I’m Counting At Least Four Dead Giveaways And Another Obvious Cop

lighting studies

lil redraw

refs

Another theme that ends up coming up again and again in my work is the idea of self-preservation. Exploring the lengths people will go to to keep themselves safe. The threat can come from anywhere, and put anything in danger, and it might seem trivial but it doesn't matter because to that person, what's in danger is the most important thing to save.

I think in some ways decisions made in fear are the hardest to walk back. People become irrationally, overwhelmingly obsessed with protecting themselves when they think they're going to get hurt. In the moment, the fear makes it seem normal, so whatever lengths they go to to save themselves is justified. The excuse of safety has to make everything okay.

that said i still mostly do horsefoolery like this LMFAO

something something long dead minecraft servers evidence of a life once lived etc etc

MCSR MAKEUP!!!

day 1: feinberg :3

I think a lot about how we as a culture have turned “forever” into the only acceptable definition of success.

Like… if you open a coffee shop and run it for a while and it makes you happy but then stuff gets too expensive and stressful and you want to do something else so you close it, it’s a “failed” business. If you write a book or two, then decide that you don’t actually want to keep doing that, you’re a “failed” writer. If you marry someone, and that marriage is good for a while, and then stops working and you get divorced, it’s a “failed” marriage.

The only acceptable “win condition” is “you keep doing that thing forever”. A friendship that lasts for a few years but then its time is done and you move on is considered less valuable or not a “real” friendship. A hobby that you do for a while and then are done with is a “phase” - or, alternatively, a “pity” that you don’t do that thing any more. A fandom is “dying” because people have had a lot of fun with it but are now moving on to other things.

I just think that something can be good, and also end, and that thing was still good. And it’s okay to be sad that it ended, too. But the idea that anything that ends is automatically less than this hypothetical eternal state of success… I don’t think that’s doing us any good at all.