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.
Imagine Astarion with ears so sensitive that he's never willingly allowed anyone to touch them except for you. Imagine laying next to him in your bed, facing him, lifting your hand up slowly for that first touch. His eyes on yours, the rapidity of the breath he doesn't need to take, but still does reflexively. Seeing that he's nervous, but that he's trusting you, feeling his shaking hand come to rest on your waist. The audible sound he makes- half a moan, half a gasp- when you finally brush your thumb over the soft skin at the tip of his ear.
You trace the long shell of his ear and watch his pretty eyes, deep red like velvet in the moonlight, flutter shut. He says your name softly, as close as you've ever heard him to prayer. You pinch his earlobe gently, and his hips roll forward involuntarily, the jut of his hipbone pressing against your thigh as he makes himself still. Heat flares low in your belly, but you tamp it down as quickly as possible- likewise, Astarion makes himself still against you. This isn't sex and won't become sex, you'd promised each other (though that's not to say that you won't explore this thoroughly during one of your hours-long lovemaking sessions. He is all about experimentation these days, after all).
You lay there, touching him in his most vulnerable place, with reverence and grace and occasionally disbelief that you could be here at all with this beautiful, horrible, ridiculous and wonderful man, that you could be trusted so completely. You take in his every shuddering breath, the flexing of his fingers in your shirt, the softness of his mouth when he presses his lips to yours and tells you he loves you. If you have your way, if he has his, if somehow your utterly insane lives hold together for a year or a decade or ten, it will always be like this.
Wilbur: Who's the lucky- who's the lucky lady, who's Missa, what's she like?
Phil: It's a dude. *laughs*
Wilbur: Phil, you didn't tell me you were bi, and also polyamorous.
Phil: Definitely not.
Wilbur: What does Kri- what does Kristin think of your- of your... husband?
Phil: SHE'S NOT CANON IN THIS UNIVERSE! And we- and it's not like that, it's not like that- it's uh, we're- it's platonic, we're just dude's hanging out protecting an egg-
You think I follow you around because I like you? I'm not worried at all about you. What is there to worry about for you? I'm the one who should be worried. But do you know why I come to see you? Jungkook mumbled on about things which were all incomprehensible. It's because I like your music. When I listen to your music, I get all teared up. Me, I get all teary. I feel like dying about a dozen times a day. But when I listen to your music, I want to live.
YOONGI 12 MAY YEAR 22
HYYH; THE NOTES
theres a part in my fern textbook where it talks about fern 'spore banks' in the soil where fern spores land on the ground and instead of germinating get buried and can stay viable for several years and sometimes i think about it bc although they didnt elaborate on why this might be useful, if i was a fern-- a little guy who's survival strategy is notoriously to be the first to colonize any disturbed new places so i dont have to bother with any competition-- this would be a pretty sick deal.
like this is unconfirmed fern lore but like, if im a spore sittin several inches to feet underground and something happens thats bad enough to rip up the soil and expose me to sunlight and water again, its probably also bad enough to rip up all my competition and let me do whatever i want on a clean slate with all the nutrients i could wish for in the ruins of the ecosystem i was buried under. like, via a terrible natural disaster or landslide or something. and im already adapted to the environment because i came from a fern that was there the last time the land was ripped up and recolonized with ferns. rip to the other plants but im different lmaooo
im so sorry i get it now i really do, the gay angels have me shaking screaming crying at all hours of the day and night, they mean everything to me i am literally thinking about them all the time and what it would mean to love someone steadily and silently through eternity, what it would mean to love across the lines of a divine war of supposed good and evil, what it would mean to carve out a space for oneself and ones lover in no man’s land, in the grey and moral ambiguity when you were created to be black and white without blemish. god i love them so much i just
One of the earliest examples of Leo’s “I’ll do my own thing to accomplish our goal without discussing it with my team first” is in episode one. It’s super, super quick, and ultimately inconsequential, but it subtly sets up a great precedent that I think is very interesting.
When the boys need to grab the medallion from Splinter without Splinter noticing, Raph, Mikey, and Donnie huddle together with Raph taking the lead in trying to devise a plan to get the mystic device. Meanwhile, Leo slinks away and grabs the device by clocking the situation (by knowing his father well enough to predict his actions - something he does with each family member multiple times in the series) and making a move on his own.
It works out perfectly fine, and is ultimately the best move, and it’s honestly okay that he didn’t consult everyone for something so small when it’s such a non issue to get it, but it nicely sets up how this tends to go in the series, including how it goes in the movie.
To be honest episode one is actually really good at setting up a lot of things for each character in the long run, this is just one example that caught my attention, as small and unassuming as it is.
I saw an interesting post a while back that said “Capcom made us [Miles and Diego/Godot] only have like two(?) interactions because they knew we would be unstoppable with a brother dynamic” and tbh it stuck with me bc it was intriguing.
So yeah that potential brotherhood, but that Godot/Diego AU I made (that I still need a name for)
Also I bet Gregory Edgeworth would have smelled like a bit like coffee, and so Diego just reminds Miles of that comforting presence 😭 (the von Karma estate was a tea household, so he didn’t smell much coffee after DL-6 and didn’t realize how much he missed it/reminded him of his father)
Wolfwood has seen Vash make promises, or hear about the ones he has made in the past. He has also seen the end of each one and how every single time the outcome is less than what was promised.
Vash likes to say embellished words, with a soft and determined voice that lures you into his hopes and dreams, it almost feels like a spell, as if he was calling for you to come closer and believe him. But Wolfwood knows better.
He believes in him, but Vash is much closer to being an idealistic dreamer than a realistic person like he is. He might not be aware of it, but his beautiful promises of a better future give people hope, a hope that is usually embraced with things like disappointment and abandonment.
He doesn’t think that Vash does it with the intent of looking for any of those things. Far from it, he might even do the impossible in order to accomplish said promises, but life is too short and humans are too mortal for his wishes, so in the end, most of Vash’s promises end up being empty or they come to haunt him as a reminder of his failed vows. He admires the man, for his perseverance and idealism, but he also hates the man, for his stubbornness and lies.
Wolfwood knows all of this perfectly to a tee. And yet, he has also found himself being drawn to his world. Because he also dreams of it.
A world in where his always present calls for love and peace exist, a world that is far more kind than what he might deserve, a world in where the kids can be happy and roam around without any worry in their heads, a world in where he can peacefully turn grey with age and his hands can shed the harsh callouses of his life. Who knows, maybe a world in where he and Vash can finally know the peace that was taken away from them, in where they can share the calmness that comes with the passage of time, indulging in every tick of the clock welcoming with open arms whatever comes their way without any fear.
It is a beautiful promise. But Wolfwood is a person that has to keep his feet on the ground, indulging in “what ifs” would only make things harder than what they had to be. He can’t have any ifs if he can’t make it through the now. And by the way he is carrying his present, he is doubtful he will even get to see a shed of that promised world that Vash tries to drag him into. So why mourn something he doesn’t even have, or will ever have for that matter.
He hates the way Vash seems to promise things so easily. His tongue silky and pliant, slipping divine words one after the other, promises way too big for what that barren world can actually fit.
But when Vash talks to him in that holy voice of his, when he hears him say “It’s okay, everything will be alright, I promise” so gently right on his ear, while he holds his face so tenderly making him focus on him and nothing else, he wants to believe him.
He has seen the end of his promises. He knows how impossible they are. But for once, he wants to believe it too. Believe in that loving world that will cradle them both until they fall asleep, listening to the soft sound of the wind laughing while the moons smile upon them.
So he allows himself to indulge in the warmth of his palms, leaning into the comfort of his existence, feeling the soft air of Vash’s breaths against his skin while their foreheads meet in a touch that feels like a hot brand that will melt him.
For an instant, he allows himself to be selfish and believe that maybe, that is how living in that world Vash so desperately fights for would be. Soft and warm, making him feel safe in the hollow of Vash’s hands where the world seems to fit so well. A world where the blue sky is a blanket that covers the love and care that is nestled in it like the one in Vash’s eyes. He wants to see that world.
For now, he will selfishly think that the world that fits in Vash’s hands is right there in where he is holding him, where his blue eyes are drowning in the light of the sunset dripping with love and care while looking at him, that the gentle touch of Vash’s thumb wiping his tears is the same as the kiss of that laughing wind in that distant future, where the smile of his eyes overcomes the smile of the moons.
He should know better. But he loves the thought of that world. And he hopes that Vash will get to see that world, because that gentle sight is more fitting for someone like him than the one of his violent world.
He promises to himself that he will do what it takes for that day to be possible. Even if the end of that promise will be empty for Nicholas, he knows it will be a full one for Vash. So it really isn’t that empty for him after all.
He hates his lies, and he hates how true they sound, but Vash’s embellished words are far sweeter than his bitter thoughts so they feel better on his insides, almost like a balm that cares for the wounds of his throbbing, painful reality.