#The Censor

[brasideios]

So I am working on a bunch of exercises around my partial creative block at the moment as writing new, original work is a slog. Trying to find my way back to a more creative headspace with some success.

Anyway - one of the main exercises recommended by Julia Cameron, author of a great book called The Artist’s Way, are morning pages (which as the name suggests, is physically writing three pages first thing each morning).

The pages are a really useful tool on its own, but this bit about the Censor struck me as potentially useful to my beautiful mutuals who may also be blocked right now:

As blocked artists, we tend to criticize ourselves mercilessly. Even if we look like functioning artists to the world, we feel we never do enough and what we do isn't right. We are victims of our own internalized perfectionist, a nasty internal and eternal critic, the Censor, who resides in our (left) brain and keeps up a constant stream of subversive remarks that are often disguised as the truth. The Censor says wonderful things like: "You call that writing? What a joke. You can't even punctuate. If you haven't done it by now you never will. You can't even spell. What makes you think you can be creative?" And on and on.

Make this a rule: always remember that your Censor's negative opinions are not the truth. This takes practice. By spilling out of bed and straight onto the page every morning, you learn to evade the Censor. Because there is no wrong way to write the morning pages, the Censor's opinion doesn't count. Let your Censor rattle on. (And it will.) Just keep your hand moving across the page. Write down the Censor's thoughts if you want to. Note how it loves to aim for your creative jugular. Make no mistake: the Censor is out to get you. It's a cunning foe. Every time you get smarter, so does it. So you wrote one good play? The Censor tells you that's all there is. So you drew your first sketch? The Censor says, "It's not Picasso."

Think of your Censor as a cartoon serpent, slithering around your creative Eden, hissing vile things to keep you off guard. If a serpent doesn't appeal to you, you might want to find a good cartoon image of your Censor, maybe the shark from Jaws, and put an X through it. Post it where you tend to write or on the inside cover of your notebook. Just making the Censor into the nasty, clever little character that it is begins to pry loose some of its power over you and your creativity.’

I don’t know what it says about me, but I have always visualised my censor as a weasely lookin’ bureaucrat from the 70s in a short sleeve, button up cream coloured shirt, brown tie and a comb-over. I really should draw him with a slogan along the lines of ‘Is this a man you can trust?’ beneath 😂

[exitmusicforastory]

My Dream Cast for Conventional Weapons

I am taking into account age and nationality. My actual dream cast for Nadya is Olga Kurylenko, but she's too old. I would love someone like Ansel Elgort as Sasha, but he's American, etc. Anyway, here it is!

Katya Sitak as Nadya Arkanova

Kirill Zaytsev as Sasha Morozov

David Coronswet as Markus Sauber

Marina Mazepa as Oksana Pavlenko

Garrett Hedlund as Aaron Swanson

Natalie Martinez as Emelia Sanchez

Roman Evdokimov as Dimitri Aslanov

Idris Elba as Apollo Hart

Harrison Ford as Nicholas Mason

Ego Mikitas as Vladimir Mikhailov

Aya Ivanova as Serina Kuznetsova

Glenn Fleshler as Viktor Sokolow

Brianne Howey as Eleanora Daniels

Clark Gregg as Robert Knowles

[hawkeabelas]

you're allowed to say "sex" on the internet. See? I just did it. Sex. Sex sex sex. You don't have to say s*x or smex or Adult Fun Times or s3x or "spice" any other variation of self-censorship on tumblr dot com you can just spell out the word SEX i am going to scream until the heat death of the universe

[exitmusicforastory]

Me trying to write Nadya and Markus in Conventional Weapons

[teaboot]

Once when I was a kid my dad told me to “stop being a you-know-what”. And we’d done the whole song and dance enough times that I knew he meant “bitch”, so I told him: That’s cheating. You know what you mean, and I know what you mean- you’re just stepping around it so you can pretend you’re on the high ground. So if you’re going to call me a bitch, at least have the balls to actually say it.

And it’s been about fifteen years since then but I’m just now figuring out that that’s the same feeling I get hearing shit like “grape” and “unalive”.

If your audience knows what you mean, you might as well actually say it. Otherwise you’re just fucking hiding

[everythingwasnormalhere]

pls rb if you think cuddling doesn't have to be s3xual

im tryna prove a point to my bf's mother help me out

[abyssaldyke]

It seems like the older I get, the more irrationally angry casual censorship makes me. And it isn't just the "unalive" "grape" alleged filter-dodging vernacular, but the way normal words will be peppered with asterisks, or screenshots will have words like "gay" "hell" "fuck" etc either partially or entirely blurred. Who is this helping? What is the purpose of it, except to reinforce shame and elevate a flimsy perception of purity and safety, however those things manifest. It's so tiresome and I'm sick of it.

[lazylittledragon]

can't believe we're all adults being forced into the club penguin level of censorship in 2024

[despazito]

Adult website and period tracker

[birdmenmanga]

they are putting yaoi in the city art museum and censoring nsfw content with heat-responsive material so you have to put your hands on it to see dick

[luciiferous]

heavenly machinery

there's nothing explicit under the censors but you can see the full version on [bluesky]

[maezanilla]

bday gift for a fellow sevika enjoyer friend 💜

[redstonedust]

kendrick lamar IS the worlds number one hater and i will not detract from that but it is kind of wild looking up his performance and only seeing "he dissed drake at the superbowl!!" like yeah true but he also dropped "40 acres and a mule this is bigger than the music" at the superbowl. the entire uncle sam bit. i feel like you could do an hour long essay on the imagery in this halftime show alone. insane.

[daftpatience]

im looking thru my old utdr arts from like 4years ago and theres some really funny shit in here. idr if ive posted but we are reviving it here now

i might revisit some of these as redraws or something theyre cute nd funnay

[neighborhoodjewishaunt]