All life on Earth uses oxygen, iron, and phosphorous – very reactive elements by galactic standards. It turns out we are the “acid blooded aliens” from the standpoint of another intelligent life form. Write about this from an aliens perspective.
note to self: just because someone did the thing you were thinking about doing, and did it way better than you could ever hope to do, doesn’t mean it would be stupid or pointless to go ahead and try to still do the thing anyway.
Also, when it comes to creative things? There really is no “better”.
Sure, someone might be more technically accomplished than you – you might not be able to colour as nicely or craft a sentence that rings as poetically – but art is only really secondarily about that. It’s firstmost about what you, uniquely, have to express, and how the precise way you express it might be what others need to relate to it – even if it’s less flashy, less “beautiful”, and gets fewer notes.
I promise you this: there are obscure fanfics with only a handful of notes that are the read-and-re-read favourites of someone too anxious to comment. There are drawings done by 14-year-olds in poorly-blended markers that are someone’s favourite because they spoke to something that nothing else did. There are covers of songs where your voice cracks and you cringe every time you hear it but someone thinks the way it cracked just at that moment added beauty to the song. There are angsty three-line poems you wrote at 4am that someone once called “pretentious emo trash” that are loved by someone else going through the same thing as you.
And I guarantee you, there is something unique about your art. Even if you’re “saying something someone else has said”. Even if you’re the thousandth person to take on the subject. Even if you feel like you’re not at all unique. You’re bound to express something, however subtle, that didn’t exist until then.
Art is about connection. And the more you create, the more chance you have of finding other people who experience the world the way you do.
“But the one thing that you have that nobody else has is you. Your voice, your mind, your story, your vision. So write and draw and build and play and dance and live as only you can.“ via @neil-gaiman
The “two cakes” theory of content production.
It was only yesterday that I was lamenting thing I no longer felt allowed to do because someone had done similar.
I ought to read this post daily. Maybe twice daily.
I don’t think that people accept the fact that life doesn’t make sense. I think it makes people terribly uncomfortable.
I JUST HAD A THOUGHT well technically I had this thought hours ago when I wasn’t computer-accessible but anyways IMAGINE IF Bad Bob Zimmermann was a raging bisexual (like, technically never came out of the closet, but everyone who knows him knows) and he came down for that second family weekend that we never actually heard about supposedly because of “how embarrassing” it was, and he sees Bitty and Mama Bittle again and he’s just like “Oh! Hey there, son, you’ve gotten a lot cuter since I last saw you, well done!”
and Bitty’s just like “WHA? UM? THANKS, SIR??? UH” and then Bad Bob turns to Mama Bittle and is like “clearly he gets his looks from you, Suzanne” and it’s like an instant KO to poor Bitty’s mom, she’s out cold, she’s gone
meanwhile Jack’s completely mortified in the corner like PAPA, N O N and he turns to his mom and whispers “MAMA DO SOMETHING, STOP HIM”
and Alicia’s just like “what? He’s right, Eric’s definitely gotten cuter since last time, no wonder you like him” and Jack’s just “ET TU, MAMAN?” and everybody is blushing except for Jack’s parents who literally have no shits to give, they are there to make their own son become a hockey-playing tomato for the WHOLE weekend and to continue fostering the Bittlemann Alliance of Glory.
There’s a space of two inches on Bitty’s neck that is the most sensitive part of his body. Jack has catalogued the second most sensitive (earlobe) and third (the inside of his wrist), but pressing mouth to neck pulls Bitty’s bones right out of him, turns him all melted in Jack’s arms. Bitty is–surprisingly–quiet when they’re alone and together like this, his hands and body eager but his throat filled with little whimpers and sighs instead of what Jack expected, which was…words.
It makes him wonder why Bitty is so quiet in this when he’s never quiet in anything. What’s made him so silent in intimate moments like this, the few minutes they have in his room while pretending to wash up for dinner? Through the half-open window in Bitty’s room, Jack can smell the barbecue Coach has on the grill, and he thinks, Oh. That’s probably why.
“You feel good,” Jack tries, his hand on Bitty’s hip, fingers slipped just under his tank to find his sweat-damp skin. Georgia is hot, but Bitty’s skin is even hotter.
Bitty makes another soft noise at that, and when Jack pulls back just enough to look at him, his eyes are glazed, his mouth pink and slack. Jack kisses him. How can he not.
Suzanne Bittle’s voice carries sweetly up the stairs, calling them boys and asking them down for dinner. Bitty goes still in Jack’s arms. Jack can tell by the way Bitty’s chest heaves that his heart is fluttering behind his ribcage.
These stolen moments aren’t enough, and Jack wants nothing more than to explore the summer stretch of Bitty’s body where he can take his time and learn and appreciate. He doesn’t want to be rushed. Doesn’t want to stop.
“Come with me to Providence,” he says, mouth falling into those two inches of his neck. Bitty clutches at him. Jack exhales.
"When?“
“When I leave. Let me get your ticket. Come with me.”
“Jack…"
"Come with me."
Bitty’s fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck feels like he’s had them there for a long time, the movement so easy and practiced. Bitty shakes out a breath. "Yes. Okay. I will.”
you know what BL gives women, regardless of their sexuality, regardless of anything else about them as women? an entire genre of work in which misogny is the bizarre statistical outlier instead of the norm. like do some straight women fetishize gay men in ways that are awful and nasty? yes. but the existence of an entire culture of creative work in which it’s basically impossible to encounter a disgusting or alienating portrayal of yourself, in which men are the objects to be displayed for the pleasure of the viewer, in which being gay is normal and heterosexuality is for side characters with no real backstory or plot relevance, in which men are the Other for once… it’s quite the phenomenon. it’s also really interesting to watch the “okama” trope/caricatures of queer trans culture get dissected and reinvented, etc, because yaoi from the 80s is often also casually transmisogynistic, or like relies on having a drag queen character around for humor, but in the 2010s it’s been really rare for me to encounter BL that shits on trans people. IT’S INTERESTING!!
i have never seen any acknowledgement of this from the gay boys who think women shouldn’t consume or produce m/m media for their own enjoyment and until i do i’m not inclined to take their arguments about ‘male objectification’ all that seriously, much less consider them persuasive.
because women can and sometimes do objectify gay men, and that’s not okay when it happens. people do treat each other as things and that is always damaging. but the vast majority of women’s consumption and production of m/m media is about escaping objectification, as well as (overt) misogyny, not replicating it. it’s about enjoying scenarios where every character is an emotionally realized and legitimate person.
there is i think this idea people always have that when a disenfranchised population seizes power, they’ll enact the abuses that were done on them to their former oppressors. that’s why you get straights freaking out about the Gay Agenda, whites obsessed with Reverse Racism, and, i think, men who don’t question the assumption that the pornography women create of men will be just as disrespectful and exploitative as the portrayals men create of women.
but it’s not like that. women’s creation and consumption of m/m stories isn’t dehumanizing. it’s not misandry, it’s not a desire to reduce, exploit, or degrade men. it’s pretty much just a longing for a world where all participants in a romance are fully recognized as people: a world a hell of a lot of women will never get to see outside of these fantasies.
Dex was not raised in a barn. He has manners. He has respect. He has a general sense of right and wrong. He says ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and ‘excuse me.’ He gives up his seat on the bus for elderly people. He holds the door open for people behind him. He doesn’t steal or cheat, and he tries not to lie. And he knows it’s not okay to read someone’s work unless they want you to. He wasn’t one of the kids who always tried to read his classmates’ personal essays in class. He never pushes his friends to share the things they’re working on. Heck, he grew up living in the same room as his older brother, who definitely kept a journal under his mattress, and never even considered touching it.
So he knows Nursey’s poetry is off limits. It’s tempting, sure, to peek at the words Nursey spends hours and hours pouring over, scribbling down and scratching out and erasing and rewriting until his fingers cramp up. He doesn’t look, though. If Nursey wants to share his poetry with Dex he will. Dex doesn’t have the right to go snooping for it.
