The ADHD Demon

Proship has never meant anything except a combination of three ideas:

Ship and let ship (your ships don't harm me and vice-versa) and YKINMK (your kink is not my kink, and that's okay; my kink stories don't harm you and vice-versa)

Harassment over fiction is not acceptable

Censorship of fiction is not acceptable either

“Pro” means we’re in favor of shipping; proship literally means we’re in favor of shipping! Can we please get back to this definition.

Anyone who tells you anything different is looking for trouble.

Throughout my final year here at [my college], I have been confronted with a truth I suppressed: I do not allow myself to work with others. Before college I made art in my own little corner of the world. I did not need to explain it nor defend it. I was self-sufficient with full control. My creative endeavors just existed with little forethought and practically no afterthought. The consequences are now deterring my ability to advertise myself and my work. During the fall semester I perhaps checked in with one committee member once before midterm presentations. This semester I got better in including others to critique and influence my creative decisions. Even so, I struggle with articulating myself at the detriment of my credibility. I am always stressed. Stressed about being misconstrued, seen as a liar, or worse of all - perceived as being insensitive, especially on purpose. I do not present this as an excuse. Causing harm regardless of intention is bad. I, instead, share this fact as context to my behavior.

Firstly I love character design and exploring character development. When I was young I could spend hours staging my toys in elaborate plays. So much so I have an ongoing list of 87 named and designed original characters. From that experience and curiosity, my characters became more defined and eventually started to take on a life of their own. I could see where personality traits started to mirror, clash, and complement each other. Secondly I love details and analysis and theorizing. I mean who doesn’t love a good mystery? It allows the media to propagate through a fandom. As well as giving the media a new life and legacy from the rewatch, reread, or replay. I am positive that every one of you can think of a plot twist that recontextualized the entire story. Thirdly, the world needs more unique creations made by diverse creators. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Or in this case, the lighthearted, the gritty, and the experimental.

I have a bit of all three in my artistic pursuit along with understandable push back. Some from self doubt and some from external concerns. Broaching controversial, triggering, or sensitive topics knowledgeably and empathetically is like balancing on an infinitely thin, infinitely long, blurry tightrope. A daunting and seemingly impossible task with a high chance of failure. A challenge I take on but I cannot do successfully by being fearful of offending someone. If I do step over a line I will learn from it with grace and correct my behavior without excuse. I know I will never fully understand the many topics I choose to explore. However, I understand the gravity that real people experience real atrocities. I understand that my actions have consequences. However I have no control over the reactions to my actions and consequences. Above all I understand the delicate stewardship required for nuance. I do not see violence, abuse, or the suffering of others as a joke or gimmick used for shock value. I do, however, believe creating fiction can help. Fiction allows a safe space for unlimited play with the potential to be antithetical to the status quo. Somewhere to process and experience terror and trauma and pain and grief. The capacity for catharsis and hard talks and complicated realites. The horror genre alone is filled with killers, rapists, and unexplainable monsters. Creatives like: Sherley Jackson, David Lynch, Alfred Hitckcock, Steven King, H.P. Lovecraft, Mary Shelly and many more (I cannot make a comprehensive list of every single spooky, scary, suspenseful, thrilling, and/or horrific story and the storyteller(s). )are praised for their work beyond which they are scorned. My point is creatives tackling controversial events and themes via art will continue with a long precedent. With or without me.*

It’s not much but I know how it feels to be an outcast. Despite the heavy and dark moments I choose to draw from, my stories will end happily. My ultimate message is “allow hope to exist”. Yes bad things can, and will, happen. BUT! With a little bit of hope it will get better, not perfect, but better. I strive everyday to be an artist and person that is earnest, inclusive, and empathetic. As such I often think about kintsugi, the Japanese artform of repairing fractured dishware. The beauty comes from the fact that an object was changed rather than discarded. Faith and trust leading to a second chance. Permission to grow through failure rather than succumb.

The Underlying Truth is a story about the lives of the Waterfell, Featherashe, and King families learning they are more connected than they realized. I delve into themes of community and found family as well as the effects it has on navigating and healing personal traumas. How different perspectives adjust to setting off into the world. How they make a home. How they find their way to take up space. What happens when these perspectives collide? Written in Collapsing Stars: A twisted coming of age story. Follows a group of college students learning how to behave as adults. Saturated in suspense, violence, and emotional immaturity. I conducted an exploration of the loss of innocence when thrust into the world of being an adult. The fears of responsibility, consequences, and self reliance that arise when you do. Though when do you become an adult? Is it when you turn a certain age? By graduating high school or even college? Joining the workforce? Joining the military? Or – Does it happen when fairy tales are shattered and polluted by reality?

*Addendum

I experience life via creating art. That is a major part of how I process and understand basically anything. I want to be a creator that cuts through the noise. I want my work to act as a pillar for difficult discussions. I am doing the work of researching academic facts. However, that will never be as useful as hearing from primary sources. So I came to a solution to use an indirect route. That is why I posed a question on Tumblr. A question regarding which media portrays violence, abuse, suffering, and the resulting trauma in a way that supports victims.

I see and participate in the double standard of finding true crime entertaining and being desensitized to actual genocides and epidemics happening now. Creator Uri Clarke articulates it well in “PARASIiTE FLOWER is About S*XUAL AB*SE” from 29:00 to 35:00

Even if something is “problematic”, which is extremely relative (oh no! Boys holding hands!!!), no-one should be discouraged from creating, Generative AI bull shit excluded. And making mistakes happens to every-fuckin-body!

The what-if isms of justifying any kind creative censorship is harmful.

FULL STOP.

*ethical = reducing harm when possible

But it does not protect cheap paperbacks, exploitation novels, underground comix, anonymous erotica, obscure zines, fanfiction, pulp horror, badly written shock fiction, or the work of people too poor, strange, stigmatized, or low-status to have critics rushing to declare them Important. It is worth pointing out that marginalized sexualities and subcultures have often only been able to speak through these low-status, disreputable forms.

The right to express yourself should not depend on whether your prose is elegant or meaningful in the eyes of a judge or jury. If a human made it, then it is meaningful to them, and that is enough to give it intrinsic value.

I do not defend ugly, stupid, tasteless, or exploitative books because I think they are somehow secretly noble. I defend them because freedom that only covers the respectable is a fraud.

Creative censorship is bad. Informational censorship has its place.

Because managing the flow of government documents is vital for safety. For example redacting people’s names in witness protection or securing the movement of nuclear waste disposal trains. Not whatever the fuck is happening with the Epstein Files or manipulating historical records.