orneltec reblogged
I’ve been thinking about this daily since it crossed my dash
little mans is 100% correct.
I'm gonna put I AM BRAVE OF THIS MEETING on my cubicle wall at work and never explain it.
Think about the donuts of your day!
"The best thing we can do with power is give it away" - On the leftist critique of superhero narratives as authoritarian power fantasies:
The ongoing "Jason Todd is a cop" debate has reminded me of a brilliant brief image essay by Joey deVilla. So here it is, images first and the full essay text below:
"A common leftist critique of superhero comics is that they are inherently anti-collectivist, being about small groups of individuals who hold all the power, and the wisdom to wield that power. I don’t disagree with this reading. I don’t think it’s inaccurate. Superheroes are their own ruling class, the concept of the übermensch writ large. But it’s a sterile reading. It examines superhero comics as a cold text, and ignores something that I believe in fundamental, especially to superhero storytelling: the way people engage with text. Not what it says, but how it is read. The average comic reader doesn’t fantasize about being a civilian in a world of superheroes, they fantasize about being a superhero. One could charitably chalk this up to a lust for power, except for one fact… The fantasy is almost always the act of helping people. Helping the vulnerable, with no reward promised in return. Being a century into the genre, we’ve seen countless subversions and deconstructions of the story. But at its core, the superhero myth is about using the gifts you’ve been given to enrich the people around you, never asking for payment, never advancing an ulterior motive. We should (and do) spend time nitpicking these fantasies, examining their unintended consequences, their hypocrisies. But it’s worth acknowledging that the most eduring childhood fantasy of the last hundred years hasn’t been to become rich. Superheroes come from every class (don’t let the MCU fool you). The most enduring fantasy is to become powerful enough to take the weak under your own wing. To give, without needing to take. So yes, the superhero myth, as a text, isn’t collectivist. But that’s not why we keep coming back to it. That’s not why children read it. We keep coming back to it to learn one simple lesson… The best thing we can do with power IS GIVE IT AWAY." - Joey deVilla, 2021 https://www.joeydevilla.com/2021/07/04/happy-independence-day-superhero-style/
orneltec reblogged
The impact Spiderverse has on art and artists is INSANE. Everyone is drawing, everyone is CREATING. From colour studies, to the art style studies, to making sona influenced by the movies' character designs. AI generated images are nowhere to be seen, and I hope they're going to stay buried in the uncreative pits they belong in... the world is in balance.
Seeing all the works are... WOW
orneltec reblogged
First of all, congrats on finishing Nimona! It's been one hell of a journey. :) I also want to ask how you decided on making comics, whether you had doubts, how did you overcome them, and basically how did you push yourself to be where you are right now? I want to get into comic-making and eventually go into school for animation, but I have massive doubts. I'm studying graphic arts right now and even now I'm nervous to turn in my portfolio. I also feel I'm getting too old, 21, for this dream :(
I tried to answer this question a couple of times but everything I tried to say came out sounding so insincere. “Follow your own path,” “Don’t let anyone hold you back,” gimme a break, you’ve heard all this before and it doesn’t change that the world is a screwed up place for young people right now. They’re making us think it’s a race and we have to come in #1 to be worth anything. You can do the best work that you can at your own pace but it’s not gonna change people giving you grief or trying to push you down to make themselves feel more successful. I hate that the world does this to young people. It’s a terrible thing to put on someone at such a young age and is incredibly counter-productive to creativity. Nothing will kill your will to create like being afraid of failure, and we’ve all been taught that failure is the worst possible thing that could ever happen to us, instead of just one step in a process.
All I can say is: 21 isn’t too old for ANYTHING. And fortunately other people have said this better than me:
orneltec reblogged
Anonymous asked:
Have you ever contacted an artist who doesn't work in comics after discovering their on the Internet?
Yes, we’ve reached out to artists whose work we’ve seen on the Internet before.
That’s how I hired kristaferanka, @bradshawdraws, diggys-daily, jakewyattriot, wscottforbes, caleatkinson and some people whose work you haven’t yet seen. And how karatemonkey hired kevinwada and some others.
Fan art gets jobs
This is how I got my job as well! It’s super true!
A reminder from some editors at Marvel that Babs, Kris, Kevin and I ALL got our jobs in comics by posting a bunch of dumb art on tumblr. Not to say that tumblr fanart should be anyone’s whole career plan, but it’s really worked out for a lot of people.
Which is either a hopeful story of opportunity or a sign of coming apocalypse.
Add my name to that list!
Ditto! It wasn’t one-to-one, granted, but I got my job working on Bioshock Infinite because they had seen my historical Disney princess series. :) I think it’s important for young artists to realize that if you’re looking for a studio gig (or you plan on working for someone else in any capacity) you day-to-day job can turn into, essentially, glorified fanart. And that’s not an innately bad thing! It just turns out that knowing how to play around in other people’s sandboxes is an extremely valuable skill in the field. I’ve worked on a bunch of established properties that I’ve previously been a fan of- Neopets, Bioshock, Fable, what have you- and being able to adapt your work to fit seamlessly within a universe, while still bringing something new to the table, is an extremely valuable skill set.
Despite this, of course, it’s good to understand why certain fanart might pique the interest of employers, and certain fanart might not! The thing that really sets the artists above apart from the pack is that their fanart isn’t trying to perfectly mimic and recreate the source material- it’s bringing something new, something innovative, and something uniquely personal to the table. Sometimes that’s style, design, storytelling, characterization, whatever else. It’s just fanart that challenges the status quo, that’s referential but fresh, that really lets an artist’s particular voice shine through.
I did a lot of fanart when I was younger where I was painstakingly trying to recreate a particular franchise’s style- it was a great learning experience but, at the same time, it’s not necessarily compelling portfolio fodder for someone scouring the internet looking for artists. I hardly think you need to purge your online presence of fanart when you’re looking for a job (some of my favourite personal pieces are fanart!), buuuut consider using fanart not just to parrot what you’re seeing, but to prove out how you could be a valuable asset as part of a larger whole. :)
Thought thoughts thoughts.
draw what you love, how you love to. be yourself.
and if you are good enough, someone will notice.
we are the testament to that.
“”“”“”“”“”“
If there’s something you want to make, make it and don’t wait for permission.
orneltec reblogged
I have a folder called Time is a Flat Circle in which I collect evidence of humanity. Here is most of them.
Okayokayokayokaybut "My hand will wear out but the inscription will remain" is kind of a power line BEFORE you factor in that it is, in fact, over a thousand years old.
It’s always good to spend a few moments, on a quiet day, looking through the Family album.
orneltec reblogged
My first question to someone who’s like, “You should give up writing and learn to code!” would be to ask, “Is that how you entertained yourself during the pandemic? With long videos of people coding? Or did you read books and watch TV and movies like the rest of us?”
IN A DISTANT and second-hand set of dimensions, in an astral plane that was never meant to fly, the curling star-mists waver and part . . .
See . . .
"GNU Sir Terry Pratchett" - L-Space Wiki / Ursula K. LeGuin / "Terry Pratchett" - Wikipedia / "GNU" - Urban Dictionary / Going Postal by Terry Pratchett / Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett / Brandon Sanderson / Paul Kidby / The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett
orneltec reblogged
An Asexual's love letter to Good Omens 2
There's an infamous quote by Neil Gaiman going around, regarding the general vibe of season 2, and many people (I believe humorously) yelling that it could not be further from the truth. Particularly in the last episode, where that happens.
I disagree.
The final episode of season 2 was deeply, deeply comforting to me.
I am asexual. Have been my whole life. Even before I had the words to describe what that was, child-me had this feeling in their gut of being an outlier, that everyone was exaggerating, or in on some joke, that I wasn’t privy to. Because I was bombarded on all sides by shows and movies and books, telling the same story of love, again, and again, and AGAIN. It’s drilled into our brains with the same fervor as the days of the week, or the quadratic formula. Meet-cute -> misunderstanding ->declaration of feelings ->kiss. More or less steps can be added to account for runtime or complexity of narrative, but that’s the basic structure that a relationship follows. It MUST be, because that’s the formula every character who's ever been in a story goes through, often times when it even feels like an add-on, like it’s only there because this is a story, there HAS to be a romance. And it has to follow the steps.
For a long time, I felt love wasn’t for me, because if there’s only one way to be in love, I sure as hell wasn’t feeling it.
Instead, the relationship I ended up in looked a lot like what Beezlebub and Gabriel go through. Meeting someone routinely until it starts to feel comfortable. Getting to know them and slowly growing more attached. Eating chips and listening to music.
We like to joke whenever someone asks us how long we’ve been together, because the answer is we just sort of slowly fell into it, and we honestly don’t know when the line got blurred between ‘friends’ and ‘partners’. And, at least for me, a good deal of that confusion, that hesitancy to label, came from the fact that what I was feeling, what we were, couldn’t be love. It couldn’t be romantic.
We were just quiet and gentle.
And that wasn’t love.
Because it was slow, because it wasn’t physical, because there was no structure aside from consistency and companionship. Because it didn’t follow the Rules.
Then I found myself in stories, and it felt like a revelation.
Beelzebub and Gabriel aren’t the first time I’ve seen a love like I feel represented in a narrative, but it never stops feeling special. And I don’t know if I’ll ever stop celebrating it.
Throughout the sequence in the pub, I kept expecting them to “confirm” Gabriel and Beelzebub. A dramatic line, a kiss, a whatever. That’s what I’ve been taught to expect, after all, that’s the only way a relationship is “real”. Of course, this doesn't mean Crowley and Aziraphale sharing a dramatic kiss is wrong, or that I can’t see why it resonated with so many people, but for me. Those moments in the pub are worth so much more.The last scene might have been literally showstopping, but those handful of moments between the duke of hell and an archangel were the beating heart of the season for me. A simple love story in four scenes. No kisses. No ‘I love you’s. Not even any definition of what. The love Gabriel and Beelzebub have is strong enough for them to both want to shatter their worlds and flee their lives and it's just.
It's just that.
Two people in a pub, playing the other's favorite song, giving a little gift, buying a packet of crisps.
That sequence means far more to me than any kiss ever could.
Love isn’t only real when it's hot and sudden and ephemeral, it can also be
Quiet.
And gentle.
And still romantic.
Still real.
#this made me tear up#especially that part about it being quiet and gentle but not romantic because it didn't fit into society's definition#beautifully written#and although I'm not ace#I'd love to someday have this kind of#quiet and gentle and romantic love#good omens#good omens season 2#good omens season 2 spoilers#good omens s2#good omens s2 spoilers#asexual#ineffable bureaucracy
So, I was re-watching Good Omens 2 (as one should), and noticed this thing. Somebody else probably also noticed it, but I had the urge to make a post, so here it is.
Every subsequent meeting of Gabriel and Beelzebub, they are a-getting closerrr
First meeting.
Second meeting.
Third meeting (this memory began with them standing together much closer, btw, admiring Gabriel's statue).
And finally...
"Everyday, it's a-getting closer"
So you mean to tell me that after already weighing down my heart with several tonnes of that cliffhanger from Across the Spider-Verse, I now have another several tonnes added to it by that Good Omens 2 cliffhanger???????????
And there's no confirmation when either will be resolved????????????
WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!!!!?????
orneltec reblogged
movies like nimona and across the spiderverse makes me realize that I never want to see another live action movie again. The way you can utilize animation and make visuals so interesting, as well as the flow and colors, is just something you can't do with real people
orneltec reblogged
“Authors should not be ALLOWED to write about–” you are an anti-intellectual and functionally a conservative
“This book should be taken off of shelves for featuring–” you are an anti-intellectual and functionally a conservative
“Schools shouldn’t teach this book in class because–” you are an anti-intellectual and functionally a conservative
“Nobody actually likes or wants to read classics because they’re–” you are an anti-intellectual and an idiot
“I only read YA fantasy books because every classic novel or work of literary fiction is problematic and features–” you are an anti-intellectual and you are robbing yourself of the full richness of the human experience.
"you are functionally a conservative" is such a good and clarifying insult
Literally right after I saw this post, I saw another post in a discord chat for BOOK EDITORS in which an outspokenly liberal editor talked about how Nabokov should have never been published because he wrote about p*dophiles and described women's bodies in ways that made her uncomfortable. She described his writing as "objectively terrible" and said she wanted to burn his books. And other editors were bringing up classics they didn't like and talking about how they wanted to throw them in the trash. This wasn't like a light "unpopular opinion!" conversation. This was actual book editors talking about how books should be destroyed and censored.
There is something so scary and toxic in global culture right now. The revival of fascism is influencing everyone's mindset and approach to art, regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum.
I see far more books being censored today than when I was a kid. Librarians handed me The Catcher in the Rye, The Sexual Politics of Meat, and Animal Farm when I was literally 8-11. My mom would never have taken a book away from me. I read everything from the Tao Te Ching to the Qur'an to atheist texts under my desk at school. Teachers thought nothing of it or encouraged it. Books seemed universally acknowledged as sacrosanct to me.
Now I can't find any adults who don't hesitate or want to make exceptions when it comes to censorship. Even the most liberal social activist librarians I know go, "well except for book X..."
Functionally conservative. It's so important to have the language to express that.
Thank you for this addition!
And, following up on the previous post …
“This makes me uncomfortable” is NOT a valid reason for censorship
These fucking book editors should remove themselves from the profession ASAP 😡
The only reason a book should be removed, the ONLY reason, is “we are keeping it in the restricted section for research because its only intended function is to cause harm.”
And to be clear, when I say this, I’m talking about shit like To Train Up A Child and The Protocols of Zion. One is a text responsible for the deaths of multiple children because it’s an abuse how-to, and the other is entirely fabricated “protocols” from a group that never actually existed but is claimed to represent all Jews, and it’s basically one long antisemitic screed.
And even these should be available. Just. Not where they’re gonna be used to start a white supremacist cult.
orneltec reblogged
the thing is that they're so fascinated by sex, they love sex, they can't imagine a world without sex - they need sex to sell things, they need sex to be part of their personality, they need sex to prove their power - but they hate sex. they are disgusted by it.
sex is the only thing that holds their attention, and it is also the thing that can never be discussed directly.
you can't tell a child the normal names for parts of their body, that's sexual in nature, because the body isn't a body, it's a vessel of sex. it doesn't matter that it's been proven in studies (over and over) that kids need to know the names of their genitals; that they internalize sexual shame at a very young age and know it's 'dirty' to have a body; that it overwhelmingly protects children for them to have the correct words to communicate with. what matters is that they're sexual organs. what matters is that it freaks them out to think about kids having body parts - which only exist in the context of sex.
it's gross to talk about a period or how to check for cancer in a testicle or breast. that is nasty, illicit. there will be no pain meds for harsh medical procedures, just because they feature a cervix.
but they will put out an ad of you scantily-clad. you will sell their cars for them, because you have abs, a body. you will drip sex. you will ooze it, like a goo. like you were put on this planet to secrete wealth into their open palms.
they will hit you with that same palm. it will be disgusting that you like leather or leashes, but they will put their movie characters in leather and latex. it will be wrong of you to want sexual freedom, but they will mark their success in the number of people they bed.
they will crow that it's inappropriate for children so there will be no lessons on how to properly apply a condom, even to teens. it's teaching them the wrong things. no lessons on the diversity of sexual organ growth, none on how to obtain consent properly, none on how to recognize when you feel unsafe in your body. if you are a teenager, you have probably already been sexualized at some point in your life. you will have seen someone also-your-age who is splashed across a tv screen or a magazine or married to someone three times your age. you will watch people pull their hair into pigtails so they look like you. so that they can be sexy because of youth. one of the most common pornography searches involves newly-18 young women. girls. the words "barely legal," a hiss of glass sand over your skin.
barely legal. there are bills in place that will not allow people to feel safe in their own bodies. there are people working so hard to punish any person for having sex in a way that isn't god-fearing and submissive. heteronormative. the sex has to be at their feet, on your knees, your eyes wet. when was the first time you saw another person crying in pornography and thought - okay but for real. she looks super unhappy. later, when you are unhappy, you will close your eyes and ignore the feeling and act the role you have been taught to keep playing. they will punish the sex workers, remove the places they can practice their trade safely. they will then make casual jokes about how they sexually harass their nanny.
and they love sex but they hate that you're having sex. you need to have their ornamental, perfunctory, dispassionate sex. so you can't kiss your girlfriend in the bible belt because it is gross to have sex with someone of the same gender. so you can't get your tubes tied in new england because you might change your mind. so you can't get admit you were sexual assaulted because real men don't get hurt, you should be grateful. you cannot handle your own body, you cannot handle the risks involved, let other people decide that for you. you aren't ready yet.
but they need you to have sex because you need to have kids. at 15, you are old enough to parent. you are not old enough to hear the word fuck too many times on television.
they are horrified by sex and they never stop talking about it, thinking about it, making everything unnecessarily preverted. the saying - a thief thinks everyone steals. they stand up at their podiums and they look out at the crowd and they sign a bill into place that makes sexwork even more unsafe and they stand up and smile and sign a bill that makes gender-affirming care illegal and they get up and they shrug their shoulders and write don't say gay and they get up, and they make the world about sex, but this horrible, plastic vision of it that they have. this wretched, emotionless thing that holds so much weight it's staggering. they put their whole spine behind it and they push and they say it's normal!
this horrible world they live in. disgusted and also obsessed.
orneltec reblogged
Anonymous asked:
Can you tell me why Frodo is so important in lotr? Why can't someone else, anyone else, carry the ring to mordor?
but someone else could.
that’s the whole point of frodo—there is nothing special about him, he’s a hobbit, he’s short and likes stories, smokes pipeweed and makes mischief, he’s a young man like other young men, except for the singularly important fact that he is the one who volunteers. there is this terrible thing that must be done, the magnitude of which no one fully understands and can never understand before it is done, but frodo says me and frodo says I will.
(when boromir is thinking of how he can use the ring to defend gondor, when aragorn is thinking of how it brought down proud isildur, when elrond is holding council and gandalf is thinking of how twisted he would become, if he ever dared—)
but then there’s frodo, who desires nothing except what he has already left behind him, and says, I will take the Ring.
it is an offer made out of absolute innocence, utter sincerity. It is made without knowing what it will make of him—and frodo loses everything to the ring, he loses peace and himself and the shire, he loses the ability to be in the world. It’s cruel, the ring is cruel, it searches out every weakness you have and feeds on it, drinks you dry and fills you with its poison instead, the ring is so cruel.
and frodo picks it up willingly. for no other reason except that it has to be done.
(the ring warps boromir into a hopeless grasping dead thing, the power of the palantir turns denethor into an old man, jealous and suspicious, it bends even saruman, once the proudest of the istari, into a mechanised warlord, sitting in his fortress and bent over his perverse creations—all the best of intentions, laid waste)
but there’s a reason gollum exists in the narrative, which is to show—well, to show what frodo might have been. because even as frodo grows mistrustful and wearied, as the burden of this ring grows heavier and heavier, he is never gollum. he is gentle to gollum. he is afraid—god frodo is so afraid for 2/3 of these books he is so tired and afraid, but he keeps moving, he walks though it would pull him into the ground, because he asked for this, he said he would.
someone else could have carried the ring to mordor, I suppose. the idea of a martyr is not dependent on the particular flesh and blood person dying for some greater purpose. but such a thing has to be chosen, lifted onto your shoulders for the right reason, the truest reasons, and followed into the dark, though it would see you burnt through and bled out.
I will take the Ring, though I do not know the way.
y'know say what you want about tumblr (and I have), but this is still probably the simplest and most powerful distillation of the heart of the Lord of the Rings I’ve ever read. I think back to it all the time
orneltec reblogged
internalizedkryptophobia
Infighting only helps our oppressors.
Infighting only helps our oppressors.
Infighting only helps our oppressors.
Infighting only helps our oppressors.
Infighting only helps our oppressors.
internalizedkryptophobia
You don't have to understand someone completely to respect them and fight for their right to exist.
a friend of mine has been saying "de-escalate all conflict that is not with the enemy."
we have real, life-threatening forces to fight back against.
Source: godtasteslikecherrycoke
orneltec reblogged
I don’t usually post about media stuff here but I’m so excited that Liz Carr has been cast an an angel in good omens 2.
There’s such a common Christian narrative that disability is a sign of disconnection from God. It’s a curse from god or the work of the devil or something along those lines. It’s an idea that touches so many disabled people in negative ways – it suggests disabled people are being punished for something, or that we’re not as close to God as abled people. People say that disability won’t go with someone to heaven without knowing what a person’s relationship to their disability is.
To have a visibly disabled woman cast as an angel is exciting because it shows a disabled woman being close to god, a person with a visibly disabled body has been cast as a being that traditionally is associated with embodying perfection.
I really hope this is the case anyway
orneltec reblogged
Anonymous asked:
im having a particularly terrible night with urges and imagery that i dont know how to handle. i gave in to some things. held back on some others. but im barely holding on, dear internet stranger.
you do not owe me your time or your words.. but if you could write some hope into existence for me.. i would be unendingly grateful to you.
please. tell me how you do it. tell me how you survive. because im not so sure i can get through the fifteen days it'll take to get to my seventeenth birthday.
could you please give me something to place my faith in? i dont think the universe is watching out for me anymore.
i don't usually answer these, because i am not a professional, and you deserve professional help. when i was 17 i was terrified of the idea of professional help, because my household was extremely unsafe, and made it clear that if i ever chose to get help, i would be punished for it.
i hope this is not your case. i hope that you can call someone, and they can take you where you should go.
but i will give you the advice that i wish i got, when i couldn't get help at 17, when i was so bad that years later, i literally don't-know-how-i-survived it: what you want is peace, not death. your brain is sick. it has romanticized an ending where there are no consequences. where effort isn't necessary. where you can just... forget.
you want peace. that is a normal, human thing to want. maybe it feels more like you want quiet. or just... to take a break for a second.
here is what i will say: to end yourself means you never get to experience what it's like to actually be happy. i thought i knew what it was like, and i was bitter about it. i'd say - i've been happy, it's not worth it, because i didn't know what i was missing. i thought that happiness meant having a partner or having a job or money or a college degree. it sounded like effort. it sounded like something that had to happen to me.
for the first time in my life, just this week, i was able to go to a concert and just-enjoy-it. no liquor, no drugs. just stomping my feet and getting caught up in it. i didn't feel nervous or self-conscious or overwhelmed. i just had a good time. these days have a lot of these firsts for me - it is the first time i can eat cake without crying. it is the first time i can be around an exacto blade without supervision. it is the first time i have too many people to call when i am crying.
i can't tell you where you'll run into happiness, only that, for me, it started once i was out of that fucking house. it started once i figured out where the pain was coming from. once i figured out that i was not possessed, something medical was wrong with me. that i am not stupid or lazy, i have depression and adhd. the first few years were difficult. at 19, during my efforts to recover, i actually got worse by a considerable margin. and then, with time and patience - i got better.
happiness doesn't feel like what you think it will. in movies it's so golden and all-encompassing. but it doesn't fly into your hands when you buy your first car nor does it arrive in the arms of a partner nor does it require passing your classes. happiness came to me on a tuesday in the form of a red-winged blackbird, and i looked at her, and she looked at me, and i said - oh. the whole world suddenly filled itself in with color. like i had been forever-asleep. like every corner of every room was suddenly glistening.
it ended quickly, back then. it just stopped in to check in on me. but it was enough - this thing i had never experienced, but that i knew (logically) could happen. before that, i was only staying because it would make my mom sad if i died. that was my only reason. and then the happiness came, so strange and brilliant and lovely that for years i couldn't even look at it directly.
these days, things are so different. life is so much easier. i don't wish for death because so much of what i have is already at peace. my boss understands when i need a mental health day. people in general are less prone to high school drama. entire communities hold my hand and have my number. i have a car and a dog and a little apartment garden and candles on all available surfaces and today i bought myself a little cake just-to-celebrate-nothing. my body is my own and we are both dancing.
there are so many things i've gotten to taste in the last 10 years. i know, for you, that is an eon, because it's more than half of your life. but if it helps? in the 5 years between 17-21: i filled myself with laughter and love. i got to be a lead in a ballet and got my first tattoo and then my second and pierced my ears the way i'd wanted to (one of them professionally the other over a hot stove with a potato) and i discovered hozier is my favorite singer (i know. he was new back then) and i got my first real job and my first real paycheck and i hadn't ever been seen as smart but then i started to actually treat my adhd as a condition rather than a burden and people started saying you're like the smartest person in the room and my best friend met her husband who i will one day stand next to as maid of honor when he is her groom and i got to help people and make a stupid blog called "inkskinned" and find out that writing is actually my passion and that maybe i'm actually kind of good at it if i just practice and i got to meet my parents' dog (his name is kaiju) and i slept on couches and kissed people and tried new things and learned how to breathe without feeling my chest tighten and that peace is here, on this planet, that peace echoes everywhere, it is in my hair and my homework and my houseplants, it is quiet and divine and mine because i fought for it and i built it and yes i lost hair over it but holy shit the whole world feels like it is shifted through a sunbeam
recently someone asked me if i could go back in time to 6th grade, with all the knowledge i have now, would i? and without thinking, i barked absolutely not. i know i should say it's because i wouldn't want to risk losing any of this stuff - but really it's because i would never survive being a teenager again. it sounds incredibly lame and impossible, fake - but being a teenager was the hardest thing i ever did. i had no voice, no control, only fear and hatred.
but i did survive it. nothing about me is special. nothing about me is stronger than you or better prepared or more efficient. i didn't survive it perfectly. i made a lot of mistakes and lost a lot of friends and harmed myself in ways that i'm still recovering from. but i did survive it. and there is a part of me looking at you in the past and saying - i'm you in the future.
and holy shit. every day. every goddamn day i'm glad we survived to see the rest of it. because you hit 18 and everything changes. like, everything. and holy shit, it is infinitely worth it.
orneltec reblogged
Hello Mr. Gaiman!
Idk if it has been asked before, and sorry if it has, but whose idea was it to include footnotes in Good Omens? I'm guessing Sir Terry's, mainly because his books usually have them in abundance while yours usually don't (haven't yet read Stardust, Neverwhere, Norse Mythology and Anansi Boys - hope to get to them soon! - so don't know about those, but i don't think i remember any in American Gods, Coraline, The Ocean at the End of the Lane, The Graveyard Book, or in The Neil Gaiman Reader).
Also, once you agreed on including them, who wrote more footnotes? Or was that also a collab thing, to get to the next funny bit, even in footnotes?
Thank you for your books and being. Hope the WGA strike comes to a good end, however long it takes.
I used to be really big on footnotes -- you'll find them all the way through Don't Panic! (1987). You couldn't really do them in comics, and by the time I got to Neverwhere it felt like Terry had sort of claimed Footnotes for himself, so I didn't use many after that -- I think there's one in Anansi Boys.
There were already footnotes in William The Antichrist, the first 5,000 words of Good Omens I showed Terry, that he asked if he could co-write with me, so they were already part of the style of Good Omens.
Sometimes the one of us writing the bit would also write the footnote. Sometimes the other one would notice a bit that would footnote nicely, and write it.
Oohh, got it! Had forgotten about Don't Panic! - new book added to TBR! I actually first encountered the humorous use of footnotes only in the Discworld novels, and was sort of surprised by all that could be done with them, so assumed Sir Terry was the first.