This Is Just My Opinion But I Think Any Good Media Needs Obsession Behind It. It Needs Passion, The Kind

this is just my opinion but i think any good media needs obsession behind it. it needs passion, the kind of passion that's no longer "gentle scented candle" and is now "oh shit the house caught on fire". it needs a creator that's biting the floorboards and gnawing the story off their skin. creators are supposed to be wild animals. they are supposed to want to tell a story with the ferocity of eating a good stone fruit while standing over the sink. the same protective, strange instinct as being 7 and making mud potions in pink teacups: you gotta get weird with it.

good media needs unhinged, googling-at-midnight kind of energy. it needs "what kind of seams are invented on this planet" energy and "im just gonna trust the audience to roll with me about this" energy. it needs one person (at least) screaming into the void with so much drive and energy that it forces the story to be real.

sometimes people are baffled when fanfic has some stunning jaw-dropping tattoo-it-on-you lines. and i'm like - well, i don't go here, but that makes sense to me. of fucking course people who have this amount of passion are going to create something good. they moved from a place of genuine love and enjoyment.

so yeah, duh! saturday cartoons have banger lines. random street art is sometimes the most precious heart-wrenching shit you've ever seen. someone singing on tiktok ends up creating your next favorite song. youtubers are giving us 5 hours of carefully researched content. all of this is the impossible equation to latestage capitalism. like, you can't force something to be good. AI cannot make it good. no amount of focus-group testing or market research. what makes a story worth listening to is that someone cares so much about telling it - through dance, art, music, whatever it takes - that they are just a little unhinged about it.

one time my friend told me he stayed up all night researching how many ways there are to peel an orange. he wrote me a poem that made me cry on public transportation. the love came through it like pith, you know? the words all came apart in my hands. it tasted like breakfast.

Laivi Põder on Instagram

Der August

Nun hebt das Jahr die Sense hoch und mäht die Sommertage wie ein Bauer. Wer sät, muss mähen. Und wer mäht, muss säen. Nichts bleibt, mein Herz. Und alles ist von Dauer.

Stockrosen stehen hinterm Zaun in ihren alten, brüchigseidnen Trachten. Die Sonnenblumen, üppig, blond und braun, mit Schleiern vorm Gesicht, schaun aus wie Frau'n, die eine Reise in die Hauptstadt machten.

Wann reisten sie? Bei Tage kaum. Stets leuchteten sie golden am Stakete. Wann reisten sie? Vielleicht im Traum? Nachts, als der Duft vom Lindenbaum an ihnen abschiedssüß vorüberwehte?

In Büchern liest man groß und breit, selbst das Unendliche sei nicht unendlich. Man dreht und wendet Raum und Zeit. Man ist gescheiter als gescheit, - das Unverständliche bleibt unverständlich.

Ein Erntewagen schwankt durchs Feld. Im Garten riecht's nach Minze und Kamille. Man sieht die Hitze. Und man hört die Stille. Wie klein ist heut die ganze Welt! Wie groß und grenzenlos ist die Idylle ...

Nichts bleibt, mein Herz. Bald sagt der Tag Gutnacht. Sternschnuppen fallen dann, silbern und sacht, ins Irgendwo, wie Tränen ohne Trauer. Dann wünsche Deinen Wunsch, doch gib gut acht! Nichts bleibt, mein Herz. Und alles ist von Dauer.

-- Erich Kästner

“While many people think fanfiction is about inserting sex into texts (like Tolkien’s) where it doesn’t belong, Brancher sees it differently: “I was desperate to read about sex that included great friendship; I was repurposing Tolkien’s text in order to do that. It wasn’t that friendship needed to be sexualized, it was that erotica needed to be … friendship-ized.” Many fanfiction writers write about sex in conjunction with beloved texts and characters not because they think those texts are incomplete, but because they’re looking for stories where sex is profound and meaningful. This is part of what makes fan fiction different from pornography: unlike pornography, fanfic features characters we already care deeply about, and who tend to already have long-standing and complex relationships with each other. It’s a genre of sexual subjectification: the very opposite of objectification. It’s benefits with friendship.”

— Francesca Coppa, “Introduction to The Dwarf’s Tale,” The Fanfiction Reader (via francescacoppa)

Someone put it into words. I gotta sit down