I often hear the argument that having major characters die is more
realistic than having them always come through unscathed. Of course it
is. But I personally don’t want my fiction to necessarily be “realistic”
– I want my fiction to be entertaining. For me, that means watching
engaging characters I care about get into and out of dangerous
predicaments, working and thinking together in order to defeat the bad
guys. While some authors (and readers) like the tension of wondering who
will live and who will die, I prefer the tension of seeing how the
heroes are going to think or work their ways out of each difficult or
impossible situation they find themselves in. If I want realism and the
deaths of people I care about, I can turn on the news.
–Timothy Zahn, interviewed by TheForce.Net, 2008
Tim Zahn just summed up my entire issue with adult movies and fiction
I do not want to get invested in a character just to have them die or be violated or whatever, I don’t care that it’s dramatic. It’s not fun, it just leaves me angry and frustrated that I wasted my time on this media.
I was at the library the other day, and my daughter was playing at the Art Table with two other girls. One of the little girls’ mother was near by and said “Aren’t you girls good little artists!”
And the third girl perked up and said “My dad’s an artist!”
The woman smiled indulgently and says “Oh really, what kind?”
The little girl proudly told her “He’s a tattoo artist.”
And the woman. Oh man. Her face just twists, crumples into something nothing short of disdain, and she opens her mouth and says “That’s not…”
“An easy job,” I cut in, looking the woman in the face because really? You’re going to tell a child her dad’s not a real artist. “In fact it’s very very hard, because that art is alive forever on a person, not like on paper. And that’s scary! You have to be really good, to be a tattoo artist. Your dad must be really, really good.”
what kind of person could just try and crush a little kid like that? goddamn.
Do people not realize that tattoo artists have to know how to draw really well and produce straight precise lines on a moving canvas, and make the right color selection and know how to blend those colors and do proper shading, and a million other art things and no single client/canvas is the same and they have to adjust based on the pigment of the skin and where the person wants the tattoo?! What the hell
Skipping Stone Foundation is a not-for-profit that was born out of experience and a very desperate need. The system for transgender youth and their families is a difficult one to navigate and until the creation of the organization, there were few resources to help.
Last year, Skipping Stone supported 40 kids. This year it’s over 200 and the need is growing. Its co-founder, Lindsay Peace, said it’s been the most rewarding work.
I cannot stress enough how essential this Foundation is, because this is where I live, and without their help, you have to fight both your parents, your doctor AND God himself to get a referral to the Foothills- but the specialist there is so backlogged it’ll be a nine-month wait minimum.
Some kids can’t wait that long. Many don’t have a private doctor who can safely get them that referral in the first place. Mine at the time had to Google the specialist while I sat there spelling out exactly why I wanted to see this specialist… and begging him, BEGGING HIM, not to tell my parents. I’m a legal adult and he told anyway.
Please fund the Skipping Stone Foundation. You will literally be saving lives.
Chartreuse Abstruseness Export 