we’re each of us our own chiaroscuro

I was talking about this with a friend but a really interesting cultural shift over the last ohhhhhh ten years maybe is that many people in fandoms view themselves as stakeholders and not audience members. Because of that, they think that the fandom should be running things, or at least have an acknowledged say in how something is run. And every reminder that they are not in control, no matter how small, bothers them.

This has always existed to an extent but it used to be very siloed and only noticeably prevalent in certain fandoms and everyone else in fandom spaces generally agreed that it wasn’t healthy to act like that. Now it’s seemingly every fandom with an online presence and it’s all happening much more publicly than ye olde Trekkie forum.

I do think that the increase in access to creatives through social media, extended promotional cycles where you do a thousand interviews and all of them get clipped for instagram and tiktok, and an increase in entertainment and fandom aggregate social media accounts which keep people updated on all of those clips and every second of the creative process has had a big hand in creating this sense of ownership that audience members feel. It makes us feel like we’re on the team because we think we know so much. But we are not and we don’t.

legend tells of a mysterious being called “nuance” that allows multiple things to be true at the same time. some say you can still hear its voice whispering in the trees

the key to avoiding symbolismslop is sincere, thoughtful intent btw

it's fine to create art that has deer skull god (she/her) (queering it) pomegranate sun/moon symbolism in it but you need to ask yourself, why a deer skull and not another animal? what does queering it add to the text's portrayal of religion? why a pomegranate specifically? are the sun and moon the most appropriate celestial bodies to represent the meaning i'm trying to convey to my audience? what am i trying to say here?

"it looks cool" and "everyone else is doing it so i guess i should as well" are the creativity killers. inspiration requires introspection otherwise it's just imitation!!!

+ as the notes have pointed out being open to critique is also the fuel of creativity, not the antithesis of it. inviting interpretation only increases the space you have to work with and respond to!

everyone get more comfortable discussing difficult topics now!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

tv from the mid 2000s was so good. if you can look past the everything

i refuse to listen to your haterisms if you cannot cite your sources... a REAL hater doesn't have to make shit up to be a hater about. a real hater sees the truth and hates accurately. a hater who makes shit up and is wrong is just annoying. get on the level

ever since I was little I knew I wanted to dedicate my formative years to imagining fictional scenarios

what if we admitted to each other that it's not always really romance that we want. What if we admitted that what we're really craving is intimacy and society taught us romance is the only way to get it.