Confessions of a Wayward Son

like literally if i didn’t want to see some weird nonsense i wouldn’t be consuming scifi

“ohh this episode is about meeting a bunch of dinosaurs who developed space travel and left earth to go live on the other side of the galaxy isn’t that crazy?! isn’t that silly?!” sure yeah maybe a little but by focusing on that but you’re missing the narrative reason for it which is to provide a starting point to explore religious authoritarianism and the production of scientific knowledge

just a spoonful of [nonsense] helps the [critical thinking about uncomfortable social and structural problems that are such a fundamental part of the background radiation of our lives that we can't see them] go down

it disturbs me that a significant number of people think that the issue with sexual violence, gendered violence, and misogyny is sexual desire rather than dehumanization, so they are relentlessly suspicious of others' (and their own) desires while simultaneously never at all interrogating others' (and their own) dehumanizing beliefs about other people, both within and outside of sexual contexts

I am so tired of short-attention-span, trim-the-fat culture. All writing advice these days is for how to write like Chuck Palahniuk. "Cut 'think', cut 'feel', cut 'wonder' - only action, only pushing forward, show and move and move and move." What if I could emulate this style, and still don't want to? What if I want to write like Henry James, with three paragraphs of introspective musings between each dialogue line? The music advice is, "make it shortform, make it Tik-Tok compatible, make it punchy, hit the refrain as soon as possible." What if I want that 10-minute prog rock piece? What if I want that symphony? What if I want it slow and luxurious and lazy? Movies. Series. Poetry. Bodies. Everything is "trimmed trimmed trimmed trimmed, stripped bare, you have three seconds to win me over, make it airport chic." I don't want to win you over, then, I guess. I want the fat left it. I want the pleasure and the indolence and the indulgence. Fuck this art-advice that's always "your art needs Ozempic."

I love how the notes for this are just chock full of examples of the most batshit specific things people research for their fanfics. Truly a treasure trove.

i ❤️ faceless character designs like yesss keep the mask on… Obscurity is so hot

“what if you could see their face” well i neither want nor need any of that. i’m right where i want to be