableism present in this run long before July -- and that ableism is not only centred on Barbara. Dick is also a player in all this.

Dick Grayson was shot in the head. I don’t believe I need to retread the story, but just in case: Dick was shot in the head by KGBeast, developed amnesia from the event, and went by Ric Grayson for a long enough period in comics. If you have been active within the DC fandom for the past year or so, you know all about this controversial storyline and its fallout.

The Ric Grayson arc concluded itself the issue before Taylor became the writer for the series and ever since his tenure has begun, Taylor has completely ignored the reality of Dick being a disabled man. We understand this is comics, that things do not function the way they do in our world, but still -- it is clear that this gunshot wound to the head has affected Dick massively. We had an entire arc dedicated to how he struggled to find himself in the aftermath.

Taylor is choosing to write Dick as an able-bodied man, despite his canonical injuries and how they would impact his life.

This man is choosing to give empty gestures towards Barbara being a disabled woman (as discussed above, the completely dysfunctional back brace, etc) whilst writing her as able-bodied as possible. He writes both Dick and Barbara as able bodied as humanly possible. That is ableist. He is ableist. This is the same man that said he made a dog disabled ‘in honour of Barbara’. I do not think I need to elaborate on why that is bad.

The least he could’ve done, was get a sensitivity reader. We know that Taylor is not beyond getting people from marginalized communities to consult on his work (see: Suicide Squad), so why, when writing two characters that should be disabled, one that the disabled community have been criticising for a decade, does he not reach out to a single disabled person? A mere Google search could’ve improved the situation massively. In both the new design and the current writing, it is beyond clear that this is not just an able-bodied person writing it -- it’s an ableist person.

He could have listened to the numerous disabled fans that spoke out. Instead, he chose not only to refuse to do that, but to describe justifiable anger as ‘raging’. He treated us like we were crazy for daring to speak out about blatant ableism being parading around of us in our pride month.

Tom Taylor has failed to do the bare minimum and in doing so, he is, at very, very least, guilty of complicity. Again: passive ableism is still ableism.

The argument at hand is not just about Barbara Gordon and the continuing ableism that shines out from her current writing. The argument is about the treatment of disabled characters in his run. It has also become about the way he treats physically disabled people.

We also can’t have this conversation without acknowledging the fandom’s role in it all. I waited a day to write this up, to allow all the reactions to flood in... and I am sickened.

We have everything across the board. Able-bodied people that have actually listened to disabled people, who have supported us (which is deeply appreciated). Able-bodied people who may have had good intentions, but a skewed sense of the situation and perpetuating some of the more insidious lies being spread around (IE. that this is only about the new costume).

There are, obviously, the ableist reactions, though, that we will be discussing here. People deeming the current issues as ‘crazy’, calling disabled people ‘overly sensitive’ and ‘delusional’. Many people have completely glossed over the examples given for why Taylor, specifically, is ableist, and instead have resorted to telling disabled people that we are wrong and should be mad at DC instead.

It’s important to note that Tom Taylor is an adult man. He doesn’t need a fandom to attack disabled people for daring to call him out. He is not the victim in this situation; he has, for quite a few disabled people, been the aggressor.

I have seen claims that Infinite Frontier is a ‘slow burn’, implying that disabled people need to patient... as if we have not waited a decade for less ableist writing. There is a complete refusal from able-bodied fans to actually listen to what disabled people are saying. They would much rather rush to the defence of the (honestly rather mediocre) current Nightwing run.

Disabled fans know that comic book spaces are ableist. We know that both DC and Marvel and many of their writers are ableist. We are still allowed to be pissed as hell about it and acting like the current reaction being had right now is disabled people being ‘overdramatic’ is yet another example of how the able-bodied side of the fandom both refuses to listen to and undermine disabled people when we call out ableism.

We know it when we see it. We always do and we always will and we will always be able to recognize it far faster than an able-bodied person. If this many disabled fans are coming out and talking about an issue, calling it ableism, then it’s time for you shut up and listen.

Stop being a part of the problem and start supporting disabled fans for once.

#barbara gordon #dick grayson #nightwing #batgirl #tom taylor #tw ableism #okay to rb

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