So Fun Story About My Roommate

the title of the last song you listened to is the epitaph on your tombstone

12,000 people harmonizing Hey Jude at Pentatonix concert in Des moines

Beautiful from Ordinary Days

So somebody on my Facebook posted this. And I’ve seen sooooo many memes like it. Images of a canvas with nothing but a slash cut into it, or a giant blurry square of color, or a black circle on a white canvas. There are always hundreds of comments about how anyone could do that and it isn’t really art, or stories of the time someone dropped a glove on the floor of a museum and people started discussing the meaning of the piece, assuming it was an abstract found-objects type of sculpture.

The painting on the left is a bay or lake or harbor with mountains in the background and some people going about their day in the foreground. It’s very pretty and it is skillfully painted. It’s a nice piece of art. It’s also just a landscape. I don’t recognize a signature style, the subject matter is far too common to narrow it down. I have no idea who painted that image.

The painting on the right I recognized immediately. When I was studying abstraction and non-representational art, I didn’t study this painter in depth, but I remember the day we learned about him and specifically about this series of paintings. His name was Ad Reinhart, and this is one painting from a series he called the ultimate paintings. (Not ultimate as in the best, but ultimate as in last.)

The day that my art history teacher showed us Ad Reinhart’s paintings, one guy in the class scoffed and made a comment that it was a scam, that Reinhart had slapped some black paint on the canvas and pretentious people who wanted to look smart gave him money for it. My teacher shut him down immediately. She told him that this is not a canvas that someone just painted black. It isn’t easy to tell from this photo, but there are groups of color, usually squares of very very very dark blue or red or green or brown. They are so dark that, if you saw them on their own, you would call each of them black. But when they are side by side their differences are apparent. Initially you stare at the piece thinking that THAT corner of the canvas is TRUE black. Then you begin to wonder if it is a deep green that only appears black because the area next to it is a deep, deep red. Or perhaps the “blue” is the true black and that red is actually brown. Or perhaps the blue is violet and the color next to it is the true black. The piece challenges the viewer’s perception. By the time you move on to the next painting, you’re left to wonder if maybe there have been other instances in which you believe something to be true but your perception is warped by some outside factor. And then you wonder if ANY of the colors were truly black. How can anything be cut and dry, black and white, when even black itself isn’t as absolute as you thought it was?

People need to understand that not all art is about portraying a realistic image, and that technical skills (like the ability to paint a scene that looks as though it may have been photographed) are not the only kind of artistic skills. Some art is meant to be pretty or look like something. Other art is meant to carry a message or an idea, to provoke thought.

Reinhart’s art is utterly genius.

“But anyone could have done that! It doesn’t take any special skill! I could have done that!”

Ok. Maybe you could have. But you didn’t.

Give abstract art some respect. It’s more important than you realize.

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If yes or used to please say in the tags whats it's name,what animal it is and how old it is"

dealing with the worst case scenario

your condom breaks

you feel a lump on your breast

your friends are ignoring you

you’re stranded on an island 

you got rejected by a crush

you get into a car accident

you got stung by a bee/wasp

you got fired from your job

you’re in an earthquake

your tattoo gets infected

your house is on fire

you’re lost in the woods

you get arrested abroad

you get robbed

your partner cheated on you

you’re on a ship that’s sinking

you fall into ice

you’re stuck in an elevator

you hit a deer with your car

you have food poisoning

your pet passed away

you fall off of a horse

you or your friend has alcohol poisoning

you have toxic shock syndrome

your house has a gas leak

i think more characters should have canes actually. theyre cool. theyre sexy. they can have swords in them. they come in any color u want.

Fandom still characterizes Chara as a stabby, mean, out-of-control child even in life...

...but the fact is, Chara made monsters lose their fear of humans after thousands of years.

What kind of child could do that?

What kind of child could give the Underground hope it didn't have for millennia?

When Chara fell into the Underground, monsters still lived in the Ruins.

Monsters were so afraid of humans that they lived on the far side of the cavern from the barrier.

That's why Asriel has a chair and room in the Ruins.

That's why there's concept art of Chara and Asriel playing in the leaves under the tree in the Ruins.

Chara fell in the Ruins while monsters still lived there, too afraid of humans to venture closer to the barrier.

That's why Asriel heard them call for help.

And why one of their flower drawings is in Asriel's room.

Asgore was convinced there was no hope of leaving, since humans would kill them anyway.

...until one human child changed his mind.

There's a missing history book between these two passages:

The reason monsters stopped fearing the other side of the Underground was Chara.

This book is book 4:

The reason Asgore changed his mind about humans being remorseless killers is because of Chara.

During their life, monsters saw Chara as a beacon of hope and a part of the royal family.

Asgore in particular adored Chara and put his hopes into them.

If Chara were violent or mean, the Underground wouldn't have lost their fear of humans.

The Underground saw Chara as a playful, loving, hopeful child.

And to some extent, they were.

Chara wanted things to work out, too.

But I think they suffered some severe imposter syndrome, likely due to their hatred of humanity.

Hatred that would, naturally, include Chara themself.

I think after nearly killing their adoptive father, Chara decided humans were all evil and the only way they could be redeemed...

...was to shatter the barrier at the cost of their own life.

Chara lost hope. But the Dreemurrs still remember the person they were.

Asgore and Toriel remember their glass-filling habit fondly.

Asgore and Toriel take care of Chara's flowers.

And Asriel, who knew them best, and now understands they weren't really the greatest person in the world...

...still spends his last moments as himself at their grave.

He still fills the water in the glass the same way they did.

At the end of Pacifist, he talks to Chara and assures them everyone will be okay.

I think that says a lot about the kind of person Chara was when they were alive.

Chara was not the Underground's demon.