I went through a terrible in-between phase where I first went from drawing cartoony people to trying to draw more realistic ones. Never had an art class or anything, pretty sure I have aphantasia too, so I was just raw dogging it until I learned how to use refs. I specifically remember constantly attaching the thumb at a weird angle and wondering why my characters looked like they had crab claws.

That or some niche porn because I started thinking too hard about how my interspecies characters would have sex. Most of my characters aren’t even attractive to me but that didn’t keep me from drawing them doing shit to each other’s junk.

Also My Little Pony crossover fan art but it was just characters facing left on a white background.

It’s not even universally true in red states, unless you want to believe I’m the Super Special Exception. I was thinking of my own failed attempts to reach out recently and got bitter and started saying shit.

Every time I get to know my neighbors, things are going well and then they suddenly drop something wildly transphobic, homophobic, or ableist. The last one was especially horrifying back when people were still talking about COVID— “but it only affects old/disabled people!”— pretty much saying to your face that they’re cool if you die.

Relying on other people in a survival scenario seems incredibly irresponsible. It’s America. Your neighbors want you dead.

ETA yknow what this is cynical and unproductive. Just do your best to protect yourself but if you belong to a vulnerable group you already know that. People aren’t inherently evil and I need to log off when I’m upset.

True, I just assumed that reflection was required in order to give the AI the prompt, and the AI was mainly used to format it correctly. I might be talking out of my ass here since I haven’t used it extensively.

I mean good moments are just things like “romantic moment with someone who ghosted me a year later”, or “meeting a baby relative who I see three times a year”. Don’t get me wrong, they’re lovely and important moments, but there aren’t moments so good they change a person’s day-to-day life.

But bad moments obviously impact your life every day. You can’t walk correctly anymore. Someone you love is dead. You botched an opportunity so you’ll never escape poverty. Et cetera. Those moments obviously have a bigger impact because every single moment afterwards is determined by them.

I wish I knew. People keep telling me to “organize” and “strike”. Like yeah a Walmart full of 60yo conservative white people is going to strike over this, fucking idiot.

Wayyyyy too many variables. Are we talking weed or meth? Sexual assault by an adult, or by an abused child repeating behaviors? Is the DUI just barely over the legal limit or is it egregious? Is the theft a colonizer stealing land or a beggar stealing bread?

I can’t with moral absolutism.

Mixed feelings. I decided not to study graphic design because I saw the writing on the wall, so I’m a little salty. I think they can be really useful for cutting back on menial tasks though. For example, I don’t see why people bitch about someone using AI for their cover letter as long as they proofread it afterwards. That seems like the kind of thing you’d want to automate, unlike art and human interaction.

I think right now I just kind of hate AI because of capitalism. Tech companies are trying to make it sound like they can do so many things they really can’t, and people are falling for it.

My beloved teaspoon… When I’m too lazy to fish the tablespoon out of my coffee tin and clean it… three teaspoons

I would truly starve to death if I didn’t have a teaspoon

I have less money and customers are meaner, I guess? That’s how literally every new development affects every working class person

I’d want to pirate every drawing program I never got a chance to try, plus the fancier writing software. Gonna have a lot of time to learn both.

I’ve seen shockingly few movies and TV shows so maybe all the media I can get my hands on, too.

Not really. I find when people are jealous they either try to cut you down in subtle ways, or they self deprecate and guilt trip just because you happen to have something going right for you.

I’d like to be admirable, I think. I’d prefer to rub off on people in a positive way than a negative one.

Graphite on paper :)

When it comes up, I prefer to just describe the symptom currently at play— e.g. “no it was funny, I’m just slow to get jokes”, or “I need to step outside, crowds stress me out”.

It’s not a big secret or anything, but I don’t want every slightly awkward moment to turn into a big conversation about my neurotype. Besides, I am how I am, it would be fine even if I didn’t have a reason. I don’t want people to tolerate me because I have a disorder to “justify” it.

Consider: floating in a bowl of milk like cereal. It’s one big piece but you still have to use a spoon.

Had to specify “boy” because Pippi Longstocking is clearly the strongest.

People use social media for different things. I never used Instagram to meet people, personally. I’ve posted art and I’ve uploaded photos just as a way to show long distant friends what I’ve been up to, but those friends and I mostly talked over text so I don’t know if I ever even looked at my DMs.

I do actually think social media has made me bad at talking to people irl though, but for different reasons. The way I made friends on Tumblr was I’d post a character design and wait for someone else who designs characters to comment, and then we’d talk back and forth about our characters for hours.

Now I’m trying to remember how to make friends in person and it’s so much more intentional. You have to actually ask questions and broadcast your interest in people instead of assuming they’re going to infodump on you. You can’t take five minutes to think up a reply because there’s no going afk. You have to have interests other than a gay man you made up.

Nah, it’s not a literal statement. It’s a rude way to say “I don’t want to talk about this”. It can be due to a genuine lack of interest, or if you’re trying to have an emotional conversation, it’s a malicious way to downplay your experience.

It’s a big old world and there’s always at least one person who will care about something.

I also don’t parade my identity at work but I’m obviously still affected by the false accusations and firings I’ve seen of other queer people. I’m single right now but imagine if the wrong person saw me getting picked up by my partner, my livelihood would be gone and I’d have to go back to my old dead end job where cis men were allowed to scream at me and throw things and management would make excuses.

(I was closeted there too, that place was just like that)

You are affected by anti-LGBT discrimination, you’re just not paying attention for some reason.

I’ll also add that one of the two parties actively wants to see me and anyone like me dead, so there’s a lot of pressure for many of us on simply surviving

Oh, for sure, hence why I’m not anti-voting. I still want to save my ass in the short term, even while thinking about the long term.