be honest, am i your most crepuscular homie?

Workaholic guy who has been required by legal action to split up his once-successful vacation cottage rental chain business, leaving him with only one lot of rentable cottages out of the two he once had: Cut my life in two pieces. This is my last resort.

heres the thing. i enjoy well done heavy subject matter, you can look at my track record of interests as evidence for that, but i do think writers who wont shut up about how complicated and controversial they are for including ~dark themes~ in their writing need to a christmas carol style be forced to sit down and watch all 4 seasons of 13 reasons why to see what happens if you try to incorporate a bunch of heavy stuff in your work with 0 research or regard for people affected

slight clarification: people in the tags are saying "yea there needs to be levity between heavy moments for a story to be effective", which is also very true! but not what this post is about. this post is about how if you write about abuse and murder and oppression but you dont actually know what youre talking about or have a purpose for including it beside shock value and proving how mature you are your work will read like it was written by a twelve year old

you only like me for my radiant personality :/ you're only here because you love to see my smile :/ you only want to hang out with me because you know we're both so much happier knowing each other :/

i read an interview with a mathematician recently where she talks about the commonalities between math and literature and the idea that playfulness is a key part of doing both of those things. there’s a lot of fun to be had in turning a concept over and over, finding novel ways to look at it or combine it with other things, and i think that idea of playfulness also applies to analysis + critique. looking at a story through different lenses to see what new insights you can gain, reading intertexts and learning about the context in which it was created. finding a new bit of theory and saying hey wait a minute, i can use this to talk about [insert favourite media here]! it’s fun!

if i can get on my professional educator soapbox for a moment i think the reason a lot of people struggle with the idea that analysis and critique can be fun is that our education system in general is not designed to make the intellectual process seem particularly fun, or like something that can be approached in a playful manner (see also: the mathematician’s lament). thinking deeply about things for the sake of thinking deeply about things seems ridiculous because it’s associated with the stress of grades and too much homework and general bad pedagogy. it creates a lack of confidence in one’s own intellectual abilities that makes even the act of trying seem like too much. and it’s not at all impossible to grow past this and find the fun in the intellectual process but you do have to push past a lot of that fear and anxiety first

here’s the original article as well as a mathematician’s lament