Flappy And Happy

Hi! My name’s Nico or NJ, he/him pronouns!

[hoofpeet]

Really does suck that so many personal problems + mental illnesses and whatnot are kinda inherently cliche just by their nature . And don't happen to package themselves in a conveniently poetic + unique way. Bc you can hate yourself and want to die every day but even if it's the most pressing concern in your life. It's still a problem 500000000 people have had before you, which means there's really no way to articulate it that hasn't been done [probably better] 50000 times already and won't have 10 people in your inbox calling you an edgelord immediately. So at the end of the day it's like Yeah well. You will have depression and childhood trauma and you're lowkey fucked up AND. yess you're cringe sorry. L baggage fail disorder

[stellerfly]

"ai is making it so everyone can make art" Everyone can make art dipshit it came free with your fucking humanity

[pizzaronipasta]

Oh gee, you're right! Why didn't the people who can't even move their arms think of just making a painting? /s

And before anyone starts spouting some "art is more than just painting" spiel, you don't know what kind of art someone might need to make in order to express their vision. An artist may have a very specific idea in mind to create the perfect piece of graphic art, and using music, performance, etc. just won't cut it for them. AI is a tool that can help the disabled in so many ways. Not even just with art. Get off your high horse and accept that disabled people have different needs and, guess what, ABILITIES than you do. Fuck you, asshole.

[stellerfly]

you are a tar pit.

[pizzaronipasta]

and you are ableist.

[stellerfly]

[pizzaronipasta]

you're fighting against a tool that makes art more accessible, and actively dismissing the notion that it could even possibly be doing that. this IS ableist. YOU are the tar pit in this situation.

[stellerfly]

L+Ratio+It doesn't+i slept w your mom

[cripple-woe]

Hi I’m disabled I’m crippled I have a disorder that makes my fingers suddenly dislocate while I’m holding my pencil I have a spinal issue that makes it hard for me to bend over a desk half of the time I have leg issues that make it difficult for me to get around etc etc etc. I also have a bunch of other issues I don’t want to tell you about.

I’m also in art college. And even if I wasn’t, I’ve been doing art for almost a decade now. I’ve been disabled the whole bloody time.

AI, isn’t art.

There are many disabled artists and we have adapted our own ways of dealing with how we create. Fuck you, we have been doing this forever.

Vincent Van Gogh had temporal lobe epilepsy; Henri Matisse became a wheelchair user after surgery for cancer; Michelangelo had osteoarthritis, limiting mobility and causing pain in his hands and feet.

Paul Smith had a severe case of cerebral palsy and created art using typewriters.

Peter Longstaff has no arms due to Thalidomide, and paints with his feet.

Frida Kahlo not only had polio that disabled her as a child, but of course as we all know was injured in a bus accident at the age of 18, which caused her lifelong pain and medical problems.

Fuck, you want a personal annecdote? I knew a girl (we have lost touch since) who was paralysed from the neck down and she painted with her mouth and there are other artists who do so too! And with eye tracking technology I’m sure disabled artists will be getting more and more tools as the years pass. But we do NOT condone AI art. All that does is put us, real disabled artists, who exist and need support, out of jobs and commissions.

Fuck you.

[solstice-snakes]

hi, another disabled person here for more personal anecdotes! here is an art piece i made entirely with my non dominant hand 1 week before my most recent shoulder surgery on that same arm. i also wear splint rings to keep my fingers from dislocating while painting (or playing bass guitar cause i do that too). i make most of my income off hand painted art despite having hand tremors, frequent wrist dislocations/subluxations, and migraines.

my friend and her wife also make their incomes off wig making, leatherwork, and digital collage prints. both have chronic pain as well.

our lines arent perfect because we have shaky hands but thats ok, make it a feature not a flaw in your art. fuck AI.

[punk-jaskier]

Anyone who thinks physically disabled people need to use art stealing AI to make our own art is the ableist, actually.

Mine isn't as drastic (yet) but I've been having to wear wrist braces and finger splints since childhood off and on because using my hands in a repetitive motions causes them to be in pretty excruciating pain.

What is my art medium of choice? Knitting. You know, that thing where you have to do a repetitive motion over and over again. I hold my needles a bit strange, I knit through the pain, I sometimes have to give up working on it for weeks at a time. But I will not stop because it's what makes my heart sing.

Disabled artists don't need your pity, we've been getting by, doing what makes us happy despite the pain and hardships for thousands of years, probably longer, I bet there were neolithic disabled artists.

No actual real artist wants or uses AI, including disabled artists. AI is for losers who are scared of the extremely important phase in art where you suck and want to skip it by stealing and not even in a cool "I'm emulating your style because I wanna learn from it" way.

Go suck at art for a couple years like the rest of us and stop talking over disabled artists.

[icemankazansky]

Can I just add

Chuck Close

Chuck Close was a painter and photographer who specialized in ENORMOUS portraiture. If you've never been in the same room as one of his works, try to remedy that if you can, because it is an awesome experience. Close had a number of mental and physical conditions as a child, but in 1988, in his 40s and already a celebrated artist, he suffered a blood clot that left him paralyzed from the neck down. After intensive physical therapy, he was able to regain enough control to move his arms (more his upper arms than forearms), enabling him to paint with a brush strapped to his wrist. He adapted his painting style for his disability... and he continued painting enormous, hyper realistic portraits.

Close with self-portraits before (left) and after (right) his paralysis:

[the-official-publix-deactivated]

yeah top guy who said ai art is ‘accessible’ fuck you.

Humans adapt, as we have for years. Theft will not stop humanity.

[the-haiku-bot]

Humans adapt, as

we have for years. Theft will not

stop humanity.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

[blueboldandbright]

I’m dyspraxic and work with permanent ink. I do it because of the sheer joy it brings me. I don’t need a plagiarism-based, water n energy guzzling, tech-bro machine to make art.

I’m dyscalculic and work around it to crochet. I don’t need AI generated patterns clogging up my pinterest while I’m searching for the next project.

I have chronic pain and extreme fatigue. I prop up my laptop on my duvet and write self-indulgent fanfiction. I don’t need to chuck my beloved characters in an AI meat grinder until they spit out the ‘right’ phrases.

[pawberri]

The worst thing I see with free art education online is that the teachers are often so obsessed with not cheating in your art. Some of these dudes straight up say not to use reference at all ever because you need to be prepared for a time when a reference you want doesn't exist, or something. In illustration school, they taught us to cheat everything. Take photos for reference and trace them! Use royalty free images! Do literally anything you can to make sure your drawing gets done without causing you any legal trouble. I can promise you a ton of your favorite illustrators through history were CHEATERS!! I also can promise you every mangaka you like cheats thoroughly. Whatever glory you get by not cheating is not equal to the amount of trouble you put your body through with the extra effort

[despairhasitsown-calm]

a while ago i attended this lecture on autism. guy in the audience said he had many of the symptoms that were presented and asked what should he do to get treatment and possibly a diagnosis. instead of answering his question the psychologist went on a tangent about how “the clinic reigns all powerful over guesswork”, and how actually it has become a trend amongst little children on the internet to claim that they are autistic for cool points, and that this hurts real autistic people. no she didn’t tell him how to get his symptoms looked into, she just made it very clear that to her, aknowledging your own symptoms is bad and evil and hurts the poor real mentally ill people.

an ex-friend of mine, then a psychology major and by now probably a full psychologist, once lectured me on how horrible and bad it was that i told her “i probably have some sort of neurodivergency”, and that if i were her patient she would never give me a diagnosis because “you aren’t like this now, but i know that if you get a diagnosis you’ll use it as an excuse to start treating people badly. that’s just how mentally ill people are.”

same ex-friend was extremely disgusted when she found out that fans sometimes make neurodivergency headcanons for characters that have the same symptoms as they do, and that authors sometimes write books with neurodivergent protagonists in stories that don’t focus on that (ex: she seemed horrified that percy jackson has adhd?)

multiple psychologists i’ve seen on facebook agree that they should refuse to treat patients that say “i’m here because i have symptoms of a disorder and wonder if i have it”, and that a patient should arrive to a psychologist as a blank slate.

school psychologist asked me how i was feeling about my trauma situation and i told him i thought my friends would leave me. instead of addressing the issue he said that that no i didn’t, that i was lying, that i had searched “bpd symptoms” online and now i was faking symptoms because i wanted to have bpd, that he shouldn’t have told me he suspected i had a personality disorder because now look what was happening. no, i didn’t search bpd symptoms online. yes, my friends left me, it was a completely founded belief and not a symptom, let alone a faked symptom.

so the next time you hear someone saying they’re “anti self-diagnosis” i want you to understand what they’re saying. what they’re saying is:

- i don’t want people to be aware of their own symptoms

- i don’t think my patients should have access to any information that doesn’t come from me

- i don’t think neurodivergent people should learn how to cope with their symptoms and live “normal” lives

- i think neurodivergent people should be denied a diagnosis because the moment they get one they will become evil and dangerous

- i don’t think people who don’t look like a stereotype could possibly be neurodivergent, even if they have all the symptoms, so i think they are faking it for attention and should be denied treatment

[incognitopolls]

How often do you take a nap?

Every day, or nearly every day

Multiple times a week

About once a week

Once every few weeks

About once a month

Once every few months

A few times a year

About once a year

Almost never

Voting ended onAug 22, 2024

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[soundlessdragon]

Two days ago my husband said "...and he was pissed" and I said "don't say that around the kids!" so he corrected himself to "and he was liquid angry" and I've been laughing since

[soundlessdragon]

He is an ungrateful man 😔

[by-dying-i-live]

[oh-god-this-was-a-bad-idea]

As an aroace person, friend crushes are INSANE. And I don’t mean this like “oh I want my friend romantically” I mean like “I need to be this person’s friend so bad they are so cool!!!!” Like there’s this mutual I have on tiktok who I have been sending cat stickers to back and forth all day. The day we have an actual conversation about something will be the day I’ve won. Like is this how allos feel when they have romantic crushes on people???

[stimmy-stegosaurus]

Okay so as someone who is greyromantic and has experienced a bit of both, the feelings are remarkably similar, but still different in a way that’s really tough for me to describe.

So I have my boyfriend, and the crushy feeling I had with him was very different from anything else I’d experienced. And if it hadn’t been reciprocated I could’ve dealt with being friends, I guess, but there probably would’ve been some jealousy because I knew what I wanted even if it took me a little bit to decode the feelings.

But I also really didn’t like having a crush.

It’s nothing against him! At all! It’s just that relationships are hard and our circumstances were messy and I was scared and the feelings were strong and I just didn’t like it. But I’m glad things worked out and we’ve been together for as long as we have.

On the other hand, I have a friend crush in the way the original post describes on this person I met at my school.

The day I first talked to this dude (via email first for a student org related thing), I thought he was cool as fuck, but I expected that vibe to chill once I actually got on campus and all. The day I actually met him irl, I knew I wanted to be really good friends with him. There were a handful of people I met around the same time and felt like “I need these people as besties, and I need it soon,” but the vibe was always strongest with him.

We talked at this student org’s meetings almost weekly but it was a group thing and he’s cool with everyone so I was just kinda there. Very sure I wouldn’t get far with this idea.

Over winter break, I’d sent a message or two, not really expecting a reply; I try not to assume that I mean anything to anyone.

Imagine my surprise when a few days before the semester starts, he tells me he had a really rough break, which is why he hadn’t replied, and he actually wanted to know if we could hang out outside of meetings at least once (which happened! It was really cool actually!)

He graduated at the end of that semester, but we’ve kept in touch as much as we could, and I actually saw him irl last week.

(Sorry for the infodump, he’s just also kind of a hyperfixation rn which is awkward and sucky imo)

Anyway long story short (and using this example instead of an example with a friend I talk to daily ONLY BECAUSE my friend crush on him was about a decade ago and the one I talked about above is recent), the biggest difference for me is what label I wanted out of the connections.

See, I love strongly either way. I want my life to be intertwined with my boyfriend’s life, with my best friend’s life, with this friend crush’s life, all of it.

I just really love my boyfriend as my romantic partner, and if we changed our minds and decided to “just” be besties, that’s fine; I’ve always preferred having more than one bestie anyway. But want I want wouldn’t change, it’s more the label itself that varies.

With my best friend, whether we’d swap to a romantic relationship is questionable. I don’t know how I’d feel about that. But I like where we’re at right now.

With my friend crush, I want to know him the way I know my close friends. And I’m okay with him knowing me the way my close friends would.

Deep down I want what I used to read about: the relationships where there are adventures and late-night deep conversations and silly immature things.

I may also want to buy out an apartment complex and have all my loved ones all live near me but like that’s an entirely different fantasy.

[justsomeskullkid]

Im not a huge fan of aspec shipping discourse but i have some strong opinions rn. So, ive come up with a hypothetical. Imagine this:

Pretend that we’re back when there was NO LGBTQ representation in media. As in, you could think of literally example of a queer character if asked. (I know LGBTQ rep is still scarce, but not as scarce as it used to be, so just pretend it is that super rare).

Lets say that there is a canonically sapphic character in a show you like, let’s say she’s a girl. You get so excited because there’s literally NO rep in any other shows you can find. Excited, you go on the internet to look for stuff about her. However, when you get onto your social media of choice, all you see is fan content shipping her with a male character.

On the surface, this is completely fine. After all, the show doesn’t exactly specify her identity, she could be bi, pan, etc. Sapphic women can like men. But, you find it odd how the only ship art is with her and a man. She had chemistry with tons of female characters, after all. Why not ship her with them? It seems telling that most people ignore her queerness and just say “sapphic women can still date men” to excuse it, despite that being true.

When you post about how frustrating it is, people start getting mad, saying that you’re gatekeeping queerness. People ignore your points and just say “but queer people can be in straight relationships” even though you know that’s true. People say that “its just fan content, let them have fun.” Most people doing the shipping aren’t even sapphic themselves.

To you, it feels like the only piece of canon representation you have is being ignored completely. You know queer people can have straight relationships, you have no issue with that. It’s the fact that people are basically treating her like a straight character and ignoring her queerness that bothers you.

This is how it feels to see people shipping aro character. I know aro people can date. I’m aro and I hope to be in a relationship someday. Some of my closest friends are aspec and are dating other aspecs. But that’s not the point.

The point is that when aspec characters become canon, which is UNBELIEVABLY RARE, so many people choose to ship them anyways. Not only this, but people’s just treat them as if they were allo, just using “aspecs can date” as a cover for completely ignoring the character’s identity. Aspec relationships have nuance. They sometimes don’t look like a “normal” allo relationship.

You can ship aspec characters respectfully. You can:

Put them in a queerplatonic relationship

Put them in a romantic relationship that doesnt involve sex (if they’re allo-ace)

Put them in a sexual relationship that doesnt involve romance (if theyre aro-allo)

Put them in a relationship that’s sexual and romantic, but acknowledge that the relationship might be different than a one between allo people

Handle the ships with nuance and understand that even in a relationship, the character still isnt allo

And most importantly, listen to aspec people when they tell you something you’re doing is inaccurate or harmful.

Sorry for the rant but just… please listen to aspec people!!! We deserve good representation too

[dandelion-skies]

Torn between ‘hhhhh women pretty’ and ‘I am completely aware that it’s almost entirely aesthetic attraction and I’m chasing the idea of having a partner due to social expectations, when all I really want is a close knit friend network and one day, children. But I really don’t care much about dating.’

It’s probably the autism.

[tremendously-crazy]

"Do you want a boyfriend/girlfriend?" no i want a best friend/roommate/soulmate that I can go on silly adventures with and hang out with and have deep intellectual discussions with and we can be life partners without any of the romance stuff

[hazoret]

I NEED to understand how this guy’s brain works

[lazorsandparadox]

Ive looked at this guys deviantart. He likes making comics where judy dies, but only if its funny. There are a lot of comics like that in his gallery, or there were last time i checked. The fox in the picture is not nick wilde, its a female fox oc who he wrote about judy getting with and marrying and adopting kids with after she broke up with nick. The abortion comic was not actually pro life, it was just meant to be a one shot soap opera type story that happened to use abortion to create the drama. Judy is supposed to be the one in the right in that comic, which is why she gets all those nice things happening to her in the follow up comic.

I think the thought process is that he wants to write overly dramatic and silly stories and just happens to use zootopia characters to do that instead of making up ocs for it for some reason.

[zephyrwrites2]

[mousathe14]

Oh wow, this actually is a soap opera. That’s insane.

[bibbityboppidi]

Buckle up children, cause I have a short story.

It just happened this week. It all started with some guy. This person placed in order for a new Bible. Nothing out of the ordinary. But when they get the package, they realize that this was not the Bible they ordered from Amazon. Oh no, it’s this.

Now once this picture is posted, everyone starts explaining what the book actually is, what Gravity Falls is and giving recommendations in overall they’re taking it really well .

Now this isn’t the funny part. Sure, getting the complete opposite of the Bible is one thing but then this happens…

 you couldn’t write better material than this. It’s been verified to be authentic story. The entire Gravity Falls Sub Reddit has gone wild over this.

[space--butterflies]

@glacecakes

[theinturnetexplorer]

laser-free diet.

[floatingwithobrien]

y'all need to hear about gerb.

gerb was my high school physics teacher. (gerb is short for mr. gerber.) when we were learning about radiation and whatnot, and we touched on radiation poisoning, gerb decided to tell us a story.

when gerb was in high school, he worked in a supermarket. a cashier. there was this one little old lady, mrs. cassopolis, who was a regular. mrs. cassopolis firmly believed that the lasers used to scan her food items would give her radiation poisoning. they tried to explain that’s not a thing. but old cass wouldn’t hear a word of it.

the employees had to punch in every. last. grocery. item. MANUALLY.

and this woman would buy cartfulls of food every week, like any good grandma trying to feed her five children and eighteen grandchildren every time they come for a Sunday visit. so pretty soon, the employees figured out a strategy to get her on her way and get on with their lives.

one or more employees would distract old cass while the cashier would scan all the items he could as fast as humanly possible while she wasn’t paying attention.

now this supermarket had a rewards program for its most efficient workers. the computer would track how quickly the cashiers scanned items, and how many total they scanned in one day, that kind of thing. so one day, gerb’s boss came to him and said “uh,”

“you scanned three hundred items in six minutes last Tuesday during your shift” and gerb says “i recall” “that’s about four times faster than anything i’ve ever seen” and gerb says “yea ok” “jeremy what happened?”

and gerb says

“i had to save a little old woman from placebo radiation”

[forgotten-hiacinthe]

Guys does anyone remember the "black ring on your middle finger on your right hand means you’re ace, white ring on your middle finger on your left hand means you’re aro" thing or have I hallucinated abt it and now falsely believe it to be real

[aroacesafeplaceforall]

Yes

[thunderstormsandcats]

It’s real thing I still wear my ace ring!

[lyralit]

subtle ways to include foreshadowing

one character knowing something offhandedly that they shouldn't, isn't addressed until later

the crow rhyme

colours!! esp if like, blue is evil in your world and the mc's best friend is always noted to wear blue...betrayal?

write with the ending in mind

use patterns from tragic past events to warn of the future

keep the characters distracted! run it in the background until the grand reveal

WEATHER.

do some research into Chekhov's gun

mention something that the mc dismisses over and over

KEEP TRACK OF WHAT YOU PUT. don't leave things hanging.

unreliable characters giving information that turn out to be true

flowers and names with meanings

anything with meanings actually

metaphors. if one character describes another as "a real demon" and the other turns out to be the bad guy, you're kind of like...ohhh yeahhh

anyways add anything else in the tags

[lyralit]

subtle ways to include foreshadowing

one character knowing something offhandedly that they shouldn't, isn't addressed until later

the crow rhyme

colours!! esp if like, blue is evil in your world and the mc's best friend is always noted to wear blue...betrayal?

write with the ending in mind

use patterns from tragic past events to warn of the future

keep the characters distracted! run it in the background until the grand reveal

WEATHER.

do some research into Chekhov's gun

mention something that the mc dismisses over and over

KEEP TRACK OF WHAT YOU PUT. don't leave things hanging.

unreliable characters giving information that turn out to be true

flowers and names with meanings

anything with meanings actually

metaphors. if one character describes another as "a real demon" and the other turns out to be the bad guy, you're kind of like...ohhh yeahhh

anyways add anything else in the tags

[cramulus]

“Marcus Aurelius has already released you from the obligation to have a take”