Spiraling into madness

1. Have proof they're a teenager first. More than just a picture, have a video call with them.

2. If you want to meet up with them, have your parents or a trusted adult come with you. Even if they are a proven teenager, its still good to have supervision in case any issues happen.

3. If you are talking to an adult, and they start being sexual in any way, you run the fuck away. It doesn't matter if they're 40 or 20. An adult inherently has a power dynamic that teenagers do not. And its up to the adult to act responsible about it. There's exceptions of course, if you're 16 and dating an 18 year old, that's not a problem, we're not talking about that.

4. Being in a server with adults or ran by adults is not inherently bad. Talking to adults is not inherently a problem, and will likely happen in any number of Discord servers. It is only an issue when they are acting sexual and show predatory behavior.

5. Look out for grooming behavior. It can be difficult, because at first it seems like innocuous behavior, like complimenting or giving gifts. Especially if you feel lonely and have low self esteem. And groomers actively target people like that.

If they start trying to isolate you, talk sexual with you, state they depend on you for emotional needs, blame you for their own actions, try to be secretive about the relationship- Then you need to talk to people you trust, block the perpetrator, and call the police on them.

six hugs from alhaitham’s friends

+ one from his best friend

In the first panel, SG sees TG playing on the computer and is disappointed. SG puts a lot of value in the idea of “making things,” specifically “art,” and thinks TG is just wasting their time

So he asks them if they wouldn’t rather be “making something” instead of just playing games and listening to music, implying that TG isn’t doing anything worthwhile or creative with their time

But TG replies that “interpreting is generative,” meaning that even if they spend their time just doing fun stuff, the mere act of enjoying something is creating an experience and an interpretation. Talking about something, dancing to music or sharing a piece of art with your friends IS “making something,” and each of those can be worthwhile and artistic.

SG leaves, complaining he “can’t be an auteur of [interpretation].” Auteur is a movie term that refers to a filmmaker with artistic control and vision enough to be considered essentially the singular creator of the resulting work of art. Turns out, SG doesn’t just want to “make things,” he wants to make things he and others see as “important.” He wants to make art not for the sake of art, but for the sake of being recognized and praised for his art.

This comic really speaks to elitism within the artistic community, the idea that art needs to meet certain standards to be considered art. SG’s viewpoint is really traditionalist, that art need to be “approved” and validated in order to be considered “really art;” while TG recognizes that art can be as little as just talking about what you love.

Side-striped Jackal (Lupulella adusta), family Canidae, Limpopo, South Africa

I recently purchased this slat back chair from an antiques mall in Maine. My hunch is that it’s an 18th-century chair, made in New England.

It has a decaying woven splint seat and part of the top slat was broken off at some point. You can see the top slat no longer has the middle rise that the two other slats have.

But the chair is still ramrod straight and just as square as can be. Its two front stretchers (the pieces that brace the legs) have a nice amount of wear on them where many many decades of sitters rested their feet.

It’s been at least three colors in its life: first blue (and possibly even green), then red, and then black. It was probably painted black around the first half of the 19th century when Hitchcock “fancy” painted chairs came into fashion. Hitchcock chairs were commonly painted with black lacquer and stenciled with gold.

This little slat back chair would have looked very old fashioned in its red paint compared to the stylish Hitchcock chairs. But instead of discarding the slat back chair, the family that owned it updated it with black paint and gold details. The chair must have meant a lot to the family for them so make such an effort.

You can see the gold detail on the beautifully turned acorn-shaped finials.

You can even see gold detailing along the tops of the slats, which tells us that the top slat must have broken before the first half of the 19th century.

Evidence that the slat back chair was well-loved can also be seen in a repair that was made to its back stretcher. When the original back stretcher broke (did it break at the same time as the top slat?), it was replaced, but it seems the family that owned the chair did not have access to a lathe, so they carved a new stretcher by hand. You can see the ridges in the wood left by the knife, compared to the smoothly turned legs and the other stretchers.