thea

He'd probably get pissed if he hears someone hating on Spider-Man for being enhanced.

"Spiderman isn't a menace because he can climb walls! He's a menace because he's climbing walls without a license or safety equipment! He's setting a bad example!"

what song makes you feel better?

what’s your feel-good movie?

what’s your favorite candle scent?

what flower would you like to be given?

who do you feel most you around?

say three nice things about yourself (three physical and three non-physical).

what color brings you peace?

tag someone (or multiple people) who make you feel good. 

what calms you down?

what’s something you’re excited for?

what’s your ideal date?

how are you?

what’s your comfort food?

favorite feel-good show?

for every emoji you get, tag someone and describe them in one word.

compliment the person who sent you this number.

fairy lights or LED lights?

do you still love stuffed animals?

most important thing in your life?

what do you want most in the world right now?

if you could tell your past self one thing, what would it be?

what would you say to your future self?

favorite piece of clothing?

what’s something you do to de-stress?

what’s the best personal gift someone could give you (playlist, homemade card, etc.)

what movie would you want to live in?

which character would you want to be?

hugs or hand-holding?

morning, afternoon or night?

I love going to museums, and to be completely honest, I "don't get" more than half of the things I look at. A lot of it isn't to my taste and I don't always understand why a) the artist made it and b) why it was chosen to be in a museum. But I can't think of a single time my response was ever anything along the lines of "wow this is so dumb," like it just genuinely doesn't occur to me to think that. Instead it makes me curious, and it makes me want to understand. I'll read the plaque next to the artwork to get the context, and I'll challenge myself to think about the significance of it. Like the commenter said, sometimes I still walk away without changing my opinion, but it wasn't the art itself that was rewarding, it was the engagement.

I also have so many thoughts on the whole "anyone can do it" thing. For one, that is an oversimplification and, much of the time, no, not anyone can do it. "Oh I could do that 🙄" is a knee-jerk reaction. But yes, sometimes it is true.

So instead of throwing that back at people by saying "well if you can do it, do it then" as a retort, I would say it genuinely. If you can do it, you should. Make a basic square out of one color. Paint random lines and shapes. Actually go through that process, and see what you learn from it. At the very least, explain the process of how you would go about making it. You might find it enlightening and worthwhile. Or you might not, and you might still think it's stupid. That's fine too.

The point isn't to convince you to like an art piece or think it's good. The point is to engage with it regardless of what you think, and to try to challenge that initial charged response. Art is made with purpose and context; it is not made to be hung in a museum. Being in a museum is just something that sometimes happens after. If you engage with art with that in mind, you might find yourself feeling a lot less bitter.

ALSO I WOULD LIKE TO ADD that if you have an art museum near you, GO TO IT. Museums are actually a lot more accessible than people think. Pretty much all of them have student discounts, and one near me (which is very big and very well-known and the exact kind of place you'd think was inaccessible) has "pay what you wish" the first Sunday of every month, and you can choose to pay nothing and get access to the whole museum FOR FREE!! I'm serious, research museums near you and try to go at least once. You might hate it and that's perfectly ok, but I think it's such a worthwhile experience to see art in person with your own eyes (the same way that going to a live concert is a whole different experience to listening to music on your phone).

The frustration of speaking it fluently, but still having to google basic words when you're writing.

The absolute joy of finding a word that sounds just perfect and conveys exactly what you mean.

Doubting all your grammar and being afraid to post it or even send it to a beta reader.

The story of Iphigenia always gets to me when it's not presented as a story of Artemis being capricious and having arbitrary rules about where you can and can't hunt, but instead, making a point about war.

Artemis was, among other things--patron of hunting, wild places, the moon, singlehood--the protector of young girls. That's a really important aspect she was worshipped as: she protected girls and young women. But she was the one who demanded Agamemnon sacrifice his daughter in order for his fleet to be able to sail on for Troy.

There's no contradiction, though, when it's framed as, Artemis making Agamemnon face what he’s doing to the women and children of Troy. His children are not in danger. His son will not be thrown off the ramparts, his daughters will not be taken captive as sex slaves and dragged off to foreign lands, his wife will not have to watch her husband and brothers and children killed. Yet this is what he’s sailing off to Troy to inevitably do. That’s what happens in war. He’s going to go kill other people’s daughters; can he stand to do that to his own? As long as the answer is no—he can kill other people’s children, but not his own—he can’t sail off to war.

Which casts Artemis is a fascinating light, compared to the other gods of the Trojan War. The Trojan War is really a squabble of pride and insults within the Olympian family; Eris decided to cause problems on purpose, leaving Aphrodite smug and Hera and Athena snubbed, and all of this was kinda Zeus’s fault in the first place for not being able to keep it in his pants. And out of this fight mortal men were their game pieces and mortal cities their prizes in restoring their pride. And if hundreds of people die and hundred more lives are ruined, well, that’s what happens when gods fight. Mortals pay the price for gods’ whims and the gods move on in time and the mortals don’t and that’s how it is.

And women especially—Zeus wanted Leda, so he took her. Paris wanted Helen, so he took her. There’s a reason “the Trojan women” even since ancient times were the emblems of victims of a war they never wanted, never asked for, and never had a say in choosing, but was brought down on their heads anyway.

Artemis, in the way of gods, is still acting through human proxies. But it seems notable to me to cast her as the one god to look at the destruction the war is about to wreak on people, and challenge Agamemnon: are you ready to kill innocents? Kill children? Destroy families, leave grieving wives and mothers? Are you? Prove it.

(Yes, this is a response to a post going around how maybe it’s okay if adults are in fandom as long as they understand that fandom is for ickle kiddie-boos and walk on eggshells.  Um, no.  Back in my day, we kicked y’all off our yahoogroups so we could post adult material, and rigorously didn’t post adult material if the list allowed you.)

So, back in the day, several of the authors of an LJ community that posted NSFW fic met up and had a group photo, which they posted.  Apparently, some of the 18 year olds said, “Ewwwwwww!  They’re all, like, oooooollllld!” 

There’s actually a good reason for that. 

Writing is part being good with words and part being good at turning your life experiences into something that other people want to read.  Remember my previous rant about how you can’t assume a mystery writer is a homicidal maniac, and you can’t assume that a reader who likes a character has the same personal flaws as that character?  There’s a reason people assume these things about authors. 

See, if you’ve never fallen in love, you might think romance is when the other person brings you a dozen roses and a box of chocolates.  And that’s fine!  That’s romantic, too!  But if you have fallen in love, you might remember the time that you woke up and went to go to class and found a bunch of wildflowers and a plastic ring from a bubblegum machine tucked under your windshield wiper.  And you might remember the half touched, half about to burst out laughing expression on your sweetie’s face when you showed up to class wearing that tacky plastic ring.  You might think that love is thinking the other person is the best-looking person in the world, or that love is wanting to spend your life with someone else.  That’s love, too! Well, at least the second one is (the first is probably just infatuation). But if you’ve been in love before you’ll know that love is also hurting all over because your sweetie’s abusive parent died and they’re unexpectedly destroyed over it.  The latter is worth a million flowery declarations. 

Now, I’m not saying that no one under 30 can write.  Some young people have had very full lives.  And some young people have a natural talent for extrapolating from their own feelings.  Virgins can write convincingly about sex, even.  But the more life experience you have, the easier it is to extrapolate, and the easier it is to come up with the specific details that make things feel real and true.  

I got a private message on FF.Net once about how I wrote so well, and I’m pretty sure my response was basically “I write so well because I’ve been at this for over a decade.”

It’s not just life experience (but it does help), it’s also the fact writing, like any art form, takes time being put into it.

Like the late great Bob Ross said:

I will purposefully look for older writers because I know the fic will be good and full of nuance. Nothing against teenage writers (I was once one myself), but the attention to prose, diction, and structure really comes out when you can tell the author has experience. Yes, fandom allows young writers to test the waters and experiment with their writing in a place without the usual rules, but fans who have decades under their belt COMMAND the waters.