in the mountains. fuck. of course theyre in the mountains. i fucked this post up
I drew the lesbian mountain women i didn’t know how else to comfort you.
oh my god… they are so beautiful. i love your art style so much !! bless u
Ok, so, story time. I grew up in a tiny town in the middle of the Rockies, at about 9000 feet above sea level. By tiny, I mean there were a little over 50 people directly within the town limits. We had no sidewalks. There were more people in the 20ish mile outskirts, I guess, and we usually counted them as ‘residents’ because that’s just what you do when your nearest neighbor is 7 miles away.
Now, funny thing – there were men that lived here, but comparatively fewer than what I later learned was ‘average’. For six years, I had a near complete cast of all-women mentors and teachers. They were hardy ranchers who cared for massive herds of horses, muscled elderly types who built their entire homes themselves out of recycled tires, kindly schoolteachers who regularly hiked to the streams and lakes to teach us how measure PH or how to notice bear signs in addition to our geography and math.
Later, long after my family moved away, I learned that in the Rockies, there are in fact pockets of lesbians who live in the mountains, and yes, my town was one of those places. I remembered the firm way they would tell me that I needed to be myself no matter what. I remembered the affectionate glances some of them shared. And I was utterly baffled when I learned that not every place on the planet would have seen these women as brilliant and powerful people who could make a life in the mountains paradise.
So just in case anyone was hoping this lovely situation is real – yes, it is. Lesbian mountain women helped raise me. Imagine them under the brilliant stars and the silence of nature, building their lives alongside the wild pines, happy, thriving, and teaching others to do the same. I will refrain from naming the town because I suspect the residents go there for peace and quiet, and would rather not be outed to Tumblr. But my love to them from afar – they would adore this artwork.
I hate to do this but I’m having some financial troubles. Any and all help is greatly appreciated. If you like my work and are able, please continue donating to my Ko-fi (here). I will be drawing a quick bust sketch for every $6 increment I receive, so please leave a comment on Ko-fi or message me here with your request if you do so. Thank you so much for all of your support! ♥
Always love Mari’s art! It’s always fantastic and I love the way she portrays some of my fav girls (SM and RGU). She gives me chubby Usagi and dark skinned Setsuna for quick examples. Highly recommend you take advantage of this chance! 🧡🧡
Big purchase I made over a month ago finally went through the same day I pay rent. *Great!* /s
Sometimes people hit a place in their life where things are going really well. They like their job and are able to be productive at it; they have energy after work to pursue the relationships and activities they enjoy; they’re taking good care of themselves and rarely get sick or have flareups of their chronic health problems; stuff is basically working out. Then a small thing about their routine changes and suddenly they’re barely keeping their head above water.
(This happens to me all the time; it’s approximately my dominant experience of working full-time.)
I think one thing that’s going on here is that there are a bunch of small parts of our daily routine which are doing really important work for our wellbeing. Our commute involves a ten-minute walk along the waterfront and the walking and fresh air are great for our wellbeing (or, alternately, our commute involves no walking and this makes it way more frictionless because walking sucks for us). Our water heater is really good and so we can take half-hour hot showers, which are a critical part of our decompression/recovery time. We sit with our back to the wall so we don’t have to worry about looking productive at work as long as the work all gets done. The store down the street is open really late so late runs for groceries are possible. Our roommate is a chef and so the kitchen is always clean and well-stocked.
It’s useful to think of these things as load-bearing. They’re not just nice – they’re part of your mental architecture, they’re part of what you’re using to thrive. And when they change, life can abruptly get much harder or sometimes just collapse on you entirely. And this is usually unexpected, because it’s hard to notice which parts of your environment and routine are load bearing. I often only notice in hindsight. “Oh,” I say to myself after months of fatigue, “having my own private space was load-bearing.” “Oh,” after a scary drop in weight, “being able to keep nutrition shakes next to my bed and drink them in bed was load-bearing.” “Oh,” after a sudden struggle to maintain my work productivity, “a quiet corner with my back to the wall was load-bearing.”
When you know what’s important to you, you can fight for it, or at least be equipped to notice right away if it goes and some of your ability to thrive goes with it. When you don’t, or when you’re thinking of all these things as ‘nice things about my life’ rather than ‘load-bearing bits of my flourishing as a person’, you’re not likely to notice the strain created when they vanish until you’re really, really hurting.
This photoshoot is dedicated to all the South Asian women
out there who are often underrepresented in media simply because the color of
their skin doesn’t fit South Asia’s unreasonable, fair&lovely, Eurocentric
beauty standards. As we all know, colorism is a huge problem in India and
Pakistan. Our society has come to the point where people talk about fighting
oppression and uplifting women, but no one actually does anything about it. With
this photoshoot I wanted to help represent darker skinned girls in the media,
and address the issue through fashion photography. ~ @simrahfarrukh
Thoughtfulfangirling 