made me think of this

[id: x/twitter qrt from user styloshka that says "I read a forum post about art once, that it's a product of the dialectic between the effort of the artist and the friction of the medium. You push on the thing and the thing pushes back on you, it has its own voice. The weight of a piano key, the tension of a guitar string." original post from user colleen_daves says "Don't you want to skip over the mindless drudgery that is making art?" I do six stand embroidery and break like 10 needles a day, would I prefer that activity didn't hurt my hands and make me angry? Sure. But that's what makes having the finished piece after so worth it to me."]

link

All eyes on Rafah

"Who Is Superman? A Private Interview with Lois Lane" a fancomic about hope and connection. I've had this story in mind for so long and I'm very excited to be able to share it at last. Thank you for reading, and happy Lunar New Year!

Aah thanks for all the love guys ;_; in case anyone's interested in more historical context I recommend these New Naratif articles on the May 1998 Riots in Indonesia, and "My Name Is..." a short comic on the history behind Chinese-Indonesian names.

I can not stress enough that in Star Trek, Amanda Grayson being an incredibly loving wife AND shitty parent is a feature, not a bug. She loves Sarek with her whole heart. And as much as she loves Spock, every single time she has to choose between them, she'll back Sarek. Spock grew up knowing his mom loved him, but that she also did not understand him and would never have his back.

Before people in the mainstream even had the vocabulary to describe what they were seeing, they understood on a gut level that Spock was a neurodivergent, mixed race adult son of two incredibly charismatic and successful parents.

There are so many layers of relatability here.

A surprising lot of people in very loving and devoted marriages aren't great parents. An unsurprising lot of powerful people with prestigious careers also aren't great parents.

Folks who grew up with parents who were great at their jobs and devoted to one another but who just couldn't relate to or understand their kids could see themselves in Spock. Moreover, he demonstrated that if they took a path radically different from what their parents wanted, they could become incredibly successful and even well liked in a whole different sphere.

Most of all, for folks who could see how much their parents adored one another but never felt like that love extended to them, there is something profound in the way Kirk looks at Spock like he hangs the stars in the sky. He's a source of hope that even if you grew up as your family's ugly duckling, if you get out from under their influence you can find someone who will perceive you as a swan.

I would never be mean to my friend and lover public transport but the bus does take the piss sometimes

I gotta say, one of the greatest achievements of my 20s was that I learned (mostly) to differentiate between:

"I truly do not want to go" and

"I'm just feeling the Demand Avoidance, and I will like it once I get there."

Well, goodness, this one resonated much more than I was expecting. I mean, I get it. My mind was also blown wide open when I found out "demand avoidance" was a thing that existed, and that I'm not the only weirdo in the world who suddenly wishes it wasn't her birthday after anxiously waiting for her birthday for days.

Loads of people in the tags are asking how I do it? I feel this won't be groundbreaking advice, but here is what I have learned:

au revoir is a forbidden word

everytime dungeon meshi focuses on characters outside of the touden party you can really feel the looming horror of the dungeon,, only the touden party is having a silly fun time by virtue of eating the horrors

This is what an evil boop looks like.

Book recs: black science fiction

As february and black history month nears its end, if you're a reader let's not forget to read and appreciate books by black authors the rest of the year as well! If you're a sci-fi fan like me, perhaps this list can help find some good books to sink your teeth into.

Bleak dystopias, high tech space adventures, alien monsters, alternate dimensions, mash-ups of sci-fi and fantasy - this list features a little bit of everything for genre fiction fans!

For more details on the books, continue under the readmore. Titles marked with * are my personal favorites. And as always, feel free to share your own recs in the notes!

If you want more book recs, check out my masterpost of rec lists!

you’ll find i’m full of surprises.

an interesting take on this from matt braly, creator of amphibia

Imagine being a business that has managed to get THE MAXIMUM NUMBER OF CUSTOMERS IT IS POSSIBLE TO HAVE, and you've managed to make it so this is a bad thing.

You did it. That's late stage capitalism in one sentence.

"What was promised as infinite growth proved to be finite" feels like a very concise summary of every business person ever everywhere.

this site has one setting

I’m laughing, but there’s a super useful corollary, which my husband calls “the Red Balloon.” He was a defense lawyer and had a fair number of drug addicts come through, and there is a thing where if you’re like, on your first offense, they’ll do a thing where you can go to treatment and if you complete it they’ll take the conviction off your record.  And he would tell his clients, “Look, everyone’s going to tell you not to do drugs. They’re going to say it over and over again. And it’s like, if people tell you not to think of a white elephant, you’re going to think of a white elephant. But the trick to not thinking about a white elephant is to think of a red balloon. So you need to find your red balloon. For some people it’s yoga. For others it’s woodworking. For some people it’s scrapbooking or gardening or any of a long list of things to do. They focus on that, it’s a lot easier to succeed in ignoring the white elephant.” So yeah, “watch yourself” is one thing… but the better idea is to watch something else. (Even if it’s fanfic about werewolves fucking.)

It’s a form of productive dissociation, and is super, super helpful. It’s easy for me to get bogged down in how much pain I’m in… but some of the most painful periods of my life have also been the most productive, writing-wise, because writing is one of my red balloons. 

There is a phrase I use A LOT in my parenting and my son gets very sick of it, but it’s true:

The thing you practise is the thing you get good at.

You may not intentionally be practicing “being grumpy” but if you don’t put effort into practicing “not being grumpy” then I’m afraid that’s what you’re doing. It’s hard! It’s really hard! Sometimes, for some things, it’s pretty much impossible and that sucks!

But being carefully aware that you are going to get good at the things you do most of is a good way to be more careful of what those things are. If that makes sense.

You gotta appreciate sometimes how tumblr works in such a way that everyone who wants to reblog this interesting or useful psychological advice is also forced to reblog the thing about werewolf fucking

I think we don’t give Camilla Hect enough badass credit for making the vengeful eldritch soul of the earth do physical therapy and DBT exercises. she’s like the meme of Eddie Brock asking for two bagels when Venom says they want to eat the souls of the innocent. and then she snuggled with her at night.

Nona’s tantrums made Pyrrha “I’m gonna drink a bottle of bleach to review my Getting Tortured Skills” Dve uneasy. Her tantrums made Augustine and Mercymorn want her dead. Blood of Eden was so terrified of her they wouldn’t even be in the same room as her.

And Camilla was like. Yeah I’ll help teach her how to stretch. Yeah I’ll read to her in the bath. I can talk her into holding a sword for a few hours every day even though she doesn’t want to. Yeah I’ll sleep in the same bed as her. I’ll put ice under her pillow so she’s comfortable. I’ll wrap her up in a blanket and hold her close to me while she’s having her tantrums. She could really benefit from learning how to count to five when she’s mad. She loves dogs, I have to keep her from taking them all home. She wants to stick her fingers in peoples’ ears. She thinks ass jokes are funny. She sleeps next to me at night. She looks to me when she feels vulnerable. She wants me to hold her. Yeah sure I’ll hold her.