#and that’s good enough

[antennatoheaven]

[problemnyatic]

the steven universe hate is insane bc people are (or at least were) more upset that fictional war criminals got fictional hugs than they recognize that it singlehandedly advanced queer rep in children's media by lightyears and then straight up ate heavy retaliation for the nerve.

It does have real flaws that are worth discussing, but it also put their male protagonist in dresses and skirts and played it straight and even empowering, they aired a lesbian wedding on television, it was a genuinely queer, genuinely diverse piece of media through and through. It did a lot of real good for the real world.

But also the fictional characters caused fictional harm to other fictional characters, and didn't get an onscreen firing squad sentence. So, you know, it's basically ontologically evil in real life.

[sanguinarysanguinity]

Expanding a thought from a conversation this morning:

In general, I think "Is X out-of-character?" is not a terribly useful question for a writer. It shuts down possibility, and interesting directions you could take a character.

A better question, I believe, is "What would it take for Character to do X?" What extremity would she find herself in, where X starts to look like a good idea? What loyalties or fears leave him with X as his only option? THAT'S where a potentially interesting story lies.

In practice, I find that you can often justify much more from a character than you initially dreamed you could: some of my best stories come from "What might drive Character to do [thing he would never do]?" As long as you make it clear to the reader what the hell pushed your character to this point, you've got the seed of a compelling story on your hands.

[spitblaze]

I don't see people gas up gnc and butch transfems nearly enough, can we get a fuckin round of applause for gnc and butch transfems

[hinamie]

morning glory

[kynamo]

guh I’ve been wanting to draw way more but then my physical health gets in the way again :’) it’s honestly kinda insane with what’s been happening… so drawings from me may be slow!

[essektheylyss]

"must a story have conflict?" yes. hope this helps <3

[idlestories]

not just ‘he would not fucking say that’ but ‘he would not, under torture, admit that’

[captain-hooks]

A whole childhood spent drawing Percy Jackson and I never drew this. Feels like I missed a rite of passage somehow, luckily the pjo crowd is still going strong🔱

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

HOT, SINGLE, UNSTUDIED SPONGES. 3000 NAUTICAL MILES AWAY. Come sail the distance and read Tiger Tiger!

[hottubsandwiches]

needed to draw scar in the sunflower field after seeing his tweet about it

[inkskinned]

this is just my opinion but i think any good media needs obsession behind it. it needs passion, the kind of passion that's no longer "gentle scented candle" and is now "oh shit the house caught on fire". it needs a creator that's biting the floorboards and gnawing the story off their skin. creators are supposed to be wild animals. they are supposed to want to tell a story with the ferocity of eating a good stone fruit while standing over the sink. the same protective, strange instinct as being 7 and making mud potions in pink teacups: you gotta get weird with it.

good media needs unhinged, googling-at-midnight kind of energy. it needs "what kind of seams are invented on this planet" energy and "im just gonna trust the audience to roll with me about this" energy. it needs one person (at least) screaming into the void with so much drive and energy that it forces the story to be real.

sometimes people are baffled when fanfic has some stunning jaw-dropping tattoo-it-on-you lines. and i'm like - well, i don't go here, but that makes sense to me. of fucking course people who have this amount of passion are going to create something good. they moved from a place of genuine love and enjoyment.

so yeah, duh! saturday cartoons have banger lines. random street art is sometimes the most precious heart-wrenching shit you've ever seen. someone singing on tiktok ends up creating your next favorite song. youtubers are giving us 5 hours of carefully researched content. all of this is the impossible equation to latestage capitalism. like, you can't force something to be good. AI cannot make it good. no amount of focus-group testing or market research. what makes a story worth listening to is that someone cares so much about telling it - through dance, art, music, whatever it takes - that they are just a little unhinged about it.

one time my friend told me he stayed up all night researching how many ways there are to peel an orange. he wrote me a poem that made me cry on public transportation. the love came through it like pith, you know? the words all came apart in my hands. it tasted like breakfast.

[bajaja-blast]

you dislike Luke Castellan because he disagreed with an oppressive government system and actually took action to change the abusive ways him and his peers have been forced to follow for millennia.

I dislike Luke Castellan because in the Titans Curse he manipulated Annabeth, who he raised as his little sister, into holding up the sky, the FUCKING sky, for over 20 hours and had the audacity to walk away as though he was completely apathetic towards it while she begged and pleaded with him to help her.

we are not the same.

[foolsocracy]

put dick on a team and trust he will make sure they can perform as an acrobat troop

[3rdsday]

Tommy basically said "the DSMP was good because it was, and still is, loved" and that basically sums up my feelings on the matter too.

[1001aus]

AU where Danny has spent a very long time in the Infinite Realms for one reason or another (time travel work for Clockwork, Ghost King business, fled Earth for some reason, decided he didn't jive with living under capitalism, realized he wasn't aging, whatever).

On his first trip out to the living world where he actually interacts with living people, he drops into a reality where the Justice League exists and gets curious about the Watchtower. It's definitely Earth technology, but it's way different than anything he's seen them build before. How cool! He has to check it out.

He gets intercepted. Danny's first introduction to the Justice League is Green Lantern, Superman, and Martian Manhunter. They're friendly enough when they realize he's just curious.

In the course of talking, his abilities come up. Danny talks about his ice and the time powers Clockwork started teaching him after AGIT.

Then one of them says something along the lines of "and you can fly."

Danny gives them a weird look.

"...and I can walk?"

Which is about the moment that they realize that, not only has Danny assumed that flight is normal for them (since all of the people he's met since showing up are capable of it), but he could have any number of abilities that he considers not worth mentioning.