the thing about art is that it was always supposed to be about us, about the human-ness of us, the impossible and beautiful reality that we (for centuries) have stood still, transfixed by music. that we can close our eyes and cry about the same book passage; the events of which aren't real and never happened. theatre in shakespeare's time was as real as it is now; we all laugh at the same cue (pursued by bear), separated hundreds of years apart.
three years ago my housemates were jamming outdoors, just messing around with their instruments, mostly just making noise. our neighbors - shy, cautious, a little sheepish - sat down and started playing. i don't really know how it happened; i was somehow in charge of dancing, barefoot and laughing - but i looked up, and our yard was full of people. kids stacked on the shoulders of parents. old couples holding hands. someone had brought sidewalk chalk; our front walk became a riot of color. someone ran in with a flute and played the most astounding solo i've ever heard in my life, upright and wiggling, skipping as she did so. she only paused because the violin player was kicking his heels up and she was laughing too hard to continue.
two weeks ago my friend and i met in the basement of her apartment complex so she could work out a piece of choreography. we have a language barrier - i'm not as good at ASL as i'd like to be (i'm still learning!) so we communicate mostly through the notes app and this strange secret language of dancers - we have the same movement vocabulary. the two of us cracking jokes at each other, giggling. there were kids in the basement too, who had been playing soccer until we took up the far corner of the room. one by one they made their slow way over like feral cats - they laid down, belly-flat against the floor, just watching. my friend and i were not in tutus - we were in slouchy shirts and leggings and socks. nothing fancy. but when i asked the kids would you like to dance too? they were immediately on their feet and spinning. i love when people dance with abandon, the wild and leggy fervor of childhood. i think it is gorgeous.
their adults showed up eventually, and a few of them said hey, let's not bother the nice ladies. but they weren't bothering us, they were just having fun - so. a few of the adults started dancing awkwardly along, and then most of the adults. someone brought down a better sound system. someone opened a watermelon and started handing out slices. it was 8 PM on a tuesday and nothing about that day was particularly special; we might as well party.
one time i hosted a free "paint along party" and about 20 adults worked quietly while i taught them how to paint nessie. one time i taught community dance classes and so many people showed up we had to move the whole thing outside. we used chairs and coatracks to balance. one time i showed up to a random band playing in a random location, and the whole thing got packed so quickly we had to open every door and window in the place.
i don't think i can tell you how much people want to be making art and engaging with art. they want to, desperately. so many people would be stunning artists, but they are lied to and told from a very young age that art only matters if it is planned, purposeful, beautiful. that if you have an idea, you need to be able to express it perfectly. this is not true. you don't get only 1 chance to communicate. you can spend a lifetime trying to display exactly 1 thing you can never quite language. you can just express the "!!??!!!"-ing-ness of being alive; that is something none of us really have a full grasp on creating. and even when we can't make what we want - god, it feels fucking good to try. and even just enjoying other artists - art inherently rewards the act of participating.
i wasn't raised wealthy. whenever i make a post about art, someone inevitably says something along the lines of well some of us aren't that lucky. i am not lucky; i am dedicated. i have a chronic condition, my hands are constantly in pain. i am not neurotypical, nor was i raised safe. i worked 5-7 jobs while some of these memories happened. i chose art because it mattered to me more than anything on this fucking planet - i would work 80 hours a week just so i could afford to write in 3 of them.
and i am still telling you - if you are called to make art, you are called to the part of you that is human. you do not have to be good at it. you do not have to have enormous amounts of privilege. you can just... give yourself permission. you can just say i'm going to make something now and then - go out and make it. raquel it won't be good though that is okay, i don't make good things every time either. besides. who decides what good even is?
you weren't called to make something because you wanted it to be good, you were called to make something because it is a basic instinct. you were taught to judge its worth and over-value perfection. you are doing something impossible. a god's ability: from nothing springs creation.
a few months ago i found a piece of sidewalk chalk and started drawing. within an hour i had somehow collected a small classroom of young children. their adults often brought their own chalk. i looked up and about fifteen families had joined me from around the block. we drew scrangly unicorns and messed up flowers and one girl asked me to draw charizard. i am not good at drawing. i basically drew an orb with wings. you would have thought i drew her the mona lisa. she dragged her mother over and pointed and said look! look what she drew for me and, in the moment, i admit i flinched (sorry, i don't -). but the mother just grinned at me. he's beautiful. and then she sat down and started drawing.
someone took a picture of it. it was in the local newspaper. the summary underneath said joyful and spontaneous artwork from local artists springs up in public gallery. in the picture, a little girl covered in chalk dust has her head thrown back, delighted. laughing.
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it's a pet peeve of mine when ppl frame Andrew as hating Aaron and being needlessly cruel to him... bc while yes, their relationship is fractured and strained, Andrew genuinely cares about his brother and wants the best for him, he just doesn't know how to show that in a normal way.
like he might not know how to express it in a healthy manner but Andrew LOVES Aaron, like he truly just wants Aaron to be healthy and safe. It's like, his whole Thing. Aaron is one of the most important people in his life. Andrew wants him around. He'd do anything to protect him.
I guarantee Andrew wants to be emotionally close to Aaron too, he just doesn't have the tools to do that and the thought of letting someone in terrifies him. He also has no concept of what a healthy sibling relationship looks like, so he has no frame of reference to work from.
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I love your art soooo much-it gives me life!! 🥰🥰🥰
I have a question about Milek and Jaskier! Milek says they fought before Jask went missing-what did they fight about? Did Milek say something he shouldn’t have? 👀😢 is there ANGST?
Also does Geralt know Mileks plush friend is called Roach? Because surely that’s a clue that Milek is his…(I love this universe so much)!!🥹❤️❤️❤️
[MASTERPOST] That was the last conversation they had before Milek stormed out - and when he came back, Jaskier was. gone.
The thing is, Jaskier knows what Milek is interested in (and he is not even wrong about that, Milek has an interest in medicine, and helping people, and I think when they met he was Shanis biggest fan) and I think Jaskier is aware that some of the conflict does have its roots in Milek not wanting to leave him, even if they get really heated and ugly in their arguments. Milek shouldn't feel like he has to care for him, or have to protect him and at times I think Jaskier feels quite ashamed, which leads him to being way too unrelenting at times - especially if he thinks he's doing something to protect Milek.
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we get a lot of really great stuff in system collapse about murderbot's relationships with ART and ratthi, which makes sense, because it spends almost the entire book with them. but i also love how even though mensah isn't there for most of the story, other people keep reminding mb of her:
chapter 2, page 25: “From ART’s personnel file, she [Karime] was older than Mensah and she didn’t look like an intrepid space explorer, either, even in the protective environmental suit.”
2, 27: “It took Karime three seconds to process the abrupt statement. (She was almost as good at not looking annoyed as Mensah was.) She kept her expression neutral and patient.”
2, 28: “In the underground colony room, Karime lifted her brows. ‘Another occupied site?’ I thought she was being careful not to show too much reaction. It was the way Mensah would have played it.”
4, 70: “Iris looked at me and I saw her hesitate, because her hesitation looked a lot like Dr. Mensah’s hesitation. And I realized I really didn’t want to go down there.”
5, 104: "Iris has that same thing as Dr. Mensah, the thing where she’s able to look and sound calm under circumstances where shit is possibly about to go down.”
it's spent so much time with her and it knows her so well and respects her so much that she's the model against which it compares all other humans. it thinks about her when they're not together. it's protective of her. it has such total faith in her competence. it (non-romantically) loves her and doesn't want to not see her again. idk man, it just gets to me! and they were teammates (oh my god they were teammates!!)
bonus:
I said, aloud, "You have to be kidding me." (ch. 2, p. 28)
seven pages later, in reaction to the same thing:
Mensah had had time to review the feed video. She muttered, "Oh, you have to be kidding me."
Yeah.
twinsies 🥰
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Been talkin on my discord server with some friends about a DC A/B/O au.
But like, Gotham just says fuck gender.
Like they just straight up are mixtures of dynamics or change, depending on their mood, because there's so much chemicals everywhere along with so many curses in Gotham. Like they are straight up messed up down to a biological state.
There is a reason that no one wants to go to Gotham and why they leave them alone for the most part. Like people even moving there eventually start to lose their dynamic or starts shifting as well, and it freaks people out.
Not to mention that Gotham horrifies those that believe they should still follow 'traditional' norms. Omegas are often far more violent and larger than the alphas, bettas egg on others instead of calming them. Or at least that's what Outsiders always see.
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just to make sure we are all on the same page in this corner of the internet, i want to be explicitly clear about my stance/feelings on some things:
if i come across "content"/fic in this niche that i absolutely do not like, do not vibe with, am not interested in, that icks me out completely and totally—i scroll past it as quickly as i can and i move on with my day.
in the case that it's "content"/fic that really bothers or triggers me in any way, i make sure that i have blacklisted/blocked certain tags and keywords so that in the future i may not come across those things again.
i also understand that there is a variety of tags used throughout the internet and that websites are not perfect/things slip through the cracks. people are also human, and mistakes are also made.
in the event i am exposed to something that i do not want to see, point blank, i would never and will never believe it is my right to harass and terrorize the person writing said thing/s, and if i witness this kind of behavior being celebrated among the people around me, whoever you are, i will be removing you from my space.
to be perfectly and abundantly clear: i will always be a supporter of dark content, and its right to be written. even if i don't understand it, even if it "disgusts" me, even if i never want to read it.
please understand that i do not say this with hostility, nor do i mean it as a threat or to be confrontational. you should protect the space that you are in; this is me doing that, this is me making sure that you do that, even if it's against me.
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