1. Force yourself into their circle. Say “Hi” or something whenever you see them again, talk to them whenever you get a chance, try to be in their vicinity as much as possible, talk to their friends, etc. But, be careful you’re not being a parasite, give them space, don’t cross their boundaries. Basically, make them know who you are, because if you don’t interact with them at all, you shouldn’t expect to become friends with them.
2. Don’t be overbearing. Take steps in what you talk about. Try not to overshare. Let them tell you about themselves, and ask them questions. Basically, a relationship takes two people, so don’t just talk about yourself.
3. Be nice and respectful. Give them compliments, be respectful when you disagree with them, make them feel appreciated, listen to them when they talk, try to remember the things they tell you about themselves, be empathetic when they have problems, take their recommendations, etc. Basically, don’t expect to someone to like you if you don’t act like someone they could like.
This is coming from someone who has struggled with making relationships & social skills since i was a kid. I now have many friends I love and can trust. I can’t promise this will work, but it helped me make friends, so maybe it could help someone else who is struggling with friendships.
some general social/hygiene tips if you need them bc i'm bored :p
source: have adhd, girlfriend autistic, go to an art school that leans heavily into the general tumblr demographic (ND, creative, generally well-meaning but awkward) so i’ve had A Lot Of Encounters
1. You probably don’t need to do a full shower everyday, but you need to wash your armpits, your butt, and your crotch EVERY SINGLE DAY. They will smell otherwise. "But I don’t stink!" maybe! But you can’t smell yourself with total accuracy.
If people avoid you or make a face when they talk to you there’s a good chance it’s because you have a smell or are otherwise ungroomed. This is not a moral failing! But it is fixable. Deodorant, cologne, and a wet wash cloth are your friends. If those are too much work, Lume wipes are also great short term.
2. You also need to brush your teeth everyday if you plan on opening your mouth in a public setting. Bad breath travels when you talk and it’s not good. There are disposable toothbrushes you can get online for five dollars, even just swishing with mouthwash (or even just with water!) and carrying gum helps if you don’t have the energy. Your breath is also affected by what you eat and drink. Coffee breath smells really bad. This is also a cause of people making a face when they talk to you.
3. If someone is sharing something difficult, do NOT immediately reply with a personal anecdote. While you might mean to be empathetic, this feels like you’re making it about yourself. Always begin with “I’m sorry, that sounds really hard” or some variant of it. Ask them a follow up question if they're comfortable, or offer help (if applicable). Let them know you understand and care before launching into a personal story or changing topics.
4. Reciprocate conversation! If someone asks how your day is, answer and then ask them back. “But won’t they just tell me if they have something they want to share?” No! I wouldn't! They're waiting for you to express interest. Nobody wants to share if it feels like you don’t care. Conversation is like a game of catch, not reciprocating is like refusing to throw the ball back because "If they wanted the ball they'd ask for it." You're playing catch! It's implicit!
Bonus Tip: Conversely, if you’re not close with someone, sharing lots of information about something you want to talk about but the other person doesn’t is a bad move. Try to take gaps in your rants and ask for their opinion, or just give an opening for them to reply. If they seem inattentive, and are responding with one word answers, they probably don’t want to talk right now.
Double Bonus Tip: If you’re in a close friendship or a romantic relationship, try to be the one that asks first sometimes. leaving it 100% to the other person also makes them feel like you don’t care.
5. Understand there are levels to a relationship. there are different degrees of closeness and intimacy between relationships, even of the same “type”. The classmate you make friendly conversation with is not the same kind of friend as your roommate, and neither are the same kind of friend as your childhood bestie. Some things that are okay when you are close to someone are social POISON if you aren’t. These include but aren’t exclusive to:
self deprecation (kills the vibe, emotionally draining)
niche references (unlikely to land)
banter/teasing (if you’re not close, ‘playful’ insults lose their ‘playful’)
6. Assume good intent. If you’re traumatized socially it’s easy to assume the worst, but most people are normal. Unless you are surrounded by cartoonishly evil people, most people don’t really think about you that much and the ones that do probably do so neutrally or positively. Act accordingly.
Bonus Tip: This includes constantly asking for reassurance and apologizing when you talk. Being friends with someone who’s constantly saying sorry for existing is extremely draining. Confidence is a socially attractive trait!
7. It’s okay to be low on energy and cancel plans, but you have to do so within reason or else most people probably won’t bother to invite you anymore. When you cancel plans:
Try not to do it too close to the actual event. unless it’s a sudden medical emergency or something, try to cancel as ahead of time as you can. do the same if you know or expect you’ll be late, let them know as soon as you know.
Don’t cancel all the time. Cancelling is fine, I’ve skipped on events just to lie in bed before. But sometimes even if you want to skip you need to just show up. General good rule is if you skipped/missed the last event or hang out, go to the next one.
If you’re cancelling, suggest another event soon after the one you’ll miss! it shows people you care, and want to hang out, but simply couldn’t this time around. For example, "I’m sorry i can’t make it to the movies tomorrow. let’s schedule to this other showing next week!"
For the love of god. Do not cancel plans with your friends for your romantic partner. Even just once is enough to make your friends side eye your partner, if it’s a repeated pattern they might start to hate both of you. Bring them to the function or leave them at home, but do not cancel. ESPECIALLY if you’ve been friends longer than you’ve been dating them.
8. Learn to recognize a bid for connection. If a person asks you to do something, or look at something, or go somewhere, they are asking for your attention first and foremost. when you deny the specific activity, you are denying the bid. This is why suggesting an alternative hang out when cancelling (see #7) is so vital.
9. Generally speaking, if you don’t know how to tell your closeness to a person, ask yourself:
How long have i known them?
How often do we talk directly?
What do we talk about?
Answering these three questions will help you out. If you’ve known them for a while (say, a month or more), you speak directly frequently (once a day or every other day), you talk about things like your emotions, your hobbies, your lives outside one another, you’re probably mutual friends with this person. if you only talk about the class, job, or hobby you share, this person is probably a conditional friend. if you talk mostly about your emotions and opinions, and you’ve known each other for years you’re probably close friends with this person!
There are many different types of friendships, and it’s important to have a general idea of where you stand with one another. things that are okay with close friends (random emotional check-ins, in depth discussions of trauma, playful banter and teasing) may be openly offensive to an accquaintance or a coworker.
If you read all that yap I hope it’s helpful in some way! Go forth and make friends.
Bruce comes back from the dead and wants to make things better. Bruce comes back from the dead and Tim was the one who brought him back, so it's obviously Tim who'll know best how to help him reconnect with everyone.
It's Tim who should give him advice on how to bond with Dick. Dick has always been his idol, after all. Tim would know best how to bring him back, and he does. He gives good advice and the two of them begin to get closer.
So Bruce asks about Jason, too. Asks about how to bring his son back into the fold and Tim wished for a brief and brutal moment that it weren't so obvious who the favorite was.
Tim told Bruce to give Jason his space, to loosen his rules, and make it clear that no matter what the Red Hood did, no matter what the Batman believed in, Jason was always welcome. Bruce would always want him.
It worked. Bruce wasn't surprised. Tim was a special sort of bitter.
Bruce asked again for Damian and Tim had to push down his anger. "That boy tried to kill me," Tim wanted to say. "I hate him and I want you to hate him too so that I can remember a time when we had something in common," Tim didn't say, but he got close.
He instead told Bruce how Damian liked art and animals and loved hearing stories of the wonders of Batman.
He told Bruce just how much Damian loved being Robin. Told Bruce to tell Damian what a good Robin he was.
God bless or maybe damn him, but he did and it worked and Tim wanted to start screaming and clawing at something because that would have never worked if Tim tried it and it wouldn't have stopped Damian from cutting his line--something Bruce did not and would never know about.
Bruce asked about Babs. How should he make sure she knew that she was a part of the family? That they loved her and not just for the work she did?
He asked about Steph. How should he make sure she knew that she was more important than his rules and that, if something else should go wrong, she didn't need to run away?
He asked about Duke. He never got the chance to get to know him before leaving--not as well as he wanted to, at least. How should he let him know that he was just as much a son as everyone else? That, whether or not his parents woke up, he'd always be welcome?
He asked about Cass. How should he show her that he loves her even though he has nothing to teach her? How can he convey how much he cares about her, his first daughter?
Bruce gets brought back from time and he makes things better. He brings his family back together by following Tim's advice.
And Tim?
Tim brings his dad back from the dead and Bruce changes, becomes a better father.
Bruce changes, but not everything can.
That, Tim thinks, is why Bruce never calls Tim his son.
I bet Tim and Jason fight over food all the time. arguments about where to eat on patrol or Jason telling him there was no fucking reason to be such a picky eater when some of them had to eat from the garage if they wanted dinner as a kid or the fact that Tim took the last of the bread sticks despite the fact that it was the only thing he'd eaten--he hadn't even touched the actual meal and Jason hasn't even gotten any bread sticks yet
but then I want them to hang out too. just spend time with each other. get close to each other the way siblings do and I want Jason to be in Tim's room when he sees a snack pile and takes a couple that look nice
and I want Tim to freak. he doesn't talk to Jason for a week. snaps at him on patrol. and the next time Jason's hanging out with Tim--a whole fucking month later, he notices the snacks aren't there anymore
he asks Tim about it and Tim says that he hid them and Jason makes fun of him in the moment--because seriously, all that for a couple bags of chips?--but he thinks back on it later and realizes that Tim is food and reacted defensively to someone taking it
but that doesn't make any sense because Tim grew up rich. he had all the money he could want to buy all the food he could need so why the hell did he have that big of a reaction?
I want Jason to start paying attention to Tim's eating habits. notice how little to boy ate and how long he spent starting at his food as if he was trying to convince himself to eat it. the way he always went back up to his room after dinner and, whenever Jason visited after, there were always a few more wrappers in the trash
I want Jason to notice all of this and think it's weird but not think too much of it until he's helping a kid on patrol. a kid who hoarded food. a kid who was starving but refused to eat a burger because of the texture, of all things. I want the kid's mother to find them and thank Jason before apologizing and saying that her son has something that makes it hard for him to eat
and I want that something to be ARFID
I want Jason to get home from patrol and look it up and, when he thinks about Tim, i want him to realize that the boy checks all the boxes
I want Jason to realize that the reason Tim hoards foods is because he needs safe food and he didn't always have those growing up
I want Jason to wonder how to bring it up to Tim. the way the boy acts, he knows his eating habits are weird, but doesn't seem to know what they are. I want Jason to try to explain to Tim that he has an ED and I want him to try not to freak out about someone in his family not being able to eat right
I want Jason to try and learn all of Tim's safe foods and make sure he always has something to eat. I want Jason to bully Tim for his height and then freeze upon realizing that it was probably a result of his malnourishment. I want to see these two with trauma around eating and I want them to eat well and go to bed with their bellies full
HOLY SHIT GUYS, I WAS INSPIRED BY THIS POST TO TRY MAKE THE SONG AND YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE THE SCREAM I SCRUMPT WHEN I DRAGGED THE TRAINING AUDIO OVER THE BACKING TRACK AND IT LINED UP PERFECTLY
love avatar fics where the author picks and chooses what modern technology exists in the gaang's time and the excuse for why it exists is "sokka invented it"
Art Advice: Composition pt. 1 - Leading Lines and Focal Points
Composition is a vast topic that would take a long time to talk about in full, so I'm breaking it down into parts of more manageable size. This article is for people who draw/paint and for photographers.
In this issue, we will talk about guiding the viewers' eyes using:
I. Leading lines
II. Focal points
Every artpiece (drawing/painting or photograph) has visual pathways that guide the viewer's eye from one point to another in the piece, whether you intended to include them or not. It's important to be aware of them and learn how to use them to your advantage.
I. LEADING LINES
One way to guide the viewer's attention through a piece is by using explicit and implicit lines. An imbalance in these can cause your drawing to appear lopsided. (Imbalance, however, can also be used to your advantage; we'll talk about that later in this article.)
"Cupcake Love" [link]
Explicit lines are easier to identify: they're actual lines in your drawing. Here, we have three explicit sets of lines:
The sprigs of greenery: the two main ones are shown by the solid green lines on the diagram on the right. Here, they have a top left ↔ bottom right motion;
The black and white lines on the coaster, running in the opposite direction; and
The creases on the cupcake paper, fanning out from bottom to top.
Implicit lines are harder to spot, but your subconscious does catch them, so it's important to train yourself to see them. Here, there is an implicit line, marked on the diagram by the red arrow, that goes from the strawberry on the bottom left (notice its alignment) to the "Love" sign on top of the cupcake (notice that the "L" also forms an arrow that points back to the strawberry).
There is also another implicit line (shown by the dotted green arrow) going from the strawberry on the bottom right and connecting with the explicit lines formed by the sprigs on the top left.
🌱Tip! For people drawing: While training yourself to see implicit lines, a good way to spot them more easily is to flip your canvas. When working traditionally, you can use a mirror or take a photo of your work (make sure you paper is straight/not bent, and that your camera or mirror is perpendicular to your paper). You may not notice where the implicit lines are, at first, but you're more likely to spot a skew/slant this way.
The "red" and "green" lines here are perpendicular to each other, giving the painting a balanced appearance, despite the cupcake being off-center. You may have noticed that, if we were to remove the "Love" sign, we would still have more bottom left ↔ top right lines, from the sprigs behind the sign. So there is not just one bottom left ↔ top right line; there are more, and this also contributed to the sense of balance.
II. FOCAL POINTS
Another way to guide the viewer's eye across the canvas, or make them pay attention to a specific area, is to use focal points smartly.
Here, I've marked with Xs the secondary focal points of the painting (the main focal point being the cupcake). These are the points on which a viewer's eye will rest (after spotting the main subject first).
Like with leading lines, you want to use these to guide the viewer's eye around your piece in the way YOU want. This visual pathway can vary from piece to piece. You can try to arrange them in such a way that you keep the viewer's eye within your drawing, as opposed to leading it off the canvas. In this painting, they form a circle, but they can have any number of shapes.
IMBALANCE CAN WORK FOR YOU...
So far, we've talked about maintaining a balanced composition and keeping the viewer's eye from wandering off the canvas, but there are situations where you may want to do the opposite, to achieve a certain effect. For example:
To create a sense of bigness of smallness, or of open spaces
To cause an uneasy feeling in the viewer
To guide the viewer's eye in a specific direction
Let's look at some examples:
from my photography account: @barananduen-photo
These two compositions have very strong bottom left → top right leading lines (explicit), and nothing bringing the viewer's eye back. The focal point(s) are also all clustered toward one end of this line (in these cases, they're in the bottom left). This is done intentionally to create a feeling of open-ness.
You could also use a group of leading lines all pointing toward one focal point off to one side, to create a feeling of both isolation and focus/stress on said figure ("all eyes on..." type of concept). On the other hand, keeping the focal figure on one side, but, instead of lines pointing toward it, using curves leading away from it, can create a feeling of exclusion or loneliness for the figure.
So, you can use imbalance in composition in different ways to convey different messages.
...OR AGAINST YOU
"Christmas Chocobo" [link]
This (the painting by itself), on the other hand, has pretty bad composition. I have one leading, explicit line: bottom right ↔ top left. If you take away all the stuff I placed on and around the sketchbook, that composition is not really doing anything for me. The subject is centered, and there's nothing in the spaces around it, so it's not creating a pleasant sense of open-ness. It just looks skewed. There's a weak implicit "swoop" in the feathers on the bottom right, but it's not enough. The figure balances off a little bit because it's very bottom-heavy, so the body of the bird is like a horizontal mass.
The photo as a whole is more balanced out, because there is an implicit line going from bottom left ↔ top right, from the orange/reds paint wheel, through the bird, and to the paints on the top right (and this line is top-heavy). There are also various items forming a circle around the painting. Also, the darker leaves on the top left blend more into the background, keeping the bottom right ↔ top left explicit line of the painting from extending farther (therefore not diminishing the effect of the bottom left ↔ top right implicit line mentioned before).
🌱So the important takeaway is: Learn to identify leading lines and focal points, and arrange them to suit your purpose, whether it be creating balance or breaking it, and experiment to see when breaking it is good and when it is not.
CLOSING
Composition is a very important skill for both drawing/painting and photography, but the way each of these two types of artists goes about it is usually the opposite: While, when drawing, you start with a blank canvas and fill it up, when making (I prefer this term, used in German, over the English "taking") a photograph, you usually (unless you're doing still life, etc) start with a whole scene that you have to figure out how to fit into the frame.
For this reason, I'd like to encourage both types of artists to try each other's medium as an art exercise in training your sense of composition, because changing your approach often leads to you discovering new things you can use.
For people who draw: Take your phone (or camera if you have one) and try to frame things "artistically," taking into consideration the things we've discussed in this article.
For photographers: Try making little stick-figure doodles (for drawing/painting, this is called "thumbnailing") of what you'd like a scene to look like. This is something you can use in the planning stage before a photo session, sort of like a "wishlist."
And, like I said, there are more topics in composition, but this is a good chunk to digest in one sitting, so we'll leave the other topics, including other ways to guide the viewer's eye, for future Art Advice Articles.
I hope you found this helpful, and see you next time! 💗
MORE ART ADVICE ARTICLES
You can find the index to all Art Advice Articles [here] including:
How to Deal with Art Block
How to Have a Positive Outlook
Advancing in Art: The 3 Ps
The Misconception Behind "Study Realism"
How to Develop Your Own Style (coming soon!)
How to Photograph Traditional Artwork (coming soon!)
a lot of people think of their rooms as just a place to dump stuff, but that's not the case! so here are a few tips on how to keep your room clean. it's not just for super organized people either; these are things anyone can do.
-have a dump bin
have a place to throw things like clothes/extra items you have/anything you want to put away in the moment but will put away later. this keeps stuff off of your floor.
-sleep on top of your covers
put a blanket at the bottom of your bed instead and use that. this is so you don't have to make your bed every single morning to keep it looking decent.
-have a place to put all your papers
have a spot to put school notes, receipts, volunteer forms, coupons, anything you want to keep in a safe spot. it's hard to organize papers if you don't have a place to put them! you can get some cute dividers from staples/walmart/target, wherever. hanging folders also help keep things tidy.
-have garbage/recycling bins
kind of an uncommon tip, but yeah. bigger ones work better because they can hold more before you have to empty them. not huge but big enough so that you don't have to empty them all the time. set a time to empty the bins so it doesn't just accumulate and it looks nicer.
-use under-bed storage
this one is super important! have a bunch of bins/bags under your bed if you can to hold things you want to keep but don't know where to put. like extra bags/makeup etc.
-group "like" items
if you have drawers/bins, have a different category for each drawer/bin. plastic bins with different compartments like from walmart or ikea work really well for this.
-use hangers
this helps you avoid just throwing clothes on your floor or bed. you just hang whatever it is up and deal with it later (more on that in a sec). this works for bags too!
-purge regularly
dedicate some time each week to cleaning out your dump bin and putting stuff on your hangers away. set a reminder on your phone or put it in your planner to remember.
⬚ remove clutter from the surface (surface space isn’t storage🙅♀️)
⬚ wipe down desk surface
⬚ put things that don’t belong on your desk back in their homes
⬚ reorganize/redecorate surface space
⬚ remove any and all trash from desk drawers
⬚ assign each desk drawer with a purpose if your desk has multiple drawers (one drawer for school supplies, one for stationery, etc)
⬚ reorganize drawers
closet
⬚ pick up anything off your closet floor
⬚ decide what to keep and what to get rid of
⬚ organize; make sure clothes are hung and folded properly, organize by color, season, clothing type, etc.
dresser
⬚ clean the surface
⬚ go through and see what clothes to keep and discard
⬚ have a designated drawer for each article of clothing
⬚ properly fold and put away clothes
⬚ reorganize/redecorate surface
bed
⬚ wash sheets, blankets, & pillow cases
⬚ re-make bed
nightstand
⬚ clear surface and clean
⬚ decorate it in an intentional way (your night stand is right next to your bed, think about what you do and don’t want near you first thing in the morning and right before you end your day)
⬚ clean out drawer(s)
other
⬚ pick things up off the floor
⬚ remove all trash
⬚ empty out your trash bin
⬚ clean your windows
⬚ reassess what you want on your walls (do you need to put up or take down any posters? do you have a pegboard you need to redecorate?)
⬚ make a list of any new decor you think you should buy
