Vanessa Lubach - Tabitha's Kitten linocut

empty chairs, empty tables

Photographs of musical notes vibrating in a bowl of water.

That’s science!

So cool.

Music dolies

yknow theres a lot of pressure to be successful, particularly on artsy kids whose professions are seen as useless unless theyre famous, but life is fucking hard and sometimes things dont turn out

but i think thats not bad. my dad has wanted to be a musician forever, and hes rly pretty good. but then he joined the military to get away from an abusive family, and then he got married, and then he got divorced, and a lot of horrible shit HAPPENED. he has ptsd and severe anxiety and he could never really get back on the horse. and he never made it as a musician, and now hes 53

but i grew up in a house full of instruments, and he can play all of them, and some of my earliest memories are of him playing guitar on the front porch and me thinking there wasnt a better musician in the world. so. even if you dont get to the stars, exactly, what you do isnt worthless. its not a waste of time if life is difficult and you cant make it, or if you arent famous, or if your work doesn’t influence thousands of people. it will influence someone

there are a million ways to be happy and a million ways to be a successful artist. we create what we do to enhance the human experience and relate to each other and improve ourselves. theres something to be said for just doing that,,,for the sake of doing it, yknow

This is the most comforting, warm and important piece of text I have ever read, and it is so true. No life is wasted that is spent sharing and loving.

My mother never became a professional artist. She became a social worker, then later taught emotionally disturbed children. But our home was filled with photographs of wildflowers and wildlife. Spice racks, shelves, and other useful objects were adorned with small paintings. She taught me and my sister that we could make things beautiful, even if in small ways, and let us glue glitter and fake gems on our cheap kids furniture and make it ours. Capitalism tries to say that art isn’t successful unless it makes money. But that’s not why humans make art. We make art to convey emotion. To make an object or a moment or a story OURS. And making someone smile when they hear you sing, or look at something you made for them is as valid a reason for creating as any other.

“Capitalism tries to say that art isn’t successful unless it makes money. But that’s not why humans make art.”

Extra points if you can hear him say Lan-er-ge-ge

idk if this is a young fan thing or new fandom culture but some of yall think fics are abandoned way too quickly. a few months or a year or two is not unusual to go without a fic update. sometimes fics take longer to write, other times writers have rl events, or maybe there's multiple fics and one gets more priority. there are tons of reasons for fics not to be updated every week or every month. it also isn't uncommon for people to come back and update fics after a number of years—ive read updates that took five, or ten years. people's lives change, but they still want to tell their stories. personally, i never consider a fic abandoned unless the author has said so; though if it's been a few years i manage my expectations. but a last update being a year ago is... generally not a sign that a writer has abandoned their fic

That! Exactly that!!! Writers have lives and writing is hard! It takes time. Stop assuming fics are abandoned!

Original fic usually goes through this same process before being commercially published. Readers just don't know that bc they aren't receiving it in bite-size chunks online. Large periods of stagnant writing are historically just another Monday for most writers.

This☝️.

MXTX Diaspora May is back for 2025!

MXTX Diaspora May is an event in which Chinese diaspora creators come together to share the diverse aspects of Chinese culture, as well as connect with each other over lived experiences.

Through the promotion and creation of these fanworks, we hope to encourage thoughtful self-reflection throughout the broader fandom, especially with regard to embracing cultural humility and dismantling structures and behaviors that allow racism to flourish, both in fandom and in real life.

Support of MXTX Diaspora May will go a long way towards creating a more inclusive and open climate in our shared online spaces, especially for creators who rarely get their voices heard in the English-speaking side of fandom. We aim to uplift the unique voices and stories of our participants, and we encourage anyone who enjoys works from this event to share in the celebration of Chinese culture from creators of Chinese heritage.

Any creator with Chinese heritage may participate in MXTX Diaspora May. Event rules and work requirements may be found at the link below.

Note: We will not accept AI-generated works (works created by generative artificial intelligence models) as part of this event.

Event Rules & FAQ

Our prompts this year are the Twelve Ornaments, a group of ancient Chinese symbols and designs considered to be highly auspicious.

Sub-prompts for the event will be posted separately.

Sign-Up Form

Are you a creator of Chinese heritage who's ready to sign up for this event? Please fill out the sign-up form linked above!

You will receive a discord link to the event server after you complete the form. Please make sure to join the discord server to connect with fellow event participants and receive event announcements and updates.

Sign-ups will run from March 1, 2025 to April 5, 2025.

Signal Boost!

Reblogs and signal boosts for this event are welcome from both participants and non-participants. Please feel free to boost on bluesky as well.

Feel free to check out our collections from previous years. Comments and kudos are always appreciated by creators!

We look forward to sharing and celebrating everyone's works from the 2025 event!

STAR TREK: VOYAGER (1995–2001)

Hey. Your brain needs to de-frag. Literally it needs you to sit there and space out.

If you want your memory or executive function to improve, stare out a window at the skyline or sidewalk or trees or birds on the electrical wires for like 20+ minutes per day. (With no other stimulation like a podcast or TV if you can manage but hey baby steps innit). If you're fortunate enough to have safe outside with any bits of nature, go stare closely at a 1 meter square of grass and trip out on the bugs and shapes of grasses and stuff.

Literally this will make you smarter. Our brains HAVE TO HAVE this zone out time to do important stuff behind the scenes. This does not happen during sleep, it's something else.

That weird pressurized feeling you get sometimes might be your brain on no defrag.

Give your brain a Daily Dose Of De-Frag.

oh, that beautiful Norton's graphic

tentacles XD

💌📮✨P△treon Sketch Request | February 2025 Emperor Lan Wangji's doting on Concubine Wei Wuxian as if no one else exists💕 [Closed-up version] The full comic can be seen on X/Twitter or on my Patreon

Feeling rough lately.

There's a quote from the AIDS epidemic I keep saying to myself, "Bury your friends in the morning, protest in the afternoon, and Dance all Night"

Don't feel guilty for creating beauty, for having moments where you laugh and feel good while the world falls apart around you. Because being miserable and consumed with the bad does no one any good. Dance all night to give yourself strength to bury your friends in the morning.

We will persevere. We will survive. And when it feels like you can't take another step, I'll hold your hand and take it with you.

men are made to be shoved and grabbed and thrown around and pinned down. god told me that

i am fighting for my fukcing life

have you ever seen a beast that wanted to get at ink bottles

SO GODDAMN BADLY

she wants her PEETS in the DAMP blue INK

#13th century monk problems

no you're so right

me living this 1445 AD-ass situation rn