Creating Art As Therapy

Call me Az. I'm an artist who creates to fight against cptsd/anxiety/depression/adhd. Feel free to send me an ask and I'll try to reply asap. 💓

[what-even-is-thiss]

For things to live, other things must die. And for some reason my high school youth director decided to explain this concept to us with salsa.

[beardedmrbean]

[hometoursandotherstuff]

[homunculus-argument]

Fun fact: if you, as an adult, tell miserable children that their youth is the best that life will ever be, and that it's all just downhill from there, there's a percentage of them who will hear this and think "well, I guess I better kill myself before that happens." And a certain percentage of those will proceed to do that and succeed.

Anyway what I'm saying is that any time you feel tempted to say that, you should instead consider shutting the fuck up. Just because you peaked at 16 doesn't mean anyone else did. Most peoples' lives get better than that.

[femcelpagliacci]

“wait til you’re my age” well you’re making it less likely that i will

[tsunamiwavesurfing]

penguins vs giant petrel

[landcrow]

[coinsofmcguffin]

“OH BIG %#@ BIRD TAKING ON BABIES! WELL %$#@ WHY DONT YOU TAKE A SHOT AT ME IF YOU THING YOU’RE HARD ENOUGHT”

“…Uh…nope…peace out”

*Turning to the babies* “ You got #$%@ guts kids. I respect that! Showing real Adelli spirit! Reminds me of an Emperor I used to know. Liked to dance but terrible #%$@ voice! Anyway let me get you safely to where you gotta be”

[rat-king-they-them]

[rat-detector-24-official]

Rat detected. Make him jiggle.

[mutipede]

Holy shit I assume everyone is doing an up and down jiggle and maybe a side to side jiggle but if you jiggle your phone forward and backwards he jiggles in and out, too

[originalzin]

A relevant gift for all your holiday needs~

[bonbobi]

so what if I sucked his dick. his knuckles were split and bloody from defending my safety and my honour what else was I supposed to do

[thedeafprophet]

I saw some weird ass conspiracy video thing today of like 'we were never meant to have access to yeast, that was cultivated in a lab and it harms us' bullshit and I was like well first off there's no such thing as 'meant to' and second of all um? the long history of acquiring yeast from beer foam stretching so far back ??????

[moniquill]

....you can acquire yeast FROM THE AIR.

If you want to make sourdough started from scratch, the process is 'mix water, flour, and maybe sugar if you've got it, then WHIP IN AS MUCH AIR AS YOU CAN' and let it sit. And this works. Because there's yeast there. In the air.

[turtlesandfrogs]

Not only is there yeast in the air, it's on a bunch of fruits, too. Ever rubbed a blueberry, plum, or grape, and it was slightly darker underneath? That thin film is wild yeasts. There is also yeasts that live on human skin (and not just pathogenic ones!). We are never without yeasts.

[supreme-leader-stoat]

[knighthawkchapter]

You do not have access to yeast; yeast has access to you.

[chasm-side]

My therapist, who specializes in adults with ADHD, recently told me that all of her clients need a three day crashout period after a big life change. Finish the semester? Crashout. Change jobs? Crashout. Go on a really cool, really relaxing vacation? Crashout the moment you get home.

It's true of literally all of her clients. She works with a lot of them to put systems in place so that their crashouts are only three days. This includes the high-powered execs who travel regularly for work. It does not matter how successful or high functioning they are - they have ADHD, and a crashout is just part of the process of living with it.

I'm sharing this with all you ADHD friends out there, just in case you (like me) start shaming yourself if your crashout lasts more than one day. It turns out three days is kind of the best case scenario. Be kind to yourselves!

[neutroisenjolras-moved-deactiva]

open rp

“Feh.. It’s me, Inuyasha, the half-demon. I can defeat every demon who crosses my path. You think you can take me?”

[bunrobot]

Macklemore pointed to the door. “go away, Inuyasha” he mackled

[valtsv]

so it turns out that climbing onto a rooftop in the middle of the night does solve all your problems, but i failed to consider that it would create a brand new one

[valtsv]

yes

[10april]

[communist-hatsunemiku]

This video is a perfect demonstration of just how badly elderly people need to be introduced to video games. Like it should be a thing in facilities and assisted living, it's like a no brainer, and could enrich these people's live SO MUCH!!!

[wonder-doughnut]

Someone probably already said this somewhere in the notes, but it is critical that we end the stigma of video games being brain rotting wastes of time. The controlled mild stress of playing a video game is actually very good for staving off the onset of dementia because the snap decisions necessary while playing them keep the brain active and focused, as opposed to just passively taking in information like you do when watching TV or even reading a book to an extent.

Video games could keep people cognitively coherent for a longer time. This means they could literally keep families communicating and connected for a longer time. And yes we could use more than just Wii Fit and Wii Sports at nursing homes because those are less physically accessible than video games that don't require motion controls.

[memecucker]

Dont really consider that to be a related question but alright

[aroaceleovaldez]

i had a thought of "do people not know what AUs are anymore?" and then i remembered nobody explains fandom stuff to new people anymore so it is entirely plausible people genuinely don't know what AUs are and nobody has explained it to them, so for today's lucky 10,000:

"AU" stands for "Alternate Universe" or "Alternative Universe" (same difference) and is basically any thought scenario for a fandom that isn't canon and can't fit within the canon universe. If it takes place in the canon universe but something is notably different, that is typically what's known as a "Canon divergent AU," because it diverges from canon.

an AU can be absolutely anything. There's a couple of widespread pan-fandom au scenarios that often get thrown around, like coffee shop aus, genderbend aus, hanahaki aus (hanahaki is a whole thing in itself i'd recommend researching on your own), etc. One you might hear sometimes is "crossover AU" which is when you have characters from one fandom interacting with characters from another.

You can have as many aus as you want. They can be whatever you want and you can do whatever you want in them. It's a sandbox for you to play around in and explore how things would be different or how the characters would act in those circumstances or environments. Maybe they have different relationships with each other. Maybe they behave slightly differently. Or you can just say "Okay, [x] is true. How did they get here? How would things have to be different for this to occur?" which can also be fun.

If you are ever confused about why people ship something that seems completely out of the blue or doesn't make sense to you in the canon setting, there's a good chance they like it in an AU setting! Not everything everybody is interacting with is necessarily the canon! Not everybody wants things to exist in canon and just want to explore playing dolls in a different sandbox and that's okay. And their sandbox might look a lot different than yours, and that's also okay. You have the freedom to make your sandbox whatever you please. Do whatever you want forever. Get funky with it. AUs are fun.

Okay that's my schpeal. everybody go have fun and play nice now.

[kintatsujo]

Just because I've seen people question "what's the point, write a new original story" and I have a ready answer, also being a big AU person

AUs engage with a story by asking "okay but what if?" "what if we put these characters into the Pacific Rim setting?" "what if the main character had been a different gender?" "what if he hadn't been late that day?"

And in some cases it's "what if I treated canon like it was a first draft?" or "if I was going to take all of this worldbuilding from different versions and tried to make them work together, how would I do it?"

It still works best as a fanfic because a lot of the time the point IS that you're pushing and pulling at the characters and setting. A PacRim au of Star Wars is going to look a lot different from one about Star Trek TNG, for example.

But at the same time, it's a way to play with the ideas from canon from completely new angles. "What would happen if you put Link Legend of Zelda in a space opera setting? how would you make him feel like himself?"

Also sometimes you just want a excuse to put the cast in cute outfits and that's pretty valuable too.

[the-font-bandit]

One of the most frustrating things about being ADHD is the way hyperfixations and skill levels work.

So I, an ADHD person, will get obsessed with A Thing. I will research, I will practice. I'll check out library books, watch YouTube videos, seek out podcasts, all to learn everything I can about The Thing.

Thiat Thing is often a skill or hobby. Painting, writing, candlemaking, baking, mixology, tea blending.

But the thing with ADHD is that you'll be obsessed with it only to a certain skill level. Something where all the mystery is gone. It's not as fun once the learning part is over and it's just boring practice to get better.

Then abruptly, you'll lose interest and move to another fixation.

That skill level you've earned may be higher than your average person with a passing interest. But it's also lower than someone who specializes in said thing, who has put in those hard hours of practice and work.

So you start just forming this miscellaneous collection of things that you're good enough at to earn some praise, but still leave you feeling like you're just never *quite* good enough at anything because you can't just choose anything.

And you want to pick a Thing. To find Your Thing. The thing that fits, that you can finally excel at. But you just can't seem to.

[thenightgaunt]

Fuck this one hits home.