I also see this with writing. "Wow this 1000 word flash is the best 4000 word short story that's ever become the first instalment in an epic series".
"It was supposed to be a [oneshot/short story]", the lament of my people.
siren head, a giant monster with a skeletal humanoid body and air raid sirens for a head, looms over a farm at dusk. it's bent over as if scanning the ground for people
The groan and crash of falling trees. Huge footsteps boom out into the country dusk. Electronic reverb on pained chatter and nonsense words blasted out over the farm. No one is left to hear it.
Like I'm not avoiding doing the synopsis bc I don't want to send the book to agents or something. I'm avoiding it because it feels equal to doing my taxes, or applying for a job, or putting my hand on a hot stove, or scraping my face across rough concrete. But why is *that*? 8[
Trying to get to the root of why the marketing side of trying to publish this book feels so impossible. Many people automatically assume it's bc I'm afraid of others reading my work, but that's only a small part, I think. Marketing something is just so profoundly unintuitive to me.
Black and white illustration, title: The Glorious Rot. Very fine ink work and hatching. A pale long-limbed humanoid sits on a stone block surface. They have four arms, with one wholly consumed by the cascading web of roots growing out of their body. Their feet are consumed by more roots across the bottom part of the canvas. Their face is just two large voids weeping black rivulets. An expanding splash of a flat mass covered in cellular-like holes grows out of one of the face-voids. A dog-like creature with a canine skull and long mane lies poised below the figure, with roots growing into and out of it. A creature of pulled flesh and hair stands behind and to the right of the figure. This creature has two horse heads grotesquely melded together with a mass of numerous eyes between them. Their hair flows straight upwards into the sky in antler-like patterns. The figure's two right arms are raised, and black viscous fluid flows over them and from the hands, to pour into a wide bowl on a pedestal, both formed of roots. Partially encased in the pedestal is a medieval helmet with face plate covered in rows of holes. The black fluid is leaking through the bowl and onto and through the helmet.
a series of heads & faces sketched in pink ballpoint and somewhat refined in brush pen. all of them are transformed or disintegrating in some way
some doodles from last week while i was out of town
!! Your point about community also clicks into the larger picture of this whole thing that I've been grasping at. In that: often (but not always! hence this entire thread lol) those most willing to suspend disgust are those who feel unmoored/sans community, myself included.
Which book, btw? 👀
There's also something in this bit in particular about how I conceptualize the Winged; touted as elevated beings, akin to angels, but with distinctly more animalistic traits than humans like to attribute to ourselves.
Because some comments make me think people missed the PSAs I do semi-regularly: if you were born before 1987, you should get a MMR booster now. The second childhood dose of MMR wasn't added until 1989, and folks who were older than 2 (the age for the 2nd) may not have gotten it.
YES thank you, there's stuff in this about disgust and what causes revulsion vs what doesn't that I've been circling but unable to put words to.
Which I think plays into my ongoing conversation with *many* friends about what is/isn't horror as a genre, too.
i have a note to myself that says 'it can be fixed if it's shit but it can't be anything if you don't write it'
(the other phenomenon that happens with this particular character is that when I'm writing em, I will inevitably fuck up OTHER CHARACTERS' pronouns instead of eirs.
then again, this is the character who switches to it/its depending on specific circumstances. ey's just pronoun-chaotic I guess.)
and I feel I should point out that sometimes when I'm talking aloud I will fuck up these characters' pronouns as well. I've called one character both he and she instead of ey in conversation, which is like. even more interesting to me. like, what tipped me toward those instead?
*meant to footnote this and ran out of room, then forgot: these characters aren't nonbinary, this fantasy species literally has four sexes (one of which is mostly gone by the pt the books happen). There are ALSO non binary characters, which don't get misgendered as much. ALSO FASCINATING :V
I mean, yeah, most people don't go out and just like, bite cows for dinner; we cook the meat before we eat it. But some people like their steaks rare or blue. /shrug
(I know the things about muscle use and how gamey we'd be, etc, but it struck me as more than just practical questioning.)
OR like the other day when I mentioned the cannibalism thing to friend who haven't read it yet, which garnered both "ritualistic, right?" (yes but also obligate) & "they must have some ways to make bodies palatable".
The 2nd got me thinking: if they're obligate cannibals, why would they need to?
Or I'm thrown when someone else is confused bc the religion doesn't quite line up with the christianity it's heavily flavored by, esp when it's not a religious friend discussing it with me.
This isn't a jab at anyone in particular; I'm genuinely fascinated by this phenomenon.
Frex, I'm watching how my third-sex* characters get misgendered, and how it relates to how they act or are named or relate to other characters.
Sometimes getting crits back from friends is an exercise in "I didn't realize that part of our culture was still baked into you so hard o.O"
If anyone ever wonders if you grow out of autism based RSD and the constant awareness of being an Outsider wherever you go... ahahaha it ain't ya 40s ill tell you that much
you'd think that'd be the most common one but oddly enough, it's not
got myself with Forest last night so that's the repeat today until my brain stops yelling WHY CAN'T YOU SEE THAT YOU AAAARE. MYYYY. CHIIIILD!!! whenever I take my headphones out XD
Don’t just let it be terrible, LEAN INTO it being terrible, because no one’s going to see it.
I only bring this up because someone mentioned just this week that this trick is useful, but I *still* 30 years in, when stumped, write this on the top of the page.
system of a down is the most earwormy band to me. I can see a reference to a song of theirs that I know and it will be indelibly stuck in my head for the next few hours-to-days.
A tin full of teeth and text reading "thirty-nine teeth".
An image looking up from inside a well. Text that reads "things i found in the well".
Hand-crab creature with text reading "hand crab".
An odd machine with a strange organic emanation. Text reading "device".
New zine
Once again considering whether or not to make an art account here (or somewhere) to just toss my random doodles (and very rare finished pieces) up somewhere that isn't private discord servers.
I do not want to create an account or open a subscription I just want to buy a thing and never hear from you again why is this so hard.
Among other good conversations, podfriends let me ramble about the death and funerary customs in godfall for an hour tonight :3
“You cannot kill me in a way that matters.”
infiltrating a series of prominent Midwestern esoteric and occult forums and telling them these were leyline maps.
Don’t write your book with AI but we’ll edit it with AI! Don’t do your homework with AI but you’re required to learn how to use AI or you won’t get a good grade! Don’t use AI to make a resume but we will be using AI to feed resumes through! [pterodactyl screech] None of this has to be this way