Imaginary Gardens

I probably still adore you with your hands around my neck, Or I did last time I checked

Image sources || King Molasses links || photographer Farrah Skeiky links

the silmarillion bride

Cover art by Pablo Delcan

State of Wyoming Hereford - CF Payne (2025)

Animals shouldn’t have corners!

Louis Legrand - Assouplissement (1908)

And if the Bechdel test is a relatively old example, this is a phenomenon that keeps cropping up. "Some artifacts in museums were stolen or looted, with colonialism and racism providing a cover for acts that in other circumstances we'd easily recognize as criminal" has become "all museums are piles of loot and stealing from them is righteous even it it's to melt the artwork down and funnel the profits to organized crime." "Zoos sometimes abuse their animals and the goal should be to reintroduce specimens to the wild" has become "open all the cages and let the animals out (to spaces where they will almost certainly die/be killed to stop them killing people)". "Ethnic foods are sometimes treated as more palatable, and sold for more money, when they're marketed by white people" has become "people should only prepare and eat food from their own ethnicity". Again and again, it feels like these ideas that were meant to make us think, to pause a moment and notice the unspoken assumptions and elisions that exist in our world, have been turned into catchphrases that shut down thought. I think the reason that happens is that people enjoy the feeling of righteousness that comes from calling out institutions like museums or the film industry, but along the way you can become just as dogmatic and tunnel-visioned as the bodies you were calling out.

I'm not saying this to tear down the adaptation, or the broader point that the above post is making, but I do think there's a secondary point to take away about how willing we often are to see people talking about gender/race/sexuality-based issues in fiction as ignorant. Even when we basically agree with the notion that sometimes fiction contains offensive stereotypes or tropes! It's still so tempting to let a rando's incorrect "that's factually wrong" win out because we buy into that narrative. "Newsflash. dipshit" sounds great, but witchofbonnechere isn't a dipshit, at least about this.

Garis Edelweiss

For a more illustrative example, say you go to the movies with a friend and you buy them popcorn, do you expect them at some point to send you money back via cash or through an app of some kind? Will you be upset if they don’t?

I have never regretted that decision more than I did waking up from the dream I recently had, where I excitedly bought a rare copy of the novel that Goncharov (1973) was based on, opened it up, and found that it was a hollowed out "book safe" for keeping valuables in.