"And I can feel time moving..."

Catching up on art posts, very honored and proud to share this oil painting which went live this past Friday, a work created for Elliot Lang's 'Character In Context' show at the A.R. Mitchell Museum in Trinidad, Colorado. Opening is June 5th (sorry, I will not be there) Link to the on line catalog with the few dozen talented artist's contributions with preliminary studies and final paintings in the comments below.

Precipice

20" x 16" Oil on Panel, framed, 2026

A part of my series of works in dialog with our mythological fascination with space travel and our place in the universe.

Character in Context

A.R. Mitchell Museum of Western Art

150 E. Main St.

Trinidad, CO 81082

(this came out of a conversation in the comments on a previous post about an author threatening to stop updating a fic because of lack of engagement)

So there’s this idea that fic writers should write for themselves and not care too much about stats or engagement,

and i totally get the sentiment behind that. if writing becomes entirely about stats and external validation, something important does get lost - creative freedom and joy, conviction in your own writing

but i also think:

“i write for myself, but i post for others.”

because posting fic is not only self-expression. it’s social. ao3 is called an archive, but emotionally it often functions as a community space.

people post for connection, for participation, for others to bear witness to their pain and trauma and grief,

and i don’t think most people are asking to be admired so much as acknowledged. there’s something deeply human about wanting another person to encounter something that mattered to you and go:

“ok, yeah, I see what you were trying to say. I see you.”

especially because fanfic is often people processing very real feelings through fictional characters at a safe distance, one step removed,

and then uploading that deeply personal thing into a shared archive and hoping somebody else might connect with it.

And i think that’s why it hurts so much when you summon up the courage and post a fic into the void and you get nothing back,

and then it’s like,

as a writer who's been posting here for a couple of years, i’ve been noticing this for a long time, but right now i’m talking about the pitt fandom.

every time you write fanfic for pitt's male characters, you do not need to tag absolutely every female character, especially those who aren't there.

today i was looking through the latest updates with garcia and came across a work that only featured dennis and under the post there were tags for all the characters. you don't need to do this.

i understand that everyone wants as many views and likes on their posts as possible, but you're really making life difficult for those who just want to read female character x reader. the same goes for the tags platonic!female characters x reader. you can put this in the header of your work, but not in the hashtags.