Timestitcher

Bonus:

You’re more than what you make.

Your productivity does not determine your value.

It’s okay to do nothing sometimes.

Not everything you do has to result in a product.

Not everything you make has to be important, significant, or even good.

You can make things just for yourself.

You can keep secrets for yourself, whether it’s not posting some of your projects or not sharing your techniques.

You’re allowed to say no.

Inspiration doesn’t cure burnout. Rest cures burnout.

People will wait for you; take your time and come back when you are ready.

It’s okay to scrap projects that no longer excite you, even if other people like them.

It’s delightful and excellent to be openly proud of your work.

Afford yourself the same gentleness that you would afford another creative - negative self-talk is counterproductive and frankly cruel.

Self-indulgent creations are satisfying to others as well; don’t apologize for your own pleasure.

Here are some things that have helped me at various times:

First! Think about why you want to return to creating, make sure it’s because you want to do it. Every word of that is important. YOU want to do it, others are not pressuring you. You WANT to do it, you don’t feel that you HAVE to or you will somehow, magically, tragically, become a different person or “lose” something intrinsic by not creating. You want to DO it, not you want to have finished products, or you want to reconnect with a community, or you want the validation. Hear me out, a lot of things can make art miserable… none so much as ego, guilt, or strange ideas of self-identity. (I’m not speaking from some lofty place here - some of my biggest self-reckonings in the last few years have been ego.)

Initially, don’t return to projects from before your last creative block. You’re going to be overwhelmed if you try to return to 100,000 word fic that everyone is waiting for or try to resume sculpting that large, super intricate figure you started before last Christmas that was SUPPOSED to go in your solo show (ha ha)- it’s kind of like throwing yourself out of a moving car and expecting to land on your feet. Start with something small, fun, and of no consequence.

Outline things you never intend to write, thumbnail comic pages you never intend to finish, do a lot of little sketches, sculpt things in clay for practice and then squish them. These low pressure activities help remind you that you are capable.

If you decide you want to do it, start today. If you say you’ll start tomorrow, tomorrow you can say tomorrow again.

When I say “start,” I mean try. Don’t just say “I don’t feel like it.” Make an honest effort, and if it feels bad, then stop. But sometimes opening the document or getting out the sketchbook sometimes feels impossible, and you may find yourself enjoying it once you get past that hurdle.

Again, if it feels bad, stop. Rest. Seriously, rest. Do something else. Play a video game, go for a walk.

Consume things that you enjoy. Be fucking ravenous, be hedonistic. Take in everything and process it. Talk about things you’re enjoying. If you don’t water a plant, it probably won’t bloom. (And while we’re making stupid plant analogies, remember that nothing in nature blooms full time.)

I wonder how much of that was on the back of the industrial revolution. Maybe humanity had a similar "weird" moment in the Fertile Crescent when we figured out farming.

The baby will stop crying if I give it cocaine

My entire face is covered in arsenic

How Wonderful That I Can Buy Guns And Heroin At The Same Store! I Certainly Hope My Lead Poisoning Does Not Lead To Bouts Of Distemper And Irrational Thinking

There Are Bare Electrified Wires Running Through My House And My Technicolor Dress Is Highly Combustible, Which I Do Not Know Yet

My son, Lead Poisoning Georg,, shall someday inherit my gun powder and lead paint empire,,

NEW! Magical Miracle Substance! Asbestos! WILL NOT catch fire! CANNOT catch fire! YOU WILL NOT die! (From fire)

Impress Your Guests And In-Laws With The Tastiest Bright White Bread Chalk And Wood Shavings Can Produce

NEW! Baby feeding bottles! NEW! Glass baby feeding bottles! How do you clean them??? That isn't important stop asking questions. NEW!

NOTP: the opposite of an OTP (One True Pairing). It is a ship a fan strongly dislikes. The word is a portmanteau of ‘no’ and ‘OTP’ and thus is not a contraction of any particular phrase.

Squick: anything that is a deep-seated, visceral turn-off. Squicks may be shared by many fans or be specific to one; one person’s kink may be another person’s squick.

YKINMKATO, or kink-tomato: Your Kink Is Not My Kink, And That’s Okay: used to indicate support for fannish diversity and to distinguish between disapproval or kink shaming and simply having different taste.

DLDR: Don’t Like, Don’t Read: a phrase used to warn against complaints about an aspect of fic or meta. A “live and let live” philosophy of fandom, which places the responsability for avoiding content one doesn’t want to see on the side of the fanwork consumer, rather that on the creator’s.

SALS: Ship And Let Ship: similar to the above specifically about shipping tastes.

YMMV: Your Mileage May Vary: a phrase used to acknowledge that any given individual’s personal opinion on the topic at hand may differ due to their own tastes, standards, values, experiences, etc.

As the OP points out, all of these crucially imply no moral judgment of what they’re designing.

(ʘ‿ʘ✿) “what you say ‘bout me”

the original post

feeling anything mentioned in this post doesn’t mean you have to identify as trans, but feeling anything in this post is literally all that’s necessary to identify as trans if you want to.

You can want to be another gender.

You can want to divorce all connection to the gender you were born into.

You can want to keep it as an origin point that shapes your journey.

You can want to be more than one gender at once.

You can want to be more than one gender, at different times.

You can want to be no gender.

You can want to be sort of in between genders.

You can want to be both genders.

You can want to be rid of gendered body parts you already have.

You can want to keep gendered body parts while also being another gender.

You can want to be rid of them but not want the side effects of excising them.

You can feel dysphoria at being shaped like/viewed as/treated like a gender you don’t want.

You can feel euphoria at being shaped like/viewed as/treated like a gender you do want.

You can change your mind or adjust your goals or refine your wishes.

You can be stationary and fixed in your identity.

You can be fluid and changing.

You can be extremely gendered in your presentation.

You can be not very gendered in your presentation.

You can be androgynous.

You can be a little of both.

You can be a lot of both.

If gender is a line you can cross, as the words trans (across/on the other side of) and cis (here/on the same side of) indicate, you can cross it in any way you like, including dancing on top of it.

Be happy.

Why would I be embarrassed for having interests I enjoy? My guess is that you’re really, really young. And that maybe you don’t actually have solid relationships with adults who have lives outside of parenting or work. But I hope for you that when you’re my age you have hobbies that bring you happiness. And that by that point you realize that trying to shame someone for being an adult only makes you look too immature to be in adult spaces, which Tumblr is.

When I was 20, I loved music, making art, writing and reading good stories, fashion, talking about popular culture, making friends, going to concerts… You’d be surprised how little changes when you’re my age. I just have way more money and time to enjoy those things now. I’m only 55. I’m not dead. I’m also not a “granny”, but even if I was, I’d probably still like all of those things.

I am a fan. I’ve been a fan of one or another book series, TV show or comic since I was eight. I’ve been in organized, convention-going and print-based fandoms since I was old enough to vote. My generation invented online fandoms, and I’ve been in them from almost the very beginning of online. I’ve been on CompuServe and AOL and LiveJournal and the other earliest platforms where fandom congregated: Tumblr’s merely one of the newer ones. 

If some adorable, entitled, wet-behind-the-ears wee nonny thinks they’re going to roll up and have a little self-righteous fun shaming some senior Tumblrina into buggering off of here because she’s An Old—and should therefore (by their way of thinking) be embarrassed for enjoying the manifestation of her continuing passion for the best in media along with others, in long-standing community— Well, they’ve got another think coming. 

…And oh yeah: You don’t like it? Then just get off our lawn, sweetiecakes. We were here long before you were, and (if you’re so easily embarrassed) we’ll still be here long after you’re gone. :)

(waves) (And hey, hi there, Atlin!)

Putting all three of the My Fair Owlbear pictures in one post.