#i can only recommend it

[skylarbee]

milex and a poem

i read this poem and shed a few tears because it reminded me so much of them, because it is so them... so i invite you to suffer with me.

Friends with No Benefits, Megan Fernandes, Poem-a-Day, 2023

I now replace desire  with meaning.  Instead of saying, I want you, I say,  there is meaning between us. Meaning can swim, has taken lessons from the river  of itself. Desire is air. One puncture  above a black lake and she lies flat. I now replace intensity with meaning. One is a black hole of boundless appetite, a false womb, another is a sentence. My therapist says children need a “father” for language  and a “mother” for everything else. She doesn’t get that it’s all language. There is no else.  Else is a fiction of life, and a fact of death. That night, we don’t touch.  We ruin nothing.  We get bagels in the morning before you leave on a train,  and I smoke a skinny cigarette and think  I look glam, like an Italian diva. You make a joke at my expense, which is not a joke, really,  but a way to say I know you.  I don’t feed on you. Instead, I watch you  like a faraway tree.  Desire loves the what if, the if only, the maybe in another lifetime.  She loves a parallel universe. Or seven.  Meaning knows its minerals, knows which volcanic magma belongs  to which volcanic fleet. Knows the earth has parents. That a person is raised.  It’s the real flirtation, to say, you are not a meal.  To say, I want you  to last. 

+

the author said this about it:

“This piece is about a friend. We drink martinis and talk poems all night. We have an energy easy to mistake for desire but that might instead mean something more earthbound. Desire is instructive. But she’s often instructing us toward some edge, toward some abyss. As I get older, I’m re-narrating the intense feelings I have for some people that don’t take the form of ravenous, cosmic, and consuming intimacies, but intentional, rooted, and durational ones. What’s better than the dumb luck of living at the same time as someone you truly admire? It’s so mortal and random. No cosmos could compete.”

#it's from miles' perspective too... #the night when they don't touch; the bagels before alex leaves; the cigarette and feeling like an italian diva; the joking; #the watching; the 'maybe in another lifetime'... #yeah #i don't have to say any more do i? #the poem itself and the author's explanation says it all #it's from a site called 'poets.org'. you can subscribe to their 'poem-a-day' and you'll get a new poem every day via email #i can only recommend it #alex turner #miles kane #milex #poem #friends with no benefits #megan fernandes #milex and

[frenchiepal]

royal palace stockholm

#sniff #it was so cool there #i can only recommend it #jaystraveljournal #travel diary #travelblr #places #sweden #stockholm #city aesthetic #travel aesthetic #photography #castle #castle aesthetic #royalcore #dark academia #royal aesthetic #so many aesthetics😬 #jay speaks

[ghelgheli]

Often when trans women ask me when I'm performing next, and I tell them that it's a queer/trans event, they will tell me that they'd rather not go because they do not feel comfortable or safe in those spaces, that they have been dismissed or belittled at such events before. Even trans women who are dyke- or bisexual- identified often don't feel welcome or relevant in queer/trans spaces. And whenever a trans woman or ally points out aspects about the queer/ trans community that contribute to these feelings of irrelevancy and disrespect—such as the way our community coddles those who support trans-woman-exclusionist events or who make trans-misogynistic comments—we are described as being "divisive." This use of the word "divisive" is particularly telling, as it implies that "queer/trans" represents a uniform movement or community—a "oneness"—rather than an alliance where all voices are respected.

Julia Serano, Whipping Girl. Published 2007.

#reading #just finished it and this from the final chapter was my fav moment and one of the few times i was nodding along #the book is solid in certain places #even incisive at times #but it is so theoretically confused and downright wrong in some of its foundatioms #that i CANNOT recommend it as an introduction to transmisogyny and i can only SUGGEST it as a v critical read #may say more later #whipping girl #transmisogyny

[thenearsightedmicroraptor]

Seen a lot of posts about people coming into your notifications out of nothing and liking your entire blog, but here's a shoutout to the people who do Not follow you, who appear out of nowhere, reblog One (1) post that you are Not the op of, and then you never see them again. Where did you come from girl.

#EDITED bc I think this one goes on ppls recommended pages now #HEY GUYS the question in this post is rhetorical ! i don't actually care. you can stop telling me honeys its ok #i like the mystery. i don't needta know everything #also when i say shoutout. i mean it. i love you guys i am not annoyed. you're all wonderful. keep doing you. #posts by ME #tumblr #like ... you didn't find the post thru tags because I just reblogged it #i made no addition. how did you find me #be free you majestic creatures I'm glad I got to witness you in passing #how tf tho. #did you look at my blog but only one post made the cut. amazing. i love you.

[caduschka]

Really glad I found Kokobot. It's so nice to be able to spread some positivity in this world. Also love the wonderful advice some people have given me. It makes me really happy.

#Kokobot #I can only recommend it #mentalheathawareness

[canisalbus]

hi sorry in advance if this is weird but i couldn't for the life of me figure out who machete was reminding me of and just now i figured it out - surku the dog from the moomins. can't remember enough to tell how accurate that is personality wise but something about the image of a distressed pointy-nosed dog shivering in a coat... plus ne on molemmat ahdistuneita queer ikoneita

I love Surku! Surku must be protected at all costs.

If you ask me, he's even more distressed in the comics.

I keep him on my fridge door as well.

But now that we're on the topic of Moomin characters, I must add that I see Machete in various Fillyjonks a lot. The short story Fillyjonk who believed in disasters is one of my favorite pieces of literature ever, when I first read it it shook me to my core, I still revisit it on yearly basis. For someone who seemed so wild and free spirited by nature, Tove Jansson did remarkable job at catching and depicting the essence of anxiety, uncertainty, vague sadness and irrational fears. At least in my opinion.

#loving the last moment Finnish jumpscare by the way #answered #anonymous #in the comics Surku only likes cats and is ashamed of it #I don't mean to theorize but surely there's no deeper meaning to that or anything #coming from a queer author #all iterations of moomin are wonderful I'm recommending them to literally everyone #but read fillyjonk who believed in disasters if you can #it has moments that are very Machete-esque #everyone loves Little My and Moomin and Snufkin and I get that but man Fillyjonks just hit different #also Sniff my beloved you deserved better

[uncanny-tranny]

Another bonus to learning a fiber art is being able to speak to others in a Lovecraftian language that nobody else understands...

...and also being able to read things like THIS:

#art #crochet #fiber art #described images #image description in alt #used a crochet pattern for this because it's just INSANE #see i can recognize some of these stitch markings but i haven't done them all yet #i actually kind of prefer the diagram pattern because it actually shows you the shape and the way stitches compliment the piece #with a 'normal' pattern (e.g. 1 dc in fifth ch from hook ch 2 4 dc) i understand it sure but. it isn't the same. #i was reading somebodys recommendations for tapestry yarn and understood all the abbreviations and what they mean #plus i feel like diagrams can be a great way to teach you not only how stitches look but how they contribute to the larger piece #one of my crochet proficiency goals is to be able to look at a piece and know instantly what made it #*cue me at the store analyzing a crochet piece so i can replicate it for 5× the cost* #if you're selling a crocheted piece for like $20 then it's my imperative to replicate it and not buy it 🫡 #i think that has the same moral implication as like... 'proplifting' #did crochet as the example because thats what i do as a fiber art. if theres a similar thing for knit/weave/ect then DROP IT BELOW I BEG YO #i want to learn all the lovecraftian languages of the fiber artists <3 #i feel like describing the image in exactly what stitch marking indicates what would have been too much so hopefully the explanation as to.. #...what the diagram DOES and how it visually indicates a pattern was helpful <3

[beardedhandstoadshark]

Any food ur craving rn? I’m craving for salmon fish..

Chocolate.

Anything with lemons.

Stuffed vine leaves. (they’re tasty, I swear. At least the small ones with rice; haven’t ever tried the meat ones. You can practically stuff anything in there though, there‘s a different version of this dish for every remotely Mediterranean country ever, it seems. Not the canned ones though, never the canned ones. Those always suck.)

…and now also salmon fish…;-;

#another anon ask #maybe I‘m just hungry… #yep. Definitely just hungry. #…do yall have Mediterranean food? Like is that a thing over there? #I can only recommend it #…again only if it’s not a canned finished product #this particular dish is pretty easy to make btw #provided you can buy some vine leaves somewhere #at it’s core it’s literally just rice rolled into vine leaves and then cooked

[dopamine-droplets]

I have to clean my flat but one of my characters is Jamaican so I guess it's time to learn the basics of Jamaican Patois now ...

#it's actually a very cool language though #i can only recommend it

[alivehouse]

you arent too stupid to get back into reading. i dont know i feel like i see this sort of weird self depreciating sentiment a lot thats like 'oh social media ruined my attention span too badly for me to read books anymore' or 'i cant read anything other than fanfiction' and i promise thats not true. yes it can be hard to get back into it if you havent read anything in a while but it not impossible and you *can* work your way back up to it if its something you want to do. just pick up something pick up anything and chip away at it. if you cant finish it its fine to put it down and pick up something else. but just try at least give it an honest effort. like not to sound an ad for a public library but its not impossible for you to start reading

edit: t.erfs are not welcome on my blog. try reading something other than uselessly reactionary 2nd wave theory from the 70s?

#also if you havent tried audiobooks i highly recommend giving them a try #sometimes thats the only way i can force my brain to absorb information. and thats ok! its the same book!

[poetrysmackdown]

what makes a poem a poem? does it have to be written in a certain way? is this question a poem if i want it to be?

Fun question! This is just my personal sense as an avid reader and less-avid writer of poetry, but for me it’s useful to distinguish (roughly) between poetry as a genre and poetry as an attitude or philosophy through which language and the world can be understood. And of course these two go hand in hand. I see poetry the genre as essentially a type of literature where we as readers are signaled, somehow, to pay closer attention to language, to rhythm, to sound, to syntax, to images, and to meaning. That attentive posture is the “attitude” of broader poetic thinking, and while it’s most commonly applied to appreciate work that’s been written for that purpose, there’s nothing stopping us from applying that attentiveness elsewhere. Everywhere, even! That’s how you eventually end up writing poetry for yourself, after all. There’s a quote from Mary Ruefle floating around on here that a lot of folks have probably already seen, but it immediately comes to mind with this ask:

“And when you think about it, poets always want us to be moved by something, until in the end, you begin to suspect that a poet is someone who is moved by everything, who just stands in front of the world and weeps and laughs and laughs and weeps.”

Similarly, after adopting the attentive posture of poetics, there’s plenty of things that can feel or sound like a poem, even when they perhaps were not written with that purpose in mind. I’ve seen a couple of these “found poems” on here that are quite fun—this one, for example. The meaning and enjoyment you may derive from the language of a found poem isn’t any less real than that derived from a poem written for explicitly poetic purposes, so I don’t see why it shouldn’t be called poetry.

That said, I do think that if you’re going to go out and start looking for poetry everywhere, it’s still important to have a foundation in the actual language work of it all. Now, this doesn’t mean it has to be “written in a certain way” at all! But it does mean that in order to cultivate the attentiveness that’s vital to poetry, one needs to understand what makes language tick, down at its most basic levels. It will make you better at reading poetry, better at writing it, and better at spotting it out in the wild.

Mary Oliver’s A Poetry Handbook is an extraordinary resource to new writers and readers, and a great read for more experienced folks as well. Mary Oliver’s most popular poems are all to my knowledge in free verse, and yet you might be surprised to find her deep appreciation for metrical verse (patterns of stressed/unstressed syllables), as well as for the most minute devices of sound. In discussing the so-called poetry of the past, she writes,

“Acquaintance with the main body of English poetry is absolutely essential—it is the whole cake, while what has been written in the last hundred years or so, without meter, is no more than an icing. And, indeed, I do not really mean an acquaintanceship—I mean an engrossed and able affinity with metrical verse. To be without this felt sensitivity to a poem as a structure of lines and rhythmic energy and repetitive sound is to be forever less equipped, less deft than the poet who dreams of making a new thing can afford to be.”

In another section, after devoting lots of attention to the sounds at work in Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”, she writes,

“Everything transcends from the confines of its initial meaning; it is not only the transcendence in meaning but the sound of the transcendence that enables it to work. With the wrong sounds, it could not have happened.”

I hope all this helps to get across my opinion that what makes a poem a poem is not just about the author's intention, and not just about meaning (intended or attributed), but also about sound and rhythm and language and history, all coalescing into something that rises above the din of a language we would otherwise grow tired of while out in our day-to-day lives.

I'll always have more to say but I'm cutting myself off here! Thanks for the ask

#ask #discussion #does this even answer the question? lol #anyways even if you're not huge on mary oliver i still highly recommend a poetry handbook #i admit her poetry is only to my taste about 60-70% of the time. but her handbook is a great resource and can stand alone #i actually think oliver wrote a whole other book just about metrical verse too. for people who are into that #also if you're someone who's less interested in the question 'what is poetry?' and more into questions like #why is poetry? can poetry survive? what the fuck happened to poetics in the twentieth century? #i recommend the witness of poetry by czeslaw milosz #an older book—actually a collection of lectures—but an absolute game-changer for me #not a poll

[unexpectedbrickattack]

shenanigans

#pizza tower #peppino #pepperman #the noise #gustavo #spicy hot #suggestive #ONLY A LITTLE #heehee i am FREE from my commission shackles. this is a threat AND warning #gonna post some of the ACTUALLY not sfw stuff soon i think; dont wanna make a twitter for it #they wont be in the main tags but ill put them behind some jokey joke meme pic and then a readmore #bc like even if u put a readmore to cover the images. when its recommended to others from a DIFFERENT post #the first image u used still pops up any way #and i dont want to put peptitties out for everyone to see LMAO #anyway #ive had this idea for ages; peppino getting stuck w pepperman on the their way to a gala #and pepperman is like do not worry my friend; i will simply call in a helicopter to come pick us up :) #and peppino is like WHAT?? dont do that !!!! its just a flat; i can fix that! #but i just now thought of adding the others lol i wanted an excuse to draw them w some fancy hair :)! #noise is like. um. theres no way I can sit here for 20 minutes and NOT embarrass myself. im going to find a rock to sit on #and not look at him #self imposed timeout and naughty shame corner #gustavos comment is from a tag i saw on a post that made me scream laugh #and pepperman watches intently bc that is his muse and he likes committing peppinos form to memory heehee

[eyesjustwatching]

Please do not watch Velma. Please. I understand your curiosity. I know you're thinking it can't possibly be that bad. NO. If you're that curious, put your pirate hat on. Do not give them the views. No hate watching. There is no obligation to the ip. Let it be an ugly footnote. Please just let this show melt into obscurity forever.

#i will only ask this one thing #please do not watch #you can post all you want so long as their numbers are bad #please dont touch the show Velma with a 10ft pole #velma show #-100000/10 #would not recommend #Scooby-Doo #scooby doo #The Gang deserves better

[yardsards]

people have brought up the difference between "this piece of media is good" vs "i like this piece of media". i would also like to mention the third axis "i would easily recommend this piece of media to others"

#eliot posts #like for example. taz balance. i like it SO MUCH and i think it is mostly good #but i only recommend it to a select few people because it is SO LONG and is a little niche in terms of taste #so i need to know more abt what kind of stuff you like before i would ask you to invest the time to listen to it #meanwhile a show like infinity train i recommend to almost everyone #(well. after asking them if there's anything they need content warned about bc that shit can get HEAVY) #bc it's short and it's got an appeal that is good even for ppl outside of my ''adults who like kids cartoons'' circle w its storytelling #(as opposed to a show like the owl house which is good but i would generally only recommend to ppl who Like Cartoons)

[fallcolorspringrapid]

hi. if you like weirdly intense mentor-protégé relationships, War of Faith (追风者) might be for you.

the protégé: Wei Ruolai, a little potato, a poor, brilliant, idealistic boy whose n:o 1 ambition in life is to... work for advisor Shen Tunan of Central Bank. apparently. as his personal assistant.

"My life is not worth much anyway," Wei Ruolai says,

wow. ok.

and this is Shen Tunan, Wei Ruolai's boss and mentor. here he's looking at Wei Ruolai who has just said something very smart.

i'm going to eat that little potato for breakfast —Shen Tunan, probably.

people. these two have Chemistry. Shen Tunan keeps looking at Wei Ruolai like he can't quite believe his luck at having found such a sweet potato and can't make up his mind about which part to bite into first. and Wei Ruolai is just *incoherent noises* he's just so earnest. he's quiet and smart (and also very stupid) and tenacious and a tiny bit of a brat, and he lights up under Shen Tunan's attention.

Shen Tunan: "You spoke well earlier."

Wei Ruolai, having looked bashfully away:

ahem.

praise kink, anyone?

#to be fair anything can still happen #i'm only 10 episodes in and there are only 12/38 out as of writing this #but so far this show has been so good #the story is intriguing (and so far very nuanced re: propaganda) #and the side characters are interesting and complex #so it doesn't feel as if there are yibo scenes to look forward to and non-yibo scenes to suffer through #i sincerely recommend. please everyone watch this and scream about it with me and also write fic about these two #shen tunan #wei ruolai #shenwei #(i decided that's the ship name) #war of faith #追风者 #wof ep 9 #spoilers

[entropyvoid]

Golden Hour (+ lineart below cut)

I took a picture of the lines for once and did some basic crappy photo editing on my phone, so you could probably print this out and use it as a coloring page or something if you so wish lol. Do with it what you will.

#honkai star rail #dr ratio #veritas ratio #aventurine #aventurine hsr #cherallart #as you can see i forgor i wanted to draw his glasses til like. last second #i can’t believe it’s been like 2 whole months since I last did a whole like. watercolor illustration #part of that’s been bc I’ve been having a bit of a rough semester bc adhd med issues (which are resolved now) #but I really wanted to draw aventurine and ratio. my boys #i’ve been LOVING penacony so far so I needed to get something nice out #anyway I did this while my s/o and I alternated between reading a 500 pg long history book out lout to each other #it’s called ‘the inheritance of rome’ and kinda covers what happened after the collapse of the western roman empire #and tries to identify and explain all the cultural echoes and reverberations and transformations that rose from its ashes #throughout europe north africa and the middle east. anyway it’s super interesting and I highly recommend it #the late antique period is not something often covered/talked abt in public ed hist classes. at least not when I was goin through em #or the transitory period between it and the early medieval period at least #i still got 150 pages left and a final paper due on it in like 4 days but it’s only a 5 pg minimum and I’m a wordy bitch so #i think i can make it #anyway back to that I go