We can only try to be original

20, likes to laugh.

[howieabel]

“For a colonized people the most essential value, because the most concrete, is first and foremost the land: the land which will bring them bread and, above all, dignity.”

— Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

It's time to kill the idea that we can only grow and heal when we're uncomfortable. You heal every time you have a good conversation with someone. You heal every time you laugh. You heal every time something makes you smile genuinely. You heal every time you have fun creating something - anything. You heal every time you get so absorbed in something fun that you forget your struggles for a while. There is, in fact, lots of healing and growth to be found INSIDE your comfort zone.

[hyrude]

is the world really such a terrible place? yesterday i asked if oat milk was extra and the barista said yes so i said ok just regular milk then and when she gave me my chai latte she whispered “i used oat milk ;)” doesnt that make u want to live another day?

[hyrude]

here is my life philosophy: next week there might be someone ahead of you in line at the store who’s short a quarter and you have a quarter and you can give it to them. if you weren’t there, they’d have to put something back. the week after that you could be getting lunch and the waiter might ask if you want some pancakes someone else ordered and never picked up. you could find someone’s lost cat. you could watch someone’s bag while they go to the restroom. there are so many ways you are going to touch other people’s lives and they are going to touch yours and there’s no way to know when it’s going to happen. so you have to keep living!!! i wouldn’t want to die knowing that tomorrow the barista will give me free oat milk just to be nice. 

[lissar-deactivated20201117]

“When identity is derived from projecting an image in the public realm, something is lost, some core of identity diluted, some sense of authority or interiority sacrificed. It is time to question the false equivalency between not being seen and hiding. And time to reevaluate the merits of the inconspicuous life, to search out some antidote to continuous exposure, and to reconsider the value of going unseen, undetected, or overlooked in this new world. Might invisibility be regarded not simply as refuge, but as a condition with its own meaning and power? Going unseen may be becoming a sign of decency and self-assurance. The impulse to escape notice is not about complacent isolation or senseless conformity, but about maintaining identity, propriety, autonomy, and voice. It is not about retreating from the digital world but about finding some genuine alternative to a life of perpetual display. It is not about mindless effacement but mindful awareness. Neither disgraceful nor discrediting, such obscurity can be vital to our very sense of being, a way of fitting in with the immediate social, cultural, or environmental landscape. Human endeavor can be something interior, private, and self-contained. We can gain, rather than suffer, from deep reserve.”

— Akiko Busch, How to Disappear: Notes on Invisibility in a Time of Transparency. [bold text added by me.]

[altargrl]

love marilyn monroe 4 showing us that being her is something she turned on and off

[altargrl]

[soy-girl-almighty]

“Heartache is good. Accept it joyously. Allow it, don’t repress it. The natural tendency of the mind is to repress anything that is painful. By repressing it you will destroy something that is growing. The heart is meant to be broken. It’s purpose is to melt into tears and and evaporate. When the heart has evaporated exactly in the same place where the heart was, you come to know the deeper heart.”

— Osho (via purplebuddhaquotes)

[a-queer-seminarian]

“On Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays at 9:35a.m., I  am usually in a lecture hall at the university, expounding about botany and ecology — trying, in short, to explain to my students how Skywoman’s gardens, known by some as ‘global ecosystems,’ function.

One otherwise unremarkable morning I gave the students in my General Ecology class a survey. Among other things, they were asked to rate their understanding of the negative interactions between humans and the environment. Nearly every one of the two hundred students said confidently that humans and nature are a bad mix.

The response was, in a way, not very surprising. They were well schooled in the mechanics of climate change, toxins in the land and water, and the crisis of habitat loss. Later in the survey, they were asked to rate their knowledge of positive interactions between people and land. The median response was ‘none.’ I was stunned.

How is it possible that in twenty years of education they cannot think of any beneficial relationships between people and the environment? Perhaps the negative examples they see every day — brown fields,factory farms, suburban sprawl — truncated their ability to see some good between humans and the earth. As the land becomes impoverished, so too does the scope of their vision.

When we talked about this after class, I realized that they could not even imagine what beneficial relations between their species and others might look like. How can we begin to move toward ecological and cultural sustainability if we cannot even imagine what the path feels like?”

Robin Wall Kimmerer in Braiding Sweetgrass

_________________

The above passage introduces one of Kimmerer’s primary goals in Braiding Sweetgrass, which is to show us how human beings can cultivate mutual, respectful relationships with the earth and all its creatures. Most of her examples of beneficial interactions stem from the practices and ideologies that various Indigenous communities have held for centuries or even millennia. Indigenous knowledge and wisdom is vital to ecological sustainability.

Questions for Reflection:

Can you think of any positive interactions between humans and other species or the land? If you can’t think of any (I know I struggled to), I highly recommend reading Braiding Sweetgrass, particularly chapter titled “Mishkos Kenomagwen: The Teachings of Grass,” in which Kimmerer evinces how sweetgrass only thrives when there are humans conscientiously harvesting it, as well as the chapter titled “Wisgaak Gokpenagen: A Black Ash Basket,” in which Kimmerer evinces how Black Ash trees do better when humans cut down some but not all of them in a forest. You can find a pdf of Braiding Sweetgrass online for free.

Why is noticing where and when humans have benefited the our world just as important as owning up to how we’ve injured it? If we don’t believe such interactions exist, how does that hinder efforts at sustainability?

Further Reading:

This post on caretaker agriculture

“The Pristine Myth: The Landscape of the Americas in 1492″ - article on human impact on the environment pre-Columbus

This academic article on “Bison, Anthropogenic Fire, and the Origins of Agriculture in Easter North America”

“What Conservation Efforts Can Learn from Indigenous Communities”

Indigenous Knowledge for Disaster Reduction

“Towards Decolonization and Settler Responsibility”

This post is part of a Lenten series for 2021, with daily passages shared from various texts on life and death, suffering and solidarity, and faith at the intersections and the margins.

[nervebynerve]

“The daily routine of most adults is so heavy and artificial that we are closed off to much of the world. We have to do this in order to get our work done. I think one purpose of art is to get us out of those routines. When we hear music or poetry or stories, the world opens up again. We’re drawn in — or out — and the windows of our perception are cleansed, as William Blake said. The same thing can happen when we’re around young children or adults who have unlearned those habits of shutting the world out.”

— Ursula K. Le Guin 

[slimetony]

lets make a videogame how hard can it be

[slimetony]

nevermind you have to know shit about computers

[hthrthebear]

hey!! sorry to hijack this post, but there are a bunch of ways you can make videogames without knowing shit about computers!! 

for starters, there’s Twine, which is fucking great for making all kinds of interactive experiences (it’s what Crystal Warrior Ke$ha was made in so you KNOW it’s good) at all skill levels (i picked it up and made a game in two minutes a few nights ago)

if you want a bit more involved experience there’s Inform 7 which is a simple language for text-based adventure games that reads like slightly-weird English and also relatively easy to learn

you can do some pretty fucking cool stuff with Unity (my personal engine of choice) but you may need to dig a bit farther to get at the good stuff. there’s lots of really good presets though (i made an entire game just mixing and matching pre-existing templates and adding in my own art, won an award at a game jam for that one) and if you want help the community’s pretty dang friendly from what i’ve seen!

this is just a taste of what’s out there from what i’ve seen, but there’s so many cool resources out there. if anyone wants help getting started, i’m around to give you a leg up on making something in the coolest, most unexplored art medium around!

[auttoton]

I’m addin’ to this post because lowering the barrier to entry for making games is super important to me!!!! If y’all have any questions about making games, you’re welcome to come and ask! I made this list a while back with some friends, so it has some of the programs John already mentioned.

2D Editors:

GameMaker : Potential for pure drag-and-drop “programming”. It is recommended to read-up on the program’s functions to make good use of it. Good for prototyping. Uses its own language called Game Maker Language (GML) that is similar to a C language (e.g. C++ or C#). For both Mac and PC; free version available.

Construct2 : Drag and drop level editor that uses an “If-Then” event sheet structure for programming. Good for prototyping and for beginners. For PC; free version available.

GameSalad : Drag and drop with no code requirement. Good for programming. For both Mac and PC; free version available.

Solpeo : HTML5 based game engine for 2D and isometric game development. Some programming knowledge needed. Platforms supported: Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer 9+. Free version available.

Stencyl : Drag and Drop “programming,” templates you can edit the variables/values for.

Scratch : Lego-block-style coding platform by MIT; totally free and a great intro to thinking in code. Very kid-friendly and comes with a community site. Browser version available.

3D Editors:

Unity : 3D editor that creates 3D games. Can build games for browser, as an app, or for mobile devices (iOS and Android). For both Mac and PC; free version available.

UDK (Unreal Development Kit) : Full-fledged, highly advanced editor. Features a complete set of tools that go from level design to visual scripting to cut-scene creation. Uses it’s own programming language called Unreal Script that can be arranged with Kismet, a visual code editor. For Mac and PC; free.

2D Art/Animation Software:

GIMP : Free photo editing and digital painting software.

Easy Paint Tool SAI : Free digital painting software with a UI similar to Photoshop.

Mischief : Free digital painting software with an endless canvas.

3D Art/Animation Software:

Sculptris : From the company that created Zbrush, this free software is ideal for beginning 3D sculptors.

Maya : Animation, VFX, lighting, and rendering software.

Magical Voxel : Voxel Art (3D Pixel Art). Very intuitive and quick to pick up.

SketchUp :  Architectural modeling software, great for creating 3D environments and buildings. Free version available.

Text-Based Games:

Twine : Create interactive text stories using Twine’s visual map system that links your game together. Easy to learn and use. End result is browser-based. For Mac and PC; free.

Quest : Interactive text stories that you can build in-browser.

Ren’Py : Create visual novels using a modified version of Python that reads like a combination of stage directions and a CYOA novel. For PC, Mac, and Linux; free.

Audio Resources/Editors:

Indie Game Music : This site offers free indie music with no need to worry about royalties or licenses.

Audacity : A free, open-source, cross-platform sound editor that allows you to record and arrange sound.

Super Flash Bros. : This site allows you to record theremin-like (8bit) sounds and export them as .wav files for your games.

FL Studio : Free music composition software.

Miscellaneous Tools:

Donjon RPG Tools : Randomly generates maps, items, XP, etc.

W3Schools : Web-code tutorial database: HTML, CSS, Javascript+.

Debut Video Capture : Video screen capture to record Let’s Play videos, showcase your game on Youtube, etc.

Korsakow : Free tool for creating interactive and database films.

Processing : Flexible programming language used for visual and interactive artworks and simulations.

From Student to Designer, Part 2 : Tips for making a well-rounded, solid portfolio

Places to Publish/Share:

Itch.io : Platform for self-publishing games

Philome.la : Place to share Twine Games

[nicejewishguy]

@slimetony how does it feel to have your shitpost be turned into a helpful resource

[slimetony]

It feels like a betrayal of every tenant of humor I subscribe to. Helping people is an alien concept to me. It makes me upset.

[smakkabagms]

“Justice. To be ever ready to admit that another person is something quite different from what we read when he is there (or when we think about him). Or rather, to read in him that he is certainly something different, perhaps something completely different from what we read in him. Every being cries out silently to be read differently.”

— Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace

[syua]

literally most things that people write off as just ‘textures’ to use in graphics are stolen & unsourced material created by artists or photographers NOT meant to be used as elements in projects without royalty payments. you can say ‘it’s just random tumblr posts they don’t care’ but you wouldn’t want someone to take your work and edit into their work so they can be praised for their beautiful style and creativity even if they just post it on social media w/o profit, would you?? so maybe if you browse pinterest or google images for pictures without finding the original source, you’re using images that you’re not allowed to use without realizing it.

you see it on here a lot especially in (i won’t link anything but i’m sure you know what i mean) those album track ‘aesthetics’ posts, au ‘aesthetic’ posts (you see these less in kpop, but where people use non-royalty free images to kinda craft a visual au), and even just rather typical graphics that have a lot of ‘texture’ elements. and texture packs too!! that’s often where the problem starts; people just collect images (often literal art), compile them in a folder w/o sources, then insist no one can repost those images w/o crediting the person who compiled them. what???

SO may i suggest some of my fave places you can get FREE, ROYALTY-FREE elements that are totally legal to use

creativemarket has 6 free high-quality resources (textures, brushes, fonts, etc), different every week! wow awesome i check it every week

search ‘freebie’ on behance. awesome stuff!!! lots of v nice templates textures and fonts

mockup zone freebies

unsplash: tons of very nice free photographs, not shitty stock photos

pexels: same idea. + they have an adobe plugin so you can get photos without closing your editor damn nice

pixelsquid is a super cool free program (again w a ps plugin that i love) with lottts of super cool hq 3d elements!

as to not make this too long: spoongraphics, lostandtaken (textures galore), pixeden, freebiesbug.

[holyshitartrefs]

I’m gonna add a few more:

Morguefile is my favorite free stock photo site

Texturemate is full of excellent free textures, brushes, and patterns. 

Transparent Textures actually lets you combine colors and patterns to build your own texture right there in the browser.

[littlegrumpypanda]

Hey guys! I’m a sort of designer enthusiast/hobbyist and I do my fair share of freelancing, so overtime I’ve accumulated a list as well which I would love to share with you.

Freepik has anything from textures to layered psds, icons and so much more that is actually free to use.

Unsplash is a community of photographers which provides daily content that you can use! You don’t have to credit them but you should. They’re amazing.

Icons8 is basically a library of icons and icon sets, they have a little over 60,000 icons for you to choose from.

The Pattern Library is a very generous project of Julien Renvoye, he’s basically created a library of amazing seamless patterns/textures you can use.

[love-notes-to-survivors]

Burnout is honestly such a mild word for what people use it to mean. I'm not experiencing "burnout", which sounds so casual and routine that some face masks and a little rest is going to fix it.

My body and mind and even nervous system are stretched to the point that it's going to take a lot more than just a "break" or a few self care tips to recover, and even then, my recovery is just so that I can reenter the spaces that contributed to me being this way in the first place. I'm a little bit more than just burnt out by this.

Workplaces and educational institutions aggressively overwork us, expose us to all kinds of discrimination, which they overlook and gaslight us out of acknowledging, and then constantly ask us to ignore our mental, emotional, and physical needs so that we don't inconvenience them.

We're not burnt out. We're borderline traumatized. Burnout is always talked about like something transient and mild that a little rest and relaxation will fix.

But we're exhausted. We need deep rest and healing. We need new systems. We need new ways of being. The language around burnout just seems like a way of upholding these current violent systems and downplaying their impacts.

[guerrillatech]

[closet-keys]

idk why so many leftists on Twitter have these takes that giving money to people isn’t mutual aid? Like bringing people food and supplies is mutual aid but also giving people a couple hundred bucks to get shelter for the night after escaping their abuser is also definitely mutual aid. Donation does not inherently equal “charity”— often solidarity looks like “you need $200 more than I do tonight”

[abstract-woman]

I was gonna make a purely theory-focused response to this outlining how this conception of mutual aid is deeply flawed and counterproductive, having witnessed multiple times how this understanding of mutual aid actually leads to a very dysfunctional and frankly kinda dangerous method of revolutionary praxis. But I'm gonna try a different angle and talk about how this notion of mutual aid affects me. Me being a trans woman with extreme mental issues who is unable to find any stable work and cannot rely on family for financial support or even just shelter. Me being someone who is literally dependent on donations from friends and strangers on the internet to survive.

Many times over the years, I've had people who've donated to me leave notes or send me messages saying that their donation is an act of "mutual aid" or "solidarity". I don't take offense to it. I am grateful for people being considerate enough to donate in the first place. And I understand the message they're trying to convey by telling me that; that they consider their donation unconditional, that they want to support a fellow comrade, that they feel an obligation to poor people or trans women in particular and so on. But it doesn't matter if you say that the money you're sending me is "mutual aid". It's not mutual aid. It's money. You're giving me money. Nothing else.

Mutual aid is not you sending me $50 on venmo every now and again as an act of "solidarity". That's generosity. That's being kind and compassionate. But it's not mutual aid. Sending me money does not fundamentally change my situation. Mutual aid is not you sending me money. It's me not needing money. It's not you giving things to me out of the goodness of your heart, it's me taking things for myself.

If your mutual aid is just you sending me money once a month or whenever I'm in a fix, then who holds the power in that relationship? If my survival is dependent on your continued feeling of "solidarity", then who has the upper hand? I am dependent on all of my close friends, my close friends and my ex-girlfriend in particular all keep the lights on and try their best to keep me stable. But here's the thing: They are not dependent on me. They do not require me for their survival. At any point, if they're angry or fed up with me for whatever reason, they can stop donating to me. They can stop whenever they want. Do you know how awful that feels? Do you know how terrifying that is?

You become a burden. You feel like a burden. You have no power at all in your closest relationships. My best friend was in the same situation as me. She was completely dependent on her friends and family for basic survival. If her friends or her family members decided they had enough and didn't want to support her, she was shit out of luck. And sometimes, friends did turn on her and cut support for her. That hurt her bad. She felt like a burden. She once told me that she felt like a rodent. When she eventually took her life, there were many factors involved, but her deep feeling of helplessness, of feeling like a burden to everyone around her, was a major contributing factor. Sometimes I want to kill myself for exactly the same reason. I feel those thoughts intensely when it comes time to make another donation post.

There's no dignity to this "mutual aid". There is no empowerment. Being able to donate to someone in large sums or on a regular basis implies holding a degree of economic power over that person, and from then on, your relationship with that person is inherently centered on a power imbalance, no matter how much you genuinely love and care for that person. Capitalism is a cold place to live in. Even sincere, intimate relationships are distorted by the presence of money.

If you want to bring me genuine mutual aid, it isn't gonna be in the form of payment. Mutual aid is a communal network, not acts of selfless giving. In order for a communal network to function, there needs to be no power imbalances or power struggles within the network. That proscribes from the get go the utilization of benevolent donorship for purposes of building mutual aid. It could play an early role in mutual aid, but it cannot be the sole driver of the program. A much more serious model would focus on combatting insecurity on the field of production, not the field of distribution. In a word, it would mean creating interconnected and self-reliant marginalized communities that can assess its own needs, plan it's own initiatives, and essentially, feed itself and not have to ask other people to feed them instead. Already we are talking about something more complicated than two friends or two people on the internet. This is something that requires the active participation of large sections of marginalized communities in a given locale.

Mutual aid for me would mean me not having to beg on the internet for rent money anymore. It would mean poor people and trans women in my neighborhood including me in a web of housing security where I'm an active participant and organizer, where marginalized people in my neighborhood collectively guarantee that rent will always be paid, that I'll never have to ask about rent being paid, and that as a voice within this community, I have as much a say in this process as anyone else. And I do this by playing an active role in the mutual aid process in whatever form that may take, even if it's just organization and supervision of the mutual aid effort itself. But even this must be combatted with militant coordinated tenant organizing to ultimately expel landlords from the community so that rent won't need to be paid in the first place. Not "when the rev comes", but right now.

This post is now much longer than I intended it to be, and for lack of a good closing argument, let me say that I'm tired of being reliant on donations. I'm tired of asking my ex-gf for $600 every month when she has her own bills to worry about. This shit isn't solidarity to me. It's humiliation and destitution. At the heart of this is a leftist rebranding of the humiliation that I and countless other poor people have to go through every day, and I just do not have time for it anymore.

[northstargrassmaiden]

[notchainedtotrauma]

“If you’ve ever fallen you know that the other person or persons don’t complete you. They incomplete you. They fuck you the fuck up. It doesn’t leave you intact. It plays you, undermines you. It disturbs and disrupts your individuation. It obliterates not only the possibility of but the desire for individuation. If you think about it in those terms, incompleteness is a consummation devoutly to be wished.”

— Fred Moten in conversation with Stevphen Shukaitis and Stefano Harney

[flowerais-deactivated20211031]

your future self loves you. they will look through old photos of you with affection, not disgust, nor embarrassment. they wish they could tell you stories of your future, of how much you’ll change, of the people you’ll meet, of how you’ll eventually learn to accept yourself, then love yourself. they will read your diary entries and poems and favourite lyrics, heart aching, tears in their eyes. if only you knew...

your future self loves you. if only they could show you. they are living proof. you’ll turn out okay after all. they wish they were there to console you, dance with you, and make you write it a hundred times: “I AM LOVED”. they will listen to playlists you made, just to experience you again. they will write you a letter - of forgiveness, longing, reassurance. you will never read it. but you will know.

[jaeisworld-deactivated20220401]

#this