#if someone can string together in words the artistic merits i took

[borzoilover69]

the version of you whose smile can light up a room.

wdym rather than open up and admit you have faults and youre not as cutout for everything as you say you are you just end up ghosting everyone thats nuts bro.

#jake english #homestuck #hom3stuck #this piece is pretty personal to me. #borzoi art #hs #if someone can string together in words the artistic merits i took #waves hand vaguely #something about the other jake being a lot less polished than the shiny one

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 6, Number 5

Courtney Marie Andrews

The lockdown continues, and live music has disappeared, replaced by a somewhat antiseptic and unsatisfying spate of live streamed shows mostly one person with a guitar on the couch in their living room.  We salute the courage and the effort but miss bands and audiences and even the chatter drifting in from the bar area.  In the meantime, at least for now, there are still lots of new records vying for our attention.  We present this Dust to catch up with some of them.  It’s an ecletic survey of contemporary classical, vengeful hip hop, psyche, jazz, folk and metal artists, all continuing to try to navigate a very difficult period.  Our writers this time include many of the usual suspects, Bill Meyer, Ray Garraty, Jonathan Shaw, Andrew Forell, Tim Clarke, Jennifer Kelly, Tobias Carroll and Patrick Masterson.  

a•pe•ri•od•ic—For (New Focus Recordings)

for a•pe•ri•od•ic by a•pe•ri•od•ic

Silence is a rhythm, too, and a•pe•ri•od•ic dances to it repeatedly throughout their second recording. The Chicago-based ensemble has traversed the new music continuum, performing music by composers from Peter Ablinger to Christian Wolff. Sometimes that silence isn’t quite what you want to hear — the COVID-19 pandemic cut short its tenth anniversary spring season one concert too soon — but it proves to be rich loam from which to grow music on this CD. All four of its pieces were composed specifically for the group by individuals who recognize the merit of non-imposing sounds. That knowledge derives in part from the fact that three of the composers also perform with the group, but also from their long-standing engagement with post-Cage-ian and Wandelweiser material. Director and pianist Nomi Epstein’s descriptively entitled “Combine, Juxtapose, Delayed Overlap” feels like a ceremony intermittently perceived through an opening and closing door. Billie Howard’s “Roll” tucks the composer’s whispering violin behind muted French horn and voice, wringing intensity from the effort one must apply to following its retreating sonorities. Vocalist Kenn Klumpf’s “Triadic Expansions (2)” moves in the other direction, sprouting ivy-like from the slenderest branches of sound. By comparison, Michael Pisaro’s stately “festhalten/loslassen” is a veritable riot of unwinding tonal colors. As the decade ticks towards year eleven, rest assured that a•pe•ri•od•ic is searching for the next promising idea.

Bill Meyer

 Agallah — Fuck You The Album (Propain Campain)

Fuck You The Album by Agallah

This is a personal vendetta album. After more than 25 years in the game, Agallah has got to settle the score against the whole world. To say he just has a chip on his shoulder would an understatement. Thirteen songs of pure hate with the title quite properly reflecting its content. In his fight, the rapper strips down all the artistry, including the production. Known for making beats for other hip hop acts, Agallah here not only uses barely serviceable beats, he doesn’t even makes pretense he needs beats. Almost all the tracks work as a capellas. His gruffy voice and arrogant flow don’t need sonic support. And what support can you expect from the world full of phonies, liars, actors, pretenders, cowards and fair weather friends? “Stop pretending, my career is not ending,” he almost screams on “Telling Lies To Me.” If this CD feels like a dinosaur in 2020, then it says that it is not something wrong with this album but with the world.

Ray Garraty

 Courtney Marie Andrews — “Burlap String” single (Fat Possum)

Old Flowers by Courtney Marie Andrews

As the eponymous song of 2018’s May Your Kindness Remain amply demonstrated, Courtney Marie Andrews’ pipes are not to be fucked with. But while that was perhaps the most vivid depiction yet of her abilities, the Phoenix native’s delivery can be just as powerful on a muzzle. Such has been her approach thus far with what we’ve heard from Old Flowers, originally slated for an early June release but since pushed back to July (or beyond, who knows). The post-breakup lyrical territory was initially revealed with first single “If I Told,” but it’s the gently loping “Burlap String” I’ve had on repeat for much of the past month. Ever ended a relationship with someone and regretted it? Lush piano and a sighing slide guitar tell you Courtney has without her ever having to utter a word, and much of the song is an illustration of the internal conflict that lingers long after you’ve made the call. I’m inclined to write out the whole second verse here, but it’s the end of the third that lingers as Andrews evokes barely holding back tears: There’s no replacing someone like you. That ensuing pause runs bone-deep, its implication clear — no amount of Mary Oliver can save you from yourself.

Patrick Masterson

 Dennis Callaci — The Dead of the Day (Shrimper Records)

Some albums could be said to hum. In the case of the latest from Dennis Callaci, that’s meant literally: many of the songs on his new album The Dead of the Day feature warm clouds of feedback or droning organ notes. It’s a companion piece to his recent book 100 Cassettes, which features thoughts on musical icons throughout the year. This album’s focus is more insular: some of the songs have a drifting, improvised feel to them. But Callaci also taps into some terrifically subdued songwriting veins here — “Broadway Blues Pt. II” recalls the haunted dub-folk of Souled American, and Franklin Bruno’s piano lends a propulsive dimension to the ruminative title track. And on “Scoreless,” Callaci teams with his Refrigerator bandmate (and brother) Allen Callaci for a song that slowly builds from acoustic foundations to something modestly grandiose. Contrary to what its title might suggest, this album feels very much like a document of one man’s life.  

Tobias Carroll

 Cameron / Carter / Håker Flaten — Tau Ceti (Astral Spirits)

Tau Ceti by Cameron / Carter / Håker Flaten

Tau Ceti is a planet that is hypothesized to be similar enough to Earth that it could potentially support similar life forms. The three musicians that recorded this tape may come not come from the same system, but they fall into a harmonious orbit around a common circumstance — they were all in the same swanky studio, Halversonics, on a particular winter day in early 2019. One supposes that whatever they were rotating, they move towards the source of heat, since Tau Ceti builds slowly from chill acoustic exploration to a fuzzed-out solar flare. As they progress, abstraction burns away and velocity increases. It’s a gas to hear Ingebrigt Håker Flaten and Lisa Cameron lock in behind Tom Carter’s increasingly gritty sound-bursts.

Bill Meyer  

 Tim Daisy — Sereno (Relay)

Tim Daisy - Sereno :: music for marimba, turntables and percussion (relay 028) by Tim Daisy

Sometimes the timing of even the most tuned-in drummer is foiled by external circumstances. Sereno was supposed to signal the end of an intense phase of solo practice by Tim Daisy. His intentions for 2020 included making an album of duets and writing music for two ensembles. But at press time he, like everyone else, is hunkered down with his family, and everything he had planned is on hold.  

Daisy’s stint as a primarily solo artist coincided with a reconsideration of identity; he wasn’t just a drummer, but a multi-instrumentalist and an orchestrator of electro-acoustic sound. Sereno is split between three elegiac marimba solos that showcase Daisy’s instinct for deliberate melodic development and five much denser constructions for imprecisely tuned radios, playing and skipping records, and Daisy’s strategically reflective drumming. If this record is the only new music that Daisy puts out this year, it leaves us with plenty to think about.

Bill Meyer

  Kaja Draksler & Terrie Ex — The Swim (Terp)

On the surface, this looks like quite the odd couple. Terrie Ex Is a Dutch electric guitarist in his mid-60s who still goes by his punk rock name. He’s a ferocious improviser whose scrabbling instrumental attack incurs intensity from any ensemble that doesn’t want to get bowled over, and he knows more Ethiopian tunes by heart than anyone on your block. Kaja Draksler is a Slovenian pianist exactly half his age whose recent projects include a fast-paced, idiosyncratically balanced trio with Petter Eldh and Christian Lillinger, and an octet for which she sets Robert Frost poems to a combination of chanson, Baroque chamber music, and thorny free improvisation. But neither got where they are by letting fear deter them from a musical challenge, and both of them have a fine awareness that one way of understanding their respective instruments is that they are pieces of wood with wires attached. Given that common understanding of music as a combination of coexisting textures and assertive actions, they work together quite well on this CD, which documents a performance that took place at London’s Café Oto in 2018. Scrape meets sigh, jagged fish-hook pluck meets sparse wire-damped drizzle, instinct meets intuition, and when the disc is done, it’ll seem quite sensible to dive back in and swim the whole length in reverse.

Bill Meyer  

 Errant — S/T EP (Manatee Rampage Recordings)

errant by errant

Errant is the one-woman project of Rae Amitay. Some listeners of metal music may be familiar with Amitay’s work, as vocalist for death-grind-hybridists Immortal Bird and as drummer for the folk-metal act Thrawsunblat. For Errant, Amitay has created songs and sounds that have little in common with those other bands’ aesthetic extremities. “The Amorphic Burden” may prompt you to recall the melodic black metal that Ludicra was making toward the end of that band’s storied run, or the sludgy drama of Agrimonia’s most recent record. In any case, Errant’s sound skews toward more luminescent atmospheres. Production values are largely pristine; Amitay wants you to hear clearly every string and cymbal strike. It makes sense. She plays a bunch of instruments well, and that’s part of the point: that one woman is producing all the sounds, and all the affect. She ends the EP with a cover of Failure’s “Saturday Savior,” and it’s the least interesting thing on the record. But even there, she presents the listener with something worth hearing. Her clean vocals are lovely, disarmingly so. What may be most impressive about this early iteration of Errant is the extent of Amitay’s talents, and how those talents allow her to encroach on the hyper-masculine territory of the “one-man” act.

Jonathan Shaw  

 Field Works — Ultrasonic (Temporary Residence)

Ultrasonic by Field Works

Stuart Hyatt’s latest compilation in the Field Works series is an absolute beauty — and timely given it’s being released during a pandemic whose origins may be linked to bats. The field recordings that the contributors used to create the music on Ultrasonic come from the echolocation of bats, and the approaches tend towards rhythmic or atmospheric. At the rhythmic end of the spectrum we have Eluvium’s majestic opener “Dusk Tempi,” akin to his work on Talk Amongst the Trees. Mary Lattimore’s glimmering harp patterns are fitting accompaniment to the chittering bat sounds on “Silver Secrets.” And Kelly Moran’s prepared piano on “Sodalis” sends the listener down a hall of mirrors, chased by gorgeous bass tones. At the more abstract, atmospheric end of the spectrum we have Jefre Cantu-Ledesma’s radiant “Night Swimming.” Christina Vantzou blurs the line between the sounds of modular synthesis and bat sonar on “Music for a Room with Vaulted Ceiling.” And on Sarah Davachi’s “Marion,” the listener is immersed in a luminous halo of nocturnal overtones. Wherever the artists venture, this is a varied yet consistently evocative collection.

Tim Clarke  

 FMB DZ — The Gift 3 (Fast Money Boyz / EMPIRE)

The Gift 3 was initially set to be released in December 2019 but was postponed until now. DZ’s “Merry Christmas, pussies!” on one of the tracks doesn’t sound so odd, though, because the whole world has plunged into a constant holiday. The new album continues two trends. It carries on the “ape” theme from the previous album Ape Season. “Ape Activities,” “Keep It on Me” and “No Features” are the grittiest tracks from a disc where the prevalent mood is a sick worry. DZ made it out of the hood but had to be on the lookout as the enemies are out to get him. The other trend is that The Gift 3 continues the ideas of The Gift series. The songs have a usual verse-hook structure, are poppier and more relaxed than on Ape Season. DZ, thankfully, doesn’t try to sing anymore but hires some singers on choruses. The hardest track here is “High Speed” with Rio Da Yung Og where Detroit/Flint duo spit vicious lines.

Ray Garraty

  Hala — Red Herring (Cinematic)

Detroit multi-instrumentalist Ian Ruhala wears his heart dripping from his sleeve on “Red Herring” his latest record as Hala. Skipping from the yacht rock of “Making Me Nervous” to the country blues of “True Colors” via power pop, The Kinks and Tom Petty, Ruhala manages to create a thread with deceptively simple melodies and the sincerity of his delivery.  There’s more than a touch of Kevin Barnes in the voice and the delight in throwing genres at the wall to see what sticks and, like Barnes, some of it fails to adhere. The pleasure here is in the sense of eavesdropping on the process and reveling in unexpected flourishes that refuse to be ignored.  

Ruhala writes a smooth love song and isn’t afraid to turn up the guitar or address politics on standout “Lies” - “I’m eating breakfast with the fascists/Oh man they stand about ten feet tall/My mouth is bleeding at their proceedings/They get their courage through a plastic straw” It may not be Guthrie but he makes it work through a leavening wit and a mid-tempo vamp straight from the solar plexus. “Red Herring” suffers somewhat from its stylistic roaming but a fundamental big heartedness and willingness to reach makes it an enjoyable trip.  

Andrew Forell  

 Las Kellies — Suck This Tangerine (Fire)

Suck This Tangerine opens with a loose groove and a grime smeared highlife guitar line, the voice enters with ironic invitations over choppy Gang of Four chords. In the new one from Las Kellies, Argentinian duo Cecilia Kelly and Silvina Costa sling taut bass lines and slash guitars over mutant disco rhythms for 12 tracks of slinky indie dance. Drawing on elements from Leeds, London and the Bronx, Kelly and Costa add dubby space and South American humidity to their sound, to elevate the album beyond the sum of its influences.  

Kelly handles guitar and bass, wielding the former like a cross between Andy Gill and Viv Albertine and unfurling loose funky serpents with the latter. Costa swings between ESG and The Bush Tetras and incorporates an array of hand drums that deepen and enliven the rhythmic pulse. There is a palpable and joyful chemistry between the two evidenced by their easy interplay and enhanced by the production that gives clarity and elbowroom to each instrument. If the lyrics can tend toward the perfunctory, they are delivered with a winking insouciance on put downs like “Close Talker” and “Rid Of You”.  Suck This Tangerine is a worthy addition to the growing collection of feminist post-punk inspired albums we’ve been dancing to of late.  

Andrew Forell  

 Mint Mile — Ambertron (Comedy Minus One)

Ambertron by Mint Mile

Silkworm, the band, may have ended in 2005 with the death of drummer Michael Dahlquist, but its legacy of slow, gut-socking heaviness, mordant wit and muscular guitar lives on, first in Bottomless Pit and now in Tim Midyett’s new band Ambertron. Midyett’s voice and clangorous baritone guitar is instantly recognizable, of course, to anyone who loved Silkworm, but the band diverges somewhat with the pedal steel played by Justin Brown of Palliard, weaving eerily though the slow buzz and moan of “Likelihood.” Jeff Panall, from Songs:Ohio, plays the hard, heavy drums that undergird these songs, giving them structure and forward motion. Other players include Matthew Barnhart from Tre Orsi and Horward Draper from Shearwater. Greg Normal of Bitter Tears contributes a mournful bit of trumpet to “Fallen Rock,” and Chicago alt-country mainstay Kelly Hogan takes the lead in “Sang.” The music is raw and morose; even dense strings can’t quite lift the gloom in “Christmas Comes and Goes,” a song as raw as late November in Chicago. And yet there’s a sort of resilience in it, a strength that comes through persistence. “If we could only find a way to bank the time we had together,” sings Midyett in “Giving Love,” his hoarse voice full of ragged loss, his guitar raging against it all and not quite beaten down even now.

Jennifer Kelly

 Gard Nilssen’s Supersonic Orchestra — If You Listen Carefully the Music Is Yours (Odin)

If You Listen Carefully The Music Is Yours by Gard Nilssen´s Supersonic Orchestra

Perched atop his drum stool, Gard Nilssen sits where styles converge. He’s supplied the controlled boil that drives the free-bop combo Cortex, laid down some heavier beats with Bushman’s Revenge and exemplified long-form lucidity with his own trio, Acoustic Unity. In 2019, the Molde Jazz Festival recognized his versatility and forward perspective by anointing him the artist in residence. Besides showcasing his ongoing projects and accompanying heavy guests from abroad, most notably Bill Frisell, he got to put together a dream project. This 16-piece big band, which includes members of Cortex, Acoustic Unity, and the Trondheim Jazz Orchestra, is it. With the assistance of co-arranger André Roligheten, Nilssen has taken some of his trio’s sturdy melodies and turned them into frameworks for boisterous but subtly colored performances. With three basses and three drummers, this could have been either a mess or an uptight game of “you first,” “no sir after you.” But the rhythm crew shifts easily between swinging unisons and refractory elaborations. Roligheten often plays two saxophones at once in smaller settings, and one suspects that he has a lot to do with the rich colors that the horns paint around the featured soloists.

Bill Meyer  

 Matthew J. Rolin — Ohio (Garden Portal)

Ohio by Matthew J. Rolin

The ghoulish image on the j-card belies the sounds encoded upon this tape. Matthew J. Rolin is a relative newcomer to the practice of acoustic guitar performance; the earliest release on his Bandcamp page was recorded in late 2017. But he’s catching on fast. Switching between six and twelve-string guitars, he serves up equal measures of ingratiating lyricism and immersive surrender to pure sound. Opener “Red Brick” slots into the former category, with a heart-tugging melody that keeps doling out turns that’ll keep you wondering where it’s going and backtracks that’ll ensure that you never feel lost. “Brooklyn Centre,” on the other hand, grows filaments of string sound out of a pool of prayer bowl resonance centering enough to make you cancel your mindfulness app subscription due to perceived lack of need. Rolin develops ideas situated between these poles over the rest of this brief set, which runs just shy of 28 minutes and definitely leaves one wanting a bit more.

Bill Meyer

 Nick Storring — My Magic Dreams Have Lost Their Spell (Orange Milk)

My Magic Dreams Have Lost Their Spell by Nick Storring

What Jim O’Rourke did for the music of Van Dyke Parks and John Fahey on Bad Timing, Nick Storring does for Roberta Flack’s on My Magic Dreams Have Lost Their Spell. The Canadian composer may not have O’Rourke’s name recognition or past membership in a very famous rock band going for him, but consider these parallels. He’s a handy with quite a few instruments, he’s an inveterate assistant to other artists across disciplinary lines, and he functions with equal commitment and fluency in a variety of genres. For this record, his first to be pressed on vinyl (albeit in miniscule numbers), Storring uses the lush string sound of Flack’s 1970s hits as a launching point for deep sonic immersions that are considerably more emotionally oblique than their inspirations’ articulations of loneliness and surrender. When he goes melodic, the cello-led tunes seem to reach for something that they never touch, and when he goes for slow-motion density, the music imparts an experience akin to watching the sort of cinematic experience where you can’t tell if you’re seeing a really slow take or the film has frozen at a single frame.

Bill Meyer

 Sunn Trio — Electric Esoterica (Twenty One Eight Two Recording Company)

Electric Esoterica by Sunn Trio

Sunn Trio, from Arizona, makes sprawling, multi-ethnic psychedelia that juxtaposes the scree and groan of heavy improvisational rock with the otherly chords and rhythms of the Middle East.  Opener “Alhiruiyn” slicks a trebly sheen over its surging, rampaging improvisations, more in the vein of Black Sun Ensemble than Cem Karaca.  But “Majoun” layers antic percussion and tone-shifting bent notes in a limber evocation of the souk.  “Roktabija The Promulgator” blasts a strident, swaggering surf riff, about as Arabic as “Miserlou” (which is, in fact, Arabic).  “Khons at Karnak” buzzes with hard rock aggression, but shimmies with belly dancing syncopation.  Because of the name, the preoccupation with non-Western cultures and the Phoenix mailing address, you might think that Sunn Trio is aligned somehow with Sun City Girls, but no.  All kinds of weirdness lurks in the desert out there, lucky for us.  

Jennifer Kelly  

 Turbo, Gunna & Young Thug — “Quarantine Clean” single (Playmakers)

Despite the subject matter’s potential (ahem) virality, “Quarantine Clean” slipped out almost unnoticed in early April and is the kind of muted performance Young Thug doesn’t get enough credit for (while, curiously, his followers often get too much derision for). For all of Thugger’s hyperfluorescent hijinx over the years that have produced earworms like, say, “That’s All” and “Wyclef Jean,” there’s another side that shows up in stuff like “The Blanguage” and “Freaky” where he lets the words do the work; that’s the subterranean sonic world we’re living in here as he opines on God’s role in the pandemic and why he’s lost so much money but still has to pay for his parents’ penthouse (which: welcome to the revolution, pal). Thug’s acolyte in slime Gunna, meanwhile, does most of the song’s heavy lifting with duties on the first verse and chorus, but it’s pretty hard to tell the two apart, such is the slippery restraint both opt to exercise here. The real star, then, is beatmaker Turbo, whose buoyant anchor melody is complemented by what sounds like a lilting flute. It’s a light touch from all parties, a mellow mood well suited to our time of collective party-eschewing shelter. Run that back in prudence.

Patrick Masterson

 Various Artists—Ten Years Gone (A Tribute to Jack Rose) (Tompkins Square)

Ten Years Gone : A Tribute to Jack Rose by Various Artists

A decade on from the too early passing of the great American Primitive/blues/raga player Jack Rose, Arborea’s Buck Curran gathers friends, collaborators and younger artists inspired by Rose for a gorgeous tribute to the master. Mike Gangloff, who played with Rose in Pelt and Black Twig Pickers, leads off with a plaintive, sepia-toned fiddle lament (“The Other Side of Catawbwa”), while next generation experimental droner Prana Crafter closes with an expansive, space folk reverie (“High Country Dynamo”). In between, old friends like Sir Richard Bishop evoke Rose’s full-blown orchestral guitar playing (“By Any Other Name”) while young pickers like Matt Sowell take up the trail forged by Dr. Ragtime. Isasa from Spain and Paulo Laboule Novellino from Italy attest to Rose’s global appeal. It’s mostly guitar, but not entirely; Helena Espvall from Espers contributes a brooding, reverberant “Alcantara” on cello. Curran’s own “Greenfields of America (Spiritual for Jack Rose)” is slow and thoughtful, letting long bent notes ring out with liquid clarity; it’s a hymn and a prayer and a testimony to the wide influence of an artist gone too soon.  

Jennifer Kelly

 Emily Jane White — Immanent Fire (Talitres)

Immanent Fire by Emily Jane White

Emily Jane White gets tagged as a folk singer, but on this, her sixth full-length, the Oakland songwriter brings a fair amount of goth-tinged drama. Taut string arrangements and big booming drums lift “Infernal” well out of the woman-with-guitar category, and White sounds more like PJ Harvey or even Chelsea Wolfe than a sweet voiced strummer. Immanent Fire sticks, topically, to environmental concerns with track titles like “Washed Away,” “Drowned” and “Metamorphosis.” A foreboding creeps through the songs, pretty as they are, even piano lit “Dew” asks “Does poison drop like the dew?” Arrangements, by Anton Patzner, the composer, arranger and violinist of Foxtails Brigade and Judgment Day, give these cuts weight and heft, punctuating eerie melodies with thick swathes of strings, rumbling percussion and keyboards. The disc culminates in “Light” which begins in a whisper and climaxes in drum-shocked, orchestral swoon. Soothing background music it is not.

Jennifer Kelly

 Z-Ro — Quarantine: Social Distancing (1 Deep Entertainment / EMPIRE)

An unexpected seven-track EP bears an expected title from a Dirty South legend. Z-Ro’s usual topics — trust and loneliness — gain a new meaning in the time of social distancing. To keep away women who only want his money is a necessary precaution now. To be at the corner at the party is a rule for survival. Z-Ro is on his ground counting his dough alone in the house. Earlier he did it so no ‘shife’ (the title of one of the tracks) friends could rob him, now it’s just to obey quarantine rules. The first half of this EP is a bit muddled by unnecessary intros and reggae tunes but the second one hits hard. As always with Z-Ro, the hardest content takes the gentlest form (“Niggas is Hoes” especially is almost a pop song). On the final track “Life of the Party” Boosie Badazz drops by, giving his verdict on the pandemic: “Fuck Corona!”

Ray Garraty

#dust #dusted magazine #aperiodic #agallah #courtney marie andrews #bill meyer #ray garraty #patrick masterson #dennis callaci #tobias carroll #lisa cameron #tom carter #Ingebrigt Håker Flaten #tim daisy #Kaja Draksler #terrie ex #errant #jonathan shaw #field works #tim clarke #fmb dz #hala #andrew forell #las kellies #mint mile #jennifer kelly #gard nilssen #matthew j.rolin #nick storring #sunn trio

[orihara-infobroker]

Hobbies and Criticism

I sat on this when it happened, and again yesterday but it’s something I do want to speak about because I’ve seen it happen often enough that it merits discussion. There are a few separate elements here and I will try to be cohesive in stringing them together.

It’s long so it’s going under a cut... Sorrynotsorry XD

On Unsolicited Criticism

Fan art and fan fiction are, fundamentally, hobbies. I am not addressing commissions here. I am talking about artists who create their art out of their own desire to make something based on whatever inspired them. Some people love sharing that art with the world. Some people don’t. They are not doing so because they are being paid for their work but because they want to create something out of personal love for it. Those who share it with the world are not obligated to. It is a gift. A gift, by virtue of the internet, that you are not required to accept or like - certainly I don’t like every fanfiction written about my fave pair. In fact I don’t like most of them. It is still a gift, however and the mannerly thing to do when you come across a gift that isn’t to your liking, is to simply pass on it. It’s very easy to do on the internet. Hit the back button. Scroll past it. Block the artist if you find their art repulsive. The fundamental rule of mature fandom behavior on the internet. Curate your own experience.

Further to this, when a person offers up a gift, it isn’t your place to critique them, unsolicited. You aren’t doing anyone a good turn by pointing out where they are fucking up. You may think you are somehow contributing to fandom by “helping” a struggling artist to improve their works by providing unsolicited criticism but you aren’t. In fact, from what I have seen and heard from artists, it’s usually the opposite. Many fan artists aren’t professionals. Some might be, more so I’ve noticed in the graphic art sphere than in the writer sphere, but most aren’t. Many fan artists are beginners. Many fan artists are students of their art. Many are learning as they are doing. Most importantly, many are doing this for fun, as a hobby, and aren’t aiming to become professionals. 

Many fan artists who are either learning as they go or just doing this for fun when they have time are more than aware that they aren’t professionals. They know that they aren’t the best. They usually have an idea of where their weaknesses are. Sharing their art often takes a great deal of courage for them because they know they are offering something up that isn’t perfect but they love it enough to share it in the hopes that other people will love it too. Coming into their space after they’ve shared a work of love and pointing out all the things that are wrong with it is more likely to cause a new writer or artist to recoil and give up than it is to cause them to double down and try to get better. This isn’t theoretical for me. I’ve heard former artists and writers say that they gave up because all they ever heard was how bad they were. Again, not people who wanted to be professionals. People who just wanted to create things for fun. Who had that fun stripped away from them by strangers who thought it acceptable to enter their space and shit on their work.

When a child is learning to do something we do not take the picture they drew of their stick people families and smiley suns and tell them “Honey, the sun doesn’t have a face. People aren’t sticks. That’s not how to draw hair.”

We do not do that because it is not productive. It is hurtful. We know this and yet fans seem to think it’s “helpful” and acceptable to do this to other adults. Assuming the artists are adults, which is a fallacy. Many are teens as well. Under the assumption that adults aren’t going to burst into tears because you pointed out their failings, you shovel your criticisms over them without stopping to consider that maybe, just maybe, they will because they know they aren’t that perfect. They know they can’t draw hands. They know that their grammar isn’t the best. But they’re trying and they’re creating and they just want to share their ideas. They want to share their love with people who love the thing too. 

They didn’t ask for criticism. They provided a gift and had someone take a shit on it. This is not kind and helpful and certainly I would not be inclined to continue to provide gifts to anyone who treated me in such a way. Unsolicited criticism does not improve artists, it drives them away.

On Solicited Criticism and Being Constructive

I’m going to talk from a writer’s perspective here because I am a writer and I don’t entirely understand artists methods because I never took any sort of art classes. I still think the overall theme of this applies to artists as well, especially when discussing the purpose of criticism and the method of delivery.

Many artists and writers do want to improve and would appreciate genuine criticism of their works. This is a double-edged sword, of course because in my experience we aren’t taught how to take criticism as a flaw in our skill without feeling like it is a flaw in ourselves. We associate our worth very strongly with our ability to do things and as such, addressing our flaws can become a very emotional battle.

When an artist solicits for constructive criticism, they aren’t asking you to point out everything that is wrong with their work. That isn’t what criticism in this situation is meant to be. They are asking for explanations on why things don’t work. They are asking for guidance on how to improve. If you cannot provide that kind of feedback, don’t give the criticism in the first place. 

As a writer I do wonder if I am perhaps more attuned to the way words work than the average reader. As such, I try to give people the benefit of the doubt when it comes to word choices and I want to talk about that a bit as it relates to online conversations around criticism. We give tone to certain words. A single word’s meaning might not be negative but how we use it in day-to-day conversation can very much instill a level of emotional subtext to that word that translates into how people write and read that word. 

When giving feedback to a person, it’s easy to make a checklist of all the things they got wrong. In some cases, this can be acceptable, such as with basic grammar mistakes. If you’re asking me to proofread your work for grammar, I’m just going to red pen it and note the corrections in the margins because this is simply the mechanics of writing and I know plenty of native English speakers who don’t understand the full complexities of the language. I speak about English (which is the literal worst language in existence) because it’s my native tongue but this can apply to any language.

However, when you begin to delve into deeper things like characterization, themes, plot and so on, this becomes significantly less straightforward. When you add a writer’s voice (or an artist’s vision) into the mix, it gets very messy.

The one thing that should never change when giving criticism is tone. One should not be cruel or harsh in delivering criticism. One should be kind and understanding. The artist is opening themselves up and asking for help which is difficult enough on its own. The response should be patient and helpful. Take care to choose your words to support and uplift the artist, not to tear them down. For every criticism you offer, you should also try to offer a solution or a guideline for the artist. If the criticism is about how the pacing of the story is too slow, making the story drag, then explain what makes it feel slow and why that is a negative thing. Offer suggestions on what might improve the pacing. 

Ex. I noticed that in this chapter it felt like nothing was really happening to further the plot and that left me feeling bored. Perhaps you could improve the pacing of this chapter by including some reference to how this affects the greater plot? Or add something to the end of the chapter to bring us back around to where the plot is headed?

As many “beta readers” are also not professionals, it’s understandable that maybe you don’t know how to offer constructive criticism. Maybe you just have a feeling that something doesn’t look or read write but you don’t know linguistics well enough to identify the why behind it. That’s ok too, as long as you convey that honestly and kindly.

Ex. When I was reading this part of the chapter it didn’t feel like it flowed very well but I’m not sure why. If you have another editor, maybe ask them for their opinion on it?

Because sometimes when we are reading something our own internal biases will create problems where there are none, or catch problems without knowing why they are problems. This is especially useful if you’re being asked for your opinion on whether or not someone is handling a sensitive topic well (race, sex, sexual orientation etc.). 

When it comes to the writer’s voice, this is where criticism is very difficult. If an author loves their purple prose (overly flowery descriptions of everything) and it bothers you as a reader, you’re probably not their audience and criticizing them for it isn’t actually helpful. It’s fine to ask them if they mean to write in that manner, or ask if it serves a specific purpose to them but if their response is that it is the way they enjoy writing, then it is not a topic that is open for criticism.

Conclusion

Artists - Nay, People grow by learning from their mistakes but they need support in understanding what those mistakes are and how to improve them. They do not grow by constantly being told to “get better”. Respect those who are gifting you with their art. Give them the respect they deserve for being kind and brave enough to post their creations. If they don’t want criticism, respect that boundary. If they do want criticism, give it in a kind and helpful way.

Lastly, and especially because this is what bothered me the most about the incident that caused me to write this:

Artists grow by doing. They cannot get better without doing and making mistakes and doing more and making more mistakes. This is the literal process of learning a skill. Do not ever tell an artist to stop creating because they aren’t good enough. It doesn’t make you ‘helpful’. It makes you a giant fucking douchebag.

#writer things #or artist things #fandom observations #constructive criticism #what it is and what it isn't #just really needed to put this out there #cause I really hate watching artists and writers #getting shit on in the name of constructive criticism #and the entitlement that some fans show #thinking they have the right to determine #what is good and what is bad in fandom art #ps I hate the term beta reader #like there's a word for this already #so why'd you go and steal an tech term? #what's wrong with editor?

[jiminsbyuns-blog]

Under Cover [3]

1 | 2 | 

Featuring: Hoseok x TattooArtist!Reader(F)

Written by: Admin M

Warnings: None

You were locking the door behind your last customer of the night when the phone in the office rang. The thought of just not answering briefly flitted through your mind, then shook your head. You needed to be more professional if you wanted the customers to keep coming in.

Picking up in the middle of the fourth ring, you took a breath, ready to give your spiel.

“Hi, do you do weddings?”

You blinked in surprise - you hadn’t even said anything yet.

“Ah, yes, I can do henna at weddings.”

“Great!” A laugh came from the other end of the line. “Do you hear that, baby? She does weddings!”

A chill ran through you, starting from the top of your scalp and rippling down your entire body. You knew that voice. You knew the way that word dripped from her lips. Then, you thought, this means -

“Yeah, I heard,” came faintly from the background of the call.

You almost choked on nothing. His voice. After months of silence, finally, there was the breath of air you were waiting for.

You smiled bitterly to yourself. It was almost as if you hadn’t made this choice for him.

“So," she continued, “we were thinking about doing a summer wedding in a month, on the 20th, what do you think?”

You registered the words that were being spoken but your brain felt like it was underwater, sluggish and unresponsive. The wedding. It was really, truly happening.

“Hello?”

You shook your head, trying to get a hold of yourself and coughed to hide your lapse in mental capacity.

“Oh, yes, let me check my calendar," you managed to choke out. You reached for some papers on the side of the desk and rustled them for a second, then waited for a beat to simulate you checking a calendar.

“I’m so sorry,” you began. “I’m not available on that date. I can give you the contact information of a few other artists I recommend if you’d like?”

“Mmmm, no, that won’t do. I want you at our wedding. That’s what would make it the most perfect.”

Fear flashed through you - what if she knew? But how?

“Ah, thank you, I’m flattered. But why?”

“Do you know who I am?” the voice on the other end of the line suddenly asked.

You took a deep breath. “Of course not, ma’am. How could I know when you’ve never called before and I haven’t seen your face?”

She laughed, as if it was the funniest thing she’d ever heard.

“Oh but you do know who I am! My name is Suzy Bae.”

“Oh yes,” you replied, fighting to keep your voice even. “I know who you are Ms. Bae.”

“And soon to be Mrs. Jung!" she sang. “You’ve heard about that, right?”

“Yes.”

“So you know that if you clear your schedule for that day, you’ll be rubbing elbows with everyone who’s anyone, and that your business will surely thrive off the exposure.”

“Ma’am, I’m sorry, but I’m fully booked that day. And I’m sure you well know, my business has had plenty of exposure.”

You tried to keep the venom out of your words but you were sure that you’d failed, indicated by the miffed silence from the phone.

“I see,” Suzy replied disdainfully. “Well, if asking nicely won’t convince you, I suppose I’ll have to resort to other methods. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

There was a click, then the line went dead. You tried not to let her last words bother you but they wormed their way under your skin, repeating themselves over and over again. What other methods could she use to convince you?

You were so deep in thought that the buzz of your phone startled you, snapping you out of your mild stupor.

Pulling it out of your pocket to check for the caller, you freeze at the string of digits on your screen. Even though you had long deleted his number from your cell phone, it was a lie to say that you’d forgotten it.

Hoseok calling, finally calling again after 2 months of radio silence.

After you’d kicked him out, he called constantly. But never once did you pick up. You read his text messages, razor blades dancing over your heart, and then deleted them. You listened to his voicemails, his words searing themselves into your brain, but you never called back. Your will was strong, and eventually, the calls and texts slowed, then stopped.

So you couldn’t blame him for having not reached out since then. You knew that, logically. But you still faulted him for giving up, as if he had failed the most unfair test you could have given him.

You stared at the number on your screen, fingers itching to pick up, feeling the bile rise in the back of your throat the thought of stumbling over words in vain.

You almost make it till the call goes to voicemail - but not quite. Swiping to accept the call, you pressed the phone to your ear.

There was a beat of silence, nothing but both your breaths on the line.

“So you picked up this time, huh?” Hoseok asked the question as if it meant nothing to him, and the vice around your chest tightened, squeezing your heart with iron bands.

Still, you did not speak.

“Not talking? I guess that’s fine. I just need you to know that whatever Suzy does, whatever crazy thing she pulls out, it’s on you. She will not rest until she gets what she wants so for your sake - “ there was a small waver in his voice, before he reined it back in - “ for your own sake, please say yes when she calls you again and asks you to work our wedding.”

The last two words were nearly spat out, and for a second your mouth was open, your reply sitting, waiting on the tip of your tongue.

But before you can say anything, Hoseok’s sigh slips across the line.

“I love you,” whispered so quickly that you couldn’t be sure if you truly caught it - then there was a click as he hung up.

Shaken, you weren’t not sure how long you stood with the phone pressed to your ear, hearing his voice echo in your mind.

It would be an irrevocable lie to even suggest that you had not missed him with every single god-damned fiber in your being. It might be the biggest untruth in the history of lies to pretend it didn’t cut you to the bone every time you saw Hoseok with her on your television.

And now, to have heard him say those three words one more time, the whirling emotions you thought you had all but stashed away were suddenly rushing to the surface and demanding your attention.

It didn’t happen all at once, but slowly, as if there was a leak in the room and the oxygen was seeping out. You didn’t realize until you’ve sunk into the chair beside the desk that you can’t breathe, like lungs were pumping nothingness, drowning on dry land. You were quietly gasping for air as your mind raced, arguing with yourself and trying to piece everything together.

Again, it took the ringing of your phone to pull you out of your state. Shaking, you reached to flip it over.

Taehyung the screen read.

You took two deep breaths, determined to pull yourself together, then picked up his call.

“Hi!” came his excited greeting, and you felt a little of your panic melt away. Your baby brother could always bring a smile to your face. And even with this simple word, you could see his wide smile in your mind’s eye.

“Hello, Taetae. What do you want?” you asked teasingly, keeping your emotions well out of your voice.

“What, I can’t call my big sis whenever I want?” You could see his pout on the other end of the line.

“Well…” you paused as if thinking, then continued, “you could… but you never do... so what do you want, you brat?”

He laughed heartily, and you felt your heart lift a little more. Taehyung had always been a source of joy in your life and you were so,so grateful to him for it.

“Listen, you’ll never guess who just visited our school! Suzy Bae herself. I know, crazy right? We even made eye contact and she smiled at me. Who knows, maybe she’ll leave Mr. Jung’s son for me and then I’ll be rolling in the dough.”

You felt the blood in your veins turn to ice as your brother rambled on and on about Suzy. How could she have moved so quickly? It was as if she was taunting you - she knew you had a weakness and could get to it at any point in time if she so wished.

“Tae - Taehyung!”

The force of your exclamation stopped his monologue and there was a moment of silence on the line.

“Why, what’s wrong?” he asked tentatively, worried he might have said something to set you off.

“I - nothing - just, did she say why she was visiting? School’s not exactly a quick drive away from home.”

“Oh dude it was so cool she landed in the middle of the quad on her helicopter, people were like running out of the way - actually that’s kinda dangerous huh… But anyway, no, she just kind of looked around like she was looking for someone? And then was escorted away to probably the president’s office or something. I think her family donates a lot of money to the school.”

You closed your eyes, squeezing your eyelids together in the hopes that it would make your building headache go away.

“Ah, okay. How interesting.” You tried to bring your voice back to normal so that Taehyung wouldn’t catch on any more than he already had, but of course it was impossible. He’d always been perceptive, but he seemed to reluctantly let it go as he continued to tell you about his day and his recent adventures.

“Sissy?”

“Hm?”

“Are you okay these days?”

You swallowed hard. “I’m… making do, Tae. I won’t say it’s not hard sometimes, but I’m okay. There’s nothing here for you to worry about, okay?”

“Okay… I’m gonna try my best to graduate early so you don’t have to pay as much for my tuition, and don’t worry about my grades because I’m trying to earn a merit based scholarship too so I’m keeping them up.”

You felt tears well up in your eyes.

“Tae, are you worried that I’m stressed about money? Don’t you dare. That’s my job. You take your time and don’t burn yourself out, and have fun. That’s what college is for!”

There was silence on the other end of the line, and you could all but see him biting his lip, worrying that he wasn’t doing enough to help you.

“Taetae, promise me you’ll have fun too. It’s only your second year of college! Don’t worry, I’ve got this. Okay?”

“... Okay. I promise.”

After he promised and promised you he would call more often, you reluctantly let your brother go.

The fear that burns through you is blinding. You can’t imagine what Suzy could possibly mean to threaten you with but the fact that she visited your baby brother’s school was terrifying. And so soon after she’d hung up on that call.

Before you’ve gotten the chance to catch your breath, the phone rings again, and you pick up immediately.

“So,” drawled the voice on the other line, “ have you given some thought to my proposal?”

Gritting your teeth before taking a deep breath to reply, “Ms. Bae! You haven’t really given me too long to consider anything, if we’re being honest.”

“Oh, I thought you’d have had time enough,” the woman replied with a little laugh. “But if you need more time, I suppose…”

“No, I think I’ve made my decision.” You hate that your voice is laced so tightly and you hate that you’ve almost tripped over your words in your haste to respond.

“Yes?...” That she had so much nerve astounded you, that she could sit there on the other end of the line and taunt you with some vague threat and be so damn effective drove you nuts. But what could you do? It was Taehyung she was targeting. There was nothing you wouldn’t do for him, the only truly good thing in your life.

“Luckily, the day in question has cleared up and it looks like I will indeed be able to fulfill your request.”

A pause, then a delighted giggle floated through the phone. “Wonderful! I will have someone contact you with all the information! I trust you’ll be bringing all your own equipment?”

“Yes.”

“Amazing. Tata!”

And then she was gone.

You felt all the strength drain out of you at once, slumping forward onto the surface of your desk.

What had you done?

#jung hoseok #hoseok fic #hoseok scenario #jhope fic #jhope scenario #under cover #this feels like filler sorry friends x.x #but! it's set up for the next chapter #which will be the wedding itself #i'm kind of excited to write it hehehehe

[ginnyzero]

How much do you want that goal?

In my previous post about fan fiction (and why I love it), I wrote a bit about how fan fiction helped me churn idea after idea and string them together into plots. How there were some ideas out there that were an incredible mish mash that were so crazy you couldn’t help be what the fuck, and hopefully just enjoy the mad crazy and fun for what it was. And hey, you don’t have to enjoy the extreme crazy sides of fan fiction, because everyone likes different things, but those extreme crazy sides are out there with their whacky ideas that usually make me go “why didn’t I think of that?” And then later I remember, that peoples brains work in mysteriously different ways and it’s okay that I didn’t think to crossover Supernatural, Doctor Who and Sherlock Holmes. I have my own fun and whacky ideas that make people look at me and go “I couldn’t ever think of something like that? How do you come up with these ideas?”

When I say I’m a writer, people think that’s pretty cool. (And tell me so.) Then, they tell me their idea for a book. Which is great, I love ideas. I’m overtly enthusiastic about ideas. And sometimes they go on a little overlong about them, but I know I’ve droned probably to someone overlong about an idea and hey it isn’t me running my mouth for once so I can be gracious and listen. (I have opinions, okay. I almost always have something to say.) I will try my best to never insult or put down an idea. I’ll be honest and say that something might not be my cup of tea, but if other people like it then that’s great. Go you and go them! And then when I tell them that they should write their idea (even if the execution might be terrible, the idea is important.) They either want me to write it or they just sort of laugh it off and then don’t do anything.

And that makes me think of this strip from Irregular Webcomic. And I’m linking it, because it’s not only the comic itself that is important, but the writing underneath it. Go ahead, click the link, read the comic, read the writing underneath, and then come back. I’ll wait.

You read it. Good. You came back! Better! Thank you. (And please, go ahead and read Irregular Webcomic from the beginning if it interests you. Because I find it awesome! Just finish my post first, please.)

Ideas are great. I love ideas, and I love people who have ideas. We creative types have to stick together. And in some ways, I’m not even talking about creative things. It takes an idea to start a sport. It takes an idea to create the next wave of awesome technology. It took an idea that the world wasn’t flat to sail across the Atlantic Ocean. But ideas, on their own, are just, ideas. They are a concept. They are a seed from which things could grow. Ideas are nothing by themselves. In order for them to become anything, one has to take that next step and do something. And to take that next step, one has to want it.

It’s easy to be dismissive or even derogatory of an idea. “Anyone could do that?” or “That’s stupid.” (Oh how many times have I heard those words? If I had a quarter.) But those ideas, stopped being a concept and became reality because someone wanted and had the creative drive to make their fantasy into something solid and concrete and there. And maybe you in particular don’t want and don’t see the artistic merit in painting an entire canvas a certain shade of red, but there was an artist that did and took the time to meticulously put red paint onto a canvas to get it the precise shade that he wanted and we need to respect that drive and that willpower that pushed him into having that creative force. Don’t degrade that creativity simply because you didn’t do it or can’t see the artistic merit.

I find that I can tell something about a person by how much effort they put into something they say they want. If they want something, they will be out there every day with whatever spare energy they have finding some way to make their wants reality. If they truly want something, they will put the effort into making it come true. And no amount of negativity or nay saying is going to bring them down until they get what they want. Those that truly want something, have spent the time to know the steps to get what they want. And they know that there will be a certain amount of luck and a certain amount of money invested on their end. They know they will hear a lot of “no,” and laughter and “that’s not what we’re looking for at this time.” And they will carry on. They’ll go and make their idea better and try again!

At some point, when people are telling me their ideas, I have to sit there and ask myself, ‘How much do they really want this? What are they doing now that makes me believe that this what they truly want?’ People who aren’t doing this are a waste of my time. I can’t invest my personal energy into cheering on their goals, if they aren’t going to invest their own energy into attaining them! Because it is so easy to put the cart before the horse, as in that web comic, and be thinking ahead to the movie deal or money, when you haven’t even taken the horse out of the barn! It’s all well and good to daydream. The more you visualize something happening, the more likely it is to happen. But without work, or advancement of the idea, you’re never going to see that end result!

It isn’t easy. It is so much easier to stay in motion instead of applying an opposing force to ourselves to change what we’re doing. It’s easy to make excuses. It’s understandable to be afraid of failure and rejection. It takes work and work is hard. And there will be up and downs, there will be some days where whatever it is you want, it comes easy. It gives you energy. And you’re happy and flying high. And other days where it will be all you can do to roll out of bed in the morning, put on your bathrobe, tie yourself in and slog through it. Working at it, means you practice, practice makes you better. And once you’ve carried through with something, gotten past the pain of uncertainty, there is a road ahead of you and you’re ready to hitch that horse to that cart and see where it takes you!

But it involves work. It involves wanting that goal so much that whatever that work is, it is worth it for that end result.

I was attending a party with some of my parent’s friends. They’re good people. They’re dedicated people to a particular craft. They're musicians and musicians are a special brand of people. (In more ways than one.) They might not come up with anything new, but they enjoy what they do and I respect that. And I don’t remember how, but the topic of the choir performance on Sunday came up. And one woman said that no matter how awful or horrible the choir sounded during practice during the week that on Sunday, it was like a miracle and they sounded wonderful. And when I responded along the lines that, no, it was because they put work into it and without that work, the performance would still be bad despite the fact they were in church on Sunday. I’ve been part of and sat through enough bad choir performances to have a little authority on the subject. (I don’t know if I was quite that blunt, I hope not. Cringe. Apologies if I was. I know I wasn’t as articulate as I wanted to be.) I was replied to with a very dismissive “Oh ye of little faith.”

This deeply upset and frustrated me, because to do what these people do on a regular basis, which is to play musical instruments, takes a certain amount of talent, skill, and hours upon hours of practice. They did not become good at their instrument because of a miracle or magic. They wanted to be good at playing an instrument. So they put effort into becoming good. They spent at least an hour or two every day to become as good as they are. To be in a choir is no different. To have all the voices in harmony, on key and singing together as a unit rather than disparate people takes time and practice. Have you listened to professional choirs? You have to audition. You practice every day! To become that good, you don’t do it by not putting in the hours and showing up every day to practice. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t be part of the professional choir very long! To be so dismissive of the hard work that it takes to do both things, play an instrument and to sing well, is insulting to the choir (church or professional) and to their own hard work! (The amount of dedication it takes to be an organist for a church makes me dizzy, not only do they practice on their own time during the week, they practice with the choir as well, who meets at least once a week and are practicing songs several weeks, if not months, in advance.) Learning a new piece of music takes time. (Unless you’re a genius or an idiot savant, then I tip my hat to you and applaud.)

I love these people, and I know I wasn’t ever able to articulate why I was so insulted that night. The idea that faith without work will carry a person through to succeed insults everyone who has put their mind to any task that requires practice, be it music, or art, or engineering. It insults people of all walks of life and education. (As my daddy says, it takes four years to become a good machinist. And I say, you also have to want to be a good machinist.) To throw away all that hard work to begin with and those who have done the same amount of work and failed at their goals with a dismissive 'oh, you don't have enough faith,' is deeply offensive and condescending. That a person didn't succeed because they didn't believe hard enough? Belief is not something you can quantify and put in a spoon or chart in hours and minutes of time put into learning or practicing a concrete skill. There could be a hundred and one reasons that they might have failed at this time, but let's not say it was because of lack of faith or belief. (If there was no faith or belief, they probably wouldn't have put themselves out there in the first place!)

By God, yes, you can have faith the size of a mustard seed and move a mountain. It doesn’t mean that mountain is going to be the end result of the choir performance, the group performance as a whole. It could simply be the courage of one individual to get up there, stand in front of a huge group of people and sing, no matter how squeaky, or off key you sound! Faith, is sitting in a room, day after day, writing something and believing that there are others out there that will want to read it. (It is also ego, but thank God for ego or else I wouldn’t have books to read.) And that faith is going to carry you through until you are published one way or another. (Because that is a mountain.) Faith is believing that there are people out there that want to know and care about what you do. Faith is belief that your hard work will pay off. Faith is stepping off that cliff and not knowing there will be something to stop your fall and doing it anyways. Faith is the follow through to the idea, the want, the motivation and the work. Faith is the end game, not the beginning. Kind of like an idea itself. Faith grows. It is something you have or you don’t. You either believe or you don’t believe. Faith and hope can be similar in concept and execution. Hope is the feeling. Faith is the action, (which is funny because hope can be a verb and faith is a noun.)

To become proficient in something, it takes ten thousand hours. And in the beginning, you’re going to fumble and drop your pick, you’re going to be out of key and your voice will quaver, your fingers might tremble. Your words won’t always be the best. With practice, and hard work, and drive, and learning from mistakes, you can get better, to achieve that lofty goal you’ve been dreaming about. And when you’ve reached that goal, you’ve learned that piece of music, you’ve stood up in front of everyone and sang and you’ve written that book. There comes this giddy flush of satisfaction (or the nauseating feeling of misery.) And suddenly, you want to do it again (or if it was a bad experience you swear it off for good. It happens.) And it’s on to the next idea. The next want. The next goal, with faith that there were people who liked your first idea and maybe they won’t like your second idea, but you won’t know until you try.

I didn’t learn this from Irregular Webcomic, though, it really did help crystallize some of what I’d been thinking. I didn’t learn this in college, (unfortunately no one there was quite that deep.) I didn’t glean it from ‘The Writer’s Little Book of Wisdom.’ (My personal writing bible.) Though some of the ideas are there in those pages if you know where to look. I learned it from fan fiction. From putting myself out there, time after time. From braving the uncertainty, from taking that leap that there was someone out there wanting to read my stories. That while my ideas might be stupid or ‘anyone could do that’ in some people’s eyes, those people didn’t matter, because they hadn’t done those ideas and I had! I can look back and see now that my first stories were awful, but after a lot of hard work and focus, hey, I’ve improved drastically. And the end result, that someone wanted to read what I wrote. Someone shared my passions. That reading my stories would make someone feel a little bit better even if it was just for an hour or five minutes that they could forget their troubles. Because writing them distracted me from my troubles. I achieved that goal. And that gave me courage to post another story, because I had faced that uncertainty once and nothing bad had happened, and another story, and another (and oh dear, I was awful wasn’t I.) I was/am a part of something bigger than me! And that was the sweetest satisfaction of all.

And all it takes is an idea, a deep want to motivate you to work and work hard and a little bit of faith.

#Writing #writerblr #writblr #writing is hardwork #you can do it #one step at a time

[inadequatematerials-blog]

Kissing Cassandra Pentaghast  ||| Chapter 6: Connect

\\\ Archive Of Our Own \\\

Summary: She was searching for the perfect man, but instead, found the perfect woman.

Cassandra is a single, straight, successful newspaper editor who finds herself questioning just how straight she is when she meets the grounded but scintillating Amala Lavellan.

It was difficult for Cassandra to recall the last time she shared an evening with a stranger and didn’t consider crawling through a bathroom window after the first ten minutes. She had spent an hour with Lavellan without once thinking she should try to induce vomiting as an excuse for an early departure. It was truly something for the personal dating record book.

Cassandra searched her mind for why she wasn’t trying to discreetly hit the back of her throat with a straw.  It wasn’t the wine, but she thought it could be the intimacy of the bar. The small basement, formerly an underground train stop, made for loud acoustics and lighting so low it required a cell phone to see the menu. It left patrons with little choice but to be practically on top of the person they wanted to speak with if they wanted to see or hear them.  Whatever the reason, Cassandra found herself more at ease with Lavellan than anyone else she’d been set up with in the last two years.

Lavellan practically knew all of this after an hour with Cassandra. She didn’t know Cassandra felt better with her than previous dates, but she did know what a failure the whole process had been lately. She knew this because Cassandra had spent the larger part of their time together detailing her dating woes.

They had spent the first thirty minutes of their times together detailing their jobs and what brought them to Skyhold. Lavellan had attended University in Minrathous, and after several years living and working as an art dealer, found the environment too traditional and elitist for what she wanted in an artistic community. Cassandra was surprised to find out Lavellan owned an arts venue that her own paper had covered years ago, it had caused quite the stir with its name: The Heretics. The name was made more scandalous, to the less satirically inclined, because it was so titled and owned by a Dalish elf from an isolationist clan and former member of the Tevinter aristocracy.

Cassandra’s own life seemed boring by comparison, though Lavellan had seemed genuinely interested in her work as an editor for one of the last newspaper agencies in the city. It was a gift that the woman could transition their conversation from the merits of print over digital to Cassandra’s love life. It made Cassandra want to recruit her as a reporter.

Lavellan scoffed, the golden hoops in her ears dazzling in the light. “So, wait, did he count it by item and their domestic value price? He could have also done it by the portion you ate. But that’s some bullshit because if you’re going to eat all the raspberries and goat cheese and I only ate the leafy greens...”

Cassandra shook her head. “I don’t know what he was basing it on. I saw the calculator and blacked out from shock, maybe rage, by the time I came out of it I was walking home and missing a hundred dollars.”

Lavellan appeared more shocked at the mention of the calculator than his behavior. “Like, a real calculator? Like the graphing kind?”

“Yes!” Cassandra shouted, laughing at Lavellan’s face of horror.

“I know he was an accountant, but to carry that around, did he bring a briefcase? Was it in his pocket? Those things were pretty big; where the hell did he keep that thing?”

Cassandra was still amused, but looked at the woman pointedly. “Why does the calculator fascinate you more than him wanting to evenly split down to the last pecan?”

Lavellan put her hand to her chest. “Oh, please, I am in shock and awe over it all. I just get stuck on details like that, maybe it’s the curator in me, but I am all about that weird little shit.”

Cassandra grinned. “No, you are right, no detail is too small. He didn’t have a briefcase. It was in his back pocket.”

Lavellan started breaking down how she analyzed the man’s personality based on the calculator being in his back pocket versus a briefcase. She was making what had seemed a trauma for Cassandra now a farce she was glad to have experienced for the story.

It wasn’t like she’d planned to talk about her dating woes with Lavellan, but she felt like an old friend. She had an openness and honesty about her that was refreshing. She kept conversation flowing with a steady stream of interesting but non-intrusive questions.  Cassandra felt jealous of what she was sure was Lavellan’s natural way with all people she met. There were people who’d known Cassandra for years that probably did not feel as comfortable with her.

Cassandra didn’t feel completely comfortable. The butterflies in her stomach reminded her that this was not a purely platonic outing. The ease of talking with Lavellan was met if not surpassed by unbelievable nervousness. Were her nerves due to actual attraction? Or was it just the situation she found herself in: On a date with a woman trying to figure out if she was attracted to women?

 Anyone would feel excited and nervous around Lavellan. She’s beautiful, intelligent, and charming. It could be admiration.

Lavellan was beautiful, in a way that was more interesting than conventional. Her dark brown hair cascaded in tousled waves from her shoulders to almost her waist. It was the kind of hair that Cassandra’s mother had tried so hard to keep on Cassandra. Lavellan’s complex was a dark russet with a brass undertone, unlike Cassandra’s olive and gold.

Her face was strong and striking. She had a long nose, pointed chin, rounded cheeks, and large eyes under straight thick brows. Her most notable feature, to Cassandra at least, was her top lip. It had no indent, but instead, was completely rounded and smooth.  It was the romantic in Cassandra, she had always been most attracted to people by their mouths. What they looked like. How they moved. What they felt like.

Lavellan laughter shook Cassandra from her rambling train of thought. Her laughter was an infectious thing; the way it rolled without a pause for air, and was followed by two hands over her mouth.

She took her glass and tipped it slightly towards Cassandra. “That guy owes you money. I have friends. I can call in a favor. They’re mostly artists but some of them have very scary power tools at their disposal.”

Cassandra chuckled. “No, it is fine. I would have paid more for it to have never happened in the first place.” She sighed heavily. “I hate dating.”

Cassandra was displaying the kind of neurosis that every friend, family member, and short lived therapist had described as self-destructive. The detailing of her dating woes to the person she was originally supposed to be on a date with was textbook self-sabotage. She was also frantically trying to figure out whether she wanted this to be a date while being scared that Lavellan had no romantic interest in her.

Cassandra was unsure about wanting to be with Lavellan, but she certainly did not want Lavellan to not want her.

But why would Lavellan want anything to do with her? Lavellan was, as her mom would put it, the kind of woman who likely had a full dance card. She could have her pick of anyone. Cassandra didn’t have low self-worth, but she knew that she was more than most likely wanted to deal with. She was intense, blunt, and unrelenting at times.

Lavellan would surely found Cassandra to be too much...Cassandra...for her liking.

Lavellan was, from what Cassandra could deduce from an hour, not a difficult person. She was warm, energetic, and easy going. She went after Cassandra like she did which could only mean she was exceptionally forgiving. She had started describing to Cassandra the last horrible date she had been on, it involved a fishing trip on a rinky dink boat.

“He had heard my clan was known for its fishing,” Lavellan said. “He whips out these fishing poles with a big smile on his face. I’ve been a vegetarian since I was thirteen!”

Cassandra groaned. “Why would he make such an assumption?”

Lavellan’s face stayed bereaved. “It’s so hard for shemlen men and even city elves to realize the Dalish are not just walking talking relics of the past. I can just see the disappointment when Dalish girls don’t live up to their fantasies. I could tell from the look on his face that he thought he was going to get the full elven goddess experience.”

“I can only imagine what you go through. Ignorance only seems to take new forms as the ages go on. I get some of my own fetishizing, being Nevarran, but it can’t compare.”

Lavellan sighed with knowing. “Do people ask you to speak Nevarran to them?”

She nodded. “Yes, that most of all. I usually comply.”

Lavellan’s eyes beamed. “So, how do you insult them?”

“I usually saying something about them probably terrible in bed.”

Lavellan giggled. “Yes! I do the same. Except I just string a bunch of random Dalish words together. They don’t know the difference.”

Cassandra joined with her own laughter. She was pleased Lavellan enjoyed dry humor and sarcasm. Lavellan was witty, but also silly, it was an endearing zaniness.

Lavellan stopped giggling and looked at Cassandra intently, like she was gearing up to ask her something.

“What are you looking for in a man? Besides not being an ignorant ass.”

“I don’t know if I’m looking for anything in particular,” Cassandra stammered. She stared at the bottom of her glass like it was hiding something.

“Come on! Give me the dream list: personality, hobbies, body hair percentage, anything at all.”

“Fine,” Cassandra replied. “I want someone that is smart, funny, and who has faith.”

Lavellan stayed nonplussed. “That’s not a tall order. I mean besides the faith. I’m thinking you mean Andrastian?”

Cassandra shook her head, “I want smart as in trying to know things to better oneself and the world, not smart like learning just to feel superior. Oh, and humor, that is a hard one! I want clever funny but not pretentious. I want funny that isn’t about proving how funny they are. As for faith, that one is the hardest. I am Andrastian and I’m the never miss a Sunday in the Maker’s house kind.  But I don’t need someone to be of my faith, they just need a faith in a greater purpose for themselves with values I align with...well that is a different conversation.”

Lavellan’s eyes widened as the description continued. ���That is a fine specimen you are describing, but what about the physical? Tall? Skinny? Muscular? Beard?”

“I become physically attracted to people based on how we connect, and no body shape or hair percentage can predict that for me.”

Lavellan’s hands gathered her long hair behind one ear while her eyes looked shyly away.  It was only a couple seconds, but Cassandra thought she saw a tender awkwardness behind her actions. She was surprised to feel so happy at the thought.

Lavellan stared back at Cassandra with her previous confidence. “I know you said you had something to go to at 8:00 and its 8:20. I’m sorry if I made you late! Should you be going?”

“I had nothing to get to. I lied just in case…” Cassandra sputtered out.

Lavellan interjected. “You needed to escape the weirdo you tried to meet through a personal ad? I know this great Riviani place down the street if you’re interested.”

Cassandra nodded but a frown formed. “Yes, I would like that. But you don’t have to spend your night who had a near nervous breakdown in the street.”

Lavellan rose from her stool the moment Cassandra said yes. She slung her purse over her shoulder and gestured to the door. “People have public nervous breakdowns in this city every day. It’s all a part of the urban experience. I once cried at every stop on the green line with no pause in between.”

Cassandra wanted to apologize again for her apology, but held back. She followed Lavellan outside where she then watched the woman trying to hail a taxi with her whole body in the street.

Lavellan must have noticed the worried expression on Cassandra's face, because she looked back at her with a smile. “I know it looks dangerous, and it probably is, but if I get hit at least I can pay off my student debt!”

Lavellan whooped excitedly when a cab stopped in front of them. “In under thirty seconds! That’s a personal record.”

Cassandra got into the cab after Lavellan. The feeling of Lavellan’s body next to her own made the butterflies want to escape out of her throat. She tried to focus on something besides Lavellan’s long legs peeking from the slit in her dress. She noticed, as she had seen in the bar, that Lavellan had tattoos on her wrists. They looked like bangles with different etchings.  

“Looking at my tattoos?” Lavellan asked.

“Yes, I am sorry I didn’t mean to stare,” she replied apologetically.

Lavellan held her wrists closer to Cassandra. “It’s OK. I like talking about them with friends. They are different patterns you’d find in Dalish fabrics and items, specifically my clan.  I chose to not do a Vallassin. I wanted to honor my culture, but in my own way. They’re on my wrist so no one will think I’m ashamed of being Dalish.”

“How did you choose what patterns?”

“You’ll have to wait for that story. The actual pattern meanings are very personal and sacred for my clan.”

Cassandra felt her face flush with embarrassment. “I shouldn’t have asked. I am sorry.”

Lavellan patted Cassandra’s hand beside her. “No need to be sorry. It is just something to look forward to as we got to know each other better.”

Cassandra thanked the Maker in that cab and promised to thank him again that Sunday. That sentence had made her face flush harder than her mother’s favorite red sauce recipe.

#dragon age fanfic #dragon age #cassandra x lavellan #cassandra x female inquisitor #cassandra x flavellan #dragon age au