#carson discourse

[brookheimer]

anne carson: simple moving poem about awkward dinners with not-quite-friends and the ennui that comes with realizing this mundane unhappiness is all adult life is sometimes

insane people on twitter: has she ever tried being happy? i like going to dinner with friends, what’s wrong with her? she can afford to go out to dinner, she shouldn’t complain. just be a cooler hang, skill issue. this isn’t my exact experience (i like my friends) therefore this poem is bad and unrelatable and pretentious. she can’t debone a fish? loser.

#would bet money that 75% of people shitting on it have rt’d that ‘not to me. not if it’s you’ quote more than twice #so terrifying about the state of discourse lol #anne carson

[aropride]

honestly fucking insane that carson said "i dont think women, cis or trans, should have to shave or get lazer hair removal to be respected and/or seen as women" and people went "wow i cant believe this person said that trans women shouldnt be able to get lazer hair removal" like What the fuck are you talking about . that's literally just not what carson said.

#text #people shouldnt HAVE to get this process done =/= no one should be able to do it ever. OBVIOUSLY. #the bad faith arguments pwople are making are INSANE. #sorry i know carsons blog has been abt this all week but now mine is too. its body hair discourse week on tumblr.com i suppose #discourse

[apollos-boyfriend]

i think. something that a lot of young queer kids who engage in online discourse don’t realize is that none of it matters in the real world. at all. i have been in so many queer spaces with queer people of all ages and never once have i witnessed anyone ever make a fuss about someone’s identity. i’ve seen lesbians who identify as dudes in the same room as the most femme women you’ll ever meet. fagdykes and dykefags and old bisexuals who call themselves half gay or half lesbian because that’s just the terminology they’re used to. and no one cares. no one even acknowledges these things half the time because it’s all just normal. it’s the queer experience. if you do make a fuss, a lot of people aren’t going to debate their right to exist with you. they’re going to ask you to leave, because you’re being a dick. and in my experience, if you do find a place that does care, that regulates and polices identities and labels, there’s a 90% chance you’ve found yourself in some terf-ran bullshit, because exclusionism is and always has been rooted in terf ideology. no one else gains anything from creating walls and strict limits in queerness. no one.

#icarus speaks #discourse #idk. carson’s got me thinking again #i genuinely can’t stress enough how no one gives two shits #people think it’s cool!!! weird fucky identities are awesome!!! #it’s not something ppl get caught up on. it’s brought up maybe once depending on the function #but aside from that. you just interact like normal fucking humans #bc no one cares that the dyke in the corner calls himself a boyfriend. let him live his life #what are you a cop has become a meme but it’s genuinely what it’s like

[commetombeunarbre]

: you have gone(which I lament), you are here (since I am addressing you). Whereupon I know what the present, that difficult tense, is; a pure portion of anxienty.

#Roland Barthes #A Lover's Discourse #Anne Carson #Eros the bittersweet #p.131

[griancraft]

Why do people badmouth others like in the ask box of Some Guy (me) like I can’t emphasize how weird that is. This keeps happening.

#this was in the drafts from awhile ago but apparently it’s relevant now #this is like the forth time now #Remember when anons got mad at me after they asked for my opinion Carson dykecrossing and Connor Timedeo #cause I said I said they were nice and cool that was a little fucked up #we aren’t close friends or anything but I think highly of both of them. #now inniter like girl I don’t TALK to inniter we r just mutuals #I’ve got the discourse tag filtered guys I don’t see stuff unless I like. know the person well and click #i dunno about anything and frankly unless someone is bigoted actively I don’t need to know #or is just mean #i mean. i guess educate me if you want?? i don’t. i don’t see why this is an issue genchamp I’m just livin my life

[butchdykeorpheus]

rewatching aloto got me even more convinced that SOOO many of carson's issues could be solved if a) charlie tried a little harder in bed and b) someone went back in time and opened up carson's mind to polyamory

#gray.txt #i know carson's sexuality is A Big Discourse Point in aloto fandom and like truly i can see the case for both sides #but honestly i think carson isn't NOT into men she just. has the misfortune of being a housewife in the 1940s kdjfdfg

[casawio]

god connor what the fuck

#i thought maybe hed take this shit seriously especially after the carson situation #he constantly makes jokes about disliking his mcyt fanbase / people that only watch him for dsmp #and yet hes riding on his dick on the topic that actually matters #tw grooming #discourse

[dearorpheus]

hello, your blog's vibes are absolutely impeccable! I was wondering if you could recommend me some nonfiction reading on eroticism, religion or fear? I'd love to read about any of these topics, but I never really know where to start looking for good theory books or essays, so I usually end up reading fiction instead. any nonfiction recs would be deeply appreciated (and on other topics too if you have particular favorites). have a nice day!

hello! thank you for the kind words♡

hm! some reading might be: - Erotism: Death and Sensuality + Visions of Excess, Bataille - Masochism: Coldness and Cruelty & Venus in Furs, Deleuze - The Sadeian Woman: And the Ideology of Pornography, Angela Carter - Hurts So Good: The Science and Culture of Pain on Purpose, Leigh Cowart - Eros the Bittersweet, Anne Carson - A Lover's Discourse, Roland Barthes - Uses of the Erotic, Audre Lorde - A Literate Passion: Letters of Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller, 1932-1953 - Foucault's Histor[ies] of Sexuality - Being and Nothingness, Sartre - The Argonauts, Maggie Nelson - Aesthetic Sexuality: A Literary History of Sadomasochism, Romana Byrne - Pleasure Principles: An Interview with Carmen Maria Machado - "The Aesthetics of Fear", Joyce Carol Oates - Recreational Terror: Women and the Pleasures of Horror Film Viewing, Isabel Cristina Pinedo - "On Fear", Mary Ruefle - "In Search of Fear", Philippe Petit - Female Masochism in Film: Sexuality, Ethics and Aesthetics, Ruth Mcphee - Powers of Horror, Julia Kristeva - Hélène Cixous' Stigmata (i am thinking esp of "Love of the Wolf") - Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis - anything from Caroline Walker Bynum.... Wonderful Blood, Fragmentation and Redemption, Holy Feast and Holy Fast - excerpts of Letter From a Region in my Mind, James Baldwin - Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche (re: Christian morality, death of God) - Waiting for God, Simone Weil - The Myth of Sisyphus, Albert Camus - Modern Man in Search of a Soul, Carl Jung - "The Genesis of Blame", Anne Enright

do know as well that Lapham's Quarterly has issues dedicated entirely to these subjects you've mentioned: eros, religion, fear ! there's also this wonderful ask from @rotgospels on biblical horror theory

other non-fic i will always rec: - "On Self-Respect", Joan Didion - Illness as Metaphor + Regarding the Pain of Others, Susan Sontag - The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning, Maggie Nelson - "The Laugh of the Medusa", Hélène Cixous - Ways of Seeing, John Berger - The Faraway Nearby, Rebecca Solnit - The Body in Pain, Elaine Scarry some non-fic things i've read lately: - "Mary Shelley's Obsession with the Cemetery", Bess Lovejoy - "Horror Lives in the Body", Megan Pillow - "The Cruel Myth of the Suffering Artist", Patrick Nathan - "The Rub of Rough Sex", Chelsea G. Summers - "The Lost Art of Memorizing Poetry", Nina Kang - "The problem with English", Mario Saraceni

#i hope you have a wonderful day too! #asks

[ashiqui]

the lover is the one who waits.

roland barthes, a lover's discourse: fragments / richard siken, i had a dream about you / racquel marie, ophelia after all / holly warburton (x) / pablo neruda, sonnet lxv / sasha sloan, i’ll wait / albert camus to maria casarès, correspondance / holly warburton (x) / @insweiminghui on ig (x) / simone de beauvoir, letters to sartre / shirley jackson, the bird's nest / anne carson, eros the bittersweet

#parallels #webs #web weaving #word collage #words #on love #love #poetry #quotes #poems #compilation #waiting #love and waiting #useraish #*

[hier--soir]

I would love to know about books that changed your life…favorite books?

oh boy okay buckle up! let's talk books! [thank you so much for asking, i love talking about this stuff ilysm]

so i am currently reading decreation by anne carson which i am really loving, and i reckon that's instantly on the list so we'll start there.

lemme break it up by genre with everything i can think of off the top of my head [and see on my shelf right now] also YOU ASKED SORRY BUT IM BOUT TO RUN WILD ALSO IM DEFINITELY FORGETTING LIKE A HUNDRED GOOD BOOKS HERE

short-story/poetry collections [aka the main thing i read most these days]

brute by emily skaja

flèche by mary jean chan

deaf republic by ilya kaminsky

autobiography of red by anne carson

foreign soil by maxine beneba-clarke [changed me forever]

bluets by maggie nelson

her body and other parties by carmen maria machado [idk if this entire collection is on the favs list, but some of them? woof]

classics

an oresteia translated by anne carson

narcissus and echo [from metamorphoses] by ovid

the bacchae by euripides

old [and old-er] lit

macbeth by willy shakes [see: my blog description]

hamlet by willy shakes

a streetcar named desire by tennessee williams

the end of the affair by graham greene

contemporary lit

nightbitch by rachel yoder [who else out here turning into a dog when their husband is away for work?? just me?]

the secret history by donna tartt [duh]

milk fed by melissa broder

year of wonders by geraldine brooks [this book has everything: the plague, self-flaggelation, gore, fucking the local priest!]

call me by your name by andré aciman [lots of discourse around this one but you can't deny that the writing is beautiful]

a book that is not a favourite but certainly changed me as a person lmao

crash by j. g. ballard

fav series of all time!!!!

the skulduggery pleasant series by derek landy. idgaf! that irish man changed my life, go read it that shit is timeless. sorcery? friendship? vampires? violence? incredible stuff. the birth of my whimsy.

#sorry if men are out there writing books cause i've only read like ten of them lol #books!!! #hit my ask box if u wanna hear more about any of these im dead fucking serious #jessie's library #<- for real! #personal #jessie reads #jess replies

[lifeintheworldtocome]

hey what happened with aimsey? /gen

cant find a screenshot bc they deleted the tweet but basically aimsey tweeted some shit about thinking people shouldnt use the term 'half lesbian' to describe themselves as bi which sparked some discourse. they ended up sending this ask v to carson mclennonyaoi

and then around the same time posted this tweet v

tldr stars being a little bit of a disingenuous stinker

[hatchetation]

Okay so I know Shirley is problematic in many ways and I’m here for that discourse. But there are parts of Shirley’s story arc that I really enjoyed. From the start her character is focused on assessing and minimizing risk. It’s played for laughs for the most part, but you can also see that she has real anxiety and real coping mechanisms. And as the show continues she not only assesses risk for everyday life things, but also for baseball things—what are the odds the Peaches will win? She’s a numbers person. The odds aren’t in their favor.

When she finds out that Carson is queer, she’s upset in part because she genuinely believes that queerness is a disease that spreads and that she’s next. I think the Shirley from episode 1 would’ve ratted on Carson (and Greta). But the Shirley who is now a Rockford Peach, who has seen the Peaches defy the odds in game after game, is different. She’s realizing that maybe stats aren’t immutable facts, they’re just possible outcomes. So she decides that she’s not going to live in fear anymore. She eats from dented cans (which yeah, maybe still don’t do that!), she kisses Carson on the mouth…and she learns that she’s okay and that sometimes it’s better to have faith in people than in numbers. 

#Tbh I think a major theme of the show is characters learning to count on people #They all have different experiences holding them back from that #Ugh the way this show portrays womens team sports is just soooooo good #Took me back to my very competitive hs bball days #Anyway #A league of their own #aloto #aloto 2022 #shirley Cohen #carson shaw #minor #gretson #Rockford peaches #Greta gill

[frecklystars]

As Barbie's girlfriend, can you settle the discourse on whether she's bisexual or aromantic or lesbian? I've seen so many takes.

"As Barbie's girlfriend" oh baby that means EVERYTHING TO ME. I am so honored, I'M Barbie's girlfriend?? 😳💘💘💘 the absolute love of my life... she's Barbie she's EVERYTHING and she's also My Girlfriend. So sorry to Ken Carson, but I am WINNING here.

Is there really discourse?? 😭 There shouldn't be! She's Barbie and it's just a movie. I am not the Official Person to ask for any "hey I think THIS is canon" but here's my personal headcanon just for fun:

My answer changes depending on the day and how I'm feeling. As someone who is a sapphic bisexual (possibly a lesbian if I really take the time to think about it but HAHA I won't spiral over THAT today, don't need an existential crisis right now, NO TIME FOR THAT), I might also be on the aromantic spectrum (or I might not be. it could just be the 'tism.), but I know for a fact I am asexual. SO, as a... my god what would you call me, an aroace WLW? I see Barbie as any of these things.

She -- and every single doll in BarbieLand -- is canonically asexual (expressed by Margot Robbie in multiple interviews). Now, she says it's "because they don't have reproductive organs", and we know this changes for Barbie at the end of the film. So, is she magically no longer asexual because of that logic? Who knows. You can be asexual but that's quite a spectrum. I am asexual but sex neutral, meaning I have zero sexual attraction but I am willing to sleep with my romantic partner if they desire it, and if I'm in the right headspace to do the work (since it's literally just All Work for me and not Feeling), and hey, maybe Barbie is asexual but sex neutral. Or sex repulsed. Or sex positive. Who knows!! When it comes to fiction, I feel 100% safe and comfortable exploring sexual feelings for my F/Os @beach-him-off-until-he-kens with art, fics, daydreaming, etc. Asexuality is a spectrum. Maybe Barbie is demisexual! Maybe she's ace! Or maybe when she's human, she isn't anymore. Who knows!!!

I can see Barbie as a lesbian because she had a male-identifying (I'm sorry if that's the incorrect phrase; feel free to correct me on that) doll quite literally CREATED to BE her love interest, that she had zero interest for (in the 2023 movie ofc, other iterations however are entirely a different story) but she was soooo loving with her girls, her Barbies. She could just be best friends with Barbies without any romantic attraction whatsoever, of course, but I remember a Margot/Ryan interview where Margot said "if Barbie were on a dating app, she'd have to be VERY CLEAR that her partner NEEDS to be okay with the fact that she needs her girls!! She loves her girls and NEEDS her girls nights" and yeah you could interpret that as "she's just best friends with girls" but as a queer person, I read it as queer. The lesbian-colored shirt Gloria was wearing, too... oh, honey, that cannot be a coincidence, there's no way they didn't know those were the lesbian pride colors. This movie was made with a few openly queer people (i.e. Ncuti Gatwa, Scott Evans, Hari Nef), for queer people, and possibly even by a few queer people. I would not rule out the possibility of Barbie being a lesbian.

I remember another Margot/Ryan interview where someone asked "people believe Barbie and Ken are queer, do you think that's true, can you confirm that" and of course they cannot just outright be Renee Rapp and say "YEAH MY CHARACTER IS 100% A LESBIAN" because these people have had media training SLDFJSDLFSDF. But I remember Margot and Greta have both said that BarbieLand is inclusive for queer people and they want EVERYONE to feel welcome there, that any dolls being queer there wouldn't be seen as "abnormal" like it is in our world, because BarbieLand is just... dolls. They don't face homophobia or transphobia or racism the way that we do in the real world, they don't even have a concept of that, they are quite literally not built for it. Somebody else can absolutely phrase this so much better than I can, but I hope what I'm saying makes even just a little bit of sense.

So anyway to answer your question, I personally see Barbie as a lesbian asexual, possibly somewhere on the aro spectrum, like a demiromantic ace lesbian, but I am open to her being literally anything at all. My answer changes every so often! Some days, I see her as a biromantic asexual, because who says she'd only be attracted to women just because she wasn't attracted to Ken? She could be attracted to any gender, and Ken just might not be her cup of tea, y'know? Some days I see her as aromantic asexual. Some days I just say she's WLW/queer and it doesn't have to be deeper than that. After all, she's Barbie, she's Everything, and Barbie Can Be Anything™.

#anonymous #asks #im so happy you asked me this. thank you i LOVE talking about barbie #and also. BARBIE'S GF!!!! i will think about that all damn day #💕♫♪ ♡ You're the pink in my cheeks 🎀🌸✨♡ #love notes #barbie

[ohmeadows]

Do you have any author/book recs for literary fiction? Or recs for beautiful writing (i.e. poetic, thought-provoking, interestingly structured sentences, haunting vibes, etc) in general?

tons, but i had to think on this so sorry it took me a while. i'm not including trigger warnings because honestly i'd forget half of the stuff others might find triggering, but you know. stay safe and research.

maddalena and the dark by julia fine had extremely poetic and beautiful writing, as well as a haunting vibe echoing through the pages.

the lonely city by olivia laing is a series of essays on art and artists and loneliness. probably one of the most thought-provoking books i've read on loneliness and the lengths we go to over it, as well as having an artistic practice rooted in it. highly recommend.

mourning diary and a lover's discourse by roland barthes. master of short fragment form, of turning just a few words into something you digest for days afterward. his theory books are rather heavy for me, but these are precious.

greek lessons by han kang. i love han kang's writing and this one delves into language in a very gentle, soulful way. painful and beautiful. probably a top 10 read of this year for me.

y/n by esther yi. i'm of two minds on this one. i wish it had been braver and weirder, but it is also really weird. it's about a woman who gets obsessed with a kpop band and it's very trippy, in the most positive way. i rated it a 3.5 because i felt it didn't carry itself to the finish line in a satisfying way, but it left me thinking.

love me tender by constance debré. on the limits of love in a corrupt system; debré came out as a lesbian and lost custody of her son because of it after her ex-husband made false accusations about "degenerate actions". she processes the slow, systematically enforced loss of time with her son and realizing he's a stranger to her now.

anything by maggie nelson, annie ernaux, édouard louis, sarah manguso, vivian gornick, anne carson. they all have very prolific releases to their names, i prefer their creative non-fiction/autofiction. i'd suggest looking through what's available and seeing if something grabs your interest here.

on earth we're briefly gorgeous by ocean vuong. masterpiece. i admire vuong's style and way of storytelling so much, i think he said "tell it true but tell it a slant". either way. love it.

natalia ginzburg is going through a revival as of late. i love her writing for the atmosphere, but think i prefer little virtues the most.

and for a tenth and final recommendation (for this round) the undying by anne boyer. nonfiction memoir/essay at its finest imo, she's unpicking illness and particularly her own cancer while exploring the cultural and historical aspects of illness, connecting it to other bodies of works. (can you tell i read a lot about illness and disability specifically?)

#ask meadows anything

[familyabolisher]

breaking my silence after days of this discourse. that anne carson poem is not at all interesting and whilst the reaction some people on twitter had to it was silly i do not see what about it is worth defending

#.txt #between that and spreading that goodreads review around you people are so annoying #i like some of carson's work but that poem is not especially profound or compelling lmfao

[smol-blue-bird]

the thing about the fairy vs walrus discourse is that Gail Carson Levine's Tinker Bell books have primed me for this so much that I don't think I'd even blink if a fairy showed up at my door. I would literally be like "omg hi Prilla" and then I would just go about my day

#disney fairies #I was unaware of this until this morning because I have been trying to stay offline (to avoid the evil allure of gradcafe) #but it made its way to me and I had to weigh in #I read so many fairy books as a child that they've permanently altered my brain chemistry #I think I'll always believe in fairies at least a little bit lol