good luck, cowboy.

1. make a syllabus for yourself - books, media, places, recipes

2. complete 40% of it

Lesbian Art in America - Libby Black , 2013.

American, b. 1976 -

Walk into the Empire State Building through its imposing Fifth Avenue portal today, and you will find the symbolic narrative built into the lobby architecture. As you emerge through the revolving doors, the first thing you see at the opposite end of the cathedral-like space is a two-story, stainless-steel depiction of the monumental structure itself. Pause here for a moment. Feel how the design of this marble gallery propels you forward, toward the giant, illuminated representation. On the floor, three rows of alternating black-and-gray chevrons channel your steps, like strobing arrows set in stone. On either side, the three-story, gray marble walls, flickering with streaks of flaming red, rise to a heaven of Machine Age planets and stars. A gold-leaf Milky Way splashes across the ceiling mural, drawing your attention to the length of the great hall. Near the end, floor and walls angle inward to converge on the stately, reeded columns that frame the silver profile of New York's most audacious marvel. In this depiction, the building rises in sharp, metallic lines over a marble map of New England. At its peak, the skyscraper's golden, Art Deco dirigible mooring mast—itself a striking gesture toward a future “when Zeppelins are expected to swarm on the New York horizon”—penetrates the sun, unleashing a blaze of stainless-steel rays that flash over the landscape. These rays—perhaps sunbeams, radio waves or, prophetically, television signals—broadcast an unmistakable message to the nation and to the Old World beyond. This is the Empire State Building, tallest building in the world, bold, gleaming symbol of modern America. Standing at the foot of this haloed representation, you can take in the monumental structure at a glance, experiencing for yourself what John Jakob Raskob hoped the building would symbolize. With your feet on the ground, you feel drawn skyward by the structure's euphoric aspiration.

Richard Diebenkorn (American, 1922 - 1993)

Berkeley No. 8 - 1954

when real people do kink in real life, you gotta do all that good out-of-scene stuff like discuss boundaries, set limits and expectations, check in with each other, do aftercare, et cetera et cetera et cetera... but in fiction, everything can be in-scene!

the people in that fanfic don't exist any more than, like, the make-believe sexy football star and make-believe sexy cheerleader in a couple's roleplay exist. that couple doesn't need to get into character and then pretend to be a sexy football star having an important consent conversation with a sexy cheerleader, because that's a conversation that's already happened out-of-scene and out-of-character. (i mean, if you're into in-character negotiations, chase your bliss.) when they're in that scene, they can just pretend to be a sexy football star having sex with a sexy cheerleader. that's okay.

when i say in fiction, everything is in-scene, i mean that the fiction IS the scene.

if someone went up to their partner and said "hey, wouldn't it be sexy if we pretended you were manipulating and controlling me in an unethical way for sex reasons?", and then they talked through all the good and necessary consent and risk-awareness things, and then they played that scene out - that's a made-up scenario where pretend bad things happen, but no real-world people come to real-world harm, right?

now, if someone writes a story where one character manipulates and controls another in an unethical way for sex reasons... that, too, is a made-up scenario where pretend bad things happen, but no real-world people come to real-world harm.

Edward Hopper, Rooftops, 1926. Watercolor and graphite pencil on paper.