#it really applies to so many

[inkskinned]

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.

[vurelly]

I GOT A BUTTLOAD OF NARILAMB STICKERS

(And I'll be honest, I almost delayed these so I could make an extra for the goat)

I don't think I've ever spat out five sticker designs at once, so we're treating these like a trial run! All five designs will be 3-inch vinyl stickers, and while the first three can be bought individually for $3 (or all three for $8), the second comes as a set for $5. They are bonded. Do not separate them.

Please note that these are pre-order only! You can find them in my shop here!

[welcometogrouchland]

(ID in alt) I literally said I was gonna post this month's ago and then never had the wherewithal to describe it and so I didn't Lmao (said with pain). But since I'm thinking of opening my commissions I figured I should remind ppl that I. Yknow. Can draw.

Lots of Steph here (I had major art block making all of these and my brain worms for her kept me going) + some sprinkles of stephcass for Cass nation to enjoy!

[sysig]

Ah, childhood memories (Patreon)

[the-judicial-assistants-notebook]

not enough discussion about the gavins' complicated relationship with feminine-coded/beauty products, i don't think.

[aq2003]

obsessed with this insane evil dynamic from the few pages from torchwood absent friends that we can see

[account-name]

he's having a not good time, as usual

[casualavocados]

What happened to you? [...] None of your business.

KISEKI: DEAR TO ME Ep. 10

[azure-clockwork]

I love three houses discourse because I'm pretty sure everyone just picks their route based on which house leader they're the most gay for and then tries to defend their pick by pointing out the other sides's war crimes via twitter memes. Reader, all four of them do substantial quantities of war crimes. So many. We're just here because the woman with Issues and a big fuck-off axe said so, and then we gotta justify everything she did in the name of dismantling the class system. I mean, I'm here for that, but you could also try justifying Charm Man uses poison and perfidy to try to stop racism, A Sad Little Meow Meow gives no quarter instead of doing therapy, or the Thicc Pope tries to bring back her mom via human experimentation, depending on your tastes

[turtleblogatlast]

One of the biggest things that makes me see Leo as trans is absolutely the size of his carapace in comparison to his brothers’.

And I’m not talking about height! I’m specifically looking at his shell here, because when you compare him to the others, particularly Donnie who is nearly the same height as Leo, it’s very clear that Leo’s carapace is much longer in proportion to the rest of his body.

Like - standing side by side, even though Donnie is shorter his carapace ends noticeably higher up than Leo’s does. And I like this not only because it really helps push the idea that Leo could very likely be trans (or intersex!), but it’s also just a fun design difference between them.

(It also lends way to future scenarios of Donnie eventually getting taller than Leo, but sitting down still has Leo being the taller one haha.)

[rookflower]

a lot of "why are we hating on fernsong he's a good boy :(" energy pops up whenever people start getting more critical or petty about ivyfern but it's like. no i truly get it. he is her personalityless nothingburger heteronormative husband she was unceremoniously slapped together with for next gen kids, and the fandom LOVES him because of one scene that implies the bare minimum of decent fatherhood (not even shown on screen. doesnt come to fruition) that suddenly means their offscreen relationship is queering up gender norms or whatever and the best leap for feminism in the series. if i was an ivypool stan id be bitter about that too wtf

[madbard]

I’ve been thinking about having a double.

Maybe they’re better than you, and you resent them for that. Maybe they’re better than you, and you are in some way grateful that you don’t need to be perfect anymore, because they will be perfect for you. Maybe they’re better than you, and everyone else agrees, and you are left alone, and you hate them because of it.

Maybe they’re worse than you, and you feel such a deep empathy for them because that could have been you. Maybe they’re worse than you, and you hate them because they represent everything you hate about yourself. Maybe they’re worse than you, and everybody else agrees, and when they abandon this lesser version of yourself you must wonder how easily you could be discarded as well.

Maybe one of you is more real than the other, and you both know who it is. Maybe one is more real than the other, and you don’t know who it is. Maybe both of you are equally real, which means you are equally unreal, and as halves of what should have been a united whole you become something either so much greater than yourself, or so much less.

Maybe you were torn in half, and you will always feel the phantom pain where another consciousness was ripped from your very being, where you were born from an act of unfathomable violence.

Maybe you discovered them, as you were just living your life, and it shook you to your very core, because if nothing else was certain, you at least had a sense of yourself as a singular entity, and that sense of self can never fully be regained.

If your double experiences something, are they stealing that experience from you, or are they expanding the definition of you so that you may experience twice as much? If someone loves your double because they think it is you, is that love stolen? What if your double loves them back?

If you love your double, is it because you love yourself, or because you love the person you were, or the person you could be? Is it because they know you like no one else can? Is it because they are inescapable, as the self is inescapable, no matter how far you run? If you hate your double, does it mean the same thing?

Is your double your reflection? Are they your shadow? Are they a carbon copy or the imprint you have left, the inversion of your impression on the world?

If you kill your double, have you killed yourself? Or have you become, for the first time since they existed, an individual?

Does killing your double make you a monster, or does it finally make you human?

[uncanny-tranny]

Something I really love about queerness is how somebody's sexuality merges and bleeds into their gender.

I think for some, it can be, in part, a reclamation of the idea of being punished for not truly being your gender or not being enough as-is. A lesbian who's punished for not being a "woman" by cishet society can reclaim themself by declaring they aren't a woman but a lesbian, lesbiangender, in short.

Queerness in any capacity is often (though not always and not across-the-board) punished as a failure in some way. You're a second-class man or woman, a second-class person, depending on many factors. Reclaiming that can be really relieving and cathartic

[trappedinafantasy37]

We did it guys! Minthara is in the top 100 most mentioned video game characters on Tumblr, sitting comfortably at rank 55!

With Astarion at rank 1 (cause of course), Gale at 5, Shadowheart at 6, Karlach at 8, Lae'zel at 9, Wyll at 12, Halsin at 16, Tav at 19, Gortash at 47, and The Dark Urge at 67. Baldur's Gate 3 is also the most talked about video game on this platform, as well as the 6th most talked about thing on all of Tumblr!

I wish Minthara was higher, but you know what, I'm happy she's on there at all! It is also interesting that she ranks higher than Durge and that Durge is that low on the list. It's also pretty interesting that there is such a discrepancy between Durge and Gortash as Durgetash is also the 67th most talked about ship on the platform. It is quite an achievement that our favorite drow is even on that list at all.

It is all just making me think back to some of the more dejecting AO3 statistics with Minthara almost being a blip, practically a statistical outlier in some ways. Even some insignificant side characters got more attention and adoration than her, or had numbers that would compare to her. But Tumblr is a much bigger platform than AO3, containing a much wider array of topics (including fanfics). So for Baldur's Gate 3 and Minthara to stand out that much is really saying something! Reading these statistics on Tumblr does go to show that one platform does not represent the entire fandom and that AO3 is only a piece of the picture.

[stop-breaking-my-heart-telltale]

What can I say? They're my favorite.

[corntired]

Fanfiction is so goated actually

No monetary incentive, just writing in one's free time. Some incentive for like kudos and comments, because who doesn't want to hear that someone else enjoyed what they wrote. Just writing a story that is good and/or enjoyable, no real-life pressure to keep it going because god forbid you and other people are depending on it financially.

Writing a story because you want to write a good story, so you can write what they want the way you want, at a pace that is realistic for you, with exactly the plot pacing you want there to be.