#[i need to payback her for being a good coworker ;u;

[sentofight]

[canadian-riddler]

i remember in ur arkhamverse edward and selina have a history pre games or during origins but do u have an idea for how they met?

I absolutely do.

Edward works at the GCPD at this point and he sees her there doing something I haven't decided yet. Probably sweet-talking a uni to do something for her. He's intrigued by her boldness and slips outside under the pretense of having a cigarette. He accosts her when she comes outside and later he finds she stole his wallet, which he was half-expecting. When he goes back in he finds out from the uni she was asking about some building he moonlights as a security guard in. Two and two isn't hard to put together and he decides to keep an eye on her, if only to keep track of his wallet.

Some time later (a few days or a week or something) she returns to her apartment to find him sitting in one of her chairs stroking one of her cats. She recognises him solely because of his red hair (casual marks aren't worth remembering) and realises he's there for his wallet. She tells him she no longer has it (which she doesn't) and he says he supposes he no longer has the item she stole, puts down the cat, and leaves.

Well, she's not going to let him get away with that and she knows where he works, so while he's otherwise occupied she steals his keys. She gets his address from one of his coworkers and goes off to ransack his condo for her stolen item. He doesn't actually own that much and doesn't really have any hiding places so this doesn't take long, but she doesn't find it. She decides to wait until he gets back with the intention of confronting him.

He of course has another set of keys and is not at all surprised to find her waiting for him. She asks for her item and he says he doesn't have it. He returned it to the original owner. She is incensed and threatens him with her whip but he just shrugs and says it was payback for making him go through the laborious process of getting everything that was in his wallet reissued. She says the item is worth more than the contents of his wallet and he says his wasted time is worth more than both. She gets up, disgruntled, and goes to leave when he suggests they steal it back.

What they? she obviously asks, and he tells her if she really wants it that bad she'll need help getting it. Security is tighter than it was last time. She asks why he would volunteer to do such a thing and he shrugs and says something about it being more interesting/challenging than his day job. Given he found out who she was/where she lived based on she doesn't even know what, she figures him for being honest and takes him up. Besides, if he's lying it will be easy to upend his life.

They have an unexpectedly good rapport while re-stealing the item and the next day she goes to the GCPD to return his keys. He tells her to keep them and if she feels inclined to use them he'd be happy to make her dinner. She expresses her doubts that he can cook and leaves, but curiosity gets the best of her and she does go over to his condo later in the week. She seems to be proven right by his making her something really simple (like a grilled cheese or something) and she scoffs but it's better than she thought it would be, though she doesn't admit it. She's about to leave when he volunteers to help her with more of her schemes and when she asks why someone who works for the GCPD would want to do that, he says they don't deserve him and frankly deserve to have their jobs made much harder because maybe if they were they would actually have to think. She says she'll think about it but they both already know the answer is yes.

She's at his condo frequently because it's nicer than her apartment (though he is very firm on her not bringing any cats; finding her hair everywhere is enough) and more secure storage for the stuff she needs to fence. They don't see THAT much of each other because they have mostly opposite schedules, but she at some point needs him as an accessory/alibi/whatever and they have to spend an ~evening~ together. Seeing the other all dressed up is an unexpected distraction for both of them and their intended task ends up going out the window as they've discovered something more important to focus on. From then on they are a very casual Thing that they don't really talk about as it gradually gets more serious until its abrupt end.

[minilpark]

hello! may i request headcanons of bob having a crush on coyote’s sister? thank u!! (if not dw about it😅)

hey! i think this is a cool request, however i was a bit unsure if you wanted it to be like you as coyote's sibling or just bob crushing on coyote's sibling in general (not that it would make a huge difference in my hcs) but i will be doing the former!

this time round my hcs are with a civilian!reader

moving to cali was one of the most impulsive decisions you've ever made

but it was also one of the best

the separation from home and the rest of your family is something you needed in order to grow and become more of your own person

of course there were times you were homesick

so you would either video call home or when your brother, javy, wasn't busy, you two would hang

luckily he's been stationed to the base nearby

(youre not gonna lie it was also a good reason to move near there just in case he would be stationed there lmao)

so, when he got to town, he thought it would be cool to invite you out for a drink and to meet some of his friends/coworkers

it was about a 20 minute drive to the bar called the hard deck

apparently it was a navy hot spot so you were prepared for what you were going to be faced with-

and that was a bunch of naval officers with overbearing confidence

once you found a parking spot you let javy know you arrived and he said to meet him inside near the pool table

which is where you went and got introduced to the group of lieutenants hanging around him

javy definitely kept some of them (the men for the most part) on their best behaviour

i mean you were his sibling of course

and he knew that anyone involved in the military were partially red flags

so he wanted to protect you from falling into the trap as much as he could

honestly you quickly formed opinions on the company javy kept

hangman - seemed like a cocky asshole, but there was a hidden nice quality about him

phoenix - definitely a hard ass but for good reason, you respected her and honestly one of the more dateable people here

payback - he was fucking hilarious and you thought he would be a cool friend

fanboy - honestly you could imagine being good friends with him as well, he was definitely a lot nicer than some other pilots

rooster - despite him coming in late, he greeted you nicely, you could also sense something was up between him and hangman but decided not to get into it

last but not least, the man who caught your eye-

bob - he was quieter than the rest of the group, mainly keeping to himself but you noticed how observant he was, honestly there was just this boyish quality about him that you found really cute

you and bob didn't fail to make eye contact a couple times throughout the night

and when you all gathered around to hear rooster sing, he sat near you

while you were singing along with everyone, bob was watching you

and he thought you were amazing

you seemed to be so carefree to him and he loved the refreshing air you brought to the group as soon as you were introduced

he definitely had a bit of a crush

and who else other than rooster would confront the man about it

yep, after the song, rooster came up to bob, patted his shoulder and leaned over to whisper something in his ear while you went with phoenix and the others to start a game of darts

"you should go talk to them, its clear you have a thing for them, and they definitely have been sending you looks back all night-"

bob was honestly so embarrassed that rooster knew that he started to turn a bit red

"i don't know man, they're coyote's sibling, he'd probably kill me if he knew-"

to which rooster just shook his head a lil

"take a chance man, i don't think he'd truly hold you or them back if he knew that you'd treat them right and make them happy-"

and so bob did take a chance

after rooster bought him a couple shots

he came over later in the night to sit across from you at one of the booths and started up a conversation

which intrigued you because you weren't really expecting him to make a move, let alone him starting the conversation asking questions about you instead of talking about himself, unlike other people-

javy didn't really notice the two of you talking until he heard you laughing from the booth

to which he paused in the middle of the pool game with hangman

in turn, causing jake to take notice as well, coming up to coyote and clapping him on the back

"looks like bob here is making a move on your little sibling- how do you feel about that?"

the way he phrased it obviously was meant to antagonise him but javy just smiled and shook his head a bit

"well, it's not like i can stop them, they're old enough to make their own decisions"

while you were busy talking about whatever topic you were on with bob, he happened to make eye contact with your brother

and he was surprised to see an approving nod come from coyote

the nod he interpreted as both approval and a warning

to which bob smiled and nodded back slightly

almost as a promise that he'll be looking out for you best interest should this go any further with you

and you can bet your ass you went out with him again

[hotelconcierge]

THE FALSE NEGATIVES

In The Company Of Men (1997) opens in an airport where two middle management guys have just arrived: a bespectacled seborrheic named Howard, and an ex-jock good ol’ boy named...Chad.

Howard walks out of the bathroom. He’s been hit, by a woman, just for asking the time—like, Mountain or Central. “Wait, wait. You're telling me about some sort of unprovoked assault here?” Chad says, “Did she give you the time at least?” 

Howard doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t even seem to recognize it as a joke. And therein lies the problem, for him and everyone else.

The two men are in town a few weeks to work at a branch office. They exchange complaints. This place blows. The job sucks. Coworkers are vultures. Can’t trust anyone. Howard just got dumped by his fiancée. Chad says he just got dumped too.

CHAD: I'm standing there, no note...not a “thanks for four years of a roof over my bleached-blonde head”...nothing. You know? And it comes to me...the truth. I do not give a shit, not about anybody. A family member, a job, none of it. I couldn't care less.

HOWARD: Geez.

CHAD: Don't get me wrong. We're pals.

HOWARD: Same college.

CHAD: Exactly, and that means something. But these other folks...You know, jump on while the going's good? No, that will not do.

“Circle the date on this one, big guy,” Chad says, “We keep playing along with this 'pick up the check,' 'can't a girl change her mind' crap...and we can't even tell a joke in the workplace? There's going to be hell to pay down the line, no doubt about it.”

They move to the hotel bar.

CHAD: I don't want to shock you. It's just a thought. It's the same crap we played in school, only better, because we get a payback on this messy relationship shit we're dealing with.

HOWARD: No, right, it's funny, it is. it's just...way out there.

CHAD: I think it would be refreshing, I really do...and very therapeutic coming off the women we just have. 

HOWARD: Well, just for instance, who would it be?

CHAD: No idea. But she’s out there, I know it. Just waiting for us to find her.

Let’s start here.

They say guilt is omniscient; that doesn’t mean you can’t throw sand in its eyes. Unlike shame, guilt is universal, at some level everyone knows that violating the NAP makes you a dick. But suppose you like, really want to. How do you get from Crime and Punishment to Crimes and Misdemeanors?

The above scene is demonstrative. First, replace the human object with an idea. Hurting an innocent woman is obviously evil—plus, why would you do that? Women are soft, thoughtful, have nice voices, etc. But hurting “women” in general? “Women,” who smile right past you and say “that’s so funny!” instead of laughing and sing along to vapid breakup songs like they could ever know the pain of a sensitive incel? God knows “they” want to hurt “men.”

Second, remove the subject: you aren’t going to do anything. A passive process, inevitable given the laws of thermodynamics, is going to occur. You remember that one scene in Glengarry Glen Ross? “Somebody should stand up and strike back. Somebody should do something to them.” Deus vult.

But that explanation doesn’t do justice to Chad’s cunning. He alternates between 1) “big guy”-ing Howard re: office politics and romantic troubles, and 2) brutal, frequent, almost compulsive misogyny. These are twin strategies in the same campaign. When Chad says, “some corn-fed bitch who'd mess her pants if you sharpen a pencil for her,” Howard gives a single snort of laughter. I know that one. It’s a social laugh, slave morality coming straight from the spinal cord, brain playing catch-up, “oh, it’s funny because it was a joke.” Like all the nice construction workers asking ladies to smile, Chad wants to be a friend. It would be rude not to laugh at the joke of a friend. But when your ego endorses a perspective your superego rejects, you build up a debt of guilt. The heavier your debt, the more you have to borrow from the abstraction of ideal over real. The more you suspend judgment, the more you have to rely on the judgment of others. The more crimes you share with an accomplice, the deeper you enmesh yourself in conspiracy. So a few hours later and a little drunk:

HOWARD: What'd she say? 

CHAD: "I don't trust anything that bleeds for a week and doesn't die."

(Both laugh)

CHAD: So you in?

HOWARD: Aw, shit man...yeah, I’m in.

CHAD: Alright, let’s do it. Let’s hurt somebody.

Somebody shows up the next day.

The object is a deaf woman named Christine. Reads lips, self-conscious about this so wears headphones so coworkers will have to attract her attention. A copy-editor or something, 90 words per minute. Brunette and pale, short hair, slender neck, narrow frame, Améliesexual, Forever 21.

When a male coworker informs Chad of her disability, Chad does an imitation “dolphin voice” and gets a big laugh. Then he goes and introduces himself.

CHAD: You're new here, aren't you? Don't be embarrassed. We're all new sometime, right? (Pause) That's a lovely blouse.

“A, E, I, O, U and sometimes Y is like the Holy Grail to this poor wretch,” Chad tells Howard. Howard, sitting down to urinate, gives an ambiguous response. Chad: “You're not pussing out on this, are you, Howie?”

HOWARD: All I mean is, I think everything's a business, whatever you go into. Your typing there or my opportunity directing this project. Doesn't matter. Every walk of life's an industry...from child care right on up.

HOWARD: So, on a personal level, that's what I'm doing here. I was walking by, saw you, figured, "What the hell," you know? You probably have a boyfriend, but you gotta take your chance, right? And who knows? It might turn out to be mutually advantageous. So, that's really just a long-winded way of saying...I'd like to go out sometime. Maybe get a drink? My name's Howard, by the way. I'm free this weekend.

Act III shows the two Lotharios in parallel. Howard’s dating sim begins with a motorized tour cart ride at the zoo. Howard arrives late, blames this on having to “ream out” some employees, has to define “ream,” clarifies that, no, you don’t have to feel bad for them, like, it was no big deal. Then he backtracks and admits he was lying—none of that happened, he ran back to the hotel to change his shirt. “I get so used to saying what I think people want to hear...I forget they might just want the truth sometimes,” Howard says. “It’s all right,” Christine says, “Just remember: I can't hear you when you're lying.”

Cut to:

CHAD: I have to face this. My job ends here in a few weeks, and...I want you to know that whatever you do is all right with me. I don't care about your dating other guys...and if we're apart for a while or...

CHAD: Well, I just want you to know that, whatever happens, I trust you. Okay? Oh, boy, this is really hard. I like you. There, I said it. It's out. I'll eat better now. It's true. I look at you, and I see...good, nice, kind. I am very happy with you, and I want our relationship—you feel this could be a relationship, right? I want to nurture it and just see us blossom.

Christine then proceeds to eyelash flutter like Chad said he cried listening to Carrie & Lowell. We have the power of camera angles, but even without them—this is so, so, so obviously bullshit, right? Like a Markov chatbot trying to simulate “boyfriend”? But hold up. Under oath: can you point out the lie?

Chad’s branch office job does end in a few weeks. He really does see Christine as good/nice/kind, trusts her, doesn’t care if she dates other guys, wants the relationship to blossom (at least in the short term). Contrast with Howard’s “ream out” anecdote, which, objectively: Fake News, Not An Argument, Myth Busted. And yet if Howard hadn’t confessed the plot would have moved on without a missed beat—to you, the viewer, it rings exaggerated, but not intuitively false. 

And you’d be right, because truth cannot be extracted from individual words. Here’s the 2x2 for all y’all Ribbonfarmers: factual-truth = math; factual-lie = lie of omission; counterfactual-truth = metaphor; counterfactual-lie = I’ve got a bridge to sell you. I’m not pulling a po-mo fast one. Objective truth is great, it gave us Youtube and stuff. But words are imprecise no matter how many footnotes: since they compress preverbal desire, they always contain a lie of omission. And metaphors, though annotated with “citation needed, does not actually look like a summer’s day,” sometimes reveal crucial and unspeakable truths about the algorithm that creates them.

Point: lies cannot be proved or disproved by geometry. Counterpoint: still, being lied to is a distinct subjective experience. Example: when a minor fall to major lift makes you spit rage, it’s never because the song is particularly bad, no one actually enjoys math rock but no one gets mad at it either. The anger is instead a response to perceived manipulation. People get mad at rap/country/Bieber because these genres lean heavily on identity; the artist is, from the first guitar twang/phat beat/“baby,” trying to convince you of something about him/her/yourself. “Well, doesn’t everyone do that?” Extremely duh, but note that if you accept the artist’s claim as true or false then the nausea doesn’t occur. You can’t be manipulated if you’ve made up your mind, a sufficiently bad lie stops being one, see also, camp.

That’s the horror of the middle-place: if you just let yourself slide, if you just stopped being you, you would like it. Times Square neon makes me vomit blood but Casablanca is charming despite the same level of weapons-grade ideology. The former might persuade me to drink Suntory, the latter has zero chance of getting me to enter World War II. The propaganda of the past—the art of the past—will always be better than that of the present, not just because of selection bias but because it doesn’t feel manipulative, and it doesn’t feel manipulative because it’s not talking to you.

Ergo: we feel lied to = when we can tell + that we are being told + what we want to hear. And this is why Howard’s anecdote doesn’t feel like a lie: it wasn’t. Sure, the words were bullshit, and maybe he fooled Christine, but what he communicated to you—“I want to be seen as a man despite my multiple and obvious failings”—was 100% genuine.

Why can’t Howard tell a fib? One possibility is that he learned about girls from hentai and Roosh V and so thinks that women are attracted to toughness rather than the conquest of toughness. But more likely is that he doesn’t want to: he’s more interested in having Christine see him a certain way than in giving the Good End answers. So Howard, like you, tries to work Million Dollar Extreme references into his Tinder convos, which makes him a narcissist and a tool but not a liar. Proof of the pudding is that it doesn’t work.

Contra Chad: how come it’s so obvious that he’s lying? But of course: the words weren’t meant for you. Chad has self, not self-image, and so no compunctions about roleplaying to get what he wants. For us, his dialogue falls in an uncanny valley. But if you’re the target audience...

“Did she give you the time at least?” Howard never laughs at Chad’s deadpan because it’s too on the nose, it’s exactly what a friend should say, fact check = TRUE, bleep bloop. Howard social-laughs at Chad’s misogyny because it’s so absurd, he must be joking, fact check = FALSE, bzzzt. Christine makes the same mistake: Chad speaks the language of romance, she agrees to see him as such, and she stops asking questions. They outsource their superego to the etiquette of conversation, and who can blame them, their fantasies are coming true. Only you have the outside view, or so it seems: perfect etiquette masking irony, irony masking anger, anger masking unspeakable sociopathy: that even the anger is fake. But if you see that, then he was talking to you, that was the whole point, to give a winking apology to a fellow conspirator—“Don’t hate the player, hate the game.”

And therein lies the problem, for you and everyone else.

In The Company of Men does not have a happy ending.

Chad sleeps with Christine. (“God, I am just so taken with you. I just...”) Howard sees them at lunch together and gets worried. He pulls some work levers to get Chad out of town, refurbishes his ex-fiancee’s ring, and invites her to dinner.

HOWARD: Maybe this isn't the perfect time...but I care about you, Christine. I want you to know I like you a lot. I need—I just don't want to lose you.

Christine cuts him off. She’s made a horrible mistake by letting things get this far: she’s in love with Chad.

CHRISTINE: It’s all my fault...You both should have known about this...When you don't date for a while...you wonder...if you're attractive...or interesting to someone. You let things get out of hand first chance you get. That's what I did.

Pause.

HOWARD: We did know.

“Chad? He doesn't like you. He loathes you. He detests you and your pathetic retard voice. That's what he calls it. Christine, you bought that shit?” 

Christine freaks out and screams that’s not true, stop it, but Howard keeps going, spilling the beans about the game, apologizing and begging:

HOWARD: Can't you see I'm the good guy? I'm the good person here. I can't alter what we've done, and I'm a fuck...and a bastard and everything else on your list, but I'm here. I'm here, and I'm telling you...I love you.

He brings out the ring.

HOWARD: It's not a game to me anymore. Take it.

Christine doesn’t, and Howard promptly explodes that she’s “fucking handicapped,” “you think you can choose, men falling at your feet?” and so on.

The standard take on this type of (very common) story is that even though [beta male] loved [manic pixie] more than [Chad], the beta male’s complaisance to the patriarchy makes him “just as bad.” Fair enough, consequentialism ftw, but it’s suspicious that the narrator of these tales is often the beta male protagonist himself. No one self-flagellates unless they get off on it, and the above take hides an assumption: that (e.g.) Howard really was in love with Christine.

Was he? There’s no doubt he had some of the relevant chemicals floating around. Yet it’s very possible for abusers to love their victims and cheaters to love their cuckolded spouses. It’s very possible to love each and every other member of the orgy. Hell, I know some meditators who can connect with the astral rhythms of life itself—and they aren’t bullshitting, they really feel it. But drugs are cheap. What does your oxytocin rush mean for anyone besides you?

I’ll tell you why Howard thought that he was in love: he went through the motions. Just as Howard decided that Chad was his friend because that was the role he played, he decided that Christine was marriage material because...she was there. They had nothing in common, they had zero chemistry, but she was there. You gotta serve somebody. “I need—I just don’t want to lose you.” Love as manifest in the material plane requires sacrifice, is sacrifice, of opportunity if nothing else. Howard’s love is meaningless because it costs him nothing. Maybe Uber-Howard would still care about Christine, but not only is it impossible for Christine to know that, Howard himself doesn’t know. Power doesn’t corrupt, power reveals that you were corrupt all along. “Can’t you see I’m the good guy?” See what?

The next day, Howard gets demoted at work. Something went wrong with a fax machine and the copy came out too light; yeah, like a symbol. Chad sees Christine one last time. She confronts him. Chad tries to keep a straight face and then breaks out grinning: “Fuck it. Surprise.”

CHAD: So how does it feel? I mean right now. This instant. How do you feel inside, knowing what you know?

Christine slaps him and begins to sob.

A few days later, Howard shows up at Chad’s place. He’s distraught. Chad jokes around about the contest, then gestures to the other room, where his old girlfriend is sleeping in his king-sized bed. “What the hell? I mean, when did she crawl back?” Howard says. “She never left, Howie,” Chad says, “She’s always been right there.” “Then...why? Why, Chad?”

Good question. The first clue is when Howard runs into Chad and Christine on a date: “Howard and I have the same alma mater. He graduates a semester ahead of me, and now he's my boss,” Chad says, and for once the bitterness creeps in. The second is when Howard, blaming the higher-ups, sends Chad out of town:

CHAD: The real injustice here is if I could throw a curveball—you know, a really good one—just that, nothing else, no education, nothing—none of this would matter. Play in the big leagues for ten years, retire to Oahu.

Chad is handsome, confident, clever, and quite possibly a representation of The Great Deceiver himself. And yet, to get laid, Chad has to contort himself into a puppy. To get paid, he has to kiss ass to Windows 95 robots who wear beige and drink decaf. He spends the day humoring people who won’t acknowledge the joke—that if he could just play stupid arbitrary baseball, he wouldn’t have to. He’s powerless: no matter how well Chad tells his lies, the system determines the signifiers into which these lies fit. 

But Howard—Howard believes in the system. He’s exactly the sort of person who created the phatics that Chad has to obey, who follows even the most vacuous rules with moral seriousness, clings to them all the harder as they turn him into a self-loathing nebbish. Chad’s revenge is to turn the rules against him, to show that no matter how oppressive social protocols get, they will always oppress Chad less, since he’ll say whatever bullshit is required while you’re stuttering your feelings on Whitman. The more checkboxes you demand checked, the more you favor the liar. Chad is bound by the rules of the game, but these rules are what gives him relative power: they make people trust him. “Because I could,” Chad says. “See you Monday.”

There’s a practical lesson here. Every day ambulances scream into the ED carrying young men who moan and complain that they are bedeviled by wine-loving dog moms, fluent in sarcasm, and yet for some reason they can’t get the time of day from those goth chicks who have tongues stuck out and eyes rolled up at all times. I’m not here to kinkshame, send pics if you’re a goth chick with your tongue stuck out and eyes rolled up at all times. But please be aware that lusting after a mannequin is a surefire way to get [extremely Taleb voice] fooled by randomness: the more detailed the script, the more you favor the actor.

I’m not saying you can’t have a type, but the person willing to sacrifice that last ounce of selfhood will always be closest to your 21st century ideal of bimboification. “There are smart women, but I don’t know many women with truly original ideas,” says the cerebral young man who needs four search operators to find adequate porn. Don’t worry—this process is dehumanizing for the fetishized person, but it’s dehumanizing in the other direction as well: only someone who doesn’t care what you think about them, about their real self, would consent to play a fake.

The problem with fetishization is that it prizes symbol above reality, and unfortunately for Christine, dating is systematized fetishization. Not a diss—this is how dating is supposed to work. If our intuition for love is inculcated by Disney, dating replaces the hero’s journey with its symbols: clothes and music as proxy for backstory; movie or pub crawl as proxy for adventure; astrology, Myers-Briggs, and 36 Questions as a proxy for intimacy. Dick pics and nudes test sexual potency without costing the two drink minimum, text and emoji idiosyncrasies reveal more about class and education than a brunch and a half. Dating is an attempt to economize romance, it’s unsurprising that the term was coined in the wake of the Industrial Revolution.

“You know that birds sing, right?” Sure, but nobody has any illusions about what the birds are looking for. I’m not knocking ritual, just ritual that pretends it’s something deeper. If milord sends milady twelve roses, a thoroughbred, a fiefdom, and a bard playing D’Angelo, this courtship is not taken as evidence of good character. It is judged on its own merits, i.e. this guy is either really interested or thirsty af.

This would be common sense except that every force in modern society is opposed to it. Since women are valued as approximations of fetish, they a) lose points for wearing the wrong symbols, and b) lose points if a partner doesn’t fit the brand. So now the first date Scantrons become radiant with their own fascination, because even if they have no meaning except “went through the motions,” everyone on Facebook is acting like they do, and “he seemed nice” is no excuse for dating a Trump supporter or a black guy. And now that privacy has moved public, the list of checkboxes lengthens as men try to gerrymander pussy (which again, always favors Chad) and Cosmopolitan feminists generate new metrics by which women can fall short.

These bureaucrats may have been hurt themselves, they may have the best of intentions. Perhaps that’s why their regulations are never phrased as hostile takeover. Instead, they take the form of advice, #lifehacks, and laugh-tracked satire at a third party’s expense. That’s how it always is, a friendly voice lends you a superego and all you have to do is pay interest on shame. The system wins when its values become your own.

However strong this force was historically, it’s stronger now that society consists of, let me check my phone, everyone. Just as metropolises are now made up of showrooms and gift shops, the demands of 7.442 billion potential tourists outweighing a pittance of locals, the citizens shape themselves into fungible, neon-dyed tchotchkes, while being tormented by the possibility that they have fallen short in this important moral task. The end-game of dating is the targeted ad. 

Before you start in on “swipe culture,” let’s be clear: no one has met cute through friends since the second war in Iraq, and Tinder, whatever faults it may have, at least requires the sacred fumbling of getting to know a stranger. OKCupid is a better example of modern anti-romance, with its careful sorting of partners by politics and caste, with its swamp of information bias that disguises—encourages—lying on the internet. But of course a Yelped bar or bookstore offers the same anonymity, the same curated selection who respond to the same empty lines until you start to hate them for it, like how dare you force me to lie, how dare you be so predictable, and this weakness makes them human which isn’t what you wanted anyway. No doubt they feel the same.

If this sounds bad, it gets worse: the above process is directly responsible for the most modern misandry and misogyny. Please note that the Women Are From Venus stereotypes have largely disappeared, even among misogynists. Please further note that #blackpilled misogynists rarely objectify women; in fact many of these men intentionally desexualize the “female race” and substitute, say, male crossdressers. The catcalling misogyny of the past came from a position of power: internet death threat misogyny comes from desperation. The twist is that the same transition has occurred among women—that despite every metric claiming that women are better off than before, women have moved from Men Are From Mars to a nagging suspicion that anything with a phallus should die.

Why would both sexes feel more powerless? Not discussed in polite society, but heavily discussed by misogynists, is the apparent epidemic of transactional sex: paypig/findommes, camgirls, sugar babies, and omnipresent Amazon wishlists. Sorta kitschy, free country, whatever. I’m sure part of this is mere technological transition, the gyration of the strip club from analog to digital, and Kanye informs me that there have always been implicit gold digging arrangements. But think about what happens when these private arrangements go public. First, some guy starts to associate “hot girl” with “:P spoil me”, and FYI, anger and lust, both performed with a closed fist, are exactly zero degrees apart on the axis of masturbation. And now that our guy has this (maybe unconscious) association, women have to rise to the occasion, e.g. make snotty demands for Venmo donations, because even though this makes him howl with rage, if it’s not there, he assumes the girl’s not that hot.

Everyone loses: women learn that they have to put on an act to get attention, except that half of men think they should die for this act and the other half—even the ones looking for a Serious Relationship—seem to lose interest if it’s ever turned off. Meanwhile the guy grows increasingly lonely/desperate/bitter as he tautologizes that every single girl he likes is an “attention whore." Our guy doesn’t know who he is or what he wants outside of anger and its aesthetics. Maybe he’d hit it off great with one of those women; maybe he should choose a different set of superficialities to pursue; maybe people lie on the internet; regardless, OKCupid gives them a compatibility of 43%.

And meanwhile women are wondering the same thing: how can you know?

There’s one more crucial scene In The Company of Men. Howard arrives at an airport and sees Christine working at a desk. He walks over to her and says, “Listen.” She doesn’t respond. So he says it again, “Listen,” and again, and again, screaming now and—

—but what could he say? Even if his intentions were pure to the utmost, what could he possibly say or do that wouldn’t be perceived as an act? What could any man do that wouldn’t be perceived in the same way? “I asked her what time it was. You know, Mountain, Central.” No wonder she hit you.

This is how society arrives at an absence of faith. It’s no coincidence that Chad executed his scheme as a tourist: that meant there were no witnesses to his character. It’s no coincidence that he picked a nervous brown-eyed waif—someone with too much self-doubt to trust her instincts, someone who draped herself in the trappings of goodness, someone too inexperienced to know that perfect is always a trap. But Christine was chosen because she was deaf. She couldn’t hear voices, she could only see the words. Now the words are gone. The question is what remains.

[anklebitxrs]

@cxrleonis there’s pain under here tho like just so u know but i wanted to share as my payback for those headcanons about hurley and estelle :)

there are times, he'll admit, when their home feels more like a prison than a place to rest. more like a place he'd like to bang his head against the fucking wall than a place to lay his head down. more like a place ----

well you get the point. he's trapped on his own, only escape being work and then the drive back home, and even when he's screaming sad shit from the radio in the car, tone deaf, lump in his throat though he doesn't even know why (because what grown man relates to 'scars to your beautiful'?) it doesn't feel like enough.

he's in a city that he fled to of his own accord when he was a teenager. he made a conscious decision to move here, made a conscious decision to stay, and he arrived in such conditions that it wouldn't make one SHRED of sense for him to stay where he doesn't want to. he's in a house that him and jackie have filled up with so much love and so much joy that he wore a constant smile when they first moved in, all those months ago, because her heart and his heart together was something that was fucking PALPABLE every time he walked in the door.

now? well, he showered for the first time in four days, yesterday. finally got the grime of the bar (okay, he shouldn't say that, it's a NICE place) and booze off of him and he felt BETTER. he put on clean underwear and he made himself dinner and he played video games until four o clock in the morning because he drank coffee after 8 even though he knows he's too old to be doing that kind of shit. and he felt good.

he felt better because she called him in the middle of all of it, and jackies face lit up his screen just like a smile lit up his lips when he answered the phone.

and then ----

god. he doesn't know what happened. maybe it's because she stopped texting him in the middle of the day and then called him, out of the blue, more than eight hours after his last response, but there's irritation in his voice that manages to slip out. (and maybe she catches it but just doesn't say anything, because a few sentences later she's telling him that she misses him and he's telling her that, fuck, he misses her too. he misses her so fucking much.)

or maybe it's because he joked about "you're out there living your dream, you're not allowed to miss me" but it wasn't actually a joke, and all of that triggered the flood gates of his lonliness and his resentment for her fucking job for taking her away from him.

he just has to tell himself that she's happy, and he loves that she's happy, he just wishes that she could be happy there, with him, instead of happy in florida, or happy in la, or happy in seattle while he's depressed and lonely and missing her in their house.

he doesn't know what happened but suddenly it's strained, and then she's letting him go because she has to get in the shower, and she's promising to call him right back while teddy tells her "okay," with a sigh that he doesn't let her hear and a disappointment that comes up and slams him in the chest when his thumb slides over the 'end call' button.

maybe he just needs friends. but he hasn't had friends since he had heroin friends in high school, and then when he first left his parents house, and so he's not sure he can talk to anyone that aren't his coworkers or his girlfriend without asking, "hey, wanna stick some needles into our arm later?" and sick part of him only avoids doing that BECAUSE he knows it might make her wanna stay away longer, or something.

but she does call him back,   though there's sleep in her voice which pushes a knife even deeper into his fucking heart, but he puts up with it, even when they switch over to facetime and teddy can see through the light of her phone and her eyes are closing (she's had a long day, he's sure, and he shouldn't judge, shouldn't get mad, shouldn't shouldn't shouldn't) and it's then that he sees that she's so fucking beautiful and so fucking perfect and he loves her so much. he does. he does he does he does.

and so it's okay when she doesn't answer on the first time he asks her a question. and he feels BAD for the first time tonight when anger flares up at the mention of needing to go to bed because she needs to get up EARLY   ----   breakfast with a manager or a producer or who the FUCK ever.  so bad that he asks, willing, if she wants him to let her go.

(his heart drops into his fucking TOES when she says 'maybe', and so he musters up what he can inside of him to tell her goodnight without his voice cracking before he hangs up the phone)