#it's been a hard week ;;

[tigersharko]

i want to start writing essays again.

i want to get passionate, to get carried away, to open synonyms.com seventeen times in one paragraph. i want to talk for pages about something; i want to write until i am out of breath and each word spoken by my pen is winded and hoarse. i want the lucky few who care as deeply as i do about my subject to pick up my piece and hold it close, and i want the mass of people who don't care at all to still feel the air and find it full of life.

i want to write about something minor, something small, something nigh-unnoticed, so that i can lift it up in my cupped palms and declare it a piece of the world that i love so much. i love every stroke of a painting and, if i could, i would write an essay about each one. i love each shard of a shattering pot and, to me, those too deserve an epithet.

i want to write, to share the gift of creation with myself. to honor the things i love in the most intimate way i know.

im going to start writing essays again.

[jarrodsbowen]

[lololollywrites]

Not to call anyone out, but this comment wins for the only one that’s ever made me feel worse rather than better about my writing. If only it were cut juuuussst a bit shorter. This person left kudos, which means this was meant to be a positive comment? But the “At all.” is really sticking in my mind here.

Reminder too that I left the following note at the end of the story as this was, in fact, my first (very brief, mind you) smut scene. The tags were there and the rating marked - with the warning and everything - so not too sure what this person was expecting.

Anyway, happy Saturday.

[cl0udypaws]

Gosh, I love getting drunk while listening to fnaf songs...

[the-gayest-sky-kid]

god i love my friends. shout out to people who love their friends. this is a post for friend lovers

[pastadoughie]

[soranker]

my girlfriend

[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.

[parisoonic]

'It took four people to give you this? You're getting sloppy my friend.'

[dragondawdles]

the beastie <3

[cozylittleartblog]

Columbo and the Knight (1984)

put me in the universe where Columbo ran through the 1980s and had a crossover episode with Knight Rider. I think they deserved it, and I am not just saying that because they're my two favorite Old Shows. @telebeast wrote a little fanfic blurb about it and I HAD to visualize it into a comic (which is also the longest comic I have finished thus far at five pages...), so writing credit goes to them.

Autism W!

[icys-junkyard]

Remember when you could unleash other peoples music taste upon the world by unplugging their headphone jack

Ingo wanted to be a Sibling and lightly prank Emmet by revealing his tunes to the break room. Not only the depot agents, but Ingo himself are shocked at what they hear. Ingo's so shocked and amused he just keeps going off like "Sea shanties!! Why not listen to rail shanties? Track-laying work songs?? 1800s train folksongs!? The betrayal! A song about the sea of all things! You hate the sea! And boats! Emmet you're a train conductor, what happened!? Where is the railway-loving, train-engineering brother I grew up with???"

[danikoshi-doodles]

Can't believe Nickelodeon ate with a decent reboot AND a new sexyman on top of that

[mimimar]

finally completed my comic based on the song ivy by taylor swift!✿ please zoom in to read the text and see the details~

✿.✿.✿

you can get the digital zine pdf here! it includes extras like character profiles, costume design, more art of willow and ivy, zine-exclusive sketches and an illustrated guide to the symbolism of all the flowers in this comic.

you can also get prints of individual pages here!

✿.✿.✿

[circusballoon]

Hi I have big feelings about these two.

[martinsorbit]

its ok