maiabananaa:

captainsini:

fyeaharthurmorgan:

Me thinking about fictional pixelated cowboys:

Me thinking about real-life men:

@abigaillmarston 😂😂😂

i have never felt so called out in my life

capblacksails:

Silverflint drabble of the week, 12.11.2018 – Blade, Record, Rock (XI)

(Set up: sword practice)

Their blades meet – for the seventeenth strike in a row. A new record! John can’t help but feel proud somehow – which only signs his defeat, of course, as James expertly passes him, halting his sword right before John’s heart, smug smile on his face:

“Let’s take a break.”

John sits on a nearby rock. James hands him the bottle before sitting on the ground:

“You’re starting to get the gist of it.”

John feels his cheeks reddening at the praise, but just cannot care. His pride stopped long ago to be an issue between them, indeed…

My other shorts, aka ‘The Memories Chest’

marauders4evr:

forestwater87:

marauders4evr:

Absofuckinglutely not.

The people on this website absolutely should not and cannot be trusted with “the death of the author” concept because there are only a select few people on this website who understand the core difference between “this is my interpretation of this work” and “this is the only interpretation of this work” which so easily leads to “this is the only interpretation of this work and fuck you for ever thinking otherwise I hope you kill yourself while your family watches”.

Which is inherently bad in and of itself but then you add that to the fact that tumblr is so unabashedly selfish when it comes to representation that they’ll strip what was meant to be representation for someone else just so that the concept fits them too. 

And again, from a pure interpretation standpoint, there’s nothing wrong with anyone thinking something represents them while someone else thinks it represents them. Something like:

“Hey, I’m queer and I think the song Bohemian Rhapsody really represents my struggle.” “Hey, I’m suicidal, and I think the song Bohemian Rhapsody really represents my struggle.” “Hey, my mom just murdered someone yet somehow I’m responsible for making her cry and I think the song Bohemian Rhapsody really represents my struggle.” 

Those are all fine.

What’s not fine is when you get stuff like, oh, I don’t know:

“Well, in my opinion, Holmes was written to be asexual/aromantic and he and Watson had a friendship that surpassed most male friendships during this time-period as they were able to show emotion and confide in one another, going against forms of toxic mascul—” “PFFFT GAY THEY’RE FUCKING GAY, YOU HOMOPHOBE, SHERLOCK WENT DOWN ON HIM 10 TIMES A DAY, THEY’RE G A Y!” 

It’s that selfishness, that refusal to admit that there are other interpretations, that makes “The Author Is Dead” trope so dangerous on this hellsite because people will not only unabashedly reject the person who made the work they allegedly love, they’ll go one step further by claiming their interpretation is the only interpretation while bashing anyone else who says otherwise.

And soon, without anyone there to argue the author’s original intentions, representation and intent end up disappearing. And I get it, sometimes that’s a great thing. How JKR managed to write a whole series without thinking Harry would be a great teacher is beyond me. But sometimes, it’s fucking terrifying, because tumblr doesn’t know when to stop stripping away for their own personal gain.

The first time I was ever introduced to this concept on this site was years ago when there was a picture of an art piece where a man and a woman were holding the quivers of this combo-bow-and-arrow and were leaning back and they had to stay in their positions or else their arrows would strike the other. Since the woman was leaning farther back, the ‘edgy’ caption was that it was a symbol of how women had to carry more emotional weight. I reblogged with the artist’s name, trying to explain that the piece was so much more than some seventh-wave feminist interpretation. It was the artist’s way of showing trust in a relationship because if either of them slipped up, it would destroy them both, so they had to work together to make sure they got through this. And I got a bunch of pretentious sixteen-year-old edgelords screaming, “The author is dead” and mocking me for trying to argue that she wasn’t.

It’s early, it’s daylight savings time, time confuses me, and I want ginger ale so I’m ending it here with a:

TLDR: You can have your interpretations, you can even consider them canon, but don’t give this hellsite the freedom to kill off a person’s interpretations, even (especially) if that person was the original author.

Or, to put it best using a quote that I love:

THE AUTHOR IS NOT DEAD, MERELY SOMEWHERE ELSE!

That’s a concept I can get behind!

Also I didn’t know where to put this part but don’t any of you look at my books in ten years (period, just don’t in general) and say, “The main character has CP because I said so.” “…But the author said she has Spina Bifida.” “The author is dead.” “The author’s sitting right over there drinking chocolate milk with a crazy straw.” *Blows bubbles as I wave* “THE AUTHOR IS DEAD!”

I think this is really interesting and has some excellent points, but overall I can’t agree. First off, you’re absolutely right that multiple interpretations are essential for any work, and disrespect of interpretations/headcanons, and especially the abuse that often comes with that, is shitty and unacceptable behavior and “the author is dead” is not a good excuse for it.

That being said, I feel like there is a misunderstanding of what Death of the Author means here; before the theory became popularized, the traditional method of literary criticism involved intense research into the author’s life, essentially creating a mini-biography in order to determine what the text was “really” about. This is still an interesting form of analysis, but at the time it was considered the only correct one. There was no way to talk about what a book said without prioritizing what the author meant it to say.

This is, of course, a very restrictive form of criticism (that leaves a huge margin of error), and arguments about a text could be ended simply by pulling up receipts of “well the author said this” and all other interpretations were therefore invalid.

Then Barthes shows up and basically says that it doesn’t matter what the author meant: if it’s present — or not present — in the text then it’s a valid basis for interpretation whether the author intends it or not. (I don’t know necessarily if this was Barthes’ opinion, but it is mine that if what the author intended isn’t readily available in the text, then frankly they failed in their job and their “because I said so” doesn’t mean a dang thing.)

Death of the Author is useful in providing more interpretations, not fewer, and while I agree that many tumblr users treat the theory as a way to shut down criticism and that is unfortunate, that isn’t the fault of the theory. With the example of the arrow piece, obviously the author’s intention is interesting, and your/her interpretation is clearly present in the text of the work (based on how you’ve described it in any case, because I haven’t seen it). But it is also true that the woman is leaning back farther, and that is an element of the text worth discussing as well. So while those users should not have shot down your interpretation, and of course we should always show due respect to the creator of any work, the argument for any adherent of Death of the Author should’ve been based on the textual evidence that supports your and the artist’s version, not just because the artist says so.

TL;DR Tumblr’s failure to use Death of the Author correctly doesn’t invalidate its usefulness as a way to interpret any given text (and to some extent my personal opinion, as a big stan of the theory, that the author’s opinion/intention is interesting but not altogether relevant unless it is supported by textual evidence).

I still wouldn’t trust tumblr to healthily use an in-depth psycho-socio-historical analysis if the furry snaters put their anime swords to my throat and demanded that trust, but this is an excellent meta on why the original concept is so important and what this website could have been in another life…

# critical theory

horrorgay:

rare pair hell is legitimately a form of torture.

old rare pair hell is like the final circle of hell.

it’s just you, five dead livejournal blogs and ur stupid fuckn one-sided rants to any poor friend who’s dumb enough to let u talk,

Story of my life ….

korrathevampireslayer3791:

One thing that I love about Black Sails is how it shows that “civilization” is no more civilized than the groups it considers itself above. We learn that the pirates sometimes sell slaves and sometimes free them, but civilization is built on slave labor and has a huge interest in keeping as many slaves as possible in chains.

The poor are forced to go to debtors prison. The “civilized” British aristocracy sees nothing wrong with a father locking up his own son in a mental institution. It’s not just criminals who rape, but “civilized” Englishmen like Anne’s husband. When Miranda realizes that Peter Ashe betrayed her and James for money and power, he says “You wish to return to civilization. That is what civilization is“ – i.e. civilization is not actually more civilized than the criminal world, it’s just those same evils organized and legitimized and put behind an attractive front. Slaves are called “laborers.” Children being sold to men who abuse them is called “marriage.” And yet the narrative that certain men are monsters while other men are not is still upheld and the only reason is that some of those men have power and the rest don’t.

The pirates aren’t criminals because they steal, they’re criminals because they steal the wrong stuff from the wrong people. The English steal men, women and children from Africa en masse, steal land from indigenous people, and hire privateers to steal shit from Spain and France, but that’s “civilized” stealing–because ultimately they can get away with it. 

And I love how the show presents us with civilization’s point of view before we get the full picture and then reveals how our assumptions were wrong. Before we know why Flint murdered Alfred Hamilton, we get a grisly picture of a senseless murder in the dead of night and it seems “monstrous.” It’s only later that we learn that Alfred Hamilton’s death was pretty fucking well-deserved: he destroyed Flint and Miranda’s life and the life of his own son because he hated them for simply loving each other. Murder is a monstrous act, but Flint is no longer the only monster.

Then Woodes Rogers completes this theme by coming out of nowhere with one of the most gruesome, cruel and sadistic murders of any character on the show–keelhauling Teach. None of the characters (or viewers) knew what he was capable of because they didn’t know his backstory, but the show is essentially showing us that we made the wrong assumptions, again. Just because this guy is from “civilization” he’s supposed to be civilized? Hell no, he basically skinned a man alive, slowly, and looked bored while doing it, then went home to his wife and acted like nothing had happened.

Not only does this show tell a story about marginalized people, it tells a story for marginalized people because it corrects the way the story has been told up until now. It shows us that history was not written in an unbiased way, that there were monsters on the side of civilization. The queer people who have been erased were always there. Same with people of color. Same with women. Same with people with disabilities. Men who decided what was “civilized” and what was “shameful” simply had more power. 

And so a queer man is called a “monster.” A disabled man becomes a one-legged “creature.” The men are called “animals” and “beasts.” The first time we ever hear a racial slur on the show, it is from the mouth of a man from civilization, who after drinking and whoring ridicules Max for knowing how to be “civilized.” The contrast between them could not be more stark, and the whole thing could not be more ironic.

Max’s line about looking in the window of the house as a child really hits this point home: in that room was peace, but it took awful and unspeakable things to make that room a reality. That is the contradiction behind “civilization.” Behind its veneer are monsters and animals that claim to be enlightened men. When you get right down to it, civilized means “educated, refined, mannerly” not kind, just or good.

hotniatheron:

Silverflint
drabble of the week, November 5 – Revolution, Mask, Dance

Flint lays
back and looks up at the revolution of the constellations across the sky.
Watches them slowly spin as the earth turns, those sacred points of light that
sailors always whisper prayers to.

Guide me
home they plead. Return me to the shore.

Beneath
all the masks he’s worn during his life, Flint is at heart just a sailor. That primordial
need to entrust his life to the water, the ebb and flow of the waves like a
call to his blood.

He turns
and looks at Silver, who lays beside him. At the moonlight dancing in his hair,
caught in each curl like scattered stars. Just like the shimmering reflections across the surface of the water.

Home.