pencil scratch heartbeat

xan | old | PA, USA | they/them | likes: small fat birds | twitter: @xandrei | comm info: xandraws.art/commissions❌DO NOT REPOST MY ART❌

[officialfoxsquadron]

audiences have no idea how to be uncomfortable anymore

[officialfoxsquadron]

watch movies that make you uncomfortable read books that make you uncomfortable go to plays that make you uncomfortable watch tv that makes you uncomfortable look at paintings and sculpture and artwork that makes you uncomfortable. it is spiritually and morally and ethically and artistically really really good for you. think about why you are uncomfortable. what biases do you bring to art? what biases does the art bring to you? how do you reconcile this? how does your worldview grow and expand and change? all this and more will be answered and available to you if you just engage with art that does not coddle you and treats you like an intelligent human being that can sit through discomfort

[patrochilles-or-bust]

Shout out to all the Black ppl that can no longer participate directly in the fandom they love because of the stresses of racism 👍🏾 you contain multitudes of value and I'm sorry that the color of your skin and the power of your voice makes people not want to acknowledge that.

[patrochilles-or-bust]

Yes, nonblack people can reblog. I'd appreciate it, in fact, if y'all took the time to vocally support your Black friends/fans in fandom.

[beemovieerotica]

if you work in a creative field...or if you do creative hobbies like writing or drawing...you need to make friends with people who don't do those things. you need to befriend normie Steve who has never written a story in his life. and this is because when you are in a creative job or hobby and spend all your time doing that thing, surrounded by very capable people, who you inevitably compare your own progress and skills to, you forget what the baseline human skill at that thing is. and it's usually zero. normie Steve has not written a story since the 3rd grade when his teacher made him do it. he's very good at other things that are not storytelling - but if you tell normie Steve that you wrote a full 300-page book from start to finish, he will think you're some kind of savant. he does not know ANYONE else who has done this. you need this perspective. because when you're constantly on Let's Write Stories dot Com then everyone on Let's Write Stories dot Com will inevitably be like "oh of course everyone on earth has written a book or several at this point!" and you canNOT let yourself think that. that is not even close to the average human experience. you are in a bubble. do not put yourself down. do not give up.

[defilerwyrm]

Let people grow.

When I was younger I was very right-wing. I mean…very right-wing. I won’t go into detail, because I’m very deeply ashamed of it, but whatever you’re imagining, it’s probably at least that bad. I’ve taken out a lot of pain on others; I’ve acted in ignorance and waved hate like a flag; I’ve said and did things that hurt a lot of people.

There are artefacts of my past selves online – some of which I’ve locked down and keep around to remind me of my past sins, some of which I’ve scrubbed out, some of which are out of my grasp. If I were ever to become famous, people could find shit on me that would turn your stomach.

But that’s not me anymore. I’ve learned so much in the last ten years. I’ve become more open to seeing things through others’ eyes, and reforged my anger to turn on those who harm others rather than on those who simply want to exist. I’ve learned patience and compassion. I’ve learned how to recognise my privileges and listen to others’ perspectives. I’ve learned to stand up for others, how to hear, how to help, how to correct myself. And I learned some startling shit about myself along the way – with all due irony, some of the things I used to lash out at others for are intrinsic parts of myself.

You wouldn’t know what I am now from what I was then. You wouldn’t know what I was then from what I am now.

It distresses me deeply to think of someone dredging up my dark, awful past and treating me as though that furiously hateful person is still me. It distresses me to see others dredging up the past for anyone who has made efforts to become a better person, out of some sick obsession with proving they’re “problematic.”

Purity culture tells you that once someone says or does something, they can never go back on it. That’s a goddamn lie. While it’s true that some remain unrepentant and never change their ways and continue to harm others, it’s important to allow everyone the chance to learn from their mistakes. Saying something ignorant isn’t murder. Please stop treating it that way. Let people grow.

[got-zayn]

Still call it out and question it ….

[defilerwyrm]

Bruh. No. Listen. Call out what people do now, absolutely. If they haven’t changed, call them out on their record. This post is explicitly not about people who HAVEN’T changed. What this post IS saying is, if someone is making an effort to be a good person, don’t go digging around in their past for evidence that they were once for what they’re now against, or once against what they’re now for, as “proof” of what they “really think,” because people’s opinions and beliefs can change. 

The obsession with finding shit in someone’s past and then claiming that a questionable or even sordid past negates all possibility of a good present needs to become extinct. Gold-star activism and purity culture are bullshit and we need to collectively reject the fuck out of them.

If someone has changed for the better, don’t harass them about what they were like before they fuckin’ changed. That’s shitty and it needs to stop.

[sepdet]

We can’t change the world if we decide people can’t change.

[sarasa-cat]

Gold-star activism and purity culture are bullshit and we need to collectively reject the fuck out of them.

We really need to start asking where this purity bullshit came from. I’m not  Christian and was not raised Christian but there has been a lot evidence that much of gold star activism and purity culture originated in of evangelical youth movements and then infiltrated progressive left-wing and center-left politics when those youth left their churches but failed to leave behind the black-n-white puritanical “you’re going to hell if you stray one inch from the righteous path” style of thinking they were taught.

I distinctly remember some conversations I had in the late 00s and very early 2010s with long time social justice activists who were baffled and disturbed by the new crop of youth activists who were practicing something that was decidedly NOT social justice despite stealing that phrase from us.

In the decade and a half that has passed since then, all of this gold-star activism and purity culture has done exactly what I predicted back then: empowered the far-right while sowing division everywhere.

Folks. This shit needs to stop.

[jester-nonconforming]

People still tend to lump JK Rowling in with the category of ~problematic artists~ and I need everyone to understand that is not the problem with her. She is not comparable to anyone who wrote a piece of fiction you hate, or someone who made rude comments in 2015 and has since learned better.

She is far more like Elon Musk. She is a radicalized person with an extreme amount of social and financial power, and for YEARS she has been using that power to try to influence her government into hurting vulnerable people, on purpose. And she has succeeded. THAT is the problem with her, and THAT is why spending money on her books is so dangerous, not because her books aged badly.

Critiquing her work is fine, of course (I personally was never a fan so I really don’t care) but you NEED to understand that fiction is not the main issue here. And I truly think acting like she’s the same as the rest of any giant list of ~problematic creators of the week~ waters down how dangerous she is.

[decadent-trans-girl]

[casceth]

i have to reblog this again because i go insane when people act like the problem with her is "its cringe for adults to like kids media" or like "the books sucked anyways" like those are completely irrelevant and try to shift the blame and focus from the active harm. even the fact the books also have bioessentialism and antisemitism is a whole different conversation

[nonaferatu]

This would have had me crucified on tumblr 10 years ago but maybe we are ready for this conversation now:

If you are a socially anxious person, you have to socialize. Your panic/anxiety attacks will only get worse and trigger more frequently if you constantly avoid contact with The Public. Not saying that you need to be a social butterfly- but there is a genuine problem with not being able to order your own meal at a restaurant. And it cannot be solved by always having someone else do it for you.

This is a PSA to about 3/4s of the Portland Youth populace

[prof-grace-aspen]

I'm a fandom oldie and a strong proponent of "ship and let ship", and I defend everyone else's right to ship what they love... But I think that gives people the idea that I like, automatically love every single ship??? Or every single trope?

I don't though!

There are a lot of fandom tropes that are on my "absolutely fuck no" list. There are a lot of irk kinks that are also on my "nope absolutely not" list, too. Personally, this is healthy. I'm able to look at something and go "Yep, I hate it, but it's not harming anyone, so continue to do as you please."

[tuulikki]

I think this is where the rubber meets the road for actually having principles. It’s easy to defend the things we like, just like it’s easy to fight for our own rights and those of people just like us. When you have to use logic to extend your sense of justice to people you can’t relate to, that actually takes effort.

[joeyridersvoid]

This sounds like a shitpost but people should be allowed to be horny. As in, sexuality is just part of life for most people and there’s no reason for consensual sexual behavior to be punished. A celebrity getting “caught” at a sex club shouldn’t be a scandal. No one should be fired for having a fetlife profile outside of work. Nudes getting leaked shouldn’t be career-ending. Denying and hiding (consensual) sexual interests doesn’t make anyone more professional, it just makes everyone more repressed. And sterilizing ourselves to be better work drones isn’t productive, it’s just creepy. I’d rather my surgeon get absolutely railed on camera and come to work in a good mood, frankly.

[joeyridersvoid]

the amount of ace, aroace, + sex-repulsed ppl leaving support on this post is rly heartwarming

[rimonoroni]

also this goes without saying but is also true of ppl who do sex work for used to do sex work. an accountant’s boss finding out that they used to do sex work shouldn’t be a career ender. a restaurant worker shouldn’t be fired bc they have an OnlyFans.

[arabian-batboy]

This isn't Greta Thunberg’s fault, she couldn’t have been a better ally, but it’s so disheartening how her kidnapping and mistreatment for five days have rallied so many people, when what she went through is only a fraction of a fraction of what thousands of Palestinian men, women, girls, and boys, who have been routinely kidnapped, tortured, and raped to unimaginably evil lengths for months or even years, often to the point of death, have endured and are still enduring as we speak.

And I know that’s the whole point of why she did what she did. She knew that, as a young high-profile white European girl, her mistreatment would result in more uproar, and she intended to use that privilege to raise awareness of what is happening to Palestinians. That’s why the first thing she did after her release, when the press asked her to speak in detail about her own mistreatment, was to shift the conversation instead to how Israel continues to escalate its genocide against Palestinians.

I just wish people understood her message and gave the same energy toward helping Palestinians without waiting for a White Westerner to risk their life first.

Find a protest near you here (UPDATED): X, X, X, X, X, X, X, 

Donate or join Palestine action here: PALESTINE ACTION

A collections of GoFundMe links: https://gazafunds.com/all

Donate eSIMS cards: X, X

Donate to food distributors: X, X, X, X, X, X & X

[rontology]

I love asking friends, without context, "what are you really into this week?" I'll go first. this week I'm really into mouthwash and sudoku. Last week I was into peaches.

[rontology]

we used to be a society on here!! reblog, don't like! I want to hear what you're into!!! I'm literally looking into the nyt game Pips!!!

[partialbirthabortion]

This NPR interview with with Angela Saini about how race science never really left the global scientific consciousness is super interesting! I’m gonna read her book!

[partialbirthabortion]

my girlfriend has been talking about this since ancestry kits became A Thing

[mevil]

being black in any art community is such a strange feeling cause you’ll see just blatant racism being expressed in others art and you have to just casually ignore it, for your sake if anything, colorism being something that’s just fundamentally there in every artist and you deal with it cause it’s not worth it in the end to even think of it too hard let alone even mentioning it, it’s definitely something

[creatingblackcharacters]

Hello nonblack reader of this post, I think you ought to share this one so that you and your peers can actively remind yourselves 1) of how your Black peers feel when you tolerate antiblack racism in your art spaces for entertainment and 2) that we notice it, but don't believe it is secure around enough of you to bring it up 🙏🏾

[foone]

I just saw a story on AO3 tagged "pet p!ay"

TIK TOK MUST BE STOPPED BEFORE IT DESTROYS LANGUAGE

[digital-magus]

Ok, unless something's going on I'm not aware of (extremely likely), I gotta point out the term "Pet Play" is significantly older than Tik Tok, or most of its userbase for that matter.

[foone]

Yeah, I'm not mad about using the term "pet play". That's a perfectly fine term. I'm mad because they didn't use that term: they used "pet p!ay", a censored version

[digital-magus]

Oh. Oh gawd I missed that. Objection withdrawn, that is objectively terrible.

[housederiva]

To anybody who is new to posting on ao3, if you’re using a tag you have to use the correct spelling of that tag. People aren’t going to type in every version of a censored word to hide or look for your content 

[emperorsfoot]

For everyone new to tumblr, the same rule applies to tumblr too.

You cannot censor your tags! Censored tags cannot be block or filtered. Censoring tags HARMS your audience, it does not protect them

[ebonykain]

Reminder: if viewers can't block your tags because you're using censors, they will wind up blocking you. And then none of your content is seen, rather than just one post being hidden.

[kingscrown666]

Also, if you can't say a word or phrase, then you're not mature enough to write about it

[repulsa-2080]

SAY IT LOUDER! ESPECIALLY THAT LAST PART

[guerrillatech]

[no-passaran]

Unaffordable rents are linked to premature death, Princeton study finds

Renters burdened by unaffordable housing costs may be at a higher risk of dying sooner, according to a new study published in Social Science

[teabree-shark]

[saessenach]

for the kiss prompts: an abrupt, heated kiss during the middle of a fight + teiago mayhaps 🥺👉👈

Teia and Viago, from this lovely Kiss & Tell list for @thedasweekend - a mid-battle smooch for them✨

Thank you for the prompt ♥️

[shewhoconquersart]

Lucanis circa 9:48 Dragon, probably: Viago has a thing about gloves.

Teia: a thing, you say?

[xandrei]

blows the dust off my drawing hand.......these two were a big delight in Veilguard and i'm obsessed