#sometimes YOU'RE the only one who gives a shit

[moonstruckme]

apple pie - send a character + a prompt off this list and I’ll write a drabble

hi mae!! congrats on 7k you're amazing! the new pfp is also very pretty. so, can I please get ⁴⁾ red-painted nails with james? thank you very much!

Thanks lovely!

James Potter x fem!reader ♡ 450 words

You’ve observed that while your boyfriend has many talents, James is not good at slow-going, punctilious tasks. He can’t sit still. 

“I can too!” he insists when you share this with him. “You can’t sit still.” 

James is sitting with the wrist of your hand grasped in one of his, the other wielding the brush of your nail polish between two fingers. He’s concentrating so hard that his tongue is peeking out from the corner of his mouth, and yet thus far he’s managed to paint most of your fingertip a bright red. 

“It helps if my hand is resting on something steady,” you offer. 

“Are you saying I don’t have a steady grip?” 

“No. Of course not.” You suppress a smile. James tries to start on your next finger, and it naturally dips under the weight of the brush. 

“Angel, could you stay still?” 

“I’m trying!” you laugh. He tries to give you a vexed look, co-opted from his moodier friends (James is not truly prone to vexation), but his lips betray him by twitching. 

“You’re intentionally sabotaging me.” 

“Why would I do that?” 

“So that when you show up to the match tomorrow, you’ll have one nice hand and one shit hand, and everyone will know who did which.” 

You roll your eyes, grinning. You painted the nails on your left hand to show James how it’s done. Admittedly, it does look far neater than the mayhem he’s inflicting upon your right. 

“It’s normal for one hand to look better than the other,” you tell him. “Anyway, it still counts as Gryffindor spirit whether it’s messy or not, doesn’t it?” 

“Yeah,” James mumbles. “You’ll wave at me with this hand, right?” 

“If you want me to.” 

“Good.” He kisses the tip of one of your fingers that’s dried. You wince. You feel like that much polish could be poisonous. “You know, I actually don’t care if people know I did this one. It shows that you trusted me enough to do it, yeah?” 

“Wrongly, it seems.” 

“So sweet.” James pretends as though he hasn’t heard you, pecking you on the lips. “Honestly, if I get it all over your whole hand, that’ll probably be even better luck for the team. More red to cheer us on.” 

You eye his hand holding the brush. “You won’t, though, right? Like, that’s not the goal.” 

“I’ll try not to. But you won’t wipe it off, will you, sweetheart? You’ll leave it the way it is?” 

“I…sometimes when I wash my hands, bits come off…” 

“Then just don’t wash your hands.” At your incredulous look, James clarifies, “Only until after the match. Please?” 

You sigh. “All right.” 

He kisses you again. “Attagirl.” 

[creatingblackcharacters]

on the topic of fandom racism.. wanted to ask an outside opinion on this.

so without much detail bc i don't wanna get this person harassed or something, i'm in a fandom where most of the characters are japanese and look pretty similar, so the diversity is Not Great. recently i saw an artist, who is white, draw a character with slightly darker skin than the rest of the cast as Black, where he was ambiguously brown before. my problem with this as an outsider is that i think that plays into a ton more stereotypes than if he was just tan or something. this character is regarded to be misogynistic, overly sexual, and especially to his #fffff white japanese (girl) friend.

i, as a white person, would like to approach this artist and ask if that's really the message they wanna send, but god forbid i do not want to sound like those people that believe in "black-washing" or just hate to see more diversity in an anime lineup. would it be white knighting to point this out, or approach that, hey, maybe your only person of color in this cast shouldn't be the one that acts Like That...

Hm. I see what you're saying. I'd suggest a few things, which is really my go-to for everyone white fighting fandom racism:

1) first, look out for the voices of Black fans in that space and see what they're saying. If they are perturbed by what they see, then I would amplify their voices and support them first. Let them know they're not crazy. They're the ones experiencing the harm, let their voices be the ones prioritized. If no one Black has said anything, that could be a sign that this entire fandom isn't safe for that kind of feedback (which... Often.)

2) look at that person's page to see how they treat this character. Do they actually offer them depth? Are they a fan? Have they shared anyone's good perspective of him? Do they actually care about him, and think his being Black serves a better narrative? Or is it really just this character is a douchebag and now he's "Black" because they wanted some diversity points without thinking about it. Hell, does the original media do right by this ambiguously brown character lol? Because that can often be the larger issue too.

3) does this person positively interact with Black people at all? Like people, opinions, topics, politics, anything at all? Or is this their Token Black Blorbo Barbie™? Because that's a red red flag lmao.

4) if you still feel strongly about it, send them a DM. I'd say make sure to be genuinely polite, not because you should be respected more because of it, but so that it's on record that you wanted to give them the space to amend ("Hello, I mean no harm, but I was worried that this may-") You're white too, so it'll be safer. DMs are really a kindness, a last chance for grace; sometimes people are just like "fuck it, that's a racist and imma treat them like it". And I don't begrudge them that, this shit is exhausting and enraging.

5) accept that you may very well approach with the best intentions, and this artist may very well act a complete asshole* about it. They may make excuses, the classic "I would never be racist", they may accuse you of all those things that you just said, try to cast you as the problem, and their friends may very well make you out to be the racist for pointing out the racism. Welcome to fighting antiblackness and racism in fandom 👍🏾 it's a minefield out here.

*keep in mind, even if they "respond sweetly", the whole "thanks 💕" schtick is still them being an asshole. Racism in sweet words is still racism.

6) if they do respond like an asshole, it is not a reflection of you, but of them. 👍🏾 They are now purposely choosing racism. Block them and move accordingly.

[icarusredwings]

This post may not be suitable for littles or people who get uncomfy with mentions of baby making stuff. IT'S NOT WHAT YOU THINK THO I SWEAR!!!!

Wade:

Thinking about how much Wade loves babies when he's small.

He's holding Logan's hand down the street as they're running errands, and he's being so good, like SUPER good. Not running away, litsening to instructions, using his words in a way Kitty can understand.

He doesn't even have Fluffy with him either, so he's doing all of this with minimal emotional support, just his chewy star necklace and one of Logans big hoodies. He's in some colorful leggings, though, and in his pocket is nothing but a snack. Not even his cup.

Bro is raw dogging the adult outdoors as his small self with practically nothing. He's still wearing his dog tags, though, just in case he gets lost, they're used as a source of identification.

Ealier, when Wade wanted to pet a stray cat instead of just running off, he gasped and pointed to it. "Kitty!" Which is obviously code for "Look! A cool thing!" So when Logan looked, he saw how polite Wade was behaving.

"Be gentle, okay? Sometimes, they don't like humans." He tells him, carefully walking him over in which Wade just squats down to pet the cat very nicely. You would think 'yeah no duh he wouldn't hurt it,' and you would be correct, though sometimes he pets them too rough or moves too quickly so they get scared and scratch him.

Right now, he's bored, leaning on his shoulder and starting to get fussy because paying bills is boring, and he wants to go home. Chewing on his star, he stops, and his eyes light up, seeing a stoller.

Wade loves strollers. Because where there is a pram- Theres a babe. And babies were great. (Unless they were screaming, and then they were not)

He tugs a bit on Logan, but he's ignored because he's trying to ask the internet service people why they charged them 15 extra this month when nothing changed. "Kitty!" He points, looking at him for consent to go see the baby. Frustrated, confused, and not looking, Logan assumes that he sees another cat and waves a hand. "Yeah, sure. Be gentle."

So, being given the okay, Wade practically skips over to the stroller and crouches down to see a chunky cheeked baby boy. His mum is busy on the phone, so she doesn't even notice a grown man cooing over the child.

Giggling to the baby, he lets him grab his finger and nibble on it. Tickling his cheeks and stuff, you know. Baby stuff. So when he takes off his hood to let the baby play with his necklace, the baby gets upset and starts to cry.

I think we would all cry if we saw a glowy yellow eyed man smiling at us like that with such unfarmiliar skin. You have to remember, babies only know what they're shown, and I doubt it's ever seen anything like this before.

Of course, it cries. And the crying alerts the mom. "Ooh shh, Steven, you're al- Ahh!! Who are you! Get away from my baby, you freak!"

Getting shooed away, he whines, unsure of what he did wrong. Was it bad to play with babies? His head said No.

"What is wrong with you!?"

"I-i... but.." he dosn't know what to say, tries to explain that he didn't do anything bad and that he was sorry but she dosn't seem to care about his words. This is New York afterall. Kids are stolen all the time here.

The yelling, of course, makes Logan think "Great some idiot made the baby cry," only to pause and wonder where Wade went. "OH SHIT that's MY idiot." He thinks and instantly becomes protective, growling as he gives in and throws the extra money at the tiller. Coming outside, he steps in front of Wade. Sure, Wade is a weirdo, but he wouldn't do anything to the baby. Right??

"What's your deal lady!?"

"He tried to take my son!!" She says, assuming the worst.

Logan gives a glance to Wade, who's already crying and shakes his head, unable to get any words out, but "I'm good!" Seeing as various times today, Logan has praised him for behaving. "You're being so good today, kid."

"No he didn't! Now take your ugly pup and get!"

A bit more of arguing, and she finally goes on her way, complaining about New York Weirdos.

After that, he starts asking Wade why he was touching a random baby and honestly just running his mouth that he knows better and shouldn't do that, etc.

Almost instantly, it stops, though, because he's already crying. He lets out this huge sigh. "Fine... Im sorry.. I know you like babies. How about I give you a baby. Would you like that?"

Logan doesn't mean it in the way Wade thinks, obviously, as his eyes widden, sniffling. "You're gonna give me a baby!?"

"Yeah, sure-"

"We're gonna have a baby!!!??"

"WAIT- No! Not like that!"

He squeals and excitedly flaps his hands, continuing to go on about how 'Mommy tried to give him a baby, but it didn't work'

Slapping his hand over his face, he's so embarrassed, blushing all the way down his neck and up his ears. He shakes his head and growls. "SHHH!!! That's not what I meant!! We can't even have a baby moron!" I mean, who wouldn't be embarrassed about their partner OPENLY talking about their past relations in public?

So- He does what every person does when their partner is obsessed with babies by can't have any.

He takes him to the thrift store to pick one out.

[ohtobeleah]

I like to think the song 'I Love You, I'm Sorry' Specifically the Bridge of the song, is very Logan Howlett x Reader coded. And stick with me for a moment because I'll explain what I mean. It's early days, like truly early days in your relationship. So early that you don't even know if the feelings you feel are real or just lust-coated wishes.

I love you, I'm sorry

You were the best but you were the worst As sick as it sounds, I loved you first I was a dick, it is what it is A habit to kick, the age-old curse I tend to laugh whenever I'm sad Stare at the crash, it actually works Making amends, this shit never ends I'm wrong again, wrong again

I feel like it would be the reader who has this shit on repeat in her little cafe. Just doing the ordering, or enjoying five minutes of peace that comes once in a blood moon when you run a cafe that's a vigilante's wet dream.

"You listen to this song an awful lot," Logan grumbled as he took a sip of his coffee. Black, nothing sweet, no milk, no cream. "It's like an unrelenting Groundhog Day of bad music." Deep down, Logan only says it because he knows your attention is on the books in front of you and not on him.

"If you'd pay attention to the lyrics, you old fart, then maybe you'd understand why I like it so much," You don't even look up from where you're writing down your next order of alternative milk. But smile nevertheless because you know Logan has no intention of admitting he'd ever be into the same music as you. "It's about you."

"Like fuck it's about me," Logan replies with a frown. "How is it about me?"

"Logan," You sigh as you finally look up across the table. You're slightly frustrated because you need to focus, but you can't be mad at the brooding oldie sitting across from you when he gives you that shit-eating grin you love so much. He wanted your attention, he got it. "I sometimes wish you had mind-reading capabilities because then you'd know when I'm tellin' you to piss off." Logan chuckles at your attempt to flirt. He can smell your arousal from here, but would never mention it. The two of you had never crossed that line...Yet. It's not the only thing he can smell. He can smell your perfume. The Black Plum and Vanilla one. He can smell your shampoo. The juniper and white lilly one. He can even smell your annoyance for the way he's tapping his knee against yours under the table. The gentle knocks keep breaking your concentration and it's making you more and more flustered.

"I'd only wanna read your lips anyway," Logan takes yet another sip of the coffee he loves endlessly but would never admit to your face that your coffee doesn't make him want to kill himself. "Come on, enlighten me a little here."

You just stare at Logan for a moment, really just drinking in his entire being. Fuck, you were really falling for his son of a bitch, weren't you?

"You always call yourself the worst Logan there is. The worst version of yourself across all the realities and different timelines," You explain as you pack up your things. "But to me, you're the best, and I loved you before I ever had any chance to see your flaws, for the many that you fucking have," You sit in silence for a moment, just at peace with the fact you'd told Logan that you loved him in a very unconditional, non-traditional way. "Do with that information what you will, I have work to do you."

Later that same evening, when Logan knocks on your front door, you glimpse the song he'd last been listening to on the little iPod you gave him that you found in an old junk drawer. You raise a single brow as you lean against the doorframe and smirk.

"Gracie Abrams, Huh?"

"Go fuck yourself."

Ilya

[clownfire]

Rating JRWI characters by how good of a cat name it would be.

But it gets progressively worse.

Taxi - 5/10

Doesn't work without the context. People would think of the cars. I'd still unironically give it to a ruddy tabby boy tho. Has a fun cheeky energy on it's own.

Void - 10/10

So elegant, so goth. Perfect for a black cat.

Amber - 6/10

Perfectly normal pet name.

Pepper - 6/10

Also just a regular ass cat name.

Salem - 5/10

Popularised by Sabrina the Teenaged Witch. The most obvious name for a black cat.

Pretzel - 9/10

So cute! Pretty innocuous whilst staying quirky and unique.

Clawton - 7/10

Pun name! So regal. Give it to a dignified old man.

Rumi - 7/10

Unique. Feels like a pedigree queen's name. Rolls sweetly off the tongue too.

Emizel - 8/10

Now this is name worthy of a queer couple's / hipster hetero's furbaby. Bestow it upon the feral dumpster creature that pisses in your shoes.

Chibo - 8/10

So silly. So pesky. Perfect for a creature.

Grefgore - 4/10

More of a dog name really. Could work for a big dumb affectionate cat.

Soda - 6/10

That is the name of the collage flatting situation's collective cat. No one remembers who his legal owner is, or if they even live there anymore. Soda just hangs around. Not all the time, he's probably got shit to do too, but always pops in for snacks and head butts.

Br'aad - 1/10

Why did you pronounce it like that?

Runt - 4/10

Mean :( Also that's a mouse.

Everett James Petalbridge - 10/10

Rolan (in the deep) - 1/10

You're not sure if it's one cat, or a series of very similar looking cats that like to sit on the wheelie bins on that street you sometime walk down. Lets you pet their back but that's about it. They all purr weird.

Kuba Kinta - 0/10

Evil. For evil beasties only.

Tramilton - 0/10

That's like actual pet abuse. Don't name your son that.

[snekdood]

the cringe nihilistic "personal impact means nothing so why even try" vs the chad "or i could be one of the only people in my apartment complex that grows native plants and lets native animals live in them in what is otherwise a desolate hellscape of grass"

[mokeonn]

Before I go to sleep I leave you all with this piece of advice: sometimes you don't actually have to answer big political questions, sometimes you can just say "I am not smart enough to know that, I just know the small things I do to help." Like you can often times completely avoid making a fool of yourself if you just say you don't know.

[reticent-fate]

part 11/26ish

anyone remember those scales with the springs in 'em? all i ever see these days are digital scales but those things made the best noises. i think i've seen some kitchen scales that still use spring mechanisms, but it's been a while.

technology is weird.

from the beginning

[tittyinfinity]

when you're disabled, being financially abused by your parents never ends

[marzipancloud]

In regards to the list going around about having pro-choice vs pro-life parents,

I think it's a cope for pro-choice people to say they know they're wanted.

A child of pro-lifers knows they're wanted unconditionally. A child of pro-choicers knows their existence is/was conditional.

My parents wanted me regardless of:

Cost

My ability or lack thereof

My health or risks to it

My sex

My birth's impact on their jobs, lives, whatever

This fills me with confidence that my parents will choose me no matter what happens in my life. They won't decide I'm too costly or interfering with their careers or too disabled.

Can you imagine being the younger sibling of someone your mom aborted for being disabled and then becoming disabled yourself? Your mom aborted because she didn't have money back then and then goes through an economic crisis when you're young? She aborted to keep the bio-dad happy and now she has a new bf who doesn't like you? So on.

And yeah, your mom would say "it's different. I chose you", but we also know it's not "you" she chose, it was the favorable circumstances you happened to be conceived in 🤷‍♀️

[coquelicoq]

my two favorite subjects for a painting:

light reflecting off water

a woman sleeping soooo comfy cozy in bed

[medicinemane]

I don't know, I get tired of a lot of positivity

Like yes yes, the world's wonderful and I'm so strong or whatever generic thing is being said (because it's always so generalized to the point of meaningless), but you know shit is what it is, and the only way forward is with changes I manage to make... which you're not helping with at all

And as for like... my internal mood, I'm deeply isolated, sorry if hollow platitudes don't sooth the gaping maw inside me

It is what it is, and I probably get my shit together enough to do stuff like teach out of my basement like I'd like, it's just I believe that I'll be alone in a crowd like I've always been

But positivity... I just... I kinda get sick of it. There's this guy on youtube I watch who talks about economics stuff, he's recently started doing positivity and... I just fucking know his personality enough where it's like sorry mate but I'm not interested in hearing you spout Secret light kinds off drivel

...I don't know, I suppose it boils down to this

One, I can barely fucking take in positive things said directly to me, about me. Generalizations don't help even a little... I'm a mess, I'd really like someone to toss me a life preserver instead of always tossing confetti at me while I struggle to stay afloat... doesn't help

Two, the world is a terribly imperfect place, and rather than taking a mentality of "everything will work out", I think it's important to acknowledge that sometimes good people live alone, die alone, and they never got the break they needed and slowly bled out

I think it's worth knowing that if you can't step in and help yourself, then maybe no help'll come at all

...I don't know, I suppose in the end the core of what I'm saying is a lot of positivity seems like self help tier stuff and... I get tired of that, and I see so many good people struggling and... eh... either I can at least come in and say something positive custom fit to them, or I can keep my mouth shut

Just fucking let me rot. Help or let me fester on my own, you know?

I got rid of the trailer, I maybe did something like cleaning though I can't tell... at what point will my pace on trying to make things better be good enough for people, and I'll be able to stop having people tell me to fix my life... as if I hadn't thought of that already

...everyone means well, it's just tiring

[eimearkuopio]

Also if you're wondering why I had to be Irish: bitch, I'm a native species! You're the invasive one! This is my home! I'm just visiting yours for a lifetime, and I'm being kind enough not to redecorate your room at my place. The Tuatha Dé Danann were already acknowledged as being sui generis. Maybe stop turning your grandfather's place into such a fucking bloodbath if you don't want Him to pitch an absolute fit when He wakes up!

[ineffable-gallimaufry]

i don't know what to do about the fact that there are a few people that i follow because i like their content who are vehemently against voting. like i know why there's the sentiment but at the same time, as someone who can't vote, it's pretty fucking hard for me to see people who are not only refusing to do so but who are acting as if both candidates are the same caliber of a problem. legitimately i am worried that if trump is reelected, i'm going to have to leave the country and move elsewhere. it has been proven that his rise to power would lead to the rise of fascism across the world because it happened the last time he was elected.

it's hard for me to see this stuff. i can't even vote and yet i see people who are perfectly able, throwing that away because they're treating voting like a personal statement rather than a decision to make for the greater good.

[gender-trash]

I would be very interested in hearing the museum design rant

by popular demand: Guy That Took One (1) Museum Studies Class Focused On Science Museums Rants About Art Museums. thank u for coming please have a seat

so. background. the concept of the "science museum" grew out of 1) the wunderkammer (cabinet of curiosities), also known as "hey check out all this weird cool shit i have", and 2) academic collections of natural history specimens (usually taxidermied) -- pre-photography these were super important for biological research (see also). early science museums usually grew out of university collections or bequests of some guy's Weird Shit Collection or both, and were focused on utility to researchers rather than educational value to the layperson (picture a room just, full of taxidermy birds with little labels on them and not a lot of curation outside that). eventually i guess they figured they could make more on admission by aiming for a mass audience? or maybe it was the cultural influence of all the world's fairs and shit (many of which also caused science museums to exist), which were aimed at a mass audience. or maybe it was because the research function became much more divorced from the museum function over time. i dunno. ANYWAY, science and technology museums nowadays have basically zero research function; the exhibits are designed more or less solely for educating the layperson (and very frequently the layperson is assumed to be a child, which does honestly irritate me, as an adult who likes to go to science museums). the collections are still there in case someone does need some DNA from one of the preserved bird skins, but items from the collections that are exhibited typically exist in service of the exhibit's conceptual message, rather than the other way around.

meanwhile at art museums they kind of haven't moved on from the "here is my pile of weird shit" paradigm, except it's "here is my pile of Fine Art". as far as i can tell, the thing that curators (and donors!) care about above all is The Collection. what artists are represented in The Collection? rich fucks derive personal prestige from donating their shit to The Collection. in big art museums usually something like 3-5% of the collection is ever on exhibit -- and sometimes they rotate stuff from the vault in and out, but let's be real, only a fraction of an art museum's square footage is temporary exhibits. they're not going to take the scream off display when it's like the only reason anyone who's not a giant nerd ever visits the norwegian national museum of art. most of the stuff in the vault just sits in the vault forever. like -- art museum curators, my dudes, do you think the general public gives a SINGLE FUCK what's in The Collection that isn't on display? no!! but i guarantee you it will never occur, ever, to an art museum curator that they could print-to-scale high-res images of artworks that are NOT in The Collection in order to contextualize the art in an exhibit, because items that are not in The Collection functionally do not exist to them. (and of course there's the deaccessioning discourse -- tumblr collectively has some level of awareness that repatriation is A Whole Kettle of Worms but even just garden-variety selling off parts of The Collection is a huge hairy fucking deal. check out deaccessioning and its discontents; it's a banger read if you're into This Kind Of Thing.)

with the contents of The Collection foregrounded like this, what you wind up with is art museum exhibits where the exhibit's message is kind of downstream of what shit you've got in the collection. often the message is just "here is some art from [century] [location]", or, if someone felt like doing a little exhibit design one fine morning, "here is some art from [century] [location] which is interesting for [reason]". the displays are SOOOOO bad by science museum standards -- if you're lucky you get a little explanatory placard in tiny font relating the art to an art movement or to its historical context or to the artist's career. if you're unlucky you get artist name, date, and medium. fucker most of the people who visit your museum know Jack Shit about art history why are you doing them dirty like this

(if you don't get it you're just not Cultured enough. fuck you, we're the art museum!)

i think i've talked about this before on this blog but the best-exhibited art exhibit i've ever been to was actually at the boston museum of science, in this traveling leonardo da vinci exhibit where they'd done a bunch of historical reconstructions of inventions out of his notebooks, and that was the main Thing, but also they had a whole little exhibit devoted to the mona lisa. obviously they didn't even have the real fucking mona lisa, but they went into a lot of detail on like -- here's some X-ray and UV photos of it, and here's how art experts interpret them. here's a (photo of a) contemporary study of the finished painting, which we've cleaned the yellowed varnish off of, so you can see what the colors looked like before the varnish yellowed. here's why we can't clean the varnish off the actual painting (da vinci used multiple varnish layers and thinned paints to translucency with varnish to create the illusion of depth, which means we now can't remove the yellowed varnish without stripping paint).

even if you don't go into that level of depth about every painting (and how could you? there absolutely wouldn't be space), you could at least talk a little about, like, pigment availability -- pigment availability is an INCREDIBLY useful lens for looking at historical paintings and, unbelievably, never once have i seen an art museum exhibit discuss it (and i've been to a lot of art museums). you know how medieval european religious paintings often have funky skin tones? THEY HADN'T INVENTED CADMIUM PIGMENTS YET. for red pigments you had like... red ochre (a muted earth-based pigment, like all ochres and umbers), vermilion (ESPENSIVE), alizarin crimson (aka madder -- this is one of my favorite reds, but it's cool-toned and NOT good for mixing most skintones), carmine/cochineal (ALSO ESPENSIVE, and purple-ish so you wouldn't want to use it for skintones anyway), red lead/minium (cheaper than vermilion), indian red/various other iron oxide reds, and apparently fucking realgar? sure. whatever. what the hell was i talking about.

oh yeah -- anyway, i'd kill for an art exhibit that's just, like, one or two oil paintings from each century for six centuries, with sample palettes of the pigments they used. but no! if an art museum curator has to put in any level of effort beyond writing up a little placard and maybe a room-level text block, they'll literally keel over and die. dude, every piece of art was made in a material context for a social purpose! it's completely deranged to divorce it from its material context and only mention the social purpose insofar as it matters to art history the field. for god's sake half the time the placard doesn't even tell you if the thing was a commission or not. there's a lot to be said about edo period woodblock prints and mass culture driven by the growing merchant class! the met has a fuckton of edo period prints; they could get a hell of an exhibit out of that!

or, tying back to an earlier thread -- the detroit institute of arts has got a solid like eight picasso paintings. when i went, they were kind of just... hanging out in a room. fuck it, let's make this an exhibit! picasso's an artist who pretty famously had Periods, right? why don't you group the paintings by period, and if you've only got one or two (or even zero!) from a particular period, pad it out with some decent life-size prints so i can compare them and get a better sense for the overarching similarities? and then arrange them all in a timeline, with little summaries of what each Period was ~about~? that'd teach me a hell of a lot more about picasso -- but you'd have to admit you don't have Every Cool Painting Ever in The Collection, which is illegalé.

also thinking about the mit museum temporary exhibit i saw briefly (sorry, i was only there for like 10 minutes because i arrived early for a meeting and didn't get a chance to go through it super thoroughly) of a bunch of ship technical drawings from the Hart nautical collection. if you handed this shit to an art museum curator they'd just stick it on the wall and tell you to stand around and look at it until you Understood. so anyway the mit museum had this enormous room-sized diorama of various hull shapes and how they sat in the water and their benefits and drawbacks, placed below the relevant technical drawings.

tbh i think the main problem is that art museum people and science museum people are completely different sets of people, trained in completely different curatorial traditions. it would not occur to an art museum curator to do anything like this because they're probably from the ~art world~ -- maybe they have experience working at an art gallery, or working as an art buyer for a rich collector, neither of which is in any way pedagogical. nobody thinks an exhibit of historical clothing should work like a clothing store but it's fine when it's art, i guess?

also the experience of going to an art museum is pretty user-hostile, i have to say. there's never enough benches, and if you want a backrest, fuck you. fuck you if going up stairs is painful; use our shitty elevator in the corner that we begrudgingly have for wheelchair accessibility, if you can find it. fuck you if you can't see very well, and need to be closer to the art. fuck you if you need to hydrate or eat food regularly; go to our stupid little overpriced cafeteria, and fuck you if we don't actually sell any food you can eat. (obviously you don't want someone accidentally spilling a smoothie on the art, but there's no reason you couldn't provide little Safe For Eating Rooms where people could just duck in and monch a protein bar, except that then you couldn't sell them a $30 salad at the cafe.) fuck you if you're overwhelmed by noise in echoing rooms with hard surfaces and a lot of people in them. fuck you if you are TOO SHORT and so our overhead illumination generates BRIGHT REFLECTIONS ON THE SHINY VARNISH. we're the art museum! we don't give a shit!!!

[fuckyeahisawthat]

Controversial opinion among Dune book fans maybe, but I loved the changes they made to Chani's character. Making her a fedaykin who is already an experienced fighter before Paul arrives was a brilliant choice. Dune Part Two is a war movie, and this puts her at the center of the action, side by side with Paul, and gives her a much more active role than she has in the book.

We got a hint of where things were going in the beginning of Dune Part One. The first thing we ever know about movie Chani is that she's a fighter. She serves as a voice for the Fremen, telling us the story of their struggle from her point of view. I wrote here about the difference this change makes compared to other adaptations of Dune, what a perspective shift it is to have the world of Arrakis introduced not by an outsider, describing it as a dangerous but valuable colonial prize, but by one of its native inhabitants, who tells us before all else that it's beautiful, her home that she's fighting to liberate. I am so, so glad that the second movie followed up on this characterization.

I never found Chani and Paul's love story in the book particularly convincing, because why would this woman, who already has a prominent and respected place in Fremen society, even give the time of day to her deposed would-be colonizer, let alone fall in love and have children with him? Without a compelling reason for Chani to love Paul, she ends up feeling like a prize to be won, and "indigenous culture personified as a woman to be wooed (or conquered) by the colonizing man" is a trope we've seen and don't need to repeat.

But as soon as you tell me it's a barricade romance I get it. Cool cool cool, I know exactly what this relationship is now and it makes sense. Movie Chani doesn't respect or even particularly like Paul when she first meets him, and she doesn't think he's the fulfillment of any prophecy. She comes to respect him, and eventually love him, through his actions. He's brave--sometimes recklessly so. He fights well. He's willing to stick his neck out on the front lines with the other Fremen fighters. He can (after a little help) hack surviving in the harsh desert environment. He's not too proud to learn from others. He seems to genuinely want to be her equal in a common political struggle. All these qualities make sense as things she values.

Fighting side by side as equals is just about the only way I can see movie Chani falling for Paul. And it fits perfectly with the film's pattern of reversals that Paul's capacity for violence would initially be one of the things Chani likes about him, only for her to be repelled later when she sees what he becomes.

And as for Paul, well, he's had people deferring to him his entire life. Someone who doesn't take any shit from him is probably refreshing. He seems to like people (Duncan, Gurney) who challenge him and engage in a little friendly teasing--and aren't afraid to go a few rounds in the sparring ring.

It's easy to speedrun a romance when you're spending all your time together in mortal danger fighting for a shared political cause. Especially if you then start winning in a war your people have been fighting for decades. Are you kidding me? That is the perfect environment for intense battle camaraderie to turn into romantic love, and lust.

It makes sense that this version of Chani never believes Paul is any kind of messiah. Of course a character like movie Chani wouldn't believe in or trust some outside savior to liberate them. She's been working to liberate her own people for years. The more Paul invokes the messianic myth, the more he starts sounding once again like someone who plans to rule over them, and the more uncomfortable Chani becomes. In this way she becomes a foil to Jessica, the two of them representing the choices Paul is pulled between. It's a great way of externalizing the political and philosophical debates that often happen within characters' heads in the book.

And of course this version of Chani would leave Paul at the end of the film. It's not just the personal, emotional betrayal--although that stings. What common cause does she have with someone who just declared himself emperor and is sending her own people off in a war of conquest against others? Given the important role she plays in Dune Messiah, I am super curious to see how they get her back into the story, but girl was so valid for being willing to just gtfo. Given that she has the last shot of the whole movie, I'm sure she'll be back somehow, and I can't wait to see what they do with her character in any future installments.