i feel like a lot of Discourse (read: fandom wank) happens in places that have forgotten or never learned the death of the author theory
(which i know is not sacrosanct but it is very useful for handling fandom spaces, particularly fraught ones)
for those who don't know, the death of the author theory goes like this: as far as the work is concerned, the author dropped dead the second that the final word was published, and thus cannot comment, object to, clarify, or expand on anything that is not on the page.
my understanding is that it's most strictly used to mean that that the author's interpretation of the work doesn't matter, but can be expanded to state that nothing which is not on the page matters. imo, the expanded definition is particularly useful for fandoms and needs to be adopted on a larger scale.
because what it means is this:
it doesn't matter what the creator(s) intended. it doesn't matter what they said in an interview. it doesn't matter what the actors think, it doesn't matter what supplemental materials say or imply, even if they're signed off on by the creator(s). it doesn't matter if everyone involved in making it hates your interpretation and says that it's wrong.
they don't get to say that it's wrong. they dropped dead the second the last episode/book ended. their interpretation is simply one more in a vast sea of others.
listen to me, fandom spaces. i am taking your face in both of my hands. embrace the death of the author. you will no longer be bound to the (possibly fickle) words of the creator(s), your interpretation can no longer be the wrong one. if the text can be used to support it in any way, even twisty ways, it's valid. you don't have to jump through hoops to defend it against haters who say you're wrong.
the death of the author. open your heart to it. live it. be free.
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Some fanart for @entomolog-t story INSTAR
Love me some alien shenanigans!
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Y'know someone's probably waxed poetic about this already but it's on my mind so I'm gonna do it again.
When it comes to encouraging people to learn about native plants and habitat and involving themselves and their yards in the wider ecosystem, you gotta meet them where they're at.
And maybe that means they won't go as far into it as you are or would like them to in your wildest dreams. But even small steps count towards the bigger picture and I think we need to appreciate that more.
An example from my own life is my mom and the current gardening project we're working on. We're planning out the garden beds in the front of the yard by the mailbox--my mom's previous plantings for the most part haven't worked out, so I'm taking a crack at it.
I'm a pollinator gardening enthusiast who cares more about attracting as many butterflies bees and hummingbirds as possible than keeping things 'neat' and 'tidy'. However, not only do we live in an HOA neighborhood (though not as intense as some other stories I've heard), but I know my mother--an interior designer who has a deeply vested care for making sure the exterior of the house looks as Nice as possible.
We're still getting a pollinator garden in the front though. How? I'm meeting her where she's at, I'm making some concessions, she's making some concessions, but ultimately we're making something that works for the both of us. She doesn't want the plants too tall and messy? We'll trim them back in fall and winter--the insects can use the backyard garden to nest in. She doesn't want things too wild and bushy and weedy? We'll add a nice mulch to the beds, keep things a bit spaced out until they grow in to their larger sizes. She doesn't know the latin names for the plants I'm asking for, let alone how to pronounce them to ask for them at a garden center? That's fine, I don't know the Latin names for most things anyways, let's just use common names.
Does she care that the garden will attract butterflies and hummingbirds? Not intrinsically--she sees it as more of a bonus, if anything. She just cares about what color everything will be and if it'll be easy to maintain. The fact that they're native plants barely registers as a plus side to her. And honestly? That is fine.
If I approached this problem with a hardheaded attitude on how I wanted it to be just as wild and free as my backyard garden? There wouldn't be any native plants in the front beds. It's not like I didn't teach my mom things, but I didn't lecture her like she was lesser just for not knowing or caring as much about native gardening as I do. And that, ultimately, made her more open to the idea than she would've been if I looked down on her like I've seen too many people do to others.
Not everyone is going to develop a deeply seated care about native plants and Latin names and I don't think it's reasonable to expect that. Meet people where they're at and you just might get a lot more done. Meet people where they're at and you just might find they'll get excited enough to learn more--but if they don't want to learn more, that is fine.
We can't expect everyone on the globe to suddenly become plant experts rattling off Latin names left and right and professionally ID'ing native and invasive plants. In the same way we wouldn't expect everyone to suddenly learn the ins and outs of learning code, or how to synthesize medicines, or how to properly build a house. And that is fine. Because we can lean on those who do know when these things come up.
I lost track of where this was going but. Y'know????
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modern family is all fun and games until you get to the scenes where you burst into tears because the once-vaguely homophobic dad now refers to his son's husband as family, and also the academically gifted daughter realizes that her dorky, clumsy dad was always really proud of her and just never surprised because he just assumed she could do anything, and also the eldest daughter who eloped comes crawling back to her parents' room and whispers that she still wants her parents to be present for her wedding, and also the anxious queer lawyer character admits that he was terrified that his husband would just leave him alone with their baby daughter, and also that the once-vaguely grouchy dad looks at his stepson and tells him that what makes a family is who sticks around, not who you're blood-related to and anyways what was i saying
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Me, having the day of all time: oh what a dandy little bumblebee, I sure hope it's butt is all I think of for the next 24 hours--
My brain: hey if Old Child is supposedly the reason for all vampire stereotypes then that implies he started the lack of reflection myth by avoiding looking in the mirror, most likely because he didn't want to be reminded of what happened to the real Hugh or look at himself in Hugh's body lol
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