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problem solving steps

my name is rumi. i am poor, and i am in massive amounts of credit card debt.

many of you already know about what’s going on with my life (lost my full time job in march 2025 and just now got a new one that i have yet to start, mom has terminal cancer, etc), and on top of all that, i’m planning to move in april. moving to a new place and having a new job will do wonders for my finances, but right now, i owe thousands of dollars to american express and i need help.

my credit card has been my fallback for necessities over the past several months. i haven’t been able to keep up with it. i’m ashamed and embarrassed. besides that, i desperately need my credit score to be in a good place for this move. if this move falls through, i’m genuinely fucked.

i have set a ko-fi goal in order to visualize my progress toward getting my card paid off. i cannot guarantee being able to keep up with commissions, as i already have a backlog that i need to catch up on, but i will do my absolute best to repay everyone who helps in whatever way they want.

if you can’t assist financially, a reblog helps too. this is a goal i am hoping to meet by the end of october if at all possible. i will make this post unrebloggable once my goal is met.

thank you all so much. my life is yours.

As a former music teacher, I can also say that "learn the fundamentals first" is the death knell for a vast percentage of beginners, especially adult learners.

I've run into this with drawing several times, where some well-meaning artist has lectured me on needing to study anatomy properly or not use shortcuts like CSP brushes. And oh, believe me, I know. I know exactly how to learn an artistic discipline in a structured way. I just...don't want to!

The thing is, I'm not aiming to be a professional artist. I want to draw my gay little anime guys. I would undoubtedly improve at art much faster if I approached every gay little anime guy drawing as a study exercise. But I would also have quit drawing a decade ago if I couldn't just let myself enjoy drawing imperfect fucked-up little guys with whatever shortcuts I needed to body myself across the finish line.

With my adult piano students, my approach was always "What's your goal?" If their goal was to learn exactly one Elton John songbook to play at parties, then...that's what we did. We'd put tape on the keys to label the notes, and just fuckin go for it. Learning exactly one Elton John songbook is a good and noble musical goal, full stop.

Some of my students needed and enjoyed a more structured approach to learning; if they wanted to be able to play classical music, then yes, scales were going to have to enter the equation at some point. And yet others would learn the Elton John songbook, catch their white whale, and realize they wanted to explore more of the ocean. The scales were still there for them to learn!

Often the choice isn't between "learn art well" and "learn art imperfectly" - the choice is between "learn art imperfectly" and "don't do art at all." To which I say, learn imperfectly! Or, what the hell, don't 'learn' art. Just do, and enjoy the doing of it.

Martano's gaze was level and unmoving, and it was not on Curufinwë’s face.

Celegorm the Fair, dripping in blood. Celegorm all the more frightening because he can seem so jovial, and laugh so brightly. He who you do not believe could be subtle, as he stalks through the halls with a pack of jubilant dogs at his side, he who drinks hard and laughs loud and does not temper his voice - but who walks with absolutely silent tread, who comes up on you unawares, whom you do not sense until his breath is on the back of your neck.

They all have stories of Celegorm the Hunter, Celegorm the Wild, Celegorm the Mad. 

Once, on a hunt, his bow broke, and his knife was lost, and so he tore the hart’s throat out with his bare hands.

That’s nothing; I saw him do it with his teeth.

Ai, wait until you’ve seen him do the same in battle…

Celegorm who needs nought but hands and teeth and fear to hunt, whether his prey is a rabbit, or a deer, or an orc, or a man.

Or an elf.

They whisper of the rites he performs in the woods, when he returns with dried blood crusted under his nails and his eyes bright and burning. He still burns the offerings of the old world, and whispers fey prayers in an ancient tongue, and they shiver, and say he is invoking his old friend, the Huntsman.

But he is of the Seven Dispossessed, the Irreverent, they who recognize no gods, no over-lords, no Valar…

It is not homage. It is respect.

It is habit.

It is not worship.

(It is worship, a little.)

Do you think the Huntsman still hears him?

Well, has he ever missed a kill?

He hasn’t.

Celegorm the Fey, who whispers dark things in the ears of picketed horses and laughs to see them pull up their lines and flee.

He likes his fun, says his brother, the crafty one, the shade of the Spirit of Fire, his eyes like flint and his tone dismissive. Pay it no heed. (It is not a suggestion, but a command.)

Celegorm the Damned, who fears nothing in the dark forest, for there is nothing more terrifying than he. Celegorm the Blood-Soaked, Celegorm the Merciless, Celegorm who paints himself with blood for battle, who tattoos thorns beneath his skin, who dresses his pale hair with pretty beads, made of bone; brilliant gems, grinning death-heads.