#It's not about being good

[teaboot]

You need to make art that nobody else likes. You need to make art that speaks to you alone. You need to cradle a serpent that eats its own tail and you need to love it until it loves you back

#The best art I've ever made will never be hung in anyone's home #That's not the point #It's not about being good #It's about being real #It's about eating something unpalatable #It's about being consumed #And tasting bitter #It's gorging yourself on crude oil just to feel something different #It's biting your tongue to make yourself cry #I'm saying that I am capable of making you feel good through personal sacrifice but I kind of don't want to cut myself up like that #If you want my heart to taste good you have to prepare it yourself #That isn't my problem

[lastoneout]

I’ve been going around in circles on this all morning but like a lot of the time being good at art isn’t the point!! Sometimes it is, sure, but most of the time it isn’t, and I feel like a lot of the art theft and just shitty attitudes around art in general would at least be lessened if we all got it in our heads that being good at art is not the point.

God I just see so many people who say “I could never draw x thing I want to” and I just want to scream because yes you could!! It honestly fucking kills me constantly that there are so many people out there who have been lied to like that, have had all of the fun and joy and beauty of art STOLEN from them. They’ve had all of this bullshit about art hacks and how they should buy this expensive thing to be better or have had their spirits broken by fucking asshole youtubers “fixing” people’s art and mocking it and convinced that they’ll never be good because they aren’t good right now or can’t afford x thing they don’t need and how it’s worthless to try if they won’t be popular or can’t make money off of it just beaten into their heads over and over until they truly believe they will never be able to take part without stealing and using AI and none of it is true!!

You CAN create art, yes you, you really can!! Drawing is fun, writing is fun, singing is fun, dancing is fun, playing an instrument is fun, cooking and baking is fun, and it does not matter if you suck at it or no one’s looking you deserve to take part in the fucking beautiful human joy of expressing yourself through art and I swear to god I am going to kill whoever told you that you don’t!! A thousand terrible drawings of your oc made with $2 mechanical pencils on cheap printer paper are worth more than anything an AI could ever churn out.

You are worth it.

You don’t have to earn your place with talent or skill. You don’t have to prove anything. You already belong here, you always have. So please, at least try.

#ough I'm gonna cry about this dklsjflkd #just please please listen to me you can draw you really can #you can sing and cook and dance #who cares if you're good #it's not about being good #it was never about being good

[kochei0]

I turn to Ares.

Thanks to Tyler Miles Lockett who allowed me to draw inspiration from his ARES piece for page 2! Look at his etsy page it's SICK

⚔️ If you want to read some queer retelling of arturian legends have a look at my webtoon

#greek mythology #ares #athena #greek gods #dont get me wrong it aint athena slander but it sure is ares praise #on some level at least #man justly accused of bad things deserves some mid praise more at 11 #thank you romi for helping me with words though i duly noted you insisted on ares not being cautious rather than him not being careful #romi be like “i want him to care” and honestly good you should say it #also EPIC led to this and i just..... i want to draw some animatics man i just need infinite time now #my long lost love for greek myths just will never stop coming and they dont stop coming and they dont stop coming #i want some vulture design in here for ares but not sure about this one #kochei doodles

[midnight-coffee94]

No single line has ever wrecked me as hard as this one from the Good Place and I think about it constantly

#the good place #i'm binge watching it again and it just takes me out so hard #i get lost in the sauce thinking about this quote #the idea that those who hurt you are capable of being better people and then seeing them change and grow just hits me right between the rib #who am i kidding it stabs me like the senators stabbed Caesar #anyway #icy does a tag ramble

[spitblaze]

I don't see people gas up gnc and butch transfems nearly enough, can we get a fuckin round of applause for gnc and butch transfems

#spitblaze says things #transgender #transfem #mtf #several very good friends of mine are butch/gnc transfems and they both rule immensely #also theres just not enough appreciation for butch/gnc women generally but especially not transfem ones #not to do performative activism while having a post about not being a performative activist going around #i just wanna shout out a group that i feel is often overlooked #doin numbers

[feypact]

public libraries in the usa offering free digital library cards to people not in their areas (as of october 2023):

brooklyn (13-21yo us residents)

seattle (13-26yo us residents)

boston (13-26yo us residents, EDIT: just commonly banned books)

los angeles (13-18yo california residents)

san diego (12-26yo us residents, not the whole collection just commonly banned books)

these books unbanned cards (unless otherwise stated) get you access to each library's complete libby/cloud library collection, no hoopla/kanopy/physical copies included.

ebook collections are expensive to maintain (many american libraries have annual fees for non-residents because of this) but because of an uptick in book banning (particularly brutal in mississippi last summer) larger libraries have opened their doors more, which is very kind of them!

i've used my seattle card for the last several months and their libby collection has about three times the books that my local library does, which is wonderful for accessing more niche titles or skipping a waiting list. would love to hear of similar ebook initiatives internationally!

i use library extension (firefox/chrome/edge compatible) to check all my collections (+ the internet archive) at once, works for several different countries highly recommend it.

spotify seems to be offering 15hrs/month of audiobook listening to premium subscribers and while that does seem useful if you're already paying and are after a new release with a long library waitlist, libraries are better for everything else.

#library tag #banned books week #banned books #emmybody talks #for international users... your mileage may vary! #i mean i suppose you could lie about your age/location to get some of these. i doubt theyd check i would just feel bad. personally. #post brought to u by banned book week but also being moderately annoyed at ppl mad about the spotify thing #libraries are wonderful but they have their own limitations and i think using both is good!

[joycrispy]

Awhile ago @ouidamforeman made this post:

This shot through my brain like a chain of firecrackers, so, without derailing the original post, I have some THOUGHTS to add about why this concept is not only hilarious (because it is), but also...

It. It kind of fucks. Severely.

And in a delightfully Pratchett-y way, I'd dare to suggest.

I'll explain:

As inferred above, both Crowley AND Aziraphale have canonical Biblical counterparts. Not by name, no, but by function.

Crowley, of course, is the serpent of Eden.

(note on the serpent of Eden: In Genesis 3:1-15, at least, the serpent is not identified as anything other than a serpent, albeit one that can talk. Later, it will be variously interpreted as a traitorous agent of Hell, as a demon, as a guise of Satan himself, etc. In Good Omens --as a slinky ginger who walks funny)

Lesser known, at least so far as I can tell, is the flaming sword. It, too, appears in Genesis 3, in the very last line:

"So he drove out the man; and placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." --Genesis 3:24, KJV

Thanks to translation ambiguity, there is some debate concerning the nature of the flaming sword --is it a divine weapon given unto one of the Cherubim (if so, why only one)? Or is it an independent entity, which takes the form of a sword (as other angelic beings take the form of wheels and such)? For our purposes, I don't think the distinction matters. The guard at the gate of Eden, whether an angel wielding the sword or an angel who IS the sword, is Aziraphale.

(note on the flaming sword: in some traditions --Eastern Orthodox, for example-- it is held that upon Christ's death and resurrection, the flaming sword gave up it's post and vanished from Eden for good. By these sensibilities, the removal of the sword signifies the redemption and salvation of man.

...Put a pin in that. We're coming back to it.)

So, we have our pair. The Serpent and the Sword, introduced at the beginning and the end (ha) of the very same chapter of Genesis.

But here's the important bit, the bit that's not immediately obvious, the bit that nonetheless encapsulates one of the central themes, if not THE central theme, of Good Omens:

The Sword was never intended to guard Eden while Adam and Eve were still in it.

Do you understand?

The Sword's function was never to protect them. It doesn't even appear until after they've already fallen. No... it was to usher Adam and Eve from the garden, and then keep them out. It was a threat. It was a punishment.

The flaming sword was given to be used against them.

So. Again. We have our pair. The Serpent and the Sword: the inception and the consequence of original sin, personified. They are the one-two punch that launches mankind from paradise, after Hell lures it to destruction and Heaven condemns it for being destroyed. Which is to say that despite being, supposedly, hereditary enemies on two different sides of a celestial cold war, they are actually unified by one purpose, one pivotal role to play in the Divine Plan: completely fucking humanity over.

That's how it's supposed to go. It is written.

...But, in Good Omens, they're not just the Serpent and the Sword.

They're Crowley and Aziraphale.

(author begins to go insane from emotion under the cut)

In Good Omens, humanity is handed it's salvation (pin!) scarcely half an hour after losing it. Instead of looming over God's empty garden, the sword protects a very sad, very scared and very pregnant girl. And no, not because a blameless martyr suffered and died for the privilege, either.

It was just that she'd had such a bad day. And there were vicious animals out there. And Aziraphale worried she would be cold.

...I need to impress upon you how much this is NOT just a matter of being careless with company property. With this one act of kindness, Aziraphale is undermining the whole entire POINT of the expulsion from Eden. God Herself confronts him about it, and he lies. To God.

And the Serpent--

(Crowley, that is, who wonders what's so bad about knowing the difference between good and evil anyway; who thinks that maybe he did a GOOD thing when he tempted Eve with the apple; who objects that God is over-reacting to a first offense; who knows what it is to fall but not what it is to be comforted after the fact...)

--just goes ahead and falls in love with him about it.

As for Crowley --I barely need to explain him, right? People have been making the 'didn't the serpent actually do us a solid?' argument for centuries. But if I'm going to quote one of them, it may as well be the one Neil Gaiman wrote ficlet about:

"If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought we not, after all, to thank this serpent? He was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate of learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human ears the sacred word liberty, the creator of ambition, the author of modesty, of inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress and of civilization." --Robert G. Ingersoll

The first to ask questions.

Even beyond flattering literary interpretation, we know that Crowley is, so often, discreetly running damage control on the machinations of Heaven and Hell. When he can get away with it. Occasionally, when he can't (1827).

And Aziraphale loves him for it, too. Loves him back.

And so this romance plays out over millennia, where they fall in love with each other but also the world, because of each other and because of the world. But it begins in Eden. Where, instead of acting as the first Earthly example of Divine/Diabolical collusion and callousness--

(other examples --the flood; the bet with Satan; the back channels; the exchange of Holy Water and Hellfire; and on and on...)

--they refuse. Without even necessarily knowing they're doing it, they just refuse. Refuse to trivialize human life, and refuse to hate each other.

To write a story about the Serpent and the Sword falling in love is to write a story about transgression.

Not just in the sense that they are a demon and an angel, and it's ~forbidden. That's part of it, yeah, but the greater part of it is that they are THIS demon and angel, in particular. From The Real Bible's Book of Genesis, in the chapter where man falls.

It's the sort of thing you write and laugh. And then you look at it. And you think. And then you frown, and you sit up a little straighter. And you think.

And then you keep writing.

And what emerges hits you like a goddamn truck.

(...A lot of Pratchett reads that way. I believe Gaiman when he says Pratchett would have been happy with the romance, by the way. I really really do).

It's a story about transgression, about love as transgression. They break the rules by loving each other, by loving creation, and by rejecting the hatred and hypocrisy that would have triangulated them as a unified blow against humanity, before humanity had even really got started. And yeah, hell, it's a queer romance too, just to really drive the point home (oh, that!!! THAT!!!)

...I could spend a long time wildly gesturing at this and never be satisfied. Instead of watching me do that (I'll spare you), please look at this gif:

I love this shot so much.

Look at Eve and Crowley moving, at the same time in the same direction, towards their respective wielders of the flaming sword. Adam reaches out and takes her hand; Aziraphale reaches out and covers him with a wing.

You know what a shot like that establishes? Likeness. Commonality. Kinship.

"Our side" was never just Crowley and Aziraphale. Crowley says as much at the end of season 1 ("--all of us against all of them."). From the beginning, "our side" was Crowley, Aziraphale, and every single human being. Lately that's around 8 billion, but once upon a time it was just two other people. Another couple. The primeval mother and father.

But Adam and Eve die, eventually. Humanity grows without them. It's Crowley and Aziraphale who remain, and who protect it. Who...oversee it's upbringing.

Godfathers. Sort of.

#good omens #ineffable husbands #aziracrow #good omens 2 #crowley #aziraphale #good omens meta #I have no idea if I've made a coherent point here but I'm tired of this being in my drafts; RAW FEELINGS IT IS #it's about being sent to destroy and instead staying to love and protect and nurture I'M CRAZY I'M CRAZY RAAAAAAAGGHHHH #gnu terry pratchett

[threeheartts]

me lately once again

#my personality lately is being a good omens fan who waited 4 years for season 2 and now is about to lose their mind in just a few days #don't count on me to anything #i'm too busy #good omens #neil gaiman #kas shut up

[panthermouthh]

“Accursed creator! Why did you form a monster so hideous that even you turned from me in disgust?”

#Frankenstein #gothic literature #gothic lit art #victor frankenstein #happy new year lads #ive been thinking about nothing else but them for the past 3 days #been trying to figure out a decent design for victor and i think im getting closer #he needs to have a cruelness to him #and he needs to be kind of pathetic #someone who the creature could snap in half yknow #and i need to make the creature more Mean looking but it just feels right to draw him sad and despairing #THAT BEING SAID i think i did a good job here hehe #henry is next :))) #my art #illustration

[guardian-of-soho]

Still stuck on how Aziraphale ate that meat like he was starving. Like he’d been starved for millennia, and he hadn’t even known it, because he’d never once been fed. But we know they don’t have to eat (nor sleep, etc.), so what he’d been starved for is pleasure. Being present in his body, feeling the joys and longings it could feel. Understanding what taste buds were made for. He hadn’t known; he’d never learned to miss it.

Now imagine what a kiss has done to him.

#and a kiss from someone he loves as he loves Crowley #it’s like learning all at once what lips and souls were made for #good omens 2 #good omens #(I may know a few things about being a stranger to yourself and about late astounded discoveries of pleasure) #ineffable husbands

[iamanartichoke]

I don't know who needs to hear this, but as a creator -

I am fine with "the audience" -

downloading my fics

printing my fics

copy/pasting or screenshotting my fics

sharing your saved copy of my fics with anyone else who might want them in the unlikely but never impossible case that my fics are no longer available on ao3

making a book of my fic(s) and running your fingers across the pages while lovingly whispering my precioussss

doing these things with anything I create for fandom, such as meta, headcanons, au nonsense like 'texts from the brodinsons,' etc

I am not fine with "the audience"

doing any of the above with the purpose/intent of plagiarizing my work or passing it off as their own in any capacity

feeding my work into ai for any reason whatsoever

Save the fandom things. Preserve the fandom things. Respect the fandom things.

Enjoy the fandom things.

#fanfic #ao3 #archive of our own #fandom things #tumblr things #i may have said this at some point #i'm sure i have #but whatever - just in case #i don't say this with the presumption that i'm so amazing and people are clamoring to save my fics #but just if anyone is so inclined that's all #ftr i don't intend on ever removing my fics from ao3 or deleting fandom things from this blog #i've always shared my fandom things with the intent of keeping them shared bc that's the whole point of posting #but the fandom atmosphere and ao3 constantly being under attack who knows what can happen #not that this applies to anyone but should all else fail you can also reach out to me and i will personally give you a copy #at least of fics bc i save everything #not so much the tumblr things but this is a good reminder to myself that i should do that for the things i care about #that i've made or done and only posted here #anyway sorry i have now used up my quota of the putting words into sentences doing for today #i have plans to stare into the void now

[1alchemistart]

dont got much to offer for The Holiday but have these sillies!

happy valentines day :D

#sxf #spy x family #damianya #damian desmond #anya forger #my art #i am sleepy rn im scheduling this ahead of time like several hours ahead JKSDFKLS #unrelated to sxf. the tags are my speaking place shush #was not expecting the toby fox newsletter to have so much for me to think about JKKLDFSS #good ole gaster sending us love letters (we don't KNOW it's gaster but like. typing pattern + him being the only character to be like) #(directly referring to the game as deltarune) #ALSO THE WEATHERMEN HAVE NAMES NOW ?!?!? AND ARE IN LOVE ???!?! #so happy for them fr #i didnt get the mettaton card but like just know. that is my essence. all those blingee-core sparkles. those picmix hearts. me #anyway YIPPEE WAHOO

[mumblesplash]

i know it’s like years old at this point but i love that one collab mumbo and grian did with tommyinnit bc it’s like the single most concentrated example i’ve seen of mumbo’s Chaos Nullification Powers

you get to see a bit of it on hermitcraft, mostly via his interactions with grian, but until seeing that collab it didn’t really hit me just how completely mumbo can no-sell other people’s attempts to control a situation. tommyinnit is possibly the single shoutiest, most chaotic minecraft youtuber out there, and in most videos i’ve seen he pretty much overwhelms everyone else and sets the tone for interactions because of this. but mumbo just. doesn’t let him. no matter how much tommy escalates in intensity, mumbo reacts with *exactly* the same energy he always does. grian largely comes across in the whole video as annoyed and reluctant to engage with the whole thing, but mumbo’s not even affected. he just rolls with anything he finds funny and basically ignores anything he disapproves of, only seeming more and more unflappable the harder anyone tries to get a rise out of him.

AND imo, this is the key to my favorite interpretation of him as a character

see, when the people around him are being more reasonable/calm, i think mumbo often comes across as anxious and a bit easily overwhelmed. the thing is, his nervous wet cat vibes do not scale. he has one setting. his responses to the last life ‘ah-ha!’ jokes and to hermitcraft 8 starting to crumble to pieces under a falling moon are almost identical.

mumbo jumbo is inexorably and eternally Just Some Guy, but that gets stranger and stranger the weirder his surroundings become. the giggly incredulousness that makes him an easy target for goofy puns looks Very different when it’s also his reaction to the impending end of the world.

#anyway yeah i have this whole idea in my head about mumbo’s friendship with grian from a characterization standpoint #bc i agree with the somewhat? common consensus that being friends with mumbo has made grian softer and friendlier over time #but i don’t think it was in a ‘reflecting back the kindness he’s being shown’ way #i think it’s because the more harsh and chaotic you try to be towards mumbo the more you feel ineffectual and out of control #and grian can’t handle it so he slowly becomes nicer until he feels like they’re on equal footing again #like don’t get me wrong i think they genuinely are good friends #and i don’t think this is necessarily something mumbo is doing on purpose #but i think the power dynamic going on under the surface is much more bizarre and weighted in mumbo’s favor than it seems at first glance #mumbling

[hrokkall]

"Sad Cat Poem" by Spencer Madsen

#Undertale #UTDR #Undertale fanart #Flowey #Chara #Asriel #Asriel Dreemurr #Sad Cat Poem #GOOD LIRD THIS TOOK FOREVER. I haven't drawn Undertale since 2016 but I got the idea in my head and had to see it to its end. #Now before anyone says anything: FAQ #Q: Why aren't the pronouns changed? A: This is about Asriel. Not Chara. #Specifically about Asriel becoming Flowey and being unable to reconnect with what's left of his family as a result #Q: Why does [x panel] look rushed? A: Finals week. #Q: Any dogs here? A: One! #That about covers it. I hope. #Anyway I don't make comics very often for a reason. Peace and love #Hrokkall Art #Long post #1k #2k #5k

[lazylittledragon]

the only thing scarier than vampire lords/mind flayers/death cults is meeting the in-laws

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #astarion #tavstarion #i feel like he’s good at schmoozing but i’m not sure how much he would actually Enjoy it #he gives me extroverted introvert #being surrounded by a few hundred very pretty wood elves for a weekend is probably quite nice though #he might have a bitch sesh with dorian’s sisters #also i will keep making his outfits cuntier if it kills me #what’s that post about how wyll is the only character you could realistically bring home without disaster

[sopuu]

canary’s ascent to death

#HE’S FREE!!!!!!! FREED CANARY!!!!! #something about jimmy being happy with his ending despite being in the first round of deaths again #so proud of him for surviving 20 minutes longer than the past 4 series <3 #and at the same time devastated at mumbo and lizzie’s deaths #mcyt #trafficblr #life series #solidaritygaming #jimmy solidarity #secret life #slsmp #secret life smp #sopuuart #good soup