A Surreal Yet Natural Image.

I was in stitches when I first saw this. The tragic part is it makes too much sense. Why must you put us through this Michael? I get that you’re a demon trying to help his friends, but really? At least we get the Judge’s gestures to represent this debacle.

But like, Jason BEEN knew. 

I’m a cis-gender man which basically means that, when I was born, the doctor went “It’s a boy!” and when I was old enough to understand I agreed with him.

The thing is, I don’t know why I feel like a man.  I was teased and bullied for it a lot when I was little.  I’ve never had stereotypically American male interests.  I never cared about sports or cars or guns.  I was more interested in music and cooking and the arts.  I’ve always been emotionally in tune and sensitive, even when I did my best to suppress my emotions to survive a childhood of abuse from other children.

It’s not physical either.  I don’t feel like a man because I have a penis or a beard.  If you put my brain in a robot body or any other body, my essence would still feel male (I assume).  I literally can’t imagine what being any other gender would feel like, since I feel so acutely male.

I think that’s why the concept of being transgender always made sense to me.  I’m a man.  I don’t have any bloody clue why I feel like a man, but I don’t feel that it’s tied to my body or my interests or the way that I’ve been treated.  I feel like a man because of something beyond that.  Something ephemeral.  So, why couldn’t others feel the same?  Why couldn’t a person who’s been misidentified as a girl feel like a boy for the exact same nebulous reasons that I do?

And, since gender really doesn’t make any sense to me anyway, why couldn’t there also be people who feel as if they don’t have one?  Or who flow across genders like a ship on a map?

Are there people out there whose sense of their own gender is inseparable from their physical form?  If you put those people into robot bodies or, simply, other physically different bodies, would their gender identity also swap?  If so, why?  Are they actually more lost in their gender identity than I am and they need to hone in on the physical in order to anchor themselves?

Why do people feel like they are the gender that they are?

Some very interesting writing tips, taken from a beloved studio. Less telling than I’d have thought about the studio itself though.

These rules were originally tweeted by Emma Coats, Pixar’s Story Artist. 

You admire a character for trying more than for their successes.

You gotta keep in mind what’s interesting to you as an audience, not what’s fun to do as a writer. They can be very different.

Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.

Once upon a time there was ___. Every day, ___. One day ___. Because of that, ___. Because of that, ___. Until finally ___.

Simplify. Focus. Combine characters. Hop over detours. You’ll feel like you’re losing valuable stuff but it sets you free.

What is your character good at, comfortable with? Throw the polar opposite at them. Challenge them. How do they deal?

Come up with your ending before you figure out your middle. Seriously. Endings are hard, get yours working up front.

Finish your story, let go even if it’s not perfect. In an ideal world you have both, but move on. Do better next time.

When you’re stuck, make a list of what WOULDN’T happen next. Lots of times the material to get you unstuck will show up.

Pull apart the stories you like. What you like in them is a part of you; you’ve got to recognize it before you can use it.

Putting it on paper lets you start fixing it. If it stays in your head, a perfect idea, you’ll never share it with anyone.

Discount the 1st thing that comes to mind. And the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th – get the obvious out of the way. Surprise yourself.

Give your characters opinions. Passive/malleable might seem likable to you as you write, but it’s poison to the audience.

Why must you tell THIS story? What’s the belief burning within you that your story feeds off of? That’s the heart of it.

If you were your character, in this situation, how would you feel? Honesty lends credibility to unbelievable situations.

What are the stakes? Give us reason to root for the character. What happens if they don’t succeed? Stack the odds against.

No work is ever wasted. If it’s not working, let go and move on – it’ll come back around to be useful later.

You have to know yourself: the difference between doing your best & fussing. Story is testing, not refining.

Coincidences to get characters into trouble are great; coincidences to get them out of it are cheating.

Exercise: take the building blocks of a movie you dislike. How d’you rearrange them into what you DO like?

You gotta identify with your situation/characters, can’t just write ‘cool’. What would make YOU act that way?

What’s the essence of your story? Most economical telling of it? If you know that, you can build out from there.

Sources: [1] [2]

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Featured Spaceship

My favourite spaceship: the Ancient (both in age and the name of its creators) ship Destiny. A ship that travelled across galaxies for millions of years, searching for meaning in the universe, until Syfy cancelled the show it was on. Such a beautiful design, and well thought out too.

Ichiro Tsuruta, from JCA Annual 8 (1989)

The ineffable husbands as "Couple Dancing" by Leyendecker

Painting this was difficult but really fun and rewarding, I love the result!

(I'm @/noixtky on Instagram!)

EDIT: thank you soooo much for the support to this painting ❤️ I've gotten a few comments about getting this as a print so if you're interested in that please read this ^^

by marcozagara

do you ever get confused about where your mental illness ends and where you being a piece of shit begins ?? like am i just being difficult or can i really not do that

Random Headcanon: That Federation vessels in Star Trek seem to experience bizarre malfunctions with such overwhelming frequency isn’t just an artefact of the television serial format. Rather, it’s because the Federation as a culture are a bunch of deranged hyper-neophiles, tooling around in ships packed full of beyond-cutting-edge tech they don’t really understand. Endlessly frustrating if you have to fight them, because they can pull an effectively unlimited number of bullshit space-magic countermeasures out of their arses - but they’re as likely as not to give themselves a lethal five-dimensional wedgie in the process. All those rampant holograms and warp core malfunctions and accidentally-traveling-back-in-time incidents? That doesn’t actually happen to anyone else; it’s literally just Federation vessels that go off the rails like that. And they do so on a fairly regular basis.

practice practice practice