So furtatious.

If Los Angeles is a woman reclining billboard model with collagen-puffed lips and silicone-inflated breasts, a woman in a magenta convertible with heart-shaped glasses and cotton candy hair; if Los Angeles is this woman, then the San Fernando Valley is her teenybopper sister. The teenybopper sister snaps big stretchy pink bubbles over her tongue and checks her lip gloss in the rearview mirror, causing Sis to scream. Teeny plays the radio too loud and bites her nails, wondering if the glitter polish will poison her. She puts her bare feet up on the dash to admire her tan legs and the blond hair that is so pale and soft she doesn’t have to shave. She wears a Val Surf T-shirt and boys’ boxer shorts and she has a boy’s phone number scrawled on her hand. Part of her wants to spit on it and rub it off, and part of her wishes it was written in huge numbers across her belly, his name in gang letters, like a tattoo. The citrus fruits bouncing off the sidewalk remind her of boys; the burning oil and chlorine, the gold light smoldering on the windy leaves. Boys are shooting baskets on the tarry playground and she thinks she can smell them on the air.

If Los Angeles is a woman reclining billboard model and the San Fernando Valley is her teenybopper sister, then New York is their cousin. Her hair is dyed autumn red or aubergine or Egyptian henna, depending on her mood. Her skin is pale as frost and she wears beautiful Jil Sander suits and Prada pumps on which she walks faster than a speeding taxi (when it is caught in rush hour, that is). Her lips are some unlikely shade of copper or violet, courtesy of her local MAC drag queen makeup consultant. She is always carrying bags of clothes, bouquets of roses, take-out Chinese containers, or bagels. Museum tags fill her pockets and purses, along with perfume samples and invitations to art gallery openings. When she is walking to work, to ward off bums or psychos, her face resembles the Statue of Liberty, but at home in her candlelit, dove-colored apartment, the stony look fades away and she smiles like the sterling roses she has bought for herself to make up for the fact that she is single and her feet are sore.

— Francesca Lia Block, I Was a Teenage Fairy

If Los Angeles is a woman reclining billboard model with collagen-puffed lips and silicone-inflated breasts, a woman in a magenta convertible with heart-shaped glasses and cotton candy hair; if Los Angeles is this woman, then the San Fernando Valley is her teenybopper sister. The teenybopper sister snaps big stretchy pink bubbles over her tongue and checks her lip gloss in the rearview mirror, causing Sis to scream. Teeny plays the radio too loud and bites her nails, wondering if the glitter polish will poison her. She puts her bare feet up on the dash to admire her tan legs and the blond hair that is so pale and soft she doesn’t have to shave. She wears a Val Surf T-shirt and boys’ boxer shorts and she has a boy’s phone number scrawled on her hand. Part of her wants to spit on it and rub it off, and part of her wishes it was written in huge numbers across her belly, his name in gang letters, like a tattoo. The citrus fruits bouncing off the sidewalk remind her of boys; the burning oil and chlorine, the gold light smoldering on the windy leaves. Boys are shooting baskets on the tarry playground and she thinks she can smell them on the air.

If Los Angeles is a woman reclining billboard model and the San Fernando Valley is her teenybopper sister, then New York is their cousin. Her hair is dyed autumn red or aubergine or Egyptian henna, depending on her mood. Her skin is pale as frost and she wears beautiful Jil Sander suits and Prada pumps on which she walks faster than a speeding taxi (when it is caught in rush hour, that is). Her lips are some unlikely shade of copper or violet, courtesy of her local MAC drag queen makeup consultant. She is always carrying bags of clothes, bouquets of roses, take-out Chinese containers, or bagels. Museum tags fill her pockets and purses, along with perfume samples and invitations to art gallery openings. When she is walking to work, to ward off bums or psychos, her face resembles the Statue of Liberty, but at home in her candlelit, dove-colored apartment, the stony look fades away and she smiles like the sterling roses she has bought for herself to make up for the fact that she is single and her feet are sore.

— Francesca Lia Block, I Was a Teenage Fairy

itpiercesskin:

oftenfuzzyfaced:

My thoughts as this trailer progressed: Oh tasty, a Three Musketeers Movie. And look, its even going for the gritty realistic angle with 14 year old D’Artagnon. Interesting, maybe it will deconstruct the use of child soldiers in Renaissance era Fra— wait, …HE JUST JUMPED OUT OF A DIRIGIBLE ONTO ANOTHER DIRIGIBLE!!

Made me think of Narrative Kinks, the kind of story cruft that set you brain on fire for no sensible reason. I recommend walking up to other people in fandom to ask, “what are your kinks?” without preamble. On second thought, don’t do that.

Aaaaaah you guys! This concept is what me and my high school writing buddies called Buttons. I’ve been maintaining a Button List for like five years because it is the best concept, here let me show you a selection:

Haircut scenes, especially to explore emotional intimacy between two characters
Woobie priests
Wildly inconvenient childbirth/menstruation
Ink stains (on skin, clothing, wood, etc.)
Ambiguity between dancing and fighting
Constructed families
Would-be betrayers developing feelings for their intended victims
The normally competent character being out of commission and having to coach a less-experienced character through their job. Best example of this: doctors who are injured and have to orchestrate their own first aid.
Deliberate anachronism
Intrigue as seen or influenced by supposedly powerless citizens, especially messengers/criers/couriers/newsies or scribes/translators/interpreters
Trainfights
Time paradoxes
And at this point Asenian robots I guess

If a piece of media has got any of these things in it, I don’t care how objectively or otherwise bad it may be, I will eat it up with a goddamn spoon.

How Not to Write About Africa - Binyavanga Wainaina - narrated by Djimon Hounsou

Alternatively, some fans may find it tempting to argue “Well this media is a realistic portrayal of societies like X, Y, Z”. But when you say that sexism and racism and heterosexism and cissexism have to be in the narrative or the story won’t be realistic, what you are saying is that we humans literally cannot recognise ourselves without systemic prejudice, nor can we connect to characters who are not unrepentant bigots. Um, yikes. YIKES, you guys.

And even if you think that’s true (which scares the hell out of me), I don’t see you arguing for an accurate portrayal of everything in your fiction all the time. For example, most people seem fine without accurate portrayal of what personal hygiene was really like in 1300 CE in their medieval fantasy media. (Newsflash: realistically, Robb Stark and Jon Snow rarely bathed or brushed their teeth or hair). In real life, people have to go to the bathroom. In movies and books, they don’t show that very much, because it’s boring and gross. Well, guess what: bigotry is also boring and gross. But everyone is just dying to keep that in the script.

“

—	How to be a fan of problematic things (via evewithanapple)

Fanfiction is a way of the culture repairing the damage done in a system where contemporary myths are owned by corporations instead of owned by folk.

“

—	Henry Jenkins (via awwyeahquotes)

First, you must read your story AS IF YOU HAD NEVER SEEN IT BEFORE. Yes, this is difficult. You are going to read it and admire all the bits you like instead. But, while you admire, you will come across bits that make you sort of squiggle inside and say ‘Oh, I suppose that will do.’ That is a sure sign that it won’t do. So, secondly, think hard about these bits, what is wrong with them and how they ought to go to be right.

“

—	Diana Wynne Jones, Hints About Writing a Story