this is one of the better things i posted on cohost and i wanted it to be more easily accessible again because i still believe it very much. i wrote it in february 2023.

I've been thinking about the things people have said about my art that have stuck with me the longest, and trying to synthesize that into a personal philosophy about how I talk about other people's art - and I think I've got it to a point where I just want to get it out into the world somehow. It does also start with a bit of a humble brag but the story is important to get to my conclusion.

One time I practiced a single piano piece for weeks on end for a once-in-a-lifetime live performance. I was playing a piece called Familiar by the German pianist Nils Frahm... in front of Nils Frahm. This was terrifying. He was sat literally on the floor about 2 metres away from the piano while I played - his eyes shut. After everybody at the performance had played their pieces, Mr Frahm came up to me and said something that justified the work I'd put in: that he really appreciated how delicate my touch on the piano keys was. It made my weeks of practice feel visible and worth it in a way that wouldn't have been quite the same if he'd simply said that he'd enjoyed the performance.

So when I am responding to art of any kind, this is what I say to myself: find a small detail in the work - something technical, some specific element of it - and talk about that. Be honest about what you appreciate about it. Be precise. You could say a piece of work is beautiful, and sincerely mean it, but if your aim is to compliment the artist in a way you want to land you could compliment the brush strokes on the shadows of the archway, or how an artist captures the slow movement of the ocean in their line work, or the contrast in the colour palette between the artificial and natural. Find something small and intentional, because the small stuff can be the part of the process of making art that consumes our effort and thought the most.

Since I've started trying to apply this rubric in my day to day life, I have found two things: the first is that I've started taking in art of all kinds on a more detailed level, and found a deeper appreciation for the technique involved in its creation; the second is that nobody (so far, and so far as I can tell) has taken this form of response poorly.

When a fic doesn’t fit my head canons but it’s well-written

#he wouldn't fucking say that but i'm getting kind of attached to the guy you invented who did say that

Chains embedded in their flesh….. what sin hath they rot to require this punishment

Borgir

What is the funniest pokemon move

Obsessed with the description for this move

losing my mind at the animation as well

yo check out this weird bug i found

me entering my villain era and taking applications for a devoted simp to be at the end of my belt leash

i figured it out

I’m watching Splash (1984) which is a romcom about a guy who falls in love with a mermaid, and when she chooses a human name she chooses Madison and guy says “that’s not a real name, but alright” which seems to imply that Madison was not a name until at least the 80’s and all girls named Madison are actually named after the mermaid. thought you should know

I think...you might be right

what the fuck

it's interesting how 'mental health' branded apps or 'therapy' online services are without fail so heinous you can clock it from their advertising instantly. the tone they use alone is the same kind of hair raising as when you get to the suddenly perfectly clean settlement in the wasteland and immediately know they're eating people

picrels trying to siphon a little cash from the adhd adult industrial complex by keying into the anxieties of people they're hoping will be enough of a pushover to buy product if you tell them being scatterbrained and having dirty dishes is domestic abuse. neither the first nor the last but notably bold move

love to see all the reasons i as a child with untreated ADHD was called selfish and uncaring re-packaged as me having done emotional abuse. sorry mom and dad for emotionally abusing you when i was 7

In hindsight it's very insulting to be told that flunking out of college due to adhd is actually "quite common"

just like, if there's a history at your institution of disabled kids not being able to make it you realise that's your fault right. like why don't you fucking do something about it. i guess they tried to do something about it with me and it failed so they let me go. crazy. nice work. why should we try to do any better.

only 5% of people with adhd who go to college finish a degree. FUCKING. FIVE!!! PERCENT!!!!!!!!!!!

that should disgust and enrage you.

if any other demographic of students had a 95% failure rate, we would be demanding reform and studies to understand why that’s happening

when i was at my first university, trying to get accommodations for my ADHD, they just kept asking me what accommodations i wanted, and refused to answer when i would ask what was available to me. how the Hell am i supposed to know what i can have? what’s available???? also, i don’t know!!!! i’m an adhd sufferer, not a fucking disability expert for the fucking college, unlike you, DISABILITY EXPERT WHO WORKS FOR THE COLLEGE.

but because the us is OBSESSED with making sure no one gets anything “”for free””, she literally would not tell me what my options were until i broke down in tears and asked her why she was refusing to help me. and then she did a big sigh, like i was fucking up her entire career by *checks notes* asking the disability center in my university to help me, a disabled student

at the second uni i went to, i tried to explain to a dean that i was literally two gen eds that had nothing to do with my degree away from graduating and that i was burnt out and broke and exhausted and suicidal and i just needed to be able to finish my degree without the gen eds. and this. fucking. guy. looked me right in my face and said in the most patronizing tone he could muster “if you can’t handle it, then maybe college just isn’t for you.” keep in mind that up until that semester, i had been an honor student who made Dean’s List every semester and didn’t get below Bs. if it hadn’t been for my mental breakdown, i would have graduated cum laude, maybe even summa cum laude.

but this dean of students looked a disabled person right in the face and said well i guess you just can’t do it, short bus

Pulled these from a couple articles really quick but yeah the statistics are not kind. I remember writing a scathing essay about my issues with ADHD and college as part of an assignment for academic probation. I got back an email calling me entitled and lazy. Somehow, this thread helps me feel a lot better. I still have about a semester of school unfinished that I’m unsure if I’ll finish but… yeah. Makes me feel better to know it’s not just me.

PSA: The Job Accommodation Network maintains a searchable database of accommodation suggestions for a wide variety of disabilities.

The full database can be accessed here and the ADHD page is here. The full database can be filtered by disability, by limitation, by work-related function, by topic, and by accommodation. Many of these accommodations are applicable to academic settings as well as the workplace.

Here are the section headers for ADHD accommodations ideas to give an overview of what the page contains - this post would become Do You Love the Color of the Accommodation if I attempted to list them all here

The ADHD page linked above also includes case examples and strategies for determining what sort of accommodations might be necessary. More broadly, the JAN website as a whole is a treasure trove of information related to the Americans with Disabilities Act and resources for both individuals and employers.

Oh fuck that's really nice, I will read it

Also just heard a podcast interview with a software developer who had good suggestions

The head of disability accommodations at my college just kept ablesplaining to me that “accommodations are to level the playing field, not give you an advantage,” and that her job is to “protect the school’s rights” rather than help disabled students. The only accommodations they would offer me were 1. extra time on tests, and 2. an alternative test-taking location - neither of which I needed. I ended up getting (most of) what I actually needed by unofficially asking the individual professors, but it should have been legally protected.

baby snoopy this, baby clifford that, baby gromit blah blah blah. what about baby kermit???????

baby kermit. you agree. reblog

they're meant to die by each other's sword why are they in a coffee shop

FLOOD THIS :D

MAKE IT UTTERLY UNUSABLE :D

The email is DEIAtruth@opm.gov btw

Don't just spam it today. Keep spamming it until they shut it down. Spam it for weeks, months, however long it takes. Queue this post to reblog periodically to remind other people. Set reminders on your phone or calendar to send Trump bullshit. Treat this like a challenge and win it

Don't let the momentum die down. Don't allow the tipline to become useable in a few weeks when this post stops spreading. Don't allow them to harm vulnerable people on your watch

fuck i didnt know there was gonna be a test when i decided children shouldnt get anesthesialess amputations

So on a Jewish influencer's video about Passover preparations, someone asked why she does all that, and a Christian popped in to explain that none of this is necessary because of Jesus. When it was explained to them that we don't believe in Jesus or the New Testament and these things have no relevance in our religion, they got upset and started insisting Jesus is the son of God. Throughout the whole thing, they kept stating their beliefs as though they were objective fact (eg "Jesus is the son of God," rather than "in Christianity we believe Jesus is the son of God."

They acted as though these are all obvious and self-evident truths; one of them acted shocked that someone would see Jesus as just a random person of no significance, and another said that Jews are not doing right by God because we are rejecting Him by rejecting Jesus.

Now, none of this is particularly shocking, but I have questions for Christians and folks raised Christian:

- Why do people act like this?

- Do they know how unwelcome these kinds of comments are? Are they doing it anyway to prove a point?

- Why do they state their beliefs as fact when they know the people who are talking to don't share them? Do they think they'll convert us this way?

- Does it just really offend them that some people aren't into Jesus and they can't compute?

- Do they know that they're being disrespectful and don't care, or do they not know?

[As always, I cannot respond to replies, so if you reply and I don't acknowledge it I'm not ignoring you.]

Hi, raised Christian (though not evangelical) in a heavily evangelical part of the US. I'll take a stab at these.

Why do people act like this?

Christians are taught to. Christians, particularly evangelicals, are explicitly taught to "always be ready to share The Truth" (TM, captial letters, because they do indeed conceptualize it to be the singular objective truth, and see "belief" as merely a matter of accepting or not accepting that truth) in any circumstances, no matter how little they can expect it to be welcomed.

Do they know how unwelcome these kinds of comments are? Are they doing it anyway to prove a point?

Absolutely yes, and... kinda, though not always intentionally. The Christian Martyr Complex is real — you are taught that your message of The Truth (TM) will be unwelcome, because [insert bigoted assertions about people who are not Christians here] and they do not want to hear The Truth (TM).

The part they don't tell you is that this rude, unwelcome, and frankly ineffective kind of proselytizing mainly serves the purpose of reinforcing every terrible assertion your Christian Leaders have made about The Non-Christian World when people react in entirely predictable fashion to being browbeaten with an aggressive Jesus sales pitch. "See?" they'll say, "Jesus warned us the world would reject his followers."

Why do they state their beliefs as facts when they know the people they are talking to don't share them? Do they really think they'll convert us this way?

See above about the Christian definitions of Truth (TM) and belief — they have convinced themselves (or allowed themselves to be convinced) that anyone who does not practice Christianity is consciously rejecting the simple facts of the universe, or has been fooled into doing so. "Jesus is the son of God" is to them as factual as "water is wet." Whether they'll succeed in converting anyone is irrelevant — after all, failures are recast as evidence that Christianity has The Truth (TM) the world refuses to hear.

Does it just really offend them that some people aren't into Jesus and they can't compute?

Yes. And more than offend — the really emphatic ones? The ones who really, truly, in their heart of hearts believe they're doing the work of God? They're heartbroken and confused that people aren't eagerly jumping on their invitation to convert. They'll double down harder next time.

Do they know they're being disrespectful and don't care, or do they not know?

It varies, in my experience. Some Christians know it's disrespectful, but believe that an opportunity for people to hear The Truth (TM) is more important than any etiquette. Other Christians simply don't — have been taught not to — see how disrespectful they're being. Both of these tend to take a view of like... "But people need this message. If they understood, wouldn't they be grateful we never gave up?"

This type of Christian doesn't fully respect other beliefs, at the end of the day. They can't. They cannot view Judaism, in particular, as anything other than a prequel to Christianity. Holding this worldview in earnest depends on thinking of every other belief as an active rejection of The Truth (TM) that Christians are called to proclaim, and it fucks 'em up big time.

-

I have a dear friend who once told me that, as a child, they used to cry and pray that my family would accept Jesus and come to their church, because they didn't want to go to heaven one day and me not be there too.

-

Someone's going to #Not All Christians this, I'm sure.

My parents raised my siblings and I with a more pluralistic view, with the idea that we believe X, Y, and Z, and other people believe other things, and that doesn't make us right and them wrong, because the world is vast and complicated, and God even moreso.

Even so, I think my parents believe the faith they practice is a little more right. That Christian conception of The Truth (TM) as something singular and knowable — as something special to Christianity — seeps into everything.

-

I don't have a pithy conclusion for this, and I don't think any of the above makes that kind of behavior any less rude or inappropriate. But that's why. It's baked in.

See, I think the part where I'm struggling to understand is like... if on the one hand they're prepared for their message to be rejected, why do some of them act so shocked and confused when it is?

Also, how would you recommended responding to people like this?

I think it's the doublethink? There's an optimism, I suppose, in going into these conversations with the conviction that people will receive your message with joy, and I think that's why the confusion hits so hard. Like, sure, you've maybe heard that rejection is common, but you're offering them good news! The best news! And these people seem so nice! Surely, if you just explain a little more...

Oof, that's the hard part. 😔

For starters I don't think anyone owes it to this kind of person to offer them patience. They are in fact the ones being rude.

If you want to engage though, I honestly think the important thing is to keep in mind that they are really, truly convinced that what they're saying is true — or they have a lot of cognitive dissonance about the whole thing they're trying very hard to ignore because to not believe that would mean to place themselves outside of their entire community. Other people in the thread have talked about methods for dealing with people in high-control groups, and that's honestly what it is. You can't do it in one conversation, and you don't want to get roped into a debate. Kindly but firmly asserting that you do not share their beliefs and are not open to changing yours is probably the way to go.

Connie finally has someone she can complain about books with