#We art The Culture We Create

[hussyknee]

I'm really not a villain enjoyer. I love anti-heroes and anti-villains. But I can't see fictional evil separate from real evil. As in not that enjoying dark fiction means you condone it, but that all fiction holds up some kind of mirror to the world as it is. Killing innocent people doesn't make you an iconic lesbian girlboss it just makes you part of the mundane and stultifying black rot of the universe.

"But characters struggling with honour and goodness and the egoism of being good are so boring." Cool well some of us actually struggle with that stuff on the daily because being a good person is complicated and harder than being an edgelord.

Sure you can use fiction to explore the darkness of human nature and learn empathy, but the world doesn't actually suffer from a deficit of empathy for powerful and privileged people who do heinous stuff. You could literally kill a thousand babies in broad daylight and they'll find a way to blame your childhood trauma for it as long as you're white, cisgender, abled and attractive, and you'll be their poor little meow meow by the end of the week. Don't act like you're advocating for Quasimodo when you're just making Elon Musk hot, smart and gay.

[admiral-arelami]

AITA If My Favorite Character is a Fascist?

Uh oh. The Fascsplainers are at it again. Yes, we know what fascism is, thx.

[sperotonin]

I wish I could be shirtless at the beach. im barely dysphoric about my chest and I wouldn't be at all if it wasn't sexualized and made people decide I'm a woman.

[essektheylyss]

Not gonna lie, both vindicating but also deeply sad that every single literary magazine I've looked at recently, having visited those site in the past, has edited their submission requirements to specify that AI work will not be considered.

And at the same time, I'm extremely fearful of how many writers are going to give up writing when it becomes impossible to tell AI from real anymore, and markets are utterly saturated with content to the point that getting anything published is nearly impossible as scammers try to make some quick change.

I imagine it wouldn't be worth it in the long run as a scam, because it doesn't exactly pay to write these days even prior to this, so it may then die out within a couple of years, though that might be optimistic given the plagiarism that makes it into the Amazon self-publishing realm. But even still, I do worry that in the meantime it's going to push writers out and force already struggling lit mags to shut down, and I'm so, so worried about it.

[squiglylines]

Some essays I feel I can absolutely write as an ADHD/autistic diagnosed in my mid-twenties:

how to make friends in real life (I actually did write a guide for a friend starting university and very anxious about it)

How to make friends online & general accepted online etiquette

Expanded "how to make friends irl" for different settings: school/university, work, out and about daily life, and even if you don't feel you have much opportunity to meet new people.

Some general and adaptable social scripts for: necessary but scary phone calls, family gatherings, wanting to start or stop a social interaction when you're not sure how, etc.

Something I feel like I can help with but don't feel comfortable claiming authority in - how to approach your parents about mental illness/neurodiversity in order to start a constructive dialogue (my knowledge applies only to parents who feel something may be wrong and want to help beyond changing behaviors they are frustrated or worried about)

Something I do feel more confident about is helping parents of the above category open up a constructive dialogue with kids with mental illness/neurodiversity. Again stressing I'm not a professional but I have personal experience and some experience with other people on both sides of this dialogue.

Some tips on how to ask for help when you feel like you have an untreated issue but don't know who or how to talk about it

And now for something completely different and another one I actually started writing - a guide to creating and maintaining an offline fic library. Doing this saved me some heartbreaks in the past over deleted fics and also I may be slightly paranoid about digital data security but that's a whole other rant.

a guide to commenting positively on fics and art. there are some fantastic guides and tips out there already but I have some thoughts of my own to add about ways to get started, finding ways to verbalize your thoughts, and tips for making sure your comment is indeed positive.

These last ideas I don't feel I have enough grasp of to actually write something that would be helpful for people who don't share my brain, but one day I might write: tips for drawing/painting when you have "can't-see-the-forest-for-the-trees" type brain wiring, and tips for dealing with perfectionism *especially* when you have a history of achieving perfect-ish results (is this what people refer to as gifted child syndrome?)

Anyway if you have any interest in any of these topics I have lectures rants locked and loaded that I would love to share.

[theresa-of-liechtenstein]

man i’m still so hung up on the way that this professor handled music in the philippines. there were Choices made and though i agreed with a few of them, i found most of them straight up fucking baffling and it was disheartening to not feel heard or invited to contribute to the discussion despite this subject matter being uhhhhhhh my fucking lived experience just because i didn’t pay a twenty dollar membership fee to the fil-am org

[vampirehowl]

the thing for me abt "artificial intelligence" visual art is like. it EASILY couldve been handled like actual art. like it EASILY couldve been someone like presenting the code of their like qualitative information statistics reader as an interactive art piece drawn from public domain art with the creator of the code being the "artist" but those who interact and those whose public domain art is used (or even if someones non-public domain art was willingly contributed) all also being considered contributing "artists" -- and it wouldve sparked like an actual interesting conversation about what is art and how art and access is valued !!! it couldve been so sick!!! for a literal zero amount of change in effort for those involved it could have been such an interesting interaction of collective creativity made willingly with like each result listing what sources it drew from when it gave u its final image and i mean ZERO change in effort

but instead it was just a race to see who could press the devaluation of creativity button the fastest while having the worst possible impact on the climate for least amount of effort! like it became the quickest way to publicly admit that youre lame as hell and prioritize ease over actual real life anything !!! it could have been amazing but it instead became the most embarrassing thing one could be associated with!!!!

[haemosexuality]

this woman from mag 130 is just like me fr

[ifys]

I think we were born to share, experience and create art together.

[sperotonin]

I wish I could be shirtless at the beach. im barely dysphoric about my chest and I wouldn't be at all if it wasn't sexualized and made people decide I'm a woman.

[thegirlwholied]

my only qualm about the writers' strike is that I wish it had somehow been able to happen even sooner because AI has exploded in the cultural conversation these past few months, I want it beaten away from creative jobs with sticks, and I'm concerned it's already at the point studios will never come to a good term there and will in fact use this period to up their AI-writing explorations

[moodr1ng]

i think theres probably something interesting going on regarding the relationship between.. how accessible a form of media is to create at a professional level for an average individual or small group (eg: writing at a professional level is comparatively very accessible, making a movie at a professional level is comparatively inaccessible) vs which forms of media are currently dominating whats considered mainstream and which forms appear to not be valued as much anymore. but any conclusion i draw upon would only be anecdotal so its whatever

[samglyph]

I know this will sound pretentious but I think letterboxd as a social media site is going to contribute to the heat death of entertainment.

[whewchilly]

Lol

[userautumn]

Yesterday my mom said I was pretentious "hard to please" when it came to literature and I had to laff. she is right though

[enigmasandepiphanies]

oh i am so mediocre at what i do