We're trying to have a civilization here.

the current trend of "tumblr users embarrassing themselves by proudly announcing why they don't listen to any music made by black people" is really astounding.

i cannot help but think this is a direct result of liberal White Guilt and how people have interpreted "anti-racism" as form of cultural self-segregation - the kind of person who thinks trying to cook chicken curry is cultural appropriation, or sends white people anon hate for wearing a kimono (yes, this kind of discourse happened). like, "oh, no, i could never participate in this culture, i'd get my evil white hands all over it! it would be more Progressive if I only did White things."

if you're a poc you've seen this, i'm sure - this deer-in-the-headlights stare you can get from white people when you play music / show art / share a story / anything that is Racially Coded, this total refusal to actually engage with it out of fear that it is in some way Wrong for them to have any opinion on it. because they read somewhere that it's bad to use AAVE but the only lesson they actually learned from that is "gotcha, white people are not allowed to interact with other cultures as punishment for my White Crimes. this helps to fill up the gaping pit of my white guilt and makes me one of the Good People." this transforms their discomfort around non-white cultures (black culture, especially, i should add) into a kind of virtue

anyway if you are white and reading this. go listen to some fucking haliu mergia. ethiopian jazz. will knock your dick right off. go listen to rap or reggae or bollywood and have a genuine reaction to it - like, an actual, from-the-heart reaction. you are allowed to not like some of it. but you will definitely like at least a little. yes, you can compare it to lemon demon (or whatever) if that helps you get into it and that's your only point of reference. maybe don't say that part out loud. but don't, like, separate yourself from it, like you are seeing it in a museum and the only polite thing to do is go "ahh, huh, very interesting, so much culture here."

I did not write this nearly scolding enough.

I am disappointed that so many people reblogging this seem to have gotten the milquetoast message "appreciation is not appropriation! promote artists of color!" instead of what I'm actually trying to communicate, which is "a lot of people who call themselves well-meaning liberals are actually deeply uncomfortable around people of color and other cultures in general, so they frame their avoidance as a kind of respect so they can keep their own self-image consistent." I am not saying "aw, they mean well."

could've written it better but oh well! too late

people need to learn to stop saying "both parties are so bad that they are basically the same" when they really mean "the better of the two parties is nowhere near as good as i would ideally want it to be".

and please do not ignore the huge difference between the two parties.

like the Republican party has a president who literally refused to leave office and tried to stage an insurrection, and has tried as hard as he can to feed the public baseless conspiracy theories since. and the rest of the party largely denies climate change, is openly anti-trans and anti-gender-nonconforming people, and has quite a few people who are still openly anti-gay, is uncomfortably close to white supremacism in their views, works to suppress voting, and on top of that is fiscally totally reckless doing things like pushing for unchecked military spending, cutting taxes on the rich, and cutting the budget for enforcement of the tax code

and these things matter

and on top of that? Republicans are across-the-board worse on the issue of Palestine, so the one big reason people give for not voting for Democrats is actually one of the most important reasons to make sure Democrats and not Republicans are elected

this. 1000% this. Trump has repeatedly voiced unconditional support for Israel, to the point where he called any Jew who didn't vote for him and support Israel a traitor to their people. I am not exaggerating. If Trumpy wete in office we'd likely have deployed US military to Gaza in October. Biden is far too permissive and has made this country complicit in the violence, but he has repeatedly warned Netanyahu and is beginning to withdraw support. Does this come too late? Obviously. But under Biden there is still a Palestinian people to support. Under Trump it might well just be glass there by this point. Stop pretending they're the same

I'd also like to remind you that foreign states like Putin's Russia have a very vested interest in seeing conservatives and the alt-right in power. If, for whatever reason, you don't see anything wrong with that, I'd ask you to do a quick google on what happens to Putin's political opponents.

Folks will say they “support the arts” then go out of their way to compare the art they themselves made to worthless garbage

My fellow in creation, supporting the arts starts in your own heart’s view of your own work

Ease the teeth and embrace what you make with love

"Guy" and "man" have different connotations with adjectival nouns. Like "tree guy" = arborist but "tree man" = he lives in a tree, or maybe he is a tree.

Reblog the writers’ fortune cookie for luck!

Guys I reblogged this and then wrote an 8000 word story I didn’t even have a solid plan for. Reblog this shit.

Here

botw 2017

That post about Marcille and Laios' relationship actually got me thinking about Chilchuck and Laios' relationship. Which is harder to see in some ways because it mostly consists of positive absences.

At first, viewers might be inclined to wonder why Chilchuck sticks with the party. He says it's because he took payment up front, but he could give back part of the deposit and leave. Two other party members left; Laios explicitly gave Marcille and Chilchuck a choice as to whether they would stay or go, and they both chose to stay.

We know why Marcille chose to stay; she wants to save Falin and she considers the other party members her friends. Why did Chilchuck stay?

Chilchuck actually respects Laios a lot -- food and monster weirdness aside -- and that mostly comes I think through the positive absences from above. The things that Laios does not do.

All the other party members infringe on these boundaries in some way. Izutsumi tries to egg Chilchuck into combat; Marcille pries into his home life; Senshi deliberately provokes him when he's trying to work. Not Laios. Once Chilchuck sets a boundary, Laios does his best to always respect it. (And I think Laios appreciates having clearly defined Rules For Chilchuck.)

Laios is a good party leader and he takes care of his team. Maybe this is my age showing, but when you find yourself in a good work situation with a good boss, you stay in that job.

my favorite calvin and hobbes comic is the one where his dad just rolls up and casually destroys his entire night by pointing out some neat trivia about record players

@nightcrawler-fan

#his expression in the last panel is black comic gold #the best part is that his dad was trying to be nice

are you sure. are you sure calvin’s dad is not a seasoned elder trickster. are you sure this isn’t the exact outcome he was hoping for

ok but that’s actually canon

You forgot this one

*looks pointedly at ETD*

Calvin’s dad is basically a Calvin who has learned that he can’t get away with running outside naked or throwing snowballs at neighborhood girls, but he is still precisely the same little shit under the thin veneer of civilization.

@lyricwritesprose Calvin and Hobbes has been one of my favorite things since I could read and Calvin’s dad one of my favorite characters, but that last comment blew my mind wide open. Of course that’s what he is. Of course.

one of the most subtly delightful things about calvin and hobbes is that you can SEE that calvin is his parents’ kid: his dad is so playful and imaginative, and his mom has a heck of a temper and a good sense of what’s right and wrong. calvin is a smart, passionate, imaginative kid who gets really upset when he thinks things are stupid or unfair. he drives his parents crazy sometimes because he’s a kid. but they were probably a lot like calvin themselves, when they were little. 

My favorite goddamn comic

There is no disqualifying behavior for a fascist political movement set on keeping power.

They don't mind infidelity. They don't care about rape. All they care about is how racism/misogyny benefits white nationalists, and telling women to shut up.

if you’ve ever thought i’m standoffish, politely distant, or generally hard to befriend, know in your heart that i’m exactly the same in real life. my neighbours just showed up at my door drunk on Canada Day celebrations and told me how desperate they’ve been to meet me for the past few months and then tried to fix the water pump in my basement

one of the neighbours returned today with heavy machinery and gravel and fixed my driveway. i feel like a feral animal they’re trying to coax with little treats

they've told me the gossip which is that a few years back a 70 yr old man collapsed the bridge at the end of my road by driving his tractor over it, lost his tractor in the river, climbed back up the cliff unscathed, walked an hour home, and then the whole road fell into disrepair and all the campgrounds closed and the once popular waterfall down the road became obscure and secret. so like, be the change you want to see in the world. collapse a bridge to chase out the tourists. also you can lose widespread knowledge in under 10 years if one old man collapses a bridge

also i met this bridge collapsing old man on a walk a few months ago and he said to me "you should check out the river at the end of the road, there's a tractor in it!" like he wasn't the one who put it there

Fuck, this may very well be the end of Eurovision as a cultural force in Europe.

What’s going on:

So yeah, there is a chance this may be it for the festival. Good job, Eurovision. Great fucking job.

Shit is going down HARD in Eurovision right now.We are hours from the beginning of the fest and in the last couple of hours:

To that last point, several other spokespeople also stood down with hours to go. Including Käärijä for Finland

Percentage of Each State Occupied by Corn Fields

if yall ever want like serious advice from me about how to solve burnout as a creative it's like...

literally ignore it. stop pushing. go do something else, enjoy your life, fill it with other things, do what brings you joy in the moment if you can.

go to the gym, take a walk to touch grass and look at dogs and smell flowers, cook dinner, watch tv with your friends, talk about your feelings as needed with ppl you trust, take a drive and blast your music, do the chores you need to do, the job hunting slog you need to do, read books that aren't for research, stop cordoning off your brain for The Craft or The Draft or whatever the fuck

forget about the project, stop thinking about it for as long as it takes to be excited again.

fuckin rest, basically

reiterating this--

stop pushing. stop blaming yourself for not working on creative stuff enough, stop tormenting yourself. remove all pressure and expectation. it'll be done whenever, you'll work on it whenever. who the fuck knows when that is, but it'll happen when it's ready.

stop doing shit that feels bad. do stuff that makes you happy and relaxed.

at a certain level of spoon usage from job, chores, errands, socialization and basic maintenance there will just Not Be Anything Left for your projects for awhile.

you have to let it build back up and then take your time getting back into it organically as it comes.

hope this helps someone else, bc I have learned it the hard-headed stubborn-ass fish-thrashing-in-a-net way and it's been agonizing.

The Making of Jak and Daxter (actor AU) part 2