Does the walker choose the path, or the path the walker?

Hey! You can call me Moggettt (they/them). I have a lot of interests, and sometimes I draw c: Welcome, and enjoy your stay!

[moggettt]

Hey! I'm Moggettt, and I make and reblog a mix of fan/original art! I have a lot of interests- but I tag everything for easy reference, and this blog goes back Quite a while, so feel free to poke around!

My Scribbles

(You can find my scifi-fantasy, ttrpg-based webcomic Arc Angels here!)⚡

[arthistoryvault]

Clouds by Frederic Edwin Church

[nataliehall]

What are we even doing here (the internet) y’all

[scullee]

so i’ve been watching twin peaks

[rylandgracie]

i can't get over this quilt and how cool it looks against the cold contrast of the ship

[berlogauwu]

Prove to me I’m not gonna die alone. Put your arm around my collarbone, And open the door.

[voltaical-art]

backrooms good....

[02png]

Twi | ins

[rhigu]

under the light of the corpse star.

Commission for Andrea on bluesky. Thank you!

[green446004]

alt colors below

[gvalesdraws]

Melkor from Silmarillion that I did for the amazing Lucifer zine! (@the_cursed_zine on instagram)

[galileosballs]

This interview with Ncuti Gatwa crossed my dash again, and I was reminded of how much I like it. Because it makes the rare Third Argument for representation in fiction, the argument I think is the best, and I'm always happy to see it. I quote:

At times, Gatwa’s casting in those projects has been dismissed as an exercise in ‘box-ticking’. Gatwa scoffs. ‘First of all, you don’t know anything about me. Secondly, tick fcking boxes! People need to be fcking seen. What are you going to do, tell the same stories? Have the same people fronting things for all of eternity? Representation and inclusivity and branching out… it enriches us all. How embarrassing. You people with your tiny mindsets – open a book, look out the window and then f*ck off.’ (source)

What do I mean by the Third Argument? Well, I'm not sure I've ever made a post about this directly, but as far as I can see it, there are three main arguments for greater diversity in popular media. The first two are the most common, and they go like this:

It is good for media to be diverse because it is good for people to see people like them on screen. That is, the beneficiaries are marginalized people.

It is good for media to be diverse because it is good for people to see and learn about people who are not like them through art. That is, the beneficiaries are non-marginalized people, who then (hopefully) pass on the benefit by treating marginalized people better.

These two arguments are the source of a lot of debate here on ye olde tumblr. Despite both being arguments for representation, they pull in different directions. What counts as 'good' representation for the purposes of Argument 1 often would not be good for the purposes of Argument 2, and vice versa. Authentic versus sympathetic. Ugly or over-sanitized. You see this debate play out constantly. It's really hard for a piece of - say - queer media to do both at once.

But these debates tend to leave out Argument 3, the one that Gatwa is making above. And that argument cuts through a lot of this debate.

3. It is good for media to be diverse because art needs variety. The beneficiary of representation is art itself, absent any social effects that may or may not be present.

For this argument, diverse stories are intrinsically good. It is good to make art that's not just the same thing you've seen a hundred times before. Putting the kinds of people who don't often make it into mainstream media into your art is an extremely efficient way to make that happen. It's not the only method, but it's a really good method.

For representation to be 'good representation' according to Argument 3, all it needs to be is interesting. A story you haven't heard before, at least not in that medium. That which counts as 'bad representation' by the lights of this argument are stock characters, like the Eternally Patient Mother, the Gay Best Friend, the Wise Black Advisor. Perhaps there was a time in which these characters were new, but that time has long passed. There's no art in pulling a bog-standard character trope off the shelf. Show us a new kind of guy. The world is infinitely diverse. You're not going to run out. Telling the same stories with the same voices for all eternity, as Gatwa says, is boring. Even if there was nothing else wrong with it, this would be. Art isn't supposed to be boring.

And that's why Argument 3 is my favourite. I do want the world to be a better place, of course, and I think art is a part of that. But the main job of art is to be good as art. And diversity in all aspects of the production of art makes art better.

[soaked-doors]

does anyone here know ball. comically self indulgent Hadestown AU

[meruz]

another launch drawing...i keep making circle shaped compositions idk what to do abt it LOL

[abstracteddistractions]

Helen Frankenthaler, Concerto, 1982,

Acrylic on canvas,

53 x 39¼ in (134.6 x 99.7 cm)

Courtesy: Christie's

[hop-a-lot]

following pages of comic from this post, trigger warning :gore

[sawthoone]

read three tmbd books in as many days it’s so over. been plugging away at concepts for murderbot… (also the first drawing is a companion to @arcadecarpetgay’s fic which you should go check out!)