I've Heard This Song Before

First image is artwork titled Sharing the Mirror by Ernest Chiriacka (captioned with text that reads Salon des Arts). The work depicts a man and a woman reflected in a vintage mirror, and is painted in a mid-20th century style. The man is in an old-fashioned white tank top and is shaving with a razor (his lower face is covered in foam). The woman is glamorously dressed (she has on matching earrings, wrist jewelry and evening wear), is fully made-up (with ruby lips and mascara-laden lashes) and is tidily coiffed (her blond hair falls neatly down to her shoulders and her fringe lays obediently brushed to one side). The man looks disheveled by comparison. The woman is drawing on her eyebrows with a make-up pencil. The man side-eyes her with a touch of irritation (probably because she's squeezing him to one side), while she remains fully focused on her task at hand.

Second image is artwork that shows Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock from the original Star Trek series, in almost exactly the same pose, reflected in a similar mirror. The style is more photo-realistic, and the painting is signed "eldaz of zemlya". Kirk is dressed in a black t-shirt, shaving with a razor (his lower face is covered in foam). Spock is in full Starfleet uniform, and looks as perfectly made-up as he did in the series, with a neat bowl cut fringe, shaded eyelids and dramatic Vulcan brows swooping upwards at the sides. Despite his fully made-up look, Spock is also wielding an eyebrow pencil and appears to be touching up his eyes. Each is side-eyeing the other – Kirk with a touch of irritation, Spock impassive.

RADICAL SATURDAY

You have to rest in your own desire to create.

But, because I see statements like this turn into a sort of general notion of “it’s bad to want validation or attention or engagement”, and to me, that’s not what this means.

It’s perfectly valid to want people to like and engage with what you create. In a general sense, when you create anything, you do it to share with other human beings. Art, craft, food, anything you create is a way to connect with others through our shared humanity.

And wanting someone to like you fanart or read your fanfic is part of that.

We need to start commenting under other people's posts about how to properly warn for flashing lights and eyestrain. We need to be emailing and calling companies about their possibly triggering advertisements that could induce seizures. We need to stop tolerating ableism and start speaking up for the more vulnerable.

Also, stop putting epilepsy warnings. That's like saying "warning: schizophrenia" on a post including unreality or "warning: dyslexia" on a post with a typing quirk. First off, the disability mentioned isn't the only group of people that this could trigger. Second, it doesn't truly get the message across and instead makes it worse for those with the disability-- scrolling through the epilepsy tag on Tumblr should get you to view the content of other epileptic people, but no, you just get a bunch of flashing lights and eyestrain, even though you could instead tag for, oh I dunno, flashing lights and eyestrain.