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more things i’ve discovered after 2 years of raising garden snails:

- they will wiggle their eye stalks in excitement - they have favorite places to sleep and favorite friends to sleep with - they’re good for your skin so let them run around on ur face!!! - they can feel their shells, which means they can feel u pet them (pet gently!!) - u can help a snail with a broken shell by giving it eggshells or cuttlebones to scrape (the calcium helps them patch up!) - they like a change of scenery and will explore all day if u change something - absolute cuddle bugs. love to snuggle with u, with friends, with dirt - u can hear them chew!! listen closely when u feed them….. asmr - as distinct as snowflakes, every single one is different!! i can tell all of my snails apart easily - babies. absolute baby children - speaking of babies, baby garden snails are no bigger than raindrops and translucent… delicate!! keep in a separate enclosure until they’re bigger!! baby jail!!! - some snails are shy……… kiss them. they are important

*shoves a microphone in your face* so whats your stance on the issue

*EATS MICROPHONE*

art tips post

for all the artists following me

draw fast. it’ll look messy for a long time but you’ll improve faster than if you spend 4 hours on every drawing

if you draw in pencil and have a habit of erasing all of your mistakes, try drawing in pen or marker. i know it’s scary but it’ll help in the long run (i’m speaking from experience)

try different methods and mediums but don’t worry about mastering any of them, just have fun

if you’re not rich, buy art supplies from the dollar store, not the art store (seriously. i go through a sketchbook about once a month and i’d rather spend $4 on one than $15)

there’s no wrong way to learn. you can copy other people’s art if you want to, just don’t post it

DO NOT worry about having a consistent style. do not. just draw however you want

if you want to make original characters then do it. don’t worry about if they’re original, or a good design, or if they have an accompanying story. make sonic ocs. do it. it’s fun and it’s not hurting anyone

try not to kill your back. stand up and stretch once in a while

make a folder and save all of your favorite arts for inspiration 

draw from life. draw your dog. draw your teachers. draw your desk. draw your own hands (seriously that’s the best way to get better at drawing hands)

in general, drawing from life or a photo is better than drawing from a diagram

draw whatever you want. draw youtubers if you like youtubers. draw undertale if you like undertale. when i was a kid i drew nothing but shadow the hedgehog and horses. everyone deserves to draw what they want without being mocked, and if people start making fun of you, block them and keep drawing

don’t expect to get any notes at first. don’t let it discourage you. if you want validation go show your art to your mom or your friends or your teacher or your grandma

take breaks, but don’t give up.

(5/23/19) hey! it’s been over TWO YEARS since i made this post at age 16 and it’s still getting notes

i stand by these points! and i’m glad they’ve encouraged people! just keep in mind, none of these suggestions are RULES, they’re really just tips to try, and they definitely helped ME, but may not help everyone. 

feel free to donate to my ko-fi or support me on patreon or check out my commissions! link in description

-jay

One of the things that’s really struck me while rereading the Lord of the Rings–knowing much more about Tolkien than I did the last time I read it–is how individual a story it is.

We tend to think of it as a genre story now, I think–because it’s so good, and so unprecedented, that Tolkien accidentally inspired a whole new fantasy culture, which is kind of hilarious. Wanting to “write like Tolkien,” I think, is generally seen as “writing an Epic Fantasy Universe with invented races and geography and history and languages, world-saving quests and dragons and kings.” But… But…

Here’s the thing. I don’t think those elements are at all what make The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings so good. Because I’m realizing, as I did not realize when I was a kid, that Tolkien didn’t use those elements because they’re somehow inherently better than other things. He used them purely because they were what he liked and what he knew.

The Shire exists because he was an Englishman who partially grew up in, and loved, the British countryside, and Hobbits are born out of his very English, very traditionalist values. Tom Bombadil was one of his kids’ toys that he had already invented stories about and then incorporated into Middle-Earth. He wrote about elves and dwarves because he knew elves and dwarves from the old literature/mythology that he’d made his career. The Rohirrim are an expression of the ancient cultures he studied. There are a half-dozen invented languages in Middle-Earth because he was a linguist. The themes of war and loss and corruption were important to him, and were things he knew intimately, because of the point in history during which he lived; and all the morality of the stories, the grace and humility and hope-in-despair, was an expression of his Catholic faith. 

J. R. R. Tolkien created an incredible, beautiful, unparalleled world not specifically by writing about elves and dwarves and linguistics, but by embracing all of his strengths and loves and all the things he best understood, and writing about them with all of his skill and talent. The fact that those things happened to be elves and dwarves and linguistics is what makes Middle-Earth Middle-Earth; but it is not what makes Middle-Earth good.

What makes it good is that every element that went into it was an element J. R. R. Tolkien knew and loved and understood. He brought it out of his scholarship and hobbies and life experience and ideals, and he wrote the story no one else could have written… And did it so well that other people have been trying to write it ever since.

So… I think, if we really want to write like Tolkien (as I do), we shouldn’t specifically be trying to write like linguists, or historical experts, or veterans, or or or… We should try to write like people who’ve gathered all their favorite and most important things together, and are playing with the stuff those things are made of just for the joy of it. We need to write like ourselves.