Abstract Love for Useless Beauty

Everything that can be killed by analysis, deserves to be killed by analysis. -.- I may, occasionally, be overstating things on purpose.

[victusinveritas]

[fuckyeahliteraryquotes]

“I could live there all alone, she thought, slowing the car to look down the winding garden path to the small blue front door with, perfectly, a white cat on the step. No one would ever find me there, either, behind all those roses, and just to make sure I would plant oleanders by the road. I will light a fire in the cool evenings and toast apples at my own hearth. I will raise white cats and sew white curtains for the windows and sometimes come out of my door to go to the store to buy cinnamon and tea and thread. People will come to me to have their fortunes told, and I will brew love potions for sad maidens; I will have a robin…”

— The Haunting of Hill House, Shirley Jackson

[ionomycin]

temple at the end of the road

[nourishingbroth]

The haunting ancient Celtic carnyx being played for an audience. This is the sound Roman soldiers would have heard their Celtic enemies make.

[teaboot]

Man if I heard that shit while descending upon a strange land with my brethren I'd straight up dig a hole to die in right the and there, fuck the emperor fuck the gods that's a warning straight from the bones of an older evil and whatever is coming is worse than death

[ilynpilled]

if brienne is knighted, and i go back and forth a bit on whether i would prefer this to happen or not, i want it to be poignant. brienne was wholesome chungus knighted to a room of cheers and then was later appointed lord commander of the kingsguard (lol) in the show. it is not something that can even give me much catharsis as it was intended to bc it cant help but feel fraudulent and untrue to the ethos of her character and arc in my eyes. if she gets knighted, not that this officiality is what actually defines a “true knight”, that is the whole interrogation and deconstruction happening in these books yadda yadda, i would like it more if it was very private and maybe not even witnessed by anyone else. if it is denied her by most of her society, which it realistically will be, it is still true to her, to jaime, a select few, and, most importantly, the reader. i think that would hit the right beats for me. i like brienne as the true hero of this story who wont really receive her dues and be rewarded, wont be embraced and heralded, but the text nonetheless making the case that this fact does not render what she is any less meaningful. i think that is bittersweet in a p beautiful way for her character

[anyboli]

This page from one of my history books looks like a lesbian utopia.

Source: Reclaiming Lost Ground by Neale McGoldrick & Margaret Crocco

[anyboli]

Very similar vibes - this 1899 illustration from Puck of butchy (for the time) lesbians looking like the coolest, hottest women to ever walk the earth

[bethanydelleman]

I always get the feeling when I argue that yes, Willoughby and Henry Crawford did feel real love, but love does not conquer all, that it's very... strange for Austen readers to believe that love conquers all because she is pretty focused as an author on the fact that love really shouldn't be the only thing one considers in marriage. Morality is a big factor but the other one is money.

Edward and Elinor are very much in love, and yet, "they were neither of them quite enough in love to think that three hundred and fifty pounds a-year would supply them with the comforts of life" and do not marry until Mrs. Ferrars chips in. Elinor assures Marianne that even if Willoughby had married her, his love would turn to resentment because of their poor financial situation. Anne Elliot enthusiastically confirms to Captain Wentworth that she would have accepted him... with a few thousand pounds, and... posted into the Laconia. Then they would have been financially secure enough to make a go of it even without her family's approval.

Even Lydia's unfortunate marriage to Wickham is mostly described in financial terms instead of something like abuse. Lydia and Wickham remain in a constant state of want and instability. This is why their marriage is a failure, though the lack of affection is also undesirable.

Love is a factor, Maria's marriage with Rushworth based on money alone is a total failure, but I really don't think that Austen thinks love is sufficient on it's own to keep a marriage going. It cannot fix principals and constant want might wear it away. The fact that love didn't save Henry Crawford doesn't mean his love wasn't real. Willoughby choosing money over Marianne doesn't mean his love wasn't real. It just means it wasn't enough.

[despazito]

I don't have time for tumblr discourse they're calling the very hungry caterpillar degenerate art over on twitter

[despazito]

good art is when something looks like real life, the more real it looks the more better the art. abstracted figures give my trad children nightmares, one time they were exposed to cubism and couldn't go outside for a week

[draculasstrawhat]

Huh fascinating, I wonder what the fash have against Eric Carle? I wonder what he might have said about his life, and influences, and early experiences that makes them say he’s part of an ‘insalubrious culture’?

Carle's 'Blue Horse' teaches kids to think outside the box

Franz Marc (1880-1916) was a German painter and printmaker, one of the key figures of the German Expressionist movement.

[prudencepaccard]

oh holy shit it really it really is the OG degenerate art discourse

[a4g]

problematic plot relevance gap

[bloooodravens]

grudgingly accepting that Young Griff is actually a lot like Jon especially GoT/early ACoK Jon and was almost certainly set up as an intentional parallel

both young men raised in hiding by men who aren’t their fathers but love them fiercely. both arrogant and impulsive and easy to provoke. both even crash out when Tyrion intentionally provokes them as a test.

very similar energy in these quotes:

“Tell Robb that I'm going to command the Night's Watch and keep him safe, so he might as well take up needlework with the girls and have Mikken melt down his sword for horseshoes.”

“Daenerys is Prince Rhaegar's sister, but I am Rhaegar's son. I am the only dragon you need.”

also this describes Jon just as well:

“He can fish and cook and bind up a wound, he knows what it is like to be hungry, to be hunted, to be afraid.”

[burlowbeanie]

I do love how both Cathy and Heathcliff are deeply aware of their respective Romantic Archetypes that everyone keeps trying to shove them into and both get rightfully pissed off about the boxes they are being shoved into and use those boxes as tools of manipulation to clobber other people with. Cathy talking to Edgar like "manic pixie dream girl means MANIC pixie dream girl, I'm gonna be ~~improper~~ about Heathcliff, fucking get over it." And Heathcliff's whole "relationship" with Isabella being leaning into the brooding "exotic rich brooding dark hero who can be civilized fixed by the power of feminine white womanhood true love" and then him being like jesus fucking christ you actually fell for that??? like, I didn't even lie to you, you just fully filled in the narrative of your pure love redeeming me with barely any prompting, are you for real?????? It's so fun how they play with the tropes imposed on them on purpose, in ways that betray how hopelessly trapped and paralyzed they feel by those narratives. Heathcliff says fuck you you don't get any story of me being a secret prince or a war hero or a rags to riches businessman or even evil highway robber for that matter. Cathy says fuck you you don't get any closure about of me growing as a person and being less selfish, or any clarity on the distinctions between selfishness/"ill temper" and physical illness and mental illness. I was always faking it when I was sick I was never faking it when I was sick but whatever story you tell you can't wrangle me as a saintly dead mother. I'm a gothic villain who will not be softened into a tale of family reconciliation. I'm a ghost story all godly folk disapprove of. I'm at peace in heaven, and I'm burning in hell unrepentant, and I walk the moors hand in hand with you. We are buried together. You're my one true love. Nothing could keep us apart. I never would have married you. Edgar also is there.

[aikonamida]

Tags by OP!

[dxcstrange-stuff]

WOLF HALL - 1985 (1485)

At last! Here is the thing you have all been waiting for (and I am so elated so many people were looking forward to it, THANK YOU!)

Since Wolf Hall is probably my favourite series of all time, along with Thomas Cromwell being my favourite historical person, I figured it would be right to dedicate a rather light-hearted animatic to him, especially now that the series came to an end after 10 years. I started working on this WAY before the new season aired, and was actually 90% done with this when it did. Astonishingly enough I managed to sort of visually predict a lot of scenes that were part of the last season. Maybe you can spot them. :) ENJOY!!!

(I would also deeply appreciate all kinds of support here! 💖)

[apatheticfluorescence]

some hyper famous artists like Van Gogh transcend overratedness and become underrated because they're so normalized. Like I'll look at a van Gogh and I'm like wait this really is amazing you guys don't get it

[headspace-hotel]

Shakespeare is like this

[insufferablepirate]

Every time I see a Van Gogh that’s not one of his better known pieces it absolutely blows me away

Have you seen this shit my liege? smh unreal

[catchymemes]

[wereopossum]

The sheer energy. The beauty of this woman. The women hugging in the background. The man in rainbow parachute pants. This whole video is art.

[inthefallofasparrow]

XXI. The World

[khepiari]

that boarding house roommate Shin Seo-ri is bullying and making work as her road manager, he is the dog from her past life. The dog the king killed and ate. I know it that he is her dog who finally is born as human in this rebirth.

[notbecauseofvictories]

I think there are certain doorways in life that require you to pare yourself down to accommodate them, before you can pass through. (Alternatively, you can be young enough that you don't have that much to pare back yet---you're still budding.) And I am not saying that once through the doorway, there aren't new and unique ways for you to blossom, for many people do! But the more growing you do, the wilder and bushier and more twisting your branches, the more inexplicable it seems and unthinkable it becomes to start pruning and chopping off bits of yourself to fit through a doorway. What could possibly be on the other side that would make such a dramatic alteration worth it? Surely the doorway has to accommodate you, not the other way around.

Anyway, I was thinking about this for no reason.

[beansoup3000]

You know what's so devastating to me about "God that I were a man"? It's the way that in this situation, Beatrice is not exceptional. In the first acts, she appears to be exempt from the gender roles that everyone around her complies with: she has avoided marriage so far, and she has license to playfully criticize and reject being "over-master'd with a piece of valiant dust" (2.2.55-56). She even suggests to Hero that she claim some agency over her engagement: "it is my cousin's duty to make curtsy, and say, 'father, as it please you.' But yet for all that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another curtsy and say, 'father, as it please me'" (2.1.48-51). Beatrice has carved out an existence for herself that everyone else tolerates; her wit allows her to live outside of people's expectations of womanhood.

But Beatrice is not exempt from being a woman. When it actually matters, when Hero is disgraced by powerful men with no regard for her wellbeing or humanity, Beatrice can't do anything about it. And "God that I were a man" is so painful because it reminds us--and Benedick--that no matter how transcendent Beatrice appears to be, she is still constrained by her role in Messina's society. Back in act one and act two, the reason that she was allowed to poke fun at men wasn't that she couldn't be stopped; it was that it didn't matter. She has no actual power to change the order of things, and so her verbal sparring is not a threat.

(An aside: I think that Benedick is taken aback by "God that I were a man" because this has never really occurred to him. He sees Beatrice as his intellectual equal, and he has watched her carve out space for herself effectively (they know each other of old). In the 2011 production with David Tennant, the costuming and acting choices show how Benedick starts actively performing masculinity only when he accepts Beatrice's request to kill Claudio--when he has to "be a man for [Beatrice's] sake" (4.1.314). In the first acts, he wears tight clothes, a crop top, and a miniskirt. From the wedding on, he wears his military uniform and then a suit. His body language also changes; he abandons physical comedy, stands tall, and emotes less when he speaks to Claudio and Don Pedro. He wields his masculinity as a weapon because he now realizes it's a weapon that Beatrice cannot wield herself.)

The crashing realization of Beatrice's limits is so devastating to me because it's so familiar. I can only speak from experiences I've had, but as a queer woman I know that tolerance is different than empowerment. That having grown up evading dating and romance with made-up excuses to hide my queerness, having realized the extent of the misogyny in an organization I cared about and having grappled with how that misogyny prevented me from effecting change, being allowed to exist is not the same as being able to participate, to make things different. God, that I were a man. I would eat his heart in the marketplace.