unlabeledtincan

the problem is that i evidently have some kind of neurodivergence so that i need to be constantly over stimulated (playing the piano is perfect bc you have many many stimuli and many many things to think about at the same time) but rn i can’t play the piano bc i can’t keep my torso up, and all the other things i love to do i kind of struggle to do bc i can’t keep the focus bc i don’t know how to do more things at once!! like how do i keep myself stimulated enough while reading without getting distracted from the reading. omg i hate all this

journal
itsladykit

So tired of the idea that wanting/enjoying escapist media--media that is specifically meant to be inclusive of POC and LGBTQ folks without portraying them suffering for being POC or queer--makes you either a bad minority or a bad ally.

You're not a better person because you can't enjoy escapist media because it doesn't acknowledge the realities of racism, homophobia, colonialism, etc.

I'm not saying you're obligated to enjoy it either. Everyone has their own tastes, and that's fine. I'm just really tired of people insisting that wanting a space where you don't have to think about real world problems means you're either delusional or that you don't want to acknowledge them in real life.

Empathy fatigue is real, and it's increasingly becoming a problem in our modern society, particularly with the rise of social media. And I don't think I should have to explain why a queer person might want to imagine a world where they don't have to worry about hate crimes.

Escapist media exists for just that--to escape.

Think of it like a mental vacation, if that helps. You step outside yourself for a bit, refresh your mind, and then you're better able to deal with reality when you get back. (And pretending you don't need that kind of break is unrealistic, possibly even harmful to yourself in the long run.)

Quit bashing escapist media. Let people just enjoy things without guilt tripping them about it.

rainoverthemountains

That stuff above. Important. Very important.

Also, look. If (generic) you really need a reason other than escapism to ‘let’ people enjoy escapist media, consider this:

In order to work towards a better world than the one that currently exists, humans need to be able to imagine that there could be a better world than the one that currently exists. That’s a whole lot easier to do when you’ve actually seen a version of that better world, even if only a fictional one.

Seeing depictions of marginalized people just happily living their lives harassment free reminds your brain that hate crimes, microaggressions, and general misery are not some inevitable part of the human condition, even for groups who are currently marginalized. They’re a choice that certain people make and certain (many) institutions fail to protect you from. Those people could make different choices. Those institutions could do a better job, or in some cases bother to try at all. Things could be different. Maybe not in the exact same way as depicted in any particular escapist media, but they could be different. Not believing that is a fast track to cynicism and apathy, which is a fast track to accomplishing exactly nothing. Sometimes you just need examples of things not being awful to shore up your determination to make them actually not awful.

The bigots know this, by the way. They absolutely do not want anyone enjoying anything that suggests the people they don’t like could ever live without their harassment, could ever be happy, could ever just live their lives like no one hates them. The bigots hate that things like pro-minority escapist media exist.  They want to be inescapable.

I think I remember even hearing of a movie once about a lesbian couple that was banned from the home country of the people who produced it, not because it was about lesbians, but because the lesbians ended up happy. That’s not a possibility they want you to be able to consider. They want the misery that they believe is inherent in marginalized groups’ condition, but which they, in fact, produced, to be taken as an inescapable reality. They want anyone who ever considers anything else, even for a moment, even just for fun, to be silenced.

They don’t want you to be able to escape. They want you to burn out from empathy fatigue. They want you to waste all your energy on infighting. They want you to attack every single person and thing on your own side, to tear every one of them down without them needing to lift a finger. Stop doing their job for them.

politics this exactly i will gaslight the bigots with my art 'what do you mean this isn't realistic'
prokopetz

Don’t let anybody tell you that quibbling about canon is an artefact of the modern culture of authorship. We have surviving letters from Ancient Greek poets yelling at each other about whether including this or that legendary hero among the crew of the Argo would cause mythological continuity problems. You are participating in a proud and storied tradition.

fandom i have just read the introduction to my copy of the epic of gilgamesh from where the tablets were unearthed and from how they tie to each other they believe the writers had discussions over which episodes to include and which not to soooooo (of course i mean during the process of writing the oral poem down) (which if i understood properly was between II and I millennium before christ) soooooooooooooo (again)
dazeylo


Caught on camera for the first time in history, this is the extremely-rare Chirodectes Maculatus—a species of spotted box jelly.

animals gorgeous
ratanarchist

is anyone else just like. constantly filled with rage about their position under late capitalism and how we are expected to just keep playing this game that we know will literally kill us, is already killing people all over the world, and yet everyone around us is somehow fine with going about business as usual, with pretending we are free by being able to choose between different ways of being exploited. there is nothing more dehumanising than being forced to partake in a system that is actively detrimental to our survival as human beings, that is so physically, psychologically and spiritually destructive, and i don’t know how to deal with this anger anymore

favourite posts politics
fairycosmos

look. i don’t think my stretch marks are beautiful. i don’t think they’re tiger stripes or natural tattooos. i don’t think my acne is beautiful. i don’t think the bags under my eyes are beautiful. i just think they’re human. and i don’t think i have to be beautiful all of the time in order to be accepted and loved and sucessful. i don’t think every small detail of my outer appearence needs to be translated into prettiness.

politics shit's exhausting