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.
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one of my favorite (/sarcastic but not really cuz its like funny idk) things in fandoms is when people make ocs or self inserts or 'x readers' being shipped with characters, but the oc/sona/reader is literally just another character from the source material.. its like youre shipping the characters but didnt want to admit it, so you made a kinsona and branded it as something else..
and its NEVER subtle, actually its super blatant every time and im always shocked when nobody points it out..
i have seen uncountable saiki k x readers where the description is like:
"saiki meets someone whose thoughts he cant read for the first time, and even though he doesnt trust her at first, she keeps proving that she is kind and has good intentions!" you mean nendo? reader is girl nendo?
"this time, he meets a girl whose thoughts honestly match up with her spoken words almost perfectly for the first time!" hairo. youre shipping saiki with girl hairo.
"saiki meets someone whose thoughts are too fast and jumbled to re-" ITS AKECHI, THATS AKECHI, ITS LITERALLY AKECHI.
"saiki meets someone whose just as immune to teruhashi as he is for the first and only tim-" this is hairo again, awe bae you secretly LOVE haisai ?!?
"saiki sees his old childhood friend for the first time in years after an incident caused them to be apart and then they fall in lov-" WHY DID YOU EVEN WRITE THIS AND NOT CALL IT SAIKECHI.
its even funnier when they say its like that characters little sister, but the way they write it is still literally just the character, like their personality, dialogue, even their relationship, is the same..
not all of them fit this exactly, but the ones that take a boy character and turn them into a girl oc to ship them with a boy, it reminds of how in equestria girls they couldnt make applejack and rarity endgame so they gave them boyfriends who looked IDENTICAL to each other.. thats what youre creating, guys, youre creating heterosexual rarijack.
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i love. all powerful whumpers. i know i talk about this a lot but i just really absolutely love when a whumper controls every aspect of whumpee's life. not even as a human, but more as a god. a being so far above whumpee that they genuinely have no chance of fighting back.
maybe whumper literally created whumpee, and is now playing with them like a puppet. and whumpee is forced to bump into the invisible walls of their confined world over and over again, realising again and again that they can only ever go as far as whumper allows.
and maybe... sometimes... whumpee thinks they have outwitted whumper. they find a little loophole, a glitch in the matrix, a tear in the fabric of their artificial reality. they take the opportunity immediately, thinking they're about to be free... only to end up as a pawn in whumper's game yet again. the opening was put there on purpose, specifically for whumpee to find. and where it led was entirely controlled. and whumper enjoyed every second of this delightful little show of whumpee feeling some hope, only for it to be violently ripped away.
again.
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hi this isnt meant as hate but a genuine question but what actually has grian done that is "worse" than scott because one of the main things i see people talking about is the clip where scott compares jimmy to a dog and basically sets out that hurting him has no consequences and describes basically lovebombing him and i dont know if theres something directly comparable for grian
ur rright in that what scott described was a teasing version of lovebombing but grian calls jimmy useless, bad at everything, also yells at him and teases him way harsher?? what scott pointed out was literally not that he purposely lovebombs him byt that jimmy always lets things go quickly and is easily distracted by compliments. oli literally in a stream was chanting "u have to call him handsome! just call him handsome!" during amongus bc jimmys close friends Know he will Let Things Go if they immediately call him handsome or compliment him which most of thhem do not do often bc the bit w him is hes bad at everything and easy to anger so while yes i understand why ppl point to that scott clip like omg scott was weeid for saying that he is POINTING OUT something MULTIPLE OTHER PPL ALSO DO. bc its a Bit to be Mean to Jimmy and then distract him w nicecities and calling that lovebombing but never pointing out how grian and joel will insult jimmy even when he is proud of something to me is Weird As Fuck especially bc scott just verbalized a behavior MULTIPLE other ppl do. never saw anyone ever say grian was abusive for berrating jimmy or joel is toxic for insulting jimmy and when oli jokeingly does the same thing scott was describing no one blinks but a guy teasingly points out how jimmy does a thing and suddenly hes insidious and an abuser like bro
this isnt even cgetting into how ppl see scotts Character as inherently calculating and cold yet grian literally kills his allies and abandons them to benefit himself. wjile scott is onown to be incredibly loyal even to his own detriment. everyone shrugs iff grians disloyalty and blantant ship hopping but when scott isnt nice either hes seen as cruel and cold like be soooo fr that shit us so annyoing grian is a cheater and a black widow but we vilified the guy who went boodey red bc he didnt wanna betray his team :/
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