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.

gerard way has looked like about 300 different people throughout his life and I can shamelessly say that I am deeply and madly in love with every single one of them

Nobody understands Kingdom Hearts that well cause everybody compares it to shonen anime when it's actually a magical girl anime because it has:

-A protagonist who is an ordinary lad who got given a special power that could save the universe

Teammates that the protagonist can lean on and who help the protagonist with said special power

A love interest heavily involved in the plot that both motivates the protagonist and is motivated by the protagonist

A monster of the week format that has its own standalone conflict that eventually leads to the next major plot point in the story

Overarching themes about love and friendships and connections and identity

people keep bringing up eugenics in my evolutionary bio class

every time I mention Ace Attorney around my (defense lawyer) father, he asks if I’ll be going to law school now

the best bit was me telling him that if I did that, I would be fulfilling the Phoenix Wright prophecy because I’d be dropping my art degree to pursue law

youve heard of sex flowers get ready for the flower that makes you into a celestial shoujo herione complete with particle effects you cannot turn the fuck off and creates a wifebeam so powerful it can incapacitate and maim and keeps making you burst into tears and fall on your ass which makes the wifebeam More Powerful and you also cannot turn this off either. and is also still, sort of, a sex flower

from one of my favorite fanfictions, Celestial Afterglow by elanor_pam, a fic that defies description in the best possible way

MORE HAPRER PLEATHE HES SO FINE

youve asked this at such a good time because i had just had a harper design explanation idea and i wasnt sure if i should make it or not:

I often see people making posts looking for beta readers and getting no responses, and I think I think a big reason for that is just not providing enough information. So here is some advice of things you should mention in your post:

The rating (and maybe why it has that rating)

Any relevant content warnings

The main pairings, relationships, or characters

The (estimated) length! Committing to betaing a 5k work is very different from committing to a 20k one

If you have a deadline you need to work posted by (like if the story is for an event or a holiday, ect.)

What type of help you are looking for. Do you just want a spelling/grammar check, or are you looking for someone to brainstorm with and point out plot holes?

Maybe just a small summary of what the work is about. It doesn't need to be the fleshed out thing you put in ao3, but a short "coffee shop AU" or "season 2 ending fix it" goes a long way in letting a potential beta know what they are signing up for.

I understand the desire to keep your wips a secret till they are posted, but if you can't find a beta, this is probably why. Many times someone would be willing to beta, but doesn't want to offer because they don't know the above and would feel weird backing out after agreeing, so they just don't say anything.

Finally, remember the person on the other side of the screen is a human being. You are not owed help, they are doing you a favor so be polite.

(Please feel free to add more advice!)

I really want to draw something meaty and put some characters into The Situations but I am dealing with a double whammy of art block and some REALLY insane migraine/Sinus issues the past 3 or 4 days.

So all I managed was a quick Solana. I wanted to give her a cool leg prosthetic but then I didn't really draw her legs sdjfdsjkfsdhf So that's the level of cognitive function I am dealing with at the moment

Fun fact! I really dislike a lot of the female turian design! So I just... ignored the parts I disliked lol.

having fun with colors for once :P

thanks @creepycoffins for the awesome dtiys :D

hey guys remember like a few days ago when a good chunk of this fandom thought ed and stede weren't going to reunite until like the very end of the season, or at least that they were going to spend a big chunk of the season separated? and then the full trailer dropped and suddenly we got all this footage of them in the same frame interacting and everyone realized how unlikely those predictions are??? and how literally just a tiny bit more detail changed everyone's perspective on things?????

anyway yeah maybe we need to all think abt that for a minute and like. rethink the way we're treating certain theoretical s2 plot points as if they're a given.

This is gonna sound beyond weird, and it's gonna be egg on my face if the show doesn't go in the direction that I think it will with Vox but...

Is it just me or are there several paralells between Vox and Angel?

Thinking about cradling a butch’s head to my chest and running my hands through their hair while singing queen’s good old fashioned lover boy to them

If you want a weird piece of advice on how to treat trans men and transmasc people you know... I think my piece of advice is to hold off on calling us things like "cute", "twink", or anything adjacent to these if it hasn't been made clear that a person is okay with being described in that way. I promise, it's better to ask than to assume we're all the same, because it genuinely sucks when people make the assumption without even caring.

there's something sooooooo heartbreaking about quests as a narrative piece. you set out on this journey to rescue someone or defeat a great evil and along the way you face hardship and horror and you grieve and fight and love and lose and then when it's all over you come home. everything is the same as when you left, but you're so irrevocably different that you no longer fit in the one place you used to be truly at peace. you're tired from your journey but you find no rest or recovery, only ghosts. and you almost wish for another quest, another dangerous mission, because at least then you know your purpose.