PARALLELSSS!!! (based on this fic by the ever-inspiring @patrice-bergerons <3)
d e v o n
art blog(derogatory)
Peter Solarz
Stranger Things
cherry valley forever

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oozey mess

shark vs the universe
KIROKAZE
macklin celebrini has autism
Not today Justin
trying on a metaphor
ojovivo
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH

祝日 / Permanent Vacation
NASA
taylor price

tannertan36

Origami Around

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seen from Vietnam
seen from Colombia

seen from Australia

seen from Italy

seen from Austria
seen from United States

seen from United States

seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from Chile
seen from United States
seen from United States

seen from Bangladesh
@patrice-bergerons
PARALLELSSS!!! (based on this fic by the ever-inspiring @patrice-bergerons <3)
people foolishly dismiss desserts and treats as having no nutritional value when they actually are necessary for refilling your sanity stat. to prove my point please observe the emotional stability of the next person you meet who doesnt let themselves ever eat any form of dessert
it's summer which means i am constantly asking myself questions such as "who is on my hockey team" and "is that a good idea"
"Bond is in the office." "What?"
Zelda Fitzgerald, Dear Scott, Dearest Zelda: The Love Letters of F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald
my luminous mama
i was so moved by this picture i had to draw it
And to add on that last thing: I wrote a story some time ago in order to explore a relationship which had a lot of love but not emotional security. The POV character was walking on eggshells around his beloved, not knowing which act or remark may draw his ire, always anxious. This story got a lot of kudos and a lot of comments.
Except without fail, every single comment gushed about how sweet and cute they were. Of the people who chose to talk to me about the story only one person – a friend who is not in that fandom I shared the story – got what it was about.
I can't read my commenters' minds but I have been wondering: is it a pervasive lack of reading comprehension that no one can get at the story – so to speak – within? But equally I wonder whether some readers, just like my MC, unconsciously accept this lack of emotional safety in their relationships without even being aware of it, and therefore do not see anything off about the seemingly fluffy story I was telling. OR whether they – these were all new readers to me – think *I* the author might believe this to be the height of romantic love and therefore hesitate to speak of that uneasy undercurrent lest it prove unintentional and therefore offensive. And I could have been, you know? That could have been a bias I wrote it without conscious thought.
So yes. Yes, absolutely try to discern the author's intentions – but equally have the humility to accept that you can't always.
Once when I was in undergrad, someone described something as “problematic” in class and our professor was like, “That’s cool, but ‘problematic’ doesn’t really mean anything. It means that the thing you’re describing has a problem, and in and of itself that’s not bad. Art, especially, should always have problems, or else it’s not interesting and not art, either. It sounds like you’re trying to say that this is bad, but you don’t want to say ‘bad.’ Is that right?”
So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”
Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.
Anyway. Whenever I see the word problematic, I can’t help but think of this professor being like, “Good starting point, now let’s get specific.” I think when we have to commit to saying “that’s ___” it requires a lot more careful thought about the truth and impact and complexities of whatever we’re claiming. Sometimes there really is some bullshit afoot, and also sometimes it’s art, and it should be full of problems, because that’s what art is.
#'this is present in the text' is often a good first step #but those second and third ones (naming it; describing its function) are vital (via @elucubrare)
The most important next step, I think, is 'why is this there?'. What is the author trying to convey? Is it the character that is racist/misogynistic/etc. or the author? If the 'problematic' part is the character's viewpoint, what is the author trying to convey about that character? If it's a pervasive theme, how is the author treating it? What is the work as a whole saying about the 'problematic' topic?
And you should go a step further to complicate that, too.
Art is always in dialogue with the world around it. Do you understand that world – whether in terms of its storytelling (painting etc) conventions or its ideological/moral frameworks? How does the author/artist feel about them? Can you tell? (Can you really?)
And equally what does your reaction say about your values/taste? Are they individually your own or more reflective of the ambient prevailing moral/cultural ideologies of your own time and place? "This character is a bad person!" Are they? What makes someone a bad person? How firm are your criteria on this? Is there a different interpretation of what they are doing than what you are thinking of and/or what is presented in the text?
And equally to the extent you believe you identified a genuine flaw with the work/its author what level of disagreement/discomfort are you willing to live with? What does that reveal about you?
This isn't to say agree with all art and never be critical. In fact to the contrary. But art is in dialogue with the world around itself and we are all better for it when we allow ourselves to engage in that dialogue I believe.
Times are hard at the cafe so they only got Something bagels
My favorite emoji expression me and my friends came up with is "throwing rocks at it"
Basically if you ever see or hear something that displeases you, You go like this:
🫳🪨
🫳🪨🪨🪨🪨🪨🪨
☺️🫳🪨🪨🪨
So on and so forth. But also if something is beautiful or true you throw lotus.
🫳🪷🪷🪷
I have one that;s called "picking grapes off the vine"
🍇🤏
🤌🟣
this method could also be used to pick other things, if you'd like...
🎂🤏🤌🕯️
🐒🤏🤌🦟
⛰️🤏🤌🪨
🫳🪨
Wanted to check something and instead…
inside of you there are two intestines.
one of them is large, and the other is small.
LEWIS || The Point of Vanishing
I am so tired I fucking slow blinked at my coworker just now, kill me 😭
Why suffer ennui when you can get a bánh mì
Shit just happens to you when you're a tuna crab
jane & lisbon + normal coworker behavior [45/?] ⤷ 5.22 — “Red John's Rules”